Yesterday was one of those days filled with a lot of non-critical errands and tasks that all needed to get done relatively soon.  I have a lot of days like that – any particular task could get put off for a day or two without dire consequences yet they add up to become overwhelming.  It’s also pretty easy to stop when you get tired under these circumstances.  Sometimes that’s the right thing to do and sometimes you can find that you have untapped reserves with the right approach.

So yesterday, that’s what I did.  When I got to that point of ‘well, maybe that could wait to tomorrow…’ I got up and did just one more thing on the list – since that was making an apple pie from the rapidly spoiling apples I’d picked earlier in the day, maybe it would have been healthier to wait.  However, it turned out I wasn’t that tired after all – as the pie crust got made and chilled, the apples peeled and sliced and the whole thing baked. And yes, it was delicious! It turned out I could manage to bring up boxes from the basement too. Strangely enough, doing just one more thing turned into doing about three or four more things.

I am so much more productive when I take this approach you would think that it would be easy to make it a habit. It isn’t. But I keep hoping and trying.  And it keeps working – whether it’s stuck energy or not knowing where to start, somehow doing just one thing seems to move me back into the flow.

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, getting things done, Self Help Motivation

I love it when things come together in a way that says what I’m trying to say, but so much more effectively than I do!  I found a story today that does just that.  It’s a tale of one man, Dave Carroll,  taking a bad and frustrating experience with an airline and turning it into something that will move his career light years ahead of where it would have been without the kick of motivation and yet in a way that is authentic instead of ‘designed’ by marketing professionals. Not to mention that the airline is finally ready to talk…

While we’re not all musicians, we all have creative gifts that could be used to create something powerful in the wake of bad customer service (or anything else.)  I’m as guilty of giving up after reaching ‘the wall’ as the next person – the nonfunctional $2,000 Dell laptop in the closet speaks to that. Once the gamut of customer service was run, what else could I have done with that situation?  Or could still do? Maybe I’ll make a found art sculpture from the cracked mother-board…:-)

Note that it was over a year from the incident to getting his first video out there so sometimes it’s just as much about persistence as creative vision; once the fires of righteous anger die down something else has to take it’s place.  No swear words required; just the muscle to juice the lemons.

Here’s the music video that is part one of the solution:

And here’s the story behind it all.

Technorati Tags: inspiration from unusual sources, Self Help Motivation

Being authentic often gets confused with being honest. I’ll agree it would be hard to be authentic and dishonest at the same time, but they aren’t really opposites.  Authenticity is more about intent and motivation.Those are subtle but powerful aspects in any conversation, sale, or interaction.

A salesman giving a hard sell usually doesn’t get the sale because the words say that the motivation is you, the customer, but the actions say just the opposite. Just about every time I go to Costco someone pressures me to upgrade the basic membership to the one with a higher fee with promises about how much money I would get back. One time a woman walked all the way out to my car with me selling for all she was worth.  A marketing expert could probably tell me the underlying factors in an instant.  What I know is that with all the constant hard selling I don’t trust that there isn’t more in this exchange for Costco than there is for me.   They lost the potential sale and my trust by not being authentic.

I’ve noticed that people are beginning to feel this way about “free” e-books online as well.  Often labeled as manifestos they’re popping up everywhere.  And while yes, they are free and nobody is lying as far as I can tell, the motivation is becoming increasingly suspect as links take you to sites that are raving about the author’s site (because they’re mentioned or because they think it’s good?) The few that I’ve read felt like someone had enticed me with promises of content that did not deliver and I think it was because the intent was not to help me but to help someone more personally connected by engaging my time.  If I’m investing my time, it isn’t really free.

The problem with authenticity is that it’s hard to spot the lack in yourself as well as in others.  It’s perfectly normal to imitate ‘experts’ when we are learning something new or feel less confident in ourselves, but at some  point you have to stop and assess whether you are being authentic in continuing as is. The expert may well be being authentic. We’ve all seen someone ‘work the room’ that is a genuine extrovert and natural salesperson but if I, as someone more naturally inclined to small groups and familiar faces, were to mimic their behavior exactly it would be a painful and unproductive exercise for all concerned.  That doesn’t mean I can’t network effectively it just means it looks very different when I’m being authentic and effective.

