Two days ago Missy woke up with her stomach in knots because she had to call our maid, M., to fire her. M. had been cleaning our house for the last few years but she’s been getting progressively worse. She went on vacation for 2 weeks and we started using Missy’s sister’s maid and they’ve been way more thorough. So now it was time to let M. go but Missy had been procrastinating about it.

She’s been putting this off for nearly 2 weeks now and it got me thinking about our ‘tough’ decisions. Like most everyone else I too have struggled with making the kind of decisions that leave us feeling uncomfortable.

It’s easier to keep putting them off but that doesn’t do any good.

I know any time I’ve had a decision weighing on me it’s something that keeps nagging at me and leaves me feeling uneasy. But when I finally make the hard call or have the difficult it’s never really as bad as I had worked it up to be. In fact, I’ve found the longer you ruminate on it the worse it gets.

Thinking back here are a few vivid examples that spring to mind…

Buying Our First Place…
When Missy and I were engaged we lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Bethesda, MD. It’s a great place because you can walk everywhere and there are towns of restaurants and quaint shops. (In fact, I tell visitors that Bethesda has the most restaurants per square foot of any city. I’m not 100% sure that’s an accurate fact but I think it’s true and it sounds good.)

Anyway, the two of us really loved it there but wanted some place bigger. Plus, this was the time when my online business first started taking off. So we went searching for a place in Bethesda – but everything was pretty over-priced (or we thought it was anyway). But we found a nice 2-bedroom apartment in our building but it faced the opposite side from where we lived at the time. It overlooked NIH (National Institute of Health) and the view was nothing special. What’s more, the sun hit that side in the morning instead of the afternoon like our other place we were currently renting.

Regardless, we wanted to buy our own place and decided within a few days to buy the place. Then it started…

We both should have been really excited but we weren’t. Come to think of it we were sort of depressed the next day. What had we done?

Missy ended up calling up one of her sorority friends, Gina, who was an attorney to see what we could do to get out of the contract. I can’t remember the exact specifics on number of days but it was something like 3 days you could rescind the contract with a written notification. We had a letter drafted and delivered it our real estate agent (who also lived in our building) at the 11th hour. But it was done and we didn’t have to go through with buying the apartment. Ahhhh…..Joy & relief took hold again.

The big lesson for me here was we didn’t listen to our gut feeling about it not feeling right. I know that sounds wishy-washy and woo-woo – but I don’t think enough people (especially men) pay attention to their gut. 2 interesting follow-ups on this:

1) My best friend, John, did buy an apartment in our building too. His faced the side of the street we liked and he ended up making a tidy profit when he sold a few years later.

2) When we bought our first house – the gut feeling was right and Missy instantly knew she was in the right spot. (Same with our current place.)

Breaking Away from My Dad’s Business…
Definitely one of the biggest decisions gnawing at me for awhile was whether or not to leave my Father’s medical equipment sales & service business. Originally when I started working with him (since I was 14 selling latex gloves) and thought that I would work in it to really grow it. But I started getting the ‘itch’ to go on my own in 1998.

That’s when I started experimenting with the information marketing business selling to doctors resources and tools on how to get more cosmetic patients. I remember the very first ad I ran – it was a little classified ad in Dermatologic Surgery Journal. I ended up getting exactly 10 leads. Now I didn’t have my course ready but I had a 30-page sales letter to mail out. I sent it to all 10 leads and waited…and waited…and waited.

Nothing.

Every time the fax machine rang at my Dad’s office I’d go up there to see if it was an order. (I was using his fax # on my order page to save money.) It was like some sort of Pavlovian conditioning where I’d hear the dial tones and start running – but to no avail.

I sent out a 2nd notice and still nothing. Finally, I mailed out a 3rd notice highlighting the approaching deadline for all the bonuses (I had yet to create). On the final day of the deadline – I went up to the fax machine to watch it slooooooooowly print out my very first order for $900! It was awesome! I can still remember that feeling. After I peeled myself off the ceiling – I realized I had to create the product and bonuses that were only an outline. I wrote a letter back to my first customer telling him the material was going to be republished and would be available in 30 days – and that we would not charge his card until then.

And that was the start of my little info marketing empire.

