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Cat Cafes – Coaching Lesson

Hi, welcome to the coaching lesson for this month’s topic. The topic is cat cafes, which is a little bit of a strange and interesting topic. Cat cafes are not normal in most places. Even in Japan they’re seen as a little bit of a strange novelty. A novelty is something that’s a little strange and kind of special but not usual, not normal.

But as I was thinking about this topic of cat cafes, y’know, I started thinking about how unique an idea this is, to have a cafe with cats and people come in to drink coffee or tea and also to pet a cat. And then I started to think, y’know, “Who came up with this idea? Who decided to first try this? And why did they decide this?”

And I don’t know exactly, but I imagine, y’know, that someone figured out that there are many people, or at least a good number of people who, maybe they want a pet but they live in a city and they can’t have one, who feel a lot of stress in their lives and would love to be able to, y’know, sit with a cat and, y’know, calm themselves…that there are a lot of animal lovers, again in cities especially who cannot have a pet. And this person or these people who started these cafes, they identified this problem, they saw this problem, and they came up with this unique solution for the problem. Very interesting.

And I realized this is a great mentality to have for life, in generally, really, for many areas of life. Because there is a big danger in our lives that we all face, every single one of us face this danger, even if we are successful already. In fact, the more successful you are already, the more you face this danger, in personal relationships, in your job or career or business, in any aspect of life. What is this great danger that we all must face and avoid and deal with?

This danger is stagnation. Stagnation is a big enemy. Stagnation is what turns success into eventual failure. Stagnation, this word, originally means water that’s not moving. It’s a small amount of water usually that is not moving and therefore becomes dirty and polluted. The adjective is stagnant, so we’ll say stagnant water.

Stagnant water is just water that’s just like sitting in like a little pool. It’s not flowing. It’s not moving like in a river, like in a stream. Even in a lake, a healthy lake has water movement. There’s water pouring into the lake and then there’s water leaving the lake. And so the water changes within that lake over time so it’s not stagnant. There’s a movement, a flow within the water. And water is healthiest when it’s moving, when it has some kind of flow. And the opposite of that is stagnant water or stagnation.

So stagnation is the absence of movement. Originally we used it to refer to water but now we can talk about it in all aspects of life, so it’s kind of a metaphor. So when we’re talking about human beings, when

we’re talking about life situations and stagnation, what we mean is a lack of change, a lack of growth, a lack of new ideas, new input, new learning. This is very dangerous in life.

And this is why that successful people are especially susceptible to this danger of stagnation because you can see what can happen, right? Let’s say someone becomes financially very successful, they make lots of money. They’ve got plenty of money. They don’t need to worry about money anymore. Well, at that point it could be very easy for such a person to just say, ah, I don’t need to worry anymore. I don’t need to work anymore. I don’t really need to do anything anymore. I don’t need to worry about my career or my business or my job. I’ve got enough success already.

That’s okay, but the problem is that when someone stagnates like that, so they stop learning, they stop pushing themselves to grow, so their ideas become kind of hard. But then what happens? What happens is that the outside world does change. New circumstances, new situations, new dangers and threats and new opportunities, all of these things come up.

But if a person or a business stagnates, it means they don’t change with the times. They just kind of stay the same. They don’t keep growing. And that can create a situation that creates failure because the outside world changes, you don’t change and suddenly you could lose money. Your business can go down. You can lose your job. All kinds of bad things can happen when you stagnate.

The other problem with stagnation is it creates a mental dullness, right? Because our brains, our minds need learning and growth and change, we need a certain amount of that to stay healthy, to feel alive, to feel interested, to be awake. And if we don’t get enough of that, if we stagnate mentally, if we don’t get enough new input coming in, new ideas, new learning, then we become very dull mentally. We become slower mentally. Not a healthy situation and, in fact, because of this our energy can start dropping and we become less happy. So stagnation is a real danger we want to avoid.

Let me give you another example of the opposite of stagnation. So stagnation is just staying the same, no movement, no change. The opposite of that is innovation, learning, growth. So I spend a lot of time in San Francisco. I lived here for many years and still spend time here. And there’s a big problem in San Francisco with taxis.

First, there are not enough taxis in the city so there’s a big demand for taxis, especially during certain busy times, but not enough of them. Number two, for many, many years there has been a kind of taxing taxi mafia within the city. In other words, it’s a very kind of strong taxi group, just one or two companies controlling everything. And so those companies stagnated. They haven’t improved anything. They haven’t added any kind of new innovation or technology. They haven’t helped to make the situation

better in the city. This has created a lot of frustration for people who are customers of taxis, who need taxis.

