Mopping is much less glamorous than everyone makes it out to be.

The other day I had a hilarious conversation with an old business connection that validated a theory I have about the best training a person can receive in their early work experience. So as not to embarrass anyone, I’m not going to get any more specific than saying that the business this fellow is in involves a packaged beverage product, and that he’s going through the early growing pains of turning a one-man operation into one that requires employees.

So what is the best work training a person can receive to prepare them for the world of work in general? A restaurant job. This friend of mine was a chef for a long time, and then a restaurant consultant, before starting his current business. And me? I was a waiter and bartender off and on for about 15 years. The laughs we had all revolved around a simple work task. Mopping.

My friend creates a premium product that has a certain hip prestige associated with it, and he’s a sharp guy, so attracts hip, sharp youngsters as employee prospects. This is all great – it brings a unique tone to the workplace and the product. But it highlights something that’s as valuable as practical information as it is amusing.

Want to see your young, smartphone-toting, Twitter-happy hipster employee turn into a deer in the headlights? At the end of the workday, say to them “Fantastic job today! You rock!”, and then pull the mop and bucket out of the utility closet. After the initial look of perplexedness disappears, and they accept the fact that they’re actually going to (gasp) MOP A FLOOR, the real comedy begins. No, the water has to be HOT. No, I mean reeeeeaaally HOT. WHOA! Not so much soap! The SOAP doesn’t do the work, YOU do! No no no! Squeeze that sucker out before you start! We’re CLEANING THE FLOOR, not WATERING THE GARDEN. By the time the person is done with this first terrifying mop experience, they’re so eager to get back to just SERVING CUSTOMERS that it’s like they had a six month training program in customer service.

Anyone who has worked in restaurants knows this routine all too well. In foodservice, you have to spend entire workdays cleaning up people’s drool, food scraps, and other dining and face-wiping debris, and then turn around and talk to them like you’re they’re personal butler. It’s like changing a baby’s diaper and then having the baby say “good job, now go fetch my pipe and slippers, will you?” A simple task like mopping almost becomes therapeutic. This is probably why the military places such an emphasis on cleaning in basic training. Six months of mopping floors and cleaning toilets, and you’ll do ANYTHING to move on to the next task, even killing your fellow humans.

But the serious point I’m making here is that foodservice – specifically in a full service restaurant – gives a person a range of training that you will find in no other job, anywhere. If a person is doing it right, they’re dealing with everything from sales and customer service, to maintaining product consistency, to ballet (try carrying a tray with six dinners on it through a crowded room!) to conflict resolution and therapy (some kitchen lines are more like battlegrounds than work areas) to sanitation tasks like mopping and waste disposal.

Next time you’re hiring some young green employees, don’t just look at their education and the more “professional” school jobs they try to pad their resume with, look for a year at Mel’s Diner.

Did you know that you can DECIDE to be happy? I know it sounds crazy, but I did, and my life has never been better.

About 12 years ago, I found myself at a job I hated, with a boss who had some very serious mental issues, and who, together with the office manager – who happened to be his ex-wife – was embezzling serious money from clients and from the owners of our business. At the same time, this awful pair was doing everything in their power to blame the theft on the rest of the employees, myself included.

I reported them to the owner of the business, but the old man just couldn’t find the energy to chase the criminals out of his business. We found out later he was fighting late stage lymphoma, so that may have affected his judgment and his energy level. I got out of the business as soon as I could, but for the two and half years I was there, I struggled with serious anger and mild depression. Now, for a guy who’s normally irrationally optimistic, the bad feelings were very uncomfortable. So I started to read every book I could find on the subject of achieving a positive attitude.

Twelve years later, I think I may have read almost every word every written about happiness and person success. I’ve read Andrew Weil, Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, and hundreds of others. I’ve really studied the art of positive thinking. But, you know what? What’s important is not that I’ve read all those powerful writers. It’s not the number of books I’ve read that made the difference for me. It’s a decision I made at the beginning of my journey through the art of attitude change, and it’s a decision you can make, too. Here’s what I decided: I was going to do more than just read these writers.

I was going to try what they suggested, however crazy it seemed

I was going to actually, sincerely, genuinely TRY what they suggested. As long as what they told me didn’t seem acutely dangerous or absolutely insane, I was going to try it. In fact, I was even going to try the insane stuff! After all, I was unhappy with my mental state, and most of these writers were known for their expertise. So instead of being cynical and reluctant, I was going to really, really try to adopt the attitudes and behaviors that were supposed to lead to happiness.

And that may have been the most important decision of my life.

Because I discovered something that may be the most powerful personal development secret you’ll ever learn. I know it has been for me. That secret is this:

Action is the key to happiness

If you don’t like where you are, take action. If you don’t who you’re with, take action. If you don’t like what you have, take action. If you don’t like how you feel, take action. And, if you don’t like the way you think, take action. Fix your mind on the person, place, thing or feeling you desire, and take action in the direction of your goal.

The beauty of this secret is that you don’t have to know how to achieve your goal when you start out. You can be completely unaware of what it’s going to take to get to the place where you’re happy, successful, healthy, and making the big bucks. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter.

The only thing that matters in the beginning is that you take some action

Once you start yourself moving in the right direction, you’ll begin to get it. To move, get moving. Whatever you do, do something. Step out of your routine and into some action that takes you toward the person you want to be, and you’ll be on your way.

I’m out of time for today, so I’m just going to list the Seven Decisions. Next time, I’ll go into a bit of detail on each decision, and share with you some of the insights that help keep me feeling so optimistic about life! Here they are:

Decision Number 1 – Decide to be happy
Decision Number 2 – Decide to overwhelm negative thoughts
Decision Number 3 – Decide to practice
Decision Number 4 – Decide to get help
Decision Number 5 – Decide to replace your “friends”
Decision Number 6 – Decide to dwell on your successes
Decision Number 7 – Decide to enjoy the feeling of success!

And, by the way, have a GREAT day!

Okay, this is a little embarrassing. Normally, I don’t like to talk about myself or toot my own horn. Well, at least not more than once or twice an hour and not in front of more than 100 people. But in this case I’m sort of trapped by the topic I’m writing about, which is “Your Personal Elevator Speech.”

