Running a business can be like riding a roller coaster. By yourself. At night. With no lights.

On the one hand, exhilarating. On the other, terrifying.

The point being that while often a thrill-a-minute, succeeding at business means thinking ahead of the curve, and being able to handle the peaks and valleys that get thrown you way just to make things interesting and help ensure that you haven’t stopped hyerpventilating.

Which is almost certainly how the top brass at Coke reacted this week when they found out that their secret formula was not only stolen, but offered to arch-competitor Pepsi.

But what did Pepsi do? Why, what any self-respecting business would do…the honorable thing. They refused to traffic in stolen goods, and notified their #1 rival Coke about the security breach.

And perhaps the best business-related quote of the week - maybe the year? - came from Pepsi Spokesman Dave DeCecco: “We just did what any responsible company would do. Competition can be fierce, but it also needs to be fair.”

Which brings us back to the exhilirating part of the Free Market roller coaster ride. Few things are more satisfying in business - and in life - than healthy competition. Measuring oneself against others, certainly, is the truest test of the power of one’s ideas, and one of the most rewarding activities known.

It’s when the business landscape reveals itself as unfairly tilted in someone else’s favor - and it effects your bottom line - that the valley turns to peak and exhiliration turns to terror. Because when others cheat, everyone loses.

Take the Tour de France, for instance. Just last week, some of the top competitors in the sport were kicked out of this year’s Tour after it was discovered that they may have used illegal, performance-enhancing drugs. Fortunately, the business of sport recognizes the importance of preserving healthy, fair competition.

Which, by contrast, is exactly what it seems like we had on July 4th for the International Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island in New York. Many entered, but only one could win. And 53 3/4 hot dogs later, he did – for the 6th time in a row!

Not sure if the sponsoring hot dog company is offering any kind of reward for their champ, but I can imagine sales are way up for hot dogs as a result of the competition. So there has to be an angle here for Frequent Flier Miles/rewards, right? Turns out they are giving away everything else for miles programs these days - all part of being creative in business.

But hot dogs might very well be the only product not yet included in the airline rewards program.

I said “might.”

Hot dogs and airplanes…starting to remind me of that exhilarating/terrifying roller coaster ride again.

Back to work!

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