The beginning of this past summer I committed to myself to begin teaching my three oldest sons fundamental business principles. I decided the best way to do this would to actually build a businesses together. Each Saturday and Sunday afternoon my three sons and I would go down in my office and have a “board meeting”.
The first few meetings began as a brainstorm where we would discuss potential businesses. Nothing was off the table. We had some real interesting ideas pop up (particularly from my 11 year old Nathan). After several weeks we narrowed down the business options and informally discussed the pro’s and con’s using the Porter Model. What did we settle on? A website focusing on How To Tie a Tie. Why you ask? Well in our research we discovered that the 4th most searched “How To” phrase on the internet is How to tie a tie. There are over 2,000 searched a day on this term. Once decided we were off and running to the races. It has been a rather slow moving project, but one that has simply been life changing for my boys.
I am thrilled today to announce that last week we formally launched our website www.2tieatie.com. So why was this so important to me? The primary reason I wanted to do this with my sons was to give them a feel early in their life of what it took to create a business. I also wanted them to live the process not just talk about it. I also wanted them to take some ownership in saving and preparing for college in a manner different than just getting a job. Not that I don’t want them to also have a job and work hard, I do. But I want them in the mindset of creating assets rather than working a job. There has been one huge side benefit from this project that I had not pre-mediated. It has been the process of exposing my sons to the global economy. As we were discussing the project last night it was pointed out that:
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The project plan and specification had been put together by us in Utah.
The initial site design was done in Ahmedabad India. With over 10 back and forth iterations of the design.
The witting of the step by step instructions done initially by a writer in Eastern Europe (and failed).
We then engaged a professional witter in the USA that I had previously worked with
The picture diagrams were done by a talented diagrammer in in Pakistan
The Assembly of the Pictures and Steps were then returned to India for build out and engineering
The Quality assurance and debug of the site done by my sons back in Utah
The online store is being done using Amazon.com which is located in New York
The Video diagrams is being outsourced to my oldest sons 17 year old friends Scott and Wyatt
The ties that we will eventually sell on the website will come from Thailand and Korea
We engaged several link building efforts with two different firms, one in Southern India and the other in Romania
We also did a press announcement which was distributed out of Washington State
Wow, that is quite the world tour for a eleven year old. The reality is, we live in a global economy and the only way our children will thrive is to learn to dance in this world. I am so proud of how my sons have interacted and embraced this experience. All said, I think the experience interacting and coordinating the efforts all around the world proved to be of more value than the business experience.
Well, the Dog Sign Saga continues in our neighborhood. What high brow entertainment this is becoming.
A few weeks ago, I blogged about several “Dog signs” that have been posted in our neighborhood. One neighbor posted 2 professionally built signs in his yard that stated:
“Keep Dog’s Off The Grass”
“This Yard is NOT a Toilet For Your Dogs”
“Keep Dog’s Off The Grass”
A sign was promptly posted across the street responding:
Dog’s Can’t Read!
Well I thought we had seen the end of it, but no, one for our dog loving neighbors who is not only eccentric but also simply a character has now posted a professionally designed sign reading
“Welcome All Dogs ……. Please Pick up Your Logs”
My oldest son John Christiansen is a 16 year old Junior in High School. Each day I observe as he gets himself up at 5:30 am and heads down to the high school, trumpet in tow and practices with the marching band. I have simply been amazed at his level of commitment and how seriously he has taken this extra circular activity.
Today they held the Battle of the Bands at Payson High. One major problem was it was freezing cold and raining freezing bullets. My family and I huddled in our coats, ran into the bleachers covered with blankets and watched in amazement as these kids held in formation, soaking as they prepared the field. Each band had prepared 3 numbers and nothing was going to deny them from completing these numbers. Amazingly the band really sounded good, but I knew that it could not be pleasant as the flag twirlers slipped and slided and their flags drooped around the pole due to being saturated with water.
I could not help but feel a very strong sense of pride in my son as he stepped forward, held his trumpet high and bellowed out a solo he had been assigned. I knew how cold his fingers had to be but he lifted his horn acting as if the sun was shining and blew like the entire city had come to hear him play. I must admit I had a few tears come to my eyes knowing the sacrifices he had made and his willingness to do the hard things.
