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Category: Best Practices

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Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

5 Words Of The Year And The ONE Thing To Focus On For 2022!

Why Five Words Of The Year 2021?

There’s magic in numbers…

Let’s look at the meaning of 2021 for example: 2+0+2+1 = 5. And since the number 5 stands for change, we can use five words to understand what changes took place this year.

We all know there’s been global pandemics, local lock-downs, renewed investments and new global perspectives rising. But not everyone’s experience is aligned with the deeper meanings of all of this. And for many it’s especially hard to rise above the turmoil that the year has brought. I’ve experienced some heart-braking moments too. That’s why I dove deep into the words that I’d like to share with you in this article.

So let’s dive into the five words of the year 2021 that could help gain a deeper understanding of what happened, what is happening, and what could happen in the next year and beyond.

Before we begin though, one fair warning – these five words of the year are not randomly chosen. Yet, they’re also not the only words one can choose. Just allow yourself to immerse in the deeper layers of meaning of these five words of the year – how they now apply to your life, business, and potential new acts of benevolence. From there, perhaps all other words could also gain more meaning and sense again.

Let’s begin with:

  1. Time. We all have it. We all use it. We all share it somehow. But what is your experience of it? Do you think you have enough of it to do everything you want? Is there a feeling of wanting more of it? Do you spend it too much on things that don’t really matter, or would you like to share more of it with loved ones?

Time… It’s a complex of movements, rhythms and change. It’s available in units as well as it is infinite. It gives us moments. It takes things away.

And it helps us develop talents, over time.

 

  1. Talent. We all have some of it. We all use it to some degree. We all share in the skills that get developed by it somehow. But what is your experience of it? Do you think you have well-developed talents? Is there a feeling of not having enough of them? Do you work on developing more of them or putting it to use for greater benefits?

Talent… It’s a complex discussion whether it’s all inborn or solely a matter of proper nurture and education. It’s something that some people seem to be more endowed with than others. We can share them to enhance them.

And it helps us come together to combine and develop treasures of different kinds and values.

 

  1. Treasure. We all have some of it, whether as skill, talent, time, or finances. We all use it in various ways. We all share opinions about it, whether we agree or not about the value and use. But what is your experience of it? Do you think you have enough of it to be wealthy? Is there a feeling of lack or insecurity about it, or perhaps a desire to expand and expound upon it? Do you share it with others or mostly keep it for yourself?

Treasure… It’s a complex word that carries many meanings. For some the real treasure is pure health and vital life force. For others it’s mental resourcefulness or pure gold in a metaphorical sense. For many it’s solely related to money and luxury items.

And for most of us, all these forms of treasures help us somehow to be inspired and motivated to getting things done for the greater good of ourselves and others.

 

  1. Philanthropy. We all have an implicit notion of it. We all have had some use of it. We all share in the acts it brings forth somehow. But what is your experience of it? Do you think you have a profound understanding of its meaning? Or is there a feeling of disagreement with it or a desire to develop it more? Do you share one or more of the things related to the three words above (time, talent, treasure) in the light of being philanthropical?

Philanthropy… It’s a complex activity with many aspects and layers. It’s an historical endeavor as well as a modern day industry. It has a calling and a changing reputation.

We could say that in a way it helps us coming together in a greater spirit of harmony for the definite purpose of doing more good in the world.

 

  1. Mastermind. We all have greater thoughts, at least sometimes. We all use aspects of this grander spirit, to some degree. We all share in the effects of it, somehow. But what is your experience of it? Do you think you have a clear understanding of the word ‘mastermind’, the concept, its workings? Is there a feeling of not slightly ‘getting it,’ or perhaps connotations that go in various directions? Do you share your thoughts and feelings with two or more people in order to come to greater clarity and actionable plans?

Mastermind… It’s a complex concept for grasping something larger than our sole individualistic consciousness. It’s a greater term for bringing many things of thought together. It’s a profound gathering of the seen and unseen in a spirit of cooperation.

And it helps us to transcend the current states of affairs in order to reach something that’s perceived as better.

So let’s bring it all together in the ONE thing to focus on for the new year and beyond…

What is The ONE Thing to focus on in 2022?

