I read about a clothing company called Nau in the June Fast Company. It sounds like a remarkable organization on many levels. They encourage store patrons to have their purchases shipped home. This allows them to carry less inventory, keep their shops smaller and use less energy. They use open source methods for fabric design and invite their competitors to use their fabrics. These are both noteworthy practices, but they aren’t what really caught my eye.

Nau gives 5% of all sales to charities dedicated to solving environmental and humanitarian issues. Given that the gold standard in business is 1%, this is quite a commitment for a company that has just opened its doors. The really interesting part is how they are doing this. When you make a purchase from Nau, they ask you which of their charities you’d like your 5% to go to. This puts the giving experience in the lap of the customer and engages them with the Nau giving mission.

Many companies have charity programs, but few bring their customers into the mix. I think this is valuable for a couple of reasons. First, this is good business. It’s just plain smart to let customers know that you are working to make the world a better place (and not just working to make a profit). Second, this is good for giving. When customers are engaged in this process, they will learn about the Nau charities and experience the warmth of giving to these charities. This is bound to rub off at some point and encourage more giving down the line.

I hope this company is wildly successful. I hope their practices are picked up by others. Check them out and have fun deciding where your 5% will go.

I flew to Minneapolis today. Those familiar with my blog will be amused to know that I spilled a cup of ice on myself during the flight. Once again, not my smoothest moment.

Two things happened that reminded me of the everyday stress test we all face in life. In this test, something doesn’t go your way and you have to choose your response. Will you accept stress? Will you remain calm?

The first incident occurred in my hotel when I walked into the elevator lobby. A hotel employee was waiting for the elevator to arrive and we exchanged hellos. Then she said, “Can you believe it’s only Monday?” I was surprised by this, mostly because of her position. As an employee in a service business, I expected her to at least pretend to be positive, calm, happy, basically stress-free.

Earlier in my life I would have nodded or given her a polite laugh. In fact, several years ago I would have been the one making the comment. Back then, I failed to realize how my misery and the stress I exuded effected the people around me. This kind of comment may seem innocuous, but how many times have you heard a comment like this and been dragged into a moaning, complaining conversation. These discussions never leave you feeling calm, upbeat, or optimistic. I wanted something better from my day.

My response to her was, “Actually, it’s been a pretty good day.” Then I got in my elevator and reminded myself that it had in fact been a good day. The reality is that the stress test can take you in either direction. It was my choice. I could focus on having had to get up at 5:30 to make my flight, being away from my wife and kids, or having a lot of work to do. On the other hand, I could focus on having traveled safely, being at work with clients I like, or hearing from my wife that she and my daughters had a good day. My stress level was my choice.

The second incident was reported to me by one of my clients. He arrived at the hotel and was told by the person at the front desk that his reservation had been canceled. He immediately began to feel frustrated and angry and stressed himself out. This didn’t happen because of the situation, it happened because of his choice. The situation was merely that a reservation had been lost. It only took a few minutes before he was able to get a room and without much difficulty.

When asked, he described similar situations he had experienced before, almost all of which ended with him getting a room in the hotel. Once or twice he had to take a room at a separate hotel. Never had he gone without a room for the night. Yet, he chose not to remember any of these past experiences. He chose to imagine the worst possible outcomes and create the most stressful response possible. Even when he retold the story to me and his colleagues, I could see his stress-level rising.

We all face different stress tests every day. When you confront yours, it is up to you to choose. Will you focus on the bad, the risk, the fears? Or will you see the good, the possible, the opportunity? Remember, the choice is yours.

I went out to lunch with a business associate today. She wanted to pay for our meal. I was fine with that. She needed a single to tip the valet and asked if she could borrow it from me. I was fine with that too. Then she was absolutely insistent that she pay me back the $1 she borrowed. I don’t think I’m fine with that.

She had the best intentions. She hates to borrow. She likes to be generous. The last thing she wants is for anyone to feel that she is taking from them. But she missed something very important. I don’t care about the dollar, but I do care about being generous.

I like to be generous with other people. It makes me feel good. When she insisted on paying back the dollar it made me feel cheap. It took away from me the joy of doing something nice for her. So she wouldn’t take the dollar from me, something I didn’t care about, but she would take the pleasure of generosity from me, something that means a great deal.

This is a common theme in my coaching as well. My clients don’t talk about borrowing $1. However, they often tell me about situations in which they acted with the best intentions. Unknowingly, their actions actually had the opposite impact of what they intended. One reason this happens is that they fail to imagine what the other person wants. My colleague assumed that I wanted my dollar and focused on her own desire to not feel cheap. She failed to think of any alternative desires I might have. She didn’t think I might want to be generous. Or that I might want our relationship to feel more like a friendship in which case neither of us would think twice about $1.

So if you are going to be generous, give freely. Just remember, try to give something that people want. And if they so desire, let them be generous in return.

