Encouraging Positive Change

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Change is in the air. I see it everywhere and in every person I seem to be bumping into or meeting with these days. New year, new chapter, new beginnings, perhaps. Or maybe we're turning into a culture of innovation and reinvention by design or necessity. As Charles Darwin said, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

Every year, I've tried to add something new to the mix with my business to keep it fresh and exciting for me and interesting for my colleagues and clients. I’ve joined new organizations and boards; focused on writing some years, speaking engagements, others; traveled more; traveled less; read more; read less; added experts in new categories; cut back in other verticals. This year, despite having agreed to be the entrepreneur-in-residence with a leading academic institution, I'm going to try a less-is-more approach, which isn't that easy for me. I tend to be a more-is-more person in many respects.

It's not that I have trouble saying no; it's just that there are so many things I want to say yes to. And the older I get, the more things I find myself interested in. The problem is that I do my best thinking when I have down time and am not overscheduled. But unless I'm incredibly disciplined, it's hard for me to leave open spaces on my calendar. My tendency is to fill them, so I'll need some willpower to combat what comes most naturally to me.

It's said that your thoughts become words, your words become actions, your actions become habit, your habits become character, and your character is your destiny. Fearing that I'm becoming my calendar, I decided last weekend, when a friend called to play hooky, I was going to join her and enjoy the spontaneity of the moment even though I had a ton of work to do. It was the weekend after all, I work too much as it is, and spending time with her always energizes me and creates more capacity for ideas and inspiration.

I was scheduled to give two talks in the coming week and had other writing and speaking commitments planned for later in the month as well, none of which I felt fully prepared for. I was blocked on a few things I'd been thinking about and needed to get out of my rut. Was I overcommitted? Do I have unrealistic expectations for my time? What I realized after walking, talking and eating with my friend is that I should create more time for fun in my life when I cut out the people and things that drain me of my energy and enthusiasm. Easier said than done, I know, but here are some effective tips I've found that should help create positive change in your business and your life:

• Allow yourself to sleep enough. It's amazing how much you can accomplish when you're rested and feeling fresh.
  
• Exercise, and get the blood flowing to all parts of your body. We lead sedentary lives today, spending too much time in front of our computers or behind the wheels of our cars. Get up and move, walk more, and do something aerobic every day. (OK, in the spirit of full disclosure: Do as I say, not as I do here!)
  
• Eat well and regularly; food is the fuel for your mind and body. Sit down and have a civilized meal, ideally with an interesting person or something great to read. It'll open your mind, expand your capacity, and create energy for your day.
  
• Leave room for serendipity in your life. When you have white space on your calendar to think, write, call an old friend or colleague to catch up, or just breathe. Some days I find the most productive thing you can do is actually play hooky.
  
• Don’t be scared to hit the pause button sometimes. There's no rewind in life, but so much of our time seems to be living in fast forward these days that when you feel like you need a break, you should listen to your gut and reflect on what's going on around you. There are times to sprint, times to recover and days that are just a marathon. Each serves an important purpose.
  
• Expand your network. There are a lot of interesting people out there. Go to events or talks you typically don’t attend. Join and organization tangentially related to your area of specialty or linked to a long lost hobby you used to love. There are wine groups, film clubs, weekend ski trips, online organizations and groups for every interest you can imagine. Chances are, you'll meet some great people along the way.
  
• Try new things. Reach beyond your comfort zone so you continue to stretch and grow. You may just stumble into some activities you really enjoy and find out you have some hidden talents and skills you never realized. Keep those synapses firing--it may even help stave off Alzheimer’s, so break those routines and shake things up a bit. Cruise control is for cars, not entrepreneurs.
  
• Make this the year you deal with that issue that's been looming over your head--you know, the one you've avoided tackling. What do you have to lose? You may just solve it if you put it on the top of your to-do list and face it square on. Worst case, you’ll try a few things that won't work, but you may just have that breakthrough you were hoping for after all.

Even if you don't end up making major changes in your business, making some of the small changes I mentioned will help you be more rested, relaxed and healthier, which sounds like a recipe for success to me.

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Paige Arnof-Fenn is the founder and CEO of Mavens & Moguls, a strategic-marketing consulting firm whose clients include Fortune 500 companies as well as early stage and emerging businesses.

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Inside Canada's $4-billion pet industry

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Canadians spend $4 billion each year on their pets. More than half goes to the bare necessities: food and trips to the vet. But there's a huge new market for luxury animal products—designer clothes, posh resorts, organic treats, even insurance policies. Why the sudden urge to pamper our pets? Some say it's because people are waiting longer to have children and instead lavishing love on their animals. Others blame a consumer culture gone crazy. One thing's for sure: small-business owners are cashing in

Lisa Brooks
Happy Tails Pet Resort
Huntsville, Ont., started in 1996
"I had a fantasy when I was a child of being surrounded by dozens of dogs. It was my going-to-sleep dream. The dogs would be swimming and running and playing free, and we would all live together in a big brick house. Now I've achieved that dream. This is a place for people who don't like the idea of their dogs being caged, filed away and only being taken out for occasional exercise. It's a resort for pets. We have activities like paw-print painting and pottery, but most of the time the dogs just hang out with each other and have fun. Each dog has its own cubby to sleep and eat in. They're all wood, with Berber carpet in the summer and straw in the winter. There's also a TV and a fireplace. For the larger dogs, there are cabins on the grounds, and couches. The dogs sleep wherever they feel most comfortable. My favourite part of the day is meeting our customers—it's great to see people so happy with the service. Dogs that have been here before are excited when they arrive; they can't wait to be with the other dogs and play all day. At the end of their stay, the dogs are happy to see their owners, of course, but people always tell me that as soon as their pet has said hello and settled in to the car, they fall fast asleep. It's like a switch goes off, and they sleep most of the way home, like a child coming home from camp.