Often times in life and business we do get rained on. It makes it difficult to stand up and deliver. We have several choices. 1. Quit or 2. Stand up and deliver under the circumstances.
Very seldom is it about the song. It is more about the character with how you deliver …. Win or lose
I choose to follow the example of my son … once committed stand-up and blow like the sun is shinning. .
This past week I have been helping my daughter prepare for a trip back to her home in Nepal. As part of this trip we plan on sending back a laptop to her younger brothers for use in their school.
I love a deal and could not resist the 1/2 price special on a HP laptop I found in a store near my office. The only problem is the laptop had one missing key. The ; key.
No problem, being a “perfectly good engineer that went bad” I figure I can fix that key and score a new laptop at cut rate prices. I called HP and found the part number and prepared to order the key. Luck would have it that I happen to own a brand new very similar HP laptop that I purchased for myself. My great engineering mind at work determined that if I popped the key off on my laptop I would then be able to place my key on the new laptop in time to send it with my daughter. Plop…. off went the key. I carefully examined it and placed it back on. It went on OK, but it had a horrific side to side wobble and was not firm and taunt like the other keys. I decided to try again. I watched closely and I said to myself as I put my nose right down to the keys and plop off went the 2nd key. Regretfully despite two hours of painstaking reassembly effort I now had two wobbly keys. My logic kicked in and I thought, “well it is under warranty and I will call and confess to HP the evils of engineering and they will send me a RA tag for my new laptop”. I then had one last brilliant idea. “Hey the wobble is just not that bad and the ; key is just not used that much. I will buy that cut rate laptop and send it around the world.” Pop off went the key and I raced to the store to purchase my new gift for my Nepalese friends. When I arrived at the store there was no laptop with a missing key. As I inquired about the laptop, the sales clerk stated “the strangest thing, it sat here for two months, and this morning a guy walked in and purchased it. ……..
Lesson learned, when it is fully functioning and you are guessing at what you are doing, don’t pop new parts off your laptop or your business. Both have a tendency to be very temperamental.
This past week there has been quite the stir in our neighborhood. Through the block we have some neighbors that have a beautiful yard. This yard is meticulously groomed and each fall planters full of Canna lily flowers make a magnificent showing. This yard truly is amazing and there is with out question significant effort that takes place to keep this yard a show piece. this being said, my gardening neighbors really lost sign of reality.
I do not know the specific dog(s) that promoted the infamous “Signs” to be posted, but this past week 3 professionally created signs appeared in the front of their yard. The signs read:
“KEEP DOG(S) OFF GRASS”
“THIS YARD IS NOT A TOILET FOR YOUR DOG(S)”
“KEEP DOG(S) OFF GRASS”
The following day in the neighbors yard directly across the street a poster board sign with lettering in magic marker placed in the gourd with a shovel appeared. Keep in mind that this neighbor does not own a dog. The sign reads:
“DOG’S CAN’T READ”
There are so many management metaphors associated with this little story I don’t even know where begin so in spirit of allowing you to simply have a really good belly laugh like I did, we will simply leave it with this. Next time you feel inclined to do something really absurd in your business, remember
“DOG’S CANT READ!
On the 28th of August a full lunar eclipse of the moon occurred. A lunar eclipse occurs whenever the moon passes through some part of the earth’s shadow. This can happen when the Sun, Moon, and Earth are closely aligned with the Earth in the middle. This particular eclipse only occurs once in seven years and was supposed to be highly visible in the Western United States.
I have several sons who are quite excited about astronomy and were interested in seeing this eclipse. Against my better judgment, I found myself waking all of my older sons up at 4:00 AM on a school night to experience a “Red Moon”. The moon did indeed turn red as well as my eyes the entire next day. My third son who was the strongest advocate of wanting to awake was moody the entire next day. But we survived the experience and in hind site I am thrilled we made the effort to awake and experience this rare occurrence.
