Successful Blog

Change the World: A Small Generous Act that I Didn’t Expect

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Thank You Is a Better Response

Change the World!

It was coffee at Starbucks with friend that I don’t get to see often enough. How cool is that? I was adding milk to my coffee, pretending it was real cream. She reached over to get me a napkin and a stirrer. For a split second, I stiffened. I wanted to say, “i can do that!”

Then I caught myself. At least, I think I did.

This was a friend who was doing a kind thing for me. She wasn’t trying to make me feel “less.” She was showing I was “more” to her. I hope I said, “Thank you.”

“Thank you” is a better response than “I can do that!”

I almost ran over her small generous act by not seeing it, by being tied up in my independence and my history with two big brothers. That would have taken something from both of us.

That “I can do that!” feeling is easy to watch for. It usually comes in response to a small, generous act that I didn’t expect.

Be on the look out for the small, generous acts of others. People are doing them all around us every day.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

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If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

The Mic Is On: Are We Stat Crazy or Analytical?

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

The Mic Is On

Here’s how it works.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME
The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

Do You Get the Big Picture?

We might also talk about

  • Who does our counting for us?
  • our weird behaviors
  • how we figure them out
  • Whatever else comes up

including THE EVER POPULAR,
Basil the code-writing donkey.

Graph

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Open Mic 7pm Chgo Time: We’re Crazy about Stats!

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Yes the Mic Will Be on Tonight

Join Us Tonight for Tues. Open Comments

The Topic is: Stats, Metrics, Analytics

We might talk about who does our counting for us, our weird behaviors, how we figure them out, and whatever else comes up.

The rules are simple — be nice.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Nice, Intelligent, and Strategic

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A Saloonkeeper’s Daughter

2007

I read over My Blogging Goal, in the sidebar. I think about how I’m doing and I have to say that I’m only half-way there. If my dad is the model for this saloonkeeper’s daughter, I might look like him in some ways, but there was more to him than met the eye.

Everyone says I’m the “nice one,” the “friendly one,” the “community builder.” That’s so cool, and I’m grateful for that. But, my dad liked it that I was smart. That’s what this blogging goal story is about.

My Blogging Goal: Part 2

My dad worked every day at the saloon. People asked him if he ever slept. He was there when they looked for him. He was family to them and so I was too.

That meant for my Christening, he rented a farm and hired a band. The entire saloon was there to celebrate. When it was my dance recital, everyone got tickets to come. At my college graduation dinner, the long table was filled with farmers and workers who sat at the bar every other day of the week.

On holidays we went to the fanciest restaurant in town. It was one block away from my dad’s saloon. At the end of the meal, my dad would take out a writing pad and ask who was working. He’d make a list, starting with the head chef ending with the busboy — once it was the same busboy who spilled a tray of water glasses all over me before dinner. Then he’d carefully calculate tips for every person working that day. I’d put out my hand, and he’d smile as he gave me a dollar too.

My dad was a most generous man. No doubt about that.

I asked him when I was about 13, why he did that — why he tipped everyone in the restaurant. He told me this. I give you $5, and you remember me. After work you walk one block to say thank you and spend some time talking. You have a drink at my saloon.

Even at 13 years old, I knew some folks didn’t do that. After all the busboy was too young to get into the saloon. But I also knew all of the folks — especially the busboy who spilled the water — remembered the $5.

My dad was a generous man. He didn’t expect folks to come. He gave freely.

He was also an intelligent and strategic marketer, because he loved the people he served. He understood his customers.

This year I’m out to prove that I’m my father’s daughter in that way too. I’m not just the nice one. I’m also stategic and intelligent marketer.

From my new business, Perfect Virtual Manager, I’m serving people I love and having fun doing it — showing folks how to connect authentically with customers, how to let customers see their energy, how to leave that proverbial $5 that brings folks back to say thanks and spend some time talking!

My Dad was born in 1907, that makes 2007 a special year. I can’t think of a better goal in his honor than to pass on what he taught me.

The nice, intelligent, strategic one.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
My Blogging Goal,

Behind every Successful business there is an Outstanding manager. Perfect Virtual Manager

It’s Always about the People

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Everything Else Is Immaterial

I had to pass this along.

No business is so good that the wrong people can’t mess it up. And no business is so bad that the right people can’t fix it. If you think about what a business is, it’s a collection of people who have been organized in attempt to profit from offering a product or service to the marketplace. So if you don’t get the people part of the equation right, everything else is really immaterial. –Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures

Thank you, Fred, for saying that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Behind every Successful business there is an Outstanding manager. Perfect Virtual Manager

Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a Personal Productivity Tool

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The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

A conversation started this weekend about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I promised to continue it, but before I do, some background might help. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator outlines our preferences for four categories of focus:

  1. Favorite World: Introvert or Extrovert — Do you prefer to focus on your inner world, or do you prefer to focus on the outer world?

  2. Information: Sensing or Intuitiion — Do you prefer to focus on basic information, or do you prefer to focus on adding value and interpretation?

  3. Decisions: Thinking or Feeling — Do you prefer to focus on logic and consistency first, or do you prefer to focus first on people and circumstances?

  4. Structure: Judging or Perceiving — Do you prefer to get things decided and to closure, or do you prefer to keep room for new information and possibilities?

All of us can do all eight. The indicator only points to our preferences — where we go first and where we would rather focus.

Finding our preferences adds to our self-awareness. It’s one more way to help manage our life and our business. If we know our preferences, we can keep our energy up and our stress level down — making opportunities for things we prefer does just that.

An introvert, who has a day of meetings, can schedule private time to regroup. An extrovert, who has a day of paperwork to get through, can schedule in a break to touch base with clients or colleagues.

More energy and less stress just by using what we know about ourselves. That makes the Myers-Briggs a personal productivity tool.

How might you change your work day based only on what you know about you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Who’s Talking about the Myers Briggs Tonight?

Other resources
If you want to seriously take the MBTI, the Myers & Briggs Foundation recommends Capt.org. It’s US$150 via email. If you want a taste of what the test measures, you might go to Humanmetrics. com
Keirsey.com They carried on the research.
Google Directory for Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Type Logic Resources and software