Recently, in our Daily Fix column, I wrote about how you can leverage your hard-wired responses to your own name to increase the positive effect of your personal elevator speech on your psyche. You can see that post here. But we all understand things better when we can see examples, so I thought I’d share a personal elevator speech I wrote a few weeks ago when I was trying to get my ass moving on a project and having some doubts about whether I would be able to get through it.

I have to warn you, it’s nauseatingly positive. You can hate on me in the comments if you want, but keep in mind the purpose of the speech – it’s for me to tell myself in moments of self-doubt, and to leverage the sound of my own name. Here’s goes:

“Nick, you are smart, hard working, and successful. You can do anything you put your mind to. You know how to team up with creative and productive people, Nick, and how to get the best from them, and this time will be no exception. You entered law school on a bet, became an editor on the law review, and graduated with the top students in your class. You opened the Japanese Martial Arts Center after putting together a group of investors and built it to 100 adult students in record time. Nick, starting with a list of suggestions from your friend Don Prior, you learned the SEO business, mastered it, and now you have a successful SEO business that provides a really valuable service to business people all over Southeast Michigan. You’ve written five books, Nick, including 101 Ideas to Kick Your Ass into Gear that you co-wrote with Ian and Budo Mind and Body which made Black Belt Magazine’s list of Essential Gear. Nick, remember all the great things you’ve done, and how you set out with passion and determination. You can do anything you put your mind to, Nick, and this latest project is no exception. Nick, now is the time to get started!”

That’s it. You know that funny feeling you get when you address yourself by name? That’s your nervous system responding from a very deeply programmed place, just like it did when your parents said your name when you were about to be punished, or when your lover coos your name in the candlelight. It’s a very powerful tool, and it can help you remake your self image. Use it wisely, and it will help get you to a place where you can do anything you set your mind to!

Each week for the next few months, Ian and I will be riffing on a theme from our recently published book 101 Ideas to Kick Your Ass Into Gear. This week’s theme is “Tell Your Story”

It’s pretty amusing how the “spare the rod, spoil the child” debate about child-rearing seems to continue well into our adult lives when we find ourselves in the position of either “parenting” or “being parented” in the workplace. Especially in sales. I personally haven’t worked directly in sales very much; my work has usually been more related to marketing, but I often find myself working closely with sales people or departments. Two things make me a horrible salesperson. One is that I refuse to sell things I don’t believe in. This is in itself not a bad thing, but someone like me is likely to kill a lot of sales that would otherwise happen with an especially inquisitive customer. When selling, I’m very prone to reaching a point where I want to yell at the buyer “How DARE you doubt me. Why the hell would I be selling it if it weren’t worth buying?!?” Not very conducive to selling, as you might imagine. The other thing is that when working in marketing, I’m merely thinking of ways to make people aware of a product. I’m not literally telling them to buy it. Things change for me when it comes down to someone letting go of their hard-earned money. I worry WAY to much about whether they’re doing the right thing with it. We’ve discussed integrity here before, and this is one scenario where “too much” integrity might not be benefitting anyone.

So as I said, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to observe sales methods, and I’ve put a lot of energy into at least studying them. This year though, something really struck me. I’ve been calling it the “Tasers or Candy” dilemma. Because I do contract work, and am not directly employed by anyone, I get to see things from a different angle than both employees and their bosses. And I also get to work in quite a variety of settings. Recently I was working with two different projects, one with a global cosmetics firm which shall remain nameless, and one with a group of what I’m going to call “ethnic businessmen” who are variously of Arab, Central European, or Mediterranean descent. They joke about their ethnicity all the time, and if this makes you squeamish, maybe you better go away now. I’m about as “color blind” as people get, but the simple fact is that different cultures bring different approaches to doing business, and if you can’t learn the reality of this, you may bungle opportunities that otherwise could be very successful if you didn’t have your politically correct undies in a bunch.

So this whole Tasers vs Candy theme began one day a few months ago when – within a two hour period – I had to work directly with the global cosmetics firm (hereafter referred to as “GCF”) and the “ethnic businessmen” (hereafter referred to as “EBM”) regarding sales strategies heading into the holidays. First, let’s talk about the EBM strategy. The interesting thing about the core of the EBM strategy is that to the extent that there IS one, it’s largely based on the salesperson understanding the high expectations placed on them, even though they may not be precisely defined. There are no incentives offered beyond straight commissions, but if the salesperson does well and sticks around long enough, they learn that there ARE in fact incentives – in the form of unexpected bonuses or revenue sharing -  which are often far better than what one might expect or be offered in typical corporate American environments. So there’s no candy promised. On the other hand, the Taser is always evident, with lots of profanity tossed around, and the potential for getting yelled at. I call this Poinephobic Performance Maintenance. It’s based largely on the fear of being punished, and the employees in question often resemble PTSD sufferers. But in the big picture, they more closely resemble family members with a verbally abusive parent, because the boss actually DOES really care about them, and much like the “honeymooning” of abusive relationships, the rewards are positive in direct proportion to all the apparent hostility dished out. So. In the Tasers and Candy framework, this method is almost all Taser, and no Candy.

Where’s My Candy?

So this brings us to the more familiar “gimme candy” method. A surprising amount of the sales motivation strategies I see in play are based almost ENTIRELY on getting candy for being good, and NOT getting any if you’re NOT good. It’s often based on goals for a specific period of time, and is literally as simple as “If you sell x amount by x date, you will receive x“, or “you will receive x percentage unless you manage to sell up to x amount, in which case we will give also you the fixed amount of x dollars“. The problems with these basic schemes are manifold, in my opinion. The GCF I referenced above uses these simple models, which – in the real world – fall flat on their face for several reasons. The first is poor training and communication. At one location I worked with, the clerks that could be making commissions were paid about ten dollars an hour if they sold NOTHING. They are rarely terminated for poor sales performance, as long as they dress according to code, and perform all their basic tasks at the counter. This is often called “clerking it”, with a heavy negative implied meaning.

Visualizing the Candy

The approach I used in this situation to motivate the sales people was to pull them aside, and ask them if they understood their commission structure. They would say “sure, I get 10% of all sales and a bonus at x dollars for the month“. Then I would ask how much they made an hour. They’d say “ten dollars, before taxes“, and I’d say “how do you figure?“, to which they’d reply “well, it’s what ALL of us get paid to start, right?” Then I’d slide a thousand dollars worth of cosmetics in front of them. This was easy, because it’s very expensive stuff. Then I’d ask “If we didn’t pay you an hourly, how many of these things would you have to sell in an hour to make double your current hourly?“, and it would start to dawn on them that if they only made a point of selling two facial creams every hour, they’d be raking in twenty bucks just on the commission. We’d then make little charts showing them how it was almost impossible to NOT be taking home thirty bucks an hour, if they were even doing a half-assed job of selling.

