OK, You are on the list!
We have heard of people who have made lists of this right? The list of enemies, the list of individuals who wronged us, the list of whom we seek revenge. Even though we have done this for centuries, it still celebrates the worst part of human nature. We even have phrases like “Revenge is a dish best served cold”. Have you thought about this for a minute? What that phrase says is the person who wronged you has long since forgot about what happened. When you execute your plan to pay them back, they would not be expecting it at all. “ I am Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!” Have you carried the weight of this all this time, it has brewed its negative elixir in your mind and spirit? Some people have even become consumed by these revenge type feelings to where it has affected their health, their friendships, and their business. I am not suggesting to let everything roll off your back and just to let it go. You have every right to stand for what you believe in, and yes, people make choices that may not be good in how it affects you. The strangest part is for most of the people who you would consider as “wronging you”, they have forgotten what they did a long time ago, and it does not trouble them at all. As you let it continue to eat at you, it is only you who are continuing to be burdened. If you want to, make your list, plan your revenge against all who have wronged you. If it helps fuel you, I certainly am not going to stand in your way. It may be an overall better choice to also make a list of the people you admire, a list of the people who have accomplished great things you want to learn from, a list of the people who matter most in your life and the things they love. This type of list has no plan of revenge, it needs no burden. Lists like those only grow and grow. Lastly, as you go through your life, which list would you like to be on most?
Fine…I will try it
People talk about the “Race Card” the “Wealth Card” and other various monikers of division. Adding to the list, I now present to you the “Try Card.” They just go through life leveraging the word “try.” Try a new food, try a new procedure, try to improve on something. I am not downing the try, but I do want to stress how weak this may be perceived. Here is an excellent example of the classic try response. “But I tried, what more do you want?” What if someone does not use try as a fallback position but the frist step of a process. “ I may never have attempted this before, but I would like to learn how, even if I do not do it right the first time.” Any person willing to look at it like this has a strong will to improve. If they go for it and it does not work out, of course, they can default to the “well, I tried.” However, in the affirmative style statement they are committed to learning about what they did or did not do and improve upon it. It shows they want to explore and look at new things, even if they may totally suck at it the first time. How many people do you know who are not willing to even try at all? There could be many factors and reasons to not try. However, the one word you would never use to describe them is “entrepreneur”. I remember wanting to play the guitar and finally sitting down with a guitar. Wow, big difference in playing the air guitar (which I did perfectly by the way) and trying to make real sounds with the actual instrument. For any musician, I do not think they use the word “try”. I hear some of the most positive, forwarding thinking, statements from someone learning to play an instrument. “Let me keep working on that.” “I just have to practice more.” “Oh cool, show me how to play that.” Do you see how important this is? The musician never talks about having to “TRY to learn a song”, they say they have to PRACTICE a new song. Even if they do not know it, they are making a total commitment, a full investment into what they are doing. The next time you are asked about doing or starting something, and you are tempted to say “I will try,” take a pause and see if you can step it up in how you respond. Character is based upon actions, if you are always trying, some people may see it as a lack of doing.
Journey or Destination
This topic may have more intensity than even the classic “chicken or egg first” debate. For the person who dreams and better yet pursues the dream, is the greater reward in the journey or the destination? Personally, I side with the journey. Here is my attempt at the rationale. When we set the destination in our mind, we have decided on where and what it should look be. You have an image in your mind, even a set of objectives to get to it. In some circles of progressive, positive thinking, you need to create a substantial expectation of the destination. You may have pictures and brochures if it is a location. You may have created a vision board if it is a goal in your business or personal life. Your mind has visualized how it feels, what it looks like. Let’s say it all comes together and your destination comes to you. Your goal, your trip, your new accomplishment. If it all then comes along exactly as you expected, where is the excitement? You have been to the place in your mind so many times; when you get there, it becomes almost a sense of let down. For the motivated, when reaching this point, we often will look around and wonder “what next!”. This is why I feel the journey is the best part. The journey has changes, new people, turns and twists. The journey has all the elements that keep it exciting. The journey has things that are unexpected, things you need to adapt and change, which even at times can lead you to an even newer undiscovered destination. We are engrossed and intrigued in the movies and books that talk of people going on the adventure, the journey. We may be on the edge of your seat as they work through situation after situation to get to the goal. How can you make your life and your quest for whatever it is you are looking for be so engaging? I was listening to a professional speaker one day who shared one of these simple and profound statements you replay it in your mind over and over again. He said, “I wish my life’s journey to be so exciting, when my grandkids sit around the campfire with me to hear the stories, they can sell tickets to their friends to hear it!” Now that is an amazing analogy of how great the journey can be.
