Sounds crazy doesn't it?
Delivered the goods to a client this morning. As he made certain to assure me that the check he had handed me was a good one he went on to tell me quite a story about why you shouldn't curse your misfortunes in life.
Many years ago he had been working somewhere in Idaho (I think) with a military base of some sort. He had been working at some kind of a construction job but had just been laid off shortly before he had a $4000 balloon payment come due on his house. He had enough money to get by for a short while but no way to meet that payment with no new money coming in. He decided to go to his banker and sign the property over to the bank rather than fight to keep it with no income expected. As he told the banker of his situation, the banker explained that the young mother with a couple kids sitting nearby had just asked him if he knew of anyone that might be available to help them get moved into their new home. The banker suggested he offer to help. My client then spent the next three days working at something like minimum wage helping this military-connected family. On the third day, a fellow showed up at that house based on some connection to the new family and announced that he was looking for someone with construction experience to help him with some project that was starting. He hired my client on the spot. Within a month he was promoted to supervisor. Within six months he was promoted even higher. Shortly after the opportunity came along to start his own company as sort of a companion company to the one he had been working with. Long story short, he became very successful and had a tidy sum in the bank when he sold out about ten years ago.
His message revolved around the fact that he would have never gotten started on the successful path in his life without the misfortune of having been laid off at a time when he desperately needed every dollar he could get to meet that balloon payment.
Good one. Sometimes, it is hard to recognize an opportunity when it knocks.
Paden, I have not thought of Leo in a very long time. Love his music.
Thanks
Sounds good. Unfortunately it didn't work out so well for me. Perhaps my next misfortune will work out better. God's grace and will permitting of course.
Joe
Leo had some friends and business in Oklahoma in the early seventies. I had the fortune of running into him several times at a mutual friend's place. He was (still is) a guitar playing whiz. He's the only person I've ever seen live play Chet Atkin's Yankee Doodle Dixie on a 12 string. Wish I could get a clip of Leo playing that song.
If I wasn't such a staunch pillar of the community I'd tell you about all the weed we smoked together, but that would probably be inappropriate....:snarky:
Call those 'Blessing's in disguise'. Take the 'dis' out of 'disappointment' and what your left with is an appointment with opportunity. Story of my life. 😀
Interesting story. Kind of revolves around the concept of fate and pre-determined destiny. People either believe in it or they don't. I'm one of those that tend to believe in the full circle concept of life, and that is part of it. It always comes back around.
My bad stuff got seriously bad back in 2003. Hernia surgery in March that set me way back. Snapped my ankle in half (compound fracture) in Nov that literally did cripple me for 4 months. Without that sequence and on the verge of bankruptcy, I probably wouldn't have left West MI and headed to sunny AZ for a nice office job.
Not sure if it's any better, but instead of swatting mosquito's, I'm avoiding snakes. Certainly not shoveling snow or scrapping my windows 6 months of the year, as my mustache fills with snot drips. And my ankle certainly likes 5% humidity over 95%.
