So, I’m sitting in a café writing my next book and thinking of you (this is a sneak peek at the cover, the subtitle isn’t even set in stone yet). I’ve found that thinking about (actually obsessing about) you, and what matters to you, is how I can make the most difference. But let me back up a bit. The reason I’m at this café and not tapping away in my lovely, whisper quiet home office at the moment is that Craig the builder is ripping out a bathroom and breaking up concrete in the process. Not much quiet in the office right now.

There are ten cafés within spitting distance of where I live on the coast, many have gorgeous ocean views, okay coffee and wifi. They are all ‘good enough’. And yet here I am in a little suburban branch of an international franchise with a view of the car park. The decor is the same as that of the four branches of this café that operate within 10 km of this one. The seating, cups, napkins, crockery, coffee, menu and uniforms, are all identical to every other Dome franchise, but as soon as you walk through the door here you experience difference.

It’s in the way that whoever is serving at the counter looks up the moment a customer walks in and says good morning. The way they make sure to say “see you again” when you leave. The posture of every single person who works here tells me they understand that they matter, and that they can make a difference to someone’s day. In fact the difference is hard to describe because it’s something you feel. Of course I want to know how they consistently pull this off and ask to see the manager. She arrives with a confident smile looking ready to solve any problem I could throw at her. When I ask how this manages to be the best Dome in Perth she laughs and without missing a beat she says, “I hire for personality.” Essentially what she’s telling me is that she hires for difference. And by golly does it show. She doesn’t rule people out because they have tattoos, funky hair, or wacky nail polish, she’s only concerned with how they will show up and bring their difference to work every day. And she wants them to have fun while they are doing it.

Difference doesn’t just mark you out as being a better choice than the competition.
It makes you the competition.

That’s what this next book is about. Showing you how to tap into your difference however big or tiny your entrepreneurial dreams are, whether you’re a one man band or the marketing manager of a Fortune 500. Because it turns out that the people and companies who organise for difference are the ones who tell the best stories and create ideas that matter.

If you’ve already bought Make Your Idea Matter or The Fortune Cookie Principle, thanks for being my reason to dodge the concrete drill this time around. Without you there would be no reason to write, and no excuse to have deep and meaningful conversations with random café managers .

And if you haven’t got either of the books yet, or you’d like to give them as a gift,
you can buy them today for just 99 cents on Amazon.
No Kindle required.