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?