As the empowered volunteer what good are habits for you? Besides the habit triggers previously posted on how to use the ABC’s of selling (Always Be Closing) as a habit cued by a buying question or statement, what else is a habit you should develop?

Glad you asked!

From Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit, Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business we can glean several helpful strategies for good habit formations.

First off, know that individuals have habits, groups have routines! This is important only to know that they are the same thing. Routines are procedures in most cases that are written down and formal. Sometimes they have what is called, Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) for specific instances that may come up, receiving, shipping, natural disasters, whatever. In the military, we lived by SOP’s.

Habits for individuals are very seldom committed to paper. Also, most individuals don’t have SOP’s for anything, they are more casual or to put it more loosely they “wing it”, meaning they have no formal plan and the make up their path as they go. This can work sometimes, but it is not a good path for the long term success in most instances.

If you want to make your personal structure a habit or routine if it is at the group meeting for instance, then know that it is a bit more complicated than just saying to do it.

If it were just saying do it, then the group Weight Watchers would not be needed. No habit change is that easy!

Groups have tons of habits or routines. Opening procedures such as the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States Flag is frequently found. In the Optimists International group meetings they read the Optimist Creed at the end of the meeting, which is a great send off for the members when it is read aloud by everyone present.

Empowered volunteers can have or develop good habits that help them locate and develop a network of people who have the potential to join the group.

I would encourage all empowered volunteers to do at least a six month time frame for their prospecting. Anything less is apt to produce ineffective habits for the long term. If possible commit to a year. That is much safer for creating and embedding good habits that will stay with you in your later endeavors.

For most empowered volunteers, your prospecting will be done at times when you are not occupied at your place of employment. Never endanger your vocation. This means that you will find a couple of hours here or there to prospect. This is why habits are important.

Set them up with care when you start out. Cultivate the same way you initiate a conversation and how you introduce your prospect to the offer. Make is natural and smooth. Practice in front of a mirror before ever trying it out in a real situation.

The idea is to have keystone habits, ones which are the corner stones to all of your other ways of prospecting.

Keystone habits create a structure for encouraging other habits to flourish. An example of a keystone habit from Duhigg’s book is a food journal for weight loss. The keystone habit is a trigger mechanism that can impact the structure you want to create, in this case how to lose weight.

All habits follow cues. A cue can be many things. For movie goers, cues can be popcorn for movies. If you identify the keystone habit, you can make small wins. This is if you set up the right cues, and rewards. So keystone habits set up structures, cues trigger habits either good or bad, and rewards can also be good or bad. If you find a bad habit, say too many pauses or “uhhh’s” in your speech then change the cues to change the habits and ensure you reward yourself for every good change until it becomes a habit.

Groups use keystone habits more than individuals.

Examples from business listed in Duhigg’s book include IBM’s research and selling routines, Alcoa’s removing of parking spaces for senior executives to encourage people to show up early to get better parking, and Godlman Sachs’ risk assessment is conducted for every decision.

In the U. S. Navy in the 90’s a new program was rolled out by the management in Washington, D. C. They wanted the ship’s captains to allow a new quality program which was sweeping the civilian sectors and manufacturing circles. It was revolutionary and it promised to make great strides in efficiency for each command, so the promises went by the senior officers who visited each ship and promoted the message.

Trainers were sent to ensure all enlisted would participate. But the issue was, if an enlisted person was going to make “suggestions” for the Captain to implement it was seen as empowering the enlisted at the expense of the officers. For two hundred plus years officers wore the gold and made all decisions and they were not going to stop that process now, senior flag officers or not! The program died a withering death on all ships eventually, on most ships the groups that tackled a problem were hard pressed to get cooperation to even evaluate the problem properly, let alone find the group time to evaluate it and propose a solution.

The senior flag officers had made a very big mistake in leadership, they did not convince the officers on the ships that it was in their best interest to do this new program.

It was not sold, it was shoved down the throats of the ship officers and commanders. This did not breed an atmosphere of trust or empathy. The program was Total Quality Leadership, from the civilian programs of Total Quality Management and I was one of those trained in the process only to see it die a very fast death on my ship.

Don’t let your group get caught up in habits or routines that hurt your prospecting. Develop habits which support your group and if necessary set up keystone habits for the group to support your new members when they arrive.

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Group with the Optimist Creed

This sentence is found on the second line of the Optimists Creed. The Optimists are a group of individuals who promote children’s or youth activities in the community where the group meets.

Properly called Optimists International, they are focused on helping kids in communities. Their site is, http://www.optimist.org/.

I have the Optimists Creed on the wall in my office. I try and repeat it out loud as often as I remember. It is a wonderful set of positive sentences which when read aloud can help program your mind into a better area. I have done this off and on since I was a member of the group, back in Iowa in the late 80′s.

Back then after every weekly morning meeting, we would repeat the creed as a group, outloud. It really helped me kick off my day to see and visit with so many positive people. I really loved the atmosphere and the energy everyone brought to the breakfast meetings. Note, some clubs have evening or lunch meetings. I could not have worked my schedule as a Navy Recruiter around anything but a breakfast meeting so I am glad my group met early, around 7 AM.

