If Starbucks Can Do it ... You can do it!

Hi Everyone,
I've been on hiatus for a couple of weeks .. some travel, and some other business. I'm back and will be more regular.

ReInvention is such a hot word. I get a google alert everyday about reinvention and it's chock full of all sorts of articles. I read about movie characters being reinvented, companies reinventing, individuals blogging about how they're reinventing their lives. It's wonderful. So, I started wondering even more why the word is so popular and why so many people are re-examining their lives or the cultures of their companies, etc.

It's not rocket science. Our world is in a whirlwind of challenge and change. We have wars, we have devastating earthquakes and tornadoes, we have a very volatile economy and many unemployed people. There is no certainty at all .. in anything. Even the wealthy are having to sacrifice and watch more carefully. Nothing can be depended on. No one escapes the effects of all this turmoil.

So, change becomes the issue. If things aren't working, then do something different. Period. I'll continue to stress that all the time.

I just saw an interesting article on Starbucks. During the last couple of years, they realized that their popularity wasn't where it once was. They needed to go back to the drawing board and consider the quality of their products, create new foods and flavors, begin a social media blitz. They reinvented a great deal. (You can read the whole article here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1955588,00.html)

So, what makes you any different than Starbucks. What do you have to stop doing or start doing that might make all the difference? Where would reinvention help you? Do you need to shift your attitude? Your career? Do you need to move locations? Do you need to commit to something? Take stock ... look around at your life.

I refer to our present life, at least for most of us, as remaining in the status quo. We do what we do, we don't spend too much time analyzing it, we DO spend time complaining about it. But, do we do what it takes to shift it into something we don't want to complain about?

I'll use myself here as an example. I speak professionally and I coach people. I've had different focuses over the years. Originally I started Humor University. I brought humor to the workplace (even wrote a book about it.) I continue to speak and to coach, but have transitioned quite a bit into this whole reinvention topic. I work with companies to shift their culture .. still bringing fun and happiness into the corporate environment. I work with individuals wanting to have some shift in their life. I run reinvention workshops. However, in this last one .. the workshops, I'm not attracting enough people. I hear people all around me saying how confused they are and how they want things to be different. But, when it comes to plunking down some cash to get into the workshop, they don't. So, I have to rewrite my brochures to be more compelling, or do more social media pushing or something. I have to get some advice on how to reinvent the reinvention workshop literature so that people are drawn to it. Maybe I'll even have to call it something different.

You see, it's about "tweaking." How do you tweak what you do all the time to continue to raise the bar? What does it take? If you're an entrepreneur you do that all the time. If you're a business, you do that all the time.

So, I ask you .. where in your life do you have to "tweak?" Where do you want to raise the bar? What do you want to be different? ANd, what's one step you can take today to begin to do that?

Happy ReInventing.
I welcome your comments.... especially on what you would call a reinvention workshop so that people would come.
Thanks, and happy weekend.
ann