Photo by Sean McGrath from Flickr.

I walked Max yesterday and froze my butt. When I checked the temperature, I noted it was colder in Nashville than Toronto. The weather app told me it was 28 in Nashville and 41 in Toronto. For the rest of the world that's 5 degrees Celcius in the T-Dot and -2 in Music City.

The cold weather reminded me of a long walk through Montreal one frigid February night. I was on my way to meet my friend, Julien Smith, for poutine and pints. It was -28 that night and I had about a 40-minute walk. I handled the cold way better than I do now. I guess I've been spoiled living in Nashville for eight years. 

When I arrived home from my walk with Max, I was ready to jump into a steamy shower. Then I thought about Julien's excellent book, The Flinch. Have you read it? It's a short, inspiring book about facing the things that make us flinch in our lives. 

You Should Take a Cold Shower

Julien Smith photo by Loic Lemeur from Flickr.

Julien encourages us to take a cold shower. He writes, "As the cold water hits you, you might shout or squirm. But the discomfort lasts only a second. You quickly get used to it. You get comfortable with the cold, instead of trying to avoid it. You put yourself in the path of the shower to speed up the adjustment process. Remember your reaction. You can use this method for everything."

Julien is one of the smartest people I know. I've enjoyed watching him face the cold water through his career. He's gone from renegade podcaster and blogger to a New York Times Best-Selling co-author. Did I mention his start-up, Breather, just received $20M in funding? 

I sucked it up and braced for the cold water this morning. Julien was right. It was shocking at first, I think my scream scared Max. My heart was racing after the cold shower and I felt more alert all day. There are scientific studies that prove taking cold showers can even help with depression and improve memory.

Download a copy.

Do yourself a favor and spend less than $3.00 for a copy of The Flinch. There is much more inspiration inside that will leave you ready to make some changes for the better. Leave a comment here if you read it, I'd love to know what you think.

How about you? Are you going to take a cold shower like I did this morning? Do you already take cold showers? 

I don’t care how big you (think you) are. Treat people the way you want to be treated.  

I wrote this and shared it on my social profiles the other day. It was retweeted, liked and commented on a fair amount. My message seemed to resonate with people.

What I didn’t share was the story that inspired it. As you probably know, I launched a new business a few weeks ago called Futureforth.com. 

I’ve been busy reaching out to my 1st Connections on LinkedIn who are CEOs of Nashville-area businesses. Most of these people are friends, some are people I’ve met at events or online.

Using LinkedIn’s advanced search is a powerful way to find the people you need to connect with. My message is brief. I’m asking for five minutes for a quick phone call, so I can tell them about Futureforth and ask how I can help with their businesses.

One person I contacted is a successful entrepreneur, let’s call him Bob. I won’t bore you with his accomplishments because they won’t seem that impressive when you hear what happened when I called him.

Bob’s reply to my message was curt. He wrote that I could call him. When I tried to set a time, he said setting a time was useless. Instead, I should call him mid-afternoon.

I called him at 1:40 pm.

Bob: “Hello?”
Me: “Hi, Bob. It’s Dave Delaney.”
Bob: “I told you mid-afternoon.”
CLICK.

He hung up on me. I was flabbergasted. What a jerk.

I called him back.

Bob: “Yes?”
Me: “Hi, Bob. I think we got cut off.”
Bob: “I told you mid-afternoon.”
Me: “Sorry, I thought 1:40 would be okay…”
CLICK.

He hung up on me again. Total jerk!

Thoughts raced through my head. I was tempted to share this and publicly shame him on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Who does that? Who hangs up on people? I realize he’s a successful guy who has done very well with his Nashville business, but that doesn’t give him the right.

I had to look back through emails and LinkedIn to see how we originally connected. He had asked me for my feedback on his business many years ago. We had met over coffee and I gave him plenty of free advice.

I decided I wanted nothing to do with Bob again and proceeded to remove him as a connection on LinkedIn. When you remove a connection you lose any private notes you made on the profile. So I decided to stay connected, because I never want to lose my note about Bob. My note is a little too colorful for me to reproduce for you here.

One day he’ll forget about this and ask me for a favor or an introduction. I’ll be sure to refer to my note and tell him to call me mid-afternoon NEVER. I'm all for forgiveness, but a jerk is a jerk. 

Instead of publicly shaming him, I shared a quick thought about what transpired. I have always tried to follow that one simple rule my mum taught me — Treat people the way you want to be treated.