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What Do You Do When You Feel The Heat?

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By Lindsey Tolino

We’re experiencing record-breaking heat in Raleigh this week. I like it warm, but triple digits is just too hot.

I get so irritated in the heat. Do you get like that? I bet many of us do.

Heat stresses my body. When I feel hot, I’m more likely to be short with people, cut them off and be impatient. Sometimes, things other than heat stress me out and I become just as irritated.

When we’re under stress, whether it be from heat or a mountain of bills, it seems that we’re more likely to snap at people and be task-oriented rather than people-oriented. This can be a dangerous place to live.

If we don’t force ourselves to slow down when we’re under stress, we’re more likely to burn bridges with the most important asset in our lives – people.

When we are stressed, we often need to do the opposite of what we want to do. For example, when we’re under financial pressure, we may want to put our heads down, get to work and do as we’ve always done to get our businesses back on their feet. But if we deny the stress and force ourselves to stop, look around and engage with others, we may discover a solution to our financial issues.

It’s essential that we listen to our “guts” in business. But when we’re experiencing stress, we may not be able to hear our guts over the loud hum of stress running in our brains. Furthermore, we know that stress keeps us from being creative. But when things aren’t going well, that’s when it’s most important to be creative.

The most valuable practice that’s helped me handle stress is similar to the CDC’s recommendations for dealing with extreme heat – first, get to a “cooler” spot. Then I can stop and breathe.

Once I relax, I’m able to think through the situation more clearly. I can question how much the heat/stress is affecting my current decisions. Is the stress driving my decisions or is solid reasoning? What could we do differently here?

When we feel the heat, we need to step back and find a cooler spot. Not only for the sake of our businesses, but also for those around us. When we’re stressed, it’s vital that we get to a cooler spot, so we don’t hurt anyone in the heat of the moment.

Though it’s only June, it won’t stay this hot forever. When it gets cooler, I don’t want us to regret any of the decisions we made in the heat.

Author’s Bio: Lindsey Tolino comes alongside artisans, craftsman and people monetizing their passions to help them craft healthy businesses. She shares her heart at ToBusinessOwners.com. Follow her on Twitter @LindseyTolino or connect with her on Google+.

Be a Human Super-Collider

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Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, made news recently when they announced that they expect to offer evidence of the existence (or non-existence) of the Higgs boson (or “God” particle) by the end of the year. Essentially, the “super-collider” smashes together particles at high speeds to see what happens when they collide.
large hadron collider

You can be a human super-collider.

Pay close attention to the people around you, their characteristics, dreams, businesses. Take mental note when someone shares their life experiences with you. Then when you see an opportunity to put two people together for their mutual benefit, do it.

When you proactively connect your connections, magical things will happen. Especially if you do it without any thought in mind of how it will benefit you.

How to Become a Human Super-Collider

Get very good at remembering names. Here’s a great article that will help you build that muscle and start connecting names to faces.

When you meet new people, find out what they’re up to. Don’t just go for the standard “what do you do,” think of interesting ways to draw out their long-term goals and dreams. Next time, try “what made you decide to go into [digital marketing/psychiatry/dog grooming]?”

Listen deeply and actively. Molly Cantrell-Craig wrote an excellent post about how to listen earlier this year.

Create a system for organizing information. You can use the notes section of your Address Book client, use the new LinkedIn Contacts app (they have a special spot for noting where you met someone), or try Evernote. As soon as you can, jot down some details about the person you just met. Bonus points if you remember to go back and read it before the next time you see that person again.

Don’t be afraid to introduce people. They may or may not hit it off, but you’ve just shown them both that you have their best interests in mind. Be sure to include the reason why you feel they should connect (do they have a mutual interest, are they going to the same conference, are their businesses complimentary). Here are some tips on the etiquette of introductions.

When you start consistently doing these things, you’ll start to see the magic of particle collision. Just don’t tell those folks in Switzerland.

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Image via Flickr CC: Image Editor

Not Speaking IS the New Black

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You might have heard the story of how I lost my voice at SOBCon 2011 and how I came to give the closing keynote without saying a word … even though at the moment we started my voice had come back. If not, you’ll find the story called how to turn a fail position to a win on successful-blog.com.

