I’m in the backyard all the time: picking up toys, pulling weeds, playing catch, etc. But just sitting? It has been too long.

I’m also doing a good bit of thinking and noticing. And I’m enjoying part of my property that is always there but not always fully utilized.

The bulletin is obvious: what haven’t you made time to do that you ought? What area or space in your life have you ignored for too long?

Today do it. Go there. Enjoy.

You might not think that is significant, but consider: I wouldn’t be blogging about him if he looked like everyone else. And I wouldn’t have made it a point to notice his truck and signage.

Style is important; not more important than substance, but still important. Done right it gets you noticed in the right way, differentiates you from your competitors and enhances your brand. (Do it wrong and you come across as strange.

In The Art of Living, Epectitus says, “Wherever you find yourself and in whatever circumstances, give an impeccable performance.” That is an underlying theme in my books The Fred Factor and The Encore Effect. Performance isn’t, however, just about what you do, but how you look while you’re doing it. Style differentiates.

Whatever you do, do it with style.

I called four tree trimmers found online. One never called back. Three returned my call. Two got my address, came by and left a quote.

But one guy wouldn’t do that. “Don’t you want to know who’ll be doing the work on your trees? he  asked.

Ah, well…didn’t seem critically important to me, but he made me pause so consider. I agreed to meet with him.

Mark Mortenson showed up exactly on time (good start). We walked around the property. He explained things to me. He made notes. Great…now all I needed was a quote.

Not so fast.

“Is there a place we can sit and talk?” We located on the patio and he pulled out a three ring binder. He explained that he was an arborist (were the other tree trimmers?) He explained how one got that certification and flipped to the pages in his binder that contained his scores and certification.

Next he showed me the proper licenses needed to operate in my county.

Then it was on to the copious photos of work he’d done (before and after). He also had a bunch of current thank you and testimonial letters.

In the process I got a crash course in trees. It was quite interesting, actually.

At the end he gave me his bid. It tied with another guy for the highest of the three.

He got the business. It is one thing to be good, another to claim to be better than the competition and yet a third to be able to prove you’re better. Mark did just that.

Did I try to negotiate? No. Instead I shared my philosophy: “I could ask you for a better price, but you strike me as an honest person. You might take less but when you come to do the work, I want you to do the best job possible. You’ll know I didn’t nickel and dime you and my hope is that will be an incentive to do an even better job.”

By the way, Mark is a Gypsy Jazz musician. I wasn’t familiar with that type of music until I went online and listened to his band. Its good stuff.

I had one person with a direct connection to executives at Air Canada respond immediately (I did not need to make use of those connections). I had a friend in Canada weigh in with his experiences with Air Canada. And I got a phone call from a speaker buddy who was working in Canada and willing to use her connections there to help. In sort, I got great assistance very quickly.

Social media has many benefits, but the ability to get the right information from the right people quickly is key. Sincerely and prudently asking for help (but yes, it can be overdone) is a powerful tool in the new age of connectivity.

Connectivity. I just used the word because it is part of our vocabulary. But sometimes is sounds a bit sterile. We have an older word for the same thing. It applied before there was an internet and it applies today. Only the technology has changed. The word is community.

Community is about personal connection and people who care helping when they can. And that’s what makes social media great.

I was reminded of something I learned long ago: travel is good for the soul. It is also good for the brain, too. I’d read about different stories and locations in the bible since I was a child, but visiting those actual places provided a rich context I could never have achieved otherwise. From the Sea of Galilee to the Jordan River to the Kidron Valley to the City of David, I was continually impressed and awed with how little we really know until we get out into the world.

Of course it isn’t just about geography. You can have an opinion about Israel, but until you’ve met and talked with the people who live there, you are missing important pieces of the intellectual puzzle. Someone once observed that we don’t see things are they are, but as we are. It is advisable to re-examine perceptual filters when traveling lest you filter out information and insights that don’t fit your pre-existing ideas.

I’ve traveled in a manner highly organized (as this trip was) and also made up an itinerary as I went along. I’ve found that for return on investment of time, an organized agenda enables you to see and learn more. The big benefit of going with the flow is the unexpected gem that you can find as a result. I’ve had a bit of a readjustment creating my own agenda now that I’m back (although “catching up” has provided me plenty to do…)

I hope you get a chance to travel this summer, locally or internationally and by whatever means possible. Think of it as soul enrichment.

In my book The Encore Effect I tell the story of how I became interested in getting my pilot’s license by watching legendary Bob Hoover fly an air show in Dayton, Ohio. The kind of flying done by pilots like John and Bob is the ultimate product of preparation, practice, performance and polish.

1. All progress requires change but not all change is progress.

2. The easier the change was to create, the less important it was.

3. It is rarely if ever “back to normal.” Leaders know it is “forward to normal.”

4. Reactive and proactive are usually less practice than interactive; interact with the forces you don’t control to create the changes you desire.

5. If you aren’t making some people mad, you’re not leading change.

6. Followers fear the process of change more than the change itself.

7. We are more empathetic to how change affects us than we are to how it affects others.

8. Effective leaders couple key behaviors with the words they use about change.

9. Change needs to be sold, but that doesn’t mean that it should be made optional.

10. The ability to change faster than your competition is even more important than your ability to change.

Most think of preparation at work, but what about your personal life? Truth is transferrable. Principles don’t change with time, culture or context but with application.

Having a cookout for family and friends? Prepare by finding a new recipe for marinade rather than using the same recipe you’ve used for years.

Going on vacation? Use Facebook or some other social networking media to get ideas about interesting things to do at your destination.

Attending a party and looking forward to meeting someone you know who will be there? Google them and find out where they went to school and other non-intrusive information that will make for good conversation.

Preparation doesn’t only increase effectiveness, it increases enjoyment too.

Flexibility is the ability to adapt and switch tactics and agility is about the speed and ease with which you do. They are the opposite of rigidity of thinking which seems to me much more common. Ralph Waldo Emerson didn’t say (and he is commonly and erroneously quotes) that a foolish inconsistency was the hobgoblin of little minds; he said the hobgoblin was a foolish consistency.

When we react to anything–at home or at work–automatically, we bypass the chance for switching tactics which might have won the metaphorical battle or at least improved the outcome.

It is far too easy to live life on a kind of auto-pilot, and while that may save a little effort, it diminishes the journey.