Well, I don’t know, a few months ago I went to dinner with Joe, in fact, and one of Joe’s friends. And it was a Friday night, I believe, so a busy time, a really busy night. So we went and we ate at this restaurant and then we got out of the restaurant, it was time to leave. Now luckily, I could just walk home, walk back to my accommodation from the restaurant. And Joe could also walk. But Joe’s friend needed to get a ride. He was staying in a hotel far away from where we were, in another neighborhood.

So he said, “Oh, I need to get a ride. I need to get back to downtown.” So immediately I thought oh god, oh no, it’s Friday night. You’re never going to get a taxi. So I told him that. I said, “Oh, yeah, you’re in trouble because you’re never going to get a taxi downtown. It’s Friday night. It’s…this is like one of the busiest times. It’s impossible to catch a taxi.”

And he said “Oh, don’t worry. I don’t need a taxi.” And he pulled out his phone, his smart phone. And he opened an app and he clicked it, boop, boop, boop, couple taps of his finger. And he said, “Okay, my ride’s coming.” So I was shocked. I started asking him, I was like what is that? What is this? And he started showing me the app and telling me about this company called Lift.

And this is a new internet-based company, app-based company for drivers. And what it is is that drivers, just individual people, anybody with a car, you could do it, I can do it, anybody that has a car, signs up to join this service called Lift. And they make a profile on the Lift website and give all their information. And then also then riders, customers, they also sign up on Lift and they get an account and they get the app on their phone. And they also put a credit card, they give credit card information.

Then, within your city, you can just, y’know, click on the app when you want a ride and immediately the app will show the nearest available drivers that are registered with this company. So you just tap on, y’know, where you are and where you want to go. And then immediately the program, the software, sends the information to the nearest driver and the nearest driver comes and picks you up and takes you where you’re going.

No cash is necessary because the customer already has entered their information, their payment information, in the service. So the customer doesn’t even need to pay any cash at that point. So you don’t need to worry, oh my god, I don’t have money on me. All you need is just your phone to do it.

So I was fascinated by this. And even more cool is that on the app it shows like a map and you can see a little dot. You can see the driver that’s coming to get you, where they are, how close they are, how far

away. And then you have the driver’s profile and their reviews. You can do reviews on each driver. So a customer, after they have a ride, they can say, oh, this driver was very polite, was very nice or this driver was rude. And eventually the drivers in this service get all these reviews, y’know, two stars, five stars, whatever.

So I was fascinated by all of this and Joe’s friend kept talking about it, so excited. And he said it was so much better than a taxi. He said it was about the same, maybe a little more money, but that it was so much more convenient. It was faster because they were usually available and he didn’t have a problem getting rides. And he loved the reviews. He loved the maps. It all sounded fantastic.

So what’s the moral of the story? What’s the point and how does this apply to us? What did this company do? So the company’s doing very well, by the way. I did some research online. Y’know, they’re making really good money and they’re benefitting both groups of people, the independent drivers who join up with their company are making money and it’s a great way to provide employment to people.

And on the other hand the customers are also very happy because they’re not as frustrated trying to get a taxi. They have more options now. And they can choose drivers that are highly rated and aren’t rude, aren’t bad drivers, etc., they seem safe. So both sides win. It’s really great.

So here’s a successful example in this very changing world we’re in of a company that saw a frustrating problem and then solved it in order to create success. That, it turns out, is a master success formula, certainly for business, definitely for your job or career, and in fact, for many areas of life, almost any area of life that deals with other people.

Here’s another fact. I’ve recently been reading some books about finances and wealth and millionaires. And I read this book about millionaires called The Millionaire Next Door and it’s basically a survey, a study of people who are millionaires. And the authors were looking at what are the characteristics, what are the similarities among people who achieve this level of financial success.

And one of the big similarities they found, not surprisingly, is that something like 85P of millionaires own their own business. They became rich through owning their own business. That’s interesting. Does that mean you absolutely must own your own business to have financial success? No, but what it tells me is that the most common road to financial success is to build some kind of service or product that solves a problem, because that’s what most successful business do. They solve frustrating problems or they provide for people’s desires or wants.

In life, I’ve found that there generally are two kinds of people or two general mindsets about success, success in finances, success in business, success in relationships, two general ways of thinking. One is a mentality that focuses first on giving, on solving problems. And then receiving and growing and gaining. So in other words, giving, helping first in order to then receive.

Now the more common mindset is one that just focuses immediately on getting. Y’know? People who want money, for example, I’ve found that most people who want financial success, they focus most of their energy on getting money. How can I make more money? How can I get money? How can I get people to pay me more? How can I make more money at my job? I want to make more, get more, take more…get, get, get, get, get. And that’s their focus right away, immediately.

So these two mindsets, which of these mindsets actually leads to success usually? Well, I can tell you in business the first one does. The first one is what truly leads to financial success and that is first focusing on giving, helping, contributing. And then by doing that, others give back to you and then you receive a great abundance, a great success.

