The way to a Customer's Heart....is through a Customer's Heart

The Airport is Emotional

The airport creates emotions. Doesn't it seem like everyone at the airport is in some heightened emotional state?

It's inevitable really:

• Parents dropping kids off for college...
• Wife picking up her husband from a sales trip...
• Kids heading out to backpack across Europe...
• Families relocating for a new job...

If you have travelled then you know the emotions evoked by these situations. 

The airport is emotional.

I was the airport today.

I was watching a traveller.

She was by herself.

Well dressed, composed, hesitant, middle aged.

Two large suitcases.

She was in a heightened emotional state.

As she approached the check-in line a WestJet attendant asked her if she would like to try the self-serve kiosk. 

She hesitated. 
"I would like to try. But only if somebody could help."
Her voice was just above a whisper. 

The airport was noisy. 

The young attendant leaned in to listen. He smiled warmly, his face softened. He touched her elbow and gently guided her to a kiosk.

My boy grabbed my elbow, "Daddy, I have to PEE!!"

Identifying urgent over interesting I walked away with my boy.

Minor Action, Major Impact

By the time I got back the traveller was checked in to her flight, her bags tagged, her face relaxed, her body language at ease.

I'm sure for the WestJet employees this was a minor interaction, just one of a hundred they would have today. For the traveller this was a big deal.

Experiences are emotional. 

Airports are emotional. 

That makes airports fertile ground for experiences.

Experiences are emotional. 

Think of any recent experience: the deeper the emotions it evoked in you, the more you experienced it. Either positively or negatively, the more you felt it the more you experienced it. 

Unemotional impassive events don't register with us; they blend together into a dull tableau and eventually fade into the background of our lives. 

But experiences - real experiences - leave us with a taste, a feeling, an indelible imprint on our very beings. They become a part of us.

The Way to a Customer's Heart

Now what does this have to do with a WestJet attendant assisting a solo traveller? 

When they first engaged she was in a heightened emotional state: nervous, tentative, unsettled. 

When they parted she was happy and relaxed. 

The attendant offered a mechanical solution to a mechanical problem, but in the process he also gave her resolution to her emotional uncertainty.

Honor the Emotional Crossroads

This traveller was at an emotional crossroad. 

But with a few authentically caring actions, an employee charted her emotional experience of the airport for that day. 

And likely ensured her next flight would also be on WestJet.

You can't fake that stuff.

The way to a customer's heart....

is through a customer's heart. 

A Line in the Sand or A Line on the Scorecard

I love golfing with my father. Well, more accurately, he golfs while I spend my time trying to find my ball and scanning the horizon for the beer cart.
But for me those hours together have traditionally been a time for me of learning, listening, sharing and laughing. And it is in those moments of unhurried relationship where he has honored me with some of my most cherished life lessons.

He has a peculiar habit, my father, when he is playing poorly. If he happens to string together several holes of less-than-ideal golf, he will announce "it's time to put a line on the scorecard". And immediately upon recording his score for that hole he will draw a heavy pencil line on the card for all to see. The first time I saw him do this my curiosity got the better of me and I asked the reason. "This marks the hole where I bear down, concentrate more, and play better." And it's the craziest thing: more often than not his score starts improving hole over hole.

I have tried it more than once, putting a line on the scorecard, but it seldom seems to work for me. Probably because I am truly an awful golfer and the mechanical action of drawing of line doesn't make me hit the ball any straighter. As with all other golf appliances, maybe I need an expensive new pencil?

