STOP SYNCHRONIZED DIVING.

STOP PLAYING CHESS.

 GET THE PUCK OFF THE ICE. 

BURY THE FOOTBALL.

NOW.  IT’S 2017!!!

And there’s only room for Baseball!                                                                   

 What? Why Baseball? Because… ta, ta, ta, ta, tah-tah!… baseball is THE ONLY competitive-physical-prowess-speed-agility-and-psychology sport with no time limits. And 2017 business success demands COMPETITIVE teamwork!

So, baseball has no ending time or closing minutes? Correct, but there can always be extra innings. Extra innings translates to endurance. Show me a business success not built on endurance.

Baseball serves business enterprises best as a teamwork model because teams must work together hard, as a team, to win. BUT, every single team member gets an equal chance to get up to bat and get a game-winning hit every game — as well as make great game-winning plays, with every pitch, every inning!

It’s all about teamwork wrapped around individual performance and a sense of competitive spirit. Yes? Well, how great would that be for your entire organization to practice? (Regardless of draft choice round involved ;)) 

Imagine management and employees supporting one another all day every day, while encouraging each other to rise to the occasion of ongoing conquest because every individual effort can potentially pay back the entire team in the process.

Imagine all individuals and departments involved making a daily practice of supporting and backing-up one another instead of finger-pointing, or making excuses for shortfalls. A dream? Only if you choose to let it be.

BEHAVIOR IS A CHOICE.

You (and your people) can just as easily choose to work together as a winning baseball team as you can choose to keep struggling along as a ragtag collection of aspiring superstars with no investment in the success of others. Oh, and as for critiquing along the way? Criticize BEHAVIOR, not the person at fault!

Even as a single, unified force, this kind of team will fall apart when any individual fails to perform in precision-matching her or his teammates. (Ask any oarsman on any 4 or 8-person crew team what happens when one rower is out of sync by even a second, or raises an oar just inches more than the rest of the team.)

All it takes to make a REAL difference is experienced coaching and training guidance, plus a fresh informed perspective on the best (most appreciated) ways to reward exceptional individual and team performance . . . rewards that do NOT become long-term financial burdens.

If this is a missing link in your organization– old, new, large, small, mid-sized, retail, service, B2B, industrial, sales, professional practice, healthcare– call me. I provide all of these services for fees you can afford now. And results are guaranteed! Ready? Then let’s “PLAY BALL!”

# # #

931.854.0474

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY / CONTENT / CONNECTION

Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

    This week, I re-discovered a Christmas ornament my 15-year-old granddaughter made . . . six years ago when she was 9!!!

     The brightly painted piece of heart-shaped plywood is the stage for her blobby-marker-printed starstruck words — six statements!

“But where did you get those words?”

I asked.

“I just thought them up in my head,”  

she said.

GWYN’S WORDS ARE THE BEST WISDOM I CAN SHARE FOR  CHRISTMAS & FOR 2017:

“Life is a question.

No person on earth

is your enemy but you!

You can’t decide

what you’re born with,

but you CAN decide

how you end up!

“Being happy is beyond a feeling

. . . it’s a way of life!

“Questions are endless. But

  the only one answer is YOU.

“You can dream

without imagination but . . .

you can’t dream without a belief.

“You are who you are,

and no one can stop you!”

—  Gwyneth Murphy, Age 9

As you head into 2017 building your life, your career, and your business, do Gwyn’s words have as much “start the new year” clout for you?

Please let me know YOUR thoughts . . .

# # #

God Bless You One And All . . .

My Best Wishes for a Merry Christmas

and HAPPY NEW YEAR To You & Yours!

# # #

“The real voyage to discovery

is not in having new landscapes,

  but in having new eyes.”

— Marcel Proust

For your people to have “New Eyes,” they need only have new food for thought that fits and boosts the dynamics of their individual personalities.

• This includes some effective but unobtrusive, practical stress management techniques they can take home, and a fresh perspective on how to revitalize often lazy or overkill communication skills.