The double-decker tourist bus tours in New York have made a big mistake. They will drop you off at Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s. They will take you down 5th Avenue. But they miss the best retail spot in the city. I believe every visitor to New York should be required to stop at B&H Photo (9th Ave and 34th St) and buy something, anything. I don’t care if you don’t like cameras. Buy a pack of batteries just so you can experience the operational wonder of this store.

I went there yesterday to pick up a power cord for my video camera. I left the original in Chicago on a recent trip. In between Chicago and yesterday I was in Denver and needed to use my video camera, a Sony product. I went to the Sony store in Denver. Keep in mind, this is a store that was created by Sony specifically for Sony products. They told me they didn’t carry the power cord. This is the SONY store. How could they not carry their own camera’s power cord? They did however have an alternate solution. They could sell me a backup battery and wall charger for $175. Are you kidding?!?

Fast forward to yesterday. B&H sells products from Sony and every other camera or video manufacturer known to man. (They also sell stage lighting, binoculars and plenty of other stuff to keep the browser occupied.) They have gurus in every area of the store who could explain things about the products that the engineers who created them didn’t even know. So I walked over to the video counter and asked for the power cord I needed.

The guy at the counter, named Joshua, asked me what video camera I owned. I told him. He asked me if I wanted anything else from the video area. I didn’t. Then he gave me a receipt for my order. At that moment I thought I felt my cellphone vibrate. So I reached for my pocket. Joshua thought I was going for my wallet. He said, “Oh no. You don’t pay me. We want you to stay happy while dealing with the salespeople.” I thanked him, stepped away from the counter and looked up.

This is where the show is. Above the shoppers’ heads there exists an amazing network of conveyor belts from the storage area at the back of the store to the checkout area at the front of the store. In fact, there is no actual merchandise in the showroom of the store. There is one display item for everything they sell, but you can’t just walk in and grab something off the shelf. All of the products are in back. The moment that Joshua handed me my receipt someone in the back of the store put my item in a crate and placed the crate on one of the conveyor belts. While I walked to the cashiers my item was whooshing over my head somewhere on its way to the checkout.

So I went to pay. I gave my cashier, Eduardo, my receipt. He took my money and gave me a new receipt. I then went to the checkout counter with my new receipt. My checkout guy, Adam, exchanged my new receipt for my product. I recently purchased a television from a Circuit City store. I could have gone and eaten lunch in the time it took them to get my TV to the customer pickup area. (They had no whoosh.) Yet in all of my trips to B&H I have never been able to beat my merchandise to the front of the store. You might think it’s because the whole process of going to the different counters is so slow. No way. This store operates with lightning fast efficiency. It is simply a marvel to behold.

Tourists in New York spend a lot of time gazing up in wonder at the buildings scraping the sky. They might be even more awestruck if they gazed up in B&H to watch and experience the whoosh.

I was perfectly content with my decision. I had dealt with all of the uncertainties and second-thoughts, or so I had thought. My youngest daughter is ready to move out of her crib and into a bed. My wife and I were deciding between an expensive bunk bed (that would also require us to throw away my older daughter’s perfectly good bed) and an inexpensive toddler bed. We made our decision to go with the toddler bed. Everything was great, or so I thought.

Then I spoke to my sister. It turns out that she is considering getting bunk beds for her kids. Now, all of a sudden, I want bunk beds again. Not only do I want them, I feel like I’ll be upset if I can’t get them. I’m concerned that I’ll be depriving my children of an important youth experience. This is ridiculous. I’m not competitive with my sister. I’m not a keep up with the Joneses kind of guy. Why am I feeling this way?

I think that I’m pretty well grounded, but when these feelings start popping up, I need to remember what happiness is - for me and my kids. We live in a marketing heavy society in which we are constantly told to want more. I need to remind myself that I’m happy. I don’t want to go into a full rendition of “Happiness Is . . .” (although two kinds of ice cream is definitely part of it for me). I’ll substitute Sheryl Crow for Charlie Brown - “It’s not having what you want; It’s wanting what you’ve got.”

And, oh yeah. Now I remember. I’m pretty happy.

I received an invitation in the mail recently to test drive a Maserati. I thought that was pretty cool, but I was confused by the offer. The invitation went on to explain that if I did test drive their car, they would then give me a pair of Bose headphones. At this point I stopped understanding everything I thought I knew about the world. Let’s see. Help me figure this out. I drive your $150,000 car and you give me a pair of headphones? I don’t get it.

I felt like there was something I had to be missing. So I gave it a shot. I will first say this. My guess is that the people at the Maserati dealership are well versed in figuring out who is really interested and who is there for the free headphones. Maybe my Birkenstocks gave me away. My test drive (by appointment only) was delayed so that the test car could be driven first by a man who came in admittedly early for his appointment but blustering about having to make a tee time at his club. No matter. I spent a few minutes sitting in the Ferraris that adorn the showroom.

When it did come my time for the test drive, I am ashamed to admit my discovery. It wasn’t special. It was a car. I somehow expected that angels would sing and I would suddenly feel waves of happiness flowing through my body. No such waves. It was just a car. (My car fanatic friend has properly berated me for expressing this view, though he was not with me for the test drive.) One of my lessons learned was simply that some ultimate luxury experiences aren’t that different from the standard everyday normal person experiences. This isn’t always the case. There is a huge jump in experience from economy to business or first class when flying, but when it comes to cars, I’ll skip the Maserati.

