Help Wanted: People Skills!

Question: From your perspective, what people skills do you see MOST lacking in the companies you visit?

- Bonnie

Hello Bonnie - Great question! My company and I have listened to more than 40,000 recorded sales and customer service conversations. We've analyzed the conversations, listening for what's missing, and based on careful analysis I make the following assertions:

Most business people are stuck in the information age. That is, through no fault of their own, they are trapped in the information age because we have been born into it. The skills learned in schools and on the job are good for exchanging information, but blind us to the real game of coordinating action and building relationship with others.

Another issue is that most of us are on automatic most of the time. That is, as humans we are in many ways not unlike computers. Much of our biology is fully automatic (breathing, heartbeat, waste elimination, etc.) as is our speech communicatoin. For instance, if I ask you, "What food do people eat at the movies?" The answer is most likely going to be, "Popcorn!" If I ask you how you are doing, the answer is mostly automatic: "Just fine, how are you?".

After analyzing 40,000 discussions, I can safely state that most people in business today are on automatic mode and are fluent in the world of information, but that's as far as it goes for most.
The skill most lacking, again based on detailed analysis, are the abilities to design relationships, coordinate and generate action in the future with others, and using language for superior communication.

Whether you're dealing with sales and customer service or with leadership and management, building trust/credibility and coordinating/generating action using language is the area of expertise lacking across all industries.

We are a generation of information experts. The only problem is that the information age is over! It's dead! There is little competitive advantage, for the average person, in more information or prettier information, because it's ubiquitous.

From my perspective, we have an entire generation that is mostly incompetent when it comes to building trust and credibilty and generating action - all of it by design.

Thanks for asking the question,

Dan

This is a fascinating area of research and if there are any consultants out there interested in discussions about something I call the Language Of Commitment and how it can impact your own clients, get in touch with me. You may email me at dmolloy@molloyllc.com or give me a call at 877-212-6001.

Do you have to believe in your products to be a great sales person?

I love this question which was brought to my attention during a LinkedIn discussion. Here's my reply to that group:

You're a singer (like I was years ago), it's 2:00 AM and you have one more set to do. At the same time you're exhausted and you have a cold. What do you do?

You're a triathlete (like me now), it's 90 degrees as you begin the run. Someone hollers that you need to catch one more guy and you win your age group. What do you do?

You're a professional sales person, it's the end of the month and you need to make your numbers and bring home the bacon and make customers happy... all of it.

Let me ask you this question: Why are you working where you are working? No one forced you to be where you are. So the question about what you believe in and don't believe in is a silly question. If you are being paid to perform, then perform or get out. Professionals BRING IT for one reason and only one reason, because they said so. Our power as people rests in being able to give and keep your word. A.) to yourself and B.) to others. When we give our word honestly and we mean it and we are professionals, then even asking this question is silly. The answer to the riddle is found in answering the following yes or no question, "Are you a great sales person?"

Also, when you get into it, deeply, there really is no such thing as sales. One of the reasons people suffer about being great at sales is because they don't fully understand what being great at sales is.

Question? Was Bernie Madoff a great sales person?

Looking strictly at the numbers, there was a time, when many would have said, "Bernie is a great sales guy!" But the reality is he was a con man. So does greatness in sales show up only in the numbers? Or in belief in what you are doing? Or is it something else?

I say that the word sales describes another phenomena where people use specific language and human energy to design a mood of trust (the key word is design) and then within that mood of trust, make commitments (in time) to take care of someone else's concerns and ask the other to commit in return. The act of commitment by one human to another is paramount. It's one of the most fundamental acts of being alive and yet most people and most sales people are lost and do not understand the dance of commitment or something I call the Language Of Commitment.

The issue has nothing at all to do with the product, but with one's competence when it comes to building trust and both making commitments and asking for commitments. True professionals have figured this out and so this question is not an important question. True professionals would not have to worry about believeing in the product. If they didn't think the product/service was good, they would not represent it in the first place.

Worst Customer Service I've ever experienced - read this!

A sad but true tale about customer service... Dr. Frankenstein style.

This past Saturday I flew up to Buffalo in order to drive back with my daughter who is a senior communications major at the University of Buffalo. When I touched down she met me at baggage claim and decided to go to a local restaurant for breakfast and so we could get caught up on life. Jordana, my daughter, said she knew the place we should go which was only a 5 minute ride from the frigid Buffalo airport. Upon arrival at The Original House of Pancakes, we parked and walked in the front door.

