Every father wants to be the cool Dad! And you know the email's gonna be funny with any opening like that! lol Seriously, we all want to be the cool Dad, so we do things that are, sometimes, a bit questionable...some folks (like the ladies we love) might even call the thing we do down right dumb! I remember when I was a child, I used to LOVE to jump ramps. I would use anything as a ramp...a speed bump, a side walk, curb, virtually anything I could get air on...I did. It was great fun, and I only ended up with one serious injury, and that wasn't even a broken bone. So last week when my son came to me and asked me to build him a ramp for his remote control truck, I said sure... Then he said he wanted to use it for his scooter too (and my eyes started gleaming) and his bicycle (there you go son!) I was, honestly, jazzed. I searched on Youtube for "how to build a bike ramp," got a few videos, looked at them and found the design I thought was most stable, and off we went to Home Depot for 2 2X4's and a couple sheets of plywood. I laid out the plywood and used a sharpie to draw my patterns, cut the 2x4's to size and started cutting the plywood. Unfortunately, my cordless circular saw has batteries that are shot. So we wrapped up for the evening. A few days later, after I got home from work, we went back to Home Depot and I bought a corded (A/C powered) circular saw and shot home to finish the cuts. Yesterday we finished putting the whole thing together. That ramp is rock solid...it's a ramp I would've died for when I was 8! I was encouraging him to take a jump, when the Gorgeous and Stunningly Smart Mrs Farnell walked out and almost had a fit. "The ramps too high" "He's gonna get hurt" "Cut the ramp in half so it's not so high" On and on. When I told her she was being silly, she suggested, "Then why don't you jump it on your bike!" The thought ran through my head, "Hmmm..... I would be the cool Dad for sure! You know you'll fall, right? Yeah, but I can make the jump then I might fall once I land but I'll just land in the grass...no problem! And even if I fall while the bike's still in the air, it won't hurt that bad." So off I go to get my bike. Yes I did, and as you might have guessed by now I biffed, bigger then a brahma bull on steroids! AND IT HURT!! It hurt a damned site more than it hurt when I was 13, I can tell you that. The Gorgeous and Stunningly Smart Mrs. Farnell ran an Epsom salt bath for me and I retreated into out jacuzzi style tub for some recuperation. I guess what was true a few years ago ain't true any longer. I know you're laughing, saying "Duh Everte! You aren't as young as you used to be." But the question is, are you making the same mistake in your business? What are you assuming is it true today because it was true a decade ago...five years ago....2 years ago...6 months ago? Yes, we need to have some basis for doing business, but we also must test and measure our assumptions, lest we end up like me, hitting the ground hard...and hurting more than I ever thought possible What was true yesterday isn't necessarily true today. Trust me, I learned the hard way! To your Success, Everte Farnell