I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately about their hopes, dreams, new ideas and goals. It has been exciting.
No matter who I am talking to though, the question that always comes up is, “What is the greatest challenge you have faced?”
There have been so many ups, downs and bumps in the road throughout my career that it’s hard to pick one moment.
The hardest thing in life isn't failing or hitting bumps in the road, but rather what you do after. That’s the part that matters, and the one that most people miss. Did you learn? Or did you pout, sit back and do nothing to get better?
I think it is impossible to get to a place of true success without failing on the way there.
Failure isn't the opposite of success, it’s an essential part of it.
To be honest, I had more fun not knowing what the hell I was doing. A little naivety makes it easy to not take yourself too seriously. The only goal I had when I got started was to beat yesterday, and 30 years later that’s still my goal everyday.
Remember, when you think you’ve “lost,” you’re not losing. You may be disappointed that things are not moving as fast as you would like to, but that’s okay.
This is what I suggest: be mindful of disappointments. In order to learn it’s essential to be grateful for what you have.
“Trade your expectations for your appreciation and your whole world changes in an instant.”
- Tony Robbins
To get to the rainbow, you have to deal with the rain that comes first.
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As much as I respect Brandon Steiner, I have to semi-disagree with today’s post. I’ve always believed in being over prepared for everything I do in my life. This is the way I’ve achieved great success in ridding the sports card & autograph hobbies of the worst sellers for free (at my own expense).
Since I’ve been fighting sports card & memorabilia fraud for free only since 1992 (1997 online). Then more specifically on eBay since I became too physically disabled to make much difference anywhere else from being mostly bedridden; let’s stick to eBay.
I’ve have chosen an area in sports cards & autographs where eBay does have specific rules regarding and that is Excessive Shipping & Handling Fees, which is so often broken by so many sports card & autograph sellers such as charging over $3.00 for one lightweight sportscard then charging an additional .50 cents to $1.00 for each additional card won on the same day, by the same buyer. THIS IS EXCESSIVE S&H FEES AND IS AGAINST EBAY RULES! Then you have selling who start S&H at $3.50 to $4.00 for one card when postage is $2.77 up to 8-OUNCES if you are using eBay Shipping correctly. Now, it is NOT MY JOB to teach every eBay seller how to do S&H the most economical ways (yet I do for free anyway for at least five sellers every day BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE DOES IT!)- that’s eBay’s job and I do admit that eBay does a very poor job in teaching it’s members how to do this.
But if you put the time in, you can learn all of these “tricks of the trade” all by yourself. But sadly most sellers are TOO LAZY to do this, so they wind up passing off THEIR LAZINESS on all their buyers. IS THIS ANY WAY TO DO BUSINESS? Of course not, yet this has been going on like a plague since at least 2010!
First, before I ever bought or sold on eBay I spent over 6-months reading ALL of their rules in 1997 including their Founder’s Statement which still is on eBay today and provides a great philosophical guide by which to start going by. Then I watched the biggest and best eBay sports card & autograph sellers and how they did things back in 1997-98. They NEVER charged an additional fee for additional single cards/autographs won (unless it cost them significantly more in postage) on the same day, and most only charged for postage and the cost of a bubble envelope.
I stuck to that philosophy to this very day, and my items sell for more on average than other sellers (besides the big consignment sellers who almost all use shill bidders – which I reuse to do until my dying breathe!) plus I get more multiple item bids from the same buyers and repeat business because of my quality packaging.
So I memorized eBay’s original rules and then memorized changes that made sense as eBay became as greedy and as crooked as the worst sports card sellers. By 2005, when I felt I had enough overall experience as a buyer and seller, I started notifying every seller I came across who were breaking eBay’s S&H Rules moderately or far worse (which is eBay’s Policy that all members are expected to make sure all other members in the areas we sell in are following eBay Rules- since eBay itself DOES NOT DO THIS & NEVER HAS!).
Then the sellers who respond obnoxiously to myself after my polite notification, get a further- more strict explanation of eBay’s Rules. Then you’d be shocked at the huge percentage of dealers who respond like they own eBay with an obnoxious attitude at best or cursing up a storm at worst telling me to “mind your own business” with the choice words edited out! WHEN IT IS MY BUSINESS AS ANY LONG-TIME EBAY EMPLOYEE WILL EXPLAIN TO YOU! Which is anothjer problem with eBay itself. Over 90% of the time when you call eBay, a FOREIGN Call Center pertson picks up who barely speaks English and then transfers you to the WRONG DEPARTMENT AT EBAY 90% of the time again because they are not properly trained to know anything but the Top Ten most frequently asked questions (if that).
Do you still think these foreign Call Center employees really care if they fail Mr. Steiner?
Then when you are transferred to the WRONG eBay Dept. you still have to explain why you are calling in detail all over again just to be told “Hold on while I transfer you to the correct department.”.
WHAT PERCENTAGE OF CALLERS DO YOU THINK JUST HANG UP AT THIS POINT (after wasting 15-minutes of their time getting NOWHERE!)? Is it 25% or 50%???
If you knew my trick to KNOW TO ASK FOR THEIR TRUST & SAFETY Dept. right away which will cut your total call time down to 10-15 minutes to report just ONE BAD SELLER (which is excessive as it is!)!
But I do not look at this as wasting time as many buyers think, because if I thought that way; ALMOST NO ONE WOULD EVER COMPLAIN AT ALL (which is where eBay is at right now!). The saying “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” fits nicely here.
Are eBayers reading this aware that if one BAD seller gets three complaints of a similar type from three different members in one month; they AUTOMATICALLY get suspended for at least two weeks where all of their currently listed items get DELETED (not stopped, so they can simply relist them when their suspension ends). Plus eBay will then put those BAD sellers on probation where if just one occurrence happens again, a longer suspension will be activated automatically! That’s a fair and harsh enough punishment to those BAD Sports Card & autograph sellers, but once again: THREE different members must make similar complaints for the first suspension to be put into action.
I’ll bet 90% of eBay members currently using eBay had no idea that these rules existed which is a sad state of affairs. Because on random sports card/autograph message boards and blogs I constantly see eBay members complaining how awful eBay has become. BUT IT’S NOT SO MUCH HOW AWFUL EBAY HAS BECOME, IT’S HOW LAZY EBAY MEMBERS HAVE BECOME BY KNOWING HOW TO COMPLAIN TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE IN ORDER TO HAVE SOMETHING DONE TO THE WORST EBAY MEMBERS!
Pre-Education is the key to success. However I do of course agree that when we do make mistakes, as we all do (other than narcissists/Sociopaths and there’s more of those in this hobby that I’ve ever encountered anywhere else in my whole life) need to LEARN from our mistakes and never forget that we made them.
If more people took responsibility for their business choices and attitudes both the sports card & autograph hobbies would thrive for many decades to come. But if you examine eBay as a sample, you’d be ready to throw in your hat in less than a year unless you were as stubborn as I am dead set on either fixing weBay FOR FREE or ENDING EBAY!