The Secret of Receiving Is Giving

February 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Time Jumper © by h.koppdelaney

Last week was terrible! I worked for almost 80 hours and being social was more an obligation than pleasure. I have learned that exhaustion doesn’t raise the quality of my work and it doesn’t make me a good company either.

I did not manage to write my blogs and I had to deliver rubbish two days in a row. I have to be more careful when planning work in order to deliver quality.

This morning I was thinking that if I were better at networking, then maybe I didn’t have to work as much as I do now?

I read a small and wise book a couple of years ago called “The Go-Giver” and basically the message was to give in order to receive. Everything you want from life you have to give out.

So, what is it that I want since I work so much and do I get it? I clearly don’t get what I want since I keep struggling.

This is what I want

I want money so that I can pay my bills and provide food and a bit of fun.

I want to earn a living writing.

I want more clients in my clinic so that I don’t have to do extra work elsewhere.

I want to be able to spend more time with my girlfriend, my family and my friends.

I want to exercise or to give my home more attention.

This is what I have to give

To get what I want I need someone to give it to me. But why should anyone give me what I want and how can they give me what I want? Basically I’m asking for time and money. Isn’t that what we all want?

The secret is to be specific about what I want and then take one thing at the time and figure out how I can add value to my network in order to get what I need.

E.g. to make a living blogging I have to write something people would want to read. I also have to find readers for what I write. Thus, I have to give quality content and show it to people whom value the content.

At the present time I have a lot of quality to deliver, but I don’t have anyone to receive it. That is why I have to focus on networking.

The best way to get success is to network and to add value to your network. You cannot get success alone!

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Habits Are the Building Blocks of Your Life

December 17, 2011 by 1 Comment

Building blocks © by DBduo Photography

Imagine you are building a house of bricks. The first thing you do is to make sure that your house has a solid foundation to stand on. If you build your house directly on the ground you risk that your house will give in time an eventually fall apart. The ground upon which you build your house has to be dry and stable; it is almost impossible to build a house on wet and unstable ground. Well, there are ways to build the house on piles but even then the piles have to form the stable foundation.

Apart from stable and dry ground your house needs a solid foundation made of concrete. Depending on the size of your house the foundation may even have been strengthened with steel. Upon your solid foundation you build your carcass of the house; the carcass is the core that makes your house stand in the worst hurricanes; if the carcass is strong enough it will stand for hundreds of years.

Around the carcass you stack the bricks that form the appearance of your house; they give your house personality. Finally you lay the roof; the roof is often the weak point of a building; the roof is often the first to give in when nature rage. You have to make sure that your roof is laid on a strong structure of rafts and made of tiles that are fastened tight.

Your life is just like the house you build. Your life needs a solid foundation and a strong core that will withstand the trials of life. The ground you build upon has to be stable; the ground of your life is your network, your environment and your culture. You need a solid foundation for your life; that foundation fulfils your basic need for shelter, food and income. These basic things are very solid and should not change much during life.

The carcass of you life is a bit more flexible. You can change career, move to another city etc. Big changes in life will change the core of your life. The roof of your house is like your mind, it is the weak spot of the construction and it tends to fly off when nature rage. Keep peace of mind and a cool head. Do not get stressed! The bricks of the walls are all the extra things that make your life what it is and you should be ready to enhance, rebuild and change that appearance at all times in order to improve your life.

Every single part of your life is like the building blocks of the house. They are traditions of culture, network and environment – very stable. They are routines and habits that make up the foundation, core, roof and walls of your life. Some of them are solid and changeless and others are brief and flexible.

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I Wish I Were a Bastard!

November 13, 2011 by 1 Comment

© by Toms Bauģis

Self-esteem is a strange and difficult concept, especially if you do not have it. It is developed early in life in the age of 3-6 years old. My self-esteem was severely hurt when I was about 3 years old because of a very difficult period in my parents’ life. They do not have any education and jobs were difficult to get. They were poor and tried to provide for our family as best as they could.

Life got better though and as a result my sister and I had excellent conditions. This means that my self-confidence never suffered any damage. Today I have a strange combination of low self-esteem and a very high self-confidence. I have never in my life had any doubt that I could do anything I set my mind to; I have always been convinced that I could do everything better than everyone else.

