Week Twenty – #realmenrespectwomen

On week twenty of my blog I decided to get on my soapbox and talk about a topic everyone is hearing about! And I need your support!

#realmenrespectwoman

Over the last few weeks we have all heard in the news the horrifying and shocking news that in Nigeria a group of schoolgirls were kidnapped just because they are women and want to be educated! The rebel group snacked 200 schoolgirls and has been posting videos on how they are proud of what they’ve done, boosting about wanting to sell them and even started to negotiate the release of members of their group in exchange of these girls.

I have not yet used my blog to talk about either politics or religion and certainly not about the news, but what attracted me to write my blog this week on this subject was seeing that while this story was being backed in social media by people including celebrities using #tags such as #bringbackourgirls, in many countries people were celebrating mother’s day. In the past few weeks we have seen all over social media people posting pictures of their mothers with messages of celebration for those women who have given so much for us and in many cases scarified themselves for us. I myself lost my mother 13 years ago and I know how much I miss her even to this day. Interestingly, mother’s day is celebrated, more or less, around the same time all over the world. We have also recently celebrated international women’s day, and again in social media we saw an array of pictures and celebration showing our respect and admiration for women all around the world.

And women play an integral part of our lives. We all know that in general girls are more attached to their fathers and boys to their mums, either way, they are pinnacle to a man’s life! I know this to be true in my case, I was very closed to my mother, I know my son can’t live without his mum! And I know that my daughter has a special relationship with me, and one day she will to her own son. But Women have a special bond with their child (male or female) something I believe men are incapable of feeling or understanding. Don’t get me wrong, I think we can love our children as much as women, but the fact that we all grow inside the womb of our mothers is something that nothing can ever replace or substitute. In a way we are part of them, their body, soul and spirit. For 9 months of our lives we feed through them, we hear through them, we sense and feel through them. Experts on the subject would go as far as to say that your character and personality is form by they way you grow in your mother’s womb, if they have a great pregnancy or not, if they play music to you, or talk to you, or even what they eat and how they look after themselves.  There is no other way to look at it; we are part of them.

So I reflected on my bond with my mother, and the bond that exist between my son and my wife. I often remind my children, like I was reminded as a child, that a mother is the most secret person in this world and as such they need to respect her. I also remind them of the selfless acts mothers often do for us, of the unselfishness of their actions and just simply of the enormous sacrifice they made to give us life, to bring us, happy and healthy, into this world. Us men do very little during the pregnancy period, so crucial to the life of every new born human being, the pain and love a mother puts into the birth of a child, is something we could never do. What does this tell you? We owe our lives to women, who through the existence of mankind have given life to all men on earth. We are here because of them.

I entitled my blog this week #realmanrespectwomen, and I use the #tag symbol like others to make a point, not just because those Nigerian man who kidnapped the schoolgirls, but because all men who do not respect women around the world! As I sat in front of the TV looking at this Nigerian man, talk, smiling about selling these women, I happen to have my Facebook page open and I saw a picture of my mother posted by my sister with the caption “I still miss you mum, after all these years”; I lifted my eyes and looked at the man on the screen and I thought “does he not realized that he is only on this earth because a woman, just like the ones he has kidnapped, terrorized and maltreated, brought him into this world? Does he not know that one of those girls could have been his mother and if something had happened to her he would not be breathing today?” and I suddenly felt such anger at someone who’s ignorance is so big that his actions are actually contradicting the natural course of life, someone who, somehow, somewhere, twisted his mentality and turn against the most secret person in this world, a woman, who without her he would not be in this world.

I did said that this blog was not just about the men in Nigeria, but any man who thinks that women are inferior and do not deserve a place in this world. This blog is to make a point that, whilst by coincidence, we had two very different stories running on in social media in the last few weeks; one telling us how some people believe women are inferior to man and treat them like dirt, and an other people celebrate women for giving us life.

