I deserved this one for sure – Teach me for being Lazy!
I died once and it hurt. I can promise you I won’t do that again.
26 years old and on a 6-Figure Income as a high-end Senior Marketing Manager. I had it all, the money, the reputation, managed a team of 14 people, $8,000,000+ Marketing Budget. Tons of friends and well known.
29 years old and on $15 / Hour working 25 hours per week selling Health Products in a shopping mall. I had nothing, was heavily in credit card debt and my personal life was in ruins. No friends and laughed at.
35 years old and on a 6-Figure Income and Life far better than anything prior. I have it all, friends, fulfilment and the daily opportunity to really help people that need it. Tons of friends who actually care about me.
When I reflect back on this and why it all happened – one thing really resonates with me with the benefit of hindsight. Even though I did some long hours in my 20’s, I really got lazy, took my success for granted and during the GFC (and after making a stack of bad choices myself) I successfully destroyed my life over a period of a few months. I was very lucky to retain my health, but money, friends, families, investments – all gone and I came to Sydney to start my life again.
The thing that got to me was by the age of 30, I had been retrenched 3 x times and pre-GFC my Corporate Skills were worth $150 – 200K / Year. Post-GFC I was lucky to get $70K / Year – assuming one could find a job. This was personally devastating and eventually I thought “I must become a Marketing Consultant” and found that Small Businesses were actually valuing my skills.
The problem was, after years of failure I was mentally drained and I had no friends or anyone supporting me. During one long night, I was searching for “Business Networking” and came across this concept coming to Australia called “4Networking”. I sent an email to the address and within 10 minutes I got a response. I then replied and a man by the name of Grant Dempsey kept immediately replying. We spoke on the phone that night and the rest was history.
It certainly wasn’t easy, I started with 0 clients and almost no money and I started off as an Operations Assistant. I did have a weak job to help pay the bills (barely) and I kept going and going. I remember about 4 months into the network, I got my first paying client (Yes) then at about 6 – 12 months it all took off for me.
When I reflect back on my experience with 4Networking I shudder to think about my alternate life if I didn’t discover it. As far as I am concerned, I owe my life to 4N in that it was really the only time in my life where as a “Little Guy” I felt like there was a collaborative and caring group of people supporting me. On a funny note, I almost see my time in 4N as “Redemption” for the slackness of my previous years.
Of course it’s all about making money and success which 4Networking helped me achieve, however to me it’s more about that. It’s about true fellowship and having the right minded group of objective Entrepreneurs supporting you. To me, without that – there is no way I would be in the position I am today.
So if you are reading this and part of my journey – thank you, if you haven’t joined 4Networking yet – then you better get along! An awesome community for awesome people.
Thank you again and if you have been down my path, keep looking up I say with positive hard work. Appreciate you taking the time to read this and have a great one from Edward Zia (P.S. Check out the Awesome Marketing Vault too!).
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