In the meantime, people have asked me to offer the text of those 27 pages so they might read them again and so that others might too. So here they are … with special dedication to @LisaHorner for more reasons than one.

Not Speaking IS the New Black
by the Event Whisperer and Friends

Can you see me?

Can you see each other?

Can you LISTEN with your eyes, and your mind, and …

(i love you) your (i love you) heart? (i love you) THAT MATTERS!

Can you see, feel, hear, taste, and touch your own brilliance … and …

the amazing brilliance inside each other?

People and stars are made of the same stuff!!

Leaders believe and act!

Leaders want to build something solid

strong and valuable

balanced to serve the customer and the company,

because without balance, we fall over.

Without each other, ideas are …

hollow, flat, and too flimsy to grow.

It’s the balanced foundation that LEADS to …

true innovation. ( <3 IRRESISTIBLE IDEA!) And it's the love of persuasion -> the fun and the meaning

that is influence, loyalty, TRUST.

Patrick Kidd and my dad taught me that

and each of you did too!

Thank you.

I’m blinded by the brilliance in this room.

believe then act.

[Thank you, @MarciaHansen, @gapingvoid, and Intel for the beautiful prints that embodied the spirit of SOBCon this year.]

Related:
How to Turn a #Fail Position into a #Win

Chitika – An Update from a SOBCon Sponsor

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Chitika LogoI have had couple of e-mail conversations with Jeff Sable of Chitika, and he asked me to share with all of you some of the new features of this service that have been incorporated since May.

Good morning. I would very much welcome an opportunity to introduce Chitika’s Premium ad program to the SOBCon audience. We have been known for years as a blog ad network but we were a strict product niche (i.e. we had product ad widgets for blogs that discussed products). With our Premium program we have significantly increased the advertiser base (we still have product ads but now we also have great ads for ALL blog sites) and we have improved our targeting technology.

The results? More money for more bloggers. Publishers with Chitika|Premium ads are seeing eCPMs are as high as $71 (averaging slightly higher than $2), with click through rates as high as 13.5% (averaging approximately 1.5%) and we now have high-performing advertisements for any type of web site (product sites and non-product sites in all verticals).

Note, Premium ads will only display to a portion of a blogger’s US traffic but when they display they perform very well. The ad units are available in 2 dozen sizes. For more information please visit Chitika or contact jeff at chitika dot com.

Thanks for the update, Jeff. I imagine that many of the attendees will be interested in this service as they work toward building their blogs into media properties.

A Word from Our Local Baker

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THC logo
When we launched our corporate site last year we had a clear vision of where we wanted to go and we understood pretty fast that we were not choosing an easy path. The web hosting industry is extremely competitive, but the competition was a secondary concern. This sounds hard to believe, especially since we promise to match any competitor’s price guaranteed, but the promise has more to do with our commitment to customer satisfaction than it has to do with fighting to becoming the most popular web host. We are not even aiming to go there, but we want to be bloggers’ first choice for web hosting.

Last year we read a lot about SOBCon and the fine bloggers who attend this extraordinary event. This year the event sounds even more promising and we are proud to be among the first companies to sponsor it. It simply makes sense for us to promulgate our corporate values by sponsoring excellence. If you take a look at our online history and read the numerous testimonials about our company, services and customer support, you will see that excellence is something we also strive for.

We host hundreds of websites and we carefully monitor their activities. There are many reasons why we do this and we can easily summarize the most important ones. We pledge to be a family safe web host – meaning that we will not allow mature content on our servers. We will also delete any website that promotes any type of questionable content without further recourse. These are serious concerns that help us maintain our integrity as a brand. However, when we monitor the sites we host the most rewarding experience is to learn from our customers, to grow with them and to promote their work if we can. This is how THC differentiates itself from other web hosting companies.

Our company philosophy is: to treat our customers with utmost respect, to create a bridge between our company and them, to offer room for real conversations and real relationships.

Do you remember the small neighborhood bakery where the cakes tasted better because the seller knew how to be a baker? Do you remember the little cookie he always kept aside for your child and do you remember the way he hand it out to your child with an open smile? He didn’t charge you more to be kind, did he? Besides, you always knew that if there was something wrong with the cake you bought, the baker would have solved the problem immediately. No false excuses. No extra charges. Well, THC is your local baker.