The above five words of the year show us that we had some time to develop our talents. They also show us that we might have lost parts of our treasures but there were also signs that new treasures are on the way. They show us that we can learn anew why it matters to help one another, even when it’s done remotely or firstly alone for our direct neighbors.

And, these five words show us that there’s something greater at work, for all of us, with us and through us!

So, what would then be the compelling thing we need to work on, now, in the next year and beyond – What is The ONE Thing to focus on in 2022?

I think we can summarize it in one word…

>>OmniBenevolence!<<

This means we can work on goodness abound, from the inside out and from the outside in. This means that it’s not just for one person or for one single group. It simply means that we use the five words of the year 2021 in relation to all other words, in order to think, talk and do more good in the world – indeed feeling it from the inside out and both living it from the outside in.

And there are many ways to give this vital power a chance (see links below). But let’s begin with a question:

What words would you use to describe the meaning of OmniBenevolence? Share them in the comments when you share this article.

Thank you!

To a wonderful new year!

Sincerely,

Maurits van Sambeek, MA

++++++++++

PS: Do you want to read more on these words and their deeper meanings?

Then follow these links to valuable articles and resources:

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Leadership Marketing Personal Development

Five Phases of Business Growth You Should Know

Would you agree that it’s easier to start a business now than 20 years ago? According to an article by the World Bank, the time to start a new small is favorable.

This can be attributed to many different factors. According to this article, 18 years ago, it took entrepreneurs worldwide 52 days to register a business, on average. Now, it only takes around 20 days. More countries have opened online channels making the registration process more convenient, accessible, and affordable than before.

If you’ve been planning to start a business, now’s probably the best time to do so.

Why? Because we’re seeing a shift in the way people do business. The recent pandemic has greatly transformed the market landscape.

Due to COVID restrictions, consumers were initially pushed to transact purely online, relying on market makers such as Amazon, eBay, and other internet-based platforms, but now that everything’s slowly getting back to “normal,” signs are saying that the consumer behaviors might not go back to the level it was before COVID hit.

Regardless, business is business, and in this article, MarketAtomy will share with you something crucial—the five phases of business growth. This is a particularly handy piece of information to know, especially if you plan to start a business soon.

Why Learn the Five Phases?

Think about your primary motivation for why you’re planning to engage in business. Nine times out of ten, people will start a business for the additional income stream. While there’s nothing wrong with equating business with money, this is only half of the story.

Successful business models that we see in the present such as Amazon and Paypal, paint a rosy picture of the possibilities of starting a business. Spend ten minutes on Instagram, and you’ll be bombarded with profiles of people who claim to have made it big selling online and the like. But, if you notice, they’ll only advertise their profits—”I earned xxx amount of $$$ in just one month doing one strategy.” This will lead you to think that as long as you spend on this one thing, you’ll be able to make it.

While there’s nothing wrong with that, they often make it appear that building a business is as easy as a walk in the park and one-dimensional—it’s not. And, as long as your heart is in the right place, your business will surely make it—that’s not often the case. All in all, It’s quite rare to see influencers who are on the side of caution when it comes to encouraging people to engage in business.

That’s why we’re doing this because we want you to take a step back and look at this with a more discerning eye. Be more objective, strategic, and calculating. Building a business and bringing it to success is indeed life-changing and rewarding, but the opposite could also happen. So we’re here to guide you so that you’ll be prepared for things to come.

1. See It

The first phase in every business foundation is what we, at MarketAtomy, like to call the “see it” phase.

When you look around you, you see all sorts of interactions. From these interactions, you see pain points, areas of struggle, areas of improvement. In other words, these are problems that make an otherwise hassle-free transaction inconvenient—think about the last time you ordered your food or went to pay for something, etc. So what are the processes involved in the current status quo that’s broken and, if fixed, can greatly promote convenience?

The answer to that question is “the idea,” which is where all businesses start. Jeff Bezos knew that people needed books. A bookstore should be able to supply people with books, but fortunately for him, not everyone lives near a bookstore, and there was a new invention created that would allow people from across the US to buy things online—the internet. Amazon started as a bookstore, selling books and making them accessible to everyone. From there, the rest is history.

