If you’ve ever built something from nothing, you know the sleepless nights that come with it.
I started my hardware business 12 years ago with only a tiny shed, a borrowed wheelbarrow, and a handful of nails. I was just a young man then, determined to change the story of my family.

Those early years were tough. I would wake up before dawn to open the shop, haul heavy bags of cement myself, and sometimes go to bed hungry because all the day’s earnings went back into stock. I nearly gave up many times, but the dream of owning a successful hardware kept me going.

Slowly, my sacrifices started to pay off. Customers came to trust me, and the business began to grow. I hired two workers, then four. I moved from the dusty roadside shed to a proper shop in town.
The hardware business allowed me to buy a small car, move my family to a decent house, and send my children to good schools. That shop became the pillar of everything we had achieved.

But the bigger the business grew, the more I worried.

Every night I would lock the shop and lie awake thinking: “What if tonight thieves break in? What if one wrong move wipes out everything I have worked for?”
I knew of other shop owners who had been wiped out by theft or by strange fires that started in the middle of the night. One friend lost two lorries of cement in a single robbery and never recovered.

The fear of losing my life’s work began to consume me. I even installed CCTV and hired two guards, but somehow the anxiety never left me. I kept feeling like my success had drawn attention not just from ordinary criminals but from envious people. Read more.