CASH IS NOT THE ONLY CURRENCY
There is one mindset shift that made the difference between building my business and giving up on it. That shift happened when I realised that there are other currencies besides cash.
When I started building my business again, I had $75 and no access to capital. I want to be honest about how that felt, because it is easy to tell this part of the story with a neat bow on it, and it did not feel neat at the time. It felt like a closed door. Every conversation about starting a business seemed to begin with money, and money was the one thing I did not have. If I measured myself by the contents of my bank account, the answer was simple and final. There was nothing to build with.
But in that season, God showed me something different. He showed me that I was counting only one kind of currency, and that I was far richer than I had realised in the others. So I began to take stock. Not of what I lacked, but of what I actually had.
I had tenacity. I had already been knocked down and I was still here, still willing to get up and try again. I had the ability to learn. I could figure things out, even things I had never done before. I had relationships, people who knew me, believed in me and were willing to walk alongside me. I had the ability to think deeply, to sit with a problem long enough to see what others might miss. I had a roof over my head. And I had a broken laptop.
Look at that list again. None of it would show up on a bank statement. None of it would impress a lender. And yet, every item on it was valuable and usable. The moment I stopped asking “what do I not have?” and started asking “what do I carry?”, I stopped being someone with nothing. I became someone with resources, who simply had not yet put them to work.
I have thought about this many times since. So often, we search outside for what we already carry inside. We look to investors, to circumstances, to other people’s permission, to some better moment in the future, when the things we need are already within reach.
That is why I believe in introspection. It is not self-indulgence. It is an inventory. When you take the time to look inward honestly, you uncover gems you had walked past for years, simply because you were too busy staring at what was missing.
Try this for yourself. Sit down with a pen for a quiet half hour. Write down everything you have, and do not limit it to what money can buy. Your resilience. Your skills. Your people. Your mind. Your space. Whatever is in your hands right now. You may find that you have been far richer than you thought, and that what you need is already in your hands.
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