December 18, 2009

Rules for Retailers

**As most of my friends know, I have been reading (obsessively) books about “The New Business” paradigm for well over a year now.  Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Alan Webber, Chris Brogan, among the luminaries.

I am telling you this, right now, at the start of this post, only because it might help explain (a little) the rant that is about to ensue.*

Here is the short version:

I am totally done with ignorant, and/or grouchy retailers.  Done.  I don’t have to put up with you any more.

I don’t.

Why?

Because there are PLENTY of businesses that sell the exact same thing you do, that have stellar customer service.

(End of short version.)

Case Study 1 – The Tea Chest

I’m into tea these days.  Had a great experience at Teavana in Rochester, bought a lot of stuff in that store, came home, went on line, ordered more.

Learned there was a tea store in Corning and went in for a look-see.  The store was empty.  No customers.  I roamed around, and the woman there (owner??) asked if I needed help.  I said it was my first time; I was looking around.  She left me alone.  I asked about the rooibos.  She answered me, distractedly.

I went to pay for the rooibos, and noticed chocolates.  I asked about those.  Did she make them?  “Some, “ she said.  “The others were from “other places.” (what other places, I wondered.)

I would have bought chocolates, I would have, but was so put off by her attitude that I just bought the 2 oz of tea I had already placed on the counter (and regretted), and left.

I will never go in there again.

I felt like I was in her way.  I felt like a pest.  I was the only one in her store.  (And I totally understand why I was the only one in her store!)

As a seller of tea, she sucked.

As a seller of chocolates, she sucked.

As a human being in contact with another human being, she sucked.

The Tea Chest in Corning, NY?  Fail.  I will be surprised if she is in business this time next year.

www.teavana.com FTW (for the win)

Case Study #2

The Soulful Cup, Corning, NY

One barista there is great: smiley, helpful, makes a good drink.

But there is another barista there, who, when I walk in and see her behind the bar, I think twice about how much I really want a coffee, and consider walking out.

Today that barista was behind the bar.  Again, I was the only customer. No lines.  No chaos.  No frenzy.  Just me and her.  So I smile my biggest smile and order my drink.  No smile back.  No how’s-it-goin’.  No nothing.  Here’s your drink.  Money changes hands. Thanks.

Would it have killed her to smile, engage me in some light banter?

I have an espresso machine at home that pulls killer shots and steams milk great.

I have a Starbucks card that auto re-loads every time my balance falls below $10.

Starbucks — FTW

Sirena Espresso Maker—FTW

Soulful Cup—Fail

Case Study #3 – The Merchantile

Still on the hunt for good chocolates, I go into the Merchantile.  There is a great selection of truffles. I order a box of six and start picking the ones I want.  The woman behind the counter, puts my first 2 selections into the box and then the phone rings.  She leaves me (a real live person, standing there in the process of buying expensive chocolates,) to answer the phone!

The person on the phone was, in her mind, more important than I was, in that moment.

Tip for Retailers: The person on the phone might be a potential customer.  The person in front of you is an actual customer.  But here’s the thing: The actual customer who gets dissed for the potential customer, will never be back.

http://www.moonstruckchocolate.com/ FTW

The Merchantile in Corning, NY  – Fail.

So here’s the deal, retailers.  I will try to buy locally, but say I buy a thousand dollars worth of stuff at your store in the course of a year.

When I walk into your store, I would like you to smile at me, say hi, treat me as someone who supports your business, maybe treat me especially nicely, knowing that I am a good customer.

But if I walk in and you barely acknowledge my existence because you have a headache or just had a fight with your partner, or whatever, I’m not coming back.  Why?

Because I don’t have to!

I can get ignored online, in my pajamas, and have my stuff here the very next day AND I don’t have to put up with your shit.

FTW!

End of rant.  Thanks for playing.

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December 17, 2009

Not Chuck

Sleep is my beauty secret.

So now you know.  With enough sleep I sparkle.  My mind is sharp and I say witty things, (bon mots, if you must know.)

Without enough sleep I almost back the car out of the garage before opening the garage door.

Without enough sleep, there isn’t enough concealer in the world to hide the bags under my eyes.

Without enough sleep I can be mean.

I have been sitting her for most of the evening trying to think of something to write about (this blog is a streak thing, so I have to post.  Otherwise I would have just taken the night off.)

You know dooce.com, right?  And the things she makes her dog, Chuck endure?

So this is not Chuck.  This is Boomer.  This took 8 tries.

Now, I must get my beauty sleep.

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December 16, 2009

A Mitzvah

When I sit down and write these blog posts I like to be in a state of calm equanimity—or for you yoga people out there—I like to write when I’m “sattvic.”

But tonight I am writing in the “jazzed” rajasic state because I just got home from my “Donate Food for the Local Food Pantry and Get a Free Yoga class” class, and can I just say one thing?

My yogarians Kick. Asana.

(What an amazing tribe!)

First, they packed the house.  One latecomer crammed in and was happy to practice on the shoe rack!  (Well, maybe not ON the shoe rack, but she was definitely on the runner in front of the shoe rack.

Second, I led them in Yoganand’s Meditative Posture Flow, which is in-tense.  Some of them will definitely wake up tomorrow going, “Whoa, what the hell happened to us at yoga last night?”

But did they complain?  Did they whine?  Did they yell out, “Fire hydrants are not enough woman? We have to side kick TOO??  Is this how you show your gratitude for all the Stove-top stuffing we brought you??

Thirdly: Cheryl?  On the harp?  During Savasana?

What can I say?  It is going to be hard to go back to the Ipod, that’s all I can say.  The music was sweet, and played with so much love.  And the harp, as a thing, was so beautiful!  I want one!  How can people not have harps in their homes?  In their studios?

(beats me.)

Then there was the food!  OMG, the food.

Such generosity.  Such caring.  Piles and piles of food for the Food Pantry.  And cash!

I did what my Jewish in-laws would call a mitzvah, a good deed.

So how come I feel like I have been given the gift?

Thank you so much, everyone who came, everyone who gave, everyone who practiced and sweated and breathed.

I bow  a deep, low, tender bow to you.

Namaste.

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December 15, 2009

The Post with the Picture of the Menorah

Got up early and did Ashtanga with Christine.

Drove to Ithaca and wrote with Zee &Co, then had a great lunch (Chinese), got coffee at Starbucks, stopped at Greenstar and made it home just in time to set up for Goldilocks Yoga.

Ate pizza and drank beer for dinner.

Lit the Menorah.

Now, the house is quiet and both the menorah and the tree are glowing softly.

Wrote about “stuff” today.  Thought a lot about “wanting,” as in, “What do you want for Xmas?”

Been reading Brent Kessel’s It’s Not About the Money.  Am only 1 chapter in, but he says “wanting” is the big issue.  If we could stop “wanting” that would be a good thing; it would solve a lot of problems (maybe all our problems.)

So let’s all work on that, okay?  Let’s all stop wanting, and instead start appreciating what we already have.

Like candles.  And soup.  And cookies.  And a soft snowfall.  And a warm bed.  And enough.  Just enough.

Like now.  It’s snowing.

And it’s 10 days before Xmas.

And it couldn’t be better than this, right?

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December 14, 2009

Setting Priorities

(forgive me if you’ve already heard this.)

For a lesson in time management, a professor places a 3-foot  Plexiglas cylinder on the desk and explains that the space inside the cylinder represents the time available to us on any given day.

He proceeds to fill it with large rocks.  When it’s filled, he asks the students: Is the glass filled?

Some say yes, some say no.

He then proceeds to add coarse gravel, which fills the space between the rocks.

“Now is it filled?”

Most of the students say, “Yes.”

He then takes fine sand and pours that in, and the sand filters in between the gravel and the rocks.

“NOW is it filled?”

The students, suspecting a trick, do not answer.

The professor then takes a pitcher of water and pours it into the cylinder.

“Now is it filled?”

The universal agreement is that, yes, now the cylinder is filled.

So then the professor then asks, “What’s the lesson to be learned here?”

One student says, “That even when you believe you have no time left in your day, you can always fit in one more thing.”

“Wrong,” says the professor. “The lesson is: put your big rocks in first.”

What are your big rocks?  What are those things you must do every day in order to achieve your biggest, most important, most critical-to-your-happiness, dreams?

What do you have to do every day in order to run a marathon, or write a novel, or lose 25 pounds, or play a Beethoven sonata? Those are your “big rock” activities.  They have to be priority one.

For me, my big rocks are my mediation practice, my 6 pages of scribble in my paper journal, my exercise/yoga practice and this blog.

The gravel comes next.  For me, it’s reading books (feeding the muse), taking care of my business, my animals, and my home.

The sand and the water are the fun and the “fluff” of movies, TV, the Internet, parties and all essential wackadoo stuff that gives my life sparkle.

I can’t do without any of it, but the big rocks have to go in first.

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December 11, 2009

Try Chips

My friend and trainer Tim (aka, Timbo), and his friend Jerry (aka Numero Uno) are about to launch a good-for-you snack called Try Chips.

Try Chips are a crunchy chip made of dried fruit that they are marketing to athletes, or anyone who tries to do anything athletic, and wants a tasty nosh before, during or after their event.

Try Chips are healthy and good for you, so after you do something healthy and good for you like run or walk or whatever, you can feel good about eating these things.

They are going to be awesome.

The motto of Try Chips is, “Try Everything, Waste Nothing.”  And also, “Apathy is the Enemy.”

As we we’ve been working out in the gym these past months, Tim and I have been having talks about what it means to “try” something.  (‘Cause god knows I’ve been trying to get some arm muscles going here, people!)

We’re not talking here about “tasting” or “sampling” something, like, “Have you ever tried sushi?” No.

What we’re talking about is making an effort.  Getting off the couch.  Battling resistance and apathy and lethargy and laziness.  To get off the couch and go to the gym once is to “try.”

To keep going back to the gym day after day even when you don’t feel like it is called trying.  To try means to make an effort.  To keep trying involves persistence over time.  And it builds character …and eventually muscles!

So I’ve been thinking a lot about my dreams and my wants and my goals lately.  I’ve been reading my journal from this past year to see if there’s been any progress.  What I’m seeing is a hesitancy, a lack of bravery and courage when it comes to real-ifying my dreams, a reluctance to even try because some of my dreams are so outlandish!  So almost ridiculous!

So I’ve been asking myself this question:

What if everything we’ve ever dreamed of trying is in there, in our imagination, in our head, for a reason?

What if the reason we have dreams in the first place is because we are meant to follow them, act on them, real-ify them, birth them?

What if our dreams are not just “dreams” but the maps of our vocations?

And what if , if we don’t follow our dreams, or act on them, or go for them, or try to real-ify them, there will be real and serious consequences?

And what if the consequence of not going for our dreams is not that something bad will happen to us, but that nothing will happen to us?

What if the universe gives us dreams as tests, just to see if we’ll man-up or woman-up and go for them?

What if our dreams are sort of like the Twelve Labors of Hercules?  What if as soon as we conquer one, we are given the next, and the next, and each successive one is that much more challenging than the one before?

And what if each completed challenge makes us bigger, and braver, and more sparkly, and more alive, and stronger, and better, and kinder, and sweeter, and wiser?

And what if this is why we are given a life in the first place?

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December 10, 2009

Why I Practice Yoga

Tonight I told my Beginner Yoga session the real reason I do yoga: it makes me high.

Seriously.  Why else would I do this crazy shit?  Breathing like a stallion, making weird sounds in the back of my throat, closing off one nostril while breathing out the other, holding my breath until I almost pass out?

And that’s just the pranayama.  Add in the postures, and the holding of those postures until every muscle in my body screams for release, and then holding for 5 more excruciating breaths, and you have the recipe for wackadoo-ism in the extreme –unless there is something more.

Who does this stuff unless there is something more, some serious payoff at the end?  Who??

Not me, that’s for damn sure.

But there is a payoff at the end.  Big time.

And the payoff is that this stuff allows me to transcend my ordinary experience.

That’s right.

I totally leave my ordinary, take out the trash, shave my armpits, walk the dog, do the dishes, check my email, pay my bills life, behind.

My practice takes me on a magic carpet ride, up, up, high in the air, high as a kite, to a vantage point where I can look down and see myself driving around in my little Mickey Mouse car, on my way to my little Mickey Mouse business thing that I am so very, very earnest about, and think is ever so important.

“Hah!  Silly woman,” I think from my high post-yoga vantage point.

For quite a while after a really good yoga practice, I walk around in an altered state, wondering why everyone is taking this movie that we’re all in, for real.

(Like the little girl in the Arcadia theater bathroom who watched me bawling after a sad movie said, “Lady, it’s only a movie.”)

But we always get suckered into this movie, don’t we?  We always think that our life is really real, just like we think our dream is really real until we wake up and go, “Wow, that was one strange dream!”

Some day we’re all going to “wake up” from this dream we are currently taking to be our “life.”  This show we are taking so seriously is totally going to close.

What a yoga practice does is allow us to see that even though it is a show and we are stuck in it, we can act in it, write it, produce it and direct it.  We are totally in charge of our own movie. We have total control in how we behave, what choices we make, who we choose to co-star with, and what plot lines we want to play out.

A yoga practice affords us that perspective and from that “high” vantage point, we can see, and be reminded of what’s really going on.

That’s why I practice.  That’s the only reason I practice.

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December 9, 2009

‘Tis the Season

I was walking the dog through campus today when I overheard one student say to another, “Something’s got to give!”

It’s “that time” of year for students when papers are due and finals are looming.

It’s “that time” of the year for the rest of us too: holidays, travel, shopping, baking, and relating to extended family and other difficult people.

Something’s got to give!

When people say that, they’re usually at the end of their rope.  It’s a phrase that’s said with frustration at the lack of progress.  It’s said when a person is experiencing entropy.

Entropy is a measure of the disorder or randomness in a system.

Syntropy is the opposite of entropy.  It’s the feeling of increased creative flow and it results in the growth of a system or a society.

When chaos reigns, or when “something’s got to give” (like the time and energy drought at the end of a semester, or a fruitless day at the mall, or dealing with your mother-in-law) the way out, oddly enough, is to GIVE.

When “something’s got to give” it’s a sure sign that someone’s got to give.

Give help.

Give thanks.

Express gratitude.

The only effective way to counteract entropy and get back into the creative flow is to give.

The world is nothing but pure potential.  The world lacks nothing.  It is prosperity.  It is fullness.  It is, and has the potential for, everything. You just have to rig yourself up so that you can channel it.

I like the radio wave and tuner analogy.

Whenever I am feeling out of sorts, or whenever there is a lot of static, it means that my “tuner” needs to be adjusted.  (I always see myself as Ray Walston in My Favorite Martian here).

Two antennae sprout from my head and I tilt and turn and give and help and express gratitude –even in the midst of chaos — until I start receiving the good signal mojo again, the signal of creative flow.

The hardest time to give is when I feel empty, yet that’s the only time when it really, really works, and really, really counts.

The quickest way out of a state of entropy, a state of disorder and randomness and chaos is to express gratitude.  Period

Welcome to The Season of Giving.

(And hey.  Thanks for reading!)

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December 8, 2009

The Eliminator

Last year we got a new birdfeeder called The Eliminator.  It’s a squirrel foiler.

As soon as a squirrel jumps on The Eliminator, no food can come out. The weight of the squirrel causes shrouds to descend, metal shrouds, shrouds impervious to sharp squirrel teeth, closing off access to the seed inside the tube. The squirrel is frustrated and jumps off.

Last spring we left the feeder up a little too long and a bear bit through the tube, so we had to replace the tube this year, and I think it got stuck onto the top and today I could not get it off.

Normally, I would have asked for help, but today I decided to just sit and figure it out.  I’m a smart person, I can figure out a bird feeder for goddsakes!

So I sat on the floor and patiently took the whole thing apart and got the mechanism down to the problem part, but I just couldn’t crack it.  I felt precisely like that squirrel who hangs onto the Eliminator trying to figure out how to get to the seed, while it’s her own body weight keeping her from it.

But in this case, it wasn’t my body weight, it was my MIND holding me back.  I saw the problem, I just couldn’t see the solution.

Howard Gardner has this theory of Multiple Intelligences.  Everybody, he claims, has a particular intelligence in a particular area.  I know I am verbal/linguistic with a strong inter and intra-personal intelligences, too. So I can fix your novel, spice up your resume, and edit your report.  I can also understand your emotional meltdown and I have a good amount of self-knowledge to boot.

My friend Fred, on the other hand, can figure out how things work: heating and plumbing systems, airplanes, Rabbit corkscrews.  So while I was teaching Goldilocks yoga tonight, Fred came over and fixed the Eliminator.  I don’t know how he did it, but we’re definitely going to have a sit-down about it.  Fred will explain the whole thing to me and I’ll be able to see what I wasn’t able to see all afternoon sitting on the floor.

And Fred? Buddy?

If you ever need your resume tweaked?

I’m your girl.

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December 7, 2009

A Whole Day of Tilt

Today was one of those “off” days when I just could not find my rhythm.  Felt like I was in a pinball machine getting flippered from thing to thing.  If it weren’t for my hour of Holosync, I would have been totally Tilt, instead of only mostly Tilt.

One thing that ate up a big chunk of time –time I didn’t really have–was reading my journal from this past year.

I didn’t even get halfway through January before I had a bunch of headings for my “Year End Summary Report” which I will post  at the end of the month.  Here’s a brief sample:

Things I thought were good ideas at the time, but weren’t

Things I actually finished

Things I didn’t do

Things I dumped

Things that didn’t work out

Things I acquired

Things I finally understand

Things that almost killed me, but didn’t

Things I learned the hard way

People who don’t bug me anymore

This year-end “taking of stock” is essential for me so I can be sure I am moving on to all new mistakes.

I hope to fail a lot in the year to come.  All the marketing gurus I am now reading say that the more you fail, the more you learn and grow and are able to “Crush It”

And this is the year I intend to Crush It!

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