Posts Tagged ‘experience’

I grew up in Michigan in a large Catholic Family in the 50’s and 60’s. I was taught that sacrifice was the price you paid to get into heaven. In service to this I let go of my wants, needs, thoughts and feelings. What I was left with when I hit my 30’s was pretty much an empty shell of a being and became, to some extent robotic – exclusively looking outside myself for commands for me to follow. I was terrified to think, feel or act on my own volition. Having never been given a copy of the blue prints or the How To Manual for being me, I had no idea what course to steer to get to my true north. Over decades I taught myself how to listen to my internal wisdom and practiced checking inside myself, retracing my steps (from before I could even walk) to rediscover my fullest expression of myself.

In the name of Heaven we make incredible sacrifices. The question is – what is Heaven? More importantly in the context of this series, what is Heaven to you? How will you know when you’ve arrived?

Given that we are talking most specifically about spirituality in the business, I suspect that each one of us has maneuvered into our current roles and positions because to some degree we are wanting to create heaven on Earth, especially when it involves the fact that we spend at least one third of our lives in this environment. What have you sacrificed in order to be where you are right now, in this moment? What I’m really wanting to know is – have you sacrificed the right things in order to have what you currently have? Rarely do I use the word right, so I’m obviously on the way to making a point!

On Tuesday, I spoke to the San Francisco Professional Career Network. These individuals are in the process of once again becoming gainfully employed, however many of them are up against some very stiff resistance (the R word, remember?). Not much different than many of us, they experienced rejection, trauma, abuse, neglect and humiliation in their previous work environment, and as they move in the direction of employment, something stops them. What stops them, and appropriately so, is the memory of what they’ve previously sacrificed for what they thought would provide stability, a role that contributed to the growth and development of their company, as well as a sense of personal and professional fulfillment. They are now having to choose to choose what to choose in service to what it is they want. This time they have the opportunity to choose what to sacrifice from a more conscious perspective.

Everyone has to make the choice to sacrifice that which they are willing to sacrifice: Health, family, personal fulfillment, creativity, integrity, financial stability, trauma, stress, abuse – each of us has our price.

I’m suggesting that maybe what we’ve sacrificed isn’t worth the price. This is a huge spiritual issue for those who have come to believe that financial stability will create happiness. The current global economic circumstances are indicating that, that may be an inaccurate assumption. The wounding that has occurred – that we’ve allowed to occur for the sake of financial viability for many has cost them their lives, their families and their dignity. I don’t think this is working very well – do you?

I’m guessing that when searching your internal database you’ll un-conceal regrets and lost dreams that were sacrificed for what at that time seemed like the appropriate or only choice to be made. All of us have these regrets and losses, yet until we come face to face with them and the emotional well of powerless and hopeless that has never been mined we will continually repeat the circumstance – just different environments and we’ll never allow our essential self to guide us to our fullest expression.

It makes sense to me that many of those individuals in the San Francisco Professional Career Network are balking at returning to the corporate environment. It makes sense to me that they are no longer willing to sacrifice their souls for the almighty paycheck.

Not all work environments are dysfunctional but the fact of the matter is that too many are dysfunctional. My belief is that because most of us were raised in families where dysfunction played a huge role in how we come to see ourselves, how we value and treat our selves and how we choose to choose what we choose, we can’t help but create environments that reflect the same.

I believe that each of us has come to this planet to fulfill a very specific life purpose. My job is to support people in choosing to choose to live into that purpose – fearlessly. This conversation definitely includes the question “What get’s sacrificed?” It also allows evidence to speak for itself; “Has it worked so far to give up what is most essential to your BEING and to you living your LIFE PURPOSE?”

This line of questions emphatically points to the dilemma and what we do in this dilemma. The dilemma is a choice-point where most of us choose to choose NOT to choose, thus experiencing a quality of life that feels stuck, lost, paralyzed, trapped, confused, depressed. SIGH! I know of no one who is allowed the “get out of jail free card” and doesn’t have to actually choose when facing the inevitable choice-point: Now or later – it’s up to you!