My Dad was pretty flexible and let me continue using his office as my home base. I would seriously answer my cell phone under my desk when it rang with customers to talk to them or take orders. It got to the point where I was literally counting the minutes until 5pm so I could work on my own stuff. And then my Dad let me start taking Fridays off so I could work on my own projects.

The idea that I was somehow ‘betraying’ him and the family business was eating me up. I knew my heart wasn’t into his business anymore and I finally decided I had to break away. My Dad wanted me to grow his business and work with him side-by-side. I decided I couldn’t continue living my life under the expectations of someone else. I had to do what was right for me. And it was actually nearly 9 years ago to the day that I left the company – July 1, 1999.

It was bittersweet as they had a small going away party for me but I knew it was the right decision. Looking back, it’s was by far the best decision I ever made for my financial future. My Dad was worried that I might fail – but that’s okay too. Part of independence is getting your nose bloodied a little in the real-world.

Attending My First Seminar…
While studying and applying the direct marketing methods I began learning – I got sent an invitation to attend a high-priced copywriting seminar put on by Dan Kennedy. This was back in October 1998 I almost passed up an opportunity that I would later realize was the turning point in my business (and bank account).

My fledging information marketing business to doctors might have been pulling in maybe $2,000 or $3000/mo – so no great shakes. I was really hesitant and unsure about spending several thousand dollars and missing several days of work (both of which I couldn’t really afford) to head out to Phoenix to attend this seminar.

I asked my Dad about it and he was making fun of me and telling me I shouldn’t go. He would chide me (in his thick Russian accent) “Mr. Yanik, why do you want to throw away your money. If you have so much of it I can help you get rid of it. Don’t you already have enough of these books and tapes?”

But I bit the bullet and decided to go.

Frankly, if I had listened to him I know I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am today. I can directly attribute that single event to the moment when several things all ‘clicked’ for me and I “got it”. I discovered the power of how to use words and turn them into cash windfalls. Of course nobody ever looks back on an opportunity they DIDN’T take and remembers that as the turning point in their lives. [Side note: Speaking of seminars and missing out on opportunities – there is a limited window to pick-up the Underground® 4 DVD & CD recordings. They go back into the vault on July 1, 2008.]

Personally, I’ve found that people regret the things you don’t do much more than you things they do. And that’s exactly how I want to live my life – not thinking of ‘shoulda’, ‘coulda’ or ‘woulda’s.

In fact, I believe most of what we consider tough decisions are really illusions that we’ve built up in our own heads. (btw – if you haven’t read the book Illusions by Richard Bach – get it!) Most of the really tough decisions are a whole lot easier once we reach that decision – it’s simply the wavering, the gestating, the thinking, the unease that comes from being in limbo that really hurts. But once the decision is done – there this wave of calm and tranquility that sweeps over me.

With that in mind – here are 5 things you can try when you are faced with a tough decision:

1) Think about what’s the worst case scenario – What is the worst possible thing that can happen if I make the wrong decision? With going off on my own – I had those wild thoughts of my Father disowning me. He might have been disappointed but he didn’t flip out.

2) Listen to your gut – this is huge! Don’t try to rationalize your way out of decision making – you’ve got incredible wisdom stored inside you that is willing to help if you allow it.

3) Create a deadline for a decision – if you give yourself an indefinite amount of time to decide on a course of action you’ll drive yourself crazy. Think of yourself as a high powered CEO of your own life who MUST make decisions quickly. Even if they are wrong 49% of the time – you’ll be ok more often than not.

4) Visualize your ideal outcome – anytime I have a real nagging dilemma or something I’m worried about I use my friend, John Harricharan’s, “Power Pause” exercise. You take 3 minutes (1 minute for each part) to think about #1 – What you want to happen. #2 – How you feel when this happens. #3 – What you are grateful for in your life.

5) Band-aid solution– you know how it sucks to pull off band aids (especially for us hairier people)? Well the secret is just pull it off quickly! Nothing is worse than paralysis by analysis. You’ll never have ALL the information you need. Get what you can – and do the best you can. Then move on.