The next day at the office, I told this story to several of our team members. I drew the parallel that in entrepreneurship there are also lunar eclipses that are rare and if you plan on seeing them and benefiting from them, you have to be willing to make extreme sacrifices. This often involves waking up at 4 o’clock in the morning more than once. I call these business opportunities “waves”. When you experience one, it is hard to forget. That is what makes entrepreneurship exciting and fun. And you know what? Very few individuals are willing to make the sacrifice to “get up at 4:00 AM” and go for the ride.
This weekend my wife and I had to make a quick day trip to a meeting which was several hours away. Before leaving I gathered my sons and gave them a series of chores to complete for the day. These included mowing and trimming the lawn, weeding part of the garden, hauling off some branches and most importantly picking the ripe peaches from our overflowing peach tree. I gave the kids very specific instructions to throw away all bad peaches that had fallen on the grounds as a first step. The second step was to then gather all the peaches from the ground that had fallen but still had good flesh. Then the final step was to pick the lush ripe remaining peaches placing them carefully in a cooler I had prepared. With these instructions given, off we raced to our meeting.
In my mind there is nothing better for breakfast than a fresh peach hand picked and drowned in milk and sugar. I salivated on this image the entire trip down and back.
Upon returning the first thing I did was go and inspect the peach picking job. I was delighted to see neat well organized boxes and coolers and a tree well picked. I congratulated my sons and went to pick a few of the nice ripe grade A picked peaches. I was shocked that they all were smashed on one side or another. Every one of them was bruised. Confused, I thought I had the wrong box but upon inspection discovered that all the peaches were less than desirable.
A bit chagrin I went to my oldest son John and asked what had happened. He then explained to me that they had indeed thrown the bad peaches away, gathered the usable peaches, and began to pick the tree. They realized how time consuming this picking project was going to be and were eager to get back to their friends, so he came up with the brilliant idea to shake the tree really hard, then simply go gather up the newly fallen fruit.
My first reaction was horror, but I could not help but laugh as I thought about it.
So it is in our businesses efforts. There has been more than one time that I have outlined a plan to my team but failed to communicate the desired end result and the necessity for thinking regarding the business processes outlined. It is easy enough to outline the tasks at hand for our teams, it is quite enough to get them bought into that end vision or desired result.
Upon reflection, maybe I should have prepared a fresh bowl of nice peaches for each of my sons and discussed the project over breakfast as they experience in a very personal manner what we were striving for.
In life, the only thing more miserable for me than watching a parade is going to Disneyland. As a result on the 4th of July, my wife and two of my sons set out at 5 AM and climbed a local mountain called Mt. Loafer. Loafer is a relatively small mountain at 10,685 feet, but it is absolutely beautiful hike meandering through meadows of countless wild flowers mixed with pine trees.
We all grumbled about such an early start, but we knew that we did not want to be in the heat of the day with the sun beating us to death as we were still grabbing altitude.
As we made our way through the first several miles of the forest my sons came nose to nose with a small bear. The encounter caused both bear and boys to run the opposite direction. Soon after the “bear incident” we made our way up the steep switchbacks to the top of the first ridge line where we had a beautiful view of both sides of the valley. As the early morning light hit the peaks and as we strode through the flower covered meadows my son commented. This is my kind of parade a wild flower parade.
Why do I like to climb mountains? If is the same reason I am attracted to starting businesses. There is no lying to yourself. You can’t fake the market (at least not long term) and you have to put real deliberate often painful effort into reach your goals. There is no buffer and the pains and joys in both ventures are compounded.
As we got to the top of the mountain we looked down on the valley below knowing a parade was now in session and we all commented.
The people down there just don’t know what they have missed. While they were sleeping and sitting in lawn chairs, we were smelling wild flowers.
The pain, sacrifice, determination, and will to get to the peak is what makes it enjoyable. Anything worth having in life is difficult. Whether a building a business, or grinding up a mountain peak one step at a time, it is the challenge and having to face what you have inside yourself that keeps us coming back for more.
This past weekend I took my family down to our condo at Elk Meadows in the Tusher mountains. This was a much needed break for our family after experiencing 2 broken arms, removed tonsils, minor skin surgery, new puppies, dad being gone for the entire month of June, and mom ready to trade all of the kids in for life size pictures of the kids, dad, and puppies.
