Moxie Living: Courage and Confidence

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Email Signature, ‘C’mon What’s Wrong With Love?

August 12 Dawn

For sometime now I have been ‘signing off’ in my email signatures, blog posts, correspondence with the phrase ‘Love and best wishes’…recently I was chatting with a couple of friends who said, ready…?

‘You shouldn’t use the word love in your email, people don’t know you and they will think it’s too informal, it’s not professional!’

Mmm, perhaps it’s not a huge point, but it has got me thinking.

In fact if anything, it’s got me thinking I should ditch the ‘best wishes’ part…but that’s for another post.

I’d ‘love’ to know your thoughts and what your sign off is, but first:

Well, let’s see, over the past five years you have read from me in emails:

‘Yours Sincerely’ (too formal – especially for me)
‘Kind Regards’ (I never ever liked that one, reminds me of solicitors letters)
‘In love and light’ (I think some of you ran a mile at that phrase, does suit a Reiki Practice though)
‘Have a Wonderful Day’ (I think I’d seen someone else use that one)
‘To Your Success’ (that was okay, I think?)

and I can’t believe I’m writing this one:

‘Your Fiery Friend’ (that lasted about a day as I’m strawberry blond not a ginger, and I was just being a smart ass.)

There have been others I’ve spouted at you, but they are long gone from my memory (hopefully yours too…oh, and please don’t shame me by sending me reminders, delete all old emails from me, okay?)

But…love and best wishes…what do you think? Are our email signatures are reflection of who we are?

I love the word ‘love’…what’s wrong with love?

Too ‘touchy feely’?
Too ‘out there’?
Uncomfortable?
Overrated?
Underused?
World (still) not ready for it?
Too cheesy?

Here’s my thoughts, (and I’d love to know if you agree or disagree with me).

I’m in the business of personal and professional development, right?

Doesn’t all development start on the inside first? Whatever way you look at it, does it not come back to ‘you ‘gotta love yourself first’!

So simple, and yet as human beings most of us stink at throwing love at where it’s needed most…which is our way.

Some days we love ourselves and other days well, need I say more, we can be our worst enemy; we can detest everything about ourselves, our life, our career, home, business…you name it.

But I repeat…generally, what is wrong with the word love?

Many of the people I’ve met and worked with, have been denied love, (and some from a very early age) personally, I find that sad and unacceptable.

Are we so scared of being loved that we now can’t even mention the word?

Has the word and world of love become so loaded with impersonal meaning and heavy duty baggage?

Is it one of ‘those’ words that even the mention of it triggers an unhappy thought and past experience? One of ‘those’ words that we notice people flinch at when they see it written or hear it said.

That’s sad.

As a fellow human being, I’ve decided (at least for the time being) to keep using it.

Why?

(Apart from still surviving the ‘fiery friend’ email signature) Because, in my opinion, if I can’t display and show you love what the hell am I doing here?

No, I don’t mean at a shallow level either…love to me is power.

Love is the unspoken language that makes enemies and strangers become friends.

Love is the complete opposite to hatred and fear.

Love is the positive regard I have for every other human being (and no, I never expect it back.)

Love is what fuels my passions, drives me forward and energises me to sit up and take notice.

Love to me is not just a basic human need but also a need for being human.

Love is not something that has to be fought over!

I mean can you imagine if the world you and I live in, were to wake up tomorrow morning and we were using phrases like ‘the love in Iraq’ the ‘March For Love’, ‘Love Rally’, ‘Weapons of Love’ or ‘Love Attacks’…that is not me being silly and unaware, I’m trying to explain that by the use of ONE word – a whole new way of thinking can appear.

Love can create change.

And for the comment not being professional?

Ah! That’s a good point…and that has been my ‘word’ to overcome.

My goal is to provide professional services. It has taken me years to realise that I can do this better, not by staying at arms length from people, but getting right on down and ‘just being me’.

And yes, that involves loving what I’m doing and sharing it with you.

