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I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun. Thomas Edison Take it easy baby , take it as it comes, be a specialist in having fun - Jim Morrison "Are you having any fun yet ?" One line mantras. B.F.O's - Blinding Flash of the Obvious moments. The AHA feeling. An opportunity to sum up the essence of your experience in just a few words. To me that is the phrase ....Best said to another when you are perhaps experiencing something that is no fun at all. Particularily useful when life seems to suck the big kumara. It's a cunning reminder that we are here for a good time not a long time and are fully capable of enjoying the journey. The sort of statement we see on a bumper sticker and want to recall for life. Last millenium I was heading to a meeting with the bank manager, WINZ had cancelled a trial program for transistioning long term unemployed people into work in Queenstown. We had already committed to the office space, training room and team. Our land lord was about to change the locks if the lease wasn't paid. I had no idea how I was going to keep the business let alone my life afloat. When on the way down the mall my financial controller turned to me and said... "Are you having any fun yet?" Instantly the pressure was off, we looked at each other the stress lifted and we began to laugh or was it cry? From memory a lot of both, we had to sit tears streaming to compose ourselves into the concerned adult individuals that we knew the finance representatives would assume that we would be. And the issue was certainly and suddenly back in perspective. I can't even remember how we sorted out the rent that day but we did, the world still turned but most importantly we relaxed, we had some fun and we learnt. Learn from the mistakes of others you don't live long enough to make them all yourself. If you obey all the rules your miss all the fun - Katherine Hepburn Sick to the stomach, a need to pee, sweaty palms, racing heart. A collegue reminded me recently are all symptoms of excitement. I'd been wrestling with my anxiety after the death of three significant others in my inner circle and it was manifesting in similar displays in my middle child. Time to examine what we like to DO when we are excited. Dress for a special occasion, day dream, plan, write a journal. make, give and receive gifts, find like minded souls to share the journey. Immerse in the task, become absorbed in the moment. Some purposeful choices to re-label the state and enjoy the day, moment by second. To nurture my inner children with happy voices, hugs, bike rides, compliments, squeals of glee, baking, adding novelty, parties and fun times with friends. To walk barefoot in the icy cold river collecting stones. To look up and see the light not at the end of the tunnel but right here we we are. In some call centres there are Fun Managers. The person whose role it really is to create the doughnut day and hand out the silly hats. It's not the wank factor the cynics among you would label it as. The best pull it off with aplomb. Celebrating moments, creating themes adding value to the brand and the day. Establishing employee retention and decreasing challenging customer moments. Because every moment deserves to be a great one. As we would like to think that Buddha said... "The trouble is we think we have time." Go on I D.A.R.E. you - Decide, Act, Review and Enjoy - Then do it again.... and again...and again. One more time with feeling! Climb something, set a goal, make a plan, throw yourself off or into anything. Scare your self silly. Fascination comes from fascinare - to cast a spell. Create magic in your day. Go out feel the warmth of sunlight on your skin or eat what it is you love for lunch. Drink out of beautiful glass, tell a joke, love an animal, smile more at yourself in the mirror. Acknowledge your natural beauty - you are the oldest you have ever been and the youngest you will be in this moment. Experience your wealth - you have life. Invite a group of random friends to play tennis and drink Pimms. Ensure enough of them know you well enough to turn up in nightclub attire, and 6 inch heels. Have new racquets and balls on display but touch neither. Drink the Pimms and add champagne. Go out. Pretend you are a tennis club. Talk loudly and passionately about who has the best back hand. Stay out all night. Tell stories on the couch. Laugh hard, long and loud about who wears the biggest nana pants. When your husbands walk in from their fishing trip in the morning throw the lillies out of the vase and pretend you are drinking the water. Are you having any fun yet?
