by Helena Escalante | Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 8 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: The power of perception
− From The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday
Whenever we hear stories of tremendous heartache and hardship turned into triumph, we wonder how they did it and, also, whether we have what it takes. Ryan Holiday, in his excellent book The Obstacle is the Way, says, “through our perception of events, we are complicit in the creation—as well as the destruction—of every one of our obstacles.”
“There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.”
That, right there, is the power of perception: obstacles become obstacles in our minds; and it’s in there too that otherwise obstacles can turn into lessons, opportunities, advantages, and even miracles. It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters, said Epictetus, the eminent Greek stoic philosopher who was born in slavery.
“Just because your mind tells you that something is awful or evil or unplanned or otherwise negative doesn’t mean you have to agree. Just because other people say that something is hopeless or crazy or broken to pieces doesn’t mean it is. We decide what story to tell ourselves. Or whether we will tell one at all.”
Stories abound of shifts in perception; such as the boss who didn’t fire an employee for a costly mistake but instead turned it into a training opportunity. And there are countless other stories of blessings in disguise such as the one that Susan Kramer shares in her short and moving TED Talk.
ACTION
TODAY: Take a moment to think about a story you’ve been telling yourself about something that happened to you. What part is frustrating, challenging or simply bugs you? Why? What happens if you turn the story on its head, find a better story, or simply drop the story? Ask yourself the same question as Amy Purdy in her TED Talk: “If my life were a book and I were the author, how would I want the story to go?”
FUTURE: When faced with challenges or adversity, find a way to change the story. A shift in perception will get you unstuck and will change the feelings of resignation and helplessness into action and a new vision for the outcome. Remember that there is always a silver lining if we choose to look for it.
Know someone who needs to shift perceptions? Help them do so by sharing this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, please!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Productivity, Sales
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 21 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: 5 things you need to stop doing now to be more productive at work
— From Time Traps: Proven Strategies for Swamped Sales People by Todd Duncan
At first sight, these five things that we can stop doing now to be more productive at work may seem too basic and plain. I didn’t think they’d make a difference until I gave it some additional thought, and what blew me away was the amount of accumulated time that can be freed up daily and yearly if we simply stop doing them.
Todd Duncan, the author, mentions that if we don’t take an organized approach to working, very likely we will say YES to everything and add it to our already full plates. “This is highly unorganized and allows unproductive interruptions […] to monopolize your time. To begin cleaning up your work schedule, follow these five guidelines to construct boundaries that regulate or eliminate the most common unnecessary tasks that clutter your days.”
- Don’t give your personal digits to customers. This means don’t give out your cell phone number, your home phone number and your personal email address. “Make it simple for them and sane for you: …give prospects and customers only one e-mail address and one phone number. It’s tempting and easy to justify giving out more contact information, but don’t.” Once you give your personal digits out you can’t control what clients or colleagues do with them and when they’ll contact you expecting an immediate answer. Be careful if you don’t want them to interfere with your personal time.
- Don’t give your work digits to friends. “If they already have them, ask your friends to e-mail and/or call you on your personal lines instead.” Sounds a bit extreme, but think about it in terms of your productivity. Your friends are likely to have your personal cell and home numbers, your personal email, and your social media. If there is an emergency, they can definitely contact you.
- Turn off the instant message and e-mail alert functions on your work computer [and your phone]. “The last thing you need is one-liners and alerts popping up on your screen all day. They are too tempting and will whittle away your time quicker than you realize.”
- Don’t answer the phone unless it is someone you are expecting. “Unless you are a retail salesperson whose business comes via phone, or you are expecting a call, you shouldn’t even have the ringer on.” If you fear you’ll be perceived as antisocial, try it for a day or two and see what happens. Let it go to voice mail and retrieve at intervals when it’s convenient for you. Don’t let it sidetrack you every time it rings.
- Don’t check your personal email during work hours. “Very few people [do this], and it adds to your work hours—sometimes several hours a week. Not only that, it adds to your [load of] responsibilities, like e-mailing so-and-so with a phone number, or calling so-and-so with directions, or checking out a Web site, or answering a question that can be answered later.”
“There are others, of course… [but those mentioned] represent the most pervasive but often overlooked, time sappers.”
