Boring Decision Recovery

Silent Reading Time: 2 mins 11 secs

Yesterday someone asked me to talk about the financial part about wanting to start a business. Before I give my two cents, you should know who you’re listening to first:

Hi I’m Nichole. A former homeless girl who ended up having the ear of a Fortune 5000 CEO. I built a career and money to start getting on my feet. For some people I’m the poster child for ‘resilience’.

Now I’m looking at the end of my financial rope in 2 months.

I’m not even scared, because I’ve been homeless. But I don’t think most or any of you have and I want to help you avoid the mental spiral.

I’m going to explain in two and quarter paragraphs explaining being homeless/broke and my current financial situation. Then I’m talking about you because its your mental space that’s important right now.

Keep in mind: I’m single with no kids. Your life might play by different rules. Take what you need.

I was homeless because I was in denial of my financial situation. I was in denial because I was raised with money, multiple homes, and the nickname ’spoiled bitch’. So instead of doing anything I pretended my situation wasn’t real. Then when I moved into my car I normalized being broke, blaming the world then myself, and slowly made decisions that wiped away any sense of ability and belief in myself.

Recovery wasn’t because I ’needed’ money. It was to prove to myself I wasn’t worthless and utterly broken. Recovery started with freelance gigs (only option when you are homeless and avoiding minimum wage). Got lucky with Delali Dzirasa, CEO of Fearless.

I left my job last December for couple reasons. One being I fell for the ‘quit your job and build a business’ trap. Guess they forgot to say validation and money required first. Now I have two months of money left for bills and refusing to push a half-assed product/service. I want to be proud of what I sell and my non-existent reputation is at stake.

But that isn’t what most important here. What’s more important is your mind when you feel like you are losing everything. When you figure out there is more at risk than hitting $0 in the bank, how you are going to afford tings, and your pride.

It might feel like you’ve lost control of your life and became a victim of the world. Or you might feel numb and live in a fairytale where all the crap things happening is just your imagination. At worse you feel like you’re having a repeated heart attack trying to scramble and try a hundred things in hopes that your worry and stress doesn’t catch up to you and prove the part of your mind that you are a failure correct.

I’m not trying to scare you. I’m telling you because it’s true.

Now I can’t give you boneified financial advice. I’d be a shit advisor.

There’s Matt Viera, Matthew Garasic, Kurtis Hanni. or Cameron Marzi who are all more qualified than me.

Instead here’s how I got out of it and hopefully it helps you too:

1. A boring decision that you are going to get yourself out of your current shit show.

   I had no fucking what that meant or how yet, but I put my stake in the ground.

But see here’s the tricky part you have to be fed up and actually ready. I’m not talking about I’m giving you a pep talk and in a few minutes you forget I said anything and continue spiraling.

2. Prove yourself right

   This is to secure your decision by making small moves to prove yourself right. It creates ammo against the whispers in your head that you will fail and what you are doing is pointless.

   This doesn’t mean research, free guides, and mimicking other people.

   I’m intentionally not giving my details because you need to decide for yourself what proof looks like for you.

These two look simple. But I swear it takes a shit ton of effort just to do them. Come back at me when you got them covered and we’ll move on to next steps.

This isn't about motivation. It's about recognizing that your mind holds the key to resilience, ability, and solutions.

Nichole Morris