When I was packing books for my upcoming move a tiny volume caught my eye. Although it’s not readily available in the US, the title that got my attention was Simon Woodroffe’s The Book of Yo!
Even though I’m not a sushi eater, I knew about Yo! Sushi, the business started in London in 1997 by Woodroffe and billed as the “World’s Largest Conveyor Belt Sushi Bar.” Today Yo! Sushi is an international brand with establishments in sixty countries.
The brand has expanded into other endeavors including Yotel, Yo! Zone, Yo! Home and RadiYo. According to their Website, YO! Co is the wholly owned holding company of Simon Woodroffe that works with others to develop and seed finance YO! ideas and new YO! brands. YO! Co owns equity stakes and collects royalties from its endeavors.
When Woodroffe wrote The Book of Yo! the company was only a couple of years old. Nevertheless it is a fascinating tale of bringing an idea to life.
The book begins with one of the most whimsical entrepreneurial bios I’ve read. Here’s a bit of it:
Simon, who knew nothing about restaurants and not a lot about sushi except that he liked it, won awards while YO! was still a small company, albeit always with big ambitions.
Simon lives alone in London’s West End without a TV set and with his own karaoke machine. He rides horses with his daughter Charlotte and her mum, climbs up and skis down mountains and dreams that his tennis will get better.
He reckons that if he had a year left to live, he’d carry on doing what he is doing today: writing, dreaming, scheming and speaking about YO!
Like everything else Woodroffe touches, his book is also unique. A mere 60 pages long, this little treasure has a most unusual format. All the left-hand pages are orange and tell one part of his entrepreneurial journey. The right-hand pages are white and share a lesson learned from the aforementioned part of his story along with a brief tip sheet to encourage other would-be entrepreneurs.
Here are his a few of his thoughts on Finding the Way:
° Practice removing “I don’t know” from your vocabulary and when you are unsure, ask yourself the question, “If I did know the answer, what would it be?”
° Write down what you’d do if you had a year left to live.
° Keep a notebook of all your ideas, yes even the stupid, passing or fleeting ones. Become obsessed with getting them down, even keeping pen and pencil by your bed.
Then there’s this observation: “I’ve noticed that most successful people also fail, so I set myself daily targets to fail and when I get six in the bag I punch the air, knowing I am on track.”
Of course, he has advice on how to Practice Failing:
° Ask someone out with the intention of being rejected. You might be surprised.
° Make the hardest call you can imagine. After that the others will be easy.
° Tell someone who deserves it how much you love them.
° Support and encourage others to fail around you.
Woodroffe sold Yo! Sushi in 2003, but continues to spread entrepreneurial spirit through Yo!Co and speaking around the world.
Finding the little treasure that is The Book of Yo! Sushi was a terrific reminder that someone else’s story can inspire—even awaken—our own entrepreneurial spirit.
“I dare say, all successful entrepreneurs have loved the story of their business,” says Michael E. Gerber, “Because that’s what true entrepreneurs do: They tell stories that come to life in the form of their business.”
Don’t miss the stories. They’re loaded with clues.
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Since whimsical British business is on my mind today, here’s another little story from today’s mailing from Innocent Drinks, another reminder why I love them so much.
Ian is the man who delivers our eggs from Treflach Farm every week and in return, we give him any out-of-date smoothies we have for his pigs. A big chunk of the profits from the farm go towards running local community projects so we like to help out Ian and his team whenever we can. Recently, we had a raffle to raise funds for a new classroom at Treflach, where children can go along and learn all about being a farmer, working outdoors and looking after the environment.
Hi Barbara
Thanks for the great post, I can really relate to the failing part. I’ve learnt that by allowing myself to make mistakes is a relief in itself because it takes off the pressure and most importantly that it is okay to make mistakes, as that is part of being human. We learn so much more from our failures, and those lessons tend to ‘stick’ as well.
I really want to read Simon’s bio now 🙂
Michelle
There are numerous YouTube videos with Simon, also. Some are better than others!
That sounds like a really interesting book, I will have to search it out.
As someone who is sure they must be someone, and is going to find out who, I am feasting myself on all this kind of thing. And slowly forming an idea of what I could be doing instead of this.
In the meantime, I might try practicing failing…