by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Creativity, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 12 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Write a great last chapter-Part 1
— From Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer
Danny Meyer, restaurateur and hospitality guru says, “The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled.”
I love his take on this!
He and his team refer to their strategy for handling mistakes as “writing a great last chapter.” While Meyer’s examples come from the restaurant world, the approach can be adapted to any business. The author explains:
Whatever mistake happened, happened. And the person on the receiving end will naturally want to tell anyone who’s interested at all about it. That’s to be expected. While we can’t erase what happened, we do have the power to write one last episode so that at least the story ends the way we want. If we write a great one, we will earn a comeback victory with the guest. Also, the guest will have no choice but to focus on how well we responded to the mistake when telling anyone we made it. We can, then, turn a mistake into something positive. To be effective, the last chapter must be written imaginatively, graciously, generously, and sincerely. And sometimes we even write a great last chapter when it was the guest, not us, who made the mistake.
Meyer recalls an occasion when Senator Bob Kerrey—whom he knew well—was having a dinner party at one of his restaurants. One of Kerrey’s guests found a beetle in his salad. Kerrey ran into Meyer the next day and told him. Meyer, rightly so, apologized and asked if his staff had handled it well, to which the Senator replied that, indeed, the staff had handled it incredibly well.
After the conversation with Senator Kerrey, who was then having lunch at another of Meyer’s restaurants, Meyer spoke to the General Manager and told him:
“There was a mistake last night at Gramercy Tavern. We’ve got to figure out how to write a great last chapter here,” and explained what had happened. Further, Meyer added, “Whether or not Senator Kerrey or his guest orders a salad during his lunch, I want you to deliver a beautiful salad and garnish it with a small piece of paper. On that piece of paper, I want to you write the word RINGO, and when you deliver it, you can tell them ‘Danny wanted to make sure you knew that Gramercy Tavern wasn’t the only one of his restaurants that’s willing to garnish your salad with a beatle.”
Meyer points out: “It was now impossible for Senator Kerrey to tell anyone the story about the beetle in the salad without also mentioning the ‘last chapter’ we wrote the following day.”
Most mistakes in Meyer’s business, according to him, are like this one and small enough to fix. But whether it’s something like this or a complaint of any other kind, the author focuses on a twofold mission. “First, to learn from the mistake and to profit from what we’ve learned; and second, to write a great last chapter that allows us to end up in a better place with the guest than if we had never made the mistake in the first place.”
I think Meyer’s approach to mistakes and hospitality is fantastic. Please come back tomorrow to continue learning from him on how to handle mistakes.
Do you have any stories of mistakes well handled? I’d love to hear them! Please let me know in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: Whether you make a mistake or someone else does, big or small, you can write a great last chapter. What will you write?
FUTURE: Make it a habit of incorporating the mindset of writing a great last chapter in your life and business. You and your team will be able to handle and learn from mistakes in a much better way!
Know someone who would like this approach to mistakes? Please share this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 3 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Akrasia
— From The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
Have you ever had the experience of knowing or feeling that you should do something that is in your best interest, but you just can’t bring yourself to do it?
That is not procrastination. There is a different term for that: Akrasia. (Pronunciation)
“Akrasia is one of the most widespread and persistent barriers to getting things done.”
In The Personal MBA, business guru Josh Kaufman helps us understand the difference:
Procrastination occurs when you’ve decided to complete a task, but you keep putting it off until later without consciously deciding to do it later. If you have “answer e-mail” on your to-do list, but you browse the Internet for hours without answering any e-mail, that’s procrastination.
Akrasia is a deeper issue: it’s a general feeling that you “should” do something, without necessarily deciding to do it. The “should” feeling doesn’t lead to decision or action, even if the action seems to be in your best interest. Most people experience Akrasia when considering changing habits they no longer want (“I should quit smoking”), taking a new action (“I should donate to that nonprofit”), or contemplating an uncomfortable topic (“I should look into life insurance and talk to a lawyer to write a will”). The “should” feeling sticks around, but never leads to action, generating intense frustration.
Kaufman goes on to say, “Akratic situations can take many forms: eating a cookie vs. ‘becoming healthier’ by sticking to a diet. Browsing the web vs. exercising. Staying in a bad relationship vs. moving on. Dreaming about a new business idea vs. testing it. Whenever you ‘should’ do something, but resist doing it, you’re experiencing Akrasia.”
Akrasia is a Greek term, and this problem was already being discussed in ancient Greece by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. And even though philosophers have discussed this for centuries, there is no cure. “Akrasia is a slippery problem,” says the author, “and there’s no easy, universal solution.”
