This image is great because the guy in this picture looks as proud to have $17 as we are.

This was truth about 5 days ago…I looked in my online personal checking account and saw a dollar sign “$” with the following numbers “17.00″. Unfortunately, this was not a mistake by Wells Fargo, they did NOT accidentally move the decimal point over two places from the end of the number, we actually had $17 in our checking account.

This is not a pity cry or a call out for help, I am proud to have $17 in my checking account!
Why? Because this is ‘the real dirty’ of not living a typical 9-5 lifestyle, of working for ourselves and putting all of our extra cash and resources into our businesses that will someday repay us for scraping by in order to feed our businesses.

Could we do it another way? Could we work a full time job and also make our businesses grow?
Yes & Yes.

There’s no right or wrong when it comes to living life the way you want to. For us, it’s all about constant progression…if we are moving towards a growth direction and we’re seeing constant change for the better (personally and professionally) we are willing to have a harder short term (and a better long term). On the other hand if we’re sitting back, blowing our money and wasting our time, we deserve to be in a tight spot without the reward of our business growing for the future. The fact of the matter is that we’re running, pushing, and sometimes fighting to get what we want…we plan to have a huge financial turn around during these next 6 months…and that news will be even more exciting to share!

Business is not always easy & it’s sometimes dirty, but as long as you have a higher purpose, bless others (individuals and businesses), and work with more passion than the next guy/gal…things will eventually go your way.

Have an Awesome day & don’t forget to thank your God for what you have!
~Chais & Shawna Meyer

A buddy of mine (Mike Nyffeler) sent me a link to this video today, and it really helps me see ‘what we really want out of life’…Purpose.

Take 10 minutes and watch this video, it will reinforce some thoughts you may have about your own life and what drives you.

I was shooting the shit (AKA. Talking) with a buddy of mine, in my office today. We started talking about business and happiness. The conversation was started by him recognizing my chalk board walls and the writing that is on them. (my wife and I painted 50% of the walls in our office with chalkboard paint to help us visually layout our ideas and thoughts everyday)
This particular section of the wall was designated for our “Star Customers”, the customers that do everything right and then some. This list is ongoing and ever changing to help us identify what makes up our Star customers and how we can get more of them.

For us, a Star customer recognizes growth potential in themselves and their business, they want to learn and better themselves rather than having someone spoon feed them everything. Knowing this, we can manipulate our current business systems to reward these Star customers. This is not standard business logic, “rewarding customers, it will never work, we’ll lose money on that”, says corporate America.

We’re starting to see this ‘new agey’ business logic with a lot of young business owners because they’ve seen how happy customers (and employees) make for an extremely profitable and Happy business.

Maybe I’m noticing this new model in more businesses recently because I’m reading Tony Hsieh’s (CEO of Zappos) new book, “Delivering Happiness” (http://www.deliveringhappinessbook.com), which is absolutely incredibly! This book is an overview of Tony’s life (Personally & Professionally), with his wins and losses along the way. He’s inspired me to be better at focusing on happiness instead of money, and then the money will take care of itself.

I’m striving to make every business I’m involved with a true success (according to my customers and employees), not Gross Profits. My wife & I are super passionate about this and challenge you to look at life this way. Take a look at Tony’s new book and tell us what you get of it, here’s the Amazon link if you’d like to buy it and check it out (http://www.amazon.com/deliveringhappiness).

Make others Happy in Life and you will be too!
Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

This is a really interesting question, part of me believes that we’d like to know everything that’s going on in our world…but I’m not so sure if most people really do want to know some of the shitty stuff that happens out there...

‘Is Ignorance Bliss‘…to you?
If you don’t know, try asking yourself the questions below and see if you can come up with an honest answer for each one (would you really want to know?).
- Would you want to know if everything you’ve “known” about Your religion turned out to be a farce, made up by people in power for control?
- Would you want to know if the majority of wars were started to help a few individuals/companies make an extra buck?
- Would you want to know if our government was corrupt to the core?
- Would you want to know if your significant other has been cheating on you?
- Would you want to know if you’re favorite athlete or movie star had been manipulating the system (with drugs, steroids, breaking the law, sleeping their way to the top (AKA. Sex for Success), etc.) to make them who they are today?
- Would you want to know every person that dislikes you and why they do?
- Would you want to know if the life you have lived up until now has been a total lie and is orchestrated by someone else?

If you answered no to any of these questions than you’ve decided that ignorance is bliss you in some circumstances. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, I just wonder why we as humans don’t want to know the 100% truth all of the time, shouldn’t that make us better people? Can we be our best without knowing the truth?

I don’t have an answer to these questions yet, it was just a thought I had the other day and I wanted to get other peoples’ take on it all.
What are your thoughts? Is there something wrong with the ‘Ignorance is Bliss’ mentality or do we need it to stay sane in our world of chaos?

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts with you & have an Awesome Day (Even if you really don’t want to know what’s happening during the day today ;)…I’m Kidding!
~Chais Meyer

About a month ago I met this guy named Tyler Wilterding (here’s his facebook page), a New pastor at a New Church plant in Kearney, Nebraska (the Church is called “The Table”).

