Ctrl-Alt-Delete

I love this time of year!

It’s not because of Christmas, or presents, or all the holiday-specific food and treats. It’s not because I get to spend time with friends and family. And it’s not because I get to take time off of work.

Those are all good things, and I’m grateful for them, for sure!
But it’s because at midnight on December 31st (or about 10:30, which is my more realistic bedtime), I get to hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete on my year.
I get to reset and wipe the slate clean.

It’s not that this past year has been all bad. It hasn’t! But, there are some goals I didn’t “knock out of the park.” Then there are some goals I never even set. And the new year is reminding me it’s time to be conscious and deliberate about what I want for 2012!

What do you want? What are you “re-booting” this January 1st?

How are YOU?

Two weeks ago at the beginning of a phone call with a client, I asked the culturally normal conversation opener, “How are you?” To which he replied, as he always does, “Excellent.”

I paused more than just a moment.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said, feeling envious of his consistently “abundant” mood.

“Sure,” was his response.

“Are you always ‘excellent’ – or is that just an automatic response, whether you feel it or not?”

His response back, “Listen, Nancy, every morning when I open my eyes and my feet hit the floor, I’m grateful to have the chance to live another day and improve on yesterday. I live in a great country. I have a great job. And I have a wonderful life and four beautiful children. How could I NOT feel excellent?!”

I’ve thought about this every day since then, and with the new year approaching, what a great outlook to have for 2012.

Thanks, Dear Client. You know who you are.

Money or Integrity?

I was recently offered an attractive sum of money for a short term business need. This was a referral from an existing client. Without going into the messy details, it was a “slippery” opportunity that would have been an insult to my values, and objectively required a compromise of my integrity.

I’m embarrassed to say I struggled for a few hours over my decision. Should I do it? I told him what my values are and that I vehemently disagree with his approach. So am I “in the clear” with my own integrity? We could use the money. It would make for a really nice summer vacation, as one way our family could benefit from the sale.

Then the other side of me spoke up. How could you do something that is so against what you believe and stand for? How would you feel if your clients and friends knew? Can you “meet your maker” one day in clear conscience?

Back and forth the two arguments went.

I checked in with two of my key personal advisors to discuss this decision.

Ultimately, I decided I could not face friends, clients or Maker, without knowing I had compromised my values and integrity. I declined the opportunity.

The peace I felt afterward, and the clarity and conviction with which I immediately viewed and approached my business were far more “lucrative,” in a non-monetary currency, than I could ever have gained financially, had I engaged in a business opportunity that asked me to compromise my integrity.

Question: Are you ever tempted to compromise your values and integrity for the sake of financial gain? Especially in this market and economy, does the promise of financial gain tug at you? Or are you staying true to what you know is right?

As my husband often says, “There is no softer pillow than a clear conscience.”

my 300 dollar cup of coffee

…tasted just like any other cup of coffee. On any other day. Yet it felt both far more stressful and more peaceful than any other.

How can that be?

I pulled into the parking lot and my car gave a kiss to the car in front of me.

Have you ever been on a train or bus, when it hits a bump, or comes to a quick stop, or sudden, lurching start? And you gently bump into the person next to you. With a little blush and half-smile, you look at that person and mutter something like, “oops. Sorry.” And you go on with your day.

Well, that’s what my car did today as I steered it into the coffee shop parking lot. But the woman sitting in the car in front of me, wasn’t so quick to forgive my car’s blunder.

When I saw the crack in her hard plastic bumper (what are they thinking anyway? Isn’t the whole idea of a “bumper” that you should be able to gently bump it like that, and it’ll rebound???) Anyway, I bumped it and cracked the hard plastic.

As I exercised my right as a female and called all the important men in my life: husband, father, old boyfriend who has bought, built and sold multiple car-related businesses – none of whom was available. Only then did I rest on my own savvy, wisdom and negotiating skills. I wrote her a $300 personal check and off she went.

Here's the deal: when you own a business and/or are responsible for sales in your company, time is money. I simply didn't have time to figure out if $300 was a good deal or a bad deal. God bless here, anyway: I offered $250, she said $300 and I said, "Fine."

Off to more important things...

next time you pray...ask for email to be down...

There I was...mid-week...working hard, in the thick of activity...when all of a sudden...

Like a black hole of technology...my email was down. Did you hear me?!?! My email was down!!!

Like Apollo 13, on the other side of the moon -- I had no communication to the outside world.

[Sshshhhsshh...don't tell anyone...it was wonderful...]

For about 28 hours, with the exception of a few treasured clients whom I was really needing to connect with -- I was none the worse for the wear. In fact, I enjoyed the peace and quiet.

Now, as a practice management coach and consultant who thinks she should know better, there I was, many times, caught stunned by the lack of bling-a-blings and darkly fonted new emails, begging me to be distracted from the all important tasks of servicing my clients and marketing to attract more.

"What will I do with myself," from this silent place?

Ah, it was peaceful. No interruptions. No distractions. No annoying to-do's to take me off course.

And, so, I was reminded of one of the fundamental, and easy-to-abuse, practice management principles: don't allow interruptions to waylay your productivity.

Start the task. Finish the task.

It's just that simple.

Perhaps I'll just not even go into Outlook tomorrow. Let's see what that does to my productivity!!

Try it: "You've NOT got mail!!!"

sometimes brilliance comes in small packages

Riding in the car last night with my 9 year old daughter, when she says (oh, so brilliantly)...

"Mom. It's easy. People will buy more when it costs less. Just make it closer to free, and people will give you even more money to buy more! 'Like...cotton candy!!! If it cost 50 cents, oh my gosh, then everybody would buy it!!!"

Brilliant.

Anybody looking to hire a Director of Marketing? Where should we mail her resume?

the enemy within -- it's quite popular!

Knowing how much I believe in the power of resistance and how it prevents our growth and success, a dear friend recommended the book The Enemy Within -- Conquering the Dark Side by Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Claire Prophet.

So, as I often do, I went to Amazon and entered "The Enemy Within" as a book name to do a search on.

No kidding: the first page returned 1-12 books with that name, out of 29,949 results!!!

Good Lord, you don't need me to interpret the meaning of that, right?

It's pandemic: we all have dark sides within that torture us and hold us back. Have you ever stopped to look at how detrimental your own resistance is? Have you ever noticed how much energy you expend denying acknowledgement of that "dark side"???

In the work I do with clients, this is a univeral theme, with powerful results.

This is such a huge topic, I can really only briefly touch the surface in this tiny space provided by a blog. Here's the bottom line:

Stop resisting that enemy. Consider the wisdom on the threshhold of your mind. Notice what happens when you open yourself to heretofore considered "negative" emotions. Just pause a moment. Observe. And see what nuggets are there.

This is very powerful, if you'll allow yourself to see it.

For many of my clients, they resist success (yes, success), because they don't want to "make other people feel bad." Or they don't want to "appear cocky." Or they don't want to "be selfish." Just sit with those concepts for a little while. There's both wisdom and "ridiculousness" in that perspective.

For other clients, they resist feeling rejection or being hurt -- and they never take risks or "ask for the order." (Which, of course, means they never get the order either!)

Fascinating.

And Amazon evidently has some 29 thousand products that reference this topic. ...Lest you think I'm the only one encountering this...

So, what are you resisting???