Monthly Archives: January 2020

ARE YOU A FISH OUT OF WATER?

I watched a fascinating programme about longevity on BBC2 the other evening. It featured societies where people tend to live much longer than the average. There was a lot of interesting stuff to come out of it, but what the researchers have found in Japan, has wider implications than for health and longevity. 

In the Okinawa islands, the population routinely expect to live ~ and be healthy ~ well into their nineties. The reasons aren’t totally clear, but it’s thought to be something to do with the traditional soya protein-based diet, and the fact that the people there tend to eat very little by western standards. 

Now here’s what’s interesting… 

The fact that the people thrive on that diet and lifestyle is down to their heredity ~ what their ancestors have experienced and endured throughout the centuries. Their bodies have geared up, and adapted, to thrive on it. If you or I were to take up the same regime, we wouldn’t necessarily get the same results though. 

This is borne out by what happens when the young Okinawa leave the islands and live in the city. When they move to a more western-based lifestyle, not only do they lose all the benefits of their heredity, but they actually fare worse than their contemporaries, who have been brought up in that environment. Their life expectancy actually falls below the average. 

They have evolved to thrive in a completely different environment. Their heredity offers no benefits in the new environment, but massive ones in their natural one. 

I’m sure this is a phenomenon which stretches way beyond the health and longevity arena. We all have skills, attributes and predispositions, and if we’re not getting the results and outcomes we want, it could because we’re applying them in the wrong environment. 

A Formula One car is awe-inspiring on a track, but wouldn’t get you out of your own street in the real world. A 50cc scooter would be totally useless on a motorway, but would get you around the centre of London better than anything else. 

Average natural abilities, applied in the right environment are far better, and more effective, than outstanding abilities applied in the wrong one. 

So are you applying your innate and acquired strengths in the right environment, or are you the proverbial fish out of water…or the Okinawan living on fast food? 

If you’ve ever felt you’ve not achieved as much as you deserve, the answer could lay here. 

 John Harrison

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Do You Really Need Investment?

It’s a bit of a knee-jerk reaction for many entrepreneurs to automatically think they need investment when they’re attempting to launch a new business, but it isn’t necessarily the case.

There are many ventures that don’t need outside funding at all, and to seek it out, can be expensive in either cash or equity loss. Having said that, there are circumstances where there is no alternative but to seek funding. For example

1.  If you need a prototype – where you have created something new. Having samples made, testing and modelling can be expensive.

2.  If you need specialist equipment – This will be particularly relevant in high-tech and engineering. Computer technology and bespoke tooling  doesn’t come cheap.

3. Where you have a run away success. This is something a lot of people don’t think about. Strong sales can create a problem if you don’t have the funds to finance production and distribution.

If none of the above apply, think very carefully about whether you really need outside funds. It’s always best if you can retain full control of your venture and aren’t weighed down by heavy interest repayments. 

Motivational Quote Of The Day

“A sense of humour is a major defence against minor troubles.”  

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Mignon McLaughlin

Alternative Quote Of The Day

“A friend is the guy who will bail you out of prison, but your best friend is the guy sitting in jail with you.”                                             

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Joey Diaz

Tow And Go Service

It doesn’t take a great deal of ingenuity to set up as a taxi driver, but even with a simple service like this, it’s possible to add a twist and set yourself apart from the crowd.

Jackie Robinson Jr, a taxi driver from Kentucky, set up what he calls a ‘Tow and Go’ service….although strictly speaking, there’s no towing involved. The idea is quite simple. When you call for the service, Robinson takes along a colleague who will drive both you and your car to it’s destination. Needless to say, this is potentially life and livelihood saving for someone who’s had a few drinks more than intended and doesn’t wish to leave their car in a vulnerable place.

There are obviously insurance implications to a service like this, but it’s definitely something you could change a premium price for. I can see a high demand for this is any urban area – particularly at weekends.

Today’s National Day   

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NATIONAL SAY SOMETHING NICE DAY!  

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THE PACEMAKER SECRET

Wilson Greatbatch died in September this year, but there are many who owe their lives to him. He invented the heart pacemaker, and what’s particularly interesting is that he did it by accident.

In 1956, Greatbatch was building a heart rhythm recording device, when he mistakenly inserted a resistor that was the wrong size. He noted that the circuit it produced emitted intermittent electrical impulses which seemed to mirror those of a human heartbeat. This single observation led to the development of the modern pacemaker, half a million of which are implanted every year.

He was just lucky then? Well not quite. You see, when he ‘got lucky’ he was working hard and he was taking action with something. And then when he had the lucky break, he invested his own time, effort and $2,000 savings into converting the chance discovery into something useable and marketable. During the development phase, he was forced to feed his family from his vegetable garden.

