#9 Turning Setbacks into Stepping Stones - Get back up

Facing a pivotal moment in my entrepreneurial journey, I found myself grappling with the abrupt revenue loss from my small business, orchestrated by an unexpected Google update. With just four months of runway and my wife's pregnancy adding to the financial urgency, I leaned heavily on faith and strategic action. This episode shares how, through prayer and the exploration of stock trading, I discovered the resilience required to adapt, especially after a failed influencer campaign and partner disagreements. It's a testament to the power of starting anew and finding inspiration even amidst adversity.

Beyond financial woes, the episode also touches on the journey of self-discovery and purpose through self-forgiveness. Hitting rock bottom can often mean confronting a lack of direction or the struggle to break ingrained habits. By sharing personal insights and practical tips, I aim to guide listeners toward finding clarity and taking small yet significant steps toward personal growth. This episode is packed with hope and strategies for turning life's challenges into opportunities for new beginnings, encouraging a path to renewal and growth.

Eric's Podcast. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Overcoming Adversity Through Faith and Action
• 19:16 Finding Purpose Through Self-Forgiveness

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:33

Hello, welcome to another episode of the Eric's Podcast. I am your host, eric. Today we're going to be talking about a few things. First, we'll be talking about the basically what to do when you are faced with a problem, or let's redo it with a problem, or let's redo it how to get back up again when you're knocked down. You've gone at it at your hardest, you tried your best or maybe you haven't tried your best and you know it and you feel it's either been a very sharp and clean failure or it's been a gradual decline and you finally hit a bottom. You've hit a a kind of a choice or a breather, and you can either choose to spiral down again in the regret or the despair or the depression, or you can try and claw yourself back up and make a different move, make a different choice. You might still fall again, but at least you're taking the opportunity to try to get out from where you are, and that's what we're going to talk about today. So let's just from there, let's just go ahead and dive right in.

Speaker 1: 2:29

From my own personal experience, I have hit rock bottom and I have hit bottoms that I've been able to sometimes kind of jump or trampoline off. I forget what the word is, but kind of get back up and go somewhere else. One good example is the e it was always trying to claw, claw up and keep going, keep going, keep going. Google updated, did some sort of AI update or something to their integration on ads on their ad platform and marketplace and it basically auto-banned a lot like millions of legitimate small businesses that were using them. And we were one of those small businesses that were using them and we were one of those and that was our only revenue source. So, overnight, the store, just no more sales, no more income, no more revenue, nothing. And we still had about $4,000. Thousand units, something like that, that we had, that we needed to sell. We had about three months, four months worth of four months of runway, which is basically the amount of money in, like the. Your runway is how much, what's your current expense? And then, um, then you know if you that's what, if you have that in the bank, that's what your expenses are, and then you project how many months you could go without having any revenue or anything coming in, but anyway, so we had about four months left and I had a choice to make.

Speaker 1: 5:01

I could see the end coming, and I'm in this for me, when I see a difficult situation or an end coming or a pivoting moment or some kind of crisis, or a pivoting moment or some kind of crisis, I will always do these two things, and not always in this order. I will find somewhere quiet, get on my knees and pray and ask the Lord, what do you want me to do? And listen and wait, and I also kind of try to take a step back and look at the overall situation to see if there's any other moves, anything that I've missed, that I could play, and then what is the odds of that working out? And then I'll pray about if that's the move I should make, and so in this case. So I saw the incoming and we have no revenue coming in. I'm trying to work things out with Google and it's not working. And so then I turn to an influencer campaign and I meet with them and it turns out it's going to cost the four months of runway that we have left in order to run their minimum amount, the minimum that they would take in order to do a successful campaign over Christmas. And I had this feeling that I know it would work. I know it would sell out of all our units and we would, and at least we would sell our units. The store might not keep going, but at least we would sell out all of our units and at least recoup some of that money.

Speaker 1: 7:09

The issue at the time was that at some point during this history I had sold to my parents. Basically, they wanted to come in and be 50-50 partners because they wanted to be more hands-on with everything and add more value and everything like that. So that was the deal I was made. So they're 50-50. So now I have to consult with them on whether or not this is what we should do, and they didn't want to go for it. So we didn't end up doing it and in February the money ran out just as projected. The store shut down.

Speaker 1: 7:58

It was not really devastating for me, because I had seen it coming, but I was out. There was no job anymore. I had to start from scratch. I had to do something. I had already tried to start another e-commerce store, but it wasn't working out. So what was left? What was left for me to do? My wife's pregnant, we had just moved into our new apartment and we need money. So what do I do? I get on my knees, find somewhere quiet and I pray and ask the Lord to show me what to do, reveal it to me. And at the same time I am. We have, you know, we had some tax refund money that came in. That was kind of getting us a couple more months and I'm like this is something has to happen here.

Speaker 1: 9:08

So I took a walk and as I was taking that walk, I heard the Lord say to me in my heart something like what do you want to do? And then I said, just because I had watched a YouTube video about day trading and stuff, I said I want to be a trader, stuff. I said I want to be a trader. And then the voice said get out your phone and invest $100 in AMC. And I had never heard of AMC. I never did stock trading. I had done some Bitcoin back in the day, but anyway. So I got my phone out and bought AMC and trusted, like I didn't, like I just I didn't, still didn't know what else I was going to do, but yeah, anyway. So later that day I um, I got more.