But not all is lost: Kaufman points to many strategies and techniques that are useful in preventing and resolving akratic situations. “In order to spend your time making progress vs. fighting both sides of a battle of will, it’s useful to have a strategy for recognizing and combatting Akrasia when you recognize it.”
The most important thing, I believe, is to be aware of it. Now that we know it exists, we can point to it, recognize when we’re feeling Akrasia, and move forward to do what we should do.
You can read extensively about the strategies to recognize and combat Akrasia in Kaufman’s book online. (Kaufman has one full chapter—54 pages—devoted to “Working With Yourself” to combat Akrasia, procrastination and other maladies that impede our own progress as well as become superfocused and productive). Or if you don’t have the time now, you can take a quick look at these posts (each takes less than 5 min to read) that will help you shake Akrasia and move forward towards your goals:
Happy un-Akrasing!
ACTION
TODAY: Take some time to see where in your life you’re experiencing Akrasia. We all do, and it behooves us to tackle it to move forward on our goals. Now that we know that Akrasia exists, it’s easier to be aware of it and start taking action.
FUTURE: Keep in mind that we’re all human and we all experience Akrasia. The best way to find out why you’re having Akrasia about something is to ask yourself why 5 times. Once you get to the bottom of it, you’ll be able to move forward.
Know someone who is going through Akrasia about something? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 37 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Little things make all the difference-Part 2
— From Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur, by Derek Sivers.
Yesterday we learned from Derek Sivers some of the things he implemented to make his customers smile during his days as CEO and Founder of CD Baby, an online store for indie musicians.
The key is to be thoughtful—it’s the little things that make all the difference—and provide the best service you can in a consistent way.
Let’s continue to learn directly (verbatim) from Sivers the stories of some of the awesome things that he did to turn his customers into raving fans:
Sometimes, after we had done the forty-five minutes of work to add a new album to the store, the musician would change his mind and ask us to do it over again with a different album cover or different audio clips. I wanted to say yes but let him know that this was really hard to do, so I made a policy that made us both smile: “We’ll do anything for a pizza.” If you needed a big, special favor, we’d give you the number of our local pizza delivery place. If you bought us a pizza, we’d do any favor you wanted. When we’d tell people about this on the phone, they’d often laugh, not believing that we were serious. But we’d get a pizza every few weeks. I’d often hear from musicians later that this was the moment they fell in love with us.
At the end of each order, the last page of the website would ask, “Where did you hear of this artist? We’ll pass them any message you write here.” Customers would often take the time to write things like, “Heard your song on WBEZ radio last night.” “Searched Yahoo!” “Found it here.” “I’d love to have you play at our school!” The musicians absolutely loved getting this information, and it always led to the customer and musician getting in touch directly. This is something that big stores like Amazon would never do.
Also, at the end of each order, there was a box that would ask, “Any special requests?” One time, someone said, “I’d love some cinnamon gum.” Since one of the guys in the warehouse was going to the store anyway, he picked up some cinnamon gum and included it in the package. One time someone said, “If you could include a small, rubber squid, I would appreciate it. If this is unobtainable, a real squid would do.” Just by chance, a customer from Korea had sent us a packaged filet of squid. So the shipping guys included it in the box with the other customer’s CDs. See the customer tell this story himself in this great video.
It’s no wonder that CD Baby created a legion of fans around them. Sivers and his team were thoughtful, creative, imaginative and always focused on the customer, to the point of going the extra mile to send cinnamon gum and even squid! And “the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to [the] package, on its way to [the customer]…” ←This is another post about Sivers you don’t want to miss. He’s all about making the customers happy.
As you can see, it doesn’t take too much money or too much time, and a little playfulness and creativity will take you a long way. Sivers says, “Even if you want to be big someday, remember that you don’t need to act like a big boring company. Over ten years, it seemed like every time someone raved about how much he loved CD Baby, it was because of one of these little fun human touches.”
What little things can you do to make your customers happy? Who has made you happy and how? Let me know in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: Review your customer’s journey and focus on the many touch points that exist. How can you improve upon those points to make your customer happy[ier]?
FUTURE: As your customers become happier and happier, capture those moments as testimonials in writing or video. This will help prospects make a decision to go with you/your company for its outstanding service, and that way you can perpetuate a virtuous cycle.
Know someone who is always making the customers smile? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 42 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Little things make all the difference-Part 1
— From Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur, by Derek Sivers.
“If you find even the smallest way to make people smile, they’ll remember you more for that smile than for all your other fancy business-model stuff,” says Derek Sivers, entrepreneur and author of Anything You Want.
