This may seem a little odd or morbid, but please hang with me, because there is a vitally important business concept here that can help you. When my dad died last month, I was thrust into the funeral industry as a consumer for the first time. It was obviously an emotional time, and I didn’t know what to expect. I’m sure some of my subscribers have been through this, and if not, the time will inevitably come.

My dad had written that he wanted to either be cremated or buried in something very simple. My dad’s wife wanted something nice, so we deferred to her wishes as the person closest to him. Although the casket wasn’t top of the line (that would be the kind with the “permanent seal”, gold leaf trim, etc.), the price tag was $4,000.

Interestingly, I’ve recently struck up a virtual friendship with Jane Hillhouse who owns a company called Final Footprint. We met through our membership in the Green America Business network. Her company provides eco-caskets and green burials.

Final Footprint offers a beautiful selection of caskets and urns that are available through funeral homes or direct. “Whether a simple pine or cardboard box, or an artfully crafted coffin made from bamboo or willow, all of our caskets and coffins display a simple elegance and respect, not only for the deceased, but for the earth. All are made from low impact, sustainably harvested materials. All are non-toxic and safely biodegradable. “

I sure wish we had known about Final Footprint when Dad passed away last month. Jane’s caskets run around $1,000 plus shipping and they’re made from sustainable, renewable materials. This would have honored my father’s wishes, as the frugal, environmentalist that he was. There are millions of deaths in this country alone every month, which represent an awful lot of material resources, not to mention the energy to produce them and the high financial expense for the survivors.

Jane is doing what entrepreneurs do: taking an existing category and adding something new and desirable.

What’s new: there is as we know a huge trend toward green, ecologically responsible products and the funeral industry is ripe for options in the sustainable category!

What’s desirable: people are paying through the nose for caskets, at a time when they are extremely emotionally vulnerable. In this recession, people are paying attention to pricing and if you offer a high quality product like Jane does, for a much lower price, that’s a market advantage.

So Jane takes an established products in continual demand – burial caskets – and makes them green and less costly. A recipe for success!

In their great book, The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up, Norm Brodsky & Bo Burlingham say, “There is nothing more expensive than educating a market.” They believe that the ideal business is one where the concept has been around for a long time. The casket industry is certainly well-established. It’s not a new and revolutionary product category.

The authors say another criteria for a successful new business is that the industry is not only established, but also in some way out-of-step with its customers. Again, Jane has identified a demand that millions of eco-conscious baby boomers and their parents have for simpler, less toxic, more natural products for end-of-life times.

How can you take what you do in your business and add something new, something that people will need or want? The trick, of course, is that often your customers don’t even know they need or want something – we have to be clever enough to see the gap.

There are needs and wants all around us. Don’t reinvent the wheel, just find a better, cheaper or faster way to get people what they need and want. The world would be a better place if we all took regular time to think, not just do. So I encourage you to carve out an hour and brainstorm and daydream about how you could do just that in your current business or organization.

John Lennon said “Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.” Surely that’s what happened on my 50th birthday. My oldest friend took me and my partner out to breakfast at the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse ( a fabulous place to check out if you’re ever in Boulder, Colorado).

Afterward we headed up to the National Center for Atmospheric Research to participate in their guided tour. It’s supposed to be a cool place about weather and other things scientific.

However, no sooner did we arrive in the lobby when my partner, Susan began to feel dizzy and nauseous. They called in their onsite medical team, and discovered that Susan’s blood pressure and heart rate were alarmingly high. So they called an ambulance and soon we were heading over to the local ER.

At the ER, blood work and chest X-rays also revealed everything to be normal. After about four hours, we went home and by morning her blood pressure and pulse had returned to normal. In situations like this, it’s easy to imagine the worst, like heart attack and even death. We both felt this fear acutely and it took a few days for us to really calm down.

So…this was obviously not the birthday I had anticipated! The gift was pretty quickly evident, however, because my beloved partner of eight years is alive and well.

Sometimes, just getting back to “regular” life is a huge blessing! A regular day coaching with my wonderful clients, seems doubly miraculous. Eating healthy, plentiful food becomes even more of a gift. Answering emails is almost a holy act. Discussing business strategies with Susan, I feel like the luckiest person alive.

