About four years ago I wrote a book about a man who leaves an unfulfilling office job and opens a bakery. He learns several lessons about baking bread and living life in the process of going from corporate employee to local craftsman. At the time I was stuck in my own form of “cubicle limbo.” I suppose you could say the book was either wishful thinking or an attempt to give myself some much needed advice.

Not long after I finished the book, things started unraveling at my place of employment.  The company was going out of business and I was going into an uncertain job market. Following the actions of my own lead character, I decided I was not going back to the corporate world. Instead I would finally heed one of my own ideas and open a bait and tackle shop in my hometown of Riverside, New Jersey.

Riverside sits on a triangle of land wedged between a curve of the Delaware River and the Rancocas Creek. The town is also ringed by a menagerie of small lakes and ponds, each offering it’s own challenges and rewards. Within a few miles anglers can find a variety of bass, perch, catfish, stripers and some of the biggest panfish around. NJ Fish and Wildlife adds the icing on our sportsman’s cake with a generous crop of trout in the spring and fall.

And yet Riverside had gone without a bait and tackle shop for several years. How could I go back to a corporate office park when my own hometown was without shiners, poppers and spinners? I’ve always liked fishing and boating, just like my main character enjoyed cooking and baking. One of the main differences is that bakers get to bake every day, while tackle shop owners rarely get to fish. I can live with that commitment, though.

As I see it, I have a 1200 square foot tackle box. I love learning more about everything in it and sharing that knowledge with other people. I’m much happier than I ever was as a corporate employee and my doctor says I’m also a lot healthier. And like my main character, I’ve discovered a meaningful way to interact with people every day. Great things can happen when you just take a page out of your own book.

Because of our creative nature as humans it’s not hard to make up a story. However, it is hard to make up a story for a specific purpose. It’s even harder to make up a story for a specific purpose and have it sound natural and spontaneous. That’s why it’s so important to collect stories as you hear or experience them. Don’t limit yourself to stories that happen to you or people around you. If a story sounds interesting, take steps to retain it. Don’t worry about the source or medium. We tend to avoid use of books, movies and television shows in many settings (especially business) but all of these sources are part of our shared culture.

Start keeping a story journal. Use it to write your own stories or record other people’s stories. A journal doesn’t need to be formal. A simple notebook or computer file works fine. Scrapbooking is another popular form of journaling. It also doesn’t matter how you record the stories. You may only need a few notes or an outline to remember a story. Or you may prefer to write out a full transcript of the story. (You can also keep audio or video recordings of stories. One of the advantages of the computer is the ability to keep lots of different media types in a common file structure).

For each story you record in your journal, include the following elements:

•    Theme
•    Source
•    Format
•    Style
•    Structure
•    Keywords

Use the keywords as a way to leave yourself hints for future times to use the story. For example, the keywords for “Tan’s Tile” may include: creative thought, family interaction, shape patterns, and Chinese culture.

If anyone has any specific questions about storytelling or using stories in sales or training, please post them.

“You don’t need to put in the eighty-nine octane,” Albert’s credit card announced as he placed it back in his pocket.

“It makes the engine run smoother,” Albert replied as he began to pump fuel into the car.

“There’s nothing to prove that,” replied the credit card.  Albert turned toward the gas pump, waiting to see if it would say anything.  The pump continued to count off the gallons and price on its cold, digital screen.  Albert felt obligated to respond in its place.

“I read it in an article once.”

“Where?  Exxon magazine?”

“Do you always have to be so critical?” Albert asked.

“Not necessarily.  It’s just more fun.  And I’m just trying to save you a few bucks.”

“I don’t need to save a few bucks.  I’m doing fine.”

“You know what they say about a rainy day…”

“No,” replied Albert.  “What do they say?”

“They say…” the credit card paused for a moment.  “Well they say a lot of things…all bad about rainy days.  I read it in a magazine.”

“I thought so,” said Albert.  He finished pumping and got back into the car.

“Good for you, Albert.  I am a precision automobile featuring centuries of German engineering.  A little higher octane can’t hurt my performance”

A smile briefly crossed Albert’s face before he asked: “But it doesn’t help.”

“Niene.  That is German for “no.”

“Yes.  I read that in a magazine once.”

Retracing Old Steps: the 1860s and the 1990s

In 1860, travel between NYC and Sacramento took six months. Explorers could either hoof it across the landscape like Lewis and Clark, or they could take to the seas. Because the Panama Canal did not yet exist, an ocean voyage meant sailing clear around the tip of South America and back up to California. In 1869, the transcontinental railroad was completed, and immediately reduced the travel time between New York City and Sacramento, California from six months to five days. Accompanying this transportation innovation was the telegraph line, which provided nearly instant communication between parties anywhere in the country.

