Brand growth or brand confusion

I am sitting in a cafe next to a fireplace. The chair is comfortable. The decor is anything but utilitarian. Above the fireplace sits a television playing the latest national news. There were barely any seats when I came in. But the one next to fireplace was calling my name as if I were at a Starbucks.

The conversations around me swirl like leaves in the autumn air. There's a lot of beeping, humming chitter chatter and employees squeezing back and forth as they make the next order to industrial perfection. 

If I had just woken from a coma, I would never have guessed I was sitting in a Tim Horton's. Tim Horton's has always been the "blue collar" coffeeshop. With the upgrades, it is clearly trying to attract a different crowd. 

I am the only one taking advantage of its free wifi. I'm the only person with a laptop. I've been saying for years that working on a laptop at Tim Horton's sounded weird. Now that I'm doing, I feel like a high school student who has no friends. I'm the fish out of water. I'm the outcast. The people here are regular people. Everyone is wearing jeans, sneakers and workboots. Pounding away on my Apple MacBook Air, in dress shoes, dress pants and button down shirt, I dress and act exactly the opposite of these people. Now I know how the guy who goes to Starbucks in steel toe workboots feels (if there is such a guy). 

The gentleman across the dining room glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. I'm sure he's thinking, "Who's that weirdo with the laptop?" 

The chair on the other side of the fireplace sits empty as customers don't gravitate toward it nor the crazy guy with the shiny computer. 

So why am I here?

I have a meeting in an hour. 

I could have gone somewhere else, but that would mean nestling in at Starbucks, and as I got comfortable, I would have had to leave. 

So I sit here and wait for my appointment admiring the new decor of this newly built restaurant cafe.

Is the new direction Tim Horton's going in going to be effective in increasing sales? I don't think it's going to stop the regular customers from buying.

Will it encourage a new crowd? Based on my discomfort this morning, it's going to take time. A lot of time. I doubt I'll see many people pounding away on laptops anytime in the near future.

I go to Starbucks because I can sit there all day and not feel like I'm taking away profit from the business. Tim Horton's is built on speed. The disruption of speed and wifi baffles my brain. I'm sure it makes sense to someone but strategically I feel weird to be taking up a seat when so many people would love to have it. 

I've been here 20 minutes and just took my first sip of coffee. Imagine if there were 10 other people like me in here right now. Someone would have to call the loitering police. The business cannot support that type of service. 

Tim Horton's needs a lot of customers to make a profit. They need people to move. They need the drive thru to move quickly just like they need dining room customers to leave quickly. 

There was a  time when you could find a "no loitering" sign near the door. I haven't found it yet so maybe it no longer exists to fit with the wifi idea. 

The strategy of this re-design is to encourage a new clientele: youth and working professionals. I don't see a lot of either in here today.

I'm not sure this strategy will work. 

Maybe I'm setting the bar too high. A customer just commented about the decor, "It's nicer than McDonalds".

If the strategy is to pull back customers who have left for McDonalds, maybe they are on to something. 

All this reminds me of the kids who came to school on the first day of a new year with a whole new wardrobe. The change in clothes gave them renewed hope, esteem and confidence. Deep down, they were the same people with the same friends with the same attitudes.  

You can put lipstick on a pig. It'll still be a pig, with pretty lips.

Tim Horton's is still the utilitarian coffeeshop. Only now it has pretty lips.

Women are stronger than men

Sitting here, typing away at the screen, I have come to the realization that women are the stronger sex.

Men have larger muscles, so they can physically lift heavier stuff.

But that's where it ends.

When I get a cold, I lie in bed for two days taking enough cold medication to effectively knock me until I start to feel better. The virus runs through my body while I lie in a comatose state. Life continues to swirl around me. The kids still need to be cared for. But I lie in wait for a better day.

My wife gets a cold and her voice changes. She gets up in the morning, puts on her best smile and gets to work. She may whimper a bit but she goes about her business like nothing is wrong. I always admired her for that.

This week, I did something to my back. I can't sleep. I can't walk for too long. I can barely stand up. It hurts all the time. And the wimp in me has emerged like a pro.

At first, like any cramp or pain, I sloughed it off. It will just go away I thought.

But it didn't.

It got worse.

Today is the eighth day of pain. And I'm useless. Stuck between a heating pad and medication, I can't do much. I can't sleep without taking melatonin. I can't walk without advil. I can't help with the kids.  I can't work or play. Life is seemingly over.

My life is in limbo as I deal with this pain and wait for an appointment with a chiropractor.

My wife has had back pain like this for years. Although in pain, she doesn't stop. She doesn't slide silently into the TV room like an old dog looking for death.  She goes about her day in pain, slipping on the beautiful smile I fell in love with.

And I don't know how she does it.

I believe God made women bear children because the species would not have survived if it were a man's responsibility.

Men might be stronger with lifting heavy items. But we can't bear the same pain as women.

Today, I thank all those women in my life who are so strong.

I don't know how you do it, but I'm grateful.

The story of your life in one sentence

Sit down and write the story of your life in one concise sentence.

Without any cues, the exercise will be impossible. There is too much that happened, too many relationships, too many experiences to summarize them into one sentence.

The story of our lives will be told either in our lifetime or in our death.
Wouldn't it be best the story is told by the main character while he is still alive?

Branding, by definition, is a story embedded in the mind of the market. A good story has the ability to pull emotions out of the audience.

People are also brands. Children tell stories about their parents, brothers, sisters. Parents tell stories about their children to whoever will listen.

The strength of the brand lies in the ability of the individual to tell a compelling story.

I learned how to tell the story of your life without even knowing you. I don't have to know you and I can tell you the underlying theme of your life.

The answers are in your heroes!
We emulate our heroes and they in turn plant their hopes and dreams into our lives.

I know this sounds a bit nuts, but allow me to show you how this works.

Heroes aren't just the people we look up to. They are mostly characters we invest our time with.

Take twenty minutes and write down your top five favourite movies, tv shows, bible passages, characters, poems, books. If you don't know the bible and don't know what a book looks like, skip it. But do the rest.

Don't give it any thought, just write your favourite stuff out on a piece of paper.

Then look at the list and see if there's a pattern in the list.

Some won't make sense.
This exercise is nuts anyways, so it doesn't matter.

You will see a pattern. If you don't, message me with your list and I'll try to find it for you.

The things you gravitate toward are already inside you. You may or may not have known it.

I did this exercise with a client and didn't know any of the books, movies or tv shows she mentioned. After she explained what she liked about each of them, I saw her story clearly.

She has the same story as mine.
Now I know why I like working with her so much.

This is crazy.

Hockey is supposed to be fun

I love hockey. And so does my son.

The scratching ice, the crisp, thick air penetrates the soul of every hockey fan.

I'm not good at the game. There was a time I could waste days pretending I was a hockey superstar.

I see me in my son's eyes. Sometimes I'm too busy to play with him. He pretends to be Sidney Crosby. He's excited to play organized hockey for the first time.

We don't want to take anything away from our son's childhood.

When I was his age, I begged my parents to play. But my parents couldn't afford it.

We never pushed our boy to like hockey. It's in his blood.

He started by playing on a team where the other kids have been skating for 7 years. They've been playing hockey for 5. Needless to say he's behind.

He loves it.

I was worried after the first game. He didn't touch the puck much as he wobbly skated. He spent  more time on his butt than on his skates.

Was he discouraged?
Was he be disappointed?
Was he mad?

I didn't know what to expect when I got in the dressing room. I rushed to him ready to console his boyish ego.

He was smiling. He was talking about all the good things he had done and how much fun he was having.

And that's all we wanted for him. To have fun.

We saw noticeable improvements in his hockey sense by game two. He was more aggressive and less wobbly. He was still slow but he was more involved in the play and less on his butt.

Every hockey parent knows this, but being new we weren't aware of it. The hockey bullshit started.  For some reason, there is always one parent who believe his kid is going to make the NHL. They believe that winning is the only thing that matters.

One parent commented on how our boy should go down a level to learn the game better. A fair statement but our son doesn't want to play with kids a year younger than him. He wants to play with friends from his class.

A second parent told us that if he stayed with his age group, it wasn't going to be fair for the rest of the players. Although recreational hockey is supposed to be fun, the boys have more fun when they win. Having kids who can't keep up will most definitely handicap the chances of winning.

I couldn't believe my ears. The second parent went on to say that as a parent I shouldn't put my child in a situation where other kids are going to blame him for the loss. I should provide a positive environment so that he doesn't fail, feel belittled, or feel inferior.

IT'S MY FAULT!!!!

Do these people actually believe their own bullshit sandwiches they force down others throats?
This is recreational hockey.

I coached baseball this summer. We didn't win a lot of games. But everyone played equally. And everyone tried hard. We didn't keep score. The kids tried but their attention spans couldn't keep up. When the kids thought they won, they won. When they thought they lost, they lost. We didn't tell them either way, mainly because we didn't know. The score didn't matter.

The only thing that matters is that kids have fun playing a fun game.

If kids don't have fun when they lose, then they shouldn't be playing.

Every game has a winner and loser, when you keep score. Hockey is one of those sports that keeping score seems to be important.

But it's not.

My child will play where he wants.
If kids blame him, we'll give him the skills to deal with adversity.
If parents blame us, we'll bite our tongues and laugh at their own immaturity.

If parents blame him, we'll cut out their throats.

Hockey makes good people crazy. Did you know that?

The clock said 4:18

I rolled over in bed wondering what time it was. I had been awake for a few moments as thought particles entered by consciousness at warp speed.

How could this be? I just went to bed.

The previous day shook me at 3:47 am so I could prepare for an annual pilgrimage to Austin, Texas. After a long travel day, dinner with old and new friends combined with a nightcap, I rested my head down to see the clock scream 11:58 pm. Living in a timezone 2 hours earlier, the clock keeper in my brain translated the time to 1:58 am. I had been up for almost 24 hours. 

No wonder it was time to go to bed.

How the hell could I not sleep with only 4 hours and 20 minutes of shut eye? I had to be tired. I needed the rest. Today is going to be a thought provoking, eye screamer type of day that requires my full attention and concentration. There will be no snooze button in the middle of this day.

But right now, I can’t sleep.

Thoughts are racing through my brain synapsis like Formula 1 racecars in Monaco. The sound of the engines are deafening my ears. My body vibrates as the roaring cars slither across the pavement. My heart skips a normal beat as I realize I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be on this fine Thursday morning at 4:18 am.

It’s time to get up. I have two choices: exercise my body or my brain. I decide to make the body wait. The brain must release its juices or I will forever regret this little window of opportunity, the universe has bestowed upon he.

I start by reading a book I’ve already read. But it’s like I’m reading it for the first time. There’s something new I hadn’t seen before. With every page, I’m sitting further up in my bed. I’m getting more excited.

That’s it. I must write, I mutter to myself. I shower my decayed thoughts from the day before.

Today is a new day. Everything starts fresh today. Sleep has washed away my unimportant memories. And today I write with a clean slate that every new morning brings.

I can’t sleep. But… I feel awake.

A boy's love

The love a boy has for his mother is dependance.
A mother's love for her son is eternal.
The love a boy has for his father is respectful.
A father's love for his son is envy.

When the boy feels the love of his mother slipping away like a lowering tide, he fears his own mortality.

When the boy feels the love of his father pulling away like a rope on a fishing net, the boy recoils and pretends that that it doesn't bother him.

Regardless of age, the son is a boy to his parents.

The love will always exist. Clouded in the dust of emotional tornadoes, it tries to run and hide.
But it cannot disappear because the soul cannot exist without it.

A parent will always love their boy.
And a boy will always love his parents, differently...

Something exhilarating

I ran a red light today.

I was sitting at a red light at 4:30 am. There's not normally a red light here. A construction crew installed it because the bridge is reduced to one lane.

It's been there for two months. I hit the damn red light every time, invariably slowing my travel time by 63 seconds.

This morning, there was a car on the other side of the bridge waiting for his light to turn green. There is 18 seconds between the time my side turned red and his side turned green. Someone smarter than me in the realm of traffic studies figured out that it takes 18 seconds to clear the bridge before the opposite side is given the right of way.

There wasn't another car behind me nor behind my opponent. He cleared the bridge while his light turned red. I could see the glare of the light in the darkness on the other side matching the light on my side.

I wasn't in a hurry. I saw no need to remain seated, so I went through the red light expecting a policeman to emerge from his hiding place to give me a ticket. What else is there to do at 4:30 in the morning except sit and wait for petty breakers of law to create a traffic sin?

It is not my nature to do something like this. The last time I ran a clear red light was about the same time 19 years ago. I was on my way to work in the city and the traffic light stayed red for what seemed forever. There wasn't any opposite traffic, so I put on my hazard lights and went through the light pretending I had some sort of emergency.

Both times, it felt wrong. Both times, it felt great.

I was breaking an inexplicable law that wasn't going to hurt anyone.

Half way through the bridge this morning, I could see the red hue still lit in my rear-view mirror.  My discomfort turned to exhilaration and joy as I got through the other side without incident.

Time isn't the only thing I saved this morning. In my delinquent behaviour, my body secreted a small amount of dopamine. With that, I'm a bit happier today.

You don't need to be a delinquent to secrete dopamine. You need to do things outside of your comfort zone.

That's why some pleasure seekers jump out of perfectly good airplanes, ride roller coasters, and do extreme sports.

Your pleasure can be found in smaller, less risky adventures. You need to run the proverbial red light from time to time.

Otherwise life is soooo boring.

Employees know less than customers

Profit is a result of employee excellence.
Employee excellence needs leadership and entrepreneurial vision in order to grow.

To get to where we want to go as entrepreneurs, we need our employees to dive deeply into our business. That only happens with special employees unless we have a system to engrain corporate beliefs and history. In fact, we need a system to transfuse the corporate blood into every employee.

Customer service cannot start without product knowledge. It cannot exist unless our employees know everything about the company, its roots, its ownership and its beliefs.

Inspiration is the road to this destination. It's frustrating to see so many un-inspired people working in customer service roles.

I walked into a coffeeshop to hear a jingle from my childhood.

"Two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese, pickles onions on a sesame seed bun."

Two guys were freely singing the words to a McDonald's jingle from a  television promotion in the 1980s. It was weird but nostalgic at the same time. There was a time when McDonald's could do no wrong. Kids loved them. Parents loved them. The whole world was in love with the brand promise.

Then things changed. More importantly, customers changed.

Mickey D's tried to keep up with consumer demands with introduction of salads, coffee and a more mature environment. But they continue to piss off their fan base.

Customers know more about the product than the 16 year pimple faced kid serving the coffee.

I bet no one working at McDonald's today knows the jingle. It IS part of pop culture but McDonald's doesn't train their staff that way. Most of the staff were born after that song aired on the national airwaves.

That is what's wrong with customer service today. Customers know more about the brand and the products than the employees do. When this happens, disappointment is always the result.

It's not just a McDonald's problem. I ordered my favourite Blizzard at Dairy Queen. It was missing the best part of the dessert: walnuts.  Missing walnuts aren't a big deal. But they're supposed to be in the recipe. When the customer knows the recipe better than the employee, it's disappointing. In a world where staff are hard to find, motivate and retain, business owners forget the greatest disservice we can do to our customer is not training our staff.

I ordered a new pizza from a favourite pizza parlour. This chicken pesto pizza tested my taste buds just right. Not too much pesto is the key. I loved it so much, I went back a few days later to order it again. This time, the cook forgot to put pesto on the pizza. When I bit into the pie, I noticed the lack of zing right away. I went to the counter to inform an employee of my problem. The counter person didn't even know what pesto was and couldn't tell by looking at my half eaten pizza that it was missing.

A friend just bought a sushi restaurant. I asked her which sushi was her favourite. I was disappointed to learn that she doesn't eat fish.

Conversely, I was having a conversation with the barista at Starbucks about the sandwiches in the display case. The employee told me about how her employer had purchased La Boulange three years earlier. She knew where the products came from. She knew about the owner, the types of coffee, and the levels of caffeine in the coffee. I was having a real conversation about something I cared about: Starbucks. Employees are trained that way there. That's why Starbucks is not just another coffee house.

The difference between a remarkable company like Starbucks and the others is the way they inspire, inform and train their employees.

When customers know more about the products served than the employees, the company fails in their attempt at customer service.

Maybe that's why McDonald's is testing a self serve counter where customers order their own meals. It might be easier to let the informed customer order the food instead of the uninformed employee.

The problem is YOU. (Most of the time)

To paraphrase Jay-Z on problems, I got 99 of them but the bitch ain't one.

Problems are all around us. They disguise themselves in Halloween costumes pretending to be something they are not. They are constantly there.

As soon as I think I'm getting rid of one problem, another presents itself.

It's easy to say, "I've got no problems". Essentially, we all have them in varying degrees. If we're honest with ourselves, we know that.

What we focus on, expands. So it's a fine line between empowering a problem and dealing with it.

All that said, dealing with our problems is extremely difficult. As Einstein is quoted, "The solution to a problem cannot be found with the same level of thinking that created it".

Our problems are derivatives of our thoughts, actions, and beliefs. To fix a problem, we need to change our thoughts, actions and beliefs.

The stuff that needs to change does not change easily. It takes real work. So most take the easy road. They blame other people for their problems.

In my experience there are two types of problems:
1. Those we create.
2. Those we are given.

It's only the second one, we can blame someone else. The given problems are rare. They are things beyond our control, occurring in nature, like death, natural disasters, freak accidents.

Most of our problems are created by us. It's easier to blame others, so we do.
To use Pareto's Principle, 80% of the problems we create are based on 20% of our actions.

What actions are you doing to cause the problems in your life?
In what ways do you need to change to fix those problems?

The ones we create are solved by changing our thinking.
The ones we are given are solved by changing our relationships.

The first one is hardest because we need to change ourselves.
The second one is easy.

PS. Have you ever noticed the rate of divorce among divorced couples? The divorced couples I know, who remarry, have a much higher incidence to divorce again. Thinking the problems have to be with the other person, the divorcee continues to look for the perfect partner only to realize, after a second failed marriage, they are far from it.

Words that don't matter anymore

There was probably a time when words like quality, honest and reliable mattered. But I doubt it.

My dad taught me to be wary of those who said they were honest. If they feel they have to say it, they probably aren't.

There are a bunch of words that don't matter anymore: quality, honest, reliable, professional, trustworthy, service oriented, experienced, dedicated, capable, respectful, and caring are just a few that come to mind.

These are "mushy middle" words that no longer mean anything. They don't mean anything because everyone is using them.

A liar will never come out and say he's a liar. He'll justify he's honest and then lie to you when you're not looking. Don't tell me what you do, show me what you do. What you'll do will speak so loudly, I won't be able to hear what you're saying.

Business owners and most marketing people like to use unimportant words. They waste their breath. They waste their money. They waste their time.

Instead of saying your company is polite, tell me you measure the amount of "thank you's" you get a day.

Instead of saying you're honest, tell me about the deal that went bad and how you fixed it.

Instead of saying you're experienced, create a how to video showing me how you could solve my problem.

Instead of saying you're respectful and caring, be respectful and caring.

Then use words that do matter. Words that matter have nothing to do with your business. If they did, your competitors have already beaten them to a useless combination of letters that no longer carry meaning.

In this example, it's not just a promise. It's a pinky swear promise.  And we all know that pinky swear promises are more important to keep than regular promises. It's foolish. But it works because no one else is promising with pinky swears. Now Morris-Jenkins owns Pinky Swears. None of their competitors can use that in their advertising. And if they did, they wouldn't come off as authentic.

Marketing is NOT hard. Choosing to be remarkable IS.

The tale of two brains

Spending countless hours with new entrepreneurs, I discovered a pattern in people.

There are two hemispheres in the brain: Right and Left.

The Left brain is responsible for analytics and logic.

The Right brain is responsible for creative thinking.

We all tap into both sides of the brain but our go-to hemisphere is where we generally live our lives.

Here's the problem. 

If you're a left brain thinker, you use logic and analysis to solve problems. You have an amazing ability to set goals, attain them, and schedule your day to day life to a level of efficiency that demands respect from all who observe you go. Your business or your career grows because you take charge of it.

If you're primarily a right brain thinker, you like to go to the creative side to solve problems. Creativity can't be quantified or measured. Time can look like its wasted for the benefit of obsessing over the IDEA. The person can be seen as a goofball as they seemingly waste time to find the idea. The process is discouraged by left brain thinkers.

Both types are equally effective but limiting.

An entrepreneur needs to equally tap both sides of the brain.

This rarely happens.

Instead the person remains handicapped. He may find initial success but his ultimate success is based on the ONE key thing: As business grows, who is the first hire?

Most entrepreneurs will hire an accountant, secretary or salesperson. The decision is based on hiring someone to do the tasks the entrepreneur has no time to do or doesn't want to do.

He identifies this as his weakness. And he's wrong. His weakness is tapping into the other side of his brain. 

The first hire for an analytical entrepreneur needs to be a creative type. The first hire for a creative entrepreneur is the analytical type.

Most entrepreneurs have heard that they need to hire people who can produce in areas where they are  weakest. The analytical entrepreneur can figure out accounting, process, and systems. If an idea is presented, he can figure out through systems how to implement them.  He needs a legitimate creative person on his team.

Creative entrepreneurs are scared of accounting. They don't understand the setting of goals. They are worried about process and system. It hurts every aspect of their body to follow these rigid guidelines. Coming up with ideas is easy and fun for these people. The challenge is implementing them. They need a strong analytical person to keep them on task. Someone like an office manager.

Steve Jobs was a creative entrepreneur. He would not have had success with the analytical Woz. 

Walt Disney was also creative. His brother Roy was the analytical business manager.

Ray Kroc was the creative sales guy. Harry Sonneborn was the brilliance behind financial decisions McDonalds made to make them one of the largest owners of property in the world.

An entrepreneur cannot do it alone. There is always someone, equal but opposite in thinking, who propels the company forward.

If you have employees, the same holds true. Finding a mixture of both brains is where success within the department will be found.

The analytical entrepreneur will discount creative ideas thinking they cannot be done. He will analyze and critique the idea into oppression.

The creative entrepreneur knows the analytical ideas are important but they will avoid them at almost all costs. Usually at the detriment of their bank account, the government's collection system and suppliers looking for payments.

Shelly (not her real name) is a creative entrepreneur who does amazing work. Her clients love her work. But the biggest frustration her clients have is her inability to keep her own deadlines.

She sets deadlines to have her work done and then fluffs them off until some later date. Deadlines are movable targets. Deadlines are based on not real. Ideas don't listen to deadlines. They come when they come. Her creative clients understand. Her analytical clients get pissed off. One of her analytical clients was her friend. Her creativity was so good, he continuously forgave her for overpromising until one day he realized her inability to work within deadlines was hurting his business. The relationship got rocky. The client friend had to chose between working with her or keeping her as a friend. He chose the friendship and fired her. After the business relationship ended, Shelly called her friend for advice. He wasn't the only person upset with her moving deadlines. There were others. Many others, including Revenue Canada. Shelly wasn't paying attention to their tax filing deadlines and owed them a bunch of money. She was in trouble. Her bank accounts were frozen. Her clients couldn't pay her without Revenue Canada taking what they thought belonged to them.

Shelly is terrible at account management, accounting, bank reconciliations. She is awesome at creating. Shelly needs to hire an office manager who can handle the linear work required to stay in business.

On the flip side of this brain equation, Paul is an analytical person who owes no one anything. He has no debt. He's worked his whole life to make sure the bank doesn't collect interest of his hard earned money. He decided to get into business for himself factoring in how much money he would have to earn to maintain his current lifestyle. His kids are all grown up. His house is paid for and he drives a motorcycle in the summer months to keep the vehicle costs to a minimum. People like Paul because he's a no nonsense type of guy. But he suffers from an inability to grow his business. He's had some success. But it's limited. He doesn't understand why people wouldn't choose his product over his competition when he offers the exact same product only cheaper.

A friend approached Paul and told him that he needed to break a few rules. But rules is all Paul knows. He's the f-ing poster child for living within the rules. He doesn't understand that rules create conformity, sameness, and boringness. He doesn't understand that his marketing effort needs to be focused on living on the other side of that fence. But he's not that type of guy, so doing that is not only outside of his comfort zone. It's outside of his authenticity. The only way Paul can pull his entrepreneurial dream off is if he hires a creative person to see past his own limiting beliefs.

Paul is terrible at creativity, thinking outside of the box. He's awesome at managing his bank account, setting goals and making sales calls.

Both people living in different brains have the equal but opposite effect. Their business is stale because they don't play enough on the other side of their heads.

80% of businesses fail in the first five years of opening. Is there any question why?

From a different perspective...

I have one of the toughest jobs in the organization. Some think it's fluffy. They think I have to be a airy-fairy, free-feeling, pot-smoking hippy to get results. I'm the opposite of that. I'm all about results. And the reality is everything is cyclical. There are good times when I can do no wrong and there are lean times when I'm bored out of my mind because my competition has figured out a new strategy to pull customers toward them.

When I first took this job, I used to run around and try to convince others that my product was the best. I would try to pull them away from my competitors. Then I realized that I can't force people to do something they don't want to do anyways. They want to try the competition because their offering seems more appealing. The more they try it, the more they think they like it. Even though they don't. But I'm too busy to waste my time on people who don't want to hear from me. I only work with those who like what I offer. So I stick with them until someone calls me.

I have one rule.
I don't call on customers. They call on me.

I can't convince them to want my services. They have to convince themselves.

I wasn't on the job very long when I realized the cyclical nature of this business. I work my hardest after turmoil and strife. Negative emotions worked long enough on a person become tiring. It's all consuming.  As anger consumes people, it gets so heavy that people give up.

It's when they give up the anger, hate and fear, that I do my best work.

I haven't been working very hard these days. There's an air of fear throughout the world. People are angry. Politicians are fuelling it a bit. People have hate in their hearts. It's sad. But I'm waiting. I'm running a couple of miles a day in my spare time. I need to stay in shape. I've seen this movie before. It's gonna get a lot slower for me. But then, look out. I'll have to work overtime 7 days a week.

As time moves on, there's no way I can do the job by myself. Right now, it's no problem. The boss knows that dark days are ahead so he isn't pushing me hard. He's asked me to come up with a plan to satisfy the objectives when needed.

Some think I have to hire help. Hiring doesn't help. I can't teach someone to care who doesn't already understand it. They have to have it within them.

I need help but the right talent isn't available.

Wanna know what I do?

I grow them! I plant them, nurture them, and water them. I talk to them everyday in my garden. Some call them clones. Some call them cupids.

Call them what you want, they are the future missionaries of my life's work. I will die one day but there will be another who will take my place at the heart of my business.

Business isn't that good right now. But it soon will be. People have no choice but to love. It's in them. I know because I put a seed in every single one of them when they were born. They are confused right now but they soon won't be.

-From the perspective of Love

All the good ideas are taken

If Apple thought all the good ideas were taken, they would never have invented the iPad.
If Elon Musk thought all the good ideas were taken, he wouldn't be revolutionalizing the car industry.

Most of us don't work for Apple or Elon Musk. But we all need good ideas in our lives.

Do you want to come up with some good ideas for your job or your business?

Yesterday we did a 10 minute brainstorming session for a yoga studio. The question was what could the company do to become more remarkable. There was one rule. No one could say that an idea was bad.

Here were some of the answers:
Do a cleanse as a value add.
Have a juicer and sell juices.
Have a Facebook page...

And the list went on, boring as hell.

Then one guy said: Offer yoga to lumbersexuals!

It made no sense but we weren't allowed to comment on the idea. A bunch of people giggled imagining grown men with full beards in yoga pants.

Then a couple more boring ideas hit the table, until someone said offer yoga dating.

Then another person said offer yoga glow in the dark sessions.

Then another person said beat the Guiness Book of World Records for the most people at once doing Yoga on the beach.

Every time someone laughed at an idea, we knew we were on to something. It might truly be a bad idea. At least it got our attention, we laughed and we wanted to know more. Wanting more, lowering inhibitions gave permission to others to be ridiculous.

It is in the ridiculous that the great ideas will emerge.

If the yoga girls are serious about opening this business, they have some work to do. But the worst thing they can do is be like every other yoga studio in the world. It's too hard to stand out. It's too hard to get noticed. It's too costly in time and money to wait for customers to figure out how good you are (if you are good).

These ideas are just ideas. The real work is in the execution.

The exercise demonstrated what can happen when people aren't limited by their inhibitions, their ridiculousness and negativity.

Be ridiculous. The answers are waiting for you there.

Source energy

I had coffee yesterday with a man who I've always respected from a far.  He told me he wanted to talk. He detailed his plan in moving forward in his business.  I sat there with great humility listening to this wonderful man asking me for advice.

As I watched and listened, a feeling came over me that it was not me providing advice to him.  He was providing guidance to me.  This great man is is a king among kings.  He's not rich nor is he royalty.

It's his energy. He has a magnetic personality. His smile is pure love. Despite his business accomplishments I respect this man for who he is not what he has done.

I read a great quote this week that said in order to be great one must first be good.

Despite his greatness, he showed me that we are all fragile children looking and desiring to achieve our purpose.

This great man stood before me in humility and described his fears and dreams.

At an early age I was taught that emotion (mostly crying) demonstrated weakness and fragility.  We learn to suppress those emotions over time.The hardening of time gives us the illusion that we become stronger. When in fact we are still scared fragile children.

Science has proven that color does not exist. Color is nothing more  then a series of wavelengths. The length of the wave determines the color human eyes perceives. Sound does not exist. Sound is nothing more than vibration.  When the vibration changes so does the sound a human ear perceives. Smell is an illusion. Smell is perceived by humans based on the reaction of different chemicals combining together.

Physics has proven that life is nothing but energy.  No one has to be a quantum physicist to know that. When I apply energy to my woodstove I get heat. A live human has heat. When we die the heat gets removed. In the absence of heat, energy is no longer contained.

And all energy has a source. When I turn on the lights in my home, a nuclear reactor generates energy 400 miles away to make that happen. I don't understand nuclear energy. I've never seen the plant. But I know it exists when I turn on my lights.

People are bowls of energy. We didn't happen by accident. We were created.  We are connected with translucent wires to each other. All of us independent but depend on each other. All of us connected to a power plant source.

The man I met yesterday was looking for advice for me yet he was the one who taught me an extremely valuable lesson.

We are not people. We are all just bowls of energy filled with fear, hope and desire...

Limiting beliefs

I'm too old. It's too risky at my age.
I'm too young. No one will take me serious.
My business is slow in the summer because everyone is on vacation.
My business is declining because the economy isn't very good.
I'm too fat to be attractive to someone.
I'm too skinny to be attractive to someone.
I don't have enough money to start a business.
I have too much money to risk on a business.

I could go on. I hear them everyday. Excuses that limit our ability to be successful. The excuses get engrained into our belief system and as long as we believe these statements to be true, they are.

It's called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What if we talked differently to ourselves?
What if we positioned these statements in a positive frame of mind?

Instead of saying what we can't do, what would happen if we asked ourselves the question, "How can we do it?".

It would mean that we have to take responsibility for our actions. It would mean that we are in control of our results.

And that may be scary for some of us.

Because the only reason we don't succeed is because we don't give ourselves permission.

Covalent bonds

Water molecules are created from the bonding of electrons from an oxygen molecule to electrons of two hydrogen molecules (H2O).

Oxygen wants hydrogen to make water.
Hydrogen wants and needs oxygen to make water.
If the bond is done in one way, it creates water.
If the bond is done differently, it creates hydrogen peroxide.
Humans need water to survive.
Hydrogen peroxide can be poison.

Bonds require interdependence.

Customers need products.
Businesses fulfills needs of the customers.
If the bond is formed properly under the right conditions, a loyal customer will be the result.
If there is no bond, the customer bounces around until she finds another business to bond to.
Businesses need loyal customers to survive.
Disloyal customers are the hardest to please and the most expensive to market to.

Poor attempts at bonding creates poison.
Done the right way, a bond will create magic.

Enterprises existence is based on creating the right covalent bonds.

Marketing 101

There are two ways to deliver marketing.

The first way is to scream from the mountaintops, hoping someone, anyone will hear you. If enough people are looking for that product at that exact time, they may come to see you. You may get a sale out of it.

If you want attention, all you need to do is interact with lots of people. Someone is bound to be in the market at that particular time. But screaming isn't always the best way to get attention. I learned with my kids that whispering can have the exact same effect.

The second way is to deliver such a memorable story that potential customers think about you long after they hear the message. They don't have to be "in-market" to buy. But one day when they are, the message will still resonate enough for them to check you out. You'll get traffic and maybe even a sale.

Mass Media talks to everyone. If the message is poorly crafted, you will only talk AT customers who are "in-market" to buy when they hear the commercial. If the message is clear and remarkable, you talk WITH all customers who will someday be "in-market" to buy.

Talking AT people will be effective if you time it right. Talking WITH people will be always be effective.

The media doesn't matter as much as the message. Have a clear message and business will take care of itself.

The same thing works with dating. If you want a date, get a girl to laugh. She'll remember you for weeks.

You're so smart you have two brains

The brain is made of two hemispheres. In fact, they are very much two separate brains.

The left hemisphere is responsible for analytics, and logic. It breaks problems down into component parts. We learn and understand science, mathematics and reasoning in this part of the brain.

The right hemisphere is responsible for creativity. It's where we learn how to dance, sing, play a musical instrument, draw, paint and create stories. This area of our brain takes illogical pieces and puts them together to create.

In grade one, we all loved to draw and paint. Research has proved that all children at this age think of themselves as creative.

By grade ten, less than ten percent of them still feel creative.

What happens in nine short years?

Puberty probably plays a role as children try to conform. Creativity requires people to be a bit weird. Weird is not cool in high school.

I believe the suppression of our creativity has a lot to do with the educational system. As children progress through the system, creative classes which require right brain processes are replaced with logical, left brain analysis.

Art and music classes are reduced to one day per week, replaced with mathematics, sciences, history and social studies. By the time our children get into high school, these creative classes are abolished entirely.

Imagine a child quitting school in grade three. Her reading would be basic. Her ability to calculate simple math problems would be slow. She would know nothing about history or science unless she went out on her own to discover it.

That's what the system has done to the creative learning of our children. It has stunted it. It's still there. Unexercised, fat, and unhealthy, the right brain has gotten lazy.

The only way out of this rut is to exercise the brain to be creative again.

If you haven't tapped into your creativity lately, you're only using one of your brains. What a shame to have your other brain taking up so much space and not paying rent.

Women tap into the creative right brain more often than men. Intuition is the ability to see patterns in illogical events to know the logical result.

Don't mess with a woman's intuition.

My first love

She was 18 years old when I first met her. 18 years old, 3 months and 26 days and I loved her the moment I saw her. Don't tell me love at first sight doesn't exist because I'm living proof you're wrong.

She was tired and in pain. But she glowed, somewhat relieved. I didn't want to hurt her, but there was no other choice. It was a life and death situation. I chose life and in the process I hurt this precious woman so much that she didn't feel the pain anymore. All she felt was love for me, and I for her.

Today is her birthday. 18 years, 3 months and 26 days older than me. Happy birthday mom! I love you.

She was a child when she got married. Quickly got pregnant and had her first child before her 19th birthday. She wasn't allowed to drink, but she made decisions that forced her to quickly become an adult.

My mom has always been 18 years, 3 months and 26 days older than me, but for some reason, I have always seen her as old.

She isn't old. She's just older than me.

When I was 10 years old, she was still in her twenties, full of piss and vinegar, but I saw her as old.
When I got married at 25 years old, she was the same age I am now. And I thought she was old.
And today at she has brushed past the 60 and into a set of numbers she hasn't seen since she was a mid-teenager. She is now a dyslexic 16 year old, moving toward senior citizenship.

She's not old, even though I have always seen her as old.

Perspective only gives one opinion. That opinion is based on experience. And that experience is personal. The perspective we have is based on our own experiences. My mom looked old to me just like I look to my children.

She's a vibrant, funny, loving mother and I wouldn't trade her for anything. She's 18 years, 3 months and 26 days older than me. I love her more today than I did so many years ago.

Happy Birthday Mom! Hope you have a great dyslexic sweet sixteen birthday.