Most entrepreneurs need to do more planning and not go after their business in a random manner. Yet, as in life, business is what happens when we’re busy making plans. If seen in a wider perspective, rebuilding a database after a computer crash makes you giddy with relief. If your business endures a fire or a flood and no one is hurt, just putting the pieces back together and running normally becomes the most amazing blessing.

Life/business happens, and rarely according to plan. Yet there are always silver linings, if we look for them. When you see your life as the precious thing it is, you empower yourself, your loved ones and your business.

Occasionally I donate coaching to non-profits doing good work. Here’s one that’s running right now. Check it out here. You have to bid by Dec. 14!

How can incentives help your business not only survive these bad economic times, but thrive? Consider free gas certificates. Millions of Americans are feeling the effects of the highest gas prices we’ve ever seen. And they will only go up from here.

You have probably started to notice that some savvy business owners are helping customers and prospects compensate for this situation by offering free gas as an incentive to come into their stores or as a bonus when they make certain purchases.

In the past few weeks in my local paper I have seen a hearing aid that offered buyers a $100 gas card and a bank that offered new account holders a $50 gas card. A client of mine who does auto window tinting is offering customers a $100 gas card when they buy a $249 tint job. This promotion is bringing a lot of customers into his store where he sells 90% of them!

What these business people are doing is converting this reality of skyrocketing gas prices into an opportunity for their business by offering their customers free gas certificates.

Virtually every business in our community is offering some type of incentive — you see it every day. They’re used to promote business and lead generation. You have to have something that really gets people excited. Free gas is obviously something that most customers or potential customers can really use.

Using incentives like free gas certificates can accomplish a lot of things:
• Make your customers very loyal
• Increase your profit margins with no additional advertising
• Dramatically increase sales
• Promote higher margin sales
• Increase the length of service agreements
• Increase new customer traffic
• Offer promotions that tower above the competition
• Gain valuable information on potential customers
• Retain current customers
• Re-energize old customers
• Express appreciation
• Generate local media “buzz”
• Provide high-value, low-cost gifts

Whatever your business, you can offer an incentive. You can offer an incentive to test drive a car, to purchase a sofa, to spend X amount on golf clubs, to get your carpets cleaned, to upgrade a computer, to rent a car, to come in for a review of your tax, financial or estate situation, to try out a new health club for a month, etc.

As it turns out, oil companies are fiercely competitive. They are paying for loyalty. That is why business owners are not paying dollar for dollar for these certificates. These gas certificates cost pennies on the dollar. For example a $100 certificate costs as low as $10 and a $500 certificate as low as $14.

Banks, auto warranty companies, resorts, and many other kinds of companies pay anywhere from $10 to over $200 for a lead. Why? Because they know their conversion rates and the lifetime value of their customers!

Do you?

Whether you offer something like free gas cards or some other incentive, as long as you know your numbers, if you are making a satisfactory return on investment, you can afford to offer that type of incentive. Not only can you afford it, you’d be crazy not to do as much of it as you can!

It’s the same with the oil companies. They know people are habitual. And they want you to habitually choose their brand of gas, which is what the gas cards do.

So know your numbers: what you can afford to pay to bring in a prospect? You’ll need to know what percentage of them you can convert them to a paying customer. Then use a powerful incentive like free gas cards to bring them in and grow your business, even during a recession.

(And if you’re interested in gas cards, contact me at 970.672.4946 or visit here for more information.)

One of my marketing mentors, David Frey, shared some great advice recently. As we all know, entrepreneurs are highly creative – we seem to have an idea a minute. Consequently entrepreneurs tend to have a big problem staying focused. David shared an acronym that I had not seen before that goes like this:

FOCUS:

F = Follow
O = One
C = Course
U = Until
S = Successful

Follow one course until successful.

It’s true that many of your ideas could be profitable and make a great impact on the world. Yet, without focus, not even one idea will become successful.

However, if you focus on one thing long enough, you will figure it out. Keep trying and testing until you find the key that works for you!

David shared a few other ideas on how to stay on track:

1. Create a vision of what business will look like when it’s successful. Put samples or mock ups of your products on walls. Make a vision board of what you’re working to achieve.

2. Put on your opportunity blinders. Make a commitment to yourself not to jump on any more “bright shiny objects” that come along. There are many more great opportunities out there than you can ever possibly take advantage of. Remember the power of F.O.C.U.S. if you really want to succeed.

