This morning as I walked my dog Harry I noticed many houses decorated for Halloween. I love this time of year. The air is crisp and the leaves are changing colors. There are many families with young children in my neighborhood so the decorations can be quite elaborate. One house put up fake tombstones in their front yard. I had to chuckle when I read the inscription on one of them, “I told you I was sick.” Another house has a giant inflatable black cat in their front yard. As my dog approached, the cat’s head turned and poor Harry jumped a foot in the air.
Tonight will be my 16th year trick or treating with my kids. We will go house to house knocking on doors asking for goodies. It wasn’t always this way. When my oldest son was born we were living in NYC. We never walked the streets at Halloween; instead we took the elevator from one apartment floor to the next. I remember complaining to my wife that we were wasting our lives waiting for the elevator. We lived on the 21st floor and I was ready to move into a house. I wanted to raise a family in a neighborhood. My wife suggested I stop complaining and start doing something about it.
The next day I bought a big map of the United States and hung it in our hallway. Every day after work we would cross off a state we didn’t want to live in. Weeks went by and it was pretty easy to see we wanted to stay on the East Coast. After a month we had narrowed our dream places to live to just three states…North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia. A hurricane rolled through North Carolina so we took it off the list and we were down to two.
I will never forget what happened next. I received a phone call from a man with a southern accent. He told me he wanted to buy my business under the condition that we relocate to Atlanta, Georgia to help him with the transition. What was very odd about this call was that my business was not for sale. He offered to fly me to Atlanta to visit and discuss the deal. I fell in love with the city and sold my business. The next thing you know we were trick or treating in the suburbs of Atlanta. It didn’t take long for our vision to come true.
This happens more often than you might imagine. Take for example the 28-year-old woman who fell in love with the book, The Color Purple. She bought a book for every one of her friends. When she heard they were making a movie she was obsessed about being involved. Her dream was to star in the movie but she had never acted before. Every night before bed she made a list of ways she could participate in the movie. Her list included actress, understudy, costume designer, caterer, and even cleaning lady. As she drifted off to sleep she pictured herself winning an award for her debut performance.
Then one day she received a phone call from a casting director asking her to audition. She was shocked because she had never even applied for a role in the movie. She went to the audition but she didn’t hear back. She thought she was too overweight so she went to a clinic to get healthy. While she was there she received another call. This time it was from the director, Steven Spielberg, who asked her to fly to LA for a second audition. It turned out that while Quincy Jones, the producer of the movie, was visiting Chicago, a woman on a local TV show called A.M. Chicago caught his attention. This unknown talk show host was Oprah Winfrey. She got the part in the movie, was nominated for an academy award, and her career was launched.
Far too many of us focus on what we don’t want in life rather than what we do want. Create a vision for the dreams you desire and start imagining all the ways they can come true. Don’t allow negative thoughts to spoil your vision. Doubting yourself is like rehearsing for what you don’t want. Knock. Knock. Trick or Treat. Choose wisely and you will enjoy sweet dreams.
Until next week…
Live Your Dreams
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Rags to Riches
When I was 14 years old I remember asking my mother for money so I could go to the movies with my friends. She looked at me and with a smile she said, “What do I look like, a bank?” It was her way of teaching me the importance of working for the things you want in life. When I responded that I was only 14 and not legally allowed to work yet, she handed me a rag and told me I was now hired to clean the windows in the house. I made $10 and went to the movies. The popcorn that day was even more delicious because I felt the satisfaction of earning it.
Years later I was living in the Bronx while attending college at Fordham University. The Bronx was not the safest neighborhood, and one day I overheard a guy talking about how hard it was for him to find a job. He said he was just out of prison and no one wanted to hire him. I made a suggestion that if he couldn’t find a job maybe he could create one. He looked at me as if I should mind my own business. That’s exactly what I decided to do when I made him an offer.
I proposed we form a partnership. I asked him to look up and down the street at all the awnings on top of the local stores. They were filthy and no one was cleaning them. “How long do you think it would take you to clean one of these awnings?” I asked. After some consideration he said, “About an hour.” I then walked into one of the stores and offered to clean their awning for $50. To my surprise, the owner said yes. I asked for a $20 deposit and told him the job would start in about an hour. I walked into ten more stores and signed up seven more customers. I bought a ladder, a hose, a bucket, some soap, and rags.
At the end of the day we had washed eight awnings and after deducting the cost of supplies we each earned $150. The next day we repeated the process and someone asked if we cleaned windows. Flashback to my mom handing me a rag when I was 14 and I immediately said, “Of course we clean windows.” The man was a manager of an old run-down hotel. He asked for a price to clean 1,000 windows, but emphasized that we would have to clean them in one day. I figured we would need 20 workers cleaning 50 windows each. We charged $5 a window and made a profit of $3,000. The funny thing was that all the workers were also people who had recently been released from prison, and none of them could find a job…until that day.