I don’t wish this moment on anyone, however, the inevitability of it is what it is. I can’t convince or cajole you to take me seriously. I only encourage you to feel into your heart and soul and reveal, discover and acknowledge your own evidence, your own truth and your own wisdom to know what is yours to do.

Enjoy the exploration!

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Tagged as: active garage, As the paradigm shifts, beliefs, confidence, Dr. Rosie Kuhn, experience, exploration, Sacrifice, self awareness, self worth, Spirituality, Spirituality in Business, thoughts

Two factors comprise the market potential for any product or service – demand and attachment.  Demand is about quantity – how many people want what you sell.  Attachment is about quality, how much do people want what you sell.

There are some products and services for which there is obvious demand.  For example, almost everyone needs a grocery store, a cell phone and the occasional cup of coffee. Universal demand creates extraordinary opportunity.  But universal demand also spawns burgeoning supply and intense competition.  The harsh reality is, in virtually every sector, supply exceeds demand in a way that isn’t cyclical.  We’ve crashed full speed, head first into a world where we have more stuff to sell than people want to buy.  And yet, a number of companies in highly contested categories are growing dramatically, even exponentially.  How do they do that? What’s their secret?

Attachment

Their secret is attachment.  Attachment is about how much your prospects and customers value the product or service you provide.  It’s about the extent to which you improve their lives.  And at the highest level, it’s about how your product or service defines or supports your customer’s aspiration and self-image.

There are five fundamental value platforms – what you might think of as the five basic reasons that any customer is motivated to make any purchase.  They are:

• Price/Value
• Location/Convenience
• Quality/Functionality
• Style/Status
• Experience/Lifestyle

The platforms of Price/Value and Location/Convenience are rational platforms and very seldom create much attachment.  If a Walmart customer discovers that Target has a lower price on laundry detergent this week, that Walmart customer will probably hot-foot it over to Target and load up.  She’s not attached to Walmart, she’s attached to the low price, which is relatively easy to replicate.

At the other end of the spectrum, a Nordstrom’s shopper who is motivated by Style/Status or Experience/Lifestyle is unlikely to darken the door of JC Penney, even if JC Penney has the same item at a lower price.  Style/Status and Experience/Lifestyle are emotional platforms.  They have the potential to invoke powerful feelings and create strong attachment which are almost impossible to replicate.

Effect of Attachment

Let’s think about the effect of attachment in one of the categories with universal demand, grocery stores.  Have you ever met a customer of Trader Joe’s?  They are borderline rabid.  Given half a chance, they’ll regale you (endlessly) of their Trader Joe’s favorites:  Two Buck Chuck, Green Papaya Salad, Mango Butter or Chili Feta.  To say these folks are attached to Trader Joe’s might be the understatement of the century.  And that attachment translates directly into revenue.  Think about this:  According to Fortune Magazine, Trader Joe’s averages $1,750.00 per square foot in sales.  That’s more than double the sales per square foot of competitor, Whole Foods Market.

Now let’s turn our attention ro cell phones.  Ever try to pry an iPhone out of the hands of an Apple fanatic?  That’s attachment in every sense of the word, attachment that has led to astonishing growth for Apple.  Since being released in 2007, well over 100 million iPhones have been sold and Apple has become the most valuable tech company on the planet.

Attachment means your product has become an essential, even indispensable, part of your customer’s life.  When that happens, you have a shot at exponential growth that few can match with, let alone surpass!

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Tagged as: active garage, attachment, convenience, demand, experience, Good business great life, Jack Hayhow, lifestyle, location, price, status, style, supply, target, trader joes, value, walmart, whole foods

It is time to refine our vision of time.

Is time a clock, a calendar? Is time an agenda, a schedule? Is time something that we spend, waste? Is time on our side?

