The Regret Of Success

In 1976, when I was eight, my family took our first "big" vacation. We lived in Detroit at the time and as a result we did what just about everyone else we knew did for a vacation. We loaded up the car and drove down I-75 towards Florida.

Along the way, somewhere in the middle of Tennessee as I recall, on driving day two we came across a roadside restaurant called Cracker Barrel. I don't remember why we decided to stop. Maybe Mom had read about it somewhere in a AAA guidebook or it had come recommended from friends but stop we did and my life changed.

Sure the place was a tourist trap. A modern restaurant styled to look like a worn down country kitchen made out of wood planks with bluegrass tunes playing on the radio. It even had a gift shop up front filled with items meant to look like they had been handmade by "hard working country folk" except for the "made in Japan" stamps on the bottom. But, oh, the food.

A quality southern-style American breakfast is something that I still get excited about today. Eggs, bacon, country ham, sausage, hash browns, grits, and delicious biscuits and gravy. Again, I was only eight years old at the time and I still remember the place like it was an old home.

Now, I don't know how many restaurants Cracker Barrel had in 1976 and I really don't want to know. Okay, I caved. They had about a dozen stores spread around Tennessee and Georgia. It felt like they were pretty rare though and finally getting to the first Cracker Barrel out of Detroit felt like an accomplishment. Over the following few years getting to the first Cracker Barrel was a huge part of our family trips to the point that we would actually plan our departure times to get us to the nearest Cracker Barrel in time for breakfast. That first bite of biscuit became symbolic of the vacation fun getting started and our troubles being left behind at least for a little while. Goodbye Detroit. Hello fun. Pass the gravy!

But for better or for worse Cracker Barrel grew thanks to their formula of affordable and tasty food with a gimmick and they began to spread their franchise throughout the country. Before long we began to notice that the first Cracker Barrel down I-75 wasn't in Tennessee anymore but had moved north into central Ohio. Gone were the southern accents but the atmosphere was still the same and the food just as tasty.

For a while this super growth felt like a good thing because it meant we didn't have to wait for driving day number two in order to make it to the first Cracker Barrel for breakfast. But, soon enough, success brought Cracker Barrel restaurants closer and closer to Detroit until finally the first Cracker Barrel down I-75 from our house was just 25 minutes away. Once we weren't stopping at the first Cracker Barrel the magic began to fade. We still stopped down the road at number eight or nine, but it was never the same.

Fast forward to today and, according to the Cracker Barrel website, there are now 582 Cracker Barrel Stores spread out over 41 different states.

I still love the breakfasts at Cracker Barrel. The Sunrise Sampler is my usual. My wife and I go to the local Cracker Barrel about once a month. Tonight is a Cracker Barrel night as a matter of fact which is what put me in the mood to write this piece. It's only five minutes away from our house if I hit the lights. The southern accents are back thanks to where I live now but it isn't the same by a long shot.

If you find yourself developing a product that has the perception of being both rare and of high quality, even when it really isn't particularly rare, be careful how you treat that asset. You may find that over saturation might just ruin your magic as well and turn your special product into just another franchise no matter how good it might be. That's what has happened to Cracker Barrel for me. Good food but very little magic anymore.

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So You've Decided To Build Your Brand

I've been a long time fan of Gary Vaynerchuk and his high energy, against the grain, Internet wine program called Wine Library TV. It's a fun infotainment escape that comes with an enthusiasm for the material presented that is hard to match.

As Gary's celebrity presence has grown he's begun branching out and speaking on, among other things, building your personal brand. How to utilize Web 2.0 applications such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, MySpace and the like to build up yourself as a brand not that dissimilar to Coca-cola, Blockbuster, and The New York Yankees.

The concept of self promotion and image building isn't exactly new of course. But never before has the average person had access to the tools and the potential audience that would allow us to attract attention to ourselves quite this easily and effectively.

But I still have a question: Now that we're all building our own personal brand what are we supposed to do with it?

There are millions of Twitter users tweeting away trying to garner attention for themselves. Granted, many are just having fun with friends but a huge number are trying to build a personal brand. I know I am. And to be honest it is probably already bigger than I even realize. But I don't know what to do with it next.

For now I use it to make people aware of who I am and to give them a sense of the voice they can expect to find if they decide to start reading these posts I generate here on Life Decanted. And through that I hope to add something to the larger conversation in exchange for a minor financial reward for the effort.

I'm not looking to be a celebrity. I'm not looking to overhear people whisper "hey isn't that..." the next time I go to some conference. But it wouldn't break my heart to be invited to speak or to sit on a panel or two based on the fact that my name recognition and my history of work would hopefully attract people to a particular function.

