No Going Back to Zero

 

Seventeen days after graduation, Lewis received notice of a job posting on a local bulletin board. He placed a quick phone call, received an invitation to a job interview and after a twenty-minute conversation, received an offer to begin the next day. The position was, thankfully, inside a warehouse and the pay was considerably better than his previous temporary position, allowing him to begin saving money, with the goal of one day building his decade long dream of his own business with a yet to be discovered partner.

The following four years revealed an ever-growing bank account, a chance encounter with a like-minded individual who seemed to share the same dream as he, and an opportunity to invest in a small warehouse on the edge of town, into which he poured his creative and restorative efforts, increasing the value to the point of generating more income. This became a cycle in Lewis’ life, finding the necessary equipment and general laborers to assist in his efforts.

As growth continued to manifest itself, Lewis could see his dreams becoming reality, growing in excellence, and quality. This entire endeavor was like a family, as he and his business partner became like a single mind, developing the business and hiring on more and more team members. The entire process was a learning curve, finding new and better solutions, picking up good advice and guidance from those who had more experience and more knowledge, allowing the business to become exponentially larger, more refined, and of increasing value.

Like the creation of something from nothing, the dream that began in his heart so many years before was now becoming reality. As the years passed, the plan made its way onto paper, initially as a rough sketch, then more like a blueprint, and finally a tangible reality with measurements and details, bringing a thrill to his heart and bigger and more beautiful plans to mind.

The years continued on, he and his partner really seemed to be in perfect agreement as to how to proceed, hiring on more and more workers, bringing in specialists which allowed them to focus on development and further enhancements. The business finally reached its zenith, bringing a stop to further growth as their personnel, their equipment, and their need for warehouse space exceeded their current situation. In what became a regular cycle, every five years they moved into larger and larger facilities, watching their success continue to exceed their wildest dreams.

Lewis poured all of his energy into making the business flourish, into making himself that much more educated and capable of running the business, wasting no money, wasting no time, and wasting no energy on things of no value. It was after the fourth move that he decided to bring an end to their movement, and their growth, deciding to focus instead on efficiency and quality.

He began to feel troubled as his partner began spending less and less time focused on the business they had built together, instead directing his energy and attention on other businesses, other people, and other pursuits. Looking back over the last several years, he realized that he should have seen it coming but as the saying goes, “hindsight is twenty-twenty”.

With every aspect and detail of his responsibilities covered, he traveled to a nationwide conference to make more connections and learn more about efficiency. Returning a week later from his trip, he found that the offices and the warehouse were now empty and lifeless, to receive a letter from a local lawyer informing him that the business had been liquidated and had ceased all operations. Along with the closure notice, he received a substantial check, which represented half of the value of the business, forcing him to begin again.

After placing seventeen phone calls and twenty-two text messages to his partner, he received nothing but a voicemail and silence. He returned to his large, comfortable, and cozy condominium to begin planning, once again, how to move forward and how to best invest his money. Within a month, a new business sprang into existence on the opposite side of town, fronted unsurprisingly by his former partner and someone else who claimed to be exceedingly wealthy.

Selling his home and most of his belongings, he moved to a different town, knowing that he could not start another business as his former partner had somehow put together a replacement rather quickly, which felt like a kick to the stomach, considering all that he had sacrificed and accomplished after so many years of planning and hard work. Distance was the key, as a new market needed to be discovered and fed, knowing that he could not overlap what now existed as a reprehensible stab in the back.

Not one to make the same mistake twice, he sketched out a plan, using the decades of acquired wisdom and experience, and vowed to never again go into business with another partner, feeling as if he had lost all trust in people in general. Recognizing his own weaknesses, he knew that everyone else had their own struggles, and taking on the problems of someone else was not something for which he had the stomach. He would certainly maintain his normal practice of aligning acquaintances, for solitude was a bitter pill to live on.

Year followed year and his business took root, gained an audience and a solid, faithful clientele, building up in relatively the same manner as his previous attempt. Thrilled at the success he was achieving; he began to receive requests from neighboring cities and even cities in neighboring states. With his business solid and stable, he traveled to the nationwide conference that year, at least five years after his previous attendance, to learn that the business established by his nemesis and former partner had gotten into the cycle of overpromising and underperforming. He began to see a pattern develop as their customers came to him for his quality product and his consistent output. Without saying the words, he knew the inescapable outcome of this new pattern that was developing. “One can only lose so many customers before everything falls apart,” he thought. Not one to wish ill on anyone, he focused on his work, his productivity, and his personal growth, nearly overwhelmed with his success, his constantly growing business, and constant need for more general laborers and salesmen.

Nine p.m. rolled by as he still sat in his office at the warehouse. He had glanced at his phone to see the time and was startled when it began to ring, a number he recognized and was at the same time surprised to see. “Nope, I don’t have the time or energy for that conversation,” he thought, letting the call go to voicemail. Switching his phone to silent mode, he slipped it in his pocket, turned down the heat, turned off the lights and went home to enjoy a glass of Merlot while watching a performance of Bizet’s “Carmen”.

He woke the next morning feeling perfectly rested and calm, to see that he had eight voicemails, feeling no need to distract himself with listening to them, certain of what he would hear, and not wanting to hear it. “There’s no going back to zero,” he said to himself. When you shatter a wineglass on a marble floor, there is no restoring it to its former glory. When you crumble a beautiful painting into a ball, there is no bringing it back to its former unblemished state. When you run a magnet along a magnetic tape recording, that which was once a beautiful piece of music is now destroyed and unintelligible.

Opening his laptop, he found thirty-three emails from his former partner, all carrying the same pleading subject line, all of which he dropped into the trash, having zero desire to interact or dialog. He vigorously rubbed his face, readied himself for another day at the office, to only realize that it was Saturday morning, tickling something in him to turn on an episode of SpongeBob, which of course he didn’t, instead opting for a thrilling and poetic serving of Vivaldi, while he drank his coffee and ate his toast.

“Some things cannot be undone or redone,” he thought. “I have a new plan in place, a new business that is robust and successful and I have no intention of trying to reheat a souffle.” The future he could see for himself was a bright one, full of potential and a seemingly endless growth arc. His decades of work were paying off, again, and he embraced all that he had learned thus far, promising himself to only continue growing, expanding his knowledge base and fields of experience, feeling the need to make himself better, bigger, stronger, and more informed. Believing that there was no end to what he could learn and apply to recreate himself as comprehensively as possible.