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Greatness Magnified

“How do I get it all done?” Three Perfectly Imperfect Tips for Busy People

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I really resonate with the advice: “get it done rather than get it perfect.”

There are so many things that we’re learning. Technology, new job functions, how to handle this new phase our kids are in… How do you get all the “normal” stuff done while there’s this constant state of change all around you and not lose sight of your greatness at the same time?

Stop trying to get it perfect before you get it done.

We have a desire and need to be able to understand how to do something before we can get started on it. We want to have one more review before we send it off. We don’t tell people about our interest until we’ve done more schooling, reading, practicing… But it holds us back from accomplishing incredible things. And, the longer we’re stuck in that inaction cycle the more we feel frustrated with ourselves, making it less likely we’ll put ourselves out there. We get caught in a trap where we’re not recognizing the greatness, paying close attention to what we can’t do as well as we’d like.

Can you relate?

There are all kinds of things that I don’t know how to do in business but I’ve just realized I need to start anyway. Just the fact I launched my biz with no biz training or plan is evidence of that (if you’re curious, learn more here). But turns out this not knowing has been a living laboratory for me. Join me in exploring a few places for practicing being perfectly imperfect but making progress anyway.

  1. Social Media

In the social media realm, we all know the whole game is continually changing. Not only are their new platforms all the time, the existing platforms keep changing (e.g., the introduction of IGTV to Instagram). But one thing that hasn’t changed is that when it comes to video, picture quality, and sound, authentic rules over polished and perfect. Unless you’re an influencer with millions of followers, no one expects perfect quality, makeup, background. They want value, value, value…give that and the rest is forgiven. By still getting out there on social media, you gain. More likes mean more folks see that post on their Wall. More followers mean you have more contacts as prospective bosses, clients, friends. More putting yourself out there builds confidence of being the real you.

  1. “Get It Done” Rituals

Of all the things on your to-do list, just pick one and do it. It doesn’t have to be the most important thing, it doesn’t have to be the thing that you know how to do. Just tackle one. You’ll discover that great feeling of achieving something which will propel you into a motivated state to tackle something else (juicy dopamine hit anyone?!) Sometimes, it’s more important to just accomplish something, even if it is not the most pressing thing, because it gives you the motivation to move forward, and then move onto that next most important thing.

  1. Role Modelling

My husband and father are working on renovating a big beautiful barn because this is where the home of Greatness Magnified is going to be in about a year or so. They’re not perfect as they’re self-taught and their talents lean in different directions given it’s an extension of their natural gifts. As a result, the barn won’t be perfect – the most exceptionally designed or perfectly laid out or exact right angles – but people aren’t coming for the barn. They’re coming for the motivation, education, and inspiration that happens in the training, retreats, and events that will happen there. If we waited to have the barn perfect and spend money on folks to make it that way, it would be years down the road before we’d be moving in. And the cost factor would likely be prohibitive. What matters most is that they’re contributing, giving, and nurturing; their way of supporting the business to grow, and make others happy. Expecting perfection, would not allow others to feel motivated to continue. Just appreciating that momentum is what’s most important. Their passion, heart, and soul they put into building it, together, will make it better than anything else anyway!

If you find yourself getting caught up in the perfectionism cycle, or feeling immobilized at the magnitude of change and learning in front of you, I hope you think of one of those three suggestions and examples.

And BTW, if you want more info and insight about how I launched my biz with this same “get it done” “perfectly imperfect” approach, you’re welcome to grab a resource I put together on www.greatnessbiz.com.

What tips do you have in getting it done?

Three Tips for Deciding When to Say, “No.”

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“No”. Why it so difficult for so many of us to say such a little word?

It seems like such a small gesture, and yet, it can have a huge impact on our productivity, focus, and happiness.

As our work and home lives become busier, being confident and willing to say no is more important than ever. It’s essential so that we don’t burn out. It’s the key to staying in love with our work or business. It enables us to keep time for the things and people that matter most.

