Michael G. Kolodin went into collections in 1979 after six (6) years in the hospitality field. Michael G. Kolodin started off as salesman for a collection agency, became a collector, collection manager and eventually became a collection agency owner, then a debt buyer of many of the primary bank credit card charge offs and then an FDCPA certified trainer. This is where that story takes place. 2014 was a busy year for Michael G. Kolodin as he traveled to India a number of times to train several call centers. One of which stood out from the others. This center was in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. I stayed in a hotel in this particular trip for three (3) weeks. The center was in the process of taking a space for the launching of the collection call center process, which included training, actual debt accounts and portfolios to collect as well software and a payment processing arm. Michael G. Kolodin would start the training each day in the hotel conference room and towards the end of the month, wound up training and doing actual calling in the new call center location.
Michael G. Kolodin started using a “fear” conversation in all of his training overseas to overcome Indian collectors speaking issues. Michael G. Kolodin would sit everyone in a large circle and go around and ask everyone what their biggest fear is in life and in the collection call center. Some responses were about letting down and parent or a sibling and others were about fearing a situation in work or a personal issue and then there was Leonard. Leonard had a speech stutter when he spoke. Michael G. Kolodin saw an opportunity to help this young man and asked him to stand up as he did with everyone else, and they talked about his fear of speaking both in public and privately.
Michael G. Kolodin then asked Leonard to stand up and scream at the top of his lungs “I don’t have a stutter! Repeatedly and Leonard did this for about 3 minutes, still stuttering and stammering. Then Michael G. Kolodin asked Leonard to change what he was saying to I will not stutter; I will not stutter repeatedly. Then he asked him to shout I don’t stutter, I don’t stutter and to everyone’s surprise in the training room, he stopped stuttering. Both Michael G. Kolodin and Leonard started to cry as did the rest of the call center staff and management staff.
Leonard was an artist of sorts and walked into the training room two days later and gave Michael G. Kolodin a wooden plaque of a lion head that said, “You changed my life” “Thank you very much”. This moment stopped time for Michael G. Kolodin. A moment Michael G. Kolodin said also changed his life. The mere fact that Michael G. Kolodin could affect any one person’s life was a life changing event for Michael G. Kolodin. One that both he and Leonard together will never forget for the rest of their lives.
