My marriage was over. I had nothing and nobody.
Some context.
I'd left the military as a failure, got married and moved back to my hometown after being away for nearly 8 years. I'd lost contact with everyone I had known, and only knew her friends. Most of whom I shared a mutual dislike with. I was already virtually estranged from my own family by that point. We're an odd bunch, and the Manson family seem like the Brady Bunch in comparison.
I was stuck in an IT job that I hated, and I knew had no future for me.
I had no safety net and very little money. I had nobody I could trust or rely on.
All I had was martial arts and the people I knew from the places I trained. And training was my life at that point. I was either training or teaching about 9 times per week, including attending a lesson in the early evening and then driving across town to teach one somewhere else later.
When all the wheels came off my marriage, I moved into a 1-room apartment owned by an instructor I knew. I couldn't afford anything else, and he was doing me 'a favour'. (It turned out that he wasn't paying his mortgage, and eventually I met a nice man who came looking for him, who explained that all the rent I had paid wasn't actually legit, and I was going to need to vacate before the bank took the place back.)
I'd found a shithole of a gym that I could rent some floor space in as a base to start teaching my own classes. I had one student - who was in the process of quitting.
Yeah, it was all going swimmingly.
I wanted to quit my job and teach martial arts for a living. It was the only thing that made me feel like I was getting a lungful of air. I was drowning in every other area of my life. I wanted to share that respite with others. I had to find a new place to rent for classes, which I did (at an eyewatering hourly rate), and I started making plans.
One evening that week, I was reading a book by Howard Schultz - the dude who built Starbucks. It was called 'Pour your heart into it.' I flicked the page and came to a sentence that stopped me in my tracks.
Everyone who said they never had a chance never took one.
Nobody was coming to save me. I knew that much. It was going to have to be down to me.
I put that book down and wrote my resignation. Then I picked it up and carried on reading.
A month later, my final day at work arrived. It was a Friday. The weekend happened, but what I had done didn't really, truly sink in until Monday morning. I got up at my usual time, and had a massive panic attack. I'd never had one before. I've only had one since.
I had no real home, not much money, no friends, no help, no income and no idea what to do next. I looked at the phone and imagined (in glorious technicolour) calling my old boss and begging for my job back. Or any job, for that matter. I got a hold of myself and looked out the window.
It was early February, and about three inches of fresh snow covered the ground.
I put on some thermals and a tracksuit, then put my martial arts uniform on over the top. I tied my black belt, grabbed a clipboard and went out into the local high street.
I spent 8 hours out there in the snow, introducing myself to people and inviting them to a free introductory lesson at my new martial arts school. All I needed in return was a name and a phone number. 8 hours of rejection and indifference. But at the end, with soaking shoes and frozen to the bone, I had a list of 20 names and numbers of people who had expressed an interest. That was what mattered. Not the cold. Not how long it had taken. The result.
I got home, warmed up and started calling them to arrange their appointments.
My first year teaching martial arts for a living saw me clear over £70k in profit, and this at a time when most clubs were charging £2 for 2-hour lessons.
I was taught that 'the guy who wins the fight is the guy who is willing to do what the other guy won't.'
What are you willing to do?