"My Favorite Room In The Tiebens' Home"

It has been a rough 90 days for myself and my family.  The good news is that we’re all healthy, have all remained happy and have stayed together!  The bad news is that we made a decision to sell our home of 11 years!

Ever since we made that decision 90 days ago there have been many challenging twists and turns that needed to be dealt with.  They were so challenging that I was on pins and needles most of the time and have experienced a few breakdowns here and there!

Sure… through it all, I have managed to function – continued to attend events, connect with people, encourage my social media friends, empower my clients and still give Garrett and incredible summer experience.

However in the past few days, I decided to take a break and focus on things that mean most to me: MY FAMILY.  In my silence, I have received tons of love and support that I felt a sense of responsibility to share what’s going on.

Some of you may wonder, ‘Wow Emma, this is rather personal… are you sure you want to share this with the world?”  Well, I thought about it long and hard and I decided to do it because of this:

I believe that “We go through darkness so we can tell our stories and guide others to the light”.

Please don’t feel bad for us.  It was a decision we’ve contemplated on for years  but have been putting off because we thought for sure that if I work any harder, we just might be able to pull it off…  My hope for this post is for you to get inspired and somehow learn from the mistakes we’ve made.

Like many “aggressive” and risk-taking investors, we made decisions that proved great 7 years ago and purchased investment properties not anticipating what was to transpire with our economy.  We though for sure we were infallible and NOTHING will happen in the next 20 years!

Boy were we wrong… so with many others…

For the past 2 years I dove in head first learning online marketing, connecting with powerful people, building incredible relationships with them and my favorite part was empowering and helping other entrepreneurs and getting paid for what I love!  Needless to say, I neglected paying attention to what’s really going on, hoping and believing that the market will turn around soon!

Sure we were able to generate enough money to meet our enormous financial obligations to the banks and remained in honor for years and years, sacrificing lifestyle but making a choice to invest more in my business education, pushing forward because through it all, I continue to believe and hold on to my dream.  A dream that one day, I will have a HUGE business that will enable me us to invest again in what we love… residential real estate, gold and silver.

What we didn’t realize was for 4 or so years, we have “chased” a fantasy. We thought that if we only worked harder and seasoned it with time, we will get caught up.  We really believed that the “big money is right around the corner” and it just takes that one big break for us to be able to make our millions and pay of all our financial obligations in lump sum!

In January 2008, we met Dani Johnson for the first time and one principle that we learned from her was  to “Prosper Where You’re Planted…”.  We so got it at that time.  We realized that for us to get “promoted” in the universal sense, we need to be able to progress or succeed with what we have NOW and what we think we’re going to make in the future!

We can’t rely on future earnings, spend it now and expect to generate more…

Please listen to what I am saying here because there is a major lesson here… I am not “preaching” – I just want to drive this important principle as close to home as possible because I this is one of the major lessons we learned in this painful yet rewarding experience!

If you’re an entrepreneur who has mounds and mounds of debt, running around in circles, close to broke but continuing to live an “irresponsible” lifestyle you had prior to becoming broke, spending money you didn’t have with hopes that money is around the corner, I have news for you… YOU WILL STRUGGLE WITH SUCCESS.

It’s the Universal Law of Cause and Effect which says ‘what goes around comes around…” or the Golden Rule “do unto others as you would have others do unto you…” or “what you send out comes back to you tenfold…” I love what Joyce Meyer says all the time:

“YOU CAN’T EXPECT MONEY IF YOU DON’T RESPECT MONEY!”

The Bible says, “To whom much is given, much is expected…”  The irony of it all is that in the Parable of the Talents, the one Steward who was able to invest his money wisely was given more and the Steward who chose to be irresponsible, well, instead of being give more, everything he had was taken away from him!  How’s that for a lesson?

I guess I am sharing this VERY PERSONAL and painful lesson with you because 2 years ago, I heard the lesson and started doing something about it.  However, when things started looking up, I went back to my old ways – to what’s comfortable and somewhat “irresponsible”.

In the process of playing catch up with success and what my mentor Joel Bauer says “living along to get along”, we realized that we were slowly sacrificing something:

QUALITY OF LIFE…

I remember before Gary and I became parents, we would go on 4-5 trips a year as we absolutely love to travel!  When Garrett was born, the destinations changed a bit but we still traveled… we went on cruises, resorts and most of the time, they were top notch and on occasion, we even have our very own butler on board!

However, for the past two years, our family travel has been limited to a few trips here and there.  Gary’s not able take time off work as much as he used to and my time was spent servicing clients, building my online infrastructure,  further my studies via seminars and mentors and invest back into the business and in myself.

In January 2010, when I went to the Internet Marketers Caribbean Cruise I had a ton of fun but there was one thought that stuck in my mind the entire time:

“I wish Gary and Garrett were here…”

It dawned on me that we have not taken any major trips for 3 years!  I remembered always imagining that when we have our child/children, we will be traveling extensively, taking them to see museums, dining in the best places and introducing them to various cultures so they will grow up respecting all cultures of the world and loving the history of those cultures.

But instead, due to time and money limitations, we’ve opted for San Diego, Palm Springs, Santa Barbara… Sure they’re not that bad for most people but for us, we knew it was time to:

Buckle down… re-assess… re-group… learn to “prosper where we’re planted” – be able to live within our means.  We were ready to no longer be:

HOUSE RICH AND CASH POOR…

Quality of life means so much more to us now that Garrett is 8 years old.

And so, on June 2, 2010, after dodging the decision for 2 years, we have painfully decided to put our home of 11 years in the market… a home we helped design, where we have experienced incredibly beautiful memories – the home that housed our dreams.

Here are some photos our our beloved home… while we’re going to miss it, we know it will house a new family who are yet to create beautiful and memorable dreams for them.  I know that the best is yet to come for us!

I have learned a ton of painful lessons and joyful miracles during the past 2 1/2 months from when we made this decision.  I plan on sharing them with you, my wonderful friends and readers in my upcoming blog posts with hopes to inspire you and give those of you who are probably on going through the same experience some tools, techniques and resources to help guide you through this painful though “cleansing” process.

I thank all of you who continue to support and cheer me on as I go through this ordeal… Your friendship and love means sooo much to me!  I am creating this “series” as this is my way of paying it forward…

Cheering You On To Your Success!

Emma

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