How to get through hard times.
A buddy of mine is going through a hard time in his life right now
and I sent him a message today to encourage him and to support him.
And I realized that what I wrote in that message I've never really shared with people before,
I haven't shared it with you.
And I thought that the message might help you if you're going through a hard time
in your life right now. And it's sharing my story from what happened to me last year.
Last year was a really hard year for me, both from a business perspective and a personal perspective.
On the business side...
I was growing less and less happy with what I was doing.
Most of my money came from advertising. I had a popular website,
had over 20 million people visit my site.
So you can sell advertising against that and make money from it.
The problem for me there was that I was creating content that would just generate a lot of views
so I could sell a lot of advertising.
And it wasn't necessarily stuff that I was proud of or would really help entrepreneurs,
which was my passion.
So I felt increasingly disconnected from my business.
And as a result, last year I totally changed my model, took off all the adds on my site
and took my biggest revenue source and brought it to zero,
which was really stressful.
And, basically, I was starting over.
Starting over with a new business model to help entrepreneurs.
On a personal level, my life was falling apart in a lot of different areas.
I went through a divorce, which was the most stressful thing that I've ever had to go through
in my life. And I hope that you never have to go through that.
I spent 1.6 million dollars building my dream house and then had to sell it.
I basically cost, so I didn't make a profit on it.
I gained 15 lbs. and for the first time in my life had to watch what I was eating and pay attention
to that, where I never had to worry before.
I started losing my hair for the first time in my life too from all the stress and craziness.
And people in my family, you know? Passed away and that created more stress.
It was a tough year.
It's funny how in life sometimes when something is going wrong,
everything seems to go wrong at once.
And just when you think something is, you know? You're just getting better...
something hits you in the stomach even harder.
That's kind of how the pattern goes.
And the advice that I gave to my friend was what helped me get through it,
because it was a really challenging, tough year; but what helped me get through
was feeling like I was doing something important.
It was making these videos, helping you guys, answering your questions,
feeling like I was giving back and helping people through the only way that I knew how,
which is through entrepreneurship.
And by helping you guys and by seeing the responses on the videos
and by knowing that I've helped your business get better, I've helped you become
a better entrepreneur and you're out taking that knowledge and helping more people.
That making me feel that I was doing something important, that got me through all the tough
times that I experienced last year and keeps getting me through.
This is what gets me up every day, it's feeling like I'm doing something important.
So if you're going through a challenging time in your life,
either right now or one that's coming up because... you know? it's going to come...
try to do something that makes you feel like you're doing something important.
It's what's going to help you get through. Use the skills, the knowledge, the expertise that you have
to help somebody. And when you see them smile and you see them say "thank you"
and when you see them say "you've changed my life", that will change YOU
and make you want to do more. And it'll make you a better person
and it'll make you a way better entrepreneur as well.
And, hopefully, by helping other people you'll end up healing yourself as well.
It worked for me and I hope it works for you.
Believe!
For those of you watching and like the video, please give it a thumbs up below.
Let me know what you think, leave a comment underneath, you know those get me going!
This is what I do.
So thank you, guys and I'll see you soon.
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