Sivers was the founder of CD Baby, a very successful online website for indie musicians to sell their music (he sold it later for millions). As a pioneer in this field, he learned many lessons, and one of them was the importance of little details to make people smile.
He shares some of the things that made a huge difference on the CD Baby website. I’m adding them verbatim below, since I think Sivers writing conveys the stories very well. Enjoy!
Because we shipped FedEx at 5 p.m. each day, customers would often call and ask, “What time is it there? Do I still have time to get it sent today?” So I added two little lines of programming code that counted how many hours and minutes remained until 5 p.m. and then showed the result by the shipping options. “You have 5 hours, 18 minutes until our next FedEx shipment.” Customers loved this!
We answered our phone within two rings, always—7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. Phones were everywhere, so even if the customer service rep was busy, someone in the warehouse could pick up. All anyone had to do was say, “CD Baby!” Customers loved this! Someone actually picking up the phone at a company is so rare that musicians would often tell me later at conferences that it was the main reason they decided to go with CD Baby—they could always talk to a real person immediately. All employees knew that as long as we weren’t completely swamped, they should take a minute and get to know the caller a bit. Ask about her music. Ask how it’s going. Yes, it would lead to twenty-minute conversations sometimes, but those people became lifelong fans.
Every outgoing email has a “From:” name, right? Why not use that to make people smile, too? With one line of code, I made it so that every outgoing email customized the “From:” field to be “CD Baby loves [first name].” So if the customer’s name was Susan, every e-mail she got from us would say it was from “CD Baby loves Susan.” Customers loved this!
Please come back tomorrow for Part 2 because the things that CD Baby did to make people smile get even better! As you can see, thoughtful details can turn clients into raving fans. What details can you modify or implement to make your customers smile?
😀
ACTION
TODAY: Think about the positive feedback you get from your customers (customer is broadly defined here). Can you replicate that to make everyone smile? What can you do to always implement those thoughtful details that made the customer smile in the first place?
FUTURE: Make a habit of examining the feedback you get to always be improving your attention to detail. Having customers turn into lifelong, raving fans is a wonderful achievement.
Know someone who is always making the customers smile? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Creativity, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Resources, Wellbeing
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 15 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: No Skunking
— From Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer
Danny Meyer’s wonderful book Setting the Table is all about hospitality in the restaurant industry. However, the leadership style and the lessons that this great restaurateur shares can be applied to any kind of business, not just restaurants.
I was particularly struck about a passage in the book where he talks about the qualities of self-awareness and integrity going hand in hand: “It takes integrity to be self-aware and to hold one’s self accountable for doing the right thing.”
Specifically, he says, “self-awareness is understanding your moods and how they affect you and others. In a sense, it’s a personal weather report…” But no matter whether the personal mood is sunny or rainy, it’s crucial for people in business “to be aware of and accountable for their own personal weather reports.”
He goes on to say that “no one can possibly be upbeat and happy all the time, but personal mastery depends on team members being aware of their moods and keep[ing] them in check. If a staff member is having personal trouble and wakes up feeling angry, nervous, depressed, or anxious, he or she needs to recognize and deal with the mood. It does not serve anyone’s purposes to project that mindset into the work environment or on to one’s colleagues.”
Meyer’s term for that is skunking: “A skunk may spray a predator when it feels threatened, but everyone else within two miles has to smell the spray, and these others may assume that the skunk actually had it in for them. It’s not productive to work with a skunk, and it’s not enjoyable to be served by one either. In a business that depends on the harmony of an ensemble, a skunk’s scent is toxic.”
I think this analogy is perfect. My dog has been sprayed by a skunk twice (!), and it’s one of the most repulsive and disgusting experiences we’ve had. We’ve taken—and will continue to take—every precaution to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Skunking in the workplace should be avoided too, as it can spread widely if left unchecked, hurting the organization inside and outside as well.
And this is where we come full circle: it takes integrity to check with ourselves and determine what mood we’re in. If it’s a great one, fantastic, let’s spread the joy. If not, the first step is to acknowledge it and keep it in check, so that we can resolve it (or put it on hold temporarily) and change it for the mood that best suits our business endeavors. And remember: absolutely no skunking!
If this is of any help, I’ve found something that works for me: when I’m not in a good mood and I need to work, I give myself permission to change my mood temporarily. For instance, I tell myself that I will temporarily become happy and postpone my being upset or worried about whatever is making me unhappy when I get back from the office, because I need to be at my best during work and with clients. This usually helps, and by the time I’m back I don’t want to go back to being upset any longer, so I can see what was bugging me in a different light and focus on solving it favorably.