I told my neighbor about the invitation and the Bose offer. He said he’s gotten these offers in the past, but he didn’t believe them. That was in March. This week the postman dropped a package at my house. When I opened it I discovered a brand new shiny set of Bose headphones. I couldn’t resist checking online to discover the retail price was $180. I mean, these are headphones that will make the first class passengers on my next flight envious. All of this led me to wonder, what do I get if I test drive the Ferrari?

I’ve had a few conversations lately about stress and injustice. I’m a coach. It is normal for people to talk to me about the challenges they face, some of which are very stressful and some of which are certainly unjust. Still, we all have a choice in how we view the stresses in our lives.

We can imagine an ideal life in which these stresses don’t exist and everything is perfectly fair. That sets us up for disappointment by comparison with reality.

Alternatively, we could identify the many things that we have that so many of the world’s inhabitants do not (e.g. possessions, civil rights, safety). I’ve been using a mantra lately that I think applies to most of the people I know. It is:

I am unbelievably lucky to have the life I have.

Whatever stress comes my way, whatever injustice, I’m speaking my mantra and remembering that life is pretty good.

I wrote yesterday that my Dr. Pepper exploded during my flight to Nashville.  Well I was flying home today and my Dr. Pepper exploded on this flight, too.  This annoyed me a bit at first, but then it caused me to start a conversation with the flight attendant.  I always like hearing about other people’s worlds.  This particular attendant shared with me some interesting stories.  Here are the top three.

1. A passenger ran into some unexplained difficulty in the bathroom at the front of the plane and fell out of the bathroom with his pants around his ankles.  He promptly stood up, flashing all of first class, and calmly pulled up his pants and returned to his seat.
2. A passenger on a flight to St. Maarten asked if they would be flying over water.
3. A passenger asked her how much the complimentary beverages cost.

These at least made me feel better about exploding my Dr. Pepper (twice).

I sat next to two women who work for a big box store on my flight to Nashville.  We got to talking over our complimentary beverages.  (My Dr. Pepper exploded on me – not my smoothest moment.)  They told me about their work, what they liked and what made things tough for them.  They said that by far the most challenging part of their job was dealing with irate customers.  They described example after example of customers who had berated them, yelled at other customers, even forced them to call the police.

I found this very sad, but I could relate.  After college I got the kind of job that makes sense for a liberal arts grad with a major in psychology.  I waited tables.  Not only did I wait tables, I did so for a Pizzeria Uno’s situated between Fenway Park and Boston University.  My customers consisted almost entirely of drunk, angry Red Sox fans or poor, drunk college students.  Sometimes they were both.

My fellow waiters and waitresses and I did not always get treated well.  We were snapped at, ordered around and tipped abysmally.  However, I had the good fortune to work for a manager who stood up for his employees.  When a customer stepped over the line and became abusive, my manager would step in.  He made it clear that such behavior was unwelcome and would not be tolerated.

I was fortunate to have him there to manage these situations.  These two women were generally on their own, doing their best to handle their angry customers with no training for how to do so.

If you ever have to deal with someone who is angry, I offer the following tips to keep calm and not let these situations get to you.

• Tell a story about the person that evokes sympathy.  My new friends told themselves stories that made them angrier: these customers are mean people or entitled or don’t care about other people.  Instead, turn this around.  What if the angry customers are in pain?  (My new friends worked in the pharmacy.)  What if they are afraid that they won’t be able to afford their medication?  The stories you tell to explain others’ actions can generate anger or sympathy (or lots of other responses).  The sympathetic story makes it a lot easier to keep your cool and stay positive.
• Take one good long look at yourself.  Take responsibility for what you own.  Then let the rest go.  My new friends were kind, well-intentioned women, but they repeatedly looked back at themselves to ask, “What could I have done differently?”  Well, that question can be valuable in order to learn.  However, once you’ve learned what you can, it’s important to let go.  Remind yourself that the irate customer isn’t about you.  Even if you made them wait or made a mistake, unless you got angry first, it’s not about you.  It’s about the other person’s ability to deal with their own anxiety.  So learn first.  Then let go.
• Learn to calm yourself down.  One of my favorite books is Three Deep Breaths, by Thomas Crum.  If you want to feel greater calm in a stressed out world, then this book is for you. I recommend it to almost all of my clients, friends, people I meet on the street. It is an easy read – 100 pages of a fable about a guy who learns to take three deep breaths to reduce his stress. It sounds simple, and the beauty of it is that it is both simple and effective. I use the techniques almost every day, and I’m calmer and happier for it.

It is an incredible pain to have to deal with angry people all the time.  When you do, it’s nice to have some techniques to keep your calm.  Good luck.  Stay cool.

Welcome to my blog! You’ve probably read plenty of first blog entries with the welcome speech. So let’s skip that and get right to my first real entry.