GETTING INTO THE FLOW IS OK, JUST DON'T LET IT KILL YOU

Sometimes I do get caught up in work, plunging ahead at a feverish pace. At times like these, I do hardest thing in world for me - I force myself to take a day off and do absolutely nothing. Surprisingly, work still gets done somehow, often ahead of schedule.

By taking time out to recharge your mental, emotional and creative batteries, you can produce even more of value and worth. Even if results aren't apparent immediately, you're not idle. Your brain is working in background and your creative imagination is actually more stimulated by not being distracted by "busyness" -- part of negative legacy of Puritan work ethic. And have you ever noticed how similar words "business" and "busyness" are?

LAZINESS IS TRULY THE FOUNTAINHEAD OF CREATIVITY

If you take some time to deliberately distance yourself from busyness of typical day, your subconscious creative mind can forge ahead unfettered. One of expressions I hate most from business world is, "Keep your head down and your tail up." What crap! Busyness will keep you from tapping into your creative potential. Don't feel you have to prove something by always appearing busy.

Remember Parkinson's Law? "A task will always expand to fill amount of time available for its completion." The contrapositive of that might go like this: "A task will take only as long as amount of time allowed for it."

So go ahead, give yourself a well-earned day off. What did your mother always say to you when you got so busy in house you were driving her crazy? "Go out and play." Have fun. You'll be more creative, more successful, more prosperous.

To customer, it indicates that you care about obtaining and retaining their business. To employee, training indicates that you are willing to make an investment in them and future of company. Even though you are asking them to accomplish more, you are willing to give them something in return - training to enhance their skill set so that they can serve customer better.

Lest you think this is totally self-serving, I will let you know why I do what I do; it is a sincere passion for customer experience and joy of watching an employee blossom when given tools to do job. Both of excuses listed above have same net effect - customers are poorly served and employees remain demoralized and unmotivated.

Good training produces guaranteed quantifiable benefits. If your training has not done that then you need to find a training provider that will measure effectiveness and guarantee results - WOW!

Carol Verret and Associates, offers training and consulting services to the hospitality industry in the areas of sales, marketing and customer service. Carol's latest training product is a comprehensive customer service system, ResultsWOW. Learn more about her services, at http://www.carolverret.biz.