Today is a particularly emotional day for me. Today is the day I’ve qualified at the top rank of my company. It wasn’t easy let me tell you. I had to make a massive decision – probably one of the biggest decisions I’ve ever made. I want to share it with you.
If you are reading this and grew up in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s then you will know what a Holden Torana is. My Mum drove one as a company car in the 70s and my first car was a Holden Torana (and I still own that very car to this day) that I purchased back in 1990. I had another one. A very rare one. A two door what they call “SS”. I’ve owned the car for 22 years’. Towards the end of last year I realized that I needed to make a rather large investment in order to qualify at the top rank in my company in order to unlock the largest profit centre. I was 2/3rd of the way there and knew that I was faced with one of three options – selling something I owned or borrowing the money in order to do or making enough sales and saving up the money. My husband wasn’t overly keen on extending the mortgage or putting it on our Gold AMEX card. So I slept on it, prayed about it, thought about it, was emotional and chose to sell my Holden Torana SS.
Now to begin with, I thought the emotions of it would quickly disappear as it would sell fast. I felt I was asking a reasonable price for it and given there have only been about 5 listed for sale in the last 6 months’ – I figured I was in a good position. Mistake number 1 – being cocky. The fact is that the car took 5 months’ to sell. And let me tell you I had to kiss a LOT of very ugly frogs in order to get there. It is considered an Australian “muscle” car and drew a lot of tyre kickers and ‘wannabes’ out of the woodwork. It got to the point a few weeks’ ago that I walked my dogs around my property yelling out to God that I had had enough of it. I didn’t want to speak to one more time waster. I had a huge vent and then left it. I told a friend of mine on FB Messenger that I had had enough. I didn’t want to do this anymore. I couldn’t – I was worn down.
Then as if out of nowhere – my prayers were answered. A guy I had been chatting to for about a week or so suddenly calls me up, says he is happy with the 80 photos I sent him and was ready to make an offer. Initially the offer was nowhere near where I wanted and I told him I really wasn’t negotiable. In the end he offered $1,500 less than what I was asking (after reducing the price 3 times), which was $4k more than his initial offer. I was pretty happy with that and with that he immediately transferred a pretty hefty sum of money into my account immediately. I got off the phone and screamed with pure delight and joy knowing that I had got the job done. A week later, he sent up a truck to pick it up with the balance in cash in a brown paper bag (yep – I felt like a drug lord counting it all).
Today I made the trip 20 minutes’ away to my bank’s branch to complete the online transfer to secure my position within my company. I was shaking I’ll admit when I had to sign the form. I was still shaking when I got back in my car and even when I arrived home. I’ve spent a fair bit of time this afternoon just wandering around not really knowing what to do exactly. I know I have to get back on with things but I’m feeling a flood of emotions. I’ve cried my tears of grief some months’ ago so that didn’t really figure into it.
The enormity of my decision has hit me this afternoon. I’m one of only a few hundred in my company to have achieved this rank, to make the decision and follow through. It means I can now sell the higher end products in my company’s product line and earn all of the profits rather than passing them up. It’s huge. I even get a couple of overseas trips out of it too! So why am I telling you all of this. I’m telling you that sometimes you need to make sacrifices of the smaller things in order to achieve the bigger things. Yes it’s tough. No question – but I know this is the absolute right thing to do and I know that I can always buy another SS Torana in the future. The buyer is the right guy – he has in fact offered me to visit him and his 35 other cars and keep me posted on the progress of building mine up to what he wants. The car had become a part of me and my story but now it’s time to create a new story. A new future. A new me. I feel different for not just making the decision but for following through with it. I’ll be invited up on stage later on in the year (hopefully) at one of our events to share my achievement. It’s massive and so much more than simply “buying in”. It’s making a leadership decision and taking the relevant action required to see it to its outcome. It’s massive. I’m a bit nervous excited because I know all of the attention it will attract and I’m ready to be humble about that.
So I challenge you today. What can you get rid of that you could use to propel you to new heights? Everyone has at least something worth $5k in their homes that they could sell and invest it into their own personal growth and/or business. What have YOU got lying around that you haven’t looked at or used in years’ that you know could raise you up? Do it – do it today. Don’t put it off. Feel the emotions and just do it anyway. Your Future Self is waiting to guide you around this. Take the chance on yourself. Take the risk. Rise to the challenge. That is true success.