3. Create a two year plan with milestones and convert into a timeline that visually shows the milestones. Put it on your wall. In my experience, most people resist planning. Planning is not an administrative task. It is one of the highest level activities you will ever engage in.

Your plan will undoubtedly change. Yet doing the thinking to create one as best you can, establishing milestones and benchmarks and making all of this visible in a visual format, will make a huge difference in the odds of your being successful.

4. Hire a business coach. [David is not himself a business coach.] This will return 10x and help you stay on course. Just today I received this email from a client (unsolicited)

“I thought that you offered a lot of value today, on several different levels. It is helpful for me just (!) to have the structure of the calls, and the list of what I’m working on, you have GOOD ideas (and a quick mind, I LOVE THAT), and are good on details, like the verbiage on the postcard, and those things are all valuable. I appreciate you!!”

5. Tell everyone you know what business you’re in and what your goals are. There’s nothing like the pressure of other people’s expectations to help you stay true to them!

Remember as a kid how you could burn a leaf by focusing the sunlight through a magnifying glass? Keep that kind of focus and you WILL be successful.

What is it about beating the odds that makes such a compelling story? I think it’s because almost without exception, all of us have experienced major challenges in our lives. We’ve questioned how we could possibly overcome the odds we faced. We’ve had family members, friends and colleagues tell us we would not succeed. We’ve wondered how to go on. During these times, we need to remember some stories of those who did just that.

I learned recently that 11 years ago one of my fellow Rotarians – I’ll call him Anthony – was diagnosed with Stage 3 lung cancer. Apparently it was close to Stage 4. Two different doctors told him to go home and prepare to die. He consulted with another one who saw it differently. Anthony decided to fight. He radically changed his diet and other lifestyle factors and embarked on numerous traditional and alterative therapies. The survival rate for that stage lung cancer is very small, yet he’s alive today, an elderly gentleman with a wonderful twinkle in his eye. He beat the odds.

If you follow football, you know that the NY Giants beat the New England Patriots in this year’s Superbowl. It was an incredible game down to the final seconds. The Patriots were favored to win by two touchdowns. With little over 2 minutes left in the game, the Giants were behind by 4 points. They pulled it out and scored, beating a team which was 17 – 0 coming into the Superbowl. They beat the odds.

So right now, what are you facing where you need to beat the odds? How will you endure and overcome that particular obstacle and do more than survive, but thrive?

When you face your next daunting challenge, remember the NY Giants, remember Anthony, and most importantly, remember how you have beat the odds in the past. Take heart within yourself. Surround yourself with people who believe in you. Gather your courage and take one more step forward.

Are you ready for a year of abundance?, If so, you want to be sure you don’t run into a “capacity” problem. A capacity problem is one that involves either external capacity – for example, when you can’t keep up with orders – or internal capacity, in which you have some inner attitude, belief or behavioral pattern that unknowingly prevents your success.

Here’s a quick story about the external capacity side of the equation. Recently, a local massage therapy business in my city offered a special: four massages for $100. This was 50% off or $25 per massage – a great deal. I had not yet tried out this salon, but still I snapped up a couple certificates (their limit), figuring with a number of therapists to choose from, I would find one who I liked.

Their campaign was a huge success. So much so that I think it blew their circuits and overloaded them with all the massages people were now scheduling. On top of that, two of the four therapists left for various reasons. All of a sudden, they had a huge waiting list to get a massage. As I write this now, I’ve been waiting for a month and my neck and shoulders are not happy campers!

Although I give everyone the benefit of a doubt, my opinion of that business is wavering. Meanwhile, I’ve scheduled a massage somewhere else. It’s possible the owner’s successful marketing campaign will backfire on them, especially if I enjoy this other place more. Or if their customers get tired of waiting and demand a refund.

On the internal capacity side of the equation, a new client of mine needed more business. Then she got five new clients in a matter of weeks. This surge in business highlighted her lack of functional organizational systems as well as her inner beliefs about whether she deserved success. I’m confident that as we work through these challenges she’ll be ready to handle the number of clients she ultimately wants.

It’s vitally important to ask yourself: Is my capacity set up for the success I want?

Do whatever it takes to identify, shift, eliminate and transform the external capacity issues you have. These could be inadequate production or inventory space, blocks to hiring new staff quickly when you need it, or a lack of capital for new computers or other equipment. And remember, you also have to change the internal attitudes and behaviors that are stopping you from your abundance.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get my massage now!

