In a split second, someone’s experience with your company can easily shape the entire relationship between the two of you for years to come. It sounds cliché, but it’s not exactly a common practice to translate what everybody “knows” into actual experiences that make people smile. Sure, in business school, you probably learned (or, hopefully, already knew) that if you make lots of mistakes with your customers, you’re not going to have many customers for very long. Still, at least in my experience, the managers, owners, and employees of the world rarely jump at the chance to not only fix or avoid mistakes, but to turn them into opportunities to create those memorably outstanding experiences that make people put you at the top of their list.
Being first is hard. Doing something that has never been done before is hard. Finding a way to make something that might not even work break through with a ray of success is hard.
But, just because it’s “hard,” doesn’t mean you should confuse it with impossible. The two words are a world apart and, at least in my experience, the second word rarely (if ever) actually exists as a realm of possibility within the vast majority of decisions that you can make in a day.
It’s deceivingly simple to say that “hard” things can be done, but the truth of the matter is that they can. Landing on the moon was hard. Refusing to move to the back of the bus was hard. Building a device that can get directions, make a phone call, read the news, and play a game from the confines of your pocket was hard, but I’m holding it right now.
Being first is all about redefining what hard means for you. If, to you, hard means impossible, then you’re never going to do anything that’s hard. If, on the other hand, hard means difficult, then the only thing that stands in your way is the decision to make it work. If you’re reading this blog, then I’m guessing you approach hard with the latter.
If you have an idea in your head, this is your call to action. If you’re tired of being stuck in a web of bureaucratic scavenger hunts, then this is your chance to kick form XB33-PL9 to the curb.
Being first is all about doing what’s hard. But, you’re in luck. You’re not the first person to do something difficult. You’re the next.
While sitting at the mall earlier today, I noticed something odd. Not surprising, just odd. For every person who took the stairs, fifty took the escalator.
We live in a world in which convenience is no longer a dream; it’s a reality. But, I wonder, if perhaps we’ve reached a point at which the world is becoming too convenient.
Mar 3, 2009 
