I want to let you into a very personal part of my life which was very difficult for me at that moment in the hope that it may bring you some inspiration and hope.
Now please do not get me wrong, I do not tell you this true story to make you feel sorry for me, just so that you may know me better and maybe it will help you with whatever tough time life is throwing your way at the moment.
When I was in my mid 30's, I was going through a tough time, but let’s lay the foundation before going here.
I had what I thought was a lovely girlfriend, have an OK job as a Telesales Executive (a phone salesperson), yeah not the greatest job in the world, but it paid the bills.
This was just before the recession in the late noughties.
I lived above a pub in South London in a place called Peckham, not one of the best areas in London, it was very rough, has lots of crime and violence.
If you cannot hear a Police, Ambulance or Fire Engine siren while you are in Peckham within a few minutes, you are in the wrong place, it is siren city!
Obviously, Peckham has its good things, it has some amazing characters from all walk of life, great pubs, palm trees, (yeah see the picture, this is a bit of a local joke, don’t ask, no one knows!)
You also had to be careful, who you trusted and who you associated with, you had to be guarded.
Any sign of weakness was pounced upon, so you had to come across as strong, but not too strong, that could get you killed.
Someone asks you for the time or for a light of a cigarette, you better keep on walking if you know what’s good for you.
Obviously, some people genuinely are asking these things, but be careful, because gangs use women as bait here to mug you or worse.
When you get mugged here, they beat you or stab you just as an extra special gift to you, how sweet of them.
No one escapes criminality here, women, young girls and old men are beaten here weekly, this is just life.
Walking down the street and having to find an alternative route, because someone has been shot or stabbed is not abnormal on an almost daily basis.
These crimes are numerous every day almost, most do not make the news as they are so common.
Gangs are prevalent in this part of London and no matter how big you think you are, you are nothing here, just another potential victim.
The place also had a lovely side to it, I would drink quite often these days, at least once to three times per week, I had a large group of let’s call them pub friends.
I could go out into a handful of pubs in the area alone any day or time and end up drinking with a bunch of people I knew and having a great time until often 4am plus in the morning, I always loved a party.
I quite liked my life at this point, I was not rich, but I thought I was rich in other ways.
I had a good group of friends, pub friends, and my life socially was amazing, I had a job and I was in what I thought was a happy relationship.
Then the recession hit!
Almost immediately I lost my job even though I was one of the top sellers in this company, they had to lay people off.
So, I was jobless, I was never taught how to save money and the importance of doing so, so I had no money to fall back on.
I struggled to pay my rent and eventually lost my room above the pub.
Now to be honest although I was panicked, I did not miss the place, it had cockroaches in the kitchen, I hated the place but felt like I could not move, due to having very little money.
Obviously, I did have money while working but my priorities were all wrong, partying came first!!!
So here I am just about to lose my home, so I turned around to my Girlfriend at the time and asked to move in, we had been dating for about 2 years by this stage, just until I got back into work.
She lived in Camden Town, which is in North London.
So, I moved in and it was great like most new things for a little while.
The work was still not available due to the recession, everyone was trying to find a new job, it seemed like the whole city had been let go and was looking for employment.
You had middle managers applying for cleaning jobs, people were desperate for work.
So, weeks, turned into months and months turned into 9 months later.
My Girlfriend was not there most weekends, she would visit her mother and father or so I thought.
Well anyway, her Mum dies about 9 months after moving in and she attends the funeral without me, the mother and I never really got on, so out of respect, I did not attend.
About a month after the funeral, my girlfriend tells me she met someone else at her Mum’s funeral and she has been having an affair ever since.
Obviously, I was heartbroken, I loved this woman to bits.
She then proceeded to tell me I had to go immediately.
The next thing I remember after completely breaking down was standing on a street in the cold winter rain, thinking what the hell just happened.
I was in total disbelief with literally the clothes on my back and nothing else, I think I had maybe some loose change in my pocket, but not enough to get a bus somewhere, less than a pound or a dollar for my international friends.
I remember standing in total disbelief in what just happened and where I now was, I was just standing there for about 25 minutes, not knowing what to do and being swallowed up by all these negative emotions, which were all assaulting my senses at once, it was overwhelming, to say the least.
I started walking obviously visible upset, I was finding it hard to hid my emotions as I started walking towards the centre, Camden High Street.
By the time I had got the Tube Station (Metro), I had decided I need to switch off and go into survival mode if I was to get through this.
Now the only choice I had was to go to where my pub friends were and maybe beg to sleep on someone’s couch that night.
Having no money, I had to walk the just under 7 miles or 11k. This gave me a lot of time to think!
Now the negative motions would come in waves and then go, but through it all, I managed to focus on my one goal, to get to home in Peckham.
It is surprising how you go into survival mode and prioritize the thing that is most important and to me at that time, it was to get a bed for the night, hopefully in a warm house out of the cold.
Now for those who are not familiar with the weather here in the UK, sleeping outside in November can easily kill you!
It’s cold enough to get hyperthermia in the winter here.
So that is exactly what I did, I did find a friend, a kind woman who agreed to let me sleep on her couch for a few days, to get myself together.
I stayed with this friend for a few days which allowed me to digest what happened and plan my next move.
