It’s time….to move, to transition from a place of basic personal and professional development, to a position of true personal strength. It’s time to put YOU on the map!
I have a lot of fabulous info and tools to share with you— to get you in motion, to get you strong, to give you peace of mind, and to help you create a FULFILLING life, a THRIVING business, and SOLID relationships. This is fitness for the soul.
It’s time for ALL of us to finally just be ourselves and contribute meaningfully AND powerfully to the world through who we were meant to be and what we were meant to do. You don’t need a hook or a gimmick. You just need to be YOU, and be it full throttle! There is no other you, and THAT is where YOUR power lies!
It’s time to get EMPOWERED——to STOP the ridiculous game of trying to please everyone else, be something you are not, or do it someone else’s way.
You CAN have a great life, a great business, and great relationships, but it starts with getting real and getting to where you are comfortable flowing in YOUR personal power and YOUR area of influence—not someone else’s.
I am living my DREAM. My dream is to be a true encouragement and inspiration to others, to have control over the way I use my time and my resources, to fully enjoy the experience of life, to love my work and my contributions, to be blessed economically, and in doing so to know I am a success.
I will help you find YOUR voice, YOUR passion, and YOUR creativity! YES, you have all of that within you RIGHT NOW. I write with YOU in mind. My entire goal is to empower you to embrace your life and live it fully and exceptionally, while touching the lives of others, being and feeling like a TRUE success, and having loads of fun.
I’ll help you grow your business, connect with others, be a giver, be a better person, grow personally and professionally, increase profits, understand the New Media and New Marketing Mindset, and enjoy your life with more authenticity, more time for what matters most, and more energy. I want you to live YOUR dream.
Please stop by often for words of empowerment and substantial tools you can use to continuously keep you on the track of being YOU, living your life and running your business the only way it will succeed—by YOU embracing YOU, and giving the real YOU to others!
Here is a Fabulous Opportunity for You: This is a goundbreaking coaching service that Interior Decorators and Life Coaches can offer to clients—to individuals and to homeowners
There is an awesome opportunity for design professionals and coaches in late March to become a Certified Interior Environment Coach. Only 50 people will become certified during the first session. These individuals will have the opportunity to build their Interior Environment coaching business for three months—with support— before another group of coaches are trained.
This coaching program is FABULOUS! GROUNDBREAKING! People today are hungry for meaning and they want their homes to be a springboard for life and personal development. This program shows you how to help them create lives of peak productivity from the way their homes are set up and designed. You can be a decorator and provide this service, or a life coach who sets the groundwork for the decorator, helping the homeowner to establish design, personal, and productivity goals for their interior environment.
Many of today’s Interior Design Professionals are seeking a more meaningful connection with clients and a deeper connection to their work. Couple that with the fact that today’s homeowner has a very different mentality about home design (they are looking for a deeper connection to the world and to their homes) and you have a recipe for an exciting and extremely profitable niche in decorating or life coaching. This is a new professional area that will give you a true competitive advantage while bringing you joy and meaning from your work. I will be sharing the details soon in a call.
Email me at Margo@DeGangiGroup.com to learn more about this new and groundbreaking coaching program that will be released nationwide on March 29th, and let me know if you want to be included on the call (the call will be in early March).
“Let there be work, bread, water, and salt for all.” ~Nelson Mandela
Well, this week’s message will be short and sweet—umm, I mean short and SALTY!
I want to give you a very meaningful and gratifying charge this week, and that is to be SALTY. I am giving this charge to myself as well, especially since this was a very trying day, which followed a very trying weekend. I had opportunity today to live the words below, and to also reflect on where I fell short. Still, I know to beep on going, and to keep on purposing to be SALTY!
To be salty means to have flavor—flavor that makes people want more of you and more of what you are offering. In this day and time, I think it is especially important that you be the type of person and business professional that can create a thirst in your potential clientele, and leave them wanting more of you, and more of what you represent.
So be salty by just being salt! Being salt is a high honor. By being salt, you add goodness to others, and you help them to better enjoy the normal “food” of life. By being salt, you actually become a person who adds to the experiences of others. How can you be salt? You are salt when you are kind, patient, fair, sweet, considerate, helpful, caring, fun, innovative, and good-natured.
On every turn, and with e very opportunity you have, be salt out there with your customers and prospects. Being salt will make you feel good, and you’ll love the way it makes you see and embrace life, and the “salty you” will even benefit by gaining new, desirable customers. One of the many by-products of being salty is that you will get some wonderful referrals, AND, you will even get the kind of referrals you really want and prefer, because the people you “shake your saltiness” on will refer you to other people who appreciate goodness, love (yikes, there she goes again), kindness and relating.