Despite the fact this little habit doesn't work for me at golf, I believe there are fundamental life lessons to be found in this:

1. Honesty: Keeping score in golf is very democratic. Everyone announces their own score and the scorekeeper records them. Consequently, golf is rife with cheaters. A five conveniently becomes a four. (Or in my case a nine would become an eight.) In all my years golfing with him though, I have never known Dad to cheat. And as a result his scorecard sometimes ends up with a string of sixes.
2. Clarity: As a result of his honesty, Dad is able to take an instant and accurate accounting of his game. If he scattered dishonest fives in a row of sixes the self-deceit would undermine the necessity to draw a line. Without honesty, there can be no clarity.
3. Intensity: Dad means it when he says it is time to bear down. The stare gets a little more focused, the concentration before his swing becomes more purified. It doesn't subtract one whit from the joy and fun we have together; it just means in the moments before his turn to hit, the rest of his world fades to black.
4. Accountability: Dad always announces when it is time to draw the line. Everyone in his group is aware when he decides to refocus on his game. Regardless whether his game improves that day, he creates a circle of accountability. 
5. Integrity: Sometimes in golf it just isn't your day. At the end of the game, whether his score improves or not, Dad is the same man. In this he has taught me that golf is a mirror of life: successes and failures should not define who we are, wins and losses should not affect our character.  

People commonly talk about drawing a line in the sand. The problem with drawing in the sand is how quickly the line can be blurred or disappear under the external forces of wind, water, and footprints (sometimes our own). Dad's line on the scorecard is a permanent record for all to see. I remember having lunch with him after a particular round, and laughing because his scorecard that day had TWO lines. And his score that day was as lousy on the last hole as it was on the first. 

Honesty bred clarity. Clarity allowed him to choose his intensity. The permanance of his lines created accountability. And at the end of an unusually awful round his character was intact. Integrity.

Golf is a game of dedication, concentration, execution, and repetition. Guess what: so is life.

Rest: the real Killer App

I just took my first week off in two years, and the first vacation with my wife and children in three years. Guess what: it was glorious. I purposefully dedicated a mere 20 minutes a day to email, and locked my cell phone in the room safe. We played and rested and laughed and ate and drank. And shared the whole experience with the joy of a family who loves being together.

And through the whole week one question floated through my mind like the lazy Caribbean clouds overhead: "Why didn't I do this sooner?"

For the last few years, and particularly the last six months, I have been pushed harder and stretched farther than any other time in my professional life. And my response, predictably, was to strap myself in and push back even harder. I saw the red flags. I heard the warnings of others. I felt the wear-and-tear physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. But predictably I believed I was immune to the effects of pressure and stress. Or at least that I would withstand them without any slippage in my performance. 

What a donkey I am.

Theory is a wonderful thing. It costs us nothing to claim to believe in a theory.....right up until we disprove our own claims by disregarding the very theories we espouse.

I believe - or at least claim to - in the theory of Activity and Rest being the two interdependent sides of a coin called Productive Living. No one can live on the side of Activity to the exclusion of Rest for very long without experiencing fatigue, slippage, and ultimately failure. And I preached this to the people around me, insisting they take time to rest and recharge at various points of the journey. After all, I claimed, how can you climb the upcoming hill if your legs are spent? Don't worry, I insisted, I will carry your load for a while so you can recharge.

Physician, heal thyself.

What is it about leadership that we inherently believe we are immune to the same effects of those we lead? Are we so arrogant we believe we can disregard the amplification of these self-same effects on leaders as we shoulder the responsibility of leadership? I can feel now how I have robbed myself, and those who depend on me, by refusing to rest along the way. I am not yet fully recovered from the effects of the last several months; the shaking has not yet fully stopped. And right now my wife is inside putting the final touches on another vacation for later this summer. 

I may be a slow learner. But my wife will make sure I learn this lesson well.

Don't cheat yourself and those who depend on you.

Rest.

Recharge.

Re-engage.

Repeat.

For leaders rest really is a killer app.

Sometimes it just sucks....But it won't always be like This

This is a post of celebration and gratitude.

For my emotional dawn is breaking.

After months in the dark I can finally feel myself starting to rise out of a period of blackness that took me to places lower than I had ever been before.

And now as life blossoms anew around me, I can feel life beginning to blossom once more within me.

What a feeling of rebirth, of relief, of delight. And what a long, strange trip it has been.

Three years ago... 

I was given the incredible opportunity and responsibility to lead a major contract as a part of the construction of one of the pre-eminent forensic crime labs in North America. 

