Summarized by Kent Larsen
In a former life: Mark Wattles
without permission.
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In a former life: Mark Wattles
The current issue of Inc magazine has a profile of Hollywood Video
CED Mark Wattles, 39, in a column called "In a former life." Wattles
runs the $757-million chain of 1,322 video stores which is
headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon.
In a former life, Wattles served an LDS mission. He says that his
mission taught him important lessons that helped him later in life,
"It taught me self-motivation and perseverance in a challenging,
unstructured environment. It also taught me how to hear 'no' and stay
positive.
"That was useful-years later-in 1993, when I was trying to go public.
I knew I needed the cash to grow fast or I'd end up having to sell to
Blockbuster. But we had only 15 stores. We were wondering how to get
underwriters to return our phone calls."
Wattles recalls his mission as a lesson in perserverance, "People are
rejecting you left and right, but you go on saying `I've got a job to
do' to yourself. When I was a missionary, I might spend two weeks
knocking on doors before I got a yes, yet it would just seem so great
when it happened. It's been almost 20 years, and I could still tell
you the story of every single yes I heard."
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