Think strategic: Sand Box Story

A little boy was spending his Saturday morning playing in his sandbox. He had with him his box of cars and trucks, his plastic pail, and a shiny, red plastic shovel. In the process of creating roads and tunnels in the soft sand, he discovered a large rock in the middle of the sandbox. The lad dug around the rock, managing to dislodge it from the dirt. With no little bit of struggle, he pushed and nudged the rock across the sandbox by using his feet. (He was a very small boy and the rock was very huge.)

When the boy got the rock to the edge of the sandbox, however, he found that he couldn't roll it up and over the little wall. Determined, the little boy shoved, pushed, and pried, but every time he thought he had made some progress, the rock tipped and then fell back into the sandbox. The little boy grunted, struggled, pushed, shoved -- but his only reward was to have the rock roll back, smashing his chubby fingers. Finally he burst into tears of frustration.

All this time the boy's father watched from his living room window as the drama unfolded. At the moment the tears fell, a large shadow fell across the boy and the sandbox. It was the boy's father. Gently but firmly he said, "Son, why didn't you use all the strength that you had available?"

Defeated, the boy sobbed back, "But I did, Daddy, I did! I used all the strength that I had!"

"No, son," corrected the father kindly. "You didn't use all the strength you had. You didn't ask me."

With that the father reached down, picked up the rock, and removed it from the sandbox.

Travel Light

TRAVEL LIGHT
By Dr. John C. Maxwell

One of the first international trips my wife, Margaret, and I took together was to Japan. When we were choosing luggage for our journey, we decided to get the biggest suitcases we could find. It seemed like a logical idea at the time-after all, the bigger the suitcase, the more we could pack in it.

Unfortunately, while we were packing, it never once occurred to me that we were going to have to carry those bags wherever we went. Now, if you know anything at all about Japan, you know that traveling by rail is often the best way to get around there. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time lugging our suitcases in and out of train stations. I remember going to one particular depot with two bags that were as big as me, both stuffed nearly to bursting. I was struggling to get to the train with my suitcases, Margaret was struggling down the street with hers, and neither of us was very happy about the whole situation.

Finally, I'd had enough. I stopped right where I was, put the suitcases down and said, "Margaret, anyone who can carry these suitcases can have them! I'm just going to leave them right here. I'm not carrying them anymore."

That little incident, which my sweet wife and I jokingly say is closest we ever came to getting divorced, taught us a valuable lesson: Travel light. Margaret and I learned this lesson so well that, on subsequent trips, we've literally gone out of the country with nothing but our carry-on luggage. In addition to preserving our marital bliss, traveling light alleviates the stress of keeping track of numerous bags, saves time previously spent waiting around at airport baggage claims and keeps us from getting worn out before we ever get to our destination. On top of all that, it doesn't take us nearly as long to unpack once we get home.

As helpful as it is to travel light on a business trip or vacation, it's even more critical to travel light through life. Let me explain what I mean. Many people go through life with far too much emotional baggage. They didn't necessarily intend to fill the biggest bags they could find with their personal junk, but along the way, they've somehow managed to collect quite a stash. A chip on the shoulder here; an ugly batch of pent-up anger there. Ten years' worth of hurt feelings here; three decades of rejection there. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture.

Sadly, these individuals fail to realize the damage their excess baggage is inflicting on themselves and others. For example, a recent survey indicated that people with emotional problems are 144 percent more likely to have automobile accidents than those who do not have such problems. In addition, one of the study's most sobering findings was that one out of every five victims of fatal accidents had quarreled with someone in the six hours
before the accident.

This is why it's so important to practice what I call "keeping short accounts." When you keep a short account, you ask for forgiveness quickly when you hurt someone. When you treat someone badly, you make it right as soon as possible. You don't hold grudges. You don't go to bed angry. You don't allow your own injured feelings to fester into bitterness or
resentment.

The importance of keeping short accounts really hit home with me when I had a heart attack several years ago. As I lay there, honestly not knowing if I was going to live or die, I felt a tremendous amount of peace because I knew my relational ledger was clean. Ironically, the thought that kept coming to my mind during those first tense hours was, "I don't have to call anybody on the phone." It was true. I didn't have to make any last-ditch apologies or ninth-hour requests for forgiveness because I had made an intentional effort to travel light through life.

From a practical standpoint, traveling light means that I have to ask somebody to forgive me almost every day. It means that I often have to sit down with Margaret and say, "I'm sorry for using that tone of voice; I was wrong." It means that I have to initiate reconciliation with people who have offended me, not wait for them to make the first move.

None of this is easy. It's often humbling and hard on my ego. And yet, the alternative is much worse. Failing to travel light blurs your focus on what really matters and impairs your ability to live and lead effectively. So if you're carrying a bunch of excess baggage, get rid of it. Write a
letter. Make a phone call. Do whatever you need to do.

Just do it now. You've got more important things to do than cart around unnecessary and potentially life-threatening luggage for the rest of your life.

3 Pointers for Choosing a Business to Start

3 Pointers for Choosing a Business to Start

You've got a host of good business ideas. Now, how to figure out which one to start?
HomeOfficeMag.com - August 2000
By Kim T. Gordon

Q: I love kids and would like to start a service-oriented business. My head hurts from trying to decide what to do...children's day care, after-school care, exercise gym, summer camp. Could you give me some advice?

Mel
Miami

A: You've made a great start by identifying the types of businesses you'd like to own. Here are three steps you can take to narrow down your choices.

