Choosing to Celebrate Family

Happy Mother’s Day! I know it can be a somewhat controversial or challenging holiday for some, but like so many other things I believe that Mother’s Day is a choice. Sometimes God’s plan for you isn’t the one that you most desire most and you have to decide if you’re going to accept the plan He has for you or choose to be miserable. I’ve worked with hundreds of families in various capacities and it’s nothing like having your own children but even just working with children fills a child-spaced hole inside my heart, and that’s only one of the many options that are available including adoption and fostering or becoming like an extra parent to a sibling or best friend’s kids.

Family is definitely what you make of it. Not all of the years of being a family will be sunshine and rainbows, there will be some hard times and difficult decisions, things that you wish you didn’t have to expose your child to (like pandemics and financial struggles) but the best thing we can do sometimes is just keep going and show our kids how to be resilient and make sure a day never goes by that they don’t know we love them.

As the adult in the relationship we have a choice in how we approach things and the effort and affection we put towards our kids and their comfort in a situation. They won’t love everything, but if we have the opportunity to make something that might be challenging more exciting or like an adventure, or find a happy medium between bringing all of their favorite things and letting them choose just one or two, or help them easily see and accomplish rewards that they can earn for trying hard things, at least they’ll have some positive experiences when it comes to challenging things in their lives and know that at least some of the time they will be rewarded for working hard.

Maybe most important of all: when you have a chance to celebrate you should. Days like Christmas, Mother’s Day and birthdays don’t come around every day, most days aren’t a holiday. But when you’ve got an opportunity to stop or at least slow down and appreciate those you love, celebrate their life or recognize all the good you have in your life, you should. And even when it’s a hard thing to celebrate because that person isn’t with you anymore, it’s still an opportunity for you to remember the good times and share those memories with those you love who didn’t know them so that they can know them too.

Caring Businesses

Sunday in many parts of the world is Mother’s Day. You hopefully came up with a great package or offer for moms or those buying for the moms in their life or have prepared for the moms that will shop with you on Mother’s Day. There are so many connections we could talk about when it comes to moms and business, but as I was thinking about it and some recent experiences, the one that came to mind was how caring mothers can be and how much of a difference make that can be for businesses too.

When you’re building and running a caring business you think about things differently and often make slightly or very different decisions based on that perspective or foundation. Caring businesses will put effort and heart into their communications so that they aren’t snotty or arrogant or dismissive or rude to the customers. Caring businesses won’t work on things like DEI and sustainability to put a check mark next to them, they’ll do it because it brings them to or makes sure they get the best team members for their organization (not the quickest or easiest), or because they know that having a planet here for people to live on so they can sell to for more than one generation matters. And when you have leaders that care about all their employees and their customers you’ve got an opportunity to make a lasting impact on people’s lives and build an incredible legacy.

Yes, a business exists to make money, otherwise it’s a hobby. But I don’t believe businesses can thrive for decades or generations if they aren’t built on and run by something other than money. Money is part of it, but I believe that people and humanity are necessary to really make a business not only successful but maybe even beloved by people. So as you maybe deal with some serious crowds over the next few days or are inundated with people that somehow didn’t get the message yet that Sunday is Mother’s Day, maybe you can be the voice of caring and patience and give them a bit of peace in all the chaos. How does your business and your leadership show you care?

Teaching Perspectives on Getting to Success

How do we get to success? One way is to go about it blindly, and for people who are trying to do something that’s never been done before that’s usually how it goes. Of course there are some people who even when there are people who have done what they’re working on before, they still try to go it alone because either they like a challenge or they feel that it can be done differently/better and want to see if they can get to the same point while working it a different way. But when it comes to success for most of us in most things we follow the example of those who have come before, or at least learn what they know and what they did so that we can at least have a place to start on our journey.

With it being National Teacher Appreciation Week (and day) I’ve been reflecting on some of the teachers that were in my life growing up and one of the more memorable ones was a high school history teacher who was more interested in helping us appreciate history than metrics, dates or tests. Of course we had tests and projects, but it was in his class that I discovered that history isn’t all dry, boring facts and dates to be memorized and repeated, but about layer upon layer of stories of people who lived and loved then just as we do today. Yes, the events matter and the dates help us keep things in order, but as much as history is made of things that happened, it’s only because people lived that those things could happen.

Just like it took this teacher with a new perspective to help me more than just tolerate learning history in school but actually appreciate it, a breakthrough to success may just be a perspective shift away for you as well. For that you may need a new teacher or you may get the opportunity to be a teacher to someone which will end up helping them and maybe give you a new perspective too. Because sometimes getting to success isn’t about what you do or how much money you throw at something, but about being open to a new perspective and being willing to try something different when you aren’t getting the results you expect.