Twenty years later on a recent trip to San Francisco I went into a café for breakfast. While I waited for my order I read a newspaper article about the restaurant. The headline was “Serving Time,” and the article began, “A bank robber is cooking the chicken, a jewel thief is refilling the water glasses, and a waiter is discussing his time in prison…which waiter, all of them.” It turns out that the restaurant is completely staffed and operated by ex-convicts.
Mimi Silbert started the Delancey Street Foundation with a $1,000 loan. Her mission was to revolutionize the way prisoners are rehabilitated. She believed that most rehabilitation centers coddle prisoners and she decided to do the opposite. In exchange for having their basic needs met (shelter, clothes, and food), each convict works hard in a business. They learn life and business skills, and combined with some needed therapy they embark on an amazing second chance. 14,000 former prisoners have gone through the program. 10,000 have gone on to earn a high school equivalency diploma and 1,000 went on to college. Equally as impressive is that 80% avoid going back to jail.
I wonder how many of us are walking around in our own mental prison. We may not be locked up physically, but are we allowing our thoughts to roam free? If we limit our dreams because we’ve failed before then we are sentencing ourselves to a life without parole. It’s time to dream again and perhaps bigger than ever. Give yourself a second chance. You’re the judge and the jury. How about a lifetime sentence of dreaming big? Your rags to riches story may only be one window cleaning away.
Until next week…
Live Your Dreams
Years later I was living in the Bronx while attending college at Fordham University. The Bronx was not the safest neighborhood, and one day I overheard a guy talking about how hard it was for him to find a job. He said he was just out of prison and no one wanted to hire him. I made a suggestion that if he couldn’t find a job maybe he could create one. He looked at me as if I should mind my own business. That’s exactly what I decided to do when I made him an offer.
I proposed we form a partnership. I asked him to look up and down the street at all the awnings on top of the local stores. They were filthy and no one was cleaning them. “How long do you think it would take you to clean one of these awnings?” I asked. After some consideration he said, “About an hour.” I then walked into one of the stores and offered to clean their awning for $50. To my surprise, the owner said yes. I asked for a $20 deposit and told him the job would start in about an hour. I walked into ten more stores and signed up seven more customers. I bought a ladder, a hose, a bucket, some soap, and rags.
At the end of the day we had washed eight awnings and after deducting the cost of supplies we each earned $150. The next day we repeated the process and someone asked if we cleaned windows. Flashback to my mom handing me a rag when I was 14 and I immediately said, “Of course we clean windows.” The man was a manager of an old run-down hotel. He asked for a price to clean 1,000 windows, but emphasized that we would have to clean them in one day. I figured we would need 20 workers cleaning 50 windows each. We charged $5 a window and made a profit of $3,000. The funny thing was that all the workers were also people who had recently been released from prison, and none of them could find a job…until that day.
Twenty years later on a recent trip to San Francisco I went into a café for breakfast. While I waited for my order I read a newspaper article about the restaurant. The headline was “Serving Time,” and the article began, “A bank robber is cooking the chicken, a jewel thief is refilling the water glasses, and a waiter is discussing his time in prison…which waiter, all of them.” It turns out that the restaurant is completely staffed and operated by ex-convicts.
Mimi Silbert started the Delancey Street Foundation with a $1,000 loan. Her mission was to revolutionize the way prisoners are rehabilitated. She believed that most rehabilitation centers coddle prisoners and she decided to do the opposite. In exchange for having their basic needs met (shelter, clothes, and food), each convict works hard in a business. They learn life and business skills, and combined with some needed therapy they embark on an amazing second chance. 14,000 former prisoners have gone through the program. 10,000 have gone on to earn a high school equivalency diploma and 1,000 went on to college. Equally as impressive is that 80% avoid going back to jail.
I wonder how many of us are walking around in our own mental prison. We may not be locked up physically, but are we allowing our thoughts to roam free? If we limit our dreams because we’ve failed before then we are sentencing ourselves to a life without parole. It’s time to dream again and perhaps bigger than ever. Give yourself a second chance. You’re the judge and the jury. How about a lifetime sentence of dreaming big? Your rags to riches story may only be one window cleaning away.
Until next week…
Live Your Dreams
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Success is often bittersweet
Veronica and Henry lived on a farm so naturally their son Milton spent many days working the fields and tending to the animals. He was a hard worker but never really fit in well at school. He spent his days dreaming of a better life. He wanted to travel and pursue his own interests. Against his parent’s wishes he dropped out of school. His father told him he would need to get a job, but very few companies were willing to hire a young man with not enough formal education.