People who respond to salt know others who respond to salt and who appreciate the goodness that salt brings. This means you’ll get less and less of the bitter, cranky, contentious types of customers and more and more of the types of clients who are excited that you are “salty”—ecstatic that you are a professional person who cares about connection, and one that reaches out to others. Salt your circle of influence every chance you get.
Furthermore, you can sprinkle a little salt community wide. Salt your city or town and make people hungry for more of your services by doing events, trunk shows, and seminars, and by sending off heartfelt newsletters. Perhaps you could do something special for charity—even just something simple or small. Let your salt be mixed into your entire business philosophy.
Be out there “salting” all along the way, talking with people and keeping it real, and sure, you can go ahead and share with others what you do and why you are so passionate about doing it and doing it well. Trigger the appetite of others for more of that wonderful flavoring, for more of your creative talents, for more of your skills, knowledge, and expertise, for more of your winning ideas and service, for more of your personality, and for more of everything you stand for in your business.
This mentality should also spill over into your personal life. Be salt for your spouse, your children, your pets, your friends, and your significant others. Sprinkle your “salt” by being thoughtful, gentle, generous, patient, and generally loving. People today are hungry for this salt, and they will readily respond to, and connect and do business with, those who offer this very pleasant seasoning. Let that salt be YOU!
“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You hear it all the time, “Life is short, so you should live it fully”. For some people that means keeping the keg going, or grabbing as much money and fame as they can squeeze into every one of life’s transactions. Regardless of whether or not life is really “short”, the fact that we are here, that we are alive, and that we are cognitively aware, is a huge signal that at the very least, we should be living lives of purpose and meaning, not just running after the green stuff, the skirts, youth, and all of the other misleading bells, whistles, and detours this earthly existence can offer.
Since you have the opportunity—and somewhere deep down, the desire—why not spend your life doing the things you are really passionate about, the things you dreamed about doing, and doing them in the way you dreamed about being? It’s a good idea, but first you have to get still for a bit, and allow your personal desires to resurface. You may even have to conjure up a few from scratch, and that’s o.k. No matter what you are doing now, you can and should re-ignite with the passionate desires that once motivated you to see life as an exciting and rich experience. No matter where you are currently, you CAN live your life based on your deepest desires, and you CAN find, develop, and then live, your dreams.
That’s what I want to talk to you about—your dreams. There are two kinds of dreams: those you encounter while you are fast asleep, and those you bring into play while you are wide awake. For the rest of this message, I’d like to visit with you about the second kind, those you activate when you are awake—the ones you have total control over authoring and bringing to some type of fruition.
Dreams can be fantastic, fabulous, or even a little freaky! Dreams are more thanhopes, because you play a crucial role in fulfilling them. They are not left to chance. Dreams have the element of creation and animation built right into them. Dreaming is something you do, something you engage in, and something you are involved with. When you dream, you are first daring to believe that you can have more, then you are suggesting to yourself ways to create that. On top of that, the very act of dreaming fuels you to take the actions necessary to actualize what you know you want.
Dreaming is exciting because it stirs up your passions, and convinces you that what you desire is worth going after.
Dreams are dynamic, not static. They are moving, developing, unwinding, unfolding, and even changing as you go towards them with the determination to see them take shape. Dreams become realities through a structured process of applying yourself and your resources towards them in a “take action” manner.
That’s what it is all about, taking action. Here is a DREAM RECIPE that you can follow to create a delicious dish of your very own dreams, those that will feed you with more excitement, more meaning, and more personal passion going forward. Living your dreams actually forces all of the energy fields surrounding them to make more room for more dreams. It is a contagious and exhilarating process. It touches the lives of others, too. To live your deepest desires—your dreams—is to live divine.
As you create, plan, and actualize your dreams, remember this:
It is not so much the exact and perfectly literal expression of a dream that is important— although with proper planning you will see many of your dreams almost perfectly come to pass. It is the act of being present with your dreams that is the powerful part, because going towards your dreams leads you to your true destiny. Your true destiny is where the magic begins.
DREAM RECIPE
1. Pretend for a moment that you have no constraints, that YOU (not a false you) can have anything that you want, and that you can be anyone that you desire.
2. Think about what you would do in life (with your minutes, days, weeks, months, and years) if no matter what you did, you received the exact same financial reward and the exact same praise from others for doing it (so the motive is not money, recognition, or fame).
3. Get clear about your personal dreams. Jot down eight dreams you would like to see come to pass in your life over the next one to five years (or even a few years longer if need be). Include ONLY things you are passionate about—that excite you, thrill you, or invigorate you in some meaningful way (leave the other, less exciting ideas for another day).
