Our
Mission:
To help people
live happy, successful lives; to harness their natural power and live
to their full potential.
"It is funny
about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the very best you will
very often get it." ----- W. Somerset Maugham
WHAT DO YOU
EXPECT?
In celebration
of another anniversary milestone my wife Kisch and I recently embarked
on a two week driving holiday through Washington, Oregon and
California. It was great fun exploring the Napa, Sonoma, and Alexander
Valley wine regions and sampling the local fare before settling into
San Francisco for a few days. Next up was a leisurely and spectacular
top down trip back up the coastal highway and home to beautiful
British Columbia. We had a blast!
Along the way we
met many wonderful people and had numerous interesting experiences that
will likely provide topics for several issues of ‘To Your
Success’. This is one of those and it's based on our encounter
with a young man who served us in a fairly pricey and very
‘touristy’ restaurant at Fisherman’s Wharf in San
Francisco.
We usually avoid such places but because we hadn’t been to the
Wharf area in several years we decided to check it out again and have
lunch in one of the many seafood establishments that populate the
piers. By the time we decided on a restaurant it was already early
afternoon, the tables were thinning out, and staff members were
settling back into a more relaxed pace. Although the food wasn’t
particularly memorable our experience with our server was (we'll call
him Raymond - not his real name).
Raymond was about thirtyish, good looking, confident appearing, and
professional in a slick sort of way. At first Kisch and I were
obviously just another tourist couple to him but after a few visits to
our table our relationship became more personal and we learned a little
of who he was, what brought him to San Francisco, and about some of his
interests and aspirations. Not surprisingly, beneath that polished but
insincere façade (likely developed through hundreds of
superficial customer interactions each day) he gradually revealed
himself to be a regular person with hopes and dreams like the rest of
us.
We ended up having quite a meaningful conversation during which he
appeared to become as interested in us as we were in him and after a
couple of hours it was like we’d all known each other for much
longer.
Finally it was time for him to present us with our bill and in a single
heartbeat he reverted back to that polished but insincere person we
first met. He smoothly slipped into an obviously much practiced patter
that informed us, in a somewhat condescending tone, of the fact that “the amount on the check does not
include a gratuity, which of course iS typically 15% of the
total.” I’m not sure how other customers felt about
receiving that little 'lesson' along with their cheque but I know how
we did.
First, we were taken aback. We had been genuinely interested in him as
a person and in our conversation and felt he was coming from a similar
place. All of a sudden however that familiarity disappeared and we
became just another Visa card, which didn’t feel very good for us
and cost him a lot of points.
Second, I was struck by the fact that he had somehow developed some
obviously limiting beliefs and expectations, something that in various
ways happens to so many of us as we travel through the
years.
I can understand how, over time, Raymond might have arrived at feeling
the need to educate us 'uninformed diners'. Perhaps he had been stiffed
one too many times and decided to be proactive in dealing with that, or
maybe he’d been deliberately taught this practice earlier in his
career.
No matter how he came by it though I suspect it might actually be more
detrimental to his cause than helpful ... an arguable opinion no doubt
because I’m not walking in his shoes and living in his world.
What I do know for sure however is how it affected the tip he received
from us. My personal tipping practices are 10% for ‘fair’
service, 15% when it’s 'good' but not overly inspired, 20% when
it’s attentive, respectful, considerate and enthusiastic, and 25%
or even more when it’s exceptional ... when the server is truly
thoughtful, genuinely open, sincere, caring, and we really connect. Our
son Chris worked as a server while going through university so I have a
soft spot for that profession and an appreciation for how much they
rely on tips to realize a decent income.
At the beginning of our experience with Raymond he was in the 15%
category but as time went by he moved increasingly up the scale. He was
doing really well, but then in an instant it all changed. I won’t
go into the details of my thought process as I contemplated how much to
leave him but in the end he got exactly what he expected, 15%. What a
shame.
I thought about that experience off and on for several days. His one
insensitive comment, at least from our perspective, changed our
relationship and affected our feelings towards him and consequently the
amount of gratuity he received.
The most important lesson in this however, at least for me, was that
his perceived need to set us up for a fair tip was driven by his belief
in scarcity and his expectation of what he deserved … 15%.
Interestingly, up until the moment of his fateful comment both Kisch
and I felt he deserved more, but he convinced us otherwise. Sadly,
Raymond will never know that we had nothing but good intentions for him
and would have loved to compensate him more generously.
In my view, Life itself is like that. It has good intentions for each
of us but ultimately our attitudes and actions, strongly influenced of
course by our beliefs and expectations, determine what it delivers.
I’m grateful to Raymond for that experience because it caused me
to reflect again on my own beliefs and expectations. How many times has
Life evaluated me higher than I did myself, whether in terms of
finances, health, relationships or joyful experiences, and been
prepared to give me much more ... until that is, like Raymond I
convinced it otherwise?
And how about you? Are you getting all that Life is
willing to give, or just what you expect?
To your success,
Reg Neufeld
“Your expectation
opens or closes the doors of your supply. If you expect grand things,
and work honestly for them, they will come to you, your supply will
correspond with your expectation." ----- Orison Swett Marden
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Reg Neufeld, founder of Growing Into Success Training, is a teacher of
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Reg Neufeld
Growing Into Success Training
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