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!
The story of charity: water - The 2009 September Campaign Trailer from charity: water on Vimeo.
Last week I was at a conference of young entrepreneurs in Omaha, Nebraska and I heard a talk from Scott Harrison.
Scott is the founder of Charity: Water, he shared and explained with us the situation of water, or the lack of water, for hundreds of millions of people living on this earth.
I don’t normally rally behind fund raising campaigns because I feel like there are so many unknowns about the projects…Where’s the money actually going, how’s it actually getting spent, and who is in charge? After hearing Scott’s stories, reading on this website and learning about the situation myself, my wife and I decided to do something to help.
We get fresh drinking water everyday and we don’t think anything about it. We don’t ever stop to think about the people out there (near 1 billion people) that don’t have this privilege! If we can start a small page on the web and donate $20 to help one person have fresh drinking water for 20 years…Why wouldn’t we?
If not us, then who? If not today then when?
Start making a difference today and help change other people’s lives forever! Donate Here.
Thank you very much for reading this post and have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer
:: Please let us know what you’ve heard about this company and we’ll talk to you soon!
This Blast from the past is one that helped me develop my marketing mind. It brought to my attention that I need to think about who’s listening to my story, instead of how great I think my story is. Take a look and tell me your thoughts. (This post was originally written on October, 1st 2007)
Marketing (in the form of advertising) affects who it affects…
Words following this statement might be something like this:
Duh…
No, Really…
Wow, That’s deep (with a hint of sarcasm)…But it is so true and simple that we (especially myself) forget about it.
I was with my mom watching television last week and we saw an Alltel (cell provider) commercial that has the 4 guys (they represent the other cell phone companies) and “Chad” (from Alltel). The four guys always do something silly or stupid to make Alltel look like a better company. My mom loves these commercials (absolutely loves them…) and I…not so much.
So, I think to myself that this commercial is a waste of time and money and that if I were to do it, I would do them a different way (I don’t know everything about commercials, but I know my own tastes and what effects me). The interesting part is that my mom loves it the way it is, maybe my way wouldn’t effect the people that it currently does in a positive way.
Using myself and my views as a basis to judge whether all marketing is good or bad, is an incomplete way of looking at it. I need to view it (marketing) from other’s points of view (my mom and people like her), as well as from my own. This combined point of view is the middle ground that every non niche company tries to find. It requires more work and is more time consuming, but it is the area that I need to be shooting for.
What I learned:
1. Look into marketing deeper (my own, other company’s and individual’s)
2. Don’t judge what works or doesn’t off of 30 seconds of thought (I need to push myself to grow).
3. Don’t forget about the customers / partners / investors that don’t think like me!
I hope you enjoyed this Blast from the past & have an Amazing Day!
~Chais Meyer
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
[There is an update at the Bottom of this Post]
I was recently loaned an Audiobook called “Adventures in Creative Thinking” By Mike Vance. This particular Audiobook is a set of 6 cassette tapes, not CDs or an .mp3 file, making it very challenging to listen to if you don’t own a cassette tape player…I don’t know if you know this, but iPhones, iPods and most computers don’t have a cassette tape slot! You probably knew that
The last time I listened to a cassette tape was probably about 5-7 years ago. So, in order for me to listen to this highly recommended Audiobook, I would either have to convert these tapes to .mp3s or listen to all 6 of them on a tape player. I decided to convert this Audiobook Set into a single .mp3 file. Easier said than done…
After about 4 hours of searching for my old tape player, and having no luck finding it, I decided to search for this book on the internet…ARE YOU KIDDING ME? NO DIGITAL COPY OF THIS AUDIOBOOK AVAILABLE ON THE WEB…NOT EVEN TO PURCHASE!?!
I started doing a little investigating and found the company that made this Audiobook, here’s a link to their website: http://www.creativethinkingassoc.com/
“OK, now I’m getting somewhere”, or so I thought. They have a online store with all of their Audiobooks (15+ published books) but NO .MP3s!
Whether this was right or wrong, I noticed an opportunity to help a company upgrade their products and possible make a little money for myself in the process. So here’s what I did:
I am currently in no way connected to ‘Creative Thinking Association of America’, but I would like to assist them with the conversion of their Audiobooks to the proper digital formats to possibly be distributed and sold by Audible.com.