Non-continuous Assessment & Thievin’ Dogs

There are other problems that are easily recognized, if you just examine things in action a bit. This probably happens far too little in sales management, where sales managers Taser the salespeople and send them into the wild with promises of candy when they come back with results. One is that many sales goals have great rewards for reaching them, but no incremental incentives. I actually have overheard salespeople say “well, by Tuesday I’ll know if I can make this month’s goal, and if things aren’t looking good, I’m not gonna sweat it for the rest of the month – I know my numbers from the last few years and I’m not gonna waste all that energy if I’m not gonna make the bonus” Which is INSANE if you think about it. The incentive structure effectively acts instead as a DE-incentive. Another incredibly dumb strategy is giving products that the person is selling as the incentive. Sure, make a person you’re only paying 10 bucks an hour sell hundred dollar items all day, and then reward them with one of the hundred dollar items. This is not only a mildly insulting incentive regardless of the item’s retail value, I would argue that the average company really hates to look honestly at the pilfering that goes on, and when they DO give it a hard look, they respond in the wrong way. They institute harsh policies and create a paranoid environment, rather than looking at how the original environment and policies led to hiring people that ended up feeling comfortable stealing from them. The point being that in any case, there’s a reasonable chance the employee has already given THEMSELVES the “bonus”.

So What’ll It Be, Tasers, Or Candy?

So I’ve gone all over the map here to talk about a simple question, which is: what is a good fundamental approach to motivating sales people? I think a talented and successful sales force is much more the exception than the rule. And having sat in on plenty of sales team meetings in wide variety of contexts, I feel confident in saying that the most common problem is the simple-minded and polarized approaches mentioned here: Sell a lot, and you get some candy, don’t sell a lot and you get tasered. The candy approach is more familiar in less aggressive and competitive environments like retail, and the taser approach is more common in high-pressure, high-stakes environments like car sales, commercial real estate, financial services, high-volume tech industry sales, or any position where wholesale sales reps are dealing with entire districts or regions of retailers. One classic example of just how reasonable the “taser” metaphor actually is would be the movie Suckers. I personally know three auto dealership sales managers who make watching this film mandatory for new hires. Why? In spite of the fact that the film is often referred to as a “low rent Glengarry Glen Ross”, the sales meetings portrayed in the film – which are meant to motivate the staff to be ruthless and manipulative in ways that only a car salesman could be – are based on real-world auto sales tricks that only real-world car salesman are familiar with. It’s actually a decent training film for this kind of aggressive and deceptive sales environment, and the minor gratuitious nudity and b-movie heist plot keep the new hire engaged enough to watch the whole thing.

Let’s Put Down Our Weapons & Try Some Peace Talks

So I’ve actually had a lot of luck the last few months with the Taser or Candy question, because framing things in a humorous fashion like this opens up the dialog from both ends. Both the managers and the managed can talk more freely about the core concepts in question when using such absurd reference points. And what happens then? Well, communication. And once the floggers and the floggees are allowed to discuss what’s REALLY important, everyone suddenly remembers it’s the CUSTOMER that’s most important, for one thing. They’re also more likely to try to understand what’s really going on, instead of resenting the demands sent down from some distant VP of sales who – sadly – really has NO IDEA what is going on beyond their office and the documents they shuffle around. In one instance in which I helped the staff look at what they were selling and what an incredible opportunity they had right in front of them, they were suddenly able to connect the crazy numbers sent down from on high with an hourly activity. And you know what happened? Sales at that location increased FORTY PERCENT in sixty days. Yes, I said 40%. I said it ALL IN CAPS and repeated it, because I didn’t want you to think it was a typo.

So the next time you feel like whipping out the cattle prod or throwing bribes around the staff, why not try a little direct communication. I know it sounds archaic and naiive, but you have to admit that a 40% increase in sales is a lot more shocking than a taser could EVER be. And we were still offering the exact same amount of candy, we just did a better job of describing how delicious it was.

What’s stopping you from doing it? Is it money? Time? Is there some class you need to take first, or some kind of equipment you need? It seems like everyone we know has a dream or a business idea, but precious few seem to execute the ideas and make the millions they think that idea is worth. I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone at points in my life; but what is it that stops us from pursuing the grand visions in our hearts and heads?

It’s Not A Lack Of Tools

I regularly marvel at the fact that we actually accomplish so little given what is available right at our fingertips. I sometimes think that maybe it’s the VERY AVAILABILITY of these tools that prevents us from doing things. I’m going to use a few examples, ranging from the small and personal to the grand and history-making.

The Small & Personal: My Magazine

Ever since I was a teen (before personal computers even existed) I’ve had a sort of fantasy about publishing a magazine. I mean a real, turn-the-pages, high quality magazine. I’ve realized a less-tangible version of that dream in creating sites like the one you’re on right now, or my pop culture site Dissociated Press. But the funny thing is that the only time I created a real, physical publication was way before I had all the amazingly powerful tools that are right inside the average personal computer these days. In the 80′s, I did a short run of a self-published magazine with a few friends. We used dry transfer letters, cut-and-paste, and TYPEWRITERS! It actually didn’t look too shabby. We would print it at the local copy shop and hand-assemble it. And I would argue that the challenge of thinking it wasn’t possible is what drove us to actually do it! Meeting and arguing about layout and content, having to actually MAKE SOMETHING WITH OUR HANDS really put a special spin on it. I could open Creative Suite 5 right now and get to work on a new magazine, and in spite of the fact that I could actually create a print-ready publication, the process would feel empty, and distant, and theoretical. And I’m probably not going to do it any time soon.

The Grand & History Making

Two amazing things happened back in the sixties. One was that a lot of people suddenly sensed that something was wrong in our culture. That people should be treated more equally, and that maybe we needed to be a little more responsible to the world around us, and our fellow humans. The other was that someone pointed at the moon, and said “let’s go there!”, and for some crazy reason a bunch of other people agreed. So a civil rights movement was born, with no Internet, no cell phones – hell, no PHONES in many cases, and around the same time, a bunch of people got together and built a bunch of 300 foot tall rockets to send men to the moon, three at a time. Can you imagine either of those things happening today?