Before the transcontinental railroad opened for business, each region of the United States operated its own self-sustaining economy. The advent of the railroad allowed the South to sell its cotton to the Northeast, and purchase textiles in return. America began to form a national economy rather than a series of regional ones. The same phenomenon took place on a global scale when the Internet connected retailers and consumers on opposite sides of the globe – the first of four parallels between the railroad economy and the Internet economy.

The second parallel concerns time. Today, we live on Web time, which is urgent, hectic, and thrilling. In the 1860s, Americans referred to a development called “track time.” Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars were lost each year that the railroad was not complete. The frantic race to completion was encouraged by the U.S. government, which paid train companies for each mile of track laid. In fact, the government pitted companies against each other, prompting Southern Pacific to feverishly lay track from west to east while Union Pacific laid track east to west. Once the track was laid in a town, the first train literally followed the same day. Similarly, once an e-commerce server is online today, the first orders come streaming in within hours. Well, at least they used to…

Larger-than-life leaders dominated both eras as well. Just as the Internet age evokes images of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, people defined the era of the transcontinental railroad. General TK Dodge was the main railroad engineer during the Civil War. He built the Union Pacific. Doc TK Durant was the one of the principal business leaders behind the railroad, and a notoriously shady character.

And TK Huntington brought together the original financiers. These men became poster boys and scapegoats for the railroad enterprise. Just as Bill Gates was vilified during the Microsoft anti-trust case, these leaders took the heat for problems – and there were many – related to railroad construction and operation.

Finally, the fourth shared characteristic is government funding. The railroad was a physical entity made of steel and wood. The Internet is virtual. But both projects were originally funded by the United States government. The railroad was funded more obviously, with its per-mile payments. Though its mentioned today, the Internet was also first funded by the government, which intended to use it in the military and in universities.

The More Things Change: Economic Similarities

Evolving Adaptability

In the same way that the Net concentrates on evolving adaptability, the builders of the railroad adjusted quickly and efficiently to the immediate environment. When it proved too expensive to transport the strong wood of the east to the west for construction via ship, the workers in the west took laid down temporary tracks with poorer quality wood so that they could transport the new wood by train. They built temporary tracks on ice so that they could bring in new materials, then remove those tracks before the spring thaw. They also scrapped complete lines when a town offered a financial bonus for running tracks run through it.

Wild Speculation

At first, the railroads could not sell a share of stock. Once word got out about the advances possible with a transcontinental line, shares sold like wildfire. Five years ago, it would have been tough to convince a venture capitalists to fun a cheese-selling operation online. Then, in 1998, every angel investor, VC, and shareholder wanted a piece of the dotcom action. You want to devoted a site to mozzarella? Great. Here’s $50 million.

Finance Structuring

Railroad and Internet deals were structured similarly. Railroad financiers were silent partners in companies paid to build the railroad. No part of their financial success was tied to the eventual success or failure of railroad transportation. An IPO is no different when you think about it. E-commerce companies did not need to provide profits margins during the heyday of VC-funded dotcoms — they only had to show potential growth. Fortunes were made when companies went public, not when their services turned a profit.

The Aftermath

Just as profit-starved dotcom companies are facing extinction today, many railroad lines have faced bankruptcy in the last century, particularly those that made basic business mistakes. However, some railroad lines have survived the general decline of rail travel in America. They learned to stick it out longer than rivals, just as hearty dotcoms like Amazon are fighting their way toward profitability.

The Morals of the Story

There will always be some invention that is “like nothing else.” Although it’s interactive on a mass scale, The Net is merely a new infrastructure channel. The Net is not the end of our constant evolution. It is not the be-all, end-all. In the next decade, we could increase life expectancy to 150 years, and then that would be “like nothing else.” All that we can do is keep on eye on the past at all times.

It just strikes me as kind of comical that the Dashboard greets you with the word “Howdy” and then goes on to provide you with a bunch of technical choices and statistics. With all of the data on page vies, hits, trackbacks and something called a “readomattic” I guess I expected something more on the lines of Hal’s “Hello Dave” rather than a “howdy.”

You see the word “howdy” and expect to hear reports like “a few readers came and sit for a spell” or “I reckon that was a good post last week.” Again – I’m not knocking “howdy” as a greeting. I’m just questioning whether it fits the personality of the application.  A lot of the Internet is based on the idea of “dashes of personality” rather than real expressions of individuality.