The process, the journey, has taken me to the very edge of myself. I was pushed to my professional and personal limits....and then beyond those limits and anything I had previously thought possible for myself.

I was afraid. 

I have never been afraid before, not like this. There was something extremely vulnerable and transparent about being at the edge of myself. People near me saw my fear. They saw my anguish...despite all my best efforts to hide it. 

I learned I can't be proud and broken at the same time. 

I learned no matter how alone I felt, I wasn't.

So this is also a post of on-my-knees, tears-in-my-eyes gratitude to the people who have loved on me, cared for me, prayed for me, and waited patiently for me as this journey wound us around some incredible heights and through some treacherous valleys. 

More amazing still than reaching the finish line of my personal marathon was finding this team of beautiful individuals waiting there with blankets and water to nourish me, cigars and champagne to celebrate with me.

You can't climb mountains by yourself.

Through this whole adventure one of my greatest lessons has been this: you can't climb mountains by yourself. You need a support team whom you can trust implicitly. 

• Who will never give up on you. 
• Who will love you the way you need to be loved 
• Who quietly stand beside you when you feel all alone. 

And you will need to trust them when they tell you the truths you can't (or don't want to) see for yourself. 

For we are made to live in community. If you want to go fast go alone; if you want to go far you will need a team.

Winter is over. Spring is come.

I am sitting on my porch.

The magnolia tree in front of me is in full bloom.

The breeze is cool and fresh.

The sun is warm and life-giving.

My journey is coming to an end.

Your journey may just be beginning.

Or maybe you are in a place that just plain sucks.

Here are my encouragements to you:

• Know you are capable of more than you think you are. 
• There is room to grow between your perceived limits and The Limit. That space in between is where your true greatness lives.
• Find your team. There are people who love and believe in you, and you do a disservice to both them and yourself if you withhold the opportunity for them to actively love you through your journey.
• It won't always be like this. Keep moving forward. Lean into the headwinds. Remember, every step forward is a step closer to the finish line.
• And from my finish line I am cheering for you.

If my story reminds you of your path, please contact me. I would be honored to connect with you and talk about your story with you.

Right now I'm just happy to be back among the living.

Your friend,

Tim

Faith and Fear

I was standing in line at the butcher this morning, waiting to pick up our Christmas turkey, when I overheard this:

Wife: So Helen is thinking about going to Spain in the new year. She wants to see historic Europe. The only thing holding her back is that she is afraid of being converted.

Husband: What?!

Wife: In her words "I fear for the eternal condition of my soul."

Husband: What?!?!

Wife: She is afraid she is going to be converted from her faith. She told me "Maybe if I don't go into any churches or talk to any priests then I can't be converted." Apparently she thinks you can catch religion like a virus.

I concealed a laugh behind a cough.

But the more I thought about this story the sadder it made me. Poor Helen is shackled by a tragic condition: she believes in her convictions, but she is not convicted by her beliefs. She knows where her faith lies, but she doesn't know whether her faith can stand. Helen is prepared to skip one of the most beautiful countries in the world out of fear that a man-of-faith might play three-card-Monty with her beliefs.

I wonder how many of us struggle with this very fear condition: whether in the leaders we follow, the organizations we join, the teams we lead, or the life choices we make. Is our faith, belief, fortitude strong enough to carry us through the inevitable valleys? Or do our emotional knees buckle under load, leaving us lying face-down in the muck of life?

I love working with new entrepreneurs as they start their journey into the world of business ownership. One of the most wonderful attributes of all new entrepreneurs is their self-confidence, that innate self-belief telling them while 90% of new businesses fail they will be in the majestically successful 10%. And they must believe, for without that abiding faith in themselves as the exception to the rule there would be no entrepreneurs at all.

And so it is with this courage and strength and fortitude they take that bold first step.

