Trusted advisors are a big key to abundance because they can help you avoid making mistakes that others have before. Today we’ll cover a time that I could have used a trusted advisor and how you can avoid making the same mistake I did.
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Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.
Trusted Advisors are a Secret to Abundance
Trusted advisors are one of the secrets to abundance. Now, we’re doing an abundance series right now, which takes us from a place of scarcity all the way through to wild success. There are a few stopping points along the way. And if you get through these stopping points along the way, when you get to the wild success, you will not self-sabotage it, because you will be expecting it and you will be prepared for it.
Diversifying is Important as Your Business Grows
Okay, this one is all about trusted advisors. Now, as your business starts to grow and you start to make a lot of money, there will be an opportunity for you to diversify your interests. And I recommend that you do. We don’t want to keep all our eggs in one basket.
Every successful business owner that’s out there rarely has one business. They usually have their hands in two or three different businesses. And if you look at billionaires, for example, they own multiple companies, right?
So you will diversify and you will have multiple companies as your business grows and as your wealth grows. And as you start duplicating and replicating the systems that you have from one business to the next.
I Bought a Business Without Trusted Advisors
All right, well, when I was 24 years old, my business was wildly successful, I was going to grow up to be rich and famous. So, I decided that I would buy another business. At the time I did have any trusted advisors. I was going on my gut instinct and just sheer determination.
I bought a business that had 10 years of back employee withholding taxes that had not been paid. It wasn’t two months into the business when the IRS came after me, and they demanded the 10 years of back employee withholding taxes. Because I was now the president of the company and my name was on the dotted line, and the sale of the business triggered an audit.
Everything I Owned Was Confiscated by the IRS
Okay, so here I was, 24 years old. Every single thing I had was confiscated, sold at an auction, and then I was billed for the difference by the IRS.
We lost all of my personal assets, okay? Everything. Everything in my business. It wasn’t that business alone, because as I put everything together, I had leveraged my other assets to buy this business, so now I lost everything.
I Didn’t Have Anyone to Help Me
And I sat there at 24 years old, dumbfounded. I was absolutely stumped. And number one, how did a person my age have such incredible credit that I was even allowed to buy a business of this magnitude at this age? The second thing that perplexed me was, where’s all the help? Who’s here to help me, and why am I doing this alone?
Here I am, a kid, I am a kid making adult decisions, and I screwed up badly, and if I take responsibility for this, I now own nothing.
They’ve confiscated my vehicles, they’ve repossessed everything. They took everything. And there I was, left absolutely stumped and dumbfounded, and what do I do now?
This Mistake Shaped My Business Perspective
Okay, the reason I tell you this story is because as the story continues, that incident in my life shaped my business perspective, and it shaped who I am as a person. It was a very, very difficult situation to go through, and it took me nine years to pay it off. I went to every single creditor that I had, and I said, “Listen, I made a commitment to you.”
And this goes back to a previous session we had on accepting responsibility. “I’m going to accept responsibility for this scenario. I made a promise to you, I took a loan out from you. I’m now in an interesting situation where I don’t have the money to pay you. I’ve never been late on a payment, and now I have no money to pay you.
And if you force the money from me, you’ll force me into bankruptcy, at which point I’m not obligated to pay you. I will pay you every cent I owe you, but you have to give me my own terms. Right now I have no money, and they’ve just put liens on my bank account. I have no way to get the money to pay you, so please be patient.”
I Had to Let Employees Go
Every single person I went back to said, “I’m here, I understand. You’ve always been good to us. We will work with you.” And it took me nine years to pay that off. During this scenario, I had to let employees go. I went to the bank to cash a check for payroll that week, and the bank cashed the check and said, “Thank you very much.” I said, “Where’s the money?” And they said, “Oh, there’s a lien on your bank account. Any money that you bring into us is ours. Thank you very much, have a nice day.”