I’m generally turned off by pastors and the standardization of organized religion because of what it all stands for…I realize that not every organized religion or church is the same, or even close in some cases, but I feel when the idea of ‘togetherness’ is to believe the “I’m right, you’re wrong and you’re going to burn Forever unless you follow my way of believing…” message, I don’t really belong.

My God is different than that, not pushy, arrogant or right until the very end…in my opinion, those things are not the vision I have of what/who God is.
This is probably why I felt comfortable around Tyler right away, he didn’t push me in any direction, he let me share my viewpoints and didn’t argue anything with me, he treated me like what I imagine the Biblical Jesus Christ is supposed to represent…Love!

Tyler asked me to have lunch with him and pick my brain about beliefs, the local Kearney people and to get my idea of where the 20 something’s mindsets are when it comes to religion. I pre-warned him that I’m not an expert on any topic and I just have my opinions to share…that’s it. He was okay with this so we had a beer and burger for lunch (that’s how it should be, drinking a beer with a pastor at lunch time…) and discussed all of the above.
Tyler mentioned to me that he wasn’t happy with his website and I felt okay telling him that I also thought it looked like crap and that I’d be glad to help him set up a new one.

He paid the basic fees (like $50 - $70) and I configured / set up the new site for him. He’s been managing his new website (http://www.thetablekearney.com) for about a week now, and I’m happy that he’s happy with the results.
For the work that I did for him, we would normally charge a customer $2,200/year to do the same thing…all I wanted of him is to pay it forward to someone else that needs something. Wouldn’t our world be better if these type of ‘pay it forward actions’ were done all of the time? Could we do one remarkable thing for someone every month, week or even day, without asking anything in return?

Think about how you can help someone with a talent that you already have, after you decide on a couple things that you can do to help,  just make them happen…don’t put to much thought into it…you may think your way out of helping someone because of the time and/or energy commitment it may take to get the tasks completed…just do it!

Thank you for reading and have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

:: [Update: Tyler has since gifted me with 2 frisbee golf discs and a $20 gift certificate to a local restaurant. Thanks Tyler!

I just watched a talk about Happiness by Professor Srikumar S. Rao and Loved how simple/right on his concept of happiness is!

This talk intrigues me because of how we deal with happiness day in and day out and what the majority of us thinks creates ‘real’ happiness.
We put conditional elements of happiness into a little imaginary box (This box could include any number of things; A new job, getting married, a promotion at work, the house our dreams, the perfect vacation, etc.) and we say to ourselves, “If only I can get that little box (no matter the time or sacrifice), then I will be truly happy”.

I don’t believe that the statement above is totally negative, we should have goals, dreams and ambitions…but these obtainables shouldn’t be the definition of Happiness in our lives.
We need to learn how to be happy, even if we have nothing ’special’ to speak of.

When happiness is dependent on the if/then statement, we set ourselves up to live an unfulfilling & depressing life…Be careful, because this could be a very poisonous mindset!
Let your daily happiness drive you to be a better & more full person.
Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

After a recent technological disaster, I realized that there really is a HUGE difference between skill and luck (and I’ve been lucky A LOT).

I took on a project for a local Doctor and I came up severally short! I was asked by this doctor to JailBreak his iPhone (allowing it to work on a competitor to AT&T’s phone network)…
This is normally no big deal and I’ve ALWAYS come out ahead on technology projects like this, without a flinch! To help somebody Jailbreak their iPhone, I charge $150 for the knowledge, actually  JailBreaking it, and filling in the voids that Jailbroken software has for the iPhone; I make them work like they should.

For people that understand technology, especially when it comes to iPhone Jailbreaks, this is NOT a very complicated task. The really smart people out there are the ones that come up with the Jailbreaking software in the first place, guys like me just use their knowledge to benefit from (of course I am actually providing a good service to people that don’t feel comfortable doing it to their phones in the first place).

So why did I find out that there’s such a big difference between skill and luck? Well, I’ve always taken for granted the skills that goes into creating this Jailbreaking software (A new jailbreak is created every time a new version of the iPhone software comes out…that’s how it works, they stay in sync). I’ve always assumed that whenever a new version of the iPhone software comes out, there will always be people smarter than Apple and they will go ahead and create a iPhone fix for us everyday folk.
On this day, my mindset was no different and I decided to upgrade this customer’s iPhone to the latest Apple Software. I figured that a Jailbreak had already been created and it would be pud for me to go to the next step. I upgraded the iPhone to 3.1.3 and then proceeded to look for the matching Jailbreak software…I started having trouble finding the appropriate software I needed, so I dug a little deeper. Before I knew it, I’d been researching on the internet for 2 hours for a fix and I realized a fix DOESN’T EXIST!

No problem right? I can just undo what I’ve done and go to an older version of this fix…right? WRONG! This particular iPhone software upgrade changes things inside the phone that CAN NOT be undone! THERE IS NO FIX OUT THERE! Even the biggest brains in the iPhone tech world are saying that they’re not sure if this version of the iPhone software will ever be able to be Jailbroken.