You Are Beautiful

Are you beautiful on the inside or physically? Or maybe both?! It shouldn’t surprise me but today has just been one of those days where I read articles or see TV shows about people from 40 or 100 years ago and open emails and go to restaurants or out shopping and see people who are beautiful in appearance. No, of course I’m not talking about people who are model-pretty, although there are plenty of them too, but people who are beautiful in a more ordinary way yet are beautiful all the same. Of course there are some people who really got rejected by the appearance genes and no, none of us stay beautiful forever or at a specific time in our lives (and some of us take a terrible picture so it’s very hard to see that beauty unless you’re in person with someone), and some of us don’t put any effort into learning what helps us look our best, but I still believe that more of us are beautiful than we might think.

So what do you notice first about other people? Probably how they look, right? But that isn’t always the lasting impression you have of them. So many times I hear the confused statement: “I don’t understand how someone who looks like that can act or talk like that!?!” because someone might look like $1,000,000 or might be incredibly handsome/beautiful but have zero personality or be downright nasty. So the lessons that so many moms (and dads) taught us about beauty not being important or to focus on our schoolwork or behaving well are absolutely true, but at the same time I think they did many of us a disservice by almost or completely brushing off the physical appearance aspect. I’m not suggesting that moms (or dads) around the world should have enrolled all of us in pageants or acting classes or put unhealthy levels of focus on our appearance but I do think they should have helped us understand that we were good looking and encouraged us to care for our bodies and be proud of who we were and how we looked.

Why? Because even if our appearance doesn’t get us hired, married, lucky at the lottery, win a popularity contest or be free of health issues, knowing that we are or can be attractive is a big factor in our confidence as we grow and may even play a big role in whether we thrive in life or not. And having that confidence in who we are, feeling good about how we look, can make all the difference in how courageous or (appropriately) risk-taking we are and as a result how well we do in life on multiple levels including emotionally, relationally, and financially. So remind your kids that they’re beautiful inside and out, help them appreciate and cultivate both kinds of beauty in themselves, and don’t forget to love and believe in yourself and your beauty inside and out too.

No More Excuses for Small Business Success

It’s National Small Business Week! I love small businesses, don’t you? There are some decent big businesses, but there’s something special about knowing that the person or people who make or ship your products or provide the services you’ve purchased knows you as a customer and person and not just a number. I also often feel like a small business can provide more detail in their products and services, more customization or more unique products/services, as well as pivot more to meet customer needs especially when we’re talking local customers. I also love knowing something about the person or people who my dollars go to and knowing that more of my dollars are staying local and not being spread around a global company.

But like any other business, small businesses are not without their issues and the one I want to talk about today is how they try to play on the same field as the big businesses. I think what bothers me most is that I’m not choosing to shop with a big business, I’m choosing to shop with a small business for specific reasons, so I don’t necessarily want or expect the same anything as a big business. I don’t expect packaging that’s been through 10 rounds of edits and tweaks (and looks like it belongs in a magazine). I don’t expect daily marketing emails with flashy pictures and videos. I don’t expect you to have sales figures or numbers of customer reviews that are comparable to big businesses. I want small businesses who deliver on their unique offerings to the best of their ability, and I’m willing to be patient and understanding because I know you’re doing the best you can and are going to deliver a product or service that’s made with love.

So stop with the excuses. You can tell people that it will take an extra day or three to get the order shipped out, don’t say you ship in 48 hours when you consistently don’t ship for a week or 10 days. You can invest another dollar or two to provide better packaging for items when you ship them so they don’t show up looking like they might fall out of the envelope or box, or even worse, arrive damaged. You can make the time to call up a local supplier so that you can provide local products and ingredients to customers instead of trying to master another social network. You can send a weekly email with little updates and reminders and post occasionally (but consistently) on just 2 social media sites. Even if you have a few employees you aren’t alone and don’t have to do business alone, there are tons of local and virtual organizations you can join that both support you and can be a marketing opportunity too. And if you can do more than all those things? Great, as long as it’s not going to sacrifice the quality and heart of what you’re delivering as a small business.

If you haven’t already give some love to some small businesses in your community and around the nation this week. Which small businesses do you love?

Stepping Up for Success

Did you know that there are people who have the job of checking buildings and bridges and other key structures in our infrastructure and making sure that they’re up to code? When they’re done inspecting they typically go back to their office and write up a report on issues that are present and the level of concern they have and how immediately it needs to be addressed. Occasionally they do the inspection and slap a physical or virtual red sticker on it and close it down or restrict access until things are addressed. But most of the time it’s a case of inspection followed by a write up and it may or may not move up the list of importance depending on what the inspection finds.