4. Prioritize your dreams. Go back and circle from the above list, the four dreams that are the absolute most important to you AT THIS TIME IN YOUR LIFE (they may all be equally important, but which one are MOST important now. For example, you could want to have a child and also want to get a masters degree so you can teach, but the degree may be most important AT THIS TIME IN YOUR LIFE, leaving the plans for building a family for a later time).
5. Plan for fueling your way to your dreams. Dreams take resources, which may include money, time, collaboration with specific people, trading favors, or a combination. Get out four pieces of paper, and on each piece write out one of the four dreams you circled above. Then in the space below each dream, give a rough estimate of how much time you need to accomplish the dream, what some of the needed resources will be, and what some of the potential challenges you might face will be. Also include—and this is very important—what personal value each dream will help you to live out. Do this for all four. Next, get a little more specific about the action steps you will have to take to realize each dream. The more specific you are, the more likely your dreams will actually take form in “real life”.
6. Pick one of the four dreams to focus on NOW. You probably won’t be able to focus well on more than one dream at a time, so pick one of the four—the one that seems the most feasible at this time based on the resources needed, the obstacles you may face, and the value the dream will help you to live out. You can still make steps towards the other dreams as you focus mainly on one (for example, if one of the dreams is to write a book and another is to go back to college, you can begin writing the rough outline for your book during the same time you save money for your coming education).
7. Take at least one action step toward your focus dream within the next 36 hours. Anyone can write down a dream, but only those who take action bit-by-bit to accomplish them will get to live them out, and share the fruits of those dreams with others (the best part). Let’s say that your dream is to own a retail shop in Aspen, Colorado and you currently live in another state. An easy and first step could be to get online and start checking rental property rates and real estate prices for commercial properties in Aspen or you could find out what types of licenses or permits are need to do business in the state of Colorado.
8. Each week, purpose to take another step toward actualizing your current focus dream. Make the commitment to yourself to make realizing your dreams, one at a time, a lifestyle. Always be working on a dream you are passionate about and one you know is good and healthy for you and others. In the same way you decide to be a healthy eater by making many smart choices each day, allow every day to move you closer to living out your destiny. Make experiencing your dreams a lifestyle.
Dreams are not hard to attain, but doing so does take consistent effort over acertain period of time. Most people do not believe they are worth the investment and the steady, regular, continual effort. Believe me, you absolutely, positively ARE!
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an interesting guy—-a no-bull sort (like me). He was good at reflection and putting things in perspective. Granted, he did not have all the bells and whistle of life and technology to deal with, like we have today. If he did, he may have done things a bit differently. Still, we can capture a lot from his insights, which can help us keep it all in perspective.
Here’s a look at the original “Self-Reliance” essay, and for those who do not have time or the desire to try to make sense of this crazy formal way of writing/speaking, I have also included a “Modern Day Translation” of it. Have fun and enjoy, and try to gain something powerful and super useful for your life.
1. “If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.”
2. “Staple pages in the middle of the page.”
~Author unknown to me, could be Joe Crawford!
Today, business is ALL about relationships, and here’s a secret—it always has been. Everyday, we are either connecting meaningfully with others and building solid communities, or we are burning our bridges behind us.
In the past, savvy business people valued and romanced their customers, while business folks who wanted to blow off relationship-building and still create sales could get away with it simply by doing radio, tv, and print advertising. Make the ad or commercial good enough, and you will likely make a sale. Not so anymore.
Some say business is really tough now, because of constant change and social media, and mostly because of the economy, but what propels the economy is our behavior. Economics is NOT just the study of commerce and society, it is the study of human interaction around commerce. It’s not the economy that’s going up in flames, it’s our relationships (business—and family, too). Good relationships drive business. If the relationships go to H-E-double-hockey-sticks in a red-hot handbag, so do our profits.
Our lives are supposed to be easier these days with the explosion of technology, but instead, we hustle about in the blazing heat of many moments, trying to get too much done in too little time, exhausted from stress, and even exploding on occasion with Tweet-rage while we Twitter and text at our desks, on the toilet, at the supper table, and half-way off the road in our cars. We think we are relating to others because we are Tweeting or typing or posting. In reality though, we are not even relating to ourselves and to our passion, or to our true personal mission that makes sense to us at our core.
Utterly consumed by what “the experts” say we should be doing, and by what other business owners say are acceptable practices, we let the REAL, quality relationships fizzle, not sizzle. We dish out another hot plate of self-serving information, unprofessional communication, or cheesy, sleezy devises to get a sale, as we unknowingly allow prospects, clients, colleagues, and even family members to run like H E _ _ or fall by the wayside (preachy, I know—I just LOVE this stuff).