2. Prove It

Your business idea will not go much further until you bring it to the next level. This is what we call the “prove it” stage. Just like any prudent scientist, you do not accept anything just because you’ve seen it happen once or twice. Instead, you investigate, you ask questions, you observe. The most important question to answer in this phase is: “How can I profit by solving this problem?”

Thus, you should focus on finding out if you have a market. Find out whether there’s truly a need for you to solve a problem, not because you personally like it, but because there’s a certain number of people who are willing to pay you to solve the problem for them. Only after testing your theories and assumptions can you truly say that what you have is a verified hypothesis, and consequently, the business model you built around is something viable and feasible.

3. Build It

Once you have the idea in place, it’s now time to come up with a business model and lay down the groundwork to build your business. Contact possible suppliers and play with certain game theory elements to develop multiple scenarios that may affect your business.

Come up with a list of costs, funding sources, workforce sources, logistics providers, etc. This is the part where your financial resources become useful. For example, you may have to shell out a few bucks to rent a place, procure materials, hire your crew, etc.

More importantly, this is where you come up with different strategies concerning sales, marketing, and customer service. And this is where you should plan for your objectives in the short and long term.

4. Fund It

The challenge to every startup is where to get the funding. Too often, we resign to the fact that the institution to go to is the bank or the credit union closest to us.

Unless you have a stellar record with these institutions, your business loan application might have little chance of getting approved. But does that mean you should abandon your “dream” of building a business altogether? Of course not! It might be a setback for sure, but sometimes, we only need to look at our business model a second time.

After being denied funding, we sometimes realize that we don’t need additional funds from these institutions or investors (who may sound like they have our best interest in mind but are just really waiting for a chance to take over our business).

Being denied funding sometimes means we start with a handicap, that’s all. Then after proving that the business churns out income consistently, we can go back to the bank with the proof they need to grant us that business loan.

5. Grow It

You might think that you just want a simple business, and there’s no need to concern yourself with any expansion plans, but you want to be prepared in case you change your mind.

Why did we start this business in the first place? Was it purely for profit? Probably not. We started this business because we genuinely wanted to make the world a better place for everyone around us. So, if we see the same problem plaguing others, isn’t it only natural that we extend help to them? We might be embarking on a journey to business expansion before we know it by deciding to do so.

To avoid the pitfalls of being “too big, too soon”, we should start thinking of expansion plans as early as possible. So that means we have to revisit company processes from procurement, processing, logistics, manpower, and even human resource management.

The key here is to make the growth sustainable and strategic. First, you have to make the right calls at the right time, and the only way you could do that is to maintain a good grip of company data. Nowadays, you can have all sorts of data available at the tip of your fingers with a few clicks of a button. Gone are the days when you decide on business expansion purely on instincts and gut feel. Instead, guided by data about consumer trends, you can make one effective decision after another.

What’s Next?

That’s the Five Phases of Business Growth. Now that we’ve discussed that, you probably can’t wait to give your business idea a shot. However, you’re wondering if starting a business in the middle of a pandemic is prudent. Here’s what we think.

The pandemic forced hundreds of thousands of small businesses to close. But for some, it was a rare opportunity to finally start one. According to government data, during the past 20 months, Americans have started new businesses at the fastest rate in more than a decade seizing on pent-up demand and new opportunities after the pandemic shut down and reshaped the economy.

Online transactions have given opportunities for hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses to thrive and flourish—from food-related businesses to online classes to online fitness classes— you name it, and there’s probably a healthy market for it.

There’s a reason why that’s so. As people spend week after week in lockdown, they’ve saved up a great deal of their disposable income. With nothing to spend it on, they’ve resorted to the internet for something to purchase. As an entrepreneur, this is where you should put your skills to the test. Be a keen observer of ongoing trends and upcoming opportunities that you can capitalize on later.

Challenges

The immediate challenge to keeping your business afloat is still the safety and security of your entire crew. Currently, 58 percent of Americans are vaccinated, and people are beginning to feel more confident about finally going out.

According to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 20-30% of Americans still refuse to get vaccinated.

While this may still allow us to achieve herd immunity, it still leaves a lot of room for worry, especially if by doing so, it might cause another COVID mutation similar to the delta variant.

