How I lost everything — My journey to recovery
Once upon a time, there was a guy named James Springall, who wanted to figure out a way to be financially free and to help others without having to be in a traditional job. So, he started trading online. But one day, the US and China trade war in June 2019 lead to his trades to plummet, and he lost all of his life savings overnight. Join James on his journey to overcoming these life changing challenges, and find out whether he succeeds with his journey. Who knows, perhaps you may be inspired to also change your own life.
Hello my name is James, I would like to thank you for visiting my blog. Here I am going tell you my story about how my life has dramatically changed. The purpose of me writing this is to share my experience, and also for others who may also be going through similar events in your lives.
I am a 30-year-old male, working full time in an office-based job. I got into trading because I wanted to be free from a 9 to 5 job in the office and to live my life. I was successful at first, making almost what I was making from my monthly full-time salary. However, what I did not foresee, was the US China trade war, that sent my trades plummeting, and this is where I lost all of my life savings overnight.
This sent shock waves through my mind and body overnight, and sent me into depression as I couldn’t find a solution to resolve this. I laid on my bed starring at the ceiling and by the window looking at the clouds with tears going down my face. I felt the energy zap out of me and it felt like my brain was slowly shutting down. I never felt this level of shock before, and it felt like I was slowly dying — I was ready to give up on life. I was ready to admit defeat. 5 years of saving to buy my own house was meant for nothing. Out of all of my lifelong issues, this is by far the worst moment in my life.
I started to think about how I could fight back as I was not willing to lose my hard-earned money. I went through painful negotiations with the broker where agreed to an 83% settlement. I still lost a lot of money and I was left to deal with the after effects of what was happening to me mentally and physically.
Imagine finding your whole life savings being taken away from you overnight, and then going through painful negotiations not knowing if it is recoverable.
I am a gym goer and have been for around 5 years working on my physique. I stopped working out because my mind and body was not strong enough. As weeks and months went by, I was losing weight from the stress; I lost a total of 13kg of body weight. This is kind of almost like two times the weight of a bowling ball.
I try on my work clothes and all I could see is how baggy they now are. I couldn’t believe I was observing the loss of my physique before my eyes, after all of my hard work to build my body over a long period of time. I would look at previous pictures of me that makes me emotional to a whole new level.
As someone that focuses most of my personal life with the gym, and working on my body, mentally this was a very difficult pill to swallow.
The stress I am experiencing lead to worsened symptoms that the doctors believe to be IBS that I am finding difficult to manage.
My basic needs such as financial, health, and my physique feels like it is being taken away from me.
I was still going to work acting like everything is okay when it is not. I felt I couldn’t tell anyone in a professional environment because of the guilt, shame, and nor did I want any criticism over my ‘decision making’. I created a fake persona when someone asks “how’re you?” and “are you okay?” I would say “I’m fine”, even though, inside, I wanted to die to escape from the demons I was experiencing. I wasn’t even sure if I would make it through the week, or the month, all I was able to do was take each hour of the day as it comes.
I managed to work out a plan, and decided to get a part time job in the evening and weekends, on top of my full-time job to recover what I had lost. I applied for anything, from the civil service to McDonalds, KFC, Lidl and Aldi. I got nowhere — I never heard back from KFC, and my application got rejected from McDonalds, where I thought I would be able to get an evening job more easily.
At the lowest point in my life I didn’t see a way out, and I am not ready to waste the next few years of my life re-saving up the money I had lost.
One day, I came across a YouTube video from Kevin David about different ways of passive income. The video talked about people making money from running Facebook ads for businesses. I was sceptical at first, and vulnerable as I didn’t want to put myself in a similar situation of failing. However, the following evening, I sat down and said to myself, what if I can do this, what if this is it, am I going to take a leap of faith?
I knew inside of me I need to do something different and more than what I am doing now if I am going to have a successful future. Working in the office receiving a fixed wage every month is no longer an option for me, especially when I want to recover my losses.
Here I realised, in order for me to move forward, I wanted to be an entrepreneur! I started to make a plan, and to work on the birth of my own Facebook ads agency!
I realised I needed a web site for my business. I found and joined Click Funnels created by Russell Brunson, and joined the 30-day one funnel away challenge. This is where each day for 30 days they give me a mission to complete. These are a series of tasks where I make my idea and turn it into a reality.
During this challenge, I watched a video by Steve Larsen that changed my belief. He spoke about a metaphor — About a person lying on a boat, casually drifting along a river — This was to represent me as a person, my life, going along with the norm and not taking action. Then with the knowledge and know how, those who realise that they can take a different path, pick up the paddles of the boat, and start rowing faster and faster along the river. Anyone can do this, with the right belief. This made me realise, I too can grab the paddles of my boat and this is shown by my new direction that I am going down to set up my own business.
I did not realise I had this ability and power until now. I have a moment of “aha” and “why did this not occur to me before!” — And reconfirmed my belief of “I can do this!” I have always been able to do this, and not realise it. I feel like I have uncovered a secret, and it took me to be at the lowest point in my life to realise this and to seriously change my life!
1 month since setting up my business idea, and three weeks into this 30-day challenge, I still haven’t recovered from my financial loss. I am working full time. The only free time I have is in the evenings until 1am or later the following day before going to work. I am constantly tired, and I have negative thoughts when I go to bed, wake up, or at any moment in the day when I experience difficulty, my mind will say to myself –
“Can I do this?”
“What am I doing?”
“I have no experience setting up and running my own business”
“What if I fail?”
“What if I have wasted my money for nothing”
“If I do get a client, how am I supposed to do consultations with business owners when I don’t know how to do that? And that I am not a great communicator — I don’t like face to face meetings because I get nervous”
“The client is going to be looking at me as an expert, I don’t feel like an expert”.
When I get these negative thoughts; I now always reply to myself mentally by saying — James;
“I can do this”
“If Kevin did it from scratch — So can I”
“If Russel did it to save his business from going bankrupt — So can I”
“If Steve did it from scratch and with limited income– So can I”
“If all these people in the world were able to become successful entrepreneurs — So can I”.
I am here to change my life, I mean it and I must change my life. This time is different, as at this point, I must start my own business to be an entrepreneur. There is no second option or back up plan — This is do or die.
I am yet to achieve my goal of being an entrepreneur, and to leave my full-time job in the office. However, what I have been able to do is –
‘I am taking a leap of faith to change my life’,
‘I am acting positively to change my life, I am taking action in response to what had happened to me’,
‘I am not giving up on my life and not admitting defeat’,
‘I am going through the challenges’,
‘I will not give up!’
‘I deserve this, I deserve to be happy’
My negative thoughts and experiences haven’t gone away as the grief of the experience is very much strong inside of me. However, I am working towards channelling this negative experience into something positive and powerful — My journey to change my life.
In my next posts, I am going to write about my journey. Feel free to follow me to uncover this journey with me.
