Binoculars

Do you see a clear path ahead for your life or business?

Or is your view slightly foggy? Is there a sense of fuzziness about who you are, where you are and what you are seeing, right now?

Binoculars.

What is their purpose? To give you an up close and personal sharper, defined view of something. Binoculars bring the distance into perspective.

How can you bring your distance, or path ahead, into perspective?

When you achieve clarity and focus, you create a better sense of direction for yourself, don’t you? Hand in hand clarity and focus lead you down the path of your choosing. They allow you to see more clearly along the way.

They bring the distance into perspective.

All you need to do is to turn the focus dial on your binoculars to make your view become clearer, don’t you?

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
Mark Twain

Who’s Getting in Your Way?

Other people. Your work. Your kids. Your past. Your life.

No, it’s you.

You are the ONLY one who gets in the way of you.

So, you want to improve yourself.

You’ve decided to invest time and money in developing ‘you’. Excellent. Fortunately you are in a very good place because unlike many people, you realise the importance of spending time with a coach who can help you work through your life to date and together you can explore ways to create your new life path.

You make a start on your new journey filled to the brim with excitement and enthusiasm. And then all too soon you find that things start ‘getting in your way’…

Who is getting in your way again? You.

It’s all too easy to blame other people or other things, isn’t it?  These other ‘things’ become a mountain of excuses as to why, what, when, and how… But did you know it’s actually easier to knock down a wall than to keep building one, brick by brick?

How?

Reframing. Change your thinking. Change the language you tell yourself. Remove the bricks, one by one. Turn your changes into reality. Live them and believe in YOU.

Tell yourself – ‘I will no longer get in the way of who I will be!’

You know you can, can’t you? It’s just a matter of when.

 

Become a Dambuster

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the heroic feat of the Dambuster’s raid, led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson. Today we pay tribute to the actions of focus, determination, commitment and courage.

Today we remember…

Consider the title given to the airmen and the historical act they carried out. From the 17th May, 1943 they forever became known as the Dambusters. So what did they do?. After a review of what needed to be done, to strike at the enemy forces, a plan was created. Practice was the next step, to ensure the aim was as precise as possible. Finally the raid took place, courtesy of the brave Lancaster crews of 617 Squadron. The outcome: the bouncing bombs were dropped and the dam was busted.

How can you become a Dambuster?

Think about it. A dam is built to contain a huge body of water. A wall is built to hold back the water. A great deal of pressure is placed on the wall. When the bouncing bombs hit, the wall was smashed and the pressure released.

Are you someone who creates a strong ‘dam’ wall in your life? Do you allow life to build up to a high volume? Do you put pressure on yourself? Is your wall holding you back from being who you can be?

Become a Dambuster

Plan your raid. Fly your Lancaster toward your focus – your dam wall which is holding you back;  your built up pressures, worries and anxieties. Be a Dambuster and bust your dam wall. Bombs away!

Now feel your personal sense of release and celebrate the courage you showed to make it happen. Set a new course and fly upwards to the next chapter in your life…

   ”There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.”
Ronald Reagan 

Don’t Sit Still…

….were words of feedback that one member of an audience shared after a presentation I co-delivered last Tuesday. Or rather for this individual, this was a ‘light bulb moment’ of realisation that to do as she had always done, was from that day, not going to be her method of choice moving forward.

Result!

During our presentation we shared our thinking around the concept of change. Change in the world. Change in the world of work. Change in how we run our businesses now and into the future. The idea of change presented a hush across the room. It fast became apparent that many people in our audience were fearful of change and what it meant to them, as individuals and in business.

Change – a scary word. Change – it fills many with a sense of dread. Change – do I have to?

Really? Why?

Embrace change instead of rejecting or being fearful of it. Complacency or sitting still, as was so aptly stated, does what? Nothing. Just because things have worked well in your business for a period of time does not necessarily mean they will continue. Doing the same thing, over and over, and expecting a different result achieves what? The same result.

Is it too hard to give change a ‘hug’?

Adopt a gentler approach. Integrate change at intervals. Let it evolve. Invite change in. Let change happen. Remove your limiting belief around fear. Shift your focus to the unlimited opportunities you can achieve.

But remember one thing…

Don’t sit still! 

“Evolution is the most powerful tool we have for dealing with change”

Seth Godin, 2001

 

 

A Personal Touch…

Goes a long way in my book. Do you agree?

Today on Facebook I shared a conversation with one of my favourite pages – Warner Edwards Distillery. Having been introduced to their fabulous home-grown & handmade product – Gin via a recent Countryfile episode, I noticed that they are hosting a tasting event in Tetbury this evening. Unable to make tonight’s event I decided to ask WE to visit Highworth to give my local community a chance to taste their delicious tipple! A couple of hours ago Tom Warner of WE personally replied to my message and we shared a short dialogue. My final reply stated that the personal reply and conversation was a nice touch.

