14 years ago, upon landing in Ypsilanti, Michigan and working in a local video store from 9am to Midnight was probably the third best thing that ever happened to me back then.
The first best, just in case you are wondering, was finally landing in USA, second was meeting Nora.
Business was slow at night - this was a residential area. A rough residential area now actually going through some major development. But 13 years ago, the time after 9pm to all the way to midnight was a dead zone. Some customers would walk in and rent porno's which was our biggest profit center.
Some guy would walk in, smoking a big fat blunt, right in plain view and rent 10 westerns (the $.99 special) and leave, laughing hysterically. It was, as the saying goes, an interesting time for me. . I worked all by myself. My other co-workers would leave at 8:30pm and it was me, standing, there were no chairs to sit, for the next 3 hours, waiting for the next customer to walk in.
At first I hated these three slow hours. I thought I would lose my mind. I could not watch another rerun of Lion King. But after 2 months of stewing and fuming I figured that I was screwed and what I am gonna do that might help me later.
First thing I did - I started fooling around with the video software that they had. Pretty soon I learned all kinds of nifty reports that we could actually print and control inventory. Next my boss had just bought a new computer loaded with Windows 95. I started fooling around with that.
Taught myself Excel and then Access (it is a database) just hitting the F1 key and reading Help screens. I went to the local Ypsilanti library and borrowed 2 books on Excel and Access. After I told my boss all the nifty little things I could do with the video software (Which movies are stolen and which are just late? What categories are renting and which are not?) and MS-Excel (monthly Profit and Loss) - I got promoted.
It was a fifty cents promotion - instead of $5 I was making an incredible $5.50 per hour. But the big idea that got hooked in my head was this - I have all this "free time" here and there - 20 minutes here, 1 hour there - lets spend it in learning things that will help me one day. Once again no idea when this day would come or how. Incidentally the knowledge about Microsoft Access, something I have learned during those video days played a large part in my retail career 12 months later. The dots connected 12 months later and lead me to roads that I have never dreamed about.
But that "habit" of stealing time, here and there, got its claws in me. We all get the same amount of time. You have to fight, steal, claw, bite your way to find the minutes to piece together what you want out of life. Your wife, husband, children, pastor, boss, friends, lovers - all band together in a vast conspiracy to stop you, by any means - guilt, love, food - because they love you and want you to be with them and not spend time, away from them, with your dreams.
Every day, I get up and I have responsibilities - to my family, to my business partners, to my clients, to my vendors - who all demand justifiably that I spend some time with them. But they don't know that I have a secret plan. Of stealing minutes, here and there, to learn, to flight into the future, to find out what is new and exciting in the world, to think about not where I was or where I am but where I want to be.
Karen Lamb wrote, "A year from now, you may wish you had started today."
It is something to think about, at least once a day, if you are serious about your business in Michigan.
