Cost and benefit

In a perfect world, what would you be doing if time and money were no object?
Why aren't you doing it?

This is a hypothetical question to get to the root of where you want to be. Time and money are usually the two reasons why we don't do what we want.

Maybe you want to be your own boss. You'd like to work for yourself but you're scared.

Everyone tells you owning a business is risky.
It is.

The cost of failure is easy to measure.

Look at all the money you are going to invest in your project.  Consider the income you won't receive while doing this.  Understand the payment you are currently making on your mortgage, car and credit cards won't be made if you aren't earning a weekly wage.

The cost can be catastrophic.
The bank could take the house and the car.
Your name could be ruined for future loans.
Everything you worked so hard for will be gone in a flash.

Because you wanted to follow your dream.

You're scared of the cost because the potential loss can be calculated.

Here's what can't be calculated: The benefit.

You won't know how much money you can make until you make the decision to do it.
You won't know how big your opportunity will be until you knock down some doors.
You won't know what life you could have until money starts coming in.

There's the known cost and the unknown benefit.

I believe that's why most of us fail to go for the dream.
We want to talk the risk out of doing something remarkable.

That's impossible.

So we run and hide, using the cost as our excuse.

With a background in finance and marketing, Rick Nicholson owned two highly successful restaurants before selling them to start a consulting business. His current company The Restaurant Ninjas provides tools to the foodservice industry to become more profitable. His book, "The Art of Restaurant Theft" can be downloaded for free at www.therestaurantninjas.com

You can subscribe to Rick's weekly email newsletter and his thoughts on business, life and everything in between at:
http://forms.aweber.com/form/05/1667819805.htm

Choice between two fears...

We hear about risk and reward and most of us get the concept. The more you risk, the higher the reward can be. The inverse is also true. The less you risk, the lower the reward.

I remember the first time I went to the university swimming pool. At the far right was the high diving board. It was 800 feet high. I timidly stayed in the shallow end watching my brave friends bounce off it to a thunderous splash below.

Watching this for a half hour, I decided to go to the top and enjoy the same fun. Each step up the ladder was easy. I wasn't scared. Everyone else was doing it. No big deal.

Until I got to the top and walked out to the edge of the board to look down. I must have miscalculated the height. At the top, it looked like 1800 feet down. I was struck with panic. I thought I was going to die. Death from jumping or death from embarrassment were my two choices. I chose embarrassment.

I had to walk shamefully back down the ladder, taking each declining step while listening to the whispers of ridicule. I was now a chicken according to my classmates.

My son was recently faced with a similar dilemma. He made a different choice. He chose death by jumping. He told me that embarrassment was too much to handle. I envy his fearlessness.

Thinking about this, I wonder how many of us have the same fear when it comes to getting into business or doing our one true calling in life.

The choice between two fears paralyzes.

In life, just like in the pool, doing nothing doesn't allow us to have the fun we could have. Only those who put themselves at great risk have the most fun. Only those willing to face their fears to find what they are looking for actually find it.

We are not here to get by.
We are not here to the ordinary.
We are not here to stand in the shallow end of the pool.

We were placed here to do great things.
We are here to live.

Where's your greatness? And what's your plan to share it with the world?

Scary shit, eh!
Just like the diving board to an eight year old kid...

Who's your daddy?

Death stalks us every day like a hungry wolf waiting to smell our weakness. It pounces revealing her crooked teeth. It is in this moment that we make a decision. Do I want to live or is today the day I die. Death cannot win when we fight back.  It's when we stop giving a fuck that the wolf chomps on our deathly remains.  Time takes away that fight.  Sickness takes it away too.

Fear the dog and he will bite.
Be strong, brave and fearless and the dog usually backs down.

Who is going to play the alpha?

We can't cheat death. We can't run from it.
The only thing we can do when faced with the cross-eyed beast is to show it who's in charge.


.

Howard Shultz must be rolling in his grave

Howard, if you were still alive, it wouldn't be this way.

Why would I go to Starbucks and be a prisoner?
Not locked up. That would be far better.

I'm a prisoner to the discussions of the employees. I don't want to know all about Sarah's latest problem with her boyfriend. I don't know Sarah. It's sad. But I didn't come here to be sad. I came here for my Grande Caramel Machiatto.

Do I have to hear about the red cup and how yesterday is the last day they could use it. Then to my surprise, I showed up today to see the Christmas cup still available.

Do I care?
Nope. Unless these perfectly good cups go in the garbage. Then I'll be mad because Starbucks will be wasteful.

Christmas is over.
The cup is red.
Nothing refers to the cup as a Christmas cup.
Even The Donald thought we should boycott Starbucks because they removed "Christmas" from the holiday cup.
We should boycott Donald.
But that's a rant for another day.

I don't want to hear about how shifts are being cut back to the baristas who can't sell sandwiches.
I don't want to see baristas taking a table on their break where I could've sat.
I don't want to see the dining room full of unopened boxes because the cafe designer didn't make enough space for dry storage in the back.
I don't need to be emprisoned in the cafe drama.
I have enough of my own problems.

Today, I want to know if Howard Shultz is squirming in his coffin.
The coffee chain is moving away from its special place in my heart.

What?
Howard Shultz isn't dead?
Then what the f*(&?

Howard, get to work and fix this.
One of my favourite brands needs your help.

I think it's your favourite brand too.

If you want to hear some of my thoughts on how to fix this problem, I'm only a tweet away.


