Back to Business & YOU

Wow. What a great time we had at the UCLA Conference Center at Lake Arrowhead participating in yet another fantastic "Business & YOU" (B&Y) weekend workshop. It's always fun to reconnect with our old friends and acquaintances from the B&Y network, and always rewarding to share the excitement of such powerful information with people we just met. It's been over 10 years since Gary first attended B&Y, and almost 25 years since I went to "Money & YOU" at Makaha on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu. It's as amazing today as it was then. The information is new, thanks to the massive changes of the past quarter-century, especially in technology. The Blocks Game has "evolved." The results are always enlightening, if not downright transformational.

I loved spending time with my B&Y "family." Besides Gary, it now includes Jim Mikula and Ruth Ann Hattori, pictured above with daughter Sydney and another precious friend-like-family, Allen Mann, and with Jeff Perlis and Trev Pelzer (also pictured). Friends from our church, The Center for Spiritual Living/Orange County, attended this time - Christie Shulbin, pictured with Gary, and Marguerite and Dovell Bonnett.

It's fun to assess something new I've learned every time I go to a B&Y weekend. This time, my learning was all about INNOVATION and SERVICE. First innovation...I know that innovation cannot thrive in an environment where fear is a dominant emotion and permeates everything, whether it's a company, an office, a non-profit Board, a family or a single mind. Let me clarify that fear sometimes causes innovation to happen as a rejection of the fear. But innovation is driven by a quest for love, mastery, alignment and synergy. Silverado Senior Living has an operating philosophy of "Love > Fear." It's a foundation for our marketing strategy of innovation. I can see that more clearly after picking up some key distinctions this past weekend.

Next, service. I have a big ego. Most of us do, especially the people who say they do not, in my experience. At B&Y, I like to be in the training room, soaking up all the information along with the participants, even when I'm on the staff. I've been the staff logistics coordinator dozens of times and loved that leadership role. One of the most important staff jobs is to take care of the break food and beverages, and the person who does that has to be out of the room much of the weekend, attending to the veggies, fruits, crackers, iced tea, water, etc. The hardest job on staff is doing the music. I tried that once and decided it's just not the right job for my skills and talents.

This past weekend, I was offered the job of Music, and I turned it down, based on my previous challenges in that position. I recommended the workshop organizers invite Marcelo Soares, a young man I work with who took B&Y last March, to come and work the music, knowing he would enjoy reviewing the course, too. Marcelo, also pictured above, accepted the volunteer staff job instantly when they called him - and of course, he was fantastic. When I arrived on Friday morning, I was told I would be doing the food. For a split second, I think I may have winced, knowing I'd be out of the room for hours all weekend. And then my mind slipped back into memories of good times doing food at other workshops and how much I had learned about being of quiet service to others. Truly, it made for a magical weekend for me. I visited with participants who came to the break room to partake of the goodies (but didn't discuss the workshop, nor did I talk about what I do in "real life"). My ego settled into acceptance and I loved every minute of the work. And going with that flow seems to have allowed me to be in the room for some of the things I "needed to learn," like the information about innovation.

It was a fabulous weekend with a wondrous, committed and aligned staff - people who go back to their jobs as Assistant County Treasurer, President of a highly successful Oregon seminar business, Resort Hotel Manager, ER/Trauma Physician, owner/president of Maui's largest independent catering and party rentals companies, Contractor/Certified Aging in Place Specialist, Production & Traffic Manager, Real Estate Brokerage Owner, Retired President of Major Clothing Company/Innovation Consultant, and Director of Marketing of world-class senior care company. We checked our egos at the door and created a great experience for the participants. And it just doesn't get any better than that.

Finally, I feel deeply grateful to Marshall Thurber, David Neenan, Jim and Ruth Ann, who have created and continuously refined this workshop to make it the very best there is. And to Carol Maero Fetzer, Dan Fetzer, Dwight O'Neil, Bob Bender, Sharon Neenan and Allen, who have been the lights in the back of the room, producing the workshop over the years, or serving as logistics coordinators, showing the way for people like me.