A great night

Today is part 11 of a 30 day commitment. To read about how I am blogging to change my life please read here first.

Tonight I spend the evening with some of my best friends. My friend Carl was back in town and I invited all of our high school friends over. Much to my surprise everybody I invited came over. It was awesome. I am fortunate enough to have a very tight group of friends that will be friends for life.

We barbecued and had some drinks. We rode our 50cc dirt bikes around our new track that I built just for the event. We played washoos, which is a redneck version of horseshoes (as if horseshoes is not redneck enough).

But something happened that bothered me a lot. In the middle of having the time of my life one of my friends mentioned that he had talked to a girl that had bought a moped from me years ago and recently brought it into my shop.

Here is the story. This girl used to hang out with my group of friends. When I started my business she bought a moped from me. She didn't have any consideration for the fact that I had just started a business and was eating Romen Pride. I gave her a deal on the moped and hardly made any money on it. That's the right thing to do, right? So I hear that she is telling my friends that I screwed her on the deal. This was 5 years ago. She told everybody that I was getting rich and didn't care about my friends. I should have given her a better deal.

Over the years I have remained an acquaintance of hers. Recently she brought it into my shop and without speaking to me asked the shop to get it running again. The thing was seriously neglected and we did one hour of diagnostic work to tell her what it would need. During this time period she posted on my facebook page that my shop didn't return phone calls and what was going on with her moped. I emailed her back and asked her to simply pick up the phone and call me. That would be much more appropriate than leaving a comment on my facebook page.

So I talked to my service department about getting her moped done quickly. After all, she was a friend of mine. I put aside other customers that needed repairs done. I put aside the 100 bikes that I own and need to go through the shop to get her moped done. The shop got the service done and let her know it was ready. We received no return phone calls, but some days later I got an email from her telling me that she had no money and wouldn't be able to pay for the repair until the end of August at the earliest.

I actually expected it. It's her M.O. So tonight when I'm talking to my friends they said that at their 20th reunion last week that's all she was bitching about. She told them that I charged her full price on the repair and the only thing I cared about was money. She thought that since she bought it from me I should have fixed it for free and my shop took to long to fix it.

Honestly, I lost my cool. I called her up and told her to pick up the moped, no charge. I also told her to never call me or come into my shop again. That's the nice thing about being the owner. I can make those calls. I don't like getting as angry as I did tonight, but I don't like getting taken advantage of.

So, whats the point of this post? The point is, if you decide to do something special with your life be prepared for the people who don't want to change to dislike you. There are people in this world who are "professional victims". There are people in this world that will not recognize the sacrifices that it takes to follow your dreams. The will assume that somebody gave you what you have worked for and they will be bitter about it because nobody gave the same thing to them.

Don't let these people derail you. When you decide to follow your dreams you will encounter a lot of negativity. Blow through it and enjoy the results of your hard work.