Why I am in Business
By: Dad, Current # of Ratings = 1 | Rating = 5/5

My dad was always trying to start some form of home business. When I was very young, he and my grandpa were property owners. They owned five properties in the rough part of town and we spent at least one weekend a month doing major cleaning. It was a terrible thing for a ten year old. I remember walking into one house after the tenants had skipped town, only to find wallpaper torn from walls, a 25 pound bag of shot ground into the old shag carpet, a destroyed toilet, and two feet of wet smelly clothes covering the basement floor. One of the best days of my life was when one of the houses burnt down and the rest were sold off shortly after. I vowed I would never be a property owner when I grew up.
When I was in junior high, my father started a small home based computer sales and service business. We had the coolest computer out of all my friends. It had an Intel 386 processor, 32 MB of RAM, a hard drive, a color monitor, and a CD-ROM drive. My father spent almost all of his extra time running that business and doing service calls, besides having a full time job. As part of the business, he re-inked printer ribbons and refilled ink cartridges (not many people had them then). I believe he was one of the first in Western Canada to do this, and I spent a lot of time watching those ribbons go around and around while they filled with ink. Eventually, he closed up shop because there was just too much competition. I vowed I would never run a computer business.
A little while later, my father joined a popular multi-level-marketing company and quit his job as a city police officer. He was promised if he would just stay positive and think big, he would become very wealthy and be able to drive nice cars, live in big houses, and take long vacations. I almost never saw my father during this time because he was always at a conference, visiting with a client, or off on a business trip. He was also very much in debt, which was a big contributing factor in my parents to divorce some years later. He remains in debt to this day. I vowed I would never join a MLM.
During the dot-com craze, when investors were putting up five million dollars for the kid down the street to make a website about sock puppets, my dad and some of his friends invested what little capital he had left, as well as money from several family members, into a website of their own. The idea was to create a virtual city, where people could go and chat, shop, or just explore and play games. The website disappeared along with most of the others when everybody realized there is no money in rag dolls. I vowed I would never run a website.
After I graduated from high school I went to work in a fast food restaurant. I worked long and hard for $5.65/hour (those were Canadian dollars too, so more like $4 for you Americans). After a few years, I knew I must be worth more than $10/hour, so I started looking for a better job. It took me several years before I finally found a job in a water softener factory making over $13/hour. I was rich! I was living at home and had no expenses at all. I bought a car, got my own phone line in my bedroom, and loaded up with all kinds of junk. Stereos, computers, even a fancy new DVD player. It was hard, dirty work, but at least I didn't have to run a business.
Later, I graduated to a job at a box factory. It wasn't as dirty, but it was way harder work. And boring. You know that Simpsons episode where Bart's school does a tour of the box factory? It was just like that. Except the management were a lot more like Joseph Stalin. It was a terrible job and I hated every second I spent there. But it payed $19/hour! Hello Hamptons! I was the richest one out of all my friends.
But reality struck. Strangely enough, girls aren't impressed when you tell them you work at a box factory for a living. So I went back to school, got a diploma in IT, and went to work for a big company. I'd finally made it now. I was on salary, I had my own cubicle, and I got 3 weeks of vacation a year.
And then a weird thing happened. I started working on people's PCs on the side to make a bit more money. But that's not a business, right? I didn't want to start one of those. Then I met a guy who made a living selling comic book figurines on e-bay. I couldn't believe it. I was awestruck. How could this be? I decided I needed to find something that I could sell on e-bay too. That's not a business, right?
It took me about 6 more years and a job change to finally find something I could sell on e-bay. So I contacted the distributor, started a website, and started selling these really cool high quality flashlights. All of a sudden, I was running a business. How did this happen? I wasn't really sure, but I thought if somebody else could make money selling stuff online, why couldn't I? It wasn't long to find out that you actually have to have some type of plan if you want your business to go anywhere. So I sold off the rest of my stock at discount price, closed the website, and started trying to figure out what else I could do.
I started reading some books on business, and an amazing thing happened. As I started learning more and more, I started to see the mistakes I had made, and all of the mistakes my dad had made. I started to realize that I didn't have to make those mistakes, and that I could actually be successful. I started to see opportunities I hadn't seen before. They were right there in front of me the whole time, but I didn't recognize them for what they were.
I've learned that I can control my own destiny. I don't have to put my fate in someone else's hands and hope they know what they're doing. I don't have to worry about how I'll be able to support my family when the next round of layoffs comes along.
I can work for myself, I can start a home business, I can start a small business...I can do whatever I want, because now I am in control. That is why I am in business.
Come learn from me and we'll make it together.
Dad
http://businessdadblog.blogspot.com/

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