The Very First Thing I Should Have Done

I sat there and watched as my wife's wildly successful business venture: Mini Munchkins took off like a rocket. I was there to move things, take money and mainly see how it is done. It didn't take long before I decided that I had to do something similar. We attended a lot of special outdoor events and I saw all of the long lines at the food vendors and thought, man, I could make a killing doing that and I already know all about these outdoor events, so what could possibly go wrong?
The VERY first thing I should have done is figure out how much money I could make in a single day if I worked as hard as I could and sold as much as it was possible to sell, and decide if that was worth the work. Too late I realized that if I sold a bag of donuts and a cup of coffee to a person every minute of the 12 hour day and then paid the bills and split the money with my partner....let's just say it wasn't ever going to be worth it.
Real world: People don't drink coffee and eat donuts all day long, and sometimes it rains and you don't get refunds from the shows for rain-outs.
It was worth it though, because I now look at things that look wildly successful in a whole different way....

Game Changed By A Surfer Dude

It is interesting how our life is cross-pollinated by events at work, home and play. Many times through the years, I've had lessons in being adaptable and when you spend your career in the IT industry, you'd best be ready for anything that comes along. As far back as I can remember, we were being told that we would eventually be replaced by some kind of automation, most specifically, software that would "write itself!" or software that "doesn't require a programmer!!" ...and yet, we still managed to find work. Even knowing that, it was pretty easy to see that you had better be ready to learn the next great piece of software that came along in order to still be useful. In fact, you can see that I now do Tableau work as opposed to being a Novell Admin..which was supposed to be the big deal, once upon a time. So, I'm pretty good at staying loose and thinking outside that box...but every once in a while I still get my mind blown by someone that shows me that I have created my own limitations.
Paddlesurfing is an old sport that is coming back. It is great for me. I have great boards, and my years of surfing played a big part in me getting to where I am now. One of the downsides of the sport is that most Stand Up Paddleboarders own giant boards that do not surf well. There are special boards for surfing, but they are difficult to stand on, and even with my years of experience, I found myself challenged with a new board that surfed great, but I could barely keep my balance in the semi-choppy waters that we usually have. In fact, I spent more time falling in the water than surfing. I went to the local surfshop in search of the fins that I might find that could help solve the problem. I explained at length to the young owner of the little shop, telling him everything was great except that I had trouble staying up on the board between waves...maybe I need some really big fins? Do I need 4 fins? Do I need 1 really big fin? I could not see a clear solution.
His reply was "Who said you need to stand up between the waves? I think it is silly that stand up paddlers think they have to stand up all the time. We surfers are just sitting there waiting for the next set." He was right, I just sat down between sets and life was better right away....it was so simple, but I couldn't see it because they call it "Stand Up" paddleboarding....