Note: Jordana had just purchased a $3.00 cappuccino from Panera on the way to pick me up. It was still hot and when we arrived at The Original House of Pancakes and she carried the drink with her into the restaurant so as not to waste her investment.


Upon entering the hostess came up to greet us and the first thing she uttered is, "No food or beverage is permitted to be brought into the restaurant". Whereupon I said, "No, you don't understand, we are here to have breakfast and spend money at your restaurant and my
daughter just spent $3.00 on her cappuccino and she doesn't want to waste it". This tactic was to no avail as the hostess insisted again with certainty that no food or beverage was allowed.

Not being one to give up that easily, I suspected that she was simply young and inexperienced in the ways of common courtesy and so I tried another linguistic maneuver by making a simple request, "Would you please ask the manager to come over so we can have a conversation?"

She walked away and a moment later young man, I'm guessing about 35, walked up to us. Again, I'm thinking to myself as he approached, this is going to be easy, I'm certain that he's going to be a reasonable business person and we'll just be able to sit down and have breakfast, talk, and spend money here.

All of a sudden he morphed from a friendly looking young man in to the Frankenstein of customer service by again stating in no uncertain terms without saying anything else to us, "No food or beverage is allowed to be brought into the restaurant".

Ouch! We stood there in utter disbelief at his approach to handling us and I again tried to persuade him to our way of thinking. We again explained that Jordana had just purchased a $3.00 cappuccino and it was still hot and she didn't want to waste it... and he continued to say, "No food or beverage.... bla bla bla."

Then I ask him a very direct question about his philosophical approach with respect to his business policy, "Let me get this straight, you're going to turn away a new customer, who wants to spend money in your restaurant, because of this policy?" The manager replied, "Yes". And he
further explained, "My family owns this restaurant and I'm the manager and this is our policy."And I said, "Even if this means that we never come back again?" And he said without blinking, in front of other patrons, "Yes."

We hopped in the car and drove 1/4 mile down the road to a Bob Evans restaurant, which I explained to Jordana, was a huge chain operation. Upon getting out of the car, we decided to do a marketing experiment by bringing the infamous cappuccino into the Bob Evans restaurant just to see what would happen.

The answer... NOTHING. The lovely hostess took us to a nice table, we ordered breakfast. Spent about $25 with tip and left satisfied.

Just before we left, I asked to speak with the manager, Mr. Colucci , who approached us somewhat cautiously. When we thanked him for the friendly service and good food his face lit up
and he smiled. When we told him of our customer service experiment, he explained that the
manager/owner of his competitive restaurant had a reputation just like we were describing. In fact, some of his employees use to work at the other place and reported how much they hated working there.

Bob Evans - THE GOOD GUYS!

About Jobs...Enough is Enough

As a businessman, I'm committed to creating value for my clients and will be out of business if I were to stop doing that. With the thought of value in mind and fresh from reading about the Job's Summit in D.C., I offer the following to those who are out there searching. You're likely to not get any help from Washington. The odds are that you're going to have to do it yourself.

Let me tell you what employers are looking for;

• People they can count on to keep their word.
• People who jump in and get the job done.
• People who do more than they are asked to do.
• People who are not afraid to offer ideas and suggestions that will help the company.
• People who are committed to generating positive cash flow for the company.
• People who bring their best positive mood every day

We live in the age of collaboration and commitment. That is, business people get together to invest in and form companies to sell products and services and if they don't do it, they will go out of business. Like you, as a business owner operator, and professional salesman, I'm looking for a new job each and every day when I speak with prospective clients. At the same time, there are moments where I need to hire a new staff person and I'm sharing this so that you feel empowered in your mission. I know what it's like to look into the future and not see anything. So we've got to create it.

Employers are looking for people who want to play the game of creating value of inventing a new future. If you come simply 'looking for a job', or a company who will pay you to do some stupid task, you had better wake up. Those days are over.

When you go looking for a job, look for an opportunity instead;

• Learn something about the company before you go for the interview.
• Learn about the products and the markets they serve.
• Figure out what promises you can make to the owner or manager that will make his/her job easier.
• Make a commitment to the owner or manager to do something that will be sure to add value to the bottom line of the company.
• Speak with clarity and force about how they can count on you to get the job done, to add value to the company.

We live, like I stated earlier, in the Age of Commitment and Collaboration. That is, no one can do it alone. Entrepreneurs need other people to 're-create' the vision and commitment of the company, with energy and passion. Therefore, you need to be able to bring value to the table each and every day. You need to be able to speak about your company with passion and purpose.

