How Grateful Are You For Your Customers, Friends, and Family??

It has taken me quite a while to learn this simple of the simplest of things in life and business.

But… once I started to pull my head out of my @$$ and realize that I had a whole heck of a lot going for me… things really started to turn around in a big way.

For me it’s simple…

Whatever the heck is good about your life… show big ol’ amounts of gratitude each and every day for what you have… and what you will have.

I’m not really talking about THINGS. Ya, you should be thankful for the car you drive, the house you live in, and all of those other little luxuries of life (ya… your house is a luxury… think about how people live in Africa and other places like that… yes… your house is luxury).

What I’m really talking about is to be thankful for the stuff that is here when all of the extra stuff (car, money, nice house, etc.) is gone.

We as a society need to be way more thankful about our family, friends, health… and if we’re a business owner… about our customers and the fact that they are placing their trust in us to help them get from where they are to where they want to be.

That’s what it’s all about. People helping people live better lives… and people being thankful for what they have and grateful for the important things in life.

Gratitude + Attitude = Latitude

That little formula above is one that really works… and in a big way. As far as I know… I invented that formula (I haven’t seen it anywhere else anyway)… so don’t go claiming it as your own or I’ll send some internet voodoo your way (just kidding).

But… I made that formula up to illustrate a point and to give myself two main points to work on each and every day.

1. Gratitude: Please… please… please… be grateful for what you have. Be grateful for the talents you have been blessed with, the health for you and your family, the food you have to eat, the friends you have, your customers, your competitors… be grateful for simply being around to experience your life to the fullest. Without gratitude life just sucks… and you really get wrapped up in the things that really don’t mean a whole lot in the whole scheme of things.
2. Attitude: For me…success and having fun is all about attitude. If you think life sucks… I can guarantee you that life surly will suck. If you think it’s impossible to make $1,000,000 a year (if that’s a goal of yours)… it most definitely will be impossible for you. However, as soon as you start to take a positive outlook on things and look for the good in everything… you’ll see things begin to change a whole lot for the better. By nature I’m a pretty positive guy. People actually get pissed quite a bit about how positive I am and just doesn’t understand how I can always turn “bad” things into something positive for myself. I guess it’s just how I’m wired. But, for me… it’s simple. We only get one spin here on this earth… and every second I spend with a negative attitude or with thoughts that don’t make me feel happy… are seconds wasted out of my life that don’t get me 1 inch closer to where I want to be. Negativity is cancer. So, I make the conscious decision to be positive about pretty much everything… and find a way to feel happy all of the time. Hey, why not?
3. Latitude: To tell you the truth… I picked the word “latitude” because it rhymed with the other two words. But, when you really think about it… it fits in quite nicely. For me, latitude is freedom… it represents choices… the ability to basically do what you want. Who doesn’t want that? To me, that’s what life is about. The only thing is… I never really was able to have freedom and to do what I wanted to do until I started to be grateful for what I had and to until I really made sure I looked at things with a positive attitude. If you think about it… this same formula works pretty darn well if you use the opposites of these words.
   

Ungrateful + A Bad Attitude = Restriction

As soon as you start to be ungrateful about things and have a crappy attitude… your options start to close up and you don’t let yourself see the true picture of the kind of life you can really lead.

Hmmm…

So, how grateful are you of the people in your life?

How grateful are you for the skills you’ve been given?

How grateful are you for your health?

How grateful are you for your business and your customers?

Do me a favor and at least for today out loud (or in an email, IM, or over Twitter) let the people in your life (including customers) know how grateful you are to have them in your life.

And… to whatever higher power you believe in… express your gratitude for what you’ve been given and for what you are going to be given.

It feels so good and always comes back to you 10 times more in the end.

Oh… big props to Gary V. for inspiring this post in this video. If you’re not hooked on to the Gary V. train… get going so you can learn from one of the best.

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Twitter Color Wars… Crowd Control 2.0? And more…

If you haven’t seen the hoopla in the past couple weeks about the Twitter color wars… it’s pretty entertaining stuff. As of today, I’m officially on the @VeryGreenTeam.

If you’re not a “twitter-head” as Mashable put it… you probably have no clue what I’m talking about… and to tell you the truth you probably really don’t care either.

What’s the whole Twitter color war thing anyway??

Well… really don’t know yet. From the looks of it… it’s being really pushed by top guys like Gary Vaynerchuk, Ze Frank, and some other dudes big time in social media.

Basically, there are a whole bunch of teams named after different colors (verygreenteam, red, green, yellow, blue, orange, pink, gold, off-white, plaid, fuscia, clear, white, purple, stripe and puce (thanks Mashable for this rundown on the teams!) ZeFrank linked up a new webpage that looks like it’ll be dedicated to the whole Color Wars 2008 thing… this is crazy!! But I like it!!

I got to thinking about this whole color war thing and it goes way beyond just some crazy (and kinda stupid) games on Twitter.

This whole thing is showing in real time how Twitter and other social media can be used to control crowds and build excitement.

Crazy stuff when you think about it…

This is Crowd Control 2.0.

This is cool stuff… but at least so far it’s the good guys using the Twitter crowd for good (i.e. Gary V’s @santagaryvee thing that is basically free Woot… awesome way to further build his brand!)

I know… no one is being controlled… and no one is against their own will (sometimes I think I am though because I’m so addicted to Twitter and Web 2.0)…

… but, think about it like a big ol’ wave at a professional baseball stadium. When crowds are involved… and some outgoing people get creative and want to have some fun… it gets contagious and crowds can be told basically what to do (up to a certain point

Before Web 2.0 (and really… apps like Twitter and Facebook) an online version of the wave (I’m talking real time here… not forwarded emails and stuff) was pretty much impossible because of the time lag and non-interactivity of the crowds.

Now… this whole colorwars thing is showing how crowds of people can interact in real time in creative ways like online roshambo… and if we wanted to… we could create some type of “wave” competition to see which team can (in real time) keep the wave going the longest (I have a few ideas on how we can do this from the technical side).

Wow… more and more the offline world is being replicated by the online world.

Can you imagine the possibilities for companies and brands (big and small) to start grassroots viral competitions like this on these new social media sites to drive traffic and subliminally build their brand at the same time??

Wow!

Ya, it would take some sneaky thinking to get it so it didn’t appear to be coming from a commercial entity… but I can definitely see the possibilities… my mind is spinning right now.

How do you participate in the Twitter Color Wars?

I’ll tell you what. There is only one team in my opinion… the @verygreenteam is the only way to go.

Why?

Green is a pretty cool color. Money is green, trees are green, golf courses are green (at least they should be!), and Gary V. and ZeFrank are leading the charge on the green team.

I met up w/ Gary V. in Orlando in February and chatted w/ him for a while about biz and life (with some other cool people)… he’s an awesome guy and knows his stuff when it comes to building a brand and using social media to spread his good word.

Anyhow, I wrote this post for two reasons… to let ya’ all know about the Twitter ColorWars (for fun)… and to show you how little games like these are real time experiments in Crowd Control 2.0… bringing real time interaction on traditionally offline activities… online.

This is only the start… and us little guys are the ones who will pioneer the advances on the web… while the big guys will continue to be the late adapters.

So… head over and follow me on Twitter… pick your team… and join in on the war!

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