And bonus decision making tip – flip a coin. That’s how I decided to propose to Missy. Seriously (shhh….don’t tell her)

Actually getting back to Missy. She couldn’t get a hold of M. so she came to clean our house as usual on Tuesday. Missy told her in-person that we weren’t going to use her anymore and M. seemed relieved. It seems that there were some other clients she wanted to work for but couldn’t because she was at our house on Tuesdays. There you go – all that angst and gut-wrenching turmoil could have been avoided.

Do you have a decision making technique you use that helps?
Or how have you made it through tough decisions in your life? If you’re comfortable leaving a comment on that – it’d be great to hear that…

Just a quick note today before I head out to play hockey.

3 big events in the Silver household.

#1 – Probably the biggest one is Zak went poop on the potty today for the first time. Yes, that tops the list by far. He’s been peeing for a few days but he would only go in a diaper before this. We all jumped around like crazy people and applauded. Here’s a quick snapshot of him triumphant in the bathroom with his victory lollipop:

#2 – We had a front page story come out about Maverick Business Adventures on Conde Naste’s Portfolio.com site. Here we are:

This was from our last Las Vegas trip. There were a couple little points in the article that weren’t quite correct (like us being a guy’s club – we’re not) or all Internet entrepreneurs (we got $100M manufacturing companies in there as members). But overall – I think it turned out well. (Check out Brad Fallon in the picture – the angle makes him look a little Neanderthal-like.)

If you were interested in attending a Maverick experience – the next one (with female members coming) is Aug. 13 -17, 2008 in Aspen. We only got 5 spots left! We’re doing Whitewater rafting, rock climbing, mountain biking and a 4×4 excursion.

#3 – We launched the new Underground 4 DVDs & CDs today. They are going back into the vault on July 1st (or sooner once all 500 sets are sold-out). If you missed out attending live this is the next best thing! I had a bunch of attendees make it a point to come up and tell me it was the best Underground event yet. (And that’s definitely saying a lot considering who we’ve brought it before.) I guess it makes sense since added together the grand total our speakers sell each year totals nearly $1B (yes, One Billion!) online. The last one was definitely our biggest and baddest one yet. There were about 328 sets last time I checked earlier.

So all in all a busy little day over here. We got our Spring league playoff hockey game for the Chiefs tonight and I’m in charge of buying beer so I need to scoot.

As promised, I’ll share with you how I got kicked off Necker Island.

But first to get you up to speed on my adventures – we’ll talk about Las Vegas first. That was for our last Maverick Business Adventures™ experience – what we called “Airborne Action” since everything took place in the air. It was a whirlwind of experiences from the quintessential Vegas nightlife to real work getting done to a ton of fun and celebrity guests.

After the first day’s work sessions we hung out for dinner & drinks with Peter Diamandis, founder of the X-Prize foundation and Rick Searfoss, former NASA astronaut. Rick gave us a little glimpse into what we’d be experiencing the next day during our Zero-Gravity flight.

It didn’t quite turn out that way and I’ll tell you about that in a second. But first, the next morning was jumpstarted by a guest presentation by Peter Diamandis on innovation. Peter’s X-Prize Foundation was the $10M prize established for a ship that could go into space successfully 2 times in 2 weeks. Burt Rutan’s SpaceShip One did that in 2004 and then Virgin licensed their technology. No doubt, Peter is truly a visionary and largely responsible as the driving force for the private space industry coming into play today. (As you guys know already, I’m #144 on Virgin Galactic and that’s a direct result of the X Prize.)

The X-Prize has now grown to have prizes in all sorts of competitions from the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics to the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE and beyond.

He even gave us insights into how he’s getting an entire new sport started with his Rocket Racing League. (Look it up – it’s very cool!) Most of the comments Maverick members had were around thinking bigger and Peter gave us permission to do so.

After Peter’s session we all headed out to the Zero-G training facilities to meet Tony Hawk. (Yep, the skateboarding and sports business icon.) Tony shared with us his secrets to success and how he’s built a $500M brand around skateboarding starting from scratch. We also auctioned off 4 autographed decks to support his Tony Hawk Foundation and raised over $10,000.00 in 5 minutes from members, Tim Storm, Mike Filsaime, Jason Abernathy and Buck Rizvi.

