Jeffrey and Joe

These are stories of a bright day, a dark night, and a monster.

The story of the bright day happened last year just before Christmas. You may recall that I told you about finding an undiscovered 400-year-old copy of the 1605 edition of Don Quixote at a used furniture auction in a village in New England.

This is the rest of that story.

After I bought that book (and 18 other books nearly as old,) I learned the nearest place that could ship those books to me was a 35-minute drive from the auction house. When I called them, they said,

“Dude, we’ve got more than 200 orders stacked all around us that have got to be packed and shipped before Christmas and more people are coming in every day. We’ll be buried here for at least the next two or three weeks. Your books will just have to wait.”

Discouraged and worried that someone was going to realize that a 2-million-dollar book was sitting on a table in an empty auction building in a rural village, I was whining to Joe Davis while he was scrolling on his telephone. When I had finished telling him my story, Joe looked up and said,

“I’ve booked myself on the 6:30AM flight to Baltimore. I’ll be back tomorrow night with your books.”

Joe Davis is one of those rare people who sees and solves problems immediately. Joe lives his life by three words made famous by Nike.

“Just Do It.”

Are you lucky enough to have a Joe Davis in your life? Have you told them lately how much they mean to you?

And now the story of the dark night and the monster.

Twenty years ago, Pennie and I wrote a check to purchase several acres on a high plateau and much of the land in the valley below. Our plan was to build Wizard Academy, then donate the land and all the buildings to a non-profit that would forever after run it as a 501c3 educational organization.

A few months after we bought that land, we published Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg’s book, Call to Action.The brothers funded the printing of the book, but we used my publishing company to give it an ISBN number and nationwide distribution.

In the book business, bookstores pay the distributor, then the distributor pays the publisher, then the publisher pays the authors twice a year.

The book made all four bestseller lists: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and USA Today. Jeffrey and Bryan’s first check was going to be more than $100,000. They needed it to refresh their bank account since that was approximately what the printer had charged to print those tens of thousands of books.

BANG. I got a phone call from Adrian Van Zelfden. His voice was quavering.

“Roy, your name appeared in a public notice this morning. The IRS is in the process of taking your house, your cars, your furniture, your bank accounts, and everything else they can find that has your name on it.”

“Adrian, that’s crazy, there’s been some sort of a mistake.”

“Roy, this cannot be a mistake. This is happening.”

The financial reports that I was seeing showed that we still had lots of money in several bank accounts, so when Adrian told me how much we owed the IRS, I said,

“Okay, we’ll just pay it.”

Meet the Monster:

We had copies of all our tax returns along with photocopies of the checks, but our bookkeeper had never sent any of those checks to the IRS. Over a period of 5 years, our bookkeeper had systematically drained every cent from our bank accounts, leaving only the cash from those unsent IRS checks to keep the boat afloat.

The check we wrote to buy the plateau hit that boat like a torpedo.

That’s when I found out we were broke. The bookkeeper who had been with us for 5 years had been keeping 2 sets of books. One set showed the dollar amounts that should have been in our bank accounts, the other set revealed there was nothing there.

The following week was when I was supposed to write a 6-figure check to my friend Jeffrey.

When I turned my full attention to the problem and saw that everything was gone, I called Jeffrey and told him exactly what was happening. He immediately said,

“You are going to recover from this and everyone you owe is going to get their money, but I want you to please pay me last.”

“Last?”

“Yes, pay me last. I have been where you are, and I have felt the way you are feeling right now, which is why you need to listen to me: Don’t let yourself think about things beyond your control. Don’t think about what you cannot do. Think only about what you can do, today, before you go to bed tonight. Do what you can do each day, every day, and don’t think about what you cannot do. You’re going to come through this.”

Jeffrey called me each day to make sure I stayed in the right frame of mind. He spoke wisdom and hope into my life that day, and I regard it as some of the most valuable advice I have ever been given.

Are you in a dark place?

I have been where you are, and I have felt the way you are feeling right now, which is why you need to listen to me: Don’t let yourself think about things beyond your control. Don’t think about what you cannot do. Think only about what you can do, today, before you go to bed tonight. Do what you can each day, every day, and don’t think about what you cannot do. You’re going to come through this.

Roy H. Williams

PS – The IRS had sent multiple foreclosure notices, but our bookkeeper had generously volunteered to collect and sort the mail every day, so I’m guessing those notices went straight to the shredder. Although we were able to dodge the bankruptcy bullet, I did learn that 22% of all businesses have been, or will be, victims of embezzlement, and fully one-third of all the small business bankruptcies in America are the direct result of embezzlement. Bad News: your police department doesn’t have the manpower to investigate embezzlements. This is why fewer than 2% of embezzlers are ever charged with a crime, and almost none ever go to jail. You have several friends who have lost large sums of money to embezzlement but they never talk about it because they think it makes them look stupid. It was only when I started talking about it that I learned how common it is. – RHW

Angie Hyche is a clutter expert. Whether it is a storage room, garage, basement, self-storage unit, or your email inbox, Angie knows how to help you sort your possessions and your calendar. Angie is a professional organizer, helping a wide array of organizations and individuals clean up the chaos in their lives. She is also the author of two books on how to free yourself from disarray in your mind, your body, and your business. This week, Angie tells roving reporter Rotbart how to defeat disorganization, even when it has been accumulating for decades. Isn’t Rotbart awesome at finding great guests! MondayMorningRadio.com