You see, that’s the thing about luck-you’re more likely to stumble across a piece of it if you’re taking action (any action!) with something. And if you do, it will usually only benefit you if you take hold of it, and use it as a stepping stone to something tangible. The people you hear about getting rich through a lucky break were usually working hard when they got it, and then worked even harder to turn it into money and a better life. Luck, on its own, is rarely enough.

Motivational Quote Of The Day

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”     

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Scott Adams

Alternative Quote Of The Day

I won’t say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like ‘What I’m going to be if I grow up.”

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Lenny Bruce

Another Invention By Accident

While working for Eastman Kodak in 1942, Harry Coover, attempted to create some material to make a transparent gun sight. It wasn’t a success. The resulting compound was simply too sticky. The same thing happened again when Kodak scientists were working on polymers for aeroplane canopies, and it was then that Coover – soon to be Sir Harry Coover – realised they might have discovered something useful after all.

Superglue went on sale for the first time in 1958. Aside from being responsible for more than its fair share of visits to hospital casualty departments, it’s made a big contribution to modern life. And it all came about by accident.

History is littered with examples of people who set out trying to do one thing and failed, but somehow managed to end up doing something better. What did they have in common? They were all trying to do something!

Today’s National Day   

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NATIONAL TELL A LIE DAY!  

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NOW I WANT TO WIN THE LOTTERY

Saturday 18th January 2020 .

You’ve been reading my column’s for a little while now, so I think I can trust you with one of my more embarrassing confessions. I’ve not really told anyone about this, for fear of ridicule, but I spoke to someone the other day, who made me feel better about it. So here it is… 

I don’t want to win the Lottery!

There, I’ve said it. 

I tell people that I don’t do the Lottery because it’s a ‘Numpty Tax’ and there’s little chance of winning. Both of these things are true of course, but the real reason is that I don’t want to win. I’ve always had a vague idea of why I don’t want to win, but a conversation with Geoff Thompson, brought it into sharper focus last week ~ and maybe even gave me cause to change my mind. 

Conversations with Geoff can be strange affairs. He’s a man of very diverse talents and interests and so you find yourself jumping from progress on his latest film, to religious philosophy, to how to render an attacker unconscious…all within the space of a few minutes. 

Anyway, Geoff was telling me about a friend of his who is struggling for money at the moment. The friend said what a lot of people say in such circumstances: “I could do with a bit of luck – I wish I could win the Lottery”. Geoff’s reply (he was in philosophy mode now, not ‘break-yer-neck’ mode) was… 

“Don’t wish for some luck – wish for a journey.” 

As soon as he said it, I realised why I don’t want to win the Lottery – because when you do, it takes you straight to the destination without going on the journey. And it’s only by going on the journey and experiencing the highs, lows, successes and failures along the way, that you can really appreciate the destination. 

It’s pretty well-documented that very few big football pools and lottery winners are any happier after the win than they were before it – and maybe that’s the reason. Because the destination is nothing without the journey, and a big win robs you of the journey. 

If I were to win a ‘life-changing’ amount of money, I think it would diminish the journey I’ve travelled thus far, and demotivate me from embarking on the journeys I’ve plan to make in the future. And that’s another important point that ‘winners’ rarely seem to grasp… 

Once you’ve arrived at one destination, it’s vital that you immediately embark on another journey. The journey is the thing. There’s no ultimate destination ~ not in this life at least. 

Having thought about this a little more (as you probably realise this book is just a vehicle for clarifying my thoughts…you’re just here to be an unpaid counsellor and nod in the right places) I think that maybe I would like to win the Lottery after all. 

You see, if you have the right mindset, winning £20 million or so doesn’t really rob you of future journeys, it just opens up wider opportunities for the journeys you’re able to make. It means changing your plans ~ stepping out of your comfort zone and into new arenas. It means abandoning your planned journey, and finding a new one… 

And all without the metaphorical kick up the backside that needing to put food on the table provides. 

I think I’m up to the job, and would certainly be prepared to take the risk of giving it a try. So now it’s just a case of winning the money… 

Does anyone know how to buy a ticket? 

 John Harrison

BLAMING HELL!

Tuesday 21st January 2020

A bloke called Graham Calvert recently attempted to sue bookmakers William Hill’s for £2 million. He didn’t trip over in one of their shops. Nor did a ceiling fall on his head. Nothing like that. No, what happened is that he lost a fortune betting with them, and he thinks they should have stopped him doing it. 

Apparently they did try! 

He asked for his account to be closed and they duly obliged. But then he secretly opened up another one and lost even more money. So now he’s suing them to get it back. 

I think this is an excellent idea, and sets an interesting precedent… 

I shall be taking out actions against the sweetie shops that sold me indecent quantities of sherbet fountains and penny chews in the late 1960s and early 70s. I shall be seeking to recover the cost of all the resultant dental work. 

