The Ouk-rra-i-nah Story by Warren Metzler Table of Contents
6. A Challenge to overcome
The next day Igor and I went to the factory to see Mr. Gertz. He invited us into his office, and we sat down and began our meeting. The director spoke no English and I spoke no Russian (nor Ukrainian), so Igor did a lot of translating. At first Igor and him conversed for some time. Then Igor translated for me and told me there was a major problem: the company was unable to assign me exclusive import rights for the US, primarily because they had shipped a container of their vodka to an importer in Miami, Florida, eight months earlier (October, 2004). Furthermore, they had established a contract with the Miami company, one that guaranteed that company could continue to purchase vodka from the Zhitomir factory as long as they bought at least one container per year. Therefore, until October 2005 arrived and no further order had been placed by the Miami company, an exclusive import right for the entire US was unavailable.
I was stunned. And to allow you to realize why, let me provide some background information. If you remember, the initial occurrence which caused me to consider importing vodka was a conversation with The Wine House owner about importing Kauffman’s vodka from Russia, specifically that owner telling me if I obtained EXCLUSIVE import rights for Kauffman vodka, in all likelihood a US importer would be willing to work with me on the project. Since talking to that storeowner, I had had conversations with several other people who had experience in importing alcoholic beverages. And in every one of those conversations, the other person stressed I must have exclusive import rights before I order a single bottle.
Each one defended this view with the same argument: if you became successful and did not possess an exclusive import agreement, other companies could go to the Ukraine, offer the vodka factory a “better” deal, and obtain the exclusive right themselves. Also, in several of the communications I sent to Igor before arriving in the Ukraine, I had told him I wanted exclusive import rights. And each time that Igor replied regarding this issue, he repeated that Vlad had stated the acquisition of exclusive rights was a definite possibility. As I sat there in Mr. Gertz’s office I wondered how in the world Vlad could have made such a claim, knowing the vodka factory had already shipped a container of vodka to a company in Miami?
Now another background point of even greater consequence, one I learned in my twenty five years experience as a well-being physician.
Once a person —say me— incorporates a particular view —say I decide I must have exclusive import rights before I sign an import contract—, that person operates as if that view is reality. Plus operates as if that view is an essential part of the entire project; meaning that if that view is threatened —circumstances indicate that view cannot be manifested—, the person will immediately assume the entire project is doomed to fail.
I suggest to you that every human being in the world operates in this manner.
Thus as I sat in the director’s office and heard Igor tell me they had shipped a container to Miami the previous year, my inner being immediately concluded the entire project had just gone up in smoke; I presumed my trip to Zhitomir had been a total waste of time.
Then within a few minutes, actually probably within thirty to forty seconds, other thoughts began to appear in my mind. What about those positive omens? Especially that phenomenal one the previous night in the restaurant????!!!! Those omens were very inconsistent with the project being over. I had accomplished many successful projects in the past, and in each one, positive omens appeared at various points throughout the process. Yes, it was true, positive omens had also appeared in projects of mine that had failed. But never had a positive omen of the weight of the one in the restaurant the previous evening appeared in a failed project. What was going on here???? I was now quite confused!
More thoughts appeared. Throughout my life I had been involved in many projects which failed, and many which succeeded. Certain aspects had appeared in all the successful projects, which never appeared in any of the failed projects. And several of those aspects were present in this project. An example being that the project’s scope expanded as it progressed: it started with the idea of importing one premium vodka; and now involved importing a premium vodka, plus a nice vodka (the pepper vodka), and two very pleasant vodkas (Lagidna and Elitna). No previous project of mine that had expanded as it unfolded had ever failed!
There I was. On one hand was the immediate sense the whole project had collapsed, and on the other hand was the awareness of information that indicated the project would eventually succeed. But how could it succeed when no exclusive rights were available????