Always have a toothpick handy!

Stop!  Don’t leave yet.  I am not done!

Stay and be enlightened some more! In the last few posts we have talked about communication and the affect that words, tonality and physiology have on the message we are trying to convey. Remember the breakdown?

PS.  I need your help!!  What can I do to make my blog better and what more can I do to advertise it?  I will cherish  your comments and/or advice.  Let me know.  Thanks for stopping by and sharing some of your valuable time with me!  Rick

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon a few years ago.  I was laying on the couch watching a golf tournament when all of a sudden the door bell rang.  I shuffled to the door and was a bit upset to see that nobody was there….until I looked down and found that there was somebody there!  It was a little boy looking up at me.  He was maybe 4 or 5 years old and he was wearing an old, raggedy and ill-fitting little-league baseball uniform.   I immediately looked to the end of my walkway and saw a car.   There was an anxious looking man and woman inside who, I rightly determined, were the young man’s parents.  They had obviously shooed their son up the walkway to my front door and were waiting for him.  It  became crystal clear that I was about to be hearing a sales-pitch.

Believe me when I tell you that this little boy was about as cute as a young man could get and not be a girl.  He had one of those round pumpkin shaped faces that just lit up like a jack-0-lantern when he smiled.  And that smile never left his face!  He opened his excited presentation with the words, “Hi, Sir” and I have to tell you, from that moment on I never understood another word!  He was all over the place.  His words were unintelligible.  Every once in awhile I picked up “money” and “new uniforms”  and “donate” but beyond that he might as well have been speaking in Sanskrit.   Even so, he was having no trouble “communicating” with me and getting his message across.

It was his obvious passion.  You could just tell that he was so excited to be out trying to raise money to help his little league team.   He truly believed in what he was selling!  Having raised 4 sons of my own I could just picture him in his little bedroom last night practicing and rehearsing his sales presentation.  By the time he was finished with me I couldn’t wait to get my checkbook and help him out.  I was sold!! 

Obviously, what sold me was his enthusiasm and sincere energy.  Of course, the fact that he lived about 4 doors down and I knew his family didn’t hurt his chances either, but I digress.   The point I want to make here is to follow up on my post of yesterday. 

The little guy didn’t have the words but, so what!  He sure had the tonality and physiology!  That is where the communication occured.  Words make up only 7% of the effectiveness of communication.  Tonality, (how we say the words) is 38% and our physiology is 55%.

Professional selling is really nothing more than a transference of feeling.  And nothing transfers that feeling more than  tonality and physiology.  It’s that unexplainable “aura” around a person when they are truly excited about what they are trying to communicate.  Ask any parent if their infant child who hasn’t developed words yet has any trouble communicating what they want.  The baby’s body language and tonality (sometimes crying or screaming) definately gets their point across. 

Over the years I have seen many brand new salespeople who haven’t yet learned their sales presentations (words) do very well in their first couple of weeks because they are excited and enthusiastic about what they are doing and that excitement registers with their customers and sales are made.  It’s almost like the customer is thinking, “I don’t know what this guy is selling but I have to have some of it!”  Sadly, after the newness wears off and the excitement wanes, sales start to fall off also. 

I wish I had the formula for excitement and enthusiasm and could bottle it up and hand it out.  We all have had it at various times in our lives just like the little kid but for some reason we lose it along the way.  The folks that stand out and excel are the ones that are able to summon it up when they need it.  Take entertainers for example.  I saw the play “Fiddler on the Roof” many years ago and the program said these actors and actresses had performed the same show over 4,500 times!  How do they keep it fresh night after night after saying the same lines thousands of times over and over?  Simple.  They are able to treat every performance like it was Opening Night!  That is the sign of a true professional.  

We have to find out what motivates us….what melts our butter…..what blows our skirt up… what gets our juices going.  We need to charge into each day with the excitement and enthusiasm of that little kid.  My motivation was always my sons.  We all get lazy at times and I admit there were times that I didn’t want to make another prospecting call or talk to another customer but I would pull out a picture of the kids and say to myself, “If I take a shortcut.. who am I really hurting?”  That was my motivation.  We all have something that fires us up!  We just need to focus on it until we feel the energy.  I once read that the best way to make sure you always do your best is to imagine that the whole world were watching you.  Talk about an audience!

