What I learned From Ripping a Phone Book in Half

Not Me! LOL

I don’t know, maybe it’s just the way my mind works but for some reason I am able to find marketing knowledge in just about everything I do, ripping a phone book in half with my bare hands was no different.

I’ve been trying it for years. Every 6 month or so I would pick up a phone book and after much heaving, ripping and twisting I’d having nothing to show for it except sore fingers and a bruised ego. Yesterday was no different, I picked up the Portland Oregon Metro Area Yellow Pages with the intention of ripping it in half but it just wasn’t happening.

I’m a big guy, I’ve always been strong (and Stubborn, my wife would say) and thought that I had enough strength to get it done, after all I’ve seen it done many times on TV. Were these “strong” men really that much stronger than me? After about 20 minutes of trying I put the phone book down, looking worse for the ware but still very much in one piece.

What was I doing wrong? Why couldn’t I rip the phone book in half, was I just not strong enough? That’s when Einsteins definition of insanity popped into my head, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

So many times that’s how we run our businesses, online and off. We continue doing the same thing day in and day out expecting our revenue to sky rocket. “Today is the day!” We will tell ourselves, “That billboard/newspaper ad/PPC campaign is going to pay off!” Only to find that, yet again, our sales stay stagnant.

So what did I do different to finally rip that phone book in half? Easy, I quit relying on my strength so much and used my mind. No, I’m not some Jedi warrior! But I did think about it. I thought about my grip, I thought about the actual twisting motion I made while ripping. You see, the biggest issue with trying to rip a phone book in half is the number of pages it has. Of course its not too difficult to rip one page, two pages, or even 20 or 30 but when you try to rip a few thousand it becomes almost impossible.

I thought, what if I could rip 20 or so pages at a time, while ripping the whole phone book at once. That may be difficult to follow but I had a phone book in my hand at the time and if I folded it into a “V” at the top I could see that there was space between the pages. The problem then was the grip, how could I keep the space between the pages while ripping the book in half?

I found that if I put my thumbs on either side of the bend and pulled apart, instead of trying to rip, it came apart rather easy. I was pumped! My heart began to pound and with a grunt I pulled the book apart, tore off my shirt and pounded on my chest, “I am Man!!” I bellowed.

Okay, Okay, that last part didn’t happen but I felt so good! I conquered because I stopped relying on what wasn’t working and that was brute strength. I implore you to do the same thing with your business. Stop whatever it is you are doing right now and think.

When it came to ripping the phone book I asked myself what I would do differently if I didn’t have the strength to do it (which I didn’t) and I started thinking around the problem. I succeeded because I thought differently and because of it I conquered.

What problems are you having in your business? What if you take away everything you are doing now, take away everything that is out of your control and put it out of mind, along with all negative thoughts and just think about solutions. Don’t focus on the problem of falling profits, slow economy or shrinking market just think solutions, what can you come up with?

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