I want to send a message to anyone reading this blog that #realmanrespectwomen not because we have been told by society to do so, but because I do believe that, putting aside differences between man and woman, we are only in this world because of our mothers, a female, a woman, who dedicated herself to the beautiful act of giving birth, one of the most selfless acts anyone can do on this earth.

I do hope that the schoolgirls will be released soon, unharmed, and I do also hope that one day all men, no matter where you come from, will understand that they are only on this earth because of a woman brought us into the world.

Join me in #realmenrespectwomen

Week nineteen – RAK!

RAK or Random Act of Kindness is something you don’t often hear and when you do it shocks you!

How often do we stop in the middle of the street and offer assistants to a total stranger? How often do we take a moment of our busy lives to help someone in need? And how often do you hear stories involving someone helping another person they don’t know out of the goodness of their hearts? Yea, I know, not very often, and when you do it shocks you, but then it gives you a great feeling that there are still some good people out there.

This week my wife had one of those RAK moments when she found herself locked out of the car at the supermarket on a busy Saturday morning and this story inspire me to talk about this subject.

She has a very busy and hectic life and often, as I travel all week, she has to manage the house, kids and her job all by herself. On this particular Saturday morning I was away and she had gone to buy food for the kids and me (I was arriving later that morning) before going to work. Up on returning to the car she realised she had left the boot of the car open and was relived to see the car was still there! She placed the shopping in the boot together with her handbag and she closed it. She never places her phone or keys on her bag but this morning, for some reason, she had and when she went to get in the car she realised she had locked not only her keys but also the phone inside and now she was stuck in the middle of the car park! She only had half an hour to get back home and drop the shopping before going to work and she panicked (who wouldn’t)! No keys, no phone, no money, how was she going to get back home and in time for work? The expression on her face must have been so grave that a total stranger who was just parking her car asked her if everything was ok. As my wife explained her ordeal the lady, unexpectedly, offer to drive her home to pick up the spare key. My wife could not believe what she was hearing and at first, she thought she was just driving her home. When they got there, to her surprise, she also offered to wait for her and drive her back to the car! It is not very often you hear this kind of stories and the fact that someone was willing to help someone taking time of their busy life.

I think what is even more extraordinary about this story is that the person who helped my wife did this completely out of the goodness of their heart and wanted nothing in return but to hep a fellow human being in distress. In the panic and confusion of the event, my wife did not ask the lady where she lived or even what her name was and she did not share this with her either. Here you have what we would call an unsound hero, someone who was interested only in helping. She does know the lady works on Sundays in a shop so my wife plans to visit her and show her gratitude for what she did.

It is a nice story and one that gives you hope, hope that there are still some people out there who are willing to help someone else and they do it because they know how important it is when you are in need that someone is there to help. But this is very rare and I know that even myself sometimes turn a blind eye to what is happening around us, as we struggle with a society that has become very selfish and afraid to help one another in times of need. When I reflect on this story I asked myself, what if it had been a man that try to help my wife? Would she have got on the car with him? Would that have been safe? How would she have known the man had good intentions? You see, the moment you chance the facts, this feel-good story changes, you beg the question, would the person offering to help really wanted to help or had other intentions? This brings a different perspective and tells us why often we don’t help people or accept help from strangers. Think about it; what would you do if you see a lost child in the street? Of course you want to help but you stop and think, what will happen if I do? What would people think if I hold this kid’s hand to comfort him/her while I try to find out where they live? What if I walk away with the child and the mother comes and sees this? And, and, and… This is what society has done to RAK, we have become suspicious of everyone around us because even when someone does want to help, you ask the question should I trust this person; remember, you don’t know anything about them. We also don’t want to help people because we don’t know if they really need help or have bad intentions. As you drive along a quite country lane you see a person standing by the side of the road, their car has broken down and they are flagging you down for help. Do you stop? Most of us think twice before we do. What if the person has bad intent and they could kidnap you or even knock you out and take you into the fields? What if you stop and they rob you? Take your car? What if there are others hiding behind the bushes? What if? And so you drive on leaving the person behind. They could also, of course, be genuinely stuck and in need of help but the risks, for you, are far higher and leave the person behind.

