Are you feeling lucky? I know that on Saturday and Sunday I was feeling lucky.

Saturday morning I went to the car wash, and I wasn’t feeling quite the chipper Step that I usually am. Then I saw an old man with one arm and one leg push his wheelchair with the leg that he had, and wheel down Ventura Boulevard in front of me. At that instant, I thought “Boy, am I a lucky kind of a guy. I have all of my limbs, I have a business, and I have a great family. I am loved and I have a home.” And this went on for a while in the self-talk of my brain.

After the car was washed I rolled to the office, and after some time I went out to the local Johnny Rockets for a little sustenance. As I was waiting for my food, a man of about 30 came in and said, “How are you doing?” and I said I was fine. Then he asked, “Are you from here?” and I said yes. One of the guys behind the counter said “That’s just Sean”, and I realized that Sean was special, not like the usual person on the street.

I left soon after that and began to question my good fortune, wondering why did I get all of the things I had, and other people did not?

I don’t think that I am alone in this. I think that sometimes we all think that maybe we don’t deserve everything in our lives that we have. We might think that we are lucky, instead of that we worked hard to get to where we are today in our lives. Or we might think that we haven’t worked hard enough, and this is why we are where we are in our lives today.

We have self-doubt in our minds about who we are and how our lives have unfolded. But what becomes unhealthy is when we stay there, instead of going to the confidence part of our self-talk.

I have seen what you might have seen on the outside of a person: a confident figure. But on the inside this person is thinking that it was luck, or connections, or something else that made them what they are today. They have a complete lack of self-esteem, even though they are very accomplished individuals.

This affects people in their day-to-day lives.

They feel like, “I am lucky, how did I get this?” “What is going to happen in the future if someone finds me out?” They worry that, “I am not all that people think I am.”

We have these self-doubts about ourselves. Maybe we were just lucky, maybe we aren’t as good as we should be. Maybe, maybe, what if.

I don’t think we would be human if we didn’t all have some self-doubt, but let me share with you that we all have it, and there is a cure.

In Success Philosophy the only thing you need to believe in is yourself.

When that self-doubt starts to creep in, you have to turn that around and start to think of all of the positives in your life, and believe that life is more than just luck.

You know what? You are lucky, you are good, you are unique, you are a winner, and you have to love yourself.

P.S. As I wrote this, as every day, I read the LA Times and on the front page the headline read, “John Paul’s Will Reveals His Doubts About Remaining Pope.”

Wow. If the Pope, the main man to God, has this kind of doubt then what chance do we poor mortals have?

All of us have doubts that tell us we don’t deserve things, or that we shouldn’t win, or that we aren’t smart enough, we were just lucky, and we couldn’t really do something-or-other.

We all get these doubts. It is ok, but use those powerful Four Dynamics to move you past these thoughts. You were put on this earth to win, if you want to.

Procedures and the Customer Service Satisfaction Index.

Are you winging it? Or do you have procedures, policies and documents in place to handle customer situations?

Are your customer situations documented so you can review what has happened and make adjustments to company procedure?

These are important questions to consider, but the most basic thing for customer satisfaction is to have everyone know what is going on before the product or service is delivered to the customer.

The real advantage to an ISO-9000 type program is that everyone knows what they are supposed to do, and it is written down. It is a living document that changes with time.

If everyone has a clear idea about what is supposed to happen, and then makes it happen the right way, your process is going to make the customer happy. If it doesn’t, then you have to change your process to make the customer happy.

By having everything documented, it ensures that you have a quality program that is being followed by everybody.

If someone is new, or has to replace someone for a day for whatever reason, people can look at the written procedures and say “This is what we do, and this is how we do it”. Everyone knows what is going on, and what they have to do.

But the most important thing about having all of your procedures written down is the effect on the level of service a customer will get before they may have a problem. As a matter of fact, having these kinds of policies and procedures in place can make sure more customers are satisfied in the first place. And isn’t that what it is all about? Getting the customer handled the right way to begin with?

Winging it can come up bad. So take some time, use the people on the front line, and develop some written procedures so that the customer is satisfied from the beginning.

1. The customer is Not always right
2. You have to have happy employees
3. Do you have the right tools?
4. Do you have the authority?
5. Have you decided your service level?

This week we are going to strengthen your relationships. The exercise that I want everyone to work on this week is listening. It may seem simple, but to most of us it is really hard. Listen to your family, and listen to your co-workers. Really listen, and repeat back part of what they say to make sure you understand what they are talking about, and you know for sure what they are saying.

PS: Check out the recent Weekly Challenges as an introduction or to find a new success technique.