Jeff Gee’s Motivational Blog

Dealing With Life Stuff

January 18th, 2008

About three months ago we got an email from a bookstore in Nigeria who wanted to order $5,000 worth of books. Now were’ not dumb, we know that there is a lot of fraudulent business dealing in Nigeria, but we wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. So we asked for their credit card and checked it out with our Merchant Services company and got verification to send the books.

We had to pay UPS in cash to deliver the books, which came to over $1,000. Good deal, we felt good, we enjoyed thinking that our books were being read by people in Nigeria. Then life’s stuff took over. First we got a call from the credit card company, then we got a letter, then we got the amount debited from our account. So now we are in negotiations with the credit card company and re-creating the entire contract, sending faxes of the emails, and the UPS tracking and delivery numbers etc., etc.

What I noticed most however, was my reaction to all this. Now Jeff is great. He handles things in a completely different way from me. 1) he does not freak out. 2) he accepts lifes stuff, and 3) he remains happy throughout the situation. Me on the other hand–well I have to work really hard at not freaking out and getting very angry. I even thought about sending a kind of voodoo email to the bookstore, saying that ‘what goes around comes around….’

And the thing is…nothing has actually happened. Yes, a transaction has gone bad. Yes, we have lost some money, and yes, we learned not to send books to Nigeria unless they give us cash for them. But in the big picture of life, nothing has actually happened. I have not been murdered, or attacked or had anyone shouting at me. Our business is still thriving. Jeff and I are still working well together. We still have business partners in Cairo, the UK, Australia, South Africa and Guatemala. We are still going strong.

So what I have learned is this. There are people out there who are asleep. They think that cheating people is the only way they can earn a living. They do not realize that when we cheat, lie, or steal that the only people we are really hurting is ourselves. The people who make fraudulent deals are having to live with those thoughts in their minds. They are having to think of ways to steal and cheat. What if they put their thoughts to having a clean business instead? Their minds would become free….they would not be slaves to fear.

Whatever happens to us in our lives, the one thing we always have is freedom of choice. We can either become unhappy, angry and miserable about it, or we can choose to let it go. We can have a better feeling thought. So for my Nigerian fraudulent friends I send you these thoughts: I wish you many blessings. I with you joy and happiness. I wish you to have a thriving and wholesome business. I wish you abundance. And most of all, I wish you forgiveness for your actions. Rock N Roll. Val & Jeff

Entry Filed under: Customer Service Training