Who’s Got Your Back

Just spent 3 days in a cave. Okay, not really a cave, but in my Sacred Circle Mastermind. Fourteen business owners meet with our coach and mentor Fabienne Fredrickson three times a year. When we’re all together, there’s not a lot of contact with the outside world. The easy explanation for what we do there is that it’s three days working on strategic aspects of our businesses. It’s actually much more. We are a group of entrepreneurs that is playing really big, taking action and stepping up our game.

It’s called the Sacred Circle because what happens in this space, among these people is magical. We’ve created deep and trusting relationships with each other in a way that isn’t at all that common in the “real world.” Inside our circle, we can be vulnerable and open. We talk about where we’re stuck, or what’s scaring the crap out of us. We see in each other the huge potential that we don’t see in ourselves. We call each other out on the stuff that’s holding us back and getting in the way of our success. What’s shared in these meetings stays within the Circle.

One thing I can share with you from this meeting is that Keith Ferrazzi’s new book, “Who’s Got Your Back” came up in discussion because it’s about relationships just like what we’ve created in our Sacred Circle. Keith says “the real path to success in your career and in your personal life is through creating an inner circle of “lifeline relationships” – deep, close relationships with a few key trusted individuals who will offer the encouragement, feedback, and generous mutual support that every one of us needs to reach our full potential.”

So I leave Stamford, Connecticut this weekend tired and energized at the same time; grateful that I have this trusted family; knowing that just like anyone else who’s ever achieved greatness, I’ve got an amazing team on this journey with me.

What Need Do You Fill?

The sole reason a business exists is because it meets a human need. ~Harvey Firestone

I saw this quote over the weekend and it got me to thinking, again, about what human need a box of cookies fulfills. Yes, we’ve been over this before. That Gratitude Cookies are not so much about the cookie part and much more about the concept of gratitude.

Is feeling gratitude an actual need? It’s not specifically on Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, but friendship, giving and receiving love, and recognition are on his chart. Feeling connected to others is certainly a human need. And expressing appreciation is one important way to connect.

Keith Ferrazzi was on Good Morning America today, promoting his new book “Who’s Got Your Back” and his 16-city road show. He said that 75% of Americans don’t feel that someone’s got their back; not even married couples. Wow, that’s a lot of disconnected people. Furthermore, he says that the most important thing you can do to succeed is to build deep and trusting relationships.

So then, if you could create stronger connections in your personal or profession life and satisfy that need in yourself and for others, why wouldn’t you? You have a great opportunity here! No matter what other human need your business exists to fulfill, you can improve your business by addressing this one of connection and recognition through gratitude.

Beware of How you Treat Small Companies

Debbi Fields wrote a book several years ago about her journey through the start up and development of Mrs. Fields Cookies. In it she recalls her challenges in finding a chocolate supplier. The sales rep of one large, well known chocolate company doesn’t want to give her the time of day when she calls him to ask for 25 pounds of chocolate because the order size is too small. He tells her to give him a call when she wants to buy 10,000 pounds.

So she opens the phone book and calls another company. That sales rep tells her the order is too small for his company’s trucks to deliver, but he could put it in the trunk of his car and bring it right over. And at the time she was writing this story, that sales rep Bob, was selling Mrs. Fields in excess of 25 million pounds of chocolate a year. She never reveals the name of either company. But she does finish the story by saying that the first gentleman would end up calling her continuously to ask for her business and she refused to work with him because of how he treated her that day.

There are many days when I think of this story because of the business people who disregard me, and I’m sure lots of others, with the thought that my business is too small to matter. This month I’m working on finding retail packaging for gourmet food stores. There is a list of who has been supportive and who has not. And when Zen Rabbit is the multi-million dollar company that it is destined to be, we’ll see who’s benefiting from believing in a small company.