‘Creative Thinking Association of America’ currently has 15+ Complete and Published Audiobooks that involve creative thinking and entrepreneurial mindsets. These books have made a dramatic impact on myself and my business partners, and we would love the rest of the world to be able to have access to these Audiobooks in a digital Audible file format. I believe that this conversion will allow ‘Creative Thinking Association of America’ to earn additional revenue from their Audiobooks by being converted and sold with your proprietary digital format (I view your company as The Premium Audiobook Resource) .
I do not have permission to act legally on Creative Thinking Association of America’s behalf, I am only doing investigative work to make this process as smooth as possible for them, if they do indeed decide to convert their Audiobooks into a digital Audible format. Can you please direct me to any/all page(s) or document(s) that explains the specifications and/or requirements needed for converting Audiobooks to the proper digital format? I would like to have a clear answer for this company of how these processes would work. If there is anything else they should know (contract documents, etc.) I would love to provide them with any appropriate literature that will help them understand this process and get everything moving in the right direction, if they choose to do so. I believe that their knowledge and experience needs to be spread to the world.
Thank you very much for you help and I look forward to hearing from you.
Chais Meyer
(mobile) 402-419-1202
(email) meyer@threedotinc.com
(twitter id) twitter.com/chaismeyer “
I do realize that this could be seen as presumptuous and/or very forward on my part (because I was not given permission to contact Audible.com). But I see such a huge need for any existing published Audiobooks to be converted and sold in a digital format. I mean, we’re in a day and age where portable audio is a standard thing and if your books aren’t in the format to reach the masses, they most likely WON’T reach the masses. Sounds logical anyway.
I don’t know whether this action will be good or bad in the long run, all I know is if you’re trying to run a business in ‘Today’s Business World’, you need to follow suite and sell what people are buying.
Who knows…Maybe this will be the start of a business that converts everybody’s old Audiobooks to the new standard Digital format, and maybe for all my hard work and forwardness, I’ll get a percentage of every online sale (Crossing my fingers). Whatever ends up happening, I know that if I didn’t have the balls to help this company make a change, I would never see any positive benefits!
Be Courageous, Daring, and Spontaneous, and if need be…be ballsy enough to tell others they need to change for today! (Just understand that change can be difficult and scary for certain people)
We’ll see where this goes from here.
Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer
[Update 3-18-2010 :: I received an email from Diane Deacon, President of Creative Thinking Association of America and it's listed below ]
Hi Chais,
Thank you for your letter and call. We are glad to know that our Creative Thinking products have helped you be even more creative!
We are working on getting some of our audio programs into proper digital formats. We will let you know when they will be available.Keep the Creative Juices Flowing!!!Sincerely,Diane Deacon
President
…is an amazing line in the film “Lemonade“.
It is so true that we can take what life throws our way and just see negative side affects. If we look deep enough into our individual situations we WILL find good.
In fact, the good will very much out way the bad, after we get over the initial shock!
If you can, please take 35 minutes, and watch this inspirational film about turning Lemons into ‘Lemonade’!
It’s worth missing one of your favorite TV episodes for.
Live with Passion & don’t forget what you love!
Have a great Day!
~Chais Meyer
Resources from the Film:
Think about reading your favorite book, watching your favorite movie, riding your favorite carnival ride and now think about adding additional enjoyable senses to these experiences and how it could possibly alter them (ie. your favorite smell, taste, music, etc.).
I just experienced this today as I was reading a free e-book (What Matters Now) by one of my favorite authors, Seth Godin, and listening to one of my favorite musical artists (Explosions in the Sky – Album “The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place
Seth Godin by himself is always a good read, but while adding the very emotional experience of ‘Explosions in the Sky’ at the same time, this was a completely different than just a book itself. A very positive difference!
The gracefulness of the music amplified the emotion of the book, making me feel like I was connected to every word that flowed from the author. Intense, overwhelming, and touching!
I challenge you to try this for yourself. Choose two separate things that you love (they need to entertain at least 2 different senses) and experience them at the same time. Take some time, soak it in and enjoy.
Until next time, have an Awesome Day!
Chais Meyer
