When you read what the most dangerous word in the world is, I’ll bet you’ll be surprised. When you saw the subject of this email, you probably thought about words like: Hate, no, or can’t, and I agree those are dangerous words. However, I think the most dangerous word in the world is SHOULD. Here’s […]
Like many of you, I hate losing. When I was a child, I cried when I didn’t win a game. As an adult, I don’t like buying raffle tickets or lottery tickets because I get mad when I don’t win and angry at myself for wasting my money on a one-in-a-million chance at something. Another […]
In my 22 years in the training and speaking business, I’ve presented A LOT of customer service and customer communication programs. In these programs, I teach many different skills that enhance the customer experience and make the customer service provider’s job easier and less stressful. However, before I take a customer service “gig” I always […]
The other morning I was up early and hoping to catch some cute video of the 10 foster puppies who currently reside in my dining room, of all places. We all know puppy videos can be really cute, especially with older puppies who are up and about, running, and playing. However, I never thought the […]
The other day I was at the animal shelter where I volunteer and I was very impressed with how super clean our cat room was, so I asked a staff member, “Who cleaned the adoptable cat room today?” It seemed a simple enough question, so I didn’t understand why the response was a somewhat fearful, […]
I realized recently that I used to do a lot better staying in touch, of keeping the lines of communication open with family members as well as customers, suppliers, and other people whose lives I impact and whose lives impact mine. Sometimes we just get caught up in the day to day and before we […]
I thought I’d do something fun this week instead of a regular written blog and that’s to give you the listening quiz I give in many of my workshops. I didn’t invent the quiz, and can’t find out who did (but I thank the person!) It’s not only fun, but illustrates how ineffective our listening […]
Listening is one of our most important communication skills, but also the one we spend the least amount of time developing. Think about it. Parents spend so much time in a child’s formative years teaching that child how to speak, read, and write. Then the child goes off to school and spends more time learning […]
Last week, I shared the high cost of poor listening. Although most of the time our poor listening isn’t an issue of life or death, we do all pay a price when we don’t make effective listening a priority. If you read articles on the importance of communication, listening is usually listed as one of […]
“Hey, do you have time to talk?” “Do you have a minute, I have an idea I want to run by you?” How many times a day are you asked questions like these? And how many times do you wish you could be honest and say NO, but what comes out of your mouth is […]
