Archive for the ‘Positivity’ Category

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Start believing, stop whispering

December 2, 2013

Waiting for Santa

I was reading an interesting blog post by the hard working and very smart Deirdre O’Shaughnessy, (Editor of the Cork Independent, writer for the Sunday Business Post and regular media panellist) yesterday about signs of positivity and the earliest (Santa Claus wish list) rumblings of tax cuts.

As Deirdre pointed out this thinking might stop when poor Santa gets stuck in the chimney …in truth few of us have regular chimneys these days so like everyone else life is even complicated for him these days!

Deirdre O'ShaughnessyDeirdre talks about the 58,000 extra people working in Ireland in Q3 compared to Q2 and unemployment has dropped below 13%, she talks about the bottoming out and rising of house prices in Dublin (for me scarcity of supply is the best story of all – building is inevitable which means jobs) and the icing on the cake is the bailout exit.

These are all great and very concrete signs of real improvement and even the news that the State is likely to make a profit on the Bank of Ireland share issue is encouraging.

Deirdre goes on “Things seem to be improving. That’s undeniable. Over the past couple of months, business people I have spoken to have whispered that they are seeing a lift. Whispered, because it’s fragile”

When I hear Deirdre saying things like this I take huge encouragement from it – in her role at the Cork Independent she would interact closely and regularly with a cross section of businesses from all sectors and this would be a good barometer as to how things are performing “for real“.

Last week I shared in my blog post “Are things on the up at last?” our own experiences in Fuzion both in Cork and Dublin. We are witnessing a definite sea change.

Even last week we had many meetings with clients and prospects who are planning ahead for 2014 – we haven’t seen such early planning for quite some time. People are definitely feeling and most importantly behaving confidently.

Confidence and belief is half the battle – performance will follow. We need to start believing.

2014 will be a great year …instead of whispering it we need start roaring it!

#Positivity

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

The biggest bit of ‘good news’ we’ve been hearing of late is, of course, the bailout exit. This is a bit like being one of the aforementioned young people who can’t find work. You’ve moved out of home so your parents technically can’t tell you what to do any more. But living, jobless, in their garage, has its own restrictions.

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Posted in Business Planning, Irish Economy, Motivation, Positivity | 18 Comments »

Are things on the up at last?

November 25, 2013

economic crystal ball

I was really annoyed to hear the coverage that the media gave the latest Ernest & Young downgrading of their Irish Economic Forecast in their Economic Eye Winter 2013 report.

“The latest All Island EY Economic Eye Winter 2013 report has revised its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) forecast for 2013 downwards in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) from 0.8% to -0.2%“.

The comprehensive report covered more than just this but it was the “downgrading” that seemed to grab the headlines.

I gritted my teeth and shouted “shut the hell up” at the radio when I heard their economic experts being interviewed on air explaining their analysis.

Jesus …we near to hear positive news, we need to hear about those businesses that are seeing growth, we near to hear about the successes and we need to start believing that things are really improving.

ConfidenceIt’s only with confidence that things will start to improve and I firmly believe that this is happening – at least from what we are witnessing in the marketplace.

Giving airtime to such negativity is only going to hold us back as it has done for the last few years. Is market performance all down to facts or is it down to sentiment?

A nice bounce will happen if we start believing ..

While I have every respect for the experts in Ernest & Young I do believe that we have every reason for optimism based on what I am seeing and hearing:

  • We are seeing positivity and real intent by our clients
  • We are seeing competitiveness for staff
  • We are seeing sectors that were dormant such as retail and fashion back engaging for the first time in years
  • Hotels are busier than before – often it’s hard to get a booking
  • The summer for the tourist sector was well up on recent years
  • Restaurants are busier and the corporate market is back in force wining and dining: “Lately Tuesday’s are like Saturday’s” one restaurateur shared with me
  • Christmas party bookings are up on last year
  • The tradesman seem to be busy again
  • New businesses are opening
  • Hotels in NAMA control are being purchased by new operators
  • Solicitors and estate agents are telling me house transactions are happening – not by investors but by genuine buyers
  • Those houses will need furniture, carpets, lighting, painting and decorating
  • Banks are finally making progress with difficult situations and progress is being made
  • Supermarkets are opening new units and fighting a war using a “Support Irish products” agenda
  • The shops seem to be busier than they have been

Of course these are just my observations and the conversations that I am hearing every day.

