Have you ever been caught in the “poor me” syndrome, only to run into someone who was much worse off than you? Did that dose of reality change your perspective on things?

That happened to me last week. 

Things weren’t going the way I had planned and I found myself silently complaining to the universe (and anyone else that would listen) about why I was having this string of bad luck. I felt that I deserved better and was just about to slip into the “poor me” phase when I heard that little noise on my computer telling me I had mail. I glanced over at the screen only to notice I had three urgent emails from the same person. 

Partly out of a desire to shift my declining mood and partly out of curiosity, I went over to the computer to see what was so urgent.

And then suddenly my world changed at that instant.

Some friends of ours had just lost their seven-year-old daughter to a bout with meningitis. The whole story and logistics about the funeral were spelled out in the other urgent emails that followed.

I fell silent, literally feeling my heart sink with heaviness. It was the most haunting set of emails I’ve received in years. I didn’t even know Annie (the daughter) was sick, and here I was now mourning her death.

I then went to the special website created for Annie and read the following words from her father (my buddy), apparently written moments after her passing:   

 “Sara and I are sitting with Annie right now.  We are taking turns holding her and talking to her.  It is hard to imagine that she is not sleeping, and that she will not be coming home with us tonight.  She has always been a cuddler and we are glad to be able to cuddle with her one last time.  We alternate between tears and laughter as we tell memories of Annie.  The past few days have been hard for her, and she fought very hard.  She seems to finally be at peace.”

Even I as I write this blog, I am so sad about Annie. But on top of that, I’m amazed and in awe that my buddy could selflessly muster the ability to write such clear, loving, and caring words at the most difficult time of his life.

And what about that string of bad luck that was weighing so heavily on my mind just moments before I heard the news about Annie? Do I even need to tell you how insignificant my worries suddenly became?

Perspective can be gentle at times and then at other times it can feel like a ton of bricks just fell on your head.  My headache is killing me right now. 

-Geese

I know, it sounds kind of weird, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, it’s true. Read this week’s Inspirational Quote from Ron Luyet (click the Radio Show tab and read the quote) and then come back and finish reading this blog. Go ahead, it is just up and over to the right. Go on!

 Have I lost you?

Since that time, I’ve tried to approach the Law of Attraction as a student by asking lots of questions to our various experts on the show and by reading as many books on the topic as I can get my hands on.

Keep in mind, outside of the two or three companies that I currently do a lot of work for, the phone has not been ringing off the hook with other offers or opportunities. And frankly, I’d be happy with just one of the five opportunities that suddenly presented itself to me today, let alone five opportunities.  

 So is it a coincidence that the above financial opportunities came to me because of the financial abundance exercise I did?

I applaud Southwest Airlines for sticking to their customer-first values and not charging for baggage. In fact, it’s why they are now my airline of choice. How many of you feel the same way?

Granted $15 or $30 or even $45 may not be a large amount of money for some to pay for putting bags on a plane, but it is the principle we are talking about here. And because Southwest stood by their values, they have taken many of these disgruntled customers from other airlines, like me, and won them over. Good for them!

 During difficult times like now, we need companies to step up their customer service, not nickel and dime us to death.  Just the other day I called Sears to come out and look at my air conditioner. Immediately on the phone I was told that there would be a $100+ service charged assessed just for showing up. I reluctantly agreed, but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth. That’s like me charging a potential client just to chat about a problem I might help them with.

And then, to make matters worse, the Sears technician never showed up during the “four hours” that I was instructed to set aside for him. On a side note, I do get the purpose of needing to have a time “range” for when to expect a technician to come by, but four hours, really? How about two hours Sears? Some of us need to work you know. Anyway, when I eventually got the call from the Sears office notifying me that the technician was running a couple of hours late, I asked if Sears would be willing to waive their service fee, given that now I would be losing a whole day of work if I continued to wait for him. Despite my plea, Sears refused and instead responded with, “Sometimes technicians run late.”  

 Here’s my point: By simply waiving a service fee, Sears could have not only kept my business, but I would have been even more loyal to them because they were willing to work with me. Instead, they’ve lost a long-time customer.

Perhaps if Sears, as well as some of these other airlines, could focus on developing lifelong customers and forgo this obsession to pass on every fee increase to their customer, they’d all be as profitable as Southwest.  At the very least, they’d keep some of their customers.

-Geese

Geese, I’m having trouble letting go of a comment someone made that is really bothering me. It happened here at work and I’m not sure if I should simply let it go or say something to the person. Is there a general rule on this kind of stuff that can be applied here?     -To Go to Battle or Not

 Dear To Go to Battle or Not,

 Thanks for your question.

