I’ve had “Oh Christmas Tree, oh christmas tree,” stuck in my head for a month. I can’t remember the words and I don’t listen to radio so I just repeat oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree… making something uuup.

I love my simple life.

Dog chases stick. I chase dog.

My dogs are like most peoples kids… excited. That makes me excited. We have an outdoor pool at our condo village and during the summer months parents bring their kids to the pool so I can babysit them. People always tell me, “Why don’t you have a kid? You’ll be such a great dad.”

I’m pretty sure that’s true BUT…

I want to be the best dad.

Best dad is not an easy certificate to earn.

It’s all about “working smarter not harder.”

You see where I grew up adults always said, “You have to work smarter not harder.”

If another adult was standing around he or she would agree, “Yup, that’s right!” And five seconds later that same person would pipe up again, “Well, gotta go, I have to work a 72 hour shift.”

Of course you could be like the guy who invented electric windshield wiper’s for cars. That poor fellow showed his invention to Mr. Ford, and Mr. GM, and those assholes ripped him off. The movie is called “Flash Of Genius,” and in the movie inventor Mr. Robert Kearns, losses his marbles and takes the car companies to court.

Good movie, you can watch the trailer below.

What struck me was that everybody gave up on Mr. Kearns… everybody… and in the end I sobbed, “I’m just like Mr. Kearns.”

Don’t believe me???

Let me tell you the story of the phone book. Do you remember those things?? We used to get two of em; one white book you could use as a stool, and a yellow book just as thick. I moved to an apartment building and a stack of unused phone books sat in the foyer for four months until they got recycled. What really burned me was that Yellow Pages charged businesses thousands of dollars/month for a half page ad.

I said to my friends, “This is ridiculous, let’s create an online business directory where people can get coupons, and companies can change offers.”

My friends and I hashed out the idea for a few days, and then we talked to businesses. Everything was a go so we stood outside malls with customer surveys and used that feedback to raise a few bucks to hire a computer guy. Our computer guy made a demo program and my friends and I sold that demo in the form of “membership packages” to 200 businesses between Langley BC, and White Rock.  The rest should be history.

In our case fast forward seven months and our web guy wasn’t working as hard as we were. 

Businesses were not getting what we promised, and you know the rest. My business partner ripped off my credit card by stealing the cheques they sent in the mail.

I only noticed because my credit card declined when purchasing a plane ticket. I called the company and they said, “Well sir it looks like you wrote a cheque for this much on this day, and that much on that day. The receptionist listed 13 cashed cheques then said, “Do you remember writing those cheques sir?”

“No,” I responded, and she said they would look into it. A half an hour later my business partner came clean to his misdemeanour and that was the end of the business. I hand wrote 200 letters telling businesses our company went under and not one responded.

The point of this story is that just like Mr. Kearns, I was ahead of my time.

Our closest competitor didn’t get traction for another year. You may have heard of them, Groupon.

Now here is how that story can add value to your life. I’ve discovered an even bigger movement then taking down the phone book. It’s just like before, I see people starting to admit the frustration that I’ve felt for years, and they are looking for new opportunity. The same opportunity I’ll be rolling out over the next year. Stick around because we’ll talk about it right here on my blog. Of course…

Just kidding. When I blog it’s because it is important. Now imagine this…

I’m in the holiday spirit.

This is christmas blog so for the next three or four days I’m going to send people who say “YES” to joining my newsletter, some holiday cheer, and chocolate. Get the details here:

Free Ritter Sport Mini

Why not, it’s christmas, oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree… HAPPY NEW YEAR TOO!!!!

You are a great and wonderful person.

Sincerely,

Devin Bisanz

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