Source

As the humorous internet meme featured above points out, available technology seems to have little impact one’s actual desire to DO something. I would argue the same about other momentous and brave acts through history. GPS is available all over the world. The “G” is for “global”, in case you forgot. Can you imagine what Magellan’s journey was actually like? No electronic navigation, no idea what weather lay ahead, no ENGINE for cryin’ out loud! Heck, before Magellan, that whole “globe” issue was still a hotly debated topic itself. Or the Declaration of Independence? Setting pen to paper – when a “pen” was a fancy stick that you dipped in ink and used to scratch words onto animal skin – was a far different process in those days. It’s pretty likely that you had put some thought into things before you bothered creating an actual document. Can you imagine the founding fathers hunched over Microsoft Word 76, typing, deleting, trying to get the typeface right, with Clippy popping up saying “You appear to be trying to write a declaration of independence, would you like help with that?”

So What Is It That Really Makes Things Happen?

I’m going to take a stab at this, and then turn around and see if anything I’m pursuing passes muster. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts; when I’m done with THAT assessment I might have lots of time on my hands to post and review your ideas.

Vision vs Seeing

If you just look at the moon, and say “wow, that is really beautiful”, that’s kind of a nice thing. But there’s no vision in just seeing. Vision would be “That is really beautiful! I must paint a tribute to it!” or “That is an amazing recurring sight in the sky! I must erect Stonehenge!” or “Wow, that looks amazing! I think I will go there!” Seeing a problem or a possibility is hardly the same as DOING something about it, and the impetus to act usually comes from a vision. A dream. A hoped for outcome that is larger than simply accomplishing the original task. As in the case of a civil rights movement, where the real dream was a better world MADE POSSIBLE by equality, not simply creating equality for its own sake.

Insurmountable Challenge

I would argue that intrinsic to many truly worthwhile ventures is a significant – if not insurmountable – challenge. Sure, you know that if you REALLY WANTED to, you could use email, Twitter, Facebook, and direct mail to launch a product or promote an idea. But will you? Even a lot of people who really aggressively put these ideas to work fail. But what if you found out your child or other loved one was going to die within 30 days, and the only way they could be saved is if you raised enough money for a special procedure. I bet you’d take all this knowledge and MAKE IT WORK. Or figure out an even more clever way to achieve your goal. Illumination without fire? IMPOSSIBLE! Human flight? IMPOSSIBLE! Cure Polio? IMPOSSIBLE! The list of things that were achieved exactly because they were impossible is quite lengthy. What’s the challenge in your dream? Is there one? If there isn’t, what will drive you to realize such a dream?

Planning, Passion, Purpose & Persistence

Planning things can be critical to making things happen, but plans are useless without the other three “P” words above. The “purpose” of going to the moon was probably not just to study the place, grab a few rocks and come back with them. Arguably the greater “purpose” was a massive proof of concept of two globally competing ideologies, i.e., capitalism and communism. The fact that human values seemed to be at stake imbued the venture with a sense of purpose, and gave participants the passion and persistence necessary to achieve the goal. Do you know the root of the word “passion”? It’s from the Late Latin word “passio”, which means “suffering” and “submission”. If you’ve ever passionately pursued something, you know that being passionate doesn’t mean you’re just intensely drawn to something, it means you’re willing to suffer for it. There are reasons that people have an almost religious relationship with the products of companies like Apple. Sure, the company is fundamentally driven by the same motives as other tech companies, but the reason the iPad is the iPad and other tablets are still just tablets is largely because of the passion and sense of purpose the creators embodied. Aside from the intense commitment to excellence that Steve Jobs imbued in his underlings, the iPod, iPhone, and iPad weren’t just refined versions of existing devices or concepts, they had visions of a greater purpose that drove them far beyond the hardware. They were all tools for massively distributing content and applications that people were hungry for, something other tablet makers still don’t seem to have grasped, except perhaps in the case of the Kindle.

So as I said above, feel free to chime in. Unless I can actually apply all these ideas to my OWN ventures and not scrub them the same day, I’m going to have a lot of leisure time soon.

As a kid, did you ever see the “Goofy Gophers” cartoon, in which the two characters Mac and Tosh were so incredibly considerate that it seemed they would never accomplish anything, always saying things like “You first, my dear,” and “But, no, no, no. It must be you who goes first!”, or agreeing with each others’ unnecessarily complex phrases with a hearty “Indubitably”? I was recently reminded of these two rascally but respectful rodents as I sat in on a meeting of a group of political activists. I use the term “activist” loosely; in spite of the fact that I vigorously support the aims of this particular group, I doubt they’ll ever accomplish anything, and I find sitting in on meetings with them almost excruciating. Why? Because of a phenomena we’re all at least a little familiar with, i.e., the dreaded groupthink.

Collectivity & Cooperation vs Procedural Paralysis

I’ve always been a team player myself. In fact, one of the cornerstones of the method I bring to any work I do is the demand that all involved parties are committed to the good of the task at hand, and not bound by their ego-driven attachment to the ideas they have about it. I believe in that mysterious “It Factor”, the idea that for virtually everything around us, there’s a best natural manifestation of the “soul” of the thing, whether it’s the sculpture that a certain piece of marble should be, or the way a song should be played by a particular group at a certain moment, or the way a room should be arranged. Or the results of a group of people’s collective action. But this is a fine balance. Being respectful of everyone involved in something does not, in my opinion, mean that everyone deserves a 100% equal voice. I’ve always known this theoretically, but had never seen it in action until recently. The main problem with attempting absolute consensus is two-fold, and will manifest in the worst way when 1.) A really bad idea is the first one agreed upon for consideration, and 2.) the group maintains 100% commitment to respecting the possible validity of the idea and the input of everyone involved, no matter how inane their perspective is. In the case of the group I was working with recently, matters were made worse by the fact that even the basic procedures of the meeting were open to discussion, so before even discussing any action, literally an hour was spent on discussing discussion procedure.