After that we all boarded up the bus to head over to our airplane for Zero-G. We literally pulled up to the plane and I heard some of the Zero-G staff cell phones going off. Not good. They pulled me aside to tell me there was a part on the emergency slide that was broken and we weren’t allowed to take off. They weren’t even sure if the part would be here tomorrow or if we could get up in the air the next day. Yikes!

Dejected we got out of our flight suits and made a quick detour to private cabanas at MGM’s newest pool-side party ‘Wet Republic’. (Now as a side note – this is a great marketing example of increasing the transaction value from customers. Vegas was already known for its nightlife and now they are adding consumption during the day with it’s ‘daylife’. It started with “Rehab” at the Hard Rock’s pool on Sunday but now a whole lot of other resorts have got into it from Venetian’s TAO Beach to Mandalay to this newest one, Wet Republic. It’s a total dance club party atmosphere just with a whole lot more sunshine instead of dim lights.

Customers are stepping up for bottle service and private cabanas during the day which translates into new revenues from a previously down time. It’s just like the popular Orange Juice campaign trying to increase consumption by saying Orange Juice wasn’t just for breakfast anymore. Good marketing lesson to consider how you can increase the consumption of your customers.)

Okay back to our plight…

The Zero-G crew worked tirelessly to find us that part and were able to reschedule for the next afternoon. So we headed to dinner that night and then to our private poker party. You can see me at the final table doing my best impression of Phil Laak, poker’s ‘unabomber’.

Trust me, I don’t play poker but I actually did pretty well and got 6th place. Sitting to my left was Kascper Postawski looking amused at my antics. Kacper was the guy who knocked me out with a total bluff and won on the River. I guess I shouldn’t feel that bad since he ended up winning the tourney and later told us he used to play cards semi-professionally.

The next morning we hit Air Combat where each person got to take the controls of their plane and become a jetfighter for a day. Here’s Maverick Member and Elite MasterMind member, Craig Ballantyne on the wing of his plane.

I was up against Mike Geary and he ended up taking me 3-2 because I hit the hard deck and self destructed. Flying was very cool since these planes had such maneuverability and you could pull about 4Gs if you were really pushing it hard. I guess I can feel a little better about being knocked out of the tournament because Kacper ended up hurling inside the plane from the G-forces. Not that I thought that was funny or anything.

Straight from AirCombat we gathered back at Zero-G for Zero Gravity flight. This time we took off without a hitch. Here’s a cool shot of me with my Voodoo PC laptop. (Maybe this will one of my new PR shots.)

Here’s Eben Pagan without his trademark pink shirt – having a good time in Zero-G. (There’s something about this activity that really turns people into little kids again!)

Speaking of little kids – there were 3 of us, Chris Zavadowski, Mike Filsaime and myself, who had already done the Zero-G flight. You’ve probably seen astronauts do the tricks in zero-gravity with water as they float around and gulp it down. Well Zero-G provides you with little water bottles to try that yourself. As you might have guessed it got out of control pretty quickly.

Chris took his entire bottle and simply flung it on me. It was one long stream of water suspended in mid-air until we returned to normal gravity. Of course, I had to get revenge and told our in-air coach, Loretta, I needed several bottles of water. It turned into an all-out water fight with us sitting in huge puddles. Loretta told us she’d never seen the plane this wet except for one other time. And that was for a 7-UP commercial where they planned on getting that wet.

Here’s Chris before he decided to turn into a 6-year old.

And here’s after (a bit drenched):

Then here’s us being scolded by Loretta:

To put on a full Vegas experience, I bought everyone Elvis wigs and sunglasses so here are a few of the members rocking their new look (we had nearly everyone ready with their wigs and glasses until our Zero-G flight got canceled the first day so these are the hard-core flying elvises):

We had a pretty jam-packed schedule since we had to move Zero-G to the afternoon and we headed out to a surprise Scotch tasting dinner with Steve Beal, one of only 7 ‘Masters of Scotch’ in the world.

Mavericks were treated to a full flight of Scotch starting from Johnny Walker Black to one of their rarest, Johnny Walker Blue label. I’ve never had an entire dinner consisting of Scotch so it was a real eye-opening experience. And then to cap off the dinner – every member was given a personally engraved bottle of Johnny Walker Blue in a silk-lined presentation box.

