I heard this line so many times:
“Walmart is evil! it pays very little to its employees and discourage unions.”
I am so tired of the victim mentality. We have won the geographical lottery, we live in a place where there are law and order, yet… we want the government to pamper us, we want all the opportunities to be thrown at our feet.
Sure, Walmart and other retailers pay little salaries, but those positions are not meant to be life-long careers. If your salary as a retailer cashier is low, be grateful for the opportunity to be a cashier while you look for something more rewarding. If 5 years later, you are still a cashier, then you need to look at yourself in the mirror and ask your self this question:
Why haven’t I invested in myself
I interviewed my friend Daniel Davies, a fellow toastmaster member and an immigrant who is searching to improve his life.
Daniel arrived in Canada and he found a job working at Winners, a clothing boutique in Montreal. At this place, he was earning $11/h. After one year he left and started working for Home Depot for $12/h. He worked at Home Depot for another year before he realized that was not the life he was hoping for when he came to Canada. He wanted more.
Presently Daniel is working for Uber. He finds that he has more time flexibility, and he earns more. Now his gross revenue is $4,000 to $4,500 per month. His expenses are about $1,000 per month. So his net income is more than $3,000 per month or about $36,000 per year.
Daniel is not going to become a millionaire working for Uber, but he took a small step to improve his life and now he’s reaping the benefits. He has more time for independence and more money. Also, he’s taking steps further to improve his life. He continues to study, to read, to listen to podcasts, and he’s experimenting with other platforms such as Airbnb. He also started to invest in the stock market.
When I ask Daniel, what is holding other people back? He answered: “fear!”
People get comfortable in their routines and are afraid to lose what they already have. They become paralyzed and they stay working at the retail place one more month, one more year, one more decade. They see life passing by, other people passing them by then they say:
Life is unfair, the system is stacked against us the poor.
We live in a world with so many opportunities. We have FREE high schools, subsidized universities, free (Internet) university classes from world-renowned universities (such as Harvard and Standford). In short, the opportunities have never been greater, yet we take everything for granted and become paralyzed.
People have never had so much access to information and so many platforms where to voice their opinions. We have all the social media and we can build a WordPress website within minutes.
Daniel and millions of others are taking little steps to improve their lives. You can too.
When I asked Daniel to recommend one of his favorite books, he recommended Total Recall by .
Thank you, Daniel, for doing that interview with me.
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