Let’s Celebrate Business Successes

Every business has areas that aren’t so awesome to think about or look at. Every business makes mistakes and has customers who would not shop with them even if they were the last remining business on earth. No business is perfect and no people are ever perfect, and honestly we do ourselves and the many customers who do love us a big disservice when we let our focus be on trying for perfection. Each piece of a business is important, from the customer service to the leadership to the actual product/service to the marketing, but so often what I hear from other business owners in all industries is about what they can’t do. “I can’t go viral on social media.” “I can’t come up with ideas for my newsletter.” “I can’t get customers to share reviews.” “I can’t get employees to stay.” “I can’t come up with a product/service that everyone loves.” “My employees don’t seem to care about the customers.” I’m sure you can add some more ‘can’ts’ to that list that you’ve either said or heard.

And I get that. I’m sure most of us could go on for quite the time period about all the issues we have. And to an extent we should because we should recognize the issues or failures we have and work to improve them so that we hopefully can avoid those issues in the future, or at least not let them get worse than they might already be. And the negative reviews help us better target our marketing, and help our potential customers know if a product or service is right for them before they buy and then have to get a refund or choose to leave a nasty review. But what if instead we focused on the good?

What if instead we shared about/focused on the cool marketing group we found or how many pages we wrote or a positive review about a product we’ve had forever but found a new fan or the interesting article that taught us something new or the new partnership we’re doing with another local business or the employee who has made a measurable difference in our business or the (anonymous/redacted) progress that a client has made? So instead of letting the bad or difficult overwhelm us, what if we did better about paying attention to the progress, the good, the exciting, the breakthroughs, however small they might be? I’ve seen that when we focus on, celebrate even, the good, the progress, the advancements more tend to show up and we’re able to make better progress than we do when we’re fighting the failure battle. What good things have happened in your business recently and how can you and your team do a better job of focusing on and highlight the good in your business?

A Year of Purpose

As we stand at the end of another year and look ahead to the new one the biggest emotion I’m feeling today is thanks. I’m grateful we’ve made it this far and so many of us are still here together, and I’m grateful for all that those who have passed on have taught us and the role that they played in our lives, however short it may have been. I can remember back in 2019 looking ahead to 2020 (and feeling really sick while doing it!) and having absolutely no clue how much would go on in those few short years and the challenges we would face as a nation and a world, but really hoping for something better than the “challenging” couple of years before 2019. I didn’t get my hope for those years, but we certainly have learned a lot about our world, each other and ourselves since 2020 and this decade began. So no, I don’t have insider knowledge about what the new year ahead holds, and I’m not planning a word for the year ahead (at this time), but as I was reading a devotional which spoke to the new year ahead I was reminded that one of the best things we can do in the new year (or anytime) is to live with purpose.

What does that mean? First I think it means that we should live, period. Yes, there will be rejections and failures and you won’t get to do everything or be everything for everyone, but I think it’s time that maybe we think less about the issues and make fewer complaints and instead start working in the situations we have and go from there. In other words (to use a recent example), just because there’s a pandemic happening, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still have adventures, learn new things, do fun things, or meet new people, you just have to get creative about how you do it and exactly what those things look like.

Second, living with purpose has to do with making lots of decisions. I know, cue the groans, but in all seriousness, the more intentional you are with your decision making (which means you proactively decide things and don’t just let them slide hoping they’ll magically take care of themselves or a better answer might fall into your lap), the more likely you are to be happy with your life and the more likely you are to have a life that fulfills you and let you do what you want. When you’re active with your decision making you are the one with the power and you get to choose many more of the twists and turns that your life takes, and you’ll have more power even during those moments that are really hard or when there are many unknowns because you’re used to making decisions and have gotten really good at finding and evaluating information and understanding and trusting your gut.

