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Dear Friend,
Just returned from twelve days in Taos, NM, and finally
enjoying some spring weather here in Minnesota.
When I returned from out of town, among the first phone
calls I received were from a couple of kiosk owners... who
were thinking of opening a kiosk.
The main topic of the conversation was their nervousness
about starting a kiosk with the US economy struggling as
it's been. They both were kind of stuck, not sure whether to move
forward.
It's this feeling I wanted to address today. You may be
feeling the same way...
I know I felt similar when I was planning on opening a
cart for Valentine's Day this February.
***
I'd been planning for a number of months to open a
cart here in Minneapolis for Valentine's Day.
But when the time came when to make arrangements for
the space, I found myself wavering... putting it off...
thinking maybe I should hold off this year...
Not like 'me' at all.
***
Recently I've been trying to notice when I have feelings
I'm not deliberately creating... so I can decide... do I really
want to feel this way... or do I want to create something else?
I wasn't deliberately trying to create wavering, or
putting things off...
When I looked at what was really happening for me,
what I noticed was a bit of fear...
Fear... about how the kiosk might do in the current economy...
Fear... about going into a mall I'd never been in...
Fear... about picking the right space in the mall...
Have you ever felt this way?
***
When I really looked at these fears, they seemed more
irrational than anything else....
The feedback I've been getting from operators on my list
is that sales have been greater than expected....
The mall I was thinking of going into is generally considered
one of the best malls in the Twin Cities...
And the space I was looking at was the one that all my
experience told me would be perfect....
***
Even though I intellectually understood that my fear was
irrational... there I was... stuck in it... Until I remembered a scene from one of my favorite movies,"Braveheart"... one I'd just seen again over the holidays...
***
You can catch scene on You Tube if you haven't
seen the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLrrBs8JBQo
(The clip is only about two and half minutes long.)
***
In the scene, Scottish nobles gather with their men before
a big battle with England...
The English arrive before the battle with a force so large
that the Scottish army..... workers on the nobles lands....
begin to leave...
**
What they see is the only the idea of fighting for the nobles
lands... against an opponent that seems overwhelming...
That's when William Wallace, hero of the movie, and his
group arrive on horseback...
***
William: "If this is your army, why does it go?" [to the nobles]
Veteran soldier: "We didn't come here to fight for them."
Young soldier: "Home. The English are too many."
***
William: "Sons of Scotland, I am William Wallace."
Young soldier: "William Wallace is 7 feet tall."
William: "Yes, I've heard. He kills men by the hundreds...
and if HE were here he'd consume the English with fireballs
from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse."
"I AM William Wallace. And I see a whole army of my countrymen
here in defiance of tyranny. You have come to fight as free
men, and free men you are."
"What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight?"
***
Veteran soldier: "Fight... against that? No, we will run. And
we will live."
William: "Aye. Fight and you may die. Run and you'll live. At
least a while."
"And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be
willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one
chance... just one chance to come back here and tell our
enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take
our freedom?!"
***
As I lay in bed one morning in January... deciding what I was going to do... I remembered that scene from Braveheart... and
thought to myself...
Many years from now... dying in my bed... which would I choose?
To live my life based upon my fears?
Or to live my life deliberately... AS I choose?
***
From that perspective... my choice was easy...
I opened up my cart for Valentine's Day.
And did better in nine days this year... than I did last
year in sixteen!
***
We have a choice with EACH moment how we want to
live... not just in the dramatic moments of a movie...
Each moment of ours has the potential to be just as dramatic
in the impact it can have on our lives...
And we don't have to wait many years from now... until
we are dying in our bed to decide...
***
What will I do with my moment now?
And now.. and now... and now....
***
What will YOU do with YOUR moment now? :-)
***
Best,
Brady Flower
612-605-1115
P.S. For more tips on starting and operating a mall kiosk,
register here: http://www.kioskexpert.com
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