If you’re saying ‘yeah, yeah, yeah… I know this,’ to these things and you still think they don’t add up, simply look at this conservative estimate of time freed up that appears in the book (the estimate is based on 230 working days/yr):
| TASK |
Time Wasted |
Time Freed |
| Personal e-mails to work address |
30 mins/day |
115 hours/year |
| Personal calls to work phone(s) |
30 mins/day |
115 hours/year |
| Answering every call |
60 mins/day |
230 hours/year |
| Customer calls to personal digits |
60 mins/day |
230 hours/year |
| Instant message & e-mail alerts |
15 mins/day |
57.5 hours/year |
| Total time freed up |
3 hours day |
747.5 hours/year |
If you think this is a high estimate, simply record your time wasters for a week or two, and modify the calculation to suit you. See how much time you can free up. What will you do with those extra hours that you now found? Imagine the possibilities!
ACTION
TODAY: Try stopping these 5 things and see how your day goes. Then at the end of the day reflect on what went well and what didn’t. How can you tweak to your advantage?
FUTURE: Over the next week or two, tally up the time you use in these 5 activities. This is for your eyes only, no need to share it with anyone, so be very honest with yourself—the idea is to find out how much time these tasks are taking—that way you’ll know how much time you’ll save by not doing them. Then, try stopping these five things for a couple of weeks as well. Figure out what works and what doesn’t along the way, and tweak according to your needs. Maybe you can stop all alerts but don’t feel comfortable stopping the one from your biggest client, or from your company’s CEO, or fill-in-the-blank. That’s OK, you will still save some time by stopping the other alerts. You can continue to monitor how many times your client/boss/CEO/etc. calls or emails with an urgent task vs. how many times it would be possible to retrieve it later, at a time that is convenient to you. Tweak and tweak again until you find a rhythm that suits you.
Know someone who could free up some time? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Growth, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 37 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Best in the world
— From The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) by Seth Godin
The best in the world. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But why is it important? And what exactly does “the best in the world” mean?
A simple Google search for time management yields 138 million results. This implies that there are 138 million resources in cyberspace to help us figure out how to manage our precious time wisely.
Because we are all pressed for time and we don’t like taking risks are the reasons why being #1 matters. “If you’ve been diagnosed with cancer of the navel, you’re not going to mess around with by going to a lot of doctors. You’re going to head straight for the ‘top guy,’ the person who is ranked the best in the world. […] When you’re hiring someone for your team, do you ask your admin to give you the average résumé, or do you ask him to screen out all but the very best qualified people?”
“With limited time or opportunity to experiment, we intentionally narrow our choices to those at the top.” Also, “being at the top matters because there’s room at the top for only a few. Scarcity makes being at the top worth something.”
People who are looking at doing business with you (or with the business that you represent) will be wondering if you are the best in the world. And that deserves a new definition that Godin describes majestically:
“Best as in: best for them, right now, based on what they believe and what they know. And in the world as in: their world, the world they have access to.”
If I’m looking for a dry cleaning service that doesn’t use toxic chemicals, I’ll go with the one that uses organic products to clean, that offers a quick turnaround service, that is affordable, and that is close to where I live. That’s the best in the world for me.
“World is a pretty flexible term… Now there are a million micromarkets [and] each micromarket still has a best. And being the best in that world is the place to be.”
The consumer is the one that decides what is best, thus the term is subjective. And the term world is “selfish,” because it’s the world that the consumer defines based on preference and convenience.
The world got bigger with the Internet opening up a lot of different options to fit our needs and wants. Yet the world also got smaller because of specialization and niching down. Since we cannot be everything to everyone, and the mass market is changing rapidly towards specialization and customization, being the best in the world just got a new definition that, thankfully, involves us all if we want to pursue it.
ACTION
TODAY: Think about your micromarket and write down the answers to these questions: What do you offer that no one else does? What can you be the best in the world at? What needs to happen for you to position yourself to be the best in the world—in your world—however big or small? Also, talk to a few clients or customers today and ask them how they would describe what you do and what value you provide. The answers will reveal things that you may have either taken for granted or would have never even crossed your mind, but that are valuable to your customers.
FUTURE: Talk to as many customers as you can. Find out what are the key aspects of your business that you have to highlight and promote according to what your customers define as best in their world. Then set up a road map to get there. Work on becoming the best in your customers’ world and you and your business will flourish.