Finally, I think it means that you get to know yourself really well and accept yourself for who you are. Accepting yourself doesn’t mean that you don’t make changes or that you don’t have any growing to do, because often what you come to accept is that you’re really imperfect and have lots to work on and will do so at the pace that works for you (a snail’s pace isn’t an option). Choosing to live with purpose is about making decisions that are right for you and who you are and not about what’s cool or trendy or what insert name here thinks you should do because they think you’re ruining your life living as you are (and no one else agrees with them). And a hard part of accepting ourselves sometimes is in accepting that we’re adults and have to make decisions or things will go downhill (often faster than we can imagine). So we can either choose to do it how it works for us, or we can choose to miss out on a lot of awesome life that is out there for us to live.

I’m not saying I’m hoping for a good year (of course I would love that) but I am saying I haven’t given up yet on what the year ahead could be, maybe even because of how we’ve worked through the past few years. I hope you’ll join me for a new year of decision making, being an adult, doing good in the world, and living with purpose.

The Things We Say

The other day I got an email from an organization and the headline talked about someone moving on. I was immediately sad to hear that because I thought that that individual was no longer living and the organization was suffering a very personal loss. When I opened the email to my surprise I learned that that individual was not dead but was instead moving on literally to a different location and organization. I love that we have the ability to be sensitive and choose our words carefully, that we don’t have to be blunt to the point of rudeness in our conversations. But sometimes we’re trying so hard to be sensitive that we mislead or falsely alarm with the words we choose. Sensitive is great until it isn’t, for example when you’re trying to be so tactful that the point is missed completely like when you’re trying to be nice to someone but they aren’t getting the point that there’s an issue or things aren’t working.

This email is one example why both exposure and education are so important for kids to have. Kids are funny because sometimes it’s their bluntness that we love and sometimes it’s their sensitivity. They don’t always say the right thing at the right time or in the right way, but often we wish we were brave enough to be as honest (or adorably memorable) as them. Time and again I’ve learned that there’s more than one way to say something, which means that almost every conversation has room for improvement, and is something we can work on throughout our lives. So exposing our kids to lots of cultures and communications and situations while they live with us gives them a safe situation to learn and ask questions and for us to help them with getting started on learning how to be good communicators who understand the importance of both honesty and sensitivity when it comes to communication.

One of life’s challenges is having misunderstandings, and it’s not always the fault of the communicator, sometimes the issue is with the listener. Sometimes we hear what we want to hear or what our brain is thinking about (the game of Telephone comes to mind as a great example of how this works). I don’t remember, but maybe when I got that email I had just heard about someone who died or there was someone in the background on TV talking about death or someone dying, and because of that influence my brain automatically went to a worst case scenario. Certainly when life seems to hand out more than what seems like a fair share of challenges you come to expect the bad news and think more pessamistically.

Miscommunications and overly blunt or overly diplomatic communications are all great opportunities for you and the kids to learn together. They’re opportunities for you to think about how you may need to step up or how confusing some of the words you routinely use can be and challenge you to improve on your word selection. They’re also opportunities for your kids to understand how to navigate complex conversations, how to think on their feet when communicating, the importance of being able to evaluate the “temperature” of situations they find themselves in to understand how to best communicate with someone, about the importance of asking questions, and the value of listening. What hilarious or could-have-gone-badly miscommunications have you had recently?

Bug Killing and Problem Solving

It’s summer but that doesn’t mean that kids can’t keep learning! I loved the opportunity to be at the library frequently and get tons of books of my choosing and getting lost in a great story that often educated me about relationships and communication and different parts of the world even if I wasn’t necessarily reading the books to learn about those things. But as I was dealing with what is frequently a summer problem for many people, flies, I was thinking about how important it is to teach our kids that there’s always more than one way to do things. Using the fly example, let’s dive into 4 options of how you can deal with them, and other things.

Sometimes, the choice you make is to do nothing. This is when you choose to let the fly go out the door or choose to just wave your hand near it to discourage it from hanging around you. Sometimes that’s absolutely the best and easiest option, that you just give it some encouragement to move on, and it does. It’s also often the right decision to make when you’re outdoors and dealing with critters and can have them rehomed or just leave them alone rather than killing them or negatively impacting their life.

