Jolt! by Phil Cooke (whitelam books .TXT) 📕

the most. You are valuable, talented, skilled, and your worth is immeasurable. Stop looking at yourself through broken glasses and see yourself with 20/20 vision.

When you can do that, your insecurity will be replaced by a vibrant confidence in yourself and in your future.

REVIEW

Jolt Your Potential

List areas where you can begin to personally grow, then answer the following questions.

1. How can I begin? (Examples: purchase a teaching series, books, magazines, classes, etc.)

2. In what areas can I be more creative?

3. What aspects of my career need more creativity?

4. What areas of my life and career just don’t make sense? Can I embrace that ambiguity and move forward?

5. Where can I give? (List charities, church ministries, social or community causes, humanitarian outreaches, and other areas where you can give your time, your money, and your expertise.)

JOLT

YOUR

HEART

» JOLT #16

BUILD A MOTIVATION MACHINE

Personal Cheerleaders Can Make a Powerful Difference

I always wanted to be somebody. If I made it, it’s half because I was game enough to take a lot of punishment along the way and half because there were a lot of people who cared enough to help me.

—ALTHEA GIBSON, AFRICAN-AMERICAN TENNIS CHAMPION

A friend is someone who will help you move. A real friend is someone who will help you move a body.

—AUTHOR UNKNOWN

A disrupted world has revealed a tidal wave of critics. The rise of instant information has resulted in an overflow of nasty web-sites, A celebrity tell-all blogs, and corporate whistle-blowers. On April 16, 2009, the national news broke the story that Domino’s Pizza was taking a serious public relations hit after some of its employees posted videos of themselves on YouTube doing some pretty disgusting things in the kitchen of a Domino’s restaurant in Conover, North Carolina.

Actually, I saw the videos, and “pretty disgusting” might be an understatement.

In the traditional business world before the digital age, the response would usually be “No response.” In those days, companies could wait out the storm and ignore the small blip of bad PR, even if it had been picked up by the evening news. Containment usually meant “ignore it and it will go away.”

But in the online 24/7 connected world of text messaging, e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook, where bad news travels instantly and online videos can reach millions overnight, “No response” is the worst response of all.

Within hours, Patrick Doyle, president of Ann Arbor–based Domino’s USA, in a two-minute YouTube video produced by the company, apologized to customers for the incident involving the two workers in North Carolina. Doyle said the company would be reviewing its hiring practices and that particular Domino’s facility “has been shut down and sanitized from top to bottom.”

BAD NEWS TRAVELS FAST ON THE WEB

Through various blogs and YouTube, the offending employee videos had been viewed by millions of people, and the situation was rapidly becoming a powerful yet tragic example of how social media can potentially tarnish a longtime brand virtually overnight. Immediate polling indicated the company’s brand equity was dropping quickly. They were simply on the wrong end of a digital storm—a spontaneously formed online mob who rapidly shared information.

But Doyle’s remarkably quick response to the employees and customer base was praised by numerous experts and observers—particularly his decision to use virtually the same websites and media that spread the offending video in the first place. While the company didn’t emerge completely unscathed, it was a contemporary example of understanding the influence of the Internet in containing a potential public relations nightmare—what some are calling “social media terrorism.” The truth is, the digital universe is hard to control, which is a significant reason many traditional brick-and-mortar companies have been so slow to go online.

While bad things happen online and every company needs to invest in protection, the world has shifted, and there’s no going back.

THE POWER OF RUMOR

One of the fascinating and frustrating issues with the Web is the power of rumor. People are people and very often are willing to believe anything they receive in an e-mail. As a result, wildly unsubstantiated and false rumors can wreak havoc online. Companies have been dealt crippling blows through orchestrated online campaigns and even simple e-mails. As far back as 1999, a Yankelovich survey indicated that 60 percent of CEOs worried about negative information concerning their companies spreading on the Internet.

» THE TRUTH IS, EVERYONE’S EQUAL ONLINE.

While companies can spend millions on Web-based advertising and marketing, a simple rumor spread unwittingly from a low-level employee can destroy a reputation.

It’s no different in your personal life. You can succumb to the criticism— and trust me: anytime you try to succeed, there will always be critics—or learn how to move beyond it.

You have a choice. You can spend your life with people who criticize, drain, and humiliate you; or you can spend your life with people who celebrate you, value your dreams, and care about your future.

Does it make a difference?

I’ve always been fascinated by sports fans—the millions of people who sit in a stadium or watch on television and cheer their favorite athletes and sports teams to victory. They are remarkably loyal and, in some cases, dedicated to the point of insanity.

A major television network recently reported on “ultimate” sports fans who take the concept of “fandom” to new levels. One couple completely redecorated their home in the style of their favorite football team, including tossing out their sofa in exchange for hard, wooden stadium seats in the living room. Another couple had a sports wedding, where the bride had her favorite team’s name embroidered down the back of her wedding dress, and the cake was in the shape of a giant football. I attended a Los Angeles Lakers game recently and watched an entire section of basketball fans dressed as Laker superheroes, complete with purple and gold tights, capes, and wigs.

Fans can be a little on the crazy side, but there’s no question that they make