Note that this applies to business as well as to any other personal endeavors that you’re involved in: How can you be the best friend in the world? Or the best volunteer in your church? Or the best parent who organizes the bake sale for your child’s school this year? Our lives are made up of different mini-worlds in which best in the (mini)world applies too, for our benefit and the benefit of all involved.
Know someone who needs to read this? Be the best friend in their world today by sharing with them this post via email, Facebook or Twitter!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 34 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Reduce the risk
— From: Habit Changers: 81 Game-Changing Mantras to Mindfully Realize Your Goals by M. J. Ryan
M. J. Ryan relates a story from Sallie Krawcheck, who is one of the most followed “Thought Leaders” on LinkedIn with over 900,000 followers and who was number seven on the Forbes list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women of 2005.
Included among the many hats Sallie has worn in the past, were “the daunting roles of CEO of the newly formed Smith Barney and later president of the Global Wealth and Investment Management division of Bank of America.” When she was offered those roles—which she accepted—she realized that she “was risking ‘public humiliation’ if she failed, but stood the chance of gaining tremendous influence and impact if she succeeded.”
Reduce the risk was Sallie’s mantra and strategy when facing challenges and opportunities. What this meant was “putting a strong team in place with talents and experience that complemented rather than duplicated hers.”
Reducing the risk, then, means intentionally creating an environment and putting fail-safes in place, so that you have the greatest probability of succeeding. Think about it for a moment: it makes perfect sense. Keep in mind that there are always ways in which you can reduce your risk too and change the environment to benefit you.
For example, you can save enough money to have a fall back cushion “if things don’t work out as a start-up CEO; [you can keep] ties to your old community as you move to a new, unfamiliar place; or [you can try out] a new hobby before committing totally.” Big or small, reducing the risk can take many forms, but it always works in your favor.
Now, this doesn’t mean that all risks are worth taking (here’s a great article by Bryan Tracy).You still have to analyze each one that comes your way. But by reducing the risk on those challenges or opportunities that you decide to accept, you’ll have the greatest chance to succeed!
ACTION
TODAY: Think about a challenge or opportunity that you have in front of you now. Yes, that one which you have been pondering without being able to move forward one way or another. Would you be closer to saying yes to it if you could reduce the risk and set up everything-in-your-power for you to succeed? If the answer is no, drop it (remember the easiest way to say no). But if your answer is yes, then make a list of the people, resources, things and actions that you will need to put in place and take one action today that will move you closer to achieving this.
FUTURE: Start creating the habit to look at risk differently: as something that can be reduced so as to maximize your chances for success. Next time you are looking at accepting a challenge or opportunity, create a list of the people, resources, things and actions that you will need to raise your chances of success. Then move forward to implement your fail-safes, and you’ll be on your way very soon!
Know someone who needs to reduce the risk? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Celebration, Creativity, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes.
TODAY’S IDEA: WOW! All business is personal
— From The Book of WOW: A practical and inspirational guide for driving extreme client loyalty by John L. Evans
We’ve all heard the saying, “life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” (Uncertain author) And this gets compounded if we add the words of writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, who said, “Life is not what you lived, but what you remember and how you remember, so as to tell it.” *
With this in mind, if you want to surprise your customers or clients with acts of thoughtfulness, that are truly meaningful and memorable, you have to create a “WOW” experience for them. This means the kind of experience that makes the clients go “WOW!” and blows them away because it shows them that you know what they care about.
“The essential premise underlying the WOW concept is that all business is personal.”
By reinforcing the personal aspect in client interactions, you de-commoditize your business and separate yourself from the competition, because “a merely satisfied client is not loyal—a satisfied and emotionally engaged client is.”
To make it personal, first and foremost, the Platinum Rule needs to be applied: “Do unto others as they would want done to them.”
“When doing something extraordinary for your clients, use the talents, resources or connections that are available only to you or through you, whenever possible.” This way you will ensure that the experience becomes memorable, indelible (and not repeatable by your competitors), causing your clients to talk about it to others and to recommend you. That’s why “the best WOWs bounce around—they get shared in the form of enthusiastic retellings [via] positive word-of-mouth.”
WOW moments are as varied and creative as the nature of each business. The openness and attentiveness to recognize when the opportunity arises is in the eye of the beholder. However the one underlying thread is that, to be able to imagineer (blend of imagination + engineering) the best possible WOW moments for your clients, you have to have as much information as you can about them. Get to know them in as much depth as your business will allow.
