One of my friends posted:

I just went to a Starbucks and all ten tables were taken up by single people with laptops. Wow. What happened to sitting and enjoying your coffee with a friend like we used to do?

I thought about it and was about to pass judgement on the people at the Starbucks, sitting around, not socializing.

And then I realized I was guilty of the exact same thing (just without the Frappuccino).

It’s not cool.

So my challenge–especially for those of you that are now down with finals and enjoy a period of time in your academic life known as “Winter Break”…

log out of your social media
turn off the computer
let Words with Friends take a breather
turn off the cell phone

and get social again.

Visit with someone. Make some eye contact with them and not with your personal media device.

I’m going to try this too (I’ll be sending a direct link of this article to my fiancée so she can call me on my hypocrisy if she witnesses it).

Enjoy the presence of others in the coming weeks : )

My girlfriend’s niece was born in late August during Hurricane Irene. Saturday marked the first time they met face to face, and my girlfriend was thrilled! She held little Lucy for quite a bit of our brunch in the city and loved every moment of it. I realized it would be quite some time before I would be able to hold Lucy, so I just smiled and made faces at her.

The next day we headed over to Lucy’s home and spent the day visiting with her and her parents. Once again, my girlfriend was totally enthralled by the bundle of cuteness that is her niece. Even though little Lucy didn’t sleep much that morning, she was still absolutely adorable (even when she became a little bit cranky before finally surrendering to a much needed nap). When she awoke, I finally had my turn to hold her (after double-checking with my girlfriend that this would be okay).

Lucy is quite cute. She’s at that interesting age where she’ll actually smile, but can’t quite laugh yet. She is responsive to you and will follow you along with her eyes. Super fun. So I held Lucy for quite some time, and I like to say that the two of us totally bonded.

We finally said our goodbyes (it took a few attempts as saying goodbye to Lucy wasn’t easy) and hopped on the subway back to Manhattan. On the way back, my girlfriend commented on my “baby voice.” I don’t actually use “goo goo’s” or “gaa gaa’s,” but rather I communicate to babies in full sentences with a slightly different tone. Apparently, I make my voice a little bit lower and a bit more animated. Oh yeah, and my voice gets SUPER animated. Ridiculously animated.

I’m probably a little bit glad that I held on to the camera for most of the time that I held Lucy as I imagine my facial expressions were a little bit crazy.

But I wanted Lucy to smile.
And she did.
And it was awesome!

So I was thinking about all of this on my flight home last night–how much effort I put into getting this almost-three-month-old  bundle of cuteness to smile, and how I really don’t do this in my regular life.

Think about it.
Think about your last interaction with a baby or a toddler and the effort we put in then.
Have you put in that major effort in your other relationships?

In order to get Lucy to smile, I had to remain focused on her and keep up some eye contact with her. I had to pay attention to where she was at and adapt a bit. If she cried, I had to attempt to respond to that.

I wasn’t busy playing on my iPhone or on facebook or on twitter or anything else. My focus was on her.
And in the process of giving her my focus and attention, I received a few priceless baby smiles in return.

Can we make some smiles happen within our own relationships by just giving people the attention they deserve?

SPECIAL BONUS: So we went to NYC to celebrate my birthday (November 14th). I was thinking about how in elementary school you used to bring “treats” in for your birthday, so I thought I’d give a treat to all my loyal readers. If you would like me to speak to your group in 2012 AND are able to book a 2012 engagement by the end of my birthday month, I’ll do that event for 2011 prices (a $250 savings). If you want to save even more, send me an email (pm@pmaurer.com) and I can give you more ways to get even more discounts.

Her reply:

I’ve set an alarm for 4:15 am. Don’t wake me up

Yeah, that’s right. My phone got sassy with me.

There have been several articles pointing this at. Siri is hilarious when you ask her about Hal or want her to make a 2001 reference. She refused to comment when my cousin asked her if she knew Tony Stark or was a member of SHIELD. She sang my brother a song the other night when he said he was tired, and wished him pleasant dreams.

Yes, the technology is awesome, but the personality is what people are writing about.

I’m already blown away that I can just tell my phone to set an alarm and it will or remind me to do something when I get home and it schedules a location-based reminder. As my grandpa often says, “You just can’t do that. It’s impossible” It truly is amazing.

Still, the personality is the icing on the cake. It’s what makes me smile a bit or laugh as I complete these incredible technology-aided tasks.

