Sure there must have been millions coming down from the clouds overhead and you probably think that it is impossible to connect to one in that millions, but that is exactly what happened this morning.  Monday’s are my catch up day for me and I was busy working when I looked up and out of my office window I noticed that it had started snowing.  The flakes were big and fluffy which is not usually the kind of flakes that fall in Illinois but more like in Colorado where they are large and dry snowflakes.  Continuing to look out I saw the one that caught my eye about 30 feet in the air.  It was big and huge and taking a long time to float to the ground probably because of its size.

I was so impressed by this snowflake that I got up from my desk and went outside to follow it down.  It seemed like forever as it swayed itself from the left and then to the right with a swing of about 3 feet wide.  I’m positive that by doing this it added the extra time that I needed to get outside to get a closer look before it landed to the ground and disappear like all of the other snowflakes I have seen in my life.  Then it happened.  It slowly drifted down a foot from me landing on the driveway cement.  In all of its glory there it lay for about 2 minutes.  I had plenty of time to examine the intricate cuts of spaces that created its design.  The design was beautiful and feminine I thought.  I don’t know if it really is true but I have heard that there are not two snowflakes alike.  In the case of this snowflake I couldn’t imagine another one more beautiful than the one that I saw at me feet.

I leaned down in wonder – wonder I tell you of this one snowflake that caught my attention and drew me out in the cold to share 3 minutes with it and how we bonded.  I connected with its wonder and thought to myself that I must be that beautiful to God who made me also.  A God that made me unlike anyone else in the world.  HE sees me every day in and among other human beings and pulls me out of that group with His love just like I did in the curiosity of that snowflake coming down from the sky. Just that ONE snowflake.  Just that ONE me.

I still sit here two hours later thinking what a gift I was given to connect to that one-of-a-zillion snowflake this morning.  I seriously think that it was made just for me to get a glimpse of how special I must be to God and to experience the wonder of it.  So today if it is snowing where you are remember that you are a one-of-a-kind just like those snowflakes that are floating down from the sky and then I challenge you to just wonder in it.

 

 

A couple of nights ago my Husband and I went out to dinner.  It is rare so we consider it quite a treat.  I have always had some bug-a-boo’s about going to a restaurant and one stood out boldly the other night so I thought that I would chat about it here today.  It is about customer service so you entrepreneur’s will love this.  Listen up!

Check out the picture, what do you see on our table?  I see a huge mess of “empty containers.”  Well let me back up a bit when I tell you why this bothers me.  We sat down to dinner where as a woman you will understand when I say, “It’s wonderful to have someone else serve ME food for a change and I don’t have to do the dishes afterwards either.” That was the kind of night I was expecting.

We went to a newer restaurant that has the “look” of MiMi’s but certainly did not resemble the food quality.  This is our third visit and last.  I ordered a safe bet from the menu that advertised it as their “famous” sizzling platter.  The salad came first and then the burger paddy with onions and green peppers with no seasoning (bland) on a sizzling platter. I guess the sizzling platter was the big deal because the food was not.  On a third very small plate came the baked potato about three minutes later.

As a female the looks of this plate reminded me of a bunkhouse meal that I would serve someone that doesn’t like food.  Strike ONE.  I ordered coffee and on the table were creamers in tiny containers sitting in a bowl on the table already.  How long we don’t know.  Strike TWO.  I am a latte kind of person I opened three containers, poured it in and nothing interesting happened to alert me so I continued to drink it.  This started the pile of empty containers you see in the picture.

First I received the salad, which had two dressing containers sitting IN my food.  Why do servers think that I would want plastic containers that have been Lord knows where sitting in my food?  Strike THREE.  I added to my pile of containers.

The dinner was served.  I asked our server for butter and sour cream and out of his pocket out came a handful of what looked like ½ a teaspoon each of butter in tiny containers.  Strike FOUR.  He came back with the sour cream in another container that I scooped out myself.  Strike FIVE.  By the time that I emptied six to eight of the butter containers my Husband was about 25% done with his meal and I needed a nap from the exercise.  Strike SIX.

The container pile was huge by this time and the salad plates never were removed and we proceeded to eat with this mess our entire dinner.  Strike SEVEN & EIGHT.  We just moved them to the side like you do a church camp waiting for the cleanup crew to come and get them at the end of the table.

