Make It Great! with Phil Gerbyshak

Original found at http://flickr.com/photos/swimboy1/353909308/sizes/o/

Click on the picture for a great article.

Two Questions:

"The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!" - Henry Ward Beecher 

"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us." - Albert Schweitzer

Two Quotes:

What are you thankful for?

Who are you thankful for?

I can’t remember where I saw a link to this first, but I’m thankful to whomever shared it. It’s Free Personal Development Material, brought to you by Lyman Reed and other smart folks like him. On a nice relaxing day like today, it’s nice to have something to read that won’t cost me anything but my time.

Free Personal Development Material is full to the brim with ebooks, MP3s, and other items that can help you improve your life. I’d encourage you to take 10 minutes to peruse through the archives, find 1 ebook that hits you where you need to be, download it, and then take an hour to focus on that one aspect of your life. Do that each week for the next 4 weeks, and if you act upon what you learn, you will experience a better life.

Free Personal Development Material is exactly what it sounds like: Free personal development material. What could be better than that?

Rosa Say shared a new word today that I am trying to do more of: luana.

Luana is not one of my strengths, but given it’s a holiday weekend and I have 1.5 more days before I need to go back to work, I’m going to give it a try.

I’m going to fill one of these lounge chairs today and tomorrow, and luana at a friend’s house on Lake Michigan.

What are you going to do to practice more luana in your life?

Photo credit to John-Morgan

I just got an e-mail from GL Hoffman indicating I am a winner of the "Dig Your Job" award! VERY cool! Past winners include Dr. Ellen Weber, Troy Worman, Timothy Johnson, Drew McLellan, Steve Roesler, Robert Hruzek and Dan Schawbel, to name just a few.

What did I do to earn this great award? According to the award page:

Cool! I’m glad to help others manager and copy a bit better with the world around them. That’s all I can hope for.

Thanks again for the recognition GL!

Two Quotes:

"Love is not a matter of what happens in life. It's a matter of what's happening in your heart." - Ken Keyes 

"Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we have learned here. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love back into our hearts." — Marianne Williamson

Two Questions:

What is happening in your heart?

Are you letting the love pour in?

Guest Attitude Vitamin from Brandon Caudle

In the nutritional sense, Vitamin H (also known as Vitamin B7) is necessary for cell growth and a host of other processes within the human body. I also like to think of Vitamin H as the Vitamin for Helping Others (hence the H). We have countless opportunities to help others around us and the best time to help someone is at the exact moment that you see they need assistance.

Several years ago…

I was leaving a big box computer store and saw an older man struggling to change the tire on his red pickup truck. I walked over to him to see if he needed assistance. Though he was much larger than me, he turned to me and very gratefully said that he certainly could use the help. As I finished changing his tire, I noticed the World War II veteran hat he was wearing. He shared he never used to ask for help, but ever since he had both knees replaced a few years back, it was difficult for him to get up and down easily. I was even more glad I stopped to help him and when I finished, I proudly shook his hand and thanked him for his military service. He was also very grateful for my help. Vitamin H was in full effect for both of us.

Fast forward to this past weekend…

I listened to a local speaker talk about providing service to others. He related an experience that he had recently in which he as traveling though the Chicago O’Hare airport when he saw an elderly couple stuck on the moving sidewalk. Apparently, they were trying to go the wrong way on the moving sidewalk and, like salmon, were swimming upstream against the current of people. The speaker shared how he saw them, noticed them, went to get a bottled water, returned, saw them struggling again and got on his plane. As he sat on his plane, he regretted not helping them and wondered what happened to them. He missed his opportunity to take his Vitamin H for the day.

Just like the Boy Scouts motto (Do A Good Turn Daily), we should never pass up the opportunity to take a daily dose of Vitamin H.

Brandon Caudle loves Customer Service. You can find him talking about it at www.customerservicevoodoo.com

Original photo found on Flickr

If you haven’t played with Wordle yet, take a few minutes and check it out. It’s a visual way to see the words you write about, think about, and blog about.

This is Mike Sansone’s Wordle cloud. I’m working on mine, and will share it very soon.

A few things I’m going to do with this cool tool:

What else could you do with Wordle?

If you do a Wordle with your blog, please leave a link below so we can all take a look at it.

Flickr photo credit from Mike Sansone

Chris Guillebeau offers a fantastic little manifesto called “A Brief Guide to World Domination,†available as a free PDF download. At 29 pages, it’s hardly all encompassing, but it is certainly brief. Thanks to Jonathan Fields of Awake at the Wheel for the link.

The Decision to be Remarkable is one of my favorite articles that I found by looking around Chris’ site a little more. He offers some great tips for those of you who, like me, want to stand out and stand up to the world as we see it. Among his tips:

and a few more. Sounds like a guy after my own heart!

A caution about Chris’ tale: it’s not for everyone. If you’re not willing to take life up a notch and make it great, please don’t read A Brief Guide to World Domination. Then again, if you’re not willing to take life up a notch, you’re probably not reading this blog.