Our view of time is heavily conditioned by the language that we speak. If you compare the view of time across various cultures, you find that some cultures treat time as a measured resource, while others seem to measure time by the seasons or rituals, and other cultures view time as a fabric of story and images.

Because our view of time is so closely tied to the words we use to describe it, perhaps it is easier to redefine time as experience itself. We know from our experience that time travels in cycles or seasons. Many phenomena in nature come and go. We also experience birth, growth, and death. Perhaps we can think of time as change itself.

The first step to gaining a flexible focus on time is to free ourselves from the tyranny of a single cultural perspective on time. This doesn’t mean throwing away our calendars and clocks, but rather recognizing that this is not the only way to look at time.

A new kind of action list

The next time you make a To Do list, even as you arrange the items in order of priority, think about how arranging items in a sequential list already assumes that they are separate, and cannot be accomplished at the same time. That is an assumption that you may not want to make.

By arranging your items spatially on a Mandala Chart, you already have a framework that enables you to examine the items in terms of categories and relationships. This arrangement changes not just our view of time, but also of the items themselves. Instead of being a stack of things to do, like an inbox of paperwork, arranged on a Mandala Chart they become factors or variables that can be arranged and multiplied to create various results.

Think for instance of a networking event. How different your experience and results will be depending on the venue, the people, your attitude and purpose in attending.

Therefore one way to leverage your time is to arrange the elements of experience on a Mandala Chart, and to view the elements as variables you can arrange and combine as you like. This is already closer to the way we actually experience things, but you can influence the results and maximize the possibilities by doing it consciously.

Time frames in motion

Another way we experience time is – as frames in motion, such as in movie or video. The frame rate is the number of frames per second (fps) used in video, television, and movies, and it is typically 24, 25, or 30 fps, though some formats 50, 60, or more. A slow motion video of a bullet penetrating a wall may run as many as one million frames per second, slow enough for the eye to follow, but still frighteningly fast.

Many professional athletes and martial artists report seeing things in a slower time frame, as if they had more frames per second, and more time to respond to the motions around them.

Likewise, to a person inexperienced with that type of motion, the ball may seem to come so fast that you don’t even notice it until it strikes you, as if you had fewer frames per second and less time to respond.

At world class levels in sport, the ball may actually move faster than human reaction time could allow for response. The fastest speed recorded in men’s tennis for a serve was Andy Roddick, at 155 mph or 249.9 kmph. In motor sports, vehicles travel much faster than that, and yet with occasional exceptions, drivers manage to maneuver in this time frame. Skill, experience, and flexible perception enable athletes to respond with timing that goes far beyond fast reflexes.

Likewise, you can leverage your time by enriching your experience and deepening your engagement in experience.

Valuing your time

Perhaps the most powerful way to leverage your time is to value it as life itself. I wrote about this in a separate article called Oceans of Opportunity, suggesting that we think of time as a fluid force like water, which can be directed, contained, and channeled. We are all given equal access to this force, but how you use it determines whether you sink, swim, or surf.

If you treat time as a valuable substance, then you will not waste it. If you respect other people’s time as you do your own, you will begin to understand and find ways to leverage time, to save time, and to buy time.

Seasons of Time

One of the best metaphors for time is that of the four seasons, which is familiar even to people who live in climates which don’t have four seasons. The cycle and energy of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter give us a perspective on time, a reminder of change, of coming and going. Download the SEASONS MANDALA as a reminder.

It is worth reading and reflecting on the verse from the King James Bible translation (1611), Ecclesiastes III, which reminds us that time is everything:

3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

3:2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3:3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

3:4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

3:5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

3:6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

3:7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

3:8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

This was recorded in the 1960s by The Byrds as Turn! Turn! Turn!, the classic Pete Seeger song written in 1952, and its message is timeless as time itself.

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Tagged as: active garage, Change, cultures, experience, Flexible Focus, interpretations of time, mandala charts, manga, rituals, seasons, time, william reed

Welcome to the ninth post in this 12-part series on QUALITY, titled #QUALITYtweet – 12 Ideas to Build a Quality Culture.

