The Group of 8

Sign of the times?

It seems like mailing pictures to my mom in Illinois should be an easy thing to do. Several weeks ago I visited Canada Post to accomplish this task. I gave them the envelope, paid my couple dollars, and expected the process to occur.

Unfortunately, I received my own envelope a few days ago due to insufficient posting.

What. The post office doesn't know how to assign sufficient postage?

So I return to the same postal outlet, to resend the envelope of photos. When I politely explained what had happened, I received "it wasn't sent from this office" and "we wouldn't do that" and "you just have to pay for the correct amount of postage".

So sad. It would have been so easy for them to say sorry and send the envelope express mail while they paid the difference in postage. I would have been pleased.

Instead, no one takes responsibility, while constantly trying to reassign blame. They do this because they bank on us just being too busy to care. They know we will won't change our ways. We will still go to the same postal outlet, because humans don't like to change.

I disagree. I want to reward the company that will take enough time to hear what I want. I want to frequent the establishment that is willing to take responsibility of their actions. Just because the city of Saskatoon is in the mist of a boom, we don't need to sacrifice quality and care.

Please give me your thoughts. Who do you use to mail your Christmas pictures?

What about your business? Are you still concerned about quality and care?

 

How busy are you?

Count how many times you will here the word busy today. I estimate you will hear the phrase " I am so busy" between 5 to 10 times today.

Busy doing what?

Have you taken a diary of how your day is spent. How much time gets spent on emergencies such as urgent request, filling out forms, or putting out fires?

How many meetings do you attend to hear what people are doing or what they will be doing?

Is this what you get paid for?

What percent of your day involves work that will actually grow your business? What are you doing today that will be part of the next big break through for your business?

Excuses are easy to find to keep busy, but what happens to all our emergencies when we are on vacation? The world keeps spinning.

What would happen if you traded one hour a week from your busy emergencies and devoted that time to work on a creative project? How would your business change?

There is one way to find out.

Quitting

The word quitting usually reminds of us a negative thoughts. We think of quotes such as "quitters never win and winners never quit".

Even when quitting is a good thing, we still don't like to admit to quitting. If a smoker is quitting, that means they are still smoking. When they have quit smoking, then it becomes a positive, but the process of quitting is tough for us.

There's a line from the movie American Gangster that caught my attention. In the movie, the drug lord's supplier in Vietnam wisely remarked that quitting when ahead is not the same thing as quitting.

How true.

Seth Godin devoted an entire book on quitting called The Dip. One of the basic ideas in the book looks at how we continue down a roads that we know will be dead ends. We continue to travel that road in hope that it will change. We do so because we fear quitting.

The famous joke about the guy and the doctor give us a great example. Hey doctor, it hurts when I do this. What does the doctor say? Don't do that.

What are you doing that is hurting you? Why won't you quit? What do you need to do in order to gain the strength to stop doing what is taking you down a dead end road?

Unique Christmas gift

What do you get the entrepreneur that already has everything?

Kiva gift certificates.

What is Kiva?

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid you get your loan money back.

If that doesn't work for you, Apple will likely announce a new iPod by Christmas.

What does is cost?

When a client's first question revolves around how much your product or your service costs, do you answer with a dollar amount?

Does that question make you nervous?

You are a professional. You are an expert. But what is the client actually buying from you though?

Are you selling remarkable service, convenience, the best, the only or are you relying on your low price?

You have the choice. Are you going to do what no one else is doing in your industry or are you going to be the wal-mart of your industry.

Just remember it is easy for a competitor to their lower prices.

Tell me, what is the client buying from you?

How to be your best everyday

Jeffery Gitomer gives a list of things to do that will help you become your best. I suggest to start with 3 of his tips that will change your world within a week.

1. Wake up early. The early bird doesn't get the worm. The early bird makes the money. Work while others sleep.

2. Read for 20 minutes every morning. This gives you quiet insight. You can reflect on ideas and thoughts of others, and immediately convert them to your own success formula. Your best chance for success is reading. Learn to earn. Read to succeed.

3. Write for 20 minutes every morning. What should you write about? Anything you want! Begin to clarify your thoughts and ideas in writing.

There you go, a simple plan that can radically improve your world.

What is stopping you from radically improving your life?

Watch out for the police

Seth Godin riffs today on the struggles to overcome those that fight to keep the status quo. In fact he believes it is nearly impossible to persuade those "status quo police". Yet there is a way to overcome the status quo.

Think of some of the past companies that have overcome the status quo police.

Apple's iPod, Nike athletic shoes, and Starbuck's coffee.

Last time I checked, those would be good companies to own stock in.

Are you a part of the status quo?

Or are you part of something that is going to revolutionize your industry.

Balloons

Balloons have a maximum capacity. If you keep putting air in, the balloon will continue to get bigger. But, at that balloon's maximum capacity, the balloon will burst.

To keep the balloon from bursting, we can do one of several things.

1. Stop adding air

2. Let air out

Our lives are not much different. We continue to add to our busyness. We put more and more in our schedule. We continue to allow the urgent to push aside the important.

How close are you to bursting?

More importantly, what important thing in your life is not being done because you are tending to the urgent?

Make today the day you accomplish one important thing before you worry about the urgent.

Margin

At what point do we realize that our full plate causes the unhappiness in our lives? Do we fail at being content because we worry about the next thing we have to do on our list? Do we need more margin in our lives?

Margin is good. Margin can be defined as the extra space. We find margin in leg room flying first class. We enjoy the margin between us and other cars on a twinned highway. How much margin do we have in our lives?

Human beings are limited. How close are we running to our capacity? How much time do we have free? How much money is left at the end of the month?

What happens when we squeeze out the margins in our lives? What suffers? Who suffers? When we decrease our margins, we decrease our relationships. When we tighten the margin, we cause our own stress. Our focus becomes narrow. We become self focused.

We believe that if we don't push ourselves to and past the limit, we will miss out. We fear missing out on what is good. We all have the fear of not being of value. We all want our life to matter.

Yet, by pushing ourselves past the limit and losing all margin, we set our lives on course for failure. Success can not be obtained by losing our margins. What good is climbing the corporate ladder if we lose our spouse. What good is becoming well known if we lose our faith.

Let me suggest trying to increase your margin. What? Are you too busy to increase your margins? If we ignore our limits, life will force us to accept our limits. A cancer patient finds all the time in the world for her loved ones.

If your life is a book, how much white space can we see? How are you going to make sure your margins are within your capacity or are you waiting for life to force you to define your margins. I suspect it would be better to find our margins while we still have control.

Power of know

By rough estimation, one week of the New York Times contains more information than someone in the 18th century would come across in their entire lives.

Yet, people in the 18th century invented the piano, fire extinguisher, thermometer, steamship, submarine, bicycle, parachute, and soft drink just to name a few.

Obviously the power of what we know is more important that how much we know.

Tell me, what do you know that makes you valuable?