This past week I had one of those sobering, and at the same time inspiring, business Discovery meetings that confirms to my soul that there is an ever-expanding, ever-creating, abundance in the collective spirit of this nation’s small businesses.
As a consultant I often meet with business owners/executive managers well after work hours - when the heat of the battle has cooled a bit, the telephone has stopped ringing, and everyone else has gone home to their personal escape. So it was Wednesday when we visited with the owner, president, and chief driver of an internet marketing business. His firm has expanded so rapidly that they are strung across three different office condominium spaces within the same campus. As we walked between operations he indicated two additional spaces that he would soon occupy.
For the first hour our Discovery meeting was pretty standard stuff, he was telling us of his successes and growth issues and making certain that we were duly impressed that he really didn’t need any consulting help, even though he is trying desperately to keep pace with the “run-away freight train” that is his business reality.
I always like to understand the person (not the title, the degrees or resume’), long before I ever recommend our services to them because some people, even after they engage us and pay us a pretty respectable retainer, will NOT be helped. Since I have an ethical problem with just trying to help someone, we won’t enroll a company that we judge is going to be unresponsive.
I asked a few personal questions and then out came a startling and incredibly honest disclosure: “in 2006 I was homeless, living on the streets, helplessly addicted to drugs (first prescription painkillers and then whatever). I had no friends or family that trusted me or would even return a telephone call. I ended up in Salt Lake City in early February, still very much the winter, with a $15 suit, no money, not even a suitcase full of personal possessions, and no place to stay the night.”
I related to him my own volunteer missionary experience in various 12-Step Addiction Recovery programs, and the floodgates were flowing.
When this desperate man headed to the homeless shelter down town to find something to eat and a warm place to sleep that night, he had seen a glimmer, just the thinnest ray of hope. It was then he realized he had hit “rock bottom” and wasn’t going to accept being an addict any longer. A friend had met with him during his layover in the SLC airport, and while he hadn’t given him any money, he had given him some hope.
The next day he went out into the neighborhoods looking for any work he could find. “If it wasn’t a felony or a homosexual act I would do it”. He shoveled snow, clean dog ‘poop’ out of backyards, hauled dry wall, sold door-to-door. He started meeting daily with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and went ‘cold turkey’ no drugs or booze immediately.
At 30-days of sobriety he had a key to a basement dwelling, was finding work every day, and actually had his first breakthrough to becoming human again. After the day’s AA meeting, a couple of meeting facilitators said to him “We’ve been watching you and we believe that you are sincere. We have decided to let you be our friend since we think you can be trusted.” Every addict is a liar and every former addict knows this. The fact that a former addict believed he could be trusted, and was worthy of friendhips, was a huge breakthrough.
Every morning his prayer to God was simple: “please keep me sober today and help me be of service to others.” His attitude was: “Keep moving, do whatever is in front of you, and keep yourself too busy to get into trouble”. After nine-months of micro-entreprenuring, he borrowed a suit and applied for a stable job doing internet marketing for a mortgage company. This was incredibly bad timing since it was 2007 and the plug was about to be pulled on mortgage funding. Because his intention was very clear, he would not allow himself to fail, his commitment was super-human. Despite the slow death of the mortgage firm he was working for, he began picking up freelance work in his field of expertise.
He got married and they were blessed with two children. He obtained some of the essentials: a wallet, some identification, an automobile, a credit score, and finally, a home by 2008. His business was flourishing.
Now, in 2010, his business has monthly sales over $1-million. It has only been a full time business for about 18-months. His profitability is enviable. The future of his firm is dynamic and has potential geometric growth of many times over current revenue.
How is it that he has succeeded in the middle of the worst economic crisis in our lifetime? How did he start a business in one of the hardest hit industries and thrive while so many have failed? How did he make it in Salt Lake City, a capital poor, highly conservative environment?
In his words: “Salt Lake City is an easy place to earn money and get momentum. You just have to show a little leadership and creativity and work harder than everyone else. Pain is the great personal motivator. Nobody wants to feel pain. First you get 1-guy to believe in you, and then another, and then another, and the momentum builds.”
And of course there is still the daily personal prayer: “God, please keep me sober today and help me be of service to others”.
