What attracted me so quickly to Lori Torres, former CEO of Parcel Pending, was her tenacity in going after a problem to solve and her willingness to ask for help in getting there.  It made me realize how easy it is to fantasize about what could be and how you could be the one to do it, and another thing to execute.  Lori executes and it’s why I wanted to share her experience in my most recent book, One Life to Lead.

Parcel Pending makes lockers that allow multi-family properties, universities, retail and commercial partners to store ecommerce packages that can then get accessed by the recipient in a secure way.  It dramatically reduces the cost of storage, administration, loss and frustration.  Parcel Pending built something so successful that Neopost came along and acquired the company for $100 million in December 2019.  

Lori’s story is really one of setting a vision for a future state and then being relentless about making it happen.  As she said in the book: 

I was kind of bumping along in life. I had a kiddo that was in high school and one in college. And I’m always kind of looking ahead and asking ‘What's my future?” I kind of live in this conversation of what it will look like in five years from now? I just saw this problem and I knew I had something. I knew that if I didn't go after this, somebody else would and someone would figure it out. And so, there was just this burning sense of ‘I've got something here’.

But it wasn’t quite that simple.  Lori was the breadwinner.  Lori had an amazing job in real estate.  She had worked her way up through grit and perseverance and an optimistic view of anything is possible.  Just to satisfy her curiosity, she went and interviewed and had three job offers before starting Parcel Pending, just to show that if all else fails, she could get a job.  But that wasn’t necessary.  She nailed it.

The story here isn’t about nailing it.  The story is about having a plan and not being afraid to ask for help.  In One Life to Lead we have an entire chapter titled, Take Action and within that chapter, Lori’s story is magnified in the section of Action is Disruptive.  And disruption is not only about disrupting the status quo of an industry but also about disrupting yourself.   

If you want to learn more about Lori and other life designers on how you can take control to design the life you want to lead, check out One Life to Lead today.

Russell Benaroya is an entrepreneur, coach, speaker and author of One Life to Lead and Free Yourself to Work on Your Business.  To learn more, visit www.russellbenaroya.com.