The constant heat and pressure to perform-before-thinking, and the frantic non-stop pace, has us force-feeding clients with unsolicited emails and low quality content as we bite the heads off of our employees and spew flames at our sales reps. Somewhere along the way we just stopped breathing. When was the last time you took a normal, deep breath? How long has it been since you took a day off to just take stock of where you are, where you want to go, and how you want to get there? Getting there is 90% of the fun (and it is the essence of life—the journey, never the destination). Many of us have stopped relating. Instead, we are filling up with the toxic smoke of business (and personal) HELLationships.
We need to stop, identify what is important instead of just doing “stuff” (online or off), and we need to take a good, hard look at what we really want to build. Then, we can take back the torch instead of setting everyone’s universe ablaze with our mess and confusion.
I often stress WHAT we should do (like I just did a second ago). This time though, I think I’ll have us all take a look at what we often do with our communication that puts our relationships in the fiery pit, leaving us frazzled, almost penniless, and with dwindling customers and friends.
The Newsletters from HELL (instead of Heavenly Heralding)
These are newsletters that are sent but not with permission of the recipient, which is so hard to believe in this permission-based new media society. They are often industry specific. A vendor joins a trade association and for a few measly bucks, the trade association gives the vendor the right to blast the members. Problem is it’s unethical and often illegal. Neither the trade associations nor the vendors have permission to send the mail, yet it happens a mazillion times every day.
Oh, and don’t think that because someone didn’t remove themselves from your mailing list, they APPRECIATE the mail you send them. I personally get a lot of unsolicited emails and campaigns that are humorously annoying 80 percent of the time, but I stay on the lists just to know what is happening in that portion of the industry, because I am a trainer and industry leader. I also stay because I get material for my writing (what NOT to do), and I stay because I know that I can simply delete the particular emails I don’t want, and as soon as that tool (and I mean that in the most unflattering way) becomes utterly useless, I can unsubscribe myself. I am a little different from a lot of folks though, and most reasonable people (I am not necessarily reasonable) would just hit the REMOVE ME FOREVER and DON’T DARE SEND ME ANOTHER UNSOLICITED EMAIL link.
Other hellish-type newsletters are those that come weekly with no relationship-building content. Nothing is FREE. Every bit of “news” is news of a “special”, a “coupon”, or a “one time only” offer (until next time). If you want to be amazingly loved while staying clear of looking sort of like the Devil, NEVER place a blatant add or a “BUY NOW” button in your regular email (a subtle, no pressure link to a product that opens in a separate page may be acceptable). If you want to email coupons and specials, reserve these for a secondary campaign that goes out monthly or twice a month so that the recipient knows what they are, and leave your main newsletter as a pure gift, FREE of charge and FULL of useful, inspiring, and helpful information.
Fiery Fingers (in Lieu of the Slow and Steady Hand)
Slow down those hot little hands! I received a business email recently where the sender used shortcut lingo to communicate with me. It looked sloppy and unprofessional, and frankly, it seemed amateurish and immature. It may be acceptable for your teenager to email, IM (instant message), or text a friend using poor grammar and letters instead of words (I dnt kno y u r not getting this) but it is shameful for a serious business owner to do so, no matter how many peeps are doing it. Quit the TEXT SPEAK.
Then there’s the quick and easy text to customers. I don’t think it is a good idea to text a customer, but you may have a good reason for doing it (but again, PLEASE, refrain from the ridiculous TEXT SPEAK). Why not pick up the phone for a few seconds and let them hear your beautiful voice? You can also email them (and DON’T assume the email went through if you don’t hear back).
Oh, and business owners, you can save the earth from hellfire by NOT hiring college graduates who cannot clearly and legitimately communicate to coworkers, leaders, and customers. The future of our economy depends on it. For an example of a real-life business complaint sent to Dell computers by a ridiculously ignorant customer (perhaps a college grad), click here, but wait until you read this entire message!
Igniting Rudeness (While Avoiding Good Manners)
Are you texting or Tweeting at inappropriate times, maybe while visiting with a client or sales person? Sort of rude, don’t you think? Delivery drivers and cab drivers are texting while driving. Trust me, I am NOT getting in THAT cab. Business associates tweet or text on the way home from the airport with their colleagues right beside them. We seek to strengthen a cyber-relationship when a REAL one is right in front of us.
Perhaps you do it while in a meeting or while listening to a keynote. There was a day when we would never have talked during a presentation because it was considered rude, yet somehow we have made it o.k. since no one can hear us “talking” under the table. Relationships are being built up or torn down by everything that we do or fail to do, and other people DO notice. We have allowed good manners and our high standards to fall like a drunk woman on crutches. Technology is fabulous, and can help us build wonderful relationships and strong businesses, yet we often use technology to intrude in our lives, rather than to enhance them.