Sometimes the best choice is bug killing spray. Have you discovered a bees nest on your house or in a location that you go near yet this year? It can be a terrifying experiences and the easiest (and safest) thing is to give the nest a couple of sprays of bee killer and then remove the nest late at night. I don’t always encourage using chemicals, but sometimes it’s the way to go.

Third, you can get a fantastic fly swatter (or other killing device) and squish the bugs. I am definitely one of those who tests a paint’s ability to be cleaned because I often focus more on killing the bug over protecting the wall. It does take some courage and skill to get to them this way, and it’s the most classic way of bug removal.

Finally, one of my favorite ways to remove some bugs is with the vacuum. It helps to have one that doesn’t have a removable bag, has a great extension arm, and is easy to take from one part of the house to another, but it’s a great way to avoid cleaning up a squished mess and possibly even removing them from your home to the outdoors to live another day. Again, it takes some skill and isn’t great for catching every bug, but it’s an option to consider.

No, the point of this post isn’t really about killing bugs. It’s that there’s always more than one way to tackle a problem or to do something, and while some approaches work better than others depending on the situation, the more we encourage our kids (and ourselves) to explore the options and possibilities, the better we’ll get at problem solving in all areas of our lives, the more we’ll get out of life, and the better we’ll leave our world for future generations.

Reality Reflection: It’s Not OK

Each week on my other blog I end the week with a post titled Reality Reflection. These posts are on a wide variety of topics, not just faith and victories like the other posts I share on that blog, and sometimes they are a little harder hitting and deal with not only the realities but the tragedies of life. Whatever the topic of the post is, it’s a reflection on something that happened or is going on in the world or is something we might experience in the world. Not only is the post a challenge to myself to see the world in different ways, it’s an invitation for my subscribers to do the same. This week I’m bringing that post to this blog for a good reason, based on an insight I had in response to some of this weeks’ tragic events (Content Warning: yes, this post touches on some tough topics like guns, death, violence and mental health).

As part of the conversations we have about families especially on this blog we’ve talked about tragedies in the past like the tragic school shooting in Connecticut, the killing of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, and several times we’ve talked about 9/11, as well as talked about the ups and downs of life and business and how what goes on in the world affects us. This week families in Texas lost loved ones, mostly children, because of an illogical decision of a young man to take a gun and go shooting in an elementary school. In the days that followed a school near me had a bomb threat, which I heard about because I know some of the children who attend. As I was reeling from that and the news in Texas it took me back to being a young teen and being part of the Columbine generation, one of the kids who was in school when this tragedy shook the US (unfortunately it was not the first school shooting, there have been over a dozen that preceded it in recorded US history).

Of course in the days since this shooting, and all the other mass shootings that have happened, there’s a lot of talk about guns and how either we’re too restrictive and people don’t get their Second Amendment rights, or we’re not doing enough to curb access. While I do support the rights outlined in the Second Amendment for most people, I don’t agree that someone who has a history of violent acts (with weapons or without but have a history of threats that are acted upon) or has documented mental health challenges has the right to continue to do violence or have access to tools of mass destruction that they may not be able to understand the impact of. So yes, I do think there are some things that we can do to curb the violence from happening in the future so that other families don’t go though similar experiences.

But that’s not the point I want to make today. The realization I came to this week in thinking about these events is that when we don’t do something, which we really haven’t, we send a very clear message to kids (and honestly adults too) that it’s OK to go ahead and get these (accessible) guns and act on their unhappiness, frustration, hurt or whatever else drives them to take this path. I’m extremely thankful of the progress we’ve made in giving women and people of color and the Indigenous community rights, in making it OK to be honest and passionate about your sexual orientation, in bringing the family and relationship violence to light, and in being honest about mental health struggles and the desire to get help for them. We’ve come a really long way from where we were 100 years ago on so many things. And yet, people still think that it’s OK to grab a gun and go do violence. How many times have we warned our kids about “stranger danger,” yet when it comes to guns and school shootings, we’re too busy fighting among ourselves to do or say anything?

