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This morning there was a car accident outside of my house.  The two cars hit so violently that the back of one car spun around and hit a car parked on the side of the road pushing it 15 ft up the road and onto the curb.  Surprisingly, no one was hurt (a testament to the wonders of seat belts and air bags – God bless the engineers). 

 

The woman who owned the parked car came out about 20 minutes after the accident to find that her car was probably totaled.  She threw her hands up in the air and announced that this was just one more thing that had gone wrong with her life that week, starting with losing her job and her unemployment check being delayed.  She had that desperate look of someone life has just hit too hard. 

 

I thought about it though.  She’s lost her job.  Her unemployment check is delayed.  Her car gets totaled.  I see the final one as a gift.  You see, we live within walking distance of a subway stop and two blocks from the bus route.  She has easy access to alternate transportation.  With this one fell swoop she has been freed up from the need to pay for car insurance and gas.  It was an older model car, so it’s likely owned it outright.  She’ll get the settlement check within a week – which is probably faster than her unemployment insurance could show up.  It’s not one more thing that went wrong, it’s the universe finding a way to smooth the way for her. 

 

But that’s my perspective.  And you could say that my perspective is skewed given the fact that they missed my car by inches and it wasn’t my car that was totaled.  But I will tell you that when I was going on my walkabout a few years ago someone broke into my car and stole my laptop computer.  Thankfully, I had just backed it up, so I didn’t lose much data.  And it was an old computer that had been given to me by a friend who had upgraded.  It was worth about $50.  But my insurance covers replacement value, so they gave me $1700 for the computer.  I used the money to pay off my car loan and to fund my trip.  It was truly a gift from the universe.  And in the moment it happened, I knew that it was a gift.  I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I did. 

 

The key was for me not to be attached to how things were.  If I had replaced the laptop simply because I was used to having one, I would have been much worse off.  But because I was willing to let go of having it, other avenues were available to me.  If the woman across the street from me is open enough to accept not having a car for a while, she’ll have some money to tide her over until her unemployment check arrives.  If she is attached to getting back to her comfort zone, then she’ll probably have more expenses to deal with since replacing a car is almost always more expensive than the settlement money they provide. 

 

Where are you attached?  What is your comfort zone?  Are things breaking down around you?  Before you work too hard to replace what gets broken, think about whether you really need it.  Perhaps you could simplify your life instead.  For everything new you want to bring you’re your life, you will likely have to let go of something else to make room for it.  Sometimes that’s an easy sacrifice, other times it’s more difficult – but we usually have a choice.

 

Remember, everything around us happens because it happens.  It is a function of the energy we put out.  Our perspectives are what make things seem “good” and “bad”.  What perspective do you choose today?

Tomorrow I'll begin the Millionaire Mind Seminar based on the book The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker. I'm going for several reasons. First, I love to learn. I love to soak up new ideas and see how those ideas affect my existing concept of the world. Second, I loved the book. It had a lot of really good points in it and I learned a lot from it, so I can only assume that three days of intense training (8am-11pm) will be edifying as well. And third - who doesn't want to improve their relationship with money? There's always room for improvement, right?

Besides, the wonderful thing about going to events like this is that it will re-invigorate me. Learning new things always gets me hyped up to create new products for you and teach you more stuff. There's nothing like wrapping your brain around something new to give fresh life to what you already know.

So - fair warning - I'll be in creative mode in the coming months. New products, classes and concepts will be coming forth. Watch for them. And while you're at it, go out and learn something new for yourself too. (I just love to share the wealth.) And pick up a copy of The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind while you're at it.

Boston Area:  Kathy Scheiern, PhD is considering coming to town to offer her Constellation Therapy Workshop on December 9th.  I've attended the other two events she's done in this area and they were amazing.  I highly recommend attending.  It's great for working on your family and personal issues.  I've even seen people deal with work-related issues in this context.  I don't endorse a lot of people, especially not for personal development related workshops, but this woman is da bomb!

If you are interested in attending, let me know ASAP.  We'd have to find a location in or around the Boston area (I have a few leads I could explore if people were interested).  It's a full day program for $99.00 per person, maximum of 12-15 people depending on the room size. 

If we can tell her that we have enough people, she'll book the flight from Cincinatti.  Otherwise, we'll be out of luck until March when she can make it again.  Call me ASAP if you're interested.  Or make a comment to this post with your contact info.