For better or for worse creating your personal brand is easy within the Web 2.0 community. Getting that brand out of the Web and controlling it? Knowing how to use it and manage it? Fixing it when it's broken? That's what we need to figure out next.

Stay tuned.

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Discovery Of Deliciousness

I like so many have eaten my fair share of bananas. You buy the banana. You wait for the bunch to begin to ripen. You eat them as fast as you can during that magic few days between ripe and rotten. Very tasty indeed.

And then someone comes along and blows your mind.

Alton Brown performed some magic on the humble banana on one of his shows on The Food Network that has forever changed my perception of the potential of the humble banana.

Bananas Brulee has become my latest special treat to myself. It is so simple and yet so amazingly tasty that, well, I find myself regretting every banana I have ever eaten any other way.

Simply stated, the banana is sliced into bite-sized pieces, a single side is dipped into simple white sugar, and then this sugar is caramelized under the heat of a kitchen blow-torch. You can find the actual recipe here.

Mr. Brown went on to use these caramelized bananas in a sort of banana ice cream dessert, but I have to confess that the simple joy of munching on these extra sweet and crunchy nuggets freshly after the heat treatment has changed my banana world forever.

I know. It seems silly. It isn't like Alton Brown invented the idea or that I'm the first person to ever enjoy their bananas treated this way. But this sort of revelation is increasing rare in our world and it must be embraced and respected whenever we come across it.

It really isn't the banana brulee that has changed me. It's the fact that such things still exist for me to discover that has.

Are you looking?

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Sweating The Small Stuff

A classic clique to be sure. "Don't sweat the small stuff". Often followed by "and it's all small stuff."

I'm not buying that one these days are you?

It seems that "sweating the small stuff" is about all we have under our control anymore as the big stuff is collapsing around us.

The stock market can't decide if we're getting ready to recover or heading down for a complete depression.

Our jobs are becoming more tenuous and less profitable by the week as companies are forced to contract and rethink their future planning.

Gas prices are going through a Jekyll and Hyde period that has many of us trying to decide if we should pull the trigger on unloading the family SUV in exchange for an expensive hybrid, if we're lucky, or going with that used bicycle if we aren't so lucky.

We're in a time of political transition not just in Washington D.C. but on local levels as well that has roughly half of the country overly upset and the other half overly optimistic.

Our home prices are falling so quickly that many of us don't even know what value they have anymore.

Food prices, especially on things we used to take for granted like a box of cereal, are becoming so high that I'm wondering how much longer it might be before I need a credit check and a reservation to buy a box of corn flakes.

So at this point you will forgive me if it feels like about all I have at my disposal to try to control is the small stuff. Because, unfortunately, just about all I have left, including my bank account, is small stuff.

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The Price of Luxury

Living in the sunny southern U.S. having a pair of sunglasses with you at all times, well, at least during the day, is a necessity. I know, what a wonderful problem to have right?

I'm blessed with 20/20 vision so I'm able to change my sunglasses rather frequently without the concern for expensive prescription lenses. I can follow style trends easily.

But I don't.

I instead go for those little revolving towers of cheap $10 - $15 sunglasses that you can find in just about every pharmacy in America.

Why?

Because I prefer to not have to worry about caring for my sunglasses. Without the built in instinct to protect my eye wear that having prescription lens provides many folks I am a classic sunglasses abuser.

But that recently changed.

Due to some good fortune my parents managed to win a pair of what they called "nice" sunglasses at a recent golf tournament. Since they both wear prescription lenses they gave them to me.

They were indeed very nice wrap-around sunglasses. Solid plastic construction with amber lenses that can easily be changed out if you prefer different tints, etc. If you've seen your share of professional golf tournaments you've likely seen the style of glasses that I'm talking about. David Duval comes to mind for some reason.

I wore them for a few days and then decided to look up on the Internet just how expensive these "nice" sunglasses were in case I might want to buy some of those extra lenses and such.

I was horrified to discover that they are valued at over $250!

It isn't that I was shocked that there are glasses in this world that cost that much. I'm not a fool. But I was stunned that these plastic framed, non-size-adjustable sunglasses could possibly be worth that much to some people when as far as I was concerned they were providing me no more function or utility than my standard $15 basic glasses from the pharmacy.

It was simply this. One pair of hyper expensive plastic sunglasses with a designer label on the side or 16 - 20 pairs of my cheap sunglasses with no label. No contest as far as I'm concerned.

I'm enjoying the fancy glasses while they last. And, I'm sure, that the folks in R&D and marketing at the designer label could wow me with the clarity of their lenses, their superior UV protection, and their scratch resistant coatings.

Thanks but I'll keep my money in my pocket and just replace my cheap glasses every 6-months or so and not even think twice when I sit on them, scratch them, or just simply lose them.

