Moments of Truth in Personal Life

Love is a Decision and Not just a momentary Feeling

During a seminar, a woman asked Life Coach ," How do I know if I am with the right person?"

The author then noticed that there was a large man sitting next to her so he said, "It depends. Is that your partner?" In all seriousness, she answered "How do you know?" Let me answer this question because the chances are good that it's weighing on your mind replied the author.

Here's the answer.

Every relationship has a cycle… In the beginning; you fall in love with your partner. You anticipate their calls, want their touch, and like their idiosyncrasies. Falling in love wasn't hard. In fact, it was a completely natural and spontaneous experience. You didn't have to DO anything. That's why it's called "falling" in love.

People in love sometimes say, "I was swept of my feet."Picture the expression. It implies that you were just standing there; doing nothing, and then something happened TO YOU.

Falling in love is a passive and spontaneous experience. But after a few months or years of being together, the euphoria of love fades. It's a natural cycle of EVERY relationship.

Slowly but surely, phone calls become a bother (if they come at all), touch is not always welcome (when it happens), and your spouse's idiosyncrasies, instead of being cute, drive you nuts. The symptoms of this stage vary with every relationship; you will notice a dramatic difference between the initial stage when you were in love and a much duller or even angry subsequent stage.

At this point, you and/or your partner might start asking, "Am I with the right person?" And as you reflect on the euphoria of the love you once had, you may begin to desire that experience with someone else. This is when relationships breakdown.

The key to succeeding in a relationship is not finding the right person; it's learning to love the person you found.

People blame their partners for their unhappiness and look outside for fulfillment. Extramarital fulfillment comes in all shapes and sizes.

Infidelity is the most common. But sometimes people turn to work, a hobby, friendship, excessive TV, or abusive substances. But the answer to this dilemma does NOT lie outside your relationship. It lies within it.

I'm not saying that you couldn't fall in love with someone else. You could. And TEMPORARILY you'd feel better. But you'd be in the same situation a few years later.

Because (listen carefully to this):

The key to succeeding in a Relationship is not finding the right person; it's learning to love the Person you found.

SUSTAINING love is not a passive or spontaneous experience. You have to work on it day in and day out. It takes time, effort, and energy. And most importantly, it demands WISDOM. You have to know WHAT TO DO to make it work. Make no mistake about it.

Love is NOT a mystery. There are specific things you can do (with or without your partner), Just as there are physical laws Of the universe (such as gravity), there are also laws for relationships. If you know how to apply these laws, the results are predictable.

Love is therefore a "decision". Not just a feeling.
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Remember this always: God determines who walks into your life. It is up to you to decide who you let walk away, who you let stay, and who you refuse to let GO..

With Love DC*

About Customer Experiences and the Notion of the Remembering self….

Re-Blogging this from one of my Friend's site with her Permission.All Credits to http://anokhajewellery.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/about-customer-experiences-and-the-notion-of-the-remembering-self/

A friend came back from a 3-week vacation on the Maldives. Lucky guy!

“How was your vacation?”, I asked.

“Great”, he said.” The place is just marvelous and the diving experience was phenomenal. However, the flight on the way back was horrendous, which ruined the whole vacation.”

“Really?” I raised brows. “How could possibly an 9-hour flight ruin 3 weeks of great vacation? You had this vacation, you experienced every moment of it….”

“You made the choice that the 9-hour flight is all you will remember about this vacation?”, I continued.” So, you chose a selected piece of memory to drive how you feel about this experience now.”

There is nothing wrong with what my friend said. This is where we seriously need to understand the differences between the Experiencing self and the Remembering self, as Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics, brilliantly highlights in his enlightening (at least for me) TEDtalk:

Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html

The Remembering self and the Experiencing self

The reason we need to differentiate between the notion of the Experiencing self and the Remembering self  is because the Experiencing self has the present, which is a chain of moments. As Daniel Kahneman mentions, the psychological presence is set to 3 seconds long…most of the experiences we make leave no trace and are completely ignored by the Remembering self.

For the Remembering self the chains of moments are lost forever, but what stays are the memories. And memories are defined by:

- changes

- significant moments

- endings. As Daniel Kahneman mentions “…endings are very, very important.”

Why does this matter in the context of Customer Experience for businesses? Because  the Remembering self is the story-teller and the decision maker. Our memory tells us what to keep from our experiences to create a story.  This means, if you  have a business and you address your customers via multiple channels, you’d better make sure you consistently deliver positive cross-channel experience.  You need to address the Remembering self in your customers, because this is the story your customers will tell about you, the story they will publish on Facebook, will tell their friends, will tweet about. And this matters because this will either create business value for your company or negatively impact it.

The Customer Experience

The customer experience is the combination of all interactions a customer has with your company and/or your brand, all these step by step interactions from searching a products, visiting a web-site, calling an agent, checking with friends and family if someone can recommend your product or service, visiting your branch, etc.

Check out an example for getting an insurance policy.

A customer might have had a very positive interaction on your website, visiting your branch, but imagine at the last point of that interaction, checking out in an online-shop, there is an error, the customer might report that “the whole experience has been ruined”. You might argue “Wait a second, the customer has had a lot of positive experiences, only the last interaction was a bumpy one, but, hey, not a big deal…..” Oh, YES, it is a BIG DEAL, it is what the customer’s Remembering self decided to keep from the chain of interactions. Remember, endings  matter!

That’s why you need to keep in mind that consistent positive cross-channel customer experience is the only sustainable advantage you might have. In fact, this is the only key differentiator left for companies  in today’s economy. One single bad experience might ruin your reputation, affect your net promoter score and keep a customer away from you or prevent a customer from recommending your product/service- all effects detrimental to your business…

Take away thoughts

1. Experiences happen anytime, anywhere, every day, all day- some are human, some involve interaction with technology, but they all add up!

2. Pamper the Remembering self of your customers with positive interactions, surprise them, wow them, show empathy to your customers! Last week I received an e-mail fromAirbnb with proposed Christmas greetings cards for me to send to my hosts during 2012, ready-to-go, all I had to do is select the design of the greeting card and hit the send button. Was I surprised? Hell yes! Was I positively surprised? Hell yes!!! Did I remember this? Yes, I did? Did I tell this to my friends? Sure, i did…it is a minor thing, but it matters.

3. Be there when your customers don’t expect you, because changes and significant moments of the customer journey matter!

4. Design the story you will hear your customer tell about your brand and/or company.

5. Start today by mapping the customer journey and identifying all these points of interactions that could leave a “memory” in the Remembering self. Download today thecustomer experience design worksheet!

6. Don’t fail the Remembering self of your customers! What customers will expect from you largely depends on what they remember doing business with you, which is very different from what they have experienced doing business with you.

Thanks to Krassi  http://anokhajewellery.wordpress.com/about/

Your P&C

DC*