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Saturday, July 18, 2009

Together

Climbing the Mountain to Reach my Goals...

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

A couple of days ago, I had the privilege of accomplishing one of my first summer goals... climbing to the very top of the mountain that I have looked at every morning out my office window since September when I moved here. I am sure that on the grand scale it would be considered a small mountain; however after hibernating all winter behind a nice warm keyboard, it was a monumental task to say the least. My husband and I set out on our trek early on the bright sunny Sunday morning. Fashionably dressed in tank top, shorts and hiking boots, I was grateful to head out of site and into the woods. Even though the day prior I had hiked ¼ the way up the same mountain, with a couple of my children, I was determined to see where the rest of the trail would lead us. Since that part of our journey was 95% straight uphill… we decided it would be best to leave the children home. As Brad and I made it to the point where I had ended the day before, I could not help but feel my body disagree with my current decision to go further. My back started to hurt and my feet felt every degree of incline in our progress up the path to the top of the timbers. Even with spotting a couple of locations where Bears no longer lingered, we kept going…until, my husband said, “Stop.” In fear I ran closer to him wondering if he might have to use the can of bear spray on his hip, all the while thinking about the jokes of how its true purpose was to ‘pepper the meat’ before the bears had their dinner and that bear bells were really just ‘dinner bells.’ My husband very carefully leaned over and moved some ferns from their resting place onside of the mountain. As I was about to ask him what the heck he was looking at, he said, “I don’t believe it!” I was expecting the worst when he pointed to… a frog! A frog ½ way up the side of the mountain with no visible water around. Once my head slowed back to pre-bear-attack thinking, I was able to be shocked as well. Beyond all reason, there should be no water needing creatures in sight let alone a Frog!

Since my mind works in symbols and analogies, I could not help but compare my mountain climbing adventure to that of the adventure of creating Stock Harmony. The mountain that we are on… is the world markets, current business ethics & practices. Every piece of deadfall and root blocking the trail…are the obstacles that we have had to overcome to get to this point in our climb to launch Stock Harmony. The beautiful flowers and foliage along the way… are our friends who are offering kind advice and encouragement. The massive fallen trees that were now visibly becoming one with the earth… symbolized the corporations that once stood mighty and proud, only to be blown over by winds because their values (roots) were not strong enough to hold them in this economy. The bear droppings & stinging nettle… well, you guess that one… The 95% slope that we are climbing to get to the top is the hard work and dedication that it will take in order to achieve our intention. Two hours, two sunburns, sore knees, scraps, stings and uphill perseverance later, we were standing at the very top ridge of our mountain overlooking the entire valley and our house. Even though my body was not happy for the majority of our trip, I was extremely grateful that I did not give in…and I achieved what we set out to do.

Now I can look out my window every morning and think to myself, I did it, I made it to the very top! (of this peak)As I sat there in the moment, in wonder of our accomplishment, I took in the majesty around me and again reflected. …even though, we have climbed to the summit and pre-launched Stock Harmony, as I look around, there are even higher mountains to climb…but this trip has helped given me the prospective and strength that I will need, when I climb the other mountains that are waiting for us to get to the top of them as well.

The journey home helped me appreciate the other 5%..the 5% that had now become, my new uphill. Everything, which was previously uphill, had now become my downhill… and now my knees screamed at me every step of the way. Even though we saw that a bear had crossed our trail we thankfully never did cross his path! We made it home safely even after we misplaced the trail and got to climb over hectares of deadfall. (We even saw another frog!) This just helped reassure me that I was not in spry enough shape but it was also a good idea to withdraw my nomination to be on the television show ‘Man Tracker.’

As I gaze out my window this morning looking at the mountains before me, I am not only thankful for the obstacles in my life to that I have had climb up to this point…but for the ones that are yet to come… because I know that I CAN…and so can YOU!


Most Humbly,

Marcia

President, Stock Harmony

http://www.stockharmony.com/

Marcia@stockharmony.com

Business, Social Media and YOU!

This morning as I opened the dental floss I was surprised to see on the package something written about how this brand is 40% better than some other brand. I know there is a lot of choice in the floss industry but is putting down someone else’s product really the way to operate your own business? I would say… gone are those days, where we had to step on someone else’s head in order to step up in the world.

It reminded me of all of the political ads that I dislike so much. You know the ones where one party digs into the past of the other party’s candidate…something like this. (Read this in deep voice,) when Joe Black was 4 years old..he pulled his sister’s hair! When he was 8 Joe Black got a spanking for taking gum from his mother’s purse without asking. At the age of 12 he was still afraid of the DARK! Is this the man that YOU want running the country? I should THINK NOT!"

