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What Would You Like Your Life to Say About You

By Royale on March 5, 2012 in Inspiration, Mood

“It is better to allow our lives to speak for us than our words” - Mahatma Gandhi

Image via Wikipedia

Ghandi had once said, “My life is my message.” There is little doubt that he personified that philosophy. When we think of him, the phrase that most often comes to mind is, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” That is precisely what he represented and how he lived his life continuously in thought, word and deed.

I found this quote to be thought-provoking. It’s certainly something worth considering. If your life is speaking for you, what do you want it to say?

Take a few moments of your precious time and think about this:

If your life is your message, what is it currently saying?

This is not the flowery, idealistic version! We’ll get to that, but for now, do a reality check. Take a long, hard look at your life. What is it saying right now?

I’m afraid when I conduct this introspection, that on many days my life message is – I really am a very kind person, but only if you agree with me and I have had my coffee!

Some thoughts others have shared:

It’s really not my fault. I just can’t help it.

I have the best of intentions, but can’t seem to follow through.

I don’t have time for you right now.

I have dreams, but they are unimportant.

I don’t truly matter.

What would you like your life to say?

This is where we can be idealistic. What do you really want your life to say?

I want my life to say – Live kindly, love fully, do your best and then let it go.

Some thoughts others have shared:

You can do anything if you try hard enough.

All that really matter is love.

Do unto others…

Anything is possible.

I always give my best.

I truly care about those people in my life.

I am determined and capable.

What changes do you need to make?

For me this means:

- Think, speak, and act from a place of kindness, not judgment.

- Consider what I can give in my relationships, instead of what I can get.

- Do everything as if it really matters and release expectations for the outcome; if it doesn’t matter don’t waste my time.

Some thoughts others have shared:

Focus my attention on my priority of the moment.

Be present in my life and enjoy the experiences.

Spend more time listening to my heart than my head.

When in doubt, speak from a place of love.

Follow through on those things that are important to me.

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7 Types Of Effective Communication And Why You Need To Know Them

By Royale on February 1, 2012 in Personal Growth, Relationships, Work

It’s not enough to know whom you are talking to, communicate, influence, and in the case of our children perhaps teach. If you want to be effective in your communication, you need to understand the best way to reach them. This has been proven time and time again.

This is the key to success, better relationships, and higher productivity at work. In fact, this strategy has been shown to lower stress by minimizing conflict and encourage camaraderie and teamwork, whether personal or professional.

Roosevelt and Churchill in conversation (Zorba the Geek) / CC BY-SA 2.0

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a customer, client, child, spouse, co-worker, or members of a board or committee. You must connect in the manner that resonates with them. It sounds difficult, but it really isn’t once you start practicing it.

Types of communication:

Informing – Some people just want the facts laid out for them. They pay attention to facts and figures, studies and other concrete data.

Analyzing – These people don’t want specific facts, but rather a summary. You need to offer an analysis and boil down the information or request in a meaningful matter.

Persuasive – This type of person wants to know what’s in it for them. Why should they agree to act in a certain way or perform a specific action? They must be convinced. Present your argument.

Mediating – Compromise, compromise. With these people, you have to be willing to give a little. They need to feel heard and respected. Find the common ground and find the solution that satisfies you both.

Emotional – This kind of communication is all about feelings. Knowing what is important and what touches these people is the key. Appeal to their emotions and connect on a compassionate and understanding level.

Entertaining – Wit, humor and levity influences these people. Serious facts are useless, be interesting and lighthearted when possible.

Inspiring – Offer motivation, inspiration, and big picture results. These people need to feel as though they are making a difference, some kind of impact.

The way to practice communication that is more effective requires that you improve your observation and listening skills. Pay attention to the people around you and be more interested in general. We could all use a little more of that.

What type of communicator are you? It helps to understand that too.

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Are We Missing the Point of Social Media?

By Royale on November 10, 2011 in Productivity

Image via Wikipedia

Social media. It’s the buzz word, the wave of the future, the way business is done in the 21^st century…

But if you’re missing the point of the whole social media game…then it’s just the biggest time waster in history!

What you may be doing wrong

It’s not about the numbers – Let’s be clear on this point. It’s great to have millions of Twitter followers and Facebook fans, but this fanatic obsession we have with accumulating followers is insane. It gets us NOWHERE. There is no value in a multitude of fans if they don’t really care about what you have to say. It’s about conversations, relationships and engagement, not masses.

It’s not a marketing plan – Social media participation and information sharing can and should be (in my opinion, I won’t say humble) a valuable channel for marketing efforts. But it can’t be the whole enchilada. If you think you can just post some tweets, get some buzz going and business will magically appear, you are mistaken. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Marketing needs to be a multi-pronged approach. Depending on your business or service you may need print, radio or TV advertising, possibly interne ads or to attend business shows, speaking engagements or workshops and you most definitely need a website.

Stop doing all the talking – Social media is only valuable when it’s a two-way cycle. You share information, others comment, you take in information and offer contribution to others. Information and conversation; in and out. Listening is just as valuable as talking.

Results are not necessarily in direct proportion to efforts – The more time you spend on social media, the better results you get, right? WRONG. At a certain point, the extra time you spend on social media communication is just wasted time that you could be using for other things, say creating, selling or connecting in person. Determine ahead of time how much time is reasonable for this portion of your marketing effort, schedule it in your day and stick to it.

It doesn’t happen overnight – Don’t try to follow 10,000 people right away. You’ll just come across as a spammer. Be discerning, build your “network” gradually and consistently. Be selective, be targeted, be clear on what your objectives are.

One last tidbit, social media should be enjoyable and interesting. If you’re not having fun and learning new and interesting things and meeting fabulous new people…then you’re doing it all wrong.

Question everything, move forward, enjoy the journey.

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Stop Complaining So Much!

By Royale on June 22, 2011 in Happiness, Mood, Personal Growth, Work

Learn to accept in silence the minor aggravations, cultivate the gift of taciturnity, and consume your own smoke with an extra draft of hard work, so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and soot of your complaints. ~William Osler

To complain according to dictionary.com means to express dissatisfaction, pain, uneasiness, censure, resentment, or grief; find fault: He complained constantly about the noise in the corridor.

In my experience, real-life occurrences of complaining are more about whining, moaning and *itching about something or someone that has upset or ticked us off, but which we really have no intention of doing anything about. So why bother?

Just for today, commit to cease complaining. You may be surprised if you pay attention, by how often we complain to others or in our heads. Notice how much calmer and happier you are. Now use all of that energy you saved to move forward and do something positive in your life.

If you are interested in learning more, read Complaint Free World by Will Bowen.

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Have You Tried Scheduled Replies

By Royale on June 6, 2011 in Productivity, Technology, Work

Action challenge – Try checking email less often.

If you find your productive periods of work ever shrinking because of email, phone, and other interruptions, it’s time to adopt a policy of scheduled replies. Some productivity masters recommend that you check email, VM, etc. only once or twice per day and batch your responses. You will find that often, many questions have already been answered and your participation really wasn’t required!

In an effort to practice what I preach, I am striving for twice per day. I have IM and text messaging for urgent matters, so I really am still reachable. Unfortunately, I find myself addicted to that Send/Receive button and suffer from the “disease of curiosity” whenever I get a voicemail, so I haven’t mastered this strategy yet. Still a work in progress….this week I am attempting to check only once per hour so that I can focus on my current task at hand. One suggestion if you decide to adopt this routine, is to set up a VM or email auto-reply letting people know your new policy for responding to messages.

You decide what works for you! Let me know how it goes…

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Do You Consider Yourself an Optimist?

By Royale on April 22, 2011 in Inspiration, Lessons, Mood, Personal Growth

Something to think about…

The Creed for Optimists

Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.
Make all your friends feel there is something in them.
Look at the sunny side of everything.
Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best.
Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
Learn from the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
Give everyone a smile.
Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others.
Be too big for worry and too noble for anger.

Prefer an online version?

Optimist International recently introduced desktop designs featuring tenets of the Optimist Creed. The complimentary designs are available for download from the Optimist.org.

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Productive Email Strategies: Part 2 – “One-Way” Communications

By Royale on April 13, 2011 in Technology

I realize that for many, the issue of inbox overwhelm is very much about “one way communications.” Newsletters, sales and marketing, jokes, videos to watch, feeds, updates on varied interests and projects can make up a large portion of email piling up in your email daily.

While these communications may often be necessary, sometimes even desired, they can all just get to be too much. They can completely take-over your inbox and completely overwhelm even the most organized and efficient among us.

There are some simple steps we can take to combat this insidious dribble of incoming information. Simple yes; easy no. We humans are wired to seek information. We want to stay informed, in the loop, knowledgeable. We hate not knowing everything that’s going on around us. We might even go so far as to say that our insatiable curiosity has turned into an information addiction. Though many of us are still in denial about that…

What you can try to trim the incoming flood:

Chill with the newsletters. Really. Only subscribe if the information is truly valuable to you in some way. If you find yourself skimming or deleting without even reading, it’s time to unsubscribe.
Use an RSS reader. Instead of signing up for daily or weekly emails, subscribe to the sites RSS feed and use Google Reader or something similar to store and manage your information. Get it out of your inbox!
Be very selective when sending jokes, chain emails, video links, photos and that sort of thing. For the most part that kind of stuff is more appropriate to post on Facebook usually. Everyone loves a cute pet or a good laugh; once in a while is fine, but not on a regular basis.
Opt out of those sales alerts. If you need to buy something you can search the internet for sales or discounts. If you don’t need it then you shouldn’t be wasting time getting alerts about it. It is a waste of your valuable time and inbox space and will probably save you money too!
Likewise, opt out of those marketing emails. Nearly every time you sign up on some website and give out your email you are going to be placed on a mailing list. Unless you are waiting for some specific information from the website uncheck that box during the sign-up process. If there wasn’t an option or you missed it, opt out or unsubscribe as soon as the marketing emails start showing up.
Get it in digest format if possible. Instead of getting a notification every time someone posts on your LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook profile of conversation, opt for a daily digest. Another option is to use and inbox filter to divert them to a separate folder, get text alerts or turn off the notifications totally. You can always log in daily to look.

There are so many strategies we can employ to weed out and trim down our email volume. With a little diligence we can move closer to an efficient, streamlined inbox that is a useful tool to share valuable information. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be for anyway?

If you missed Productive Email Strategies: Part 1 – Effective Communication, I highly recommend you go back and read it. The most effective approach to a manageable inbox is streamlining what goes out as well as what comes in.

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Productive Email Strategies: Part 1 – Effective Communication

By Royale on April 11, 2011 in Technology, Time, Work

Most business professionals I know acknowledge that email is the biggest obstacle to overcome in their daily routine. A necessary and oft times indispensable tool; it can also be a huge detour that easily leads you off the path in your quest for productivity.

In thinking about how to minimize this stumbling block, (we really can’t remove it, but we can “manage” it) I realized that much of our email volume is made up of repeat requests, follow-up emails and “reply-all” updates. I came up with a few simple strategies that help me (when I actually use them) and might help you too.

Email communication strategies:

Be concise.
Communicate “action steps” first, not last.
Number your questions if you must have more than one.
Be clear about what you want.
Include deadlines.
Use “FYI” for emails that have no actionable information.
Don’t send “Thanks!” emails.
If you can’t respond or carry out the request fully now, acknowledge and tell them when you can do it.
Use “reply all” judiciously.

You may not always be able to achieve the elusive “inbox 0,” but anything you can do to reduce unnecessary email will save you time and inbox clutter.

I realize that for many, the issue of inbox overwhelm is also about “one way communications.” Newsletters, sales and marketing, jokes, videos to watch, updates on varied interests and projects can make up a large portion of email piling up in your email daily. We’ll discuss some strategies for that in Part 2 – “One-Way Communication”…

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Are You Interested in Guest Posting?

By Royale on March 7, 2011 in Uncategorized

I am occasionally asked about guest posting. For the writer it is a wonderful way to build your reputation, cross promote and share information. From my perspective it allows my readers access to different points of view and keeps things interesting. A win-win situation for all.

If you are interested in guest posting please submit your post via the contact form on this website.

Also please adhere to the following Guest Post Guidelines:

- Post content must be high-quality, relevant and useful to site readers.

