From Being Homeless To Finding Purpose & Hope Again On LinkedIn...

Our Journey Begins over 10 years ago. We were still newly married and we only had one child, Ashlyn and we lived in the house across from the home where I grew up. We had an unfortunate accident where there was a small fire in the oven. It was not major and there was no serious damage to the home. but after the fire, the landlord decided to sell the home and gave us less than 30 days to move out. This was in the middle of a very cold January in New York during an extremely cold winter.

At this point in my life, I had not yet become full time in my entrepreneurial endeavors. So I started the search for another job because at the moment we could not find another place that we could afford. Needless to say, the day came and we had to go. My heart was broken. As a man, husband & father that is the worst feeling in the world, having to have your wife and child be out in the cold. We were both working very hard towards building our family and this event stopped us right in our tracks. People tried to give us so much advice & told us all of the things that we were not doing but nobody could actually help. The reason is most of our circle was in no better condition or shape than we were. We all lived check to check & they didn't have to resources to lend us a place to stay for a few weeks. So all we got was what we did wrong what we should do but no actual help.

So, here we are trying to find a new place to live and can't. We had a one-year-old child and nowhere to go. Thankfully we were not without a place long. but it wasn't ours. To make things worse, my wife was also pregnant with our second child too. It just made it extra miserable that this was our case.

After that things got terribly worse. My wife had our second child and she lived with postpartum depression for the next 2 years. I was the only one working, driving an oil truck. It was great money during the winter but it was long and hard hours and was VERY seasonal. There was no way out in sight. We're grateful for the help we received during that time but we were messed up. That period of time almost destroyed our marriage. It was a bad scene.

As the second year came to a close we decided to move to Missouri & stay with family for a fresh start and new beginning. We stayed with family for 9 long months and after getting a job and being quickly promoted to the manager we were finally on our way back up! We were able to finally get our own place again after almost 3 years.

The next six years of our story are quite fantastic. We eventually got better jobs which opened up opportunities for us to own our own business. From there, things grew & improved. We did well & even we opened more businesses. We made a few million dollars over the next few years we were able to help many people who were in the same shape we were previously in. We didn't live lavishly but we paid it forward, always lending a helping hand to others in need. Things were great so we thought.

Here's where it starts to get a little bumpy again. We brought in some business partners who we thought would be assets but turned out to be liabilities for us. They mishandled business funds. They mishandled the employees. And they left us in a very bad situation, holding the bag… At that point, we were owners of a daycare center, a restaurant, a motel, and a gas station. I did my best to delegate and empower others to succeed and to grow and I was taken for a ride. I was taken advantage of. We were stolen from & and it hurts because these were the people that we trusted. Fast forward 9 months later and we were holding on for dear life, to our home, our cars and we had to slowly start to sell everything just to survive. Again for the second time I had to face this feeling.

Thank God for LinkedIn. It was in the middle of our collapse that I got back on LinkedIn and began to create content.  I started to share my story with a few others and made some amazing contacts & connections pretty quickly. I was inspired by several stories of purpose, passion & triumph over hardship and resilience in the face of adversity. I was moved and impacted by others who were on a journey of recovery like I was. I was empowered not to let go or to give up without a fight. These connections, these people, compassionate human beings pushed me. They gave me new hope. Even though we did eventually lose the house and had to move out I was hopeful. I believed that the relationships that I had started to build on LinkedIn would turn my situation around.

I had been doing consulting on the side for almost 10 years doing website and graphic design, I was also doing video creation & commercials for local companies. I kept hearing how amazing LinkedIn was and how great it was for getting clients. Needless to say, I was highly disappointed that I didn't get the results I thought I would quickly. However, I did misunderstand the results that I should have been looking for and that was relationships.

Through these relationships, I have been able to land clients and those clients have helped me get back on my feet and start to rebuild my life again. It's amazing when you discover a community that allows you the space to express yourself and live in your true purpose & identity and celebrate you for it. We all have skills, gifts, abilities, talents & expertise that we can share with the world and each other.

Here is a platform that is getting better every day with more and more people standing in their brilliance and putting themselves out there, making amazing connections. It is getting ripe and growing and budding beautifully and I was able to get in at the perfect time as it's starting to really gain momentum.

I never thought the day would come where I would get a client from LinkedIn. But I did. It was because I was able to meet & connect with other people who are brilliant and was able to foster relationships that helped me get out of this situation.

That's what happened for me on LinkedIn!

I tried multiple tactics and strategies that just didn't work. But I didn't realize that the whole time I was trying out these things I was actually building relationships that would become fruitful. And fruitful doesn't always mean that money is exchanged for a service. It means that there are genuine people, humans that I have had real conversations with. And there are millions more, waiting to connect!

I've met the working professionals & executives to a few as I call "youngsters" who are on the rise and who are brilliant and will do great things in this world. I love that I have the opportunity to help them avoid some of the mistakes I've made and given them insight on what was successful to make sure they have a clear path!

My story is not one of defeat but of triumph! I'm not looking for pity. Even though the situation we found ourselves in was an unfavorable one, we continuously saw favor working with us. This has taught me how to be a better leader, to my family first, then to others… It has allowed me to take serious inventory, take responsibility and now I have the opportunity to share what I have learned with others.

It hasn't been easy losing everything, especially after all of the hard work we had done, but our new reality is we know that we can make it through anything. We are fighters and will not give up hope! Here are a few more lessons I’ve learned through this ordeal and I hope that it will help someone else who may be facing some of the same struggles we did as an entrepreneur or even along with their career.

Throughout this journey, I've learned a lot. I know what to do and what not to do. I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t work. I’ve also learned that life just isn’t as predictable as we’d like it to believe, but at the same time, the struggles we go through are there to teach us valuable lessons about ourselves and to ultimately they make us stronger.

I'm not writing this article for pity but to share with you that you can overcome anything. you are stronger than you might believe that you are. You can handle things that you did not realize you could handle. And the truth is community means everything. Being connected to people who actually and genuinely care about you is a powerful thing to have.

So I'd like to share with you 10 things what I've learned from being homeless twice. now please know that these are not the only 10 things that I've learned but for the sake of this article, I'd like you to know these 10 that are on my mind right now.

Lesson 1: Some Things Are Out of Your Control

Lesson 2: BeLIEve people when they SHOW you who they really are.

Lesson 3: This Is Not An End, Just A New Beginning!

Lesson 4: Every Day Is A Clean Slate

Lesson 5: Find, Support & Believe In Your Tribe!

Lesson 6: Ask For Help…

Lesson 7: Trust Your Gut

Lesson 8: Listen To Your Wife (If you are married) ;-)

Lesson 9: Never Give Up

Lesson 10: Acceptance Is The First Step To Rebuilding...

Thanks to LinkedIn!