Now, on the surface, some might think folks struggle with a lack of assertiveness. In actual fact, the individuals I coach more often express that they worry they won’t appear professional, they’ll seem disloyal, or they’re not a team player.

Besides this not being the case, there are other consequences of saying yes to the wrong things. You can get burnt out. You can get resentful. You might get so buried in work no one notices you and the extras you’re doing (this is particularly true for women; for more on this check out Women of Influence’s research 7 Pitfalls of Women in Business)

When we say no, especially when we say no to the right things, then we can do a better job on the things we say yes to. When we focus on the things that are most essential, we can get them done more efficiently and faster, providing that positive dopamine hit in our brain allows us to move on to the next thing. Not only that, we role model for others as well as discern and evaluate the most effective and important things you need to do with your time.

The question is: How do you know what to say no to?

I know this dilemma all too well.

About four years ago, I had a meeting with my business mentor. It was a challenging point in my career. I had climbed the corporate ladder, had a great job and title, a healthy pension and pay cheque, and stimulating work. However, my family needed more than I was giving them. One of my kids had been, struggling with mental health challenges for years and it reached the tipping point. But what could I do? I was in a senior leadership role and had a huge workload, carrying a pager 24/7 and feeling the weight of a growing workload on my shoulders. This was what I signed on for, though, and it was non-negotiable.

Or was it?

My business mentor said to me, “If you had to cut out 15% of your time what would you give up?” My immediate response was, “nothing,” but she said, “I don’t believe it. I’m the CEO of an eight-figure company and I could cut 15% of my time from work if I needed to, so why can’t you?”

So, I did. In that moment I realized – with my expectations, desire to contribute, and attempt to become indispensable – was putting the 15% on myself.

How can you cut back 15%? Well glad you asked! Say no in order to say yes to what matters most by:

1.Evaluating What’s MOST Important

If you or someone in your family became seriously ill, if you moved jobs and you had to cut out 15%, what would you cut out? Make a list. If you don’t know, start keeping track of the things that don’t matter. As soon as you add it to the list, start making plans to cut it. If you could do it for someone you love, you can do it for yourself.

2.Hire and Ask for Help

Decide on and list the tasks that you don’t need to do. Tasks that eat up a lot of time, are fiddly and take you away from the things you need to focus on in your work and business. Unless you are the only one who can do it, you love it, or it’s your superpower, consider a plan for how to pass it on.

Remember, it may not be your talent and strength, but it’s someone else’s. Give them a chance to shine. Give them a job. Give them a stretch assignment. Keep track of those things that you’re doing that you don’t love, things someone else can do better and more efficiently for you, and find the right person to take it off your hands!

3.Creating a Prioritization List

When I get a client request, I go through my Greatness Priorities. It’s my prioritization list that helps me decide if it’s a job I should say yes to or no to (often helping the client more by referring it on to someone who is a better fit in expertise or cost). It’s a mindset of “earning the yes” rather than scarcity thinking of accepting work out of fear.

To give you a sense of a list, here’s mine in order of most important:

I get asked to do a lot of things for free or at a seriously discounted fee. Not only will that mean I can’t stay in business for long, it takes time away from the people that motivated me to start this biz in the first place (my family). There’s only so much of me to go around – time and energy-wise.

What are your priorities? What makes a request an easy yes and what, when you think about it, makes for an easy no?

Would you like a few more tips to help you decide what you say yes and no to? Jump over to the Cool Stuff tab on my website for an infographic (you may want to share it with your colleagues and spouse!)

Rejecting Perfection: Why Being Perfectly Imperfect Elevates Your Greatness

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If you were to pull up to my home right now, you would not experience what they call in real estate, “curb appeal.”

We have some major renos in progress. As we build the future home of Greatness Magnified (a converted barn), the rest of our property looks disastrous. On top of that, there’s road maintenance, our neighbours are fixing their septic system, and piles of topsoil, lumber, and scaffolding decorate the property.

Not the best first impression. Nor would you suspect a place you’d want to bring clients.