Milton wanted a fresh start so he packed his bags and moved to Chicago. He was looking in the paper to find a job when he spotted a help wanted advertisement to work in a manufacturing company that made caramel candies. He loved caramel and was determined to get the job even if it meant he would only be paid in candy. Milton was hired as an apprentice. His pay was very low, but he was excited by the fringe benefits…free caramels at the end of every shift.
Milton had an idea to cover the caramels with chocolate and he made a suggestion at work. His boss disagreed and said it would be too expensive. So at the age of 18, he decided to start his own business. He didn’t have enough money and his inexperience ultimately led to bankruptcy. This was tough on him mentally, but he held firm on his vision and kept moving forward. He stayed in the candy business continuing to learn, and in his mid-twenties, he ventured out again on his own. However, at the age of 28, his second business also failed, and he was forced to file bankruptcy once again. He returned home and was thoroughly embarrassed.
To help pass the time Milton went back to working on his parent’s farm. One day while milking a cow he had another idea. What if he could develop a way to add milk to chocolate? He began experimenting and when he finally developed the right recipe he launched his 3rd attempt at a candy company. He perfected milk chocolate covered caramels and his business was called the Lancaster Caramel Company. The product took off as people loved how creamy the candy tasted, and just a few years later Milton sold the business for a million dollars.
He was too young to retire, so Milton rented a small part of the caramel factory from the new owners of the company and began to develop a new candy. He wasn't allowed to start a competing business, so making caramels was out of the question. In less than a year he launched a new candy made exclusively of milk chocolate. In coming up with a name for his candy he decided to use his last name. That’s how Milton Hershey launched the Hershey Candy Bar and created a chocolate craze that still consumes the world.
Hershey became famous because he figured out a way to bring delicious chocolate to the masses for only five cents a candy bar. If you ever have an opportunity to visit Hershey, Pennsylvania, you can tour his chocolate factory and see how they make candy. You can take a stroll down Chocolate Avenue, and even visit the school that Milton helped start. When he passed away he even left the ownership of the Hershey Company to the school to ensure they would always have funds to educate kids…now that’s a sweet deal.
You might be surprised to learn that the average millionaire in America goes bankrupt 2 times before they become a millionaire. This certainly happened to Milton, and there’s a lesson for all of us as it relates to pursuing our dreams. Obstacles are only obstacles if you see them that way. If you change your mindset you can turn an obstacle into an opportunity. Have a vision and prepare to make adjustments along the way. Failure is only permanent if you stop trying.
Today is my wife’s birthday. Grace and I have been sweethearts for 25 years. Its day’s like these that I get to reflect on how lucky I am to have an amazing wife, friend, and mother to my children. She inspires me to live my dreams and I hope today’s story inspires you to live yours. Hugs and chocolate kisses to you all!
Until next week…
Live Your Dreams
Milton wanted a fresh start so he packed his bags and moved to Chicago. He was looking in the paper to find a job when he spotted a help wanted advertisement to work in a manufacturing company that made caramel candies. He loved caramel and was determined to get the job even if it meant he would only be paid in candy. Milton was hired as an apprentice. His pay was very low, but he was excited by the fringe benefits…free caramels at the end of every shift.
Milton had an idea to cover the caramels with chocolate and he made a suggestion at work. His boss disagreed and said it would be too expensive. So at the age of 18, he decided to start his own business. He didn’t have enough money and his inexperience ultimately led to bankruptcy. This was tough on him mentally, but he held firm on his vision and kept moving forward. He stayed in the candy business continuing to learn, and in his mid-twenties, he ventured out again on his own. However, at the age of 28, his second business also failed, and he was forced to file bankruptcy once again. He returned home and was thoroughly embarrassed.
To help pass the time Milton went back to working on his parent’s farm. One day while milking a cow he had another idea. What if he could develop a way to add milk to chocolate? He began experimenting and when he finally developed the right recipe he launched his 3rd attempt at a candy company. He perfected milk chocolate covered caramels and his business was called the Lancaster Caramel Company. The product took off as people loved how creamy the candy tasted, and just a few years later Milton sold the business for a million dollars.
He was too young to retire, so Milton rented a small part of the caramel factory from the new owners of the company and began to develop a new candy. He wasn't allowed to start a competing business, so making caramels was out of the question. In less than a year he launched a new candy made exclusively of milk chocolate. In coming up with a name for his candy he decided to use his last name. That’s how Milton Hershey launched the Hershey Candy Bar and created a chocolate craze that still consumes the world.
