I am really excited and grateful to Mark Isaacs for penning this weeks blog post. When someone with his experience and pedigree gives an opinion, we all best sit up and pay attention.
Exhibiting courage in providing excellent service is not something I had given much thought; but Mark as normal has hit the nail on the head and open a new thought to contemplate.
I hope we learn from him, and visit his blog to take our personal development a notch higher.
Enjoy…
For a customer service provider to deliver the best in service they must practice courage. And by courage I mean the courage to act.
I have seen many service professionals come up with new and different ways to separate themselves from their competition by delivering exceptional service. But when I reconnect with them I find they have yet to put their ideas into motion.
Some of the excuses for not taking action are things like, “I was the only one excited about the idea.” Or, “We were going to do that but then we got into our busy season. I call these excuses, rational-lies—they sound rational but they’re lies.
Rational-lies are a demonstration of a lack of courage. When we fail to follow through on a good idea it’s because we lack courage.
The lack of courage could be caused by anything, low-trust culture, fear of criticism or fear of change are a few examples I have seen. Some employees find power and contentment in the status quo.
Do you realize that most of us will live our entire lives never knowing whether or not we are a coward? When was the last time you acted with courage? And I don’t mean a bungee cord or tandem parachute jump–life is not supposed to be a pursuit of catastrophe. I mean the kind of courage that requires a commitment, not a momentary beat down of a fear. I mean real courage like running your first marathon or making a commitment to being debt-free or writing a blog two or three times a week?
The reason we don’t act with courage is because failure feels ten times as bad as success feels good. Cowards are self-centered people, they are concerned with how they will look if they fail. They are concerned about what other people will say about them if they fail. Courageous people have no regards for self. They know and understand, if they fail they will learn from the experience. They will ask themselves, “What did I do right? What did I do wrong? What can I do better or different the next time?” They know and understand that failure doesn’t mean stop, it means get up and try again. Courageous people can accept failure–they can’t accept not trying. 
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. You need to build your courage muscle–you need to start out small. Go for a walk every day. Ask your boss for that raise. Ask that man or woman you’re interested in out for a date. Start building little ‘wins’ and then you can turn up the courage level. Quit smoking, turn off the TV and spend time with your spouse, say no to going out with your friends and put the money your save into your savings account. Then you’re ready to take the next step towards a greater level of courage. Quit your job and pursue your dream job or start your own business. Start training to complete your first marathon. Take those blogs you have been writing and turn them into a book.
Courage requires us to feel uncomfortable. Courage requires us to get past ourselves. Courage requires personal change.
It’s time to start acting with courage—you’ve put it off long enough–you deserve to act with courage. It’s time to sacrifice who you are for who you want to be.
ABOUT MARK ISAAC
When I graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1986 I thought my future was going to be in the real estate business. My first sales position was with a company that believed heavily in training their employees. I was able to see all the greats—Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tony Robbins to mention a few. I remember sitting in the training sessions and thinking, “I can do that. I have a few good ideas in my head, I could be a trainer.”
All of that great training wasn’t enough to help me succeed in an industry I had no interest being in. By 1988 I was politely and professionally asked to leave the company. They asked me to leave because I was terrible at the job—and that was the beginning of my training career. For the past 27 years I have worked with companies from up and down the Americas, I have traveled back and forth to West Africa and Russia. And if I didn’t go there, they came to Minnesota to see me. I worked with companies from South Africa, China, and Indonesia.
I worked with and studied companies that were thriving by holding on to their customers and growing their revenues from the inside. Throughout the years I have seen what it takes for a company to deliver the best in customer service.
As the owner of Gorman Business Consultants, I am an expert in helping companies create a strategy to keep the customers they have, engage their employees and develop a culture of service. I do this with in-person training sessions, webinars, podcasts and published blogs. I am a true product of the product—I’m committed to your success.
Connect with Mark online on https://7slightedges.wordpress.com/about-us/