Flame Throwers (in Place of Pool-Side Spritzers)
These folks burn you with their flaming one-liners and thoughtless, piercing quick words. Bosses, co-workers, and even customers can be flame throwers (by the way, those of use who are business owners should be especially nice when we are customers, knowing the challenges business professionals face). Flame throwers say such things as, “What the h e _ _’s wrong with you?”, or “If you had half-a brain you would…”, or “I will never shop here again”.
The Hot Head (Rather than the Warm and Fuzzy)
Hot heads speak before they think. They are like flame throwers, but their fury can go on and on. All anyone wants to do is get away from them. Hot heads often take things out on their families and assistants. Hot heads can brew for days, coming to work with a groan or a grimace instead of a warm hello. Hot heads cause business to plummet because no one in the office remains motivated, and even the nicest associates are distracted by bad feelings they often hold in. The customers as well as the profits suffer.
Blowing Smoke (Replaces a Breath of Fresh Air)
Folks who blow smoke come awfully close to deceiving others to gain a profit. They play tricks while acting slick.
If every bit of business communication should be geared toward building trust, it makes no sense then, to lead someone to a baited hook, only to have to communicate a brand new message—about how they “misunderstood” your offer—once they bite.
A popular acne solution company has a commercial on XM Radio that seems to me to be vague and almost misleading. The say that “against the better judgment of their management team” (yeah, right), a million people can try the product for no risk, plus they’ll get free medicine. The wording they chose for the commercial makes you think you are trying everything with no money outlay. Once you call in for the FREE offer, you get the real story.
Public service workers are not exempt from blowing smoke. Cops do it too (maybe that’s why we call them “Smokey”). There are plenty of didn’t mean to speed speeders who complain that a cop “padded” the ticket a bit, putting them in another price category. There are questionable business execs just like there are questionable cops. The sad part is, people quit trusting.
Have you ever seen the seemingly never-ending landing pages or sales pages of some of the online information products out there? They don’t reveal the price for two and a half hours. Why? Because you are stupid, and if you know the price right off, you won’t buy the product. I say, just tell me the price and don’t waste my time. I don’t need your psycho-babble customer psychology tactics that you learned from your friend who sells info products (who learned it from his friend, who learned it from a guy that ended up never selling anything). Don’t play tricks. Don’t make an offer that YOU wouldn’t believe or buy. Don’t blow smoke.
Burning (Instead of Earning)
Some business owners place articles (or audios, videos, etc) out in the online universe to drive people back to their sites. Unfortunately, many of these articles require the user to give information such as a name and email address before the article can be read (or before the audio can be heard or the video seen). I say (and droves of “experts” will disagree with me), either be a help to me or don’t, but quit trying to force me to give you my email address, and don’t use the ridiculous excuse, “If they want the info bad enough, they will exchange their info for it”, or my favorite, “I am qualifying my leads”. No, you are pissing people off.
Give and let give. Be a giver and the universe (I think that’s really God) will help you in the future. Plus, your prospects will likely respect you in the morning.
So There
So there it is (not all of it of course), but enough of a fire extinguisher to keep you from the flames of business HELLationships. Think about where you are and where you want to go, and how you will get there. Use your time, technology, and your business model to build exceptional relationships that will support your business, your staff, and your customers for many years to come.
Last week, I was watching Project Runway (a show for upcoming fashion designers), and one of the judges, harshly criticizing one of the “bottom three” outfits, said she had a real problem with the color palette. Specifically she said, “I’m not sure blue and orange are that complimentary.”
Now this is where I have to LAUGH at the EXPERTS, who are JUDGES on NATIONAL TV. Where do these clowns come from?
So many people are thrown into positions that are far above their skill level, like the TV “designers” that still call draperies “curtains” (a real no-no in the industry, at least in America), or who refer to banding (a type of trim) as cording or welting, or who cannot properly name or identify basic fabrics and materials.
It is amazing that skill and knowledge are no longer job requirements. I guess there are a lot of producers and directors who have wanna-be designers in the family (their bedroom looked “cool” and they are under 29 years old, so give them a show). What happens when these “designers” try to tackle a “real” job off camera? I feel sorry for the workrooms that have to try and understand their work orders. Who will end up paying for the “re-make” when the job is fabricated incorrectly because of wrong specifying, confusing details, and incorrect terminology on the work order? (Oh, you didn’t know about work orders, you thought you just call someone and tell them what you want?) I’m just sayin’.
We can ensure that the integrity of an industry remains intact by not settling for such antics. Sure, everyone makes mistakes sometimes, even tried and true industry pro’s, but an expert (someone who calls themselves an expert) should definitely know basic industry terms, principles, and concepts.