Trying to get into a homeless hostel in London was difficult, to say the least, there just was not the room, due to the recession, a lot of people became homeless.
The recession hit everyone from all walks of life, it was not unusual to have middle managers on the street, they say you are only two paychecks away from homelessness.
I had a little brother and a sister who lived in Cambridge, I had lived there previously for a few years before, so this was my next destination.
I knew it was a beautiful place to live and it would be easier to get into a hostel there and out of the cold. I knew I had to get there somehow to stand a chance of not dying of either the cold or starvation.
So, I decided to make the trip and walked to Kings Cross Station, I found out what train I needed and I stood near the barriers waiting for people to go through to the trains.
As I had no ticket, I need to be creative.
My only focus at this point was to get on that train no matter what, if I get thrown off, I walk to wait for the next train, I would have even walked all the way if that’s what it took.
So, I decided to wait for a gentleman to go through and I would get so close to him the barrier would still be open enough that I could slip through, if I bumped into the person I would apologise somehow and hope he did not tell on me.
I have never been so scared in my life, not only was I breaking the law, but I was doing things that were way out of my comfort zone and moral values, but I had no choice.
Nothing would have stopped me achieving this mission I had set myself on, I was laser-focused on this one thing.
To cut a long story short, I got Cambridge without a ticket inspector turning up, now I just had to get through the barriers at Cambridge Station, luckily for me, they were wide open, so I strolled through feeling very relieved.
So here I am in this beautiful city I now call home.
But I was still unemployed sleeping on my brother's sofa.
I managed to get into a homeless hostel within about 4 months.
I need to get a job, I needed some money to get myself out of this situation.
I had been out of work for quite a while, so I need something to plug the gap in my CV (Resume).
I decided I would volunteer and this would look great to an employer and it would take some emphasis off the employment gap on my CV.
I thought about what could I do.
One of my past careers was an Advanced Gym Instructor.
I would go to my local YMCA organisation as I heard they needed volunteer instructors.
I started that week, offering a few days a week of my time instructing people who were Stroke Victims, or had Cystic Fibrosis or people with other disabilities.
I loved every minute of it, and I was quite successful, I would use mindset and belief in my coaching and I got some amazing results with my clients.
I did not just train their bodies, but I would train their mind, I used every bit of NLP and psychological I had obtained over the years about belief and overcoming circumstances I could.
I would sow the seeds into their minds, and let their subconscious minds and their bodies do the rest.
I remember walking in the gym one morning to train a guy who was in his sixties now and had very a very limited range of motion in his arms and hands.
By this stage I had been training this man for nearly a year, he starts crying.
I ask him what’s up, “is everything OK?”.
And he turns around to me and says, “Yes Zimbola
, I am crying because I am happy”
He tells me that because of my belief in him and training him, he can now manage to shave without any help and he wanted to say thanks to me for giving him this.
I tell him that it was not me.
it was him who did this and it was his belief in himself that he did not have to stay the same so he could improve.
You know it affected me more than I knew, I left that day and when I got home, I cried the moment I got home as the amount of emotion that came over me was intense, to say the least.
I did not realise how such a small act could have such a profound effect on someone else's life in a positive way.
I did not expect to be that affected by this what I considered a small act, my duty as his trainer to help him with the knowledge I had obtained over the years.
He was not the only success story, but I had a few failures too and you know the only difference between them was the ones who improved rapidly believed they could
and the ones who did NOT improve were the ones who did NOT believe.
I had to find a job, not long after this, so had to give this up, but I loved helping people.
I managed to save enough money to get myself out of the hostels and I landed a good job with a local University.
I worked my way out of a bad situation and that is what brings me to where I am today.
That was 7 years ago!
Never let a situation you are in, beat you or define you, never let your past dictate your future.
Who you are today will be very different to who you are a year down before.
If you invest in yourself and your future by learning new things, new skills, new ways of thinking and read books.
The knowledge you will gain will create amazing things in your life, never give up, fight and focus, if you get lost, refocus and come back.
The lessons I personally took away from this part of my life is:
- When things seem insurmountable tough, focus not on the issue at hand, but on the solution.
Look ahead, there is no point looking behind, that's done and that is just the way it is, you cannot change it or take it back.
Focusing on the issue will only keep you where you are in the past.
Focusing on the solution will take you forward to your future. - Be laser focused on one thing at one time - Don't spread yourself too thin.
If you go after or try to do too many things, you will not be that successful in any of them, but if you focus on one thing until it's done, you have a great chance of success. - Do not underestimate your worth to other people and the world, you are amazing, unique and more valuable to others than you realise.
You have unique knowledge, experiences, and ways of thinking that can help others. - Have belief in yourself and your mission.
I hope you found some inspiration from this small section of my life!
Hi zimbola! Good old peckham 😂 my family were from peckham but moved even more south before I was born😊 Great to have you on steemit!
I admit I didnt read this post all yet, im a bit busy at the mo!
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Ill upvote it when my vote is worth something again lol, we run out of votepower if we upvote too much daily lol. I also got fucked off with the recession but decide to start living like a nomad instead and becoming free from society, much better quality of life the last 9years! No rent, no banks , no post,no bills, no debt, and no contracts, perfecto!
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Thanks for learning something
you can ask me when you have a question on something about here!