I thought I would stir off topic a bit from the apprentice to get into one of my favorite subjects. Life! I can talk about this subject for hours!
Recently I was talking to a friend of mine about how we many times take ourselves and things so seriously. We give so much meaning to things that it holds us back from being as “care free” as we would like to be. In fact in our society being carefree many times is looked at as bad. If you are not busy and stressed you are not being productive and there is something wrong with you. Plus, everything we do must have a goal or an end result in mind or else you are "wasting time".
Most people think that wanting and focusing on an end result will make it happen faster or assure it happening. However, so much of our energy is wasted on wanting an end result that it adversely affects the quality of everything we do. Think about it, when you are involved in something doesn’t the fear of failure or the desire for success take an enormous amount of your thinking? Notice the last time you screwed up in something important for you and you will probably find that during the situation you were probably saying to yourself “I hope I don’t screw this up” or “I have to succeed or else I’ll be dissapointed”. This attachments and fears actually prevent people from giving it their very best.
Now, I do not mean to have no motivation to succeed or not to have goals in life. In fact it’s the complete opposite. I often use the phrase “being committed to an outcome but yet not attached to it”. I got this phrase from one of my mentors and it reminds me every time to focus on the journey not the destination. The byproduct of this practice is that everything you do is more enjoyable (instead of stressful) and the end results end up being much better than you can imagine!
How do you stop being so attached to an outcome? Every time you are trying to get to a goal you must be o.k. with whatever happens and realize that it doesn’t have to determine your happiness. I have been asked this many times “how do you do it to be so happy?” or “how do you stay positive with people even when they might not be?”. ACCEPTANCE. I accept situations as they are and people as they are. Granted it is more difficult with some situations and people than with others.
How do you begin doing this?
Value the simple things and lower your standards/expectations for what makes you happy. Value the fact that unlike other people in the world you will never starve or be hungry, you will probably always have water to drink, and it is unlikely that you will ever be without shelter. Same with validation, value a simple smile from a stranger or even better a smile from YOURSELF. So if you were to realize that you will always have everything to be happy what would you be afraid of?
Once you build the capacity and realization of needing less you will have far more power over your life. Why? Because, you will have NOTHING to loose and thus nothing to fear.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Project 2 wrap up!
OK. So project two was very eventful to say the very least. We started the project without a clue of what we were going to do. The only vision we had was our goal of promoting the recycling event, educating people at the event and recruit volunteers.
Over time is when our strategy really developed. Although, we were only a two person team we really worked well together and everything flowed very well.
Our 1st task was to use social media like Blogger, twitter, Yahoo groups, Myspace and others to promote the event and educate people. We researched into it and even attended some social media workshops to get an idea of how to use it. We decided to make a video about who we were, what we were doing, and promote our event and other social media websites. The video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eIQ2ITqFYc. We gave updates and educational information on these sites daily. Plus, we even used direct email marketing to advertise our event to targeted recycling groups.
As we are managing these websites we also used other conventional marketing tools like press releases, newspapers, and so on. One of the most effective promoting activities we did was the recycling event we had at the Auraria campus. Our plan was to get students’ emails, phone numbers and have these students also promote the upcoming recycling event to their friends. How? We gave away slices of pizza to people who filled out “commitment cards” in which they would put their name, email address, and their phone number if they were interested in volunteering. Also, they had to text five friends to tell them about the upcoming recycling event. Not only did we have great success with this Auraria event but it gave us experience of what to expect on the actual recycling event.
Anyway, we did so much that I’m only scratching the surface here and talking about the “bigger” stuff.
March 7th recycling event:
So finally the day came to put everything we had been preparing and planning for to the test. We had “Thank you” cards to get people’s information and do a post recycling education program and survey them about the event. We had 5 volunteers come to this event and help us out. Of course everything started perfectly, NOT. In fact, when we first got to the recycling site at 6am we were already overwhelmed with so many cars lined up. We had no clue of where to start or what to start. Our plan went out the window. I saw Jesse panicking so I had to slap some sense into him.hahaha and remind him that we could do this. He relaxed a little and joined with me in an improvised version of our plan.
We had our DJ already setting up so we decided to make our little area more “official” by putting up our Comcast tent, and posters.
Now, for the improvised part we had a “three section” approach to our thank you card/education plan. First, I would talk to the people at the designated “official” area “educated” them and give them the thank you cards to fill out in their cars. Then I would tell them to give it to Cindy who was positioned further along in the line of cars (so we didn’t slow traffic down). She would give out prizes to people who gave her these cards. Jesse was the second person these people would encounter after me, and he would encourage them to text to a number to be entered to win Rockies tickets. After getting people subscribed their phone number he would thank people for coming and give them recycling education facts through phone text messages. We collected more than 200 thank you cards and did the post education program and survey with great success!
We definitely had a positive impact on the event!
Over time is when our strategy really developed. Although, we were only a two person team we really worked well together and everything flowed very well.
