Smart Business Magazine, Feb 2013

22 Smart Business Houston February 2013 Should hard nosed thick skinned ice water running through their veins executives who live and die by facts and profit and loss statements believe in things they cant totally understand and certainly cant explain We have all been there At various times for virtually inexplicable reasons an undertaking that has been struggling suddenly takes a 180 degree turn and begins an upward trajectory There was no indication from the numbers substantively nothing extraordinary was changed but all of a sudden its as if the sun moon and stars all aligned and you are heading toward Fat City Of course weve all experienced the converse when everything seems to be jelling and all of a sudden out of the blue your project takes a nosedive plummeting to earth faster than the fastest falling star or the stock market crash of 2008 Even though you fancy yourself as tough as nails you must hope against hope experiment with unusual fixes devise out of the box solutions do just about anything including making promises to a higher power along the lines of Let me get through this and Ill never ______ again You fill in the blank as it is best kept between you and the greater power in which you believe Dont get me wrong I dont really believe in the good fairy or the ability to make everything better with the wave of a wand but I do very much believe what the famous New York Yankees manager Yogi Berra once said It aint over till its over There is magic when some inexplicable ingredient kicks in that enables the best leaders to continuously generate what if I try this scenarios and then out of nowhere one of those ideas turns sure defeat into a salvageable success Is this skill and intelligence at play To a certain extent yes but there is more to it than that The only thing I believe about unadulterated pure luck is the explanation from that overused phrase The harder one works the luckier he or she gets The real answer more likely is a combination of knowing how to run a business Using your head your heart and your gut to tackle a dilemma recognizing that on any given day one of these faculties will get you through a difficult issue On a great day when all three kick in its almost as if it were magic and you start hearing sounds that become music to your ears as the needed solution suddenly emerges In reality the magic is having faith in the people with whom you work maintaining a strong belief that for most of the seemingly insurmountable questions there are answers trusting that good things do happen to good people and knowing that every once in a while the good guys do win This doesnt mean becoming a naive Pollyanna Instead it all gets down to not throwing in the towel until you have exhausted all possibilities and logically and systematically explored all the alternatives some of which may be very nontraditional This approach is also a direct reflection of positive thinking and mindfulness which is the practice of purposely focusing your attention on the present moment and ignoring all other distractions In essence some psychological studies have shown that when one is committed to success and has the discipline not to let the mind travel down a negative path the brain can focus on producing unique solutions Using positive psychology techniques can result in intense absorption that can lead to coming up with unlikely fixes Some shrinks call this increasing mental flow I call it a little bit of magic My simpler explanation for this phenomenon which Ive written about many times is that success is achieved when you combine preparation persistence and a bit of perspiration along with a few ingredients that cant always be explained including having a little faith My advice is dont always worry about your image of being a buttoned up corporate type Instead when the going gets particularly tough its OK to become a Dorothy as in the Wizard of Oz click your heels twice and quickly repeat to yourself I believe I believe Click your heels twice and see what happens Michael Feuer co founded OfficeMax in 1988 starting with one store and 20000 of his own money During a 16 year span Feuer as CEO grew the company to almost 1000 stores worldwide with annual sales of approximately 5 billion before selling this retail giant for almost 15 billion in December 2003 In 2010 Feuer launched another retail concept Max Wellness a first of its kind chain featuring more than 7000 products for head to toe care Feuer serves on a number of corporate and philanthropic boards and is a frequent speaker on business marketing and building entrepreneurial enterprises The Benevolent Dictator a book by Feuer that chronicles his step by step strategy to build business and create wealth published by John Wiley Sons is now available Reach him with comments at mfeuer@ max wellness com TIPS FROM THE TOP MICHAEL FEUER CLICK OR SCAN to learn more about The Benevolent Dictator www benevolentdictator biz Do you believe in magic