It doesn't take long - it never does - before the unwavering self-confidence starts to flag. The first month revenues come in at half of the most conservative projection, the expenses come in at twice. Their contractor suddenly finds asbestos (or a cracked boiler, or structural damage) and the renovation costs end up grossly overrunning the budget. And their printer just misspelled the street name on all of their marketing materials, sending all potential traffic to the other side of town.

Right about here is where the questions start: do I believe in what I'm doing? Is my belief in this vision enough to see me through? Do I believe in this more than I'm afraid of failing?

Fear sets in.

Please understand, this is a reasonable fear. This is a healthy fear. If properly understood and channelled this can even be a motivating fear. But if left unchecked it can become a paralyzing fear, preventing you from seeing the beautiful sights of Spain. The choice is yours. The question is how will you respond to this fear?

Fear and doubt are not optional. It is the ability to fully see and accept them, and then manage them, that affects the outcome.

Unbridled optimism to the exclusion of pragmatic fear leads to disillusionment.

Unchecked fear to the exclusion of courageous optimism leads to paralysis.

Understand your faith, understand your fears.

Leverage both emotions to maximize your chances for success.

Helen will never know how strong and abiding her faith may be unless, and until, she is willing to test it.

It's ok to be afraid. It's not ok to be too afraid.

To make your business more profitable find a mentor

Every entrepreneur I have ever met has a shared goal: to be more profitable. 

Being an entrepreneur is difficult. 

You work 80 hours a week to try and get an edge.

You wake up in the middle of the night worrying about next week's production run.

...or tomorrow's delivery schedule.

......or this week's payroll.

And if not any of those then you wake up worrying that you must be forgetting something.....

Being an entrepreneur means you are

 supposed to have all the answers.

You're it. 

Being an entrepreneur means you have to be good at your thing, the thing that made you want to go into business in the first place.

AND you have to be good at the "art of business".

The Art of Business

So many people find focusing on the business side to be soul-sucking! Any of these sound familiar to you:

• it's not what I love to do
• it feels unnatural
• it's not what I'm good at 
• it feels like work
• if I'm not focusing on my product my business will suffer

I shared a meal... 

...with a professional whose mind and spirit I admire. The conversation flowed through dinner until he suddenly turned to me after the dessert course and asked 

"What do you do? I mean, I know what you do for a living but what is it you do??"

I was a bit taken aback, but responded by describing my role as a business mentor and leadership coach. 

Why a mentor?

I explained how I work with entrepreneurs to help: 

• expose existing blind spots
• develop strategies 
• devise tactical plans

Discretionary purchase?

Without hesitation my professional friend responded that I must only be busy during economic booms, since my work was an extreme example of a "discretionary purchase". 

He rolled his eyes, got up, and walked away.

I sighed and shook my head. And laughed.

A good mentor has an ROI 

Here's the thing:

A good mentor should save an entrepreneur far more than he costs. 

A great mentor should raise an entrepreneur's level of profitability significantly faster than the entrepreneur could ever do alone. 

What makes a mentor? 

A mentor is a mentor by virtue of two factors: 

1. he has already paid the Stupid Tax himself, 
2. he is willing & able to save others from doing the same.

The Stupid Tax

The Stupid Tax is very simply the time, energy, effort, and money we expend because:

we just didn't know any better! 

It is the real cost of mistakes that we never would have made if we only knew then what we know now.

I have paid the Stupid Tax many, many times myself. And to this day the lessons I learned best are the ones that cost me the most.

The ONE GOOD THING about the Stupid Tax

The Stupid Tax has one redeeming quality: you get to keep the receipts!

And THIS is one of the core reasons to find a mentor: you get to read their receipts. Suddenly the cost of the mentor is pennies against dollars. 

Not so much of a discretionary purchase anymore....

Getting back to my friend

I sighed because my friend drew his conclusions about me, and others like me, without asking a single question.

I shook my head because it was evident that he had never thought about the amount of Stupid Tax he pays. 

I laughed because the receipts in my pocket would have been very helpful to him. 

Ignore at your own Risk

That's the thing about Stupid Tax receipts: a person can only read them at their own discretion.