Developing Successful Businesses and People through Community Involvement

I was fortunate recently to be approached by Cathryn Mahon of the Community Heroes Podcast to interview me on my business and earlier charity work with the late Jim Stynes’ Reach Foundation. While my volunteer work was some time ago now, it was great to remember this important work and remind myself why I encourage business owners to explore a philanthropic connection. In this podcast, Cathryn was also kind enough to get me to share some of my key business philosophies and tactics to be your best. 

Thank you Cathryn for inviting me to participate.

Click here to listen to this podcast on the Community Heroes website 

Click here to listen to the podcast on your favorite streaming apps on Anchor.fm

Expressing Gratitude

Expressing Gratitude

It’s tough, I know.

Perhaps it has never been harder to be happy, at least in our lifetimes.

And getting drawn into cynical conversations, or being hijacked by negative social media, can happen to anyone.

But isn’t this activity consuming hollow calories for your mental and emotional wellbeing?

The trick is how to avoid these traps and emotional sugar rushes that ultimately harm us.

Philosopher Immanuel Kant summed up the Rules for Happiness as ”Something to do, someone to love and something to hope for”.

Let us unpack Kant’s rule and explore how we might apply it.

The first step in recalibrating our mental state is to establish a practise of expressing gratitude.

Times are tough no doubt. However, I am reminded of our predecessors who experienced significantly more life-threatening conditions through wars, famines and great depressions. Dodging bullets, hungry and sometimes without shelter. It is a humbling reminder to acknowledge this to ground our perspective.

The practice of expressing gratitude flips the psyche from a negative state (posting cynical social media memes) to a positive state (reflecting on what you are grateful for).

The Face and The Heel

The Face and The Heel

Growing up as a kid, I loved watching the wrestling on Sunday mornings. The heroes and villains created powerful images in a young boy’s mind.

I still remember the painful disappointment of discovering that the matches were staged, or choreographed, with a script and story arc.

As an adult, I was even more fascinated to further understand how wrestlers developed their character – either as The Face or The Heel.

The Face is the crowd favourite. The Face is a charismatic hero with a clean-cut profile espousing popular patriotic, moral or ethical values.

The Heel is the villain. The bad guy. The Heel fights dirty and riles the crowd with his antics. He espouses poor values, unleashes vitriol and never follows the rules.

Through this pandemic, it got me thinking about our choice in being The Face or The Heel.

What mask are you wearing in your fight?

Organized Isolation

Organized Isolation

I’ve spoken before about accepting the uncontrollable aspects of your life while really nailing the controllables.

When life is going your way, you might be able to get away with being disorganized and just wing it. At least for a while anyway.

But it works out, that in isolation, being disorganized just doesn’t cut it. Adding disorder to a high-anxiety environment only makes things worse.

Pivoting from Sales to Communications with Customers

Pivoting from Sales to Communications with Customers

Unsolicited sales communication is on the nose like never before.

Even traditional business development is currently parked.

So what should we do in relation to targeting customers and prospects during the epidemic?

I believe we need to pivot from sales and business development activity to an external communications model.

There are three choices to make regarding your sales and marketing within the current climate.

1. Continue with traditional sales & marketing activities.

2. Do nothing.

3. Pivot to a Communications Model

Let’s look at these three options in turn.