Aviation of Business

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Jul 23

I went up to Michigan (Traverse City, to be exact) this past weekend to attend the wedding of a close friend with whom I have been terrible about keeping in touch since college (and even during our last two years in college, now that I think about it).

We have sporadically kept in touch since graduating from Eastern Michigan University - mostly through another mutual friend who stayed in Michigan for a few years after graduation and only recently moved back to Central Ohio. He comes down and stays once in awhile, and sometimes I’m even able to get out to our mutual friend’s place and visit with everyone - but not always.

So on Thursday night, four of us piled in my car and we drove to Traverse City, Michigan for his wedding. We barely made it. After a couple of stops and several slowdowns due to construction, we made it to the hotel at about 4:15pm on Friday - the wedding was at 5pm - and we hadn’t even changed into our wedding clothes! We made it into some seats just before our friend the groom walked down the aisle to seat his grandmother. Whew.

The location was beautiful (Frog Pond Village), as was the ceremony - non-denominational readings and poems and vow exchange… funny and light, and meaningful, somehow, all at the same time. My favorite (and least favorite - this weekend was full of conundrums, it seems) part was near the end, with a statement along the lines of “we hope that you can reconnect with old friends and kindle relationships with new friends as well…” I wasn’t recording, but it was something like that.

It was my favorite part because it worked - I feel like I reconnected with at least a few of my old friends - the couple we drove up with certainly, as well as the bride and groom (in the short amount of time we could steal from their busy wedding schedule). We also connected (I think) with a new couple that we knew, but not well - we did wine tastings and climbed Sleeping Bear Dunes on Saturday; those six of us spent all day together.

It was my least favorite part because, to me, it felt like a direct chastisement of my inability to keep in touch with people who are not in my direct vicinity. The statement “Out of sight, out of mind” is generally used to comfort people who are reminded of a bad experience by some trinket or item they own - getting rid of it can help them forget. In my case, “out of sight, out of mind” is more accurately a statement of how I correspond with people - or not. I know the newlyweds didn’t mean it that way (it would be the epitome of vanity to think they put that statement in their vows to make ME realize that I haven’t been a good friend), but it did strike a chord with me, and I’m going to use it to get back in touch with people who have been - and still are - important to me. So if you’re reading, newlyweds: I’d like to thank you for that.

And if you’re reading this, old and new friends: don’t be surprised to hear from me! And if I don’t contact you, you better contact me…

Fair Winds,
Andrew

posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on May 29

I haven’t done this in several months (though I did post on the first one ever - in the comments sections of the post itself), but I think it’s a good idea and a great way to reflect on what one has learned in the past month (and if you can’t say that you’ve learned at least five things in a month, no matter how trivial it seems to you, there’s something wrong with you!).

 So, in the manner laid out by the Joyful, Jubilant Learning Blog, here are my top five “learnings” for the month of May:

1. No matter where you are, no matter what you think, you have friends near you.  My wife and I were at a beautiful wedding over Memorial Day weekend in Clearwater (Dunedin), Florida.  It was the wedding of a very good friend of ours who Jill met while working in Theatre in Columbus, Ohio (and who now lives in New York City, NY, but whose family is still in Florida).  We didn’t expect to know anyone at the wedding or the reception except the bride and groom themselves (whom we expected to be rather busy, for some reason); however, once we got to the reception, we were almost immediately approached by two other couples who knew us (though we didn’t know them immediately).  It turned out that Jill had met the women while they were the bride’s roomates in college!  And at the end of the reception, one of the bridesmaids was another friend of the bride’s whom Jill had met previously!  Another of the joys of networking… in Florida, we ran into people who we knew from Columbus, Cincinnati, and Kentucky!
2. A business can survive through almost any length of “down season” if the “busy season” is busy enough!  A small shop in Clearwater, FL makes 1/2-pound cookies and homemade ice-cream - and was pretty much empty except for while we were in it (eating a chocolate-chip cookie with two scoops of vanilla ice-cream and hot-fudge on top… whoa!).  The man behind the counter said that spring break is always his best time.  Planning ahead for the rest of the year is of utmost importance!
3. Related to the above, a business can survive without a business plan or without good leadership if it’s in the right location.  If you serve alcohol and pizza, and are located on a beach where college students frolic during spring, you could leave your business i the hands of a monkey and still survive.
4. Love bug season in Florida SUCKS.  Those damn bugs were EVERYWHERE and they were ANNOYING!  Jill and I took to calling them “Fuck Bugs” for two reasons - 1) they were fucking, and 2) we were constantly saying “Fuck, bugs! Get away from me!” I buried as many as possible in the sand, alive. 
5. Business is just breaking down a large “problem” into small, actionable parts.  The “problem” is your business and the small, actionable parts are your goals and plans to reach where you want the business to go.  This is basic - but I constantly need a reminder of it.  I’m reading Robert Allen’s Multiple Streams of Internet Income, which breaks down internet business quite well.  I’ve already taken 13 pages of notes and I’m not even halfway through it.  I’ll buy a copy for myself (I’m reading a library copy) so I can highlight and underline and take notes in the margins…

Hope you enjoyed this, and I encourage you to do the same thing on your own blog… (what?  You don’t have a blog?  Leave a comment on this one or on JJL’s!)  or at least in your own head so you reap the benefit of reflecting on the month behind you!

Next post will be back to our regularly scheduled programming (the sacred six flight instruments & how they relate to business)!

Fair Winds,
Andrew