I spent much of my day today driving back and forth to the last place I lived. My change of address hadn't been processed yet, so I drove 45 minutes each way so that I could vote. I thought it was important to take the time out to exercise my civil duty to vote. (Plus I have a policy - if you don't vote, you don't get to complain if the person you didn't want wins.)

Voting is just one way in which we stand up and take responsibility for our lives, our businesses and ourselves. Did you vote today? What other pieces in your life would benefit if you stood up and took responsibility for them?

Remember, until you take responsibility for something, you can exercise no authority to change it. Step up and claim a part of your life that is out of control today and make a change for the better. And the next time you have the opportunity to vote - take it.

Today is my birthday and I promised myself that I wouldn't do any work today.  So this isn't work.  I just wanted to share something with you that happened to me this morning. 

I got up and decided that I wanted to do something fun for my birthday, so I went online to do a google search to find something cool to do.  In the process, I opened my email and found - to my great joy - an email box full of birthday wishes from people I knew! 

Now I know that almost all of these people had automatic reminders set to to tell them it was my birthday.  And I know that many of the cards I received were stock cards.  But the fact remains that they all put effort into creating a card for me.  They picked which card to send, they personalized the message.  It IS the thought that counts. 

So this morning, I got an email box full of love and good intentions.  Happy Birthday To ME!  Happy Birthday To Me!  Happy Birthday to Me!  Happy Birthday to Me!

Woot!  Whee!

My first call this morning was from a broker who was unhappy with a product he had received.  It seemed that the wording used on the site of the reseller who he had purchased the product through was not the same as the wording on my site and he got an impression that the product would be something different than it was.  (This is where I remind you how important it is to set people's expectations properly, lest you have the experience I did this morning.)  The actual product was not one he would have ordered had he realized what it was.  It was a basic level product and he was already at a more advanced level.

After apologizing for the miscommunication, offering a refund, and promising to fix the language on the partner site, I had solved his problem, but I had not managed to salvage the relationship.  This was his first experience of my company and it was a negative one.  Simply refunding his money was not going to be enough to ever win his business, so I went one step further.  I gave him a free copy of a product that would actually fit his needs.  I took the opportunity of his phone call to give me the chance to "Wow" him with my response, and now I have the chance that I will be able to do business in the future with him.

The fact is that none of us want a client to be unhappy.  Those of you who, like me, define yourselves by your level of integrity, know that having that integrity questioned is never a pleasant experience.  But when confronted with an angry client, it is easy to get defensive.  You will never be able to effectively "Wow" a client when you are feeling defensive because to truly "Wow" them, you have to think in broad, expansive terms from a place of truly wanting to deal with them again.  When we're defensive, we go into survival mode which is a short-term thinking process designed over millenia to simply get us out of a dangerous situation and away to safety.  The last thing we want in the moment of being defensive is to ever speak to that person again. 

So how do you avoid getting defensive?  The first thing is to de-personalize.  I had a client telling me that my product was terrible.  I wrote that product.  I could have taken that comment very personally.  And yet, I realized that it wasn't the quality of the product that he had an issue with per se, but the fact that it was not the advanced level product he had expected.  From the perspective of looking for an advanced level product and getting one that was a starter product, anyone would be extremely disappointed no matter how good the starter product was.  There was absolutely no way that my intention for that product would have ever met his expectations because I didn't design it to.

Understanding this fact, I could take it out of the context of being about me putting out a bad product (which I know it isn't based on many other happy clients who had the proper expectations set), and put it into the context of someone being upset that his expectations had not been met.  That no longer made it about me and now I could get into the idea of what I could do to help him feel better about his interaction with my company.

The first thing I needed to do was to apologize and take responsibility for the issue.  If you place blame, you can't ever hope to maintain your integrity - or to bring people's anger levels down.  And a simple "I'm sorry, it's entirely my fault" goes a long way.  I had not checked the copy, therefore it was my fault it was wrong.  Period.

Second, I needed to make it right.  The copy had been misleading, so I refunded him his money. 

Third, I needed to help him see my perspective so that he could see that I wasn't trying to pull one over on him but was actually putting out a useful product for the right consumer.  I pointed out that most people who purchase that product are start-ups who don't already have something in place.  He agreed that the product would be useful for that purpose. 

Fourth, I needed to "Wow" him.  I provided him with a product that would be useful to him as my apology for him having had such a bad experience. 

Fifth, I needed to check in with him to see if he was OK now.  I told him that I really wanted to make things right and that I hoped we could do business together in the future.  He agreed to review the product I had sent him and let me know what he thought of it.  Given his level of discontent at the beginning of the call, this was a huge positive step forward.  I hope that after reviewing what I know to be an excellent product for his needs, that I may get the opportunity to work with him again. 

