In business to annoy?

They’re baaaaaack! Those annoying Internet flashing banner ads that disappeared for a while have returned with a vengeance. They make my eyes cross and my head ache. They do not make me think, “Oh, that looks interesting. I’d better check it out and see what I’m missing.” Same goes for local tv ads that are broadcast at twice the volume of regular programming. And do you know anyone who adores automated phone systems?

Also rating high on my Annoyance Index is my local supermarket. I only shop there for a few things that the delightful Trader Joe’s can’t supply. A few months ago, I noticed something strange was happening at my neighborhood Von’s. Perhaps they hired a customer service consultant who advised them to be more helpful. Or maybe their manager came up with a plan to endear the store to their waning customer base. It’s not working. Under this new policy, I can be browsing quietly in the store—and then am startled when an employee swoops out of nowhere to ask me if I need help. Scaring the daylights out of me is not their worst offense, however. 

The other day I dropped in to pick up a few items. After I’d paid for them, I was asked, “Do you need help out with that?” What I had just purchased was a bouquet of flowers, a bottle of ketchup and an onion. An automatic question like that doesn’t make me feel like they want to be helpful; it tells me they’re not paying attention. Or, perhaps, they are implying that anyone as aged and frail as I am, shouldn’t be trusted getting to their car with such a load.

In Fromm and Schlesinger’s The Real Heroes of Business, they say, “If you want to know how to give great service, find people who do it and watch them.”  If you want to know how to avoid giving great service, watch people who annoy you. (By the way, there are lots more of the latter than the former.) Then decide which you want as your role model.


Person without a smiling face must not open a shop. ~ Chinese Proverb

Daytrippin’…Hunting Chihuly

My love affair with  Dale Chihuly began about a decade ago when I stumbled upon a public television airing of Chihuly Over Venice. I had no idea who Chihuly was, but five minutes into watching and I was spellbound. I grabbed a videotape and popped it into the recorder sensing that what I was about to see was worth seeing again.

“In the moment of knowing a live,” says Ray Bradbury, “intensify it.” That’s just what I did, making it a personal project  to learn everything I could about this prolific artist. Since I like to spice up my travels with explorations, Hunting Chihuly became a favorite. I tracked down his work wherever I could find it and have admired his installations in Minneapolis, Tacoma, Seattle, Madison, as well as at the Dallas Museum of Art, Kew Gardens in London and, of course, at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

When I heard that the deYoung Museum in San Francisco was having a monumental display of his work, I knew it was not to be missed. Thanks to Southwest Airlines, it was easy to make a daytrip out of my next Chihuly quest. I decided to make the trip on September 9 since it’s a memorable milestone day for me and this seemed like a great way to celebrate. I invited the delightful Sharee Schrader, a recent participant in Compelling Storytelling, to join me. She was a perfect travel companion. Besides sharing my enthusiasm for the stunning works that fill eleven galleries, Sharee is also a voracious photographer and took dozens of pictures which I’m hoping I’ll be able to share some of them with you later.

I also enjoyed the descriptions in each room which discussed Chihuly’s sources of inspiration. In one of the first galleries, the wall plaque talked about how he got the idea to climb up on a stepladder and drop molten glass on the ground below to see what would happen. The pieces in that room are the result of that experiment.

The museum expects that by the time the show closes on September 28, more than a million people will have viewed it.  I can’t begin to describe what we saw, but you can get a sense of it by watching this Chihuly at the deYoung slide show. 

Chihuly loves to talk about his work, about creativity and the things that inspire him. Here are a few of his observations.

Chihuly on Chihuly

A lot of creativity has to do with energy, confidence and focus. These are the elements for making creative things. It’s probably the same thing whether you’re making a movie, whether you’re an entrepreneur doing business, whether you’re an artist, or whether you’re a gardener or a cook. These are all the same qualities that it takes.

Glassblowing is a spontaneous medium that suits me. It requires split-second decisions and a great team. It’s very athletic. The more you blow, the better you get. I’ve been at it for forty years and am as infatuated as when I blew my first bubble in my basement in South Seattle.

I thought it was the hot glass that was so mysterious, but then I realized it was the air that went into it that was miraculous.