I genuinely feel things are on the up and I sincerely hope that this is the case – to broaden this conversation can I ask ..

What are you experiencing?

#Positivity

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Ireland, Irish Economy, Motivation, Positivity, Recession | 6 Comments »

Doing the small stuff great

November 18, 2013

Kerrie O'CallaghanSomeone has to answer the phone and someone has to let visitors into the building and greet them as come into the office.

This isn’t rocket science but at the same time it needs to be done right. You would hope that the person with this responsibility would carry out the task in a pleasant and friendly manner – after all, it is often the first impression that anyone would experience of your business.

We’ve been really lucky down through the years in that all of our team are pleasant and friendly and will give a really good impression of Fuzion.

The primary responsibility for answering the phone (we all do it by the way) tends to lie with the ‘junior’, the person who is newest to the team. Initially we find that the newbie is more than happy with this role but after a while they do want to feel that they are progressing and that this task is moved onto someone else.

While everyone who has worked with us has been great at that ‘hello, meet and greet‘ role we had one person who really stood out; Kerrie O’Callaghan.

Day after day we had people on the phone or who had come for a meeting specifically commenting about how special their greeting was.

This wasn’t an isolated incident but an absolute trend – she did this important, junior, simple but yet important task incredibly well.

Not surprisingly the hugely talented Kerrie, who did everything with 150% enthusiasm, progressed quickly and went on to do every task incredibly well but unfortunately for Fuzion she had the emigration bug and is now enjoying huge career success down under.

It’s funny how someone who does the small things great ends up also doing the big things great..

Kerrie, we miss you!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Customer Care, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity, Recruitment, Staff training, Training | 13 Comments »

Bob Savage, EMC joins the Smarter Egg club

November 13, 2013

Bob Savage - EMC

You have to hand it to him – Aodan Enright from Smarter Egg did a great job!

Not only did he do a great job with his really interesting and enjoyable event this week, at the White Horse in Cork but he has done so well with his Smarter Egg concept of learning, which has evolved gradually since he began a number of years back.

I was one of the early converts – I was immediately intrigued by what Aodan described to me when I met him at a networking event years ago and he didn’t disappoint with a very unique (I hate that word now) business and personal learning experience.

Aodan even had me speaking at one of his first events, which I was thrilled to do.

(I recommend you have a peep at his website and consider trying one of his programmes – it won’t disappoint)

This week at his event he had a number of guest speakers and the high point of the evening was his one to one, up close and personal interview with Bob Savage, CEO of the highly successful EMC in Cork.

I’m not sure if it was the intimate atmosphere of the venue, the fact that Aodan worked for Bob before or if it was just his interrogation skills but it led to a really superb interview and one that gave us a rare insight into a modern, successful business leader.

At times  when asked a question Bob was a little unsure about answering and even stopped to mention that the event was being recorded. Good job Aodan!

