Ryan Daniel Moran tells the story of his friend Paul, a veteran who lost everything financially but rebuilt a successful business from nothing. The lesson: courage and willingness to change are what separate people who build wealth from those who don't.
I have a friend named Paul who a few years ago lost pretty much every cent to his name. Now, Paul is the type of guy that you root for. Paul is a veteran. He's a hard worker. He decided to start a business and put everything that he had into it. His blood, his sweat, his tears, his family's time, free time. He put everything that he had into this business and ended up going belly up. Now Paul tells the story and a couple of years ago, he was right at the brink where he was trying to make it work, but if something didn't turn around, it was gonna go under. And that thing happened. The thing was, he decided to spend some family time and he's out with his son playing baseball. His son hits a line drive and Paul dives for it. He lands on his arm and he breaks his collarbone, putting Paul out of work. And that was the moment that Paul knew that he had lost everything financial, the business wasn't going to get better. He couldn't work in it. And he had lost years of blood, sweat and tears and many, many dollars and hours and he was out of luck.
Fast forward a couple years. Paul was forced to do something a little bit different. Paul was forced to find other business models. Paul was forced to find other ways to pay for his life. And that led him to pur different forms of entrepreneurship. I interviewed Paul on my business podcast recently and he says, had it not been for the time when I broke my collarbone, had it not been the time where I really lost everything, I never would have looked for a change. I would have tried to fix what wasn't working. But because he broke quite literally and was broke quite literally, he had to make a change. And it led him to start a new business that within three years was doing more than $5 million a in distribution centers all over the world and is on its way to being an eight figure business that one day he'll sell for a big payday that will change his complete family tree.
Now, we love to hear a hero's story, but have you ever heard a hero's story that didn't require some sort of pain, that didn't require the hero to practice some sort of courage? And then when you look at your life, are you hoping for a result without pain and without practicing courage? We think that we want safety and security. We think that we want everything to work out just fine.
But that doesn't make for a very good story. What makes for a very good story is the Pauls of the world who go through a hard time and are forced to make a change, because we really don't change until we experience struggle, until we experience pain. So if you're going through a painful time right now, this might be the moment that you look back on and say, I'm so thankful that that forced me to do something different, because it put me on the path that gave me a great story. We have hundreds of stories like Paul, people who are trying their hand at something and suffering and trying to make it work, and it wasn't going. If you give somebody like that the switch they need in order to be able to produce something in the world that they're proud of, that they're excited about, changes More than just one entrepreneur. That changes a family tree. It changes a community. It changes the world. We need more people like Paul who are willing to practice courage in order to produce a great story.