Getting vaccinated should be a personal choice under our right to life and liberty. Based on conflicting research, it may cause more harm than good. The choice of vaccination is a personal one.

Either way, what’s important is that consumer confidence is slowly creeping back to pre-pandemic levels. Whether vaccinated or not, staying alert and adhering to health protocols prescribed by the OSHA, CDC, and WHO, will provide peace of mind during this pandemic.

Summary

Starting a business is both an exciting and daunting task. If you’re planning to start a business for the first time, it’s easy to focus on the profits. This single focus will lure you to false promises you see online that “guarantee” your exposure (by asking you to spend a fortune on marketing tools and expensive websites). Do not fall into that trap.

Starting a business involves a lot of patience, strategy, preparation, and of course, luck. But once these come together, it’s the perfect recipe for success. MarketAtomy brings a full arsenal of resources committed to helping small and micro business owners maneuver their success journey. You also have at your fingertips our weekly podcast called “Charged Up Studio” chargedupstudio.live, and monthly informational webinars through our academy at marketatomy.academy/featured-events/.

To find out more about how to start or grow a successful business, please check out MarketAtomy.Academy.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Culture Growth Health and Wellness Skills

Dear Katherine: My son and his stepfather are no longer speaking

Hello, Conscious Parent! This post is the first installment of “Dear Katherine,” a letter written in response to a real-life question from an anonymous parent/caregiver. If you’d like to submit a question of your own, email me at katherine@consciousparentingrevolution.com. 

My teenage son had a massive falling out with my husband, his stepfather. My husband was triggered by my son’s actions, and the whole thing escalated into a fever pitch. Now my son refuses to talk to his stepfather, and my husband refuses to apologize. What do I do? How can I help repair the damage and find a way to move forward?

– Caught in Between

Dear Caught in Between,

It sounds like there’s more than one culprit in this story. Your husband was triggered by something your son said, and he escalated events by reacting to his stepfather’s heightened emotions. So both of them seem to have felt attacked, and both of them were also the attacker.

The first step to healing any wounded relationship is to apologize. But your child shouldn’t be the only one expected to say sorry—your husband has to do so, too.

One of the most common and long-held beliefs I’ve come across in my career as a parenting coach is that adults should never have to apologize to children. This belief assumes that adults are perfect (which we all know we’re not) and never to blame for a household argument.

But refusing to admit wrongdoing tells your kid that they’re not important enough to receive an apology, that perhaps their feelings are insignificant. Children are humans too! And as their caregivers, it’s our responsibility to recognize when we’ve hurt them and to make things right.

You are caught in Between. First, you must explain to both your son and your husband that they both have to apologize. I know you weren’t a part of this mess, to begin with, but you do have the ability to facilitate and lead your family members to reconciliation.

Find some time to talk with your husband about the Guidance Approach to Parenting, a method founded on principles of compassion and empathetic listening instead of obedience and compliance. Tell him how it’s helped you have a better relationship with your son.

Talk to your son. Tell him that his stepfather is a product of generations worth of traditional parenting hard-wiring, and that kind of conditioning can be hard to break. Explain to him that as his mother, you’re trying your best to change old patterns, but it’s a work in progress, and nobody’s perfect.

At the end of the day, Caught in Between, connection is more important than being right. Nobody is right or wrong. Apologizing is about admitting that your actions hurt another person so that you can find a way to balm the hurt and move on as a family.

 

Love and Blessings,

Katherine

P.S. For more tips on how to handle discord in the family, listen to my interview “How to Resolve Family Conflicts” with Mindful Mama podcast host, Hunter Clarke-Fields.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Health and Wellness Leadership

Feeling anxious? This Can Help.

Remember your child as a baby? When they accidentally hit their head on the side of the crib or get startled awake by a loud noise? Seconds tick by slowly as you wait for the sound of that gulp for air — usually followed by a piercing cry.

Breathing: it’s probably the most hard-wired, involuntary function we do as human beings. Every creature, great or small, breathes. Breathing gives us life, and we don’t even have to think about doing it — you inhale and exhale as reflexively as your heart beats in your chest.

But despite the fact that breath keeps us alive, we tend to take it for granted.