However he did open up and gave us some gems:

  • He is big on teamwork and creating a great place to work
  • He loves genuine, enthusiastic people and hates the opposite
  • Passion for what you do is essential
  • He views what he does as a vocation and does acknowledge that he has made personal sacrifices with other parts of his life to reach and maintain the position he holds
  • One of his strengths is that he is accessible and he achieves that by ‘walking around’ interacting with the team and learning from them
  • He takes time out to introduce the EMC recruits because be believes they are the future of the company
  • His secret sauce of success is quite simply ‘people‘
  • Walking the walk is essential
  • He acknowledges the mentoring and support he received along his journey and admits that at times maybe he didn’t deserve it
  • He has his bad days the same as the rest of us and admits that things have not always been without problems but it is how you react and deal with them that’s vital
  • He loves the excitement of indigenous industry and sees huge potential in Ireland
  • He values his role on the board of Enterprise Ireland
  • In the future he could see himself consulting, assisting businesses and even life coaching “while my stock is still high”
  • Company politics is knowing when to open your mouth and when to shut it!
  • He would have advised his younger self to be more patient, more respectful and mannerly

The particular gem that I loved and took from the session was when he spoke about working hours.

“At times you need to do 75 hours in a week but you clearly can’t do that all of the time. The trick is to know when to do it!”

That’s one I definitely need to take notice of …way too many 75’s!

Aodan…keep up the great work and Bob…thanks for the refreshing openness and the gems, and welcome to the Smarter Egg club

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Business Planning, Irish Economy, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity, Teamwork | 5 Comments »

Today I was an Accountant

October 17, 2013

accountant

I can’t help it ….I was once an accountant!

To be fair most people who meet me now get puzzled by this.

“Really?” ….yep!

For some reason I still won’t delegate these duties and in October of each year those deadline walls come closing in and there is no choice other than to knuckle down and prepare the accounts for the annual tax return.

I was like a bear today (sincere apologies to everyone concerned!) – I had worked till midnight last night doing the bank reconciliation and I was determined to break the back on the rest of the accounts work today. Besides feeling tired it made me feel totally miserable – the thought of the best part of my day being spent on “negative” work was killing me.

Romantically I always reckoned that doing the accounts was like telling the story of the business for the year. A long time ago I made a choice that I wanted to be part of the story rather than telling it afterwards!

Instead of meeting clients, trying to make positive things happen I had to, “for one day only” focus on just getting this horrible task done – I needed to be an accountant again and a cloud descended around me.

As planned I have broken the back on the accounts and while it wasn’t quite as bad a day as I had feared I am looking forward to being the “other me” tomorrow.

Are you telling the story or are you part of the story?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are an Irish Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Accounting, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity | 8 Comments »

Can great customer service be up to the customer?

October 9, 2013

Grumpy customer

“Table of Death” was the expression he used ..

I had the most interesting conversation with an experienced restaurateur yesterday – our conversations are refreshing as he always has a different way of looking  at things.

Yesterday we were chatting about the importance of great customer service and how now, more than ever, it needs to tip top as the decisions about how someone spends their disposable income are much bigger than before.

He gave me an interesting perspective about how the customer can play a huge role in the service they experience.

In particular he spoke about the “Table of Death”, which is an expression his team uses when they spot a bunch of customers who just should not be on a night out. They arrive grumpy, every interaction with the service staff is curt and unpleasant and their whole demeanour is negative.

The staff pick up on this immediately and tense up and then as sure as night follows day “Murphy’s Law” kicks in – that will be the table where something gets spilled, someone gets bumped into, something gets overcooked and there will always be something wrong with the bill.

The tension that is created by the negative vibe of that group of customer’s just infects everything and everyone they touch – a good night guaranteed!

He reckons they get at least one group like that every second night and they can spot them nearly the minute they walk in the door.

I notice myself that the pleasant client will get more from our team. The really mannerly and appreciative client will get somersaults from our guys. When you hear our team saying “I love working on that account” or “they are my favourite client” you know that client will get the very best from us and will enjoy the best results from their investment.

For some reason some people have decided that the best approach to business is by being “nasty” – it might make people jump but it will never get the best from them.

Next time you go for a meal ask the waiting staff how their day was!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are an Irish Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Customer Care, Hospitality, Motivation, Positivity | 5 Comments »

10 Years, Crystal Balls and Awards

September 19, 2013

Chambers Ireland - CSR Awards - Greg Canty, Fuzion PR

10 Years ago my buddy Tommy Doyle collected me from my old job. I handed back the keys to my five month old Saab 93 (that was tough as it was the best car I had ever driven!) and I handed in the keys to the office – I was done with my well paid job as General Manager and about to start my life as a 100% self employed person.