And when I’ve got that one under my belt, I shall be tackling all the pubs that have supplied me with too much alcohol over the past 30 years or so. I’m going for the lot with them ~ possible liver damage, pain and distress of hangovers, dry cleaning bills…everything. 

And then it’s those damned car dealers’ turn. They knew I was a mug punter for God’s sake, but they still pushed their expensive shiny cars on me, knowing full well they’d be worth about half as much in two years’ time. They should have stopped me doing it, shouldn’t they? 

Why the heck shouldn’t I jump on the bandwagon? It seems like everyone else is… 

Tripped over a paving stone when you weren’t looking where you were going? Sue the council. They should have shaved an extra three millimetres off that paving stone. Eaten too much and got fat? Don’t blame yourself…go after the fast food restaurants and junk food manufacturers whose crap you ate ~ even though you had a free choice. On the verge of bankruptcy? Take action against the credit card companies and banks that lent you the money you asked for, even lied on your application to get. They shouldn’t have given it to you. 

I’m not sure at what point we changed from taking responsibility for everything in our lives, to taking responsibility for virtually nothing, but it happened at some point in my lifetime. When I was a kid, only the certifiably insane would ever have been protected from the consequences of their own actions. Today, it seems like everything that ever happens to us is someone else’s fault. 

There are no accidents ~ just culpable parties to be sued. There are no personal errors of judgement…just companies who’ve tricked us or unfairly persuaded us to do something contrary to our interests. There are just things and people to blame for everything. 

Here’s why this is so important… 

Because it’s only a short step, from blaming someone else when we trip up, get fat or get into debt, to blaming someone else when our business doesn’t make the profits we feel it should. 

You see, the very first stage in securing the best chance of success with any project, goal or venture is to accept full responsibility for the outcome. To do otherwise is to give us an early exit strategy…an excuse for failure. It’s remarkably easy to give up when we convince ourselves it’s someone else’s fault. Not so easy when we accept that the blame lies fairly and squarely on our own shoulders. 

Adversity happens to everyone. It’s how we react to the adversity that really counts. And those who accept full responsibility for what’s happened to them, almost always react best. 

Postscript 

Following a version of this chapter appearing in my online newsletter, Mike Lee sent me an email about from something called the Stella Awards. Rather than explain, here’s the email:

STELLA AWARDS 

It’s time again for the annual ‘Stella Awards’! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald’s in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?

That’s right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head-scratcher handy. 

Here are the Stellas for the past year:

7TH PLACE:
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son. 

6TH PLACE:
Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California, won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn’t notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbour’s hubcaps. 

5TH PLACE:
Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. 

Worse, he couldn’t re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count ’em, EIGHT days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner’s insurance company claiming undue mental anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish.

4TH PLACE:
Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stellas when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next-door neighbour’s beagle ~ even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner’s fenced yard.

Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

3RD PLACE:
Third place goes to Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. Whatever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?

2ND PLACE:
Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a nightclub in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies’ room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the nightclub had to pay her $12,000….oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. 

1ST PLACE:
This year’s runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home from an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver’s seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner’s manual that she couldn’t actually leave the driver’s seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her ~ are you sitting down? ~ $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.

Alongside that lot, the bloke suing William Hill’s almost seems reasonable. I find it hard to comprehend the thought processes of people making decisions like these. 

There’s another interesting aspect to this though… 

Why are there so many cases like this in the United States? Simple. It’s because there are more lawyers in that country than the rest of the world combined. It’s important to get the causality right though…

There aren’t more lawyers because the US population is in particular ‘need’ of legal help. No, the US population is in particular ‘need’ of legal help because there is a proliferation of lawyers. 

Let me explain… 

For many years now, I’ve sold products and services linked to business opportunities. The one question I’ve been asked about every one of them ~ and more times than I care to remember is: 

“But won’t the market become saturated?” 

In almost every case the answer is no, because what happens is that the market is expanded and extended by the influx of newcomers, creating plenty of new business for everyone as a result. Markets aren’t of a fixed size. The size of any market can be increased: by bringing new customers into the market, by selling more of the product or service to existing users, or by selling ‘range extension’ products to both newcomers and existing customers. 

That’s what’s happened to the legal market in the United States, and is happening to a certain extent here too. 

All these qualified lawyers have to find work, and there simply isn’t enough of the traditional work to go around. So what they’ve had to do is to move into new, related areas ~ of which fleecing large corporations with seemingly ridiculous claims is just one. And they’re making a great deal of money at it. 

How have they done it? By marketing themselves and the services they now offer, as hard as they possibly can. 

Now if the market for services connected to the seemingly ‘cast in stone’ law isn’t fixed, it seems unlikely that the market you’re operating in is fixed either. 

The bottom line is that, although it makes sense to be riding a wave rather than swimming against the tide, there’s almost always room in any market for newcomers to move in and prosper on a massive scale.

John Harrison