My House Caught On Fire… A True Story
I'm not going lie to ya, my fire was nothing like this one.
My friggin house caught on fire. It was the most devastating and intense time of my life. This all happened just over a year ago.
The story goes like this. Two years ago I had a million dollar idea(I am still working on it).
I worked on it day and night and finally after a year, I started seeing some results. If you have recently been through my Personal Trainer Business Bootcamp you probably remember me talking about residual income and multiple streams of income.
If you don’t remember, I don’t blame you, some of you have not heard from me in a year. I apologize for that.
So anyways, a goal of mine was to retire at 30 for as long as I can remember. I tend to be an overachiever… I’m sure you are too.
Well last year, sometime in September, I was able to walk away from my job and live off of my passive income streams that I had created for myself.
I was 29, excited, and on top of the world. I had a vacation planned from Mexico to Peru with my girlfriend with no time frame to come home. We were all set to leave in October.
We were days away from our epic adventure, when it turned ugly…
We came home from a Thanksgiving dinner (Thanksgiving is in October up here in Canada) and when I opened the door to my house, black smoke hit me in the face.
It actually knocked me back a foot…
Within a split second I knew my house was on fire!
My heart beat jumped up well past the fat burning zone. I yelled to my girlfriend to call 911 while I got out the cat, grabbed the neighbors fire extinguisher and tried to enter the garage. The smoke was so thick everywhere, I was completely helpless.
30 minutes later a dozen firefighters are ripping down walls, cutting holes in my brand new roof, and blasting hundreds of gallons of water into my bedroom. It sucked, to say the least…
But at least they left me a real cool axe.
While watching the firefighter cut the hole in my roof, I joked to the police officer standing beside me that the new hole in my roof would make a nice skylight. It did, I actually put in two skylights. (I guess that might be the silver lining)
So long story short, my trip got delayed and my life took a different turn then I thought it would.
My priorities shifted quickly. I spent days and night working with contractors fixing my house, adding an extra bedroom, putting in skylights and trying to get my life organized again.
By mid January I was exhausted. I needed a break from life. Do you ever feel like that?
I needed a change of scenery, so I packed my bags…
Thats me at Mardi Gras
After a couple months in New Orleans,(I really liked it there so I stayed) I went south to surf and enjoy the beaches in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. I needed to remove myself from society and just c-h-i-l-l out.
A couple months later I headed to Ecuador. I always wanted to explore the Amazon and the Andes, so why not.
I had a lot of time to think, regroup, and plan my life for the next decade or so. I wanted to help more people; after going through such devastation and making it out financially sound I realize that I can help a lot of people. And honestly, I think people can use some financial help in this economy.
Had I not set myself up to have my Fitness Business run on autopilot I would have been broke.
Somewhere along my travels I realized the need to get my message out in the best possible way. So I created this blog while traveling through tropical paradise, I honestly don’t remember when I started working on this but I have been turning out great content on running a successful fitness busines for a while now.
It’s about time I showed it too.
Honestly, I have this internet, business, and marketing thing figured out. It allowed me to skip town for nearly a year, in fact, I am leaving in a couple week to dodge this Canadian winter once again.
But enough about me, I want to focus on you. And thats really what this message is about. So lets start with the basics.
You want more clients right?
Good, so check this out.
Its my latest blog post on Fitness Marketing. I call it Essential Tips for Personal Trainers.
Expect to hear from me again because I am back and ready to bring you more valuable tips on taking your business to the next level.
Now it’s your turn, show me that you’re alive and tell me what you have been up. Comment below and then head on over to Fitness Marketing: Essential Tips for Personal Trainers.
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To Your Success,
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What Do You Think Of This Article?
I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Post your comment below.
That is one crazy story.
Man that’s so cool that you just packed up and left. What was your favorite spot you went? I have always wanted to go to Costa Rica.
@Tailor
Tailor, I would have to say my favorite spot was Costa Rica in the Arenal Volcano area. We say lava spit from the 10th most active volcano in the world.
The place we stayed backed onto 1000’s of acres of tropical rain forest.
The rain was a nice change from the extremely hot weather in Nicaragua.
Quito was also really cool in Ecuador but I am not a big fan of huge cities with millions of people and heavy pollution.
Wow that is amazing. Is the fire one of those things you and your girlfriend look back on and laugh about, or does it still just mostly suck? at least you got an awesome trip afterwards….
@Marco
the fire still has some long lasting annoyances. Like when we got home we didn’t have a bed, or a cutting board, or a…. (insert lots of little things you own here) and our other house was filled with our belongings in a very unsorted kind of order. It’s still disorganized and I am packing again to head south in the next few weeks.
But looking back now I actually had a few months of seclusion that I really enjoyed. I moved into the neighbors basement suite. My girlfriend went and stayed with some family a month and a half before me and I lived with very little possessions and took on a new profile.
I worked every days as a contractor(or home improvement guy). Sometime I would work till 3 in the morning, sleep till noon and then start working again. A couple old friends helped me paint and other odd jobs and I reconnected with those friends which was great.
I learned a lot of new skills and did something different for a while, which fired me up to take my life and business to a new level.
It is what it is and what you make of a situation is more important than the situation itself.
Thanks for the comment.
Casey
Casey, throughout your misfortunes you never lost hope, instead you pursued what you wanted and kept going until you achieved it. You are going to achieve big goals. Your are great inspiration.
I know what you went through Casey, our ancestral house caught on fire too. Was not able to save anything. Nobody was hurt. I think that’s the most important.
Great story, Casey! Getting back on track is one of the hardest things to do after a tragedy. I can’t imagine losing all my equipment in a fire. Just thinking about it gives me the chills.