• The combination of strengthened self-control and ability to “come across” more effectively serves as the foundation for absorbing and applying new levels of leadership and competitive teamwork coaching.

All of that –and more– is delivered with the 2017-2020 management and staff training and development program:

“MY BUSINESS WORKS” is a 3-part, hands-on, on-location engagement that is Money-Back Guaranteed to make a difference in individual participant commitment and achievement levels, in propelling your business mission forward, and in increasing your sales revenues.

Because these How-To sessions are customized to fit the specific needs of your business, your people, your customers/ clients/ patients, and your sales, scheduling is extremely limited, so act now! 

Email Hal today: Hal@BusinessWorks.US or simply call Hal direct at 1.931.854.0474 for a prompt assessment discussion, or to schedule a callback at your convenience. 

[NOTE: Participant ages, educational levels, and physical conditions have no bearing on program content or expected results]

# # #

       Hal Alpiar is a 35-year-experienced professional coach and trainer. A business and career development mentor, Hal actively consults in marketing/PR/sales and stress management. Twice voted “Professor-of-the-Year,” he is also a national award-winning book author and national award-winning branding creator.

Serving clients nationwide since 1981, Hal has helped over 25,000 business and healthcare professional participants in his training programs, classes and workshops, and many more through his published books, articles, and over 1600 blogposts.

 [NOTE: For more details, click on About Hal tab at the top of this page]

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY / CONTENT / CONNECTION

931.854.0474 Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

“Employee Stress” Blocks Productivity, Vision, Focus & Health, which Costs Employers Over $300 Billion!

 What’s YOUR share?

“UNTANGLING KNOTS”

When is a knot not a knot?  Stress is like that “eye of the beholder” thing. Twenty-five years, for instance, can be forever, or a blink, depend- ing on how we’ve chosen to experience it and how we choose to see it.

Sticking a thumb out to paint scenery isn’t the same as sticking it up to show approval, or down to show rejection, plugging it into a hole to stop a leak, or waving it to hitch a ride.

Neither is twenty-five years of delivering mail the same as twenty- five years of raising a family, or hammering rocks OR tuning pianos, driving trucks, stuffing pickles into assembly-line jars, selling services to corporate muckity-mucks, doing heart transplants, being a techie, running a retail store… OR plucking escargot-bound snails off jagged rocks at low tide.

Yet, we humans do all of these things to earn a living and label them as stressful.

In fact, “most stressful” to you could well be “least stressful” to me, and vice versa. To you, twenty-five years could be an eternity of pain and anguish. To me, it might be a heartbeat of joy. Some may consider it a flash of fantasy.

Or perhaps we’ve chosen to suffer what seems like a permanent backache, endless constipation, depression, addiction, or —the opposite— we’ve cultivated some ever-deepening smile wrinkles by choosing to foster a happy, healthy, productive work-and-home balance.

Every end result gives rise and a clue to the source and choices and choice reversals made or not made all along the way.

Where does CHOICE begin and end? Or does it? Maybe it’s an eternal blanket and functions only when we’re aware of its pervasiveness. Surely it doesn’t float innocuously to our shoulders from the heavens and plot to do us in, even as we sit stunned by its presence, and puzzled by its origin and intention.

But: VOILA! As truth will have it, stress doesn’t come from outside of us. It doesn’t come from other people or circumstances—or from our jobs!

All physical, mental, and emotional stress is inevitably the result of a choice we make or have once made (perhaps within this very minute… or a week, month, year, decade or lifetime ago!). So it’s fair to say we can stop blaming others and circumstances for having put us under stress. We have only ourselves to blame.

But blame doesn’t get rid of stress and may even make it worse.

As we have championed ourselves to “bring it on,” we are equally well-equipped to “let it go.” We need only to:

A)  RECOGNIZE AND ACCEPT that it’s the result of a choice we just (or once) made,

 AND

B)  FOCUS OR REFOCUS OURSELVES on the most immediate split-second here-and-now minutes of our lives… our heartbeats, our pulses, our breathing.

When we pay attention to our breathing, our pulses, our heartbeats, we are returning our minds to this very minute, and every passing minute.