But this would feed into the belief that things need to be perfect to be professional. What if, by still having meetings at my home and hosting retreats here, it was a visual reminder that life isn’t perfect, just like our work-in-progress renovations? What if it were a reminder that life and business are perfectly imperfect, but we need to just keep going?

Progress is better than perfection.

Perfection trips us up all the time. We don’t want to make a mistake. We want to ensure we’ve got everything right. We need to look our best. However, it’s not reality, is it? We’re all completely and perfectly imperfect.

What if we decided that all the work and extra effort of trying to get it 110% every time just wasn’t worth it? What if we looked at the toll it was having on our kids, partners, staff? What if it was actually making us less accessible and relatable as people and professionals?

Imagine the possibilities if we embraced our imperfections. Imagine what it would be like if our standards weren’t so high? Imagine how free we would feel if we don’t get caught up in our negative inner critic that says louder, meaner and untrue things than we’d ever to say to somebody else. What if we didn’t hesitate to pursue what we were most passionate, proud, and motivated about?

What if we were able to decide that we didn’t need to be perfect? We just needed to be great. And we already are…great.

Can we agree that you’re not perfect and neither is anyone else? Can we agree that any evidence you see about perfect lives, bodies, faces on social media is not the full story? Can we agree that it doesn’t actually matter that much anyway?

In other words, don’t look for evidence of perfection that isn’t there.

Using the metaphor of our renos, here are three tips I’ve learned about how to chip away at perfection.

  1. Give credit to “good enough”

There’s beauty all around us. See the beauty in whatever surrounds you. Instead of looking at my imperfect work-in-progress property, I can look across the street at the beautiful vineyards (even though they’re not mine). Appreciating what is present and not attending to what doesn’t matter helps with perfectionism.

  1. Look for what is working

Sure, most of our property needs a lot of work, but I can also look at the gardens across the front of our house that, with my mom, we lovingly planted. I can remember the joy we spent together. I can remember the feeling of a hard day’s work with pleasantly sore muscles. I can remember the care we spent picking each plant. I can even remember a rather comical discussion the nursery owner overheard about the right roses to plant to match the “lipstick red” shade of door my husband picked out.

  1. Look past imperfections that don’t matter

Our front door has scratches on it. We have a piece of tape that’s stubbornly stuck on from a long-forgotten note. Spiders love to form nests around our light fixtures (we understand a by-product of living on the water). But do any of these things matter? Not really. I no longer feel I need to apologize for these things or try to clean them before every client visit. It’s exhausting, and I don’t think they really notice anyway. They’re here to see me and do business, not evaluate my place of business. When we look for the things that aren’t perfect then we see them. But instead, if we look at everything else around it we will see beauty. I don’t know about you but I would rather live my life looking at what is working and the beauty that exists, the extraordinary in the ordinary, than to spend so much of my time and energy looking at the few things that don’t quite measure up.

Who’s to say they don’t measure up? Maybe they’re actually somebody else’s version of pretty darn good, or maybe even amazing.

How is perfectionism robbing you of your time, focus, attention, patience, compassion? How is it creating tension in relationships with staff, co-workers, suppliers, partners? How is perfection stopping you from trying new things, taking a risk, following your passion, getting something completed? And is it worth it?

Three Ways You Can Enjoy a Family-Centric Business

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I know many entrepreneurs, whether it was a side hustle or a full-time business, who started out excited, optimistic and energized about what their business could do for their life and that of their family. Family-centred entrepreneurs who had high hopes (as they should!) to bring in a good income, travel (combining work and pleasure) and improve their lifestyle. Yet, the reality I hear so often is that people are frustrated. Not only are they not seeing these things, they wonder why they embarked upon their business in the first place.

It doesn’t have to be that way. But I can certainly relate.

In my first year of business, I had a mandate of being a family-centered entrepreneur. However, my lack of boundaries (a carryover from when I worked full-time) seeped into my entrepreneurship habits. I worked too many hours, sacrificed sleep, would forego fitness for a client request; I even accepted a speaking engagement in another province on my daughter’s 10th birthday. Sure, I had to make my business work (I had no Plan B), but the whole reason for making the change was to be more available to my family. What I was doing wasn’t working. Only I could change that.