Homemade….wait a minute
I have been to places where the food is amazing and the service is incredible. The places you always refer people to and they are just as happy to see you. There must be thousands of these establishments across the country, and many of them reference having food that is “homemade”. But why say this? They are making the food right there at the restaurant, not at their home. You would figure the health departments might raise an eyebrow as well. Since we all seem to understand this, why do we have a message so inaccurate yet just accepted by all? In thinking about this for some time, try this theory on for size or at least an appetizer. There are certain terms that become a cultural slang. Homemade, in the early days, was a warm feeling of comfort and quality. Since you cared and loved your family, all the cooking had the element of love and attention and the times spent eating as a family created great memories. Yes, not all family memories and experiences are grand as the Norman Rockwell image just shared. However this homemade feeling was with a majority, therefore the word was adopted as a feeling or expression. As a feeling and expression of care, it works perfectly. It even may make sense to why people never call a restaurant out for saying they have homemade food and are clearly not. Not all businesses can work within this culture. Making statements that are not the truth or even just semi-accurate is not a good or sound practice. The next time you are having a slice of homemade pie at your local restaurant, take a few moment to see if some of the messages you use in your business ring true to what you are and what you do.
The Cap on the floor
In the overall effort to try and do something productive for my health, I have been working on maintaining a gym presence. As I have come to realize, if you are already paying for a gym membership, it may be good to check in on your investment a few times a week. On this particular trip to the gym, I was engaged on one of the exercise machines and was striving to reach a goal of 45 minutes. During the effort, however, as I was taking a drink from my water bottle, the cap came out of my hand and fell to the floor. Of course, you have this urge to go and reach for it but at this point it is well out of position. Then the other subliminal suggestion comes over you to stop the machine, get off, get the cap and try to return to exercising again. Of course the bottle cap could have been a dropped towel, untied a shoe, drooping sock, or any of the hundreds of other distractions that can happen. There was a time when myths and legend would refer to little creatures called Gremlins. These Gremlins would interfere with equipment, machinery, and other issues causing havoc and failure. Gremlins became the perfect scapegoat for bad engineering, poor maintenance, and lack of quality. I wonder if these same Gremlins are the ones who drop my cap, untie my show, break my headphones, or make any other effort creating a reason to stop my goal of exercising. As I almost gave into the urge, I realized that all day long, these little things will always manifest themselves and get in our way to stop what we are on track to do. These tiny little distractions can work so much against keeping momentum. That bottle cap remained on the floor until I had completed my goal, and if this ever happens to you, I encourage you to do the same. In the end, you will find many of the little things can wait. The goals and objectives you set for yourself will have challenges, distractions, and setbacks. Without challenge, the goals are meaningless. Take the challenges in STRIDE and accomplish the goals with PRIDE.
Location over Location
We always talk about the power of having a great location. If you get an excellent location, the world can lead a path to your door. As visibility is imperative, it actually becomes an extension of credibility. I do not care how fancy your building may be, how elaborate your signs are. I do not care about the wacky promotions and how much you will beat everyone’s prices. If I have a bad experience, you serve horrible food, your product sucks, or you have anything that reflects something entirely different than the marketing messages that made me stop in, guess what happens to your credibility? I cannot be the only one either that would feel this way. To be real kurt, if you are going to take a bag of garbage and put a nice shiny bow on it, people will find out. When you are a new business or even an existing business which is starting to expand, taking the time make sure you have the best product you can deliver matters most. That does not mean you have to have the superior product, just provide the best service, quality, and message you can deliver on. The best location will always be the one you establish by your credibility. Creditability can be the best tenant improvement you can make with your business model even if it is from your kitchen table working at home. Credibility, in having to buy it back, can be the most expensive real estate of all. Your prime location is the one where your clients, your business, and yourself are aligned.
