September 22, 2010

How Badly Do You Really Want It?

Take a moment to ask a person about their dreams and they’ll tell you about a fulfilling career, a great relationship, or their own island in the Pacific Ocean.

Take a couple more moments, as I often do in coaching, to ask them what they’re planning to do in order to make their dreams come true, and you’ll often hear the most unrealistic fairytales.

In my experience, most people are simply not willing to do the things which will realistically make them achieve their big dreams, things which happen to also be pretty hard. Thus, they automatically reject the most effective alternatives, they’re stuck with bad alternatives and they eventually abandon their dreams.

Real Stories

Here are three real examples, of people I’ve interacted with in the past few months:

  1. A person who wants to become a top professional in a Fortune 500 company, but is not willing to leave the small town they live in. Why? Because all their friends and relatives are there.
  2. A person who hates their job and wants to go into a new professional field, but is not willing to take the initial salary cut. Why? Because they would have to sell their fast car and take the subway for a while.
  3. A person who wants to have a successful business, but is not willing to work for 2 or 3 years at developing this business besides their regular job, until it becomes sustainable. Why? Too much work.

In all these examples, the path exists. The only problem is that the person is not willing to take the path. They don’t want to make the necessary compromises.

Quitting In the Face Of a Challenge

Now I’m not saying that all compromises are good. Sometimes, the effort to get to a certain place in your life is just not worth it by comparison with the benefits. However, this is not the case I’m talking about.

The real issue in my view is that many people aren’t willing to make even strategic compromises, which in the end would be worth it: the short-term compromise for the much bigger long-term benefits.

In my area of people skills, I see countless examples of people who aren’t willing to accept a challenge and put in the work to improve key people skills, even though they know how much it would enrich their lives. They stop at the level of: “Yeah, I know: I should probably work on this.” And they pay the price.

Reality Check

Let’s turn the discussion towards you. I invite you to look at your life, your career and your relationships, and ask yourself four magic questions:

  1. What are my biggest, boldest dreams in these areas?
  2. What are realistically, the things I need to do in order to achieve these dreams?
  3. Which of these things have I really accepted and decided to do?
  4. Which of these things am I really doing?

If you’re like 98% of people, you’ll find out that your deeds aren’t exactly aligned with your dreams. There is a gap between them which if you don’t face, can become as big as the Grand Canyon.

You may try to find shortcuts and creative solutions to achieve your goals with little effort or struggle. If your goals are high, chances are that you will not find them or they won’t work.

The roads to great places tend to have quite the bumps at some points. The best thing you can do is to accept the bumps in the road and go through them.

In a way, you could say that making those hard, initial compromises to get what will truly enrich your life is the easy way. I say this because if you look at things in perspective, you end up living a much more meaningful and joyful life.

However, the meaningful joyful life does imply an initial level of work, perseverance and sacrifice which only few people are willing to go through. But if you want something big and you want it badly enough, it makes sense to go beyond what most people are willing to do.

If you decide that you simply don’t want if badly enough, no problem. Just make sure that when you’re an old person and you tell stories to your grandchildren about your life, you don’t say that you could have been a great person but you didn’t have the opportunity. It was right there in your face!

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Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Success Tagged With: , , , 23 Comments
September 19, 2010

Conversation Starters Project

Cool people,

A few days ago, I’ve launched a niche website which I encourage you to check out. It’s called Conversation Starters and it’s about (you’ve guessed it) conversation starters (I love it when the right domain is available).

This site aims to provide a quality answer to a frequent question: “How the hell do I start a conversation?” There are now only a few articles on it, but in the next few weeks it’s gonna fill with content.

The really good news, in my view, is that Conversation Starters will be more than a place to find cheesy lines. I take communication and people skills very seriously. This site will be a source for smart, practical conversation starters, as well as principles and techniques to understand and apply them effectively.

On a funnier note, it’s highly entertaining for me to write on a potentially corny subject and try to provide real value to readers, while maintaining a relaxed approach of the subject.

So, if you’re interested in improving your people skills in the area of initiating conversations, head on over to www.conversation-starters.com.

I’m looking forward to your feedback, plus, any good conversation starters you would like to share.

Image courtesy of CarbonNYC

Filed Under: News, People Skills Tagged With: , , 4 Comments
September 13, 2010

Dealing with Envious People

Reach a high enough level of success, skill or happiness, and you find out there are a lot of little green monsters around you, many of which you used to call friends, colleagues, partners or collaborators.

Since envy is a common and tricky interpersonal occurrence, I believe that dealing with envious people effectively is one of the important people skills to master. The primary thing to be acquainted with is not technique, but the fundamental philosophy of handling envious people. This is what I’ll focus this article on.

Reality Check

Before you think about dealing with envious people, answer this question: Are they really envious of you? You see, one thing I’ve noticed coaching people to improve their people skills is that in a many cases, envy is a false diagnostic.

What’s really going on is that a person has a better image of their skills or success than it’s warranted, so they act all arrogant and they expect special treatment. When this special treatment does not happen, the person wrongfully concludes that people are envious of them.

Here’s an example: a recruiter who believes they are the best recruiter in the company and should get the most important recruitment projects. However, their manager accurately believes that this person is not the best recruiter and gives them regular recruitment projects. So, the recruiter decides that their manager is just envious.

