Many
summers ago, I ran an ad in a local newspaper in an effort to help me pay for
school. The ad read, “Eager male college
student looking to earn money… will do anything.” Within a day, my phone was ringing off the
hook. I’ve been married for over 20
years and have a deal with my wife not to talk about some of those calls, so
I’ll simply say that I got some very unusual requests.
However,
most of the calls were from people who wanted me to mow lawns, clean pools, run
errands and clean out garages. I started
off charging $5 per hour and, as business increased, gradually raised my hourly
rate to $15. That first summer, I averaged
a few hundred dollars per week. When I
went back to school, all I could think about was growing the business the
following summer. By the end of the
school year, I had a new plan and a goal to earn $500 per week working Monday
through Friday.
I
ran the same ad again, but this time I told callers that my rate was $15 an hour
or a flat $50 if they hired me for a weekly 4-hour block. I made it clear that they had to hire me for
the same day and 4-hour time slot each week for the whole summer, and promised
that they’d love having me there every week doing multiple jobs and making
their summers easier. I signed the first
customer up for Monday mornings from 8:00am to noon, and the next customer for
Monday afternoons from 1:00 to 5:00pm. Within
three days, I’d booked 10 customers and had secured my $500 a week goal.
However,
I had booked the ad to run for two weeks, and the phone kept ringing. I decided to ask some of my friends if they
wanted to work for me. Two of them
laughed at how ridiculous the whole thing sounded, but two others asked me how
much they’d earn. I offered them $10 an
hour and, within days, I had booked each of them with full weekly schedules
just like my own. I was now paying my
friends $400 a week and keeping $100 apiece from their efforts, having booked
them at a higher rate. The phone kept
ringing, and when I ran out of friends to hire, I placed an ad at a local high
school. I started hiring high school students
to work for me at $7.50 an hour, and, soon enough, they were making $300 per
week, and I was making an extra $200 a week per person.
By
the following summer, I had grown the business into a $5,000 a week enterprise.
I hired someone to run the company,
stopped doing manual labor myself, and became an absentee owner. I also gave
her power of attorney, which included full access to my bank account. This proved to be a devastating mistake, as I
was embezzled out of tens of thousands of dollars and ultimately lost my
business. I was embarrassed, deep in
debt, and felt like a colossal failure. It was a true low point in my life, and I had
very little hope for the future.
Many
years later, I still reflect on that early business experience. It reminds me of a seed in the forest with a shell
so hard that the only thing that can crack it open is a raging forest fire. A forest fire is incredibly destructive to
trees and wildlife, but its intense heat is essential to split open the shell
of that seed, known as the Fire Weed. A
week after the forest fire subsides, the Fire Weed blossoms with beautiful
purple flowers emerging from the charred soil.
In
a way, we are all like the Fire Weed. Sometimes,
in order to get to the next level in our personal evolution, we need our own
forest fire to shake things up.
I
rebounded from my business failure and, upon reflection, found that I had
learned some very important lessons. As
I continue through life, I face challenges just like all of you. I’ve learned that these challenges are the
“fires” I need to crack my shell and help me reflect on life, enabling me to blossom
and begin again. When pursuing your
dreams, think of the Fire Weed, and remember that failure is never final unless
you allow it to be.
Until
next week…
Live
Your Dreams