So, signing of with…

lots of love and best wishes

Dawn

PS What’s your email signature? Can you remember why you choose it? Oh, and to display love in business or not, what do you think? Leave a comment below.

An Example of Complete Passion, Purpose and Service (and a lesson for every business owner, employee and human being)

August 10 Dawn

Maya, my beautiful dog passed away it’s raw. One day I’ll write about it, but not today.

If you aren’t a ‘pet’ person and lover of animals, that’s okay, this post is still for you.

The story briefly (yes, it’s still raw, so short and sweet), in the early hours of the 6^th of July, I knew that Maya would not be with me very much longer.

Maybe you too have been in a similar situation (to which I’m genuinely sorry) I hadn’t, and sitting with her that last night I hadn’t got a clue about what to do after she’d gone.

I began searching and it wasn’t long before I was reading an article called ‘The Right Choice’ which explained all about giving your pet a ‘dignified and respectful cremation’.

Click, click, click, I landed on a local business that offered ‘pet bereavement services’.

The sad hour did come and because of what I has read on the site above, I had no hesitation in calling the number.

Here’s What Happened…

1. Expecting an answering service (I called at 4.30am) the call was answered by a woman who understood instantly my needs, my state, my problem, my pain. (When many business owners are making themselves less available this lady is answering calls 24/7.)

2. She arrived at my home (55 miles from hers) at 6.30am. (She gave the ETA and stuck to it.)

3. She (and her partner) came into my home with the respect and understanding of my situation.

4. She sat, she let me cry, she explained the process in language I would understand, she listened, she didn’t once flinch or flicker at the irrational behaviour I was displaying, she treated Maya with the utmost respect and dignity (as she promised on her website), she step by step took me by the hand and led me through what was going to happen. She hid nothing. (When many business owners are trying to hide behind their faults and failings.)

5. She told her story (when I asked and not before) and it was obvious (even then) she had ‘walked in my shoes’ (she knew me better at that moment, than I knew myself.)

6. She then drove Maya the 55 miles back to her home (until she could contact the crematorium to book a time for later on that day)

7. Then she drove 120 miles to the pet crematorium because that is the only one that operates on the same ethical values as herself.

8. She waited an hour for Maya’s ashes.

9. She then drove the 175 miles back to my home to give me them. 18 hours in total.

10. All in the same day – and that is something she does in rain, hail, snow or shine.

The cost of this floored me, so I paid more.

Then a few days later I started receiving letters from animal charities thanking me for their donations, the woman didn’t even take the extra, she gave it away.

What am I sharing this with you?

If You’re a Small Business Owner

You have probably heard of the saying ‘going the extra mile’.

And for some business owners it means ‘throwing in a free sample’ or ‘we have a free phone number’ or perhaps the major selling point is ‘ call us, you’ll get to speak to a real human being’.

Here’s the test…go through your business and honestly answer this question ‘is this part of my service so special and unique that even I would rave about it?’.

Next, go through every benefit, add on, service you offer and ask yourself ‘is this extremely valuable to my customer’ if the answer is yes then think of five ways you can add to it, if the answer is no, then (like I did) get busy and make it so.

When I read the petundertakers site on the first visit I read exactly what was going to happen at the end (and it’s not pretty reading nor was a pretty sight) but I was given knowledge.

Is there something that you are holding back from your customers that if they knew just that one thing they would have information that is priceless. Give them it, give it away.

I know one of the reasons I choose the petundertaker was because one little piece of information prepared and informed me more than any trip to the vet could do.

If You’re an Employee

Well, another story…when I called and cancelled Maya’s pet insurance I explained the situation and the first reply was ‘you still have the rest of next months premium to pay’.

It was on the tip of my tongue to give out to the person on the other end of the phone and shout ‘you eegit, do you really MORE THAN care?’ but I held my breath.

The next time you are faced with any customer say to yourself:

‘I’m the first person that has heard this persons problem.’

You could be the first person that another human being has spoken to that day, you could be the first person that another human being has told their problem to, you could be the first person that has really listened and cared!

You could be the first person in that persons LIFE who has listened to understand them rather than respond.

