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A business blessing: He said, she said
Originally appeared on spirituality.com
Dick: In 1990 my dad passed away and I took over his small manufacturing business making die-cut and computer-cut vinyl decals. I had never worked for my dad, so I knew absolutely nothing about running my dad’s business and the manufacturing processes involved in creating the product. I suppose simultaneously learning and operating it for eight years was a demonstration of God’s goodness and grace in itself. In the winter of 1997 I made the decision to sell it and move on to something new.
Manya: We’d been married just a year when Dick told me that he was bored with the business. He’d been a self-employed consultant most of his life and was tired of being tied down to his 9-5 job. Add to that the competition from overseas companies with their cheaper manufacturing and labor costs, and he was ready to move on. Dick had been looking into a new business opportunity that engaged his creativity. Well, he thought selling his dad’s business would be pretty easy, and so he didn’t take any immediate action.
Dick: What she means is that I procrastinated! Then, in the early spring of 1998 I got a call from my landlord about the lease on my space which was due to expire at the end of May. He notified me that my rent would increase nearly 50 percent and, instead of a three-year lease he now wanted a five-year lease. I was totally unprepared for this news. My response to him was that I was going to sell the business and probably wouldn’t renew the lease.
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About the author
Dick and Manya live in Sunnyvale, California, where he continues to work as a commodities analyst and she is a practitioner and teacher of Christian Science.
