Business behavior is changing. Remember full-service gas stations? Actually they were called Service Stations because service was all they were about. You (or for many of you reading this, your parents, perhaps) pull into the gas station and before the familiar 'ding ding' signals your arrival, outta nowhere appears a young man wearing a green starched shirt with a red star over the pocket. You roll down your window and instruct him to, "Fill 'er up." He pops your hood to check the oil and fluid levels, whips a tire gauge out of his front pocket to check tire pressure, and before pulling off, your front windshield is cleaned to a squeak (unlike today's 'to a streak'). As gas prices jumped, some stations began offering "self-service" pumps to save on costs or cut overhead and the self-serve gas was priced lower as an enticement for customers. As full-service pumps became more scarce, people made the shift to self-service. Consider the fact that today, many of us never see an attendant at the gas station. Pull up, swipe the card, fill-up and drive off.

What you may not know is that, as a result of the service-station shift, a legal uproar ensued. Lawsuits were filed and legal bans were introduced to save jobs from being cut. As a matter of fact, even today, self-service stations are prohibited in New Jersey and Oregon.

We are halfway through the first month of the ninth year of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Time is flying! And business is changing! The social and economic frontiers before us today present a plethora of unknowns, dark and vast. The question is, "How have you positioned yourself and your families on this Superhighway of Change?" Are you clutching the steering wheel of 'security' with clenched, blood-drained fists cruising at a safe 55 mph? Or maybe you've pulled off the road to allow this convoy of uncertainty to pass until the "good 'ole days" return. Though dark and dreary to some, others see the forthcoming vistas bursting with meadows of opportunity. Is the glass half-empty or half-full? The next time you stop to fuel up, take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror. Look at your loved one in the passenger seats. Look into the eyes of your child in the backseat. And ask yourself, "Why am I waiting, and what am I waiting for?". Whatever your answer, you have to take action. Either by choice... or by default. Because unless we're in New Jersey or Oregon, we gotta get out of our car.... and pump our own gas.



Success is a journey... choose yours!