Making rock solid commitments to your prospective employer is the place to start.

If you have questions about how to do that, do some research about my company and then call me - 877-212-6001

Solid Fundamentals - Another Sport Analogy

As an endurance athlete (triathlon) competing on a national level my objective at this time of the year is on expanding my aerobic engine. That is the capacity of my body to operate for long periods of time at a fairly high heart rate (135-145) without experiencing the build-up of lactic acid in my muscles. To do this, I go for long runs and bike rides with the focus to keep my heart rate at about 137-140 with an occasional spike to 150 being acceptable, as long as it's a short period of time. This type of training builds aerobic capacity and will provide a strong base upon which to build endurance during the next phase of training to begin in mid December. I'm also working on overall physical strength and core strength during gym workouts. The foundation is being set for the third phase of training later on, early next year where I will focus on sport specific performance, speed and competition.

How does this apply to business?

There are dozens of books on training and base building and something called periodization, where you divide up your training effort into periods of specific training, each with specific goals.

The same thing can be done in business and this is the focus of much of my work and the work of the entire Molloy team. We have broken down what business is, into core linguistic moves which can be practiced and learned over time. Then we break down the core moves into two areas of design, Sales / Customer Service and Management / Leadership.

The objective of course is to win... which means to sell more, generate more profits, operate more effectively and grow the business.

We also say that the foundation necessary to win the game in business is commitment.

More specifically, since commerce is only generated when two people exchange commitments than becoming a 'commitment based organization' is the first move. Adopting the Language Of Commitment as an operational philosophy is the starting point. Teaching your sales and customer service people to become commitment machines can be likened to building an aerobic base. Once your entire sales and customer service team has been 'conditioned' than you can get into sport specific training as you get ready for the real competition.

And what's that you might ask?

You engage in real competition when you write checks for advertising and marketing designed to grow the buisness. And you take the money out of your bank account... from profits that you've already generated... money that you've saved... and you pray that your investment... your advertising gamble is going to work.

When I show up on the starting line in a race, I'm either going for the win (in my age group) or I'm going to start the race with the hope that I can hang on and simply finish.

I can tell you from experience that going for the win is much more satisfying and more fun. It also means that I've done my homework and have a strong foundation in place.

What's it going to be for your business?

When you go to write the big check for the new on-line marketing program, are you confident that your team will be able to get you across the finish line in first place? Or are you living in the domain of hope?

I hate to have this blog sound like a sell piece, but I'm going to make the offer, because I'm committed to my clients. Call me! We can help you build a strong base upon which to grow your business. You do the work and the base will be there... guaranteed. Your people will be ready when you write the check. It's a promise.

Strategic Coaching for Business - A Sports Analogy

It's November 22 and you've got a big college basketball tournement in during Christmas week in December, about one month away. Oh, did I forget to mention, you're the coach of a college basketball team. Your guys have been working hard and have a good foundation in the fundamentals of the game. They're in good shape, but the tournament will be tough as it will bring the best teams from several conferences to NYC and the games will be held on the national stage that is Madison Square Garden. How are you going to prepare for the tournemant?

Questions we need to answer include;
How's our conditioning?
How are the guys fueling their workouts and games?
What areas do we need to work on?
Can we improve foul shooting by then?
Can we improve our zone defense by then?
Can we improve our perimeter shooting by then?

As the coach, you make an assessment about the competiton and begin to formulate an action plan to prepare the guys to win the tournement.

You do this by starting with the goal of winning and the date of the event and work backward.

You've got to have a team meeting and get the guys 'pumped up about the prospect of winning'. They have to believe that they can do it. The entire team has to be aligned and in the right mood. Then we set up our practices to achieve the goal. More foul shooting, more perimeter shooting, more conditioning work... all of it focused on the start of the tournement.

The week prior to the event, you begin a taper, that is, the guys have fun in practice, but you do not want to tax their bodies during practice. You've done that already, the week before the event is for having fun, staying fast and light but not for working too hard. It's called an active taper.

The day before the tournement you have a team meeting and bring in Willis Reed, a former chamion with the NY Knicks to speak with the guys about having heart and about leaving everything on the court. He talks about winning the NBA title on a bum leg and all your players are amazed and inspired.

Why not follow a similar approach in your business. Molloy clients do and here's how.

Once we've begun a formal coaching program with a client and the sales people, CSRs and managers have a relationship with our coaches it becomes very easy. First, the marketing manager declares that we are going to run a special offer during the week of ________. Usually they make these announcements far enough in advance so that we have time to prepare the 'team' for the big promotion.

