Why Do Weddings and Parties Make Me Smile?

Why are these men smiling? Here we are last summer, having a great time posing for publicity photos. Thank you to photographer Jeanine Brown for the terrific pictures that afternoon.

Please remember this: Smiling improves everything. This tip is simple, easy, and VERY powerful. No charge.

Somehow we already know that smiling is a wonderful asset for living well, and for taking care of business, too. But do you know WHY smiling is contagious? It’s still a mystery to me, and my research continues. Frequently I spend time just smiling at everyone I meet. I watch them smile back, then people THEY meet start smiling too, and bingo! Everyone around us is not only wearing a dazzling grin, but is happier than we were a moment earlier. I don’t know why it happens, but I love it!

Hospitality is an optimistic profession, so if you’re involved too, whatever you do, be optimistic. If you want to cheer up a room, smile at everyone. Often that’s all it takes. The same strategy works for “breaking the ice” whenever you meet someone.

I’ve always smiled easily. Probably from shyness when I was young (believe it or not!). I’m sure I quickly learned that smiling made me relaxed, happy, and charmed everyone around me.

My mother encouraged my smiling, too. She taught us a song about smiling, from her Girl Scout days back in the 1930’s. It’s what they call a “patter song”, with very rapid-fire lyrics that always brought down the house with us kids. Reading the words alone can be monotonous, so ask me to sing it for you.

If you will smile in the morning,
you’ll smile throughout the afternoon, and get your smiling habit soon.
Smile and the world will come
smiling back to you, and you’ll have everybody smiling too.

Smile when the skies that are blue turn to grey,
Smile and you’ll chase Mr. Trouble and his family away, keep smiling!

Smile when it’s raining and
you’ll forget to curse the fellow who has borrowed your umbrella,
Sunshine will come after a while!

Smile and be a pleasure-maker, smile and fool the undertaker,
Doctor bills you never have to pay,
You’re in style when you’re wearing a smile.

Now, I don’t know if “smilers” are better friends or more productive workers, but I’ll bet they enjoy life more than “grumps” do. Because smiling makes us happy, I enjoy working with smilers and I avoid working with grumps. Seems natural to me. You, too?

Nearly ALL my friends and colleagues smile broadly and often. It makes working with them so much smoother, especially at weddings and parties. Even chatting with them is always a treat. Some of the brightest smiles belong to Amy Frugoli, David Ethridge, Kathryn Kalabokes, Dustin Eisenhauer, Liz Guthrie, Chris Citti, Brynn Kessler, Duncan Reyes, and Kathy Goodman. Just tell ‘em I said so, and watch ‘em go! And if you're looking for any of their services, it's a good bet you'll love working with them, too.

Speaking of “smiles”, the band has been making lots of people smile this year, and I’m always on the lookout for more opportunities. For instance, will you be celebrating a significant event soon? Throw a party and include us. Are friends talking about a wedding? Please recommend us. Today I’m talking with people hosting parties for Mother’s Day and Memorial Day. If you’ll have a soiree on one of these days, or on any day in between, now’s a good time to arrange the details, including the music.

Have a question? We’ll have the answer. Call us at 408-245-9120. You’ll love what we do. We’re easy to work with, so let our experience help your celebration.

In the meantime, please catch us at a few public events coming up. On Sunday, April 26, we’ll be entertaining during a “Baby Boomers Expo” at The Santa Clara Convention Center. Three days later, on Wednesday, April 29, we’ll create a lively atmosphere for a special shopping night at Macy’s Stanford Shopping Center, in Palo Alto. Please visit MagnoliaJazz.com for details, and I hope to see you soon.

Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope you enjoy considering my ideas. Please tell me what you think, and I’ll reply to all your comments. In the meantime, please take a moment to find me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.

Do You Live to Serve?

Here are Robbie and Andy in action last October 3rd, part of the trio entertaining at an elegant cocktail party in the Corinthian Event Center, in San Jose. Like in any conversation, we not only listen to what the other is saying, but, believe me, we play everything to make being there easier and more enjoyable for each other.

This is exactly how the Magnolia Jazz Band serves every party’s guests, whether at a wedding, banquet, or open house. You like to work this way too? Thanks to Chris Johnson for the nice photo.

Speaking of “serving”, I just had a real eye-opening experience. Recently I’ve spent a lot of time at the Stanford Hospital, sitting with a family member recovering from surgery. The nurses I met there are amazing — always cheerful & optimistic, warm & personable, and very efficient in a job that’s both demanding and life-and-death crucial. After taking care of their patients, they’re always asking “Anything else I can help with?” And they answer every request with a smile. Wonderful, and I’m sure their attitude plays a significant role in their patients’ progress.

I mention their attitude here because it reminds me so much of what we all do every day. “We” being the various professionals who serve at weddings, parties, and other social events.

“Serve” is the operational word here, and it applies to each of us. No matter what line of work we’re in, once we master the skills of our profession, the best of us use our abilities to help our clients get whatever they wish for. In a recent conversation about our previous careers, my friend David Ethridge recently put it simply, “It was a really rewarding job but I love working directly with people“. An outstanding videographer and a tireless networker, David sets a fine example for all of us.

