Reply #64: Thanks pacalo...

[Amerigo Vespucci]

...fortunately, I'm pretty adept at setting my pride aside when the situation warrants it.

I've learned a lot in the last couple of days. I know what I need to do...I've known all along, but I've allowed myself to be intimidated by the economy and I've let clients who want to play games with me play those games.

I am fortunate to have good friends "in person" and good "cyber friends" on DU who encourage me and give me strength on an ongoing basis.

It really does go back to that "Rocky Balboa" clip I pasted earlier in this thread. A good friend...one of my best...and I were talking today. He's a salesman, that's his full-time job. Because I am a sole proprietor, I am also my "sales force"...so he's proven to be a valuable mentor. Like many people, he's had his share of triumph and tragedy. And he told me today that he needs to get up every day and do what he needs to do no matter what else is going on in his life, no matter how painful, no matter how threatening. He essentially said the same thing Stallone said in that clip...it's not about the fact that we get knocked down, because we will, over and over again, but how quickly we get back up after being hit. Sometimes I've stayed down longer than I should have. In the clip, Stallone says "That's what LOSERS do and THAT'S NOT YOU!"

And that's pretty much what my friend said today, and he's right. I've had terrible, terrible, terrible things happen to my finances in the last two and a half years.

I've had a million opportunities to just quit and walk away from what I spent a decade building up.

I haven't done that. I will not do that. I am in this fight, and as the cliche goes, I am IN it to WIN it.

So my reaction to the events of the last few days (actually the last few weeks, that's what led up to all of this) is that it's made me stronger, it's made me more determined than ever to stay in the fight and make my business more successful and be the person I know I am.

Too many people surrender, too many people conform to the world and what it wants them to be. I don't have that in me. I can't look at the world and ask "What would YOU like me to be?" I can only be who I am, and what I am, and that takes strength. I get a lot of it from inside, and I get the rest that I need from my friends.

Thanks everyone.

:grouphug: