Your dream is impossible until it isn't

Man isn't supposed to fly...then the brothers with the last name Wright figured it out after countless tries.

Man can't go to the moon...until John F. Kennedy motivated a nation and a program to make advances in science so remarkable that they achieved the goal, even after their inspirational leader had died.

An African American will never be President of the United States...until Barack Obama decided to run.

Everything is impossible until it isn't.

You have a choice to make. Choose to accept what others say is impossible or fly in the face of ridicule to prove those who choose to sit on the sidelines, in their comfy chairs, wrong.

It doesn't matter that others will think you're nuts. It doesn't matter if there are days you think you're crazy. Don't give up. Your task will be impossible until it isn't.

Refrigerators, cell phones, the internet, cable TV, electric cars, satellites, and electricity are just a few examples of things that people 200 years ago would have said were impossible. Yet they exist.

If you're working on something that seems impossible, maybe you're just ahead of your time.

Let me repeat. Nothing is impossible. It may be inconceivable. It may seem unrealistic.
You want to achieve something. It doesn't matter what it is. In the words of Rob Schneider in The Waterboy, "You can do it".

You don't have to be Thomas Edison to prove that something is not impossible.

Maybe it's as simple as buying a new home or getting a job that pays twice as much as you currently make. Maybe you have an idea to buy a business.

Nothing will hold you back but you.
It doesn't matter if you're broke.
Who cares if you don't have an education?

Stop worrying about what you don't have.
Start thinking about what could be possible.
Start dreaming about what you can do today to turn the impossible into the possible.

Your dream is impossible until it isn't.

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."
   -Henry Ford

Young entrepreneur

I met a young man recently who wants to be an entrepreneur. He's only 16.

I envy him because I didn't have a clue what I wanted at that age. I wonder if his inexperience is clouding his adolescent vision. Either way, his confidence is a breath of fresh air.

Not knowing what he doesn't know, he was smart enough to ask someone who may know. That's the foundation of mentorship and this kid's got it figured out at a young age.

He's going to be successful. I can feel it. He doesn't talk like I did at that age. I might be cheering for him prematurely.

He wanted to know what courses he should take in high school to get ready for a life of entrepreneurship.

He's in grade ten.

I suggested three courses:
Creative Writing
Accounting
Typing

Creative Writing will give him a skill that he can use in all of his marketing materials. The ability to move people to open their wallets starts with a compelling message. In today's nomenclature, the keyboard is mightier than the sword.

Accounting is a no-brainer, right? I know far too many business people who depend on bookkeepers and accountants to manage their books. Accounting isn't hard. It's another language. To be able to read a financial statement, understanding the basics can go a long way in business.

Typing was the single most important class I took in high school. I took it in grade twelve because I wanted an easy class to boost my grades that didn't have homework. And it didn't hurt that there were a bunch of pretty girls taking it too. Learning how to type got me through university papers, the constant surfing on line and even right now as I formulate my thinking into this blog.

Unfortunately, his school doesn't have an entrepreneurship class. He thinks there's a entrepreneurship club. That would be another good place to start.

His dad thought it would be a good idea to test the waters of entrepreneurship before making such a huge commitment. I can't argue with the thinking. Unfortunately it's tough to test something like this out without potentially losing money.

This kid is very bright. He's gonna go places. He told me a story of how he's making a product, retailing it at his school, turning a profit of $80 a week. He's developing different flavours to keep his existing client base buying more. If that wasn't enough, he opened a wholesale channel where he still makes excellent margin.

Here are the simple business rules I shared with this young man:
1. Don't tell your friends your trade secrets.
2. Keep the wholesale channels open.
3. Find more wholesale accounts. Work less, sell more.
4. Continue to develop your retail channel in your market (school).
5. Make your wholesalers pay for your product upon delivery.
6. Confirm none of this is illegal.

I was doing nothing compared to this kid at 16. I'm impressed TA. Keep up the confidence, the thinking, the searching for answers. You'll go places. Just keep your head on straight.

Whether you think you can or you think you can't, your right.   - Henry Ford

Does a little thing like the thickness of toast really matter?

It's the little things that usually make the biggest difference.

Don't kid yourself. Whether you're in business or you work for someone else, the little things that you do everyday will bring you more success, more joy, more money and more love.

I used to own a breakfast restaurant. Do you know what I loved the most about this restaurant before I bought it? It was the thickness of the toast.

The toast was thick like homemade toast. It wasn't the bread we could buy in the grocery store. The only place you could get that toast was in our restaurant.

No one thought the thickness of the toast was important until it was taken away.

A few months into owning the restaurant, an employee asked if we could bring in caramel ganache. No other restaurants, to my knowledge, were carrying ganache so it looked like a small change that differentiated us just a little more. People were eating it so it looked like a good choice. It cost more than strawberry jam, but the decision to bring it on the menu was to give us a slight advantage over the other restaurant choices our customer had.

The protocol of the franchise system, I was in, made us give away free fudge at the door instead of the typical mints other restaurants would do. The fudge was made every couple of days and cut up by hand and placed at the cash as a final thank you to guests.

Each and every time, I would introduce myself to people outside the restaurant, I would hear one of three comments:

1. Oh I love the fudge.
2. You're the only place I ever saw caramel ganache offered instead of jam.
3. The toast is just like gramma's bread. Where do you get it?

The franchisor asked us to remove the ganache off the tables. They changed the bread for a cheaper product to keep the costs and customer prices down. Only the fudge remains.

Of course, we had to be good at the big things like serving a good breakfast. I believe it was the little things like fudge, ganache and thick toast that made us remarkable.

If you want to be remarkable in your business or in your job, think of all the little things you could do consistently every day. Maybe it's a happy attitude, the ability to laugh, or the way you compliment others around you.

I worked with a guy once that was terrible at his job. Yet, everyone loved him. He was incompetent in his job and twice got let go. Yet, every time a new job came up that seemed to fit his skill set, he would get it. Management wanted him around. They tried to find the right role for him. He knew how to make others feel great about themselves and that's where he eventually saw huge success.

So the next time someone says "Don't sweat the small stuff", tell them "God is in the details".

Greatness lies in the small stuff. What small stuff are you doing to bring out the greatness in you?

Starbucks shows me how to be a better person

I love Starbucks. Not that the coffee is that great or the people are any better. Starbucks makes me feel different, even though I'm a faceless customer.

They make me want to be a better person. It's not about coffee. Think about it for a minute a simple exchange of money for coffee is nothing more than a chilly transaction.

Let me explain the story that made me love Starbucks so much.

Since selling my businesses, I have two choices in the morning: go to my home office and deal with people via phone or go to a coffeeshop and meet people the old fashion way.

On one particular coffeeshop workday, I had four consecutive meetings with just enough time between to prepare and liquidate for the next encounter.

It was a blistery, minus 30 degrees celsius outside. It was the type of day, where one rushes from the parked car to the office with the collars turned up to keep the ears from catching cold.

Not paying attention to the internal surroundings nor the others who've escaped the outside to the warm tables of Starbucks, I worked away.

From my peripheral vision, there was a guy sitting on a sofa directly across from me. I couldn't help but notice him. He was about 10 feet away and every time I looked up in thought, there was this mangled beard. He had a big coat on, that was almost as puffy as his beard, which he chose not to take off. He was a street person. Homeless, I assumed. I looked up, pretending to look deeply into the wall behind him, catching a peak through my peripheral vision wondering why a homeless dude would go to Starbucks for his coffee fix. There were clearly cheaper options.

He wasn't hurting anyone so no one complained. He just sat there and kept warm while others like me worked away on our shiny, expensive tools. Happy that he was able to stay warm on this terribly cold Canadian day, I kept on working.

Eventually I had to go to the bathroom. While I was gone, a thought blew between my ears: What if the dude rips off my computer while I'm indisposed. Then, another thought: Anyone can steal my computer, why am I only worried about that guy. Quickly shaking the thought off, I wash my hands and get back to my seat to verify that all my possessions were still in tact.

The guy was sitting there for about an hour when a Starbucks employee came over. There was a quick exchange that I couldn't decipher.. The employee left and then returned with a coffee for the bearded guy.

Shit! That hurt. What didn't I think of that? I could've easily bought this dude a coffee. I was too busy in my own thoughts to even be bothered to extend a helpful hand to someone less fortunate.

Starbucks is awesome. They could've easily kicked this guy out. He wasn't buying anything. But instead they did what I should have done. And for that, they taught me a very valuable lesson.

Helping humanity is as simple as buying a coffee for a dude who's trying to stay warm on a cold Canadian morning.

Thank you Starbucks! You showed me how to be a better person. That's rare in corporate America.

Let's talk about rules

Rules are meant to be broken.

Without rules, society would crumble.

Rules, rules, rules. Thinking about rules this morning as I drove my kids to school.

My son didn't want to be late to school. I promised him a fishing rod. This morning, as he was dragging his feet, getting ready for school. I put a zip in his step by removing my promise if he was late to school.

So as we jumped in the car, he told me, "Step on it". The next five minutes we talked about laws, and the consequences to breaking laws. Declaring there were no policemen around, I asked if it was ok to break rules when no one was looking. Another teachable moment I thought to myself...

Getting home, laws kept bubbling to the surface of my boiling brain. There is one law that cannot be misunderstood - Pareto's Law. Most of us will know it as the 80/20 rule.

80% of profits come from 20% of our customers.
80% of our joy comes from 20% of our day.
80% of our memories come from 20% of our activities.
80% of our wisdom comes from 20% of our experiences.
80% of our health comes from 20% of the choices we make.

If Pareto's Law is true, then it's the small things that make the biggest impact on our lives, our loves, our children, our jobs and our memories.

Using a business example for a second, imagine what the marketing budget looks like when a restaurant focuses so intently on its existing client base that the only clients they lose are those who die, move or have a life altering event.

It's easier said than done, but imagine finding out what exactly makes your spouse feel appreciated. Then doing more of those activities no matter how small and insignificant they seem to you.

80% of appreciation will be felt by 20% of your effort.

Is it hard to say "Thank you"? How about washing the dishes after a hearty dinner? Maybe making the bed every morning is a simple message of appreciation?

It doesn't matter what it is, the rule is simple and true. The majority of rewards will come from a much smaller portion of your activities.

To succeed with money, joy, memories, wisdom, love and health, my recommendation is to identify those influential activities so you can do more of them to reap even greater rewards in your life.

Now I know why it seems like my kids don't listen to me.

80% of the things I tell them gets absorbed 20% of the time.

What we remember the most...

As I write this, Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again", is playing in the background of my brain. Sitting in a hotel room thinking of the events of a simple transaction yesterday creates a slight upward thought that encourages the corner of my lips to go in the same upward direction.

Last night, I arrived at my hotel destination. The hotel has been in this city for 25 years. It is my preferred spot to sleep in this town. It's a huge multinational chain and it's not the cheapest hotel out there. It doesn't have complimentary breakfasts. I've never seen its pool.  This is the type of hotel I wouldn't bring my kids. Yet, the first time I stayed here, when I was 23, we had a wild and crazy night. A wedding shindig that ended up with all our friends dancing on the roof of the foyer. I looked down from my room tonight to see that very same roof and wondered if the hotel management ever welded shut those windows on the 3rd floor. We can't be the only ones to ever do that...

Nostalgia out of the way, the hotel had a facelift since my last visit. It's beautiful as far as hotel lobbies go. I remember a hotel lobby once in Manhattan that had all the treasures of richness only to misrepresent my expectations of the hotel rooms. From that one experience, I learned to never judge a hotel book from its lobby cover.  

The employee at the front desk answers my questions about the facelift by saying, "We went through a massive renovation in 2011. That year was an extremely tough year as we worked through the discomfort of change. But thanks to that trying time, you and I can both enjoy our time here today."

How philosophical that statement is for both this hotel and people in general. Thanks nameless hotel guy for this wonderful line that I will now use unapologetically for the rest of my life.

Before he hands over the room key, he delights me with another gift. With my room comes a complimentary "premium" beer at the bar. 

What??? I've never been given a free beer before in a hotel. 

A free beer. 

A gift.

No strings attached.

It wasn't advertised on Expedia when I booked the room. And it never will be. 

The beer price is built into the price. It's not going to show up on an expense claim. It's such a small gift that most competitors don't think it has value. The value is massive. It created a moment of delight. It's different and it's remarkable enough to share. And share ability is what any good business should be striving for.

After enjoying my free beer, I went to the room to witness that the cover of this hotel book was well representative of its contents. The room was great! Yet, it was the toiletries that brought another smile across my increasingly impressed face.  The hotel took the simple and made it impressionable. A simple message usually reserved for the social mechanisms of Facebook or Pinterest. And now I'm sharing it.

I know. It's just soap. But for me, this simple message could have been easily left off the bottles like every other hotel chain does. And it wouldn't have changed my overall experience. But this little message becomes a layer of increasing positiveness that warms my heart, encourages my fingers to type, intrigues my brain and moves my wallet.

It's not enough to attain average. Good is the enemy of great. No one remembers the average. No one cares about the mediocre.

In football we cheer for the star quarterback, not the faceless centre.

In business, we remember the shareable experiences, not the ones that are like everyone else.

In life, we remember the crazy moments, not the everyday ones where we just live and put in time.

Culture and Energy

Going to my favourite sandwich franchise today, I witnessed real magic. This was not the slight of hand magic trick that illusionists do. This magic is stuff concocted by marketing wizards. But even marketing wizards cannot dream up what an 18 year old cashier was able to do at this location.

Let me explain. A new dessert is plastered all over the dining room. This is nothing special. Many restaurants promote a monthly special or a new product this way. They try to instigate trial to raise average cheque or to increase frequency of visit. This is the usual marketing practice and this is where these promotions fail. They don't have an active ability to encourage staff to sell the product. And most good products die on the idea table because of the inability to sell on the floor.

I have been at other franchised units in this chain and nothing compares to the experience I received today. It was remarkable. No. It was shareable. And that's all any good business should be striving for - share ability!

So, when I got to the cash to order my sandwich, there was a plain white piece of paper taped to the cash register. The page explained that the chain had a national sales contest amongst stores to sell the most desserts. This location was currently second in the country. The winner will get Henrik Zetterberg, who is a well known NHL hockey player, to visit the store.

The page wasn't remarkable. Although the story was interesting, it wasn't enough to get me excited. I don't live in this town. I don't like the team Zetterberg plays for and I don't give two shits about the player either.

So a young girl comes to the cash to take my order and here's the interaction between us.

"Would you like a Snowball with your sandwich?"
"No thank you".
"We're currently in second place in the country. If we finish in first in the country by selling enough Snowballs, we're gonna get Henrick Zetterberg in our store."
"Yeah, I see that, but no thanks"
"Did you know they are only $____ (I can't remember the exact price)?"
"Yeah, but I really don't want sugar".
"You can give it to someone else if you'd like, but it's gluten free and each one only has 73 calories. You deserve a treat".
"You're making it tough on me, but I'm still gonna decline."
"Ok, it's going to be amazing to have a real NHL'er in our store. Do you know how many young kids this could affect."

She still had a smile on her face the whole time. She wasn't pushy. She was energetic. She was supporting a community cause - getting an NHL'er in her store. Everyone in front of me ordered one. I have no doubt this store is going to win the contest because of the young people working there.  Then I watched the rest of the team interact with each other and with customers as they smiled, laughed and joked around.

This location has become my favourite store in this chain. The management team has embraced a national promotion and created an energy that increases employee interaction with customers, average cheque, community spirit, and ultimately customer delight.

Congratulations Pita Pit Oromocto. You impressed me and that's not easy to do!