"Repetition is the mother of... everything."

"We are what we repeatedly do." Aristole said that way back, somewhere between 384-322 BCE. It is an interesting phrase with multiple layers we need to unpack, lest we brush it aside as a "nice little quote."

You and We. I believe layer one is the personal level. You are what you repeatedly do. I am what I repeatedly do. Individually each person is what they individually, repeatedly do. It is a very personal quote to internalize. The question is what do you repeatedly do? On a personal level, what do you repeatedly do?

I love the phrase for people a drift in society. They are "finding themselves." What a crock. That usually means that they are repeatedly doing nothing. They can't "find themselves" because if they did they would find they are "nothing." Maybe that's why it takes so long to "find." Hey, man. Like, whoa.

The "We". Then there is the "We" or the "We are" layer in the quote. As organizational leaders, this is crucially important to our businesses because "We are" what we repeatedly do. You AND your team. You AND your spouse. You AND your kids. You AND your employees. You AND your guests. WE are what we repeatedly do.

When you filter your daily interactions, particularly with your team, your employees, what are you repeatedly doing together? Do you yell at one another? Snipe? Gossip? Knock down? Encourage? Train? Teach? Share? Better make a list, because you ARE what you repeatedly do.

If you fight fires and bail water every single day like the ship's going under, that's what your ARE. You are panicked people. If you encourage each person, just once a day, you ARE encouragement. One day doesn't sink the ship or float the boat, it's what you repeatedly do.

Now through forever. Notice the time scale in the quote: There isn't one. We are what we repeatedly do as long as we do it. You are an encouraging parent as long as you continue to encourage. You are a demoralizing spouse as long as you continually put down your spouse. It doesn't matter what you're doing, that's what you are as long as you repeatedly do it.

The change filter. If you look at changing your life, your spousal interactions, your employee's morale, your guest's enjoyment, there is good news in this quote. According to Aristotle, you are what you repeatedly do: If it ain't workin' out - DO SOMETHING ELSE. How freeing! Great news! Control is completely yours!

The balance is that you are what you repeatedly do. Changing your actions is completely up to you, but you can't change them for one day, one hour, one week. The change must continue and be repeated to truly become real; to become what you ARE.

Forming a (new) habit. A neat little article from PsyBlog indicates that the conventional wisdom on habit formation stating that a habit takes 21 days to form is probably incorrect. The real number is more like 66 days, according to the article, but it depends greatly on the type of habit your trying to form. Their examples were drinking a glass of water daily (very easy habit to form) and doing 50 sit-ups before breakfast (much harder to form) are nice examples to set-up your though continuum. Being complimentary to your wife each morning might be easier than saying something encouraging to your employees - you decide :-)

The key is not the actual length of time, but that is does take time. You aren't "what you try out this week". You are "what you repeatedly do." If you want to get s lesson in the world of instant gratification, Google "weight loss" and click on some of the ads that pop-up. NONE of them will say, "Helps you lose weight steadily over 2 years!" They say "5lbs in 3 days", "11lbs in 11days", "Top 10 pills" (None of them will work either.)

What you DO. Doing is an operative word. While I believe wholeheartedly in positive thinking, Aristotle doesn't say "what you repeatedly think about", he clearly say "do." Action is the culmination of thoughts, so sure you have to get your head in the right place, but you have to actually DO SOMETHING for you to become what you ARE. I think the clear implication is that doing nothing makes you nothing. Doing something, however, transforms your thoughts about yourself into reality.

The key from PsyBlog's article was to increase the "automaticity" of performing the action. They also say, and I think is of great value,

"What this study reveals is that when we want to develop a relatively simple habit like eating a piece of fruit each day or taking a 10 minute walk, it could take us over two months of daily repetitions before the behaviour becomes a habit. And, while this research suggests that skipping single days isn't detrimental in the long-term, it's those early repetitions that give us the greatest boost in automaticity."

Early repetitions. Did you catch that? The early, daily repetitions lead to the biggest increase in automaticity. This is great news because your willpower, frankly, sucks. So does mine. However, we don't have to last on willpower alone for very long before things get easier and easier to make automatic.

