Legacy...

You have the power to create your legacy. What shall you choose it to be? While we all may not be able to leave a million-dollar legacy, you can, right now, start building yours by:

• Making eye contact during conversation
• Listening without rushing in to state your point
• Asking permission
• Providing a genuine smile
• Giving a heartfelt embrace
• Practicing the alternate merge concept in traffic
• Challen...ging your mind to come up with a better way
• Respecting your colleagues
• Mentoring your employees
• Raising your children to be responsible
• Paying your bills
• Allowing joy in your life
• Bringing joy and laughter to those around you
• When tempted to point a finger, point at yourself first
• Help those less fortunate to become self sufficient
• Be open to new ideas from those who are different from you
• Lead by example

This idea of legacy is not just what is left when we are gone-it is also what IS, while we are here right now. Every day we add a brick to our own legacy wall-by our actions, thoughts and deeds we add new building bricks. Choose yours consciously and wisely.

 

God gave us the ability to experience profound joy and yes, heartbreaking sorrow as well. The joy you create for yourself and others today will give you the strength to get through the sorrow. Here's hoping for a good day for us all, one that adds to our combined legacy of which we can all be proud.

 

Here's to your success!

Put a Deadline on Your Goals....

Stop faking. Saying you will do it “one day” is a cop out. One day isn’t coming unless you make one day Today. Hold yourself accountable for the progress. I know how you operate. You have all this enthusiasm to start that begins to wane about 3-4 weeks into it. That is if you don’t get distracted by a really good reason to do something else within a few days or hours of committing to follow your dream.
Life has a way of presenting really valid reasons. So give yourself a deadline. Hold your feet to the fire. Make it possible but challenging as well. Move as quickly as you can. Make it happen. Remember this is your ideal. This is the peace, and quality of life you really wanted. Why wait? What is more important to you than you?
Decide what it would take to get out of the way and get it done and then go do it. When the deadline arrives, only three things could have happened. Either you will have accomplished your goal, you will have made amazing progress, or you will start making excuses as to why it didn’t happen. Any reason you offer is an excuse. Either you are making it happen or you are getting in the way of making it happen.

What ‘Quality Means for You

It does not matter what everyone else wants for you. Right now, if you are going to get unstuck, you must be willing to explore what you want from life.
Yes, I know you want to make others happy. What about you? What would make you happy? What would allow you to smile the way you make others smile? Think about it. Imagine it. Talk about it. Write it down. Give yourself a few moments to just relax and let that marinate. Your ideal. Your dream. Your fondest wish come true. This is your moment.
Own your desires and goals. Just thinking about it places you into a state of being that is more motivational and energetic. Allow yourself to feel as if your ideal state is happening right now.

Dealing With Difficult Situations

Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, problems happen, and customers can be difficult to deal with, especially after a negative experience. When people are upset, they can get emotional.

 

Responding to the emotional needs of our customers is one of the best skills we can develop when providing customer service. Whatever the emotional state of customers, it is important to each of them that you understand what they are trying to tell you and how they feel about the services they want you to provide.

 

Listening-The first step in identifying our customers' needs is listening to what they say. Letting customers present their issues and listening to their messages are crucial to identify what is really on their minds. Don't interrupt before they have finished.
- Determine what your customer wants and needs.
- Prevent misunderstandings and errors.
- Gather clues about ways to improve the service you provide.
- Build long-term customer relationships.

Sympathy versus Empathy -When responding to customer's emotions, it's helpful to make a distinction between empathy and sympathy.

Sympathy involves identifying with or even taking on another person's emotions. A sympathetic response is, "I am really angry about those plaques too." Responding to customers with sympathy puts you on an emotional roller coaster and can leave you exhausted at the end of the day.

 

Empathy means acknowledging and affirming another's emotional state. An empathetic response is, "I can understand how that makes you angry." When you respond with empathy, you stay calm and in control. Only then are you at your absolute best, ready, willing, and able to help your customer.

 

Don't Take It Personally-Becoming defensive is a very natural response in any difficult, emotionally-charged situation. However, defensiveness prevents any real communication from happening. Being objective about the information our customers provide can help us respond more objectively and identify their real issues and concerns. Mentally rehearse how you will calmly react to tough situations before they occur.

Gratitude

You are focused on what you don’t have and what is going wrong. I know there is a difference between where you are and where you think you need to be. The difference may seem insurmountable. The consequences may be terrible. The whole situation may be overwhelming. You feel like you are losing the fight. Let’s not think about that right now. No, I’m not asking you to wish away the reality of your situation. I’m not asking you to launch into denial about how serious your problem really is. Even right where you are, here are 4 ways to solve that problem like you are your own personal gladiator.

1. Stop Your Overwhelm - Even in the middle of your circumstances, there is a reason to be thankful. Before you make a decision, count your blessings. While you are in overwhelm, remind yourself of the things that bring you joy. Don’t worry about being in overwhelm, just focus on the reasons you have for thankfulness. I’m not being theoretical. What are they? Think about them. Speak them. List them. Spend some time and energy remembering the things that we all naturally forget. What is going right? What is one great thing that has happened even while these terrible problems were brewing? Name another great thing. And another. And another. Oooh, you just thought of another one before I could ask. Keep going. Thankfulness interrupts overwhelm.

