“The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.” ~Norman Vincent Peale

Where I am physically right now is certainly related to where I’ve been. Where I am physically right now is a simple eight pounds lighter than I was fourteen days ago. Where I am physically right now is more flexible and energetic than I was.

Where I am physically right now, however, is not driven by where I’ve been, but where I want to go. While many times perspective comes in the form of the retrospective, requiring some prior experience around which to quantify a current existence, my perspective is driven prospectively and there is a man out there that is vibrant and active in every aspect of life. There is a lot of work to shape the current man into that that vision and I am certain that I am on the right path.

One of the things that I had created as a roadblock has been food. I love food. It is amazing to me the different blends of flavors and quality of ingredients that are available. When I encounter a dish that is new and creative, I tend to indulge. I have learned that my definition of indulge mainly centered around selfishly engulfing every last morsel available so that I knew that I had enjoyed all there was to enjoy. I am focusing my mind away from that definition to focus more on the sense of savoring the experience. Here I will enjoy what I love about food and truly appreciate the essence of it while providing a balance for my palate and my body.

This need rings ever true in a video that was recently introduced to me. It is Jamie Oliver’s wish for our world and I certainly agree with everything he has to say. I am committed to creating a long life for myself and will do what I can to help those around me focus on a healthy life. Below, is Jamie’s wish. Enjoy the video when you get a chance:

“I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.” ~Andrew Lloyd Wright

It is the tenth day of my quest toward a fitter version of me. I have found that I can’t perform every single task presented to me in fully perfect form at a maximum level of repetition with an impressive amount of resistance. This is good because I now have a challenge, something upon which I will improve.

I have also found that through maintaining an image of my future self in my mind, I do not have the battle of “will power” that I had been plagued to encounter in my previous efforts to improve my health. I have not simply decided to lose some weight as was a previous fault. I have decided to enjoy life to its fullest for years to come and the vision in my mind that describes joy requires a body that can handle the rigors of time. I am persisting in my mind an image that will be fulfilled.

I had come to realize that my days were spent focused on a career that I love and am enjoying beyond any dream that I had as a child. The nights were focused on eating dinner, watching television, surfing the internet, and going to bed. This is not a cycle that has much life balance to it at all and it was starting to wear on me in a way that I had never conceived of before. The only way that I can describe it is by stating it in a completely exaggerated and blunt fashion… I felt like I was getting dumb.

I realized that I needed focus. I needed to commit to improving my life. I needed challenge. This need has found life in two different movements in my personal (by that I mean not completely career oriented) endeavors.

First, after years of pondering at the behest of my wife, I invested in a new flute. That’s right! I studied flute in my formative years and throughout college, but following the receipt of my bachelor of music in music education, I laid no more focus on it. From that purchase to this post, I have now had three flute lessons. It is a bit frustrating to be sure. I fully expected to be able to play full force right out of the gate but now am realizing that there is some very specific muscle development that has to occur not to mention that there are some bad habits regarding playing that I need to unlearn. While frustrating, it is also very fulfilling and I am excited to continue learning and improving.

Second, I am finally focusing on health. Sure, maybe I just acquired a fad, but I think that there is more to this in the long run. I picked up P90X and am committed to make the program a regular part of my life. I’ll be honest… it really sucks right now, but it’s all in my mind and I know from experience that I can absolutely refocus my mind and I will be successful.

So amongst other posts to happen in the future, I hope to relay some of my experiences to you, not as a method for teaching you flute or helping you lose weight, but as a platform to make sure everyone understands the importance of having something in your life that you are always trying to work on… for yourself.

I have previously written about the beginnings of an addiction to Twitter, my fascination with a social media virtual meetup, and the application of social media engagement to assist entrepreneurial success.  At Quicken Loans, we utilize twitter and other social media venues as a part of our marketing strategies and client service.  We have quite a few stories regaling our abilities to help clients through our process successfully.  I think that it is amazing that companies are out there listening and willing to take action when needed.

I recently had a series of events transpire that started off as a simple complaint and turned into a fabulous outcome.  It is this one story that I will reveal to you in some detail so that we can see the power of social customer service on a person to person level.

