One day I woke up and I stopped chewing my nails.
I was about 13 at the time and had been chewing my nails for close to 12 1/2 of those years and one day I woke up and… stopped.

At some point after that day - maybe it was a few months or maybe it was an entire year, I started chewing my nails again. For no real reason that I can think of other then it’s a nervous habit.

The other day I was trying to remember how I did it. What caused my willpower to suddenly become so focused on something I had been doing with little to no guilt for most of my life?

I have a theory that as we get older our habits become more and more ingrained into our behavior. Like the grooves in our brain, these habits get deeper and deeper as we age. So to quit biting my nails again tomorrow would take about twice the amount of effort it took me when I was 13 and if I tried ten years from now it would take me three times the effort and so forth.

And this brings me to my point - how much effort does it take for a business to change the way they do things? I believe it’s directly related to the age of the business. The longer a business has been open and operating in a certain manner, the harder it becomes for them to change the way they do things. And this could be anything from the way they correspond with their customers to the way they advertise their business.

Most recently I’ve run across this in a business I was hired to develop a web site for (they will remain nameless as I’m just not that type of person!)
As I was developing the site I decided to examine how they communicate with their clients and prospects and thought I would help them streamline the process by putting some interactive forms on their site to help their customers clearly communicate what they wanted and help the staff streamline the process a bit better.

And this perfectly sane idea hit a brick wall! Their response was they had always done phone communications because it allowed their sales personnel to sell more. That through email it was harder and less likely that they would make a sale, thereby wasting more of the employee’s time. I was a little dumbfounded as I tried to explain that it wouldn’t replace their phone communications - it would complement them. But it still didn’t fly with the boss.

On further consideration I realized that this company had been operating for 30 years. When I first created those forms for a company that was just starting out they jumped at the idea of a new way to communicate with their clients.

So this is a challenge to everyone out there - change one thing. Even if it isn’t something that you’ve been doing for years and years. If it’s something that has been bugging you or if you feel as though you could do it better or in a more efficient manner - do it.

Stop biting those nails and make yourself (or your company) better.

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I’ve been reading a good book lately - Top Performer: A Bold Approach to Sales and Service. It’s a light read - maybe a day or two but it really puts a few things in perspective when you’re in any sort of service related occupation.

The basics of the book is about natural energy and how to use it and a few other techniques to keep yourself happy by balancing work and life. It’s written from the perspective of someone going through the burnout so many of us have experienced. It’s definitely not your average self help book.

Last week I had the good fortune of working for one of the companies who hosted a seminar which brought the author of that book to Edmonton. The seminar was really great. Not only was the subject matter quite eye-opening but the people were there to learn and we had some fun performing in a few people exercises throughout the morning.

One of the exercises we did together has really affected me in the last few days and I have to say its left a lasting mark.
The author asked us to walk around in the aisles and greet everyone as though we didn’t have time for them, as though we barely recognized them. So we did, everyone walking around with their eyes on the floor or on anything but the person directly in front of them.

When we were finished he asked us to go through the aisles and greet everyone as though they were a best friend whom we hadn’t seen in years. Oh the din that arose from that room was almost deafening! It was like a roaring river just started running through the middle of the room.

I didn’t think too much of it until later, but something really struck a chord in me that day. As I was in the process of giving our VP of Operations a big bear hug I looked over his shoulder and saw a woman standing in the middle of the aisle with her face lifted to the ceiling, her eyes closed and with a slight smile on her lips… almost as though she was experiencing some sort of ecstasy.

I realized the other day that that’s exactly what she was experiencing - the ecstasy created by the amount of natural energy at that moment, in that room. Energy that had been created wholly by the other people standing around us. It brought tears to my eyes to realize that at this seminar not only had I learned about this phenomena but I had seen it with my own eyes and had witnessed the profound effect it had on a person.

And you know what they saw - Seeing is Believing.

I suggest you go get your own copy of that book - Top Performer: A Bold Approach to Sales and Service by Dr. Stephen Lundin

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