Another chapter I wrote.

 Heres some more stories from the book I was writing, hope you enjoy...

Chapter 17 - Street trading time!

Me and dodgy D were always getting our heads together while out about in great deals on wheels mobile pound shop talking about different money making ideas.

We tried all sorts of stuff, we did markets and car boots, we even bought hundreds of umbrellas once and jumped out in the middle of Belfast city centre when it started to rain shouting get your umbrellas here now for a couple of pound, people did buy them too!

We would have tried anything, God loves a trier is what my wee mum always said, you never know anything in life unless you try.

But one idea dodgy D came up with was selling glow sticks at the raves,

I thought this was a brilliant idea and there just happened to be a big rave coming up in the Kings Hall Belfast with thousands of people attending.

So we bought 1000 glow sticks I think for about 20p each and went and stood outside the rave shouting 2 glow sticks for a fiver!

I couldn't believe it, they were selling so fast right from the word go and we sold out in no time!

We made a very hefty profit for standing there in a short space of time, that was like over £2000 profit we made selling these, I couldn't believe it!!

Selling these wasnt without any problems though, you see dodgy D couldn't keep his hands to himself and standing selling stuff at raves will involve having to put up with a lot of drunk and drugged up people with some of them being cheeky to you and trying to snap some glow sticks out of your hands and stuff.

This didnt go down too well with dodgy D, that night he knocked someone out, some guy was getting a bit too close to him being cheeky and dodgy D punched him and knocks him out.

Then Dodgy D goes running up the street in a panic with a bag of glow sticks and pockets full of cash.

I then managed to get him back and say can we just sell glow sticks man and not be knocking anymore people out, these are potential customers!

Never knew a guy to get into as many fights as Dodgy D, in later years I heard a story about him in a clothes shop he opened up and a customer had a dispute with him which got out of control and dodgy D was seen beating the customer with the arm of a mannequin and there was blood everywhere!

Some people just attract fights all the time and dodgy D was one of these people. Today he's one of the best Brazilian Jujitsu fighters around and makes a living from it. All his past fighting antics has paid off.

Me and dodgy D were like brothers and in later years when I first stumbled across Buddhism he came to many classes and retreats with me, fully supportive of the path I had chosen, he is a good hearted person himself who would do anything to help people, just dont cross him. You dont get many mates that support you from the underworld into the Buddha world. Dodgy D was that guy!

But back to the glow sticks, I couldn't believe how fast these sold and how easy it was, we probably could have sold double the amount, we couldn't wait for the next big rave to get more glow sticks and get back at it, for a couple years we went around many of the big raves selling them.

We then bought a gas BBQ once and set it up outside a concert selling burgers and hot dogs, as I had previous experience in doing this with my chippy van which I got taken away and impounded by the council before for illegal street trading.

I thought if we buy a cheap BBQ and our local street trading officer comes at us for illegal street trading we didnt mind loosing a cheap gas BBQ, it was worth the risk, If I seen him coming I would just run and leave everything behind. It was a gamble, life is a gamble,

We even kept all the burgers in the boot of my mates car across the road and only brought over what we needed and when sold out my mate brought us over more.

This was all going ok until some drunkard comes over being cheeky saying what sort of burger setup is this!!

Making a joke of what we were doing and was breathing all over our burgers, well what does dodgy D do?

He upper cuts the man as he's breathing over the burgers and knocks him to the ground, then the police came enquiring what was going on and I thought f**k this lets get out of here and packed up the BBQ and burgers and went!

Its funny though looking back at it the things we tried to make money from, you see dodgy D's dad was a wheeler dealer too and the 2 of us together with our backgrounds we came up with lots of ideas to make money from and followed through with them too.

Lots of failures but lots of life lessons, Alan Sugar said 80% of his business ideas was a failure, the 20% made him 600 million.

Always maintain enthusiasm which is our most powerful energy and everything will work out ok, no matter what I got hit with in the past, if I took a massive loss at something I always had this fire of enthusiasm in me to make it back, and make it back I did, sometimes doubling or tripling my losses.

But I do remember the day I lost my enthusiasm and everything went downhill, I lost my gallop as my Delboy dad used to call his sales drive. But I lost the gallop altogether and went into a negative spiral that lasted years and blew over a million pounds, pure self destruction it was!

But looking back now it was the death of the old me, sometimes there has to be complete destruction for there to be renewal.

The best thing ever happened to me was loosing everything and going back to the bedroom that I grew up in, penniless.

You know when I hear of people making millions or getting millions some way or see someone in a Ferrari driving past for some reason my first thought these days is God love them, they are tormented.

I wouldn't take any of it back again for free, offer me planes, yachts, fast cars, big houses, multi story office blocks, holy f**k the thought gives me shivers, all them conformities that come with the toys and tinsel of the world is a big ball and chain in my eyes!

Like the flight of the birds in the sky, they leave home with no fixed abode but they live in freedom as the Buddha says in the Dhammapda.

I have so much life reflection writing these stories, thanks for reading guys and supporting me.

Ps

Pic is waking up next to wee betty, I'd rather wake up next to her than with any big plastic blonde in a 5 star hotel after a night on the drink and Charlie, how our society glorifies this lifestyle is just wrong in my eyes and our future generations our led to believe this to be really cool, even many of our leaders are caught in these types of sleazy lifestyles, time for us to stand up and do whats right for the future of our kids.

We all need to get out and be a postive vibration in our own communities and phantom planting fruit trees is a good start. I've watched what it's did to my own community and how it's brought people together. 

I challenge you to phantom plant a tree! 

Peace and love...