Sabian: I met someone I never would’ve expected to find at a laundry plant, much less quietly working under me. I’ll call him Shawn.
Shawn was an entrepreneur who built up his own meat-packing business in the Middle-East for over 23 years, having employed over 200 staff at his factory. He managed large teams and executives to operate his plant, making sure all his customers’ orders were well-done, that refrigeration was maintained, chemicals were handled appropriately, delivery was organized, and everything. And now, he was at this laundry plant as a minimum-wage factory worker. How did that happen?
It’s funny, because when I first met him, I was a bit ignorant and thought he had mental issues, but because I’m also a listener, I kept talking with him and learned he speaks at least 5 languages, including Mandarin and Russian, and English was his weakest. Soon after that was when I learned he had owned his own business.
I asked him why he’d be working at this factory as a minimum wage employee, and he told me when he had come from his country in the Middle-East, that despite his business experience, he didn’t have great English, and he thought that meant he couldn’t do much in Canada.
At the time, I was a budding entrepreneur just starting to network with other business owners, and I said to him “Hey, you know what? You have business experience, and I have English. Let’s do something together!” and he said “Okay! Sounds good!”
But, you’ll never guess what type of business we planned to start…