Lessons Learned

Last week I was teaching my eldest son how to be thrifty by patching his bike tire rather than having to spend money on a new one.

Unfortunately, yesterday the patch job gave way and the tire was kaput. So off we went to WalMart to buy a new inner tube. We were having some great one-on-one guy talk about life when all of a sudden a cop appeared behind us with lights a blazing.

My registration was past due (side note: we recently moved and the registration forms never made it to our house and I totally forgot about the whole renewal process) and the cop said that it's within the time frame where he might have to tow my car.

My son, in the back seat, commented to the cop, "I always wanted to see a police car with the lights on but never like this." The policeman got a chuckle out of this and was somewhat leinient. He didn't tow my car, but I still got a ticket. Bummer.

In any case, it makes for a good story for my son, and I was able to teach him what it feels like to get pulled over.

Lessons learned:
1) How to change a bike tire.
2) What happens when you're not proactive.

Business and bicycles

In high school a teacher once told me that I don't just burn the candle at both ends. I cut the candle in half and burn the other two ends as well.

I'm typically a pretty busy guy. I like to be busy. I like to have a lot on my plate. I like to be involved. I like to go into work early and get things done. But with this lifestyle there is also a lot of stress. Plus, I feel like I'm missing out on part of my kids lives. In fact my five-year-old told my wife that he'll never be able to finish riding his bike because his dad isn't ever home to teach him.

So, I'm going to change my ways.

As of yesterday, I've started to block out my morning for time to "sharpen my saw" and spend more time with my family. I figure everyone else at work rolls into work at 8:00 or 8:30 and they still have a job. Why can't I? Sure. There will still be times when I have early morning or night-time meetings with partners in Europe or Asia, but for the most part I'm going to try this out and see what happens.

So, yesterday I stayed home in the early morning hours and let my wife go running. Although I still did e-mail from home. She was happy.

Today I went running (to begin my training for a 10K in a couple of months) and still had time to read a book before leaving for work. I also got to see how my kids look in the morning when they wake up :). I was happy.

I even told someone that I couldn't meet at 7:00 am for a meeting and he didn't complain. We're meeting at noon instead.

Guess what? The earth hasn't exploded and I still have a job.

I'm commtted to this new way of life. I believe that I will be happier, more productive, healthier and most importantly, my kids will know that their father really exists.

But the best part though, is I taught my son how to ride his bike last night and he couldn't be happier.

A very wise man once said, "No success at the office can compensate for failure in the home." I've never been one to accept failure and I'm not going to start now.

The Life of Bob

I recently went on a marathon trip to Mexico City, Costa Rica and Panama City with a couple of co-workers to launch LiveClicks to our offices there. The schedule was fast-paced and the flights had very little room for error. Five days...five flights. Miss one and you mess up the whole schedule.

I was traveling with someone I'll call Bob. Bob is a very hard worker yet he is very relaxed. I learned a lot from Bob on this trip.

On one leg of the journey, Bob's flight and that of our other co-worker, were accidentally scheduled to leave on the wrong day. Meaning they would miss all of the meetings in Costa Rica. We didn't discover this error until they went to check-in. The flight was oversold by 12 seats. Bob spoke kindly to the people at the ticket desk, letting them know that it was his fault that the dates were wrong. He smiled. He was relaxed. He was kind. My wife has a saying for this, "You'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." The man behind the desk said to come back in 20 minutes and he'd see what he could do.

I was sweating. I thought that there was no way they were getting on the flight. My angry thoughts turned to the agent who booked the tickets... "how careless", I thought. Bob simply said, "It was just a mistake. Nothing we can do now but hope for the best."

20 minutes later we went back. Not only did they get on the flight, but got upgraded to first class!

On the next leg, we had 7 hours to make a flight. The only problem is we had to travel 1.5 hours in one direction, attend to 1.5 hours of business and then return 1.5 hours to the airport. 4.5 hours right? It was 1:00 pm and we thought we had plenty of time. We didn't factor in traffic jams.

We were sweating all the way to the airport. All of us except Bob. He was calm and casual. We made it back with 30 minutes to spare.

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Dr. Covey teaches about the Circle of Concern and the Circle of Control. The Circle of Control represents the things you can actually do something about. The Circle of Concern are things you can't. Bob is a great example of living a life of less stress because he doesn't worry about things outside his control. He works hard to influence those things, but when it comes right down to it, he realizes there is only so much he can do.

On the last leg of the journey, Bob actually did miss his flight from Panama. But he didn't panic. He caught another one a few hours later and made it home without any problem. We should all take note of this and try and live without so much stress.

What your customers want.

I recently got to take a break for a couple of days with my family driving through Idaho, Montana and Wyoming...essentially circling up through Island Park, down through Yellowstone and into Jackson Hole. We saw incredible sights and had a lot of fun like fishing in the woods. But at the end of the day, what my kids really wanted in a vacation was simply a swimming pool and a hotel room where they could watch the Disney Channel. I now realize I could've saved some time and money and just driven to the local Marriott.

Today I had a call with a product manager from a multi-billion dollar software company. He was letting me in on a sneak peak of their next release of some software which will be launching soon. He was very excited to show me all of the work his development team had done. And, certainly, they had done a tremendous amount of it. He even said that they had do develop a new technology for these added features.

The problem is they didn't listen to the customer.

They are only implementing half of what we really need. Had they taken the time to talk with customers before development they would've had a much better product.

I'm guilty of this same oversight -- as my kids let me know when they hit the pool in Jackson Hole. But this has opened my eyes to making sure I do my due dilligence before development. And you should too.