Tommy took me to O’Brien’s in Little Island for a sensible breakfast before we started a day of celebratory drinks – the boy was set free!!

While I was in celebratory mood quietly I was really nervous – I had just shut the door on a long and quite successful career in the drinks industry and was about to enter a new world, which required me to totally reinvent myself and put bread on the table at the same time.

If I had a crystal ball I couldn’t have predicted the 10 years that I have had …

  • We traded in Dee’s car and bought a second had Santa Fe jeep (hated that jeep!)
  • We toured Ireland with our high profile luxury women’s event Catwalks with top models, top brands and Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet fame (great fun but exhausting!)
  • I sold my music stores – I had three stores in Cork, Limerick and Dublin
  • We did a lot of work with Killarney Golf and Fishing Club, launching the new Killeen course
  • We took on our first staff member, Ali who is still with us
  • We took on more PR staff and a graphic designer
  • We opened an office in Cork city – who remembers the punishing four flights of very uneven stairs?
  • The recession came crashing in and wiped out some really good clients –  We adopted the “storm the recession” approach (great book)
  • We bought a new Santa Fe jeep (liked this one!)
  • We had to write off nearly €200k in bad debts over three years, mostly because people were unable to pay but we did get caught by some chancers as well – the Credit Control Warrior and Famous were born!
  • We started to do PR and social media training – this has been so enjoyable and we have met so many great people through these courses 
  • We got married eventually – Dee still calls it “her” wedding!
  • I started blogging and realised I love writing
  • We won a national PR award for the “War Crimes” Cystic Fibrosis , St. Vincent’s Hospital  Campaign
  • We took on staff in Dublin and opened an office
  • Dee’s mum Joan sadly passed away – a dynamic and challenging woman (my buddy Tommy made her giggle by calling her a …. I better no say!)
  • We moved to better offices and celebrated Fuzion’s 10 years in business
  • I really started to excel at social media lecturing for the Digital Marketing Institute and providing courses for Enterprise Boards and clients
  • My kids are both flying, Brendan with his video production company Feel Good Lost and Ellen with her own career
  • We bought a brand new car, a Jaguar XF, one that was better than anything I ever had before – this is something we had to do for oursleves 
  • We managed a few really great holidays to the US, Italy, Turkey, Greece  and Cuba and back to Italy again
  • We continued to grow picking up national PR recommendations for Tour de Munster and Safebook
  • We are about to unveil a statue to celebrate the values of a great man Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty

No crystal ball could have predicted these 10 years, the variety, the speed that it  has flown by, the tough economy that have us working our socks off and digging deep continuously, the sadness and the smiles, the stress and the joy, the worry and the excitement, the highs and some lows, the friends and team mates past and present.

I have had to totally reinvent Greg, bringing all of my old skills and moulding these into a new sector including social media which didn’t exist 10 years ago when I started this journey. When I tell people I started off life as an accountant most won’t believe me!

For me the culmination of this 10 years was accepting a National Award at the Chambers Ireland, Corporate Social Responsibility Awards  event last  week for the work we did on “Safebook“, which was really my baby. We designed a simple info-graphic to encourage our young people to behave responsibly and respectfully online and a simple “how to” if they are victims of cyberbullying.

All of the Fuzion skills including PR, Design and my knowledge of social media helped us to push this out internationally to over 100 countries (a few months ago we were asked to translate it into Hungarian for a conference in Zagreb!) – we are making a difference!

!0 years …wow!

What will the next 10 years bring for me and for you?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design firm in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin 

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Posted in Business Start Ups, Marketing, Personal development, Positivity, Social Media | 29 Comments »

Discrimination against men!

August 29, 2013

Discrimination against men

I’m up to here with quotas for women and schemes and incentives .. enough!

The latest that has come onto my radar is a scheme and fund by Enterprise Ireland for “Ambitious Women”.

www.enterprise-ireland.com/ambitiouswomen – get your entry in because applications close on the 10th September!

Deirdre Clune - Fine GaelI spotted the very talented and intelligent Fine Gael Senator Deirdre Clune, blogging about it on her website  with the headline “New Fund means more Women will be at the Forefront of Irish Business“.

Now … before I go any further you are probably thinking that I have something against women.

I don’t!

I work with a team of women who are absolutely brilliant and during the course of my work I deal with incredible, intelligent, talented, professional and quite impressive women on an ongoing basis.

If you asked me to make a list of people who have impressed me lately, then truthfully more women would be on that list than men!

If you look around you and observe you can see some of these women rising to the top and starting to take the top positions in organisations. In political circles we are seeing exactly the same – Deirdre could very well be one of these in time.

The new Enterprise Ireland scheme (don’t get me wrong, any new scheme promoting entrepreneurship is great) is according to the blurb designed to “accelerate the number of high potential female-led businesses being set up in Ireland“

The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mr Richard Bruton stated “I’m delighted to add that this recent announcement follows on from two other successful female entrepreneurship funds which were launched last year.“

If you read on you get even more of it: “The funding call is open to female-led start-ups in Manufacturing and Internationally Traded Services including Internet, Games, Apps, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software, Lifesciences, Food, Consumer Products, Medical Devices and e-Health – This means that women can pursue viable business ideas in a multitude of areas, which in turn could generate jobs and get the economy moving“

“I do hope in addition to helping women jump start their business ideas the fund will also advance Ireland’s reputation on the world stage as these business areas are all globally exciting and sustainable.”

So, a female start up will get assistance but a guy with the same proposition won’t? Hmmm..

Ambitious and talented women in Ireland ….do you really want to be singled out for such special attention?

Such schemes specifically promoting women in business are wrong and if you think about it discriminatory to men and totally missing the point.

We need to be encouraging everyone to start a business – come on!

If there was a similar scheme for men, women would be up in arms and rightfully so.

Condoleezza RiceAmbitious women, wherever you are stand up and go for it

…not because there is a scheme or a quota but because you want it, you deserve it and you are more than able!

No Fund will mean more women are at the forefront of Irish business – you can do it for yourselves the same as the rest of us! 

P.S. I’m waiting for the torrent of abuse when I publish this post – It won’t be pretty!!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion 

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design firm in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Brand Loyalty, HR, Ireland, Positivity | 31 Comments »

Can Win Happy work?

June 23, 2013

Fuzion team

It was a gorgeous summer Saturday in Cork and I was strolling around the city with Dee and my two kids.

Everyone was in great form and I knew I should have been but I was miserable and my head was bursting – work was killing me. I had been caught in the middle of a corporate crossfire for over two years between the joint owners and unfortunately this was a no win situation for me.

I was the General Manager and I could have had an easy life if I toed the line, kept my head down, settled for the status quo, played the politics and enjoyed the benefits. This wasn’t me ….I was miserable!

On that Saturday afternoon, 10 years ago I decided I was handing in my notice (handing back my new Saab and turning my back on a hefty salary) and it was the day Win Happy was born.

Win Happy

Fuzion teamThis has been my goal ever since – never again did I want to spend a minute feeling miserable about my work.

It is really important to me that happiness is at the heart of what I do every single day.

Happiness for me is working in a place that I love, doing work that I enjoy, with great people and for clients that I respect.

Utopia?

I guess in a way it is Utopian but why not have that as a goal?

I will be the first to admit that it isn’t always that way but mostly we get pretty close.

Happy..

I do love what I do (except for some horrible admin work every now and then), we work for who we want (we don’t answer to any head office or anything like that, we can accept or even reject work if we choose) and we have carefully chosen a group of really good people to work with.