If you don’t see anything great at first, that’s okay. It’s okay as long as you don’t give up. Sit with it until you think of something. It might be small. It might seem inconsequential. It might be unrelated. It might be shallow or vein or silly. It still matters. Count it. Make your list.

2. Your Problems into Perspective - Training yourself to see the good helps to put your problems into perspective. You have seen this happen when a reporter interviews someone immediately after a tragedy, a natural disaster, some unexpected devastation. As they stand with the ruins of this person’s life framed in the background, the reporter asks something like “how do you feel”, or “what are you thinking right now?”

Tell me that it doesn’t move you to hear the person share the reasons they have to be thankful even as the ashes smoke around their feet. They say, we escaped with our lives; or this was something we should not have survived and we are blessed. Even though we’ve lost everything we have, I have my life and I’m thankful for that. Sometimes you hear wonderful stories of thanks for heroism or assistance from a total stranger that came to their aid. Often you hear, we don’t know what comes next but we are faithfully taking one day at a time. Even thought your issue may feel like the end of the world, put your problems back into perspective.

3. Invite Your Most Powerful Purposeful Self to Show Up - Don’t you want your best Self doing the heavy lifting for you in this moment? That Self is your own personal “gladiator in a suit” on speed dial. The fastest way to call up your inner gladiator is with gratitude. Gratitude is one of the fastest ways to shift you into who you are when you are at your best. Gratitude invites that most powerful purposeful Self to show up and make decisions on your behalf.

Why is gratitude such an incredibly powerful feeling? Gratitude puts you in the right frame of mind to see the next step to take. If you can come from a place of gratitude, you are not coming from a space of fear and anger. Gratitude changes the type of options you see and the options you think about. Your gratitude summons your courage and strength to stick with it another day. Gratitude generates the clarity you needed to step away from something or someone that is no longer serving you. Gratitude gives you peace to feel calm and certain of your next move even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else.

4. Ask yourself, “What Do I Have?” - Now that you have stopped your overwhelm; shifted your perspective; and invited your most powerful purposeful self to show up, let’s talk about that issue again. No. No, we are not going back to that hyperventilation and panic. We are problem solving. I didn’t ask you what you don’t have. Focus on what you have.

Choose to feel grateful even as you acknowledge that you may not have what you want. See where you do have enough. Choose to appreciate the many ways that you have enough. Focus on the abundance and the goodness that exists even in this situation. Appreciate what you already have and all you are learning. Appreciate your determination to handle this the right way. Recognize where things are being taken care of. Appreciate they way you are solving your problems and see how your gratitude gives you the energy to walk away from that battle with a big win.

One Step At A Time....

Does it feel as if you are well into 2013 already (instead of just a month), trying to keep up with ...everything?! The challenges we face offer a wide range of solutions, some that energize us and others that drain us. Serious situations may cause us to agonize over the resolutions - especially if we dwell on the "what ifs" too long.

But once that tough decision is made, don't you find that your focus is better, your energy renewed and the path towards moving ahead towards your goals much clearer? If you are in the middle of this kind of challenge, just let me offer this: keep on putting one foot in front of the other-even if those steps are small, they are still moving forward and you can give yourself some valuable energy-rebuilding time.

Celebrate Your Accomplishments!!

Before we all go off to celebrate another ending and new beginning, may I encourage you to remember why you are right where you are, and celebrate all those things you did accomplish in 2012.

Now I know the overachiever in you is merely focused on all the things on your list that didn’t get done and that’s okay. Just for a moment, take a look back through that calendar of yours and remember all the moments you totally rocked. Remember those moments in your life when you totally knocked it out of the park? I bet you have forgotten many of them already. I’m talking about the things you did for yourself as well as others. The things aside from your job that you did just because they needed doing. The effort you put into something that no one else knows was needed. Seriously, scroll backwards thorough the 52 weeks and 12 months from 2012.

So, I’m curious, why don’t you celebrate yourself more often? Not the lame moments that others think you should but just truly and sincerely acknowledge the hard work and wonderful things you do. Some people think you are pretty amazing. You always shy away from that praise because you are looking at what you are not.

Today. Just for this moment. Go on and celebrate the difference between where you were, what you were and who you are now. You may not feel like you deserve it but I bet your calendar says otherwise. There were some things you did last year that you have every reason to be proud of. Everyone thrives off of encouragement. It’s like fuel to a car. You are no different. Indulge yourself. Your ego won’t get any bigger than it already is. I’m so sure your "self-depreciation" is already on the case. Shut that negative talk down for just a moment and allow yourself to embrace your own fantastic magnificence!

Go on. Give yourself a well-deserved round of applause. And schedule some more frequent moments in 2013 to do the same.