Never Go for the “Quick Advantage”

Once when I was around 12 years old, I was riding my bicycle and a car came out of nowhere, knocked me down, and then ran over the bike. The man who hit me was coming out of a bank and had crossed a sidewalk, not looking where he was going. I was a little banged up and my bike was destroyed. I could tell when I saw the man’s face that he was very sorry for what he had done. I was bleeding, having filed down one of my teeth a bit on some concrete in the fall. Some ground tooth was floating around in my mouth. I knew my scabs would heal over in a few weeks. The bike that was ruined was one that I had gotten at a garage sale, and I did not really care too much about it anyway. I could tell even then that the man was terrified that I was going to sue him or something.

He tried to give me several hundred dollars as I sat on the curb bleeding. “Here, please take the money!” he said holding a large stash of bills in front of my face. “It was my fault!”

I told him I would be ok, that the bike was a cheap one anyway, and not to worry about it. He looked perplexed. Then he gave me his business card and told me to call him if I needed any money or any reimbursements for medical bills. As the man got into his car to drive off I could tell he was incredibly worried about the entire thing.

I called him the next day at his office.

“I just want to let you know I am ok,” I told him. “You seemed very concerned.”

“Can I at least buy you a new bike?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine,” I told him. “It was an old bike anyway.”

“What did your parents say about the accident?” he asked.

“I did not tell them. I did not want to upset them.”

The man sounded really incredulous on the phone. He was nice and I ended the conversation. I threw the bike away and within three weeks or so all of my scabs were gone from the accident. I just had some small scars on my knees.

Around a year later my best friend picked up his Schwinn bicycle from a shop on Mack Avenue in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, after taking it there to get a flat tire changed. As he was riding out of the store he ran over a curb. The tire came off, and my friend fell into the street and hit and scraped his head.

He was fine and walked away, getting a couple of stitches if I remember correctly. However, this was not the end of the story. My friend’s mother decided to file a massive lawsuit against the bike shop, which dragged on for at least a year before it was settled out of court. The mother pulled her son out of school a couple of times for depositions and the entire thing turned into a big ordeal. I think she ended up getting something like $19,000 from the bike shop, which was a lot of money at the time.

The mother then took all that money and spent it on herself. My friend was very upset about this; he ended up moving out of his mother’s house and moved in with a relative after a short time.

The worst thing about the incident at the bike store was that after the lawsuit, it was no longer easy to get a bike fixed there. People under 18 were no longer allowed to drop their bikes off, and adults needed to sign all sorts of papers. The shop started charging an “inspection fee” for every bike it looked at. The atmosphere in the store changed from being a very nice, friendly group of people to being a group who were cautious and on guard at all times. I could see this even as a young guy.

This is something I have seen over and over again in one form or another: There are just so many people out there who will do whatever they can to take advantage of everyone and every situation. The problem with this is that life is a long haul. Our efforts should be going toward creating long term value–not taking returns from people every chance we get. When I think about my friend’s experience, which was not too dissimilar from my own, I wonder what good that $19,000 really did any way. My friend became alienated from his mother. He lost some respect for her; I imagine he was probably even forced to “fib a little” in his lawsuit, in order to exaggerate his injuries. He missed school, alienated the owners of a respectable local business, and ultimately became very angry with his mother as a result. He also probably hurt someone and some family in a way that was unjustified. I do not think it is worth taking advantage of others–our efforts should go into providing value and earning the return, not simply taking the return when it is not justified.

Something that is incredibly important in everything you do is to be consistently building for the long haul. However, instead of doing this, many people are looking to get a “quick advantage” here or there. Instead of concentrating on providing value, they concentrate their efforts on taking value. A large proportion of the world seems to operate this way.

I had the most remarkable experience a few months ago. Having flown in from Australia, I checked into an unknown hotel that I found near the airport in Namale, Fiji. The hotel was no more than $120 a night or so and I planned to stay there just one night while waiting for my wife to arrive from Los Angeles the next morning. I plugged in my computer when I got to my room and began checking my email and so forth. I also signed in to my computer back home and copied over a couple of files. Then, after a few hours of work, I went to bed.

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