Note: one of the most frustrating things for customers is when you call a company and ask about an advertised special only to have the CSR or sales person indicate through their speaking and actions, that they are ignorant about the special. I mean after all, the company is advertising the special and the sales person is clueless. What's that all about... but it happens every day.

Here's how we get a company ready for the big advertising spend and the launch of the new special.

First we learn all we can about the event. Next we work with the CSRs and sales people to create what we call 'foundation moves' or a simplistic way to speak about the special. Next we get together several time to practice speaking about the special. And finally, we mystery shop each of the stores before the launch date so that everyone is totally prepared.

All this happens very quickly and efficiently. In additon it's cost effective and it give everyone confidence that they are ready for the day when the big sale shows up. Most importantly it gives the advertising department and the owners the confidence that their staff is ready to convert sales prospects into customers. This point is critical, because without that confidence they are likely to hold back on spending ad dollars to promote the new special. At the same time, when they know that their team is ready and competent, the marketing department is looking for more money to invest in promtions.

This process is absolutely no different than the approach you would take as the coach of the team, except that most companies never do it. Sure they may have a meeting and talk about the special, but without practicing the 'foundation moves' in advance, they won't be ready when the 'game is on'. A successful team has been practicing in such a way that the company special lives in their bones and is part of their world before the special day (tournement) arrives.

We call it the Molloy Process... simple... yet very effective.

Till next time.
Regards
Dan

Why Cheap Is Better Than Free

This entertaining and informative blog was submitted by our Director of Communications, Deidra Lookingbill.

Why Cheap is Better than Free: Getting Inside the Customer’s Mind

Not too long ago, I was facing a dilemma. Our spare bedroom is happily needing to be transformed into a nursery, which means my family and I faced the removal of many of our seldom used furnishings. Among these items was a futon that was purchased with the intent of serving as an extra bed on those holidays that were bustling with family scrambling for a soft place to lay their heads. We did not take into account, when we purchased the futon, how little it would be used. In seven years, it was slept on a total of two times.

I sent out a notice through my social networking groups, telling all of my friends and family that we had a practically new futon with two covers that they could have for free so long as they agreed to pick it up. No one showed the slightest interest, so I took it a bit further. I took my ad to a group that specializes in the giving away of household items; nary a bite. I then went to the popular online ad service, Craigslist, and listed my futon again for free.

Silence.

Just for fun, I relisted the futon with the same description, this time with an asking price of $20. Within hours, I had a half dozen offers, with one gentlemen offering more than my asking price to guarantee that he could get the futon, sight unseen. He picked it up the next day and before I removed the ad I had at least 20 inquiries.

One would think that this is an isolated incident, but when relaying the story to a friend, she had an idea as well. She had been unable to get rid of an old but working refrigerator. It sat unused in her garage for weeks because she did not want to pay to have the over sized item removed. She changed her own ad from “free” to “$200” and the refrigerator was gone before the night was over.

Why, then, do would be customers prefer to get a “deal” rather than a free item? The old adage “you get what you pay for” comes to mind. Many consumers are skeptical of free offers, thinking that there is a catch or that the item in question will cause more harm than good. Conversely, when a customer receives a discount, large or small, he or she is more apt to feel as though they are benefiting from a valuable opportunity, and they are more likely to jump at the chance to take advantage of the offer.

Absurd - A Professional Coach Who Never Watches Game Films

I had promised to continue writing about the six moves in language, however I am compelled to write about the role of listening or rather transforming your company into a listening organization and the importance thereof. (I like the football analogy at the end of this short blog).

Much of my work has to do with this fact;

When most leaders in corporate America study their business performance, they look to their up to the minute P&Ls accurately prepared Financial Statements and a host of other performance reports. And they neglect to look at the one area of the business that is directly responsible for all the closely examined numbers. I propose that it's just a case of normal blindness, like I'd been discussing in an earlier blog. That is, the executives study what they know and are oblivious to what they don't know or observe.

Here's the ah ha fact that has the potential to transform most companies;

All the financial results carefully tabulated in the reports are generated by conversations taking place throughout the company and until leadership has a way to assess the language responsible for the results, they are in touch with only half the picture. Until they can accurately assess the competence of their people to coordinate action with each other and with customers they are not in touch with what's really going on.

What it requires to get in touch is to begin to listen to what is actually being said department by department. If you, as a leader in your company, do not actively engage in listening to the conversations in your company, it would be akin to a football coach never watching game films. Ridiculous right! But how many of us never make the time or better yet, even know what to listen for if we do listen.

