Month: November 2015

The fourth and final part in the series on finding abundance in every corner of your business:

Creativity is an ethereal thing. Though business magazines laud it, and CEO’s magnify its glory, it will not be contained. We all want more of it, but whenever we have it, we cannot seem to keep it in the box, even if we sit on the lid. Even as we believe we have achieved the perfect recipe to attract it and keep it, it vaporizes like a spirit into the dark night. Grasp it by force, and it will elude you.

If I could only order it from Amazon, with that two-hour delivery thing. I would have it delivered just when I needed it most. (“I’ll take an extra large case. And please, set me up with a Dash Button.”) Upon receipt, I would carefully inspect the contents. No, I lied. That is not how it would go. I would watch for the truck, and as soon as the driver put his big toe onto my driveway, I would yank the box from his hands, and wildly thrash open the box like a kid at Christmas to peer inside. What would I see? What exactly is it? Bear with me. With my intellect, you may not be able to understand this highly scientific definition:

Creativity is the ability to look at a bunch of existing stuff and imagine new stuff. It is not in the box. It is in me. I have to find it within my own soul. Creativity remixes, refines, reworks, reforms, and reconnects old dots to create new pictures.

So what are the souls of highly creativity people like? Creative people go boldly where no man has gone before. They travel fearlessly to alien places for opportunities to explore new mental landscapes. They have the right stuff.  But what is this right stuff? Must you be artistic? Brave? Highly educated? Do they have a large financial reserve? No, no, no, and no. The answer may surprise you.

Highly creative people are thankful people.Their hearts are filled with gratitude. Here is how Gratitude opens the door to Creativity:

Gratitude gets you outside your own head. Grateful people are not self-absorbed. They pay attention to others and find inspiration in other people. When their creative commodity is running low, they move into an environment of makers and creative people. Creativity begets creativity. It fuels and inspires their work.

Gratitude makes you more observant. Grateful people retain their sense of wonder. Have you ever had a day when you got to work and somehow did not remember getting there? Routine can and digress into boredom–unless we work to retain a spirit of wonder. Unless we shake things up, we can lose our sense of awe and wonder. Do yourself a favor. Break your routine today. Take a different route to work tomorrow. No one can be creative when they are bored. Gratitude causes you to look at things as if for the first time. The little things are the big things. The simple things that we often overlook are the profound things.

Gratitude gives you a sense of well-being. One of the biggest barriers to creativity is a lack of confidence and fear of taking risks. Creativity requires energy. No one can be creative if you are in a state of worry. When we are just surviving the business jungle day by day, we will have little reserve left for artistic endeavors, or to expand our intellect. We will not be able to play. Play is a catalyst of creativity. Gratitude helps us to lighten up and to celebrate the serendipity right under our noses. Grateful people are focused on what they have, rather than what they do not have. Because of this, they do not miss opportunity. Because they are focused on the positive, their ability to see and connect new dots is enhanced. Gratitude also helps you sleep better. A rested brain is a creative brain. 

Gratitude is the key element in the primordial soup from which all good ideas emerge. By focusing on all that is true, and good, and beautiful, we can expand our own horizons.

Want to unlock the door to an abundance of creativity in your life? This Holiday Season, try some common gratitude. It is available to anyone: rich, poor, educated, brave, or not. It is medicine for your head, your heart, your soul, and the eternal kid inside.

We take this opportunity to wish everyone a warm and wonderful Thanksgiving and Holiday Season, filled with awe and childlike wonder. We are thankful for every person who reads our blog.

When we count our blessings this year, we will be counting you.

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This is the fourth and final part of the Unlocking Abundance series. If you liked this article, you may enjoy Parts 1, 2, and 3 here:

Part 1: Unlocking Abundance

Part 2: The Most Underrated, Unexploited, & Unexplored Advantage in Small Business

Part 3: How to Fuel Your Entrepreneurial Fire

Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will create with your visual graphics. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer. 

Youth, enthusiasm, and a little bit of knowledge are powerful narcotics. Without the energy of youth very little would get accomplished in this world. This high-level kind of motivation is never a bad thing–not even if it is the self-interested kind. But when it comes to sustaining a small business, self-interested kind of motivation is of less value. Such energy will get a business launched, but it will never sustain. 

Many new enterprises begin with youthful exuberance. Entrepreneurs are anxious to be in charge of the whole show and have it their way. They talk of a desire to make the customer happy. But the customer’s happiness does not necessarily come first.

Motivation in business is a balancing act for sure. No one will sustain business for long if they hate the work, even if people beg them to do it. But even if you love love love what you are doing, and even after you have shelled out your life savings for your startup investment, no one has to love love love your product. Just because you build it does not mean they have to come. There has to be a good reason for them to come. And that is where self-interest can back-fire.

Plain and simple, you will never sustain business if the customer does not come first. The best customer service happens when we stop long enough to figure out–not what we want–but what the customer wants. Which would mean you have to stop thinking about your own plans for a minute and start thinking about someone elses plans. Which would mean you would have to start thinking about how fortunate you are if someone, anyone, walks through your door in the first place. It is called gratitude. Yes, Gratitude is the best foundation for sustained business.  

Which is why I have a bone to pick with some of the motivational programs out there. I remember going to a few conferences and paying good money for some of this less-than-stellar advice. I have been in rooms packed full of entrepreneurs and managers and leaders when all of a sudden the trainer’s voice gets all sing-songy. He instructs us to close our eyes and imagine ourselves on a beach, lying on a comfortable chaise lounge. We have our favorite beverage with the little twirly umbrella in our hands. We are to imagine the waves lapping at our feet and feel the imaginary sand under our toes. It is a good imaginary life. I have no problem with goal setting. It is good to know what success looks like and feels like and even smells like. Visualization has been an important technique for a very long time. You have to be able to imagine where you want to go before you can get there. So I am not against using imagination, except where it is self-focused. A self-focused technique causes you to imagine that your business is all about you and what you want. Believe me, it is not.

Without a vision to make life better for someone else, you will see each customer as only a means to an end, and as fuel for your personal economic engine. You will forget that they, like yourself, have dreams and plans to sit on a beach as well. You will forget that it is your job to design the perfect product for them–not to make your world convenient for you. Without customer focus, you will discount those who do not automatically recognize your product’s high value and worth, rather than accept responsibility for the perception. If the product’s value is not obvious, you have not done your job, either to a) make it all it claims to be, or b) to make the value obvious. Without customer focus, you will forget that your customers have something to give to you besides their money. They have things to teach you. They will teach you how to conduct a better business. If you listen to them, they will help you improve your product. They can even become your friends–if you will only stop to see them as something more than big data.

When it comes to entrepreneurship, making your business all about me is one of the quickest ways to find yourself disillusioned with business. Your employees will be disillusioned as well. They will figure out all too quickly that production is the only measure stick of their worth. Employees who feel appreciated as persons will work harder for you. Customer service will come naturally to them because they will desire to understand the mission. 

Gratitude will improve all your business relationships. Making your business all about others is the only path to fulfillment in business. Rich and lasting satisfaction comes from creating relationships, from building an idea that is bigger than yourself, and from creating a vision that will outlast you. If people come first, and a valuable product second, profit will follow naturally as a result.  If the order is reversed, even if you profit financially, you will not truly have profited at all. True Profit begins with love and ends in gratitude.

It seems counter-intuitive. Want to make sure your own fire never goes out? Throw logs on someone elses fire. This Thanksgiving, calculate your bottom line by the number of solid relationships you have built over the lifetime of your business. Find the true mission of your business in serving others with Gratitude.

 “The man who gives much will have much, and he who helps others will be helped himself.” Proverbs 16:25

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will create with your visual graphics. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer.

Unlocking Abundance- Part II

It would be strange for an entrepreneur to start the small business journey with anything less than Great Expectations. The entrepreneur-to-be salivates upon the very mention of their escape from the land of cubicles. When they leave the daily soap opera behind, they are giddy with excitement. They have just received a golden ticket to create the life they have always wanted.

The excitement, however, is dubious. Some entrepreneurs experience an increased sense of purpose and satisfaction in their business as time goes on, while others go on to find increased frustration. How do these great expectations fizzle? Do those who are satisfied in business have something that the others do not? I believe the answer is yes.

I’d like to tell you about the most underrated, most unexploited, and most unexplored competitive edge in small business. Perhaps in life itself. You most likely have some of this commodity. But chances are you have yet to understand its magical power to transform common into uncommon, routine into extraordinary, and the prosaic into poetry.

What is the magical potion? It is Gratitude.

Here are just five ways Gratitude can increase happiness in our business:

Gratitude enables us to enjoy what we already have. Small business owners spend much time waiting for things to happen so they can do other things. Remember to enjoy what you have right where you are. Happiness does not increase with accumulation. It comes from our ability to enjoy what we have. A bowl of oatmeal tastes better to a hungry man than a steak to a man who has a steak every day. Common things become a commodity. Every economic guru knows that if something becomes a commodity, the value goes down.  Scarcity causes value–and enjoyment–to increase. 

Gratitude transforms obstacles into opportunities. Those great expectations. They get us every time. Our disappointments come not from our circumstances, but from our very expectations themselves. Few businesses do business in the end in the same way they planned from the beginning. Detours are part of the journey. Detours may just take us down the path of destiny. Gratitude keeps us open to opportunity. True entrepreneurs do not wait around for good things to happen. Gratitude creates opportunity for business because it acknowledges the materials and unique circumstances at hand. It helps us connect the dots.

