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Seat belts on,
no turning back now

Feelings or emotions are the universal language and are to be honoured. They are the authentic expression of who you are at your deepest place.

Judith Wright

For many people affected by the global economic collapse there is a common denominator - the point where they lost control. Control is critical in many aspects of life. Despite my best efforts to tell my story as honestly as I could, I found myself having mixed emotions as I put the finishing touches to Shepherd's Pie in the summer of 2011. On one hand I felt positive and upbeat about the final chapter of the story - thrilled to have found the words to express how I felt with that last sentence. I had been troubled by where the story would lead because I really didn't know the ending when I started writing and, truthfully, I still had no idea where it would take me. I was about to go public with my story of recovery, how I had taken control of my financial life and made the banks disappear from my life, knowing full well that at any point it could all blow up in my face. I needed to stop and consider what was around the corner.

While I was writing Shepherd's Pie I hoped that the story would be warmly received, but sitting at a laptop at 2.30 a.m., reading what I had just written, I frequently wondered if I was about to mortify myself and my family by making public such a private story - a story that was epic in our family life, but which I doubted anyone else would give a shit about or be able to relate to. But I was committed, there was no turning back, it was time to have the courage of my convictions. So I handed the final manuscript over to my editor and said, 'Don't hold back.' Away it went with a degree of trepidation on my part - I wondered if I decided to cancel the whole thing, would I still be able to pull the plug? There followed a period of about four months when the book was with the publisher before it was ready for publication. Four months was a bloody lifetime for me. Jesus, anything could happen with banks, buildings and cash in four months. I was anxious and began to visualise all sorts of nightmare scenarios . launching the book nationally, proclaiming that there is a way forward, that we can overcome this terrible existence that we all find ourselves in and then . a curve ball. A bank moves against me or we run out of cash two weeks after the book is published. It wouldn't have changed what I had written, but it would have been a personal setback that would have required my full attention, notwithstanding having a book published for the first time and possibly having all my financial woes in the public domain as a result. That was my reality and all I could do was get on with things, stick to my guns and have confidence in the fact that if such a curve ball did hit me, I was equipped to deal with it.

In Shepherd's Pie I had shared how I had learned to control my fear and execute the start of the fight back. It was a call to arms to all who had been affected by austerity measures or hard-core debt in business, particularly the self-employed, to seek out any and all possible solutions to improve the quality of their business and personal lives, both emotionally and financially. A rallying cry that would possibly incur the ire of bankers, suppliers, customers and creditors. The book would arrive on the shelves of bookshops all over Ireland and maybe be viewed as a test case for moving forward, yet I knew that I had not secured my own future and that the future of my business within the Irish motor trade was still in huge doubt.

I began to waver. How could I launch this book still unsure that my own business would survive or, at the very least, stand before readers and explain with sincerity that my eventual failure was despite my very best efforts? I had stated in the book that I took nothing for granted and that if I were to go down, I'd go down fighting. And I had claimed that I would not stop working on the rehabilitation of my business, not for one minute. So when my publisher called me one morning in August 2011 to tell me that the book was ready to be signed off, a wave of uncertainty hit me. There was no going back from here, they said, was I sure I had no further changes and that I could stand over everything? Oh fuck, I thought to myself. Six months of hard work, now what?

My publisher sensed something was not right. She asked what was troubling me and I said, 'I don't know if I'll still be in business by the time the book hits the shelves because everything is moving and changing daily.' I explained that since I had finished writing a few months earlier I had been concentrating on the future, and that, no matter how I looked at our business in Ireland into 2012 and beyond, I couldn't get our budgets to work. I could see no future in new car sales and I felt that my bank debt would eventually bring us down. I said that I was worried that I could make a fool of myself publishing a book about recovery when my business could still fail. She immediately stopped me and said, 'George, this is your story. This is all about one day at a time. The book clearly demonstrates that your fight has just started, but more importantly, that you're ready, willing and able to fight. Nothing more, nothing less.' She was right. I was willing to fight for my business and livelihood no matter what the outcome, and I had an instant realisation that the launch of the book would be the first shot fired in what would be a war on the isolation and depression experienced by the self-employed as they struggle to survive.

I told the publisher that I was happy with everything and our phone call ended, but I knew at that moment that I no longer had control over what would happen next, how people would see me, my parents, Anne and the business. At a thousand miles an hour everything flashed through my mind - walking down the street in Clonmel after the book was published, the reaction of my kids, the school yard for them, banks, distributors, Revenue and of course my elderly parents. I didn't feel confident, but I knew that it was done, the book was in its final stages and the story would be told.

Later that night, as I was lying in bed thinking about all this, I closed my eyes and made a deal with myself. I decided to leave all the negative thoughts and self-doubt behind me right there and then, and when I woke up the following morning, I would focus on the future, buckle up and enjoy the ride. With that in mind, I chose to make the most of the calm before the storm and have some down time with Anne and the kids, so I went on a ten-day sun holiday, our first since 2008. Business over the summer had been very slow, but virtual sales were showing real promise and more and more of my time was becoming focused on www.wesourceNEcar.com, the online car sales concept I had created in 2010.1 Nissan and Kia were not fans of my new sales model, believing that it was distracting me from the business of selling new models of their cars. I disagreed. I believe that nowadays there's no such thing for a dealer as selling a new car.

The traditional new car sales model now resembles 'the tail wagging the dog'. When I was learning the ropes in the business I'd persuade a client that they should buy a Nissan over a Toyota for example, based on performance, spec and price. Today customers come to the showroom and tell us which car they want to buy, then inform us of the best price that they have received having visited five main dealers. If I want the sale, I have to beat that best price. (My strategy now is to beat the best price by enough that the client will pay a deposit there and then.) Traditionally, I would trade a Kia for a Kia or a Nissan for a Nissan, but doing that sort of deal each time fills the forecourt with the same makes and models, and that in turn creates a problem with used car sales - if there are buyers in the market for used cars who don't like Kia or Nissan, they won't visit a forecourt that has lots and lots of used Kias and Nissans. Can any business afford to purposely obstruct natural footfall?

Then of course there was the link between the franchise distributor in Ireland and their bank. This was a killer for car dealerships because many of the larger distributors in Ireland were controlled by whichever financial institution provided them with funds to buy stock. So the bank dictated how many cars a distributor could stock and, in turn, possibly the same bank would dictate how many cars the dealer could stock and, ultimately, the same bank again would likely provide the finance for the customer who wanted to buy the car! So the banks were a corporate dictatorship in the motor industry. This is why, despite my best efforts to sell both new and used cars the traditional way, I continued to fall deeper in love with the concept of virtual selling and out of love with what had become the jaded motor industry.

Our family holiday was the ideal opportunity to consider 'what next?' Having taken hold of my business finances after my emotional correction in 2009, I now had all of the relevant financial information I needed to make a decision about the future of the business, but felt I needed a push in the right direction.

After the break, and my resolution to hold my head high come what may after publication, I began to feel more excited than anxious about the October launch of the book. Up to the moment when I had signed off on the manuscript, I hadn't shared what I had written with anyone, not even my wife Anne. I needed to write it uninfluenced and alone, but had told Anne, my father and my brother, Brian, that they could read it just...