You probably saw the news about the ship that hit the Baltimore, Maryland bridge at the end of March. If you followed the story they talked about how the bridge hadn’t been updated or retrofitted for 2024 and the big boats on the river today. Structurally it was sound and that wasn’t a concern, but there are things that could have been added or addressed to give it a better chance should there be an issue with a ship as happened.

How frustrating must it be to go around to all these structures and tell people each time that there are issues and to not have them follow up until things are critical or beyond because of either laziness or budgeting? I understand that it isn’t always possible to fix everything at once, and yes, it’s better to fix things when they’re code red than waiting for them to completely fail, but why would you want to take the chance when like the bridge you could do some things that might make disasters a lot less destructive before you get to that point? And why wouldn’t you try to invest a little each year into repairs and upkeep so that you don’t even get to ‘code red’ in the first place?

My point is that there are many ways to get to success. Some people tend to work by the seat of their pants and usually skate through OK, but my experience in those situations is that it’s stressful and usually more costly than it needs to be. Being early and under budget for everything is also another path people take to success and it sometimes comes with stress too if you’re working faster than you should safely and it may also motivate you to cut corners, or it may mean that you consistently give yourself too much cushion and that can tie up resources too. Typically our path to success has parts that run behind and over budget, parts that don’t take as long or cost as much and parts that go exactly as expected. If you anticipate that there will be parts that run behind and over budget, or maybe even that you might miss something and need a little ‘hail Mary’ to make it through, wouldn’t you want to do whatever you can to protect yourself and your resources (and everyone else who will be affected by it)? And why wouldn’t you take advantage of retrofit type advantages when they come your way to further bolster your success? Maybe the biggest lesson of all in it is one that we know well: step up and take care of and maintain the things that you’re responsible for. Do you need to step up to reach your best success?

Taking a True Break

Are you in “go mode” as a parent? I know why we focus on go mode with our kids: because if we don’t they’ll get sucked into tech and TV in whatever free time they have, and while tech and TV are great in a supporting role, we don’t want them to be the only form of education and entertainment our kids have. So we sign them up for all these activities, plan out breaks and vacations with as much as possible going on including trips even if we don’t really want to go or have a lot of extra cushion in the budget just so our kids don’t stay home and do “nothing.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love that we have so many opportunities to expose our kids to and ways to get them educated, but I don’t think we always are willing to recognize the toll it takes on them and us. I had this conversation recently with a mom who was disappointed they had to change their plans and weren’t going away for spring break for various reasons, but the further into spring break they got, the more she realized exactly how important this break was for both the kids and herself and her partner. Would they have had fun on vacation? Probably, yes, because they always do. But there’s something to be said for really relaxing things and not being on-the-go all the time, and by the end of the week yes, she was ready to send the kids back to school and back to a more regular and active schedule, but she also recognized exactly how much fun the kids had staying home and how much more relaxed everyone was at the end of the week.

The conversation with this mom was a reminder that sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves, and even when it’s just our normal lives and normal pressure/stresses, even then it’s good to have a stopping point or done moment or truly take time off to catch your breath. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work hard, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t schedule activities for the kids, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go on weekly date nights, it just means that once in a while it’s more important to stop and rest. Have you and your family taken a break from everything recently?

Back to Media Basics

How much time do you spend on all things media these days? And by media I mean pictures and videos, not news. For most business owners it’s something that comes up at least every day if not much more frequently than that between marketing and sales and customer service. I think by now we all know that our customers love all things media and expect that we’ll have a media aspect to our business even if it’s just our headshot, social banners, or the images on our book covers. But we also know that it’s insanely expensive to do everything in media if we were really to try to match some of the big corporations and organizations with the materials and quantity of what they put out. Today I thought we’d talk about just a couple of things that make a huge difference and don’t considerably stress your bank account or already limited available time.

Let’s start with stock images. Whether we’re talking book covers or social posts we’ve all seen some of the same images used multiple times by different businesses. One of the ways to try to avoid this is to dig a little deeper into the stock images, and by that I mean that instead of choosing from the “popular images” or “top choices” or those on the first page or two, to head a little further down the list of images because people won’t often make the effort unless they’re after something very specific.

Second, when it comes to product or service images always include multiples (more than 2). Again, something so simple can make such a big difference because so many things have more than one or two sides and being able to look inside a bag or see the bottom of a shoe or see the detail of the rock wall that was created or each menu item can mean the difference between a sale or not.