Remember, simply solving the problem is usually not enough.  There has to be some compensation to the consumer for the trouble of having had to make the phone call or having been upset.  The more upset the person has become, the more above and beyond you need to go in order to make them happy. 

For someone with a small problem that you can resolve instantly, a quick fix is usually sufficient, especially when combined with a sincere apology for the inconvenience.  For larger issues, a larger apology is required.  And really, it's all about the apology.  You must say "I'm sorry" and you have to really mean it.

For those of you who have met me in person, you will know that I am not a hard body.  I was once in my life, but recent years have put my body more into the category of "a little extra" than "mmm, mmm, good".  When I lived in the suburbs, it was an event for me to go out walking and a chore for me to get to the gym.  But a funny thing has happened since I've moved to the city.  I'm walking everywhere.  Me, the person who is so time conscious that I'm constantly mentally streamlining my day, I'm going out of my way to take the subway (called the "T" here in Boston).  It takes an hour to get anywhere by T from my house.  I could drive there in 15-20 minutes.  But I'm loving the mile walk from my house.  And I'm loving the chance to get out and see people (even if only half of them return my friendly smiles).  I'm even loving handing out spare change to the homeless people I meet. 

I'm finding that I am no longer defining myself as a couch potato.  I'm defining myself differently.  Now I'm a city person.  This means that I walk places.  This means that I go to coffee houses in the evening just to hang out and see who's there.  This means that I stay out late and go to clubs and sing karaoke a couple times a month.  I am literally changing my definition of who I am as a function of having moved to the city. 

I even hired a personal trainer the other day.  Who knows?  Perhaps you'll be seeing a lot less of me soon.  I know I'll be seeing a lot more of the world.

Thank you to those who expressed a concern for my ankle.  I am up to hobbling now and can actually drive myself short distances again.  It looks like it's going to be a couple of weeks before I am back to fighting form, but I am at least no longer house bound and this makes me a VERY happy person.

Having just been through this experience, I really feel for those people who are shut-ins.  Consider who you know who doesn't get out much.  Drop by for a visit this week.  They will really appreciate it.  I know that my friends who stopped by to see me during the last week were the brightest moments in my days.  Everyone needs a personal connection.  Share yours today.

I recently sprained my left ankle when I missed a step coming out of a building in Arlington, MA.  I managed to recover from missing the first step by running forward to keep myself upright.  Now this usually works when I d it, but unfortunately for me this time, there was another step just across the small landing that I missed as well while running to recover from the first and down I went. 

The interesting thing here was that once I got past the pain and began to be aware of my surroundings again, I realized that there were a bunch of people surrounding me.  Even after the EMS and ambulance arrived, there were bystanders asking me if I needed anything.  Since completing the hospital visit where I discovered that I had partially torn my achilles tendon (nothing that a few days of bedrest won't cure - but it hurts like the dickens), I asked a friend to pick me up from the hospital and help me get my car out of the parking lot in Arlington before it got towed.  We managed to get me home and up the stairs to my second floor residence where I have not budged from since.

Being housebound has had some interesting implications for me.  I've been forced to sit still for a while.  Even the act of making phone calls has become a challenge as my phone is in a different place than my computer.  This has forced me to sit still long enough that I've started looking at my life and my business and realizing that I'm not doing as much of what I enjoy as I would like to be doing. 

What do I enjoy?  I enjoy people!  I love talking to entrepreneurs like you who want to take their businesses to the next level.  I love helping you identify what patterns are getting in your way, what skills you have that can help you move forward and providing you with tools to get you there.  That's what really gets me jazzed is personal interaction. 

That's why I'm going to be making a few changes in the way I do things.  Don't worry - I'll still offer the great products and online training that I've always done, but I'm going to add in some more stuff that gets me into personal contact with you.  I'm in conversation right now with a company that will be marketing some webinars for me.  That's right - for all of you who have been waiting for me to come to your area, I'll be doing it via the web within the month.  I'm also going to be offering telephone coaching - both in a group setting and one-on-one. 

I want to talk to you!  I want to get to know you.  All of the things I teach about are things that I loved doing with my clients and I want to do the with you too. 

So keep your eyes open in the coming weeks for the announcements as I roll out these new items.  The one-on-one coaching is available now if you're interested.  I'll even give you one session for free to see how you like it.  Just click here to find out more...

Thanks for listening - I look forward to talking to you directly soon!