Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Ok, quick story to illustrate my point...

I am searching for a passenger side seat belt for my 1979 convertible VW Beetle. It`s not an easy thing to find considering they are not made any longer.

I was recommended to go to a specific German auto repair business. I was told, "this guy has everything." Once there, I asked for the part I am looking for.

His reply was, "I am sure I have one, but you`ll have to do the work yourself."

He directed me around the front counter, and pointed up some stairs saying, "There`s a light switch up there. Turn on the light and start looking for what you want."

I couldn`t believe I was about to dig through a bunch of poorly labeled seat belts from nearly every year and car model created in Germany. But, what ever it takes... I took off the coat and started digging.

Two hours later, after vigorously searching through all the dusty, oily, seat belts... I came up with nothing!

After thanking him for "his" time, I began returning to my car. He then said, "If you don`t find one here, you won`t find one at all."

This is the part I am writing about today. Do you know how many times I have heard from people, what I wanted to do couldn`t be done. Do you know how many people have disregarded those words and eventually found success? I find it hard to believe that in all of North America, there are ZERO `79 Beetle seat belts. So my search continues.

What`s my point? If you haven`t figured it out yet, Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, and hundreds of others have done things everyone said was impossible. Do you remember when computer chips required tubes? Now they`re made of sand! Ok, silicon sand, but still. You get the point.

If you have a dream... Never give up. Never surrender. Even if you die before realizing your dream, you will inspire others to continue the hunt. Maybe not for a seat belt, but no one will ever say you were crazy for following a dream. Even if you never achieve it.

My search for this and other dreams continues.


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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words

Vincent,

What about this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SEAT-BELT-vw-SUPER-BEETLE-71- 80-79-78-77-76-75-74-73-72_W0QQitemZ330087616378QQihZ014QQca tegoryZ50458QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

and in case that above link gets wrapped:
http://tinyurl.com/25jlur

With regard to the never surrender part I think the difficulty is finding the fine line between being persistent and beating my head against a wall for no good reason.  For example a couple months back I wanted a system similar to Tivo but decided to build it myself.  Well I have a working product that I`m very happy with but the end result cost about 2-3 times as much (for hardware) not to mention labor.  And while the listing service is free it`s provided by a third party that makes no guarantee to the listing service being free or even continuing to exist.  My point being that sometimes it makes sense to "surrender".  It`s finding the right set of circumstances that makes it difficult.

Anyway that`s my 2 cents for the month.  Good luck finding the seat belt!

hostclick... Hey, thanks for the resource. I will check it out, because I still haven`t solved this little issue.

As to knowing "when to surrender" you have a point. But you did succeed! You should feel proud of your accomplishment regardless of cost. Life is about learning and having experiences. I think you learned and experienced a great deal regarding your own brand of TiVo.


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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words

One of my favorite stories---true or not---is about Wes Montgomery, one of the world`s great guitarists. Legend has it that as a young boy, living on a dirt farm, he had an old beatup guitar. He`d listen to the radio and try to learn how to play the same music.

Being ignorant, he would listen to the guitar parts and figure out how to pick them on his own. But he didn`t realize that recording studios often use multiple tracks, where a guitar player plays one set of notes, then re-records another set of notes to go along with the first set.

Montgomery just assumed that if he heard it on the radio, it "must be live." I can relate, because as a little kid, I just assumed that whatever I was hearing on the radio was live. They just moved bands and orchestras in and out of the radio studio after each song! :-)

Anyway, Montogmery eventually figured out how, with an awful lot of work, to play "just like them guys on the radio." He was upset that he couldn`t do ALL the guys on the radio, but he could do most of them. It wasn`t until he went into his first connection with actual musicians that someone told him he was playing two guitar-players` parts at the same time.

Although I think it`s a dumb cliche, it`s true that making assumptions often defines our entire life. Montgomery`s assumption was that what he heard was what "any guitar player ought to know how to do." In the process, and the result was he created an impossible way of playing the guitar.

When someone says "If you don`t find it here, it doesn`t exist," I have to wonder. Have they proved that? Of all the square acres on the entire planet, have they verified that the item doesn`t exist on any of that land? Or are they just being a bit arrogant. :-)

Hey Vincent - I see a ton of new replacement belts, but I these links that have original Beetle belts for sale. Cool car by the way! My son would love it. He likes "Herbie".

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=154150;article=60 7;title=Bill%20Dierickx%20VW%20Trader%20Board

http://www.vintagepartsinc.com/accessories.html

BTW, even if you did give up, your friends here probably wouldn`t let you. :)

Great point everyone!

I cannot stand it when people tell me that I shouldn`t start a business or that it wont work. A little thing I like to say when someone says "What if you lose all your money?" or "what if it fails". I like to tell those people " I wish Henry Ford would have thought that way!" Maybe we would have mass produced cars today but how long would it have taken to get there.

This is all another reason why I like this site: MOTIVATION TO SUCEED!

Hey Vincent, does this help?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& ;viewitem=&item=330087616378

It says belts for 71-80 super beetles. I tried looking up a few of the vintage car places my hubby uses but they are mostly ford parts. He has a 1968 Ford Torino GT Fastback he is working on.

He has been looking for some frame specs and hasn`t found them, anyone have any leads on this?

LOL!!

*was going to respond, but post was too short.*

Thank you to all for your posts of locating a new seat belt...

CraigL... Your guitar story reminds me of an up-and-coming martial artist who is found on films here in the US.

Let me make this clear first... I am not a martial arts fan, but I do catch the occasional DVD flick or movie...

Tony Jaa (star of `the protector` in 2005) was watching movies from Hollywood and saw then doing massive stunts (stunt men included) and wanted to do it too. He didn`t realize there were harnesses which could not be seen by the camera`s lens. So he practiced those moves and no does his own martial art stunts... Without wires... Without stunt doubles... He`s fast. He`s incredibly beyond any martial artist`s speed and skill level. Why? Because he didn`t know, "it can`t be done." Check him out... he does everything without wires. It`s quite incredible.


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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words