A Tale of Two Lads

Johnny Denny and his mate arrived here in Vancouver from a small town outside Dublin, Ireland (Cavan”) March of 2017. After a week of working in bars as bartenders with his mate, Johnny became tired, frustrated and scared. At only 20 years of age he started to feel displaced and began regretting this dream he had of finding a new life in Vancouver. He decided to check out ads on Indeed and found my ad.

What caught his eye was “ no car sales” experience necessary! Johnny called me and we arranged an orientation the very next day. A few minutes of meeting this young man straight from Ireland I knew he had the "IT" factor. He had drive, ambition, enthusiasm but most of all he had passion. I listened to his story of coming here and leaving his family behind in Ireland and how he and his mate were trying to “scrape by" working 12 hour days to just pay the rent etc. I recommended my program to Johnny and when I told him my training and placement program was $500 I knew immediately it would be a challenge for him. He asked me if he could pay me mid-week as he needed to get his money together. (I assumed he was getting money transferred over from Ireland.)

I agreed , and told him straight up “ Johnny get ready! I am about to change your life”.

He warmly smiled back and told me how important it was for him to get guidance and that he trusted his instinct that this was the right decision. Johnny came into my program via a one hour transit ride. He was always there early and extremely focused and was literally jumping through walls to get going in his new career! To help pay for the course he would work late nights at bars to get by. Once the course was complete I worked with Johnny to “ tweak “ his resume and gave him some much needed pointers for the interview. I then arranged an interview with my wonderful friends Trevor Sheidl and one of my former students, who has since become a manager, Kong Vu at Clarkdale VW.They were impressed with Johnny , and appreciated that he had invested time and money in himself.

They hired him in 10 minutes!!

Johnny called his parents in Ireland first but respectively I got the call just after! He could not believe how quickly it happened.

Johnny began as a greeter, then a TDI and delivery specialist . Then after 4 months began selling. Life was starting to turn for Johnny and slowly he starting cutting back his hours at the bar. Meanwhile his mate was getting burned out at the bars and decided “enough was enough” and went back to Ireland.  Johnny started to improve his sales and was on cloud nine. His income was improving so he convinced his girlfriend to come over from Ireland as he saw lots of opportunities for her in other fields. They found a new place closer to Clarkdale where he could walk to work!

Johnnys life was on the up and up as sales started to improve month to month. Last month March, 2018 marked the one year anniversary of his landing in Canada. We have always been in touch and he thought of me on that day and sent me a text. I arranged for him to come to my training class to share his wonderful story with the current students.

Johnny looked sharp and as always was enthusiastic to pay it forward. He then told us that in order to pay for the course all he had left in his account was $567 less the $500 he had paid me. Too proud to tell me or his parents back home he actually went out with the remaining $67 and bought a bag of rice and frozen veggies to survive on until payday. 

When I heard this I was moved as was the entire class. I stood there in awe of how this young man truly epitomized overcoming adversity and having the “ fight” within him to beat the odds.

 I asked him how he managed to stay so positive. He responded: “Well to tell you the truth... I don’t know! Now, everybody has a dip of energy from time to time there is no denying that. But for the most part I am positive! And that works for me. I also feel like I need to prove something to everyone back home and that also drives me. He concluded by saying you can put things off till tomorrow but tomorrow never comes. Invest in yourself and learn from the professionals. I did it, you can do it too"

Last month March, 2018 Johnny finished the month with 15 cars sold and made $7000. After hearing the rice story I thought it only fitting that the Coach take him out for an anniversary celebration. Johnny and I went with a nice Thai luncheon complete of course with a few cold ones.

A Tale of Two Lads. One chooses one path and fails while the other chooses to invest in himself to make a difference and succeeds.

Cheers to you Johnny for taking my program, for entrusting your faith in me but more importantly for believing in YOURSELF!!