Why does this matter? Because stress only exists in dwelling on a past moment (older than a minute, or even a few ticks)… or worrying about a future moment (more than seconds or minutes away) that hasn’t yet come—and may never come!

Simply being aware of this thinking is often enough to make the difference. If you’ve read this far and are not interested in more, at least be interested enough in helping your SELF by trying and practicing these “Are You Breathing?” steps. They work and they’re free!

# # #

Start 2017 SMART. 

 Start with THE 2017-2020 management and staff training and development program:

“MY BUSINESS WORKS” is a 3-part, hands-on, on-location engagement that is Money-Back Guaranteed to make a difference in individual participant commitment and achievement levels, in propelling your business mission forward, and in increasing your sales revenues.

Because these How-To sessions are customized to fit the specific needs of your business, your people, your customers/ clients/ patients, and your sales, scheduling is extremely limited, so act now!

Email Hal today: Hal@BusinessWorks.US or simply call Hal direct at 1.931.854.0474 for a prompt assessment discussion, or to schedule a callback at your convenience. 

[NOTE: Participant ages, educational levels, and physical conditions have no bearing on program content or expected results]

# # #

   Hal Alpiar is a 35-year-experienced professional coach and trainer. A business and career development mentor, Hal actively consults in marketing/PR/sales and stress management. Twice voted “Professor-of-the-Year,” he is also a national award-winning book author and national award-winning branding creator.

Serving clients nationwide since 1981, Hal has helped over 25,000 business and healthcare professional participants in his training programs, classes and workshops, and many more through his published books, articles, and over 1600 blogposts.

 [NOTE: For more details, click on About Hal tab at the top of this page]

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY / CONTENT / CONNECTION

931.854.0474 Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Personal & Professional Growth/ Creative Entrepreneurial Thinking

WISHING FOR CREATIVITY?

Take this lesson from farmers:

Stop wishing and start cultivating!

• If you truly seek or expect creativity (or crops)  to flourish—plan your objectives, strategies, and tactics… dig the soil, get rid of the rocks, add nutrients, plant seeds, provide water, allow for sunshine, and get rid of energy-draining weeds.

  

• If of course you prefer fantasyland, go right ahead. But for your own wellbeing and those who live and work with you, don’t waste time looking for shortcuts, and don’t waste energy under some false pretense that you dwell in reality.

• So, okay, you ARE serious about wanting to be more creative, and/or wanting to find more creative souls to support your quest, here are some tips I guarantee will kickstart your creative juices, or the talents of those to whom you delegate. And age is not a factor.

• Study and practice stress management so your emotions, body and mind are better prepared to free up and stimulate creative deeds and thoughts that already exist. You may think you or someone else has no real creative skills, but the truth is that the talent IS there; it just may not have been productively stimulated. Learn how to use deep breathing to untangle your creative spirit.

• 
  

  Dismiss trivial, unimportant problems. Farmers don’t bother with stray pebbles. Stop torturing your mind. Simply learn to say to yourself: “Oh, well…” and then move on, when small things don’t go your way. Expectations, remember, breed disappointment.

• Do things differently. If you wash your left side first when you shower, switch over to wash your right side first. Take a different road to work than you normally do, even if it means getting up a few minutes earlier. Notice what you see along the way. Force yourself out of bed one morning and watch the sun rise. Serious!

• Take creativity trips and make creativity visits… fair grounds, animated movies, art and sculpture museums, a symphony instead of “Top 40,” a crafts show, daycare center or kindergarten, experimental theatre, an animal shelter, flower gardens, zoo, waterfalls, caverns, rivers, lakes, the ocean, a walk in the woods… ANY AND ALL with your eyes and ears and nose and tongue and fingertips alert to what’s new and different.

• OBSERVE people. Sit with a notebook in Grand Central or Union Station, or a sidewalk café, a high school or college sporting event you wouldn’t normally visit, a graveyard or cemetery, ask for a tour of your local fire department, or—if you’re really brave and have a strong stomach—a local jail. Visit a manufacturing plant… and observe and listen and absorb new images and thoughts and ideas.