Why has Dilbert been one of our country’s most popular cartoons? Maybe one reason is how well it shows us the “challenge” of communication in big companies. Big corporations have some advantages over smaller businesses (such as financial resources and brand awareness), but small businesses have a number of key advantages, one of which is simpler communication.

The bottom line is that the more people you have to communicate with, the number of possible interactions increases geometrically. Consider this amazing information:

• 3 people = 3 possible different communications

• 25 people = 300 possible different communications = 8x more people = 100x increase in communications complexity

• 50 people = 1,225 possible different communications = 17x more people = 408x increase in communications complexity!

• 100 people = 4950 possible different communications = 33x more people = 1,650x increase in communications complexity!!

• 1,000 people = 499,500 possible different communications = 333x more people = 166,500x increase in communications complexity!!!

(Source: Six Discipline of Excellence by Gary Harpst)

In other words, when there are three people in an organization, there are three possible communication combinations (persons A + B, A + C, B + C).

In a 25 person organization there is an 8-fold increase in the number of people but a 100–fold increase in the communications combinations.

In a 100 person organization is 33 times the size of a 3-person organization but 1650 times more complex from a communications perspective.

Bigger businesses try to handle this complexity by creating layers, divisions and departments. Yet we know from how we sometimes laugh at Dilbert how ineffective most of these are.

In smaller business or organizations, problems and opportunities can be communicated much more quickly and decisions can be made. You’re more flexible and can adapt to market changes much more quickly. Good communication is at the heart of successful business.

To maximize your small business/organization communication advantage, make sure to follow these simple guidelines:

• Stick to observable facts and stay away from evaluation or diagnosis. Example: Say “You didn’t bring me the report by last Friday.” Instead of “You blew off the deadline for the report and totally screwed up!”

• Stay away from extreme language and don’t use words like “always,” “never,” “usually,” or “most of the time.”

• Avoid judgmental words like manipulated, ignored, put down, blown off, misled, left hanging, etc.

• Focus on solutions by stating clearly and simply what you want the person to do.

Good communication takes practice, so go easy on yourself and don’t expect perfection right out of the gates.

Did you know that you have a team that supports your life? This is true whether you are a business owner, a solo entrepreneur or an employee. And the quality of your team has a huge amount to do with the results you are getting in your life.

Most people have default teams. They haven’t consciously picked their team members and so what they have is often a pretty mixed lot. Some members may be highly consistent, positive, and fun, while others may be unreliable, irritating or worse.
Your team members can include your spouse or partner, employees, accountant, financial advisor/stock broker, child care provider, computer technician, business coach, plumber, handy person, house cleaner, car mechanic, travel agent, landscaper and more.

For example, my financial advisor is super. When I first started working with her, unlike some of the big name firms, she didn’t require that I have a huge amount of money to open an account. She thinks big and creates big results for her clients.

Another team member who is invaluable to me is my accountant. When I had a question the other day, I called her office and found out she was home with a sick child. Five minutes later, she called me from her home. (Her son was resting.) How’s that for outstanding customer service? No charge for the conversation, either.

Then there’s my computer technician who learned how to build computers in the Navy and is stumped by nothing. He charges fairly and is highly competent. In my business, along with my telephone, my computer is my number one business tool, so you can see how important he is to my professional success!

All my team members are fantastic people, caring, highly competent and service oriented, just as I am with my clients. I have chosen them carefully. Don’t put up with anything less for your team.

Remember that the only thing constant in life is change, so accept that over time there will be some changes to your team and be prepared. Have backup suppliers or service providers. If you have employees, don’t be surprised when someone moves on, and keep a file of possible candidates, people you have noticed in your community who might be a great fit for your team.

Take a minute to look at your team. How high do you rate them? If you don’t rate your team at least an 8 out of 10 (10 being amazing), then you need to take a hard look at it.

We have a huge tendency to become like those we surround ourselves with. We tend to have the same income levels, the same ambitions, the same degree of risk taking and growth orientation. So be sure to create a designer team, one that supports your success and that you can count on. The results will amaze you.

Best wishes,
Anne

P.S. If you are ready for some help with working well with your team (or yourself!), get a coach. An outside perspective and the knowledge of an expert coach can often work miracles! Put your time and effort where they will yield the best results. To get started, just contact me. We’ll talk and we’ll get to work.

