Tag: Lessons

The end

Posted on by philipdodson

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Life is made up of a series of stories and not all of them come to an end, but sometimes they do.

Films, stories, races, businesses, relationships and many things have an end. We are programmed to look at the bad endings only. Even great holidays, we are sad that the have ended. Not happy that we had a great holiday.

Feel grateful for the good things in anything. Learn from the parts that didn’t turn out how we wanted.

Results or endings can often by very disappointing, especially where it involves others and where we have set expectations on things we can’t control. Losses can be very sad and hard to overcome, especially a loss of a person.

It is all part of the journeys that we go on in life, every single one of us.

Time lessens the pain of losses and a different mindset allows a different approach to how we see endings.

Good comes from all endings when we look to the future, for the start of the next chapter, the next story, a fresh opportunity will come if we look for it. There are always lessons to learn and apply the knowledge from. There is the chance to write a new story, a better or different ending. There is a legacy left from the loss of a person in our lives, all the good things they leave in our memories.

Looking back on failed races, wrong endings or whatever the end was can only serve as an opportunity to learn to write a different ending next time around.

But no good looking back with remorse or regret, take the learning and move on. Sometimes things just weren’t meant to be and the ending is not about fault, it’s about the doing better next time.

Endings are the catalysts for change, for new beginnings and for life to move on the journey to the next destination.

The Secret Life of Pets

Posted on by philipdodson

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This afternoon we went to watch The Secret Life of Pets, it’s personally not a film that had been at the top of my wish lists of must-see films for 2016. However, taken for what it is, it had some very amusing moments and I enjoyed the popcorn.

The cinema that we use locally is owned by Cineworld, a national chain of cinemas.

Today I observed an interesting example of experience versus a quick win.

In their wisdom, Cineworld have decided to remove all humans that sell you tickets in favour of machines, which I get, and I always purchase my tickets online and add the QR code thing to my Passbook, so they just scan my iPhone, simple.

The mistake, though, not all people want to buy online or by machine, so in order to satisfy those customers, you can now buy tickets at the popcorn and snack outlet.

The snacks are a huge money spinner for Cineworld, the eye-watering prices for water and the eye-popping price of popcorn tell you that.

Now the queues are even longer for snacks and when you want to just get some popcorn, you have to wait while a group of 8 are sorting out tickets. I observed many people just give up and walk away, I did until I realised we were early for the film, so I killed 15 minutes queueing for popcorn.

But it wasn’t a great experience and made me resent their over-inflated prices 10X more as I stood waiting for the family in front decide which row they wanted, as if there are bad rows in a cinema with a 50 foot high and 100 foot wide screen and a sound system that could be heard from several miles away.

Businesses search for cost savings and shortcuts to making more money, often in the short-term to hit annually increasing revenue targets.

Smarter businesses invest in a great experience that not only gets their customers to return more frequently and also to share the great experience with others.

That’s the thing about today’s world, it’s delivery of an exceptional experience, not short-term manipulations to satisfy internal demands from stakeholders to make a quick buck.

Always play the long game and invest on experiences that your customers will share.