Have Fun with Great Friends

WholeLife Matrix: Relationships – The Importance of Friends / Time Together

 “As We Grow Up, We Realize it is Less Important to Have Lots of Friends, and More Important to Have Real Ones.”  — Unknown

Spending time with friends has many benefits because it can help to fulfill our social, emotional, intellectual and physical needs.  With friends, you can have discussions about common interests, do activities such as jogging or having a party, or discuss things that are happening in your life such as job changes, subjects on health, etc. These reasons probably account for why it has been found that people who have a good network of friends outlive those with few friends. Good friends provide support, help us to avoid or overcome depression and vices such as heavy drinking or smoking, and boost our self-confidence.  You don’t need to spend a whole lot of time with friends or to spend a lot of money to gain the benefits of having friends.  We offer some ideas on how to meet new friends and things you can do with them.  

Where to Meet New Friends
Sometimes, meeting new people can be a challenge, especially when you have moved to a new city where you don’t yet know anyone, or when you are busy. Meetup.com is a great way of meeting new people who have similar interests as you do.  It has business groups, groups for sports such as snowboarding, book clubs, groups for singles, etc.  Another way that you may meet new people is by taking a class you are interested in such as an acting class or a cooking class.

As we become busy with more commitments in life such as work and having a family, we may find that we have less time than we once did for spending time with friends.  So, it is important to schedule time in your calendar for spending time with friends, to nurture current friendships and to build new ones.  Over time, as we change and our interests change, we may need to make new friends who are similar and have similar interests.  Holidays and birthdays are also a great time to reach out to friends. 

If you are single, you might even find a significant other through your friends or through groups for friends. And if you already have a significant other, having friends can enrich your lives and can also give you breaks from each other when each of your see your friends separately.

In our modern world of technology, tools such as texting and social media make it easy to stay connected with people even when we are not physically with them. You can often see what a person is interested in or where they are with their life by looking at their social media profiles, and you can stay in touch by interacting on social media.  However, it does not replace meeting people face to face and interacting with them in person. 

To find activities to do with friends, find people who have similar goals as you do.  For example, if you have a dog that needs to be walked, you might find a friend who also has a dog that needs to be walked and you can walk your dogs together while having a conversation at the same time.

Below, are some ideas for things that you can do with friends:

Picnic
Having a picnic in the park lets people enjoy the outdoors.  You can do various activities outdoors such as playing Frisbee or board games. People can also bring their families. Many parks also host free concerts in the summer. The picnic can be a potluck. Everyone loves great food and having a potluck gives everyone a chance to contribute something to create a fun party with a variety of interesting dishes to try. 

Restaurants and Karaoke
Exploring restaurants with friends is fun and so is singing karaoke with them. For a less formal event, you can meet up with people at a local coffee shop such as Starbucks.

Organizational Party
On weekends, have an organizational party to help a friend clean out a room, closet, etc.  Trade items with each other and serve food.

Movie or Play
Seeing the latest movie with some friends can be fun and you also have something to talk about after seeing it.  You might also go to a school play and support your local community. Another idea is to trade movies and music with friends.

Sports
There are many sports that you can do with a friend or group such as tennis, hiking, biking, etc.

Explore a Town, Museum or Zoo
Visiting a museum or zoo can be a fun learning experience.  You can find out when the free days are. You might also go on a walking tour of your town or have a scavenger hunt where your friends need to find things in a city and receive prizes for finding them.

Volunteer
You can find various opportunities to volunteer in your community.  You might team up with your local senior center or YMCA.  By giving some of your time to others, you can help them and teach them new skills while you meet new people and make new friends, develop new sills and build self-confidence.

In the WholeLife Matrix, we have four aspects for developing friendships:

1.  One-on-One
2.  Large Groups
3.  Scheduling
4.  Spontaneity

Being with friends is essential to your well-being.  It can provide you with many benefits without costing you much and increase the joy in your life. 

Are you ready to win?

Vacation Plans

Matrix Key:  Health and Well-Being - Vacation/Time Off

"Vacations are necessities, not luxuries." - Linda Bloom

This probably isn't the first time that you've read about the importance of vacation and time off.  No one can function at a peak performance level without occasional rest and relaxation.  Time away from your business gives you the chance to adjust your perspective, to refocus on the big picture and less on the details that come up every day. The most important thing about vacation, however, is how it impacts your physical health, and your ability to contribute in all areas of your life - relationships, business and community. 

So why is it so hard to take vacation?  Remember our model of the table...each quadrant of the matrix is a table leg.  If we neglect our well-being, our table will fall.  If you're still not convinced, let's look at some of the key components, and outcomes, of time off:

1. Opportunity to Decompress
2. Beautification
3. Absence of Pressure
4. Time Away from the Daily Environment

So how do you make those vacation plans a reality?  You have to schedule them in your calendar and treat them as being as important as any board meeting. When you show up for vacation you'll get more than souvenirs to bring home...you'll get a fresh perspective that will help you to stay in the game of business and life.