1. Find your niche. Like many entrepreneurs in major cities, you must decide which economic level and geographic community you'll serve. For example, you may choose to provide after-school care for low income children in one part of the community, or open a high-tech fitness facility for youngsters in a more affluent area. Look for an underserved niche--one in which there's not a long list of entrenched competition--and then do some research to determine if it represents a viable market for you. If you encounter large numbers of competitors in every market area, it will be your job to position your business against them and create your own unique niche with an innovative business concept and list of services.

2. Follow your heart. Consider the role you plan to play in your new business. Do you enjoy being hands-on or is administration more to your liking? Think about the structure of each type of business you might start. Running a summer camp and overseeing counselors and student activities, for instance, might cast you in more of an administrative role than would a small homebased daycare center.

3. Build a financial model. Each of the businesses you're thinking about starting will have different capital investment requirements, sales potential and profit margins. How much do you plan to invest in your new business? Can you qualify for a business loan or other financial assistance? And what are your personal financial goals? Build hypothetical financial models for several of your business concepts and compare them. Take into consideration the difference in start-up costs between founding an exercise gym and providing after-school care, for example. Then look at the sales and net profit potential for each after expenses for the facilities, staff and equipment are factored in.

By following your heart and your head in this way, you'll find that sweet spot where what you truly want and the world of possibilities meet.

---

Kim T. Gordon is the "Marketing" coach at Entrepreneur.com and a multifaceted marketing expert, speaker, author and media spokesperson. Over the past 26 years, she's helped millions of small-business owners increase their success through her company, National Marketing Federation Inc.

Economics of the Egg (Law of Supply and Demand)

Not my analysis but a fwd email.

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This makes a lot of sense ~

A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast. When he goes to the grocery store he pays 60 cents a dozen. Since a dozen eggs won't last a week he normally buys two dozens at a time.

One day while buying eggs he notices that the price has risen to 72 cents. The next time he buys groceries, eggs are 76 cents a dozen. When asked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, "the price has gone up and I have to raise my price accordingly".

This store buys 100 dozen eggs a day. I checked around for a better price and all the distributors have raised their prices. The distributors have begun to buy from the huge egg farms. The small eggs farms have been driven out of business.

The huge egg farms sell 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors. With no competition, they can set the price as t hey see fit. The distributors then have to raise their prices to the grocery stores. And on and on and on. As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big egg trucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there.

He checked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling

100,000 dozen eggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price of eggs.

Then a week before Thanksgiving the price of eggs shot up to $1.00 a dozen. Again he asked the grocery owner why and was told, "cakes and baking for the holiday". The huge egg farmers know there will be a lot of baking going on and more eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggs goes up. Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cooking and baking happens.

This pattern continues until the price of eggs is 2.00 a dozen. The man says,"there must be something we can do about the price of eggs". He starts talking to all the people in his town and they decide to stop buying eggs. This didn't work because everyone needed eggs. Finally, the man suggested only buying what you need.

He ate 2 eggs a day. On the way home from work he would stop at the grocery and buy two eggs. Everyone in town started buying 2 or 3 eggs a day.

The grocery store owner began complaining that he had too many eggs in his cooler. He told the distributor that he didn't need any eggs. Maybe wouldn't need any all week.

The distributor had eggs piling up at his warehouse. He told the huge egg farms that he didn't have any room for eggs would not need any for at least two weeks.

At the egg farm, the chickens just kept on laying eggs.

To relieve the pressure, the huge egg far m told the distributor that they could buy the eggs at a lower price. The distributor said, " I don't have the room for the %$&^*&% eggs even if they were free".

The distributor told the grocery store owner that he would lower the price of the eggs if the store would start buying again. The grocery store owner said, "I don't have room for more eggs. The customers are only buy 2 or 3 eggs at a time". "Now if you were to drop the price of eggs back down to the original price, the customers would start buying by the dozen again".

The distributors sent that proposal to the huge egg farmers. They liked the price they were getting for their eggs but, them chickens just kept on laying.

Finally, the egg farmers lowered the price of their eggs. But only a few cents. The customers still bought 2 or 3 eggs at a time. They said, "when the price of eggs gets down to where it was before, we will start buying by the dozen."

Slowly the price of eggs started dropping. The distributors had to slash their prices to make room for the eggs coming from the egg farmers. The egg farmers cut their prices because the distributors wouldn't buy at a higher price than they were selling eggs for. Anyway, they had full warehouses and wouldn't need eggs for quite a while.

And them chickens kept on laying.

Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were throwing away eggs they couldn't sell. The distributors started buying again because the eggs were priced to where the stores could afford to sell them at the lower price. And the customers start buying by the dozen again.

Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry. What if everyone only bought $10.00 worth of gas each ti me they pulled to the pump. The dealers' tanks would stay semi full all the time. The dealers wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the huge tank farms. The tank farms wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the refining plants. And the refining plants wouldn't have room for the oil being off loaded from the huge tankers coming from the Middle East.

Just $10.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill it up. You may have to stop for gas twice a week but, the price should come down. Think about it.

As an added note...

When I buy $10.00 worth of gas that leaves my tank a little under half full. The way prices are jumping around, you can buy gas for $2.65 a gallon and then the next morning it can be $2.15. If you have your tank full of $2.65 gas you don't have room for the $2.15 gas. You might not understand the economics of only buying two eggs at a time but, you can't buy cheaper gas if your tank is full of the high priced stuff.

Also, don't buy anything else at the gas station; don't give them any more of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until the prices come down.

Everyone should read this and send it on!