HOPSON POTTER BUSINESS

Excellent customer service providers are in tune with the emotions of the people they deal with through awareness and empathy. They’re proficient at handling conflicts, and they have the ability to maintain positive attitudes while engaged in their work. However, a continual barrage of negative customer interactions can be a reality within the role of service providers, and they can cause what is commonly called emotional labor.

Arlie Hochschild, author of The Managed Heart: Communication of Human Feeling, defines emotional labor as displaying a set of emotions that differ from the emotions the service provider is currently feeling. Based on this definition, people in service jobs who are acting differently than they are feeling can experience high doses of emotional labor which can cause stress, fatigue, and diminished impulse control.

Service providers deal with a higher level of stress no matter what product or service they provide due to the fact that customer interactions are always fueled with many types of emotions.

Stress is a physical reaction that you experience when you cannot cope or have difficulty dealing with a negative or threatening situation. Due to the direct connection between a service provider’s role and stressful situation, learning how to understand, manage, and reduce stress becomes an important skill to master.

In the book Stress Management for Dummies, author Allen Elkin cites:
• 7 out 19 people felt stress at some point on a typical workday.
• People reported that they lost their temper an average of 5 times a month.
• Many people reported that stress contributes to doing things they regret later.
• About 5% of those asked said stress was preventing them from enjoying their lives.

People under stress tend to be more on edge and will erupt more quickly and violently, increasing their number of conflicts with people in general.

Extreme stress saps your energy because your body is functioning in emergency mode. Stress tightens your muscles, impacts your breathing and the flow of oxygen to your vital organs, and it can cause sleep to be difficult. High stress can put a strain on many of your bodily functions and can lead to high blood pressure, ulcers, and heart attacks. It can become a vicious cycle. Obviously, reducing stress can have many health benefits as well as making your life more enjoyable and rewarding. It is important to identify what pushes your buttons and produces stress in your life. Identifying your stress producers is the first step in effectively managing and reducing stress.

In order to effectively manage stress, you must build or increase your tolerance for stress. Stress management is your ability to deal effectively with adverse events and stressful situations without falling apart. Having a positive outlook on new experiences and change is also important. Plus the ability to stay calm and maintain control in stressful situations is a large part of building an increased tolerance level. People who excel at stress management tend to face crises and problems head on with a positive attitude rather than surrendering to feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and self-doubt.

The first step is to understand where the stress is coming from or what events are activating the stressful feelings you are experiencing. Check out next week’s blog for more on reducing and eliminating stress.

“America is addicted to the war of distraction.” Barbara Ehrenreich

“I have wandered all my life, and I have also traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.” Hilarie Belloc

“Happiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions.”

“By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.” Christopher Columbus

“To choose art means to turn one’s back on the world, or at least on certain of its distractions.” Melvin Maddocks

The biggest thing that holds many people behind from accomplishing what they want to get out of life is the simple concept called distractions. Distractions are some of the hardest things to control in life but the people who know how to manage them the best are the people that have better luck of getting their wealth, success and desires in life.

A good example of a distraction is about a person who always drinks a glass of wine everyday with dinner but they also want to lose weight.

By the end of the week every glass of wine they have consumed adds up to another day’s worth of calories. If they really want to get to their goal of losing weight then they will find a way to manage their distraction of their addiction and the presence of everyone else consuming wine at dinnertime.

Just think about how much more you can get done if you find a way to cut down your distractions due to the time created from cutting those distractions out. The most successful people plan out their success and apply their imagination in a timely roadmap ahead of them and this roadmap can be much more efficient if all of the distractions are successfully avoided.

The hardest part of getting to success is balancing things in your lives and finding a way around these distractions because after all distractions are EVERYWHERE and happen ALL THE TIME! It does sound very annoying but it is the truth that the distractions will always be there right in your face but it is only up to you in creating a strategy to avoid them and get to your desires in a much more efficient and timely fashion.

Successful people find ways to get around the distractions and eventually find a way to avoid them altogether.

One of the ways to do it is to find a passion and a burning desire that you really want in your life and since your desire will be so strong it will overpower all of the distractions. Another way is to always have a high sense of urgency in order to get to your goals and when your urgency is high nothing will be able to get in the way of it.

The more you practice at what you want to do with your life, then the better you will get at developing a schedule that will flush out each and every one of these distractions by committing yourself to a planned schedule to practice what really matters in your life which is your desires, your success, your happiness, your health and your wealth!

Always try to find places to practice and plan out your life that are away from most distractions that can throw you off track. Always work in an area and around other people who are motivated to get to their success and fly around the distractions. This is why you should do things and hang around with people that will help you get to your success rather than hinder your success because you will find less distractions with people who really want something out of life!

It is also to pick a few important goals that you want to accomplish out of life and focus on one or a couple that are manageable at a time instead of cramming them all together and then all of the duties for each goal will end up becoming a distraction towards the other goals. This is why it is important to pick your passion that the voice inside of you is telling you to do and run with it and then no distractions or other duties will get in your way!

This is why famous artists became wealthy and famous because they listened to their voice inside of them that was telling them to express themselves in their art or music! They listened to that voice only and committed themselves to it by practicing, listening to their voice and desire and making it cancel all other distractions out, being creative and building their platform and brand that the public begins to recognize, trust and adore that has generated them millions of dollars of income through their publicity to promote their own creative brand through their art or music which builds their platform.

