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3 Key Lessons From My Computer Fiasco – Ep. 115
In my latest podcast, I shared three key lessons from my recent computer fiasco – from being prepared with insurance to staying unstoppable in the face of challenges. Learn how to apply these game-changing insights to your own journey. Tune in to Your Money, Your Life podcast and let’s tackle obstacles together!
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Podcast Key Points:
0:13 – The Computer Fiasco
1:26 – Being Prepared For Fiascos
5:27 – Asking How It Could Be Possible
8:07 – Being Unstoppable In The Face of Crisis
11:09 – Making It Happen On A Deadline
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Key Lessons Learned from a Computer Fiasco
If we’re connected on socials you might know this but about a month ago, my computer broke. I’ll tell you a little bit more why. But there were three key lessons that I learned from my computer fiasco. I think it’s really important we talk about it today. Here we go.
This is the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host Aimee Cerka, a money confidence coach for female entrepreneurs on the path to six figures.
After over 10 years in the personal finance industry and multiple personal financial and medical crisis. I was fed up with the lies that are being shouted from the rooftops by the Gurus. And the media said I help you simplify, solidify and scale your money. By blending tactile money strategies with mindset work, you can create unstoppable finances together, you’ll finally figure out the money thing.
So you can make more money in less time without living off of beans and rice, or sacrificing your lifestyle. Episodes here on the podcast are short and sweet. Being married, having four kids at home, homeschooling being the CEO running the household, I’m kind of busy. And I know you are too. So let’s keep it simple and get to the point.
Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.
Welcome back to another episode of the Your Money, Your life Podcast. Today we’re talking about three key lessons I learned from my computer fiasco. So it was about a month ago.
And I guess for the time this goes live probably a little over a month ago. We’ll just say a month, okay? We don’t need the exact details or that exact detail is not important.
So it was a Monday, Monday are, is my homeschool heavy day I do a lot of the work with my kids that like is my more teacher intensive. Okay, especially with my oldest because most of his work now is independent work. But we have a couple subjects takes a little bit more work.
But my part, we schedule those on Monday. So Monday is a light work day for me, right? hadn’t gotten anything that worked because we had been focusing on school, like I said, walked over, had my computer in my hand and walked over, it slipped out of my hand fell less than six inches, like my son was sitting there, it was like it didn’t even make a sound really when it hit must have hit at just the right angle, because it shattered the screen.
Something like there was no visible breakage on it. But the screen was frozen. It wasn’t doing anything, you know, it’s time to move. All the things didn’t work.
I let it like put it down, walked away, we came back later looked at it, I plugged in my secondary monitor, seeing if we can get something to work there external keyboard trying to force it to restart, you know, trying all the things right? Inside, I’m freaking out. I’m just, total transparency. I’m freaking out because this is or was at the time, the only computer in the household.
That’s like I run a business, I need a computer. And it’s not working. So a couple of hours later, you know, trying to figure the things out. I’ve determined like it’s not fixable.
Navigating Insurance Claims
But I bought the warranty. One of the things I’m going to talk about here, one of the key lessons is about being prepared. And this was like the first part, okay, I have kids shoot like, I’m the one that dropped it.
I have insurance on my phone, the valuable electronics that I need working, I have those things. So I had bought the assurance and protection plan from Amazon when I got the computer, right. We’re set there’s an assurance and a couple miles from the house.
Well, I rearranged what I needed to we were gonna get the claim filed and I was taking it they’re like immediately we can get it done. No big deal, right? Not quite.
So I go through the process, we finally get the claim filed. That was a whole ‘nother thing in of itself, like trying to coordinate and it was making me log in to things again and getting past codes. And so we finally got the claim filed.
And they tell me that they’re going to ship me a box and I’m going to mail it off and shipping me the empty box can take five business days. So then I really started to freak out like okay, what am I going to do? I can’t be without it for this long of time.
Like, okay, let’s chat with somebody, right? Pull up the chat, start chatting with somebody with Asurion. They were not very knowledgeable.
We’ll get to that in a little bit. But he’s like, “No, because of this policy within Amazon, they have to they have to ship it to you have to ship you the box and you have to ship off the product and we’ll be back.” So it was like okay, I’m running a business.
