Scribbles

Had the pleasure of volunteering at Tony Robbin’s UPW event in LA a few weekends back.  Lots of stories to tell, but for now, leaving you with a snapshot of me in front of the pyre – where we shoveled the hot coals for over 3000 people to walk on.

LA Convention Center Barbecue

My beef with an MBA / Consulting experience is having to see the world through the prism of business practicality.  Every commercial establishment, most commonly restaurants, gets scrutinized under this new view, and it takes away from the experience.  Granted, many people who walk into an extremely crowded restaurant will wonder about the how lucrative it may be, making comments about how much money is made.  Plenty of times I hear my grandmother harp about the excessive profitability of a restaurant in relation to its prices and underwhelming service, all with a tinge of jealously.  This perfectly normal human behavior has unfortunately been warped for me, for the worse.  I feel compelled take it to the next level, to perform quick arithmetic on number of customers, average costs, hours of operations, and whatever to find out the total amount of dough being raked in.  Then I think about the margins, costs, competition, efficiencies, and the next thing you know, I have in my mind a half-baked business case worked out.  Of course that would all be incomplete without a recommendation, such as how to streamline processes or it being too late to enter this market.  (Tip of the day: The luxury frozen yogurt market will soon be saturated, so please don't venture out there expecting Pinkberry-esque profits)  The damnest thing about this compulsive behavior is that I care very little about money, especially other people's money.  I just want to have a good time and enjoy the experience, not try to solve business problems.  I think the solution is to put on some different hats: the social conscientor that thinks about the happiness and enjoyment people are getting; the health fanatic figuring out the averse health costs from fast food joints; the art snob judging decor and ambience.  That should be fine, as long as I don't summarize my results in powerpoint.