The Harvard Business Review and the Yale News both recently conducted studies revealing the effectiveness of SKY Breath Meditation, a breathing modality that engages the parasympathetic nervous system — the part of your brain that controls rational thinking, gives you a sense of calm and provides balance in stressful situations. Participants in both studies reported a better sense of well-being and mental health after just two days of practicing the methods.

As someone who has been trained in SKY Breath Meditation for 10 years, I can attest that breath does so much more than supply your body with oxygen. The way you breathe can have a big influence on how you feel and experience the world.

If you’ve been stressed, depressed, or overwhelmed — by current events, the holiday season, or your kid’s insistence on listening to “Baby Shark” on repeat — you’re not alone.

Here are some tips to help you literally catch a breather (share them with your child too!):

  • Deeper inhales and longer exhales. What happens when your child cries? Their breaths turn to hiccups. The same thing happens when we feel stressed or sad. When you start breathing rapidly, consciously focus on taking deep inhales and long exhales. Count to 4 for inhales, 8 for exhales (or as close as you can comfortably get). The fog in your brain will clear up in seconds.
  • Do some quick, light stretching. Pressured by deadlines at work and the mounting pile of laundry at home? Take 5 minutes for a quick stretch break. Full-body activities like a yoga sun salutation get your blood flowing with good oxygen and help relieve stress.
  • Carve out time for meditation. Ten minutes is ample time for you to feel the positive effects of your breathing/meditation practice. Don’t have 10 minutes? Take 2 minutes, if that’s what you have. Find a quiet spot to sit in and breathe deeply. Check out our work with America Meditates by Art of Living.

Learning to control your breath can help rid your body of stress and flood you with positive energy. Not only will you feel more in control of yourself, but you’re also providing an excellent model for your children about the importance of self-care.

Supportive breathing is just one technique for becoming the parent you want to be. If you’re interested in true parenting transformation check out the 90 Day Parenting Reset Program (coming soon).

P.S. My episode with ThePedsTalk Podcast hosted by Mona Amin, is live! We had a great conversation, so give it a listen and share with a parent who needs to hear it!

Categories
Best Practices Growth Health and Wellness Management

10 Tips to Boost Your Emotional Wellness at Work and Home

Work, family, financial challenges, Covid-19, and all the other stressors in the world can really take a toll on one’s emotional wellness. It’s not easy to be happy and enjoy life if your emotional health isn’t at a high level. While many of life’s ups and downs are beyond our control, there are a lot of things that are within our control. There are several things you can do to increase your emotional wellness that won’t cost a penny or require a lot of time.

Practice these strategies and positively affect your emotional wellness:

  1. Move more. Your brain and your body are connected. You feel your emotions in your body. If you move around more, your body will be healthier and better calibrated to your environment. Sitting around too much increases the likelihood of feeling stressed or depressed.
  2. Use your time more effectively. The more you get done, the less you leave undone. Having your work and chores done on a regular basis results in less stress and a greater opportunity to feel calm and relaxed. Putting your attention on determining the best way to use your time is a great habit to develop and will benefit your life for the rest of your life.
  3. Address any financial challenges you’re facing. There are only three basic strategies for addressing financial challenges: Worry about them, ignore them, or address them. Find a solution to your financial woes and begin working on it. The other options only result in stress and misery either today or in the future.
  4. Get enough sleep. Your brain and body are a mess if you’re not getting enough sleep. Find a sleep schedule that works for you and stick to it. Everyone has different sleep requirements.
  5. Be sociable. As solitary as you might think you are, you still need to be around other people on a regular basis. Having people you can count on makes a huge difference.
  6. Let go of expectations and focus on gratitude. Misery largely results from unmet expectations. Spend some time each day focusing on gratitude rather than being annoyed that life, you, or others, have failed to meet your expectations.
  7. Avoid the news. The news today is little more than mayhem and political news because that’s what people like to watch. Engaging isn’t the same as useful. You’re not missing anything. Watch or read something else instead.
  8. Avoid most social media. The basic premise of social media is admirable: Stay in touch with friends and family. The reality is that the most common use of social media is to make everyone else jealous of their family, car, house, or vacation. The image that people project is often false, and it makes others feel small by comparison. Be smart in how you use social media.
  9. Limit your obligations. A simple and meaningful life is the best option for most people. Keep your life simple by avoiding optional obligations that don’t add anything to your life.
  10. Carve out 5-minute vacations. Daydream, play your favorite music, water plants, surf your favorite podcast or video streaming platform.  As much as a 5-minute break can deliver some of the benefits of a full vacation for less time and money.

