On a recent trip abroad I had the pleasure of being seated next to a total stranger. My first impression of my fellow passenger was that he was an average middle aged man travelling alone. He helped me to stow my hand luggage and teased me about the weight of my bag. He told me that he would not be needing luggage where he was going and he had not even felt it necessary to bring a coat. This intrigued me and I asked him why. He told me that he was going to a garage in Barcelona to pick up a van which he needed to drive to deliver to another garage in Paris. He would be flying home from Paris that evening and he didn't foresee any difficulties. A coat would not be needed. If anything happened he would simply 'sort himself out.' He wasn't a planner and in his opinion, this was his weakness and his strength.
In the departure lounge I had been reading Matthew Syed's 'Black Box Thinking' and had just finished the chapter entitled 'Marginal Gains.' The chapter discusses the importance of breaking a big project down into smaller steps and narrowly focussing on improving each step. At that exact moment, I understood this to mean that if you fail to prepare, you should prepare to fail and I started to challenge him about his clear failure to plan for his journey.
He laughed and told me that I had misunderstood him and possibly the book that I was reading. This was not the first time that he had completed a job like this. He had undertaken the same journey several times and had learnt many valuable lessons along the way:
"The first time I went to a garage, I was too confident and I thought that I would be able to find the garage myself. I got on the tube in Barcelona and I missed my stop. I ended up losing the job because I couldn't get to the garage in time to pick the van up. I have never made that mistake again and today there will be a taxi driver waiting for me at the airport. I just give him the name of the garage and he takes me there. It costs me extra, but it's worth it!"
He told me that he chooses to make savings in other ways and prioritises the things that are going to improve his service for his customers:
"I never take luggage and I never eat food on the plane. It's too expensive and I have found out that my Spanish clients really like to give me a restaurant recommendation. When I see them next time they remember me and ask what I thought about the food. They book me again then and I get to try lots of different food."
Clearly he had indeed broken the big picture into several stages and through trial and error had improved each stage to create a more successful delivery service.
At this point he revealed that the delivery company belonged to him and he told me his story. He had been an unhappy factory worker with a boss he didn't like. He wanted to work outside and meet people from a variety of backgrounds and cultures:
"I love people. I collect them and the people that I have met in my life have been my best teachers. I knew that being stuck in a factory meant that I was missing out."
He told me that he bought a van and advertised himself as a 'man with a van.' At that point he was prepared to do anything that his clients needed. He said yes to everything at the beginning, took risks and took on a variety of contracts from emptying houses after life failures to transporting kitchen parts abroad;
"I saw everything in those first few years. I saw people at their most heartbroken, I helped people to make a fresh start and some of my jobs disgusted me but I carried on. There was so much dirt and everything was soiled. I don't understand why people would choose to live so unhappily. Life is a choice and you don't have to be dirty or unhappy. If things aren't good and you are unhappy or you can imagine something better, you have to make changes."
He told me that he used these early experiences to help him to spot gaps in the transportation market. He began to specialise and bought an extra van and employed another driver to continue to do the jobs that he did not enjoy. He passes some of the jobs that he doesn't want to do on to a friend of his and the friend returns the favour. He strongly believes that to be successful you have to be patient and flexible, work with others and build a local reputation first:
"People think that it is cheaper and safer to choose someone local and I use that belief to my advantage. I help local companies to deliver their products. They rely on me and we grow together. That's why I bought another van to deliver a local kitchen company's products internationally. Our businesses are now international and we are very proud of that. It takes longer but life isn't always about getting there quickly. You have to enjoy the scenery"
He explained that failure has helped him to learn:
" In the early days I called people to advertise my services and was often told 'no.' Instead of putting the phone down, I asked them to tell me about the companies that they were already using and asked them how much they were paying. I then made sure that my business undercut them, called them back and I got the contracts."
I asked him about his plans for the future and he said that he had no intention of expanding his business. He smiled and said that he could be a millionaire, but he knows that his family life and happiness would suffer:
"I want to have just enough to make my family happy and I want to be around every day to see them enjoying what I have provided. If they need more, I will work harder. For me, that is what success is."
I realised at this point in our conversation that I had met a rare person. He was possibly one of only two percent of people that manage to achieve Abraham Maslow's state of self-actualisation (Maslow - 1970) According to Maslow, success does not equate with perfection but with achievement of one's potential. Maslow describes a hierarchy of motivational needs from the most basic (food, shelter etc.) to the higher needs of personal fulfilment, social acceptance and self-esteem. We are motivated to move through the hierarchy of needs until we achieve our potential in our own unique ways. If our most basic needs are not met, we fail to make progress. Maslow's triangle is a useful tool to help us to understand why some of our students fail to make progress in their academic and personal lives. Our under-achieving pupils will focus on securing their most basic needs before they can progress to the next level. They are unable to imagine their future and are not motivated to work towards it because the present day is a battle to survive. Success for some of our pupils is simply being able to get through the day with appropriate food, sleep, shelter, safety, love and the acceptance of their peers.
As he helped me to collect my luggage on the way out I asked him if he was worried about driving in the notoriously challenging Paris traffic. He paused and replied:
"I'll be alright. We haven't always got time to read the signs. You just need to find the centre and it's easy from there."
Thanks for reading, Becky @BexK06
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