Oh, if you missed the unspoken punch line, just get out your color wheel. Blue and orange are COMPLEMENTARY COLORS—straight across from one another on the color wheel (no, they haven’t changed position), and it matters not how much white, black, or brown have been added to the blue or orange, they are still complements.
Social marketing is very important in building a tribe or community. Getting out there on your favorite social media channels (and not necessarily on every channel) is key to your online world connections. Select a couple or three social media outlets you really like, and stick with them—no need to be on every one to build a solid online community.
Still, in your own local community (where you actually reside), there is work to be done, and you should be out there making local connections that will carry over into the online world. When the people in your town or city hear you speak at a local event, they will tweet about it (even if you don’t tweet), and when they go to one of your trunk shows, they will tell their Facebook friends (even if you use MySpace and not Facebook).
The point is, social media is great, but it’s not enough to post to your Facebook once a day or blog once a week. You must build a tribe and be involved with that tribe, using social media as well as ON SITE activities. The ON SITE, local community activities can really put you on the map. Read on.
Here is a little booklet for you to quickly breeze over. This little booklet has some basic marketing without money info I have always shared with new business owners and those trying to get more leads and sales. The principles STILL apply today, even with the explosion of the New Media and social marketing. As you read this little booklet, think about how everything you do face-to-face in your local community will be shared online, as your tribe members tell their friends how totally amazing you are. That will lead to additional online sales, but those REAL LIFE testimonials from your local community become online GOLD (if you do not have a local biz, but an online biz, the principles still apply—get out there through webinars, as a guest speaker, or with your videos).
I think people want to hear the voices and/or see the faces of the people they might just do business with. Don’t hide behind Facebook, Tumblr, Wordpress, and Twitter. Get out there in real life, and let others speak to the world about how great you really are!
“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” ~Abraham Lincoln
This week I want to share with you a powerful one hour audio session (or class) on Creative Life Mastery.
If you have been ready to look at your self, your life, where you are, and where you want to go, then this session will help you to do it.
You are only responsible for YOU. That is an incredibly liberating thing to know. You are responsible for your own self, your own thinking, and your own happiness.
Aside from the tweets, the posts, the tumbles, the blogs, the uploads, the pressures to be there for others, and the pull your business or community have on you, there is a YOU that needs cultivating. Take this time to begin, or to continue in, that amazing process.
Enjoy this session. Put on the headset, close your eyes and lean back in your chair (NOT in your car), and enjoy gaining an understanding that will propel your into a new way of thinking, one that will help you master self and create a great life, and PLEASE, let me know what this session meant to you.
I see people everyday who are tired, stressed, and trying to keep up with how “SIMPLE” the Internet has made life in the current millennium!
I think people need a break, and they need to know what to focus on so they can do it well.
I asked my virtual friend and mentor Seth Godin a few questions I thought many people today were struggling with. I told him I wanted to share the answers with my tribe. He gave me the simple, shoot straight from the hip answers (true to Seth style, which is why I love him so much) that will best help you in your life and business going forward.
Margo:Is it a good idea or bad idea to have more than one blog, since some people do 2 different things (2 blogs are time consuming and hard to promote, but they allow specific communication)?
Seth: Have one blog per big idea. Have as many big ideas as you can hit home runs on.
Margo: How does a business person deal with all of the online marketing and social networking options? How do we chose what to spend our time on (how do we edit out of our lives some of these online services)?
Seth: Pick a social media tool you love, and do it better than anyone else and ignore the rest.
Margo: In the simplest way, what does it take to be successful and get your name out in the universe today (by simple I do not mean lazy. I just mean focused on a few key marketing opportunities where you can spend your time well and with quality content without going bonkers)? Seth: Be passionate and persist and be consistent.
“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.” ~James Allen
I Love Going Undercover, Even When I’m Obviously a Customer!
I am an undercover customer. I have been for about 20 years. Every time I go into a store or business establishment, or deal with companies for my own personal or business services, I am not only trying to meet a need or fill a want, I am also looking deeper. As a business coach, I find it fascinating and intriguing to watch and learn from other people’s wisdom as well as from their foolishness. It helps me to be a better business owner, and I get enormous amounts of material for my writing, my blogs, my coaching, and for my business classes just from watching and reporting on what others are doing out there in the business universe. Plus it’s loads of fun.