Third, check your background! The background of your image can be a big turnoff and can make your product appear to be of lower quality than it is, or at the very least it certainly doesn’t build up your credibility as a business that pays attention to detail. It’s not even about having a stage and super expensive lights or working with a photographer that will really set up the shot. It’s about not having green wall as a background or laying your product on a multi-colored carpet or having a background that is simply more interesting than your product and ends up taking away the attention from the product.

Fourth, even in this day and age of super smart people and being able to hire people to do stuff for you, your how-to/DIY/instructional manual still matters. Yes, go ahead and film someone putting things together or put the steps into an explainer video, but also include a hard copy or PDF of the instructions as well. Why? Because I can’t tell you how many things I’ve tried to put together with a video as the only instruction and it took 5x longer to do because I had to keep rewinding the video. Yes, the video is helpful to see the process work together and get some of the little details that aren’t as easy to convey on paper, but it’s not easy to stop and start when you’ve got your hands busy holding stuff and trying to put it all together.

Finally for today, whenever possible don’t have your text as part of the graphic or embedded into the video in such a way that translation software or programs don’t work. Yes, of course graphics look great with text and having captions with videos is helpful, but especially when it comes to products or services that are not language specific (i.e. shoes, landscaping/home maintenance, books available in multiple languages etc.) you limit yourself and your audience if you embed the text in such a way that they can’t translate it to understand it.

What are some of the simple edits and additions you would suggest for business owners looking to do better in the media for their business?

Earth Day Success?

What do you think the people who started the first Earth Day would have thought about our celebration and work yesterday and about the progress we’ve made in regards to caring for our Earth? After all it’s been over 50 years now since that first Earth Day and there’s a ton that can (and did!) happen in 50 years. We now have cell phones and internet, we have planes and trains that go super fast, we’ve learned so much about science and medicine, we’ve worked through another world-wide health crisis, the music and entertainment world continues to thrive and captivate, and we’ve raised a ton of money for really awesome causes. But what about our planet? How well have we used those 50+ years and 50+ Earth Days?

On one level I think the founders of Earth Day would be disappointed. Most people could tell you that there’s more that could and should be done on a regular basis to better manage our resources and give more consideration to the future of our planet and quality of life for future generations. They thought things were serious 50+ years ago and they shared that message and clearly we didn’t pick up on it to the degree that we should have because if we had maybe our world would be a different place in terms of some of the climate related issues we have like flooding and air pollution. So yes, I do expect that they would be frustrated and disappointed with us.

But on the other hand I think they would be proud that Earth Day is still something that people get involved in each year, that it has become a much more global and recognized event than it was when it was started. I think they would be proud of all the people who have brought cases to court to fight polluters and make responsible parties pay for damage they’ve caused to our planet. They would be proud of all the creative technology and resources that we’re trying to get a better handle on what we use and how we dispose of what we use. And most of all I think they would be proud that more people are involved in caring for our planet in between Earth Days. We may not have successfully saved the planet for future generations yet, but we haven’t given up and more people are making an effort on a daily basis to both care for our planet and enjoy it. What steps have you done to help care for and show love to our planet?

Out with the Family for Earth Day

I love technology. I love being able to get information with a few clicks, read a new book with a few clicks, take a picture that’s decent with something that’s with you all the time (your phone) and not need a separate camera, communicate with people halfway around the world at any point in time, get almost instant updates about things going on around the world and in our neighborhoods, and being able to connect with people who “speak my language” whether that’s an actual language or a love of books or a game or Superman or minor league baseball.

And in some way I love that technology makes us work harder to be one with nature and connect with the world around us. Most adults grew up spending their time outdoors because that’s really all we had for entertainment and that’s where most of us gathered with friends when we weren’t doing homework or working after school jobs. These days kids reach for their phones, are watching lots of videos, play online games and maybe make videos hoping to become an influencer or trend. Yet every parent I’ve talked with loves technology for the support it gives busy parents, and hate it at the same time because kids often think the natural world is “boring” (or adjacent to how many of us felt about museums growing up) compared to technology.

So Earth Day is one of those opportunities to drag our kids out into the world and see what’s beyond their screens that they really can’t protest because everyone is involved. As for other days? I think the biggest secret to getting kids more into the outdoor world is balance. Let them have their time with screens and other days with outdoor time. Go on road trips so they can have some tech time as you drive while also having to explore new places. Maybe even get them a dog or another animal that’s outdoor-centric like a bunny or chickens and give them a reason to be outside and enjoy it. And of course, the more you get outside the more they’ll understand it’s normal to be outdoors and love to be active and explore too. What outdoor things do you love doing with family?