Laundry Day

I'm a single male living with another single male. I do my own laundry. As luck would have it, my apartment has an in-unit washer/dryer, which makes life very convenient. Except when the washer unit malfunctions and refuses to drain the water after a spin cycle. Like today.

Uh Oh... How do I fix this?!

Like any enterprising engineer, I decided to google the problem, and I came up with an article on how to troubleshoot.

In particular, it said...

Check the tab on the lid that strikes the lid switch; if it is broken, the washer may stop during the drain cycle. Press and release the lid switch...

I tried it, hit the switch (it looks like a little indentation on the washer body, and a little spike poking out from the washer lid) a couple of times, and the washer started draining again!

Life is back to normal.

Living Your Dreams

Just a few hours ago, I had no clue what to blog about. It's been a while, and well, those creative juices are JUST NOT FLOWING. Whatcha gonna do right?

And then it hits me. I read something about a viral youtube video about some professor (Randy Pausch) who had just passed away. Normally, not something I'd be too juiced up about, but I was bored at work and all that. So I clicked to watch it...

Hmm... Damn thing is 1 hour 15 minutes long... I'll just watch a minute or two...

An hour later, I ended up downloading the video, and the written transcript!

It was about living your life, going for what you want. Extremely motivational, and very emotionally moving, especially considering that the speaker had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and only had about a month left to live. Seriously, go watch it!

And yes, it is really THAT GOOD!

Objection

So Alwyn was talking about some NLP stuff and he suggested that I write something about the NLP that I use in my life. So here's one of my favorites that I use to handle objections.

Scenario: You are suggesting something, but the other party is resisting your suggestion.

Technique: Use basic pacing and leading to work around the objection. PACE the objection, and LEAD it with yet another suggestion.

For example, you want to propose that a client implement Plan X. Your client is unsure about Plan X. The convo could look something like this:
Client: I'm really unsure that Plan X could work.
You: What makes you say that? (finding out the objection)
Client: Because of Y and Z reasons.
You: Y and Z are really good reason why you should be unsure about Plan X. (pace)
You: However, even as you are somewhat unsure about Plan X... (pace)
You: ... I am sure you realize that Plan X offers A B and C advantages (speculative leading)

Ugh... That wasn't a very good example but that's all I can come up with at 3am. Y'all will just have to make do :)