I had to go home, and I had to fire employees that were doing a great job, that had no business being fired, and they were counting on their livelihood for me. I was in a bad situation, I was young and I was inexperienced, and I didn’t know how to resolve that on my own.
You Will Get in Tough Situations as a Business Owner
The reason I bring up this story is this. As business owners, we’re going to get ourselves in a bind. It’s part of human nature, it’s part of growing up, it’s part of building a business. But you don’t have to make the mistakes that other people have made. This mistake I made all on my own, okay?
I did not do the research to even find out that there were back employee withholding taxes. I didn’t even know that that was a question I should ask. And so, when I signed on the dotted line and I took ownership of that company, it was never on my mind. I never even thought to ask those questions.
But now, going into business today, yeah, that is one of my questions. I want to know exactly what is hiding that we didn’t talk about, that is going to come back to bite me. I need to know that before I agree to something.
Ask Trusted Advisors Before Rushing Into a Decision
So, trusted advisors. Before you make any fast decisions, before you just say, “Oh yeah, let’s do this, let’s do that,” and just fly by the seat of your pants. It is super important that you just stop, and that you ground yourself, and that you say, “What are the possible scenarios that can happen? Am I prepared for that? Am I prepared for what happens down the road from that? If we do this, down the road, these are the consequences.”
Every action we have also had a set of consequences and rewards. So, what are the rewards, and what are the consequences? Am I prepared for that? Do I have enough knowledge to make that information? And it’s okay if you don’t. That’s where you get a coach, or you hire someone else who has experience in that area.
It Would Have Been Wise for Me to Have Trusted Advisors
In this particular scenario, it would’ve been wise if I would’ve hired an accountant. It would’ve been wise for me to sit down and go over all the books. It would’ve been wise for me to interview the employees and find out exactly what was happening. “Tell me about your tax situation,” and for me to look through all of those things. I didn’t even know to do that, okay?
Making Mistakes is Part of the Growth Process
So, you will make mistakes, and that’s part of the growth process. When that happens, you want to bounce back up, and you want to get up and start going again so that you don’t lose a lot of time and momentum in the down period, which I did.
It took a couple of years for me to get my head back on straight, and for me to start over again. Because as I went to buy this other business, I diverted a lot of my attention. And in the process, I lost everything in this business, I lost everything in my cleaning company.
I Went to Interview for Another Job
So then, I started over from scratch, literally, going, “Oh my goodness, should I even be in business for myself?” I actually went to a job interview. I was going to go get a job at another company. And during the time, I sat in the job interview, and I was all dressed up in some business suit or something, and the guy said, “Tell me why you want this job.”
And I sat there in this job interview, and I said, “I don’t want the job at all.” I said, “I just failed miserably as an entrepreneur, and I’m in survival mode right now.” And he said, “That’s one of the most honest things you could possibly say. My suggestion to you is don’t accept this job, get back out there and go again.”
He was a trusted advisor at that moment. I came to him for a job, and what he gave me was life advice. “Get back out there and go again.” And I got back out there, and I’m like, “Okay.“
I had to take a bus to get to that job interview because my car had been repossessed. It was such a terrible time.
Slow Down When You Have to Make a Big Decision
If you have a chance to make a huge business decision, stop and slow down. Get advice from other people. I’m not talking about random Facebook friends. I’m talking about somebody who is actually a specialist in the area, who has your best interests in mind.
And that might be somebody that you pay, but that’s going to be money well spent, and it could save nine years of your life. In my situation, it was nine years trying to recover from that situation.
Resources
Asking for Wisdom: Maximizing Your Time with Mentors – https://amzn.to/3bkTXkY
Mentors: How to Help and Be Helped – https://amzn.to/3vTvqeS
Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World – https://amzn.to/3bogxt1
The Mentor – Everything You Need To Know About Leadership & Counseling – https://amzn.to/3y9lWhm
The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building People and Teams That Win Consistently – https://amzn.to/3uKmeJF
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