My husband and kids have learned to live with it. Sometimes, when I have an unacceptable experience, I stay totally undercover and say nothing at all. Other times I behave like ALL customers SHOULD, and I very kindly and politely tell the business representative what I expect and what seems right and fair. I also ask them to pass my information on to a manager if a he or she is not available to speak with me on the spot. (I have always told my kids, “If you go to someone’s house for dinner and the food stinks, be gracious, try to eat it, and say thank you, but if you are buying a meal from a restaurant and the food stinks, ask to see a manager, because then it’s about business”.) I think we have an obligation to do this if we are to see our country’s businesses do better and our economy improve. If we expect more and voice it, business owners will have to change the way they function in order to keep our business, and the best man or woman will get the customers. Sub-par businesses will step up to the plate with a new game, or strike out and go home. This is the glorious Invisible Hand at work. Businesses that chose to ignore their customers and the voices of their employees chose to lose.
Anyway, I love the research. I could totally start a business where my peeps check on your peeps for important information that could help everyone become better. I think looking at the way businesses run (especially when no one knows that’s what you’re doing) is incredibly entertaining as well as educational. On a regular basis, I see mediocre businesses that could easily be great, if they would just take an objective look at what they do and why they do it, and how it affects customers, workers, their families, and ultimately company profits. Most changes that would cause enormous improvements would take no money at all to execute!
Although I have run across businesses that were quite inspiring and totally amazing, I often see things you wouldn’t believe. Some of the things I see stem from outdated, ill-thought-out, self-serving, or flat out ridiculous policies that are more about convenience or greed than about building a tribe or community. Sometimes the problems in policy stem from good intent but are born of ignorance and a lack of understanding of how they will play out down the pike.
One thing I am always looking at as I visit a business, restaurant, retail establishment, or service provider is how their policies and procedures affect me as a customer. Do they make my life easier or harder? Is their staff difficult to communicate with or a pleasure to interact with? Do they seek to see things from MY perspective? Do they listen to my suggestions or make excuses, or worse, blow me off altogether? Do their representatives change their behavior once they get my money? I also think about how the workers of the companies facilitate or implement the policies and procedures, and also how they are affected by them. Are the workers free to be THEIR personal best, or are they strapped and frozen from bureaucracy? Is there room for a workers ideas to shine through and interact with mine, making the companies offering more appealing to me? Are the workers uninformed, confused, or rude? Do they care, or is the business environment one that encourages sloppiness, laziness, or worse, apathy? I look at all kinds of things (my family has learned to see it as a game, otherwise they’d go crazy).
Oftentimes, problems in business come not from policies but from personalities. Egos take over and customers or employees are not seen or served, or power-hungry individuals fail to see the big picture, or self-centeredness rules and customers and employees are frustrated and unhappy. Of course, problems can also arise from a combination of both policy AND personality. That’s when things can get really out of control. Either way, regardless of the type of problem, the root as well as the remedy always goes back to management and leadership.
A Great New Television Show
Last night, after the Saints came through with incredible skill and force to stomp the Colts in the Super Bowl (sorry Manning, I was hoping you’d take it), my honey and I tuned in to a show I’d never seen, called Undercover Boss on CBS. Now THIS is MY KINDA SHOW, and T.V. at its best! The show, by Executive Producer Stephen Lambert, airs on Sunday nights, and this episode was the premier. Even my honey, who doesn’t watch much T.V. at all said, “We are watching this one every week”!
The new show takes you along with CEO’s, COO’s, and business leaders as they try their hand—incognito—at the entry level jobs within their companies. The workers do not know the true identity of the leaders, who are there to see things from the vantage point of the people their decisions directly affect each day. The workers help train the “new guy”. They are told the camera crew is there for a documentary about entry-level jobs, and even though the workers are probably on their better behavior because of the cameras, the show reveals the serious frustrations and challenges of their day-to-day routines and tasks. The premiere show features Larry O’Donnell, president and COO of a company called Waste Management. Larry takes a day on each of several jobs positions, ranging from residential trash pickup to cleaning portable toilets. What he learns from the struggles his workers deal with in their jobs, and from their amazing spirits, changes the way he runs his company.
If you have time to go online and catch a re-run of, do it. What a great show.
Life from another person’s perspective will always help leaders and managers to lead better, which will in turn create satisfied, happy, and productive employees, which will help to build a loyal client base of satisfied and repeat customers. Take a moment this week, or even a few, to look at your business from the perspective of your employees, and especially from the vantage point of your customers. See what you can do to make their experience a better one—to make it great! Millions of viewers may not be watching your business, but you have an important audience nonetheless, and that crowd can continue to tune in, keeping your show on the air, or they can send your ratings spiraling into the ground. It’s your production, it’s your show. What will you do?
“It’s a small world but still heavy. Stop trying to carry it all on your back.” ~Margo DeGange (Yes, me, that’s right. I can quote things too, ya know!)
Here is a life and business lesson that has nothing to do with products, little to do with numbers, and a lot to do with building real wealth and long-term security.