And Lastly If You’re a Human Being!

Through this sad experience it has added further to my beliefs about living a life of ‘purpose and passion’ (and I mean by that, at any moment your world can change) and those who know me will know how much I care about ‘service and giving back’.

Yes, I know you may be thinking ‘but she was only a dog for goodness sake’, ah, and that is the truth, for sure.

And that’s the lesson.

To truly deliver passion and purpose in our service as a business, as an employee, human being: is it not about putting ‘I’ aside and what ‘I’ think even a tiny moment so that we can serve people better?

To sum up…do one thing for yourself today, ask yourself tonight (you’ll remember to do it) when you go to bed and slip between the sheets, ‘what one thing did I do today that was purposeful, full of passion and of service to others’?

If not, get moving, it ‘aint long till the ‘two legged undertaker calls’ at your own door…do you want to just leave or leave a legacy?

7 Ways to Increase Your Self Esteem

April 1 Dawn

Eleanor Roosevelt once said ‘no-one can make you feel inferior without your consent’.

No one can make you feel anything, you are the only person that can feel what you are feeling. It’s your choice on what you choose to feel.

Here are ten ways to increase your self esteem…

Competence

Low self-esteem is an acceptance that in some all areas of your life, you don’t make the grade, you don’t match up, and you don’t measure up. You may feel inferior by not being as good as another, comparing yourself to others. Carry out a true evaluation of you, explore your life and list all your competencies.

Locus of Control

We each have a locus of control; we have an internal thermostat if you like, of how much control we feel over our lives. Some people feel that they have none or very little control, they go through life blaming others and complaining how everything happens to them and they had no control over it.

This behaviour lowers self-esteem, by not increasing your locus of control you are giving away power and accepting that life is a defeating process.

Look back over you life to date, where did you give up control where you know today, that in hindsight, you could have control than you had.

Valuable

People with low self-esteem have the belief, feelings and behaviour that state they are worth nothing to no-one or anything.

Have you ever said ‘I’m not worthy?’ In order to raise your self-esteem you may have to start by reviewing your definition of the ‘worth’. Start taking a Life Inventory, a stock take of all your strengths, achievements and start looking for the distortions and generalisations you make about your self.

Contribution

Everyone has something to contribute. Everyone. For example, people out of work may see their self-esteem lower during this time. One of the causes is the in fact that employment (paid or unpaid) assist us in making a contribution, without it we may feel insignificant that we are no longer part of something that has an end result. We all have something to contribute.

Acceptance

Acceptance is the ability to embrace who you are NOW, this moment including all things that you want to change or are no longer happy with. Acceptance is not a declaration of ‘well, this is it, this is how it is going to be, I accept that’. By choosing to accept the truth of you at this moment you can move forward. There is truly no need to find fault in yourself all the time, adopting a ‘know what, I’m okay, let’s move on’ frees up the mind.

Self Love

The greatest, most passionate, exhilarating and unconditional love affairs you can have is with yourself! Many baulk at sayings such as ‘love yourself first’ or ‘unless you love yourself, how can you love anyone else’.

Love is an emotion, we all describe it differently, we all feel it’s power and yet we provide lack of it for ourselves. It really does not make any sense, it has no logic, there is wonderful saying ‘take care of the caretaker’. Have you heard it? We are so often willing to give up love to others and yet struggle to love ourselves. Define your definition of love, what does it mean to you? Next, apply your meaning to yourself, where does it fall short? What needs worked?

No Judgement

We are our biggest critics; we are experts in reminding ourselves of our biggest failings and where we went wrong moments. We are all too ready to belittle, pass comments, make snide remarks about us! Who sits in your own personal jury? Who is responsible for sentencing you to low self-esteem? By who’s laws are you trying to abide by? I give it to you; judgment is not the same as an honest evaluation, if there are people that are on the prosecution in your life, you do not have to accept all their closing statements.

No More Lack of Confidence, Enough is Enough

March 19 Dawn

Have you reached the point of saying ‘this lack of confidence is destroying me’’ or are you still marooned on the island of ‘I am not worthy’?

