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Right outside the front door of our apartment in Nice, France, it’s Pierre’s domain. There’s a very attractive, very French establishment with a terrific atmosphere, “Restaurant Le Brasserie Grimaldi.” Its proprietor, Pierre, works there morning, Noon, and night. We typically see him at least twice daily as we enter or leave our apartment building.  He’s either standing cross-armed, wearing his hat and holding a cigarette, or taking an order, or preparing a tableside salad with seriously artistic flourish.

While we don’t dine with Pierre often, we did so recently because my long-time friends, Jack and Suzanne Healy, were visiting from Washington.  They’re true connoisseurs of fine food and wine. Le Brasserie Grimaldi is their kind of place.

In fact, I’d always felt somewhat awkward with him because, despite our daily comings and goings, I rarely patronized his restaurant. I’m simply not passionate about enjoying excellent food. We dined there with Jack and Suzanne because they are passionate about fine dining.

Studying the wine list on the night we dined with the Healys, Jack selected a Bourgogne Pinot Noir “Les Vendangeurs” 2008 to accompany our starters.  He also told Pierre that he’d want to see the wine list again before our main dish was served, because, of course, Jack could not pair the Pinot Noir with his lamb… or my clam pasta … or Suzanne’s truffles … (or Barbie’s salad, for that matter)!

To accompany our main dishes, Jack selected the Saint-Emilion “Grand Cru Chateau Lavallade” 2007, although the first bottle of Bourgogne was still half full.  (I only know these particulars because I saved the bottles so I could quote from the labels.)

I watched Jack fully enjoying the art of selecting the proper wine to accompany our meals, and Pierre quickly recognized that he was dealing with a passionate connoisseur.  He smiled at Jack’s selections.  They were both engaged in their passionate pursuits.

If I’d made the wine selection, it would have been a carafe of the house red without regard for our food choices… and I’d have been able to finish it off quite happily.

Pierre is the proprietor of a difficult, challenging, demanding enterprise. His hours are long; the entire outdoor seating area must be disassembled every night, and reassembled early the next morning. He runs the whole show, including ordering supplies, dealing with wholesalers, taking diners’ orders, advising his guests on wine selections, delivering the food, and working very hard at his multiple roles. His wife, Alexa, is there working alongside him on most days. And during the peak summer months, he also has a part-time waitress.  Despite their remarkable toiling, they’re not getting rich, though.

In that first-ever conversation with Pierre and the visiting Healys, he said something quite simple that made me think about how I live my own life. When I commiserated about his difficult vocation, he said, “Yes, eeet’s very ard work, but it eeez my passion.”  It was as if he recognized that the work was far too demanding for the financial rewards he received, but he just couldn’t do anything else.  He was a French restaurateur; he had to pursue his passion.  At the end of our meal, he asked, “Ave you ad an enjoyable mo-mont?”

After 11 months of passing him right outside our front door, I’ve never seen him smile as broadly as when we replied, “Yes, very enjoyable!  Magnifique!” Creating moments of enjoyment by providing fine meals is his passion.

I’m sure Pierre would make more money doing just about any other work.  He could be taking long lunches, instead of serving them.  And, this being France, he could go on strike if he felt that he was working too hard.  But, he wouldn’t be pursuing his passion, so he works at his own restaurant, instead.

This made me think about my own passions… and perhaps this encounter will encourage you to think about yours.

I just don’t care about fine wine and excellent cuisine. Those aren’t my passions.  Just one night before our dinner at Le Brasserie Grimaldi, Barbie’s friend Barbara was visiting us in our apartment. I offered Barbara some wine. As I poured it from the plastic jug container, I said, “I hope you don’t mind $5.00 wine.”

After Barbara said that she thought it tasted great, Barbie said, “You had better hide that jug so that Jack and Suzanne don’t see it when they arrive tomorrow.  You know how passionate they are about fine wines.”