If you play this out you can see that random acts of kindness have become so rare because we have made them rare. That lady that helped my wife didn’t have to drive her home and wait, she could have just walked away, it wasn’t as if my wife was stuck in the middle of the forest, the lady could have thought “she can call a cab and go and get her spare key” but I guess it was not in her nature, as she still believes that we can help one another, without predigest, without worry that this may back fire on her. Sadly we are guilty of this mistrust and uncertainty that has driven our society to focused more on the bad than the good, Random Acts of Kindness are no longer part of our lives, like they used to when people could “thumb” their way up to London, or we help a child cross the road holding their hand, or stop and help someone when their car broke down. If we did we would be a much better society where people help one another out of the goodness of their heart!

Week eighteen – I do!

Some of us have said these two words more than we care to admit, but whether you said it once, twice or more, did you really mean it?

Going home at 4 am and writing my blog! 

Commitment is something many of us are afraid of and often we don’t understand the implications of what it means to say “I do”. These two famous words have been immortalised by the secrete vow of marriage and they symbolise our commitment to a lifetime relationship with someone. And many of us have discoverer that just saying “I do” does not mean we actually do! This week I have come to realise that like marriage, in every aspect of our lives we say “I do” but are we really committed to what we say “I do”?

Taking a rather cynical view of this I started to analyse what is commitment and how does it manifest in our every day life. As person who has been married twice I knew that in the past I have not always taking commitment seriously enough. So in my quest to find out if this is something we just say because we have to or society pushes us to commit to things we don’t really want to do or believe in. This year I will be celebrating 23 years service with my company, and when I start to analyse where I came from and where I am now I know that I am committed, otherwise there is no way anyone could stay around for so long. But I am only 47 years old and if I start to do the maths, it means that by the time I retire I would have done 42 years service! That is commitment!

And can commitment be also translated as loyalty? I believe that loyalty comes after commitment and only then you can become loyal; you need to know you want to stay to give your self completely. In the hotel industry we find ourselves battling every day with recruitment and loyalty and our biggest expense is replacing valuable employees who readily leave to our competitors. We spend all resources we have to attract them, orientate them, and it is a never-ending road when you think you have closed all your vacancies and someone tells you they are sorry to leave you but they are going to the competition for more money and better career prospects. Many see this as a lost battle, specially when people leave our industry; “we could never compete with those guys, they pay too much” I have often heard people say. But like marriage, I think we are going about this the wrong way.

If I go back to the beginning of the blog, we said commitment is something we take lightly. But most of the time, at least in marriage, we are with someone because we liked him or her. And we engage in the secrete vow of marriage because somehow we are prepared to “commit” to this lifetime relationship. So where does it go wrong then? Simply, once you are in that relationship you need to see what benefits are in it for you – in other words you need to become loyal to that relationship because you see a future of mutual respect and care. So the key here is to invest on that relationship and to foster a sense of commitment we need to have to make it work. It takes time, no one becomes loyal the first day, but we are committed from the start. And that is the answer, if you know you will enjoy a fruitful relationship, you will do anything to make it work, you will commit yourself to ensure it happens and in the end have that loyalty we so much yearn to have.

In the hospitality industry, if we focus on fostering that commitment and create loyalty, you wouldn’t need to spend all that money on attacking people to you business. And don’t get me wrong, change is good, some time you need people to leave your business in order to get new blood in, but there is no need to replace your entire workforce ever year because they found somewhere better.

I’m very lucky that many people I know are committed and also have become loyal. I see this every day, and it is very clear that these individuals feel that it is a two-way thing. I also see those who believe they are committed but are not. Putting in the hours, for example, is not commitment; it is simply not knowing how to organise yourself! And then there is those with no loyalty which time and time again I see, those who truly believe that the grass is always greener on the other side.

