Wizard of Ads Clay Campbell

Do you have enough margin in your life?

I copied this below from Rick Warren’s daily devotional email.  It’s always a good read, and helps me keep perspective in my life. Even if you have read it before; I recommend you read it again. It is one of the reasons Americans have so many heart attacks. It’s another reason for a 50% divorce rate.

It is also another reason why consumers are oblivious to the unending, constant barrage, of advertising they are subjected to.

“A lot of people are on overload and headed for a crash. Consider these statistics among U.S. citizens:

• People now sleep 2 1/2 fewer hours each night compared to people from one hundred years ago.

• The average work week is longer now than it was in the 1960s.

• The average office worker has 36 hours of work piled up on his or her desk. It takes three hours a week just to sort through it and find what we need.

• We spend eight months of our lives opening junk mail, two years of our lives playing phone tag with people who are too busy to answer, and five years waiting for people who are trying to do too much and are late for meetings.

We're a piled-on, stretched-to-the limit society; chronically rushed, chronically late, chronically exhausted. Many of us feel like Job did when he said, "I have no peace! I have no quiet! I have no rest! And trouble keeps coming" (Job 3:26 GWT).

Overload comes when we have too much activity in our lives, too much change, too many choices, too much work, too much debt, too much media exposure.

Dr. Richard Swenson says, "The conditions of modern day living devour margin. If you're homeless we direct you to a shelter. If you're penniless we offer you food stamps. If you're breathless we connect you to oxygen. But if you're marginless we give you one more thing to do. Marginless is being thirty minutes late to the doctor's office because you were twenty minutes late getting out of the hairdresser because you were ten minutes late dropping the children off at school because the car ran out of gas two blocks from a gas station and you forgot your purse. That's marginless."

You need margin in your life. When you're not hurrying and worrying all the time, you have time to think. Time to relax. Time to enjoy life. Time to be still and know that God is God (Psalm 46:10).
by Rick Warren

I am putting some margin in my life right now. I am making reservations at a nice hotel and kidnapping my bride of 30 years for a 3 day get away. What about you? Are you just going to say, “Well that’s a nice idea” or are you going to do something about it?

13 Golden Rules to help you grow in a poor economy

"The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it."

-- Jean Paul

I have been thinking this morning, about a speech I am giving today to a packed house of business owners. They are gathered to hear me speak about how they can get big results from their small ad budget by doing certain things and avoiding others.

I am speaking to Chamber of Commerce in Murray Kentucky. I am going to show them many ways  to grow a business even in a poor economy such as we are in now. And I will offer several case studies. But nothing I can say is more relevant than Ole Norman Lambert's 13 Golden Rules of doing business. The sign out front says the restaurant is “The Only Home of Throwed Rolls.”

This is a portion of a chapter in an upcoming book with the working title: Marketing 101 Rich Ideas to Help Your Business in a Poor Economy.

Here are the 13 Golden Rules from Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston Missouri.

1.    As the Bible says, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
2.    "Always offer our guest at least one service they can't receive anywhere else."
3.    "You, our guest, are very important, you are the reason we are here! THANK YOU!"
4.    "We need you, our guest, much more than we need ourselves."
5.    "You, our guest, are always right."
6.    "It's our job to take care of you, if we don't someone else will."
7.    "If we make a mistake, we will correct it immediately!"
8.    "Our simple but powerful rule: Always give you, our guest, more than you expect to get."
9.    "You are our guest; guests in our home, not clients or customers, but guests."
10.    "Good enough for some is not good enough for us."
11.    "The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary, is: give that little extra."
12.    "Quality rather than quantity matters, we offer BOTH."
13.    "We do simple things, but in exceptional ways!"

I challenge you to implement these in your business. We have adopted these 13 as our own, as well as a few more ideas besides. As a result, ( business owners are always wanting to see the results)  in an industry that is down 25% our tourism attraction in Kentucky is up about 20% over last year.

Do you have the discipline to succeed?

A friend of mine said to me in an email:

 

 “Clay… have you got any tips for me, on how to be diligent enough to finish a book? I’ve started, but have allowed myself to get sidetracked for long periods of time.” 

 

I wrote this response and thought it worthy enough to pass on to everyone:

 

“I don’t know if it will work for you; but here’s what I know to be true and what I have found out personally.

 

·         If a person can just have the discipline to develop a habit of eating an apple each day, they can do anything!!  (I try to eat an apple every day some days I miss but almost every day!)

·         If you determine that come hell or high water, you will eat the apple each day, then you would have the discipline to eat healthy that day. (I eat healthy every day.  I am 5ft 9in tall and weigh 170 lbs and have 33 inch waist and I take no medications of any kind; at 58 that’s pretty good results from that good habit I started 30 years ago)

·         If you can eat healthy and make it a habit then you could/would have the fortitude to add another habit (or discipline) to that first one. I added saving money. If you can eat an apple a day, you can make yourself save 10% of your income. (We save 10% every month. That’s where the money came from to start the Kentucky Opry; this month is our 21^st anniversary.)

·         If you can eat the apple, and save 10%, you can add another discipline. I added a daily morning devotion.  (I have been doing the morning prayer-time, and Bible reading for several years now…and it has changed my life.)

·         I you can make yourself eat the apple, save the 10%, and do your daily devotion, then you can add another discipline; I added exercise. (I try to exercise 3-4 days per week about 20-30 minutes at a time. I use an Ab Lounge 2, an Ab Doer Pro model,  A Nordic Track Ski Machine,  a Nordic Elliptical, and also 10 lb weights)

·         If you eat the apple, save 10%, do a daily devotion and exercise, then that would give you the confidence to add another discipline, I added writing. After going to my first writing class at the Wizard Academy 7 years ago, I read the book Bird by Bird. It’s all about the discipline of daily writing.

·         Next I had a story. I had a story I really wanted to tell. The story of my extreme poverty as a child and how I overcome the odds to become almost famous. And how I used to be sinner and God changed my life. The story of me hitch hiking from Missouri to California when I was just 16.  The story of a bankruptcy and two divorces and on and on…

 

Now here is my point: one good discipline leads to another, and also…one lack of discipline leads to another.

Now, I just wrote to you about 480 words (not counting these added words) and if you would just write 480 words each day, for 45-50 days,  you will have your book!!  It all starts with an apple a day. You can do it! I’ve never seen a determined woman that could not get done what she disciplined herself to do. You can do it. (I will help you through if you want”   

 

Clay Campbell

Benton Kentucky

270-703-2700