Say Hello to Everyone, from the Globe and Mail is a challenge that addresses a peculiar phenomenon that seems to be taking hold of a lot of people. You don’t say “hi” or make eye contact with people anymore, unless you know them. You talk on your phone and message all day with a safety net of contacts. Say “hi” and smile at people in the grocery store or how about in Staples? Are you up to this challenge? This is a great challenge to meet new customers and tell people about your business and what you can do for them. Everyone you message with today already knows.
Now, a dreaded outcome of saying hello and having a conversation with people, in person, is they might actually ask you something and along with that power of eye contact and the force behind that gaze. Not only will it be a question put to you, but it’s a question of doing something for someone else, interfering with your already occupied day, week and month. Sometimes you have to say no, and the more practice you have, the easier it gets,
Another sort of safety net that’s a harder one to tackle, Screaming through clouds and other tools to tackle life’s problems, is acknowledging your fears and consciously turning them on their head. Not you on your head, but your fears. What are we really afraid of? Failure most likely… Fear of the unknown possibility of doing something wrong.
Owning a company, you’ve already accomplished a great deal and please do celebrate that. Along with owning a company is a lot of responsibility and with that a lot of self doubt. Take a moment to reflect on some failures. Submit to failure and think about what you learned and how much more insight you’ve gained. Go ahead and celebrate the mistakes you’ve made. You wouldn’t own a business without them. Glorious Failure from the Monday Morning Memo, has the right idea. It’s not wrong. It’s perfectly acceptable and necessary to fail.
