Haircut Wisdom

by:  Pat O'Bryan
 

It's amazing what you can learn if you listen.

I was getting a haircut last week, and the woman who cuts my hair and I were discussing the joys of raising multiple teenagers.  This led, inevitably, to a discussion of stress-reduction techniques.

She looked at me in the mirror and snipped the air with her scissors.

"These are my toys," she said.  "Cutting hair is my game."

And she meant it.  She was smiling.  Here was a person who had found her calling in life.  There's not an internet marketer, bank president, coke dealer, or politician who is happier than this woman.   That makes her one of the most successful people I know.

I've been working on the "Law of Success Workbook," lately, which has required that I re-read Napoleon Hill's masterpiece. 

Napoleon had an opinion about work.  He said, "Work which one does merely for the sake of earning a living is seldom liked.  More often it is disliked, or even hated.

When engaged in work which he loves, a person may labor for an unbelievably long period of hours without becoming fatigued.   Work that one dislikes or hates brings on fatigue very quickly."

Well, here it was almost five o'clock, and this woman had been cutting hair all day.  She had spent the last hour removing dread-locks from my son's hair, while leaving him enough hair to escape social embarrassment.  A hard and detail-heavy job performed with compassion.  I was fatigued just watching her work!   And this woman was making jokes and directing her personal orchestra with her scissors... because they were her TOYS and she was playing a GAME!

She made getting a haircut fun because she was having fun.  She turned the boring necessity of getting a haircut into an entertainment experience.  She also charged top dollar and got a large tip.  I suspect she gets large tips from most of her customers, and that most of her customers are repeat customers.  I know I'll be back.

The whole experience made me examine my life and my world... one of the things I like about internet marketing is that it's a game.  There are strategies to imagine and experiment with.  There are rewards for playing the game well.  There are penalties for playing the game poorly.

I really like the instant gratification aspects of internet marketing.  I can come up with a product idea over my morning coffee, spend the day creating the sales page and uploading it, alert my affiliates in the afternoon, and watch the sales come in while I'm drinking my morning coffee the next day.  Twenty-four hours from initial inspiration to actual income.  That's fun!

It also provides the income that pays for my toys. 

I'm paying attention to the aspects of my day that are not fun, and coming up with creative solutions for making them go away, and paying attention to the parts of my day that are fun, and concentrating on extending and increasing those.  It's my experience that the more fun I'm having, the more money I'm making.  I'll leave it to the psychologists and economists to explain the science behind that, but I know it works for me.

How about you?  What parts of your day are just absolutely delightful?  What parts do you dread?What can you do to increase the delight and eliminate the dread?

What games can you play with your toys?

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Pat O'Bryan is the CEO of Practical Metaphysics, Inc
He can be reached at pat@patobryan.com, www.patobryan.com

This article may be reprinted in its entirety, including contact information, freely.