About a month ago, I headed out of the house to enjoy my day.  On my list of things to do were:

• Get a good cup of coffee
• Get the oil changed in my car
• Walk around the Ann Arbor Art Fair.

To obtain my coffee, I decided to head to a Biggby Coffee that is right around the corner from my house.  I like their coffee and I like to support Michigan businesses when I have the choice.  As I was waiting in line, I opened my wallet to get out some cash and was enthralled by the fact that I had a fully stamped Biggby Coffee card which now entitles me to a free drink.  I presented the card to the barista and asked for a large coffee.  She looked at the card and proceeded to tell me that Biggby had changed over to electronic cards and that there was nothing that she could do to help me use the card.  I was taken aback and continued pushing the matter with increasing levels of frustration that I am sure was made evident by my voice and actions.  The barista told me that the switch happened in January which made me even angrier because I had certainly been in there since that point in time getting my card stamped on each visit.  With no resolution in sight, I gave up the quest for coffee and headed off to the oil change and art fair.

While at the art fair, I came across Espresso Royale and realized that I needed to get my caffeine fix before my body decided to enter withdrawal and throw a headache into high gear.  Still steamed about my previous experience, I told their barista the story.  I purchased a small coffee and the gentleman handed me a large cup as a simple token.  This made my day better, but I still felt a little betrayed.

The more and more that I thought about it, I remembered that the CEO of Biggby has an account on Twitter.  I always enjoyed reading his little posts and wondered if the world of social client service had spread beyond Quicken Loans.  I decided to engage in a dialogue with BiggbyBob:

FROM ME: @BiggbyBob I got denied at biggby today. Went in with a fully stamped paper card and they couldn’t help me ’cause they switched to electronic 1:29 PM Jul 18th

FROM ME: @BiggbyBob - Told espresso royale what happened – payed for a small and they gave me a large… small effort – long time reward. 1:32 PM Jul 18th

Then… we wait:

FROM BIGGBYBOB: @stuartmdavis Hey Stuart , I can help you with your paper card. Sorry about your visit. Denied shouldn’t B in our language @T_C_B 7:38 AM Jul 19th

BiggyBob has gone down the right path.  He has now looped in T_C_B who is the VP of Operations at Biggby Coffee.

FROM T_C_B: @stuartmdavis drop me an email with what happend at [email removed] and we will get you taken care of for sure! SORRY! 7:10 PM Jul 19th

From this point on, Biggby Coffee did everything right to keep me as a customer.  I sent the email, T_C_B responded back, we came to an appropriate resolution and all was well with the caffeinated world.

Now, this post isn’t meant to encourage the masses to solve your difficult situations over Twitter.  Neither is it meant to convince you to go out and simply FIND a problem to solve in this matter.  This was a personal experiment and I was pleased by the results.  There are indeed other companies out there in the social media sphere that are using this “stuff” for both fun and business. Coffee is a simple thing and I could have simply coughed up the money to get a cup of joe the first time around. Client relationships, however, are not always simple. We all need to listen and have a high sense of awareness. Somewhere out there is a client that simply wants to be heard.  Sometimes a resolution is had simply by acknowledging a client and offering to listen to them, not simply hear them, but listen to them. I know that my friends still ask me what this Twitter thing is all about. “Relationships” is one key answer to that question.

So… are you listening?  Truly listening?

Let us be clear, the number of individuals that report up to someone is not a measure of success.  Many managers measure themselves this way and classify the acquisition of increased headcount as a promotion.  To operate in this manner gives control of your success to those that have the power to approve requisitions.  What happens when the economy faces a retraction?  If you are a “manager” and find that you must face the unfortunate reality of letting team members go, does this get classified as a demotion?  Vying for position be ensuring that you have a lot of people reporting to you in an effort to ensure that your own position is secure is managing toward protectionism as opposed to growth.  People are smart.  Leaders see through this headcount manipulation.  It is not protection at all.

A leader will take time to consider whether they have the resources available to them to take on the added responsibility of adding members to the team.  This is because a true leader is not focused on themselves, but rather the success of those in their care and it takes a ton of energy and focus to truly lead someone.  Every leadership position that I have been in is driven by one main core principle.  Service.  When I dig into the idea of “service” from a leadership perspective, I generally start with major militaries’ use of the rank “Sergeant”.

Sergeant (normally abbreviated to “Sgt”) is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, “one who serves”, through the French term Sergent. (via Wikipedia)

Generally, when one unfamiliar with the system thinks about the military, they generate in their mind a hierarchy of commands that come from the top down and nothing more.  However, the military cannot accomplish anything if those who serve do not have the proper tools and training to accomplish their tasks.  This is where the idea of Sergeant comes in.  When a directive does come from the upper chain of command, leaders along the way need to ensure that everyone is ready: that they have the tools and training necessary to carry out this command.

A servant leader in the business world is much the same.  I always lead my teams by ensuring that they have everything that they need to support the vision and strategy of the organization.  Beyond that, I hope to find time to grow each team member’s talents to the point that they could replace me at any given moment.  Herein is major difference between a protectionist manager and a servant leader.  A manager will hide just enough information so that they can remain in power while giving their employees just enough information to squeak by.  Since no one is really growing, the manager needs to hire more people to get more stuff done.  I believe that managers call this “job security.”  A leader will maintain an open rapport so that the team members can think critically and apply their own unique thoughts toward creating amazing solutions to problems.  Team members become very creative and very effecient and can handle harder challenges and more of them.  And please note, it is not a requirement to actually have team members reporting directly to you in order to show dedication as a leader.

Again; people are smart.  Even as I lead people toward levels that they can replace me, that just means that I have more and more truly amazing people doing amazing things for the company.  Other leaders in the company will realize this.  They will never say “what do we need him for anymore.”  Instead, they will generally recruit from my team because they too want truly amazing people doing amazing things for them as well.

I believe that a focus on service is a major part of my success, and I generally never focus or dwell on my own success.  I focus on wanting others to succeed and from time to time that means that I must offer my own experiences as evidence.

So… are you a LEADER or a MANAGER?

• What do the N.Y. Jets, a steel pail, a burgundy wristband, and wine have in common?
• Would you eat a cigar?
  Would you lick a stone soaked in salt water?
  Would you eat grass with a little grapefruit juice?
• Any marketer’s dilemma right now is to figure out how to get facebook, twitter, and any other of the myriad of social sites to act as part their strategy.

The answer to all of these, with some matter of grammatical correction to make the response match the question, is Gary Vaynerchuk! I came across Gary via twitter and have simply been healthily fanatic about watching his videos at Wine Library TV and on his blog. Everywhere that you come across Gary on this world wide web of ours, you will notice that he continuously invites you to interact with his life via any manner of sites: linkedin, facebook, twitter, pownce, myspace, and many others.

What impresses me about Gary is not the fact that he is pimping his name all over the place. It’s smart, but it’s not why he is a success. Gary Vaynerchuk is real! He completely loves life and shows it outwardly. He is an asset based thinker, not deficit based (though there is the whole Jets thing but I can let that slide). You can see what I mean in this video from one of Gary’s recent posts really says a TON about this man:

But to really get a taste of what Gary is like, you have to spend some time watching the videos over at Wine Library TV. I like wine and enjoy trying to analyze it. Gary makes the entire experience less pretentious. It is simply visceral the way that he approaches wine. It’s obviously a part of his life, and since he obviously love life, he certainly lets you know how much he loves wine – even when the wine sucks.

So what you need to do is check out some of the links that I just threw at you. Enjoy them for the content and educational matter. Then enjoy them for their life-changing and directional matter. Look into the motivation behind them. Remember, numbers and money follow, they do not lead. So ask yourself what is leading Gary. Once you figure that out and act upon that in your own life, you will probably find yourself smiling a little bit more

Last week I found myself cleaning my kitchen in preparation to entertain guests for dinner.  The laundry room is unfortunately part of the kitchen in that the fridge is right next to the laundry dryer and the microwave is right next to the washing machine.  Thus, when I say I am cleaning the kitchen and as part of such cleaning the kitchen floor, I am ipso facto cleaning the laundry room floor.

Generally this is not much of an issue, except we recently purchased a large discount-chain bottle of laundry detergent.  This is one of those that has the button to let you pour the detergent so that you don’t have to wrestle a twenty pound bottle all of the time.  The problem this time around is that there seems to be a tiny annoying leak such that the front of the dryer (upon which the bottle rests) and the floor beneath the dryer have a bit of soap collecting.  To compound the problem, the soap has been drying a little bit over time, not so much that it is actually dry, but enough that you can’t simply wipe it away.

Here is where the paradox lies… laundry detergent is meant to clean things, yet in its current semi-dry state there is no good way to clean up the soap.

Option 1:  Since the soap is only semi-dry, and we know that soap moves a lot better when it’s wet, grab a damp cloth or paper towel and wipe while rehydrating the soap.  The problem here is the water and scrubbing action now cause the soap to spread around and to start foaming up.  This solution seems to be going no where good.

Option 2:  Since the soap is semi-dry and this acting like stuborn putty, maybe we can scrape at it.  Sure – scrape away and wind up with big clumps of disgusting soap.  I mean really!  How can soap be disgusting? Let’s forget about the Fight Club references. It’s meant to clean things so it must be clean.

So I ask you, how do you best clean up soap?

Fantastic!  Thanks!

Now let me show you what I wanted to show you.  It’s a relatively moot point now, but I thought it was interesting none the less.  Here’s the section of the advert that I was focusing on that has a different bluetooth headset being advertised than being modeled:

To make sure we can do a decent comparison, I’ve flipped the advertised model around and placed it closer to the model:

It’s a little grainy, but you can definitely tell that the model is wearing more of a boom version and that the colors are in slightly different places. 

So that’s all I was trying to say when I landed in mediocrity mayhem.  Good for Love’s in their speed to recover.  Bad on them for never sending me an email that things were fixed.  And still… check your artwork – please!

If you didn’t see it, thank the loving scotoma wherein you simply don’t see that which you’re not looking for. This ability to “notice” things even applies to that which isn’t there but ought to be as in my cell phone adventure where a seemingly simple solution to something just wasn’t there.

It’s getting worse for me. Today I saw a simple advertisement in a gas station regarding a bluetooth headset. There was a picture of the headset next to a picture of a model wearing the headset. Actually, she wasn’t wearing it at all. She was wearing a completely different model. Out of all the things to notice, that’s what I picked up on.

To clarify my point, I wanted to share a picture of the ad with you. My cell phone took a really crappy picture so I thought I would check the facility’s website. Amazingly there is a page dedicated to store specials and there is a small version of the flyer on that page (at least for now because they change it every month). That version of the circular doesn’t help illustrate the point because it’s too small. But they’ve apparently thought things through enough to allow you to click through and acquire a .pdf version of the ad. Click! Grrrrrrrr. The .pdf version is the circular from LAST MONTH. Come on!

I’m a nice guy, so I decided that I would let them know about the problem by submitting a comment about their page. My first problem there is that “location visited” is a required field. I don’t have a problem about a location, I have a problem with the website. Well… let’s fill it in anyway.

OK… where the hell was I? I was driving from point A (which I know the name of) to point B (which I also know the name of) but I never had the need to remember what city or town I was in when I had take a piss. So why would I want to look at a list of cities? I’d much rather look at a list of states and then cities. But I’m just being harsh I suppose. Eventually I find out that there is only one location in Michigan, so I chose that one! Let’s fill in the comment itself. And you know what, I am feeling so nice, I want to give the technician who’ll be working on this problem the actual url to the page.

So what exactly am I suppose to make of this? Is this the list of characters that I can’t use, or the list of characters that I can use? Because when they tell me “alpha-numeric,” I’m thinking letters and numbers and I know that letters and numbers are fine. So if letters and numbers are fine and the site is telling me something in relation to letters and numbers, then it should hold that everything else in this list should be fine. Not! Too bad for the technician that needs to fix the .pdf problem. I don’t have enough time to turn into a pro-bono consultant for inept thinking so I’ll leave the shitty form feedback for another day.

Now as you’ve been reading this, I know that you’re thinking that I’m just being picky. Admittedly there is a very fine line between being picky and being hyper-aware. Where that line sits has a lot to do with your environment. If you work in an environment that thrives on improvements and yearns for being the best, then expressing your concerns would be welcome and you are being hyper-aware. If you’re not in that environment… get another job.