I know many of you are doing incredible things out there right now, but is your personality also shining through?

Sometimes, in an adept to make our interactions more “professional,” we simply make them sterile.

One of my mentors showed me the benefits of changing that. In some of my more recent marketing campaigns, my tone is more like me. It’s true that this may turn some off of my style, and they may not book me, but for others, they find it to be a really cool approach.

Rather than try to be some “professional” that I’m not, I get to be me. While I don’t always book extra business, I have made some cool new relationships.

So let’s attempt to keep a bit of Siri’s Sass in our own lives this week. Let’s do incredible/impossible things, but let’s do them with OUR personality

Okay, it was only for a minute or so, but I was surprised I kept his attention that long. After all, he wasn’t even one (or at least that is what my “baby-dar” was telling me) and this was a pretty exciting aircraft.

Some freak out when a baby sits next to them on a flight. While I will admit I truly do detest 4 hours of a screaming child, I find those occasions are pretty rare, and more often than not–the baby can be pretty awesome.

So I watched this little guy and his parents held him and he checked out the world. A plane can be a fascinating place for kids. There are so many new people, so many new sounds, so many new things to see. The airplane window fascinates even the tiniest among us–or at least that is what my experience has shown.

I was glad this baby was near me as it gave me a quick pause in my crazy schedule to reflect. I’ve already been on 15 flights in less than ten days, and the repetition of it all often makes me just simply fall asleep. After about the seventh flight, I rarely even began conversations with those sitting around me, just trying to get in a few hours of sleep before I headed to the next plane.

But this kid was curious–he was fascinated, and it reminded me of my appreciation of this amazing thing I get to do in the fall–fly.

In a few more years, his curious glances will be replaced with curious questions. I could hear a toddler a few rows back bombard his mom with a rapid-fire investigation of such gems.

But then I looked at the businessmen around me. I reflected on my own habits.

Cell phones, laptops, a newspaper, and silence.

Curiosity wasn’t there.

Fascination wasn’t there.

It had been replaced with routine and boredom.

Rather than waiting to take off, the older people on the flight were already processing what we had to do when we get home.

The creativity was replaced with a to do list.

Our world needs more than this.

So today, add one more thing to your to-do list:

get curious

No, this isn’t a rant blog–seriously, keep reading (I’ve purposefully left the hotel’s name out of it).

Rather I think we can all learn from one minor shift in service.

This morning, I ordered an omelet with no cheese. The waitress asked me again if I would like cheese.

“No cheese.”

I ended up saying it about 3 times.

As I waited for my omelet to emerge from the kitchen she popped by several times. She asked me, “would you like more coffee, sir?”

But there was no cup in front of me.

A few minutes later she came by and asked how I was enjoying everything.

But there was no food in front of me.

A few minutes later she came by again with my omelet that had cheese on it, which she quickly returned to the kitchen to fix.

A few minutes later she came by and asked if I wanted more coffee.

But I still had no cup in front of me and I had already told her I would not be drinking any coffee.

A few minutes later she came by and asked how I was enjoying everything.

I informed her I would be doing a little bit better if I had food.

In other words, she forgot about me every time she came by and treated me the exact way she treated every other customer.

When I last praised this property I wrote about the individual attention the waitress provided. She greeted me each day by name and by the end of my 4 days at the property she already knew my order. She did this with each customer, truly treating them as a GUEST.

I’ve had restaurants make mistakes with food orders in the past, but some are still able to provide an incredible experience to the care and attention they give to each person. They remember minor things about each customer, already knowing the coffee order–especially when it is decaf.

As we get busy with our organizations again, let’s not forget the minor details about the people with whom we work.

Let’s still provide some individual attention.

It’s the most important ingredient to show we really care.

His mom quickly told him, “He can’t be a hero–he’s the bad guy.”

I thought about saying something, and I’m honestly disappointed in myself that I didn’t.

While it is true the boy was playing with the “bad guy” character, I really loved the idea of the bad guy doing some good. As soon as the mom said it, the boy paused, and his bad guy went back to punching people and hurting those around him.

I worry about this type casting.

When we say someone can’t change, we’re making that change even more difficult.

The best “bad guys” in our comic books and films have incredible stories of how they got there.