- Post length should be approximately 300 – 1000 words.

- Post must be original and never been published before on the Internet.

- Any photos must be credited with an appropriate source, and must be legal to use.

- Links appearing in the body of your post must be valid, modest, and relevant and not affiliate links.

- Include a short byline or bio (50 words or less) at the end of your post. Feel free to include a link to your site.

- You are encouraged to promote and share your guest post, link to your guest post on your blog or on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupon, FriendFeed, etc.

- I reserve the right to edit or reject the post if necessary for brevity, grammar or readability. Not all guest posts submitted will be published, but I do try and publish as many as possible.

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How to Stay Positive in the Office

By Royale on February 16, 2011 in Goals, Mood, Relationships, Work

*Please note – This is a guest post from James Adams

Every weekday morning you get up, you drive to your job, you sit at your desk or in your cubicle, and then you go home and do it all over again. The process can become monotonous, boring, and a real drag. Since you likely spend nearly a third of your life at work, you want to learn to be happier there. In order to achieve that happiness, it is important to project a positive attitude. In fact, according to livestrong.com, employees with a positive attitude can boost customer satisfaction, have more energy, and even feel a greater sense of purpose. Consider these ten tips about how to stay positive in the office as a way to a happier and healthier life.

Appreciate to be appreciated: It is often said that you reap what you sow. It is easier to have a positive attitude when you are appreciated by those around you. Show that appreciation to others and you will soon see it returned by them.
Avoid brewing negativity: The break room, the smoking circle outside, or anyplace that people may sit around and talk about all the negative aspects of the job are bad for your positive attitude. A big part of staying positive is simply avoiding negativity. Likewise, it is important to keep your own negative talk in check. Don’t be a complainer; complainers don’t have positive attitudes.
Create small, tangible, attainable goals: when you reach a reasonable goal, you create a situation to feel good about. String together a series of successes and your attitude will undoubtedly be a positive one. Even the smallest successes can help, so be generous with yourself and make a lot of goals that can be reached. Make sure your goals are tangible or at least measurable – it is easier to be positive when you know you reached the goal and can see it in front of you.
Find ways to have fun: whether it is a harmless little work prank, a quip that brings a smile to a colleague’s face or friendly competition in the sales room, having fun can help to create a positive environment for everyone involved. Finding fun in the work place is a great way to stay positive at work, but also a good way to spread that positive attitude.
Improve yourself as a professional: seek out professional development. Whether it is through classes, a seminar, or attending a conference. Developing yourself as a professional will give you the confidence necessary for success at your job. As you feel more confident and competent in your job, you will feel more positive.
Be a spin-doctor: One great way to maintain a positive attitude at work is to always look for the positive. When something doesn’t go your way at work, look for the silver lining. Be the one who spins the tough break in a positive way. Your attitude will improve and others will notice.
Learn: when something bad happens, learn from it. When someone else in the office has a success, ask them how they did it. As you learn how to be a better employee, your attitude will be more positive. Confidence breeds positive attitudes.
Show perseverance: You know what they say – if at first you don’t succeed… But it really is a great way to create a positive attitude. By trying and trying again until you overcome the tough obstacle can do wonders for your attitude. Nothing can ruin your attitude more than giving up, but there are few things that will give you the boost that overcoming adversity can.
Get organized: By knowing where things are, what has to be done, and when you have to be where, you feel like there is purpose in your work. Start with to-do lists, cleaning out that messy file drawer in your desk, or simply getting rid of the coffee rings on your desk. By creating some level of order around you, you will just feel better. Feeling good is the root of a positive attitude.
Be inclusive with success: when you have a success or when your team achieves an important goal, be generous with your praise of others. By creating more positive attitudes, you are developing fertile soil in which to grow your own positive attitude.

Work can take a toll on anyone. However, finding a positive attitude in your office is a great way to relieve the stress and, at the same time, improve your productivity. By implementing some of these ideas into your work day, you can improve your focus and cultivate that important positive attitude.

This is a guest post from James Adams, one of a team of writers at CartridgeSave where he reviews the latest ink cartridges for printers.

If you’d like to contribute a guest post, please contact me via the website contact form.