148期：失业后，转角遇见成功

想成为我们的主播，欢迎加微信 xdfbook 投稿。 一段美文，一首英文歌，或是一点生活感想，全由你做主。 《失业后，转角遇见成功》 What Does It Feel Like to Go from Being Wealthy to Poor? The global financial crisis destroyed me in 2008. The years immediately after were some of the worst years of my life. I lost everything, or at least I thought I did. I was in Vegas when Lehman Brothers folded1). It was my birthday, and it was the first time I’d ever lost big there. I should have known something wicked was coming, but I didn’t. So when my consulting contract didn’t get renewed, I didn’t panic. I kept doing business as usual. When my tenants defaulted2) on rent, I kept paying mortgages. A year later, I still had $50,000 plus in the bank, enough of a cushion. I suppose at this time I should make you aware that I was not exactly a low-profile person. I was (and am) in luxury goods and hospitality, and I consulted with companies catering to high net worth individuals. I helped them design sales and business strategies to keep their clients happy in the short and long term. Needless to say, the luxury sector was massacred3), and is still clawing its way out of the muck and mire, at least in the United States. So, with enough money to float for six to 10 months, I kept looking for work in my field. And looking, and looking. Nothing. Any kind of business consulting, nothing. Six more months go by. Any kind of sales, nothing. Six more months. This was where it got scary. I was up for waiting tables, bartending, limo driving, grocery bagging, anything. But nope. Bear in mind that up until this point, I had never even gone a month without a job since I was 12 years old. My confidence was shot. I mean decimated4). I was a shell of the man I had been only two years previously. I had the stink of failure all over me. A friend of mine owned a couple of car washes. He offered me a job. It was outside work, taking orders when people drove in to the wash. “Would you like the undercarriage5) done?” It was winter in Colorado. I declined. My buddy with the car wash called again a few weeks later. I said no again. Not just because of the embarrassment. Not just because of the cold weather and the elements6), or standing on my feet for 10 hours a day on concrete without wi-fi. It was because of my father. Almost every good father has a catch phrase that he uses to motivate his sons to do better than he did. Typically, it’s the threat of being stuck doing any minimum-wage job that no teenager from the Gekko7) era would ever aspire to. For some reason, the example that my father chose was “car wash.” We’d go through Towne Auto Wash after Little League8) and he’d always point to that guy who asks, “Do you want a regular wash or deluxe9)?” and then hands you that little piece of paper. “Mickey10),” he’d say. “You have to save some money/get better grades/quit chasing girls/do your homework. You don’t want to end up like that guy, working in a car wash, do you?” The last time I heard the speech was around 1996. The words, however, hung in the air for years to come. So, you can see my quandary11). To me, working in a car wash was the ultimate admission of failure. Not losing all my assets. Not selling my watches and cars. Not letting go of a few rugs and some art. I was living with friends, driving a 17-year-old car, had less than $200 in the bank with no idea where the next $200 was coming from, and I was worried about being seen as a failure. A little deluded? Perhaps, but reality kicked in12) when I didn’t have money for a niece’s birthday present. So I called my friend back and asked if I could still have the job at the car wash. My utter failure as a human being was complete, my humiliation final—or so I thought. On my third day of dragging myself in to work, the raven-haired stunner13) that I’d hired as my