Hershey became famous because he figured out a way to bring delicious chocolate to the masses for only five cents a candy bar. If you ever have an opportunity to visit Hershey, Pennsylvania, you can tour his chocolate factory and see how they make candy. You can take a stroll down Chocolate Avenue, and even visit the school that Milton helped start. When he passed away he even left the ownership of the Hershey Company to the school to ensure they would always have funds to educate kids…now that’s a sweet deal.
You might be surprised to learn that the average millionaire in America goes bankrupt 2 times before they become a millionaire. This certainly happened to Milton, and there’s a lesson for all of us as it relates to pursuing our dreams. Obstacles are only obstacles if you see them that way. If you change your mindset you can turn an obstacle into an opportunity. Have a vision and prepare to make adjustments along the way. Failure is only permanent if you stop trying.
Today is my wife’s birthday. Grace and I have been sweethearts for 25 years. Its day’s like these that I get to reflect on how lucky I am to have an amazing wife, friend, and mother to my children. She inspires me to live my dreams and I hope today’s story inspires you to live yours. Hugs and chocolate kisses to you all!
Until next week…
Live Your Dreams
Thursday, October 11, 2012
They said it couldn't be done
October 10, 2012
Jackie was 17 years old when she
got married and had a baby. She was still in high school and within one year
she was divorced and on her own. A few years later she remarried a Cuban
immigrant named Mike and he adopted her son Jeff. As a boy Jeff was a big Star
Trek fan. At school when his friends would act out episodes of Star Trek,
instead of being Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock, Jeff would be the voice of the
computer. He was different and in a remarkable way, he was comfortable being
different.
When Jeff graduated from college,
he had a fascination with computers. At the age of 28 he noticed a trend. It
was the mid-1990s and one in ten households had their own computer. The
internet had just been released to the public and the number of people using it
was growing at 2300% per year. Jeff had an idea. He convinced his parents to
invest some money; he packed a car with everything he owned, and headed to
Seattle, WA. While his wife drove the car, Jeff wrote a business plan. They
arrived in Seattle, rented a house, and Jeff set up his business in the garage.
As Jeff showed his plan to professionals
they all complained about one major issue; Jeff’s business idea wasn’t going to
make a profit for over six years. One person said, “Jeff, this isn’t a
business, this is a hobby. No one will invest and no one will work for a guy
with an idea that doesn’t make a profit and has an office in his garage.” The
comments struck a chord with Jeff, but he believed in his idea so he decided to
move forward in spite of the unknown.
When it was time to hire
employees he decided it would be better if he interviewed them at the Barnes
& Noble bookstore instead of his garage. As part of the interview process
he asked them to take a good look at the bookstore because he wanted them to
realize that the store was not big enough or open long enough to satisfy
customers. His potential employees were confused because the store was huge and
it was open from eight in the morning to midnight. Maybe Jeff was more than different;
maybe he was a bit crazy.
Jeff’s idea was to sell books
over the internet. According to his business plan, he didn’t think he would
sell any books for six months because it would take a long time for people to discover
his little company even existed. Jeff’s company, Amazon.com, started small but
his vision was big – offer millions of books for sale online at anytime, delivered
anywhere, and at a lower price.
Jeff’s idea was so simple and
easy to use that the business took off. In 30 days they sold books to people in
all 50 US States and in 45 countries generating $20,000 in sales. The first
year Amazon had sales of $500,000 and by the second year, they topped $15 million.
In 2011, Amazon had over $17 billion in sales. As amazing as their rise in
sales has been, Amazon lost money for many years. Jeff continued to face criticism,
especially when the dot com companies experienced a bust around the year 2000.
Amazon’s stock price dropped from $100 per share to $6. Jeff’s response was
that he couldn’t predict the future but he believed that not only could Amazon
become the biggest online bookstore but it could also become the largest online
store in the world.
He was right. Today Amazon
generates 1 of every 3 dollars spent online. They sell everything from books to
auto products and they even deliver perishable groceries in the Seattle area.
Jeff Bezos was recently named the most successful internet entrepreneur in the
world, and his net worth is over $20 billion. He still admits he doesn’t know
what the future holds, but one of his projects is building a clock that will
tell time for 10,000 years; it’s a symbol for long-term thinking.
Jeff’s
story reminds me of one of my personal mantras…get comfortable with ambiguity. Unless
you are a fortune teller, don’t let the unknown get in the way of pursuing your
dreams. There’s no benefit to waiting for everything in life to line up
perfectly. It never does. Chart your course, jump in a boat, and enjoy the
Amazon River of life. Getting wet along the way is part of what makes life’s
journey interesting.
Until next week…
Live Your Dreams
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