But it wasn’t until I created my online platform that the two marketplaces could reach out to one another for help.
At first, it was a simple website to ask for help. I coerced business magnates to post videos and blogs with their advice for budding entrepreneurs, and I found that those entrepreneurs were wanting to ask questions. I opened the online forum for discussions between the two worlds and quickly found that most of the young entrepreneurs were attempting to establish themselves throughout China, Japan, and Taiwan.
Now, five years later, I had created a multibillion-dollar business by simply giving people a way to access information they needed from those who had been successful before them. Young entrepreneurs would come to my website and post their ideas, find potential investors, and even begin planning meetings on how they could blossom in the Chinese marketplace. Then, young entrepreneurs who wanted to establish China’s culture in the U.S. marketplace could reach back and do the same. It was a phenomenal plan that took off from my garage, and now, I was in the process of convincing the whole of my Minneapolis firm to join me in an expansion.
An expansion into the European marketplace.
But now, all of that was jeopardized. Now, I was pushing up against my deadline. Now, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it to the meeting I had set up, much less to the charity ball that was supposed to occur afterward. I could feel my jaw growing taut with anger as we descended into Wichita, Kansas, and I knew what I had to do when I disembarked.
I had to give my right-hand man a call, just in case I didn’t make it on time.
I wasn’t about to reschedule my flight. I’d been down that path before. It would take them hours to reschedule it, and then they wouldn’t be able to put me on a flight until the storm had subsided. Nope. I wasn’t putting myself through that hell again. I was going to head straight for the car rental kiosk and drive the next ten hours into Minneapolis.
Then, I could get a hotel, prepare for this meeting, and expand into another marketplace that would surely need our help with the political moves they had just made.
I had to make it to this event. My CFO could carry the meeting if necessary, but the charity ball had been my fucking idea. If I didn’t show up for it, it would be detrimental to my company’s image. Everything I’d worked tirelessly for would go up in flames, and all because of some stupid, first-class plane flight that couldn’t even get me home.
When the plane finally landed, I unbuckled my seatbelt and gathered all my things. I was more than ready to get off this plane. If I grabbed myself a strong cup of coffee somewhere, I was sure I could drive out from underneath this storm before it trapped me here.
And the last thing I needed was to be trapped in Kansas.
I made my way toward the exit when a rush of air passed me by. I was hit in the face by a flutter of brown hair before the woman in question stumbled. She crashed into a flight attendant, almost knocking her over. The clumsy woman muttered a pathetic apology before she tore out of the runway exit.
I rolled my eyes. Just because someone was in a hurry didn’t mean they could throw decorum out the window.
The great thing about traveling was that I get used to living off very little. I didn’t have to worry about gathering up excess luggage at the baggage claim. All I needed was to head to the car rental kiosk. I got my CFO on the phone and told him about my predicament, letting him know I would send him my last-minute notes when I could hook up to the internet. I reassured him I would make it to the charity ball no matter what, but I didn’t want him to assume I would make it to the meeting.
This meeting was too important for the future of my company to base its success on assumptions.
I hung up my phone and got in line at the rental kiosk. There was a familiar woman standing in front of me, talking quite loudly with the man at the desk. She kept asking him question after question, interrupting him before he could answer.
Apparently, manners were not this woman’s forte.
“I can help whoever’s next,” the other attendant at the kiosk announced.
“Ah, yes,” I said. “I will need a car.”
“Any particular kind?” she asked.
“As nice as they come,” I said. “I’ll be traveling all the way to Minneapolis.”
While I dug out my license, however, the woman’s voice beside me continued to increase in volume.
“Please, I just need the cheapest car you have,” she said.
“Ma’am, this card’s been declined. Do you have another?”
“Do you have proof of insurance?” the woman asked me.
“Ah, yes, I do,” I said. “Just give me a second.”
“This is some crazy weather we’re about to get,” the attendant said to me. “Very unlike Kansas.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “This is my first time in this state.”
“Oh, are you staying for a spell?” she asked.
Was she kidding? I was renting a car and headed to Minneapolis. I wasn’t up for small talk, and I wasn’t prepared to hear this woman’s life story while she rang me up for a car. All I