I need to know what’s the total turnaround time how long are you going to have this computer for how long can I, is the estimate until I can have a fixed computer I know like it’s an estimate, but how long is the estimate? And this is where his communication skills weren’t that great but at the time, it sounded like it was going to be about 20 business days. Well, this happened.
End of October, I think it was October 30. Because I think it was that Monday. It happened then, well, 20 business days, that’s gonna put us into Thanksgiving. So how many days? Are you off for Thanksgiving?
Again, couldn’t get a straight answer. It was like, Okay, this is not working. We’re going to move to the next thing. So this is where three key lessons came in. All right.
Lesson 1: The Importance of Being Prepared
The first thing was about being prepared. Being prepared and having the insurance like to have that there was a couple other things that I have since worked on, I’m going to get to more number three, like how we’re shifting things to handle this moving forward.
Lesson 2: Asking the Right Questions
And then the second question, or the second key lesson, which this is a key lesson I talk about quite frequently, but I had a freakout moment, and then had to remind myself, so I’m reminding you, okay, the second key lesson was asking, how was it? Okay?
How can this be possible just to go, I can get a new computer. Like, okay, that’s a big expense, but it is tax deductible, and then I will be able to upgrade my computer, my eldest son also wants to start learning to code. And that would give him I could give him my old computer as a Christmas presents, and then he would get one, he would learn to code, there would also be another computer that functions in the house again, which we used to have, the other one just got way too outdated. It wasn’t working anymore.
Turning Setbacks into Opportunities
And then we would have that second computer in the house. So if something ever happened to mine, again, I would have the backup and I could use his again, because it’s still a good computer. It was only a couple years old.
All right, so this is like how it could be possible, right? Which was the route I ended up doing. We sat there I found a new computer and got it ordered, I was down a couple of days, there four days or so getting a new computer, all the things and of course, like setting it up was a little bit different than everything was cloud based, wasn’t quite cloud based.
But we were asking the question how, in four days was a lot faster than it was going to take to get the old computer fixed time. Box came in to repair the old computer. We got it sent off.
It was a Wednesday afternoon that I sent it off. Well, Friday morning, it was back on my doorstep fixed. So little bit of a miscommunication. We know better for next time.
When the guy was saying 10 days for the repair. He meant 10 business days total, not just 10 days for them to fix the computer while they had it. Again, communication wasn’t great.
But you know, we’re doing what we’re doing. Still worked out though, because when I got it back, open it to check on it, there was something that still wasn’t fixed with it. So I have since sent it off, and they still have it.
Oh, it’s been like a week now that they are working on it. So apparently there was more wrong. But we asked the question how I was prepared by heavy insurance.
Lesson 3: The Power of Being Unstoppable
And then number three, goes back to being unstoppable. And you know, that’s important to me, because it’s not about what we do when things are super easy. It’s about what we do when the tough moments happen.
Consistency is super important to me. And my consistency is a firm reason why believe like I’m guaranteed to succeed at whatever level that I’m reaching towards. Whether it’s in my podcast, whether it’s in my business, like I decided to launch a podcast six weeks later, I found out I was pregnant and we were able to batch and plan and do the things that we needed to to be consistent.
So that my audience continued to hear from me, y’all continue to get a podcast episode, there was emails that were sent, I did all those things, during maternity leave, and all those things that were important to me because I know that like I am consistent. That is one of my strengths. And I also know that helps make me unstoppable because it doesn’t matter what happens, we’re still going to make it happen.
Because you need me. I’m a unique boy brand, my spot, my space that I fill in the online business world. I’m not the profit coach, I’m not the womb mindset coach. I’m not the frugal that pay off club, like, you’re here because you’re looking for something different.
And I am that voice for you. And I want to continue to be that voice that’s important.
Approach to Business Resilience
So being unstoppable. This was something that I had to figure out. So hindsight being 2020 things that I’m doing moving forward. I’m getting back on top of planning a little bit ahead.
I don’t like to be like six weeks out or even really a month out recording any of those things because I’m enjoying doing more of the content in the moment. This week, earlier this week. Yeah. Let me look. I think it was Week. Yes.
So the episode that went live this week I recorded on a Monday it went live Tuesday morning at 6:30 AM, Central. We got it done.
