Walking in the French Quarter allows you to see, hear and get involved in all kinds of hustles. As a keynote speaker, I love to see how other people address crowds. The callers who try to get you into their clubs, the shoe shine guys who try to shine your shoes for twenty bucks and the people who tell you long stories to beg for money. Hey that’s kind of what a keynote speaker does. We tell long stories, some more interesting and valuable than others, in order to beg for you to buy a book, schedule a follow-up seminar or order our service package. The thing I admire about the street hustlers is their sense of urgency. They are one shot sellers. If they can’t separate some money from you in the first five minutes, they are out of the picture. How do you create that kind of urgency in  your business dealings without being obnoxious?

We have created a sacrifice zone in the Gulf of Mexico. We were willing to accept the risk of a huge disaster. However, since most of us are busy doing their own things day in day out, we did not give it much thought. We get up in the morning. We drive to where ever we have to go. We fly to a business speaker conference. We go home. We know that we are totally reliant on dirty, dangerous energy sources. But we get a tall mocha and go on with our day.

Now we see what happens when we create a sacrifice zone. So the question is: should we identify other sacrifice zones and accept that they may one day be destroyed, too. We need to feed our economy, our appetite for luxury and our need to travel. We can’t do that without oil.

We never thought much about wells in the Arabian Desert leaking or burning, or water sources and wildlife habitat in Nigeria being destroyed for ever by our oil businesses. But we have already sacrificed these places. Do we even know we might miss them?

Now we have sacrificed the Gulf of Mexico and maybe more.

Do we make this our policy and our practice? It is our unstated policy now, isn’t it?

I am not so interested in the little changes, like when you might decide you really do like guacamole after having avoided it for years. I am more interested in the big changes, like when you decided that the invasion of Iraq really was a stupid thing, or when you decided that acquiring more parks and open space really are good things to do for the next generations.

It sounds like Governor Crist of Florida has had one of those moments. After taking an airplane tour over the massive oil spill that is uncontrollably taking over the Gulf of Mexico and after thinking about the people who died in the explosion, he said that he had changed his mind about off shore drilling. Crist is now convinced Florida does not need it or want it. After seeing how much damage can come from an accident, he has set aside one of his party’s biggest mantras: “Drill, baby, drill!”

Now Crist might be heard saying, “No drilling near Florida!”

As a business speaker, I would find a way to use this turnaround in a speech about leadership. Sometimes you have to take the right stance, even if it is opposite of the mantra of the day.

 As a business speaker, I love to talk to people about their businesses. After the end of the Inside Self Storage World Expo, I jumped into a cab to take me to McCarran airport and home. I had been gone from home for what seemed like a very long time. The cab driver was playing a CD of music that sounded East African and had a nice beat and an endearing melody. So I struck up a conversation.

I said, “I am enjoying this song. What language are they singing in?” “Ethiopian”, he said proudly. So we chatted about music and we chatted about how busy Las Vegas seemed this week. He asked me if I had ever been to Africa or to Ethiopia. I said I had not, but that I had heard that Ethiopia was a beautiful land.

 The cab driver’s kids live in Ethiopia in a small town outside of Addis Ababa. He hasn’t been home to see them in a year. When he can go, it takes him 19 hours to fly from Las Vegas to Washington-Dulles, where he has a four hour layover before flying to Rome to connect to the flight to Ethiopia.

 Last year he was home to see his kids twice. One time a few years ago, he flew through Frankfurt on Lufthansa and saved two hours of layover time.

The can driver sends his wife $300.00 a month. That is enough to support the cab driver’s wife, the cab driver’s two kids and his brother’s family. They don’t live in style, but they manage to get by. There is little work in Ethiopia and even less cash. So a few American Dollars become significant.

The cab driver used to live in California, but the cost of living was too high. In California he had to drive a cab 16 hours a day, six days a week in order to be able to send home $300.00 a month. In Las Vegas, he can make more money, spend less money and save a little money driving 12 hours a day, six days a week.

He lives in a cheap apartment he shares with three other cab drivers who send money home to their families every month in Ethiopia, Somalia and Iraq.

He is saving money to bring his family over to the U.S. He just finished getting his US citizenship. It took him three years and about $2,000 to make it happen. There are no opportunities for his children in Ethiopia. His oldest child is a ten year old boy. At 14, the army will come and take him away. He doesn’t have a lot of time to get his children out.

He hopes his kids will get a good education in the US. He hopes they will not fall in with a bad crowd of kids when they get here. He hopes the corruption and inconsistencies in the Ethiopian system won’t prevent him from getting his family here before his boy is conscripted. In the US he can have some hopes for the future.

As we pulled up to the curb at the American Airlines door, I told him I would complain less about being gone from my kids when I travel for work. I wished him luck. And I wished his kids luck, too.

I am here to promote the PhoneSmart business, act as a business speaker for a round table session and a presentation to regional managers on sales training initiatives. I hope to spend some time with current clients and some future clients. It all kicks off early Monday.

At home shows, you hear the cooking demo people and the tool demo people doing their pitches. Some of their pitches are long and involved. I realize their goal was different then ours. They are trying to make sales and collect revenue at the show.

But our script was simple: “here you are”, “Here is something you can probably use”,  “Did you get one yet?”  were our phrases.

Then we had to perfect the physical business. We learned to extend the arm all the way to the person passing by. We learned to leave our hand with the card out in front of the person until the card was accepted. You can’t get much simpler than that. We also handed out about 1,500 offers. We had a good day.

International Medical Relief

I know we are not all able to lend a hand personally. I am scheduled to give a talk as a business speaker in the next couple of weeks. Like the vast majority of people, I will continue with my normal routines. Thankfully for the people of Haiti, there are lots of people who are able to go in person to help.

Take a Hawaiian approach.

I returned several months ago from the PhoneSmart Hawaiian un-conference, which was an excellent event. We got wonderful feedback from the attendees and sponsors. I had a chance to act as a business speaker and MC the event. People thought the format and the discussions were very valuable. The location was awesome and soul-feeding. And we had a chance to learn just a little bit about Hawaiian culture. Some people tease me and call me “Mr. History”, because I love learning about the origins and the development of places and people. I won’t bore you with all the fascinating things I learned about the first Hawaii settlers, but I will share a few things that should help you in your business and in your life.

Beauty is not an option. Everywhere you turn in Hawaii there are beautiful flowers and beautiful landscapes and beautiful views. This affects every aspect of daily life. Keep this in mind for your business. Redecorate your office. Plant more flowers in front of your store. Wear colorful shirts. Take time to watch the sunset. If you follow this piece of advice, your customers will want to do business with you, because they appreciate a nod to beauty as well, even if they don’t know they do. You’ll also like coming to work better than you used to …and that will show, too.

Courage comes standard. The first settlers in Hawaii traveled 1,700 miles across the ocean in big double-hulled canoes. Then they settled on an island that was mostly lava rock. Do you have that kind of courage? I am not sure you need that much, but you do need a certain amount of courage to face today’s business environment without doing something short-sighted or stupid. You need courage to ask every one of your prospects to do business with you. And you need courage to continue to do your periodic price increases.

Adapt while remaining true to yourself. The pace and intensity of change that occurred in the Hawaiian islands since the first European ship anchored off the Kona coast during the time of the American Revolution has been relentless. Yet the Hawaiian people have adapted very well, while maintaining many of the core values that make them Hawaiian.

How are you and your business adapting to the changing world around you? Are you remaining true to yourself?