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If something doesn't feel right, look right, sound right, smell right or seem right - it probably isn't. Yet how often do we let ourselves or others convince us that we are manifesting drama, not seeing things clearly or that we are wrong? When I teach conflict resolution in workshops we talk about dealing with issues when you first experience discomfort. And why we often don't choose to act-i-on things right at that first point of niggle. I ask how often was that first feeling wrong when you look back at a scenario that blew up. Answer never. I have coached clients who have been at the extremes of the elements during military service and survived when others have taken their own lives. Their gut instincts kept them alive there yet in the boardroom they don't trust the gut feeling that someone may be manipulating a situation. I bet they are not wrong. I've had that quiet little voice that seems to rise up from somewhere deep inside of me tell me I'm being managed or led up a path that is not of my own making. Yet I've allowed others to talk over it, to tell me I have a problem or that I am the one who needs to toe the line. Only to realise every single time further down the track that the voice was spot on and that I was indeed correct not to waiver. That my instincts were on target, that I could have saved myself a lot of grief, self doubt and mayhem by belief in my self and my ability to judge what is going to serve me well. Our instincts are to keep us safe and to trigger the flight or fight skills primate in all of us. Some like smoke alarms are now hair triggered towards anxiety and we are over conditioned to dumbing down our feelings and responses. Perhaps you body has been screaming for so long for you to listen to it that now it reacts to every threat with caution. Because if you haven't listened in the past I better act up real quick to get you to listen now. If you start listening again to what your instincts are trying to tell you the relief is instant. The faith empowering and the self trust strengthening. Your soul calms down and you don't have to panic any more because you are now aware you will handle it, the universe doesn't bring you anything that you can't handle and we can take care of ourselves. It's the voices in our solar plexus that we need to be quiet enough to hear. For those who are busy telling themselves that they don't have any little voices to listen to it's exactly that voice that I'm talking about. The one that tells you gently that you or someone you are in connection with is acting out of integrity. That what they are saying thinking and doing are not lining up. Just go with it. Buy yourself some time and say thanks but no thanks, or not just now. Take the time to listen and to trust what you are feeling. What's the rush. Try it today. Tune into your instincts next time you have to make a decision. Don't weigh up the logic just go quiet allow yourself to tap into source and ask yourself yes or no? Stay or Go? Block or Flow? Go with that first answer calmly and gently one small step at a time. Let me know how it works for you. Put your gut out there to test the wind. NZ European?? Not me I'm a New Zealander!! 6th generation, my children are 7th. And every time I fill in a form it irks me. To not be able to acknowledge my country as my own is a bash to my ethics of enculturation. While there is no bad just different I feel unsettled and misplaced. And now at census time we Kiwis have an opprtunity to DO something about it. My ancestors came from Nova Scotia and Mauritius a long long long long long long long time ago - not much European about any of them. They milled Kauri in Whatipu and by the colour of my youngest kiwi chicks skin the cocoa plantation we lost due to no rates payments in Southern Africa just a few generations back has a lineage battle with which unknown iwi may have jumped the engineering whanau fence in Patea and Hawera / Taranaki. You can take the boy from the naki but not the naki from the boy and it shows clearly in my daughters heritage. Yet we still don't know how to fill in our forms.Every time the school sends home a survey I add a thesis. Ethnicity debates aside we are New Zealanders. From Gods Own, Middle Earth. We love our country with a passion. there is not a human who did not migrate here, by waka or ship, by aircraft or mothers womb. They honed out a life from the bush, have contributed as settlers, farmers, politicians,mothers and others. We have never left and we call it home. Our blood is in her soil. Tommorrow there is a chance for our country to embrace us all. New Zealanders. All of us. Not of only our treasured maori or those who are happy to own European decent. Tanga te whenua to me is people of the land but when, where and how does that start or finish? How many generations have to pass of children being created and born here? Of toil and endevour towards the good of our nation until we don't have to pretend we are from somewhere else? Go on I D.A.R.E. you - be brave enough to say where we are from. I owe this to my kids this is their home. A panicked, grieving mother, and her supporters moving heaven and earth to get her to daughter-in-law and young grand-daughter as quickly as possible has captured the bleeding hearts of NZ today. And Jet Star, death star to some... Qantas's poor relation has just created a PR night mare for themselves. Most of you will have heard