How did I get into the laundromat business? Before that is answered ... Take a moment to think about the times of your success.
Can you see a pattern of behavior that you have engaged in over the
course of your life? And when this pattern crosses paths with an
opportunity that fits your preparation, do you see how lucky you
became?
How can you continue, find or have success?
Dad always told me that success is luck. Luck is when preparation
meets opportunity. Are you taking one or two small next steps today to
reap in the rewards tomorrow? Over-achievers, are you doing three?
Being prepared is your short cut to success.
I was lucky being born into a family that had a man such as my dad.
I was lucky to meet my wife. I was lucky to meet my father-in-law.
What did you do to prepare for your birth? Break down what needed to
happen to have you enter the world. When you do this, you can find the
amount of preparation MIND BLOWING.
I was ready the day I met my wife. I can look back on a series of
fortunate events. These events took twenty-three years to unfold. I
needed each step of preparation that warm sunny day in June 1991.
How about Yogi, my father-in-law and I? When I met him I was ready. That was that same warm June night. The best way to describe Yogi would to compare Yogi and I.
I was born in New York to two highly educated Catholic parents. Yogi
was born on a farm in Platteville, Wisconsin to two farm wise Catholic
parents.
I believe in working hard, making your work good enough so that
you leave time to play hard. Yogi believes in working hard, until it’s
perfect, leaving enough time to get back to work the next day.
Right from the beginning, Yogi and I shared that common Catholic
upbringing and belief in hard work. I believe that’s all we shared.
I flash a smile any time I am breathing. I remember smiling the day I
broke my dad’s radio, while he was lecturing me, even after he took the
right steps to wipe that smile off my face.
Yogi has a steely gaze
that unnerves me, any four-year old and the president of any country.
I influence others by a friendly, open way with verbal aptness. Have
you heard of Yogi Bear? This Yogi’s real name was Eugene “Yogi” Klar.
No idea why he’s nicknamed Yogi. He’s no less scary than a grizzly
with bear cubs. He’s a man I still find unnerving 20 years later.
When I started dating his daughter, I received a dinner invitation to
the Klar home. It was common for Yogi, midway through dinner, to stand
up and walk out the front door without a word and return three hours
later.
Unnerving would be an understatement.
If I moved home today, my mother would cook for me, clean up after me
and do my laundry. Yogi had such a bad back as a youth that he needed
spinal fusion surgery. During his year of bed rest he still milked the
cows.
After High School my dad sent me to college. I spent two years
FOCUSED on improving my verbal skills, socializing, and connecting.
After two years, Dad and I agreed we needed a new plan. Yogi left high
school and enlisted in the army, but he was kicked out because of
his medical history of a bad back. He went off and spent ten to twenty
years working in a machine shop. He saved his money to open his own
business. He continued to work both his job and his business until his
business was successful. This is a business he runs today without any
financial need to do so.
Yogi and I: We share a love for Robin Klar Suslick.
Can you imagine what Yogi thought of me when Robin brought me home
for the first time? I never heard him say the words, yet I could
picture him talking to my mother-in-law, Marie, “Marie, what are we
going to do? Did you meet the boy Robin brought home? He’s going to
take our daughter, then he will want our money next!”
Yogi would have been half right. He had a successful business. My
dream was to own a business. The preparation took my entire life. I
had taken one or two small steps at a time.
When Yogi told me, as I remember, “Dale, you can run the tanning,
drop-off laundry and dry cleaning part of the business as your own. You
can keep the money you make.” I knew I had met my opportunity. I will
have to ask Yogi if that is exactly what he meant. That said, meeting
Robin was the luckiest day of my life. She is my inspiration to become a
better man, to use my time wisely and to come home.
The very least of all my wife’s qualities was the introduction to
Yogi. That meeting allowed me to use all the preparation I had done.
Meeting Yogi was the opportunity of a lifetime.
You never know when the next person you meet, the next thing you read
or the next show you listen to might be the short cut to your success.
Are you ready? What one or two small steps could you take today?