Guess what, it’s a nice metaphor for life in general because it’s also true for love, right? If you just want to give love, love me, love me, love me, love me, everybody give me love. That’s not such a great strategy. It doesn’t work very well in life. What does work? Giving love first, giving, giving, giving, focusing on giving love, giving love to your husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, your family, your children, your friends, anybody. The more you do that in life the more that love returns to you, eventually.

And this is the reason, by the way, this eventually, this word eventually. The word eventually is why many people do not do this. Because there’s a delay, it’s not direct. It’s almost like some kind of cosmic law that when you give, give, give, you will receive, but not immediately and not directly. That means you might give a lot of love to one person but maybe that one person never does return it to you, or not very much.

But if you’re patient and you keep giving love, not just to this one person, but to more and more people, as much as you can, keep trying to contribute and give. Overall, with time, not so much time usually, you will start to receive more and more back. You never know where it’s going to come from but it happens. I tell you, this has happened to me many times and the leaders I’ve studied, the successful people I’ve studied, they all have this same message.

So let’s talk about the areas of life where you can apply this principal. Number one, obviously, in your job or career. In fact, this is a major mistake. This is probably the number one career mistake many people make. They focus on getting first. It’s that paycheck mentality. It’s the employee mentality that, okay, I’m

just going to show up and the company owes me. Give me…give me my paycheck. Give me my money. I want a raise. Give me more. Give me more.

A more effective approach is to go to your job, even a job you don’t like, I’ve had many jobs that I hated so I’m not telling you that you have to be some kind of happy slave all the time. I understand there are jobs you hate but if you have to stay at the job, if you need the money, it’s better to have this mindset. You go to your job and the time you’re there focus your mindset on contribution. Think what can I give? Who can I help? And, most importantly, what problems can I solve? Help other people solve their problems. Focus on that in your job. We’ll talk more in a minute about specific actions.

You could do this in your family with husband, boyfriend, wife, girlfriend, kids, mom, dad, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, anybody, or friends, your close group of friends. You can also focus, focus a while, maybe just this month even, on really just focus on giving and helping to solve their problems, helping them solve problems.

You could, if you want to, you could start your own business. You don’t have to start some big business. You don’t have to invest a lot of money. You don’t need to borrow money. You could start a little, tiny, part-time business, a little micro business. And focus on this mindset when you do it.

So specifically, what should you do? What must you do? What do I want you to do? What am I asking you to do this month? Step one, pick one area of your life, one area of your life, that might be a business, that might be your job or career, that might be your family, it might be one specific relationship. Up to you, your choice, but pick one.

Number two, in that area I want you to focus on helping others, one other person or many other people, helping them. And the first thing I want you to do is to identify, to find their problems and their frustrations. If it’s a relationship, it’s your family, focus on your spouse’s or children’s, whatever. Focus on their frustrations. What are their biggest frustrations in life? What are their biggest problems in life?

Now think about this deeply. Make a little list. What are the problems and frustrations they have that they just can’t seem to solve that are really making them unhappy? In business this is a great thing to do. Think about your customers or potential customers or coworkers. What are their frustrations? What are their major problems that are really irritating them or bothering them, that they just can’t seem to solve.

Number three, provide a solution or provide at least partial help to one or more of these problems. Help them solve the problem or to make it less of a problem. Ease their frustration. Do everything you can with the focus on contributing to them, making their life easier, helping them solve their problem. And

then just wait. Wait another month or so and see what happens. You’re going to be happy with the results, I promise you that. Just do it.

See, the benefits in your career are that your career will grow. Yes, in the short term it’s always possible that one person might try to use you and, y’know, you help them but then they don’t help you. That’s always possible on an individual level. But over time, by doing this with several different people in your career, by making this your general attitude at work you will develop the reputation as a problem solver, as a contributor. And I guarantee that’s going to help your career. You’re going to make more money. You’re going to get raises. You’re going to get noticed by doing this and having this mindset.

The same is true, of course, if you have a business this isn’t optional, this is a must. Your business must solve a problem or a frustration or deliver something that people want very much. That’s got to be your focus as a businessperson. And the more painful the problem you can solve or help with, the more likely your business will succeed.

And this will help your personal relationships, too, your family relationships, your romantic relationships. You’ll become a wonderful partner that, even if one particular relationship doesn’t work and you break up for some reason, you’ll become a wonderful partner that other people will want to be with by having this same contribution focus, but contribution with action. So really focusing on solving, helping others solve problems. Identifying their frustrations and helping to ease them. It’s a great focus to have in life for success in any area.

So do that this month then get on our forum and tell us how you did. And that is our coaching video for this month. I’ll see you next time. Bye for now.