After about the second or third week of boot camp, recruits are allowed a one hour “Smoke, Joke, and Coke” break each evening—depending on their individual demerit status. The designated break area for my Flight was a painted ten by ten foot square on a concrete pad next to the chow hall wash rack. Tucked in the corner of this painted box the Air Force called a break area was one phone booth, an old coffee can that served as an ashtray, a metal trashcan, and a soda machine.
Airmen crowded shoulder to shoulder in the crowded space, leaving the rest of the football sized concrete drill pad vacant. Again, boot camp is a place where the drill sergeants play with your mind by forcing you to learn discipline and structure with inane rules like having both feet in the painted break area at all times. The break area was also considered a “free zone” where you could talk with your buddies, slouch around, and try to forget where you are at for a few minutes—all of which nearly led to my demise.
Late one night after a 16 hour stint of marching and sitting through military history briefings stacked upon Air Force customs and courtesies briefings, I slipped down to the break area to relax for a few minutes. I dropped a few coins into the soda machine and wandered to the “north forty” corner of the painted break area.
I sipped my soda and watched as a Flight of female recruits marched past.
“Flight, halt,” the female technical instructor (drill sergeant) shouted.
The Flight came to a sudden halt and remained at the position of attention as the meanest looking lady I’ve ever seen in uniform left her Flight and walked directly towards me.
“Airman, what are you doing?” she shouted.
“Taking a break, Sergeant,” I said.
“And where are you authorized to take a break?”
“Ah, in the break area,” I said and began to wonder what she was getting at. By now my fair weather friends had bailed on me. I looked over my shoulder for help and saw nothing but the tail end of a two column squad from my Flight double timing back to the safety of Sergeant Martin.
The female sergeant moved closer to me and whispered, “I want you to look down and tell me where you are at.”
I looked down, and sure enough, the toe of my boot was outside the painted break area. I gulped in sudden realization that I was dealing with a woman of supernatural powers. Here she was marching a Flight of 48 female recruits across a drill pad at least fifty yards away from me and managed to look through the swinging arms of her Flight and across a dimly lit pad to see less than one inch of my boot toe sticking outside a painted box.
What’s a lowly airman supposed to do?
Due to its mission, the Air Force is a stickler for detail and much of your time in boot camp is devoted to folding your clothes just right, making your bed perfectly, and scrubbing the latrine mirror until not a single streak or piece of lint is visible.
Now, in my case I was desperate to go to town with my Flight to see the Alamo and get away from the air base for the day. The trip was scheduled for Saturday, less than a week away, but you could only go if you had less than five demerits for the week. I saw the Alamo flash before my eyes and disappear—so I argued with the drill sergeant.
They have a name for arguing with your drill sergeant, and other than the obvious choices, it is also known as quibbling. By challenging the validity of the sergeant’s claim that I was out of bounds, I was essentially questioning her integrity—another big no-no in boot camp.
As it turned out, I got to see the Alamo, but I also spent the rest of my time in boot camp doing extra dorm guard duty. Sometimes it pays to just suck it up and keep quiet—but that’s a lesson I’ve never really mastered.
There are two important lessons here we can apply to our small businesses and investing endeavors:
First, success in business often comes down to the details, like knowing how many units of an item you must sell to breakeven, how much it costs to keep the lights on in your store, and the legal ramifications of firing an employee.
I once had the honor of attending a seminar with the late Zig Ziglar and I remember him saying something to the effect, “Education is what you get from reading the large print. But experience comes from NOT reading the small print.” Pay attention to the details, and don’t quibble over things you can’t change or control.
Second, when faced with the facts, accept reality and immediately set to work rectifying the situation. In my break area situation I could have minimized the damage by simply saying “yes sergeant,” and accepting the demerits I had coming to me. And this also applies to your business.
For example, in the bakery example mentioned above, my friend failed to identify her breakeven point, and significantly over estimated her ability to capture market share from the local grocery stores. In the subsequent months following her belated analysis of the market potential for premium bread products, she ignored the obvious and prolonged her agony for nearly a year.
Again, failure to pay attention to the details can hurt you.
Day 6 Assignment
“One of These Days” is more than just the title to a popular song, it is also the favorite expression of the professional procrastinator and loser. Let me explain…
I grew up in Southern California and like any red-blooded kid, I was desperate to go to Disneyland. I remember when I was about 10 years old asking my dad, “Can we go to Disneyland?”
Without a thought, my dad said, “Oh, one of these days.”
To me his answer sounded like a promise, so like any excitable kid I ran to share the good news with my friends and their parents. I can remember to this day the look of disappointment on my neighbor’s face when she heard me bragging about going to Disneyland, “one of these days.”
Well, “one of these days,” never happened until as an adult I drove myself to Disneyland and got the long suppressed urge out of my system.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved my dad, but the man was the master of the “one of these days” expression, and as a joke I sometimes answer requests from my kids with the same words my dad used against me.
Basically, “one of these days” essentially means, “never.”
And guess what? While you may not be running around using that dreaded expression, we all exhibit the essence of those words in our actions—or should I say, lack of action.
Think about the things you have dreamed about, or the goals you have set and then forgotten about 24 hours later. Here are just a few goals I have set and let slip into oblivion over the years…
· Go on a diet, hit the gym, and lose some weight once and for all.
· Save more of my income for investments and business start ups.
· Paint the trim on my house.
· Move all the extra stuff in my life out of storage and into the trash bin.
The list could go on and on, and I’m sure you may be able to make a little list of things you meant to do, but never got around to, yourself. It’s just human nature.
I want to challenge you to stop thinking about doing the things that need to be done in your life, and simply do them. “One of these days” is an expression used by losers, and needs to be stricken from your vocabulary and thought processes, today.
For today’s assignment I want you to make a list of things you have put off doing. Take a close look at this list and then cross every item off your list except one thing. Before you crawl into bed tonight do something to get the ball rolling to complete that one thing.
If you’re ready to get started on the road to success, then I want you to read “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson.
Jeff Olson developed an incredible concept where he reveals how just a little extra effort, persistence, experience, or training can take you to the next level in your business.
I was recently going through his 7 principles of the Slight Edge philosophy when it dawned on me…
Jeff was talking directly to me!
I had reached a plateau in my home business and was struggling to find a new marketing strategy. I wanted something that would knock the ball out of the park. Instead, I was reminded that success does not require homeruns, it only requires consistent effort towards a specific goal, over time.
Think about that last sentence. Your success in the home business industry hinges on these simple steps…
· Consistent Effort
· A Focused Goal
· Time
That in itself is the Slight Edge philosophy in a nutshell. But Jeff Olson has expanded that way of life into seven specific steps, or character traits that can spell the difference between success or failure…
· Show Up
· Be Consistent
· Have A Good Attitude
· Have A Strong Desire
· Plant, Cultivate, and Harvest
· Be Willing To Pay The Price
· Have Integrity
Put Jeff Olson’s principles of success to work in your life, and take your business endeavors to the next level.