My family, friends and colleagues know me as a non-violent person, generally speaking. However when it comes to time termites, I morph into a deadly exterminator.

So, what is a time termite? Time termites are activities you do or actions of others that “eat up” your time and destroy the beautiful design of your life. Just like real termites can take down a whole house if left unchecked, time termites may seem small, but they can destroy your life. You must design your life to strongly protect against the situations and people that will run right over you and eat up your life – if you let them.

The reason I get so “violent” is that, in my experience coaching hundreds of business owners and professionals – time termites eat up as much as 25 – 50% of your time. Only a very energetic, intelligent and vigilant approach toward protecting your time will work.

Some of the top time termites, based on my unscientific experience with hundreds of clients, include: wasting time on trivial items, waiting to see the boss or manager, meetings without good agenda and/or facilitation, too many reports to write, problems in locating documents or other needed items, phone & email, complainers and whiners, inability to say “no” – saying “yes” to too many people, and interruptions.

Let’s look at just one of those. I have a client who has people contact him at various times about in-person meetings. He is learning to consider these carefully. While it is definitely important to have “face time” with colleagues to keep his relationships fresh, a lot of the time he can accomplish the task at hand much more expeditiously over the phone.

My client has 40 or so hours each week to run his business, so a 1-1/2 or 2 hour meeting (when you include travel) equals about 5% of that time. If he went to two such meetings per week, that’s 10% of his time! Since he can handle most of them on the phone in a quarter to one-third of that time, you can see this is one time termite he’s squashing in a hurry.

Whether a meeting is in person or on the phone, if you keep it focused and on task, you can take the time you save and use it for quality time with the professional or personal relationships that make the most sense.

There are many other strategies and tactics to exterminating time termites. To stick to my one-minute guideline for Ordinary Brilliance, I can’t go into them all right now. But you are creative and resourceful and have a lot of ways to deal with your time termites. I invite you to pick just one time termite and set your intention to exterminate it in the next 30 days.

Let me know how you do with it and then I’ll be happy to have you as a proud member of the elite Time Termite Exterminators Club.

Anne Alexander
Authentic Alternatives

Seth Godin has made available for free his ebook “Knock Knock: Seth Godin’s Incomplete Guide to Building a Web Site that Works”.

KnockKnock

Check it out today!

I’ve been putting off writing about Grace for over a week. Grace is our older dog. Was,that is. She’d been slowly going downhill for a few years, but when she stopped eating and drinking and could barely stand up, we brought the vet in and had to decide what to do.

Since we were unable to understand what Grace wanted, we had to make a decision as best we could. Her quality of life sucked, and the vet said she was definitely suffering.

So instead of putting her through fluid injections and tests and X-rays and God knows what treatment for what the vet said would be either organ failure or cancer, we euthanized her.

I hate that word. Let’s say it like it is: we killed our own dog. A mercy killing. I know many of you have been through this. I have before, but it’s so hard every time.

We took her ashes to her favorite river and let her go. As is often the case with people in our lives (generally speaking), Grace was a mix of sweetness and -well – the opposite.

She barked a ton. She was a cattle dog and was very territorial. She chased our other dog upstairs, because she was intruding on Grace’s territory. She nipped at us. She rubbed her butt on the carpet.

And we loved her.

As quoted in the bestbook on leadership I know, The Leadership Challenge, Former US Army Major General John H. Stanford said “The secret to success is to stay in love.” We’ll always love Grace. Go spread some of your love today.

Thanks.

In the Serious Business of Life, we sometimes lose track of our sense of humor. And yet laughter and humor are “serious” tools for success in both business and the rest of your life. Although various scientific research has proven this is true, we also know it intuitively: humor heals. Without laughter, fun and joy, life becomes grim and we rapidly lose our way.

This truth was brought home to me recently when a friend who lives in Minneapolis told me about the ArtCar parade she attended in late July. This parade has been an annual event for 11 years, featuring the whackiest motorized vehicles you have ever seen. One of the best was the Couchmobile. My friend described the scene: cruising down a main drag in the city, a young man sat serenely in a traditional couch that swung around in gentle circles as it glided down the street. I was already laughing and then I viewed a 10 second video clip of it at www.couchmobile.com and it got even funnier.