And is commitment and loyalty a thing of the past? This question is even more prominent as we see the new Gen Y coming through and demanding new ways of doing things. If you are Gen X, you would have observed an interesting phenomenon; our parents where the generation that worked all their lives for one company, and stay with one person (or at least they tried) Their commitment and loyalty was something you didn’t question, it was part of life life. Then we came along, and we started to change things, it became a two-way thing. “I will commit and be loyal if I know what’s in it for me” we started to ask what do I get out of this? This new generation started to see than one job in your lifetime was not enough (some actually had too many and we question their commitment and loyalty) and in many case also more than one partner in their lives. And now we have the latest generation, where people don’t want to commit; where loyalty is more than give and take, it’s a trend; it’s a fashion and a brand you follow. But when that trend goes out of “trend”, they move on.

Perhaps the idea that commitment is something hard has always been there, from our parent’s time, but as new generations have come we have become savvier when it comes to saying “I do” and we are only ready to commit when we know it is the right thing to do.

Are you committed to what you do, from your job to helping around the house? It is an interesting concept when you think about it; commitment takes a lot of effort, I know it, as I sit in an airport in Kazakhstan at 3 am writing this blog, it is a commitment I made to myself and all of your who read this blog every week. Thank you for your commitment!

Week Seventeen – Tempting Fate!

No matter how hard you try, there is never a good moment for things to happen and they will happen against all odds!

 Many years ago, when I was still young (notice how I am saying here I am still young!) I bit into a hard piece of bread and one of my tooth chipped. This happens to many of us and you just simply go to the dentist, he looks at it and fixes it. It was December in this particular occasion and I managed to get an appointment just before Christmas! How lucky I hear you say… indeed. However, what was to come became the worst nightmare of my life!

Dentists like to fiddle with our teeth, and often they want to fix other things you don’t need fixing (they sound like mechanics who always want to fix what is not wrong with your car) My dentist worked on my chipped tooth and, yes, he tampered with the others while I sat in the chair hoping the pain would go away! On the 22^nd December I left the surgery feeling better having had a filling and some other stuff done to my mouth. By the way, the dentist was going on a three-week vacation to Australia the next day. 23^rd of December I was feeling good, 24^th of December I was still feeling good and yes, you already guessed, 25^th of December I woke up with possibly the worst toothache I have ever experienced in my life! 25^th of December when no one, and I mean no one works! Against all odds, I was faced with the most excruciating pain ever know to mankind and no one to help me! It took 2 days before I could see an emergency dentist who then proceeded to charge me the largest amount of money, which was more painful that the toothache I had!

This sort of thing always happens when it shouldn’t! And this week was no exception!

Good Friday, I woke up to a broken boiler! Good Friday! A 4-day long weekend ahead of us! Why does it always happen when no one works? Have you ever asked yourself that question? Has it ever happen to you? I am sure everyone, at some point or another, have face this situation, it is just they way life it, and you can’t avoid it.

What is interesting is why does it always happen when you least want it? And do we “tempt fate” as they say? My boiler broke down when my family was away in Spain and on the Thursday night as we Skyped before their arrival on Saturday morning my son said to me “Dad, please make sure the heating is on when we get in, it will be nice to have a warm house when we arrive” Every time we come back form vacation the house is so cold, but this time, as I was there, I could make sure it was warm before they arrived; but alas, it was not meant to be! Was this coincidence that he made a comment or was he “tempting fate”? Was our boiler barking down in such a long weekend just luck or it was meant to be? Why this specific day? I was at home for four days before the weekend, why didn’t it break then when I could get it fixed? Is this a strange phenomenon or really just bad luck? I do remember thinking back when I had my tooth saga “should I wait to get my tooth fixed after Christmas?” somehow I knew there will be days ahead when things may be more difficult if you have complications. Was I “tempting fate” or “jinksing it” as they call it?

