Richard and Emma Lou Beechy felt like life was “pretty good.” They looked at the friends, family members and coworkers around them, and thought “we have a little bit of debt. We are a little stressed about our business. But we’re doing alright.”

Richard and Emma Lou grew up in an Amish community. They met when Richard was 18 and Emma Lou was 16, and made the decision to leave the Amish community and get married four years later.

“We left the Amish lifestyle and got married and started a business right away that immediately started failing. I remember feeling completely lost. Then fast forward a little bit, and the business did start growing. We started learning some things that were working, but the stress and pressure of the business was completely overwhelming. It was overtaking me,” Emma Lou said.

As their business grew, so did their income. And so did the mountain of debt.

“We bought a big house we didn’t need. We went into crazy amounts of debt telling ourselves we would be right back out of it,” Richard said.

As they continued on that path, Richard found himself becoming a person he didn’t like.

“I was seeing other business owners stressed out and leading lifestyles that I didn’t see as success. They tried to drown out problems in their lives by drinking. They talked about all the negativity in their business. They talked about how they couldn’t trust anyone else in business and couldn’t trust their employees. I saw us becoming those people, almost narcissistic, and I didn’t like it.”

Without realizing it, their “comfortable” debt had become a daily source of stress. Emma Lou was working around the clock, never resting to think about anything but the business. Instead of a passionate, intimate marriage, they
were just roommates who didn’t fight. They had no vision for their future and didn’t want kids.

“I looked around at all the adults surrounding me, and most of them weren’t happy. We thought we were okay, and the only difference in their lives was that they had kids. So I associated that unhappiness with kids.”

Slowly, Richard and Emma Lou came to a place of desperation. They knew there had to be more to life than going in debt to impress other people and an “okay” marriage.

They attended First Steps To Success, a live training seminar, thinking they would learn some tips to grow their business. What they got was a pivotal experience that changed everything.

“The biggest change was the peace and rest in our household. I don’t work 24/7 anymore. I’m only working four days a week now,” Emma Lou said.

In 15 months, Richard and Emma Lou paid off $245,000 of debt, including their mortgage. They went from one rental property to six rental properties, plus a commercial building. They have restored their relationship with Richard’s family, and have gone from a boring, “okay” marriage to a deeper, more passionate one.

“So many people spend their marriage building walls and they don’t even realize they’re doing it. We didn’t realize we completely gave up on a hot, harmonious, amazing marriage,” Emma Lou said.

Now, Richard and Emma Lou have a vision for their future, and they hope to have kids.

“In 2017, together with our team, we built 18 homes for the extreme poor. Five of the colleagues we work with have become completely debt free. We have built deeper relationships with each other, our friends and our family,” Richard said.

Friend, if you’ve been going along with the status quo, looking around at your life and wondering if there is something more, the answer is YES. Richard and Emma Lou unlocked the potential inside of them for peace, freedom, passion and vision, and it all started at First Steps To Success. Discover your unhidden potential at the very next live event. Check out the details and get registered here.