Extremely arrogant

Well, it is obvious that my attitude made me an odd and extremely arrogant character. I realised this and I started accepting that there are other realities than mine and other people have solutions that are better than mine. I stopped being arrogant and that helped me to get friends, girlfriend and a very large social and professional network.

In the mist of my nagging poor self-esteem I often wish that I were a genuine bastard that did not give a rats arse about other people! The worse thing is that I feel bad about thinking like that and why is that? It is because my mind seeks balance; the body will always try to find balance both physically and mentally.

I am over-concerned about what other people think and feel and in particular what they think about me. I cannot help it except accepting and trying to develop and balance my mind. You have probably experienced something similar and the reason we have this urge to be inconsiderate bastards are that one of the traits we experience from these people is an extreme self-esteem.

In the perspective of people with very low self-esteem these inconsiderate bastards seem to be very successful. They do not get hurt when people reject them, they do not care if people like them or not, they seem to have a lot of friends and a good job. Why is it that such bad character seems to carry success? Well, it is an open question that you can puzzle over.

Be less sensitive

We need to understand that we cannot please everybody; all people cannot love us; sometimes we hurt other people and sometimes we disagree; but that does not mean that we are bad people; it merely underlines the fact that we are human and that we are unique individuals. We should praise that people are different; if all people liked everybody and everything then nobody would ever do anything for development and progression. Life would be incredible boring!

What we have to do is learn how to deal with our self-esteem and find balance. When it comes down to it then I really do not want to be an inconsiderate bastard but I do want to be less sensitive to what other people think; and that is my focus in my next articles.

Filed Under: Discover Yourself Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

How to Be Successful: Network!

October 26, 2011 by 1 Comment

Collaboration © by stoneysteiner

To get what you want you need other people to give it to you. Do not think you can do everything yourself because if you do, then you will never get the acknowledgement of success. You need people to help you, to teach you, to support you, to acknowledge you and to work for you. In other words, you need people to give in order to receive.

But why would people want to give anything to you? Would you like to give to people you do not know? – No, of course not! When you feel like giving it is because you have a relation to the person you want to give something. You feel something for this person. Thus, you have to make people want to give you what you need.

That is why networking is important. You need to make relations to people and better yet, you need to connect these relations. Listen to people around you and you will discover what resources they have; discover what their needs are and give it to them and interact in social activities where you can tell your positive stories and listen to other people’s stories.

If you are currently without a network then start working on getting one. Maybe you want to consult my series about self-esteem first. Your network is just waiting for you to take action and the first place to start is your family. Listen to them and find out whom they know and what those people do. Maybe your sister has a good friend that needs something you have; give it to this friend and she will remember you and recommend you to other people.

Building a strong network is an ongoing process and it is never too late to start. This is how you get started:

  1. Listen to people.
  2. Give value to your network. Sometimes the most valuable you can give is you.
  3. Connect people. Be the one to recommend your friends to other friends.

Trust me, if you do this long enough, then people will start listening to you, and you will tell the positive stories about your projects and goals and successes and they will offer value. When your network wants to give, then be ready to receive! Receiving is just as important as giving.

If you would like to know more about success and giving, then I will recommend reading “Go-Giver” by Bob Burg and David Mann.

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How Long Does It Take To Build A Business?

September 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Building your own business and creating an income that is decent enough to live from is hard and takes a lot of work and most of all it takes persistence and patience.

A business takes 3-5 years to build and the first year is, by far, the hardest. The first year you should not expect any income at all so be prepared to finance your business and living concurrently with other activities. The first year you need to set daily goals and do them even if it seems pointless. Work intensively on communicating your accomplishments in your network. Know that your network is the most important tool you have.

Your daily goals help you to keep motivation and that is very important because you will experience times where you just feel like giving up. But do not give up! Listen to the feedback from your network and be conscious of the messages you send out. Focus on your success because that will create positive feedback. Your close network like family and friends will be concerned about you and you will meet some resistance, but it is just because they worry and you have to be very positive in the stories you communicate.

After the third year you will see that you have reached a break-even and income seems to level your expenses and after five years you have a good business that can make you a living. It takes time to build credibility and trust; your environment needs to see that you can make it for at least one year before it starts recommending you. Your network needs a business partner that it can rely on.

Filed Under: Success Tagged With: , , , , , , ,