This go me thinking and I looked at other events similar to this to see if what I was observing was just coincidence or there was something bigger that drove this.

One of the most memorable experiences that jumped in my mind was a few years ago when I started travelling and I had booked a coach to get to the airport, which was very tight in terms to time. My flight was very early and it was a choice between arriving an hour before my flight (which is just about enough if you only have hand luggage) or leave 5 hours before and wait at the airport in the hard cold plastic chairs. So I went for the one-hour option. As I waited at the station I kept on thinking, “it’ll be alright, I have plenty to time” and as the coach arrive I saw it was a brand new vehicle, making me think “oh good, it’s a new coach, at least it won’t break down!” What I am about to tell you is nothing but the truth. We set off to the airport and after about an hour, just halfway there, the coach began to jerk. Within a minute the driver pulled and the engine stopped. And I promise you as I stand here before you, the brand new 54 seater coach had broken down! I could not believe it! Was this really happening? I didn’t make my flight and I often think did I “jinks” it or was it just pure coincidence?

I’m a great believer that everything happens for a reason. Nothing is by chance and that things are meant to happen. Ever since that day I have never booked a ticket where I only have an hour to get to my flight, as a frequent traveller is not a risk I can afford to take and so perhaps that day was meant to happen to show me that I cannot take the risk as there is always a chance that the coach will break down.

Think of times when this has happened to you, was it coincidence or was fate telling you something? Is fate what determines what happens in our lives and thus when you tempt it, it back-fires? If my son hadn’t said “make sure the house is nice a warm” the boiler wouldn’t have broken down? If I hadn’t said “at least the coach won’t break down” I would have not missed my flight? I guess this is one of the many mysteries of life that we human being we will never know, but for sure, I know that every time I don’t want something to happen, I try not to tempt fate and think of something else!

Week Sixteen – too tech or not too tech!

That is the question! Have we become too dependent on technology that when it’s gone we are crippled?

As an advocate of technology and an absolute fan of innovative products like Apple, I am probably the last person to question whether we have become too dependant on our gadgets to survive, but this week I faced several challenges that made me question if too much technology is making our lives a misery rather than a joy.

As a kid I grew up in an era in which we were just starting to get the taste of what it’s like to have amazing gadgets that are supposed to make our lives easier. I still remember getting all exited about getting my first “calculator” watch (remember one of those?) And this is how basic but amazing it was in those days, when as a young man you would get exited to be given a calculator! Of course this was on a watch, which made it all the more attractive but nonetheless a calculator!. And when you compare it to what is happening today, it is really no different, with the exception that things have got much sexier when it comes to these devices. Samsung produced last year a watch they named “gear” which was launched with their rather large phone/tablet and it is meant to be an extension of your stuff in the device. Apple is rumored to be coming up with something similar, the “I-watch”, which again will serve the purpose of accessing something you already have in your I-phone. So when you compare the soon to come out “I-watch” (which no doubt I will acquire!) with my calculator watch, not much has changed on how we love to surround ourselves with these “useless” gadgets.

But the question here remains “too tech or not too tech” and we have to understand if we really need all this stuff to get by in life. I am personally in two minds about this, especially after this week.

Why am I in two minds? I do believe that some of the technologies that exist have made our lives immensely better, as I learned recently when I was in hospital with my little relapse in health. Although doctors will never be able to fully diagnose what may be wrong with someone (at least not at present) with all these new machines, the equipment they have today to analyze and look for things is amazing. During my two days with chronicle chest pains I was put through several tests and equipment that really left me amazed at what we have come up to look for things. From the traditional ultrasound to the newest CT scan tunnel where they are able to see every vain in your body by injecting you with a liquid and putting your though what seemed Homer Simpson’s giant white doughnut! After all the tests they were able to tell me everything I didn’t have but to this day they still cannot tell me what I had. This is where I think we are still a long way to go with technology.

