Hitting rock bottom
When Robert and I had nothing, we argued with each other and blamed one another. Resentment built up. We were definitely not at our best. We were stressed beyond belief.
The worst part of it all for me was that my self-esteem took a nose dive. Before 1985, I was always a very optimistic, happy, decisive, and confident woman. But when we went through this taxing period, I began to question and doubt everything I knew and believed in, including my ability to accomplish anything. I’d ask myself, “Do I know anything at all?” What started as a few self-doubts quickly spiraled into what at the time seemed like a huge, dark hole that was impossible to climb out of. It was the lowest point of my life.
A night of refuge
When things were at their worst, Robert and I would actually knock on doors of people we sort of knew — when you have an entrepreneurial mindset, you can’t worry about being humble —and ask if we could stay at their house for the night. There was one particular night during this period of time the two of us will never forget.
Our credit cards were completely maxed out. One afternoon I walked into the lobby of a cheap motel and put my credit card down on the counter, keeping my fingers crossed that the man behind the desk wouldn’t check my card. In those days, not all businesses had the automatic credit card machines that were able to check on the status of the credit card being used. He manually took an imprint of my card and handed me a room key. I stopped myself from jumping up and down for joy right there in the lobby. I was almost running as I went out the door toward the car. “We got a room! We got a room!” I squealed to Robert as loud as I could without being overheard by the hotel clerk — there was no reason to tip him off to our dirty little secret.
To many, this was just a cheap motel. To us, that night, it was absolute heaven. We had turned our failure to success, even if just for the next 12 hours. We walked across the street to Kentucky Fried Chicken and bought a bucket of chicken and then headed next door to the grocery store and got a six-pack of beer. We went back to our room, finally, just the two of us. For that moment everything was all right. We had some shelter from the elements, a warm bed, and food. That night we just held each other, not knowing what tomorrow would bring, but at least for that one night we were OK.
Ignoring the naysayers
I’m certain neither Robert nor I would have come through that year as we did, had we not had each other (even though we weren’t always as nice to each other as we should have been). All along we both had friends and family saying to us, “Why don’t you just get a job? Take the paycheck for a while until your business is up and running.” But we knew differently.READ MORE
 |
| WORK FROM HOME |
No comments:
Post a Comment