Harry Potter and The Passage of Time

I remember when I first heard about Harry Potter. The Goblet of Fire was being released and morning new shows around the country were out interviewing people who waited on line for a copy of the book from their favorite book seller.

I saw the protests of concerned parents touting witchcraft and saw the interview with JK Rowling asserting that every child wants to believe somewhere in their heart that they are special and that is what Harry Potter is all about.

I certainly wanted to believe that about myself when I was a child, that I was special. Hearing JK Rowling's explanation,…I was hooked. I would eventually buy all 4 books and read them in a weekend. I would go on to listen to Jim Dale's rendition of the American novels as well. I would stand on line when the first Harry Potter movie was released.

I hotly awaited the release of book 5 and, realizing that I would be away on business for book 6, I arranged to have a friend get me to an all-night book store while I was away.

I knew it would be a 2-year wait for book 7 and I was not disappointed. And here's the rub…the two years have come and gone. It is now 3 days away from the release of book 7. Time has passed and brought me inexorably to the date. Whether I was waiting for Harry Potter or not, the time would have passed. Given the alternative, isn't that what we pray for…the passage of time?

In fact we literally bank on it. So many of life's choices we put off until the timing is better. We put off saving for our kid's college education until the timing is better, but the kids march on and grow up anyway and all too often we say to them we're sorry, we tried, but the timing was never right. We put off saving for our own retirement until the timing is right and then our 50th birthday passes and we realize that time is just 15 years away, we still put off planning waiting for the perfect timing or we panic and decide to start a home-based business, but the timing isn't right for that either and we put that off until the timing is right and we can manage our schedules better or we have the time, but cannot swing the start up costs because, while we had the time we never put the money away.

Some people would argue that "if I had the money, I would not need a home-based business." Sounds logical but not entirely true. There are many reasons to have a home-based business, the main one appears to be time: the desire, the need to mold time to your purposes in a way that the structure of a job does not. I spoke to a gentleman the other day who could not join my business because he took a "1000 dollar hit", to use his words, earlier in the day. A former Chrysler employee, he took a severance package that was not adequate and has taken a series of jobs not suited to his skill set all the while looking for the leverage of an at-home business. I was thinking when we spoke, "man, how long are you willing to be vulnerable to the $1000 dollar hit?" Then I remembered that 10 years ago I was vulnerable to the $200 dollar hit! Ten years ago living like that became unacceptable to me. I too had succumbed to the mind-numbing mantra, "when I make more money, when times get better". Then I realized that I wasn't going to make more than I was making and I was seriously in danger of losing what I had.

Unconsciously, I tapped into one of the Laws of Success…the Law of Leverage. I had nothing in the bank so I had no accounts to draw on and I had learned to lean on the wrong kind of leverage, the reverse leverage of consumer credit.

I learned to leverage something else: other people's knowledge and information. I learned to claw my way up paying off tens of thousands of dollars of debt as I went along and, no, the timing was never perfect. Things happened that challenged my progress. Over time, though, the money began to flow. It flowed because I had stumbled onto another critical Success Principle, The Law of Attraction.

When I think back on the way I was living my life a decade ago, I suppose I could have waited and insisted that the timing be right or that I know it all before getting started but success demands action lest "even what ye have be taken away". Matthew 25:29

As an entrepreneur, I, too, have the desire mold time to suit my purposes and I have had to become comfortable with the idea that my ducks may not all be in a row before I take action. As I begin the final count down to learn the fate of the boy wizard, Harry Potter, I think about other steps I must take to move my businesses forward. I think about the key lesson about time taught to me by JK Rowling and her young hero.

Are you taking advantage of every opportunity time affords you or are you waiting for the perfect time? Seize time and move forward for, while time is never perfect, it does pass.