I didn’t need that much. Twenty grand would do it. That would cover my outstanding credit card balances. And leave money for food and a few new things for Leo. Maybe a little break away from things for the two of us.
Somewhere in the back of my head, a voice cautioned me. “This is a line of credit you have no way of repaying.”
I knew it was dangerous, yet the very next day, I found myself in the bank signing on the dotted line. I was doing what was necessary, I told myself: feeding my child and myself, and building a business which would ultimately give me true autonomy and financial independence.
Though I had expressly told the bank that I only needed
$20,000, it was around 8 p.m. when I checked my account and found they had deposited $50,000 into my account! I blinked several times, my eyes struggling to adjust to the number I was staring at. It sat there, reclining… seductively almost. Luring me in. I knew I should ring the bank and have them reverse the deposit back to the amount I had requested, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. You may only really understand how it felt for me in that moment if you yourself have had so little that it’s a toss-up between petrol in the car, food on the table, or paying the rent. The feeling of that deposit washed over me like a hot shower on a freezing cold morning. The relief was absolute.
I read back over these words now and am gob-smacked at my folly. When I think of people who are suffering far greater hardships than me, women who flee from violent partners in the dead of night and wind up homeless, and people who lack the skills or education or social connectivity to make a living for themselves and their families, I’m ashamed of the way I behaved, and yet I feel compelled to share my story because, although I can’t be sure, I don’t think I’m alone. And as relatively ‘first world problem’ as my predicament may appear on paper, when I was in it (in those first 18 months after I had separated), I felt like I was truly drowning. People have asked me: “Where were your friends in these tough times?” True, many of my friends have plenty of money. They are business owners, CEOs, senior executives, lawyers, and bankers, but I’ve always been excellent at keeping up appearances. After all, the show must go on. So, whilst my friends on the whole understood that trying to build a business and get ahead was tough on a single parent, my public persona was not the ‘woe is me’ variety, and only a few of my closest friends knew the true extent of my financial woes. Once, only once, did I ever bring myself to accept a cash loan.
It was one of the hardest things I have ever done, and I only did it because I was cornered by a couple one weekend when I was at their house in the country.
Here I was in this gorgeous country setting, sipping French rose under the wisteria-covered gazebo. Normally, this would have been a time of great jocularity, relaxation, and idle chatter, but I was frozen inside. I knew that waiting back in Sydney would be a letter from the real estate company asking me for the remainder of the previous month’s rent, and with the next month’s payment looming. I had been putting them off by paying the rent in increments – one week at a time – but I was slipping further and further behind. And there I was with two of my closest friends, pretending nothing was wrong, but the weight of my predicament was suffocating me.
Leo was with me that weekend, and was also withdrawn and acting out of character. Normally bouncing around in the river with their dog, this weekend he had found a tomahawk in the shed and had declared ‘viking war’ on the lemons that had fallen from their two lemon trees. My friends glossed over it with a ‘boys will be boys’ humorous observation, but I knew they were a little disturbed. And perhaps more so by the fact that I was doing little to nothing to address it. I can’t claim to be Mother of the Century, but allowing a ten-year-old to go rogue with an axe was out of character even for me. They prodded, and I fell apart.
As much as the shame of articulating my situation was hard to cope with, it was their immediate kindness, compassion, and generosity (not only offered, but insisted upon) that was almost too difficult to bear.
I have since paid them back.
Life would have looked very different if it were not for the love and generosity of my dear friends and family. Many other friends helped me through the slim times in other ways – dinner invitations (free food and wine), client and job referrals, weekends away at various beach and country houses, items of furniture, you name it. They know who they are, and I love them all so very much. My gratitude to each and every one of them is deep and eternal.
From the outside, my business was definitely taking shape. I had the catchy name “Pitch Perfect Training” (pre-movie franchise of the same beginning phrase). I had the great LinkedIn headshots. I had a small handful of Senior Exec-level clients at a large global public relations firm, and off the back of being introduced to several of their clients, I’d already started to build both a portfolio and my reputation as a Tier One Executive Coach. I was also blogging and posting articles across a range of business sites and building my presence as a speaker at events, along with making semi-regular television appearances as a commentator and resident ‘etiquette guru’.
As any small business owner (and particularly a sole trader) will tell you, if you’re working in your business to make money, you’re not growing or developing. And if you’re working on building your business (chasing and meeting potential clients, blogging, engaging in web development, creating a sales funnel, networking, or developing content – all the brand building stuff, all of which is equally important), then you’re not on your feet generating the actual income you need. I was doing it all, and it was definitely happening... just not fast enough.
It was some months later, when I was struggling to pay my web developer and graphic designer, that I received another letter from the bank. They’d obviously enjoyed lending me the first
$50K, so they’d decided to offer it again.
You remember that slippery slope I talked about earlier? I’d just taken a tumble. It was perilously easy to do it again. With a simple signature – even though this time I requested only $10,000 – less than 24 hours later, there in my account sat yet another $50,000.
Again, why did I not mitigate the damage being done by ringing the bank and demanding they take back the $40K I hadn’t asked for? Why didn’t I (couldn’t I) see the disaster rapidly approaching? I was just trying desperately to outrun my own predicament. Moving too fast to notice, to see what was happening
– or was I just too scared to look? I kept hoping and praying that the momentum at which I was travelling – the sheer force of will I had – would see me outrun this catastrophe in the making.
It was okay (I kept telling myself) because my business was growing (I repeated to myself). Which was true; it was. I was getting paid anywhere between $1,500 and $3,000 for a day’s coaching, but without going into a spreadsheet-level profit and loss statement – which is NOT what this book is about – suffice to say, it was not stacking up.
Put simply, my outgoings exceeded my income, significantly. Add to that the accumulating interest from a business overdraft, and what had seemed like a life buoy thrown to save me was rapidly becoming the cement boots that threatened to drag me under. You see, it works like this. Every time the bank advanced my
$50,000, the interest I had to pay on the compounding loan compounded along with it. Pretty soon, my interest charges alone were in the realm of $2,500.00 per month – and that was before I’d paid rent, put food on the table, or gotten petrol in the car.
Since then, I have asked myself many times how the bank continued to not just allow (but actively encourage) this to happen. Clearly, I was in deep shit, yet no one raised the red flag. Things are very different now in Australia in the wake of the Banking Royal Commission, but back then, the money was too easy to get – and in the circumstances in which I found myself, I was too willing to take it.
I was, however, determined to turn