One of my favorite things to do is to take the kids fishing in a little stream that is chuck full of North Eastern Brook Trout. If you know what you are doing you can limit out in about 20 minutes. This is my kind of fishing being as I openly declare myself a “catcherman” not a “fisherman”. I simply don’t have the patience to sit in a boat all day long waiting for a bite. I like to catch, not fish.
These little fish only get about 10 inches long, but they fight like little tigers and are very aggressive. They will almost bite a bare hook. I will frequently use the same night crawler 3 or 4 fish consecutively. When running out of worms, I have used eye balls of other fish and the innards of their buddy fish that I just extracted from the stream above them five minutes ago. The point being is these little critters are not picky eaters. However, what they lack in taste sensitivity they make up for in smarts.
When I first started fishing for these Brooks, I simply could not catch them. I would get tons of nibbles, but simply could not set the hook. In total frustration one day I sat down and analyzed what must be going on. I realized that these fish were not behaving as other fish where you must set the hook as soon as you feel tension on the line. They were putting the worm and hook in the very front of their mouth and as I attempted to set the hook the worm would slip off into their mouth and I would yank the hook right out of their lips.
Through much practice I discovered that in order to catch these fish when I felt a nibble I had to put slight tension on the string, then quickly give it slack, count to 10, and repeat this process three times. With each bit of tension and release the little trout would take more and more of the hook in their mouth until the hook was in their throat not in their lips. At this point I had them and I could simply tug them out of the stream.
As I watched my sons struggle with these little fish I just chuckled. I had told them the process, I had explained what the fish were doing, but they were so eager get the little buggers and the excitement was so high, they just could not bring themselves to set the pole down and count to 10. The result: Dad= 8 kids=0
Needless to say we sat down and had a great teaching moment. Not only in life, but also in business often times we get so eager to jerk that contract out of the water or win the big deal that we lack the patience and forget to let the hook set for the count of 10. Early in my career I can count more than one time a seasoned businessman has given me a tip while I cognitively listened, but fail to internalize. I would then later wake up to find the score: Seasoned Businessman $1MM Rich=$0MM
In business and in entrepreneurship there are times exercise patience, learn to count to 10 and become “Fishermen” not “Catchermen”.
Today I was able to spend the day with a group of teenagers doing service projects and also participating in what are called Rope Courses. Ropes Courses are designed to test your mental focus and personal fortitude as well as generate team building experiences. One of the obstacles in particularly got both my nerves and brain going. This was called the Vine Walk.
The course involved a thin metal cable stretched between two poles about 20 years apart. The cable was bout 30 feet about the ground and placed up above the cable about 6 feet were several dangling ropes separated along the cable about 10 feet apart. These ropes could be held on to as you walked the quivering metal cable. Now these dangling ropes did not provide much stability, but just enough when pulled taunt that you would not spiral off of the cable.
Of course as you climb up the poles and attempt the traverse, you are on belay and fully harnessed for safety, but it really does cause your nerves to jitter as you attempt to carefully step across this “vine”.
What I discovered as I was doing this, was if I focused on the far end point of the cable, looking across, but not directly down, and deliberately blocking out the height factor, I was able to slither across that cable. When I would turn sideways with my feet and attempt to monitor the cable and its flex directly beneath me the cable would shake almost as vigorously as my nerves were.
As on this rope, so is it when creating a business. You can’ think much about how high you are, you have to trust the harnesses and belay, and focus on the end point placing foot over foot as you go. If you look down and spend too much energy on your exact position on the “cable” you tend to get wobbly and are more likely to fail.
Being an entrepreneur, my nerves were conditioned to the adrenaline rush of the vine walk on the ropes course and it did not paralyze me, as a matter of fact I found it invigorating.
I noted that a few of the young women that were gymnasts crossed the vine with grace. I didn’t! My crossing was plain ugly, but end of the day it does not matter, we both crossed it just the same. Both count and so it is in entrepreneurship. Most do not have the courage to even try. Getting across is the key, not how graceful the walk is.
