I have a special message to share with you that is pretty near and dear to my heart. This is a story of communication, gratitude, and an “aha” moment.
My sister gave me a gift quite a while ago, and it has this famous quote by Maya Angelou on it:
“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.”
I’ve heard this quote MANY times over the years. Every single day, without fail, I look at my gift and see it looking back at me. But for some reason during a recent daily peek at the quote, it stopped me dead in my tracks. I had a strong “ah-ha” moment about it.
Since 2007 when I started our web agency, we have achieved many huge milestones and seen great success. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t have serious gratitude for what I’ve been able to build, the clients we get to serve, the team I get to work with, and the loyal audience (like you!) who read these articles and engage with me.
When I think back through all of the calls that have taken place and the zillions of emails sent during the past many years, I think I can distill my success down to one thing….
The thing that has made the biggest difference is the effort I put into how I make people FEEL.
On sales calls… when a client comes on board… when I hire a team member… when I ask a team member to do something… I mean ALL the time I focus on making people feel seen, heard, important, and loved. And it makes all the difference in my results. But even more than that, it makes a difference in my joy and enthusiasm for life.
Our lives are so busy and stressful these days. It’s too easy to send a snappy email to someone. It’s too easy to not think beyond our own current needs to consider what someone else might need or be feeling. It’s too easy to assume people are aware of your gratitude or love.
But it takes real effort to really think about how we make others feel and how we can improve that experience.
Your “No Guts No Glory” challenge for this week is to really become mindful of your communication approach and think about how you can improve it in order to make people feel better after connecting with you.
I’m telling you, you’ll bring a little joy to their lives…. and to yours!
Are you up for the challenge? Give it a try, and then come back and leave a comment about what you did and how it impacted your day!
xoxo,
Amber Vilhauer