The word “simple” has been showing up in my life a lot lately. I want to share a few of those instances, so bear with me, because I have an important point in mind that may help you quite a lot.
A very long time ago, my sister had a dream that I often think about. In the dream, she was in a long hallway standing outside of a big courtroom. There were many people standing and sitting in the hall, waiting to go in to see the judge for the final judgment. One by one they would go in, and come out sobbing—both women AND men! After watching this scene play out over and over again, my sister finally asked one of the people who came out of the courtroom, “Why is everyone sobbing?” The answered surprised her as the person replied, “because it was so simple we almost missed it”!
I have recalled that dream many times over the last few days, and then this morning while in my car listening to a talk show, I heard the story of a mother who’s son was dying of cancer. He was at the end of his journey, when his mom got into the bed next to him. She was right beside him as he took his last breath. His final words were powerful, liberating, and sweetly authoritative. “Mom, it’s so simple”. His message changed her life forever.
Then, on that same ride in my car this morning, on another show, someone said, “Life is so short. Why should we live it in turmoil?” Together these words and stories provide a clear (and simple) message that I felt so compelled to share. Live simply!
In our businesses and in our lives, the joy is in the journey (just ask Steven King), and becoming simple-minded is part of a constructive and pleasant ride. Sometimes we get so focused on problems, on scenarios, on results, we miss the in-between, where life and business really happen. We can become too concerned and too intense wrestling with things that really don’t matter much in the long run. What will matter though, in terms of popularity, profits, and plain old peace of mind, is how you use your personal energy, and therefore, how you treat others and yourself.
Simplicity is NOT for wimps. Simplicity has enormous power built right into it. Keeping everything on an even keel, not thinking too hard, and offering a great attitude to everyone you see throughout the day takes unusual strength and deep character, and it is effortless if you let it become your new mindset.
The “thinking too hard” thing gets us in trouble many times, and it makes others uncomfortable, particularly when we expect our colleagues and coworkers, our family and friends, and even worse, our customers, to “get” what we are all freaked out about.
Keeping it simple also opens you up to the creative energy that is vibrating out in the universe (deep, I know). After exercising at boot camp and taking a long ride this morning, I went home for a few minutes and sat on the sofa, and closed my eyes. I wanted to just “be”, and I was keeping it simple (and not trying to). I drifted off into a cat-nap, and awoke a short time later with a brilliant business offering to provide to my Decorators Alliance members. I did not have to think hard, brainstorm till I was blue, get stressed out, or be in turmoil. The simple life just brought the idea directly to me, with no effort at all, and that idea will no doubt help many others.
Simplicity is actually something that elicits good business practices and the creation of incredible products and services that tend to be very profitable. Simplicity keeps us in a place of clarity, and allows us to move quickly at a moments notice, and change directions in an instant. It also helps keep our blood pressure down, and allows others to easily communicate with us, and willingly be around us.
A lot of stress is self-created and totally unnecessary (although sometimes no one could convince us of that). Simplicity is an attitude of choosing NOT to be in turmoil about anything. Things may not be ideal, but worrying, or worse, taking it out on customers, associates, and the people you love, cannot change anything in a positive way, yet your good attitude can change your world, and definitely your business, in ways you never even dreamed of. It’s that simple!
Our stress-free life of simplicity (and real power) proves itself in how we treat our co-workers, family and friends—how we honor our bosses and how bosses appreciate the people who work so diligently to build a company that is not even theirs.
Complaining, not seeing the bright side of things (no matter how dismal the circumstances), and being in turmoil make even great moments a drag, and challenging times pretty much unbearable, for everyone, including you.
Stop stressing. Be kind and laid back and SIMPLE, to others as well as to yourself, and watch your life and business burst into true wealth and profitability. People will want to be near you and work for you, and customers will knock themselves out to buy from you. They may even want to have you over for a simple drink!
March 13, 2010 1855 Percival Lowell 1860 Hugo Wolf 1884 Sir Hugh Walpole 1933 Mike Stoller 1939 Neil Sedaka 1939 Terence Brady 1947 Lesley Collier 1952 Trevor Sorbie 1960 Adam Clayton
The first known heart medicine was discovered in an English garden. In 1799, physician John Ferriar noted the effect of dried leaves of the common foxglove plant, digitalis purpurea, on heart action. Still used in heart medications, digitalis slows the pulse and increases the force of heart contractions and the amount of blood pumped per heartbeat.
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I am living my DREAM. My dream is to be a true encouragement and inspiration to others, to have control over the way I use my time and my resources, to fully enjoy the experience of life, to love my work and my contributions, to be blessed economically, and in doing so to know I am a success.
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