Here’s screwed for you.

I’d had the book designed, illustrated, edited, proof-read, e-booked, printed and distributed. I should have been ecstatic but I wasn’t. I was actually left awake,  again, at 3am sweating and the reason being was this…

In 2001 I started a transport company that was primarily involved with the film industry in Cape Town. In 2003 I took on a partner who was also a friend of mine and lived in London. In 2007 the business was sold and my partner’s share deposited into an account awaiting for transfer overseas once all had been cleared by SARS and the reserve bank.

In early 2008 while traveling in SE Asia I received an email from the accountant informing me that there was a small issue on the account and the money couldn’t be transferred to my partner in London. After a tennis match of emails between myself, the accountant and my partner it was agreed that the money would be transferred on my return home in September of that year.

In the later stages of my travels my ex business partner and still  good friend- started chatting about forming a publishing company. It was discussed that the money that was to be transferred would be used in forming the company. The reason we wanted to establish a publishing company is that I wanted to publish The Power that’s Ours and, as we were both photographers, the company could publish possible coffee table books in the future.

Upon my return the money owed to Dan stayed in the account while we discussed the ins and outs of the set up. At that time   almost 100% sure that the business would go ahead and I carried on with the production of The Power that’s Ours with the notion that the funds in the account would be used to cover the costs of the book.

And then came the global financial meltdown…!

Dan, realising he needed the money pulled out of the publishing company-before anything had been signed. I was now royally screwed as I was now deep into the production of the book with no cash of my own.

So what did I do.

I sold my car, maxed my credit cards out to the fullest and ate rice for months. Just returning from SE Asia helped with my dietary habits as I’d learnt to love rice while travelling there for the previous 4 months. Dan had to get his money back and there were debtors that needed to be paid. And they all got paid.

It wasn’t a very comfortable time for me but I now look back and put it down to experience. I bought a scooter to get around on but you know what, I’m still around and getting around with two published books in hand.

Dan and myself are still very good friends and there are absolutely no hard feelings about what happened.

Sometimes things aren’t going to go the way you want them to. You still have a choice on how you feel about it and how you’ll react.

The experience that I went through somehow cemented that which I was writing about-goal-setting, visualization and affirmation. At that time my goals had to drastically change along with the affirmations and visualization I was doing on a daily basis.

The good thing was that I lost quite a bit of weight as all I could afford was rice and a few veggies 🙂

A week later an email from a student in the USA was to put me back on track…

Funny thing this see-saw ride of life