I was a broke, unemployed accountant trying to build a business from nothing.
I really wanted to start a profitable business so I wouldn’t have to get a job helping build someone else’s business so they could become rich.
I wanted to pour my life into a business that would become my life’s work.
I wanted to be richly rewarded for all the blood, sweat, tears, and hours I would devote to building a dream business.
I wanted to be able to make money to pay my bills, and support my wonderful wife and two young daughters.
The thing is I was starting a business during the Great Recession where every business was scared to spend money on hiring anyone.
That meant I wasn’t able to make enough money to pay my business bills, let alone support my young family.
To make things worse, I felt terrible because I had done everything right based on what I was taught growing up.
I got an accounting degree.
I got an MBA degree.
I became a Certified Public Accountant.
Nobody wanted to hire me.
I started out with the best of intentions. I thought I had all the knowledge I needed to be successful in business.
I started to get new clients. Little by little each month my business grew.
Then I took a deep look at my business finances.
It was ugly.
How could this be?
I got all the credentials and a lot of knowledge about business and money and yet my finances were a disaster.
How could I be the one telling people how to have success with money when I was anything but successful with money.
As I analyzed my situation, I realized the problem was that I was getting new clients and making money, but my business was spending more money than I was making.
I had finally depleted all my savings and maxed out my credit cards.
Which meant I was on the verge of being a complete and utter failure.
I was going to force my young family to endure the indignity of poverty that I lived through as a teenager.
I hated being poor.
My back was against the wall.
Then, as if by chance, something amazing happened…
That’s when I remember a money secret I learned from reading The Richest Man in Babylon all about becoming a master of my money!
It was now crystal clear to me how to make my business profitable because I saw I was able to start paying myself and dig myself out of a deep financial hole.
I started my business thinking getting lots of customers would solve all money problems.
Instead, I learned that focusing on profits is more important than focusing on sales.
As a result, I set up a new bank account. I named this my Damon bank account. Every time someone paid m, I moved ten percent of that money to my Damon bank account.
After I did that, I started taking money out of my business so I could cover my personal bills.
In six short weeks, I had more than $1,200 in my Damon bank account.
This may not sound like a lot of money to some of you. But to me more than 12 years ago, this was an enormous amount of money.
Suddenly, I was building a healthy business that worked.
One that made more money then it spent. One that grew my bank account.
As I celebrate my win, I recognized where things had gone so wrong.
I thought that having all these credentials and all this knowledge about money was enough.
It wasn’t enough.
I realized knowledge is not enough. I had to act on that knowledge.
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