Brains on Fire

• 

  3.13.12 – Robbin speaks – Hoosier Hospitality Conference

  Posted on January 26th, 2012 by Kindling Spirits and currently 0 commenting.

  Robbin will head to Indiana to speak with members of the travel and tourism industry during this year’s Hoosier Hospitality Conference in Bloomington. Robbin will present to Indiana’s restaurateurs at 10 a.m. and in a general session at 1:45 p.m. on March 13.

  For more details, visit: www.hoosierhospitalityconference.com

  Tags: hospitality, Robbin, tourism, travel
• 

  2.4.12 – Eric speaks – CommonGround Conference

  Posted on January 26th, 2012 by Kindling Spirits and currently 0 commenting.

  Eric will share Lessons Learned Igniting Word of Mouth Movements during the CommonGround Shared Voices Conference on February 3 in Charleston, S.C.

  For more information, check out: www.FindOurCommonGround.com

  Tags: CommonGround, Eric, WOM, Word of Mouth
• 

  1.31.12 – Robbin speaks – Ten at the Top forum

  Posted on January 26th, 2012 by Kindling Spirits and currently 0 commenting.

  Robbin will speak alongside local members of Ten at the Top on a panel about Communicating Information Across the Upstate. Held in Greenville, S.C., the forum is free and open to the public.

  Information on the full forum series can be found at: www.tenatthetop.org

  To register for the event, visit: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e5fh6c9d81e798b9&llr=iwqthmdab

  Tags: Communicating, Robbin, Speaking, tenatthetop
• 

  Break the Circle (Guest Post from Dan Holm)

  Posted on October 11th, 2011 by Kindling Spirits and currently 4 commenting.

  This guest post is from our awesome friend (and client) Dan Holm of Outback Steakhouse.

  
  

  It’s amazing how unanticipated life challenges typically end up becoming the moments you remember most and are most grateful for once they’re over.

  Last Friday, an unexpected crisis came soaring in my wife and I’s life when we learned that our unborn baby (known as baby #3 as this will be our third) had a rapid and irregular heart rate that required immediate hospitalization and treatment to bring the rate down to a “normal level”.

  Once the shock of the moment passed, we had the opportunity to meet with a pediatric cardiologist who diagnosed baby #3 with Atrial Flutter. Which basically means that the baby’s heart was stuck in a fluttering circle in the top 2 atriums resulting in a rapid heart rate. In other words, this “circle” caused the heart to beat twice on the top and only once on the bottom.

  While the cause of Atrial Flutter is widely unknown, the solution is fairly simple: break the circle by slowing down.

  Slowing the heart down isn’t as easy as it sounds, but through medication, prayers and ongoing monitoring it can be done and the circle can be broken.

  I know by now you’re probably wondering: why should I care about some guy and his baby that I’ve never met and how does this apply to me and my business/company/firm/etc.

  After countless heart ultrasounds, doctor consultations, 5 nights in the hospital and the ongoing sound of my baby’s heart beat pounding in the background I came to several realizations that we all need to be reminded of. So, here it goes:

  4 lessons learned from the Beat of a Heart:

  1. We all need to slow down.

  I know it can’t just be me who is moving too fast. We all need to stop, slow down and think about what is actually going on.

  “Why does this work, right now matter?”

  “Should I be spending my time more efficiently on a project or initiative that’s going to have a greater impact?”

  “If I just stopped for 1 second and looked from the outside in, what would I see differently, what would I change?”

  “How can I make more of less?”

  2. Life is a miracle, every beat matters.

  We’re so busy – - we forget that we’re even breathing. Take a moment today to appreciate that your eyes are open, you’re breathing and your heart is pounding.

  Not only is our life a miracle, but so is our business. Be grateful for your customers, they are your heartbeat. Every single one of them matters.

  3. When you give love, it comes back to you.

  The bottom line of life is that people just want to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

  What my wife and I saw these past 5 days wasn’t just a miracle, it was a team of doctors & nurses who “all wanted to be a part of something bigger than themselves” – saving a friend’s life.

  It’s amazing what a little love can do. Sure it’s a doctor’s “job” to save lives, but it means so much more when they care about the life they’re saving. Now, it’s something bigger. Something real. Something they can believe in.

  How? How do you make people care about something? Start, by loving them.

  The pediatric cardiologist that we first met left his house at 9:30pm on a Friday night just so he could talk with us and give a diagnosis. He didn’t have to do that. And, my wife and I knew it. So, we told him how much we appreciated him going out of his way. After we told him ‘thank you’ we’re almost positive his head fell off his shoulders. It was obvious that no one had ever thanked him for his work before. This small gesture of love and appreciation resulted in “above and beyond care” that we’re convinced we wouldn’t have received otherwise.

  You can do this too. Thank your customers. Give them love. It will come back to you.

  4. Breaking the Circle creates freedom.

  You know what saying I hate? “Let’s think outside the box”

  What does that even mean?

  If we want to be effective and innovative we need to do more than just think. We need to act.

  It doesn’t seem to me that we’re stuffed inside a box. I think we’re all stuck in a circle that desperately needs to be broken.

  We’re in a routine. We don’t like change. And, we just keep going faster and faster, taking on more and more.

  The problem with a circle however, is that you’re not ever going anywhere. You’re a hamster on a wheel.

  We need to break the circle. We need to escape our mundane routine and start to act differently.

  The only way to break it, is to slow down. Once we slow down enough we will be able to evaluate and exit. Then, the freedom will come. Our mind will be clear, we will look at things differently.

  And maybe, just maybe our heart will start to pound to the beat of a different drummer.

  How will you slow down this week?

  Tags: atrial flutter, baby, Change, Dan Holm, freedom, heartbeat, Life, outback steakhouse, routine, slow down
• 

  11.18.11 – Geno speaks – WOMMA Summit

  Posted on October 4th, 2011 by Kindling Spirits and currently 1 commenting.

  

  Geno will speak alongside NCFL’s Emily Kirkpatrick on What a For-Profit Can Learn from a Non-Profit about Content Marketing at the WOMMA Summit in November. Geno and Emily will use the Wonderopolis case study – which is also up for a WOMMY Award!

  If you’re in the world of WOM, you’ll want to be in Las Vegas for this event!

  Check it out: http://www.womma.org/summit

  Tags: Brains on Fire, Brains on Fire Book, content marketing, creating talkable brands, emily kirkpatrick, geno church, Las Vegas, ncfl, Summit, what a for-profit can learn, what a for-profit can learn from a non-profit, WOM, WOMMA, WOMMA Summit, Word of Mouth