Halloween Tricks and Tips

Well, I went and did it this year! I couldn’t find my last year’s blow ups (can you say too much stuff in storage?!) So, I indulged in a new one. The Grim Reaper with his Scythe at Arms length is too great! Combined with the glow footprints in the flower bed, the orange lit trees on the lawn, the peeper lights in the bushes, the cobwebs in the trees, and oh so much more. . . .I’m ready for the Big Night! Actually the night itself is likely to be a bit anticlimactic, but I am hosting a post birthday/preholiday bash shortly.

So for your best Halloween tips and tricks check out: 101halloweenideas.com.

Retailers Scared by Internet Voices

It is no longer Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware) but instead Vendor Beware as in this age of the internet with blogs, websites, rants, and youtube it is all too easy to become truly vocal about a poor customer experience. I am careful in most newsletters making it clear that it is my take and experience and will always be so. However, I realize having had a couple of truly unfortunate experiences lately that perhaps it is time to be more specific in sharing details and results. I make a point with my clients of ensuring satisfaction even if it is something we had little or no control over, (think Nordstrom!) Few seem to be as cognizant.

How long should drapery panels last? This was a question I recently was posed. I had a sheer in my dining room, and in only 18 months, the panel shredded itself vertically. This was truly the strangest textile reaction I’ve ever seen. My first thought was that it was silk (sunlight would destroy that), but I double checked and as expected and specified it is polyester. A similar fabric in the living room (same exposure) is in perfect condition. I contacted the vendor, Pindler & Pindler, mailed in my drapery panel and was informed it was out of warranty. Warranty was a year! Not even my clients change their drapery that often. It seemed reasonable to me to expect a panel with no movement (stationary for those in the trade) and constructed of polyester, no animal or human interference to last 5+ years.

I asked for at least a 50% reduction in replacement cost as I couldn’t locate a suitable alternative to coordinate with the side panels. They came back, after my sending the goods fedex at my expense, over a week later and offered me 10% because I was a good client. Gee, what would I have gotten if not a good client? Nothing? I have always enjoyed working with Pindler & Pindler, particularly the Atlanta showroom, but I am extremely disappointed and think that this is an inappropriate and unacceptable offer. My window is bare and it is a front room. No, sheets are not an option! Right now the mummy shadow taped up is working, but really not sure it’s festive enough for the upcoming holiday season. Ideas??

Why Charlie is Brown

It is all in the semantics, consider mud brown vs. chocolate. Wouldn’t you have a library done in Hershey? Or Godiva? Yum. Brown is a wonderful, warm, earthy color that too often gets short shrift by its moniker. Just rename it . . . cinnamon, bark, mahogany, toast, all conjure up inviting images of rooms to curl up in.

It is a hot combination with all manner of aqua blues and turquoise, a great foil for brown. But brown is also capable of a lot more. Try it with corals, sage, golds, and even dusky plums. It is not as hard and edgy as black. And you can make it sophisticated with a laquer finish.

Brown actually indicates dependability and reliability, hence UPS’s choice of corporate color, now ubiquitous with their branding. It is a color that brings feelings of comfort and thoughts of home for many. And of course, there is our favorite animated Mr. Dependable, Charlie Brown.

If You Don’t Like What You’re Eating, Change Your Cooking!

I have a habit of tinkering with recipes when I cook. I’m not great at following directions, you know your typical entrepreneurial type! I find that by adding a dash of cinnamon to the fried chicken and waffles recipe or capers to an artichoke dip that it makes it mine and adds personality. What are you adding to your own life that makes it delicious and truly palatable?

So many people simple take the ingredients that await them on the shelf of life or what is served up by those in their lives without questioning it. But soon they find they are battling interior indigestion, relationship reflux, health heartburn, and career colon challenges. If your life isn’t working, look at what you are putting into it. What ingredients are you using? How are you preparing it? What cooking techniques are you using?

Our lives are the sum total of what we surround ourselves with and who we surround ourselves with. These are our ingredients. Our preparation is in how we bring ourselves to this table, our attitude, our talents, our unique gifts. How we cook it all together will determine if it is palatable and delicious or toxic to us. Sometimes we need to change the ingredients, making new friends, new contacts and connections and allowing the toxic ones out of our lives. Sometimes we need to change our surroundings with a move in our career, a move in our residence, or perhaps just a remodel of either or both. It is also helpful if we are flexible in the cooking of it all and can reach for that secret ingredient, that spice of life as needed.

Car Keys Save Lives

Put your car keys beside your bed at night. If you hear a noise outside your home or someone trying to get in your house, just press the panic button for your car. The alarm will be set off, and the horn will continue to sound until either you turn it off or the car battery dies. This tip came from a neighborhood watch coordinator.

