Stephen Bleile

Hello Everyone.

I’ve had an idea:  Let’s put Rogers and Blockbusters out of business.  It would be great fun and it would be a sweet way to get to know the neighbors.

Here’s the thing.  On an average street, with average neighbors, and average life styles we can assume that there are a lot of people watching movies that they have either purchased or rented.

On average they are likely watching a lot of the same movies.  THE SAME MOVIES I WOULD SPEND $5 TO RENT.  This is how Blockbusters / Rogers make money.  They sell the same thing over and over again.  Their model works soley because neighbors are not organized enough to share their resources.

IDEA: What if you could set up some sort of system whereby people on your block would know what movies you and everyone else has.  Then, when they want to ‘rent’ a movie they could just cross the street and borrow it from you or  Mr. and Mrs. Smith  instead?

I’m sure some facebook app. could be designed… or maybe just a google doc to share the information? It could be pretty basic:

Mr. and Mrs. Smith have the following titles:  blah, blah, and blah.  Jimmie has the following titles: (blah, zip and zap.)

It’s really like napster… only you would actually be sharing a physical thing.  And THAT is certainly above board.

I think you could meet a lot of your neighbors, save some money, and even have quite a good time in the process.  Some entrepreneurial person might even make a buck off of said system.

If enough people did it we could even put Rogers/ Blockbusters out of business… or at very least force them to stock hard to find movies.

Here’s the excuse you’ve been waiting for to have some fun, live an adventure, tackle that little idea in the back of your head, take some quiet time for yourself, get people interested in your life, get interested in other people’s lives, make some money or perhaps get out of the pews and into the streets.

From June 14-20th I will be attempting to execute one idea per day that will stimulate my sense of adventure, impact at least one other person’s life, and hopefully create a few stories.

I invite you to join me here as I document the results.  I also invite you to try the same and share your stories with me.

Here are a few principles from my book (Before Your First Steps:  A Cure for Manic Boredom) that might help you get started:

1. Slow down.  Take 5 minutes to be still.  This will likely kill you; proceed to step 2 to get thinking about something.

2. Think about something you’d like someone else to do for you this very moment, or yesterday, or tomorrow.

>”Geez, I wish someone would mow the lawn.”

>”I would like an ice cream sandwich.”

>”I wish someone would invite me to do something.”

3. Think about something you could do to make someone else smile that wouldn’t take too long and would likely result in a smile.

>Pick up trash blown onto neighbors lawn

>Invite someone for dinner

>Comment on someone’s blog

4. Think about how you could impliment your ideas in number 2 for someone else.

5. Take one ideas from 3 or 4 and go try it! (Or use one from this list.)

6. Bring along a camera or notepad and document the results.

7. Post them on facebook or on this site.

8. Check out how my adventures are going.