There are many worthwhile youth groups in America. I have never found another which helps the members in this unique way though. The members gain through their associations with each other a great deal even before they apply their talents for helping the kids on community wide projects.

You can check out their website to see what the local Optimist group close to you is actively participating or sponsoring.

Optimists are very well known for their happy attitudes and attempt to bring this upbeat nature to their programs and activities for the youth in their communities. From the website the current numbers for Optimists International are 87,000 individual members who belong to 2,900 autonomous clubs. Optimists conduct 65,000 service projects each year, serving six million young people. Optimists also spend $78 million on their communities annually. These are some real good numbers reflecting extensive leverage of action for the size of the population doing this great work.

For the Empowered Volunteer to totally grasp the reality of these numbers, the membership in 2007 was 123,865 and club totals were 3,918.

The decline is dramatic over the last 6 years!

The decline of nearly 37,000 members and almost 1,000 clubs is reflective of the economic decline for sure, but also I submit it is due to the lack of knowledge of how much volunteering can do for the individual’s personal health and mental well being.

See the posts on this blog regarding the various health studies relating to social connections and social capital and increases in individual status for associated ideas and related data. If more people knew how much they gained from volunteering this and many other groups should see a steady increase in membership.

This is the purpose of the empowered volunteer, to get the message out for both the individual benefits as well as the incredible nature of many of these civic groups for the public to see.

I will reprint the Optimists Creed in full below to illustrate just how positive this groups creed really is. I don’t personally know of another group’s creed which even comes close to such positive thoughts.

The Optimist Creed
Promise Yourself …
To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

I personally love this creed! It is a great way to start any day when you recite it out loud. I highly recommend doing so and then track your results. You will be surprised how effective this practice can be in making you a bit brighter for the rest of the day, with carry over to the next in many cases!

Being an Optimist was for me a pleasure and a fond memory. I networked my way into other groups from this initial membership and gained even more individual pleasure from extending my personal connections and relationships among adults. I stopped being just the local Navy Recruiter and became myself again. I really needed the balance of adult relationships after the total commitment needed to find worthy candidates for the US Navy.

This demanding job of finding sailors to man the expanding US Navy back in the late 80′s was all encompassing and all consuming. I needed a diversion from my duties and many of my “formal requests” from my command to join groups were denied. This group and the Freemasons were finally approved formerly by Navy Recruiting District Omaha. I was thrilled. I has already networked my way to meeting several Optimists and Freemasons at the local YMCA, so I was ready to petition.

Freemasons are often members of other worthy groups

I networked my way into joining the local Freemasons Lodge in Newton, Iowa next (you had to petition and then be initiated after you passed the famous voting process) and this combination of groups and the many friends I developed helped me tremendously with the stress and strain of Navy Recruiting which each military recruiter was dealing with back then. I owe a lot to both groups for keeping me sane during these very difficult times!

I also networked my way to visiting, in uniform a US Navy function with NATO! I was formerly invited by a Marine Major who liked my involvement with the Optimists, as he was also in his community of Va Beach, Va. So he invited me to join him as his guest for the Icelandic NATO celebration. I was delighted, but the stipulation was I had to do it in full dress uniform. He was dressed in his, so that was understandable.

I was by far the lowest ranking of Navy personnel there visible and several times I had to state I was a guest and not the help as one officer or another would try and hand me some plate to take away, they just could not allow an enlisted person to be a guest!

But the Icelandic food was great and I got a personal introduction to the U. S. Admiral in charge of the whole East Coast of the US. This is very rare experience for a junior enlisted sailor for those of you not familiar with military formalities. Enlisted folks only see such senior officers when they stand at attention at change of command ceremonies or when they serve meals.It is very rare to have a one on one private chat with one, especially at that officers request!

I was a Petty Officer 2nd Class at the time, MM2 (SS/SW) for those who know and care about the rate and warfare designations used in the Navy. It is very rare for a private conversation to take place between two individuals of such divergent ranks, which the admiral initiated when he saw my recruiting badge. He had an interest in where I was recruiting as well as how things were going in the recruiting world after the First Gulf War, particularly how the war had impacted our efforts.

This informal conversation played a huge part in my continued service in the Navy later on when the Admiral’s Chief of Staff called my command at NRD Omaha on my behalf. Literally within minutes of that call an unjust circumstance against me was straightened out and my new orders to stay in the Navy were arriving on the curly paper that was the fax machine back then. Such is the power of networking! My wife and I were trilled to move to my next assignment.

My point is that you never know when simply being in a very worthy group can change your whole life as this one event changed mine. If I had not sought out adult company to balance my work related needs I would never have been able to network my way to visiting with the senior most officer on the East Coast.

I also balanced my need for adult company with a new found Masonic brother who had been a POW during Viet Nam War. His stories helped me make sense of a world when I needed the help and I was and still am very grateful for his kind conversations.

I am sure many of you can find this youth group worthwhile today, even if you need to start one yourself. Consider helping this or another group of your choice by volunteering today. You never know when a small thing could change your life forever.

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