No, I don’t mean we have to be optimists to flourish. I mean that a lot of us must be optimists because we don’t change, yet we expect things to get better. Here’s a recent example.
A small shop in the Midwest has sales of $250,000 this year, which is down from $300,000 in 2010. The owner is taking compensation of only $15,000 per year, while a federal minimum wage full-time job would pay him $14,790 ($7.25 hour). Problem is, while he’s “taking” $15,000, he’s putting it right back because he’s losing $35,000 overall. Said another way, if he took no wages he’d be losing $20,000.
Doesn’t sound very optimistic, but I swear he’s an optimist.
That’s because he’s stuck in two-color offset. He has an office...