Team Building & The Magic Guitar

You know, I haven’t written a blog post in over 6 months!

Wow.

Truthfully, I love to write, but blogging had turned into something I began to dread.

I think it was because I was worrying too much about length, headlines, keywords, message to market match and all that stuff that can be helpful and (sometimes hurtful) all at the same time.

You ever feel like you’re trying so hard to just do everything right, that you forget to be yourself and you lose all the fun in doing?

One of my friend’s Mahara Tucker says, “If you’re not having fun doing it, you’re probably not going to be doing it for very long.”

I think that’s a great secret to success.

Maybe there’s something to be said for throwing all the mechanics out the window from time to time, and just enjoying the process.

So, here goes.

I wanted to share something with you that happened in my family yesterday that turned out to be a very valuable lesson that I think can apply to home business and just in working with successfully with groups in general.

Saturday we returned from a weeklong camping trip where we had tons of fun.

Here’s a quick little video from our escapades…

In any case, Sunday morning rolled around and some of us (I’ll not say who —> plead the 5th right? 🙂 ) had a definite case of the grumps.

2 of our family of 6 were in great moods, smiling smiles and singing songs as we all got ready for church, but there were others that seemed to have definitely got up on the wrong side of the bed.

I get a lot of great compliments from people online telling me what a great dad I am and I always have to smile and say in a whisper, “Yeah, that’s because you only see my highlights.”

In any case, the day developed and the lost shirts, socks & shoes transformed into screams, argument and discord throughout the rest of the day.

Finally, as we were sitting around in the living room as a family to say our nightly prayers, ready to put ourselves and the day to bed, a thought bubbled up.

I asked my kids if they knew how many strings a guitar had.

6 they responded.

That’s right.

And how many people are in our family?

6 came the reply.

Do you know what happens when you press certain strings in the right way and play all 6 to form a chord?

“Yes, it sounds nice.”

And what happens if 1 of those strings is out of tune, how does it sound then?

“Terrible, they shouted back.”

That’s right family.

If each of us, are in tune, and playing the best sound we can, together, we can make beautiful music, together.

But if one of us is off, it affects the whole group, just like it did today.

And as I sat there thinking of the profoundness of the thought, a stinky smell arose in air and the boys burst out in laughter realizing that one of their brothers had just disrespected the moment with what seems to be a fairly common occurrence in a house of 4 boys.  🙂

We said our prayers, put the boys to bed and I continued to ponder the lesson that felt like it had come as a gift to my family.

As with most lessons, the teacher seems to be the one who receives the greatest benefit.

So even though my kids might not have gotten the full impact, yet, I think they will in the future.

One of my friends Kevin Nelson has a saying, “If it’s not  harmony, it’s harming me.”

I shared that with my boys as they drifted off to sleep.

Often times in home business, we are so eager to make the sale, or make an impression, or build the big team we forget that sometimes, there might other things to consider (in the big picture), along with making the sale and getting the commission.

Maybe it’s OK, to under promise and talk about principles that you hold near and dear to your heart, in your marketing, versus just following the crowd with big fast money claims and using sales techniques and bonuses that close the highest number of sales all the time.

Maybe, for the sake of harmony, peace and happiness in your life, some sales might be better off left unclosed.

Maybe for the sake of living a life that makes you happy, conversion rates are not the ultimate standard of how effective your marketing is.

Maybe, if you have someone in your life that is consistently making the song of your soul off key, it’s ok sacrifice the commission and kindly ask them to leave.

“If it’s not harmony, it’s harming me.”

Very wise words from a very wise soul.

Thanks for those Kevin Nelson.

What say you?

To your freedom,

Paul Hutchings