It's a funny thing that you must learn as an entrepreneur, discipline. I've always had a strong sense of discipline since the time I was very young, but the real test doesn't begin until you've grown up (is that too much of a stretch for me?), been through a serious job or two, and then been re-released into the wild to figure it out on your own. There is a simple routine in a corporate job: you wake up, head to the office, and wait for the work to come to you. Sure, you have to come up with ideas here and there and creativity is sometimes required (haha), but for the most part you just sit tight and wait for the work that you know is heading your way. This whole entrepreneur thing is the polar opposite. If you sit tight waiting for something to come your way, it's going to be a lonely journey (and one where you'll end up on the streets!). Nobody is looking out for you, and you better be willing to go out and get yours. It's kind of like what I would imagine would happen to a gorilla, for instance, that has lived his whole life at the zoo and then one day is released into the jungle. In the zoo, everything the gorilla wants is provided for him: food, shelter, companionship, etc. Then one day he is sent out to the jungle to figure it out on his own. I can only imagine that this would be an extremely difficult transition, if not an impossible one. The gorilla has to find ways to acclimate to this new world and, most importantly, find a way to survive. He no longer sits in the big gorilla playland with regular meals being fed to him. In the unknown world, he has to go out and make it happen on his own. Now, from a business perspective as a human, it's one thing to find that idea to make to make it on your own but you have to turn that idea into reality. I live on an island full of beautiful beaches and even more beautiful girls so it requires an even deeper commitment to discipline. You can easily get distracted here, and it's something that I see every day. There are lots and lots of people here that have just settled into the easy routine. If you're searching for a great quality of life, Floripa is definitely the place for you. But if you're still young and searching for the next great opportunity in Floripa, you better dig deep for that idea and you must work very, very hard to make that idea a success. There are hundreds of distractions every day and you're not confined to an office. The world is your oyster but you need to swim out to sea, search the ocean for that oyster, find the oyster, nurture the oyster, and then just hope that this oyster is the right one. Perhaps the oyster was not the right one so you need to cut your losses, forget about it, and move on. It's not a simple task by any stretch of the imagination and with all of the distractions, it's even more difficult. Discipline is definitely the key. A wise man once said that, "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments" and he couldn't have been more right. I'm living in the jungle, baby, and it's time to go hunting for some food....
Bureaucrazy continues to be a hilarious obstacle every day. As I prepare to open my new business, I've unfortunately had to get my hands dirty again. We've been in contract negotiations for at least two months with a shopping center here, and I would argue that we have been as agreeable as possible with our terms. Did you know that all shopping centers in Brazil charge double rent for the month of December? In any universe, does this make sense? My favorite part of their contract is that very last clause that they so conveniently place in the contract. I'm paraphrasing (and some words might be lost in translation) but more or less the clause states "You can ignore anything written above as the shopping center can decide what to do when it wants with no notice whatsoever." It's definitely my favorite part. We're also working with architects, contractors, designers, and God knows who else. Sometimes we'll send a simple question to our graphic designer and we won't hear from him for four days. It never ceases to blow my mind. You'd be out of business in a week if that happened back in the U.S. Also, we've been opening up new companies and dealing with the funding of these companies with international wires. These things all seem so easy but here in Brazil it's like climbing Mt. Everest every day. A funny anecdote - the other day I was having lunch with a few American friends who have a business here. One of the partners was discussing how he just opened a LLC for the company in the states so they could start exporting to the US. A Brazilian guy who was with us asked how long it took him to open the business. My friend responded, "About 45 minutes." The Brazilian was literally dumbfounded and I mean DUMBFOUNDED. We all started cracking up and at the very least, this moment of laughter made us all forget how crazy some of this stuff really is.
I've come to the conclusion that the bureaucracy is the Brazilian government's way of employing as many people as possible. Everyone here seems to work for the public system in one way or another, and it seems to me at least to be such a strange way of going about business as it completely lacks efficiency. And the more people working for the government, the more hoops you have to jump throught. Based on how many hoops I have jumped through in the past few months, I would estimate the number of government employees in Brazil to be about 750 million.
Outside of all of this, all is good here in Floripa. Spring time has arrived along with its best friend Sr. Chuva (Mr. Rain). I can only hope that we don't see the amount of rain that we saw last year. That almost killed me. You can only spend so many days in a cafe drinking coffee. I was more wired last spring that Tom Cruise on Oprah's couch. Everyone continues to anxiously await for summer. As a business owner, your whole year relies on what happens in the summer months so I'm making sure that Tatsuya is completely ready to rock. It's going to be a wild one, and I couldn't be more ready. May God be with me....... ;)
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