Then, she began to tell Barbara about our wine connoisseur friends, and explained that, “George can’t tell the difference between a $5 bottle of wine and a $500 bottle.”

I quickly protested: “It’s not that I can’t tell the difference between a $5 bottle of wine and a $500 bottle. I can detect a slight difference. I just can’t tell you which one is the $500 bottle and which one is the $5 bottle.”

At that, both Barbie and Barbara fell all over each other laughing.

This happens to me a lot. Most of the time, it happens with Barbie and my daughter, Kelcie. I say something that is totally factual and not at all funny. At least it’s not funny to me. But apparently, others find my statements hilarious. I just don’t get it!

Well, during this dining out experience, when I observed how pleased Pierre was when Jack and Suzanne appreciated his fine meal, it made me ask myself two crucial life questions:

1.Aside from nurturing my personal relationships with my wife, child, and friends, “What eeez it I am zee most passionate about?”

And the even more important question:

2. ” Am I leeeving my life in accordance wis zooze passions?”

It’s worth asking yourself those same two questions.

In my case, I’m certainly passionate about my profession as a keynote speaker.  I love to perform on stage, and “something comes over me” when I face an audience. It’s where I shine brightest, professionally.   Since 1983 I have been a member of the National Speakers Association and have received its highest honor for platform excellence.  I’ve been inducted as a lifetime member of the Speakers Hall of Fame.  I love providing enjoyable performances (“enjoyable mo-monts”) for my audiences the way Pierre loves providing enjoyable moments for his guests.  I’m always eager to present another speech.  (Unfortunately, hustling for business isn’t my passion.)

I make it a point, daily, to pause and appreciate good architecture, especially when the design is either controversial avant-garde, or clever with some little trick for the observers’ eyes.

I’m passionate about cultural explorations. That’s why I’ve traveled to and through 104 countries so far, and why I’ll keep exploring more. Most people think this is nuts. Very few people share my passion in this regard. But that’s the thing about passions. Other people don’t necessarily relate to them, and none of us has to be passionate about what others care most about. One of the things that makes me happiest is boarding a plane to fly for many, many hours … and disembarking in a remote part of the world, … where I hope to end up sleeping in a village hut with “primitive” tribal people.  I don’t care if others find that odd.  It’s my passion.

I’m passionate about using almost any mode of transport. People who don’t share this passion find any flight of more than a few hours painfully uncomfortable. I, though, will happily take a flight, sit in coach, and enjoy a 22-hour journey, with multiple connections, and cross 12 time zones, just because I love to fly. If there’s any railroad near me, I want to go for a train ride. If there’s a ski gondola to a mountaintop, or a metro tunnel that goes under a river, I want to experience it! Even riding on city buses gives me a little thrill.

Most of all, I’m passionate about slaking my curiosity. Whenever I spot a brown road sign pointing to a historical marker, scenic overlook, or other point of interest, I have an urge to pull off the road, despite the fact that it will slow my journey.

Or will it? Maybe feeding our passions is our journey. If so, taking detours is all part of the fun. And instead of hindering me, it makes me grow, in intellect, experience, and satisfaction. It feeds both my head and my heart.

So, how’s this for an important personal exercise for yourself:

Give yourself a passion checkup. What makes you feel most passionate? Are you living your life in accordance with your passions?

Or, as Pierre might put it:  “What eeez it I am zee most passionate about?  Am I leeeving my life in accordance wis zooze passions?”

If you’re not passionate about wine, don’t order the $500 bottle. And if you’re not passionate about long flights, detours, and bizarre travel, stay home.  And if you don’t feel passionate about your work, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.

My friend and Branding expert Bruce Turkel, is great writer and speaker. Below is a recent blog post he wrote that I think is right on. Let me know (better yet), let Bruce know what you think.

Seems like many of the blogs I read just posted their best or worst of lists for 2010. I thought maybe it would be a little more useful to create a list of five important ideas for marketing success in 2011.