 

Come-on-people!  There is a rhythm to the timing of serving customers which certainly didn’t happen this night.  Yeah restaurant owners please hear me when I say those tiny containers WE have to personally open are not female friendly and neither is the trash that I had to eat with my entire dinner staring at me.  How relaxing is that?  I could have done better had I stayed at home and certainly had a cleaner area to eat in and not dished out money for the meal to boot!

Entrepreneurs when you think of your customers don’t always think about what might be “convenient” or quickest to serve them but think about your presentation and how your customer feels when they receive what they purchased.  I learned a great lesson because I paid attention to that dinner.  I have changed some of my presentations and service, how about you?

Make a comment below and tell me your thoughts!

Do you have something you want to change in your life?  Then do it. It takes time and focus but you can begin a new habit or break an old annoying one like drinking coffee.

No one really knows how long it takes to make or break a habit.  Some say two weeks and some say 21 days.

It is quite variable since it depends on the person, their determination, their focus, and the habit in question.

Here is a biological fact about learning. When you learn something new, the brain creates new synapses or neural pathways. I call them a crevice.  It is as if a new road has been laid to reach a physical destination. Once that road is established, it can be used numerous times. Over time, the more it is traveled, the easier it gets to follow, much like a well-worn habit, thus the crevice is made.

On the other hand, breaking a habit resembles tearing up that roadway so you will not reach that destination anymore or filling in the crevice. However, in the brain, that roadway is not completely demolished but now in its place there is a roadblock sign.  But in a moment of desperation or a stressful situation, you can roll right over that sign and use the road again. Therefore, breaking a habit is harder than forming one, but not impossible.

Here are five steps that you can follow that I very briefly share to make or break a habit. There is no way to know if it will take you two weeks or three to accomplish your goal, but over time you can affect a change if you keep at it.

1. Identify the habit – Are you a coffee drinker for example? Then you want to stop drinking coffee. Know what you are working towards clearly, before you get started. It will increase your chances of success.
2. Do the research – Know what you are up against. How hard is it to stop drinking coffee? What are the resources available to assist you? If you want to be more assertive, learn the traits of an assertive person.
3. Get help – This can be a behavior therapist, a friend or hire a Life Coach who can hold you accountable for what you are about to do. Therapy can also help with breaking habits as it can teach you to create an alternate way of thinking to avoid returning to old habits instead of just focusing on not doing something. Positive replacement habits might be something such as exercise or meditation.
4. Prepare – Think ahead of time how you are going to consciously insert your new plan into your schedule.  If you don’t want to drink coffee what decaf drink are you going to set out the night before to start you on a different pattern.
5. Keep at it – If you forget one day, be sure to do it again the next day. Foster building that new pathway. The more you do something, the more it will become second nature and create a new crevice for yourself.  As for breaking a habit, practice using daily affirmations where you tell yourself you can quit drinking coffee or whatever other habit you wish to conquer. Say things out loud like I love to experiment with all kinds of decaf drinks and having so much fun doing it.  List the reasons why you can do it to boost your confidence too.

If you trying to make a change in your life, use the five steps listed above. Soon, you will be moving on the right track.

Managing Everyday Paper Flow

In one of my many jobs before I became Self Employed as a Life Coach, I was a Property Manager. The job that I liked the most and least at the same time was to do an assessment of the apartment with the new tenant and then do a move out with the same person. During the assessment of the apartment the tenant was all smiles and comments about how everything was going well but when it came to the move out and the evaluation of what they had done to the apartment along with the charges that matches their miss management of it then things got a little tough. One time an owner that we had been doing business with purchased a new complex and the first thing that I did was to do an assessment of all of the apartments and their tenants. Each I would send a letter ahead of time to say what hours I would be there to evaluate any repairs or problems that they had had in the past and then to schedule those repairs etc. Each time that I went to a tenant’s apartment I got an ear full of their opinion of Charles and the condition of his apartment. So the day came when it was Charles turn and to my surprise the condition of his home was nothing of the stories I had been hearing all week from his neighbors. You see none of them had actually been in this two bedroom apartment physically but would catch glimpses of it as they passed his door.

I am not going to keep you in suspense any longer, yes Charles was a hoarder. But unlike some he was the most organized hoarder I had ever known to this day. He was very specific in his choices of “collecting.” He collected magazines and newspapers. They were piled in perfect alignment from the floor all the way to the 8 foot ceiling. They were in rows so that only you could walk if you scooted sideways through the channels that he had made from the front door to very specific and important points in the apartment. Yes, the entire two bedroom apartment was filled with paper.

