He tried running from the cab driver but he was too slow.
The cabbie swiftly grabbed his arm and ordered him into the cab.
“Get in” he said softly.
The beaten alcoholic was dripping with fear.
It was a miserable, wet night in the dead of winter when the cabbie found him.
The derelict was hiding in the shadows of a poorly lit laneway behind Central Railway Station, Sydney.
He had no idea how he got there nor how long it had been his home. He suspected years.
And the kind-hearted cabbie wasn’t idling along the laneway looking for work either.
He was returning to an old patch.
The same laneway had been his home years earlier before a stranger escorted him to his first AA meeting.
He was just passing on the torch.
As soon as the cabbie had his passenger strapped in, he switched the meter off and rushed him to the nearest hospital.
He never left his side.
A few hours later, the putrid, unkept man was diagnosed with ‘wet brain’ and spent the next 12 months in a brain damage unit for alcoholics.
No one expected the forty year old to live.
Upon his release, he was put on a disability pension and spent the next eight years drifting between half-way houses and boarding houses awaiting permanent accommodation in social housing.
And then one day while visiting a friend his life took an unexpected turn.
He fell in love.
His friend’s poodle had a litter of pups of which she had two left.
And when she saw his heart melt she suggested he take one. It would keep him company and give him some responsibility.
He couldn’t help himself!
But as the dog grew, he noticed a problem.
Every time he took him for a walk, he had nothing to clean up his mess other than a pocket of tissues.
So, he came up with an idea…’lemon scented poo bags’!
He borrowed $500 from a friend, registered a business name, and imported his first load of bags.
The idea was an instant hit!
He knocked on pet shop doors and sold the bags on consignment making it impossible to refuse his offer.
He was forty nine years of age when he began trading and by the time he turned sixty he owned 10 properties around inner Sydney.
Every week I speak to aspiring business owners who’d love to start their own side hustle, but they don’t.
They think they don’t have enough money, time, resources, contacts, whatever.
The truth is they just need to pull the trigger.
All they need is a low-risk way to test their idea and find out if it has legs.
If this sounds like you but you don’t know where to begin, respond to this email and maybe we can get you started with a One Page Plan.
The opportunity you’re looking for could be right under your nose…you just need to bring it out of the darkness.
Thanks for reading and happy Mother’s Day!
Adam
Back paddock – just when the caterpillar thought the world was coming to an end, it turned into a butterfly.
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