• Gollum in The Lord of the Rings was once known as Sméagol, until the ring slowly infected him over time.
• Darth Vader in Star Wars was once know as Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi knight, until he fell to the dark side of the Force.
• Magnetto in X-Men suffered a horrible childhood during the Holocaust and uses most of his power to prevent a similar fate from ever happening to him or other mutants again.

All three of these characters have redeeming qualities and redeeming moments. At times they make heroic actions even though most would still claim they are “bad guys” in their respective stories.

These are the fictional examples

What about the real life examples?

Are there people in our schools, in our organizations, in our communities, that we cast in far too strict a role? Do we not allow them the chance to make that role more complex and potentially good? Do we label them, vilify them, dismiss them?

If you’ve ever had a chance to watch a young kid play with toys where they don’t yet know the “correct” role, it’s interesting to see that play scene play out. I’ve watched a three-year-old have school with a T-Rex teacher, a lamb student, and friends that were lions, giraffes, and a car. All of these characters got along. No one tried to eat each other or drive over one another. Actually they spent most of the time becoming friends.

Sure there is evil in our world. I watch too much television news not to recognize that the world has a few “bad guys,” but I still like to think, that many people still have the possibility for goodness. I want to remain open to that hope and open to that idea.

I want the world where Gollum still helps Frodo in his quest, where Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker defeat the emperor, and where Charles Xavier and Magnetto can still discuss the world over a game of chess.

I don’t want this world to just exist in fictional accounts. I want that goodness to be present here as well.

I want a young mom to instead ask her son when the “bad guy” is only punching things around him, “what would it be like if he was good?”

Don’t forget to check out Patrick’s Summer School program!

Last night, my cousins asked if if I wouldn’t mind watching their 7 month old son, Jake, while they went to various even meetings. I was thrilled. Yes, he’s seven months old and yes, there was a heavy bout or two of crying, but when he’s happy, he’s one of the coolest kids ever.

Right before my cousins left, I sat in their backyard on a blanket with Jake. He’s now crawling, and is quite expressive as his little hands touch new textures (grass providing perhaps the funniest reaction).

After a few moments, I took my iPhone out of my pocket just so I could crawl easier. Jake saw it and crawled over to it.

It wasn’t the first iPhone he had ever seen (my cousins are Apple fans like me), but it was fascinating to watch Jake “discover” it. He’d pick it up in a variety of ways. He’d tape the screen or the back side of the case. He’d shake it or touch it against his face. For him, it was an object for him to discover. He’d later do the same thing with his toy drum and his stuffed animal. He was just as fascinated with the iPhone when it was off as when it was on. After a few moments of discovery, he crawled over to a corner of the blanket and played with it, discovery its differences.

I thought about Jake’s reaction to the iPhone in comparison to the people I saw at Disneyland this weekend. I spent two days at “the happiest place on Earth,” and I was blown away by how many people spent the day texting, checking sports scores, playing on facebook, or taking calls. I’m guilty too (I updated my status three times and sent a funny text or two to my siblings), but overall I tried to make a point to not use my phone (really, I recognize I have a bad habit).

And that’s the thing. Our phones have become distractions to our present. People were standing in lines next to friends or family and rather than have conversations, they focused elsewhere. This included eight or nine year olds with phones.

I was blown away by the difference in viewpoint. Young kids would be pushed in strollers captivated by the sites and sounds of Disneyland, a magical place in their eyes, while their parents were busy checking out whether or not their NFL team scored the last touchdown. When did we make this shift? When did we desire to be distracted rather than to discover?

If we make our lives about distraction, we will fail to ever make the discoveries that makes things like the iPhone even possible.

Let’s discover again.

Here’s the thing, while I love brunch, to really win the bonus points, we need to go to a proper brunch spot. A trip to Denny’s doesn’t count. The rules?

• It closes no later than 3pm (2pm is even better)
• There should be a line (I agree that I hate waiting, but when there are a group of people standing outside waiting 30-45 minutes for a late breakfast, you know it’s good)
• It needs to have a twist on popular favorites (pancakes made with vanilla beans, Eggs Benedict using smoked salmon & Capers, or hash browns that are made from freshly chopped potatoes covered in a special seasoning)

In the past few months, I’ve had several great brunch experiences with family and friends, where they’ve recommended a cool spot in whatever city I’m visiting. The food is always amazing. I do make a good breakfast when I’m home, but I love to see people who really craft a dish.

