Just Take the Shot

by | Jan 22, 2015 | Education

It seems like this cold and flu season is taking no prisoners this year.  Every day I hear friends all over the world talk about being sick. Seems like this respiratory sickness is really intense.  In conversation with a friend the other day, she told me that she had gone to the doctor and gotten prescribed a round of antibiotics. “Oh, didn’t they have a shot to give you?” I asked. She said, “Well…they offered but I didn’t want to. Those needles hurt!”  Well sure, they hurt, but that’s just a minor hurt that will help you get better faster.  I’ve been that sick, and when faced with the easy antibiotic or the painful shot, always take the shot.   My friend had to take two more trips to the doctor and three more rounds of pills. The end result- her sickness lasted for over a month.

Yesterday I was talking with a client who was deathly ill. After our call, she made her way to the doctor. She explained, “They gave me a shot and, like magic, I could breathe two hours later! I feel so much better.”

That’s it exactly. You see, at first look, the shot seems like the harder option and people want to put off doing the things that are harder. But I promise, that if you’ll try the hard stuff first, you’ll get the results you want sooner. Are there things in your day that you put off doing because they’re hard or a little painful? For some of us, it’s writing sales agreements, for others, it’s making outbound calls. But those are the things that cause the best results!

For me, it’s hard to get organized and start a project because the task seems overwhelming.  Where do you start?  After reading dozens of time management tips and tricks, here’s what works for me:

  1. First, I carve out 10 minutes to clean my desk. I hate it, but I know I have to. I file things that need to be filed and I start a new folder for whatever project I’m working on. I start a fresh sheet in my notebook. This helps me work with a clear mind. I don’t dust because honestly…who dusts?
  2. I determine how much time I’m willing to spend on the project at this time and I block it out on the calendar. It’s important for me to do that so I know I have a stop time available to me. When the task is so daunting, knowing I’ve only committed to one hour (or 30 minutes, or whatever), helps me focus, because hey, I can do anything for an hour, right?
  3. I prioritize the top 2-3 things that must get done to move the project forward, whether it’s materials development, a training outline, or scheduling. This helps me set the goal where I’m going so I’ll feel successful when I get there.
  4. I rid myself of distractions. I would rather do anything that this task because it’s hard, so I don’t allow myself to see anything else. I turn off chat and email so I’m not tempted to multitask.
  5. I focus. Remember there’s a stop time. I’ll focus on the two or three things I identified. A lot of times when I do this, I’ll get into a groove and keep going on the project, and that’s ok. But if I don’t, I stop at my end time and then block out the next hour or 45 minutes that I’ll work on it again. I’ve met my commitment to myself.

Even though it’s hard for me to get myself organized and begin projects (or sales calls, or staff training, or leadership coaching), I find that if I just take the shot and get moving, I feel so much better sooner. Accomplishment is healthy, right?  So I’ll say it again, when in doubt, always take the shot.  – Dr. Sherry

Seek First to Understand

by | Jan 15, 2015 | Leadership

One of the things that has been on my mind is the idea of motivation–what makes us LOSE motivation in particular.  We asked this question in our Sales Coaching sessions recently and heard a lot of people say that “problems between coworkers or with customers” cause us to lose motivation.  I think we can all relate to feeling down (or upset or angry or whatever your go-to emotion is in times of stress) when we don’t see eye to eye with a customer or a coworker.

One little nugget of wisdom that stays with me is the idea that we should “seek first to understand.” We all have our own ideas, experiences and, to be honest, baggage that we bring to any situation. And that baggage can cause us to act (and react) without first trying to understand the problem completely. I’ll give you an example.

My husband, Nate, and I were in an airport a couple of weeks ago trying to find the international terminal.  We approached an airport official named Colette and were in the middle of getting directions when another official walked up and interrupted.  Nate and I immediately backed up and my first instinct was to think how rude the interruption was and to wonder about the service training of airport officials (naturally).  But a moment later, I overheard the women in conversation. It seemed that in the airport there had been some type of death that really impacted staff, and grief counselors were on their way to talk to everyone. I quickly grabbed Nate’s hand and we excused ourselves to mind our own business!

My initial judgment of the situation was wrong, the second lady hadn’t been rude. In fact, she was trying to support a grieving friend. How often is our initial judgment wrong?  These people were strangers to me and I misjudged them. Do you ever find that maybe you’re judging your staff or coworkers, people you know and (hopefully) like, a little harshly?

If you have an interaction with someone that triggers some type of negative response; maybe they said or did something that you think is wrong, I encourage you to seek first to understand.  Ask them what they mean by what they said, or why they made a particular decision for a guest (TIP: watch your tone when you do it). Often, what I HEAR people say isn’t even close to what they really meant, and I find that people really DO think about what they’re doing.  They even make some really inspired decisions sometimes. So I try to understand the facts first and reserve judgment (and coaching) for afterward. I think that if you’ll try that, you’ll find people to be pretty smart, and they’ll, in turn, feel respected if you try to understand what they were thinking instead of just telling them they were wrong.  And I think that mutual respect can be pretty motivating.  What do you think?

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