The sure and only way to make people happy whether they are family members or customers is to exceed their expectations.

Decades ago, the customer was always right but was the customer always happy?

And in the digital age, it’s getting harder to find happy people.

Recent polls confirm that you can find happy customers at Zappos and Apple support, but most companies fall short in this area.  LiveNation, the concert operator, really falls short in customer expectations.

Parents are guilty as well – promises not kept, time not spent together.

Here’s a short course on exceeding expectations:

1. If you say it, do it.  When the commitment comes out of your mouth, start planning to deliver.  Promise it for one day longer than you need so you don’t have to make excuses for being one day late.  Then, exceed expectations.
    
2. If there is a problem, try “I’m going to make this right”.  No one can ask more than making something right.  Then, commit to the path it will take to deliver on the promise.
    
3. Say, “Is there any other way I can be of help?”.  Most people will say “no”, but the sound of satisfaction resonates in goodwill.
    
4. The greatest gift you can give a family member or a customer is the gift of your time.  When donating it, give them 100% of your attention.
    
5. Listen to the other side of silence – that is, frequently what is not said is the problem you should be trying to work on.

People have simple needs.

At the top of the list is the need to be heard. 

After that, the magic begins to happen.

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The Chair of the Mayo Clinic Mind Body Initiative, Amit Sood, has a novel way for us to look at ourselves – through our pet’s eyes.

“You are who your dog thinks you are – kind, caring, and compassionate. 

“Your pet does not care about your financial net worth, job, health, fame, etc.  All it cares about is your love and your ability to express it. The loving you is the transcendental you that no one can rob”.

What a great way to build self-esteem on how loving we are instead of our material accomplishments.

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Jessica Ghwai, known professionally as Jennifer Redfield, was an aspiring 24-year old hockey writer who had just gotten her press credentials for the NHL Colorado Avalanche when everything went wrong.

She had escaped from a deadly shooting spree at a Toronto Mall in June grateful for her young life – certainly, enough bad luck for a lifetime.

Then on July 20^th at a movie theater in Aurora, CO, Jessica Ghwai died in the arms of her boyfriend whom she convinced to see “The Dark Knight Rises”.  The Aurora gunman broke into the theater and opened fire on unsuspecting movie goers killing Ghwai, 11 others and injuring 59.

We often say, “I was in the right place at the wrong time”.

That happens in life.

Sometimes it happens more than once as in Jennifer Ghwai’s case.

I have come close to meeting my maker twice in life.  Once with a tanker truck that ran a red light in Marlton, NJ and the other with a speeding car that did the same as I was turning in its path in Scottsdale, AZ.

As the adrenalin kicked in I wondered how many other times I got the benefit of being just 30 seconds early, or not on that flight, or otherwise not in harm’s way.

We always know when we are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But we don’t always know when we are in the right place at the right time.

Be grateful for that which we can’t always know and go on and live life.

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The comedian George Carlin said, “I put a dollar in one of those change machines.  Nothing changed”.

The way we deal with adversity on a daily basis requires a long look in the mirror.

As Viktor Frankl put it: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves”.

Here are some things you might try.  Just one of these makes it easier to face adversity:

1. Don’t solve problems immediately, just try to deal with them
2. Use your God-given gifts to battle adversity every day
3. Be grateful for that which you have

Some problems can be handled right away.

Others take longer – sometimes considerably longer.

And some can never be resolved requiring us to accept them and move on.

Line up the adversity that befalls you and deal with it sustained by the knowledge that what makes it tolerable is to focus on gratitude.

The author Melodie Beattie says:

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough and more.  It turns denial in acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity … it turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing and mistakes into important events.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

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Katherine Whitehorn said it best – “the best careers advice to give to the young is ‘Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it’”.

That’s why I devoted a special section in my book Out of Bad Comes Good – The Advantages of Disadvantages to career changing techniques that are really different and really work.

For example:  a one-sheet that you can provide an employer on an interview that will move your resume to the top of pile. 

A resume is no longer enough to remain competitive.

Providing a list of ways you can specifically help the company that you want to work for helps your potential employer connect the dots.

Some companies like Google use elaborate interviewing techniques to winnow down to the person they want to hire.

But no employer can resist an applicant who takes the time to spell out specific ways they can help that company from day one. 

If you’d like to read the chapter on Career Chaos for free – and two other preview chapters as well – click here.   It has the details on how to prepare the list and use it in an interview setting.

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When my son graduated from college, I wrote a congratulatory note inspired by the author Sidney Greenberg that said:

“It is more important to know how to make a life than a living.”

I’m sure he would have appreciated a BMW more!  Who wouldn’t?

But the greatest gift we can give to our children, to those we love or for that matter to ourselves is the reminder that making a living and making a life are not the same thing. 

We tend to connect a happy life with money, but tens of thousands of psychologists and psychiatrists will tell you that money doesn’t insure happiness.

A recent Gallop study found that the average American by his or her own admission was happy if they earned around $75,000 a year.  After that, happiness did not proportionately increase with their income no matter how high it went.

Rabbi Greenberg leads us to this —  “The indispensible requirement for mastering life is mastering ourselves. We learn to live when we learn to give.”

As a Professor of Music Industry at the University of Southern California I was asked by graduating students:  “How can I be successful and make a lot of money?”

My answer.

Don’t try. 

Just work hard at being excellent doing something for which you have a great passion.

Ironically, the richest people may have money but they don’t always know how to make a life.

We can make that adjustment today.

Pursue passions not dollars.

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I have come to discover a fascinating author and physician who wrote a book called “Train Your Brain, Engage Your Heart, Transform Your Life”.

Amit Soot, a Mayo Clinic doctor says, “Do not postpone joy waiting for a day when life will be perfect and all your stressors will be gone”.

It’s about living in the moment.

There are always excuses for postponing your joy.  If you let these opportunities get away, you may have to wait a decade later to come back to it.

Being too busy or too stressed is not a good reason.

To quote Dr. Soot: “I have never had a day when my boat was fully secure in the harbor, the water was a deep blue, the winds were quiet, and the sun was bright and shining in the sky.  Waiting for such a day would be a very long wait.  So I need to admit the reality and find fulfillment in the present moment accepting all its imperfections”.

Your mind tends to push joy away and keeps you logged off from life.

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There is a new trend surfacing in New York City and Los Angeles and soon to be in 60 locations due to an acquisition by Equinox.

Cardio fitness.

Motivational sayings.

Lots of sweat and a very expensive fee – if you can get into a class. 

Lady Gaga, Chelsea Clinton, J Crew’s Mickey Drexler and Katie Holmes are among the celebrities who are earlier adopters.

SoulCycle is a spinning class with loud music and the all-important new exercise ingredient – motivational inspiration.  And they are onto something.

Exercise for the mind and the body.

You could start today with a motivational workout.  

Inspirational voices and music along with physical exercise. 

Even a walk with a pep talk.

Which begs the question, what great things would happen if we could put half the energy we put into physical fitness into bolstering our emotional health?

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TV’s Colbert Report star Stephen Colbert lost his father, a doctor and two brothers in a plane crash when he was 10 years old while they were flying to a prep school in New England. 

Colbert offers in a New York Times Magazine article that this profound sadness may actually be his explanation for becoming a comedian. 

It was Colbert’s mother who he credits for helping him not become bitter.

“She taught me to be grateful for my life regardless of what that entailed, and that’s directly related to the image of Christ on the cross and the example of sacrifice that he gave us.  What she taught me is that the deliverance God offers you from pain is not no pain – it’s that the pain is actually a gift.  What’s the option?  God doesn’t really give you another choice”.

There is value in suffering and sometimes it takes a great comedian to point it out.  Out of bad comes good.

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Isn’t that amazing?

We live in a world that fights over winning lottery tickets as if they are the ticket to success.  But ask billionaire Richard Branson which lottery he won.  Steve Jobs never got rich by buying a ticket at the local convenience checkout.  Or, for that matter, anyone who ever made a name for themselves.

Successful people thrive on adversity. 

Lucky people (or those who want to be lucky) fear it. 

There is no get rich quick scheme in life.

And people who spend their time waiting to get lucky wind up being poor in more ways than one.

Look forward to adversity.  It is the steppingstone to success.

Some thoughts:

• Write down the failures in your life and career.  Then add the great thing that happened next.  Good always comes from bad.
   
• Train yourself to scoop up problems as they occur in real time every day the way a shortstop scoops up baseballs in the infield.  Change your focus and look forward to problems coming your way like a shortstop anticipates and wants to handle ground balls.  If you make an error, get back up and be ready for the next challenge just like a ballplayer.
   
• Solving problems is optional.  Dealing with them and putting them in some kind of order is required.
   
• Your new mantra:  failure begins only when you give up.  Until then, you’re staying busy working on the human condition.
   
• The Fat Lady never sings.  It’s never over until you say it is.

Only a fool expects life to be without challenges, disappointments and hurt but these are the gifts that drive achievers to success and happiness.

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