I am grateful that creative, fun-loving people are out there doing things just for the joy of it. They make us laugh and get the all-important perspective that life is not meant to be serious all the time and that we’ll actually achieve more of what we want by having more fun.

Yes, life does have its serious moments. Many of them, in fact. Our businesses are demanding, our careers often insecure, and we have issues with various people in our lives. We may even have health challenges or have parents or friends who do. It is easy to become overwhelmed by these facts and lose sight of the balance we need for optimum wholeness.

Whatever it is that you find funny or genuinely amusing, make sure to seek it out and indulge in it on a regular basis. With all the heavy, intense and bad news, whether in “the world” or our own lives, humor is not optional. It is essential.

So what makes you laugh? I encourage you to make a quick note right now on your calendar, daily planner or PDA of one of the things you find the funniest and most uplifting. Make it a recurring appointment: call that hilarious friend, watch that movie that puts you in stitches, read a funny book, sign up for clown classes, visit that web site or blog that always makes you laugh out loud. Or hang out with small children – they laugh a lot and it’s contagious!

And don’t forget to check out the Couchmobile. Hmmmm….maybe I should make a COACHmobile? I could cruise down the street in my motorized office chair, wearing my wireless headset, holding a clipboard on my lap and coaching my clients. Now that sounds like fun!

Seth Godin is one of my favorite business thinkers and bloggers.

He wrote about the importance of buying advice – GOOD advice!
See what he said here.

It’s funny, because advice giving is big business, and yet, many folks take the advice, as Seth points out, of celebrities and others who don’t necessarily know jack about what you need advice on.

A lot of coach training “advises” heavily against giving advice. Coaches are “supposed to” draw out the client’s own wisdom, because people are the best expert on ourselves. Fortunately, many (most) coaches also do give advice, because most of them have a lot of professional and life experience that is extremely valuable.

So don’t hesitate to ask your coach – or me here – for good advice!

Thanks to the many subscribers who completed my survey awhile back, I now have my first telephone seminar ready to go for my awesome subscribers.

Check out this interactive telephone seminar:

The Four Keys to Becoming a Time Architect™: An Introduction to a Revolutionary New Way to Take Back Your Time

More info here.

If you’re like most professionals, managers, and business owners, you work more hours than you prefer and you may feel like you’re still not getting enough done. You’ve virtually given up on many of the other interests and passions in your life.

In this interactive telephone seminar you’ll be introduced to a new approach to “time management” that gets to the core of how to create sustainable
peak performance for today’s professionals and business owners.

A Time Architect™ is someone who has a great control over their time and their life, and creates time for the high value activities and relationships that are important to them.

This class is for you if:

* You feel burnt out or like you might be headed in that direction.

* You don’t seem to ever have time for non-work passions and interests.

* Willpower never seems to work for you.

* You feel like you’re “on” all the time.

* You want more than a “quick fix” that won’t last.

More info here.

You’ll learn:

* how “solidifying your structure” has everything
to do with getting control of your time

* to understand the critical see-saw principle and put
into immediate use

* how simplification and stormproofing play key roles
in becoming a master Time Architect™.

And you’ll leave the call with at least three achievable action steps, customized to you, which you can start implementing immediately in your
life.

Your only investment is $9.95 for the class, plus the cost of the long-distance call to the conference line. If you don’t get way more than $9.95 worth of actionable material, I’ll happily refund your investment.

You have two choices for this clss (one daytime, one evening)

Thursday, August 4th at 8:00 pm Eastern/5 pm Pacific

Wednesday, August 10 at 3:00 pm Eastern/12:00 pm/Pacific

To register, go here now.

Maximum of 20 people per call, so register now. I promise to make it worth your valuable time!

Best regards,
Anne

I got some great email feedback on the “How to Be the Hero of Your Own Life” story…

Great story! I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s sad that some individuals don’t get to know people who they assume are too ordinary….Some of the most important role models I’ve had in life do not have buildings named after them or have millions in the bank but in some beautiful way their ordinary lives have been extraordinary.

Thanks for sharing that story,
Debi

Hi Anne –
What a beautiful message! Thank you!
And I love your tag line.
Take good care,
Priscilla

I think this was exactly what I needed to read today to remind me of what’s important.
Thank you.
Donna

Anne,
A great story of courage and determination. Live one day at a time with a loving heart for all that we do. Life is precious and so is each one of us who live and breathe one moment at a time.

