0
0
Last year, I quit my full-time job, closed my coaching practice, rented my condo to great tenants and moved to Europe to explore my wildest dream of moving to Spain and Portugal. Life took an amazing turn for me when I pioneered this new path of intentional creation and flow. It seems nothing can go wrong.
I came back to the US in the summer of 2007 not knowing what would happen next for me. Will I start my coaching practice again or will I have a full time job.? After sitting in dormancy for about a month, my answer seems to have found me rather than searching for it. Previous coaching clients started contacting me and I decided to explore entrepreneurship full time: my other extreme dream.
The stars were in my eyes but there was no more money in the bank! I was living off the savings I had hoarded before I left the reputable government job, not to mention spending some good change to build new websites and more. Then I got the call. “Hey Laurie, this is your tenant. I’ve been promoted and will be moving out in three months.” Nowadays, laptops come with high quality graphics card. My rock-solid tenant was giving it up for greener pastures. As a coach, I immediately thought, “I need to get to work! Let’s start putting these ads out now.”
And so I did. New ads popped up daily letting the crowd of potential renters know that the jerkiest apartments for rent were on the market. But, after one month, no one was biting. The second month came and the third month entered, which made me panic.
Bottom line, I was counting on this new tenant to make my mortgage payments. I was having a bit of a panic attack as you can imagine!
Then the day came when one of the girls called me indicating that she was very interested in renting my place. While some hesitation entered my stomach right away, I chose to listen to my desperation rather than my intuition. Fatal mistake number one.
I asked her to complete a rental application but some things didn’t seem to leave. I called the potential tenant and told her I couldn’t contact the current owner on the phone to which she replied that she had given me the wrong number by mistake. I never received the “correct” number. The second fatal error.
In the middle of January 2008 this new tenant moved out. Well, to put it simply, it wasn’t a cake. She hasn’t paid rent since March (and initially got March’s rent check back). Well, she was hard to deal with (and that’s an understatement) but there was so much I learned.
The truth is: life presents us with some swipes and we are forced to make choices. So I ask: When you get knocked on your ass, what do you do?
Do you turn your back on your dreams and passions when life creeps up on you?
Do you blame others for accidents, mistakes, and difficult situations?
Do you examine the role you played in the difficult situation or do you blame others?
– How do you know where to look to see where your responsibility was in the scenario?
Do you play the role of the martyr and/or the victim?
How do you write the story? Do you rewrite it or do you always live it the same way?
As I sat with myself and witnessed what was going on, I realized the role I had played in making this nightmare tenant situation pay off in my life. I have this saying that “despair meets despair,” meaning I was desperate to find a lodger and she was desperate to take advantage of someone; So, we were a perfect match!
During this very difficult time, this tenant showed me the path to true stretching of self and personal development. Now, have you considered this the perfect way to learn? Admittedly, it was tough! I have spent many sleepless nights. But, as crazy as that sounds, I’d like to ask it to be that way because sometimes “hard” experiences are the best teachers. We tend to have deeper and more lasting learning as a result of life-altering lessons.
Today, I found out that the tenant is contesting the eviction. At first, I was very disappointed and started crying. Besides, I was angry. I thought, “How dare you? Who do you think she is?” I had to ask myself these tough questions again, including: What do I have to learn here? What is the gift?
Answer: Sometimes life doesn’t happen the way we want it to and guess what? This is how it’s supposed to happen~