You know, you don’t teach art. That’s the last thing you’d ever teach. All you have to do is set up the environment and it happens.

I’ve been such a nomad all my life. I don’t think I’ll ever lose the desire to travel to beautiful places—one more archipelago, another round of standing stones, another glassblowing session in some exotic spot, or just one more trip to Venice to see the full moon over the Grand Canal.

A Well-kept Secret

Have you visited Inspiration Station yet? My plan for that part of the site is to explore different places from an entrepreneurial point of view. The current locale is one of my favorite places—Venice, Italy. I’ve been thinking about Venice since I wrote the pieces there, so I was particularly intrigued by a story in the latest issue of Ode magazine. 

It’s a short piece about a women’s prison on Giudecca Island, which is a short distance from mainland Venice. The Santa Maria degli Angeli project is a wildly successful enterprise run by the prisoners who have a garden, greenhouse and cosmetics lab. The soaps, lotions and shampoos they produce are purchased by upscale hotels. Not only do the women share in the profits of this business, studies have shown that once they’re released, they tend to become highly production citizens.

Another project that has an even longer track record is San Francisco’s Delancey Street Foundation. Thousands of felons, drug abusers and illiterate members of the community are thriving thanks to this project. What’s their secret? Here’s what their Website says: ” We have pioneered an entrepreneurial pathway out of poverty. We have successfully developed over 20 enterprises run completely by formerly unskilled people using the each-one-teach-one philosophy. We have pooled our resources so that our enterprises have provided about 60% of the funding and growth of our organization.” 

Besides their impressive record of giving people at the bottom of society a new life, what’s fascinating about the Delancey Street Foundation is the kind of businesses they run. They are the largest local moving company in San Francisco. Imagine how much resistance the idea of using former felons as household movers must have gotten! Another enterprise is an upscale restaurant  entirely staffed by ex-convicts. People who come to the restaurant not knowing about their background quickly learn when they read the menu who is cooking and serving their meal. 

So here’s my question: If  the Giudecca Women’s Prison and the Delancey Street Foundation knows about the personal growth rewards of self-employment, why aren’t our schools raving about the Joyfully Jobless option? Free enterprise needs a new press agent.

Being in business is not about making money. It’s a way to become who you are. ~ Paul Hawken

Overlooked Excellence

There are only two reasons I bother to set my alarm clock: an early flight or CBS Sunday Morning. Since my local tv station carries this unfailingly informative program at revolving times (it can start anywhere from 6 AM to 7:30 AM) setting my alarm is a calculated guess. 

I am kind of a latecomer to this program. In the days when Charles Kuralt headed it, my friend Chris Utterback would often call afterwards to discuss something she’d seen on the show. Since turning on the television wasn’t part of my Sunday morning ritual, I relied on her to give me a recap.

Now that I’m a devotee, I wonder why it took me so long. Perhaps it’s because CBS never promotes it and assumes that fans will show up without any fanfare. 

What prompts me to interrupt my sleep is the consistently interesting stories they bring us. Last Sunday, they reran a piece with one of my heroes, Richard Branson. Then there was another about a business I’d not heard of called Catch a Piece of Maine, a unique enterprise started by a couple of passionate young lobstermen who were a study in innovative marketing and customer service. (You can read both of the pieces if you click on the link and scroll down to the August 31 show.)

Whether they’re featuring someone well-known or someone obscure, I always leave the show grateful to have learned something new or seen creative thinking in action. Sunday Morning is superbly produced and worth a look. Quite simply, it’s a lovely way to begin the day.

Is Your Business a Contender?

No matter if you’re a newcomer or seasoned veteran of the Joyfully Jobless life, your marketing can get a big boost if you stay alert to media opportunities. One easy way to put yourself in the path of opportunity is via a free service called Help Out a Reporter. Three times a day, the energetic Peter Shankman sends a listing of a dozen or more story requests from reporters and freelancers in search of potential interviewees. It only takes a minute to scan the list (which is organized by subject area) and you never know when you might be a perfect match—and suddenly find yourself catapulted into the national spotlight. 