It would be easy to think that I would have to make a trade-off. Earn less money to have more time. More family time or time for exercise. Grow small and steady and keep my ambitions at bay.

What I found, however, was that you can fall back in love with your business without sacrificing the things you want and need – a good income, a good lifestyle, a happy family. It starts with believing, from a place of abundance, that you deserve success of your own design, and that it can happen.

The alternative is that you feel resentful, exhausted, deflated. That you have no white space in your brain or time in your calendar for creativity and creation. That you let your health be sacrificed leading to problems on the short and long-term. That you feel you can never win, no matter how hard you try.

You can win. Your family can win. Let’s ensure your biz is working for YOU. (And BTW if you are reading this and you don’t have your biz open yet, no problem. I don’t want you to go through the mistakes I made…here’s the recipe to start as you mean to go on!)

Here are my top three tips on becoming and staying a family-centred entrepreneur without sacrificing profits, passion, and people-relationships:

Get clear on your priorities

When you have a request from a client, there has to be an order of priority in which you use to evaluate if that is the right client and the right engagement to accept. This includes anyone who has a side hustle in the gig economy of which we know by 2020 50% of us will be there. Here’s mine in order of what’s most important:

  1. Is it a family friendly fit?
  2. Does it fit with my expertise and passion?
  3. Does it pay what I’m worth? TIP: Click here for more on this topic.
  4. Do I like the client/company (is there an alignment in values)?
  5. Do I have capacity?
  6. Does this open the door to other opportunities?

If the answer is “no” to the first one, it’s unlikely I’ll proceed. To test it, I’ll go through the rest to be sure.

For example, I had the opportunity to spend a month and a half doing some pretty exciting international speaking and coaching work that would allow me to grow as an entrepreneur and exponentially grow my network. However, over a month away from my family, at a reduced fee, and it overlaps with a few client engagements (meaning I’d have to break my loyalty to them); by evaluating it against my priorities, it was an easy “no”. If I had tried to fill my schedule, add an exciting international twist to my biz and gain bragging rights for being on this tour, I might have said “yes”. See why it’s so important to know your priorities? It helps you when tempting opportunities and diversions arise that may be great, however, they aren’t necessarily great for you or great at that time given your current priorities.

Be open about being a family-centric entrepreneur

You want to attract clients and businesses that also prioritize lifestyle and family; by sharing that you are a family-centred entrepreneur, they may actually be more likely to want to work with you! Sometimes we worry they won’t; a scarcity mentality convinces us that we are lucky to have any work so don’t be too demanding. However, you will likely find what I’ve found, that they will respect you more for taking time to ensure client fit, that you are selective, and that you are making a conscious choice to work with them; by them knowing that you see that they are the right client, it sense an entirely different message than “I will work with anybody, doing anything.” Of course, it’s a two-way street, they have to pick you too. But why be in the running for something you don’t want anyway?

Being a family-centric entrepreneur is about being clear about what you hope your business does for you, because when you’re clear on that then you attract those opportunities. If you want to be able to travel more, if you want to be able to do creative things, if you want your family to be brought into the business more, those opportunities will become available to you.

Recently, I brought my daughter to a speaking engagement in another province. I worried at first the client would find my request, ‘unprofessional,’ but in actual fact, they thought it was a great idea! This professional association was mostly female with their demographic rapidly changing to an entrepreneurial model. It was perfect timing to have the keynote speaker share a visual message to the membership that they too could find ways to get the family involved in supporting their businesses! For us, it allowed my daughter to experience the direct benefit of my job, making her less likely to be resentful the next time I needed to travel for work, and my son is excited for when it’s his turn!