Yes, there will always be tragedies and many situations will be at least somewhat preventable because of measures or practices we put into place. But there will be fewer needs for such measures if we raise the next generation up to know that violence is not the answer, guns are to be used only for war and protection when all other options have failed, all sexual orientations and skin colors are to be celebrated and welcomed, and it’s OK to admit that you’re not feeling OK and you need help. It’s not OK that another group of families is grieving this week, and it’s not OK that another teen used a gun to share their feelings or make their point. Can we can turn the tide and disagree less if we focus on the issue from an education and acceptance perspective? Since we clearly have been so unsuccessful with the way we’ve gone about it thus far, I think it’s worth a try.

Kids Sometimes Ask Tough Questions

Kids always ask the tough questions, don’t they?! This weekend you may get a couple of those tough ones, questions that are especially tough to help them understand if you’re not religious (Jewish or Christian) with the events of Passover and Good Friday (both starting or happening on Friday, today) and Easter (Sunday for most of the world). Yes, some of the questions they may ask will have to do with the stories behind the events, which if you’re not familiar with them you can answer with a simple online search. But beyond sharing the basic stories, you may have the opportunity to discuss some deeper topics that help address some of the ‘why’ questions behind these stories and give your kids some application on topics that they hear adults discuss but may have been too young to really start understanding, until now.

Choice: Throughout these two events (Passover and Good Friday/Easter) people had to make decisions. Some of them chose based on their fears, and some chose based on their faith, love and compassion. Just like the people in these stories, we’re given tons of choices to make each day. Sometimes we choose to take action or disregard the information, and face whatever the results or consequences might be. Sometimes we’re too blind to see the right choice or too stubborn to make the right choice. But when we really care about something or someone we’ll make the best choice we possibly can because the result matters to us.

New Life: I know what comes to mind when we talk about ‘new life’ during this time of year are all the baby animals, and that’s certainly a healthy way to talk about new life. But sometimes a new life means starting over or starting fresh as we see in the Passover story, which is something that can help kids who are moving to a new town or state, or even just a new school. Sometimes new life means having an experience that completely changes your perspective or brings you to a level of knowledge and understanding that means you’ll never look at life again in the way that you used to as we see in the story of Good Friday/Easter, and kids experience as they learn the truth about Santa and others like him or interact with someone who is homeless. As we see in nature, new life definitely can be a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t come with growing pains.

Hope: Our third topic could have been death because it’s relevant to both events, but as important as it is to come to terms with the concept of death, I think it’s more important to teach your kids about hope. Why is hope so important? Because when you make the tough choices and when you have to live through the growing pains of new life, one of the best supports and encouragements can be the hope you have about your destination and what you’re creating. We don’t work on addressing race conflicts or climate change because it’s as easy to “fix” as it is to make a cup of coffee or lemonade, we do it because we have hope that if we take action now someday the world will be less in crisis mode and instead in the direction of healing and community. So many generations before us have believed in a better world, is that what we’re passing on to the next generation?

Whether you have a time of religious celebration this weekend, gather with family ‘just because’, or it’s just a normal weekend for you, I encourage you to be a little more open and patient with your kids when they ask some of those tough questions, because every question is an opportunity for connection and communication if we’re willing to make it such.

Perspectives for Success

Today is International Women’s Day. March is also Women’s History Month, the Paralympic Games are going on right now, and as you probably remember February was Black History Month. Why do we put so much focus on highlighting these individuals and groups each year? Why can’t we just be “colorblind” or “sex blind” and let anyone who wants to do good things for our planet? One of the reasons why we should continue to make sure that these individuals and groups are included and given the ability to have an impact is because of one of my favorite things: perspective.

