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you lived your dream with the Famous Amos cookies!
Someone is listening right now and has an idea of their
own, what steps or tips can you give them to get that idea
going? To get some life to it?
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Well, the first thing is, you got to be passionate
about the idea. I d been making cookies for five
years. I d been eating them since I was 12 years old.
I love chocolate chip cookies. So, it needs to be an
idea that you re in love with. That you re really
married to. Not an idea just to make money with.
Not an idea that you think is going to just give you
material gain. Because sooner or later the passion
will wear off. You won t be as involved with the idea,
as you would if you were really in love with the idea.
So, it needs to be an idea that you are passionate
about.
There are some basic things that you need to do.
First of all, you need to do something!
A lot of people have ideas and they go around
and they research the ideas forever. They want to
get a guarantee that the idea is going to work. They
want to talk to all or their friends about the idea. They
want everybody else s approval on the idea before
they will actually begin to implement it.
So, you got to be passionate about it. And then
you ve got to start somewhere with your idea.
When I had the idea to sell chocolate chip
cookies one evening, I was with a friend and we
decided that we were going to open a store selling
chocolate chip cookies.
What do you do next? I d never opened a retail
store before in my life.
So the very next day, I went into the office and I
said,  B.J., you know what? Call the Health
Department and find out what are the requirements
for opening a store selling chocolate chip cookies.
Because I knew if it were food the Health
Department would have something to do with it.
So, you gotta do something. You can t just sit on
the idea. It doesn t have to be the beginning, the
middle, or the end, but just start wherever you start.
So, have passion and take action! That s great.
Let s cover something that has happened to you over the
years, I m going to bridge into a lot of success principles that
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you can share. You have a great book that all my readers, all
my listeners should grab. The Man with Noname by Wally
Amos, why is that the title?
Man with Noname is the title because I am the
man with no name! Famous Amos sued me after I
left the company claiming ownership of my name
and likeness, so I couldn t use my name.
You gotta have a name if your going to have a
business. Otherwise how are people going to buy
your product?
So, I was walking on the beach in Laguna and
actually met a total stranger. And I shared with him
that I had lost the company and we were talking
about another misadventure that I had actually
started, called Chip and Cookie where I had these
two little chocolate chip cookie dolls that my wife
Christine created. And I was wearing a Chip and
Cookie T-shirt as was Christine.
So, he had heard me do a radio interview and he
said,  man, I heard that and it s a great idea. I said,
 well it might be a great idea, but Chip and Cookies
is sleeping right now because I m being sued by
Famous Amos. But, I said,  I m getting ready to start
another company and I was actually going to call that
new company, No Namos. Because I m combining
no name with Amos and was bringing in the
familiarity of Amos and I thought that was a hip idea.
He said,  no, you know man, I think you ought to call
it Uncle Noname. He said,  when people look at it,
they are not going to say noname, even though you
are going to have an accent over the  e , when
people look at it they are going to read no name.
That s going to be an opening. That s going to be an
opportunity for you to talk about what s happening.
Well, that s exactly what did happen.
Now, an important lesson in that for me was,
listening to other people. Because people will come
up and they re going to have suggestions for you on
what you should do and how you should it.
Sometime you re going to listen to them, sometimes
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you re not. Sometimes you re going to do what they
say, sometimes you re not. But you should always
maybe listen because it might be something that you
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