An island that is unreachable by air or sea, surrounded by shark invested waters and full of lack;

not clever enough
not brave enough
not good enough
not confident enough
not understanding enough
not fit enough,
not determined enough
not motivated enough
not happy enough
not talented enough
not deserving enough
not worthy enough
not intelligent enough
not sexyenough

…yikes, stop, look, enough is enough!

Luckily for some of us we manage to get of the island of ‘I am not worthy’ long enough to discover that we don’t ever want to go back.

For some sadly, this island is a place where people reside for weeks, months, years, and, sadly, lifetimes!

If you are on this make believe ‘island’, you may have been given the map of your internal landscape by your parents, teachers, peers, past relationships, friends.

You may have been asked to measure your worth against their standards and expectations.

You may have been subjected to verbal assaults such as ‘why can’t you be like your sister/brother’, or ‘well, obviously on this occasion, your best is just not good enough, or ‘you must try harder to be something’.

It’s appalling that these comments can determine the outcomes of our futures, heard often ‘enough’ these statements can become so rooted that they damage our future happiness, health and well-being, determine whether we are good ‘enough’ to set and reach goals.

You Are Enough

Do you sometimes feel that you have been defined by other peoples standards and ideas of what they think you should be?

Have you allowed them to walk around your map deciding what you are good at and what you are not?

As an adult you are completely responsible for you, as such you have full accountability over how you think about you. You have enough potential within you to undo the wrongs that have been placed upon you, and you have the capacity to accept yourself as you are, and yes, that comes with warts and all.

Acceptance

You can accept the fact that you have faults, weaknesses, and shortcomings.

Of course there are people out there that perhaps are smarter, cleverer, happier, more satisfied, than perhaps what you are, so what, do you or should you care?
That does not mean that you are any less of a human being.

If there is one ‘enough’ that perhaps you may want to keep it’s this: ‘I am only enough as my thoughts’. Ready to get of the island?

How To End Feelings of Emptyness

March 2 Dawn

Have you ever asked someone how they are feeling to which the reply is ‘you know, same old, same old, I’m getting by’, perhaps you may have had used the same line or similar in a reply to a friend you have not seen for a while.

These statements, although they may be extremely accurate as that is genuinely what is happening, can be loaded with unspoken pain.

It may also mean time is flying by, years are slipping away and feelings of despair that they or you are living on groundhog day, they are repeating yesterday over and over again.

For some people the above statement is one that is never questioned, that is, they genuinely have the goal to be living a life of ‘same old, same old’.
For others it’s not, if this is you, perhaps you are living a life right now knowing that ‘something is happening, something is stirring, a change is afoot’, you may ‘feel’ ready for something greater than what is occurring in your life right now, however no matter how much you want it, it’s not appearing.

It’s brewing and bubbling under the surface yet it has not shown itself. Perhaps you are beginning to feel more and more empty as the old you is disappearing and you have not yet figured out what you are going to fill it with!

If you find yourself in the place of no longer wanting the old and looking forward to the new, it’s natural you move between a state of excitement and that of discomfort. It is perhaps like being stuck at the airport ready to go onward with the journey, yet no plane has your name on it and there is no turning around to go back to what you know best. Have you felt like that or are you feeling it now?

Let’s look at the positives: unlike some who are leading a ‘same old, same old’ you have in fact stepped up and started to face the fact your life is not exactly in order. You may have some things prepared. If we go back to the airport for a minute: you may have a few papers in order perhaps your passport, some travellers cheques, a visa, some cash for when you get to where it is your going however you may have lost the oversight and not chosen a destination. But the great news is, you have decided to go!

Instead of following the rules so many of us do called ‘The Rule Book for Just Getting By’, you have decided to write your own. You have successfully decided that the rulebook that is used by many was not written for you anymore. You have become discontented by the contents, and made the brilliant decision that running on empty is no longer for you.

You have created a disturbance so great in you that you want; no, you have to follow it through. Yet, the unknowing is sometimes as painful as not knowing where you are heading. And this can feel like you are running on empty.