Avoid those things that can have a negative impact on your sense of emotional well-being. This includes social media, the news, unreasonable expectations, and unnecessary obligations. Get your rest, move around, and address the challenges in your life that are within your control. Spend time with people that you love.

 

When your emotional health is high, you have a solid foundation for enjoying many other aspects of life. Review the tips above and pick one to implement today.

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

“Bargaining Power Dynamics Beware How To Triumph In Negotiations” – Negotiation Insights

“To enhance your bargaining power in a negotiation, you must know your power source.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert (Click to Tweet)    Click here to get the book!

 

“Bargaining Power Dynamics Beware How To Triumph In Negotiations”

 

People don’t realize they’re always negotiating.

Bargaining power in negotiations can be elusive. In part, that is due to the shifting dynamics that occur. There are also the ever-changing perspectives that negotiators have per their interests versus their position.

So, with fluctuating dynamics altering a negotiator’s viewpoint throughout a negotiation, how might you enhance your efforts to increase your bargaining power? The answer to that question may not be that elusive.

Once you begin using the following negotiation techniques, you will increase your bargaining power. And your negotiation dynamics will allow you to triumph in more of the negotiation sessions in which you find yourself.

Click here to discover more!

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

 

Listen to Greg’s podcasts at https://megaphone.link/CSN6318246585  Once there, double click on the one you would like to hear.

 

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

 

To receive weekly free 5-minute sneak peeks into the brilliant techniques offered by Greg, click here

https://www.themasternegotiator.com/negotiation-speaker/   and sign up at the bottom of the page

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Personal Development Technology

Corporate CPR: Interview with Dan Prince, Software Development Leader

Dan Prince is a life-long technologist and expert in the modern software development lifecycle.

He’s the founder and CEO of Illumisoft, a custom software development company that provides healthcare solutions with a human-centered approach. He’s also a team player that opts for simplicity over perfection, and people over processes. 

In our interview today, Dan and I discussed the importance of building strong relationships with clients in order to truly understand their needs. And with customer satisfaction as a key indicator of how effective your business processes are, Dan and his team always conduct an analysis at the end of projects in order to learn and grow from their experiences. 

Connect with Dan. 

Website

LinkedIn

Twitter

 

View the full episode here.

Categories
Best Practices Marketing Personal Development

The Media Brand that Owns a Hotel Chain

Over the years, Marriott International has been operating a lot more like a media company than a hotel chain.

Here’s why…

Marriott operates as a media company to compete in a digital world

Marriott International, learned the power of content marketing after launching Marriott Traveler, a media site that attracts 3 million unique visitors (up 78 percent from the previous year).

Visits to the individual hotel landing pages via Traveler were up 80 percent and revenue from hotel bookings went up 200 percent compared to the year before.

“Those results certainly make a solid case for content marketing.” – Inc. magazine

They turned into a full media site that promotes travel, food, drinks, culture, health & fitness which entertains millions of travelers who share their love of culture and adventure through the content they share on their site.

A site by the way, where you can also book a room for your next vacation…

After launching a successful blog authored by their chairman, Marriott updated their marketing strategy to approach people based on their passion for travel and love for adventure (instead of just pitching hotel room benefits like everyone else).

In today’s digital economy Marriott attracts an audience to sell to by creating the content that their buyers love.

What content can you create to build your audience?

Want More Information Like This?

Companies like Marriott are turning their offline sales process online by using a specific content strategy.

If you want to learn how to implement a similar content strategy, we created a comprehensive overview, where we can teach you how to operate your business as a media brand in only 32 pages.

Click the link below to get a free eBook for how to create a digital sales funnel using content.

Download a copy HERE  <– Download

Categories
Best Practices Culture Growth Health and Wellness

The Difference You Can Make: Grandma Sparky’s Blue Ribbon Campaign

When was the last time you felt truly appreciated?