Our 1st task was to use social media like Blogger, twitter, Yahoo groups, Myspace and others to promote the event and educate people. We researched into it and even attended some social media workshops to get an idea of how to use it. We decided to make a video about who we were, what we were doing, and promote our event and other social media websites. The video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eIQ2ITqFYc. We gave updates and educational information on these sites daily. Plus, we even used direct email marketing to advertise our event to targeted recycling groups.
As we are managing these websites we also used other conventional marketing tools like press releases, newspapers, and so on. One of the most effective promoting activities we did was the recycling event we had at the Auraria campus. Our plan was to get students’ emails, phone numbers and have these students also promote the upcoming recycling event to their friends. How? We gave away slices of pizza to people who filled out “commitment cards” in which they would put their name, email address, and their phone number if they were interested in volunteering. Also, they had to text five friends to tell them about the upcoming recycling event. Not only did we have great success with this Auraria event but it gave us experience of what to expect on the actual recycling event.
Anyway, we did so much that I’m only scratching the surface here and talking about the “bigger” stuff.
March 7th recycling event:
So finally the day came to put everything we had been preparing and planning for to the test. We had “Thank you” cards to get people’s information and do a post recycling education program and survey them about the event. We had 5 volunteers come to this event and help us out. Of course everything started perfectly, NOT. In fact, when we first got to the recycling site at 6am we were already overwhelmed with so many cars lined up. We had no clue of where to start or what to start. Our plan went out the window. I saw Jesse panicking so I had to slap some sense into him.hahaha and remind him that we could do this. He relaxed a little and joined with me in an improvised version of our plan.
We had our DJ already setting up so we decided to make our little area more “official” by putting up our Comcast tent, and posters.
Now, for the improvised part we had a “three section” approach to our thank you card/education plan. First, I would talk to the people at the designated “official” area “educated” them and give them the thank you cards to fill out in their cars. Then I would tell them to give it to Cindy who was positioned further along in the line of cars (so we didn’t slow traffic down). She would give out prizes to people who gave her these cards. Jesse was the second person these people would encounter after me, and he would encourage them to text to a number to be entered to win Rockies tickets. After getting people subscribed their phone number he would thank people for coming and give them recycling education facts through phone text messages. We collected more than 200 thank you cards and did the post education program and survey with great success!
We definitely had a positive impact on the event!
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Project #3 - CHFA
Last Friday we were informed about our next project. It has to do with working with CHFA to get more people to use resources that help them avoid the foreclosure of their homes. Our job is to come up with a Marketing plan to make this happen.
I will post more about this later. I'm starving and need to eat some breakfast.
Que tengan buenos dias!
I will post more about this later. I'm starving and need to eat some breakfast.
Que tengan buenos dias!
March 7th's Recycling Event
So our electronic recycling event was a huge success. We had almost 5,000 cars show up and by noon unfortunately a lot of people had to be turned down. It was an amazing even.t People who showed up were telling me they were really excited to get rid of their old electronics the right way. For many people this meant getting rid of electronics they had stored away for YEARS!
Although it was freezing our group (The Contenders) focused on interacting with people face to face. We were educating people, asking for their input on the event (how they heard about it), giving away tons of prizes, our DJ was blasting away some music and just making their wait more enjoyable. In fact some people mentioned feeling like they were in a Disneyland ride.
By the end of the event we were all exhausted and ready to go home. I felt like i was going to loose my voice from talking to so many people. Overall though i had a fantastic time talking to them. They were super friendly and open. Telling me how they wanted to see these kind of events happen more often.
Talking directly to hundreds of people was above all the funnest thing out of the whole event for me. It was priceless having to joke with everyone and having people feel like they were old friends of mine. In fact it was hilarious people would drive up to me and THEY would start joking around off the bat. Good times! :) I'm sure we all made their drive a little less boring and a bit more educational and entertaining.
Thanks to everyone who helped! Cindy, Herman, Peter (our DJ), Grant, and Ivan.
Although it was freezing our group (The Contenders) focused on interacting with people face to face. We were educating people, asking for their input on the event (how they heard about it), giving away tons of prizes, our DJ was blasting away some music and just making their wait more enjoyable. In fact some people mentioned feeling like they were in a Disneyland ride.
By the end of the event we were all exhausted and ready to go home. I felt like i was going to loose my voice from talking to so many people. Overall though i had a fantastic time talking to them. They were super friendly and open. Telling me how they wanted to see these kind of events happen more often.
Talking directly to hundreds of people was above all the funnest thing out of the whole event for me. It was priceless having to joke with everyone and having people feel like they were old friends of mine. In fact it was hilarious people would drive up to me and THEY would start joking around off the bat. Good times! :) I'm sure we all made their drive a little less boring and a bit more educational and entertaining.
Thanks to everyone who helped! Cindy, Herman, Peter (our DJ), Grant, and Ivan.
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