Comments?

Dan

American Idol - About the distinctions

This post is a continuation of the post on 10/21 about music and triathlon:

When you work with a good coach they are there with you observing and providing feedback as you do your workout. They report back on your speed, form, heart rate etc. They shout encouragement as you round the track. "Relax your shoulders and keep your head up! Lean forward Dan, let gravity work for you". It's the same thing in music when you are doing scales or practicing a song. Your vocal coach is listening, working with you each step of the way. Coaches observe the details and can help you make minor corrections in the smallest movement or sound which can make a big difference in the overall performance. In order to do that, they need to be totally grounded and have expertise as it relates to the distinctions of the sport or musical discipline.

American Idol is a great example of what I'm talking about. After each performance the four judges offer feedback and for me, as a trained vocalist, the feedback is not very good or useful. Given the lack of rigor with the distinctions by the judges I think it's safe for me to state that the perfomers are left in a confused state much of the time. Rarely are the judges saying the same thing. And maybe it's all for show... however it points to what this post is all about.

The problem with coaching in the domain of communication (sales, customer service, management and leadership) is that up till now, the distinctions have been a bit fuzzy. In other words, if you were to ask 100 sales people what constitutes a great sales effort, you're certain to get many different answers. And herein lays the problem.

Until you can get your entire company on the same page, operating with the same set of distinctions in the domain of communications, all you have is a bunch of independent cowboys riding the range doing their own thing. However, once you can harness the power of the team, by adopting a model (shared language, shared practices and shared distinctions), then you've got something very powerful.

Your company begins to operate like a finely tuned orchestra or like a Super Bowl winning football team... because everyone is on the same page.

Is this possible you ask, in the domain of sales, customer service, leadership and management? The answer is a resounding YES! Here's how it works.

Do you know that in the english language there are now one million words! This is more than any other language and is part of the problem. Without distinctions in how to use language it's easy to get lost in the words, in the detail, in the data of communication.

The good news is this... there are in FACT only six linguistic moves or acts that are responsible for everything on the planet. That's right, one million words can be broken down into six moves in language. Understanding and being competent and even masterful at these six moves makes it possible and in fact, easy to learn. Additionally, it makes coaching more powerful and it makes measurement possible.

During the next blog, I'll get into it in some more detail.

Stay tuned!

What do music and triathlon have to do with sales, leadership and language?

I began my singing career at the age of 41 when I woke up one day and simply declared to myself and the rest of the world, "I want to learn how to sing". And I did! I hired a vocal coach in NYC and began to practice scales and began to learn. I was a total novice with not one music lesson of any kind in my 41 year old bones. After about three years of practice and relentless singing in karaoke bars around the NYC area, I was ready and so my girlfriend Doreen (my wife now) and I started a band called Strange Brew. (Cool name right!) We did an Eric Clapton Tribute because people thought I was Slowhand. At the time, if I was in a blues club in NYC, people would be tugging on Doreen's arm, asking her if I was in fact, EC. It was bizzare and it was fun. The important piece here is this, when we advertised an Eric Clapton tribute, the band had to deliver and I had to deliver vocally. And we did. Here's a video, which surfaced on YouTube from a rehersal in 1994:

We played all over the NYC doing about 100 shows from 1994-1998. The last show I did as a front man for a rock cover band was in 2000 with the band being called The Strange Brew Rock-n-Roll Review. There was a new line-up, new songs and new look, here's a poster from this version of the band.

As my consulting business began to grow I needed another creative outlet and so I decided to take on the sport of triathlon by following the same path I chose for music. That is, I declared that I wanted to become a triathlete to myself and to others and then began the process by learning. Again, I was a total novice in a new world, so I enrolled in a triathlon training camp in Florida in the spring of 2007. And so began a quest that I'm still very much engaged in. To the right is a photo from the camp in Florida; to the left, a photo from the Philadelphia Triathlon which I came in first place (age group) this past year.


What does all this have to do with sales, customer service, management and leadership?

In music as with sports a good coach will break down what you need to learn into bite size activities which you need to practice over and over and over and over... until you have embedded the new skill into your nervous system and it is now literally part of you. You own it. Musically, when it's show time, there is no time to think about the song, you need to 'be the song'. It's much the same in triathlon and other sports. When the race starts, it's too late to be practicing because it's show time. All your moves, swimming, running and biking as well as the two transitions, need to be totally programmed into your body and your nervous system.