No matter how much we do for our families and our communities, we’re all still hardwired to hold onto negative feedback more than positive feedback. That can be pretty damaging, especially considering that people are more likely to default to criticism than praise.

Even if criticism isn’t malicious, we often internalize it as reinforcement of our own insecurities. It’s true for adults—and it’s true for children, too.

That’s why it is so important that we let people know how much we value them and how much of a difference they make to us.

Grandma Sparky’s Blue Ribbon Campaign

I want to tell you about someone really special.

Grandma Sparky is a woman who, at 37 years old, contemplated suicide every day. On the surface, she had it all, but deep inside, she was struggling.

She knew what it was like to feel lost, desperate, and alone, so she harnessed that internal pain and transformed it into something beautiful.

She began reaching out in her community to teach others how to show their appreciation for one another, and eventually, the Blue Ribbon campaign was born.

 

Virtualblueribbon.jpeg

The Blue Ribbon campaign is a way to let people in your community know that they matter.

Each blue ribbon says, “Who I Am Makes A Difference” and is meant for somebody who makes a difference in your life. Then, that person gets two blue ribbons to distribute to people who make a difference in their life. . . and so on.

Who You Are Matters

You may already be aware that September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. According to the World Health Organization, one person dies by suicide every 40 seconds.

No matter who we are, we all need to be told that we make a difference to somebody else.

Unfortunately, we can’t undo the tragedies that have already occurred. What we can focus on today, however, is telling the people in our life that they matter. Grandma Sparky’s Blue Ribbon campaign allows you to do that in a tangible way that can easily be paid forward.

Who YOU are makes a difference.

Right now you can visit the Blue Ribbon campaign website and get 10 free blue ribbons. When you give someone a ribbon, make sure you give them two more so they can pay it forward to the people in their life who make a difference.

Who will you give your ribbons to?

 

Love and Blessings,

Katherine

 

P.S. If you’re a parent looking for a place to call home, join our private Facebook Group.  And if you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please know help is available. You can contact the Suicide Prevention Hotline 24/7 for support.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development Technology Women In Business

Three Ways Turning On the Camera Will Turn Up Your Influence

Imagine sitting in a boardroom waiting for a meeting to begin when an attendee calls to say, “I don’t want you to see me today, so I’m going join the meeting from a phone in the hallway.”

This would NEVER happen, and yet every day we struggle to get attendees to show their faces on video calls.

Most of us miss the days when we could engage face-to-face with each other in the hallway, lunchroom, or meeting space, and yet, it seems like there is a reluctance to turn on our camera to see each other’s faces.

There are several reasons people don’t turn on their cameras. Perhaps they do not like seeing themselves on camera, their hair or makeup isn’t done, or their workspace is a mess.  I venture to guess the biggest reason is that attendees want to multi-task. Let’s face it, multitasking is a lot easier to do when you know you can’t be seen.

Either way, when you can’t see each other’s eyes, you can’t make the connection needed to be truly influential in every interaction.

To increase your influence, get your meeting attendees to give you their undivided attention by asking one of these three questions:

  1. “I’d love to see you today. Are you able to turn on your camera?”

This is a great question to ask coworkers, peers, and others you once could frequently see in person. It is hard for attendees to say ‘no’ to this request, and it will boost the friendly dialogue you once had working together in the office.

  1. “To ensure you receive the most from this meeting, would you please turn on your camera?”

This question is a great way to ask existing clients and employees to show their shining faces. Encouraging them to turn on their cameras will maximize engagement, helping everyone focus so details aren’t missed. It also helps you read reactions and evaluate how to move conversations forward.

  1. “Would you turn on your camera so I can more easily help you?”

Conversations with prospects can be challenging enough without having to stare at a blank screen. Let your prospects know you are excited to help them and seeing their face will help you do just that. This will maximize engagement and help you navigate the conversation more easily. If asking this question feels uncomfortable, set the expectation when initially schedule the meeting.

Virtual meetings are a part of our new normal and learning to maximize our influence in this new reality is critical to our success. Ask these three questions to get your listeners to turn on their cameras so you can turn up your influence.