Maybe the best way to explain what a “real professional” attitude is would be to share with you a story of Joe Dimaggio the great Yankee outfielder and hall-of-famer.  Known as the Yankee Clipper (and for you non-baseball fans, he was also known as Mr. Coffee) he played 15 years and retired in 1951.   The story is told of  an event that occured in his final season.  It was late August and the Yankees were playing a Sunday double-header in Detroit.   It was late in the second game and Joe was at bat and hit a weak pop-up to the shortstop.  Instead of just stopping and returning to the dugout, he hustled all-out to first base like it was the 9th inning of the World Series.  When he got back to the dugout his teamates started ragging on him a little bit with comments like, “Lighten-up Joe, you’re a hall of famer, relax a little bit, you don’t have to prove anything.”  One of his teamates asked him, “Joe, why are you working so hard?”  His answer illustrates why he was one of the greatest of all time. 

“The reason I work so hard is that there may be someone in the stands today who has never seen me play!”

Wow!  Not hard to see why he excelled.  That was his motivation.  What is yours!  As you step onto the ballfield of life each day bring your enthusiasm, excitement and passion with you. 

 Make it a great day, Rick

PS.  I need your help!!  What can I do to make my blog better and what more can I do to advertise it?  I will cherish  your comments and/or advice.  Let me know.  Thanks for sharing some of your valuable time with me!  Rick

But in this case it is not opinion but fact.  Read on and be enlightened! 

There are only 3 ways in which we human beings communicate.   Only three!

1. Words
2. Tonality
3. Fizzyology  (Yes, I know how to spell it but wanted to see if you were paying attention)

Of even more interest is the relative effect each of these have in our ability to get our message across to each other.  Experts have shown that the breakdown is as follows:

1. Words - 7%
2. Tonality - 38%
3. Physiology - 55%

Words, as you see, have the least effect on our communication.   HOW we say those words, or the tonality, is over 5 times as important than the words themselves and of course the real  communicator is our physiology, i.e. body language, eye contact, hand gestures etc.

The sad thing about blogging is that the only way we can communicate is with our words.  Punctuation marks can help a little by taking the place of tonality or physiology but unless you are a great, great writer you will never be able to get your point across as well as you could if you were speaking to your audience face-to-face.  Exclamation points and italics are a sad substitute for true passion and excitement that people can read in your face. 

I have been a public speaker and trainer for over 30 years and feel really hamstrung with this blogging thing cause I don’t feel I can communicate as well as I would like and am used to.  Take tonality for example.  With HOW I say a word I can actually change the meaning of what I am saying.  Take the following sentence:

“I didn’t say I shot my wife.”

Depending on my voice inflection, (tonality) I can make those simple words mean many different things.  For example: (Inflection on the subject word is italicized and bolded)

“I didn’t say I shot my wife.” (the man over there did)

“I didn’t say I shot my wife.” (I implied it)

“I didn’t say I shot my wife.” (My mistress did)

“I didn’t say I shot my wife.” (I poisoned her)

“I didn’t say I shot my wife.” (I shot his wife)

“I didn’t say I shot my wife.” (I shot my dog)

Each sentence had the same seven words but depending on my voice inflection they had six totally unique meanings.  Great speakers understand tonality.  They vary the pace of their speaking, sometimes they are loud, sometimes they whisper, sometimes they use accents.   They understand that the meaning of what they say can be affected by how they say it.  They use anything to keep from being monotone which not only weakens the communication but puts the audience to sleep. 

That is why I really respect great writers.  They have a tough job.  They need to get their message across using just one of the means of communication.  And the least important one at that!

Don’t get the wrong idea from me.  Words are very important.  Mark Twain once said that the difference between the right word and ALMOST the right word is like the difference between lightning and a lighting bug.  No wonder he was a great writer.  More later, 

PS.  I need your help!!  What can I do to make my blog better and what more can I do to advertise it?  I will cherish  your comments and/or advice.  Let me know.  Thanks for sharing some of your valuable time with me!  Rick

……….pero incluido un viaje gratis alrededor del sol cada ano!! 

My spanish tutor in Ecuador shared that saying with me a few years ago.  Translation:

 Life is dificult… but it does include a free trip around the sun each year!! 

Isn’t that a wonderful outlook on life!  It was typical, I learned, of the Ecuadorian people and the way they approached the challenges they were faced with each day.  Even though a high percentage of them don’t enjoy the bounty, comforts and conveniences that we take for granted here, they are truly a happy and joyous people.   They seem to always look at their situation with optimism and confidence.   They can handle anything!  Talk about a glass half-full way of thinking! 

