Travis Reed wrote:SACRAFICE...if you want something bad enough you will sacrafice for it....sometimes its not money you need to pay another farrier for help.....batter..offer to help ease his work load in exchange for learn and run over clients...and many more ways....when someone wants something they find a way to make it happen..
Imagine some violins playing sadly while I tell my little tale of sacrifice. LOL. When I showed up for shoeing school I had scraped and saved every dime to pay the tuition. I might of had 50 dollars to my name first day of class. Not very well thought out, but enthusiasm trumps intelligence at that age and I figured I would find a way to eat. And I did. I trained a couple horses, cleaned stalls, cut grass, groomed horses, and took it upon myself to do everything I could to be an asset around the shoeing school. In return my instructor kept me from starving to death, lol. When my 12 weeks were done, I still had no money, but I got invited to stay another 12 weeks for free and keep on doing like we had been doing. So I did. When I started out on my own, I was renting a 1968 single wide trailer in a cow pasture near Loachapoka Alabama and I had a 3 legged couch a foot locker and a bed and that was it. I was doing ok until my truck broke down and i couldn't afford to get it fixed, so I had to take a job in town cooking chicken to save up money to fix my truck, and I had to walk the railroad tracks 2 hours to get to work. Lost most of my clients. Was surviving on rationed out dry cheerios because I didnt want to carry a jug of milk all those miles on foot. I couldn't afford more propane when my tank ran out so I lived with no heat, just a sleeping bag and my dog (felt sorry for my blue heeler in the cold and tried to zip him up in the sleeping bag with me one night and he freaked out and neither one of us could get out. It was like trying to sandpaper a bobcat's butt in a phone booth). Took cold showers for 2 months thinking I had a gas hot water heater, till one day I turned on the hot water and waited patiently for the first time and to my surprise and forever embarassment I did have an electric hot water heater, lol. Had a pipe bust in the bathroom and had no money to fix it and was too embarassed to let anyone see how rough I was living so I ended up shutting the water off and only turning the well on when I really needed it. Kept 2 5 gallon buckets of water in the bathroom to flush the toilet. Finally saved enough money to get going again, but I was down and out the better part of a winter. When I went back to shoeing school to help out as an instructor I lived in a portable shed on a cot. I bought a gas heater at a yard sale and hooked it up to a propane cylinder and I was pretty comfortable though I had to crack the window for oxygen. I also rented a laundry room in a barn to live in when I started shoeing in Florida. The grooms would come in as they pleased to wash the saddle pads and wraps, and the washing machine drained water all over the floor, often soaking my pile of clean clothes. It was quite a musty smelling place to live. The shower broke once and I had to bathe with a garden hose in a horse stall for a week or 2. Rented a room in Michigan in a boarding house that wasn't much bigger than a closet. Single bed and a suitcase and room leftover to stand up. I then bought an airsteam that nothing worked in, lol. really it was more like an airstream shell. Had to use the community showers at the trailer park. My soon to be wife nearly left me over that living arrangement. Our first night in the airstream that had no air no heat no water no toilet, our bed collapsed, lol. We were pretty miserable. BUT, we traded up. Got a little camper that had a screened in sunroom attached, problem was that the sewage treatment was right next to it and breathing that nasty air in kept us sick. Eventually things got better, lol, they had to. Bought a nice trailer, then later bought a old farmhouse, little did we know it was entirely infested with termites and was about to fall off of its foundation. That was a tough year chopping wood for the fireplaces and trying to keep a sickly baby from dying in the cold. A lot of people would have quit with some of the junk we have been through, but its the hard times that make you appreciate the good times. I think everyone needs to hit rock bottom and be flat broke once in their life, with no one to help and no idea what to do next. It is a great foundation for success, because you get such a fire in your gut to get out of that situation, that fire stays with you throughout your life. Its called work ethic. And it makes you tough. I have had helpers that act like they are going to die if I don't stop to go get lunch, and I think that I often don't think to stop, because all of those years all my brain thought of was work work work, save save save, and eating wasn't a priority. Sacrifice like Travis said. It pays off. I am very thankful that these days I do not have any of the worries that I once had. This post is not directed at Kim, just a soapbox on how nothing worth having comes easy, and if someone else sponsors you thats great, but the ones who pull themselves up by their bootstraps will appreciate it more and build more character in the process. It takes a while to continually re-invest in a business, while providing for dependents but if you want it bad enough anyone can do it. "If it is to be it is up to me" kinda rings in your ear every morning.