What does this mean to me? What does this mean for this Doctor who put the fate of his iPhone in my hands?
It means that I fucked up…big time! I made a completely Rookie mistake by upgrading the iPhone before knowing if there was a fix out there! This Doctor CAN NO LONGER use this $600 phone for an unknown amount of time…it is essentially an iPod now. All because I thought I was skilled in iPhone Jailbreaks, because I’ve never messed before, I thought I was invincible!

At that moment I realized there’s a BIG difference between Skill & Luck!
I had been extremely lucky at every point until that moment. Luck, that relied on other peoples skill to make the impossible possible!

I still am not able to fix this guy’s iPhone, and I don’t know if I will ever be able to. I may have to buy this $600 piece of equipment from him (because I jumped the gun on a very simple thing)!
I learned a very important lesson that day, Never jump into something just because you haven’t failed at it before…Make sure to do your research, which allows you to under promise and over deliver!

Please learn from my mistake(s): Know what you’re talking about and know what process goes into accomplishing ‘your goals’…before you find yourself in a sticky situation!

Thanks for reading and hopefully learning!
Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

I think that it is so important now days for businesses to listen to their customers. If they don’t, they will eventually die.
If one employee is intentionally blocking the customers voice from making its way to the man or woman in charge (Which happens daily) that can be detrimental to a business!

Let’s (as leaders of a department or a business, owners of a company, or managers of what ever we manage) allow our customers to have a direct connection with us. It’s the only way to truly become a better organization! I truly believe this and that is why I am working with all of the different businesses that I own or am involved with to use “User Voice“.

User Voice gives that direct customer connection to someone that is actually paying attention. It is free and it is easily put in place on your company or personal website. How about you try ACTUALLY listening to your customers and ACT on their recommendations. Majority rules in the business world, and that’s how User Voice works, on the majority votes of your customers ideas or suggestions. Check it out and give your business an advantage, even though it’s scary to talk to the customer.

Have an awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

I started this blog with the mindset that I would tell everyone about the good, the bad, & the dirty of business (starting a business specifically). This blog slowly developed to much more than that. It started containing stories about our life and our connections with businesses and people. The tough part about sharing situations from OUR life is what people in our life think of when they read a story that may have to do with them (or at least a situation that involved them). And let’s face it…There is irony in honesty! Most people can’t handle the truth.

If I choose to be completely honest about any situation or real life example, some part of me chooses not to care about how others (the people that are in the stories) are affected or what they’re feeling. If I’m not completely honest with myself or you, why even have a blog in the first place? I’m not the national media that filters what they do or don’t say (sugarcoating or distorting the truth). In fact, I despise national media just for that reason. I am sharing my true situations with you, no matter what the comfort level.

So…for any or all of you out there that would prefer not to read a story that references you or a situation that involves you, it may be best if you stop reading from here on out. This blog is about my wife and I, and how we go through OUR lives, personally and professionally.

For Everyone Else…
…Have an Awesome Day & we’ll talk soon!
~Chais Meyer

As I was running today, I was thinking about the glorified 6 Pack (or 8 for the select few).
Am I talking about beer or soda? (No, that’s why I am running in the first place!)

I am talking about societies definition of what amazing health is, the six abdominal muscles that show because of a low total body fat. WHAT!?! I HAVE TO HAVE LOW ‘TOTAL’ BODY FAT!?!
I thought I could just do sit ups to lose the fat right on my stomach area, That sucks.

I’m assuming this is a lot of people’s reactions when they find out the cold hard truth about our bodies. We get rewarded everywhere on our body (this includes our stomachs, and our asses), when we treat our whole body right (eating healthy, working out, etc.).

A sad thing is (or Great thing, depending on your outlook), this philosophy is everywhere in our world, even in business. We can’t just ‘trim the fat’ in one area of business, we can try, but other areas will suffer. In order to have total business health, we need to look at the business in whole and make sure that nothing is being left out.

Let’s create a small example to make my point (this is a real life example, minus the fitness analogies):
We decide to ramp up sales with Control Yours (our website development business), so we put all of our energy and focus on reaching and closing on new clients. We collect their money, start developing websites for them, and the sales side of our business seems to be ‘firming and toning up’ (at least the sales muscles under our total business fat). We put our other areas of our business on the back burner and focus on just making sales as strong and fit as it can be. The next thing we notice is that a few of our clients want to modify their current plans they have with us, no problem right? WRONG! We’ve been so focused on building our sales muscle that we forgot to work on our customer management muscle, in fact it’s almost deteriorated.

What do we have to do? Just like every other fat person out there that realizes doing sit ups isn’t changing their overall look, START FROM THE BEGINNING. Get the whole system in shape at the same time. And that is where we are right now, building, stretching, toning, and increasing our overall business heart rate. It is a very great feeling, gaining control again (even though we didn’t realize we lost control until we looked in the mirror and saw our business fat folding over our business jeans…that is some funny stuff!).

Don’t forget to take care of even the small aspects of your business. EVERYTHING leads to total health.

Get your cardio on & Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer