Why Is The Average Lottery Winner Broke Within Two Years?

Getting something free doesn't change who you ARE. If you were not responsible before, your habits will continue. So what happens when you get a $450,000 house for free?

This story from Yahoo News confirms something I’ve always wondered about. Interesting that Yahoo calls this project a “victim” of the mortgage crisis. The only thing it’s a victim of is the owners’ financial irresponsibility.
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More than 1,800 people showed up to help ABC’s “Extreme Makeover” team demolish a family’s decrepit home and replace it with a sparkling, four-bedroom mini-mansion in 2005.
Three years later, the reality TV show’s most ambitious project at the time has become the latest victim of the foreclosure crisis.

After the Harper family used the two-story home as collateral for a $450,000 loan, it’s set to go to auction on the steps of the Clayton County Courthouse Aug. 5. The couple did not return phone calls Monday, but told WSB-TV they received the loan for a construction business that failed.

The house was built in January 2005, after Atlanta-based Beazer Homes USA and ABC’s “Extreme Makeover” demolished their old home and its faulty septic system. Within six days, construction crews and hoards of volunteers had completed work on the largest home that the television program had yet built.

The finished product was a four-bedroom house with decorative rock walls and a three-car garage that towered over ranch and split-level homes in their Clayton County neighborhood. The home’s door opened into a lobby that featured four fireplaces, a solarium, a music room and a plush new office.

Materials and labor were donated for the home, which would have cost about $450,000 to build. Beazer Homes’ employees and company partners also raised $250,000 in contributions for the family, including scholarships for the couple’s three children and a home maintenance fund.

ABC said in a statement that it advises each family to consult a financial planner after they get their new home. “Ultimately, financial matters are personal, and we work to respect the privacy of the families,” the network said.

Some of the volunteers who helped build the home were less than thrilled about the family’s financial decisions.

“It’s aggravating. It just makes you mad. You do that much work, and they just squander it,” Lake City Mayor Willie Oswalt, who helped vault a massive beam into place in the Harper’s living room, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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I have often joked in some of my seminars about how over the top these shows have become and how they could probably help several people for what they put into one house. I even saw one show where the owner liked fish so they made a bathroom sink into an aquarium. Oh, ya…those fish are still alive.

I think these shows started out with good intentions but now these types of shows have become nothing more than prime time infomercials for all the “caring” vendors and suppliers. I have often wondered what it would be like to do a “where are they now” show. Lets go back and look at these over the top homes that were built for people who didn’t take very good care of the one they had. Yet now we expect their behaviors will change and they will keep the house and yard just as the cameras left it as well as now afford all the higher bills and payments.

I am happy that here in Tampa we do have one of the success stories of Extreme Makeover Home Edition. The Tate family of Davis Island in Tampa had their house redone after an airplane crashed into it (see related articles below). The sad part is that I heard several people in my travels and programs as well as several Tampa residents say things like, “Why should they get a new house free? They already make enough money, have a restaurant and live on Davis Island”. I run by the Tate’s new home several times a week and a year and half later it still looks wonderful, maybe even better than when the cameras left. So WHY should people like this who have also suffered setbacks get something like this? One word: RESPONIBILITY.

A quick Google search turned up these related stories.
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/09/Hillsborough/Showtime_for__Makeove.shtml
http://stpetesuperfest.com/community/homemakeover/index2.shtml
http://www.simmons.com/products/brands/comforpedic/emhe/episode16.html
http://community.tvguide.com/blog-entry/Celebrity-Blogs/Paiges-Extreme-Makeover/March-4-2007/800010135

Why Is The Average Lottery Winner Broke Within Two Years?

How hard would it be to smile?

I was at the post office to pay for my PO Box. The woman behind the counter looked at me as I waited for her to finish with the gentleman in front of me. Although she looked directly at me, she did not in any way acknowledge me. No smile, no "hi," no "I will be right with you." Not even a nod.

How did this make me feel? VERY unimportant. VERY invisible. The strange thing is that she did look at me. How hard would it have been to add some sort of human contact to make me feel welcome? Literally she might have had to make the slight physical effort to raise the corners of her lips into a smile. Or move the muscles in her neck to nod. But seriously not much effort at all.

So why didn't she do it? My guess is that no one, not her bosses or her customers ever bothered to let her know the impact of her inaction. Probably no one taught her how to be kind and welcoming. In fact no one ever spent anytime helping her understand the importance of greeting her customer.

Just because she is a civil servant doesn't mean that we residents aren't her customers. And ALL customers (no matter what you call them: clients, patrons, patients, guest, buyer, member, or enrollee) deserve your warm greeting.

Start paying attention to how you are treated. As you become more aware of how you are treated it will be easier to judge how well you are doing with greeting your customer. And if you are a manager, start training your employees on what a good greeting looks and sounds like. Then reward them when they do it correctly.

How hard would it be to smile?

Dealing With Difficult People

It seems the past few weeks I have had a few clients want to talk about dealing with difficult people. Whether it is a customer, employee or boss difficult people can be hard to handle.

Here are a few tips that may help the conversation go a little smoother the next time you encounter a difficult person:

Stay focused on the situation, issue or the behavior, not the person.
It is easy to get pulled into focusing on the person. So examine your intention. Your intention will drive where you focus. If your intention is to get even for the way you were treated or to make sure you win, you will be focused on the person. Your goal is to stay focused on the issue or behavior not the person.

Pick the right place and time.
I have a belief that it is better to praise in public and criticizes in private. I also believe the timing is very important. If it is a big issue or going to have an impact on others, address it as soon as possible. Otherwise it might be better to wait until the other party has calmed down to address the issue.

Don't assume.
Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Ask questions to help you really identify the problem or discover what happened.

Prepare for defensiveness.
Whenever dealing with difficult people, it's important to anticipate that they may become defensive. It is also helpful for you not to take it personally when they do. Getting caught off guard could be a challenging situation. So anticipate how the other person might respond. Think through how you might respond if the other person gets angry and/or verbally attacks you.

10 Ways to Deal with People in Difficult Situations

Here are some suggested tips for handling difficult people. Use only the ones you feel comfortable with and you think will work with the person:

1. Keep the conversation focused on the issue, situation or the behavior not the person.
2. Make sure your non-verbal and verbal languages are congruent.
3. Try to talk with them during their best times of the day.
4. If a difficult issue must be discussed, speak with them in private.
5. Determine their STYLE of communications based on personality style. Then adjust your communicate accordingly.
6. PRACTICE - Rehearse before you interact by anticipating the reactions and preparing responses.
7. Set personal limits on what you will put up with and when merited share them.
8. Don't always take their remarks or dislikes personally.
9. Keep your cool! Keep a positive attitude and lead by example.
10.Remember you're in charge. Assess if it is possible to continue the discussion. If not, suggest continuing this conversation at a specified later time.

Dealing With Difficult People

The Power of Communicating a Little Information: Inform the airlines

While I was hostage at the airport recently, waiting on my cancelled 5:30 flight, then waiting for my rebooked 8:30 flight, which then finally left at 10:35 (argh), I couldn’t help notice how airline agents handled the disgruntled travelers. Some do well. Others have difficulty offering an outright apology—an expression of “We’re concerned because we made a mistake/did something wrong.” Agents personally, of course, do not make such decisions to cancel flights. But airlines send them to the “front lines” to represent the company without equipping them with the right message or the right attitude.

There was no weather problem. Neither was there a mechanical problem. Passengers were left to guess why the first flight was cancelled (flight not full; unprofitable, probably). No explanation about delays on the second flight either—except “waiting on a plane.” No reason they couldn’t announce to us 200, plus passengers standing around the gate when that plane was expected to arrive and take off again. This same thing happens many times while sitting on the plane for extended periods. Just tell us why we are sitting there.

As the various agents grew more nonchalant and/or sullen about answering questions, the passengers grew angrier and angrier.

Failure to admit mistakes and poor service leads to outrage. Failure to express concern leads to bitterness. Survivors, even dying victims, forgive mistakes; they don’t forgive unconcern.

Here are a few guidelines I teach in my people skills and communication programs:

Admit or report problems and mistakes immediately.
Delay only compounds the problem—for yourself and others involved to correct the problem or control the consequences.

Focus on resolution.
Rather than wringing your hands about a situation, direct all energy to solving the problem yourself or suggesting solutions to others who must implement them.

Offer explanation to restore confidence.
Because people are not mind-readers, you have to explain why you made the judgment call you did, why the error happened, or your reasoning behind your actions. Such explanations restore confidence because people understand mistakes. In the absence of information, it’s human nature to assume the worst about the details of a mistake (for example, that you are careless or a poor decision maker).

Express regret about the outcome/situation.
Even if things are not your fault, you can express sincere regret over the situation without accept liability.

Be specific.
Make clear statements with specific details that show you understand the severity (or potential severity) of the situation/problem. Avoid global, blanket apologies such as “I’m sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.” Such vague statements are interpreted to mean, “I have no idea what kind of problem I caused, but if you want an apology, here it is.” This merely incites bosses, customers, and colleagues further.

Concern connects people. In whatever situation—from product recall to layoffs to employee illness to accident victims to stressed travelers—there’s tremendous power in communicating concern. Somebody should tell the airlines—at least until Congress acts and gets this mess fixed with a passenger bill of rights.

The Power of Communicating a Little Information: Inform the airlines

Oops! Its hot, we're hot...the mic is hot

As someone who wears a microphone quite offen i do have nightmares sometimes about leaving it on like Leslie Nielsen's character, Frank Drebin, in the movie Airplane, while in the bathroom. But this! Well just stupid.



You treat every mic as hot like every gun as loaded.

Oops! Its hot, we're hot...the mic is hot

Ever Wish You Could Say It Over?

Have you ever lay awake at night—almost all night—and replayed a conversation in your head over and over and over and over? For a long while, I thought I was the only one who did that. Then I heard others admit they did it, too. Then yesterday I heard a lawyer friend of mine admit the habit to a group of colleagues.

You hear the entire exchange in instant replay—but not exactly. Your part of the dialogue changes. You redraft your responses. They get better, wiser, funnier, more cavalier, spontaneous, more patient, firmer, less aggressive, more resigned. Finally, they’re tuned to perfection. Then you ache for the opportunity to redo the dialogue in real life.
Most of the time that second chance never comes around—at least, not in exactly the same circumstance with the same person. But that doesn’t mean the all-nighter wasn’t worth the thought. Why?

Success in all parts of life is about communication. A Google Search on the single word communication turns up 320,000,000 results. In the workplace alone, your success at almost any endeavor correlates to your ability to communicate well, so you—and I—need all the practice we can get.

In paging through a couple management publications that talk about workplace communication, for example, we learn to

· survive a “pile it on” boss and leave the office with a focused list of priorities
· improve relationships while negotiating
· give “full-circle” feedback
· deliver more persuasive presentations
· show more empathetic responses as we listen
· avoid bull-dozer tendencies when leading
· end a customer or client conversation
· lead a team to listen to each other more effectively
· keep better meeting notes
· create more engaging copy for a website
· make better use of time on the phone
· neutralize win-lose discussions without breaking relationships
· criticize to some effect
· persuade others to change their behavior
· polish a professional image
· receive honest feedback
· introduce change and make it palatable
· deliver bad news with hope that bolsters morale

Communication—all of it. Unless you climb poles to repair power lines or toss pizza all day, it’s difficult to think of doing many jobs that don’t require core communication skills. Communicate well and you can master a job, influence a team, persuade a boss, win a client, build a business, create wealth, serve humankind, and move from success to significance.
Communicate poorly and your life fills with stress and unresolved problems just as surely as if you tried to patch a flat tire with bubble gum.

Make make communication improvement a habit. With every conversation, every meeting, every presentation, analyze and evaluate: Ask yourself: What went wrong? What went well? Why? What could or should I have said differently? What is the communication lesson learned?

Ever Wish You Could Say It Over?