Here’s a recent post which could also be an opportunity for you to enter your business into StartupNation’s upcoming contest. Here’s the scoop:

 Summary: Need Innovative biz that takes place in a house

Category: Business & Finance

Name: Rich Sloan

Email: kathleen@bordersgratehouse.com

Title: Founder, Editor in Chief

Media Outlet/Publication: StartupNation

Anonymous? No

Specific Geographic Region? No

Region:

Deadline: 6:00 PM PACIFIC – September 30

Query:

“StartupNation is looking for innovative non-office businesses
across a variety of categories. If you know of an innovative
business that deserves recognition entries are being accepted until
midnight Pacific Time on September 30, 2008 at
http://www.startupnation.com/homebased100/enter. Winners will be
judged by StartupNation and a panel of judges who are each
passionate about non-office business and the Top Ten categories
highlighted in this years competition. Winners of the non-office
100 find themselves at the center of a media storm that includes
recognition on national and local TV, radio, in newspapers and
magazines, and on some of the largest, most influential websites on
the web, MSN and StartupNation among them. “

Be sure to let me know if you win!

Travel Tales

Mythology and literature have frequently told tales of people who went on a journey and in the process discovered more about themselves. Some of these stories, such as Homer’s Odyssey (written in the 9th century BC) and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (from the 14th century), remain staples in literature classes. What these early writers show us is still true today: travel opens us to new insights as well as new experiences.

A newer story that uses this device is the lovely little book by Paulo Coehlo called The Alchemist. This popular favorite chronicles the adventures of Santiago, a young Andalusan shepherd who leaves home only to encounter obstacles, dangers and a fair share of mystical experiences. It’s one of the more poetic modern tales about the importance of following the dreams of your heart.

As in all stories of courage, we are reminded here that the road to our dreams is not without pitfalls. I carry around with me Coehlo’s insightful words about that truth. “Too often we decide to follow a path that is not really our own, one that others have set for us,” he writes. “We forget that whichever way we go, the price is the same: in both cases, we will pass through both difficult and happy moments. But when we are living our dream, the difficulties we encounter make sense.”

If you haven’t met The Alchemist yet, add it to your reading list and you may just find your own commitment to your dreams growing stronger.

How you gonna do that?

One of the leading characteristics of entrepreneurial thinkers shows up in their approach to goal-setting. I was reminded of that this morning when I was talking to Lisa Tarrant, who spent the weekend holding her first tag sale. She said it had been a success and she was getting ready to list a couple of unsold items on Craigslist. “We’re using the money from the sale to redecorate our living room,” she added.

“Oh, how entrepreneurial!” I replied. She agreed and told me about their decorating plans.

Did you catch what’s happening here? I’ll give you another hint. Every time I announce a 3-day seminar, I start hearing from people who say, “Someday I’d like to attend one of your Las Vegas events.” The implication is, of course, “if I ever have the money.”

That’s fixed income mentality at work. The entrepreneurial approach is quite different. Successful goal-setters decide first WHAT they want to do and then get busy figuring out HOW to make it happen. In fact, this proactive approach may not even include the word “how” since that little word can be a sabotaging dreambasher. Instead, the entrepreneurial thinker begins contemplating questions like, “What’s the best way to make this happen? Is there something hiding in plain sight that can help me get there?” 

Figuring out how is where the creative process kicks in. Alas, too many people mistake it for a red light.

Keep on starting and the finishing will take care of itself. — Neil Fiore

New Year, New Theme


1. September 2008 

Happy New Year! Even if you don’t consider September the start of a new year as I do, you can use this idea to start the new month or phase of your life.

I wouldn’t dream of starting a new year or a new project without deciding first what my theme is. After all, a party is just a party—until you give it a theme. Then your creative imagination goes to work finding ways to illustrate that them, as well as eliminating what doesn’t fit.

A theme can put your entrepreneurial efforts on track and keep them there. It could be a single word or a phrase that becomes your motto. Doing so will help you gain clarity and focus. When planning your time or making a decision, a quick check will reveal if your choice adds or detracts from the theme you’ve declared. 

Here are a few them possibilities to consider, but they’re only a starting point.