If you find yourself standing at an airport, ready and willing, there are some that say ‘if you don’t know where you are heading stay put’, the other option could be, take a flight somewhere, you can always get from one city to another city via a thousand different flights.

Just start the journey, you are ready.

How Can Conflict Increase Self Esteem?

March 2 Dawn

Are you a person who says often ‘oh, I hate conflict, I avoid it all costs’? The cost you are avoiding is a high price to pay for your own confidence and self respect.

The word ‘conflict’ is loaded with ambiguity. For many of us the word conflict creates negative pictures, it is used in all forms of media and generally is something to be avoided at ALL costs. It is no surprise then that many of us try to avoid it.

There are so many definitions of conflict, however lets define it here as being…

…parties are in a disagreement and feel as though their needs, wants and wishes are being compromised.

It’s a simple definition; yet, we can make meaning out of it.

As long as human beings communicate, there will be conflict. Unless the human race eventually realises that not one person thinks the same way, feels the same emotions, has the same experiences or witnesses events in the same way then conflict has the door to exist.

From a personal development view, conflict can be an opportunity to grow, develop and increase skills in empathy, understanding, emotional intelligence and assertiveness.

On a training course I delivered, to members of the same staff team, they had a period of time when they were in conflict with each other, about what should be happening in the workplace. Although managed, there was an opportunity to resolve the conflict however one person apologised for saying how they felt and other accepted the apology!

Neither had anything to be sorry for, the apology came from a place of ‘please don’t hate me, for saying how I really feel’.

When conflict exist it is really easy to remember that that emotions that you are feeling the other party is feeling them too, and that is the starting point. Explore (even if you have to imagine) what the other person might be feeling, thinking, behaving.

Put yourself in their shoes so to speak.

Unresolved conflict is unhealthy emotionally and physically, here are a few steps:

Acknowledge and verbally state with the other party that conflict exists, be gently and ensure that this is not a conflict! Use words such as ‘I feel that there is conflict here, shall we try and resolve it?’ As opposed to ‘we need to meet to talk’, which says nothing.

Agree with the person a time, space and place to meet and discuss. Be prepared before by creating a list of what you want to say and what you want to understand from the other side.

Set the goal that this meeting is not about adding to the conflict, it’s about resolution, the goal may also include how you want to leave the meeting and how you would like the conflict resolved.

Listen, you could agree that each person has 5 minutes to put across their concerns, views, problems, suggestions etc whilst the other person listens with no interruptions or questioning at this stage. Then let others have the same amount of time. If anyone chips in or starts to question, gently and firmly state ‘let’s have five minutes’ each.

Agree where the conflict exists, what are the specifics, identify where you agree on certain points.

Create a list of where the conflicts are and work through each one.

To set the goal that this conflict is going to be resolved the name of this list is important, ‘The Problems’ is not as effective as ‘Points To Grow’.

Own what you say. If this meeting is loaded with ‘you make me’, ‘when you’ or other ‘you’ you may not mean it however you are not owning what you say.

You could try ‘when X or Y happens, it makes me feel, I would prefer it if…(give an example of how you would like the behaviour to be)’.

You are then not attacking the person, you own what you say…when you use the word ‘I’.

One of the greatest skills you can learn is compromise. Accept the fact that you are not always going to be able to get ALL things your way. That is unrealistic, especially if your conflict is with another human being. Most people DO want to compromise however to do this effectively you need to let go.

No, not give up, let go.

Identify all the possible solutions to the conflict, ones you may not even have thought of. If there are many choices then one or two will possible sit well with you. And one where you can compromise.

Once the solutions have been agreed, they must be actioned.

Ensure that all parties visually agree either by nodding their head that the solution is one that everyone is in agreement with. Acknowledge the fact that not everyone may be comfortable with the final decision however the agreement means that movement forward has been made.

Take action on the agreement and set a time to review the actions have been completed.

If the above falls down and people leave the meeting still feeling resentment towards on another then perhaps a third party who is impartial should be involved.