Touch Points

It's Christmas!

It's Christmas in Canada and we've had a wonderful time with friends and family. Have a wonderful holiday wherever you are.

See you in the New Year!!!

Steve

Best of the Season!

The Rae Family is all gathered from various points across Canada, we had a snowstorm that dumped about a foot and a half of snow yesterday, so the stage is set for a wonderful and blessed Christmas. May the season of love and peace cast a spell over you that lasts all year. Whatever your faith, may you be blessed this holiday season.

Steve Rae

The Paradox

This came to me in a e-mail and it is clever and also poignant. The last line is a beautiful quote unto itself and is worth getting to.  Steve

The paradox of our time in history is that we have
taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider
freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more,
but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have
bigger houses and smaller families, more
conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees
but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment,
more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but
less wellness...

Travelling

Greetings! As you read this, I am on a train with my family taking our daughter back to university in New Brunswick. We'll be returning on Tuesday and will catch up with all then.

Cheers

Steve

We're back!

Hi everyone,

I'm now back from a canoe trip to the wilds of Northern Ontario, so the stories and research will return to a more normal pace (I hope). If you have stories to share about customer experiences, please send them to me. I look forward to reading and publishing them.

Cheers,

Steve

We're back!

Greetings! Carolyn and I are back after a week of vacation at our cottage. It turned into a week of building as I added an addition on to our cottage. I am aching in places I didn't know could ache, but it was worth the effort as we now have a beautiful screened in porch to spend the hours out of the sun and most of all away from the insects. The holiday started with an incredible birthday present from my wife. I returned home on Saturday from the Secret Formulas course at the Wizard Academy in Texas to be picked up by an aquaintance and flown in his amphibious plane right to the dock of my island cottage. It was the dream of a lifetime for me. Ever since I was a young lad, one of my fondest desires was to fly in a float plane to the cottage. It turned a trip of 3 1/2 hours by auto and boat into a 1 hour journey that really revved up my interest in learning how to fly. My brother is a commercial airline pilot so maybe some of his flying genes passed on to me.

The plane parked at our dock and a view of our lake from the air.

As for the Secret Formulas course at the Wizard Academy here is a comment received from Wizard Partner Randy Allsbury:
"This past week Roy H. Williams, head professor and dean of Wizard Academy rolled out the new class for the Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads workshop. I was fortunate enough to attend. WOW! The Wizard taught us how to implement the Advertising Performance Equation (APE), the importance of finding your "Sword in the Stone" and then how to find your "Sword in the Stone". "Sword in the Stone" that one thing that everything in your business revolves around. That one main thing that is non-negotiable. It's that one thing Cult Brands are made of. I've been studying the Wizard's stuff for quite some time. This workshop was an eye opener!!!"

Thanks Randy. I agree it was one of the best learning experiences ever at the Wizard Academy and I've probably been there 30 times. Check it out.

Here's a picture taken from atop the ridge on which will sit the Wizard Academy. It's a special place that I invite everybody to try to get to at some point in your life, kind of like the float plane thing with me.

Steve

Vacation & stuff

Hi Folks, It's been a great week here in Austin catching up on things at the Wizard Academy. We had a beautiful night last night at the new Academy Campus, singing around the campfire, talking with a bunch of really interesting people. The raw land of the campus possesses an incredible energy and is going to be a very special place when it's completed in the next couple of years.

I'll be heading home on Saturday followed by a week on vacation at our cottage in the beautiful Muskoka region of Ontario. Because I don't have high speed connection at our cottage, I will be off line with Touch Points until early August. But I will be collecting more stories and experiences and will share them with you when we get back together.

Ciao for now!

Steve

Can You Read This?

Jim Hayes, a friend of mine here in Stratford who has an amazing business in used office furniture sent me this. It has absolutely nothing to do with Customer Service, but it's fun.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg
THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are,
the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but
the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Today is Canada Day!

It is a time of year when we Canadians happily celebrate our country and
heritage. Happily, because we get a day off to do it. Not that we don’t celebrate our Canadianness
the rest of the year, it’s just that we, the understated people, tend not to show great outpourings
of wild patriotism any other time of the year other than during hockey games or beer commercials
for our national brand Molson Canadian entitled “I AM CANADIAN!”

It’s not that we’re not proud of being Canadians. We, in fact are extremely proud, especially when
somebody from our country is mentioned anywhere else in the world. “He’s or she’s a Canadian,
you know,” we say with that little brother kind of pride.

There is a great book that I can recommend to you that explains much of what makes us unique
as Canadians. It’s called Breaking The Ice, Your introductory Guide to the Canadian Market by
Wizard of Ads Partner Ron Love. It’s a fun look at many of our Canadian institutions and foibles
and how doing business here is different than dealing anywhere else.

So, cheers to you, as I sit with my feet up on the deck at my cottage watching the flotilla of boats
stream past my dock with their Canadian flags unfurled and dancing in the sun. I’ve just cracked
open the first “Canadian” of the day and raise the bottle in salute to all that is wonderful about
being a Canadian and living in this great land.

Steve Rae

ps. Happy Independence Day to my American friends. Have a truly great 4th of July. And of
course, we can’t forget our Australian brothers and sisters who next celebrate Australia Day in
208 days on January 26th.