Grow Your Business and Grow Yourself
by: Stuart Lockley
Grow Your Business
A postal clerk in Indianapolis made a discovery about her customers
and coworkers � and her own nature.
A newspaper editorial charged that her branch had �the rudest clerks
in town.� The clerk was angry.
"I was rude to people because they were rude to me,� she said. �What
goes around comes around.� Then she wondered what would happen if she treated
others with courtesy. Would that come around too?
So she made an effort to get to know customer�s names. The clerk began
to smile and ask how they were doing. Even a man known for his grouchiness
eventually became a favourite customer. All the clerks began to make an
effort. Everybody reaped a reward of cheerfulness.
And it all started with one woman who decided that �what goes around
comes around� can be good news.
Father John Catoir
Three Minutes a Day
The Christophers
It has taken me many years to learn a simple lesson. There are very
few things in life that we are able to directly change. We cannot change
our colleagues, the government, the weather or our customers. We cannot
change our spouses or our children. If we wish to change any of those things
we must begin by changing ourselves.
If you work in any organisation there are probably coworkers who you
do not get along with as well as you might. No doubt they annoy and irritate
you. But have you stopped to consider what might happen if you treated
them differently? Would they react to you differently and become less annoying
and nicer people? Perhaps it is worth a try, just do not expect immediate
results.
Often it is easy to blame someone else for a situation when we are equally
to blame ourselves. Even if a situation is not our "fault" it is still
probably worth changing our own behaviour towards someone else if that
will produce an effect that we want. Even if the change just leaves us
feeling better within ourselves knowing that we have done whatever we were
able to do to change things.
How do you treat your customers? When was the last time that you sent
them a simple note to say �Thank you for your custom and support�, have
you ever sent such a note? How would you feel towards a supplier who sent
you such a letter?
When was the last time you asked your customers if there was anything
that you could do for them? I do not mean as a veiled message which really
means �is there anything else we can sell you.� Simply and genuinely ask
if there is anything you can do for them without expecting anything in
return.
Will some people take advantage? Probably but I am afraid that is just
life. Those people were always going to take advantage in some way. What
is important is the goodwill you generate among the majority of your customers.
If your customers feel that you care about them they are far less likely
to change supplier and it will always be cheaper to keep existing customers
than
to find new ones.
Why not just try the idea out with a few of your best customers and
see what happens?
Grow Yourself
The best rosebush is not the one with the fewest thorns, but that which
bears the finest roses.
Jerry Van Dyke
Entertainer
The Daffodil Principle
credit to Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards
Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come
see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour
drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead.
"I will come next Tuesday," I promised, a little reluctantly, on her
third call. Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised,
and so I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house and hugged
and greeted my grandchildren, I said, "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The
road is invisible in the clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world
except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive
another inch!"
My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time,
Mother." "Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and
then I'm heading for home!" I assured her. I was hoping you'd take me over
to the garage to pick up my car."
"How far will we have to drive?" "Just a few blocks," Carolyn said.
"I'll drive. I'm used to this."
After several minutes, I had to ask, "Where are we going? "This isn't
the way to the garage!" "We're going to my garage the long way," Carolyn
smiled, "by way of the daffodils."
"Carolyn," I said sternly, "please turn around." "It's all right, Mother,
I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience."
After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw
a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand-lettered sign
that read, "Daffodil Garden. "We got out of the car, each took a child's
hand, and followed the path. Then, we turned a corner of the path, and
I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight.
It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured
it down over the mountain peak and slopes. The flowers were planted in
majestic, swirling patterns-great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white,
lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron, and butter yellow. Each different-coloured
variety was planted as a group so that it swirled and flowed like its own
river with its own unique hue. A charming path wound through the garden
with several resting stations, with Victorian wooden benches and great
tubs of tulips. It didn't matter that the sun wasn't shining there were
five acres of flowers!
"But who has done this?" I asked Carolyn. "It's just one woman," Carolyn
answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed
to a well-kept A-frame house that looked small and modest in the midst
of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster.
"Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline. It
Read:
50,000 bulbs,
one at a time,
by one woman
two hands,
two feet,
very little brain.
began in 1958.
There it was: The Daffodil Principle. For me, that moment was a life-changing
experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than
forty years before, had begun-one bulb at a time-to bring her vision of
beauty and joy to an obscure mountain top. Still, just planting one bulb
at a time, year after year, had changed the world. This unknown woman had
forever changed the world in which she lived. She had created something
of indescribable magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.
The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles
of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires
one step at a time-often just one baby-step at a time-and learning to love
the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny
pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find
we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.
"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have
accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty
years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those
years. Just think what I might have been able to achieve!"
My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way.
"Start tomorrow," she said. "It's so pointless to think of the lost hours
of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead
of a cause for regret is to only ask, 'How can I put this to use today?'"
How many times have you put off your dream of a writing a book, painting
a picture, learning a language, starting a business or something else that
is your deepest desire, because it seemed daunting or unachievable? What
excuse have you used to wait for another day? Do you tell yourself, I will
start:
When the children are grown
In the spring
In the summer
After college
When you lose 10 lbs.
When you gain 10 lbs.
When you get married
When you get a divorce
When you have kids
When you retire
How much could you achieve if you start today by doing just one thing
towards your dream? Like the daffodil gardener, if you plant just one seed
of your dream every day, you can create a lasting life quilt that leads
to your destiny.
There is no better time than right now to be happy. Happiness is a journey,
not a destination. So work like you don't need money. Love like you've
never been hurt. And, dance like no one's watching.
If you want to brighten someone's day, pass this on to someone special.
I just did!
Wishing you every success.
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