With a background in finance and marketing, Rick Nicholson owned two highly successful restaurants before selling them to start a consulting business. His current company The Restaurant Ninjas provides tools to the foodservice industry to become more profitable. His book, "The Art of Restaurant Theft" can be downloaded for free at www.therestaurantninjas.com

You can subscribe to Rick's weekly email newsletter and his thoughts on business, life and everything in between at:
http://forms.aweber.com/form/05/1667819805.htm

Feeling the love

What happens to a person who doesn't feel love anymore?

The limits of that person's character get tested.
He does things he normally wouldn't do.
He acts in desperation trying to find what no longer exists in his eyes.

Depression lives in the box of desperation.
Sadness thrives in darkness.
Loneliness grows like a virus.

Each person has a love language. Most of us love the way we want to be loved.

And that's where we fail our loved ones.

We don't gift something we want. We gift something our friend would want.

Love is no different.

Understanding what makes our loved ones feel special is fundamental to a loving relationship.

There are five love languages:

1. Gifts
2. Spending Quality time together
3. Words of Affirmation
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch

Although all five of them sound good, there is one dominant language for each of us. To discover and act on how our loved ones want to be loved is the key to a beautiful life.

Happy New Day

Today is New Years Eve.

Flush away the past year and look forward to fresh beginnings. Looking back and seeing all the shit, it seems like a lot of people are happy to freshen up the toilet, not realizing there's a fresh batch of dung waiting for them in the coming year.

I get the concept. Have a few drinks. Enjoy a party. Put away the old clothes and look to brighter days as the new year get rung in at midnight.

But wait a minute. This is all just figurative thinking.

January 1 is no different than July 18 or March 5 or October 21.

They are all just days.

Under the thinking of figurative thinking, why aren't we celebrating every day at midnight.

Every day at the strike of 12 am brings in a new day. We can flush the day before and hope for new promises as we bring in a fresh set of 24 hours.

That would be too frequent. No one can party that much, except for my buddy Bernie.

A new year is nothing more than a fresh set of downs. Like in football, you'll either score or you'll have to kick the ball back to your opponent.

The same goes for a day.

But since we put so little value on days, we don't hold them as precious as we do years.

We only have double digit years in our lives. Days are too numerous to count, so we don't.

New Year's Day is JUST another day.

Like my grandpa told me once, everyday I'm above ground is another good day.

So instead of wishing people Happy New Years, I wish you instead "Happy New Day".

Unpopular decisions

I'm going to say something that is going to be unpopular.

Before you gather together and plan out a lynching, please hear me out.

Popular decisions are made to please the majority of the audience.
They aren't necessarily good.
They aren't necessarily right.

If I wanted to be popular with my kids, I'd give them everything they ever wanted.
Doesn't sound that smart.

I make decisions in my household that I think are best for my family, despite how unpopular they may be.

But I'm not looking for re-election as daddy in four years.
I'm not looking to boost my ratings in the polls.

In consultation of my co-parent, we make decisions even if the rest of the household is pissed off.

Maybe that's the problem with a democracy.

If you are in a democracy, give the people what the want.
What do they want?

MORE.

This is a rant based on one of my "pet peeves". I recently heard about another minimum wage increase.

And it pisses me off.

I believe everyone should be able to earn more.
But minimum wage doesn't do anything but put more taxes in the governments' pockets.

Let me demonstrate:
If the average person words 40 hours a week with 2 weeks vacation per year, he will work 2000 hours per year.

An increase of $0.50 will give that employee an extra $1000 in annual earnings, before taxes.

Assuming a tax rate of 25%, the employee taxes home an extra $750 in the year.

Yay! That's great news. $750 is more than they had the year before.

But let's look what happens in a free market.

The employer who hired that employee doesn't like to lose profit margin.
So she raises her prices and so do her competitors. If the $0.50 represents a 5% increase in labour costs, the employer raises her prices by 5%.

So if the employer owned a grocery store, prices across the sales mix go up an average of 5%, just to cover off labour. If there other inflationary pressures like energy, interest rates or exchange rates, that number could easily be 10%.

An average family of four will spend about $100 per week on groceries. That's $5200 per year. A 5% increase in the cost of groceries will result in an increase of $260 spent on groceries the following year.

Minimum wage increase has now put an extra $490 in the family's coffers. But if the prices at the grocery store had to go up by 10%, the family now only has $230 extra at the end of the year. That's an extra $4.42 per week. That's barely enough to buy two coffees per week. The price of coffee will also have gone up due to their employees making the minimum wage increase.

Now imagine this. The amount of people exiting the workforce is the biggest it has ever been. Retirees no longer work for minimum wage. They no longer depend on government assisted wage legislation.

Retirees, on fixed incomes, have less and less disposable income because the price of necessities continue to rise.

Minimum wage increases are popular decisions. But it doesn't change anything. The base of poverty moves to a new higher number. And by doing that, new categories of people fall into the poor class.

Minimum wage increases reduces jobs and increases taxes. It doesn't encourage investment. It is an economy killer.

There will always be abuse. Employers have taken advantage of the unskilled labour force and for that government stepped in to protect the employee.

Unions have done the same.

Minimum wage is the least of our problems. In the politics playbook, it says, "when you're down in the polls, increase minimum wage to increase your popularity."

Who does minimum wage increases help?
I believe the only winners are politicians who've dipped in the polls.

But this is a democracy.
If yon't don't like it, leave.
If you don't like it, vote in a new party next time.

That's what we've been doing in this province for the past 15 years.
How has that rhetoric worked out for us?

It's time for unpopular decisions.
Some of the kids won't like it.
But they don't always know what's good for them.

C'mon daddy, step up and be the leader. Stop your political bullshit.

We can't afford it anymore. Time is running out.