It’s when everyone is given a real voice and a real opportunity to contribute, that we’re able to really understand how different things impact different people, why different people need different things, or what might be missing from a conversation or project or action. Sure one [uniform] group or person can do research to find out cold, hard data about what people might think or need or even ask people to fill out surveys about a topic, but that can never replicate what a truly diverse group of people can do when they work together.

Of course one of the most important things to remember here is that people actually have to care about what the other people they share this world with have to say or how things affect them in order for other people to get a seat at the table. Let’s use a non-person example to discuss this: let’s say the decision has been made by the boss of the local ice cream shop that the only ice cream they’ll sell will be vanilla, chocolate and strawberry because they’re the best and “everyone” likes at least one of them, so there’s no need to make any other varieties (let alone 31+ flavors that some ice cream shops sell). And to an extent, the boss would be right that most people do like one or more of those 3 flavors, but that’s not the whole story and chances are that if they were to expand to even 10 flavors that their community most loves they could increase their profits, more people would shop with them, and they would probably have more people interested in working there to help make ice cream too. The question is does this boss really care about their customers and are they really passionate about ice cream, or are they happy to just get by on average and status-quo?

The more we open ourselves up to the world, the more we learn how others see things, the more we learn how others are affected by things, the more willing we are to be creative, the more willing we are to do things differently, and the more we’re willing to take into consideration the other people we share this world with, the more fulfilling our success will be, the more depth our success can have, the more fun we can have, the more cool stories we can hear, and the more potential our future has to be a happy, healthy and exciting one. What perspectives have you opened up to recently?

The Gift of Perspective

Time and again the lesson that I learn about success is that if you really want to succeed you have to get a new perspective. If you think about a gift that you may have gotten over the years that you really struggled to understand why someone would give it to you (and I’m not talking about that sweater or other knitted item from one of the women in your family), and as a result you didn’t like it (and probably re-gifted it as soon as possible). I picked out some gifts like that this year and know I won’t be present when they’re opened, so I put a note with the gift explaining why I think that gift is perfect for them.

One of the things that frustrates employees often is when rules seem (or are) completely arbitrary or decisions are absolutely biased towards one coworker. It’s almost impossible to succeed when one thing after another gets stacked against you with little or no recourse or other options. It’s why so many employees aren’t passionate about their jobs, why they’re willing to leave even if they’re going to make less money elsewhere, and why so many companies get a bad reputation as an employer (or even in the customer service department).

What one person sees isn’t necessarily what another sees, and without taking the time to communicate between them (or without allowing communication and/or give-and-take/change), there’s a great possibility that frustrations and maybe even distrust will build and any chance you or anyone in the relationship had at success will disappear little by little. It’s why it’s so important to remember that everyone doesn’t have the same perspective as you, doesn’t see things as you see them, and why there needs to be discussion and a willingness to listen.

As I was reminded in an email recently: the more we support each other, the stronger we are. How can we support each other if we’re not willing to see the world from other perspectives? Everyone doesn’t love the same stuff you love, want the same stuff under the tree or in their stocking as you do, want to go to the same places as you, or has the same interests and passions as you do. The bigger and scarier question though is: how can we all succeed if we’re not willing to listen, share, give and take? We can’t be willing to just take or just share, we have to be willing to do all of it if we are really serious about everyone having a shot at success.

So this holiday season I encourage you to be open to the stories that others have to share, the reasons they care about the things they do, and the gifts they want to share, and have the courage to share your side of things as well.

Learning to Love Layers

Everyone and everything has layers. Even if you think about something simple like an orange you’ve got the skin and the little pieces inside the skin and sometimes seeds, not to mention the fruit and juice. So something that seems simple can be simple, but when you take a deeper look at it, you can really begin to see the layers. As I was driving the other night I saw the gorgeous full moon and there were some wispy clouds in front of it that made it look even more magical. Clouds have always fascinated me because they sometimes cover up the sun or the moon, but behind the clouds the sun/moon is still there. Looking at the moon and clouds the other night it was so easy to see those layers because the clouds were so thin and ethereal.

