Is Attitude Everything?

Staying positive is certainly more desirable than a "Negative Nelly" but does it make a difference in your day to day life? I say "yes" but I also admit that it is difficult, in the face of serious adversity, to stay positive and happy. Maybe the best thing is to concentrate on what you would like the outcome to be. Whether it be success, joy, healing or progress.

Taking the steps that will get you to those places generally doesn't involve berating anyone or complaining about your state of being. It does involve course correction and diligence. Find people that have achieved what you aspire to. It is a great way to start taking those first steps.

Something to try. Don't complain about anything for a full 7 days. This type of self-censoring can help you see what necessary critiques you are making and what has just become a habit of moaning about the world around you.

Keys to Success.

Our daily lives include challenges and problems. Some of our issues are self created some are created by others. In either case the key to our challenges is to find solutions. The faster the solutions can be reached, the faster we can move on to more creative endeavors.

Take, for instance, the case of the missing keys. The leather strap on my key ring is too much of a temptation for the dog. If she finds the keys, she will take them, chew them, then find a special spot to leave them for safekeeping. Which is all fine and good until I need to go somewhere.
To find the keys I can't ask the dog. Oh, she knows where they are but she isn't telling. Lecturing her won't do any good. She's deaf anyway, so, she couldn't hear me even if it was worthwhile. The best solution, is just that, the solution. Finding the keys is the only thing that will lock the house and get my car started. Later, I can find a better place for my keys and eliminate the issue all together.

This isn't to say that there aren't times to find blame and make it stick. Criminal injustices are a good example of this and there are detectives specifically trained to find and place blame.

Usually blame just slows down our days and mucks up our processes. When we make the solution our goal and let accountability fall to finding a better way, that's when we find progress. Find the solution, instead of finding the blame, and you will also find success.

You don't like it but your customer might.

I HATE Standing Puppy and I LOVE Standing Puppy! Having written the description "Brown dog, red collar, blue eyes and red tongue with (insert child's name, possibly last initial here) on bottom" about a million times and having dipped packs of dogs at a time I can officially say that if I never dipped another puppy again I would be okey dokey artichokey with that. Now, this puppy is also an incredibly popular piece with children nationwide clamoring to get the puppies before they are all gone from the shelf. Even though we have seven back up cases in the back.
In business, it is important to remember that your customer's tastes will vary from yours and though you are not particularly fond of something your customers may love it! They will also pay premium prices and visit you again and again because of their tastes not yours.

Fused Candy Corn

Bad Deeds or Bad People?

Yesterday I had my car stolen. (Before you feel sorry for me, let me say that I had left the doors unlocked and the valet key was inside. I'll write a blog on "stupid deeds and stupid people" some other time.") Anyway, my car was really just borrowed, ransacked and left 8 blocks from my house.

After all the police reports I got in my car to drive it home. This is when the "feeling" sets in. The steering wheel is very low, the rear view mirror has been moved and the seat is too far forward. The car smells of someone who is not me. I felt a little invaded but also it brought to mind who this person was. Old, young? A vagrant or neighborhood kid? Drug addict or next door neighbor?

Good or bad?

That one hadn't come to mind until later. Though their deed was undesirable does this make them a bad person? Sometimes, but I think more often people make bad choices but aren't inherently bad people. Take our car thief. He could be a onetime fireman that lost his job and finds himself on the street or a metal wearing soldier that came back to no home or family. Good people, bad situations. Bad choices are definitely possible when people become desperate or scared.

So for now I am going to look at it this way. Good person, made a bad choice and I am moving on.

...Oh and I am locking my doors

Convention in 5 days!!!

The preparing is done! Boxes of varying items keep arriving at my house. ( I will be driving to convention so will also be hauling some things.) I received the convention brochures on Friday, some stickers for the goodie bags and some other surprises that I am not willing to share at this moment.

Susan is really the busiest one right now. She is printing and collating all the badges and technique class tickets, along with shipping our booth and some of the materials. She too will be driving this year and will be hauling some of the usual things we have at convention.

We are still recruiting last minute attendees. Bonnie has been hard at work talking to people and really showing them the value of convention. Many have decided to come and this will make for such a great group!!!

See you on Friday!