Learning new skills to diversify opportunities.

Hello everyone! I am new to steemit and blogging. After reading the last 5 (pinned) posts by @dobartim in this community, I just wanted to share a little inspirational story about myself that reflects the ideas in those posts.
I am an English as a second language teacher in Mexico. I started a small school about 5 years ago. As with any business, it took a while before it was stable and profitable. But, I began to have a great reputation in my area, and I started outsourcing to private schools. Everything was looking great!

Then bam, the pandemic hit and my services were no longer a priority to people and became just a luxury. At first, clients dropped by 50% but within just a few months they were down 85%. This was a real problem! I had to make serious decisions about my teachers, and unfortunately I had to let several go.

But, to my amazement, some of them stayed without pay and said we will stick it through with you.
Well, I did not want to take anyone's opportunity to work and make a little money, so I decided to learn a new skill. It was difficult, stressful and consumed over 12 hours of every day. I had no social life. I let what was left of my staff mostly take over my little school. But, I was determined to learn this new skill and crammed everyday like I had an exam the next week. A year and a half went by and with the school barely making it, I started to think about giving up on trading. Then I realized, everything happened in a way that gave me this opportunity to diversify my life. So, I stuck with it. Now, I am a successful, albeit novice trader. My school is finally picking up and for the first time in two years I feel very optimistic about the future.

To sum things up, not quite as eloquently stated by the author of the previous posts, being smart isn't enough! If you want change you have to take a chance, but change takes a lot of hard work, to accomplish hard work you need to have priorities, or you will get lost. You also need to have enthusiasm because without it your failures can overcome you but, if you overcome your failures, success is surely yours!
Thank you for your inspiring words @dobartim! This story as a reply to one post would not do your work justice.

All photos from https://pixabay.com