Caterers, restaurants, hotels, and all their associates, including musicians, usually consider ourselves in the “hospitality” industry, but I think a better category would be the “service” industry. This subtle change in attitude makes a world of difference. Our job is the same, of course, but HOW we do the job changes from our thinking “Here’s what we’re selling, and I sincerely think you really need it. Please consider buying.” and becomes “Thank you for telling me what you’d like. Here’s how I can get it for you, and I’ll be honored to deliver it. Plus a little extra.” It’s all about them, not about us. No matter how much we believe in our own product, our top priority should be serving our clients’ wishes.

Like those nurses’ attitude, this eagerness to serve goes a long way toward assuring success — both for our clients and for ourselves. So, the next time you’re in a business conversation, with a client or a colleague, offer to be of service just a little more, and see how it helps.

Speaking of “service”, the band has been helping lots of people this year, and I’m always on the lookout for more opportunities. For instance, will you be celebrating a significant event soon? Throw a party and include us. Are friends talking about a wedding? Please recommend us. Today I’m talking with people hosting parties for Mother’s Day and Memorial Day. If you’ll have a soiree on one of these days, or on any day in between, now’s a good time to arrange the details, including the music.

Have a question? We’ll have the answer. Call us at 408-245-9120. You’ll love what we do. We’re easy to work with, so let our experience help your celebration.

In the meantime, please catch the Magnolia Jazz Band at a few public events coming up. On Sunday, April 12, we’ll be entertaining during Easter brunch at The Toll House Hotel, in Los Gatos. Two days later, on Tuesday, April 14, we’ll create a lively atmosphere for the annual “S.V.C.A. Hospitality Awards” at Club Auto Sport, in San Jose. Please visit MagnoliaJazz.com for details, and I hope to see you soon.

Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope you enjoy considering my ideas. Please tell me what you think. I’ll reply to all your opinions and comments. In the meantime, please take a moment to find me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.

Solving My Facebook Problem

My Facebook page has recently become noticeably harder to use. It’s too busy with distractions that some people seem to welcome, but I don’t. Here’s how I’m fixing it. (And please see another suggestion at the end of this post.)

First some background. Please don’t get me wrong — I like Facebook. It’s amazing, and my participation brings wonderful benefits in the form of breaking news, as well as deeper personal and professional updates, from my over 180 Facebook friends.

Of course, some of my “real world” friends (that is, people with whom I talk or meet regularly) are not on Facebook, but many are. And some of my Facebook friends are people I see only occasionally, though I care how they’re doing.

Being self-employed, my business looms large in my thinking, and taking care of business is my focus on Facebook. I have plenty of personal friends, and I’ve found that nourishing these social contacts is best done face-to-face, and less well by telephone, email, or on Facebook.

I realize people are using Facebook many different ways, and for me, it is primarily a business tool. Like with any tool, I aim to use it effectively and efficiently. Here’s my problem, and maybe yours, too: Facebook’s new format litters my home page — particularly “News Feed” — with every post from every friend, and it’s become too distracting.

I regret that some of my friends are so adept at the “Hey Dude, Way Cool.” kind of post, that I usually lose focus while reading my page. So here’s some general advice for everyone: Please keep your posts concise and interesting, and they will hold my attention. Otherwise, I’m gone. Reasonable?

For me, and maybe you, too, the benefits of Facebook lie in letting me, in just a few focused moments, track the personal and professional doings of those friends with whom I regularly work and network. I’m less interested in the daily doings of those friends I seldom, if ever, work with.

I’ve always been able to handle a few occasional trivial posts, but I’m now receiving a flood of them. Where are the “privacy” controls and filters to prevent those “Oh, My Gosh!” posts from displaying on my News Feed?

So for now, here’s my response. Until Facebook gives me controls to filter out those posts that don’t relate to my business interests, I’m “hiding” the posts of those friends who most consistently make comments I find irrelevant and uninteresting, often both.

All I’m saying is “Yes, we’re friends, but if you’re in the top 10%, pal, I’m blocking all your posts on my page. You might offer one gem every hundred posts, and I’m willing to miss it, if I can also miss the other 99. I’m not saying all your comments are worthless — just that they’re not helpful to me right now — and for me, life’s too short to become distracted when it’s time to work.”

Hey, wait a minute. Aren’t we trying to expand our connections, and not constrict them? I recognize that hiding a friend’s posts is a pretty brutal tactic, but tell me what else I could do. If Facebook’s new flood of comments is a problem for you, too, how are you solving it? Like with radio or TV you dislike: Turn it off?

So, I hope Facebook creates the controls we need, and soon. And if the controls are already in place by now, I hope they’ll tell us how to use them. Listen, Facebook, please stop distracting me. I firmly believe that a healthy view of life’s “big picture” requires our curiosity and playfulness, as well as hard work, but please let me choose when to relax my focus. THAT would be Way Cool!

P.S. By the way, my friend Andy Ebon just sent me a link to a blogpost by Adam Ostrow that offers a very helpful suggestion for solving my Facebook problem. Nicely explained. Check it out.