Family Shareholders

If you an incorporated official corporation, consider ways in which you can build shareholders into your business. Obtain some advice from your accountant, but what I’ve done is ensured the ‘Minute Book,’ of the corporation reflects that my nuclear family members are all shareholders. This means I can pay them for work they do in my business (e.g., shipping orders, putting handout packages together and editing videos.) Check out my friend, Tim Packer, a talented artist, who now has his son doing videos and social media full-time!)

Even if your family isn’t on the payroll, they likely give you business advice, support and help as needed, so you may choose to cover business meals and travel (we have included that we will have up to two Shareholder Meetings at a location inside or outside Canada in our corporation’s Minute Book to make it official and above board.) It gives us a reason to get away from our house, from the office, and take stock on important things like: what’s working and what’s not, what should be the priority projects for the year, review last year’s financials and project the upcoming year, and evaluate how well the business is working for everyone. Just don’t forget to record who you met with, what the meeting was about, and, if it’s a big expense, evaluate your profits against the expense to see if you can justify it! Again, I’m not giving you accounting advice as that’s not in my scope of practice; I’m just sharing what I’ve done.

This is what I do in my business to stay family-centred. Not only does it make my family less resentful of my business, they’re thrilled that my business is growing and successful. I love my business so much more because I’m not fighting against two worlds. You can be a family and lifestyle centred entrepreneur too (maybe you already are!) It’s not one or the other. It’s not career/business or family/lifestyle, it’s a both/and. Enjoy the best of both worlds. And that doesn’t mean it’s perfect all the time. If you strike the right balance 90% of the time you’re doing great! And the result: you’re satisfied and your business thrives.

Want to chat about how you can start or evolve your business to be more family-centred? Jump into my calendar for a 15-minute chat!

How much are you worth?

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Click here for the video

Lately, there has been some interesting discussion on social media channels about how much money we should make. Some are even saying that we shouldn’t be putting a target number out there, or not one that’s ambitious. Or that when folks do they’re pressuring others to set their goals higher and there’s a problem with that.

Why dedicate a whole blog to this topic? Because it’s the comments I read that concern me. I see a pattern of a very limiting belief mindset. That we need to think conservatively and be happy with what we get. That if we have a decent income, then we sacrifice lifestyle. That we need to grow our careers and businesses slowly.

My question is, does there have to be an either/or? What if it could be a both/and? In other words, can we have the best of many worlds – make what we’re worth, and have the lifestyle we want, and still be present for family and other important elements of our life?

Furthermore, why do we have to be divisive on this issue of income? Do we have to dive ourselves into those who want “too much” and those who ask for “too little”? This is not an inclusive conversation, therefore, doesn’t enable cross-pollination of ideas and support. It doesn’t build everybody up.

We need to be brave enough to be having open conversations about what our financial goals and needs are.

We as women, who traditionally who have made less than men – and research still shows we do and that it takes 10 years longer to get to the top job if that’s what we want – need to encourage these transparent and striving conversations.

We need to consider financial goals on a spectrum and holistic in nature so it’s not “what do you want to make in your biz/career?” devoid of lifestyle, family, and other considerations. In other words, the elements that are important to us all.

The opportunity this brings is taking a look at what we really want and most value. You deserve to get paid what you’re worth. So, I want to share with you some of the secrets that I’ve learned from people who don’t have to compromise what they make in their business or income. People who haven’t compromise their health, lifestyle or good relationships to make what they’re worth.

1.Know your worth.

Charge what you are worth as an organization or negotiate your worth as a salary and don’t compromise. Are you willing to go somewhere else or work with different clients who don’t see that you are worth that amount? Not sure what it should be? Try this exercise recommended to me by my speaker coach Jane Atkinson.

Exercise: Write down all your education, experience, volunteerism, interests, courses, certificates, passions and anything else that makes you qualified, interesting, unique and fabulous. This unique package of greatness is what people invest in when they hire you. Consider: how much would I be willing to pay for someone with all of this? Write down a number. Read off the list to others and ask them the same thing. Knowing what your worth as a whole package (versus our limiting mindset of “there’s so many other equally or more qualified people than me out there”) helps you to stand tall in your fee or salary expectations and be willing to pass on opportunities that fail to align, creating space for the better fit to come along.

2.Top Level Performance.

Connie Podesta is a famous speaker in the U.S. who says, “I’m a 10 out of 10 speaker, that’s why I command the fees that I command. And sure, you could hire a two out of 10 speaker and pay less, but if you have your 10 out of 10 people you’re sending to the conference, why would you want to have a speaker that’s not also a 10?” Now, this is a woman who knows her worth! Love it!

And don’t you value the power of that statement of: “why wouldn’t you want to hire a 10?” Are you a 10? I’m assuming you are or darn close to it. If you perform at a 10, you deserve to work with other 10s, companies that are a 10, and do work that leverages your 10 talents. If you’re not stretched too thin by having so many clients and tasks that are well below your 10 status, you’re not staying top of your game. It’s better to earn a little more and work a little less, or if you’re in a situation where you’re not matched to that 10 team or organization, hold back a bit and give that to building a 10 out of 10 side hustle than keep giving your 10 in an environment not able to fully benefit from it.

3.Study the bottom line.

Getting paid what your worth may come first, but not letting it all go out the door is also important to consider. Have you ever thought “I’m doing pretty well” only to wonder where it all went at the end of the month? The temptation is, the more you make the more you spend. However, like any good business, you need to study those inputs and outputs on a regular basis (minimum monthly) and adjust accordingly. And, what do you have to take from that bottom-line to put toward your future?

Of course, the extreme of not studying and adjusting is that we go bankrupt or lose our business. Even if we’re not in that extreme position, worry about this can only hold you back. It gives you a mindset that you have fewer choices. We can get intimidated by our expenses or debt being so high that we feel we need to take any work and stay with clients or businesses that are a bad match. We feel trapped and stop demanding to be treated and paid what we’re worth. We had the misperception that we have no choice but in actual fact, we can adjust our habits and open up possibilities again. And it all starts with making good and consistent friends with our numbers.

4. Hang out with top performers.

Who do you spend your time with? Are they people who are living the lifestyle you want, earning what they deserve, know what they’re worth? Will they hold you accountable to do the same? They will say, “You deserve more than that“? Just as we spoke about you being a 10, hanging out with other 10s or those that can help you to perform at a 10 will help you stand tall in what you’re worth and learn the tricks from them as to how to do this consistently.

5.Know when to say no.

Know what you are not willing to compromise on. I learned early on I had to prioritize my decision-making criteria for my business or else I found myself saying “yes” haphazardly to work that didn’t feed my soul, bank-account or need to run a family-friendly business. I now filter all requests or potential work through six priorities (in this order of importance):

Priorities:

  1. Family-friendly fit (e.g., I can sleep in my own bed)
  2. Fits with my expertise & passion
  3. Pays what I’m worth
  4. I like the client/company (good alignment)
  5. I have capacity
  6. Opens the door to other possibilities

Let’s say someone wants me to go lower than my fee (which as you know by now valuing what you’re worth is a big deal to me and I hope for you too). I have to be sure it meets the first two priorities to a T and the rest as well. If it’s a charity of choice and they have no budget, but meets all the other criteria and I’m not capped out on my set number of charity speeches a year, that may be a yes whereas another charity that’s not on my charity of choice list and is far away from my family will likely be a no. Or let’s say it’s a company that will pay my fee but treats their staff badly and is only having me in as window-dressing, leaving my family behind for half a week to boot. Well, that also is likely a no. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of yeses, but every yes and every no are an important decision. I am not doing an organization or association any favours if I say yes just because of the money or yes to a lower fee feel resentful as that event rolls around.

Exercise: List all the criteria for making a decision to accept a client or company (or to stay with one). Then

I encourage you to look at what you’re making in your business, in your income, and ask yourself, “Am I happy with this?” If you’re super humble, consider if a career coach, your best friend or closest mentor would be happy with it. It’s great if you are. If you’re not, which of those five things could you work on so that you could get to that place where you are satisfied and content and deserving every penny of what you’re worth? And you ARE worth it. That is part of your greatness and people are lucky to have access to your greatness.

