I have now got that big loss out of the way, the one entrepreneurs talk about – The Big Learn. I lost a lot of money in a misadventure. It wasn’t even fun. It was enough money to pay off my mortgage and have lots left over! I’ve got over the shock of it, but it did damage my confidence in myself as a business woman, somewhat.

Over the last while, I’ve seen our business reflect that loss of confidence. It’s meant earning less and therefore, paying ourselves less. Belts were tightened and spending reduced. Now, I find myself back in debt. Not huge, but debt none the less. Of course, I have more stuff than last time I was in debt and my net worth has gone up a lot, but that didn’t make the feelings go away.

I started to feel less of a person, less substantial. I had a balance on my credit card I couldn’t clear. I went to pay some off it in the bank and they said they had an interest free deal going on. I didn’t want to waste my time or get turned down. I told them I was unlikely to get a card from them at the moment. I live in a small town and I know the people in the bank. They persuaded me to give it a try, so I did.

I am running an overdraft at the moment and they could see my account hadn’t had it’s usual, healthy flow, for a while. I do have a second account that I run my rental property through, but about the same goes in as out each month. So I braced myself for the no. I was shocked with the results. First, the clerk told me I had a good account with them. Then she offered me a card with £13,125 limit on it! That’s about $26,000. She also told me I could have a loan if I wanted it, immediately. Another £7,000. I politely declined, that but got the card. I never swap short term debt for long term, unless I really have to. When I start to earn again, it will be paid off quickly.

The net result of my visit to the bank was a saving of about £75 per month in interest fees. That was excellent in itself, but the real benefit was in how I felt. I walked out of the bank feeling like I was worth something again. I know that sounds like nonsense, because it was all loans and I will only use just what I need, nothing more.

Even thought there’s a credit crunch on, I am worthy of loans and considered financially sound. I had to negotiate a deal later that day – the extra I made on it, because of how I felt, will pay off the card before the interest free period expires!

If you’re in the situation I was the first time I was in debt, it’s a grind. You will either get through it with long term discipline or learn to make more money and get it gone faster. The second time around is so much easier. It’s been done before. People thought the 4 minute mile was impossible until Roger Bannister did it. After him, there was a flood of people doing it. It’s the same with debt – I promise. If you know your credit rating is ok, apply for a loan every now and then. Don’t take it, but it sure feels good!

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I was out with a friend the other day. We were talking about all kinds of interesting topics and we got onto the subject of being a parent. My friend shared his views about his role as a father and the things he had done to provide for his children’s future.

When he finished speaking, I asked him if he had written a will. He looked ashamed ,” no, I haven’t”. In my experience, writing a will is a taboo subject for many people.

Over the years, I’ve asked a number of people about their wills. My interest stems from being a responsible godparent and I’ve seen the devastation when people die without a will. People give all kinds of reasons for not writing their will what’s yours.

• Not knowing what to leave to whom
• Unable to identify their assets
• Not knowing a good solicitor (lawyer)
• Costs too much
• Reluctant to face their own mortality

These reasons are valid for the people who have them. If you are taking responsibility for your financial well-being, take care of it in life and in death.

Writing a will is important. It’s something that you need to take care of – sooner rather than later. It’s not an easy thing to do and you may need some professional help.

Before you get to the stage where you feel ready to draft your will, there is work you will need to do. This list is not exhaustive, but it gives you a starting point.

1. Find out what you can about getting your will drawn up. There are loads of helpful sites, providing useful information. The legal position will vary from country to country
2. An executor is the person appointed to ensure your wishes are carried out; who would you trust to do this for you?
3. How will you provide for your children and who would you choose to bring them up in your place?
4. What kind of funeral would you like?
5. Would you like to donate your organs?
6. Do you need to make provision to reduce death duties (Inheritance Tax)
7. What would you like to happen to your pets?
8. Would you like to leave a donation to your favourite charity?
9. To whom do you want to leave your property? Think about whether an item has a real value like a house, or sentimental value like a piece of jewellery

Make your will a priority if you don’t have one. Losing someone you love is bad enough, don’t make it worse. Get a will.

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My story happened about 9 years ago. Life was sweet, then. I was a part of a social/business community based on personal development. I had started public speaking a couple of years before and found I had a talent for it. I took every opportunity to speak and, before long, the opportunities were lining up…

I had just finished a tour of the UK, speaking in most of the major cities. There was a big event lined up and I was billed as the top UK speaker, right before the international keynote speaker. My speech was a triumph, I got a standing ovation. This was the highest point of my life up till then. I had two partners lined up to begin a big project within the community and couldn’t wait to get started. Everything was finally going my way. I was in debt, had no cash but I could see that was all about to end. At last, I believed I could fly!

Around this time there had been a few new people join the community. Some of us were less than happy about the new element. It seemed they were all about money and less about growth, more profit and less service. Before we knew it, the Department of Trade and Industry had begun to take an interest in what we were up to. It all happened very fast. Suddenly there was a court case going on and the DTI was trying to shut us down. 70 of us headed of to the high court to watch the proceedings. They had to move the case to a bigger courtroom to accomodate us. Both sides laid out their case. The prosecution talked about the unscrupulous nature of the new element and one person in particular. Then the defence talked about the virtues of the more established members of the community and one person in particular – me! I had no idea this was going to happen. All the details of my business, personality and values were laid out in court for anyone to hear. It wasn’t that anything nasty was said, on the contrary, it was just mortifying.

