Yesterday, one of my oldest friends “John” called me in a moment of pure panic and desperation…
He hadn’t been able to fall asleep for the past six months…
He was no longer able to work, and was down to his last two months of cash.
His nervous system was on fire, and his world was crumbling around him.
I know exactly how he feels…
This screenshot above is what my bank account looked like in 2019 after perfect storm of events left me nearly penniless.
I wanted to finally share this story with you today because you never know what someone else is going through, or what you might have to endure yourself one day.
If you should find yourself in a similar storm I hope that you’ll pull this out, read it to the very end, and use it as a spiritual and emotional life-raft. 🙏
My story begins in 2015 when I was 38 years old…
I’d built three 8-figure publishing companies by that point in my career, and I was ready to take on a bigger challenge…
I had two ideas that lit my heart on fire…
The first… To develop the world’s first fully-automated hydroponic system for home food production…
The second… To turn SelfMadeMan.com into the SkillShare of entrepreneur education…
Over the next three years, I put millions of dollars into creating both.
I don’t know the exact figures, but it was probably around $3MM for the the development of the hydroponic system prototype, and another $1MM to build the SMM e-learning platform.
Normally, creating either one of these products would involve raising tens-of-millions in venture capital…
I was funding 100% of both by myself.
When you consider that my publishing business had a 33% net-profit margin, that means the $4MM in cash that I put into these two new ventures, actually required me to make around $12MM in revenue.
In other words, I went all in.
I continued to poor every penny I had into both of these projects, and had no reason to doubt their eventual success…
But Then The “Click” Happened…
It was Wednesday, June 13th of 2018…
I was sitting on the couch taking a break from work when I felt a little click in the back of my skull. It didn’t hurt, but something wasn’t right…
It felt like a circuit breaker in my brain had just tripped…
And that was the day that everything changed.
I couldn’t physically fall asleep for a single minute for the next 7 days.
I can tell you right now that being kept awake without a single minute of sleep for an entire week is a kind of torture unlike anything you can imagine.
In desperation I had my doctor call in scripts for Ambien and Valium.
The first night I used them, I got 60 minutes of “lucid-dreaming”, but no actual sleep.
A double dose got me 90 minutes of the same.
And that became my life… Day-after-day, and night-after-night for weeks, and then months.
I couldn’t work, I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t think.
I would lay down on my bathroom floor for hours each night trying to meditate so I wouldn’t go insane.
The bills started to pile up and my life’s savings was a giant piece of gardening plastic in my living room…
Unable to work for months, my business revenue had dried up and was a fraction of what it was just months earlier…
And Then Things Got Even Worse…
I’d been funding these two new projects by selling a course called List-Grow for $1,497…
And it had a pretty incredible feature that was changing a lot of people’s lives…
When you purchased List-Grow, it came with an incredible opportunity…
If you completed the program and built your marketing funnel like I taught at any point within the next 12 months, I’d give you 100% of your money back.
It created a massive win/win… My customers got a real incentive to use the product and create a result, which turned into more success stories for the program…
Here’s one of my students holding up the receipt for his Completion Challenge refund..
It was really amazing…
That is… Until my business and List-Grow sales came to a stop.
For the next 12 months, an additional $20,000 to $30,000 in redemptions would continue to pour in.
In total, I’d give back over $1 million in Completion Challenge refunds to my List-Grow customers.
But at this moment in time, they were literally draining my accounts dry.
I met up with a close friend for lunch one day, broke down in tears and shared what was happening.
He generously wrote a check for $50,000 and handed it to me as a gift to help cover the growing mountain of expenses.
It was one of the single greatest acts of generosity I’d ever experienced in my life. He said I was not allowed to pay him back, so I simply promised him that someday I’d pay it forward.
By November of 2019,
This Is All I Had Left…
I went from having millions of dollars just a year before, to just $6,000 to my name.
I hadn’t been that broke since I was waiting tables in my 20’s, so I took this screenshot to remember the moment.
About this time I found out that severe toxic mold exposure from the building I’d been living in the previous three years had caused the brain injury.
It was the highest levels the lab or my doctor had ever seen in a patient.