Also, while the WOW moments or experiences don’t necessarily have to be unique to each client, they do have to feel that way to the recipient. You can always “operationalize, but don’t [ever] DE-personalize.”
Above all, keep in mind that “WOWs don’t have to be complex or worthy of a world record to produce the desired effect. Some are. But most are smaller in scope. When left to accumulate over time, they can end up having an enormous impact.”
ACTION
TODAY: Think of someone who has wowed you during this past week. What did that person do that made you feel special? Now turn it around: who did you wow this week? A client? A loved one? How did you let them know that you care about them? Start imagineering how you can WOW your customers, clients or loved ones with the resources that you have.
FUTURE: Think of ways in which your business can get more info about what makes your clients tick. This will naturally give way to ideas for WOW moments. Make a list of every touch point in your client’s journey to see how you can personalize those interactions. How can you elevate them from the ordinary to the extraordinary and memorable?
Create a WOW moment for your friends and colleagues by sharing this post via email, Facebook and Twitter. Thank you!
* Original quote in Spanish: “La vida no es lo que uno vivió, sino lo que recuerda, y cómo la recuerda para contarla.”
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 21 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Work doesn’t speak for itself
— From Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon (here’s a summary of the book)
“Close your eyes an imagine you’re a wealthy collector who’s just entered a gallery in an art museum. On the wall facing you there are two gigantic canvases, each more than 10 feet [3 meters] tall. Both paintings depict a harbor at sunset. From across the room they look identical: the same ships, the same reflections on the water, the same sun at the same stage of setting. You go in for a closer look. […] You can’t detect a single difference. […] You can’t find a label or a museum tag anywhere… The head curator of the museum walks in. You eagerly inquire as to the origin of your new obsessions. The curator tells you that Painting A was painted in the 17th century by a Dutch master. And Painting B… is a forgery. It was copied last week by a graduate student at the local art college.”
Which painting do you want to buy now? You would expect that if it were the exact same thing, both to the trained and the untrained eye, either one of the paintings would bring the same joy. But our mind doesn’t work like that. Our assessment of things, people, services, situations, etc., “is deeply affected by what [we are told] about it.”
We tend to think that our work speaks for itself, but it doesn’t. We are naturally curious and we want to know the story behind it. That’s why we relate (or are repelled!) by the stories brands and people tell.
“The stories you tell about the work you do have a huge effect on how people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what they understand about your work affects how they value it.”
At the core, we are undeniably human. We need to feel a connection, and personal stories create strong bonds.
Why is this important?
Because our work leaves prints: “realize it or not, you’re already telling a story about your work. Every email you send, every text, every conversation, every blog comment, every tweet, every photo, every video—they’re all bits and pieces of a multimedia narrative you’re constantly constructing. If you want to be more effective when sharing yourself and your work, you need to become a better storyteller. You need to know what a good story is and how to tell one.”
So, what story do you need to tell?
Image from Austin Kleon’s Flickr account: Show Your Work! Album. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
ACTION
TODAY: We have many stories that depict different aspects of our lives. What is one story that you would like to enhance for your work or your life to be perceived as stronger/better/more valuable/fill in your blank? Please note that enhancing doesn’t mean lying or exaggerating; it means highlighting the best and most positive angle for connections to form, sparks to fly and value to rise.
FUTURE: Take some time to enhance your story in a way that it will connect and create a strong bond with your desired audience. That way your work will—purposely and intentionally—“speak by itself,” saying what you want it to say. Ask yourself the following questions (merely as a starting point), and then go from there to begin crafting your story. It will be very helpful if you can share your story with someone whom you trust and who has your best interest in mind. This person will give you helpful feedback to make your story even stronger. (Hit me up if you want to share your story, I’d love to give you feedback!)
- What do you want to communicate?
- What is your expertise?
- What is your superpower?
- What is a challenge you’ve overcome that someone else can relate?
- How have you been in your customer’s/another person’s shoes?
- What experience do you have with a particular situation/issue that you can share?
- What epiphany did you have when you did XYZ that you can share?
- What example can you give of how you use XYZ that you can share?
Know someone whose story could be told from a different, better angle? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
