G'day Folks, Andrew Hawkes back here again with part three of my getting frank story.
Now in case you are just joining the story then you may want to bring your self up to speed with the first two posts, All I can do is Just be Me, Andrew Hawkes gets frank about his life pt1 and Your Failures are Sometimes your Biggest Assets, Andrew Hawkes gets frank pt2. That will bring you up to speed as to where this story has come from... will it finish today? Maybe, we'll have to wait and see.
So picking up where I left off... we were where we were from the decisions we had made.We really were in a world of hurt, no income, no business's, mortgages to pay, leases to service, creditors phoning every 5 minutes making threats and demanding blood, staff, who had been fed lies and utter bullsh*t, all wanting money... money that we no longer had. Again, this was due to decisions we had made. Of course we had, and still have, family members that try and tell us that is was because of this and that, at the end of the day, the buck stopped with us, no one else.
Not wanting to admit defeat, I was determined to carry on, I was searching for that magic bullet, the one thing that was going to solve all of our problems over night, problems that we ourselves created. Funny how that works... we put ourselves in that precarious position trying to avoid it. You see our focus was on getting out of debt, not getting a poor credit rating, not going bankrupt, not going out of business, not losing money, not losing our house's, not losing our cars. Now what is wrong with that, isn't that what most people would focus on? Short answer... YES, it is precisely what they would focus on, which is more than likely what 95% of the population is broke. You see we were focusing on all the things we didn't want. It may seem like I am splitting hairs when I say this, and to a lot of people I may be, yet you always get what you focus on... the mind negates or does not see the negatives, all it sees are the keys, the triggers, it sees debt, credit rating, bankrupt, going out of business, you get my point? Here is the hair splitting part, if we have just changed our inner dialogue slightly we may have been OK. If we had said, we are so happy now that our creditors have been paid. I am sure you can see where that is going right? It effectively says the same thing yet is has such a different meaning psychologically.
So, things as I am sure you can imagine and appreciate were pretty dire. I just want to add a note here, I am not writing this for anyone's sympathy, and I not looking for vindication. What we did and what happened was entirely our doing... I guess what I am highlighting here is that sometimes even with the best intentions that not everything turns out as you might anticipate.
For years I had thought of ways for me to avoid bankruptcy... so in point of fact, I thought myself into it. It is a viable alternative to suicide, bankruptcy laws are in place to protect people, they are there to help people out. There is a lot of stigma attached to people being bankrupt, mostly of course by people that are too scared to try something new because they have some ludicrous belief that the government will actually be able to support them in retirement (that is another topic entirely). However the fact remains, there are the laws in place for a reason. Personally I never wanted to do it... in fact at the time, I had a tremendous life insurance policy, there was no suicide clause (well there was, it was a time frame that had lapsed), I had done the math, all of my debts would be cleared, all of my mortgages would be paid, my new wife would be set for life and would never have to work again. So to say that I didn't contemplate doing exactly that would be a lie... I can't be clearer than that. I do the best I can with the tools that I am given, the same as anybody does. Then I really starting thinking about it, what a cowardly thing to do... how many people would I hurt, if you know me, and some of you who read this will know me very well, I don't like to hurt anyone, regardless of who they are, so to do something that would hurt my own family so deeply was never ever really going to fly in my mind.
In my search to find that magic bullet to fix all my woes, I found a new and exciting world of the Internet, sure I had used it in business for a long time, yet the business I used it for was all offline, if that makes sense. I didn't know about Google Adsense, I didn't know about Affiliate marketing. Yes it is safe to say that I was pretty naive when it came to the potential of the internet.
Now if you have ever searched for money making opportunities online then you know that there are A LOT, and I am sure that you can make money from all of them. In fact I know quite a few people that have made great money from them. Most will make the promise of riches overnight... of course there is some hard work. And I know people who have made tremendous amounts of money in a very short period of time. So yeah you can make good money. I thought I could see a way to sort all of the problems that I had created out in one foul swoop.
If you have ever watched 'the secret' or had anything to do with personal development you will know that constant negativity is not a healthy environment for creating abundance. So I made a decision (I didn't even consult my wife, although I knew she would be happy), I decided that we were moving to Australia. It would give us the clear air we needed to get back on top of things. It wasn't an easy decision, I was about to leave my family, whom I am very close to, I was about to leave everything that I had ever worked for in New Zealand and just give it up. At the time we still had our mortgages with the bank, and we were still lagging way behind in paying them.
It was time to pull out all the stops....
And for that, looking at this length, you will have to wait until tomorrow to see what happened.
So here again this is Andrew Hawkes signing off and saying that I will see you tomorrow
To Your Success
About the Author
Andrew Hawkes is an Entrepreneur that has had good times and bad, he draws on all the experiences that he has had, military and in business, to provide solid information that anyone can use and understand to improve the results in thier own life and therefore show others to imrpove thiers. He believes that anyone can make a difference in the world and that ultimately anything is possible.
