Everywhere I look, I see someone who I know doesn’t have it going on like I think I do, yet they are doing it. They have arrived at a place I can not imagine, but I can see what they have once they get there. What is so odd is they are not brilliant, they are mostly average people. But they are at a point in their life when everything is going their way.
Like the woman who started making those trinkets that go on those nice spongy shoes, and later sold what became her company for an amazing amount of money. The immigrant families in the poorest part of my city, who now own their own business. They probably started selling in public places, struggling to keep their dream going.
Tunnel vision is my problem. It is tunnel vision that keeps me from seeing everything these people went through before success arrived at their doorstep. I never saw the times when they cried in frustration, or were harassed by the police, or slept in the cold because all their money was going into making their future. I never saw that part of their life back then, I just see where they are now.
I can not see what they saw a long time before. I never had that burning desire to run my own business no matter what obstacle got in my way. I was never interested in seeing if I could take something, add some value to it, and sell it to someone else who thinks they were getting a deal.
I was in Korea a number of years ago. There was a young couple there who made very pretty wooden boxes. They were not the most elegant, but they were made with care. They wanted fifty dollars for the one I wanted. I have no doubt it was worth fifty dollars, but it was not worth that much to me. I told the couple I would pay twenty dollars. I saw them at least once a week in the month I in Korea. Every time I saw them, they said fifty dollars. I said twenty, and they scoffed and spit as they said no. As I was getting on the bus for the last time before I left their country, they said twenty five. I said no, twenty was my offer, I would pay no more.
They cursed at me, spit, made faces at me, and sold me the box I had wanted for a month, for a mere twenty dollars. I almost felt guilty, because I knew the profit they would be making was not very large, perhaps only a dollar or two at most, and that would not cover their time in making it, polishing it, and making it look so pretty. Yet they sold that box to me. They knew if they did not sell it to me, they would have a very hard time finding another buyer with cash money. We only showed up in Korea in those numbers for one month out of the year.
That is a big difference between people who have their own business, and myself. I never would have sold that box to me. They knew they had too, to keep their business going another day. I would have lost my business to my ego, my pride, or my business ignorance. I bet they are wealthy store keepers by now. They are wealthy, savvy, and hard to do business with sort of people. They deserve it too, because all those years ago, they knew what they had to do to be survive another business day, and even though they hated me, and what they were forced into, they did it anyway.
They have business vision, and I have business myopia. If I met them again today, I would gladly give them the thirty more dollars they asked for all those years back. I understand now, and they helped me to understand that day at the bus stop. I really enjoy the homemade burritos, and specialties I come across now and then. I hope they are all successful with their vision, and I remain satisfied with mine.