• Keep a journal for 3 weeks. Date each entry. Heading for left-hand page: “WHAT HAPPENED” and for facing right-hand page: “HOW I FELT.” Among other things, this helps improve your ability to separate fact from opinion. Can’t think of what to write? Then draw something. Spit on the page. Do SOMEthing each day!

• All this is for openers. And completely up to you. But if you want more, let me know.

If you stumble and fall, get up.

Brush yourself off.

Think about what happened.

Adjust the process or steps you took.

Then do it again!

After all, your new found channels of

creativity could be birthing the next

“Nationwide is on your side” or “Got Milk?”

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

931.854.0474 Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Personal & Professional Growth/ Creative Entrepreneurial Thinking

Boost Your

PERSONAL/PROFESSIONAL LIFE

and BUSINESS REVENUES NOW!

Rapid results from your own private on-call,

national-awards expert, Hal Alpiar.  He

combines directly-related experience

with challenging creative solutions,

and the kind of motivation that best

fits your needs . . . you get realistic

affordable guidance with each step

up your ladder.

Call 931.854.0474 now

Schedule your 19-minute Q&A

courtesy call with Hal to decide if

you’re ready to move forward with

this kind of “strategic partnership”

that has helped thousands to

climb their ladders!

To save telephone time, you may

want to review this blog site first to

get a feel for Hal’s background

and coaching approach.

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/CONTENT/CONNECTION

Coaching for Higher Branding Impact

——————-

Business Development/National-Awards/Record Client Sales

Personal & Professional Growth/Creative Entrepreneurial Thinking

Business Lesson #1 from FEARLESS! The Musical . . .

 “Nothing Is Ours But Time”

Song Title From: “FEARLESS The Golden Love Musical” ©2016 Valerie Connelly and Nightengale Media, LLC.

So, how do you make the most

of what time you have left when you

don’t know how much time you have left?

If you’re in your twenties or thirties and have been thinking you have plenty of years ahead to spare, you may want to do some googling on the subject of reality. If you’re lucky enough to still have a living grand- parent, you may want to solicit some of her or his ideas about “time.”

Or—like many (perhaps most) corporate and government executives —in case you thought that your long-range business and career plans will actually work, you’re probably wrong.

And unless you’re in a “first responder,” scientific research, or space exploration position, you’re likely to discover at some point that the plans that work best are almost always those that are informal, immediate, initiated with reasonable spontaneity and constantly adjusted “on the fly.”

Why?

Because “Nothing Is Ours But Time,” . . . and GOOD LUCK! with trying to hold back time or make that clock stop.

When you trust yourself to be fearless, to act (instead of pretend, instead of talk, instead of endlessly analyzing the data), you make the most of the time you’ve been gifted with.

Even when it turns out to be wrong, some action is always better than no action. Taking steps forward increases your odds for success.

Taking action also increases your odds for success of one thing you care most about: to make a difference with your life!

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION          Higher impact. Lower costs.

——————-

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Entrepreneurship & Expansion Coaching    931.854.0474

Go for your goals, thanks for your visit, God Bless You!

Business Decision Time:

COMPRESSION or EXPANSION?

Sometimes it’s a clear-cut conscious decision. Other times, it’s like deciding to eat more or eat less depending on your mood, the notches on your belt and what’s put on the table in front of you.

But the bottom line is that –in business–  while many factors and variables need to be weighed, too much time is often wasted deliberating, which serves to host that dreaded government disease: “Analysis Paralysis” . . . where nothing ever gets done, or even decided.

When you look carefully at the downside possibilities of either a business expansion or compression option (vs. potential rewards) –and determine that the risk involved is reasonable— AND when you see a clear path for taking a first step: take the damn first step!

If it doesn’t seem to be working as you imagined, make adjustments — to the path and/or your imagination.

Change The Towel!

Are you convinced the direction is right? Whether you answer yes or no (unless you see insurmountable financial or legal odds stacking up), don’t be so quick to throw in the towel when something goes awry. Instead, change the towel!

