David Lee Roth & M&M’s

If you’ve ever heard me preach you know that I will do just about anything to include M&M’s in as an illustration…and not just a few either…pounds of M&M’s have helped illustrate giving and how our emotions sometimes come pouring out of us.  Well I just read an article in Fast Company magazine that had to do with M&M’s and I thought I’d share.

Back in the 1980’s when Van Halen was in it’s heyday, David Lee Roth was known for his wild antics and what we’d call diva like attitudes as he and the band were on the road.  One such diva like characteristic was that the band wanted bowls full of M&M’s in their dressing room.  Wow the nerve of some people right?  Wrong…read on to find out why.

Van Halen toured to many cities every year and when they pulled into a city with 9 tractor trailer loads full of equipment and staging, there was a lot of work for the local promoter and stage hands to set-up.  Van Halen like all bands had a contract with the local promoter of everything that needed to be done in order to ensure a successful and profitable show.  There were many technical points in these contracts like, “There will be 15 amperage voltage sockets at 20-foot spaces, evenly, providing 19 amperes.”  Roth himself said the contract was thick and convoluted but needed to be followed exactly in order to not have technical errors that might destroy the entire show.

So Roth did something quite ingenious.  He inserted in the middle of the contract, Article 126 which said that the bowls of M&M’s backstage for the band must not contain any brown M&M’s or the promoter risked forfeiting the show.  When the band would show up the day of the show the first thing Roth did was go backstage to the dressing room to see if there were any brown M&M’s in the bowls.  If there were not it meant that the entire contract had been read and more than likely each of the other line items were being followed to a “T”.  If they weren’t removed then Roth demanded that every item of every line be checked since the crews were not paying attention to ensure the show went off without any technical glitches.

So what’s that have to do with us.  Simple…details matter.  Whether it’s in life, business or church, paying attention to the little details will go a long way in ensuring success.  So what are the brown M&M’s in your life or organization that you need to take care of today?