Happy Sunday Everyone:
Our family Christmas Tree was purchased last Sunday night, late. Normally it’s a seen, and a process, fire place going, music going, I put the lights on, then Kim and the boys decorate etc….This year because we bought it so late, Kim was going to do the lights and decorate Monday. I come home from work Monday, no change in the tree, come home from work Tuesday, no change in the tree. Me, being the a-hole I’m capable of being, snap, “why the hell isn’t the tree done”? Kim says “I thought it would be better if we did it as a family”. I go off on some tangent about working all day and coming home and not wanting to put lights on the tree. I then proceed, in a pouting way, to rifle through the exercise of putting the lights on..no music, alone etc….Thomas, who loves Christmas, stops me and says “Dad, the lights look prettier when you’re happy to be doing this, can we start over and be happy”. I have a high propensity to be an a-hole, but even me, in this case could not continue. I stopped, we did the rest together, and avoided ruining the 2017 marckwardt tree experience, albeit not by much. Two points for me 1. I need to work on being an a-hole less, and getting myself out of a-hole mode as quickly as possible. A-hole mode for me, always comes from lack of gratitude and a sense of entitlement, always. Bigger lesson though was Thomas’s comment, and how it relates to everything we do “the lights look prettier when you’re happy to be doing it”. You can replace lights with anything, loans, homes, meetings, calls, etc….If a client believes I’m happy to be working with them, the experience is better, if my team believes I’m happy to be in a meeting with them, they feel better about working with me, if I’m making calls and someone believes I’m happy to be making the call, the results will always be different. What do you project out to the world? What do people think about their experience with you when you’re done? did they get the sense you were happy to be working with them? It’s the difference of going through the motions to check the box, vs. being purposeful in what you’re doing. We will all find more success if everyone around us believes we’re happy to be with them.
Separate event but similar topic, I watched 30/30 on ESPN with Jimmy Valvano (Most of you know him but one of the best college basketball coaches of all time). He said every single time he got off the phone with his dad, he felt better about himself. What if every time someone got done with you they felt better about themselves? pretty good way to be, right?
Have a great week ahead.