Know someone who needs to hear what they’re worth? Share on.

Four Ways to Connect Quickly: Having Conversations that Matter

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I’ve noticed a theme lately where people are asking, “How do we have more meaningful connections?”

Some theorize this is a backlash to Facebook and the “Gram” –  that people are just sharing the best face of their life to the world. Maybe I’ve just got the whole social media thing all wrong and I’m showing way too many warts and all. Really, I think we’re pointing our finger at the latest trend when actually we could be asking a more powerful question: “How do we have more meaningful connections?” That transcends trends and time.

We need to ask this question more than ever before. We are a distracted society. We’ve got our heads down checking our devices. We’re so busy that our attention is focused on the discussion about the most valuable commodity that we have today and that we are spending so much time in our cars, commuting to and from work, driving our kids to activities and just occupying our life that we’re not spending the time connecting with each other.

Yes!  There is an opportunity!

We can engage in meaningful dialogue, and build these relationships very quickly, even with perfect strangers. For those of us who are in business, we can find connections with people that potentially could be great clients through having a different approach to a dialogue. I mean, how many times has somebody asked you, “How’s it going?“, and you just say, “fine” or “good“, but you aren’t! Or if you are it still deflates a potential powerful connection opportunity.

When we engage in meaningful dialogue, where we seek to understand, connect and learn about the other person, we ask different questions than people having transactional dialogue. And that’s how you get noticed. These conversations are what people remember. You stand out because you cared just a little bit more. You are memorable because of what you discussed.

We’re not used to having these conversations though. When I coach entrepreneurs to have more meaningful conversations when they’re networking, conversing with a potential client or even in their personal lives, they’re worried they’ll come across as “nosy”, “pushy” and put people off. But consider this: do you like benign small talk? No way! Do you like realizing that you have something in common with a perfect stranger? Yes! So, what if you could make this connection at the same time it takes to have meaningless small talk? And what if it led to a cool new relationship, partnership or even a sale?

Consider this unique and great formula – “F.R.O.G.” (no not my normal FROG – Forever Recognize Others’ Greatness™) – this time it’s an easy to remember formula of the four areas that you can relate to just about anyone on. In fact, you can download a list of questions that fall under each of these four here.

F – Family & Friends

Family and Friends. If you ask or start a conversation inquiring about people’s family and friends, people are so much more interested in having that conversation. It could just be, “So, what are your kids into?” You may find within three shares back and forth that you have a lot of things in common.

R – Recreation

Recreation. What do you do outside of work, or what do you do for fun? What did you do when you were a kid? What would you do if you had a windfall of $10,000? There are all kinds of questions that allow you to connect on a human level, and to learn about what that person most values because that’s how they spend their very limited and precious discretionary time.

O – Occupation

Occupation, and not just “what do you do?” You can learn that from visiting someone’s LinkedIn profile. It’s more than that. What do you love about your job? Why did you choose that degree? Did you take a different career path? You’d probably learn something about their journey that would benefit you, but also, it’s questions that people don’t normally ask individuals, particularly as they’re networking and building relationships for the first time.

G – Goals & Passions

Goals and passions. What do you think will be the most important achievement that you will have in your career? Do you have anything on your bucket list that you want to accomplish this year? Whether somebody has a bucket list or not, they probably have heard of the concept and they can come up with something. Again, by understanding what somebody is super jazzed about, how cool would it be to have a conversation about that rather than the weather?

If you were to add a fifth area to build out some meaningful connection questions, what would it be? What is your favorite question to ask or be asked?

I hope that’s been helpful for you in having a conversational framework that you can plant in your head the next time you go to a networking meeting, meet new colleagues, in a sales meeting, or want to have a deeper, more meaningful connection. If you go to my website’s, Cool Stuff page, I’ve put together some questions underneath the F-R-O-G that you can put in your toolkit and effortlessly practice using those strategies.

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