I WANT TO BE A PURPLE COW!!!

          Why on earth would anyone title his or her blog, “I WANT TO BE A PURPLE COW?” Thank you for asking! I want to be a purple cow because I read an article by Seth Godin entitled, “In Praise of the Purple Cow.” In this article, Mr. Godin talked about driving down a road and seeing cows. Everyone gets excited the first few cows they see, but after a while, they become “just cows.” I totally understand this because of my experiences while visiting Yellowstone National Park each summer. You see, they don’t have “cows” in the normal sense, but they do have bison or buffalo, as most Americans incorrectly refer to them (myself included). And, the female bison is called a cow, so they do have cows, in a very real sense. Anyway…I digress.

Every summer, my daughter and I go to Yellowstone to watch wolves. Where we go is a beautiful valley that is surrounded with bison. Every year, as we enter the park, we put on our “Yellowstone eyes” and start watching for wildlife. We get so excited anytime we see movement or a traffic jam because we know that most likely it will be some type of wildlife that is causing the rustling of the bushes or the brake lights of the cars ahead of us. “OH MAN! I WONDER WHAT IT IS???”

We get so excited. We start calling out animal names…bison, deer, elk, wolf, coyote, etc. The excitement is palpable within the car! “BISON” someone exclaims, or as we usually refer to them “Bee-sone” in our very best (lame) attempt at a French accent. We don’t know how or why that started, it just did. But that doesn’t matter…what matters is we are SO excited to see our first animal within the park boundaries! However, this excitement soon begins to wane as we are stuck in our first of many “bison jams,” as they are called. Traffic jams caused by bison on the road.

What the heck does this have to do with purple cows? Hang on…I’m getting there! You see, when we first get there, it is exciting to see the bison. We haven’t seen them for a year. During that year, we have forgotten just how annoying they can become when you are in a hurry to get somewhere else and BAM your forward momentum is stopped by a bison jam. To make matters worse, we have two dogs with us, who apparently think they are wild themselves and go completely psychotic with EVERY SINGLE BISON THEY SEE!!! The twelve-pound dog is not so bad…annoying, but handle-able. The eighty-pound dog…well, that is a much different story. His tale becomes a weapon of mass destruction, capable of and, almost always nearly knocking one of the human companions unconscious! By the end of our two weeks in the park, we not only could care less if we ever saw another bison, but we barely acknowledge their existence as we leave the park.

BUT…if there was a purple bison…you better believe we would stop and take notice. Heck, we would probably turn into the “tourons” we so desperately hate. You know, the “touristic moron” who stops his car, truck, van, RV, or bus in the middle of the road to take a picture of the one bison on the other side of the river, a half-mile away, instead of driving forward ¼ mile to see 300 bison on, and next to, the road!!! We would become that person for a purple bison.

All of that information to get to this point…I want my business to be a “purple cow” business. I want it to be something that otherwise intelligent human beings will stop in the middle of the road to look at! That is the point of the article…to make your business something that stands out! I don’t think I will ever forget the image of a purple cow (or bison) and I know I will try to implement that into my business.

Another thing that has been brought to my realization this week is that I am NOT as technologically savvy as I thought I was. In preparing my video for my $100 challenge, I realized I have no clue how to do this effectively. I would love to make it all professional looking and such, but I have no idea how! This could prove to be a bit more challenging than I had anticipated. Not to mention, I’m still not a fan of the $100 challenge…just sayin’!

Until next time…go out and try to be a purple cow yourself! In whatever you do, try to do it in a positive manner, a world-changing manner, which has you “standing out” from the crowd. I WANT TO BE A PURPLE COW!!!! Do you??

(B283)