My Challenges

There have been many significant things that have happened to me in my life, but one of the most significant things that have happened to me in the last 5 years is probably losing my job last June.   I embarked on a journey that would hopefully change my life forever.   I decided to start my own business.   It was the beginning of an uncertain future, one that would make me understand what it is to struggle and to have the finer things in life. Losing my job and the struggles I went through to start my business have really impacted my life.
This is so significant to me because for the longest time I dreamed of owning my own business.   Working for myself and eventually one day having the financial freedom we all dream about.   I had been in the staffing/recruiting industry for about 8 years now.   I was working for an offshore company handling there offshore personnel.   I had been with the company for 2 years when it was affected by the down turn of the economy.   Then shortly after that we had the BP explosion that really hurt business and just about all offshore oil rigs had to be evacuated due to the oil spill and government shut down not allowing drilling or any offshore work temporarily.   We lost a lot of business during that time and so there was no need for any longer at my job.   The day came when I was told I was being laid off.   I remember it clearly because it was after the weekend on a Monday. I had just come back from lunch when my boss Niels called me into the office.   I walk into his office and sat down, Niels looks at me and says “Pete, I know you probably had a feeling that this was coming, but we are going to have to lay you off.” I wasn’t too surprised when he told me.   Luckily I was given a sovereigns package so I wasn’t too impacted.   The real struggle was yet to come.
After I got laid off with my longtime friend we started talking about going out on our own and starting our own staffing company.   We knew it wouldn’t be easy as first but we knew...