So while distractions may be everywhere and hard to ignore sometimes just remember to think back about what you learned from this article and then you will realize how to become the master of distraction management and land in the top five percent wealthiest percent of the United States population where many of them worked hard to manage their distractions and invest their time wisely to getting to their success by listening to their voice inside, having strong desires, and using their imagination to make their very own brand become a famous image and an income generating magnet through either their entertainment, innovations or network marketing business.

I consider paper to be clutter, especially when it is unsolicited. But we must deal with a certain amount of paper on a daily basis. Here are a few ways to keep from getting overwhelmed:

Filing

- Setting up and maintaining a simple, effective filing system saves an untold amount of time because you know exactly where to find items you need.

- If you are a visual person, consider using different colors of file folders for different categories.

- Prevent eye strain by using the same file tab for one category. For example, use the left tab on orange files containing potential clients and the paperwork associated with each one.

- Don’t over-categorize or get too detailed – it’s too much to remember. If you must have large quantities of files, make a one-page list of your files and where they are.

- Keep frequently used files within arm’s length of your desk chair.

Store less-used files farther away. If you must archive files for a certain number of years, consider putting them in storage.

- If reports, statements, etc. can easily be found online, don’t keep paper copies.

- File ongoing projects in a hanging file. At the end of the day, deposit work into that file, clearing your desk. Make a list of projects and work to be done the next day, so it is not forgotten or overlooked.

- Keep a “pending” file for those items without closure. Set aside specified time to file so it doesn’t get out of hand. Multi-task by filing when you are on hold or when having a casual conversation or when your brain needs a mental break.

Mail, Bills and Banking

- Deal with mail when you receive it – RSVP, file it, toss it, pay it, recycle it, shred it, etc.

Try to touch it only once.

- Have one place where you keep your unpaid bills in the order in which they need to be paid.

- Do your bill-paying and banking online whenever possible, reducing time and paper clutter. It is not necessary to keep bills once they are paid, if they are not needed for taxes. Keep the last one, so you have a handy record of your account number in case you need it.

- Get checks that make a duplicate each time you write a check, so you don’t have to record it in the check register.

- Have one place where you keep items that need attention (school papers that need to be signed, invitations, directions, etc.) – a central hub. Consider having a section for each family member to house their important papers.

Reduce the Paper Coming into your Home or Office

- When you receive a new catalog or magazine, recycle or give away the old one. If you don’t have time to read the periodicals or newspapers you are receiving, cancel your subscription.

- If there is an article you want to keep, tear it out and slip it into a page protector in a designated binder. Then toss the magazine or newspaper. If you place a piece of paper in the page protector, you’ll be able to use both sides. If necessary, create different binders for the categories that interest you. Your material will be nicely categorized and easy to find, rather than leafing through piles of magazines.

- Ask to be removed from mailing lists. The following allow you to opt out of unwanted catalogs, phone books, and credit card offers:
- Catalog Choice (catalogchoice.org/)
- Yellow Pages Goes Green (yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/stop-yellow-pages/)
- Opt Out Prescreen (optoutprescreen.com).

Even though life is filled with paper, you can prevent it from overwhelming you by handling it quickly and efficiently.

Pain is a common health problem, which afflicts 50% of people around the world at any given time. However, even though acute and chronic pain can both be debilitating, chronic pain is one of the major causes of mental and physical disability, commonly misdiagnosed and inappropriately treated.

Pain sufferers frequently feel frustrated and depressed and consider their lives as an endless misery.

Pain is an unpleasant, emotional, and sensory experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage.

Pain is not a just a mere perception or a one-dimensional entity but a multidimensional complex problem with many attributes. Acute and chronic pain can happen to any person of any age or gender.

Chronic pain is a multifaceted medical problem that affects all aspects of a person’s life. Patient involvement and education are important components of a pain management program.

We know that there are physiological shifts in chemicals that bring about some changes in the nervous system and the brain. This in turn leads to changes in the neurotransmitters that perpetuate the pain. We feel in some ways that the nervous system can only generate pain instead of the usual mixture of discomfort and pleasure. And we are not really sure why this happens to some people and not to others, although, we know for sure that emotions and stress play a role in this.

Most experts define chronic pain as pain that continues beyond two months. In actuality, chronic pain is determined more by our response to pain.

When most of our waking hours are spent trying to control or endure the pain, when we cannot work any longer because of it, when our relationships are torn apart by the stress of it, we have developed the chronic pain syndrome.

Patients are often frustrated with the way doctors treat them. Nevertheless, they need the expertise of a doctor to make the right decisions regarding treatment.

The first thing you need to find out on your way to recovery is to find out what kind of pain you have and to find the right health care provider.

A physician who has a comprehensive knowledge of pain and empathy would be the best choice. Many specialists are well trained in techniques of pain treatment, but if they do not really understand what you are going through as a person, you are missing out on a vital element in your recovery.

Once you have found the right health care provider, get your pain under control. Get into physical rehabilitation to recover your functional abilities. If need be, utilize some support aids.

Use some type of communication therapy, like counseling or group therapy, to help you get over the emotional scars left by the pain.

Then, get back to work or at least go back to doing the things you used to enjoy.