{"id":24705,"date":"2024-10-17T23:19:13","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T23:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=24705"},"modified":"2024-10-17T23:19:13","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T23:19:13","slug":"when-everything-falls-apart-hold-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=24705","title":{"rendered":"When Everything Falls Apart, Hold On."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Everything Falls Apart, Hold On, Even in the darkest moments, there\u2019s always hope. When I was 50, life seemed perfect. I had sold my successful car washes, had a million dollars in my checking account, lived in a beautiful home, and my kids were in private school. Life was good, and I was focused on growing my car wash equipment business. But then the manufacturer I represented lost a key client, accounting for a third of my business. Hurricane Katrina struck, followed by more hurricanes and the Great Recession…… See more<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When I was 50, life seemed perfect. I had sold my successful car washes, had a million dollars in my checking account, lived in a beautiful home, and my kids were in private school. Life was good, and I was focused on growing my car wash equipment business. But then the manufacturer I represented lost a key client, accounting for a third of my business. Hurricane Katrina struck, followed by more hurricanes and the Great Recession. I stopped taking a salary and loaned money to my company, pouring in everything, including my retirement savings, in a desperate attempt to turn things around. But in the end, it was all gone\u2014my business, my money, and eventually, my home. After filing for bankruptcy, my 30-year marriage fell apart under the weight of it all, and I found myself contemplating suicide. The memory of my father\u2019s suicide when I was 26, and the pain it caused, was the only thing that stopped me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The hardest part wasn\u2019t the financial loss\u2014it was the depression and the loss of self-confidence. Friends who I thought were close vanished almost immediately, but a couple of true friends stuck by me. One friend regularly checked in and took me out on motorcycle rides, just to help me clear my head. I moved into a friend\u2019s rental property and started looking for work. After years of running my own businesses, I found myself working for a construction company, repairing equipment, living alone, and collecting food stamps. It was humbling, to say the least, but it wasn\u2019t the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward a few years, and things have gotten better. My wife and I reconciled, we moved to Texas, and I took a job in car wash construction. We rent a nice house, and I just bought a used car that I\u2019m proud of. I\u2019m happy at work, and my dream is to get back into car wash ownership with investors. Every day is better than the last, and I\u2019ve learned some crucial lessons along the way: nothing, good or bad, lasts forever; true friends are rare; and you should never stop taking care of yourself, mentally and physically. Most importantly, never stop believing in yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

also read…….<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Everything Falls Apart, Hold On, Even in the darkest moments, there\u2019s always hope. When I was 50, life seemed perfect. I had sold my successful car… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24710,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24705\/revisions\/24710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}