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Change the World: Positively Surprise a Grownup

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A Good Surprise Is So Long in Coming Sometimes

Change the World!

Most children love surprises. Most adults wish they did. The reason adults don’t like surprises is that too many are negative surprises that we weren’t prepared for — had we been prepared, they wouldn’t qualify as surprises. . . .

The sad thing is one or two negative surprises can teach a person to live defensively, always preparing for the possible negative outcomes, imagining every worst case scenario, never to be caught off guard again.

We worry about negatives because positive things don’t hurt us.

Ellen Weber, Ph.D, told us new research shows that worrying shrinks our gray matter. So we’re really hurting ourselves and our ability to contribute when we worry defensively that way.

What if we could show folks that good surprises do still happen?

I remember research that showed it takes 5 positive statements to overcome 1 negative statement that we take to heart. But then, how hard is it to say a nice thing?

What if we passed along every kind word that we heard about someone? What if we added a few ourselves? What if we went first to find a way to show folks that we’re glad they’re on the planet, that we value their contribution, that some small thing about them is worth a positive remark or comment?

The smiles alone would be worth every word and bit of energy that we invested. Some of those smiles would even make a difference in our own lives and our businesses. Can’t beat an ROI like that.

There just aren’t enough good grownup surprises. Positively surprise a grownup, it’s surprising how wonderful it feels.

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.

No Worries for You, Me, and Martha . . .

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I've been thinking . . .

When I worked in publishing, a beautiful young woman named, Martha, worked as the communications coordinator for my department. She is an amazing person, other-centered, gracious, gentle, and soft-spoken.

Martha and I would meet every morning and she was always able to tell me the exact location in the process of any lesson or piece of art across some 10,000 pages. She understood my quirks and habits. I often think on her as St. Martha.

She is such grace. I hear her say “Oh Liz,” and flash a radiant smile — the sort that people remark upon — as she reads that last paragraph. When Martha would get the slightest look of stress, I’d rush to say, “No worries,” and explain the possible worst-case outcome.

One day Martha said that she realized I picked up that phrase, “No worries” when I traveled in Australia. We talked a while about the work I used to do there. She told me she hoped I always used that phrase, “No worries.”

A few years ago, Martha moved to Houston. Gosh, I miss her. . . . This week Martha gave birth to her first born, a son.

So I write this for you, and for me and for Martha.

What ever we’re worrying about right now . . . worrying won’t fix it.

Worrying about it only takes away our brain power. With our worrying, we’re more likely to make our problems worse, not better. Our worries throw off our brain chemistry. They divert our best problem-solving energy. They channel our thoughts to a place where our negative imagining gets in the way of actual progress. We’ve left behind any chance of positive reasoning.

Change one little sound in that word, worrying and we find it’s wearing.. Oh how wearing worrying can be.

When I’m stuck in a loop, in which I can’t seem to stop worrying, I take a walk, fly a kite, clean out my closet –- do something physical that I know I can easily accomplish. I put my thoughts into the world. I get my blood moving into my brain. I let my subconscious work on the problem without my interfering help. It doesn’t need the road blocks my worrying keeps putting in the way.

That break from fretting and over-analyzing my situation brings me new energy and information. I come back refreshed and ready to face the problem minus that stress that I most surely was causing.

New resources show themselves more quickly. New solutions appear on the horizon. I figure out much more easily whether I need to find some help.

Losing my worries for a while always has a positive impact.

No Worries, have a weekend instead.

Liz's Signature

Change the World: Give When No One Notices

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The Giving Tree

Change the World!

Sometimes we give, and no one seems to notice.

To me, the children’s book, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, is about that. It’s the story of a boy and a tree that is always there for him. Throughout the boy’s life, the boy uses the tree for shade. He climbs it. He eats its fruit. He carves his initials, and those of his sweetheart, into the tree’s trunk. When he wants to make a new life, the boy uses the wood from the tree to build a boat to sail away. Years later, as an old man, the boy returns and sits on the stump of the tree that he had left behind.

In my twenties, I thought this was a beautiful story of unconditional love.

In my thirties, I wasn’t so sure I looked at the boy and saw his selfish taking. The tree began to look like people I knew who became “victims” because they never said “no” to anyone’s request.

I came to realize that the story is perfectly told.

The difference between a victim and a Nelson Mandela is a choice in the mind of the giver.

We choose unconditional love or choose to be a victim. The response of the one who receives doesn’t enter into the decision. Many who were helped by Nelson Mandela showed and felt no response to his gift. Yet he didn’t become the victim.

That one choice by Nelson Mandela so inspires me to make the same kind of choices in my own far less burdensome situations.

Sometimes we give and no one seems to notice. That doesn’t matter. Does it?

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.

Going Out to Play Isn’t Just for Kids

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I've been thinking . . .

I know two married couples who celebrate “date night”. Every week one of the pair plans a date, and they go out to a movie or to dinner the same way they did before they got married. I know another couple that has adventure day, and one who sets off exploring in their car, choosing randomly which road to take every few miles until they get somewhere they’ve never been.

