HOW PROCRASTINATION ALMOST TURNED ME INTO A PAUPER

It is common knowledge that we always know the right thing to do in most circumstances. What we lack is the willpower and resolve to carry out the decisions. After my university studies, I decided to start an online business rather than seek employment. My company focused on the digital marketing strategy that gave advice and performed online marketing campaigns for small and medium enterprises in Kenya. 

Aspiring Entrepreneur

The financial comfort zone is a range in which we’re comfortable with money, either income or wealth

As a young entrepreneur, I considered myself well-informed and educated in matters that dealt with personal finance. After all, my company had made its first million in profit barely two years after I had launched it. We were soon expanding to the East Africa region and were the talk of the town. I knew I needed to consider how my wealth reflected vis a vis my company’s profitability but kept postponing the exercise. 

These were peripheral concerns that lacked immediate urgency. Due to the rapid expansion that we undertook and the intensity with which I was engaged in all these activities, I was barely able to tell what my net worth was. In July 2021, our business began experiencing marketing difficulties that were not of our making. 

We lost three of our biggest clients due to bankruptcy, another to a competitor and one decided they could carry on without our expert advice. This impacted 70% of our revenue and suddenly I was forced to consider where my business was in financial terms. Crucially, it was at this moment that my wife was expecting our second born and due to some complications, she had to be taken to a referral hospital for more specialized care. As fate had it, this medical emergency was a multimillion necessity that had to be fulfilled.  

The Cost of Procrastination 

This vision is how you live your financial life. It’s your personal creed.

At that moment, it never occurred to me that accountants were not business advisers. These employees simply did the math that indicated the direction and amount of assets and liabilities your company had. One morning, I called my chief accountant seeking our company’s financial report. I needed to see how I would harness a quick 3 million-shilling financing for my medical emergency. I was in for a rude shock. 

Apparently, due to our rapid expansion and the attendant expenses, we had over-leveraged ourselves with bank loans and promissory notes which meant we were insolvent. If our three clients had not closed their accounts with us, we would have comfortably paid off our lenders and made a huge profit. It was the type of bad luck that sometimes befalls companies. As a person, I did not have any insurance, emergency funds, savings, or investments. I had believed that these would be taken care of sometime in the future there was no need to worry about it in the present. 

On that date, I was instantly transformed from a jet-setting wealthy entrepreneur to a probable pauper with little idea of where my next meal would come from. To say that I was shocked beyond words would be an understatement. 

Transformative Wealth Education

Procrastination in your financial life is what heart disease is to the average physically unfit Person.

To cut the long story short, it took me about 8 months of readjustment and company reorganization. I was forced to lay off many trusted employees and had to drastically change my lifestyle. It was not an easy decision but it needed to be. I credit my transformation to the lessons I gained from reading Mr. Steve Down Financially Fit For Life book. This was a practical guide that brought me from the gutter to a place of dignity and hope. 

Today, I look back at that experience with gratitude and hope. I am thankful for the realization that I had the power within me to transform any circumstances that I was in. I realized that my financial comfort zone had guided my past choices and decisions and that if I wanted to avoid a repeat of similar circumstances. 

I had to stop procrastinating and earnestly begin planning my financial life. I have now enrolled on the Learning Management System portal at https://financiallyfit.com where I continue getting the wisdom and principle-centered ideas to guide me towards becoming wealthy again. 

I believe the words of Mr. Steve Down when he says, “With Financial Fit for Life, not only can you improve your financial life, you can transform it. You can make a change so dramatic, it will seem as though you became a financial genius overnight!”