One of the main reasons I started Molloy BDG in 2001 was because it became very clear to me after having worked with some amazing vocal coaches and athletic trainers that in the world of business, sales people, CSRs, managers and leaders, simply don't know what to practice. I mean where do you begin to practice leadership skills or how to handle 'inbound' sales calls or 'irate' customers?

Stay tuned and I'm going to get into the way we break down each of these disciplines into bite sized linguistic 'acts' or 'moves' which make learning possible in a new and exciting way.

See you next week!

Dan

Knowing that you are blind... is a start

We know what we know and we don't know what we don't know. And sometimes we know that we don't know but we pretend to know.

In my blog today I want to put forth the proposition that coming to grips with the fact that we don't know an awful lot is liberating and potentially very powerful for learning. The fact that I'm blogging is a great example.

So here's my story about learning, language and learning to blog.

Blogging has been around for years however I've been missing the point. I've been blind to the possibility of what blogging could be. I would hear about all the people blogging everywhere and I was really jealous. I felt that I was missing a big part of communication, or so it seemed. So I made a decision to find out what all the fuss was about. Why are people into blogging, what's the big deal? What's it all about?

How blind was I about blogging. I was totally clueless about it. I just didn't resonate in any way with the practice. It made absolutely no sense to me and at the same time, since everyone was into it, I began to allow my curiosity to get the better of me.

So how did I get into blogging... finally? I declared (linguistic act) that I was blind about it. I admitted it to myself and my writing team. I started having conversations with others because since everyone was doing it, I felt something was there and I needed to learn what it was.

I spoke at length with Deidra Lookingbill, our very smart director of communications and she was very useful and supportive. I looked at blogs on line and discovered that I wasn't interested in blogs from companies. I came to this conclusion because I wasn't interested in what companies thought about... I mean, companies don't even think. Companies consist of a network of people and it's the people I'm interested in. Then I had my conversation with my running friend Meghan who simple said that she writes about her passions in life. At that point it went clunk for me. Was it really as simple as writing about what I'm passionate about?

First I am interested in people and what their passions were. I think it's why some of the social networking web sites are so popular. At least my experience with Facebook, which I maintain for my family and my hobbies, would confirm this. When you look at my Facebook page, it's about family, music and athletics... my passions and my social network is built around

Having achieved a breakthrough about blogging was the result of admitting I didn't know and about having conversations with people who already got it.

While all this is great and I'm happy I've learned and begun to blog, there's a bigger picture. A much bigger picture which I'll explain like this. Blogging is a simple example of me being blind to something. However the practice of blogging is mainstream, it's out there in public view and it was certainly all around me. In my face so to speak.

What do we do about the things that we don't know we don't know? Now that's an interesting question.

In a way we are back to the beginning again. We know what we know and there is a much bigger world we don't know and we don't even know that we don't know. What do we do with that?

Because things are changing so much in the world these days, I've dedicated this coming year to education. That is, I've declared myself open to new ideas, new relationships and new ways of thinking. What does all this mean for me;

1. I've hired a personal coach to work with me for the next six months, beginning on Oct 14th.
2. I've been elected to a cabinet position of a group call the ODC (Ontological Design Group). I will be the Education Chairman for the next couple of years.
3. I'm hiring a professional triathlon coach for this coming season.
4. I'm reading more every week.
5. I've declared myself open to Learning in general.

In closing, being open to being open is a good way to sum it up.

Till next time.

Dan

Blindness - You don't know what you don't know

It's official, I'm a blogger!

I've resisted and was confused about the nature and purpose of blogging until I met with a fellow runner at a social event in NYC about three weeks ago. Now I'm a blogger and am clear about what I'm doing and why.

Here's what I learned while out having some fun with my fellow runners and the simplicity of my breakthrough makes me laugh.

Here it is folks, are you sitting down? My friend Meghan told me that she writes about her passions in life, running and cooking. And so I started reading her blog and I was immediately transformed and I could see what I needed to write about. It was an ah ha moment!

I'm passionate about the fact that we live in language and we forget about it all the time. I'm also passionate about fitness and health. So those are the two things I'll be writing about as I turn into a serious blogger.

Of course there are sub-topics galore and I'll be getting into that on a regular basis, but for now, for this first blog, I'm content to declare that I'm no longer blind in the domain of blogging and I'm excited about what the future has in store for me in this area.

Tomorrow's topic... a continued discussion about other areas of blindness and opportunities for learning.

Regards
Dan