Speaker 1: 10:33

I was researching more about AMC and everything like that, and I think we already covered this story in another episode, but basically the long story, or the short, is, the Lord worked everything out and AMC ended up going up 300% in March, near the end of March, something like that. If you know anything about the GameStop short squeeze stuff, amc did something very similar, amc did something very similar and that, basically, that did our, that took care of us for the entire rest of the year, and so I guess my advice would be get back up and just ask the Lord, pray and ask the Lord, what do you want me to do? Take a deep breath and try to look at everything that you can do and don't let your pride get in the way, because pride can be a real big drawback to being able to see all of your options. If you remove the pride, then maybe there are some other options that are available that you could take Temporary options, sure, but still those are options to help get back up.

Speaker 1: 12:05

One of those things after the whole AMC thing and we didn't have any money again, I was praying and I was asking the Lord what do you want me to do? Tell me what you want me to do, and I didn't hear anything, and sometimes that's the case You're not going to hear something right away, and sometimes that's the case, you're not going to hear something right away. Sometimes you have to wait, wait on him to reveal the door or reveal the answer. And so I waited and during that time I'm like we need money. So I signed up for DoorDash and I started dashing and it doesn't really pay that well dashing, at least in my area but it brought in enough money to offset what we were bringing in.

Speaker 1: 13:15

And so during that time I was, I had had a horrible day and I was just going to it was 5 o'clock because I don't dash at night because the car I was using the lights. It was 5 o'clock because I don't dash at night because the car, the car I was using the lights, and basically it's just dangerous to do it at night. And I was just praying, I was asking the Lord what do you want me to do, or what should I do? And then he said I've already given you, I've already told you what to do, already giving you, I've already told you what to do. And and, uh, that's that's another story. But essentially, months before he had um, I was helping a friend build his website and just sitting either, I was sitting in a chair in our room or I was lying down thinking about his website or something like that, and then this entire download of a whole app, like two apps, a whole thing came flooding in on what could be and it's called Clean Space. And so, going back, I was at the car, I called my friend up and I said I'm going to do this. Are you with me or are you not? Are you going to do it with me or not? Something like that Are you in or are you not in? And he said I'm in. And then now I have my new direction and I have where I'm supposed to go and what I'm supposed to do. And so that's when we started Clean Space. And that is the current story that we're focused on and living through right now in launching Clean Space.

Speaker 1: 15:15

So, and let me tell you, it's not easy or hard. I mean it's not easy, but it doesn't have to be super hard either. You know, if you take on all the burden yourself, then that could be really heavy, but if you lean on the lord and give him your burdens and your needs and your wants, then it's a lot easier and if you truly trust him, then he will come through. He'll always come through for you, sometimes in ways that you least expect, sometimes the timing isn't what you want, but it's always good. Okay, so some practical tips, I guess, for what I do. I guess when I am down. One I talk to myself. It helps me work things out. If you keep everything bottled up in your mind then it can sometimes not get worked out. But if you actually speak it out into the air and talk to yourself just like a regular person would, like a friend, then it really really helps, helps me process a lot.

Speaker 1: 16:43

Number two would be forgive yourself.

Speaker 1: 16:47

This is a big one. Be forgive yourself, this is a big one. If you don't forgive yourself and you don't let those things go, then you actually end up holding yourself back and you end up piling on all these different goggles. I guess you could call them in ways that you see yourself. But if you forgive yourself and let it go, just like you would a friend or a loved one, and you forgive them and you forgive yourself, then you're able to see them for who they are again and that's the way you could see yourself. So you want to identify whatever the thing is, whatever you're beating yourself up about and just speak it out and just say this is what it is. I understand that you're struggling, I understand that it hurts and I forgive you and let it go.

Speaker 1: 17:57

Number three would be to pray and just talk to the Lord like he's your friend because he is he's more than that and wait and listen. Let's see. Getting back up on your feet, oh yeah. And then number five or four yeah. Number four would be get back up. You could do all the other things and then feel fine and then drift right back into whatever nonproductive thing that you were doing before. And sometimes you need to change your environment. You know, get out, go to Starbucks, go sit in a cafe, go change your environment somewhere. Sometimes changing your environment gives you a new outlook on what you're doing. When you talk out loud, it helps structure all of that.

Speaker 1: 19:16

When you forgive yourself, you're able to actually see everything for what it is. Okay, let's see. Well, that was a very brief kind of overview example, but those are some of my tips on. I mean, they're good tips for every day, but it's also just good in general. Like, I guess it doesn't always A bottom is not necessarily always has to do with a financial thing. A bottom can be anything Meaning you feel like a lack of purpose, or you're trying to break a habit, but you don't, can't seem to break it, but you have a tiny breather where it's like okay, maybe I can do it, maybe I can restart. So I encourage you guys thanks for listening and I hope that this was at least a little bit helpful or at least a reminder of some things, some good things to do. But I think the number one thing, the number one thing if you can't forgive yourself, you can't break the headspace the number one thing is to find somewhere quiet and just pray and ask the Lord what do you want me to do?