Three weeks ago I wrote an article about my friend who went from being worth $100M to being homeless. When I posted the article, I didn’t tell my friend about it. After the article had been up for a few days, I sent him an iMessage with a link to the article, having no idea what could happen.

Would he be angry with me for sharing his story? Would he tell me that some parts were wrong? Or, what I hoped, would it help him in some small way?

No one understood his story like I did. No one knew every detail like I did. No one took the bias away and just presented the facts.

So how did one blog article I wrote change everything for my friend?

Well, it started when he sent me an iMessage back to say he was deeply touched. That may seem insignificant, but this man is not the sort of person to show any emotion or use these types of words.

He then called me that night and told me he really liked the article and that he shared it with his wife who was there when the millions existed, and still there when the money went away. She had seen her daughters have no home to go to and nothing to eat – yet she still had hope.

My friend told me that his wife hadn’t seen their story presented in this way before and she was pleased. At the time, it seemed like something had changed just ever so slightly with him. It’s as if the fact that someone other than himself, as well of the millions of Addicted2Success followers, believed in him all of a sudden.

Up until this point in time, he was entirely reliant on his own optimism to keep battling through even though he continued to fall behind on his rent, lose another family home, and start all over. The amount of times he hit a rough period of his life just seemed to go on forever.

Like I said before, this man is as great and as a brilliant as Steve Jobs, as financially savvy as Warren Buffet, as sophisticated as any CEO of a Fortune 500 company, yet if you looked at him right now, you would never know it.

If you saw him in the supermarket struggling to pay for groceries each week, you would never know what he was capable of. You would never know the business genius that is standing before you.

Back to what I was saying when I spoke to him it was as if he had a different sense of belief that he didn’t have before. He started to see his hard times as something to celebrate. He then told me in his own way that he was going back to his true passion that made him rich in the first place and he was never going back to anything else.

The universe brings a blast from the past

My friend finally had some other people around him that he aspired to and in under a week, his luck already seemed to change. He went to negotiate his first real business deal, nearly got swindled, and then he was saved by an old school friend.

I mean what are the odds? The odds that somebody he went to school with would happen to be part of the same business deal as him and give him the one bit of information he needed to make some real money.

The deal he was looking at had been looked at by many people before him and everyone turned it down. What everyone before him didn’t know was that this opportunity was a gold mine, but you had to be prepared to look beyond the initial problems of the deal.

See, when others are scared to take an opportunity for all it’s worth even with its flaws, and back themselves 100%, that’s when entrepreneurship is truly at it’s highest within a person.

Giving back

The next thing that happened took me by even greater surprise. My friend messaged me and asked me about motivational speakers. He didn’t tell me why he wanted to know this information, but he didn’t have too – it was clear.

He thought that if Addicted2Success readers saw value in his story, then who else could benefit from it? I know he is now sitting at home thinking about how he can finally follow his passion and help others at the same time. Don’t be surprised if you see him on the speaking circuit soon.

The lesson

This is as far as the story has gone in a week but as you can see, all of us have the power to create change and move even the most unemotional people. It’s when you are able to have this effect on someone that you start to feel truly fulfilled.

How cool is it that this site has the power to literally change someone and help my friend see himself in a new way? This platform is ever so powerful, and I will continue to use it to create breakthroughs. Like the famous quote says, “be the change that you want to see in the world.”

Don’t let life pass you by, stuck in the same pattern day in and day out. Take a moment (through blogging if you want) to observe what you’re doing and how you can genuinely serve others. Bring yourself back to the present and stop trying to escape your reality.

It’s taken my friend nearly a decade to escape his nightmare, but even the most horrific situations will heal with time, and help you to rise up to your life’s purpose. He has a long way to go yet but through these dark times, a small pocket of light will always remain.

As you ignore the darkness and concentrate on this one pocket of light, it grows bigger just a little bit each day.

The road is long and treacherous for everyone. Whether it is the celebrities that we envy or the social media stars we admire, everyone has the same battles; it ’s just that some choose to be vulnerable and share them with others for the greater good, and others choose to pretend they don’t exist.

Either way, we will all have that one day on earth when we come to the realization that we are very powerful individuals and that what we think is what becomes reality. When something seems challenging, choose growth instead of avoiding the situation.

When something doesn’t work out how you want it to, choose to think positively rather than getting stuck in the negative thinking that will create more pain for you. Your pain equals your success. Your success is your life story. Change your story, and you will change your life!

What has been the most transformational blog post you have read? How did it affect you?