Here are the first eight posts, in case you would like to go back and take a look:

1. Quality #1: Quality is a long term differentiator
2. Quality #2: Cure Precedes Prevention
3. Quality #3: Great People + Good Processes = Great Quality
4. Quality #4: Simplifying Processes
5. Quality #5: Customers are your “Quality Partners”
6. Quality #6: Knowing what needs improvement
7. Quality #7: Productivity and Quality
8. Quality #8: Best Practices are Contextual

#QUALITYtweet How NOT to deliver total quality:

Focus on quality of product without focusing on

quality of relationship and communication

In an increasingly service oriented business environment, what you sell is not just a product but an experience. People may forget explicit details like specifications or price, but never forget the experience they had when they bought the product.

Experience extended to end-customers largely depends on attitude, values and behaviors of each individual who interacts with a customer. One of the most important challenges is to keep this group of people aligned to organization’s quality system and values.

Communication is the backbone of organization’s success in marketplace. Effective internal and external communication within an organization ensures that:

• Your employees understand your value system
• They understand what is expected out of them
• They are motivated to walk an extra mile to deliver excellent service
• Your customers know your value system
• You build trust-based relationship with your people and customers with consistent communication
• Manage expectations with your people and customers.

How can you motivate your teams to deliver excellent customer experiences through simple communication processes? Here are a few ideas to consider:

Train:

Training your internal team can be your biggest tool for clearly explaining the process of communication and how important it is for the business. Consistently train your people on value systems, leadership, quality management, effective communication, what works in customer management, what not, expectations management and cultural aspects of client’s location. Clients also need training on how best they can use your products. Companies organize client workshops to educate them about different aspects of product/service. Train consistently to streamline communication.

Support:

Once your people are trained, you need to support them in doing right things. Supporting can be a simple act of being there with your people when they talk to customers. Help them improve and share feedback on how are they doing. Some companies may see this activity as an “overhead” but it is an “investment” in your people.

Monitor:

Once you have confidence that your people will be able to do the right communication, monitor them. Take periodic feedback from them. Communicate consistently to ensure that they are motivated enough to continue doing it.

Delivering consistently superior experience to your customers (via quality of products and communication) results in a long-term relationship based on trust. In business, as in life, relationships are crucial. Quality of your relationships is as important as quality of your products, or perhaps, even more.

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Tagged as: attitude, behaviors, business, client, Communication, customer, end customer, experience, marketplace, monitor, motivate, price, product, quality, service, specifications, support, train, Trust, values

Our world has been continually evolving. With the advent of globalization, technology and internet, we are now embarking on the phenomenal growth of the virtual worlds. So, what are Virtual Worlds? Virtual world is a real-time, multi-player 3D environments in which the user takes on a specific role, represented on screen by an avatar. Obvious example is SecondLife. People who live in virtual worlds can buy homes, go shopping and play games with friends – this is the social networking element of it. With the current economic recession, companies are finding it cost-effective to hold meetings, recruit candidates and do promotions in virtual worlds. Offline events require hotel, travel costs and lost time in productivity – so why not meet your potential clients, employees and colleagues virtually  – Afterall they exist both in the real and virtual world.

Here is a brief intro of a what is a virtual world?

Where is the MONEY??

Virtual worlds reshape the real-life Retail:
With the rise in Virtual world, many small businesses are using it to interact with their customers. Many businesses are marketing their products and services in virtual worlds – you can hold events, do strategic placements for audience development and building relationships with their customers:

Where is my LOVE?
Virtual worlds are all about experience and community.
Want a cool girlfriend? Who needs a real deal? She is exactly what you want and is gone when you log off.

Our world has expanded – it has multiple dimensions….ARE you present Virtually?

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Tagged as: active garage, avatar, clients, colleagues, community, deepika bajaj, employees, experience, gaming, invincibelle, making money, Money, offline, online, playing, Productivity, recession, secondlife, shopping, virtual, Virtual world