For example, people drop “emoticons” at the drop of a hat. But do they really make any of those expressions in real life? When was the last time you spoke to someone and they started closing their eyes and sticking out their tongue over and over again? And do we really laugh out loud as much as online discussions and texting would have us believe?

Meetings are the same way. We all hate them, but we keep scheduling them anyway because on some level they do serve a purpose. Actually, in today’s virtual world of LinkedIn, Facebook and webiners it can be refreshing to get people around a table for a face to face meeting once in awhile. Remember non-verbal communication?

Any meeting can be effective as long as it has a clear goal, includes the right participants, stays on track and generates action items. The opening of a meeting is also important, as it often sets the tone for the entire meeting. This past week my Challenge question on LinkedIn asked people to come up with the best way to start a meeting in one sentence or less. Here are some of my favorite responses:

“State the objective of the meeting and how the meeting will be conducted to achieve the objective, including the role of each attendee.”

“Start off with something unexpected.”

“Let’s get this done, and get it done on time.”

“My friends, it is good to see you again.”

Finally here’s the response I found most humorous:

“Cancel it.”

To see all of the responses, visit the Answers section of LinkedIn.

Albert didn’t mean to make light of the disease, he just found the poster more interesting than the rather frightening sinus ailment poster on the opposite wall.  That poster featured a rather serious looking and medically accurate cut-away of the upper human body, highlighting the various cavities within the head and discussing the various issues one might encountered within them.  Albert couldn’t help sniffling as he read and even had to blow his nose once.

Albert looked at his watch.  He had been in the room for almost twenty minutes without a visit from the doctor.  He began to wonder if the doctor had found something wrong in his blood tests.  Perhaps the doctor was trying to figure out the best way to break the news or was gathering pamphlets on some rare life-changing or life-ending disease.  Albert considered the diabetes poster again.  He wasn’t overweight and none of the other symptoms mentioned on the poster so he decided it was unlikely he had diabetes.  Perhaps there was something lurking in his sinuses.

Albert looked towards the door.  A voice behind him spoke.  “The doctor takes an average of twenty-three minutes to arrive once you’re moved to the examination room,” the voice reported.  “You have been in the room approximately nineteen minutes.”

Albert turned around and scanned the room.  The voice was coming from the blood pressure monitor hanging on the wall above the examination table.  “Thank you,’ Albert replied.

“You’re welcome.  I don’t like to see people get too worried.  It just makes extra work for me.”

At that moment the doctor entered the room.  “He’s early for once,” said the blood pressure monitor.

“Hello Albert.  How are you feeling?” asked the doctor without looking up from Albert’s chart.

“I’m fine,” replied Albert.

“Any problems…pain…discomfort?”

“No.”

“That’s good,” replied the doctor.  He looked up at Albert for the first time.  He stared for a moment before continuing.  “You tests all came back fine.  Physically you’re a very healthy man, Albert.”

“Good for you, Albert,” the blood pressure monitor added.

“So I can go?”

“Physically you’re fine,” said the doctor.  “But I’m still worried about how you feel.”

“In other words he thinks mentally you have problems,” said the blood pressure monitor.

“I feel fine,” protested Albert.

“Are you sure?” asked the doctor.

“He’s saying he doesn’t agree,” said the blood pressure monitor.

“There’s nothing wrong,” said Albert.

“That sounded a bit too defensive,” said the blood pressure monitor.  The doctor scribbled some notes on Albert’s chart.

“I want you to tell me right away if anything changes,” said the doctor.

“I will.  I’m really okay, doctor.”

“Okay,” the doctor replied in a resigned voice.  He scribbled some additional notes and shook Albert’s hand.

“You should take his blood pressure now,” said the monitor.  Albert gave the machine an angry look.

Because of our creative nature as humans it’s not hard to make up a story. However, it is hard to make up a story for a specific purpose. It’s even harder to make up a story for a specific purpose and have it sound natural and spontaneous. That’s why it’s so important to collect stories as you hear or experience them. Don’t limit yourself to stories that happen to you or people around you. If a story sounds interesting, take steps to retain it. Don’t worry about the source or medium. We tend to avoid use of books, movies and television shows in many settings (especially business) but all of these sources are part of our shared culture.

Here are some of my favorite answers:

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. Thomas Edison.

At the start of every new work day, take 5 to 10 minutes to make up a list of tasks you need to accomplish by the end of the day.

Say what you’ll do; do what you say.

How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game… (Lou Holtz)

You choose your attitude, choose wisely and you will excel.

Act as a team, reflect as an individual

Focus your energy on the solutions we need, not the problems we have.

Enjoy what you do and let me know when you start not enjoying it anymore.

Thanks to everyone who contributed and watch for a new Challenge each week.