Next time you come home for the night and you start to put your keys away, think of this: It’s a security alarm system that you probably already have and requires no installation. Test it. It will go off from most everywhere inside your house and will keep honking until your battery runs down or until you reset it with the button on the key fob chain. It works if you park in your driveway or garage.

If your car alarm goes off when someone is trying to break into your house, odds are the burglar or rapist won’t stick around… after a few seconds all the neighbors will be looking out their windows to see who is out there and sure enough the criminal won’t want that.

And remember to carry your keys while walking to your car in a parking lot. The alarm can work the same way there….. This is something that should really be shared with everyone. Maybe it could save a life or a sexual abuse crime.

This would also be useful for any emergency, such as a heart attack, where you can’t reach a phone, but have your keys handy.

Get Out of the Fray, Head to the Top

I’ve attended a couple of personal and business development seminars recently and find the herd mentality fascinating. When you take a room of strangers whether 30 or 600, and lead them by example, they will do all manner of things they would ordinarily never consider. Yes, I am talking about the typical stretching exercises coupled with shoulder massaging of the folks next to you and then hugging of complete strangers. Yes, I do think it went too far when the seminar leader instructed us to go from shoulder rubs to butt massages and many of us did resist (some parts need to be sacred for our private lives!), but others jumped right in. These same individuals are often shy types, not particularly affectionate or touchable, but in a crowd they want to fit in. Leaders never fit in. It is not by doing the ordinary or by doing what everyone else is doing that will make your difference in your life and the world. Instead, it is by stepping out and wailing on the saxophone in your own band (too many beats and different drummers already!)

Which side of the stage do you want to be on? It is kind of like those that watch a lot of TV. I don’t because I’m more interested in getting on the other side of the set. As long as you spend your life watching, you’ll be far less likely to be the one leading. Yes, I do believe in attending events to study how they are put together, the triggers used, new techniques presented, and nuggets of gold provided. However an intelligent observer gets a very different perspective than a myopic participant. I went to lunch with participants and was fascinated, though not entirely surprised, to realize that while I got all that they did, I also understood the material and methods on a much deeper level as I was keenly observing, instead of blindly participating.

Can you step out of the fray, observe the expertise while absorbing it, and start your climb to the top? This is important whether you are a speaker, team leader, designer, business professional, or family head. Or will you follow any lead provided, do any activity suggested (no matter how bizarre or goofy) just to fit in with the crowd.

Follow the flock and you may end up a lamb chop.

Manifesting Your Success: Finding the Masters

While I can safely say I didn’t learn any new secrets to manifesting in either my business or personal life at the recently attended retreat, it did give me a chance to think about all the many ways that I have been successful in manifesting in my own life. Professionally what I have found is that finding masters to mentor and associate with is an invaluable way to move yourself forward. Masters are those who have gone before us in either a similar path or even a very different one; they are those who have realized success beyond our own and share a generosity of spirit with their support, feedback, and ideas. Masters can come in many shapes and sizes, and be professional or personal.

Success is impossible in a vacuum, and it is vital to seek out and connect with Masters that are willing to encourage and provide insight and wisdom. Doing it all ourselves is the slowest path and often the most arduous. No matter how groundbreaking we think we may be, I guarantee there is someone out there who has been through a similar circumstance even in an unrelated industry. Connect to your Masters as a forum for success, a creative brainstorm, a support network. Give up the idea of the glory in doing it all yourself, there is none! Reach out, look forward, and become a master to those behind you coming up.

It isn’t networking that gets you ahead, but netliving that enriches and rewards on every level.

Get Over It…Get On With It!

What I did see at the recent retreat was a propensity to bare wounds and commiserate on the challenges of being a wounded soul. This is uniquely frustrating to me as I have learned that in order to get on with our lives, we must get over ourselves. Being a walking wounded is a choice and not a healthy one. We all have unique challenges, painful, even abusive experiences we have gone through. The point is what to do with those and the best advice I was ever given came to me at a low point. It was about two years after my Mom had passed and I never lost an opportunity to tell someone she had gone so suddenly. I was working as a Purchasing Agent for a Birmingham hotel and joined a food rep for drinks one night (Dutch of course!) He said he’d lost his mom too but that it didn’t serve me to wear it like a badge of pain on my sleeve for all to see. He said “get over it.” And I agree.

We can be a function of my mother died . . . my father loved my sister better . . . I was abused . . . we were poor . . . I’m fat . . . whatever it is that you are wearing on your sleeve, put it away. Get over your past to embrace your present, and delight in your future. The more you keep your wounds front and center, the longer they remain open and unable to heal. If you need extra help, by all means seek it. There is a difference between being an open book and being a walking wounded. We rarely know the true stories behind the most amazing people and often our own wounds would pale by comparison. It isn’t what you’ve been through that matters, but how you process it, wear it, and succeed often in spite of it.

Get over it to Get On With It!