Chapter 3 "Ask the Big Questions"

Excerpt from Permission to Succeed due out July 2012. Pre order your copy now ! click on the link below and the click on BY MY BOOK NOW on my Fan Page!

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Chapter 3

Ask the Big Questions


I remember being on the phone with my father the afternoon I had to decide whether to close my second cookie store.

I sat in the store with the lights off and a major decision in front of me…

Do I try to make this work here, or do I cut my losses, fall back to the first store, and fix the damage? As I told my dad what was going on, he seemed a bit distracted.

He said, “This is a tough spot; what are your options?”
“I can take their deal and make the store smaller and roll the build-out into the lease or close it and move.”
“What do you think you should do?”
“That’s why I called you! What are you doing?”
“I’m watching my favorite show. Why?”
“You seem distracted. I need you right now; I have some questions, and you are the only person that can help me.”
“What is your question?”
“What should I do?”
“That’s easy—fold back into your other store and continue to fight. However, that’s not the big question you need to be asking yourself.”
“What is that?”
“Do you think you failed?”
“YES. Miserably!!”

My dad kind of chuckled and said, “Let me make this quick—my show is getting to the good part.

Son, you only fail if do not learn from what happened.

Businesses close every day. I have lost many businesses over my life, some you know about, some you don’t, but the bottom line is I took something away each and every time so I would not make the same mistake twice. You have just learned a very powerful lesson. You have done things that your peers have not dared to try. Now you have seen the whole business ownership experience. You went from dream, to thought, to action, to success, to closing. Which one of your friends has that experience? Once you can answer the big questions, everything else is put in perspective. But you have to ask the big question to get the big answers. I am proud for you trying. I’ll be there in a few days to help you move.”

Several years later came a different time when I had to close my last cookie store after seven years in business. I started looking for work anywhere to make sure I provided for my family. It was a very dark time in my life.

In hindsight, I was probably depressed.

Back then, I didn’t know that, when you close a business or end a relationship, you need to mourn its passing. Sure, when there is death, that’s an automatic; you are expected to grieve and mourn. But I don’t remember the Small Business Association offering a class on what to do emotionally when you have to close down. Surely the loss of a business qualifies as the death or end of something and a beginning of something new. My store, although not a real person, had a soul, life, its own characteristics, and it was an extension of me. When outside forces that I could not control (and internal actions that I did not control) came together, it was the perfect storm for failure. I was about to be flung into a whirlwind where my very essence would be tested.

I had already faced closing one store and then eventually closing the other and lost everything I had.

I really felt I had let my family, my staff, and myself down.

I had to make another call to my father, this time we did not discuss the philosophy of winning or loosing; success or failure. He knew I had learned my lesson from the first store, but now had to live that life lesson as I closed my last store and prepared for a new chapter in my life.

As we loaded the last of the equipment into the storage shed and closed the door, I felt a very strange overwhelming feeling. That feeling was not one of “I failed”

or “I have never been successful”

or “Ill never try that again”

but rather the feeling of

“What to do Next?”

What am I good at? What are my strengths and what will people think of me now that I have lost my business? The feeling of the unknown and the combination survival mode overcame me as I locked up my past.

About a year later, I met a man by the name of Spencer Bartley while working for a local drugstore chain.

Spencer was that type of man who was about his business but always looking to help others who showed potential. A rare find.

We became fast friends, and Spencer began to open up his network to me and to show me how I could become a motivational speaker, since that’s what I told him I wanted to become.

Spencer had this crazy thought of working in reverse.

He said, “I work at night so I can build my business during the day.”

I thought that was crazy.

But while stocking shelves at night, Spencer began to share his life philosophy with me. He dared me to dream big. He became my mentor. Then, one night, he hit me with a phrase that would change my life.

“Mark,” Spencer said, “you need to ask the big question if you want to achieve in life. Looking for others to give you permission about what you want to do is not going to get you where you want to go.” This type of talk went on for a few months.

Finally, I asked, “What is the big question, Spencer, I think I’m ready to ask it.”

He said, “Mark, the big question is,

‘Are you truly ready to be successful?’”

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