The Great Lie

Here is the lie I will not tell my children.

No, it's not Santa Claus or The Easter Bunny, it is the lie surrounding education and the hoops you must jump through to experience success. We've built our entire system on a factory that no longer exists...

My degree has nothing to do with what I do. My success is tied directly to my ability to fulfill my promises.

If you want a manual to success, here it is - Do what you say you will do every time and do something worthwhile - ease someone's pain better than anyone else can.

Do this in extraordinary ways and you win...always!

Excellence

I expect it and so should you. If you don't get it - look somewhere else.

The Last Wild Place

People ask why I go to Alaska. It's so far they say. Aren't there plenty of places to fish in WA.?

Well, when I was a boy my Dad drove from southern California to SE Idaho for family vacations. We stopped to see family, but I remember seeing him come alive in the high deserts of northern Nevada and southern Idaho - no people, just wild. I remember 4:00 am trips to remote creeks to stalk fish.

I learned to fish in those small creeks where fish had no pressure from fisherman, just the pressure to survive amid the harshness of nature.

It seems these wild places are vanishing. There are very few remaining in the lower 48. (the Upper Queets and Olympic Peninsula rivers being remaining exceptions)

I love Alaska not because there are a lot of fish for me, there are. I love it because this is the place where my sons may find the wildness for themselves and their sons.

I come alive here because I find it to be the last of the wild places. It is my high desert. My prayer is that it will remain so for my children and their children.

I want my Dad to see this place.

Time Away...

Everyone needs it and this afternoon I get a little bit. Looking forward to fishing with some clients, but more than that, friends.

Over the past few years, we've fished rivers in Yakutat, Alaska, (Johnny's East River Lodge), The Kenai Peninsula, Washington's Yakima River, and the wild rivers of the Olympic Peninsula (Hoh, Clearwater, Queets, Bogachiel) This time it's to King Salmon, Alaska to fish the Naknek and Brooks Rivers surrounding Katmai National Park.

I'll be posting pictures of my travels on Twitter and Flickr.

Looking forward to building on our friendship, creating new fish stories, and recharging for a bit.

Clean Up Before Bed...

No one likes cleaning up a mess, especially at the end of the day when you're tired and just want to go to bed. I just went through clean up hell with my kids - what's worse is that tomorrow is the first day of school. The last memory of the summer is me telling them the only way out is to finish.

If you don't finish, the mess is still there except now there are more commitments the following day. Sound familiar?

As Winston Churchill once said - "If you find yourself in hell, keep moving..." or something like that.

Where Delivery Counts

"We rate ability in men by what they finish, not by what they attempt"

I used to play pick up basketball with a friend of mine and he was a great defensive player. He could pick your pocket for a breakaway easy as pie. When it came to making the layup at the other end, he would often choke. He'd yell out "FINISH!"

Seth Godin talks about this as "Shipping".

A client of ours has a tagline - "Where delivery counts and quality is everything." Think about that, where delivery is COUNTS.

All your work on the 99% means almost nothing, or is severely diminished, if you miss - and I'm not just talking about the final 10%, I mean even the final 1%.

If you are chopping wood you will never split it straight through if you aim for the top of the log...you must envision the axe hitting the bottom of the log - you must finish.

The same is true for hitting a golf ball, punching someone (it's true), or shipping a product. Do not aim for the front, aim for the back and drive right through. The result, you will have shipped. (Finished!)

Marketing Restart

Wouldn't it be cool if instead of spending time coming up with slick campaigns to convince potential customers how great your company is - your marketing department focused on providing tools and avenues to let your customers and employees share your message with others?

Your company would need to clean up its act a bit I bet. Each touchpoint with customers would need to improve. Each employee would need to see themselves as "thee" marketing department. Each transaction would need to be of such high integrity that your customers would have no choice but to refer you to others.

Now that's a company worth working for and buying services from.

Too bad most take the easy route and just come up with a new "message".