Are you ready to win?     

Managing Lasting Relationships

“Treasure your relationships, not your possessions.” Anthony J. D’Angelo, The College Blue Book

Relationships are critical to maintain with family, friends, significant others, and your staff and colleagues. This is true for everyone including busy entrepreneurs. I dedicate this blog to David Anthony Ferrara “Dino”, who died on Saturday July 18, 2009 at the age of 44. Only 500 people (of the thousands who’s lives he touched) attended his funeral; these were family friends and business contacts with whom he’d been affiliated over the years. He was a truly successful person and entrepreneur. He helped build and sell a $30 Million company all the while:

1. Making plenty of time to spend with his kids: coaching their lacrosse teams, teaching them about charity and to care for others by volunteering at their church. He fed the poor and led bingo for the elderly at retirement homes. There were countless stories of how he’d hop on an airplane at the drop of a hat to help his brothers, cousins, aunts; anyone in his family who was in need.
2. Participating regularly at events that united his friends: he played golf annually with over 30 buddies he met in grammar, elementary and high school in Baltimore, in college at Bucknell, and during the years through other friends and family. He’d do things like drive out to the desert to play golf with a friend he hadn’t seen in a while and make it back in time that evening for his daughter’s lacrosse game.
3. Managing key relationships throughout his life with staff and colleagues: he went to college with Pete Henig who at the time was editor of Red Herring. Pete introduced Dino to Michael Schwab. Dino nurtured that relationship and was able to raise money for his company. His partner in the business was his grammar school friend David Boden and most of the employees were also either long time friends or became close friends.
4. Supporting his wife April. Their relationship was fun to watch. When you saw the two of them you could tell they were meant to be together. April, an entrepreneur herself, was looking to sell a catering business she’d built and had been running for years. She approached me to check it out and see if I would be interested in buying it. She had an event scheduled with a very influential client (Maria Shriver) to see how to run the business. My husband was out of town that day, and at the time my son was not even a year old. I didn’t have anyone to leave him with so Dino brought their two young kids up to my house to baby sit our kids, so April and I could work at the event. He’d do anything for her.

When you think of all the key elements of the whole life matrix, none is more important than your relationships. To be successful and to have it all, you need to make maintaining relationships your primary goal. Dino did. People were willing to introduce him to their cherished contacts because they knew he’d take care of them too. Though Dino died at very young age, he lived an incredibly full very successful life, and through his treasured relationships built a legacy.

Time Outs - Staying in the Game During Summer Vacation Season

“The one man team is a complete and total myth.” – Don Shula, Former Head Coach, Miami Dolphins

It’s that time of year again…everyone is taking their summer vacation and spending time away from the office. Everyone, that is, except business owners and managers who are afraid that things will fall apart if they leave.

At Possibilities Unlimited, we work with people to structure their businesses to run smoothly when they are not there. It doesn’t mean for a minute that the boss or owner is not important or indispensible. It means that any well-run business should be prepared to keep moving forward when the key players are not around. Having these strategies in place is necessary, not just for vacation season, but for emergencies and unpredictable circumstances.

Here are some key ideas for setting your business up for when you are not there:

Time is Everything: Your vacation has to be scheduled into the calendar. Your business projects have to be scheduled into your calendar. Your calendar will make it possible for you to take your vacation because you will have scheduled a time for everything that needs to happen while you’re gone. Production deadlines, accounting deadlines, sales reports, all these things need to be clearly mapped out in your calendar. Assign tasks to other people to be handled while you’re away, or reschedule the task for a time before or after your vacation. It really is that simple, as long as you have everything in your calendar and leave detailed instructions for your staff.

Written Production Procedures: Don’t leave your employees guessing as to what’s expected of them while you’re gone. Meet with employees and discuss written guidelines as to what they need to accomplish in your absence.

Inform Clients: Touch base with your major clients and let them know your schedule. Make sure they know who to contact when you’re not available. Address any concerns in advance as to projects that have delivery dates during your vacation.

Provide Backup: Make sure your employees know who is handling your duties in your absence. Clearly define the interim responsibilities and reporting structure. Your business coach is an excellent resource for questions and concerns while you are away. A good coach can provide support to keep departments functioning at peak performance.

Enjoy!: You are no good to your business or your family if you are too focused on one or the other. Everyone needs time away, time to refuel and time to rest. It’s often in those down times that inspiration happens. Your business coach can steer you away from overwhelm at the thought of taking time for yourself to confidence that your team has got you covered.

We all have different ideas of what “having fun” means. A winning business allows for vacations and having fun within a structure of established procedures and timelines.

Are you ready to win?