1 The Future Started Yesterday.

When I speak on social media issues at corporate conferences, I always tell my audiences that “this whole Internet thing is going to catch on…it’s going to be huge.” Before you award me The Master Of The Bleeding Obvious medal of honor, please take my statement to heart. If your company hasn’t fully embraced the new online technologies, you’re already out of business; you just don’t know it yet.

2 Good Enough is Good Enough.

Trained as an art director, I always considered part of my position to be the protector of quality. We designers would spend hours on typesetting, worrying about kerning and line spacing, for example – painstaking chores that can now be done with the click of a mouse. In the name of fine resolution, we’d also fight with our clients to spend enormous sums for 16 or 35mm film when today you can buy a higher resolution Canon HDSLR for less than two grand. But regardless of what equipment you use, when was the last time you heard someone complain about the resolution on YouTube? Fact is, resolution has gotten so good, so cheap, and often so unimportant, that there are now cameras such as the Holga and iPhone apps like Hipstamatic that are popular because they deliver the humanistic artiness of lo-res.

As Sting sang in Consider Me Gone, “To search for perfection is all very well. But to look for heaven is to live here in hell.” Or as Seth Godin wrote, “Get it out the door” already.

3 Faster, Cheaper. Better. Pick All Three.

The old line used to be, “Faster. Cheaper. Better. Pick any two.” If you wanted it fast and good it was going to be expensive. Good and cheap would take time. And if you wanted it fast and cheap it would suck. But that was back in the day when our clients used to ask “what have you done for me lately?”

With the advent of online technologies, today’s question is “what have you done for me next?” As the taciturn comedianSteven Wright quipped, “I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.” Or to quote Groucho Marx, “I’ll stay a week or two, I’ll stay the summer through. But I am telling you that I must be going.”

No one’s going to wait around for you to get it done. Not when there are Internet services, freelancers, Asian entrepreneurs, in-house departments, and computer programs just itching to do it. And because these days good enough very often is good enough, it had better be fast and cheap too.

4 Be Different. Or Be Dead.

And speaking of Asian entrepreneurs, in his best-selling book “A Whole New Mind,” Daniel Pink writes about the dangers of the ‘Three As’: Abundance, Asia, and Automation. Pink explains that anything that can be created in abundance will be; anything that can be made in Asia will; and anything that can be automated will be as well. As Pink sees it, if your products or services are so generic or duplicatable that those three factors can come to bear, you’re in big trouble.

Pink’s solution? Develop and cultivate six senses: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning. His example of a successful business that can’t be copied; Madonna. (Needless to say, the book was written before the rise of Lady Gaga.) In other words, just standing up isn’t enough anymore. To be successful you have to stand out and stand for something. Otherwise, no one will care.

5 They Don’t Buy What You Do. They Buy Who You Are.

Because of the three As, and because good enough is now good enough, consumers no longer need to buy products or services for their functions. Not because the functions no longer matter but because the functions have become ubiquitous. Instead, the best sellers are purchased because of the relationships they create with their buyers.

If Madonna is the perfect product, then what steps can you take to build your brand and its value (both real and perceived) to your customer? After all, if you’re not providing it then someone else will. And as we’ve already seen, they’ll do it faster, cheaper and maybe, even better.

Taken together, these five observations may appear discouraging, suggesting that technology has superseded the need for quality and craftsmanship. Instead, I think they provide benchmarks for building a successful and creative business in this new technological age.

As I see it, the future for everyone in my business and all creative businesses is in their ability to create powerful, compelling ideas. Whether it’s a new way to get attention, a new way to deliver customer service or a new way to build a better mousetrap, 2011 will be the year of the idea. After all, despite how powerful computers have become, they haven’t started to think…yet.

I’ll explore that further with you next week. In the meantime, here’s to a happy, healthy and very creative 2011 for you and everyone you hold dear!