Go get your free copy of A Brief Guide to World Domination and tell ‘em Phil “Make It Great!†Gerbyshak sent you.

Two Quotes:

"You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you." — James Allen 

"Imagination gives you the picture. Vision gives you the impulse to make the picture your own." - Robert Collier

Two Questions:

Where are your thoughts going to take you tomorrow?

Do you see yourself achieving tomorrow's vision clearly?

One of the things I need to remind myself about my job is to stop taking everything so seriously. I take my job VERY seriously and VERY personally, and it’s been stressing me out a LOT lately. This picture of me, Gene Simmons, and one of my best friends Bren Boddy-Thomas is a great reminder for me to stop taking everything so darn seriously and just smile and enjoy life.

Thanks Bren and Gene for the reminder, and for whomever was nice enough to take this silly picture of me rockin’ out!

This picture was a great attitude vitamin for me, and hopefully for you too, as I hope it makes you laugh.

And you can apply this to your life too. Find your favorite silly picture of you and share it with others who might enjoy it. Post it to your blog, print it out and post it at your cubicle, or go ahead and make it your desktop wallpaper.

Happy Monday everyone!

Two Quotes:

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin." - Mother Teresa

“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips it's turn.†— Hal Borland 

Two Questions:

What are you starting right now?

What do you need to let go of for tomorrow to be as great as it can be?

Gretchen Rubin is writing a book called The Happiness Project which I cannot WAIT to come out so I can devour it. Lately I’ve needed more focus to find my happy, and Gretchen’s blog (also called The Happiness Project) has been a breath of fresh air for me.

Recently she shared an article about how to make yourself happy in the next hour, in which she shared a few awesome ways to improve your life in an hour or less. While the 8 tips Gretchen shared are awesome and VERY helpful, what she shared at the end of the list is what stuck with me the most:

No wonder I enjoy being happy so much. I LOVE to help other people, and the happier I am, the more people I can help.

So come on, get happy, and then go help someone! Go make yourself happy in the next hour and do something GREAT!

P.S. Thanks to Karen Salmansohn for introducing Gretchen’s to me many months ago.

Flickr photo credit to tripplehelix

A guest post by Barry J. Moltz

As a group, we are all a lazy bunch of people. Once we start moving in a direction, it is hard to get us to switch to do something else. Entrepreneurs always think that if I can provide a service that is better, faster or cheaper and get it in front of the consumer, then they will (sometimes they feel must!) buy from me- not so fast! The biggest switching cost is not the typical cost of producing a product or its distribution. The biggest barrier to entry for any new company is the consumer’s own laziness. We want to keep buying and shopping the same places we always do because we are comfortable or just can’t be bothered with making a change in our life. After all, we are creatures of habit. Retailers and service providers count on this. That is why they spend so much money to land our business in the first place. Even if we are offered lousy customer service, it takes alot for us to switch. Even if we are offered a better or cheaper deal, it still takes alot to switch. We are lazy consumers. I am the perfect example.

I had been a Netflix customer since they got started and fell in love with their service. When Blockbuster introduced a similar service, I did not switch even though there is a Blockbuster two blocks from my house where I could turn the movies in and get new ones much faster. Finally after 5 years, I made the jump to Blockbuster. It was “scaryâ€, but now 6 months later I love it. Blockbuster is much more convenient and flexible than Netflix. I wish I switched 5 years ago. Netflix kept me as a customer simply because I was too lazy too switch (and in this case provided excellent service). I was loyal. I was one of their first customers. Even though it made no economic sense, I stayed with Netflix even when Blockbuster was faster, better and cheaper.

Faster.

Better.

Cheaper.

It is the rallying cry of every business owner. But it does not always win the day. Habits and consumer inertia die hard. That is why I always ask business owners: “Why will the customer switch to you?â€

Forget “faster, better, cheaperâ€. The consumer has to be in a lot of pain to switch. Think to yourself- “how much do you hate your cell phone company?†Then ask yourself, “why have you not switched†(Remember you can now keep your phone number). It may be that you are under contract for that “free†phone you got from them or maybe you don’t want to learn a new customer service system from your new cell phone company. Either way, you don’t switch often.

So forget the sales strategy of faster, better, and cheaper products or services to build your business. I am not saying that these don’t help in a business but do not count on the lazy consumer to help you build your business.

So how do I talk to a lazy consumer?

How do you talk to a lazy consumer?

Barry Moltz has given hundreds of speeches to corporate, student, and entrepreneurial audiences of 20 to 20,000.
He makes friends with his listeners and delivers the straight stuff in a direct, humorous, and occasionally irreverent manner using real life business examples and personal tales. He is the author of Bounce! The Path to True Business Confidence and You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth About Starting and Growing Your Own Business. For more from Barry, check out his blog at http://barrymoltz.com/blog

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