Gratitude helps us to use what we have to become all we can be. New entrepreneurs enjoy the freedom from restrictions of the corporate world. But that is only one side of the coin. Freedom does not end there. Our freedom is incomplete without knowing what our freedom is for. Gratitude does not focus on all the skills and talents we do not possess, but with those we already have. Gratitude will help us use these skills to find our highest calling: that sweet spot where our gifts and talents are best suited to meet the specific needs of those clients we most desire to serve.

Gratitude helps us focus on others. Our first mistake in creating our own business is associating happiness with having everything our own way. Satisfaction comes from being other-centered. The work of organizational psychologist Adam Grant has found that those who experience deep levels of satisfaction in their work perceive their work as service–not in serving their own ends, but the desires of others. Entrepreneurs who value their customers will spend time getting to know them so that they will learn how to serve them better. Greater satisfaction results when business is not “all about me”.

Gratitude helps us to live happier. It is common to think that “if I just had a little bit more, I would be happier”. In truth, the more we can live without the happier we will be. Examine your list of necessities for life and see how many you can nix. If you have to have a latte to start the day, and something happens and you do not get your latte, your day begins with a bomb. You have given the latte the power to rule your day. Grateful people require very little to be happy because their happiness does not come from things. Grateful people are flexible, and make the most of what they have, and do not have.

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” William Arthur Ward

Imagine losing everything you have today, and then all of a sudden–miraculously–getting it back. Imagine you just lost your eyesight from an accidental blast, and a week later, the doctor takes off the bandages and you can still see. How do you feel? Gratitude does not wait for the loss of blessings to be aware of blessings. It acknowledges them daily. Imagine how rich you might feel if you did.

How many blessings have you counted today?

Can you think of more ways that Gratitude helps us to become better business persons? Share them with us in the comments below!

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will create with your visual graphics. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer.

My first job was the 10th grade. I told my employer I was 16. Close enough. I signed up to serve tables 6 through 15 at the local diner in exchange for a weekly paycheck plus tips. I had little work ethic, despite the fact that my Father had modeled a 70-hour work week in his own business since I was too young to remember.

The waitressing gig proved to be the worst job I would ever have. It would be some years later before I understood that the entire fiasco was entirely my responsibility. I alone had the power to make it better. I alone had the power to make someone’s day a bit brighter–if only with a simple smile and a cup of java. I was interested in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Specifically my own. Little else mattered.

It was my first experience with blatant capitalism–or “the great exchange“. As far as equal exchange in this job however, at minimum wage, I was overpaid. I provided more problems for my employer than help. Nor did I pay for the education I received. (Dealing with Hungry People is a valuable course that, to my knowledge, is unavailable at any institution of higher learning. I learned plenty. My techniques were less than kosher. Let’s just say I failed.)

Fortunately, I have matured in my attitudes about employment. I have learned that the world does not revolve around me and my needs. Whew. But it got me to thinking. Most people feel underpaid. We have choices where a truly inequitable wage situation exists. (And they do exist. But as the saying goes, “If you do not like where you are, then change it. You are not a tree.”) But rarely do we conclude that in order to be paid more, we need to deliver more.

As much as I’d like to think I have paid my own way through life, in all reality I have always received far more than I have supplied. We all come into the world  vulnerable and needy. I will forever be in debt, whether to parents or educators or employers and mostly to God Himself. At every point where I have been needy and insufficient, He has always sent someone to supply my lack. (Moms were His best idea!) When we realize we have always received more than we have given back, it is humbling. Gratitude results.   

Entrepreneurs also come into the world as needy creatures. We need more everything–more sales, more confidence, more equipment, and more skills to implement our dreams. We need courage most of all to face things beyond our control. Mentors step in to nurture and to coach. We work hard, and we often feel underpaid for the services rendered. Yet, we are paid according to the value we deliver. The entire situation is entirely our responsibility.

Dr. Henry Cloud asserts that a mere 10% of our happiness is due to circumstances. Another 50% comes from our personal constitution. And the astounding part–a full 40% of our own happiness is completely within our control. Imagine that! Most of us know that if any variable in our business could be improved by 40%, we would be happy campers. 

It is easy to demand more from life than we demand from ourselves. If we focus on the negative, we may miss the resources we may have at our disposal. Instead of blaming our circumstances, gratitude helps us to discover abundance. Abundance is not found in all things perfect. Abundance is found in gratitude–in working with what you have and enjoying what you already possess.

Gratitude is not just some naive positive-thinking exercise to save for Sunday morning reflection. There is a rare quality of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to be discovered in the very word. Here at etc! graphics, we would deem it essential to true success.

Join us all of November as we discuss Gratitude as a valid and necessary strategy to unlock the door to abundance to your business.

“All the days of the afflicted are bad, but one with a grateful heart has a continual feast.” Proverbs 15:15

Stay tuned for Part II of Unlocking Abundance, next week!  

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection you will create with your visual graphics. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer.