by Heather T. | Feb 17, 2026 | Blog, Non-profit, Nonprofit, volunteers
This is Part Three in the Small Thank You for Volunteers post series. Don’t forget to check out Part One and Part Two.
Being a volunteer opens up a world of new opportunities to learn new skills. Many years ago, I organized a project with over 100 volunteers. I’d wrangled smaller groups before, but this was my first large-scale project. I learned what worked well (and what didn’t) and I’ve since applied those skills to many other projects, both paid and volunteer.
Support and Development:
Offer professional development workshops and training; there are many free and low-cost opportunities that nonprofits can take advantage of. Offering these to volunteers not only can help with their own personal development but can also be a plus and strategic for the nonprofit. If you have some dedicated volunteers who are eager to learn and might be interested in learning more about marketing for example, or fundraising, those skills can only further benefit the NP. Appreciation should always be the primary motivation but it doesn’t hurt to look at the additional benefits.
Share job openings in your org first, volunteers may be volunteers because they are between jobs, may have life changes that need additional income or may just have extra time on their hands and want to put money towards something else, like retirement or other funding. Similar to hiring employees from within, your volunteers already know the organization, and if they are not interested, their network of friends or family might be interested. Caveat. If you hire a volunteer, make sure they are aware and okay with the fact that expectations may change, as well as how others view them. Volunteers sometimes get a different degree of respect from others, and how people may deal with them may be different as an employee versus as a volunteer.
Write LinkedIn recommendations. If people in the workforce plan to change jobs, LinkedIn recommendations can boost their professional standing. Business owners also benefit, as others typically view philanthropy favorably.
Invite them to staff trainings, similar to offering professional development workshops; it helps to increase their own skill sets, which can also benefit your NP.
Ask them to mentor new volunteers. Mentoring others is a great way to learn new skills. Giving them the tools to do it well helps both themselves, the mentee, and, of course, the NP.
Encourage public speaking opportunities. They say people fear public speaking as much, if not more, than death. I don’t know if I agree, but I think it comes a fairly close second. In a decade of being a member of Toastmasters, I saw hundreds of people conquer their fear of public speaking, which, when they started giving speeches, completely terrified an awful lot of them, myself included. Just like giving them some tools to be an excellent mentor, offering to sponsor a year of Toastmasters or another public speaking program doesn’t have to cost a lot, and can help volunteers overcome anxiety and fear.
Let them lead a session or workshop. Your volunteers typically have a wealth of untapped skills that a NP doesn’t know about, much less take advantage of. Having a good onboarding program can help you get a handle on their skill sets and knowledge. You could gear a class or workshop towards other volunteers, employees, the general public, or members (if your NP has membership options). If a volunteer has the knowledge but has a fear of speaking, this is a great opportunity to encourage them to experience public speaking training. Most public speaking training helps build self-confidence, not just training public speaking skills, so it’s fantastic for shyer people who have a lot of potential.
Offer mock interviews. Interviewing both as the interviewee and the interviewer is a learned skill. You may have volunteers who are job hunting or who are hunting for employees. Offering a safe space to learn and get constructive feedback on both being interviewed and the interview process is helpful on multiple levels. Just like leadership, no one is born being a great interviewer/interviewee.
Give personalized letters of reference, similar to recommendations on a LinkedIn profile. These can be very helpful to someone who is currently in the workforce, whether they are currently job hunting or could be job hunting in the future. As someone who vets people sent to me by friends and clients who ask me to research potential employees, and having talked to recruiters who also agree; a person who has gaps in work history but spends that time volunteering in the interim scores a lot higher. Offering a testimonial quote for their website (if they have a business) is also very helpful from the business owner’s perspective, as it helps promote their philanthropy.
Including them in other staff or board events also helps volunteer buy-in. Some examples are asking for input on new programs, asking for ideas on fundraising, inviting them to planning meetings, asking if they would like to be on a volunteer advisory board (with the caveat you will listen to ideas from them and implement the good ones and not have it be a sham committee), ask them to help interview new volunteers, listen and give them a voice in policy changes that affect the nonprofit.
For some fun buy-in, let them design or help design a t-shirt for the nonprofit, interview them and feature their stories on your website and social media, encourage them to submit photos, blog posts, and articles.
And last but not least, two things that can help them professionally: Invite them to go with you to networking events, and provide volunteer business cards and professional name tags. Your volunteers are some of your best cheerleaders to both spread the word about your nonprofit and to recruit more volunteers. It also makes a volunteer feel special to be acknowledged, invited, and feel like they are a valued member of your organization.
Small Gifts and Tokens:
Here are a few low-cost but meaningful ways to make a volunteer feel appreciated. Don’t just do it once or offer it one time. Small touches repeated with personal thank yous are very meaningful.
Give small seasonal gifts and include a handwritten personal note.
Give them branded pens and/or journals/notebooks.
Hand out coupons for local businesses and/or distribute discount cards from local partners.
Send digital gift cards. With a digital thank-you note.
Offer free tickets to your events. Making a volunteer pay for admission to an event you are putting on, even if they are not volunteering at it, is poor form. I’ve attended events where volunteers have come and had to pay for admittance and overheard them grousing about it. That doesn’t give a good look to the general public.
Give custom mugs or water bottles.
Provide logo t-shirts, hats, lanyards, hoodies, or other wearable swag. The goal is appreciation, but the walking branding billboard opportunity shouldn’t be discounted.
Make a small framed quote about them and post it publicly. Don’t forget to post it on your socials with a call out.
Give a mini self-care kit and include a handwritten personal note.
Create a gratitude-themed coloring book; make sure a handwritten personal note is included.
Include your logo on candles or soap, and make sure you add a handwritten personal note.
Distribute plantable seed paper notes and include a handwritten personal note.
Give a tote bag with a thank-you design. Make sure a handwritten personal note is included.
I’ll also add some things NOT to do:
Mass-blast generic thank-you email messages with “Dear Volunteer” and no personal details.
Calling out names in a long list at an event without telling a story about what each person actually contributed.
One-size-fits-all rewards. Handing out identical mugs, T-shirts, or certificates every year. The first time it’s fine, but it loses the thought year after year.
Recognition tied to labor. Thanking people by giving them more work (“You did great last month, so we’d like you to lead the next event!”).
Saying “Thanks for your help at last year’s fundraiser,” six months later, when the memory has faded.
Mentioning volunteers at the very end of a three-hour board meeting, when everyone has tuned out (or many people have already left), signals that appreciation was an afterthought.
Organizations that set up a recognition program, but leave the same person’s name posted for months and don’t update it.
Handing out things like XXL T-shirts to petite volunteers, or refrigerator magnets with outdated logos.
Thanking volunteers by tallying “hours logged,” without acknowledging impact (“Janet did 50 hours of volunteer time,” instead of “Janet sat with 12 nonprofit clients and changed 12 lives.”)
Planning appreciation dinners that require attendees to pay, take place during work hours, or fail to accommodate dietary needs prevents some volunteers from participating due to time or expense.
Saying thanks only once a year at a banquet, instead of showing appreciation throughout the year.
by Heather T. | Jul 31, 2025 | Blog, Business, Email Marketing, Guerrilla Marketing, Marketing
In anticipation of getting my restaurant guerrilla marketing book finished in about a month, I was exploring additional ways to get the word out there. Business books are never an easy sell, and for the first two books I wrote last year, I literally did nothing for advertising. This was more a fault of it just being a brain dump of information that I just wanted to put down on paper, rather than a wish to be a well-known author (someday when I finally finish that fiction thriller and get beyond chapter one maybe LOL).
I belong to about a dozen Facebook groups with writers, publishers, aspiring writers and the sometimes overly intrusive vendors who frequent those groups, and Substack kept coming up. As in, if you’re an author (of any vein) you should be on Substack.
Having “heard” of it but literally knowing nothing about the platform, I set an account up and rapidly went WHOA!, this puppy offers a lot for free. I’m still digging around in the back end for all the options and bells and whistles.
From a business perspective, I’d say to businesses, at least check it out. Free newsletter option for unlimited subscribers, including tracking, email a.k.a. blog posts, plus the option to have paid email subscribers (with some gated content) and free podcasting.
Pros:
Posting a blog post is easy, about as easy as using Blogger (owned by Google) blog. I have not yet tested the podcast functions, but it’s on my list and people I have talked to that podcast on it seem to love it.
It gives you the option to add watermarks on any images, which I find useful, and lets you also add alt tags to the images (good for SEO and accessibility).
It gives you stats on open rates, viewers, referral sources, and subscribers, and the time lag for updating stats seems to be around 6 hours.
I do very much like that it gives you “who” specifically opened in email the post for any email subscribers. It also tracks clicks.
Cons:
It took some poking around to go through all the options and figure out things. I could have sped that up quite a bit if I had read the help/support section first, but I tend to like to poke around in things and see how they work because it’s more fun IMO.
SEO value seems negligible to none if you just use the platform “as is”. It gets picked up by Google if you are sharing the posts on other social platforms. I’ve only done five posts so far, and two plus the main page are indexed, so it will be interesting to track SEO value as I do more posts and also enable more exposure to it (below).
I have not yet added it to Google Search Console, set up Google Tag manager, or done a sitemap yet for it and submitted it, but in researching this definitely shows that this “helps” with getting posts and the account indexed.
It does not give you the ability to add categories, tags, or separate keywords to posts like many blogging platforms do.
The layout is pretty basic as is there really isn’t much, think basic formatting options from a MS Word document minus the ability to pick fonts and font size above basic heading size options. You can add a custom visual header to the posts/email newsletter, but customizing the actual blog post/email newsletter is very, very basic. (but it’s free, so there is that). It does allow images, embedded audio and video. I did find it interesting in playing with it a bit that if you wrote a blog post in WordPress for example and then copy the text/images straight from a website into a Substack post it does copy over the text size, formatting and font style. I have not yet tried an actual blog/email to see whether it transfers the formatting through into email, but if it does (and will test) it could be a work around to make the email newsletter/blog post a bit more customized.
If you want to explore Substack, I’d recommend checking out https://substack.com/resources and https://support.substack.com/ (at the bottom of the page: Getting Started on Substack).
Here are the four Guerrilla Marketing Tips I wrote this month for Substack:
Zoom Cameo Challenge
July 29, 2025-Tactical Tuesday: Guerrilla Marketing Tip
https://forfeng.substack.com/p/zoom-cameo-challenge
Spot the Code, Score the Deal
July 22, 2025-Tactical Tuesday: Guerrilla Marketing Tip
https://forfeng.substack.com/p/spot-the-code-score-the-deal
Offer a Coupon Code Hidden in a Puzzle
July 15, 2025-Tactical Tuesday: Guerrilla Marketing Tip
https://forfeng.substack.com/p/offer-a-coupon-code-hidden-in-a-puzzle
Local Landmark Photo Challenge
July 8, 2025-Tactical Tuesday: Guerrilla Marketing Tip
https://forfeng.substack.com/p/local-landmark-photo-challenge
by Heather T. | May 7, 2025 | Blog, Books, Business Location
This is Chapter Eleven from my book, Location? Location! Finding a Location for Your Brick and Mortar Business. How to Scout the Perfect Location for Your Dream of Opening a Brick and Mortar Business.
Lot Conditions can factor heavily into additional costs, and also inconvenience for an owner buying a new building or property plot if not considered prior to purchase and typically buyers don’t give a lot of thought to a parking lot unless it’s in very bad shape to start with.
Does the property you have found have a parking lot? Is it just for your business, or is it shared with an adjacent business? What is its condition? Paved? Gravel? Dirt? Something else?
If you are buying a location, is the parking lot going to need work? How much is it going to cost to repave or regrade? Does the lot slope towards your building? Or away? If it’s a gravel or dirt parking lot, how much and how often will it need fill or leveling?
Are you in an area with a lot of rain that may affect your lot’s condition? Or is it at the bottom of a hill or mountain that may have an excessive amount of melting snow/runoff in the spring?
When I worked in Vermont during the spring, the parking lots at the Ski Resort I worked at would frequently get flooded. The resort was open for business year-round and we would get some extremely grumpy customers complaining about navigating partially flooded parking lots.
If you are leasing the property, does the landlord have a history of maintaining the lot? If it needs maintenance to bring it up to acceptable use levels, is the landlord going to pay for that? And who defines “acceptable?” Make sure you get a written agreement from the landlord, and before signing anything, have a good business lawyer look over that agreement.
Why should you care about the condition of the parking area? A business with a well-maintained level of paved surface will look much more attractive to a passerby than a lot filled with enormous cracks, missing chunks of pavement, and grass tufts scattered throughout it.
Even more critical than curb appeal, the condition of the lot can impact a car driving through it (think potholes) and the walk from your lot to your business are important factors in the safety and well-being of your customers, as well as their vehicles.
If you don’t have parking on site and only street parking, paid lots, or a parking garage parking nearby, what shape are they in? Paid lots can discourage visitors if they are not in very good shape, as can parking garages. If your customers or staff are leaving late in the evening or arriving early in the morning, how safe are these locations? Are they well lit? Guarded? These factors all play into how comfortable people will be patronizing your brick and mortar business.
What are roads like locally? Are they well maintained? What condition are they in after a long winter? Are there lots of frost heaves that the town doesn’t pay attention to or massive potholes that it seems to take forever for the town or city to repair? Do the plows do a good job? And are they timely about getting out and clearing passage in regular snowstorms?
You won’t know if you are looking at the property in the spring, summer or fall, but this is where talking to residents and local businesses can help you fill in those holes in your knowledge base.
Consideration points for this chapter.
If there is a parking lot:
How many spaces do you have for the facility?
How many ADA/handicapped spaces do you have?
Are they well marked on the pavement, and via signage?
What condition is the parking lot in?
Is there also going to be enough parking for your employees?
Yes No
If No, where are they going to park?
How much is plowing going to cost in a bad winter? Don’t take average costs per winter. Base your budget on the worst winter you can get information on.
What other maintenance and repair needs are required for the lot?
What kind of shape is the lot in? Does it need a redesign and/or need work soon? If so, budget for it now.
Are there spaces set aside for pickup/delivery only? (if applicable)
Yes No
And if not, is there room to set aside and designate a few spaces for them?
Yes No
How is the lot laid out? Is the traffic flow within the lot easy to navigate or will people with oversized vehicles have trouble navigating the lot or pulling into or out of spaces?
Are there spaces for motorcycle parking? And if not, is there room to set aside or designate a few spaces for them? If you potentially have customers that may come in on bikes, you may want to consider this.
Yes No
Notes:
by Heather T. | Mar 6, 2025 | Blog, Business, Observations, Operations
Times are tough right now for many businesses. When they say, “May you live in interesting times”. It’s unfortunately not a blessing of future wellbeing. I know many businesses, no matter who you voted for, are feeling the pinch of not being able to find staff, costs rising on things outside of anyone’s control, like a bad coffee bean harvest, for example, and other challenges.
As a small business owner myself, I try to give back to the community as much as I can, but it seems like sometimes it’s just not enough, and I’ve talked to many other business owners who have felt and feel similar.
None of these suggestions are anything new or earth shaking, but I thought it might be helpful to condense some ways a business owner might further contribute to their local communities if you feel like there are things going on that you have no control over and feeling “stuck” or unmotivated. And maybe you need to do “more”.
Taking part or getting involved more on a local level is something as small businesses IMO we should do anyway, but sometimes we don’t have the time, the motivation, or the incentive. These cost little to no money and can bring back to a business marketing and branding exposure, plus the knowledge that you are contributing to your local community, and sometimes that comes back to you in spades in terms of knowing you helped others. As a small business mentor, it’s one of the most rewarding things I have ever done in my life and it helps keep me going.
- Use social media, emails, or posters to share local help like food banks or mental health services.
- Give advice related to your field, like job tips or budgeting help (or other expertise).
- Be a volunteer small business mentor. SCORE.org, MicroMentor, CWE
- Volunteer in the community. Habitat for Humanity, Red Cross etc.
- Promote other small businesses and non-profits in your area.
- Let local artists or service providers use your space.
- Host free classes or networking events.
- Offer a quiet space with Wi-Fi for students or remote workers.
- Set up a donation box for food, clothes, or supplies.
- Set aside a portion of new income to donate to food pantries or for people with food insecurities or other needs.
- Organize volunteer events for employees and customers.
- Offer “pay-what-you-can” pricing for key items or services.
- Allow flexible payment plans for struggling customers.
- Recognize local heroes like teachers and healthcare workers.
- Plan small community events, in person and online.
- Give free resume reviews or career coaching.
- Connect job seekers with opportunities through your network.
- Provide free consultations in your area of expertise.
- Teach free or low cost classes on business, budgeting, or job skills (or other expertise).
- Let nonprofits or local groups use your space for free.
- Set up a bulletin board for local resources.
- Allow customers to prepay for items or services for those in need.
- Offer small rewards for donating to local causes.
- Use social media to highlight fundraisers and community needs.
- Share inspiring local stories to boost morale.
- Offer internships or job training for students.
- Sponsor school programs or small scholarships.
- Give workers paid time to volunteer.
- Match donations employees make to charities.
- Donate leftover goods instead of throwing them away.
- Reward customers who recycle or support sustainability.
- Offer stress-relief activities like mindfulness or support groups.
- Share resources for mental health support.
- Partner with local nonprofits.
- Create a neighborhood help board or digital forum.
- Start a community garden in unused spaces.
- Host/teach free cooking classes for those with food insecurities or ones that need help with nutrition and meal planning.
- Start a POD (Print on Demand Business) and donate a good portion of profits to local non-profits, food banks/charities etc. POD businesses are free or low cost to start up.
- Volunteer to be on a local non-profit board of directors.
by Heather T. | Oct 10, 2023 | Blog, Marketing, Observations
What are rack cards?
Rack cards are tall and narrow, generally measuring 4 inches in width by 9 inches in height. They’re often used to target prospective customers or guests in areas with heavy foot traffic, like tourist kiosks, tradeshows, or conferences.
The point of a rack card is to drive people to your website and to put as much pertinent information about your business in a graphically appealing way for people to pick up and either go directly to your website and/or take it home to investigate further.
What are some of the benefits of rack cards?
The major difference between a rack card and a brochure is that it’s generally cheaper to print a rack card. When people pick up rack cards, they’ll generally keep them around longer, too. Other perks? A rack card professionally designed costs less because it’s one piece of paper, usually double-sided, not three double-sided panels, like a brochure.
The paper they’re printed on is generally heavier (and if you are going with an online or local printer, make sure they use the heaviest paper stock available.) People will pick up a rack card and flip it over, look at both sides for information, and decide if they will keep it. If they pick a brochure or trifold up, they might often put it back, especially at a tradeshow or tourism kiosk when they don’t usually have two hands-free to look through it and open it up.
What are some key things to consider when designing a rack card?
The top half of the rack card is the most important. If you’re thinking of having your rack card displayed through a tourism distribution company to find out where the cards will be distributed, then do a drive-by (if possible) to see what the existing rack cards in those locations look like.
You want to see what kind of rack card holders they have and take some pictures. I’d also pick up other businesses’ rack cards to get ideas and to see what the competition is doing for advertising.
When browsing kiosks, bring a notebook and take photos of the racks. What attracts your attention? What doesn’t work (like the rack cards with names hidden at the bottom behind the rack shelf)?
When designing, keep in mind the top one-third to almost half of the card will only be visible, so make sure your business name and an eye-catching photo or image are at the top; a location for your business helps as well.
Business Branding
I’m a big believer that you should be consistent if you have established colors you’re using for your business. Your business cards, website, or anything you use for advertising. It’s super important to be consistent.
I’ve seen so many rack cards and brochures that don’t even have contact information on them, and that’s completely crazy, but it happens.
New businesses might have a website in development and not have any other branded materials done, they should identify the colors and fonts they like and stick with those. The promotional material should always be an extension of your business. I’d recommend you use two font choices and three colors at most.
If you don’t have a website done yet and you are under the gun to get some print material out, try to leave a bit of white space at the bottom of either the front or back of the rack card where you can print up your website on clear Avery labels and add later to the cards when your website is finished so if you have a ton of printed cards left you can use them up before having to re-print.
Photos
Always try to use photos; line drawings are nice, and they can have their place, but don’t put that line logo, if that’s what you use, in a prominent spot because photos are what drive people and especially what drives people to pick up rack cards.
I suggest businesses use photos that showcase their unique offerings. Try not to use stock images if possible, and if you are going to use them, make sure they are legally bought and not from a free stock photo site.
If using photos of clients or customers, it’s crucial to have permission to use them; a written photo release is highly suggested and imperative if using photos of children.
Before you get your rack cards printed, print out a sample and place it four feet from you, with the bottom half (and maybe a little higher) folded over so you can’t see it. Can you read the text? Are the image and colors eye-catching, or does it have too much detail for text and imagery, and you can’t see clearly what it is or what it represents?
Messaging
Have a headline and a tagline for the front. You really want your rack card to be a driver for people to get online with their smartphones right away or to scan a QR code and go straight to your website.
If using a QR code, make sure it’s static (unless you want to pay a monthly fee) and not dynamic. Static QR codes cannot be edited once created. Dynamic QR codes offer you the flexibility to edit QR code content as many times as you would like but usually require a paid monthly service to use them. Some QR code creator sites offer a free trial to use a static QR code and then charge if you want to edit it, read the fine print.
If you have a nice logo and/or if the logo has your business name clearly visible, go ahead and put it near the top or incorporate it into the photo. In the top part, you can also include a call to action, like “make a reservation” or “call now!“
I’ve seen some great rack cards that say, “Bring in this card and get 10% off”, or “Sign up for our online newsletter and get access to ongoing special offers or discounts.” It’s an incentive for people to take that rack card home too.
It would be best if you honored your promotion whenever that card/code is redeemed, so think through your offer carefully.
Aside from the top messaging, your rack card should include a short paragraph about your business and five to seven bullet points on the back. Make sure there’s plenty of white space. Try not to cram information or use too small a text; you are aiming for easy readability for every age.
Remember to include your business’s name, phone number, address, and website. If you’re active on social media, put a text link to your Facebook page and other social pages. Don’t just say, “Find us on Facebook,” or just put the icon for a social media channel. People want instant gratification, and the way social media channels and handles are, they may find a business with a similar name, not yours and they usually won’t bother searching if it’s not the right one. Put the actual full URL, i.e. facebook.com/janedoeinn or facebook.com/jane-doe-inn.
Try only to put in pricing if you know it’s going to stay the same. It’s OK to include a price range and point readers to your website for more information. However, printing your exact prices may mean you’ll have to incur printing and distribution costs frequently to keep your rack cards up-to-date or have someone insist that your business honor something in print. A price range provides you with more flexibility or putting no pricing at all.
Printing
In terms of printing, make sure you print in a matte finish despite the lure of ‘glossy.’ Tourism centers have exterior light coming in, and the gloss finish causes a reflection. Trade shows are frequently held in very large areas with bright light that can cause reflections.
Once someone picks a rack card, they’ll see your complete design but if it’s in the holder and your card is competing for attention, you’ll get a lot of reflection from natural and fluorescent light that may hamper your chance with that prospective customer.
As mentioned prior, You will also want to invest in a heavy card stock. You will see people in some tourism centers pick up a rack card, and if it flops (because whoever made it wanted it printed on lighter paper to save money) they may put it back. It negatively affects that first impression; if it flops over in the rack card holder itself, people generally won’t pick it up.
Remember to proofread and proofread again and again. If you have staff, ask each person to read it and proof it as well.
Last but not Least
Consider cross-promoting, if there is an associated type business that might send you business or a related business, trade your brochures, rack cards, and business cards with them. Restaurant to Lodging and vice versa. Massage therapists to Body Care stores, Riding and Horse Stables to Tack and Horse supply stores and vice versa, etc.
by Heather T. | Sep 5, 2023 | Blog, Business, Marketing, Observations, Operations
How many of you get stuck on a project when you’ve got too much on your plate? Or more specifically encountered a roadblock and not moving forward.
The next time you’re feeling defeated or overwhelmed, take a step back and resist the urge to look ahead. Instead, take a moment to look back.
If you are familiar with the concept of emotional intelligence, you might be familiar with this term, but I want to elaborate a little for those who are not.
What is Reappraisal?
Reappraisal involves mentally reframing an event to reduce the negative emotions you feel.
This is not the same thing as reconsideration, which is the act of “thinking” about something again, especially to change a decision or opinion.
Reappraisal is the act of “assessing or evaluating something again,” often to determine its current value or worth.
While both involve revisiting a previous decision, reconsideration involves a potential change in opinion or decision, while reappraisal is focused on reassessing value or worth. And to help change your mindset.
For example, let’s say for example that I spilled the soda that I was going to have for lunch, and I now only have water left to drink.
I might tell myself that well, “It’s okay because at least I have water; there are people who have nothing out there to drink in countries with food and water insecurities”.
That can also be self-limiting, though, because if anyone grew up with parents who said things like “eat your peas; there are people starving in other countries.” I did. There was no direct connection to the reasoning. I never knew someone from another country when I was a child who didn’t have enough to eat, and while I have met people over the years with those challenges from other countries and sadly this country as well, I didn’t have a personal connection with them then.
If I reframed that reasoning now as “it’s okay because at least I have water, clean water to drink, there are people who have nothing out there in my town with food and clean water insecurities.” It’s a lot more relatable.
But you can also look at things from a self-improvement standpoint, which is how I prefer to reframe things.
“I dropped my soda, and maybe that’s a good thing because it’s high in sugar and calories, and this can help me stay on my diet.”
There is no wrong way to do this; it’s only about reassessing and reevaluating.
Let’s take a business example.
You are a software engineer, and you just programmed a new AI platform and released it into the wilds of the internet for use.
After just 2 hours, you have reports of the AI giving people bad and inaccurate information, and you have to pull the plug.
You are depressed and unmotivated because you and your team spent thousands of hours programming this AI, AND now you have to reinvigorate and remotivate your team (and yourself) to redo it and fix it.
Instead of dwelling on the issue and bringing your team and yourself down with your failure, reassess and apply the Rule of Reappraisal.
You don’t want reconsideration, which is the act of “thinking” about something again. You want the assessment of the issue AND to identify and practice the core questions around reappraisal.
You don’t have to use all of them, but identifying a couple can help change the mindset.
Questions to ask yourself:
-Were there, or will there be, any positive outcomes that result from this situation?
-Are you grateful for any part of this situation?
-In what ways are you better off than when you started?
-What did you learn? (Maybe the most important one)
An example might be your need to leave a new program in beta longer and get more testers before opening it to the public.
-How did you grow and develop as a result of this situation?
An example might be you learned how to knit your team into a very cohesive working group during this project, and because of that, future projects will be more efficient.
-Why is it important to build reappraisal ability?
When we change the way we think about our experiences, it helps in not letting things get to us that can drag us down.
We are able to see challenges as opportunities and begin to view our lives in terms of strengths instead of weaknesses. It also helps to reduce negative emotions.
Don’t focus on the path ahead. Look back at what you’ve already accomplished.
The next time you feel that your day, your week, or even your year was a failure or the latest project you deep-dived into just didn’t make the cut, resist the urge to look ahead only.
This is especially important as a business owner because you can get mired down in not rethinking and reassessing something that perhaps didn’t work or didn’t go the way you planned, and it can derail your motivation, which can affect how your business operates.
Instead, take a few moments to look back and reappraise. You would be surprised by all that you have already accomplished.