I love it when I see someone who is a natural whether their talent is in sports, music, entertainment or voice. It’s even better when those “naturals” are discovered or rediscovered in unexpected places.  Ted Williams is a former voice-over artist who until recently was homeless. Though he two years drug free, he was once addicted to drugs and alcohol. He was recently discovered by The Columbus Dispatch in Columbus, Ohio as he showed signs to drivers asking for help.  His handwritten signs displayed a message to drivers that read, “I have a God given gift of voice. I’m an ex-radio announcer who has fallen on hard times. Please, any help will be gratefully appreciated.”

His street auditions led Ted to the viral title of  The homeless man with the radio voice. He’s become a YouTube hit and has been reportedly offered a job a voice over for the Cleveland Cavs. (who needs LeBron James when you have Ted Williams). Williams said “the voice became something of a development over years and I went to school for it. Then alcohol and drugs and a few other things became a part of my life. I got two years clean and I’m trying hard to get it back.”

Williams became interested in radio started at age 14. He met an announcer who told him that radio was   ‘theatre of the mind.’ A love affair was born. The love affair came full circle when Ted, the homeless man with the golden voice, took a risk, put aside his pride, and starting promoting his natural talent in the most unlikely of places.

Watch for Ted Williams, the man with the golden voice,  January 6th “On Air with Ryan Seacrest”. Ted Williams story was  “The Today Show,” and he’ll appear again tomorrow.

Inspirational Speaker Tim Richardson is a full-time professional speaker and author. Tim writes and speaks about how to build community with customers, with co-workers, and in the community where you live. His programs focus on how to increase employee morale, lower employee turnover, increase customer loyalty and build a better sense of healthy community in cities, states, and countries all over the world. He is a community builder by volunteering in scouting, youth sports, and as a board member in several organizations including president and founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com

Tim Richardson is a professional speaker and author. Tim writes and speaks about how to build community (with customers, with co-workers, and in the community where you live). His programs focus on how to increase employee morale, lower employee turnover, increase customer loyalty and build a better sense of healthy community in cities, states, and countries all over the world. He is a community builder by volunteering in scouting, youth sports, and as a board member in several organizations including president and founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com

Sending Christmas cards in December (and doing some other “Christmasy” things in December) may never appear on my to do list again. Some of the traditional things (those that cause rushing and hurry) are gone for good from my schedule – at least not in December. Eliminating or rescheduling those things for other times of the year will free up time to celebrate what’s really imporant and create memories together with those you hold dear.  I’m not being a Grinch, I LOVE Christmas and will do Christmas at odd times throughout the year. Why should the feeling of spreading “good cheer” be reserved only for a month that has the shortest day of the year and some of the coldest weather? So here’s my top 10 list of why you might consider adopting my policy of writing my Christmas cards in July or September or May or whatever month you want!

1) Be different – stand out.

2) Spend time making memories with family and friends around the holidays. Give up on the feeling that you have to be some kind of Norman Rockwell Christmas creator.

3) Eliminate stress. When we send cards in December, it usually meant staying up late, getting a cramp in your writing hand, and maybe messy handwriting because you are racing against the clock (okay, my handwriting is messy anyway!)

4) Mail delivery time is slower in December.

5)  Surprise people. We all like surprises and what’s more surprising than receving aChristmas card at an unexpected time (or in an unexpected way)?

6) Avoid the rush. I may be the only person buying Christmas stamps this time of year (and yes the postal service has them!)

7) Stimulate the economy. Do your part to keep the postal service in business year round.

8) Save money. Cards are cheaper on December 26th.

9) Save time. I get my cards done when I want to do them not when the calendar or advertisements tell me to do them.

10) Forget holidaze forever. “nuff said.

Don’t worry if you didn’t get a card – there’s still some to be mailed …when I have time to write a few. And they only go to people who live out of town and those I won’t see at Christmas. So Merry Christmas – and don’t forget there are only 91 more shopping days left.

*What are you doing to stand out in your market, career or community?

