Today I spent some time relaxing and watching my wife, her sister, and our daughters put together a very complex 2000 piece puzzle. Putting together puzzles has become one of the many holiday traditions that have evolved in our family over the years. Watching them work made me think of how achieving success in any endeavor is just the assembly of one big complex puzzle!
The goal of each and every one of us should be to gather up as many puzzle pieces as is possible in our chosen area of endeavor. A book read here, a conference attended there, and a friendship made tomorrow are all puzzle pieces. You never know exactly where the pieces are going to come from or how the puzzle will look when finished!
MY 7 PUZZLE PIECES TO BUSINESS SUCCESS
I started out my career flying airplanes in the Air Force for 9 years. As my commitment to Uncle Sam ended, I began to look for positions in the corporate world and initially worked in the healthcare industry selling hospital diagnostic equipment. About 2 years into this new career, I realized that I needed some added excitement in my daily work routine and was fortunate enough to get hired by one of the nation's top advertising firms. It's now many years later and this "bone head pilot" has learned a ton about advertising (PUZZLE PIECE #1)!
As I've said in other posts like Avoid Knowledge Constipation, Why PizzaForADream?, and Why Vending? (PUZZLE PIECE #2) I'm an entrepreneur at heart and have always hoped to be able to start a real company. After several years in the vending business, I met a guy at my churchby the name of Jeff Smith who wrote a Christian comic strip called Prayer Pups (PUZZLE PIECE #3). He and I got to talking and decided that it would be cool to begin vending Prayer Pups stickers and comic strips in my vending machines (PUZZLE PIECE #4). I searched around online and found a cost-effective place to print the stickers (PUZZLE PIECE #5). We designed 3 original designs, got them printed, and began testing our new sticker/comic strip series in my vending machines around town. The test didn't go as well as we hoped (PUZZLE PIECE #6) so we scrapped the idea but the print-my-own stickers piece had been all I needed!
Around this same time was when gas prices were really beginning to become a factor in people's lives and my vending revenues were slipping a bit. Another friend and his wife came by and we got to brainstorming ways to create a more profitable vending company (PUZZLE PIECE #7). This conversation with my friend Jeremy was over a year ago and since then we've pioneered a concept that once perfected (the goal this year) will completely revolutionize the vending industry.
What's amazing to me is that if I hadn't picked up any one of the 7 puzzle pieces along the way, I wouldn't have the successful business I have today! There is also no way I could have envisioned where the assembly of my puzzle would lead.
What are some of the puzzle pieces that have changed your life? Could you have predicted what the puzzle would look like when complete? We'd love to hear your thoughts!
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