My House Almost Burned Down and Why I Don't Care

My Story About Coming An INCH Away From Losing Everything...

This past Wednesday (May 13th) my wife and I had our wedding anniversary.  After dinner, we went to the mall to do some shopping and for a late night movie.  About 45 minutes into the film, my wife got an urgent phone call from her mother saying that our neighbors house is on fire and our house is dangerously close to being torched as well.

My in-laws told us that they got my wife's grandmother and her dog out (they live upstairs from us)... and that they got our 2 dogs out as well. 
We sped back to our house and had to park about 4 blocks away because the smoke was so thick it was very tough to breathe - even the fire could be seen for miles around.

Upon our arrival at the house we were told that our dogs were rescued, but one of them got loose because she was terrified and ran away.  The moment that I heard that, I looked up to see the fire starting to jump from our neighbors house over the alleyway towards our house.  (If you want to see the video on the news click the link below and at the end of the video you'll see exactly what I was looking at - my house being the yellow one on the right...)

http://capitalnews9.com/content/top_stories/369838/fire-in-green-island/Default.aspx

So now I'm staring at what could be my last view of my home and I've got a missing dog...

Luckily we found poor Meadow (the scared basset hound) and our house is still standing.  Sure there's water damage and smoke damage and there's already a fiasco with the insurance companies...  But I wasn't too worried.  I was just happy everyone was safe.  And even if our house had gone up in flames, and I lost everything... I didn't even CARE...

Sure all my clothes would be gone, not to mention my LAPTOP (ie expensive software, marketing info, etc..), TVs and other expensive electronics, all the furniture, and more...

I know that may sound a bit weird, but let me explain...

You see, I HATE my neighborhood...  I've just been STUCK HERE.  Up until NOW my wife and I just couldn't afford to move.  We'd been suffocating in debt for so long, we just didn't have the option to go anywhere else.  So no matter how much I disliked the neighbors, the noise, the domestic bullsh*t, and everything else... we were stuck.

And just to give you an idea, the small neighborhood I live in is generally quiet due to all of the older retired folk that live here.  But most everyone else is white trash.  Seriously.  People have been arrested for building pipe bombs in my little town.  There's still big issues with drugs in the schools.  I could go on and on...

When we moved in I knew that there was no way we were going to raise our kids here, but as the months continued we grew less and less hopeful that we would ever be able to move out...

But then something happened: I got p*ssed off..  I got so angry with my life situation that I decided to do something about it.

Shortly after I started working online to create an income to get me out of this mess, I was fired from my full time job...  this was the beginning of 2008.  My wife and I went through a bunch of crap over the past year, with the culmination of "bad luck" being last week with the fire...

But where most people would have given up a long time ago, we're still standing (oh, and the house is too.. haha)...

You see, so many people let life's drama, disasters, and distractions get in the way.  They take their eyes off of their goals briefly enough so they lose focus not only for a few days, but for weeks at a time.

But a little over a year ago I made a pact with myself:

I would NEVER label myself as a "VICTIM OF CURCUMSTANCE"...

I would never again say "woe is me" and cry on someone else's shoulder.  I would never let an emotional trauma such as the near-catastrophic events of last week steal my attention.

And the interesting thing is, although the fire was Wednesday night and we were up all night long...  Even though we had to stay over night at my wife's parent's house because our house wasn't in a livable condition...  Even though we thought we might lose our house or one of our dogs...

Even with of ALL of this happening through 3am, I was able to wake up on Thursday and have another $1,000+ day in my business.  Around talking to fire inspectors and police detectives, I was on the phone with prospects.  When I wasn't on the phone with prospects or my family giving them updates of the situation, I was on the phone with business partners.

I REFUSED to let an event in my life get in the way of my goals...

==> A long time ago one of my mentor's said something to me that I really didn't understand until that moment a year ago when I made that pact with myself.  He said,

"Don't focus on the PROBLEM.  Focus on the SOLUTION..."

And now it makes so much sense.  It's something in common between many of my mentors.

- Did you hear Mike Dillard bitch about having to sell off his DVD collection so he could afford to eat years ago?  No!  Because DVDs weren't in his ultimate goal!

- Do you hear Jonathan Budd complain about how he was living at home (with his parents) with his savings dwindling down to nothing, wondering if he was going to have to "give in" and get a real job?  NO!  He had a RELENTLESS work ethic and PASSION to get to his goal.

Both of these great leaders were focusing on the SOLUTION...  They weren't focusing on the problem...

Which leads me to "why I didn't give a rat's ass" if my house burned to the ground...

Because living here isn't my "ULTIMATE GOAL"...  If I had to move in to my in-laws or back in to my mom's house with my wife, who cares??  It's only a temporary situation until we move in to our FIRST dream home..

<=== I will continue to fight every single day against adversity, and soon my wife and I live here...

If I lost my TV, XBOX, and 300+ DVD collection: who cares?  When you're a millionaire, sitting in front of the TV is freaking BORING anyways..  We're going to be travelling and enjoying this wonderful world we live in!

If I lost all of my memorabilia (pictures, trophies, and more) from when I was young, NO BIG DEAL!  I'm on track to create FUTURE MEMORIES that will dwarf anything that I've ever seen or dwarf any goals I've previously achieved.

So if you're reading this right now, I hope you've got that RELENTLESS PASSION for your goals as well.  I hope that you're not letting negative events that may seem like they're important NOW, keep you from the FUTURE you've dedicated yourself to building.

Stay focused on your goals and I'll see you at the top!

Adam Holland

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