Just asking.

Tim Richardson is a professional speaker and author. Tim writes and speaks about how to build community (with customers, with co-workers, and in the community where you live). His programs focus on how to increase employee morale, lower employee turnover, increase customer loyalty and build a better sense of healthy community in cities, states, and countries all over the world. He is a community builder by volunteering in scouting, youth sports, and as a board member in several organizations including president and founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com

For some, life on the other side is appealing. For those who have been there (mega wealthy), I suspect that it’s not as glamorous as it appears. The reality is many with great material wealth are caught in an unending cycle of never feeling like they have enough and never feeling satisfied. It’s like the law of diminishing marginal utility that I learned in economics. My interpretation in this situation is that each additional dollar (beyond a reasonable amount) brings a diminishing level of satisfaction or less and less satisfaction over time. On the opposite end of the spectrum is giving which is diametrically opposed to the law of diminishing marginal utility. The more you give, the better you feel and the more you get back. I think my friend gets that now and he’s on a road to RICHNESS unlike anything he’s ever gived…er… lived.

Tim Richardson is a professional speaker and author. Tim writes and speaks about how to build community (with customers, with co-workers, and in the community where you live). His programs focus on how to increase employee morale, lower employee turnover, increase customer loyalty and build a better sense of healthy community in cities, states, and countries all over the world. He is a community builder by volunteering in scouting, youth sports, and as a board member in several organizations including president and founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com

Tim Richardson is a professional speaker and author. Tim writes and speaks about how to build community (with customers, with co-workers, and in the community where you live). His programs focus on how to increase employee morale, lower employee turnover, increase customer loyalty and build a better sense of healthy community in cities, states, and countries all over the world. He is a community builder by volunteering in scouting, youth sports, and as a board member in several organizations including president and founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com

We talked about a lot while we were hiking including our families, politics, adventures, my job as an inspirational speaker, goals, and more. On the hike down, we talked about fear. Randy commented to me that he had a healthy respect for heights. In fact, he said his stomach got queasy when he climbed too high or was too close to a ledge with a sharp drop. He said when climbing a tower, he just had to start climbing without thinking. He told me that if he thought about it, he might just talk himself out of it. His responses made me think about my own fears. I thought about my experience only a day before on a high dive at a public pool. I started up the ladder to the high dive THINKING I would do a one and a half dive. When I got to the top, it seemed that all I could imagine was a less than perfect one and a half off the high dive. I actually saw myself going too far with the dive and landing on my back. I felt the pain of that and imagined the embarrassment that I would feel with my kids right there and friends standing nearby. I hesitated, looked around, then chose the safer swan dive. “Chicken”, was the first thought I had when I surfaced from the pool. BIG chicken.  Though I had successfully completed that dive many times, I let my fear take a stronghold on my actions. Instead of visualizing myself successful and seeing a picture of a well executed dive, I did the opposite and I waited. I didn’t heed the advice of my hiking buddy given to me just days before… dive right in. Of course, there are risks with diving right in but the downside is worse to me than the risks.

Food for thought:

1. Have a well executed plan. Practice and prepare before you perform, attempt, or act on a goal. See yourself as successful and eliminate the negative thoughts like “I can’t do this” or “what if I fail?”.

2. Think of the pitfalls BEFORE you get ready to do something so when you are ready to execute, you can “jump” with a healthy confidence, knowing you have already addressed the potential downsides.

3. When the moment comes to take the first step, don’t wait – just do it. Avoid the someday pitfall. The best someday is this day – TODAY.

Tim Richardson is a professional speaker and author. Tim writes and speaks about how to build community (with customers, with co-workers, and in the community where you live). His programs focus on how to increase employee morale, lower employee turnover, increase customer loyalty and build a better sense of healthy community in cities, states, and countries all over the world. He is a community builder by volunteering in scouting, youth sports, and as a board member in several organizations including president and founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com