It was two days after Christmas. And PBR CEO in absentia Brian McMahon was pacing the floor, listening to his lady friend Melissa tell him about all of the flights to New York City that had been canceled that day.

Brian and Melissa live together in Hoboken, a suburb of the Big Apple. Ostensibly, they were staying with us for the just a few days over Christmas. Brian was in my family room and Melissa was at Great Pitt. He had dropped her off to catch an 8 am flight earlier that day.

I watched Brian pace the floor, occasionally rubbing his hands through his hair. He does this when he’s thinking.

I picked up snippets of his conversation with Melissa, “But honey, the trains aren’t running either,” and, “Yeah, that’s what they are telling you, but I’m sure that flight will get canceled, too.”

He was right. The airlines were canceling flights as fast as the government prints money.

Brian is an ex-student of mine, and one of the most driven, entrepreneurial people I’ve ever met. He lives in a strange world of constant motion and occasional pain. I say pain because Brian can’t stand losing, and he feels that if he closes his eyes for even one minute, somebody just moved ahead of him. This is also why he never sleeps.

I could see the idea forming on his face. He told Melissa he would call her back, and once off the phone, he turned to me to say, “I’ve decided I’m going to rent a bus, and get Melissa and a bunch of other people back to New York City today,” he said. “I’ll bet there are two-dozen people out at that airport that would pay at least a $150 for a bus ride home.”

I felt like it might now be a good time to ask my first question, “Brian, you say you’re going to rent a bus? Do you know somebody in the bus business?”

“No, I don’t know anyone,” he said. “I thought you would.”

By the time that I told him that I knew the guy who ran the local cab/bus/limousine franchise, Jamie Campolongo (a frequent guest on my radio show and a terrific guy), he had already used his iPhone to find the number of a bus charter company here in town.

In a heartbeat, Brian had a woman on the other end of the line who clearly was in the business of renting large, multi-seated vehicles. So, I just let nature take its course.

Less than 30 minutes later, Brian was ruffling through my daughter’s “play school kit,” a semi-toy that she had just received for Christmas. He was looking for a small blackboard and some serialized ticket/coupons that Lexi had filched from a carnival last summer. Apparently, he had seen these things lying around the playroom when he was babysitting her the night before.

When he put on a white shirt and asked me for a “nice tie,” I knew that he was dead serious. He was out the door before I could even raise a decent objection.

On his way to the airport, Brian and Melissa worked out the details. They would charge $150 per ticket, with small discounts for multiple purchases. Their fare was one-way and it had to be paid in cash. Brian’s break-even was about 10 riders.

Even before he arrived at the airport, Melissa was getting people organized. There was one group of eight Chinese passengers who were clearly exasperated and just wanted to get back to their favorite Big Apple. Brian and Mel worked a group rate with them.

Within two-and-a-half hours of arriving at the airport, Brian and Melissa had sold 28 seats and made a tidy profit on the trip. Plus, Melissa got home before midnight.

All of this happened in less than five hours from the time that Brian decided on his course of action. I never even participated, even though I wanted to be in on the action. Old entrepreneurs love to see young entrepreneurs continue the tradition.

The thing that got me most about the whole episode was the fact that Brian never once stopped to think about reasons why this would not work. This is something I’ve observed my entire life with young entrepreneurs. They just don’t know that something cannot be done, so it gets done. Older people could easily find all kinds of reasons to proceed no further. Licensing issues, safety issues, liability -- the whole list.

None of this bothered my 27-year-old friend.

When Brian and I reflected on the entire episode I was not at all surprised to hear him say, “Ron, the best part of the whole thing was that I was able to make money and help people at the same time. Everybody won."

“While we were at the airport, we would watch the bags and the children while the parents went to hit the ATM machine. We would go and get food and drinks for them while they were waiting for the bus to show up."

“Plus,” Brian continued, “The locals joined in to help us, and that was terrific. We had policemen coming up to us, telling us that they had a lonely individual who “just wanted to get home.” Gate agents were sending people our way. Part of this was related to getting irate customers out of their hair; part of it was just doing the right thing for a fellow human.”

A business was born, a product was built, and customer satisfaction was delivered. All in a half-day. When the bus pulled into New York City around midnight that same day, the passengers gave a standing ovation to Melissa, the tour guide, nee fellow-traveler.

If only America still worked this way.

The entrepreneur’s edge is his or her nimbility. The entrepreneur turns on a dime, seeing opportunity, and building and delivering a product/service in hours. No corporation in the world could ever challenge this nimbility.

So the next time you think you have a thousand reasons why something can’t be done, think of Brian and Melissa’s story. Think of all the reasons why you can, rather than cannot.

Have a wonderful New Year, and we’ll see you in 2011.