assistant five years previous pulled in—driving a brand new Lexus. Now my humiliation was complete. There was nowhere to run, no place to hide. And yet, just as I was about to die from shame, something happened that literally changed my life. She smiled, jumped out of her car, pointed her Louboutins14) right at me, ran over and gave me a hug. We chatted for about 10 minutes while her car was getting done. She said she was happy to see me, that I’d been a great boss, and that she was glad I was working. “So many” of her friends (able-bodied twenty-somethings) were unemployed, and at least I wasn’t trapped behind a desk. I realized that I’d been beating myself up15) needlessly and saw how lucky I truly was. In that instant, I decided that instead of just showing up until I could find something better, I would use all my skills to increase my friend’s business, and I did. Over the next few months, something amazing happened to me. Something I never saw coming, and something that impacted my life and made me a better man. I saw hundreds of people every day, and none of them thought I was a failure, and it energized me. I smiled. They smiled back. I was happy and engaging, and I sold about a gazillion16) deluxe washes. But also, my worst fear morphed into something I started to look forward to. I got my confidence back, and it was obvious. I saw dozens of people I knew—clients, old customers, friends I’d lost touch with, and every single one of them said something positive. They respected me. They held me in higher esteem for seeing me in the cold, wearing a red nylon jacket with a car wash logo on it. Nobody made fun of me or called me names17). Nobody laughed. There was even an article in a local lifestyle magazine about me. Then, about six months later, one of my old clients called. He needed some help setting up a new luxury club. We put a deal together and when I resigned from the car wash, my friend was genuinely sad, saying I was the best employee he’d ever had. I approached that new consulting contract with a vigor and zest I hadn’t felt for years! A few months after that, another contract took me to Asia, and I’ve been consulting over here ever since. So, my worst fear turned out to be my salvation18). It gave me confidence, paid my bills for a while and put me in a position to move my company to Asia and have access to an abundance of new cultures and growing markets. Sure, I’m not quite back to where I was that day nine years ago in Vegas, but I have a red nylon jacket with a car wash logo on it that reminds me that for my version of success, I don’t have to be. 2008年那场全球金融危机击垮了我。紧接下来的那几年是我这一生中最糟糕的几年。我失去了一切，至少我自己是这么认为的。 雷曼兄弟垮台时我还在拉斯维加斯，那天是我生日，也是我人生中第一次损失惨重。我本应该察觉到要有坏事来临，但是我没有。所以当我的咨询合同没有续签时，我并不慌张，继续像以前一样开展业务。当我的租户们拖欠房租时，我还正常交按揭。一年以后，我还有五万多美元的银行存款，够给我一个缓冲了。 此时此刻，我觉得我该让你们知道，我可不是一个低调的人。我以前与奢侈品和餐饮服务业打交道，现在仍然如此。我曾为那些面向高资产净值人群的公司提供咨询，帮助他们设计营销经营策略，以让他们的客户无论在短期和长期都满意。不用说，奢侈品行业遭受了惨败，现在仍然在为逃出泥潭而挣扎奋斗，至少在美国是如此。 所以，手握足够周转六到十个月的钱，我一直在自己的领域找工作。 我找啊找啊找，都一无所获。 我寻找任何商业咨询的工作，结果没有一丁点儿机会。六个月过去了。我寻找任何销售岗位，仍然没有一丁点儿机会。又是六个月一晃而过。这时我心里开始没底了。服务生、酒保、豪车司机、杂货包装员或其他任何工作我都愿意干，但都没有机会。我可记得在此之前，从12岁开始，我就没有哪个月是在无工作的状态中度过的。 我的自信心受到致命打击，我的意思是彻底击溃。我还是两年前的我，但只剩躯壳了，浑身弥漫着失败的恶臭。 我的一个朋友有几家洗车店。他给了我一份工作。那是户外工作，就是在汽车开进店的时候接单：“您想清洗一下汽车底盘吗？”那时正值科罗拉多的冬天，我拒绝了。 洗车店的哥们儿过了几个星期又打来电话，我再次拒绝。不仅仅是因为尴尬，也不仅仅是因为寒冷的天气或风吹日晒，也不是因为一天要在水泥地上站上十个小时且没有WiFi。 拒绝这份工作是因为我的父亲。 几乎每一个好父亲都有一个激励自己儿子做到青出于蓝胜于蓝的口头禅。典型的口头禅是威胁说将来不得不干最低工资标准的工作。在盖柯式贪婪分子横行的时代，任何一位青年都不愿意做那样的工作。由于某种原因，我父亲选择的例子就是“洗车”。我们每次看过少年联盟棒球赛后经过唐恩洗车店时，都会有伙计过来问：“你是要普通洗车服务还是豪华洗车服务？”然后递给你一张小纸片。 父亲会指着那个伙计说：“米基，你要存点钱/取得更好的成绩/放弃追女生/做你的作业。你不想最后像他这样做个洗车工，是吧？”我最后一次听这样的话是1996年前后。然而，这些话在之后的岁月里却一直萦绕在我脑海中。 所以，你可以看出我有多为难了。对于我来说，做洗车工就意味着最终承认失败。失去所有财产、卖掉手表和汽车、放弃一些小地毯和艺术品都不会这样失败。 我和朋友住在一起，开着17年车龄的旧车，只有不到200美元的银行存款，并且不知道下一个200美元从何而来。我担心被看成一个失败者。 ………… 文章摘自：《新东方英语》杂志2016年9月号