Benevolent Dictators & Ego Collisions

Although I’m a big fan of the “benevolent dictator” in many situations – a great film director or stage manager are great examples – if a group is committed to 100% consensual processes, there are probably only two solutions – which I’ll get to in a moment – and which won’t allow for well-intentioned assertiveness. The common response of someone who sees this paralysis occurring and actively tries to fix it is usually implosively catastrophic. The person will usually preface what they say with “I have over X number of years experience with” and then explain why the thing they’re saying is so valuable to the group. Even if it IS valuable to the group, the only word the group hears is the “I”, and even if the person only uses the word twice at the beginning to say “when I did this I”, the group only hears the word echoing cavernously throughout the room as they imagine the person’s head swelling like a cartoon as they self-aggrandize, wondering when they’ll ever shut up so the group can get back to groupthinking.

Assertions As Questions

This is the oldest managerial trick in the book; everyone knows that the best way to get someone to do something is to ask them, and that people will be most on board with something when they feel like it was their idea. If a group has actually CHOSEN groupthink as their preferred method though, the only hope of re-directing the train of thought is to find some incredibly passive way of injecting a new idea. And this is dangerous ground. The problem is that the flawed thinking of the group is usually so painfully obvious that it almost enrages the parties who see the problem, so it’s almost impossible to actually assert an idea, even if it is completely based on verifiable facts. The idea has to be posed as a question about a possibility, and one has to tread lightly to avoid being bluntly critical of the existing trainwreck that is already in motion, or risk being permanently and subtly ostracized or marginalized by the group.

Or You Can Take Your Marbles And Go Home

Depending on what’s at stake, and how bad the groupthink is, it may be worth sticking around and being patient. And patient you will have to be, because the kind of material that’s often referenced for consensus decision making is material like this Seeds for Change Guide for Consensus Decision Making. The methods themselves will be alien to many, and the procedures are elaborate, so you can easily spend hours just outlining procedures and training the facilitators to implement them. And who will still be around at that point to listen? Well, probably not me. As a person with a strong team spirit, I like actually playing the game, and maybe WINNING, and have no desire to disrupt the fun of others. I’m probably more apt to take my marbles and go play elsewhere. And I think it’s important to realize that this can be as productive and cooperative as staying and acquiescing to the group. Chances are that unless you’re literally maladjusted in some way, there are probably other people in the group who feel the same way, and you can start a new game with them!

Recently Nick and I asked ourselves “How come our meetings are so dang productive?” We often accomplish more in a thirty minute meeting than we do with other people in TWO HOUR meetings. Who has two and three hour meetings, anyway? Three hour meetings always make me think of what happened to Gilligan and the gang when taking this kind of leisure cruise of productivity. And as much as I might enjoy being trapped on a deserted island with Marianne, I have things I’d like to do first. So what’s our big secret? As Nick and I discussed it, we isolated a few simpler points, but as I pondered the idea, something else occurred to me that is a little more “play and creativity” oriented. I’ll share that after the basics about why meetings in general are often not only unproductive, but COUNTERproductive.

Meetings vs Blamestorming

So first let’s make a disctinction here. I think of meetings and actual work as separate things. Meetings are for reviewing, assessing, communicating, deciding, and planning. If you’re on a team of political strategists, your meetings of course may be most of the work you do. But if you’re in any kind of production oriented work, whether it’s running a publication, building cars, or playing in a band, the bulk of the work is done elsewhere. Meetings are for fine-tuning a process, they shouldn’t BE the process. They also shouldn’t be thought of as a grievance forum. Actual grievances should be addressed directly in a separate process, whether it’s an honest one-on-one dialog, a “complaint box”, or forming a union and going on strike. Of course, good management should be aware enough of grievances to avoid that last option, but blamestorming sessions are worse than counterproductive, they can even be destructive.

The Secrets To Efficient & Productive Meetings

So the actual mechanisms behind quick and purposeful meetings are incredibly simple. Which may be the exact reason so many people overlook them. They’re just too darn easy. Below are a few really simple methods for keeping meetings quick and painless. Leaving more time for the kids, golf, laying on the beach, wasting time on the web, or that new knitting pattern you’ve been dying to try.

1.) Know Why You’re Meeting
You’d be surprised how many people don’t use simple lists, or routinely discover what they’re talking about WHILE THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT IT. Before you even arrange a meeting, identify key topics, put them in concise lists, and identify specific tasks or needs under each item.

2.) Share The Memo
Yeah, the old workplace joke about “didn’t you get the memo” is all fine and dandy. Until someone PUTS OUT AN EYE. Which is what I personally do to people who act like you should know what they’re thinking. Before the actual meeting, share the list. Let’s use the archaic term “agenda”. I break up the tedium of this with amusing subject lines in the email like “Here’s The Plan Stan”. And continue at the top of the message with “What’s the agenda, Brenda? The arc, Mark? The deal, Neil? The intent, Kent?”

3.) Time Is An Illusion
“Lunch time doubly so”, as Douglas Adams said. Which is poppycock. Time is a reliable, mechanized measurement. The human mouth can only form words at a rate defined by its physical limitations, and although some human brains seem to utilize their neural networks more or less efficiently than others, the nerve impulsives themselves move at a fairly consistent rate. Know your material, and know how much you can talk about in an hour.

4.) The Time Barrier
Ever notice how people (maybe even YOU) tend to hit a point during classes or meetings where they just start nodding off? We’ve all been there. One minute you seem fully concious, the next you suddently jolt upright with spittle on your chin, with a murmur of voices bubbling in your head. You have just hit the t-~i~-m-~e  b-~a~-r-~r~-i-~e~-r. A combination of decreased blood flow and blood sugar cycles mean that the optimum uninterrupted meeting time is under an hour. Common wisdom says that it’s about 45-50 minutes. No matter what you’re doing at this point in a meeting, take a break. Ten minutes is probably good. Longer, and you risk losing focus.