Gratefully,

Darleen

Dear Anne,

Thank you so much for a great, worth sharing article about ” how to be the hero of your own life”. I just don’t know how to describe how inspiring the article is.

Cheers,

Caleb

Hi Anne,

Thank you so much for this e-mail. It was absolutely wonderful to receive it.

It is my daughter’s 27th birthday today, a day of Celebration of her life. Unfortunately for 12 years now she has had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, so that beautiful girl has been unable to go to college, etc. as it is too taxing on her.

I listened to your article and started crying. It really got to me. Jessica was a wonderful girl and will be in our hearts for ever. She is and will be special to all of us forever.

I passed the e-mail onto my daughter, so that she can listen to it. It will make her feel extra special today, as she totally deserves to be. Thanks for that.

Have a truly memorable day…

Nina

Very lovely and inspiring story.
Thanks, Anne.

Don

Dear Anne,

I am greatly inspired with the mail you sent to me on
Jessicca Berry. I really appreciate it. I pray we all achieve our
dreams though the roads might be rough but with perseverance and
determination we shall get there.

Dapo

How do you know if you are living your life well? Do you measure it by your accomplishments? This is a short story about an amazing young person who helps us define how well we are living our gift of life.

When I attended my step-daughter’s college graduation this past May, I thought the commencement speaker was a very accomplished person. Whether one is positive, negative or neutral about Hillary Clinton, she has accomplished a great deal, persevered through many storms, set high goals and reached many of them.

What I didn’t realize until recently was that another individual with an amazing success story was also there at that graduation. She was, in fact, one of the graduates, and with hundreds of students streaming across the stage, I honestly have to say I don’t remember her as she received her diploma.

But I learned recently about this hero of the Agnes Scott College’s Class of 2005. Jessica Berry started college with my step-daughter – they were in the same English class. During her first semester Jessica was diagnosed with Hodgkins-Lymphoma cancer. Despite multiple treatments and periods in the hospital during a stem-cell transplant, she was determined to continue her education.

According to her classmates and professors, Jessica had a positive, upbeat spirit and an amazing focus on graduating college. She was on track to be a teacher, but the disease got the upper hand and six days after she graduated, she died. It’s a very sad story. And yet I am inspired by the way Jessica set herself a goal and, despite the odds, achieved it. And in that process, she showed that it is not our achievements that are so important in our life, it is who we are. Our personal qualities and character traits are what allow us to strive for a particular goal. These qualities are what really matter: they make us successful human beings.

Jessica did not succeed because she graduated, just as she did not fail because she died. She succeeded because of the courage and determination, the bright spirit that she displayed through those four difficult years. She succeeded because the qualities she lived have inspired me and many others. And she has helped us become conscious of how well we are living our lives.

None of us knows how much time we have left. Let’s take a cue from Jessica Berry and live full out, pursuing our dreams, authentically and with integrity. If we do that, whether we reach them or not, we will have succeeded.

The problem with all the “abundance” in our society is we end up overwhelmed. It’s hard to turn off the faucet of activities, ideas, people and products… and yet, if we don’t draw some hard lines, our lives so easily get out of control.

We lose touch with what’s most important to us and start down that slippery slope where life feels like a numbing treadmill and our passion and caring begin to disappear.

Fewer choices = greater freedom. A paradox, isn’t it? I’m frequently reminding clients that the practice of sequencing is so crucial. Sequencing is doing things in sequence rather than all at once. So you may sequence some big life projects, and focus on one this year, or even for the next few years.

If we do one thing well, we will be much further ahead than doing multiple things half-baked.

Whether you give a hoot about golf or not, here’s a universal lesson for all of us.

A fellow who has struggled for over 20 years with his professional golf career won the men’s US Open last Sunday. How did New Zealander Michael Campbell do it? In an interview, he said that, as he played the last 9 holes, he said to himself 20 times each hole “Keep your focus, keep your focus, keep your focus.”

This simple statement contains such power and is such a key to our success. I don’t have A.D.D., but sometimes I wonder, the way I can jump around from project to project. When I KEEP MY FOCUS it truly is amazing what I accomplish. It feels great!

Ask yourself, what is the top activity you need to focus on right now?

