What Fear Has Cost Me: The Rest Of The Story

The other day, Sean Ogle wrote a blog post entitled “How To Add Value To Your Life By Saying Yes.”  The post spoke about an invitation Sean received from a friend to fly to Florida (Sean is based in Portland) to spend a weekend at a beach house with his friend and a few other successful entrepreneurs. 

The invitation came with only a 24-hour notice and Sean was already very booked up for the weekend.  It would have been easy to say “no.”  Who wouldn’t?  I mean, a last minute invitation to fly across the country to spend a weekend with a bunch of people you don’t really know, when you already have other plans.  Saying “no” was a no-brainer, right?  In the immortal words of Lee Corso, “Not so fast, my friend.”

Sean didn’t give in to the knee jerk reaction to say “no.”  Instead, he took advantage of the opportunity and flew to Florida for the weekend.  The result?  Sean says:

…luckily I said yes and was treated to one of the best weekends in recent memory.  Not only is he (Markus) awesome, but the group of people he brought out were some of the most successful and interesting I’ve met in awhile.  I left with a totally new outlook on my life and business.

Sean’s story struck a chord with me and I commented on his blog by saying:

I couldn’t agree more. Because when you say “yes,” you’re not just saying “yes” to the invitation to dinner or drinks or a movie or a weekend at a beach house in Florida. You’re saying “yes” to potentially endless possibilities. And at the risk of sounding a little woo-woo, you are saying “yes” to the universe. You are opening yourself up and inviting in opportunity.

The whole episode made me think back to an earlier blog post I wrote entitled “What Fear Has Cost Me.”  If you haven’t read the post yet, I would encourage you to do so.  In a nutshell, the post tells the story of how I befriended one of the wealthiest men in America and how he offered to practically guarantee that a business I was working on would be successful.  However, because of my own irrational fear, I decided not to take him up on his offer.  I took the easy way out and said “no.”  Everytime I think about it I get a little sick to my stomach.

As bad as that story is, it’s not the entire story.  There’s even more bad stuff to tell.

As you’ll recall from my previous post, I was a first line supervisor for a large insurance company at the time I was meeting with Jack Taylor, the founder of Enterprise Rent-A-Car.  My wife was working at Enterprise at the time, and I got to know Jack simply because he saw me every Saturday waiting near his office for my wife to get off work.  Our relationship was built very organically and I never had any intention of asking for his help or advice.  However, over time we started talking about business ideas I had and Jack voiced his opinions about those ideas.

A week or two after I told Jack that I was not going to move forward with my mobil oil change idea, we were talking in his office.  Out of the blue Jack asked me, “Lou, have you ever thought of owning your own car dealership?”  I was a little surprised by his question and said, “Honestly, it would be great, but it’s so far fetched that I’ve really never thought about it.”

Jack went on to make me an offer.  He asked me to go to work for the Chevrolet dealership he owned.  He told me that he wanted me to start as a sales person.  I wouldn’t make much money, he said, but it would give me an opportunity to learn the business inside and out.  He wanted me to study the way sales are made, and to learn everything I could about the service department and body shop.  Then, after two years at the Chevrolet dealership, Jack said that he would make me the general manager of a Ford dealership he wanted to buy.  In fact, he said he was ready to buy the dealership at that time, but didn’t have anyone in his organization he had confidence in who could run it. 

The offer got even sweeter.  After two years at the Chevrolet dealership and then five years as general manager of the Ford dealership, Jack said that he would finance the purchase of a new car dealership for me.  Wow, what an offer!  Of course, I didn’t take advantage of it.  My fear raised it’s ugly head and I eventually told Jack I wasn’t prepared to leave my current job.

Now think about this for a minute.  Forget the actual offers to help me start a mobil oil change business or to help me get my own new car dealership.  Just consider the value in having one of the wealthiest men in America taking you under his wing and helping you get established in business.  The fact that he was willing to help me out financially was big, but the fact that he wanted to groom and mentor me was even bigger.  It was the opportunity of a lifetime, but because of fear, I blew it.

When Jack made his offer, I should have said “yes.”  Sure, I had another job and a seemingly bright future.  Saying “no” was the easy thing to do.  But if I would have thought beyond the easy answer, I would have seen that a simple “yes” could have completely changed the course of my life.  I would have had access to a person who built himself up from humble beginnings to own several businesses and who became one of the Country’s wealthiest men.  Instead, I said “no” and missed out on all of that.

Life has turned out fine for me.  I have no complaints.  But I hate the fact that at one time in my life, I was so resistant to change and opportunity.  I was too afraid to give up what I had in exchange for the potential of something better.  I am a very different person now than I was then.  In the intervening years, I have learned the power of saying “yes.”  I have learned that opportunity comes to those that are open to it.  And I have learned that very few good things happen when you act out of fear.  Ultimately, it was a very expensive lesson for me to learn, but it was immeasurably valuable.