Last summer, my kids and I went to Texas.  I grew up there; and took full advantage of the chance to meet with as many of my friends as I could while we were there.  At lunch one day with my sweet friend Amy, I bit into a fish taco and felt part of one of my back teeth break off.  Funny enough, it didn’t hurt one little bit.  Not at all.  When we returned home from our trip life moved right into the busy fall schedule.  School started – Halloween came and went – Christmas and New Year fun – birthdays – then we started packing to move to a new place.  My tooth was all but forgotten.  Until two weeks ago.

I woke up one morning and thought someone had taken a baseball bat to my jaw while I slept.  I have n-e-v-e-r felt pain like that in my life.  A bunch of Advil  made the pain go away.  Then it came back.  Worse.  More drugs.  48 hours later I was sitting in the dentist office listening to a kind woman tell me I needed a root canal because the nerve attached to my broken tooth is infected.  So I made an appointment to get it done.

“Mrs. Parker,” she offered, “if you had come in right away when it happened, we could have fixed it easily without having to do the root canal.”

Fixing it when it happened would have spared me pain and significant expense.  Now there’s a concept.

Relationships function in a similar manner.  I knew something was wrong with my tooth…. but I ignored it.  I didn’t deal with it.  Often, we know when there has been a fracture in a relationship.  An unkind word spoken in a moment of tension.  Finding ourselves in an awkward situation.  We know when something has gone a bit askew.  If it isn’t too painful though, we may be able to ignore it.  Pretend nothing happened.  Go about our business and hope it doesn’t cause us pain.  Unfortunately, just like my tooth didn’t heal itself, relationships don’t often heal themselves either.

Something that was not such a big deal is now a very big deal.  The life lesson here is that taking steps towards mending, not ignoring, a problem is the only way to do life.  Often it begins with laying down some measure of our pride or sense of self-righteousness – even if you know that you are right! Often it might cause some discomfort – when it would be easier to do nothing. Often it means putting yourself out there and taking responsibility – when you could easily hide the problem. BUT…(and you know there’s a BUT…) things don’t go away.  The past two weeks have been all about managing my horrible tooth pain.  Believe me, at least once each day I want to rip my head off because it hurts so much.  Similarly, at some point in the future, a break in a relationship will come back and demand the attention that it should have received right away.

I go in for my root canal tomorrow morning.  I am not looking forward to it – but I am looking forward to the healing that will come afterward.  If you have to do some tough business with a relationship, focus not on the great pain of it all – but the healing that will surely come after.

Peace.

~kp

For the next 2 hours, people that previously looked like they were about to keel over from either exhaustion or boredom became animated. Smiling. Cheering. Finding it very easy to make small talk and initiate conversation with the show attendees. Curious, isn’t it?

Why do companies invest thousands of dollars in product, materials and time to stand on concrete floors for 3 days with hundreds of other vendors? (It sure isn’t for the perks of drinking trade show coffee.) They do it because trade shows provide a prime opportunity to make a face-to-face connection with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of prospects with whom you may not have otherwise met. What impression do you want to give them about your company?

You can have the best looking booth, the most eye catching signage, and a prime location on the trade show floor… but if you look like you’d rather be anywhere else but working in that booth, your impression will fall flat. I was amazed to hear of the dramatic difference in attitude of the various vendors when the hockey game was on. If they had showed that kind of life and personality for the other 15 or so hours of the trade show, people may have left with a very different impression about their products.

Not all of the vendors fell into this category. My husband was quite impressed at the energy and passion that the client he went with showed to each and every person. And there were a few others like him. But for the most part, many did indeed appear to be wishing they were elsewhere. And it showed.

Don’t waste your hard-earned marketing budget on a trade show unless you plan to demonstrate gold-medal enthusiasm to those who come. Let your passion, not your exhaustion, shine through and just like Team Canada – you’ll have victory.

Peace.

When I began blogging in 2006, the primary way I found new blogs was through the homepage of the blog service that I used at the time, Toadfire.  All of our blogs looked the same, had the same color scheme and 3 main features: recent posts, search and comments.  Since then, the process of finding new and interesting people has become as easy as grabbing my morning coffee.  Nearly every day I come across a new blogger who, like me, just loves to write.  Sites have become extremely interesting because the average Joe & Jane with a keyboard can build his or her own creative online home to house their content.

I want to share three tips for blogging.  Well, not so much for blogging – but for setting up your site.  As a blogger, I desire to build relationships with the people reading.  Some bloggers’ sites do this well, others not so much.

1. Have a place on your site where you clearly state your purpose for writing.  Even if you write about “anything and everything,” you should still give readers a snapshot of why your perspective on “anything and everything” is different.

Bad example:  “I write about whatever comes to mind”
Good example: “Perspectives from a big-city girl”

2. Pick colors and background images for your site that fit your purpose.  If your purpose in writing is to explore the deeper issues of life, a background that has puppy dogs and kitty cats sends a conflicting message.  Yet I quite often come across this very kind of confusion.  It is hard for readers to connect with you if they aren’t quite sure who you are.

3. Avoid the temptation to go widget-wild!  Widgets provide the bling for your site.  They can add so much value – but know when to stop.  I came across a site today in desperate need of widget-intervention.  The purpose statement indicated that the writer works for an ethnic publication.  Here are the widgets on his home page:

• NASDAQ ticker banner
• International time clock
• Randomly generated “US Bill of Rights” statement
• “Word of the Day”
• Posts from other bloggers (not the links, post summaries)
• “The latest in Iran”
• 4 advertisements for health and weight loss products – yes, 4
• Calendar
• Two twitter links
• ABC News Updates
• Popular sports headlines

As I explored his posts, some of the content did indeed relate to human right issues, the financial state of the nation and the world, popular culture and media – so I could connect the dots with a little work.  Here’s the thing…. most people aren’t going to work at it.  They will decide in the first few seconds if your blog is something that they can relate to or not.  They will decide if the overall look and feel of the site draws them in or adds confusion.  If your site looks like a mess, readers will think that your thoughts are a mess.  And they won’t come back.

You will gain greater satisfaction from your writing  and will find it easier to be consistent if you follow these three solid suggestions upfront.

Stay focused and keep writing!

Peace.

Jana is my sister’s friend.  (By default, I consider her my friend too, even though we’ve never sat in the same kitchen to share a cup of coffee.)  She has a book coming out in March called Who’s That? Discovering Orlando One Interview At A Time.  I imagine it will be as wonderfully down to earth and engaging as her website and blog posts.  I was cruising her website today and came across an interview she did with a guy named Doug Rhodehamel.  Doug is an artist.  A recycler.  A beautifier.  A magician who can create things that make you smile out of common items.  Here’s a little tip:  Any time you find something that brings a pure-of-heart smile to your face, you know you have found treasure!

Jana conducted a terrific interview with Doug on her blog site and I recommend you check it out. Jana and Doug both ooze with love for what they do.  It comes across in their words, in their photos and through the overall ambiance of their work.

At the end of each day of creation God attested, “It is Good.”  I imagine Him stepping back with a satisfied smile on His face as He makes His declaration.  What causes you to do the same?  I pray that you have time built into the schedule of your life to do more of those things.  If you can make it what you do for a career you will have found treasure of your own.

~ Peace.

P.S. Burrow Press is a new publishing company that is pumped to help emerging, talented writers, particularly from the Orlando area.  Check them out!!

The client informed us that they had a friend who was a “computer guy”.  This guy was able to get him any commercially available software - for free. He seemed proud of the fact that over the last couple of years he has not had to pay for any of his software products.  I left the meeting feeling a bit disappointed in this insight into his character.  What did he think telling that story would say to me about him and his business?  The bottom line is that now that I know this, I wouldn’t choose to do business with his company.  If he was willing to take a shortcut for something as little as $100 – what would he be willing to do if the stakes were higher?  Integrity.  You can’t fake it!