My wish for you and your business in 2007 is that you prosper financially and in ways of the heart. What do you do when you wake up and just know it’s gonna be a bad hair day? Or when you’re going through the day pretty much ok, not great, but you realize you just went through one of those clever photo equipped intersections and you’re not quite sure if you entered the intersection before the light turned yellow but you get a sinking feeling that you’ll know for sure in a couple weeks. And then you get a flat tire. And you still have prospecting calls to make. And a Team Training to conduct. And you know you gotta pick up your mood?
What do you do?
I have a whole toolkit that I use to change my mood, and to get unstuck. I think of baby toes and baby giggles. NULL I think of Ella Fitzgerald, backed by Duke singing “A-Train.” “You must take the A-Train if you want to get to Harlem.” I think of singing The Ode To Joy in Madison Square Garden with 10,000 other people.
I go on Rampages of Appreciation – making lists (and never fewer than 10) of things I appreciate about my life.
And lists of things (usually actions) I can acknowledge myself for. I can pull out any of these pretty quickly in my mind and most of them work by themselves – I have yet to have an experience that is stronger than all of them. All of those are mental and internal – an external action I take is send someone a Heartfelt, Unexpected GreetingCard (HUG) and tell them what they have meant to me. So what do you do? I’d love to hear about it. Comment below.
Downloads
The skill of being truly present and listening without agenda, and without judgment, which gifts the other person with the all too rare opportunity to show up as how and who they really are.
The skill of having fun even when— maybe especially when— working really hard.
The skills of Teamwork— not just working as part of a Team— really learning how to follow and support the leader, which turns out to be the very best way to learn how to be a leader.
And having this bundle of skills in my toolkit adds up to being magnetically attractive and a whole lot'a fun.
If ever there was a servant leader, it's Maran. "It's all good" is something she lives— whether in the chaotic aftermath of a South Florida hurricane or facing the frustrations of a seething subscriber who can't get into the site. "Take a deep breath", she says, and goes about her business of turning straw into gold.
I've been together with Maran for more than five years now. Tough and high times both. She is a rock. One of those highly polished, swirling blue Lapis lazuli ones with the word Creativity etched in platinum. Maran is all that good! JMF
- Appreciation Marketing by Maran Banta - August 1, 2009
- Leadership by Maran Banta - March 1, 2009
- Relationships by Maran Banta - February 1, 2009