Who are you? What do you want to be? What do you want your workplace to be? What do you want your family life to be? Most importantly, who are you now? It's easy to find our who you are now, just look at what you repeatedly do. Make a checklist of the times each day you encourage someone and how many times you put them down. How often to you complain and how often do you say "I love you". How ofen do you complete tasks on time, how often do you roll in late. Count them. Find out who you are.

Who do you want to be? What would a person like you want to be repeatedly do? Write down the top 3 things a person like that would do. Then start repeatedly doing them yourself and see who you become.

The rest of the quote is "We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an event, but a habit."

In 66 days, give or take a few, you could be excellent at something. Your team could be excellent at something. Your family could be transformed.

That's not too long for your willpower to hold out.

Have a great week,
Hugh

Reach us at: www.mazecatalog.com

"Careful if you don't know..."

"Careful if you don't know where you're going, you might not get there."
   - Yogi Berra
 

This time of year, it's so easy to hunker down and relax, knowing that the busy season will begin again before you know it. I'm all for relaxing, you deserve it! This is also the time of year to think strategically and prepare yourself for a year of purpose. You and I both know, that strategy goes out the window when you're filling orders, planting, and managing. It can only be done in those precious moments between seasons.

You need to know where you're going.  Being with like-minded people clears your focus and sets your direction for the year.

When you're a little "off" like I am, especially starting a business based on people walking around in a cornfield, you need support. It was nearly 15 years ago that I was introduced by Larry Yeager to a group of people who were, frighteningly, just like me.

I have a secret. I have been apart of an organization since 1997, our very first year of Maize Quest. This organization has done more for me strategically than anything I might have thought up myself. I've mentioned it before, even told you about it, but I think this might be the year for you to join us at the actual conference. My big secret is NAFDMA (North American Farmers Direct Marketing association.)
Not a lot of expounding on ideas today, just a suggestion: Attend the NAFDMA Convention in Baltimore Feb 4-11, 2011. Register online RIGHT NOW.

Yes, (surprise) it costs money. Send just one person if you can't afford to send more. I know farms that send 5-8 people, I'm taking my whole crew. to learn and work the trade show booth. I promise you that if you attend, if nothing else, from MY presentation ALONE you will recoup your ENTIRE investment in the conference. If you don't, I will give you FREE our Hop Dots attraction.

That's right, a tight fisted scottish farmer, just promised to give you a $500 attraction IF you don't recoup your investment in ideas harvest from my ONE session. This is a safe bet for me because I come home with more than one $1,000 from talking in the hallway! You will do it too.

Take my challenge, register today. There may also be a secret meeting there of extra value for my email reading buddies....


Have a great week and see you soon.
- Hugh

Reach us at: www.mazecatalog.com

"More of the Same"

Hibernating and ruminating. I talk to a lot of people in our business and this is one of my favorite times of the year. Everyone is "hibernating and ruminating". Going to conferences, planning, scheming, developing. It's all about the future and I tend to live in the future as well, in a world of possibilities.

This plethora of ideas eventually boils down to plans and goals. You have to do some trimming of your idea tree or you'll overextend yourself. Overextension generally leads to nothing getting done which leaves you frustrated. It is crucial that you not only limit your new ideas, but that you choose wisely to maximize the benefit of your new ideas for you and your guests. Before you "boiled down" this year, I caution you to avoid the trap of "more of the same."

Seeking comfort. We each seek comfort, consciously and unconsciously, as we live our lives. If we start in advance, we can plan for comfort and find comfort in planning. If you do not plan in advance, we will seek comfort along the way. Unconsciously seeking comfort is a quagmire to our success.

For instance, if you have not planned time for rest throughout your season, you will seek comfort for yourself through coffee, excess 'errands', being late, etc. If you have not planned time for your projects, you will seek comfort by simply dropping projects half-done or completing everything in a hurry, just to say you are done, but they aren't done right. If you haven't planned enough money for your projects, you'll seek comfort by cheating with less desirable materials - you won't "lose face" because they aren't done, BUT you'll not be happy with the results or they won't last.