On the other hand this week really showed me that in some aspects the reliance on technology has become a hindrance and the old traditional methods work best. Let me share with you a couple of examples:

During my vacation I hired a car to get around in Spain. I am sure many of you, like me, have become almost dependent on the satellite navigation system to get you form A to B and without it, we get lost. They are pretty reliable as far as gadgets are concerned and most of the time “TomTom” knows best (even though we still believe we are superior to our machines and we question the route our imaginary SatNav friend has suggested) but they get us there. However, some times they don’t work! And when they don’t, all of the sudden we are not sure what to do, we become paralyzed and panic thinking “how am I going to get there!” This was the case as I was on my way back to the airport and my trusty navigation system failed. Now, as a techno savvy person, I do relay on other gadgets in case one fails and I took out my phone where I also have a SatNav application and the day was saved! Or so I thought… I soon discovered that I needed Internet to get it working! Do you know how expensive it is to data roaming? So my choices were, pay up or get lost! As I was working through all of this in my head, I also thought “how did we do it in the “olden” days?” and the answer was simple, we read the signs on the road and follow them and I am sure no one got as lost as I was because I am not accustomed anymore to use my instinct, reading skills and think how to get to my destination!

I also needed to print some reports this week for work which are done though a third party website. These reports are a personality questionnaire that people fill in on line and we use them as part of their development. In “the olden days” we had a form they filled in and then score, giving them the same results you get today on the computer generated report. The website was down, I could not print the reports and I panicked as I didn’t know what I could do without them. I was crippled because I did not have these reports and I through “if only I was doing it on paper…”

And like these, there are plenty of other examples where, when technology is not there, we freeze not knowing what to do. Think about it… electricity gets cut off, our systems are down and we cannot use the computer, we sit there, not knowing what to do, we relay too much on our laptops to get our work done! Or your e-mail is down, we can’t reach someone, Facebook doesn’t work, you can’t text someone, the X-box is broken and so on, all everyday gadgets that almost dominate our lives and we are useless without them.

Are machines taking over the world? Is the prophecy of the film “The Terminator” coming true? Or we will continue to be in control of our lives managing technology? I think the answer to this we will never know, or at least not in our lifetime and perhaps our children or grand children will become so dependable on technology that the question will no longer be asked. Perhaps then they will never know what life is without gadgets.

Week Fifteen – life/work balance

Actually the expression is work/life balance as we often hear this at work, and we do spend 80% of our lives working!

 

Holiday Selfi with my Family!

This week I am writing my blog from the beautiful town of Aguilar de Campoo, in Spain, where I am spending a week’s vacation with my family. And even though I am on holidays I still need to write my blog, because in my quest to write a weekly blog, I guess I don’t get vacation time for this! And it is appropriate that this blog is dedicated to understanding what many of us have come to know as the “work/life balance” struggle or as I called it the “life/work balance” because what we need to balance first is our lives and not work!

I also call this time away from work my “workation” as I don’t really leave work and focus only on my vacation. Many people often criticise me for this. They say “you should switch off, and enjoy your time away” but this unfortunately does not work for everyone. My work requires me to be available as much as I can. This means that I have to be in touch with work to keep an eye of what is happening in my area. I do not have a job that finishes the moment I walk out of the office (I don’t really have an office job) and it follows me everywhere I go. That is my day-to-day work and it is a fact that comes with the job. I love my work, as you already know, and I am happy to be available for my teams and for people to reach me when they need me. My work is also part of an industry that doesn’t close. In hospitality we’re open 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week 365 days per year and there are no “closed for business” days; so naturally anyone in this industry has to be available most of the time. There are some jobs that do not require you to be available all the time, but there are some that do and mine is one of them. So when I go away on holidays, I do have to keep in touch with work in order to stay on top of things before I get back to work “officially”. There is an official day when I declare to be away on holidays and a day when I am back; every other day in between is my “workation”