About a week ago, my phone fell to the ground a couple of times because the belt clip on my case was so worn and old that there was about an inch of play.  It’s fallen off before (once resulting in a 45 minute retracing of steps in the snow) and there hadn’t been any problems.  This time, apparently the phone and case landed clip-side down and that inch of play in the product generated the perfect landing point for the screen to shatter.  Luckily, the screen protector kept everything together and the only real usability lost was the touch sensitivity on the screen.

Today, I decided to take the phone to the repair center.  I put my name on the list and was approached by a representative within about five minutes.  The gentleman then asked me if I had backed up my phone.  Well… no!  I don’t currently use this phone as my main means of organization as my company has given my a Blackberry to stay connected.  I don’t generally have a need these days to connect my phone to a computer.  He went back to speak with the techs and then came back and said “we need you to go backup your phone”.

So here’s where I lose it.  About a year ago I needed a complete replacement and they were able to take care of everything without a problem.  Having a sense that the representatives in the store do not have the power to do much nor the desire to think “outside” of the box, I made a small public tantrum about “improving business over going by the script” and then headed home.  On the way, I dialed *2.

*2 is another way to experience other cultures.  If you think that you have been with too many of the same type of person, just dial *2 and you’re bound to get something different every time.  I’m good with it really.  It’s just kind of random to me.  What I am not fine with is the script wherein ever line begins with “Now Mr. Davis” and ends with “OK Mr. Davis.”  I get off the phone with these people and want to change my name.

The first thing that I said to the kind lady on the line was “Now before I go into this, can you confirm with me that you have a process built in to your organization wherein the feedback of the customer is truly considered and taken into account while trying to improve the business?”

Silence…

“Hello?”

“Now Mr. Davis I understand that to which you may have encounter [sic] some concern to which I can ensure you that we can listen to your experience to which we will make sure that it does not happen again OK Mr. Davis?”

I tell my story and after a while she puts me on hold.  After five minutes of lovely hold music (which hasn’t changed in at least two years) she tells me that maybe the computers at the store aren’t working and that they just didn’t tell me.  She offered to find me a different repair center, but by this point I was committed to backing things up and return to the origination of my fury.  The *2 experience helped me to realize that they are simply a buffer.  They don’t think much, just follow the script, get a consult, and push you away.  The problem is… I didn’t even want a solution, I simply wanted the company to THINK.  We’ll get to “simply” in a moment.

So now I back everything up – head back to the store – and start over.  Another gentleman took care of me.  I showed him the phone and mentioned that I just went home to back everything up and now I’m here “and I think that was ridiculous.“  Mr. Service replied “what do you mean?”

“I think that it is ridiculous that I had to waste an hour of my day to leave here – go home – backup – and come back – when you should be able to take care of everything here.”

“Well we don’t have access to everything.”

“I just think that’s ridiculous.”

“Humph!”

“I don’t really think that this is particularly funny.”

“Well why do you think that we can just back everything up?”

“Because you’re Sprint! You’re the service provider.  You sell these phones. You can probably tap into any technology that you want.”

“Well we just don’t have access to all of the PDA’s information.”

“Well I just don’t get it.”

He then kindly put a service ticket in.  Thirty minutes later I returned to a phone with a new screen with ALL of the information on my phone completely intact.

NOW – Let’s think about this for a minute.   Throw out the box.  There is no box.  Don’t even try to think “outside” of it – because it’s just simply not there.  Wouldn’t someone just want to find a way to “simply” mirror and restore the ROM and RAM?  I don’t know how to do it.  It’s probably not really “simple.” I’m not a technician.  I’m no engineer.  But there has to be something there.  I know that this comes up more often than one person a year because I’ve heard way to many stories about people losing their entire contact list because they had to get a new phone.  There should be a solution for that.  It can’t be complete rocket science.  If you sell a phone, then you should get the intellectual property regarding that phone that will allow you to provide complete service to that phone.

What a company shouldn’t do is rely on the customer to provide their own support.  And you definitely shouldn’t act in a way that would infer that you think the customer is stupid.  This isn’t stupidity – this is a refusal to let the status quo be the only method of operation.  Why aren’t people empowered to make change?  Are organizations that scared of their team members?

It comes down to the fact that “I don’t get it” because it requires me to be completely and utterly ridiculous to “get it.”