Here are some questions to ask yourself about whether or not to confront another employee (taken from my article, Eight Simple Rules to Resolving Conflict and Improving Relationships…available on this website.  Also, feel free to add the word “potential” in front of the word “conflict” below if conflict feels too strong a word at this point.

 Ask Yourself:

 1.       Is the conflict with a person that matters to me, either professionally or personally?

2.       Is the conflict with a person that I will come into contact with again?

3.      Does my relationship with this person impact others?  If so, could it negatively impact others if this is not resolved?

4.      Is this conflict creating stress and discomfort for me?

5.      If I don’t resolve the issue, could it surface again at a later time?

6.     Would I be sending mixed messages to those around me if I choose to not address the conflict?

7.    If I don’t resolve the conflict, would I be tempted to: a) think less of the person; and b) share my frustrations about this person with others?

If you answered “Yes” to two or more questions, my advice would be to address the issue head-on with this person. In future blogs, I’ll spell how to do that. In the meantime, set up an appointment with me and we can go over it now.

-Geese

As many of you know, Steve and I were guests on the TV show, San Diego Living, earlier this morning. Wow, what an experience.

I plan to talk about it in the first segment of our radio show on Monday, but let me just say it was quite the adrenalin rush.

7am: Steve and I met over a cup of coffee to chat about what we might say and any strategy we might have. In this case, strategy meant making sure the leadingfromwithin.net website was mentioned on more than one occasion during the interview.

Truthfully, I was more excited than nervous, but sometimes the two seem the same. Since we had both been on cable television last month together, we at least had “some” experience in front of the cameras. And given the fact that Steve has a face for radio, that was a concern as well (ha, just kidding).

7:30am: There comes a point when going over notes is counter-productive. We put the notes down had focused on having some fun, making jokes, and taking our minds off being on TV.

7:50am: I’m wearing my green button-down shirt. It’s my favorite shirt and I’m look’in good, if you know what I mean. We are now ten minutes away from catching a cab to the TV studio. Then I get an email from our publicist that says, “Don’t wear white or green.” Yikes, I’ve heard about not wearing white, but green too! I go racing to my room, throwing shirts and pants all over the place until I come up with something that relatively matches. Fortunately, we nab a cab with time to spare. Close call.

8:00am: Cab driver does not know where to go. I now have to read the directions to him while we drive on the highway. That’s a first. “Why don’t you have a GPS?” I ask. He says he does, but hasn’t pulled it out yet. Hmm?

8:30am: We arrive at the station (on time) and are escorted to the “Green Room.” The Green Room has seats for about 4 and within ten minutes we have about 12 people crammed in there. There are skateboarders, a dentist, a botanical gardens expert, a psychologist, a band, and then us. We spill out into the hallway. Turns out we were all going to be on the show within the 9-10am slot. Cozy to say the least.

8:50am: We are individually prepped by some of the staff. The woman who will be interviewing us (Renee) is also the weather gal during the 8-9am segment. She races by us a number of times. For that matter, so does everyone else who works at Channel 6. It often felt like we were in a medical hospital watching doctors and nurses racing from room to room. We were informed later that that is in fact what things are like behind the scenes in television.

9:10am: We are told we’ll be on in 20-minutes. I’m now on my third trip to the bathroom. My eyes are red. I put some visine in and instead of clearing up they get redder. Is “redder” a word? Anyway, not good.

9:25am: We’re pacing around the Green Room. Seems like everyone has gone on already as we are the only ones in the room now. I watch the dentist as he ends his interview. Looks a little stiff to me. Note to self: Smile!

9:30am: Me and my red eyes and Steve are escorted into the studio and take our places on the set. Suddenly my mouth turns completely dry. Oh no! 3…2…1…We’re live!

If you missed our show today (6.28.10), catch it on our homepage. We had Marci Shimoff, New York Times bestselling author and teacher on the hit film, The Secret. Marci talked about her latest book, Happy For No Reason. Now, I don’t normally plug the books of our guests, but this one I need to. Here is a book that includes the top 100 “happy people” and their individual stories; studies and research galore on various angles of happiness; powerful exercises from top experts; the Law of Attraction weaved throughout; a “user-friendly” writing style, and Marci’s “story” including all the people that have impacted her life.

I’ve read all the top self-help books out there and not even The Secret compares to what you get in Marci’s book. Happiness is Marci’s sweet spot and a must read!