Every Friday we break bread together as part of a sacred lunch routine we have, which we call Fuzion Friday.

I believe that if you get all of that right you end up with an atmosphere that creates the perfect conditions for great work ..for winning.

Win?

Kerrie & DeeHappy is the first part of my philosophy. I am very driven and while I am not motivated by money I do want to be successful in our profession and this is where the satisfaction from Winning comes into it.

We work extremely hard and we keep ourselves up to date with trends and developments. We carefully choose talented people for our team and we make sure they understand the Fuzion way.

Together we work hard to get results for our clients even if this means us doing more than we are contracted for.

If a talented team, in a happy environment, work hard for clients then you should get lots of wins. Winning leads to more business – simple!

This philosophy has stood us well since the business started and in the 10 years that I have been with Fuzion we have continued to grow our business and our team, mostly with a smile.

#WinHappy

Can it work? – Tell me what you think?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Motivation, Personal development, Positivity, Self Help, Teamwork | 7 Comments »

Ken..Thanks for the flowers

June 3, 2013

Flowers in the window

It was a funny day in the office.

First of all William from the Ambassador Restaurant arrived with gifts after returning from a holiday. He brought us a “Fuzion” scroll and a little oriental tea pot – he went to a lot of thought and bother. It was incredible to see a client thinking about us in that way.

Later Ken Buckley from Buckley Fine Art arrived with chocolates and an impressive bouquet of flowers – it was a thank you because he felt he really got a lot from the PR training course that we ran and wanted to show his appreciation …wow, what a day of  kind gestures!

As it turned out we had to go to Killarney for a few days working on a few different projects – I asked mum could I pop the flowers that Ken had brought up to Gran Ellen who was staying in the Bons Secours Nursing Home on the Lee Road. Gran was funny about flowers (someone else always deserved them more than she did) and she hadn’t been well recently so I wasn’t sure if she was up to accepting them or even a visit.

Mum reckoned she would appreciate them and it would be ok to visit as long as we didn’t stay too long.

On the way out of town we popped into the nursing home to see Gran – she brightened up when she saw us and she immediately insisted that one of the nurses brought a vase for the beautiful flowers. In the end it took two vases and Gran Ellen wanted the curtains pulled open wide so that she could see them in full glory on the window sill.

We had a quick chat with her. Visiting Gran was always special – she was always bright and in good form and you always left her feeling better than when you came in.

A few days later during a meeting with William from the Ambassador restaurant my mum called to say Gran had slipped away (I’m glad it was William I was with – great guy).

When we went to see Gran Ellen laid out peacefully the flowers were still in full colour adding life to the room.

If Ken from the Buckley Fine Art Gallery hadn’t brought us those flowers I wouldn’t have got to see Gran Ellen that last time – I sent him a message on Facebook about what a huge gesture the flowers turned out to be.

Many months later my mum called to say that some money had been left to her and her brothers and sisters from Gran’s estate and she insisted on giving me, my sister and brother an amount from this.

As always, mum insisted and we thought long and hard about what to do with this money. We wanted to do something special with it, something that would always remind us of Gran Ellen.

“How about buying some art?” We would have it forever and it could be passed onto the next generation.

Night Skating - Brian Smyth

Night Skating – Brian Smyth

On a cold winters day with snow on the ground Dee, my daughter Ellen (it would be hers eventually!) and yours truly headed to town and picked out a beautiful painting with a real nostalgic feeling to it by Cork artist Brian Smyth that now hangs in a special place over our fireplace.

Everyone who visits is told the story about a great woman and how a kind gesture can come back to you further down the line – guess where we bought the painting?

Gran, we miss you and Ken …Thanks for the flowers

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Ken Buckley has an art gallery in Kinsale, County Cork – The Gallery Kinsale

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Posted in Friendship, Personal development, Positivity | 8 Comments »

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