Project: The Root Word

Few are the days we discard the alarm clock, trusting the international anticipation of tomorrow and euphoria of life to keep us awake.

But as December 31^st blends into January 1^st, as one day ends and another begins marking not just another month but a new year, we recognize a season of hope. Renewal. The season of resolutions.

We all have succumbed to thinking them. Since childhood we’ve been conditioned to bettering our lives and it all starts on the first day of each year. To break a bad habit. Start a good one. Lost five pounds. Try five new things. Floss every day. Quit smoking. End a relationship. We resolve to bridge the gap between where we are and where the happiness resides outside of our reach.

Personal or professional, resolutions don’t just have to take place in January. The most important factor is that they solve an issue.

If we slow down and enunciate the word that trips us up emotionally, we’d recognize that resolution sounds a lot like solution. That’s because the word is a derivative of solution.

Too often when we think of resolutions we set before us new hurdles, thus new problems to solve.

This year, we challenge you to follow this five step plan to fulfill your 2016 dream, to successfully SOLVING your resolutions:

1) Identify: Realize what the problem is – what it is you want to change.

2) Analyze: Create a custom, tangible plan with bite size manageable steps

3) Pace: Pace yourself. One of the reasons people often give up on their resolutions is because they forget it should be more than a marathon. It’s a lifestyle, it’s long-run. If your goal was to floss every day but you kicked off by flossing five times in one day – overkill will kill your momentum.

4) Forgive: If you skip a day, two or three, pick yourself back up and keep going. The worse thing you can do after inadvertently missing day five of mark, is purposely miss day six because you think you’ve lost too much momentum or failed the system.

5) Reward: Incentivize yourself. Don’t wait until the end of the year to determine if you achieved your maximum potential. Highlight your calendar with several future dated celebratory milestones to benchmark your success. Everyone needs a little sticks and carrots to keep them going. Figure out what your carrot is and keep it forefront wherever you are.

- The Green Couch

Project: Staying Grounded When You’re on The Top

The top. What does it look like to you? Is it a picturesque lifestyle that can be described in one sentence? One word? Does the top signify smooth sailing, carefree spending and minions (not of the Universal Pictures variety, of course)? Does the top look closer than ever to you?

Does the top signify success to you? Here're six tips on how to stay grounded and be yourself as you reach for the top this new year…

•    Remember the people who helped get you there – It’s never a one-man show. There are people who believed in you, pushed you, pulled you…did whatever you required of them so you could be the best version of King/Queen of your hill.

•    Constantly work towards another goal – While Journey may have beseeched us to never stop believing, it’s important to never stop achieving. At one point or another, we set up a goal for ourselves. Once achieving that, it’s integral not to stop there. Success is a journey. It’s not just an object or milestone. It’s progression. It’s different for everyone, but it doesn’t stay if we don’t keep moving.

•    Create community togetherness – Find a second passion. Pursue something that feeds your heart while feeding the community and wellbeing of others. If you see a need, resolve it. Too big for you to fix? Collaborate with others who can help and you’ll plant roots deep enough that when you get to the top you have a lot of strength to pull from.

•    Make room for others at the top – The things you do today, right now, heavily impact everyone around you. It’s not just engineers and inventors who influence the next generation’s trends; it’s the entrepreneurs and risk-takers. The risks you take, others will take after you. Ensure you are making not just bold decisions but decisions that will encourage the next generation to seek a path that has purpose.

•    Live [and love] the everyday – Don’t get caught up in the big picture so much that you miss out in the little details that matter most to living. Whether it’s breakfast, family vacations, movie nights, sports kick-off traditions, missing out on the downtime and watching others grow alongside you devalues the momentous rise of your own, making it much less significant.

•    Reevaluate your top – Plans change. You can recalculate, reroute and make U-turns if you must, so long as they align with the above statements and fulfill your vision and heart. Give yourself a gut check every few years to ensure you are doing what you need to do to stay on the journey of success and find your way to your own version of the top. The top isn’t higher than everybody else. The top is beating your self-doubts and reaching many milestones.

Here’s to a happy and safe climb!  

-The Green Couch

Project: 6 Ways to Condition Your Clients

When you are in a creative field, you want to give your all to your clients. You want to say “Yes!” because you want to showcase your skills and market their services and products to the best of your ability. But there comes a time when they begin to bulldoze your kindness and take advantage of your willingness to serve.

It can be a risk to start saying “No.” To being upfront from the beginning to being transparent, to not negotiating. To not being a doormat when your clients walk into your studio even though they could be an ideal creative canvas.

There are more canvases out there and you have to protect both them and yourselves. Here’s a good guideline to abide by:

1.    If your hours are between 9 and 5, don’t answer before 9 or after 5.

2.    If you add surcharges, enforce those surcharges.

3.    If you say that is something your company does not offer, do not offer it.

4.    If you say it will be ready in two days, do not provide them with a rush service benefits.

5.    If they challenge your expertise, be assertive in your work integrity.

6.    If your client signed a contract, refer and uphold them to the contract.

-The Green Couch

Project: Humility In the Workplace

There is a millionaire dollar word missing from the workplace. It is not “deal” or “sold.”  It is “sorry.”

Many minor misunderstandings have halted even stopped mergers, partnerships and other proposals because the million-dollar word is exempt from a company’s vocabulary.

Too often your pride or naiveté hinders you from seeing the error in your work or lack of work.

It can be simple as missing a deadline, but over time these “infringements” adds up and will discredit your word. If you say sorry and don not mean it or don not change your word, your million-dollar words will also depreciate until they are in the negative.

One of the ways you can be proactive within your company is to know how to say and be sorry.

Thanks to Dr. Gary Chapman and his BA and MA degrees in anthropology, he has a passion for understanding social interactions. With the help of other doctors, he has created The Five Languages of Apology.

After taking this test, you will have a better understanding of the importance of humility, apology and how you should appreciate others that interact with you when issuing apologizing. After the completion, it is a great idea to hold an open, informal meeting at work where everyone can share their results. Maybe this will even lead to "sorry sessions"!

Furthermore, as a leader, taking a step-down, letting employees have a voice, giving a statement to the press before the fault is found out - this is why the word sorry is so valuable.

This word may cause pause for thought, but once reflection is over, once forgiveness is extended, whether ways are parted or not, you will find internal success. And that’s the first step towards a true millionaire’s success.

-The Green Couch