Be honest. You know who lies to us the most? Who is the worst at keeping his word? Who bends the facts? Tells the most bold untruths to us? Withholds information purposely to his own ends? Denies to our faces what is right? You do. You do it to yourself more than anyone else in the world ever will or ever could. When I recommend honesty, its from you to you.

The winter's world of possibilities must be tempered with honesty, because spring and summer will hammer all your goals, plans and dreams with the brutal hammer of reality exposing your self-told truths and lies.

More of the same. So, how do you maximize the value of your ideas, goals and plans without going overboard? One key way is to avoid "More of the Same." Any idea, profit center, tour program, marketing strategy you have is likely to fall victim to More of the Same.

Here's what "More of the Same" sounds like inside your head or in your staff meeting:

1. "Our preschool apple tour program was a real success last year. This year, I'd like to implement a preschool pumpkin tour, preschool veggie patch tour, and a preschool cornfield tour. That will give those teachers who love us more options for this year."

2. "We are the Fun Park of Mazes, so this year we need to add a 2nd corn maze, a hedge maze, and another labyrinth."

3. "We did so well in our market with the fried apple pies last year, it's really what people want. This year we need to add fried blueberry, blackberry, peach, and lingonberry fried pies and we'll quadruple sales."

4. "Last year your spent $5,000 with our station and were very successful, this year, spend $10,000 and be more successful-er!"

Can you start to spot more of the same? Can you spy how easy it sounds? How safe it looks? How it's going to be a lot of work? How it's not really going to add that much revenue?

Let's blow each of the examples apart, exposing More of the Same:

1. More tour options doesn't increase business, it increases busy-ness. Your bookers now have to keep three options straight and you have to create them! More tour options doesn't attract business, marketing does.

2. At over 25 attractions, the value for the ticket is there, what is not there are real bathrooms. That's what people want more than another 4 maze attractions. (This one sounds personal doesn't it? Oh, I fight this stuff too!)

3. Adding all those different fried pies won't increase sales much, increasing traffic increases sales. It will increase inventory, waste, production costs, and employees training time. Sell the ONE DAMN PIE and make some money.

4. EVERY sales rep will tell you this and (surprisingly) they are right! They are right up until you reach critical mass for that media outlet. Once you're hitting every listener in that radio's market 5-10 times during your marketing window, you're done. Move on.

Sample solutions that avoid More of the Same:

1. Instead of working on your preschool tours, upgrade your corn maze so you can host middle school tours or shift those same dollars into marketing preschool tours, instead of making new ones.

2. Adding infrastructure is NOT sexy, but for some reason 9 out of 10 butts prefer porcelain.

3. Increasing the speed with which you make and sell your ONE signature pie, might make you more money and ease your employee training and exhaustion issues.

4. Add a station, add a new newspaper, market on facebook. Take your dollars that would have been More of the Same and move them to a new marketing channel.

More of the Same is so appealing because we seek COMFORT. Change is uncomfortable and we seek to avoid it. When you are looking at your list of ideas this year, look through with a critical eye for More of the Same. It will creep quietly into planning meetings. Warn your staff about it! Tell them to watch you and that you will be watching them holding each other accountable to avoid more of the same.

Throw a "Purple Cow" in a "Blue Ocean". W. Chan Kim in "Blue Ocean Strategy" advocates finding a blue ocean, a new marketplace for your business instead of swimming with everybody else in a sea of red ink as businesses copy each other until the products are reduced to commodities. Seth Godin advocates that your business (or I surmise new elements within your business) should be "Purple Cows", designed to be different and stand out.

As you choose this season, send a Purple Cow swimming in a Blue Ocean with a daringly new idea. Instead of copying an idea, give it a twist. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you've always done it one way, maybe it's time for a full re-think, re-do, or upgrade.

Whatever your list of ideas, if you've got the same, you can keep the same, but don't fall blindly in the trap and add More of the Same.

Have a great week.
-Hugh

Reach us at: www.mazecatalog.com