The Desert of Arizona
Partly Cloudy 73 Degrees 5:22 a.m.
I forget where I first heard this story, but it was about ham so it caught my attention 🙂
One day, as a family was preparing for a holiday dinner, they were getting the ham ready to put in the oven. The woman of the house cut the ends off the ham and placed it into the plan.
The man said, “Why do you do that? Isn’t that good meat you just got rid of?”
She replied, “That’s how you make ham, honey…”
“Really?” he said. “Why?”
“Well, I don’t know,” she wondered. “But I’ll find out.”
So she picked up the phone and called her mom.
She asked about the preparation of ham and her mother said, “Well that’s how you make ham, my dear.”
“Really?” she said. “Why?”
Her mother wasn’t sure. But she could find out. So she called HER mother and asked the very same thing.
“Why do you have to cut the ends off a ham to cook it right?” she asked.
“Cook it right?” said the old woman. “Oh goodness, the reason we cut the ends off of the ham was because the pan we had to cook it in was always too small.”
If there’s one surefire way to stick out in your marketplace, take a moment, make a list of how everyone “does” things in your industry, and then figure out how to do them differently and better.
You get paid AFTER you work? Really? McDonalds won’t even accept that. You don’t pay after you eat the burger, you pay before.
What you’re looking for are items that, when you think about them, your mind chatter instantly goes, “That’s how it’s done. I can’t do it differently.” Those are your opportunities.”
There’s no reason to be a slave to convention unless YOU choose to be. Just don’t be surprised when your results are far less than amazing.
If you want examples of how to do this, I offer them every month. New people, new stories of Incomparable Experts throwing convention to the wolves. When you see others doing it, you start to think, “there’s no reason I can’t do this too.” Bingo.
Chances are, the majority of what you’re doing in your marketplace was put forth by someone else, not nearly as talented, who was simply doing their best.
Does that mean it should serve to limit your best? Nope.
As Steve Jobs said, “Everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you.”