January 2007

The Business of Design: A Vision For the Future
Nancy J. Slater

Like it or not the New Year is here and the first month is nearly over. Hopefully your New Year’s Resolutions are in place and are an inspiration rather than a detraction. I hope you have your Valentine’s Day holiday program in the final planning stages and your specials are all planned and your product ordered. Don’t look now but that red heart is tumbling down the hill toward you at a rapid pace.

As members of the floral industry we are definitely visual people whether we are visualizing the fields planted and in bloom, the trucks loaded, the product unpacked and ready to distribute, the retail showroom displays, or the floral design about to be created. We are visual people. Our business sense and/or our hands bring that vision into reality. Being visual is one of our many gifts and talents.

My question is, “What is your vision for 2007?” Have you even thought that far? It is a well known fact that you cannot progress forward without a clear sense of direction and destination. That requires some thought, planning and visualization. Where you want to go? What you want to be? How you are going to get there? Many articles have been written and courses taught on visualization. One instructor said that not having a vision or a goal was like driving down the freeway at midnight at 80 MPH with your headlights off. We knew we were going someplace very fast, but just didn’t know where.

I recently read an article in the September 2006 issue of Money Magazine, called, “Road Trip to Riches” by Ryan D’Agostino. The title caught my eye and as I read further into the article I was struck by the shear simplicity of it all. Mr. D’Agostino drove through several of the richest zip codes in the country, knocked on doors and asked the residents to share the secrets of their successes. How did they come to live in Westport Connecticut, Paradise Valley Arizona, or the famous 98210 of Beverly Hills? After all the interviews were reviewed, the apparent success of the wealthy was a result of two lessons……only two lessons.

According to Mr. D’Agostino Lesson 1 is “Make your own luck”. He writes about interviewing a retired character actor, married to an actress, who decided to open a mystery book store. He wanted to be successful and wanted to offer something different so he dedicated a corner of the book store to books that had been made into movies. He spread the word throughout his network of friends and associates in the industry and soon the “Hollywood A list” was shopping in his store. The bookstore owner, was quoted as saying, “If I made a list of all the things in life I thought were coincidences and then looked back at them, I would see that they weren’t coincidences at all.”

British researcher Richard Wiseman wrote that lucky people …”are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophecies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms back luck into good.” I think the key words in this sentence are self-fulfilling prophecies and positive expectations. Have you notices that the ‘Oh Woe is Me’ crowd are rarely lucky at anything?

Wiseman did an experiment in which he asked a group of people to count the number of photos in a newspaper. On page two of the paper he had inserted a sentence that said, “Stop counting---there are 43 photographs in this newspaper.

Wiseman observed that the lucky people quickly saw the message while the “unlucky people, whose minds are closed to such signs, missed it completely.”

Interviewer D’Agostino also observed that the successful people were willing to treat others well. The book store owner was warm and kind, not because he wanted you to buy books, but because that is who he is. Another person made his fortune selling tax free bonds while earning very little commission. He gave each client hours of research and attention hoping that when the economy got better his clients would remember is service. This paid off when the market turned around in 1974 and those clients were ready to buys stocks…..lots of stocks.

Lesson 2: “Have a Growth Mind-Set”. Mr. D’Agostino used Arthur Tauck, chairman of Tauck World Discovery, as an exceptional example of growth mind set. He decided that using his helicopter skiing business to bring senior citizen tourists into mountain areas during the summer would not only help his business, but help the lodges that normally close during the non snow season. The success of this revolutionary idea lead him to other unusual tours that made him even more successful.

Carol Dweck, a psychologist and professor at Stanford University stated, “The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.” According to her, successful people believe that “failing at something is the best way to insure success the next time.” These are people who have “growth mind-sets”.

So my question to you again is, “What is your vision for 2007?” When you look in the mirror do you see someone with spunk and drive, someone who thinks of himself or herself with positive phrases and thoughts, someone who know that they will never give up or never quit learning. Is that who you see? Or do you see wrinkles and baggy eyes, a double chin and a frown? Do you belittle that reflection in the mirror because of a past failure? Do you see someone with a bag of problems so heavy they have to haul them around in a wagon?

We are an industry of vision and to be successful in this industry, no matter in which area we work, we must be able to dream. We must be able to visualize what we want that is different and better than what we have. We must be able to encourage not discourage ourselves and those around us. We can indeed make 2007 a jumping off point for our fantastic future.

How can we do that? One step at a time. We begin where we are. Pastor Casey Treat once said, “We don’t have to be old to be wise.” He also said, “The hardest thing to learn is something we already know.”

The first step is to know where you are and then determine where you want to be. Make a list of ten things that inspire you with excitement and passion. Then work that list or some of that list into your vision of your future. Make your future a result of planning, purpose and choices. A future of accidents and coincidences is a result of letting things happen to you instead of being in charge of your life.

Once you see your vision on the inside then say your vision on the outside. Say it out loud. Announce that you are “going back to school” or “taking a class” or “reading more books” or “practicing positive thinking” or…..whatever you have decided is a step toward your successful future. I write messages to myself with my lip liner pencil on my bathroom mirror. This process is more than just making New Year resolutions. This is a life changing process of evolving from just existing to living a full and successful life.

This is how successful businesses are established and maintained. It takes a positive attitude and an ability to create a clear vision of what you want. Take an inventory of what worked well for your business in 2006 and decide to expand those methods. Make a list of what didn’t work so well and determine what changes are necessary for success. Don’t beat yourself up. Just be thankful you learned such valuable lessons from some things that didn’t work.

Our vision is an individual thing and can be corrected with some 20/20 attitude change or eye drops containing positive attitude. A sense of where we want to go keeps us from stumbling or tapping into the air with a stick.

Creating a vision or visions is an ability I urge all of you to perfect. Creating a vision is not just day dreaming. It is planning for your future and you are worth the planning time!

There are two articles in the September 2006 Money Magazine that I recommend you read. They can be found on www.CNNMoney.com under the archive search. “Road Trip to Riches” by Ryan D’Agostino and “Have You Got What It Takes to Be Rich?” by Josh Hyatt.

Happy New Year and Happy Vision in 2007!