I guess my love of brunch is deeply connected to the experience. Servers at places that specialize in breakfast tend to be friendlier than the average server. They go out of their way to make the start of my day that much better. People waiting in line for a brunch seem to have a pleasant disposition as well. Sure, there are the occasional few who are frustrated that they’d have to wait for a meal, but most know that heading to such an establishment will require time. The meal becomes an event. You put your name on the list, and then go grab a morning coffee or visit the nearby farmers market. Often times you’re climbing into a table even before it has been cleared off from the previous group. Your patience is rewarded with a tasty meal.

So why am I writing all of this? What’s the point?

I think we need to work to make “brunch” happen in our lives.

Have you created a reason for people to get up?
Have you created a reason for people to wait?
Do you allow opportunities for people to connect?
Are you approaching life with patience?
Are you taking the time to make simple moments into events?

Food for thought (no pun intended).

And seriously, if I’m ever in your city, let me know if we can grab a good brunch.

Since I couldn’t monitor the lot, I truly have no idea if the poor parking was the result of a domino effect–one driver parking so badly forcing others to park badly as well–or if the drivers in this area just lack proper parking skills.

Parking on or outside the lines is one of my pet peeves. While I do agree that a few parking spaces are made unreasonably small, this wasn’t the case for this lot. In my mind, parking on the line just indicates a lack of consideration for those around you. It takes a moment to repark a car. I know I often park poorly at first (I don’t always adjust to my rental car), but I always try to re-center the car. I figure people need space to get their car into a spot. If I take up more than my space, I may prevent others from parking.

But I think that there are a lot of people in our world who don’t think this way. Sure, I might be making this parking issue a bit too big, but I fear what it means on a larger scale. If we don’t realize that our actions affect others, I worry what happens.

If we shop at stores with the lowest prices, but don’t consider the fact that the workers at that store don’t receive a fair wage…
If we purchase food and perpetuate food policies, but don’t think about impact that those policies make on our farms and our health…
If we embrace habits, but don’t consider the impact those habits have on our environment…
If we “joke” and “tease” our friends, but don’t consider the impact of that “joking”…

It takes less than 10 seconds to repark a car. If we can’t do the simple thing, can we ever do the more important actions?

I hope the answer is yes, but I think it comes down to us changing out mindset and considering others.

bills, ASU Alumni magazine, coupons for the store…

…and a special mailing from Bath & Body Works talking about their new DARK KISS line to help me seduce “him?”

It’s addressed to me, Patrick Maurer.

First, I’m not a gay man. Still, I’m basically 100% positive that even my gay friends would never wear this line. It’s a line obviously designed for females and they are sending it to me, a male.

Bath & Body Works isn’t the first to do this. On a recent trip to Ulta to buy some hair product, face soap, and a men’s grooming kit, I was asked to provide my email address. I did, but now I’m bombarded with messages for makeup, lip gloss, and fragrances. I’ve tried to customize the email messages, so I only get emails about “men’s products,” but the computer doesn’t seem to recognize it, so I’ve removed myself from the mailing list.

Of course none of these are as fun as what my dad received last year. Luckily my sisters also happened to be in town so we could watch our dad open up his special package from Kotex especially for him (apparently they thought my dad, proud father of four adult children, would be the perfect person to market their U by Kotex product to). We all had a good laugh at this one.

The problem? It’s a generic message sent to the masses.

Bath & Body Works and Ulta DO have products for males–it’s why I’ve shopped at those places in the first place, but it seems to be too difficult to try to develop communication for their male audiences. I even went to Hallmark last week, but had difficulty finding Thank You cards that didn’t look like they came from the nursery of a 3 year old girl–and people wonder why men don’t send many handwritten notes.

I’m not attempting a rant companies treatment of male. Not at all. I get the idea of product demand. Still, I wonder if some of these companies could make some simply modifications that would encourage a more diverse customer base–especially since they already have products for those customers.

And it also got me thinking about our schools and our organizations.

How often are we sending out one generic message to the masses and failing to truly communicate with out own diverse customer bases? Are we regularly neglecting people simply by trying a one size fits all?

I’m very well aware that this blog does that almost every time I type since the audience is students and teachers, students from diverse organizations, students from different countries, different states, different ages, etc. But I do try to make that conscious effort to reach my diverse audience by addressing different ideas.

Are you?

Go beyond a mail merge and learn about your real audience.

I’m trying.

(but please let me know how I can do better)