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, authenticity, self confidence, Self Help Motivation

As I’ve been working the kinks out of this site, I’ve been learning some interesting things about myself.  I get really embarrassed by what I see as completely avoidable errors; I found six broken links that were broken because I had copied the html code incorrectly. An easy and human kind of mistake and completely fixed within an hour. I’m still struggling with feeling like I should have focused more on those details; never done it in the first place or caught it sooner!

As I was messing around with all the online tools I also solved a mystery.  A handful of people have been putting my name in search engines, going to my photography site which has my name as the domain (www.julietchase.com) and then leaving immediately.  I could tell the latter because the average time on site was around 1 second. Ouch!  It’s hard not to be flattered by strangers googling you, but then for them to leave without even looking at my work?

How would you feel if an adult film actress had recently changed her name to yours?

Quite.  I’d probably be more irritated if I didn’t laugh picturing men with umm, certain expectations suddenly staring at landscapes and flowers! No wonder they left so quickly. But on another level, it made me realize that little mistakes are going to happen and what I’m not doing may actually be more serious. There’s a lot more I could be doing to promote my business and thereby dominate the search results for my own name. Instead of feeling defensive, I’m feeling inspired to go the extra mile and keep working to hit that tipping point.

As part of that I’ve been thinking about how to make this site’s content more meaningful and consistent. I thought I’d start by doing more posts and trying to structure them a little more to the days of the week so Inspiration & Motivation on Mondays, Tools & Exercises on Tuesdays, Humor & Fun on Wednesdays, Books on Thursdays, and continuing my Journal on Fridays.  For now I’ll continue to take the weekends off. However, if there are things you aren’t finding out there in the great wide world of the web, I’d be interested in hearing about them.  Maybe that’s the missing link! I need all the help I can get on this mission:-)

I’m curious to know if something similar has happened to anyone else? Or what you would do if you suddenly found yourself sharing your name like this?

Technorati Tags: challenges, inspiration from unusual sources, Self Help Motivation, tipping point

Mt. Haleakala, HI - Juliet Chase

I remember the moment I decided to take charge of my own unhappiness instead of just hoping that something would come along to fix it.  It was a few months after 9/11 when I was working for a large software company famous for its testosterone-driven management style.  Not surprisingly they were having trouble retaining female employees so they decided to offer a series of  forums open only to women. I think it was supposed to make us happier with our lot or something. I only remember two things the first speaker said; one was to take $50 in $1 bills and scatter them in your sock drawer so that every morning you’d feel wealthy (don’t knock it ’til you try it:-)  and the other was that if your manager is publicly undermining you in meetings you need to quit because that’s an unfixable situation.  So I did. It took a few months to work up the courage but I did it and I didn’t have another job lined up.

Then I got the speaker’s slim book from the library and ping-ponged through recommended reading lists until I started to realize the difference between a real dream and a rescue fantasy. I doubt I would have done any of that, or attended that talk if I’d just been mildly discontented.  I don’t think my story is unique; it seems generally true that peaks are paired with valleys.  The more extreme the valley the higher the potential peak.  Avoidance  will result in no pulse; an even line of endurance often masked with Prozac (at least in the case of some of those software colleagues.)

So if, or rather when, you find yourself in the valley of adversity, let the frustration and the hurt and anything else negative that might be happening fuel you towards positive change.  Look at it as starting from the bottom and just open your ears  and your mind to new inputs.  Check your library listings, community centers, and the local Y for free talks.  Walk into the library and just browse the shelves to see what catches your eye.  Discretely eavesdrop on conversations on the bus. Actively seek to be listening but let the answers come of their own volition. As long as you aren’t looking for justification for staying down you are bound to find some nugget of advice, some quotation or idea that get your juices flowing again. It probably won’t involve anything  quite as drastic as quitting a job, but you’ll know what’s right for you because it will germinate and take root.  It will stay with you until you take the appropriate action.

Technorati Tags: challenges, difficult people, how to find happiness, Self Help Motivation