I was reminded of that Spanish refrain last night as I lamented my recent achilles tendon injury.   No matter the misfortune, there is always a positive side.   Here in the land of plenty, we many times seem to focus on our setbacks and, thereby perpetuate them, which envelops us in those downward spirals where we feel the whole world is plotting against us and everything is going wrong.   Many times we will try to solve our problems with sheer force of will which can cause us stress, worry and feelings of  low self worth….especially if we are unsuccessful.

What we could do is take a little different approach when we are faced with those little “bumps in the road” that are sure to show up from time to time as we journey through life. 

One idea is to remember that we are each very unique, talented and creative organisms with abilities that, if given the chance, will amaze even ourselves.   We are success oriented beings.  I recommend that you not try to overcome your next challenge with  iron-jawed will power.   Don’t picture the things that are likely to go wrong.   Instead of trying to fix everything by strain and effort, just simply relax the pressure you feel and picture to yourself the target you really want to hit and “let” your unique creative mechanism take over.   And it will, if you just let it! 

In the meantime, let’s just enjoy our free trip around the Sun!

PS.  I need your help!!  What can I do to make my blog better and what more can I do to advertise it?  I will cherish  your comments and/or advice.  Let me know.  Thanks for sharing some of your valuable time with me!  Rick
 

Have you ever been going along smartly….loving the direction your life was taking, thinking your goals were within reach, when all of a sudden, unexpectedly, the wheels come off and you seem to lose your compass? 

It happened to me just this week!

I was at the gym on Wednesday and thought I would try for a “little extra” during my run and I stepped up the pace a bit.  Unfortunately, my right achilles tendon was not on the same page as me.  It thanked me for my effort by seizing up and presenting me with a bad case of tendonitis, which, if you have never had it is, in my opinion, the worst injury an athlete can have.

I speak from experience here.  Nine years ago I was stupidly playing a strenuous game of handball only 4 months after enduring total left hip replacement.  As you might imagine, that was a recipe for disaster and I suffered the consequences.   Just 10 minutes into the game I went down like I had been shot and immediately knew that I was the victim of a 100% rupture of my left achilles tendon.    Two days later I was in surgery prompting my Orthopedic surgeon to remark that it was like sewing the ends of two mops together!   In other words, it was bad.  That foolish stunt laid me up for 9 months!  I didn’t listen to the warning signs!  I was 53 years old…I hadn’t exercised in 4 months due to the hip surgery and I jumped in a court and put major stress on a tendon that wasn’t ready  for it.  That was an example of my competitiveness getting me in trouble.

Fast forward to today as I limp around the house with a very painful and tender right achilles that I can’t put any weight on.  How long I will be laid up I have no clue but it sure puts a cramp on my running and brings back painful memories of 9 years ago.  The lesson to be learned however, is what do we do when these “speed bumps” show up on our life’s journey.  We all suffer them from time to time.  How we deal with them is the challenge.   As far as my aerobic exercise goes, I will switch to swimming or the stationary bike which won’t stress the achilles and will give it time to heal.   It’s like boxing.  We have to be able to “stick and move!”  When a roadblock occurs we need to be flexible enough to head in a different direction.   Our yardstick measuring our success should not be the end result, but rather, the things we are doing along the way.

Set performance goals and not results goals!

The problem with results goals is that if something happens that is beyond our control it can keep us from reaching the result we had planned on.  Performance goals, on the other hand, are totally dependent on our own efforts which we CAN control.  For example, if I were a salesperson that made my living by door to door selling and I had set a certain goal for number of sales made this month, I would find myself failing to reach my goal this month because I can’t walk.  That might be very discouraging if I measure my sales success only by my results.  On the other hand, if one of my goals each month was to make sure that I never short-changed a customer and gave a complete presentation to every one of them, I would be in complete control of that goal no matter how many customers I talked to.   As far as my aerobics goes, my goal is to get my heart pumping 30 minutes, 6 days a week.  That is a performance goal that only I can control!  Although my injury has taken away the running, I still have other options that are in my control.  If my goal, on the other hand, had been to run 20 miles a week I would have failed and possibly gotten discouraged. 

Goal setting, like life, is about the journey and not the destination.   It’s the choices we make and the things we do.  Make sure you are doing the things that you can control….. as well as you can do them….. each and every moment of the day and, believe it or not,  everything else will take care of itself. 

PS.  I need your help!!  What can I do to make my blog better and what more can I do to advertise it?  I will cherish  your comments and/or advice.  Let me know.  Thanks for sharing some of your valuable time with me!  Rick