My Untold “Entrepreneurial Poverty” Story… Part 1

Posted on December 4, 2020 By Artemis Scantalides

“It’s not that I have the confidence of a warrior, it’s that I act with courage every day and

I make a habit out of it.” ~Mel Robbins

Four years ago, my now husband, Eric, and I spent the holidays 2,800 miles apart.

That year, 4 weeks prior to Thanksgiving, we closed the doors to our gym in Boston, permanently.

Four days after we closed our gym, Eric packed up his car and drove cross country to Las Vegas to accept a job with Cirque du Soleil.

I stayed back in Boston to pack up our house and wait for the movers, while he went to move into the Candlewood Suites, 2,800 miles away on the Vegas strip, and start a new job.

After being with Eric for almost 7 years, living with him for 6, and running a business with him for 5, the house, and my day-to-day life, felt empty and quiet…

Part of me was missing… and I know he was lonely so far away living in a hotel, ALONE, especially during the holidays.

It was a hard time for us…

Not just because we were apart for two months during the toughest time of year to be away from your love, life partner and best friend…

But also, because we had just closed our business and ended the one thing that had been our life 24/7 for 5 years.

We entered that business venture filled with excitement and idealistic optimism that all of our entrepreneurial dreams would come true only to discover that “Entrepreneurial Poverty” was our reality for the entire time we owned our brick and mortar.

You see, even though entrepreneurs are in a sense, superheroes with superpowers because they bring ideas to life and make money off these ideas, “Entrepreneurial Ego” and “Money Shame” prevents entrepreneurs from sharing the reality of their struggles as they sacrifice all of their time and money, and even go into tremendous debt, in order to keep their dream alive.

That was us.

When we started that business, we made MANY mistakes that snowballed into an insurmountable amount of debt that we struggled with every day when we owned our gym and even led us to almost losing our house.

A few of these mistakes included:

We didn’t hire a coach to guide us until over 3 years into our business.

We brought on a business partner who, within 6 weeks, proved to be a liability vs. an asset.

We took on a lease for a space that was far more than we could afford for a space, that was 10x bigger than what we needed for our existing business AND…

We gave our only asset, our condo, our HOME, our roof over our head, as the guarantee to the landlord…

This meant the landlord would get our house if we failed to pay our lease.

This particular decision haunted us until August 2017.

In 2016 we had to make a very tough decision…

We could continue to fight to keep our doors open, or we could have the courage to close the doors, save our house, and start over.

We chose the latter.

We gathered up the courage, closed our doors and faced the shame for all of the mistakes that we had made that drove this decision.

When we closed the doors to our gym, I was two months away from turning 41 and head-to-head with a choice…

I could either wallow in my shame from failure, debt, and almost losing our house…

OR I could choose to have the courage to start over, and do all the things right based upon lessons learned from our past mistakes.

November 2016 through January 2018 was one of the toughest periods of our lives…

If you follow Eric on Instagram and/or Facebook, during his “Sunday Stroll” last Sunday he shared with you that there was a time in 2016 that when he went to sleep, he would be OK if he didn’t wake up the next day…

In 2016 and for the majority of 2017 I had very similar feelings to what Eric shared… I had pretty much, completely given up…

I too felt hopeless.

2020 doesn’t even match the challenges we faced as we rebuilt not only ourselves as professionals and entrepreneurs and financial stability, but also as we rebuilt our self-worth and self-confidence.

We are resilient.

We survived and recovered because despite any shame we were working through, we had the courage to,

get out of bed in the morning…

hold our heads high…

put one foot in front of the other… AND

Create something BETTER armed with the arsenal of knowledge

that we had based upon our past mistakes.

Every Thanksgiving since then I am grateful for,

The roof over our heads…

The food on our table…

Being debt free…

The money in our bank account…

Our thriving business…

BUT MOST OF ALL…

Our past mistakes, that make us better, smarter, and stronger… AND

The courage that we have that helped us to stay strong and have unwavering faith during one of the toughest times of our lives.

The BEST coaches and the most successful business owners and entrepreneurs have been through the fires of hell and survived to tell their story…

Scott Oldford – once a million dollars in debt and now a multi-millionaire at age 29.

Jen Sincero – author of “You Are A Badass” and “You Are A Badass At Making Money” once broke as broke can be at age 41 living in a converted garage in Venice Beach, CA, now a multi-millionaire.

Mel Robbins – author of “The 5 Second Rule”, entrepreneur, mom and wife, once on the verge of bankruptcy at age 41, now a multimillionaire.

Mike Michalowicz – author of “Profit First”, once on the verge of bankruptcy and now a multi-millionaire helping entrepreneurs put profit FIRST and implement the Profit First system so that they never have to experience “Entrepreneurial Poverty”.

Artemis Scantalides & Eric Gahan – Once over a half a million dollars in debt and NOW 4 years later, debt free and the owners of a multiple 6-figure business and growing, helping other entrepreneurs and online business owners build their dream online businesses.

“Nobody achieves great success without walking through the fire.” ~Jen Sincero

As I have worked to heal the trauma and the shame from our experience with “Entrepreneurial Poverty” these successful entrepreneurs, and many others, who have also shared their chronicles of “Entrepreneurial Poverty” and “Money Shame” re-assured me that,

I am not alone…

There is nothing wrong with me…

That you CAN have incredible success after failure…

That your lessons learned fuel the success of your business… AND

That you can help others avoid the same mistakes by sharing your story and helping them.

This is part of our mission at EmpowerU Online Coaching… To help set up fellow entrepreneurs and business owners for success so that they never have to experience “Entrepreneurial Poverty”, EVER.

Do YOU have a story about “Entrepreneurial Poverty” that you have been too ashamed to tell?

If you’re ready and willing to share it, please reply to this post and share it with me. I will keep it in utmost confidence.

Sending Vibes of Positivity & Abundance,

Artemis

p.s. Our 3-Month Mini-Mind group coaching program starts on January 6, 2021. This program is by invitation only, WE WILL NOT BE DOING A PUBLIC LAUNCH.

This program is for online business owners who average $6-$10k and want to lock in consistent $10k months and hit their first $15k and $20k month.

If you’re interested in exploring this coaching program, then either reply to this email or complete an application HERE

In this program, we will help you to,