But we weren’t done after dinner since it was Vegas after all…I gathered up a group of about a dozen of us and headed to TAO in the Venetian for our private VIP table. It turned into a real crazy night with me getting home about 6 AM and just in time for 15 minutes of sleep before getting onto the helicopters into the Grand Canyon.

In all the times I’ve been to Vegas – I’ve never made it out into the Grand Canyon so this was very cool. We took Maverick Helicopters (no relation yet) and they are the only helicopter company authorized to fly deeper and further into the Grand Canyon than any other company. And just like in one of the best scenes from “Apocalypse Now” – there was a song track of “The Ride Of The Valkyries playing in the helicopter. (Just no attack formation.)

I took the red-eye home and flew on Virgin America for the first time. They rocked! First Class was pretty cheap – something like $500 and really a lot nicer than our domestic airlines. They just do smart things like actually asking customers what they don’t like about air travel. VA has plugs in the seats so you can plus in your electrical crap like laptops the whole trip. I mean this isn’t rocket science but it makes a big difference. They also will bring out your food whenever you want – not when it’s convenient for them. The whole atmosphere is cool like any Virgin Atlantic, which I’ve flown before. And the reason I bring Virgin up (aside from the marketing lesson of actually listening to customers) is because it leads into my next trip…Necker Island.

Okay now the part about Necker for those of you waiting…

After returning home for about 36 hours I was off to the British Virgin Islands. One of the big things I wanted to try on Necker was kiteboarding. It takes about 3-4 lessons before you can get out of the water. I skipped a few meetings to make sure I could get some good time in to learn.

I can see why people would get hooked on it. Charlie, my instructor, told me he taught Larry Page, from Google had to kiteboard on Necker. And now he’s big time into it. Unfortunately, my big kiteboarding expedition was slightly a bust. By the time I moved into the water for my lesson on getting up – the wind pretty much died down. And then for the next 2 days we didn’t have enough wind to go out. Oh well, now I have a big reason to return.

The place is absolutely gorgeous and I can understand why Branson lives there year-round now. The story of how he bought the place for £180,000 is a great lesson in negotiation and tenacity. It’s in his “Losing My Virginity” book and worth checking out. Plus, once he bought it – he had to develop it within 5 years or else ownership went back to the government. So this become a reason for him to work hard on Virgin Records to make more money. And as the Rolling Stones or Janet Jackson had a hit – he’d build a new piece of the island.

Here are a few pictures showing some of the different looks to the island (click to enlarge):

Here’s some video from the island showing how we got served sushi in the pool. That was awesome! You literally jumped into the pool to have sushi with this huge boat of fish floating around. Very cool!

I was excited that Richard hung out with us for many lunches and dinners. In fact, one day at lunch he told me to get a 4-hand massage at the spa and I wasn’t disappointed. The 4-hand massage is a massage with both the masseuses at the same time.

Getting Kicked Off Necker…

One of the stand-out moments of the trip had to be getting a letter handed to me at dinner my final night by the staff. I asked, “Is this my bill?”

“No,” she replied, “You get those in the morning”. Hmmmm….

Here’s the note I got:

I thought it was a joke. The night before we had found the guest room roster and room list and called Joe Polish, Dean and a bunch of other people at 1 or 2 AM to tell them to come back to the bar and drink. Then we sorta ‘updated’ their food preferences inside the kitchen but otherwise we didn’t do anything *that* crazy.

Joe grabbed the letter and then gave to Branson. Richard said, “Well…the manager is a bit serious sometimes but I’ll see what I can do to sort it out. Don’t you worry. Just enjoy your dinner.”

And just for that moment I gulped and thought it might be true until Richard blurted out it was a joke 30 seconds later. Here’s a photo we took depicted me being kicked off the island.

I don’t think I can quite express how awesome the entire experience was. On my final day we had a chance to brainstorm with the head of Virgin Unite about how to get more entrepreneurs involved in their charitable efforts. I have a call with them this week so I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about this. Plus, I’m looking into how we can get involved with the Branson School of Entrepreneurship in Africa. It’s really exciting stuff but I’m glad to be home for a few weeks to chill out with the family.