Logo source: http://www.warneredward.com

So, do you deliver a personal touch to your customers? How often do you open up a dialogue and then engage with and listen to your customer? During the process of our chat today I opened up an opportunity for one of Highworth’s local hotels to host a gin tasting event. How? By tagging their page and following up with a direct email, especially after the personal and positive response from Tom.

What have I learnt from my experience today? The act of a personal reply has enabled a rapport to be built with the distillery owner. A connection has been made. As well another opportunity has been presented. An introduction has been made. Because I appreciated the personal exchange, WE has created a positive experience for me. A potential recommendation has been made.

Now all I can ask is what date Warner Edwards Distillery will be hosting a gin tasting event in Highworth?

Is Your Purpose to Stand Out?

One of my passions and key skill areas is to help people and businesses discover their own unique ways to stand out from the crowd. My post today focuses on how social enterprises can reframe their thinking around the purpose of their brand, to ultimately become a ‘Purple Cow‘!

Gone are the days when a social enterprise wins favour with an audience due to the purpose behind their business message. Today, your loyal band of followers and supporters, together with the way you actively engage with and encourage new members, expect so much more.

What do they want? They want passion, impact, delight and love.

For any organisation, small business or social enterprise to achieve success in today’s world, you must stand out from the crowd. You must be different in your market sector. You must become remarkable and remain memorable for the right reasons.

For social enterprises this implies that now is the time to take a new and bold step away from purpose being the focus of your marketing strategy.

So what can you do?

Firstly show your audience why you are passionate about who you are. When you look at your product, right from the design phase – consider what it is about it that is driven by passion. When you speak on the phone, via email, online or offline with a customer, wear your passion on your sleeve.

Next create an impact. How do you show your supporters that you are actually making a difference to the world? Remind your audience how much you care about the people in your enterprise and the environment. Paint a holistic view of why you matter and why your aim is for your supporters to matter as well.

And then…

Make every experience a delightful one. Please your people. Please your enterprise. Please your supporters. Be excellent when you deliver customer experience, in all ways. To become a truly remarkable enterprise your goal is to engage with a community of people who will ‘sing your praises to the rooftops’. In other words this community will become your best advocates who will spread the word for you.

Finally, share the love around. Educate your audience. Share your unique story and showcase purpose as being built into your chapters. Give people a strong reason to believe in you.

 ”The key to success is to find a way to stand out–to be the purple cow in a field of monochrome Holsteins” – Seth Godin

Design a Quilt, Build a Business

Today I’d like to introduce my guest blogger extraordinaire, Anna Ryan, who designs and makes  stunningly beautiful and intricate quilts. Sit back and enjoy reading how Anna describes the process of quilt design being just like the vision it takes for you to build your own successful business.

Starting a new patchwork quilt design starts with a small idea at the back of my mind, a small seed of a design that grows.

The seed goes whilst I sleep, it calls to me whilst I walk and pesters me during meal times… very much like an idea for a business…

After a while I can’t hold it back, I have to tip the seed onto a piece of paper and give it form outside my head.  I sketch it out, very roughly at first. A few lines here, a few lines there, how does it look now it is outside my head?

Is it still a good idea?

If it is, adding colour and filing out the design is next – reds or blues? Cream or white?

Adding different shades of colour and playing with pencils adds depth to the idea, allows me to test the design and see if it is a solid idea, will it work?

The scariest step is committing to the project with fabric. Choosing the right texture, colour and design, do they work in harmony or fight?

Will the plan pull together?

Taking the first steps to cut the fabric is always nerve-wracking; stepping out into the unknown and committing energy and resources to an idea that a few days ago was just a seed in my head is frightening. Will it work?

The only way to find out is to take the plunge, how will I know the design works unless I do?

All of the patchwork pieces build steadily together into a gorgeous block if all I do all of the preparation before I start sewing and cut the shapes accurately.

A completed patchwork block is only half the journey done.

Now I have to build the layers, the foundations of the quilt to be able to create the finished piece. Using the best possible materials and building on the original patchwork design, the idea gains depth, texture and structure.

It is an ongoing process that can sometime takes hours, but more often than not weeks, even months to get the combinations in place to make something beautiful..

Will it be perfect?

No, but the journey is more important than the finish, the skills learnt, the ideas tested. These are more important than perfection. After all if I had never taken that first step of acknowledging the seed, I would never have creating something unique and amazing!

Anna Ryan, Quilting Along the Grain