It’s Your Choice
The decade of the 80’s produced many great movies. The ones you can watch over and over again and adopt many of the lines into your everyday life. Even though it was an exciting period, the moves seemed to capture many messages we still use today. One of the movies incorporated itself into the culture by being used in many parodies and memes of scenes. The film is called “Say Anything“ and follows the story of a young man trying to secure the heart of a girl. Many people reference the scene of his holding a boom box above his head in the rain out front of her house with the Peter Gabriel song “Your Eyes” blaring. As much as this scene is touching and in replicating it must have earned young men many a prom date, there is another scene that is far more valuable. There is another scene where the lead character (played by a very young John Cusack) is lost in thought and happens about a group of fellow high school students hanging out in front of a convenience store. They begin to share all this advice about women to him until he realizes they have no credibility. He say to them; “If you guys are so smart about women, why are you out in front of the Gas and Sip at midnight on a Friday with no women around?” The boys look dumbfounded in gather an answer until one of them says with a bit of uncertainty, “It’s by choice man.” They all suddenly agree, and the scene ends. But the message is very hidden within the humor. The kid is so accurate in what he is saying. We ALL have the ability to live our lives by choice. When things are not going well, have you even thought if decisions you made have been involved? Therefore, the situation you are in is by choice. And with that, if you believe it, you can make the choice to do something about it. After all, it IS your choice. Once you embrace that, you can experience the most out of your business and your life.
A Right or Obligation
Out of these two items of dealing with people, which do you feel provides a stronger position? We often refer to our rights, having them, expressing them, crushing others peoples with ours. The last one is a bit harsh but happens a little too much. The Right, may be considered a privilege by some. The sticky part of that idealistic view is that you have to then define who is giving or providing the privilege. Then whoever is the one providing the privilege is therefore dealing out the elements of control. Ouch, that is hard to stomach as a theory. If the Right is considered as your personal exercise of control (You have the Right to refuse service to anyone for example), you then have created your own system of rules and order to what you do. That would be the largest expression of personal control provided you did not violate someone else’s rights. The obligation is a different animal. It is the reflection of a moral standard. Are you willing to do what you say and say what you do? An obligation is called into action as a process of following through. An obligation could even be considered as the formal commitment to complete the statement of your actions. While a Right may give you the option to act or not act upon something, an Obligation does not give you the choice. You must fulfill the obligation unless you want to be known for not following through. If you offer a guarantee, it is your right to offer it. If you issue the guarantee, it is your obligation to hold to it. Just as there are subtitle but valuable differences between expectations and agreements, there are valuable lessons to be learned from rights and obligations. Would you as a business owner rather be known for exercising your rights or acting upon your obligations? I think you know the answer, now obligate yourself to maintain it.
Out on the range
There are times where you are searching for the right connections to your thoughts, and the simplest of things triggers it. Most vehicles have these little information screens on them. Some are far fancier than mine. Run out of range, run out of fuel, pretty simple equation. If we can look for a moment at our lives in the same way. The amount of fuel in our tank allows us a certain range in our efforts. We can look at fuel in many ways such as food or nutrition. We can also look at it from how we fill our “spiritual tank” up. The fuel of creativity, the fuel of purpose, the fuel of passion toward what we are doing. If this tank has no fuel, we have no range in possibilities of what we can do with our lives. We are stuck. We may even be walking down the highway with an empty gas can to fill up, looking for help, and regretting not adding the right fuel before we left. Even more significant, if we do not have this fuel, we do not have the range of service and support we can give others. So what type of fuel do you put in your tank when you get the chance to fill up? Do you put in the lowest grade because it is the least expensive and will get you a few more miles in range but not necessarily direction? Or will you look at using the premium fuel, paying a little extra yet feeling the positive energy as you travel? In a matter of just looking down at the dash, as I have done hundreds of times before, I experienced a great moment of clarity about myself. It was just too valuable not to share. Here is to your journey and making the most of your range.
How Do You Live…with your money.
Money is one of those amazing things man has created. Yes, possibly a little bias based on my former profession, but hear me out. It allowed society to progress from exchanging goods and services for other goods and services. It allowed people to use another form of exchange to acquire food, shelter, tools, and clothing. As we have advanced, so has the currency and how it is used in society. It is however, still just a thing. It is not a living entity. It is an inanimate object until put into action to exchange value in a transaction. This inanimate object does an incredible job of driving human behavior. Money can become this living, breathing thing in the lives of an economy. Money can broker peace, yet start wars. Money can build a business and tear it apart if money teams up with greed or fraud. Money can be used to gain respect and status. Money can also become the judge and jury of comparison in being able to live well. What is your attitude toward money? Is it what it can buy? Is it what you can give? Will it provide for you in a way you want to? Your relationship with money is important to understand. Just because you are this age and have this many kids and have this much saved, does not always dictate what needs to be addressed in how you will and want to use money. Money is a tool, by far, not the only tool, used in the blueprints of building a support structure for you and your family. It should never be the other way around.