CompassCast™

No doubt you're familiar with Black Friday. And most of us have now heard of Cyber Monday and now Black Thursday, Small Business Saturday, and this year Giving Tuesday. It seems everyone wants to get in on the act.

Not one to disappoint, I am getting in on the act this year too and I need your help.

Our mission: Decipher December.

Here's the back story:

Today I went into a Super-Walmart to purchase some cleaning supplies, paint, motor oil and some food. I waited in line for what seemed like forever and finally it was my turn. I watched as the cashier mindlessly scanned in all my items; robotically listening beep-beep-beep. He turned to me and said, "Fifty six dollars and sixty five cents.”  I opened up my wallet and pulled out three twenties.  He looked at me and asked, "Out of sixty?” 

I politely replied, “We’ll see.  Just wait.”  And proceeded to look / dig into my pocket.  I produced three quarters and while doing so could see out of the corner of my eye a look of fear descend upon his brow. 

Then I produced a one dollar bill.   He looked at me in complete confusion.

"Not out of sixty?” he asked.   

“No," I replied.  And before he could figure out the amount that I had handed him and type it into the register, I interjected, “Can you tell my how much you are going to give me back before you type it in?!”

He looked at me startled for a second, then looked at the other people in line, then paused and meekly asked, “Ten dollars and ten cents?” 

“No,” I said.  “Five dollars and ten cents.”  He gave me an evil eye and with a hope for vindication on his face he typed 61.75 into the cash register. "Huhm,” he said as he gave me my change. 

Some man in the back of line yelled, “It ‘aint like the old days!”   

“No it’s not,” I shouted back.

“What is going on in our country?” I pondered as I walked to my car.  “How can we ever hope to get our country on solid financial footing if people can’t even make change without a machine?”

Then I thought of it.

And this is where you come in.

Decipher December.

All YOU have to do is do one thing:

Whenever you buy anything during the month of December – as you hand the person at the cash register your money, simply say, “Tell me the change before you enter it in and let’s see if we’re right.”  Of course that means you need to figure out the change too so you can confirm or deny their answer before they type the numbers in.

Now I am sure you are thinking, “OK, will do, but only if there’s not a line.”

Nope.  Do it even if there is a long line.  It’s good practice (and entertainment) for everybody to dust off that part of their brain and do some thinking while they are waiting.

There are many ways you can interpret this blog post.  It is both a story of tenacity, unwillingness to fail and ingenuity.  It is also a story of duplicity.  However you slice it, it is a story of assumptions and how we think and perceive the world around us.

Background

Along the streets of the French Quarter  you see many New Orleans street performers singing, dancing and not moving.  I am most impressed by these people who don't move a muscle, performing as human statues for hours at a time (probably because having  done multiple vipassana courses and gone through 3 sittings each day of Adhitthāna, or "Strong Determination" starting on Day 4 where you site for an hour without changing your posture -- I know how hard this is)..

The Bearded Silver Man

So it is no surprise that I noticed the bearded silver man who was sitting outside Sacks Fifth Avenue on Canal Street one morning.  The next evening while walking down Bourbon Street, I came across the bearded silver man once again, sitting in the middle of the street in the same position -- upgraded with a phallic balloon for the risqué Bourbon Street.  He seemed to be garnering wuite the tips from passers by.

The Truth

A few hours later while walking back to our timeshare I discovered the truth.  This bearded silver man was no man at all but a manikin.  It's owner would prop it on a bike and take it from site to site, posing it and putting a bucket labeled "tips" behind it.
I spoke with the manikin's owner before he rode off and he told me that he has been carting the manikin around for quite some time since he lost his job.  He said, "I make thirty to fifty thousand dollars a year -- all tax free."

What does this have to do with Business Coaching / Life Coaching?

Lots.  First there is a piece about  not taking unemployment lying down.  This guy and his manikin concept reflects definitely out-of-the-box thinking.  No marketing costs, no advertising, no employees, no MLMs, no credit card processing fees.  Just move the manikin every few hours and collect the money.
Second there is a piece about how we perceive and interact with the world around us.  The manikin routine is dependent on two factors:  people have to believe it is really a person sitting there.  Because of the street performers in New Orleans, it is easy to believe it is a person sitting there.  Then the more you start to think, "No way can this really be a person sitting there so still for so long," the more you are likely to either reward the manikin or go up and touch it to see if it is a real person.  But how likely are you to do the latter?