Hi Everyone,

I love the opportunity during this not-quite-winter season to get together with friends and family over good food and wine and visit and relax.  I like to think about what I’m grateful for and appreciate my warm cozy house and the heat from the wood stove.  I feel very fortunate to have so much freedom in my life.  This last week I had some very difficult things to deal with as well.  I lost a friend to cancer and nearly lost another.

When I came to Jillian feeling lost and uncertain, she shared some great wisdom with me:  think about what you’d be doing if you didn’t feel what you were feeling and do that.  Some days it helps to put one foot in front of the other and do what is ours to do.  It can be the best medicine.

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The holidays are packed with all kinds of gatherings.  You’ll see people you don’t often see.  It’s a natural time for catching up and finding out what’s going on.  You’ll be asking questions and answering questions.  And now you’ll be asking and answering those questions with a consciousness you might not have brought to the table before.

What is your business about?  If you said helping people finding a solution to their economic issues, you’d be right.  If you said helping people become more independent to spend their time the way they want to, you’d be right.  So your job is to pay attention and be aware of someone’s need that you think your business might be able to remedy.  Anytime you are around people is a great time to be paying attention and the holidays are no exception.

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Self Fulfilling Prophecies

Self fulfilling prophecy, we’ve all heard about that.  There’s lot of literature that supports the idea that we tend to get what we expect.

A coaching client of mine is President of her local school board and is currently fighting what she calls the “culture of low expectations.”  In other words, if you expect students to do poorly, you set up the culture that gets you, that’s right, poor results.  The kids may do well in your ‘dumbed down’ classes, but of course they don’t look good when compared to kids participating in challenging curriculum.  It makes it pretty easy to say, “See I told you so.”

Too often we do the same thing in our businesses.  We expect that our businesses won’t do well so we set up a business culture that proves us ‘right.’  We ‘dumb down’ or curtail our money making activites.  Obviously, we don’t take chances.  Too risky.

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