Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

What Influence Could Push You to the Magic that Is Missing?

Filed Under Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 14 Comments

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It’s old news and I think we all know …

If we’re not adding value, we’re taking it away.

So we’re busy adding value, doing great things, working, building, being productive. We want to get on with what we know how to do well. We do something that adds to the big thing and it gets bigger and better.

Somewhere near every one of us is someone who thinks differently. He or she is smart as we are, but has different experience or a different view of how things work. He wants to add his own extra value. She has reasons to care and contribute. He might not know the process, the culture, or the traditions. One’s a coworker. One’s a customer. One’s a big brand client.

Most come with a job. We have to include them.

The temptation often is to move forward. Try to ignore them or keep them from the core of things. Add our value and show them when we’re done. That makes it hard for even the most collaborative and curious to find the right way to join in.

But what if we invite them? What if we ask these different thinkers to sit beside us, to invest in our quest and be part of the process?

They’ll bring ideas, thoughts, and opinions. They’ll influence what we’re doing. They will challenge our assumptions. People who think differently make us uncomfortable … and that can make communication and progress seem a lot slower.

The more different we find someone’s experience and thinking, the more we should consider his or her questions and reasoning. It’s the best safety net and idea test in the population. We love and understand our own thinking. Agree with the guy who thinks unlike us and we’ve got something hot cooking.

That difference — in their experience, how they see things, and how they do things — is added value we might be overlooking. That influence could the the one thing that pushes us to add the magic that was missing.

When do you invite a different influence to be part of what you’re doing?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Beach Notes: Sandimal 2 - Elma the Elephant

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 5 Comments

by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

In this second of our “Sandimal” posts from the beach, we feature the obviously intelligent Elma the Elephant, who is clearly using her time on the beach to do a lot of remembering as well as sunbaking.

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Elma prompted us to think about how a lot of people at this time of the year seem a bit fixated on bad things that happened last year and using that as some kind of motivation to expect good things this year. We prefer the old NLP technique of focusing on good experiences and successes we have had, whether yesterday, last year or many years ago and using that to put ourselves in a state of high expectation of achieving outstandingly positive results and multiple successes in the year ahead.

Happy remembering!.

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

Three Steps to Powerful Personal New Year Resolutions

Filed Under Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 11 Comments

Products, Promises, and Irresistible Payoffs

Ah, New Year’s Day Resolutions. Millions of us are making promises to be better people. Some will try to become a different human being. Some will make their radical resolution the center of every conversation. Some will think they deserve a medal for trying. Some won’t think of any reason to bother. Some folks will resolve to buy a new car.

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Some won’t get past the thinking.
Almost all of us will falter.

To make a powerful, personal resolution, we can’t be the only ones at center of the payoff.

A powerful resolution serves other people.

A great resolution is like a great product — it makes a promise — and it keeps it. Like a product, it’s not all about the folks who made it. A great resolution builds confidence and influence, because it helps us grow, connects us, and pays off in irresistible and unexpected benefits.

Three Steps to Build Powerful Personal New Year Resolutions

Use these steps to find your own powerful personal New Year’s Resolutions. Pick just one or two, if you want to boost your confidence and influence. Do all three of them if you want to irresistible.

  1. What do you do or offer that the important people in your life would love to see more of?

    Do more of that.

  2. What do you do or offer that the important people in your life would love to see go away?

    Oh, just stop.

  3. What do you know you might do or offer the important people in your life that surprise, thrill, and delight them?

    Why didn’t you think of doing that sooner?

A resolution is a goal wrapped up as a promise. When we keep our promises, we see ourselves as authentic, confident, competent, and trustworthy. To other people see it too and it becomes influence and authority. When our kept promises reach out to and benefit other people, it’s attractive, influential, and can be downright irresistible.

Of course, we’ve got make and keep a powerful promise.

How do your plans to grow this year have other people in them?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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What If the Social Web Froze Over and No One Came?

Filed Under Business Life, Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog, Trends, Writing | 8 Comments

cooltext443860173_ive-been-thinking about communities and harbors online and off.

I like watching the harbor out our window change. A recent snowfall covered it. The foggy diffused sunlight softens it, and tricks my eyes into thinking the whole world has gone black and white. A faint shimmer on the icy snow calls back to last spring when sailors filled it with life.

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I suppose few sailors who keep their boats in the harbor ever have a chance to see the harbor this quiet way. I wonder how it might change their experience next spring if they were looking at the lonely, frozen-over beauty I see out my window today.

The harbor is a community. I watch it as the boats come to take their places each season. I see the people with so much and so little in common take their places and have conversations. I see other people sail and watch without saying much of anything.

Can’t help but wonder what a sailor or two might do if when they returned next spring to find the harbor somehow was forever frozen over and empty.

Then this morning I read this morning that Yahoo! Will Kill MyBlogLog Next Month.

What if the social web froze over and no one came? Would you read and blog anyway? Would you just visit your harbors offline?

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Thoughtful Wish, Feelingful Gift, Words Are Powerful Things

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 19 Comments

Every Christmas my mom would bake the most wonderful cookies and fudge for weeks. Starting in October, she spent hours wrapping a roomful of the most beautiful gifts — some for kids I hardly knew. She hand wrote and addressed hundreds of personal Christmas cards. And it took her nearly a week to decorate the most sparkling, beautifully lighted tree.

Christmas was my mother’s holiday. She delighted in giving Christmas to everyone in so many ways. For days before and after, people dropped by to be part of the way she made the holiday about sharing. For those who couldn’t come to our house, she made deliveries.

Every cookie, every bow, every card, every tinsel on the tree was a thoughtful and feelingful gift for us all.

Today, I sit with my hands on these keys and realize what I can offer has to be wrapped up in words. So I offer these words to you.

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May your life be sweet. Here’s a wish that every cookie or sugary treat will remind you of the sweetness in you that I see. Here’s a hope that you bring it out. Share it. Carry it on your sleeve.

May your time be beautiful. Here’s a wish that every gift you receive will remind you of a beautiful moment that you value. Here’s a hope that you capture that memory. Picture it. Write it. Tell it to someone who would know what it means.

May your relationships sparkle with joy. Here’s a wish that every star will remind you of someone who has been a light in your life. Here’s hope that you fill your heart, your mind, and your future with constellations of people who shine.

May you always know my gratitude. Here’s a wish that I can tell you that in person soon.

That’s my thoughtful wish and feelingful gift in words to you.
Only words, but then again, my mom would say, “Words are powerful things.”

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

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