Do You Have a Vision for Your Life?

This is post #5 in my blog series called “Uncovering Our Blind Spots in Life and Business.” By reflecting on my own experiences, my goal is to help you uncover aspects of your personality, behavior, emotions, and intellect that harbor unconscious biases that obstruct your perspectives or influence how you see yourself and others. You can read past articles here.

In the fall of 1979, after I graduated high school, I accepted a job through a “blind ad” in the employment section of the newspaper. It read something like this: “You can earn up to $600 per week. We will train you how to do so.” It piqued my interest, so I went for the job interview and found out the job was selling vacuum cleaners door to door or however you got your leads—family, friends, etc.

After about a month of trying to sell these $1,200 vacuum cleaners to the average person, it was not working. One of the components of the vacuum cleaner was the ability to shampoo carpets as well. So, often we were trained to lead with that aspect of an all-in-one vacuum cleaner and carpet shampooer. We would run a shampoo test on a section of the carpet and most people would be impressed, but they now wanted me to shampoo their entire carpet and not just one spot.

After a few weeks of working for the company, I recruited my older brother to join me in selling the vacuum cleaners. We would be a mighty team working together! It was nearing Thanksgiving and people were getting their houses ready for family and guests to come over. So, my brother and I came up with the bright idea of starting a carpet cleaning business with our new multifunction vacuums. With Christmas coming in December, we would give it a good try, and we were off and running with our carpet cleaning company.

We walked into the perfect market niche and were very successful for two months, then January came and no one wanted their carpets cleaned. So, in January we gave thought to what was compatible with cleaning carpets and arrived at a full-service maintenance and janitorial company as our new venture. It took us a while, but we built up a good residential base of clients and eventually expanded into the commercial market. Within a few years, we had approximately 50 employees working on 2-3 commercial sites and we were bringing in an annual revenue of over $500,000/year.

I was 18 years old when we started the business, and I envisioned by the time I was 30 years old I would be a millionaire. I was married in 1981 and we began our family right away, so that fueled my desire to be a millionaire by 30. But in 1985, our dreams were crushed when we had to close the business due to a federal tax liability of over $30,000 that we owed to the IRS after it was discovered that our bookkeeper had embezzled money. We were totally unaware until it was too late. In reality, I had a true blind spot in trusting a person that we did not vet in advance of hiring him. We were warned by a professional accountant that we did not need the bookkeeper’s services and we could track our own expenses and receipts at our level of business, but that is something that we chose not to do. smh!
Because my brother and I were co-owners of the business, we were personally liable for the loss. I’ll share the details of our loss and recovery in another story. But for this account, I want you to know the vision for my life, which I based my future on, was down the drain.

At some point in time, many of us have thought about accomplishing something we consider significant or a great feat in life. We envision ourselves standing on a platform receiving an award or honor for being the best at something. While that initial thought may be a driving force for some of us, for others it’s a fleeting fantasy with no real value other than feeling good in the moment. Another blind spot for me was placing all my eggs in one basket instead of pursuing multiple income streams to accomplish my goal of becoming a millionaire. When things outside of my control happened, that drowned my hope for the future, and I was lost.

My advice to you: – Reflect on what’s fueling your passions and vision for your life. Do you get wise counsel to help understand how to achieve what’s in your head or do you just dream of a better day with no real plan of accomplishment?

I highly suggest that we do not try to build our future lives on “shifting sand” or a “pipe dream.” Talk with someone wiser than you who has “receipts/papers” of evidence and has accomplished things you are trying to achieve. We do ourselves a disservice when we try to figure things out on our own—that is a major blind spot. But it can be avoided if we seek help and assistance from other qualified people who have been there and done that.

Please learn from my blind spot of trying to become successful with no track record of how to get it done or back up plan if things fail.

Your thoughts and comments on this blog are Welcomed and Desired. If you feel the content of this blog is valuable, please share it with your friends and network. With Gratitude!

WES

We don’t see what we don’t see! We don’t know what we don’t know! Therefore, we cannot change the things in our lives that could propel us to the next level!

Do You Have a Vision for Your Life?