But the key issue to understand here is not that I am a workaholic, on the contrary, the reason I stay in touch with work while away is that I want to have that “life/work balance” all the time. Let me explain:

I once heard someone say that you can measure the success of your vacation by the number of e-mails you have when you get back; meaning that the more e-mails you have when you get back the better your holiday was. You did not access your e-mail as much or at all during your time away. However, in my case, if I did not access my e-mails while away when I get back, I am going to have so much work that I will probably end up stressed out and with a massive back-log of work that will take me a long time to clear, creating more stress, working longer hours and ending up having to spend more time at work than at home thereafter. In other words, my life/work balance will be out of whack. That is why I prefer to dedicate one or two “dead” hours during my break to read through e-mails, answer urgent enquires, deal with issues, complete easy tasks and by the time I “officially” get back, it is as if I had never left! Giving me the chance to continue with my well structures life/work balance. During my vacation I always find a couple of hours I can dedicate to work, when the family are still asleep, when they have other activities that do not require me to be present; there is always what I call a “dead” moment I can just open my laptop and work. Once this is done, the rest of the time is theirs, and mine to enjoy and unwind. I can then focus on giving them quality time, time we usually don’t have during our very busy lives. So I feel I am creating a balance, a life/work balance that allows me to enjoy my family during the break, keep in contact with the office and avoid having an excessive amount of work when I am back.

People often say to me “how can you have time to do everything you do?” In my life I travel, I work, I spend time with my family, I work around the house and I write, and all that without being stressed. And the answer is that I create a balance that gives me the best of all worlds. Remember that quantity is not the same as quality, and sometimes people think they are have quality time when all they are doing is spending time with people, while doing other things. If you create a balance, like I try to do, you have to fully focus on every activity you have chosen to do in your time. Work is work, and you give it your 110% every minute you have to spend doing it, family is family and the time you spend with them has to be quality time not quantity time, doing the thing you all enjoy; it is not about the frequency, but the quality of each of those moments. Then you have what I call “me time” which needs to exist. You need to have time for yourself where you give time to your hobbies or passions. And lets not forget our social time; it is essential to stay in touch with people and nowadays this can be done through social networks like Facebook. All of these areas are equally important, and each of them supports the others to create that life balance; neither work, family, social or me time are more important than the other, on the contrary, each deserves its time and attention in your life. Some times you have to interrupt one to pay attention to the other, but if they are perfectly in balance and harmony, that interruption would never be seen as a disruption, but a moment to pause what you are doing to bring that balance in your life.

Don’t be discourage if you have to answer a call during your vacation, some time you will have to walk out of a meeting to go and deal with a family emergency, or stop writing that blog to go and have a drink with your friends… which is what I am going to do now to ensure I have that “life/work balance” and review this first draft tomorrow before I publish it! Enjoy your life/work balance and live up to the max!

Week Fourteen – the fear factor!

“What is the worst thing that can happen?” this is the question we should ask ourselves when we are facing our fears.

THE FEAR FACTOR!!!

One of the most effective techniques of a sales person is to have the ability to approach a customer and sell them anything. This is what highly skilled sale people do, they approach the customer and they won’t let go until he or she walks out of the shop with something. If you have worked in a customer service environment you will know how difficult it is to deal with people, especially difficult customers. And often, inexperienced employees find it hard to approach someone and say, “would you like another drink sir?” In the hotel industry we train employees to up sell, this is how restaurants and hotels can make money and driven their profits. Every customer is an opportunity to up sell. And believe it or not, every times you have been up sold something you didn’t know it, you put it down to excellent customer service, attentive staff that really cared and looked after you! I am not saying they didn’t care but think about it, somewhere along the line you were up sold something.

