I dare you to delete your social media apps on your phone? Say What? I know it sounds crazy, right? This is a long read but maybe it might speak to you. I would love to get your thoughts and feedback. Being a business owner in a People Driven Business really exposes your faults as a human being. I was in the mortgage industry for 16 years and a majority of the business was done behind a desk on the phone or through email. No personal contact with your client or even a face to face greeting. So in a sense you could be or act anyway you wanted to with the other person on the phone. You could literally become a chameleon to adapt to the other person and/or the situation. Many might say this is a great sales technique as it would generate a high level of success. When we started The 12 a couple years back that wall of safety was quickly tore down as you come face to face with each and every person you are serving on a daily basis. Oh how that exposes a persons faults and weaknesses. Never in a million years would I say at the age of 38 I would be learning an entire new skill set to just have a normal social conversation. Seems odd but I have a feeling that many might understand where Im coming from. Many things that worked brilliantly in a corporate environment completely fail miserably in this new venture. Many tactics that work brilliantly in the corporate environment break people down into which there is no hope for repair. It is so unfortunate. I then am led to the only question that is left.........Why in the heck did God open up this door. It is very simple.....He is not done with me and he is rolling up his sleeves to teach me more so that I can serve/follow him better. How painful it is to come to that realization that as an owner of a company, you are so completely broken in a way that you have to start all over again as if you were starting first grade again. Its very humbling yet refreshing as you come to realize that the horizon is bright and full of growth and learning. Because there is so much day to day contact, this is NOT the type of job where On the job training teaches you the most. It does not give you the freedom to make those mistakes as they can quickly hurt people and possibly even damage the relationship beyond repair. Well youre probably reading this and saying Are you going to get to the point? At the top I dared you to delete all social media applications off of your phone. This is something I did yesterday and was shocked how quickly I adapted to not having to check my phone every waking moment I had. Prior to doing that I literally would wake up and check my phone, I would go to the restroom with phone in hand, I would check my phone during dinner, check my phone while driving, I would check my phone as I got up in the middle of the night, I would check my phone during the games on Sunday............Literally checking the phone NON STOP all day. These social media companies have made me Non-Social! This is confession time. In attempt to be a better human being I started meeting with a therapist about a month ago to talk about these things that Im going through and to help me articulate my feelings, emotions and thoughts better with those whom I love and those who I come in contact with on a daily basis. Talk about painful when a therapist tells you youre a narcissist, youre judgmental and that you can be self righteous as well. Seriously? Im paying someone money to tell me all these horrible things about me? But when you truly learn the definition of each one, you quickly accept and tell yourself I dont want to be this way, I want to be the best version of me that I can be. I cant even tell you the difference this has made in my life so far. I have always been the individual who internalizes his emotions so much that eventually they just explode out and when that happens they come out with force and anger. I have quickly come to realize that talking to whom you hold close to your heart about what is going on inside allows us to better understand how and why we feel the way we do on a daily basis. Seems so easy, but for people like me it is very difficult. So as part of this new direction Im trying to take I am choosing to be more present in the situations. if something is happening in your life, I want to know about it because I found out during a conversation we had face to face and we invested time with each other. I dont want it to come to me as a TMZ headling across a website such as So and So just had dinner at some random place and look at our food we are eating! When the real story is that you might of had dinner because there was good news to share or celebrate with each other. To know the intimate details about people and why they are who they are is where I want to be. My life seems like it has just been a life full of highlights and images that are put on social media. Social Media does not allow you to truly celebrate with people, doesnt allow you to hurt or grieve with people nor does it paint a realistic life for each person. It is a life in which we all are hoping each person views us as. Which we all know isnt even close to whom we all are. So Im adopting these simple rules to put the humanity back into my life. No social media apps on my phone, no phone past 7:45 pm and being present in the moment that I am in at that very second. Im hoping this clears the mud and allows me to establish deeper relationships with those around me.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 15:31:43 +0000