I’ve had a lot of “mentor moments” with past teachers, family members, coaches, and colleagues in my life but I’ve never had that special someone who took me under their wing to show me the way, so to speak. Maybe it doesn’t matter but I do feel some kind of void in the mentor department as a result. And that’s probably why, now that I think about it, that I created the semi-fictional character, Dr. Mac, from my Ask Dr. Mac novel. You see, in the story, Dr. Mac was the mentor I’ve always wanted. He was a sweet old man, 86 years old, smart, funny, and well versed in the management and personal development field. But even more than that, he was the kind of man who was not afraid to show and express his emotions and his love for people; the kind of man who made you feel safe, significant, and cared for when in his presence.

The reason Dr. Mac is a “semi-fictional” character in my book is because there really was a Dr. Mac in my life and he did have all those mentor characteristics. But unfortunately it wasn’t until after I graduated from graduate school (Miami University) that I realized that my favorite professor had been there all along for me…and sadly, I rarely took advantage of his tutelage. I was in my twenties and didn’t know better. I don’t even know if I knew what a mentor was back then.

Dr. Mac was the kind of guy who continued to reach out to his students well after they graduated, and I was no exception. At least once a year I would get a call from him to simply say hi and check in. I always appreciated that simple gesture. In fact, as the years went by, I began to care more and more for this man. And although he never actually mentored me, I found myself wanting to be more and more like him. I remember hanging out with him at one particular class reunion and feeling sad as we said goodbye. It was like I was saying goodbye to the grandfather I never had. Then, as his health began to decline, I made another visit to Ohio just to see him and to let him know that I was going to name my novel after him. He was touched. He also was very emotional on that particular visit. It was as if he knew it was the last time we would see each other. I felt the same way, especially looking back at him as he stood out in the driveway waving to us as we drove off. I still can’t get that image out of my mind.

Dr. Mac died the same day that my book, Ask Dr. Mac, came out. He never saw it.

So why am I telling you this story? Because I don’t want you to miss out on your opportunity to find your own Dr. Mac. He/she is out there. Don’t do what I did and wait for your special mentor to come to you. Seek them out now and begin developing the relationship that I never had.

I have been teaching graduate school (ironically) at the University of Denver for over 12 years and have tried to emulate Dr. Mac with my students. As I think about that now, I can’t help wondering if perhaps Dr. Mac was the mentor I never had and just never knew it…until this minute! Hmm?

What do you think?

-Geese

You’ve certainly heard my account of what the Leading From Within program is all about, but I’d like you to read what Catherine Kunst says about her experience in the program from last month:

http://workinprogress.blogs.com/works_in_progress/2010/06/leading-from-within.html

The History of Our Show:

Our radio show started out as a business show in January of 2009, called Ask Dr. Mac. It was on LA Talk Radio. I called it Ask Dr. Mac because that was the name of my latest business novel. The idea was to provide advice and coaching via our guests to employees and employers around the country, just as the book does.

About 4-months into the show, Steve suggested we change the name from Ask Dr. Mac to Leading From Within. He was inspired by Karen Storsteen, one of our long-time guests, who gave him a psychic reading after one of our shows. In that reading, Karen told Steve that personal empowerment was a direction he should explore. That moment had a powerful impact on Steve. At the same time, we also had realized that our numbers/phone calls for the show seemed to increase when we had guests with inspirational stories, compared to our business experts. Plus, we had more fun on these type of shows. Needless to say, I was open to exploring the name change some more with Steve.

Prior to doing the radio show together, Steve and I met at one of my Leading From Within workshops. I had been using the name “Leading From Within” for about 12 years in association with the 3-day workshop that I have been facilitating. That’s how this website was initially born. The workshop itself  has changed lives and transformed people since its inception in 1997 (I’ve done 28 workshops since then). So when Steve brought up the change in names, I knew immediately that he was right. And because I had so much passion for the Leading From Within program, it was an easy change for me.

Since we’ve changed the name of the show (about a year ago), we’ve been on a continuous high. We moved to Castle Rock Radio where we are a part of a professional community and have upgraded to an actual studio with producers, commercials, etc. We are bringing in big-name New York Times bestselling authors and speakers on our shows now and are even partnering with some of these guests in their programs (i.e. Janet Attwood & Debra Poneman’s Destiny Now workshop). But it doesn’t stop there. Our Leading From Within workshop is thriving and Steve and I have plans to take across the country. Finally, we are putting together a Colorado Speaker Series that we will host featuring some of the top name speakers in Colorado coming together in the fall for a day-long event.

All in all, we have been blessed by this evolving experience and want to thank all of you for your help and support.

-Talk at ya next week.

-Geese