After 3 days the case ended. The DTI had more money than us and based on the bad boys, a fairly strong case. They won and we were shut down immediately. My business, income, future plans, opportunity to speak and my social life all went in one short pronouncement. I went home devastated.

I crawled into a corner and, for six weeks, I pretty much stayed there. I wasn’t whimpering and singing a poor me song, I was thinking. OK, I did whimper and sing a poor me song for a couple of days, then I started thinking. I realised I could still speak, I still had the ability. I could still inspire people. I could still teach personal development and leadership, I just didn’t have the environment. The court case had embarrassed me but enhanced my reputation and, although I had lost my social life, I still had real friends. I realised they could take away my job, but never my work. I had lots left in me.

I spoke to the people I had agreed to partner up with for the big project. We couldn’t do what we had originally planned, but we could do something similar but bigger. One decided to come with me, the other moved on.

So, we started The Wow Factor. We had decided on the triangle and circle logo and it was with the designer. I was in the bath and had a sudden thought. I jumped out and rang the designer asking him to put fire on the top of the logo. It just had to be there. But, apart from some pretty design, we didn’t have a clue how to move forward.

Six weeks later we got a call from London Fire Brigade (as it was then, Fire and Rescue Services is what they are called now) asking if we could do leadership courses with a strong emotional intelligence leaning. YES, we most certainly could. Not much later I bought my partner out so that she could go and do her thing. Nine years later, Zandria and I are still teaching leadership in The British Fire Service amongst other things, and still loving it.

The company we have built was the lemonade squeezed from a nasty court case. Around the time it happened I found a card and carried it with me for a long time. It has a quote from Albert Camus on it,

In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me, an invincible summer.

Pass it on

The Rules

Life gave me lemons, so I made lemonade – MEME
Rules:
* Copy and paste these rules to your blog post.
* Link back to person who tagged you.
* Write about an incident in your life you first thought was really bad, but ended up being a blessing.
* Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
* Let each person you tagged know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
(* And if you want to – link back to this original Lemonade Meme post too.)

I’m tagging;

G Blogmaster from CanIGetRichOnASalary?

Bill from Money-Hacks

Nina from Queer Cents

Shawna at Bumblefucked

This post appears in the carnival of money stories at Money Ning

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In 1998, Bill Gates lost $45 billion – in one year. That’s a lot of money even if you’re a small country, but it doesn’t buy a lot of shock and awe if you want to wage a war.

To my friends child, who is autistic and adorable, three coins is a lot of money but five coins is more, if the coins are bigger that’s even better. There is certainly a logic in his reasoning, it feels like more, for sure.

Recently, Hillary Clinton’s campaign debts were published at $31 million. Two days later the figures were revised and republished with an explanation (almost an apology, but not quite). The revised figure was $21 million. Hhmm, they both seem an unspeakably large amount of money to owe. What a huge sum of money to bet – even on yourself, even when you have such supreme confidence. But maybe, if your husband is the highest paid public speaker on the planet and can command up to $300,000 per hour, it’s not such a huge amount – I wonder.

So what is a big debt? Again, it’s a matter of perspective. When I starting my business, I was in debt to the tune of $60,000. This was about twice my best years income up to that time. I met a business man who had seen some great success and he offered to mentor me. He asked me how much debt I had. I was desperately uncomfortable but knew I had to tell the truth – £31,000, I said with a wobbly voice. He paused, a long time, till I looked up and directly at him. His tone was derisive but not without humour, “Pah! I thought you were a professional”. He told me that before his first big success his debt had been £400,000.

That conversation stretched my thinking beyond the point of elasticity. It could never go all the way back. My perspective changed forever. No longer did my debt seem so huge. I had to alter my perspective to stop myself from going under. In rising above my debt, my horizons broadened. From that perspective, I began to see £30,000 as less than I had ever seen it before.

The possibility of earning more money became reality because of my debt, rather than in spite of it. My mentor had helped me to grow my thinking so that it could completely encompass my debt. I started to think bigger and then act bigger. Before long, my pay was bigger too, bigger than I could possibly have imagined from where I had been. And all it took was a shift in perspective.

What’s a lot of money to you?

This post appears in The Carnival of Money Stories at Finance Gets Personal

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San Francisco: A man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the branch and wrote “this iz a stikkup. Put all your muny in this bag.” While standing in line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller window. So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to Wells Fargo. After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller. She read it and, surmising from his spelling errors that he was not the brightest light in the harbor, told him that she could not accept his stickup note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go back to Bank of America. Looking somewhat defeated, the man said “OK” and left. The Wells Fargo teller then called the police who arrested the man a few minutes later, as he was waiting in line back at Bank of America.

…And the moral of this story is – if you always use the right forms, conform to other people’s protocols and do what you’re told, you’ll take a lifetime to get out of debt!

This story appears in The Carnival of Money Stories at PiggyBankBlues

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