I mean really… at one time in my life…I wore diapers…but I grew out of that at some point in time. It is time that companies and politics…do the same.

Web 2.0 is a wonderful example of the future of business…and how the smart companies are already evolving to the mindset of Win, Win, Win. Yes I said Win three times! The first two are obvious; you know, win for YOU, win for Me and Win for the Environment. Using the 2.0 concept, of what can our contribution be…rather than what can I spam you with in hopes that you will buy my product, we are building the future to be one of service, gratitude and encouragement. Companies who in the past were in competition with each other are now working TOGETHER to really make a difference, for their employees, customers and others.

Take for example, our electrical company. Traditionally we would only be able to bid jobs that were set to begin when another job had wraped up. Due to not having enough employees to get the job done. Or if we had to wait for another job to start, we might have to lay people off for awhile until we had more work. That is typically how things used to work… however since our company started we have worked together with other electrical companies, to share the work. Yes Share! What I mean by this is, when we are looking at bidding a job, and our employees are busy working on another job, we barrow employees from another like company. This helps us because we are then able to do the work that we might not have been able to do because of limited employee’s. We also don’t have to do any paper work for the borrowed employees, because they stay on the payroll of the other company. We pay their company a small commission for the use of their people. And they don’t have to lay off people because of lack of work.

We also work together when those companies are bidding other jobs that we don’t need, so we will submit a higher bid when they are bidding so that the general contractor has met his quota of incoming bids for a job. So… we want our “competition” to do well…and be successful in their business because it allows us to continue to also be successful.

Twitter and Facebook have allowed everyone of us to be able to work together in service and success. When you are on Twitter and you ReTweet (RT) another person’s status, link etc. you are building them up by highlighting them to your own network of followers. Likewise on Facebook when you “share” or “Like” another persons submission, you are helping your friends photo, story, video, link, or tag line gain popularity helping them spread the message they are sharing with YOU. I think that a facebook/ twitter friend of mine @JosephRanseth said it best, “As you seek to elevate yourself… elevate others! As we seek to elevate others…the work itself will elevate us!”

So, as we ‘have fun’ in our social networking world, we are making a difference by helping our own network of friends spread their messages, by connecting, communicating and sharing like never before. Collectively we are changing the old mindset where we had to belittle someone else to make ourselves look better. We are building, instead of destruction! WE are sharing, helping, promoting and becoming the best cheerleaders that we can be. Our ‘social network friends’ are a shining example of how to build the Relationships necessary to do successful business today. @PerryBelcher is an amazing example of "what 2 do," when it comes to Social Media! He is fantastic at keeping up with network relationships and gives YOU way more than you could ever give back. I highly suggest that you check out all of the amazing things that he shares and gives away FREE all while making a huge profit. Watch his video's you will see what I mean!

By highlighting the amazing contributions of others, and by adding quality to all that you do, YOU build the ‘trust’, ‘transparency’ and ‘openness’ that has been missing from business in the past. Friends make great customers! So remember, we don’t ‘Spam’ friends… we build up the friendship’s by contributing…and by working on building the friendship. Like @CoachDawn calls it, “Friendship Spam’” is when you just add and add and add friends…without adding a personal note as to why you would like to be friends. I also think that #FollowFridays are turning into the same thing. Why note Say something like, “ @TrafficGen is a great person to #FF b/c he is sooo funny! He will brighten ur day.” Or, “I love the wisdom of this man @LFTS, wonderful #followfriday.” How about “ I love this lady, I know YOU will too @kendrathornbury #FF” or “ @alexkaris has a lot of friends for a reason! He is a great #FF.” How about, "@VividLife ~YOUR Ultimate Life Resource#FF" or “ For all things Peace, you need to follow be #FF @LynneONE4PEACE you will thank me!” OK, I am sure that you have enough examples by now…lol.

Be interested instead of trying to be interesting! That will make all of the difference in not only your online success but also your overall success in life. So to leave you with the wisdom of another amazing person, “Is there anything that I can do for YOU, because YOU deserve to be Happy? @Deremiah_CPE
How may I serve YOU?

Most Humbly,
Marcia Johnson @Marciajk
President of http://www.stockharmony.com/



Stock Harmony ~ Bringing Integrity, Honesty & Communication in Business http://www.stockharmony.com/
Vividlife ~ your ultimate life resource ~ http://www.vividlife.me/
Peace In OUR Lifetime ~For YOUR free Peace Certificate Click http://www.planting-seeds.com/