What do you learn from listening (which needs to be 80% of the time) to what your existing and prospective customers say about the towel? What’s their take on the changes you make in product or service or facility or staff or pricing or value?

Take away what you hear and learn and adjust the size, and/or the shape, and/or the color, and/or the consistency . . . then take a second step.

“Nobody counts

the number of ads you run;

they just remember

the impression you make.”

— William Bernbach, All-Time Madison Avenue Ad Agency Guru

[With special thanks for the reminder and source to @DigitalShawn on Twitter]

And get yourself in stride for what may turn out to be an endless road of adjustments. While government decision-makers (and competitors of the same mindset) assess and evaluate and review and consensus- seek and never move forward, you can be light-years ahead.

Go for it! It’s all a matter of choice. And the choice to stand still, or to shrink or expand your business is always yours! Don’t belabor it. Be FEARLESS! Trust yourself.

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

Higher impact. Lower costs.

——————-

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Entrepreneurship & Expansion Coaching    931.854.0474

Go for your goals, thanks for your visit, God Bless You!

OPEN  MINDS  OPEN  DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!

Don’t trip over your own face!

7 Thoughts to Stimulate Your

Small Business Breakthrough Now

Sometimes in our hurry to the finish line, we become obsessively focused on our destination and crumble into a helpless heap that competitors simply hop or step over as they race past. How can we best avoid this common catastrophe? Here’s some of what I’ve learned:

1. Even if you’re on the one-yard line, STOP seeing yourself dancing around the goalpost. Pay attention instead to your feet. Zone your brain into the immediate breath you are taking, right now, right this very moment of high expectation. Expectations, let us remember, breed disappointment. SOLUTION: Paying attention to your inhale and exhale forces you to concentrate on and make the most of every passing moment AS IT HAPPENS!

2. When your mind is in the “here and now,” there’s no room for dwelling on past attempts that failed or for worrying about future events.There is only the present moment. And that present moment is where you excel! Isn’t it? Of course it is. Think about it.

3. Excuses don’t cut it! Trying to explain your way out of failure that occurred because you lost contact with your present-moment breathing? That simply wastes more present precious-life moments.

4. It doesn’t hurt to constructively review and assess how you went wrong, but it hurts deeply when you choose to let your mind wander off into a place of dwelling on what happened and what you should have done. SOLUTION: Instead, take some deep breaths. Reconnect with the here and now . . . what you are actually doing. And move forward.

5. The pervasive problem with academia thought patterns that all of us are taught from grade school through PhD studies is the enormous resistance to truth and reality — the pursuit of what I’ve often called “analysis paralysis” that so embodies and emboldens the ranting and raving of so many unrealistic faculty ranks that blanket our campuses, and unfortunately tend even to infiltrate elementary school innocence.

6. More time and energy is wasted trying to figure out approaches to problem situations (based on history, available data, Past performances, new analytics, etc.) instead of simply approaching problem situations, recognizing them as opportunities, taking action, and making adjustments. What difference does it make “who did what when” if you’re confronted with the need to survive. Many don’t realize it and many dismiss the reality, but my educated best guess is that most small business enterprises are in a constant state of needing to survive. SOLUTION: Even if you’re not one, think like an entrepreneur!

7. The face of your business is what the world sees. It’s what you show others all day every day. How can you expect to be in touch with the impressions you make on others when you are consumed with what you did or didn’t do yesterday or immobilized by worrying over what tomorrow will bring? SOLUTION: Look in the mirror and talk to yourself more. Remind yourself of the real you — what’s in your gut. Then work harder, not smarter!

Concentrate on what you are doing each moment as much as you possibly can, and work at returning your mind there as often as you can. Deep breathing helps. Being committed to exhilarating customers instead of just “satisfying” them helps. When you pay attention to where your feet are and not the finish line, you’ll achieve more, more often, and avoid tripping over your own face.

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

Higher impact. Lower costs.

——————-

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Entrepreneurship & Expansion Coaching    931.854.0474

Go for your goals, thanks for your visit, God Bless You!

OPEN  MINDS  OPEN  DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!