I don't know you,
and I don't know what you're going through.
Maybe you hit rock bottom,
maybe you're at the lowest point of your life.
Sometimes people see what I do,
and they see the success, they see the glamour.
They think that I don't have those low moments in my life,
but I do.
And today I wanna share one of those moments with you.
One of the lowest moments in my life
was actually after I accomplished a certain
amount of success.
I made of number of bad investments,
and I was out of a very very bad partnership.
At the time Jennie and I, we were working together,
and I was working very very hard.
And we were about to lose everything,
everything I've spent years to build.
Everything I've worked so hard for.
And I always, always believe in myself all these years,
I've worked hard, I know what I'm capable of.
But that day, that moment
I felt I'll try everything, we were so close,
we were days, days away from bankruptcy.
And I still tried to put on a face, and facade
in front of my wife, in front of Jennie,
telling her everything's gonna be okay,
and I'm gonna work through it.
But in my mind I had no clue
how we're going to get out of this.
I remember I couldn't sleep at night.
I went to my office, turned on the light,
it was 4:00am, and I couldn't sleep.
I was looking at all the options that we have.
This is the first time I felt that,
"Okay, I think I might actually,
"might lose everything that I've built."
And I felt the first time in my life, so hopeless
because I've always been very resourceful,
I've always been very creative,
nothing ever stops me.
But that day, and that night, I was stuck.
I didn't know where to go,
there was nowhere to go, there was nowhere to hide.
I was bawling my eyes out,
I don't cry a lot,
but I couldn't control myself.
As tears were coming down my cheek,
I was looking up, talking to the universe.
And I asked a lot of questions,
a lot of victim questions,
"What did I do wrong?
"Why does this happen to me?
"Everything I've accomplished, was it a fluke?
"Was it just luck?
"Maybe I'm not as good as I think I am.
"I'm not as smart, I'm not as capable as I think I am.
"Like, how come there are the people
"that could overcome these issues?
"How come other people who are more successful than me?
"I don't understand."
and then so, I was crying, I was begging
to the universe, "Please, tell me what to do.
"What do I need to do?
"I don't wanna lose everything."
Not because the money, because of my identity,
who I am, how I see myself.
It's one thing to have nothing,
but once you have something,
and then you have something to lose.
the stake is high.
And I was crying,
and I was crying, and I was crying,
talking to myself, I was talking to the universe,
and I said, "What I'm gonna do?
"How I'm gonna tell my wife?
"How I'm gonna tell my family
"that we're about to lose everything?
"We're gonna move out of this place.
"We might not even have a place to live in.
"What are we gonna do because of stupid decisions I've made?
"Because of my arrogance, because of my ego."
All of these decisions I made, I created this.
I put them in this place, and I take full responsibility,
but how am I gonna get out of it?
Jennie didn't know, I didn't tell her
until actually many many months later.
And I stopped,
and I said to myself,
"Worst case scenario, we start with nothing,
"Worst case."
I came from nothing as a poor immigrant boy.
I didn't have anything anywhere.
In fact I was in the negative, I was in debt,
hundreds and thousands of loan debt.
I made it up to this point,
I'm not gonna die.
As long as I'm breathing, I could still fight.
I still have this, I still have my skills,
no one could take that away from me.
And I started talking to myself,
"So that's the worst case scenario, so what?
"So you know what?
"I will sell my possessions,
"and we'll get stuff that I have.
"I'll get rid of this house, who cares?
"I could make it back,
"It's not gonna kill me."
And I know if I persist, as long as I can endure
this period of time, I can make it back, and I did
afterwards, right in the morning.
I was drawing on my whiteboard, and I asked myself,
"Have you done everything you could?"
You said you did, no I didn't, it was a lie,
I was lying to myself.
I did everything that I could, I didn't do everything
that I possibly could.
I wrote down all the possibilities, what else could I do?
What else could I do?
What else could I sell?
What do I need to get rid of?
What expenses do I need to get rid of?
Who could I borrow from?
What do I need to do?
I laid all out on the white board,
and right in the morning, I went to work.
I focused on solutions, and I got through it,
and I turned everything around.
Normally I turn everything around.
From there, I thought at the time,
I will have already reached what I think
was the pinnacle of success.
And fast forward today, I'm not two times
more successful, I'm not three times more successful,
I'm like ten times more successful.
I am way more successful than where I was back then,
and that period, that incident taught me a lot.
It made me a better person as difficult as that was.
Just like the song,
what doesn't kill you, it does make you stronger.
It shapes your character,
it teaches you mental toughness.
And I think you'll look back all those incidents
where you thought that was the lowest point of your life.
That was those worst moments.
It could be a tragedy, it could be,
if this is related, it could be finance.
It could be maybe you lose someone very close
to you dear unfortunately.
But if you look back,
get 'em to teach you something.
Get 'em to teach you something about people.
Get 'em to teach you something about the world,
get 'em to teach you something about yourself.
And if you learn from that,
and you take those lessons,
and you applied that in your life.
I think you'll find when you look back
those moments just,
just may be the greatest moments.
The greatest thing that's ever happened to you,
unfortunate as that is, but it shapes who you are,
it creates who you are.
So if you're at the lowest point of your life,
I want you to know
tough times don't last, they don't.
I know it feels like an eternity,
it feels like oh my God, every minute, every hour,
it feels like days, I get it.
But tough times don't last, tough people do.