Pocketful of Joules

I’m having one of those days where I’m so bone-tired that it is an effort to walk down the hallway without closing my eyes for a mini nap. No, I didn’t have a crazy night of drinking. My husband and I drove to Rochester, New York and back to sell one of our cars to a DSM enthusiast. The 14 hour round-trip drive was actually not too bad, but my back is killing me today and I can hardly keep my eyes open.

This could most likely be the reason that little inconveniences throughout the day are making me want to lash out at the people who cause them.

Let’s take this (not so) hypothetical example – someone has come into my office and asked me to basically rearrange my work schedule to do them a huge favor. This request requires me to go back and try and negotiate favors from hotels and airlines that have already received final payments and passenger lists.

Normally, I’d be totally cool with helping someone out. However, if the words “please” and “thank you” do not occur when asking me to do you a favor, I become a lot less helpful.

If I had a list of the 5 easiest things you could do to run a successful business (or even a successful life), it would have “Be Polite” written at the very top in red marker.

Obviously there are times that I have to release my mean Joules from its cage to get stuff done. However, in most situations if you are super nice when asking for someone’s help, they’d usually be thrilled to be your knight in shining armor.

If you’re polite, people actually want to help you solve your problem. If you are rude or have an entitled attitude, they typically just want to punch you in the face. Or maybe that’s just me?

Do you have an example of how a good attitude on your end ended up with surprisingly awesome results?

Can we all agree that Charlie Sheen is a mess? He let a bunch of crazy out at once and lost his full time job. So then, he lets a little more crazy out in various TV interviews, writes some crazy on twitter, acts some crazy on youtube, and decides to have a live show as yet another way to release some of his special brand of crazy out into the world.

You must be as shocked as I was that apparently his first live show was terrible with people booing and walking out due to his “nonsensical rants”. He’s marketed himself as someone who rants, why would you be surprised when that’s all he does on stage?

Here’s the kicker: his first show bombed… but he made changes to his act before his second show. He replaced the things that didn’t work with other ideas that played up the brand of crazy that everyone seemed to like. People booed, heckled and left his first show early, but the audience at the second show actually gave him a standing ovation.

So, what can we learn from Charlie Sheen? I mean, I could go into a total rant myself about what NOT to learn from this poor trainwreck of a man. However, in his barrel of crazy was a total stoke of genius – if something isn’t working, change.

How many of you keep doing something because it’s familiar, not because it is truly the best thing to do?

It’s habit to order your Tuesday night takeout from the Chinese place on the corner, because they’re quick and the food’s ‘okay’. It’s so easy to keep running the exact same advertisements or renew that newsletter contract even though you’re not really sure it’s working. It saves time to just reorder your stationary from your printer, instead of checking around for other printing quotes.

What if you’re missing out on some truly phenomenal spring rolls from another restaurant or save a ton of money by switching to a different printer?

Let’s switch things up this week and speed down the less traveled road. Check back in and let me know how it goes for you.

I have to confess; spelling mistakes and bad grammar are so cringe-inducing to me that I just want to get out a red pen and mark things up like a stern teacher. I am not the perfect spelling and grammar queen myself, but when I see a Facebook status with the wrong use of their/there/they’re it just drives me nutty.

Usually I can rein my crazy in and keep from commenting on these types of mistakes. For example, I have one friend who sends me emails so terrible I sometimes can’t even figure out what they’re trying to say. I keep my thoughts to myself though, because nobody likes a know-it-all (and they certainly don’t invite one to come out for Happy Hour).

I can excuse the misspelled words in my personal life, but I cannot believe how often it pops up in the business world. I receive so many business emails from high-level executives that look like a drunken cat pounded the keys with his tail.

It doesn’t matter how busy or important you are (or think you are), when you send a misspelled business email you are representing yourself and your company. By shooting off an email riddled with spelling mistakes and typo’s, you are saying that you’re either too stupid to write a simple email or you think your time is more important than mine. As the recipient of these emails, a client may feel that the amount of time and attention you give your correspondence is a reflection of the time and attention you give your work.

So, use that crazy new-fangled invention called spellcheck on every single email that leaves your outbox. It may not catch every mistake, but at least I won’t be getting notes that “thnak” me for my time.