Reality: How To Turn This Into An Opportunity?

2023.12.26 | #42

Happy Reality Day! Here is your weekly dose of reality to help you live 1% happier↓

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❤ 1 Insight From Me

Imagine it’s sunny and you set up a little stall in front of your house and start selling freshly squeezed lemonade. But as soon as you started selling, you found that all customers had been warned by Coca-Cola. Anyone who dared to buy your lemonade juice would never be able to buy Coca-Cola again. What would you do?

Ben & Jerry’s is a famous American ice cream brand, its product is the iconic pint ice cream. The brand was founded by two friends, Ben and Jerry, and encountered this problem when it was first born.

They sold the ice cream in corner stores and was doing well at first because everyone liked their ice cream.

But one day they suddenly discovered that no one was buying.

What’s happening here? So they asked the store owners.

“We were warned by big ice cream,” the owner said.

“What?”

“The boss of Haagen-Dazs said that if we dare to continue selling your ice cream, they will never supply us.”

If you hear this news, would your heart suddenly feel colder than the ice cream in Alaska in winter?

They also felt like a big sky-covering stone was about to crush their little egg.

The difference is that they both have a hippie rebellious spirit similar to that of Steve Jobs. When faced with a setback, their first thought is not to give in, but to ask themselves:

“How to turn this into an opportunity?”

This question gave rise to a case that would later become famous in the history of American business.

They carried out the famous “What’s the Doughboy Afraid Of?” campaign.

They printed on each ice cream package “We are under attack, call this number to hear about the story of how they are trying to kill your favorite ice cream brand. ” The phone call was a 3-minute pre-recorded audio of the Haagen-Dazs Suppress story. The call ended with “buy ice cream and these stickers to show your support”.

Not long after, the story of a small brand in a small corner of a small city resisting Haagen-Dazs was published in New Yorker. People all over the United States began to stand behind this small brand and say no to Haagen-Dazs.

With this battle, they not only withstood the strangle of Haagen-Dazs, but also became famous, sweeping across the United States from a small corner.

From now on, every time you eat ice cream, you can look at the ice cream in your hand and ask yourself:

“How to turn this into an opportunity?”

Jerry with the “What’s the Doughboy Afraid Of?” sign.

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❤ 1 Insight From Others

“Anything that was bad, we got hyped, because this could be the story that we are telling someday. “

― Shaan Puri

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❤ 1 Small Step To Take

“How to turn this into an opportunity?”

Starting from reading this newsletter, every time you encounter a setback, ask yourself, what is something good about this? Are there any opportunities I can take advantage of?

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Do you find this issue of Reality helpful? Leave a reply to this email, I check every reply in my inbox.

Until next week,

Ted Wild

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