Last night I popped into the Price Chopper grocery store near my home. I needed exactly one item. Spinach. Organic spinach.

There was exactly one checkout lane open. One. That's bad, but it was a slow night in the grocery biz and there was only one person in line in head of me. She wanted to buy stamps. Which were at the CUSTOMER SERVICE counter, not in the check out lane. A long, involved discussion ensued. Finally, the stamps were delivered to the check out lane. Unfortunately no one seemed to know how to ring stamps into the register.

During this entire time, there were SIX, count 'em, SIX Price Chopper employees standing around doing absolutely nothing. Finally, after even more time passed, one of the six decided it might be a good idea to wander down to another check out counter and take care of the line that was forming behind me and the stamp lady.

One thought went through my head: "What's up with this?" I'm not sure exactly what caused the problem and I don't pretend to know how to fix it. But something was way wrong. I'm not even sure why I'm still thinking about it or why I'm telling you about it. It just seemed wrong.

While attending SOBCon '09 I had a chance to spend some time with Phil Gerbyshak. I'd known Phil online, but we'd never met in person before the conference. I found him to be a delightful human being. From the moment we shook hands, he was busy connecting me with "people you just gotta meet" and infecting everyone with his enthusiasm and insight.

Phil's book, 10 Ways to Make it Great! is a treasure – full of nuggets of wisdom and inspiration. Phil is a self-professed relationship geek and here's quote from the book that proves it:

"In order to make it great you absolutely must make the time to nourish the relationships that give you the most energy, provide you with the most insight, and are the best for you, whenever you can."

Now for the really good part: The first ten people who send me an email with "Make it Great" in the subject line will get a free copy of Make it Great!. Make sure you include your physical mailing address in the email, and sorry, we can mail only to addresses in the U.S.