The lab test results were measured on a scale from 0 to 50.
My result was 21,000. I was dying, and frankly, I should have already been dead.
I remember trying to write a Happy Birthday card to my friend Aubrey…
I’ll never forget that moment because I almost couldn’t.
My hand trembled fiercely with early on-set Parkinson’s as the myelin sheath in my brain continued to deteriorate from the mold.
By that point, the financial devastation was done.
I was weeks away from losing my home and coming to terms with the fact that I would probably have to move in with my parents at the age of 39.
Everything Was Stripped Away…
At this moment I became acutely aware that my entire ego and identity had been wrapped up in being a successful “entrepreneur”.
And without that, my ego it shattered.
God literally stripped me of everything… My ability to think, sleep, work, write, play, race, exercise, or even numb my pain with the simple pleasures of a pint of ice cream or a glass of wine…
All of it… Everything I loved and strived for was stripped away until there was nothing left.
And that’s when my work began.
It’s when I realized that I’d have to learn to love myself without the ego, identity, or purpose that I believed my value was derived from.
I would have to love myself just because I was.
My spark of consciousness existed, and that was enough.
When my friend John called me yesterday, that’s where he was…
Stripped bare of everything he owned, of every part of his identity, confused, and without hope at the age of 47.
I told John what I have been able to realize now that I’m 6 years into this journey…
That God has a greater purpose for you, and that you are being called to change and evolve in order to serve that purpose.
You are being stripped of the things you thought were important, and being shown what truly is…
You are being stripped of your old identity and the limitations that it had…
You are being forced to purify your body and spirit… Forced to remove a life-time of toxic substances and emotions that have accumulated in your tissues and organs.
And your soul is being strengthened as you find love and compassion for yourself so that you may lead others toward the light in their darkest hour.
“You And I Are Stubborn S.O.B’s” I Told Him…
“We would not make the changes we need to make unless they were forced upon us to such a degree that we had no other choice but to surrender.
And so they have been.
But understand that this is a gift for you, just as it has been the single greatest gift in my life.
You may not see that now or the purpose behind this experience, but you will, and it will be the best thing that’s ever happened for you…”
The source of our suffering and anger is always the same… It’s the unmet expectations we have for ourselves or others.
The moment you drop those expectations for who you think you should be, or what you think you should have, and just start giving thanks for the fact that you are here… That you exist… The suffering will stop.
The fact that I could be there for a friend who is currently waste deep in the same confusion and suffering I am just coming out of was such an incredible gift for both of us…
He finally had someone he could talk to who knew what he was going through…
The same sleep deprivation… The same toxin over-load… The same financial distress and stripping of the ego and identity…
And I had the joy and honor of letting him know that he’s not alone…
That this is all for a greater purpose…
That I have his back…
And that this experience will become the greatest gift of his life.
48 Months Later…
Fast forward just 48 months, and (almost) everything has changed…
As a result of this experience…
I have removed all alcohol and toxins from my life and my body for the past 6 years…
I’ve brought the mold (mycotoxin) level down from 21,000 to 18.
I’m currently removing high levels of mercury and lead from my system…
I’ve pursued the deepest and most difficult levels of emotional healing a human can experience.
I’ve built a relationship with God and my soul that would have never been possible before…
I’ve created the deepest and most meaningful relationship of my life with Michelle…
We’ve built our dream home…
I’ve re-wired my relationship with money, spending, and risk-taking that had previously been driven and steered by trauma…
And I’ve been able to pay that $50,000 gift of generosity forward to a brother in need who’s going through his own crucible.
I have one final step left in my journey…
To overcome the Chronic Fatigue I’ve had to navigate daily for past 5 years as a result of the severe nervous system damage done by the mold.
But I have the help I need, and that is coming to an end as well.
Once that work is complete, I cannot wait to see what God has in store next as I reenter the world as the healthiest, most experienced, energetic, and compassionate version of who I can be.
Above all else, do not give up. Things can and will get better faster than you can imagine.
Have faith, and know that you are in all ways, and at all times, enough…
Sincerely,
Mike Dillard