All of these couples say the same thing — that they feel jazzed and rejuvenated by stepping out of their lifestyle for that little while.

So I think it’s a good idea.

This weekend — for just a little while — I’m going to play.

Liz's Signature

Self-Promotion as Easy as Knowing What You Do

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Self Promotion Made Easy

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When people asked me why I quit teaching grade school, one of the reasons I offer is that I found myself at parties answering the famous question, What do you do? like this.

I’m a teacher, but not like any teacher you ever met.

What do you do is an opportunity to sell yourself.

I knew enough to know that I was losing the passion for my job. What I didn’t know then was that I had stumbled onto a key part of self-promotion –understanding what people will think of what I’m about to say.

When someone asks What do you do for a living? How do you answer?

If you say the name of your job, butcher, baker, dancer, writer, web developer . . ., you offer them the chance to attach to you all of the preconceived notions they have about folks with that job. You’re walkng right into their box.

Bob Weiss knows. If your answer is: “I’m a lawyer,” you’ve missed a marketing opportunity.

Bob knows that by saying you’re a lawyer, you’ve turned the conversation to the topic of lawyers and away from what you do. No possible clients will be happening. Instead you’re probably going to be hearing what people think about lawyers for the next while. You’ll be up against proving what you’re not or maybe proving what you’re as good as.

Either way,to name a job is to invite comparison.

Of course, I’m no longer a teacher. I’m an entrepreneur. My job depends on the people knowing what I do and that I do it well. So I’ve learned to answer that question with a little finesse.

When folks ask what I do I say I help individuals and small businesses find their vision, focus their business, and layout a strategy that allows them to do what they love and make money meeting their customers’ unexpressed needs and desires better than their competition does.

Yes, I have a shorter version too, but you see where I’m going. I don’t start by saying I’m the Perfect Virtual Manager. I know that would only get me blank stares.

So think for awhile and then tell me . . . what do you do for a living? If you would like to write in the comment box under a code name, please feel free to do so. If you have trouble getting it the way you want, let’s find the right words together. All of us can probably get you to a lovely description of what drives your passion for the reason you work everyday.

When you can answer the question, it won’t feel like self-promotion. It will be you talking about what you do every day.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like to help with your brand or business,check out the Perfect Virtual Manager on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Change the World: Let Something Dawn on You

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That Awful, Beautiful Portrait

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When I graduated from high school, it was tradition to have photos taken for the school yearbook. A professional photographer was brought in, and appointments were set up. Everyone came away with a selection of quality portraits.

Among those I had to choose from was one that I thought of as a “glamour” shot and another that I called my “holy card” picture because I appeared to be thinking of heaven.

Here comes the part where how we see ourselves affects how we see the world and everything in it.

I was a skeletal, long-haired, gawky teenager. Even the kindest description couldn’t make up for a 6 foot tall, 120-pound stick-person. People knew I was huge on smarts, lightning on wit, and from another planet when it came to social skills . . . in other words, I was totally clueless about how to be cool.

That’s important because it’s context.

If you get labeled “the smartest girl in the room,” you also get labeled a “goody two shoes.” If that happens when you are 6 years old with classmates that stay the same for 12 years, the labels stick. Your environment keeps telling you the same thing. You can’t help but believe that’s who you are.

That makes for a huge information filter — sunglasses that automatically screen out any data that might disagree with the labels you’ve come to believe define who you are.

Well, that’s how it worked for me, anyway. Now back to the two photos.

Anyone who’s been 17 years old knows, that’s the time that the young lions break from the old. We never agree with our parents on anything then.

My mother chose the “glam” shot. I chose the “holy card” picture. My mother, who paid for the photos, let me choose the “holy card” picture. It was the one in the yearbook, the one that was sent to all of the relatives, the one that we bought two hand-colored 8″x10″s to frame for display at home and at my father’s saloon.

But . . .

She also bought one hand-painted 8″x10″ of the glamour shot. You don’t know how much I didn’t like that photo. To me it was everything I was not. And when my mother said, “That’s my daughter saying how beautiful she is.” I was sure it was proof that she had NO IDEA who I was at all.

Then . . .

When the photos came and were framed, she put that photo on display in our living room, where we received visitors. Oh man. The 8″x10″ that I liked was housed in the frame behind it where it couldn’t be seen. (Come back and read this paragraph again later.)

It was two decades later and I had long let go of that filter. My mother had already died and I got to thinking of that picture. That’s when some simple facts dawned on me.

That picture was placed directly opposite my mother’s spot on the living room couch, directly in her line of vision. She put it there the week before I went to college. I remember talking about it, and feeling only slightly mortified. Now I realize what I couldn’t see.

My mother bought that portrait because she liked it, and she liked the person that she saw in it.

I had to drop my sunglasses to let the truth dawn on me. It’s amazing how much my world changed when I did.

What’s that they say about “none so blind as those who won’t see”?

“That’s my daughter saying how beautiful she is.”

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