Expand
Travel Light
Simplify
Explore More
Make Connections
Build Strength
Do It Easy
Visible Abundance
No Limits
Daily Laughter
More Magic
Wildly Creative
Amaze Myself
Welcome Opportunity
Keep Moving
Back to Basics
Fully Engaged
Renaissance
Collaborations
Dream Bold
Catch the Spirit
New Adventures

 

Nothing in the universe is neutral. It either costs or it contributes. ~ Stewart Emery


Overwhelmed? You’re not alone.

 

I got this e-mail today and as I was answering it, I got thinking there might be other readers feeling the same way. So here’s the question and how I answered it:

I’m planning to take your upcoming class on goalsetting. I feel like I’m not sure how/what can make me focus better. I wonder if it’s even possible for me to accomplish such a path sometimes. I find I tend to feel bad not to spend time with family and friends or my mind gets lost in worrying about them or pleasing them, etc…or taking time at 10pm at night to watch Donny Deutsch… or go do other things. How do you and the others really achieve all of this stuff and find time for everything else?

I know you get a lot of emailings from a wide range of personal growth teachers. Maybe Step One for you is to really decide what is most valuable–even rank all those emailing as A, B, C–and unsubscribe from the Cs. Only look at the Bs if you have buckets of time to spend. (This advice comes from a fine classic by Alan Lakein called How To Get Control of Your Time and Your Life.)

Secondly, do you have a theme, an organizing principle? It sounds as if Simplify! might be fitting for the next 90 days. Then every activity, invitation, distraction is held up to that mirror. Does it take me closer or farther away from a simpler, richer life?

It’s sorting again. A, B, C.

Also, if cleaning up your office is a starting point (and it’s a good one) do it with the spirit of William Morris who famously said, “Have nothing in your houses that you don’t know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” Physical clutter is often very connected to mental clutter. It’s also easier to handle. So if you tackle that project with the intention of getting rid of anything that’s not fabulous or meaningful or representative of who you are right now, you’re bound to get free of some of the mental stuff that’s also keeping you stuck.

If you feel guilty about not spending enough time with your family and friends, for instance, talk to them and negotiate something that works. Tell them you need to focus on laying a foundation for your business and ask them how you can spend time with them in a way that’s satisfying, but not excessive. A special day or gathering every few weeks may be a better solution than regular, but not so festive, times together. Then when you are together, you’re really there and not thinking about things you need to be working on.

Then there’s this fine quote from Jim Loehr who has a book on storytelling: Life is enriched because of the commitment, passion and focus we give it, not the time we give it.

Avoid the Right Thing

When I started my first business, The Successful Woman, I thought I’d model it after existing personal development companies. I quickly realized that many of the people making a living as motivational speakers were doing things that I had no interest in emulating. My response to some of the business practices I saw was to devise a list of personal rules which I have continued to follow. Unlike ordinary goals, these rules weren’t about what I wanted to do; they were about what I didn’t want to do.

Not long ago, I was thinking about those rules and how they have helped me design a business that keeps me captivated. These rules have also helped me avoid pitfalls and temptations. While they may not apply to your business, I wanted to share them and suggest you come up with your own counterpart that fits who you are.

Don’t have two years that are exactly alike. This rule came about in response to the years I’d spent teaching at the high school level, years that seemed to be carbon copies of one another. One of the big motivations with self-employment for me was the opportunity to try many things and make continuous discoveries. 

Don’t teach what I haven’t learned. When I was starting out, I was eager to hear and observe as many professional speakers as possible. While I learned a great deal about effective presentations from observing the pros, I also saw far too speakers who relied on platitudes and less than original thinking. Even though I knew it would take longer, I was determined to learn first, teach later.

Don’t build dependency relationships. At its worst, we think of cults as engendering blind obedience. Plenty of other gurus have also created organizations that foster dependency. I want people to discover their own power and passion and that can never happen if they’re dependent on me.

Thinking about what you don’t want to include in your business can save time, save missteps and frustration—and keep you focused on those things that make your heart sing.

P.S. Want to be a more effective goal-setter? Check out my upcoming teleclass, Goalsetting 101.