Fraser Telford
Exotic-fish expert, Big Al's
Mississauga, started in 1975
"As a kid, I was into every kind of bug I could catch. Then, when I was 6, our neighbour's son went off to university, and I got his five-gallon tank and some guppies. By my seventh birthday, I was ordering my own fish through the mail. I used to think I would become a marine biologist, but I found that I really enjoyed the retail end of things. I've been at Big Al's for five years. I'm the livestock man-ager for the Mississauga store, and it's like running a small zoo or aquarium. We have over a thousand species of fish, from goldfish and guppies to large angelfish and sharks. We had a 6 1/2-foot nurse shark named English Bob (he was named after one of the gunmen in Unforgiven) who outgrew his tank. So we shipped him off to the West Ed-monton Mall. We arrived at 4 a.m. to get him ready for the flight—even sharks have to get to the airport early.

We have school tours in here all the time. Growing up, I didn't have friends who were into fish, so it's nice to be able to pass on to kids what I've learned. We do a lot of set-ups for companies that want an impressive display tank. The Mandarin restaurants have huge, beautiful tanks. We get a few celebrities in as well—a lot of athletes, guys with disposable income. We order goldfish for Don Cherry straight from a huge farm in Hong Kong, and former Raptor Charlie Villanueva used to come in frequently. We also get guys from the Leafs and Argos. Saltwater tanks are very popular. It used to be that you needed a lot of time and money to keep one, but technology has advanced to the point where it's affordable for the average person. Reef tanks are the high-end items now. We have set-ups that run $18,000 to $20,000, and those are truly im-pressive. We also get parents who come in and say, "I need a salt-water tank and the fish from Finding Nemo. Make it happen." And we do.

You usually don't notice all the strange creatures you're dealing with, but sometimes a shipment will come in from South America, with something even we don't recognize. We have to pull out the textbooks. Probably the best part of my job is talking to people from all over the world. We have suppliers in Vanuatu, the Philippines—everywhere. Often their English isn't the greatest, but as soon as we start talking about fish, we really communicate. Fish are the common language that we speak."

"My husband, Serge, and I got Tyson three years ago. He's an American pit bull terrier, and he is the first pet we've owned as adults. We did a lot of re-search first, though. We found a reliable breeder on the internet, and called her veterinarian and her references. She's in the Okanagan Valley, and so we had to fly Tyson to Toronto, but we loved him right away. So, yes—we bought a pit bull over the internet. Our friends thought we were crazy, but if you knew us, you'd know that when other people say stay away from something, that just makes it more likely we'll do it. We love a challenge. Pit bulls are a short-haired breed, and they need a bit of cover in the winter. We looked everywhere, and we couldn't find any jackets that we liked, so I designed one. I had no previous sewing experience, but every time we went to the park, people would follow us and ask us where we got the jacket. That's how it started. We entered the One of a Kind craft show in Toronto last year and won the award for best booth, and that's when things really started to take off. I'm doing this full-time now, plus working as a graphic designer. The response has been amazing, and we've had plenty of requests for new products. But right now we're focused on ex-panding into the States and Europe with our current line. None of this would have happened without Tyson, of course. He's our muse."

Diana Fischer
English Nannies for Dogs Inc.
Toronto, started in 2002
My family moved to Ghana, West Africa, when I was 5. The company where my father worked had an aluminium extrusion plant. It was shortly after we arrived that I in-herited a small zoo from another businessman who was heading back to England. He had deer and monkeys and guinea pigs and rabbits, and they all moved into our gar-den. I've been living and working with animals ever since. I've trained horses and bred sheep, and for the past 20 years I've been training dogs. I believe in discipline and being firm with animals, especially when they're young. The most aggressive dogs come from homes where they are babied too much. That's fine once a dog is trained, but only after they have learned who is in charge. The leash is essential. In India, they will tie a baby elephant to a tree. The elephant learns that he can't move off that leash. As an adult, even though the elephant could easily pull the tree out of the ground, psychologically he doesn't believe that he can. He's learned the leash. But the most important part of what my daughter, Astrid, and I do is teach people how to use their voice and body language to project confidence to their dogs. We've been in homes where a child is being bullied at school, and the family dog will bully the child as well. If we can teach that child how to stand up for himself with the dog, then he will also learn how to stand up for himself at school. You can't be fake with a dog. A dog will see straight through you.

Dr. Karen Regan, Veterinarian
Animal Hospital of High Park
Toronto, started in 1986
Like a lot of little girls, I thought being a vet would be neat. It was my dream. It wasn't until I was in univers-ity and I got a job working with a vet that I realized I could do it. I loved every aspect of the job. That's when I decided to go to the Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph, and I've been working at the Animal Hospital of High Park ever since I graduated in 1997. Our clinic specializes in exotics and so-called pocket pets, so at any one time our waiting room can have mice, ferrets, reptiles, large dogs and any number of exotic birds. The birds will often be talking—and for a vet, it's a little distracting when your patients are talking up a storm in the waiting room. We didn't really learn much about exotic pets in veterinary college—there was only a single course when I was there. But the profession has come a long way in recent years. There are journals and ongoing education programs, and we also have a network of vets on the internet who deal with exotics. So when we come across something really unusual, we have a place where we can go to ask questions. I don't really like the term "pocket pets," which gets applied to small animals like hamsters and guinea pigs. There's something about the term that implies those pets are disposable. We believe that all animals should get the highest quality of care, no matter what their size, and the people who bring their pets here think the same way. Watching the animals get better and the bond that exists between the owners and their pets, that's some-thing to see. These animals are so well-loved. It's the most rewarding part of my job.

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