5.) Pretend You’re In A Band
This is the more “play and creativity” oriented thing I mentioned at the top. If you’ve ever played music with others (Nick & I had a band years ago) you know that there’s a sort of point/counterpoint that occurs in a lot of ways. I think this is a reflexive underpinning of how our meetings work, and it’s not that hard to break down the elements:

a.) Know the difference between “jamming” and the disciplined playing of a part.
Nick and I keep an ongoing acute awareness of whether or not we’ve digressed. Digression is inevitable, but when we do it, we allow it for a moment, perhaps apologize if it’s lengthy, and then zero back in on the topic.

b.) Limit the solos, or have a cigar.
Counterpoint is the basis of all great songs. When someone has a good riff going, let it rip. If it’s turning into self-indulgent bandstanding, be comfortable checking or being checked on it. “Soloing” isn’t the same as digressing. It’s hogging. I used to keep a wrapped cigar at meetings. When someone went on a big ego kick, I’d hand them the cigar. This became a regular part of our meetings; a humorous way to check someone’s soapboxing.

c.) Parts is Parts
I worked with a successful session musician and songwriter years ago. He would jokingly say “parts is parts”, referencing the fact that the best pop songs were really just good “parts” strung together artfully. This is true with work and planning too. Know how to break things into their components, and how they relate. Some projects spin off into related ideas, and if you don’t know the song well enough, you end up with a plodding, forced medley of ideas instead of focused, deliverable results.

6.) Know Why You’re Meeting
I already said this, right? But this is where WAY too many people screw up. At the end of a poorly executed meeting, everyone just wants to be done with things and move on to their next activity, right? Well first of all, try to get the meeting flow working so that at the end of the allotted time, you have about ten minutes to review what you’ve covered, so you can streamline the notes for the next meeting, and keep momentum. When you actually wrap up this way, meetings feel GREAT. It feels like you nailed the resolving note in an orchestral piece, and can literally go “TA DA!” When you walk out of the meeting, you should feel freer and more at ease than when you walked in.

Is Your Business Like A Business, Or Like A Band?

Bands and non-profits have a few interesting things in common. The first is that they’re often started by someone who is extremely passionate about something. The second is that the term “non-profit” is useful in referring to them. And the third is that the person that started them is often so convinced of the value of what they’re doing that they forget that the world doesn’t really give a damn what they think. Having worked with both, and having also worked on developing more “businessy” businesses, I’ve seen both how businesses fail by acting like bands, and bands fail by failing to act like businesses. I’ll be touching on ideas for treating your band like a business in a separate piece, but something worth asking yourself is the reverse – is your business like a band? The ability to blast ahead simply because you’re passionate about something is the very foundation of successful entrepeneurship. But do you treat your venture as some brilliant creation, convinced that someday its genius will be discovered, making you millions? Maybe it’s time to see how your business “charts”. If it were a pop song, where would it be on the Billboard Top 100? And if you even said “99″, is that really even close to true, or are you stuck back in the dreamy-eyed “visioning” stage that inspired you at the outset? One acid-test would be to look around yourself right now. Are there a bunch of sycophants surrounding you, trying to get on your good side so they can get a backstage pass into your methods? Were you written up in Fortune this week? Are you reading this as you fly in your private jet to a tropical getaway? In an upcoming piece, we’ll talk about about scheduled assessments are a crucial part of even the smallest, simplest freelance business. We’ll probably have a quick meeting about it first though.

Do you ever talk to yourself? Maybe you should. I’m always a little surprised when I ask people I’m working with if they’ve ever heard of or put to work the concept of “self talk” and they say “no”, because it’s such a common tool in therapy and recovery. But on reflection, maybe that’s part of the problem. For many of us, our first exposure to the concept is probably when someone mocks the over-the-top books of affirmations that are in the self-help section at the book store, or – as in my case – in a 12-step setting when someone talks about “playing the tape” in their head. It’s unfortunate that in an attempt to teach the concept, it gets so dumbed-down as to be useless, because when used in a common-sense and practical way, it can be the one of the single most powerful tools for being a happy and successful person. So what are we talking about when we talk about “self talk”? Well, not everyone’s mind works exactly the same way, but what we’re talking about is the positive or negative messages our own thoughts guide us with on a daily basis. Do you know what kind of positive or negative messages you send YOURSELF each day? There’s a simple way to figure this out, and the results may surprise you. And before you start tailoring a NEW message, it makes sense to get in there and get a sense of what your mind is already doing.

Just Listen To Yourself!

The first step? It’s incredibly simple, but a little challenging at first. Listen to you mental processes, and make a solid commitment to do so for a few days. The first time I did this, it was at the recommendation of a life coach (more about that below). I recognized the value of what she was suggesting, but honestly thought I already knew what was going on in my head, so did it grudgingly. I have to admit I was blown away by the negative chatter in my head. I tend to operate with a bit of a “hope for the best, plan for the worst” mentality. When I keep this in balance, it’s very effective for me. I stay positive and optimistic for the most part, and do just a little mental preparation to accept occasional undesired outcomes. But when I made a conscious effort to just LISTEN to my thoughts for a couple of days, I suddenly realized that this approach of mine had drifted WAY into the “plan for the worst” zone. I was spending half my day injecting semi-negative expectations into everything I was doing. Oddly, the most important downside of this wasn’t really the negativity; I’d still show up for meetings or whatever and be my usual positive self.

No Matter Where I Go, There I Aren’t

The bigger problem was the simple fact that I was never “being where I was”. Listening attentively to my own thoughts for a few days was tricky at first. The mind tends to prefer going about its business unquestioned. But as I continued to do this for a couple of days, I noticed two more things that I didn’t think I did so often. One was a low-level constant comparison of my physique. I’d constantly look at men or women and almost silently compare myself to them. The other was a tendency to in effect say “I should do something about that” with regard to just about every negative self-perception I have. Whether it is a bad work habit, a diet or fitness pattern I’d like to change, or something I do or say in a relationship. It was as if my mind felt like simply acknowledging a fact was an adequate step for now. Which it is, until you do this every day for months or years, and it just becomes a reinforcing observation.

Don’t Gimme No Backtalk!

So once you have a sense of what kind of mental chatter you have going on, what’s next? At this point a lot of well-intentioned self-improvement gurus get it all wrong in my opinion, suggesting positive affirmations similar to the ones that the Stuart Smalley character poked fun at. This might work for some of us, but for someone like me, this approach is doomed to failure. I have a totally rebellious nature, and don’t even trust MYSELF when I tell me how great I am. And the “play the tape” metaphor? My mind doesn’t work like a tape recorder, and besides, WHO USES TAPE RECORDERS anymore? I had to try a different, two-pronged approach. One part consisted of simply focusing on being grateful, and pausing to be thankful for all the good stuff that is constantly going on around me. I’d pick a single thing in my environment, whether it was the fresh air I was breathing, the cool car across the street, or the kind person that had just held a door for me. Just putting energy into something like that would sidetrack any negative anticipatory chatter, and give my thoughts some positive momentum. The other part consisted of taking action whenever I caught myself thinking “I really should”. That’s one thing that Stuart nailed dead on. No one wants to be “shoulding all over themselves”, right?

