This past Monday I was flying from Atlanta to Cleveland on business.  As I got to the TSA agent at airport security, I noticed that the TSA agent seemed especially engaging in conversations with each traveller.  He called them by name after he read their drivers license and made some kind of quick comment.

When he looked at my drivers license, his eyes got big, he looked up at me and said, “Wow, how many pounds have you lost Mr. Mercer?!”  Some of you may know that a few years ago I had a big life transformation and lost 60 pounds.  My kids now say that my old Hip-Hop Rapper’s name should have been “Puffy Daddy”!

This has happened a few times at the airport and so I chuckled and smiled and told him it was 60 pounds, and thanked him for his kind comment.

And then he said one more thing, the point of my blog.  He looked back up at me and said, “Well, you look spectacular!”

At that, I burst out laughing, a huge smile on my face and I told him “I will take that any day I can get it!”

So, a few thoughts after this encounter.  First, it seems TSA must be investing in some customer service training!

Secondly, this guy was comfortable with his manhood to tell another guy, “You look spectacular!”

But thirdly, what an incredibly powerful thing to do and say.  I floated through the xray machine, floated to my gate, and even when I had a 2.5 hour delay on my flight to Cleveland, it didn’t bother me.  I was infused the rest of the day with good karma, good vibes, a huge ego boost, all thanks to three words from the TSA agent.

Don’t ever think that a kind smile, gesture or compliment is too small.  Just three little words made my day on Monday.  We all need to remember this every day, find someone and boost them up once a day.  Three small positive words CAN make all the difference to someone.

Now get out there, and act like that TSA agent!

I was cc’ed on an email from Coach Schmitt.  Coach Schmitt is the Athletic Training coach at my daughter’s high school.  My daughter is one of the trainers for the football team.  His message to all of the trainers was, “Finish Strong!”

Normally, you would hear that kind of message to the football players…finish the play strong, finish the game strong!  But Coach Schmitt was urging his trainers to finish the academic year strong.  He wanted to remind them all to not take their eyes and focus off of finals.  Summer vacation is just a couple of weeks away.  It is easy to start thinking about the pool, the beach, sleeping in late.  But he wants all of his trainers to stay academically eligible, so he reminded them to “Finish Strong” in the classroom, so they could be ready this summer to help the football team when practice starts.

Thanks for the great reminder, Schmitty!

But your advice works for all of us in the business and sales world too.  Finish your day strong, finish your quarter strong, your year strong!

I just finished two days of working with a sales team on their sales presentations.  Everyone loves to spend a lot of time creating and delivering a powerful opening introduction and attention grabber on the front end of their presentation.  Something that wows the audience and gets their attention.  It is very important to do that.

However, we need to spend just as much time and energy on the ending, our conclusion.  This is the last thing the audience will remember.  Finish your presentation strong by leaving a lasting memorable and repeatable finish.  You want them talking about you, your product, and your company, when they talk about it at lunch or over coffee or in the post-presentation meeting.

Don’t end a great presentation that started off with a bang, with a wimpy ending.  Remember what Coach Schmitt said, Finish Strong!

For some of you that know me well, you will probably find this story “inconceivable” as one of the characters from “The Princess Bride” kept repeating to Andre the Giant!

This past Sunday I set out to start pressure washing our brick sidewalk as a part of the preparations for our annual Memorial Day party.  Connected all the hoses, started the motor and no water came out.  Hmmmm.  After very meticulously connecting and reconnecting all the possible combinations of water hose, pressure washer hose, the parts of the pressure washer hose, I finally isolated the problem to the nozzle.

I tried to take the nozzle off, and it would not budge.  My wife Karen, called the Ace Hardware store, sure that the problem was me.  Albert talked her through the diagnostic process and he described the exact process I had gone through.  I got on the phone with Albert and he said one more thing, “Take a coat hanger and ram it down the metal tube of the last section, that should fix it!”

I did what Albert said to do.  I rammed it with a coat hanger multiple times but that did not solve my problem.  Then an idea popped into my head, inspired by Albert’s “metal probe ramming method”, I jammed a paper clip in the tip of the nozzle.  I then poured water into the metal tube, and voila, water came out the other end!  Never once did I see gravel or dirt or a stick or anything hard and immovable that would appear to be big and strong enough to stop water blasting at thousands of pounds per square inch.

I re-connected all the tubes and now the pressure washer was blasting water and the algae was flying off my bricks!

The problem was not the engine or hoses or tubing or parts.  In fact, I never could find or see or hold the problem.  The “problem” was so small I never saw it or found out what it was.  Yet it was “big” enough to stop a thousands of pound per square inch pressure washer from emitting any water.

I spent an hour last Sunday trying to solve my problem.  My ultimate victory was based on two key factors.  Asking an expert for help, and persistence.  How many of us do that?  Whether the problem is personal, professional, relationships, business/sales, athletic, doesn’t matter.  If you try to solve your problem and cannot, stop!  Pick up the phone, hit the internet, call a friend, do something to get some outside help.  Then, once you get that outside help, DO WHAT THEY SAY TO DO!  Don’t ignore them.  Try their suggestions and keep trying.  And then maybe you will improvise on something that neither you nor the expert suggested.  Albert had not suggested a paperclip, but suddenly the idea popped into my head and I think that was what dislodged my microscopic problem. 

So whether your problems are huge, or so small you cannot even find it….Ask for some help from an expert, do what they say, and be persistent with your efforts.  Otherwise, you’ll be slipping and sliding on your slick brick sidewalk all summer!