Here is some of the feedback I got to the Glass Block Story. Good stuff. Keep ‘em coming!

Yes, I agree with you about action. I also have a lot to do in the patience division. But, as you found out, action and patience really go together. If you had not gone to the Builders store, you probably would never have seen the glass block. The glass block came into your vision because of something you saw at the Builders store. Whether you saw it or now, you mind saw it, and then put you and the block together.

When I rush to action, many times it takes more time to redo the action, than if I wait for the perfect solution… that is always there!

Thanks for your notes…

Lawrence

Patience is a virtue I have been blessed with but, I do sometimes find myself in a hurry to get something done. This story reinforces that waiting is almost always a good thing to do. By waiting just a couple of seconds we can respond to something instead of reacting to it.

Thanks for the reminder,
Paul

Great lesson. I probably have more than my fair share of patience. I have cultivated it the last few years. I think your lesson has great beauty in the waiting. Not something we no how to do very well in the culture.

Thanks for sharing,

Have a great day ~ Debbie

What a great example of how patience pays off and the innovative solutions we can come up with when faced with a problem to solve.
Thanks,
Connie

I don’t know about you, but patience is not my strong suit. In most situations, I want to move forward in action. A few weekends ago I had an amazing experience that powerfully drove home to me, once again, the value of patience, especially when it comes to finding creative and effective solutions to our problems.

The beautiful wood lot next door to our house was recently cleared to put up two more homes. We knew it was going to happen sooner or later. On the window that faces the lot, we had a beautiful stained glass piece, however, the window showed through about 8” on either side.

Now, with the lot cleared, every time I went by the window, instead of beautiful greenery, I noticed raw earth, scraped by the bulldozer. It made me cringe every time. I am a big believer in the tremendous benefit of setting up our environment to support us. This includes all kinds of environments, like clients, friends, beliefs, food, etc. But in this case it was my physical/social environment.

We had to do something to change that view out the window. I came up with the idea of a lightweight translucent plastic roller shade that would go behind the stained glass. Definitely tacky, but I was adamant I did not want to see construction for the next six months or look into someone else’s window for years after that.

Although this idea wasn’t the greatest, I didn’t see any other option and my perspective, as an impatient, action-oriented person was “Let’s just put up the shade.”

Fellow “action” friends take note: sometimes action can be premature.

So what happened? We started tossing ideas around – an attractive Japanese paper shade of some kind, plastic film you stick on windows in bathrooms for privacy that still lets light through, even spray-on coatings.

Yet, we agreed, none were very aesthetically pleasing in our desire to create an uplifting, beautiful environment that would positively affect our daily performance and happiness.

To stimulate our idea process, we went to the local home improvement monster box store and cruised the aisles, trying to come up with a good solution. No luck.

Finally, frustrated and back home again, I noticed the glass block I had in my office. It simply sat on my window sill since I had nowhere to install it, but I had loved it for years. Was there some way to use the block?

We quickly discovered that the spacing was almost perfect – one column of glass block on either side would fill the gaps perfectly. The wave pattern made it so, while light came through, we didn’t really see what was outside, just some color.

Now we wondered how we would stack a column of blocks, without mortar. It turns out they make a plastic insert for just that purpose – dry-stacking glass blocks.

We bought some blocks and inserts and you would think that the window had been specifically planned for this purpose. I was amazed! The solution was perfect. Yet, in my initial rush to solve the problem, I would never have come up with this.

It was a wonderful lesson to me to:
1) take enough time to come up with the best solution, and
2) put your head together with one or more others to guarantee better solutions.

In this action-oriented culture, there isn’t much value placed on patience. Let us be wise and not make that mistake.

I read Creativity in Business by Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers back in 1986. It was the first time I realized that creativity and business even belonged together!

Here’s one idea from the book. When approaching a particular business or professional problem, take the approach of acknowledging that you don’t know how it’s going to turn out. “Instead of worrying over the many possibilities in any situation, just let go. You really surrender when you drop attachment to a particular outcome…One student said: ‘My approach has always been to hammer away at a problem until I find a solution, or failing that, I usually give up. This brute-force approach does produce results but at a cost of great stress and unhappiness… With surrendering I felt much more at peace with myself, and I actually attacked the problems with greater confidence.’ ”

What problem can you surrender today? Success may be the result.