Let me give you an example; you walk into a shop looking for a new outfit for your party and the assistant is very attentive. She pays you endless complements and everything you try she is advising you and guiding you, its almost as if you have your personal shopper with you. After trying several outfits, you chose the top and trousers and the shop assistant tells you “but guess what? That bag you see there would go amazing with the outfit!” You hang it on your shoulder and you look a million dollars! The cost may be slightly more than you wanted to spend, but the shop assistant says, “it looks amazing!” You walk out of the shop and tell your friends about the excellent customer service you’ve just had in that shop, not the fact that you were just up sold a handbag you didn’t need!

That shop assistant was not frightened to try and up sell what she could. And like her, other sales people who push insurance policies, mobile phones, an expensive bottle of wine or double-glazing, they are all trained to understand that the worst thing that can happen is that the customer says no. That’s it, nothing else, they are not going to get upset and accuse you of abuse or mistreatment, they are not going to report you to the manager or to the policy, in fact they may even complement you for your great attentive service after they say no. And a good sales technique is to turn the sale into good service and not just cash on the till.

This week I had the opportunity to take this idea out of a customer service environment and apply it to every day life, which prompted me to dedicate this week’s blog to such a simple premise that can help us achieve things that otherwise we may not do because of fear, fear of failure, embarrassment or ability in things we do. Believe me I have met people who have not done something and miss out through fear of failure, when the worst thing that could have happened was not all that bad.

As you know by now, my son wants to be a basketball player and we found a club in our area that he can practice with. This week was his second week playing and he was looking forward to going again. Whilst in the car I notice he was worried, nervous and he looked anxious, so I asked him what was wrong. At first he didn’t say much but eventually he opened up and confessed he was nervous. I asked him of what? What worried him as he had been there the previous week and knew what the practice was all about? He mentioned was worried about not being good enough to play with the other kids and that he may get it wrong or he may not be able to fit in. I think we all know what he was talking about; we’ve all been there, it is a hard as a kid trying to fit in, and at this point I wasn’t sure how to answer.

I began to throw at him a few words of encouragement, as you would, and he was not having any of it. I then looked at him and said “look go in, do your best and see how it goes, I mean, what’s the worst thing that can happen?” Silence. He looked at me and said, “they may laugh at me?” Ah! Fair point, I though, I needed to turn this around so I said “and if the laugh at you, what’s the worst thing that can happen?” he thought about this for a moment and then said, “I don’t know” Bingo! I knew at this point where to go with this, so I said to him “the worst thing that can happen is you don’t come back next week, right? Not ideal but not the end of the world, we will find another basketball club” he agreed and talked about the fact that if he didn’t fit in with this team we could find another, practice with someone else, but the worst thing that could happen was actually not as bad as he thought; he fear was gone. He went in, I guess with this in mind, and did a great practice session, enjoying being part of the team.

You can apply this to all aspects of life. Of course, not always “the worst thing that can happen” may be that simple, but in general it can help you overcome your fears. Often people will not ask someone out on a date because of fear of being rejected, but hey, the worst thing that can happen is that they say no (try not to embarrassed yourself by asking in front of a crowed!) and you move on (albeit with a broken heart!) but if you don’t ask, you never know if that person may also be attracted to you and you could miss out on your soul mate! Ask your boss for a pay rise, worst thing that can happen? They say no. Jump out of an airplane, worst thing that can happen? You die! (Only kidding) As I said, you can apply this to most things in life, of course like any other theory, if you stretch it too far it breaks, so yes, if you bungee jump the worst thing that can happen is that the rope brakes and you can die, so here you also have to apply the principles of probabilities which takes the conversation to a different dimension!

I called this blog “the fear factor” because believe it or not, I have audition for the X-Factor! And I only did it because I always wanted to do it and I thought, “I’m going to enter my name, what is the worst thing that can happen? That they say no” and at least I can now say I’ve done it and will not be on my list of things I regret not doing! My point is that often we don’t do something for fear, which will result in us regretting it for the rest of our lives, but by understanding what is the worst thing that can happen, we can accomplish so much more fulfilling our lives with rich and unique experiences and you never know, you may be the next winner of the X-Factor!