Another aspect of layers is our ability to simplify things or make them more complex. I was reading a story in a newsletter the other day about the woman’s daughter who was at a summer camp and the counselor was explaining something to the campers in response to a question and after the counselor finished the daughter said “so what you mean is…” and made the counselor’s explanation simpler and more understandable. It’s not always about the details, because a simple answer sometimes does have specifics in it. And there’s nothing wrong with sharing lots of details or having a technically specific conversation, it’s just not right for every situation or person.

One of the things you learn quickly with kids is how many layers they have. They can be playing make-believe one minute, building buildings the next, singing to themselves the next, and asking you crazy questions one second later. That doesn’t change as we become adults, we just get some different layers as we grow up, becoming parents, partners, hard workers, gardeners, chefs and countless other things. We explore different aspects of ourselves, try new things and often naturally have our preferences and loves become more mature with us (we may still love mac and cheese, but we prefer it not made from a box for example).

One of the biggest challenges though with layers is how we can struggle with them. We don’t always like having the sun/moon hide behind clouds. We don’t always like to learn that we like different things than we used to. And the biggest one of all is that we don’t always feel comfortable sharing our layers with everyone. If we struggle to accept our layers, what will everyone else say about them? No, it’s not always their business, but we do like to share with others and find common ground, and those layers are a big part of who we are which means that people will interact with our layers. The more we can learn to accept and love our own layers, the easier it will be to accept the layers of others, and to encourage our kids to find, accept and love their layers.

Having a Support System

Success isn’t just about the steps you take towards victory, it’s also about how you deal with the challenges you face. I’m thankful for a partner and family who support me, there’s a lot to be said for having people going with you through a situation. Knowing that you’re not alone and that other people may be experiencing the same rollercoaster of emotions as you, that you’ve got people who will do everything from provide a shoulder to cry on or brainstorm ideas or pick up the slack while you’re working through things, is so important. That support takes one or more of the likely many stressors off your plate as you work through the challenge.

But as I was thinking about the different challenges that friends or extended family are experiencing, I was remembering similar situations in my life. I am glad to be in that supportive role for them, but the more I thought about it, the more frustrated I was that I didn’t have someone back then in my life who had already been through what I was going through at the time. Your regular team is great for supporting you, but they can’t always answer to what comes next or what has helped in similar situations and help guide you through your situation.

I know there are mentors to tap into who are a great resource for the normal success stuff. Counselors and therapists are great for providing tools to help anyone work through a situation. Lawyers and advocates can be helpful in making sure everything goes legally and as fairly as possible with preparation for unknowns. But then there are people in NA or AA who have been in the shoes of the people they’re supporting, and can speak to the long journey someone is undertaking.

But what about the people going through things that aren’t as readily talked about or society isn’t as willing to support? What about those people who are genuinely good people but maybe got a little turned around, or made some decisions that aren’t considered popular or culturally acceptable, or the people who find or get themselves into situations where the outcome is often unpredictable and unknown for themselves or family members?

Yes, I know that thanks to technology there are support groups of every kind that can be found if you look, but that wasn’t always the case, and many people still don’t know they exist or don’t feel comfortable talking about where they find themselves or their loved ones because of how they’ve been treated before or how they’ve seen others in similar situations be treated.

All of this is one of the biggest reasons why I think anyone who has a story, encouragement or bit of wisdom to share should be on social media or blogging or podcasting even though it seems like everyone and their sibling has a blog or web presence, because you never know who will stumble upon what you’re sharing and find exactly the community or the person they’ve been looking for who has been where they are and made it through to the other side. Yes, it can be scary to be vulnerable, hurt to revisit that time in your life, and hard to reveal some stories in public settings, but if just one person can feel some peace because of the stories we share, we’re doing our part to make the world a better, happier, healthier community.