Diane: When I first started eBay, my husband has just gone through triple by pass. We had spent every penny. We didn’t have medical insurance. We have five kids. So we have to spend every dime we have in savings for his medical care. We also had my health issue. I had a little small alcohol problem. Well, it’s not small, alcohol problem’s alcohol problem. And I went in to rehab. I’m an alcoholic in recovery. And I’m not ashamed. I don’t do shame, and it has help me so much. eBay has given us two homes, three beautiful cars, and most importantly time with our kids and more important than that college education for our kids. They don’t have to go through the tough times. They alsways have that education and eBay gave that to us.
Tough times guide my future 100 percent. In fact, failures are our best ally. I mean, if you can't fail, if you can't learn from a failure, you’ll never learn anything. In fact if you think about it, I’ll bet you think more about your failures than you do about your winnings. And the reason you do that is because you're learning something.
Lon: I have to tell myself everyday that I would wake up and say, today is the day that I’m going to fail because at that point I could relax. Because what’s the worst that could happen. I would fail. So I would prepare myself everyday for that. I just find that too many times people just dwell on the fact that I could fail and what would happen if I did fail. And I wake up and say, okay today is the day I’m going to fail. You know, so what? So what’s going to happen?
And one of the things that I did and I’ve told this and given a lot of advise to a lot of people was that when you start a company, the first thing you need to do is to help people. Tell your friends and your family that you’re starting a company because at that point then everybody’s watching you. And at that point, when everybody’s watching you, failure becomes much greater than it is. When you’re the only one that knows that you’re going to fail.
So to put yourself who knows that position of everybody’s watching you and watching whether or not you’re going to fail. Yes, it gives you some more pressure but at the same time it just lets out in the open. It lets everybody know that, yeah, I’m taking a big risk and I think at that point people become more supportive of you to.
Sharon: We open a dealership with very little. He decided that he would still work and I opened it by myself. And there was fear and excitement. I had never done anything like that. I’m a farm girl from way back. And in February, we were eating dinner and I said to Dick, you either are going to be a motorcycle dealer or you’re going to be a brick layer because you have ten days to make a decision. I’m going home. I cannot do everything it needs to be done myself. He never laid another brick, it was in February, he became in there and work with me.
When Dick died, that was rough. I decided after that I decided I have to work hard. I fought it for about a year so they gave me more everyday. You know, I have some more grit in me that I will thread on, that I will be the best. I really put my whole heart in it, that’s when I came up. I’m going to build a new dealership. I’m going to build me a bigger place.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services