Have you ever had a child, who rarely requests food, specifically ask for macaroni and cheese? Have you ever opened a packet of powdered cheese sauce from the box, only to find it has gone rancid and congealed? Have you ever had both happen simultaneously? If you have, then you have surely learned this lesson already.
Sometimes, you need to find a different way.
In this instance, I knew how to make a cheese sauce from scratch, so I began to make a roux with butter and flour. I had just added in some milk to create the basis for a sauce when I realized the only shredded cheese in the refrigerator was mozzarella. Not the ideal cheese for macaroni and cheese. But I was undeterred. My daughter wanted macaroni and cheese! She only asks for a specific food maybe once a week. I was not going to let her down!
I found a block of Velveeta in the back of the cabinet and diced it into small pieces and melted it into the sauce I already made. Success! While it was thicker than usual, it was still macaroni and cheese and my daughter gobbled it down. I had made it happen. I was supermom!
In The Journey Training, we often talk about how you can make it from point “A to B”. Sometimes, your first attempt won’t work out the way you originally planned. But along the way you can learn to improvise and even blaze your own trail.
In the movie Finding Dory, the quote “There’s always another way!” has often inspired me (and my friend Alison) to “just keep swimming”.
If you try to do something and it doesn’t work, don’t stop, try another way. If you can’t see another way, ask others for help. There’s always more than one way to make Mac and Cheese!
I hired Josh when he was a young man, and although he didn’t work for me long, he was always respectful. He eventually had to quit due to commitments at school. A few years later he started a snow cone business.
“I started the shack because I had worked at a snow cone stand for a little while and loved everything about the business.”
Over the last 9 years his business has grown from one Josh’s Sno Shack to four Josh’s Sno Shacks along with two mobile units. It’s not unusual to see people camped out for snow cones at the opening of the season, or to see regular lines of 15 to 30 people! His special blend of snow cone goodness has been recognized as the best in Tulsa by just about every news outlet in the area, and his social media presence is very strong, especially with teens. Recently a grocery store chain purchased a number of other grocery stores in the area, including where the original Josh’s Sno Shack was located.
Here’s how it went down according to Josh Juarez:
“Early September I got asked to move my shack by October 6th for repaving. The initial conversation was with a district manager. I was fairly adamant about my concern and desire to get a new contract before I moved the building. She said they were too busy and to just try to contact them later in February. I asked if there was anything I could do to talk to the person making the decision and she told me to email her my information, what I was wanting and that she would forward it to the CEO. I did this and a couple weeks went by with no response. I randomly ran into someone who gave me the name of the individual who was in charge. I called Reasor’s corporate and left a couple of messages for him. No response. I guessed the email address and sent the guy an email. Later that day I got a call from the district manager. She said they were not interested. I pleaded but she couldn’t do anything. I called the individual in charge and he finally answered. He said that he could not do anything and that ‘they had a policy that restricted snow cone stands from being on their property.’ After pleading and trying to show how we could benefit Reasor’s, I respectfully hung up. We posted the information on Facebook and closed (for what we thought was our last day) October 4th. We asked people to write/email Reasor’s and request that we be allowed to stay. People went crazy and the support was insane. Monday afternoon I got a call from channel 2. They did the story about the situation and it aired Monday night at 10pm.Throughout the interview I remained positive towards Reasor’s. Tuesday morning I got a call from the COO of Reasor’s. He said they wanted to figure something out and work around the policy. We had a contract by Thursday and my shack was back the following week.”
This is a classic case of a situation that seemed insurmountable. It looked as though there was no hope and the ship was sinking. Most people would give up, but Josh took a different approach. He applied the “get off your ask” principle.
How often do we see the captain go down with the ship, when all they need to do is persistently ask for help? Instead, they choose to not ask for help. It could be one of a number of reasons, but the end result is they go down with the ship when they may not have needed to. Is there something in your life that you may need to ask for help to achieve your goal?
In The journey Training, we teach that there are an infinite number of possibilities to get what you need, and the most basic – yet often overlooked – is simply asking for it. Maybe it’s pride, or embarrassment that can cause you to let the ship sink. Isn’t it time you get off your ask? You just might find, just like in The Journey Training, that there are people that want to help you get where you need to go!
