Monday, November 26, 2007

What would you do for free?

I koped this off Sheryl's blog - though I'm not very close to her but I happened to stumble upon and read her blog. She's on a semester at sea trip that takes her to many many places. Jealous? Of course :P The following excerpt from her trip in Egypt:

"Turns out, the guy serving them was the boss of the store. Tara asked him if there was anything in the shop that was worth 1 US dollar, and went on to tell him a grandmother story that she had to buy a present for her friend and it had to cost 1 dollar. I told her not to tell everyone her life story, because I didn’t think shopkeepers would take any interest. He laughed and gave me a high five. He must have thought we were poor because he picked up a small gift and told Tara she could have it for free. He then proceeded to tell us his life story.

Titto said he was a student once and he can understand how it feels to want something and not be able to afford it. He went through 8 years of medical school to make his parents happy, but his passion was business. All through college, he didn’t receive a cent from his parents, and funded himself with the profits from his little gift shop. He started his first store at 16, when he was a freshman at university. In the first year, business was so good that not only did he not make a loss; he earned a profit of US$200,000. Subsequently, he expanded and acquired more shops, and today he has 4 shops in total.

Every time we picked up something we liked and asked for the price, he would tell us the original price, and then tell us we could have it for half that price. On multiple occasions, he would tell us to remember – in life, its not always about the money. He said he went into business not because of the money. I couldn’t figure it out, what was there to business apart from the money? He said he liked sourcing for products, managing people, meeting suppliers, customers, cutting deals, that he would willingly do all those things even if he was not getting paid.

And there it was. That’s the Key. I need to find a job that I would willingly do without getting paid. That’s the litmus test. "

What job would you be willing to do without getting paid?

Mrs Brightside at 12:21 am

{xoxo}