the disgust by now - that a fare paying passenger scheduled to fly in a week or so was denied the transfer of her booking for an earlier seat on compassionate grounds - the aircraft was not full, she would however have to purchase another ticket at more than $300. This has really hit my customer Serve-US funny bone. The countless missed opportunities in this one, let alone the bad karma is mind boggling. The stories that are flowing on social media are filling my horror album with fodder for my next training workshops, they are facilitator gold. A customer being told that next time they don't have to book Jet star if they don't like their flight being delayed. I'd be careful what you ask for there guys. The opportunity cost here would be fascinating to calculate. How much future business did this airline just surrender? How much damage has it done in $ terms? It brings to the fore the issue that you really can't afford not to care what your customers are saying about you. The world of travel has certainly changed - but when did we sign up for cheaper ways to get from A to B to equate to heartless or arrogant? I know Jetstar were only following their policy. However by disempowering their agents with policy that stops them being able to lead with their hearts, and win over their customers, they have missed the point of volume travel. More customers not less is what the budget model thrives on. It costs nothing to be nice to people and it makes them want to be around you again. I am reminded of a story from my days at Countdown supermarkets as training manager. Our GM was running a little late for a flight - as he ran to the check in counter - no bags, a frequent traveler well known at the counter. The rude attendent not even looking up from her work snapped at him in a nasal tone. FLIGHT IS CLOSED! He paused tried a ...timid... but...... FLIGHT IS CLOSED! was the retort. Now I'm not arguing with the reality I'm debating the manner of the exchange. Compare this to when he side stepped to the next counter where he was greeted by a smiling welcome, a quick explanantion of his urgency the reply was - we have an aircraft about to depart, technically the flight is closed but let me call the airbridge and see if the door is still open sir. While she made the call he handed over his credit card. Multi tasking genius ensured and her only word to him with a smile was run.. sir, run! Which he did. But not until he turned to our employee who had taken him to the airport to say please tell my PA to change our travel contract to these guys. With that one action, of one person focused on how they could Serve-US at that moment a $2 million plus per annum travel contact changed check in desks. I'd suggest even if the outcome was that he had not been allowed on the flight he still would have viewed the exchange more favorably. So is the lesson be careful you never know who you are serving? I think not. The lesson is that the universe has given us all only one lesson to learn and that is the lesson of Serve-US. If you are not getting the lesson the universe just turns up the volume. Today every small frustration, late flight, rude retort, delay and baggage stuff up Jetstar has ever had is in the public arena. Zillions of moments of truth wiped with a snotty tissue. The first rule of the win win balance sheet is to work out what is cheap to give and valuable for the other person to recieve. The no brainer in allowing a passenger who already has a contract to fly with you to take a vacant seat on compassionate grounds is an example of this type of currency exchange. You have just created an opportunity to resell the seat she would have filled in the future for more money. And you have an aircraft using more of its capacity today. You have an opportunity to pay it forward. To share the love and treat her as someone deserving care and attention. Not just her but anyone who is need of compassion when one of lifes hurdles knocks you sideways. Ten minutes on hold to talk to a supervisor. Sit down now and time that. It's an age. Add grief, panic and then disenchantment, it's an insult. Not a great example of how they escalated the call. If what you put out returns to you threefold. Would it change the way you dealt with people? If everything was said to you for a reason would it change the way you heard criticisim? I'm hoping that the volume just got so loud for Jetstar/Qantas that they are able to see the value in this for what it is. A fantastic learning opportunity. Lets hope they take the feedback they are getting from their customers on board. Or there may be less of them climbing on board their planes. A complaining customer is your best friend they are telling you how to make your business better. To the lady who lost her beautiful boy to a shark attack - I trust she is feeling the love and support of the country that is flowing her way. Regardless of shark attack, heart attack or panic attack I hope we all learn that the world could do with a little more compassion towards each and every person in need. Take the time to listen to what people are telling you and see what is cheap for you to give and valuable for them to receive. Often it's as simple as a smile, time spent in true connection with them, the acknowledgement that you've listened and that you've understood how they feel. Pay it forward and Serve_Us the next person who gives you the opportunity. |
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