10. Discuss how you got sick and lost it all at age 31.
Hmmmmmmmm. I don't like to.
After I went "on the straight and narrow" I worked for the Government for a long time (I actually worked for them on and off in between a lot of early shit) and whilst there I started my own management consultancy (amongst other things !!).
One thing led to another, I left the Civil Service and BOOM, I expanded from a 2 man consultancy practice with a business partner, turning over about $250k per year in the first year, to that company, an IT Business Solutions Company, a PC and software supply company, a magazine publishing company and a letterbox distribution company within 2 years, turning over $8mil year.
I was loaded with more money than brains and I was a TOTAL asshole.
Alright.
Cut to the chase.
I was living large and the high life and fast lane was where I remained firmly for quite some time.
I knew that there was something not right with me, but I blamed that on the drugs, the drink, the women, the lifestyle and anything else I could think of.
Oh, and a death wish longer than a elephant's dick.
I was sick. VERY sick.
One day I was walking down the street in town and I just stopped.. felt a bit ill in the stomach and next minute projectile vomited pure blood over a half a dozen peeps in front of me.
Quite fucking funny in hindsight actually... they were horrified and this woman starting screaming and it was all a big fucking circus. I just turned and kept walking.
Soooo...
Off to the doctor I go.
Cancer. throat lining.
Inoperable, metastized to your lymph nodes, 3 - 6 months.
What a fucking cock of a docter !!!
I gave him a mouthful and left.
This is the only time in my life that I was thankful I had money back then - I immediately picked up the phone and found the most pre-emminet specialist in that area in the country, sat down with my business partners that night and explained things and signed Power of Attorneys over evetything for them (note this BIG mistake) and next morning jumped on a plane and went to him.
Horrible time. 6 weeks of intensive radium treatment, 7 weeks of chemotherapy.
100% clean bil of health.
(and no, my voice was like it was for ever, it's not because of this !!!)
Funny thing? I did not lose ONE hair, I GAINED weight and I generally got in all sorts of shit with the hospital staff for, well, or being me ;-)
The single biggest lesson of my life.
Here in this thread or when you see me PLEASE DO NOT say sorry or shit like that, do not compare or share stories or congratulate me or anything like that - it will piss me off. I decided to beat it and I did. It's a mind power thngs. If you can you will. End of story.
And no-one ever knows the right thing to say, so say nothing, even if we share experiences like this, say nothing.
I like it that way.
I had cancer of the soul LONG before it manifested itself physically... that was where the problem was.
NO more correspondence will be entered into and I ask you to respect that.
ANYWAY......
Whilst I was away for the 4 months of treatment (all up) my business partners made some STUPID decisions. They did not sit down and work out a "let's fuck Lindsay" plan, they just fucked up. Too long a story to go into, but the Power of Attorneyy I had given them fucked me. I still to this day do not hold bad feelings towards either of them. They were clueless and fucked up doing shit they had no clue about.
So I come back, refreshed and literally a new man and then hit a 6 month battle trying to hold everything together.
Cancer was easy in comparison.
August 1998, I had $3.78 in the bank and I owed $470000 plus change and owned the clothes I had in 2 bags.
How the mighty fall.
I didn't deserve it then, I do now.
Life is good.