Sometimes nice things are expensive. Sometimes things are just expensive. Are you guilty of spending too much money on labels without getting enough benefit in return?

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Tasting Memories

Do you have a taste memory? Do you have a food or drink that can take you back to your childhood in an instant?

I'm lucky enough to have a few but the flavor that comes to mind this time of year is admittedly a bit odd. It never fails to take me back to being a little kid living in that safe world that only ignorance and the love of family can allow.

It takes some planning on my part to pull off but it's always worth it in the end. That it's about time for me to set things up for this holiday season is what brings this all to mind today.

Nothing can take me back to my grandmother's house during the Christmas season faster than the taste of a can of room temperature Coca-cola, sipped through a straw, while munching on stale, chewy, Oreo cookies.

It never fails. The Coke was always in the back closet and the Oreos were always in the same coffee can in the cupboard next to the stove. In fact, we were never quite sure if they weren't the same cookies and sodas from last Christmas. It felt like a memory even at the time.

Even just writing about it puts me in that place. The small Midwestern house near the river surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, parents, grandparents and special friends all waiting for Christmas to come. The feel of the scratchy material that covered the sofa in the modest living room. The walls long since turned golden from decades of cigarette smoke. The back picture window that was nearly always covered by curtains except on Christmas Eve so that we might push our noses against the glass in an effort to spot Rudolph's nose first. A rarely unused fireplace filled with newspaper logs that simply had to date back thirty years if I had only been wise enough to sneak a peek.

It was a magical place for a little kid to be sure. And all I need to go there, at least for a few minutes, is a warm soda and a cookie. What a blessing.

Do you have memories like this? Are you making memories for someone else like this? What a tremendous gift to give if you are.

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I Really Don't Listen To The Words

I have an iPod. I have an iTunes collection with thousands of songs in it from various CDs and other sources that at some point I felt were worth actually spending money to own. But I came to a rather surprising revelation this morning.

I rarely listen to the words in my music.

I have hundreds if not thousands of songs that I have listened to countless times that I simply do not have any idea what the lyrics are or what the artist is trying to say with them.

I like the songs. They are entertaining and they even convey an emotion or two when they're really solid works. But I continually catch myself not having any idea what the songs are actually about.

They talk about "lyric driven" music. Well, the lyrics to most of the songs I own are lost on me.

The worst part is when I catch myself actually singing along with the music. I actually know the words it would seem but haven't taken the time to put any meaning behind them.

I'm not entirely sure what this says about me or maybe about the quality of the music I'm choosing to listen too but I'm going to try to put a stop to this.

Most lyrics deserve to be more than just another instrument in the band.

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Loving A Loser

Sports are a huge part of the American culture. What teams you support can give people some interesting insight into where you're from and what sort of person you are.

Right or wrong that's how it works.

Support the L.A. Lakers? Judged.
Support the Boston Red Sox? Judged.
Support the Fighting Irish? Judged.

Myself? Even though I haven't lived in the area for nearly a decade I continue to support the regional sports teams from the state of Michigan. More specifically I'm a dedicated fan of the Detroit Lions.

See? You're judging me already.

"They're terrible! They haven't won anything in over 50 years!?!" you say. Unfortunately you're right. But I still love my Lions even if they are on their way to yet another losing season.

And, strangely enough, because they have indeed been somewhere between "terrible" and "slightly better than average" for my entire life I'm not sure how I would react if that suddenly changed and they became a powerful winning organization.

I think part of how I define myself is also biased by my favorite sports teams. Supporting an organization like the Detroit Lions does say something about me. To me it says that I'm loyal. That I'm faithful. That I'm willing to support my team through thick and thin instead of just getting behind a proven winner.

If that suddenly changed, if I was suddenly rooting for an organization that figured out how to make winning a tradition, a requirement, like the New York Yankees or the Dallas Cowboys, then suddenly my faith and dedication would be rewarded with the thrill of victory!

But being a fan of the Detroit Lions suddenly wouldn't say the same thing about me. It may be more fun to root for a winner but I don't think it says as much about you as a person as staying loyal to a loser.

I saw this sort of thing happen with the Detroit Red Wings even though I'm not much of a hockey fan myself. For years the Red Wings had been losing. A long ago history of championships had faded and year after year went by without success. But suddenly a culture change and an infusion of money and talent arrived and the Red Wings went from perennial losers to an organization that expected nothing less than a Stanley Cup every season. And to their credit they actually started winning them again including being the current champions.

Being a Wings fan suddenly became fun because it felt like being part of something powerful and successful. But it wasn't the same as being loyal. It was now easy to be a Wings fan.

And when it comes to my football team I must sound like one of the most loyal people you've ever heard of. Thanks for the compliment. Go Lions!

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