All Self-Talk And No Action

Vincent Van Gogh said “If you hear a voice within you saying, You are not a painter, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” Simply taking action has a profound impact on how we think. So what will work for you? You’ll have to figure part of that out yourself. In Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, he talks about autosuggestion, and says “concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession”. In Deepak Chopra’s Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, he suggests you list all of your desires, and carry the list everywhere, looking at it morning, night, and before meditation. Those of a more religious bent will suggest daily affirmations and prayers. But these approaches all have one thing in common. Repetition and persistence! If you’re not sure which of the many approaches to constructive self-talk is best, there’s a great book that I find myself recommending constantly. It’s Taming Your Gremlin by Rick Carson. I’ve never tried the expanded class or workshop products, but this simple book is chock full of useful and amusing tools and metaphors for identifying the ways in which your own mind may be undermining your intentions.

So It’s All In My Head?

No. And that’s probably one of the most important parts of all of this. While books like Taming Your Gremlin are an awesome resource to get you going, you’re going to find it a lot more productive if you externalize some of this stuff and get some useful feedback. You could even just share notes with a friend, but personally I got a lot more out of some brief work with a life coach. It was life coach Dori Weinstein that turned me on to the Gremlin book. And although I get a small spiff if you buy that book on Amazon, that’s an unpaid endorsement for Dori. I got more out of four sessions with her than I did from dozens of therapy sessions in the past. And although I have nothing against therapy, this is one case where I think it would be counterproductive, because it’s so focused on reflection and introspection. Getting in touch with your self talk and changing it is a continuous and action-oriented pursuit that thrives with external input to the mostly closed system that is the adult mind. So the next time you catch yourself talking to yourself, remember to eavesdrop. And if you’re getting a bad rap, feel free to stick up for yourself.

The other day I was standing at an intersection, waiting to cross the street. A local panhandler asked the man in a business suit standing next to me “can you spare some change?” to which the guy in the suit smirkily replied “change comes from within, my friend”. This tired exchange – which has probably happened thousands of times in cities all over America – got me thinking. About a lot of things: change, fear, compassion, security… a whole world of things. But but at the core of my thoughts was fear, because it’s such a fundamental force in our lives. And it often is attached to change in one way or another. And although there are lots of strategies for dealing with change and fear, I was reminded recently that there’s only one cure for fear, which I’ll touch on after we explore some more basic strategies for dealing with change.

These two fellows I encountered were a great metaphor for how we deal with change. I would bet that if you asked the two of them how they got where they are today, the panhandler would have a story about how a series of things “happened to him”, and how these misfortunes led to him having to ask strangers for money in order to survive. The guy in the suit would probably have some story about his education, his career, and how he “made things happen” and worked hard to get where he is. There may be some truth to both stories, but you could fairly bet that these two fellows had one thing in common: a lot of their actions are probably driven by fear, and what they fear is change. In the case of the panhandler, his fear is probably a more basic anxiety about getting however much cash he thinks he needs that day. And in the case of the business man, his fear probably takes a much stranger form. He probably fears two things: 1.) Not having the prestige that comes with his accomplishments and possessions, and even stranger, 2.) The possibility that he won’t have financial security in his old age, or enough money if something happens to his health.

Worrying About Security Doesn’t Create It

The funny thing about security is that it doesn’t exist, especially for those who seek it the most. Nothing makes one feel more insecure than spending their whole life worrying about their security. Interestingly, the morally decrepit business practices of the last decade or two have begun to dismantle this big illusion of being able to create security, but not many have put the pieces together in a useful way, and they go right back to the grind. Looking for more security. How many people do you know who had relatively secure jobs and were either handed what seemed like a hefty buyout, sent into early retirement, or in the worst cases, simply informed that if they still wanted their jobs, they’d have to accept completely different condtions of employment? Or how many people do you know who’ve actually had to make a significant claim against the insurance policy they’ve put thousands of dollars into, only to find the insurance company seeking as many methods as they can to avoid a payout? Or maybe you’re in that age group that has spent their entire life paying into Social Security, and only recently figured out that you won’t see a penny of that money.

The Destination vs The Journey

If you think it sounds corny to say that life is more about a journey than a destination, you obviously haven’t gone through the rather common experience of getting the perfect job, buying the perfect house, and marrying the perfect spouse, only to find that everything is perfect except you and how you feel. A lot of divorces and other manifestations of dissatisfaction really are caused by the realities of people and the world in general not matching the huge projection we place on them. As Yogi Berra said, “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there”. The fact is that many of us are so immersed in the modern myth of happiness that we forget what happiness is altogether.

Enjoying the Journey

So how do we get back to this place where we can enjoy the journey and stop worrying about that illusory destination? The painter Edgar Degas said “Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do”. The funny thing is that in order to enjoy a life that is full of constant change, the only real solution is acknowledge that you have no idea what’s really going on in the big picture. No, it would be foolish to stop making as much money as you can and handling it sensibly; I’m not suggesting that you stop planning for the future altogether. Although if you WERE able to do so, it would make you one of the happier people on Earth, because you would have achieved the ultimate expression of the one simple thing that will make you happier in the present. That thing, as absurdly simple as it sounds, is LIVING IN THE PRESENT. If you can get into that place on your own through learning how to slow down, be grateful, breathe, and simply appreciate where you are, more power to you. Personally, I rediscovered this ability to enjoy life and be less fearful by quitting drinking, taking part in a 12-step program, and doing a lot of refresher reading. Wherever you are in life, there are a few great books to help you remind yourself how to live for right now and enjoy it, and learn that real security will stem from doing that, not from elaborate planning and a high-income job. If you don’t have issues with the words “God” and “faith” (I personally do sometimes, so tuned them out a little when necessary) Marianne Williamson’s The Gift of Change: Spiritual Guidance for Living Your Best Life is a great resource. One hook for me early in the book was her remark that “We’re in the habit of thinking fearfully, and it takes spiritual discipline to turn that around in a world where love is more suspect than fear”. We’ve become so cynical that most of us don’t realize how true that is until it’s pointed out to us. Another great refresher in getting centered in the present (which also may require some tuning out when he gets a little to “woo woo”) is Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. There’s nothing new in this book, but the guy does a great job of putting the concepts into a very actionable form while reframing a plethora of sources of wisdom on the topic. And lastly, if you enjoy the “grumpy buddha” approach, Krishnamurti’s Think on These Things is more a critique of our confidence in modern beliefs than anything, but amongst the weighty topics it tackles in its weighty fashion is change, in rather heavy handed passages like the one where he compares the security we seek to a stagnant pool cut off from the river of life, and says:

“A mind which is seeking permanency soon stagnates; like that pool along the river, it is soon full of corruption, decay. Only the mind which has no walls, no foothold, no barrier, no resting place, which is moving completely with life, timelessly pushing on, exploring, exploding – only such a mind can be happy, eternally new, because it is creative in itself.”

