Don’t Be a Sucker

What does it mean to be “a sucker?”  

One of the most popular chapters in Appreciation Marketing® is Chapter 5, entitled “Seven Deadly Creatures.” In it, we poke fun at different character traits that people (including ourselves) tend to exhibit as we go through life. Identifying these – not so good for you – traits, is part of what helps make us better people.

One of our “featured creatures” is The Sucker, or the Energy Sucker. This is the person who is always focused on the negative things in life and has a tendency (unknowingly) to suck the energy out of other people.

Surely you’d agree that it would be detrimental to both your personal and professional life if people viewed you that way.

As I scroll though Facebook this morning (as I do every morning) I’m noticing the usual current event posts. Yep, that moron Kanye West acted like an idiot at the Grammys again. The Chicago Little League team was stripped of its World Series title for cheating. Of course, we’re still hearing not only about how the New England Patriots may or may not have deflated footballs, but now the buzz is how Seahawks’ coach Pete Carroll blew the Super Bowl with a dumb call. Michael Moore is a Nazi. ISIS is executing people. And Obama doesn’t care. “I can’t breathe!”

I stopped focusing on the “news” a long time ago, because it puts me in a bad mood. I don’t watch the news before bed, and I don’t start off my day with it.  On the weekend, I’ll read about it in The New York Times, fittingly, while on the toilet (sorry).

The world is so overwhelmingly negative that oft times we want to talk about all the negative crap. Again, I sometimes stumble and do it myself. But it seems that people like to re-report all the bad news like there’s a reward for it.

I know people have the right to post whatever they want on Facebook. That’s not going to be my argument here. My only question is, do you want to be pegged as the Energy Sucker who reposts everything that’s wrong with this world? Or would you be better served if people thought of you as a beacon of light, an energy giver?

Food for thought.

Have a great day (unless you have other plans)!

A Little Extra

At 211-degrees, water is hot. At 212-degrees, it boils. And as Sam Parker and Mac Anderson point out in their book, The Extra Degree, it’s just that one extra degree of effort (in business and in life) that can separate the good from the great. Just a little bit extra.

Last week my wife and I dropped our teenage daughter off at the movies and decided to kick around the mall for a few hours instead of driving home and having to come all the way back.

Though we don’t normally go into Sears, we had to walk through the store because of the parking spot we found outside the entrance. And while moving through the fitness section, I noticed the sale they were having on treadmills. Mine happens to be about 12 years old and is slipping, so I took a closer look.

Fifteen minutes later, we had dropped $1,500 on a sweet new treadmill (that we really didn’t need), which was to be delivered on Monday (in six days). The kid who (barely) helped us was thrilled to have collected a nice commission bonus just before quitting time on what had been a slow day. He was a nice kid, and I felt good for him.

Fast forward to Friday night ad I’m whipping up a birthday dinner for my wife. Company is coming in 30 minutes, when I see sparks flying around inside the oven window. I turn it off, run downstairs and shut off the fuse, and – in a panic – make an executive decision to cook the dinner (linguini with white clam sauce) in the microwave. Eww.

On Saturday morning, reality sets in. We need a new stove.

Stove or treadmill? Eat or exercise? “Let’s call and cancel the treadmill.”

“I feel bad for the kid,” Michele says to me. “Yeah, me too.”

The Appreciation Marketing expert in me was wondering what would have happened if that kid had sent a thank you note or even called or left us a voicemail to personally thank us. I have to think that we wouldn’t have cancelled. I am certain, however, that if Sears had delivered the treadmill faster, the sale would have certainly stuck.

So, as it is, we’ll be getting a new oven in a few days and I’ll be hanging clothes on the old treadmill for a while longer.

Still, I feel bad for that kid.