A Big Lesson

The other night Pat O’Bryan picked me up for a play day in San Antonio. We both needed a break from our work and we both longed for a short trip to one of our favorite cities.

Our first stop was Hovey Motor Cars, where I found Francine last year, and where we quickly relearned a marketing lesson.

We didn’t stop because I wanted to attract a new car, but because Pat was curious.

Hovey had another Panoz exotic sports car on their lot. Pat knows how much I love Francine, my 2005 Panoz Esperante GTLM, so he wanted to try a Panoz on for size.

He climbed into Amanda (all Panoz cars are given names upon birth) and quickly discovered that his 6’3″ frame didn’t fit in it — at least not if he wanted to put the convertible top up. Just take a look…

   Pat and I agreed that there needs to be a sports car for the big and tall man.

After all, there are big and tall men clothing stores, so why not big and tall men sports cars?

This is how you spot money-making ideas.

This is what Donny Deutsch www.cnbc.com/id/15838512/ is always trying to tell you on his fantastic CNBC television show, The Big Idea (which you should watch religiously).

This is also what my coaches teach people in the Joe Vitale Executive Mentoring Program.

Whenever you experience something negative and say, “I wish they would fix that” or “I wish someone would do something about that”, you are announcing the discovery of a money-making opportunity.

As Donny would say, “You could make millions!” 

Pat and I aren’t interested in building sports cars for big guys, but I think someone should. In fact, I’ll be telling the Panoz family about this. Maybe they can do something about it.

The lesson for you is to be alert to those times when you wish things would change.

Change them and you just might get rich.

That’s how I came up with the idea for Fit-a-Rita.

I was in a fitness contest and wanted a healthy margarita, as the usual ones are loaded with sugar and add up to 200 to 600 calories each.

My complaint/observation that I needed a healthy margarita mix led to the creation of Fit-a-Rita, the world’s first zero sugar, zero carbs, only six calories a serving healthy margarita.

And right now Willie Nelson is trying one, as I sent him a few packets via a mutual friend.

Opportunities are everywhere.

Stay alert.

Seize the moment.

As I told Pat last night over margaritas at Mi Tierra in San Antonio, the secret to success is to use your ears and do what you fear and get off your rear.

He said it sounded like the beginning of a song.

Where’s that new guitar of mine, anyway?

Ao Akua,

Joe
www.mrfire.com

PS – In the top picture Pat is wondering how to smoke the three-layered cigar I gave him. It’s a hand-made Culebra Especial.  The unusual shape of this 3-in-1 cigar was invented in the early 1800s. Cigar rollers were given the tri-bundled cigar at the beginning of their shift, to savor throughout the day. Some unrolled the Culebra (which means “snake”) to smoke each cigar separately; others smoked all three at the same time. Not knowing the “correct” way to smoke the Culebra, Pat smoked his all at once. He said, “It makes me giggle.” I guess he prefers big man cigars, too.