Or more simply observational passages like:

“We don’t want to leave the known; so it is our clinging to the known that creates fear in us, not the unknown. The unknown cannot be perceived by the known. But the mind, being made up of the known, says, ‘I am going to end’, and therefore it is frightened.”

But reading books should just be a trigger to action. And it turns out the actions here are simple. Try being grateful. Pick one thing in your current surroundings or situation that you’re happy with, and focus on THAT. Find as many things like that as you can in your life, and you find the effect snowballs, and your life becomes your friend instead of an adversary. And then you attract more positive things. And the peculiar side effect of “making things right” NOW is that they will automatically be this way in the FUTURE. Because the future is just now, only it’s happening later.

Making Change Happen

Ironically, all this seeking of security has the dreadful side effect referenced above in that Krishnamurti passage. We spend all our time carving out some sense of stability, only to realize that it’s a prison of sorts, sometimes just psychologically, but sometimes financially. Changing our behavior is much easier than we think, once we let go of this delusion that we’ve created some kind of lasting security. One easy thing you can do is simply identify the voices that control you. Self-talk can be both a positive and a negative tool, but it’s important to at least realize we do it! We all make decisions based on a certain amount of internal dialogue. Some of these internal voices are our own, and some – especially the ones based on comparing ourselves, the ones that drive us to buy things we don’t need or seek jobs that we won’t enjoy – are ENTIRELY adopted from what other people say and internalized as our own. A book I often recommend that helped me a lot in this area was Taming Your Gremlin. It presents some easy-to-implement tools with a moderate dose of wit and humor. Another thing you can do is simply DO THINGS YOU DON’T DO. Nick and I are finishing a little book along these lines. Look for teasers soon. And perhaps one of the most expedient things you could do is seek a life coach. I got more tools for positive change in four one-hour sessions with a life coach than I have from a dozen books or the hundreds of hours I’ve spent living in fear.

The Only Real Cure For Fear

So at the outset, I mentioned fear, and the only cure for it. We can treat a lot of the symptoms of our fear by taking action, trusting life, being brave and bucking up, but something that I rediscovered recently was this: the only “cure” for fear is LOVE. If you strip fear down to what it really is, you realize that it is simply a discomfort with the unknown. And if you think of the first times we experience fear, i.e. as an infant or toddler that has little or no “rational” reason for fear, you quickly realize that the thing that makes that fear go away is when someone who cares about us gives us some love. Try it in the real world, and you’ll be astounded by the results. The next time you’re anxious or frustrated with someone or some thing, try expressing love or sympathy instead of anger. The transformative power of this – especially on another human – is astounding.

I don’t mean that you have to work before you can go snowboarding – I think we all understand that we have to work before we can play, even if we don’t always like it. What I’m talking about is the idea that whatever you set out to do, there are going to be obstacles and delays on the way to success.

I ran into this the other day when I wanted to install base moldings in my new martial arts school. My architect wanted me to use plywood made from bamboo. It’s expensive, I really like it. But before I could nail the moldings into place, I had to order the plywood, receive it, cut it into strips, sand it, apply a finish, and cut it to length. The whole project took me four days, but actually installing the molding only took the last half of the last day.

Only 10% is the “good stuff”

If it sounds like I’m complaining, that’s because I am …. a little. But what I’m really trying to do is point out something that happens in virtually every significant activity, and that’s this: planning, preparation, and problems are often 90 percent of the projects we do. And if we ignore this truth, we’re doomed to be frustrated and often doomed to fail. On the flip side, if we recognize this at the start of a project, we’re much better prepared to move forward.

Three things you can do

Here are three things you can do to get ready for all the stuff that gets in the way of the things you want to do:

1. Hire a professional

2. Plan

3. Mentally prepare

Hire a professional

If you have the means to hire professionals, they are usually much better prepared to deal with the stuff that has to be done along the way. They have the tools, the knowledge, and the experience to either avoid the obstacles or deal with them along the way.

Of course, you still have to find the right person for the job, and if you aren’t aware of the obstacles that can arise in your project, you will probably underestimate how long it’s going to take him to get it done.

So, even if you do hire a professionals, you still have to plan and mentally prepare.

Plan … but not too much

It won’t surprise you when I say that planning means learning as much as you can about your task in advance, and figuring out the most efficient way to proceed. I’m a big advocate of planning, but if you read my other post on thewellnessaddict.com, you’ll know I’m a bigger advocate of taking action … BIG action. I know way too many people who never get started because they’re always working on their plans. So even though you should plan your projects, I think mental preparation is the single most important thing you can do to help you get through the stuff that gets in the way of the things you want to do.

Half of preparation is 100% mental

If you haven’t heard me say “attitude is everything,” then I haven’t said it often enough or loud enough. Attitude is everything!

Or almost everything. And attitude when starting new tasks can be really, really important. The most successful people I know are those who start projects with these attitudes: (1) they WILL succeed; (2) there WILL be problems, obstacles, and detours; and (3) they WILL persevere despite the problems, obstacles, and detours. Just going into a task with these three attitudes can make a huge difference in the outcome.

And in a funny way, mental preparation for the problems, pitfalls, and predicaments can be a very important part of planning. If you expect a problem and are prepared to deal with it, whatever it might be, you’ll be far better prepared and not nearly so discouraged by it.

So definitely dream about your desires. Dream big, and picture your goals clearly and in great detail. Then, when you know exactly what you want, think about where things can go wrong. That’s the stuff that’s going to get in the way of the things you want to do. Whatever you do, don’t let that stuff discourage you! You’ll get through it if you’ve planned and prepared, and you’ll be smiling at the other end.