It was close though. Like I got it edited, passed off to my VA. She worked on it finalized, everything’s that it was ready to go a couple hours beforehand. But like that was close, that was a little too close for my comfort, but things were off.
And I only like to record these when I know I’m in the best state of mind to do this because you deserve my best effort. What does that look like though? I am trying.
My goal is we are clearly not perfect. This week’s episode was recorded this week to be recorded like two weeks out. Then we have that flexible time if something happened, computer, somebody got sick or not getting quote behind isn’t happening all the time.
No, because like I said, it didn’t happen this week. But we’re making progress. We’re doing the things that we need to I’m doing. I’m learning and moving forward so that I can be unstoppable.
Adapting to Change
And that you can do. So my three key lessons from the computer fiasco, which I think it’s interesting. Like, I still don’t have it back, because now we’re almost past the 20 business days that we initially thought.
And they still haven’t gotten it fixed. I don’t know what was wrong with it when when I got it back. For those who are curious, the Initial Setup, click on HP, where you have to connect to the internet. Because I have an Android Windows HP person. It wouldn’t work.
Like it was like the driver was missing or something, it was not even giving me the options to connect to the internet. So you couldn’t get past that. That’s what’s wrong with it.
From Chaos to Clarity
But three key lessons were being prepared, how I was prepared beforehand by having the insurance in place for those things that really mattered. And really like how I’m preparing in the future. Just lesson three.
The second thing I did was I was asking how like, okay, how can this be possible, but I think that I didn’t even talk about was there was two different collaborations, bundles, holiday catalogs, things that I was participating in, that had the deadline they thought was what I was sitting down to work on to finish. And what was I going to do, like I had to be able to get that done. And it really felt like it was just like, this isn’t feasible, like I can’t work on my website.
I can’t update the sales page, all these things without a computer. Ask myself again, how is it possible? So getting a new computer first off was the first realization I had.
And then after I let myself kind of sit and settle, because if you’re in that high emotional phrase, phase, you can’t make logical decisions, okay? Or you shouldn’t make logical decisions. So I stepped away, give myself a break, you know, sat down was watching something on Netflix, and after like 30 minutes of walking away from it, the how the other things could be possible, how I could submit to the bundle, all those things showed up, and I figured them out.
Problem-Solving in Action
I use my tablet, I had a keyboard somewhere was able to edit it. But it just started with like, “Okay, let me see if this will even work.” And then it did great.
But if I hadn’t walked away from it, ask the right questions to myself to look for the answers. That would have never happened. And I would have just gotten frustrated, walked away because great now I missed this, this and this and I’m not able to do whatever.
But I had to look at it differently. The third key lesson was being the answer was being unstoppable. Like you figuring out what is important to you why, what are you gonna do when the times get tough, and that was the we figured it out.
There was not a podcast episode that was missed. There was not one of the short form, shorter, shorter, there we go shorter, you do videos that go live on Thursdays. None of those were missed. It didn’t go live on Thursday.
It went live on Saturday, but we still made it happen that we got it done that week, which is one of the tactics that I have included in my current 12 week year. And a couple of weeks we’ll start talking about that in my goal setting my team time management productivity all those things like how we’re doing those things, but I made the things happen that I said I was gonna happen because I chose to be unstoppable.
Alright, that’s what I got for this week. Send me a message on Instagram. I want to hear which one of these you were like. That was good. Like I needed to hear that.
That was a good lesson, relatability you dropped your computer fiasco yourself. Anyways, I want to hear @aimeecerka on Instagram. We’ll see you next time. Bye for now.
Thank you so much for listening to the Your Money, Your life podcast. I’ve got a special gift for you for sticking around to the end. And if you’re tired of your finances being a mess, this is for you.
What if you could take charge of your money without feeling overwhelmed. Even if you’re not a numbers person, even if you just don’t know where to begin, even if you don’t have the time, even if you failed in the past and even if you don’t want to sacrifice your lifestyle, take messy action.
And finally make progress with your finances without feeling overwhelmed pinching pennies or staring at a spreadsheet for hours with the 14 Day Money Mastery action plan. And when you use coupon code “podcast”, I’m gonna give you 40% off, just visit aimeecerka.com/action and grab the 14 day action plan for less than $20. All right, talk soon.
