Self motivation, articles and advice

What hurt me the most was the action of the broker that walked away with funds that he admitted had set him up in his new broking business. A man that I had trusted for years on a handshake. I hope to be judged not by how successful I have been at times but how I cope with failure and recovery from adversity.

We have picked up all the financial and emotional pieces. I have salvaged some of the assets of the failed vending business. I count that a successful failure as we had just paid for the last units. Any debt could have sunk any hope. I have saved as much as possible from salary to add to this and built up assets by using my old skills trading in the stock market. To add to leverage I have borrowed a Rand for every Rand we have saved to add to my trading opportunity in the markets. I am fortunate in equity selection using my old experience and skills and have rebuilt an equity stake in 12 months to a comfortable level at which I do not feel threatened.

The past is history; the future is another day and another opportunity. I start every day enthusiastically as it represents another step back to success. I work on my share portfolio almost every night until midnight and I don't seem to tire. Heaven alone knows where the energy and drive comes from. I don't. I sit here now with my daughter, creating this website as another limb of the rebuilding of our lives. I hope that relating my experience here is the catalyst that demonstrates that in spite of a string of cataclysmic failures, if one has the drive, the motivation and persistence, adversity can be overcome. If you can do this and if this story and any affiliated material or product on this website contributes to motivate that success, then I will also have succeeded in what I set out to do.

In telling my story I hope that I can succeed in erecting a beacon of hope to those who might visit this website in the state of mind I was in when I was at the lowest spiritual level I have ever reached. It is easy for me now to advise them not to lose hope when my star is in the ascendancy. It is much more difficult to accept what has happened when you are bleeding from the emotional and material losses and face a bleak future.

Others who might read my story might not face the same critical challenges but what I have set out to do here is to demonstrate to those who care or are interested that the road to success might well be paved with adversity but you can create your own hope.

This work could never have been completed successfully without the technical expertise and encouragement of my daughter Niki. When I came to sit down and commit to paper the story of my failures and my experiences, I wondered who would be interested if I had failed or succeeded anyway. She encouraged me to continue. She drew down from the internet, reams of motivational advice and solutions from the professionals, taken from the lives of others. They were relating the lessons of life learned from those that had been there. She convinced me that the story of one person's real life sorrows, joys and achievements would be more inspirational and of more practical value than all the hundreds of pages of professional advice.

I realized then that I might have a story of value to share. My story is the story of my life and I have been there. These were my own experiences where the principles of survival and success have been applied and they work. If I can hold the hand of someone who is, where I was, then I know that I will have made a difference.

Success is but a short step up from failure and is only separated by a state of mind.

Alec

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