ACTION
TODAY: Take some time to do a personal weather report. Is your mood sunny and beautiful? Partially cloudy? Rainy? Cold and nasty? Be honest with yourself if you’re not in a good mood so that you don’t skunk others (not even inadvertently). How could your self-awareness and integrity help you in this instance? We’re all different: think of something that will work for you and the dynamics of your team.
FUTURE: Adopt the no skunking rule into your life and that of your teammates and business.
Know someone who has been skunked? Help them out by sharing this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Tools
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 1
Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 2
Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 3
Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 4
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 18 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Turn your inner critic into your inner coach-Part 5
— From The Success Principles™: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield
Yesterday we saw the enormous difference that a full message makes when you include anger, fear, requests, and love to communicate it. Today we’ll see how it applies to a real-life example.
The first step, says Canfield, is to make a list of all the things you say when you are judging yourself. “Include all of the things you tell yourself you should do, but you don’t.” The author gives the following as a real-life example:
You don’t exercise enough.
You’re gaining too much weight.
You’re a fat slob—a real couch potato!
You drink too much alcohol and eat too many sweets.
You need to cut down the carbs!
You need to watch less television and go to bed earlier.
If you got up earlier, you’d have more time to exercise.
You’re lazy. Why don’t you finish the things you start?!
Once you are done with your list, then practice changing it into a message that contains the four-step process outlined earlier: Anger, Fear, Requests, and Love.
Spend a minimum of 1 minute on each step. Make sure to be very specific in the requests stage. State exactly what you want yourself to do. “I want to eat better” is too vague. Be more specific, such as, ‘I want you to eat at least four servings of vegetables every day. I want you to stop eating French fries, sugar, and desserts. I want you to eat eggs and some kind of fruit for breakfast every day. I want you to eat whole grains like whole wheat and brown rice rather than white flour.’ The more specific you are, the more value you will receive from the exercise.”
The next step is to tell this to yourself. Remember that the author says you can write it or do it out loud. His preferred method is aloud, and he recommends that you do it with as much emotion and passion as possible.
Based on the above, here’s an example of what the list—transformed by the 4-step process—will look like:
Anger: I am angry at you for not taking better care of your body. You are such a lazy slob! You drink too much and you eat too much. You don’t have any self-discipline! All you do is sit around and watch TV. Your clothes don’t fit and you don’t look good.
Fear: If you don’t change, I am afraid you are going to keep gaining weight until you are facing a health risk. I am afraid your cholesterol is going to get so high that you might have a heart attack. I’m afraid that you could become diabetic. I am afraid that you are never going to change and then you are going to die young and never fulfill your dreams. I’m afraid that if you don’t start eating better and taking better care of yourself, no one is going to be attracted to you. You might end up living alone for the rest of your life.
Requests: I want you to join a health club and go at least three days a week. I want you to go for a 20-minute walk the other 4 days. I want you to cut out 1 hour of television a day and devote that to exercise. I want you to stop eating fried foods and start eating more fresh foods and vegetables. I want you to stop drinking sodas and start drinking more water. I want you to limit drinking alcohol to Friday and Saturday nights.
Love: I love you. I want you to be around for a long time. I want you to have a wonderful relationship. You deserve to look good in your clothes and to feel good about yourself. You deserve to have all of your dreams come true. I want you to feel alive and energetic rather than tired and lethargic all the time. You deserve to live life fully and enjoy every moment of it. You deserve to be totally happy.
It’s an incredible transformation, don’t you think?
“Do not let the seeming simplicity of this technique fool you,” says Canfield. “It is very powerful.” Yet in order to derive its benefit, you have to use it. No one else can do this for you.
I will let you now go so that you can do this exercise. My wish for you is that, as Canfield says, “[You] get all of you on your own side—working together for the greater good of your dreams and aspirations.”
ACTION
TODAY: Take 20-30 minutes to do this valuable 4-step process. Don’t underestimate its value, your life will change for the better. Canfield’s changed and so did mine.
FUTURE: This comes directly from the book, and I think it’s a fantastic action to keep in mind for the future: “When you hear a part of you judging yourself, simply reply, ‘Thank you for caring. What is your fear? … What specifically do you want me to do? … How will this serve me? … Thank you.’” That way you will have a productive and full dialogue with yourself, as opposed to simply a partial one. And you can always come back and do the 4-step process any time you need it.
Know someone who might like this post? Please share this post or this miniseries via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