I knocked on the door that day and was greeted by Charles smiling and welcoming me into his home that he had made perfect for what he believed comfortable. It was as if he was proud of all of the work that he had done to make the pillars of paper rise to the sky. As I scooted sideways and followed this man inch by inch, we came to a Y in the road and he motioned for me to go to the right and then to another Y and we went left finding ourselves to my surprise in the kitchen. Reality changed for me about ½ way in and I really thought I might find the Cheshire Cat hanging from one of the pillars asking me if I was Alice in Wonderland. As I was scooting one step after the other side ways I could only think that I had to be very careful not to knock against the pillars of paper because we would surely be buried alive. I wondered how long it would take for someone to come and find me. Somehow I guessed that Charles would find his way out as he did every day.

After we made it to the kitchen I had a sigh of relief that we had made it “somewhere.” I asked for help to make it to the front door and he said sure. I shook his hand and before saying goodbye I politely told him that we were going to move him to another apartment that would suit his needs better and that his pillars of paper would not be able to come with him. He somehow knew by my kindness that my assignment for him was not coming from judgment but to help him move on to a better life. Just to let you know I connected him with some wonderful people that did help him overcome the need to make his world very small and secure by making paper pillars.

You may wonder why I told you this story and not given you hints and tips about managing paper flow, right? Well really I have in a roundabout way telling you of the most extreme paper piles to make you feel better about yours, LOL. But just the same, I will leave you with this one thought for you to ponder upon. I asked Charles how his apartment got that way and he told me that he started with a very small pile of newspapers at the front door and he said “I don’t know how it happened Mrs. White, it just grew.”

Now I leave you with the assignment of having a wonderful day cleaning out your very small pile of papers before they grow too.

Part Four- The 4 D’s of Time Management

Today we are going to talk about some letters. Most of us look at the letter D and think vitamins but today we will talk about what you need for self-management under four separate D’s.

Let’s jump in:

The first D we want to look at is the word Do.

Not everyone can do all things and certainly someone is not talented in everything. Doing what you like to do is very important because you will feel satisfied when you do it. Also doing what you do well is very confirming. It confirms who you are as a person. It just feels good to do something that you do well. But here is the catch, if you don’t do it then you could fall into procrastination and that is not an easy habit to break.

The second D is Delegate it.

Again if you are not doing what you love it might just take you twice as long to do that project. Who wants to do something longer than they have to? Give the job to someone that is happy to do it. I don’t like to do certain things and the satisfaction of giving it to another capable person that loves doing it, well, we both get a gift don’t we? I get to do something else with my time that I love to do and can do well and they get to do something that they love to do. Win-Win.

The third D is Dump it.

When we talk about getting rid of something we really have to think why we are doing that. Does it replace something else we might do? Does it repeat something that we are already doing? Does it create a bigger mess to deal with if I keep it? I at times work with Senior’s who are downsizing their homes. They don’t know what to keep, give away, store, or just Dump. One of the great things that we do together is to take pictures of items that they are not going to own any more for whatever reason. We take the picture of the item alone or we include the Senior or a family member in the photo with the item. Then we bind the photo’s where one side of the page is the picture and on the right is them writing something about the item and the experience or memory around it. Then we find a home for the item where it will be loved and cherished from hence forward. What a great tribute to our cherished moments that is for me to work with them on this project. It is total joy for me. Be creative. You are not dumping, you are passing on memories. Get rid of your STUFF!

The fourth and final D is Defer it.

This is the difficult one for most people believe it or not. At times more difficult than dumping it. This is why an item or project got in the to-do pile in the first place. I think sometimes people think that if they just don’t see something then it really is not there at all. Kind of like a magic trick. Consider that this D does not even exist if you really want to get things done. You really only have so much time. The bottom line is if you didn’t get it done up and until now you probably will not find the time to do it in the future either. Humm interesting thought right?

Now with all of that information we are still left with four D’s to work with when considering any task. In your average day you can pretty much take these D’s and work your system to get rid of your stuff on your to-do list.

Your last assignment for the month:

Take out your binder and make four pages with one D on each page. During the week write down the projects and to-do’s that come across your day. Write them on the page that best describes this item. Then next week start getting rid of items off of your list so that you can free up some time.

Let me know how many hours you saved this week? What do you plan on doing with this extra time?