This is why it’s good to open your eyes really wide, notice what’s really going on and then decide if it’s a case of people green with envy or rather you being a self-righteous pain in the ass.

Putting Envious People in One of Two Boxes

If you decide that you’re dealing with real envy, the next thing I recommend is to think about those people who are envious of you and their real power to have a practical negative impact over you. Based on this, put them into one of two boxes:

  1. The Harmless Box. These are the people who besides making some bad jokes and not liking you very much don’t have the power or the guts to actually do something which can harm you.
  2. The Potential Threat Box. These are the people who do have enough power and nerve to potentially harm an aspect of your life, such as a work colleague who is very well trusted by all the top management in the company.

Ignore, Ignore, Ignore

The people in the first box are the people you just want to ignore. Let their jokes and passive-aggressive comments be like spears passing through water. There is no real harm they can do and often, if they see their comments have no effect on you, they eventually back off and continue hating you in silence.

By defending yourself in front of them or becoming passive-aggressive yourself, you are giving these people more importance than they deserve. Many of them are hopping this will happen, because they derive power not from real results, but from manipulative, power games.

Address Them Head On

The people in the second box, they are a different scenario. Since they can actually sabotage your career, relationships or life, you want to deal with them as soon as you notice comments or behaviors that suggest envy.

The first approach I recommend is talking to them. Point their conduct, express your honest opinions in a tactful way and seek to get their perspective on things. Yes, if your communication style is good enough, this does work and you can get the other person to back down.

If this approach fails, it’s time to put into play one of my favorite people skills: cutting this person’s power over you. This means you change your environment and your social dynamics so the envious person no longer has power to affect you.

One person I know who had an envious manager did so by becoming a good friend with and earning the trust of their manager’s manager. Another person with an envious manager did so by quitting their job and finding another one. Alternatives do exist; the essence is to act on them.

Envious people can be a bother, but they don’t have to. Know how to deal with them wisely, have the confidence and the people skills to do so, and they become insignificant; which is how I think envious people deserve to be.

Image courtesy of Darwin Bell

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills, Relationships Tagged With: , , 42 Comments
September 8, 2010

How to Meet New People and Make New Friends

I remember many years ago, a woman told me how she is often bored because she doesn’t have a lot of friends. She was living in a city with over 3.000.000 people. I was shocked. I was wondering: “How can you live surrounded by so many people and not have enough friends to spend some quality time with?”

Since then, this scene has repeated itself many times, with many other persons. After a while, I realized how common this phenomenon was and it no longer shocked me.

I began thinking how I could assist others to meet new people and make new friends; thus my current profession plus a marginal obsession for social dynamics and improving people skills.

The Loneliness Paradox

Most of us walk on the streets every day passing by hundreds of other people. And yet many of us lack a good social circle, both in terms of quality and quantity.

It’s obviously not a problem of options. As a person who at one point consciously increased their sociability factor, I can tell you that there are not only a lot of people, but also many cool people out there, eager to meet new people and make new friends. It is a problem of confidence, strategy, people skills, or any combination of the three.

The good news is that you can develop any of these and get the kind of social life you want. In this article I will give you the fundamental points to developing your social circle and enriching your social life.

Meeting New People

One great way to meet new people is, in my view, taking on social activities. These activities can include sports, classes, hobbies, volunteer work etc. There are dozens of examples of specific social activities, which is exactly why I think it’s pointless for me to give you a few.

The point is to use social activities to get in environments where there are other people and by the nature of the activity you interact with them. At the same time, you want to get involved in activities which you believe you might enjoy; not just any social activity.

The other great way to meet new people that I know is getting your current friends to introduce you to some of their other friends. Of course, this doesn’t apply if your current friends are in a faraway town or if they don’t have any other friends, but it does apply in any other scenario.

I often tell my friends to give me a call whenever they’re going out with a group of cool people or to a fun party. I’ve repeated this to a few of them so many times that now they are in the habit of thinking about me whenever they go out. It helps if at one point, you can return your friends the favor, but in my experience, it’s not a must.

Making New Friends

Keep in mind that interacting with a new person does not automatically make that person a friend. Friendships happen when two people feel connected in some way. They discover they have things in common, they like each other or they got used with being part of each other’s lives.

Once you’ve met new people, you will need to keep the ball rolling in order to develop friendships. Two things come to mind on how to do this.

The first thing is to be very sociable. When interacting with somebody: talk about yourself and open up, ask the other person questions, listen actively, make jokes and focus on positive topics. Apparently simple actions like these and mixing them the right way are a reflection of good skills with people and the very fabric of making friends.

The second thing is to take the initiative and ask people out. If you interact with a person and you’re getting along well, that’s more than a good reason to initiate future interactions.

So if for example, you meet a person in your photography class you enjoy interacting with them, give them a call sometimes and ask them to join you for coffee, or something similar. As the interactions get rolling, if you get along even better, a friendship develops.

On paper/ your monitor, it may appear very easy to meet new people and make new friends. The trick is to skillfully apply ideas like the ones above. And the emphasis is not initially on the word ‘skillfully’, but on the word ‘apply’. Most people I know with poor social lives essentially need to get off their asses more.

One of the reasons I teach people skills is because I have seen and I have experienced for myself how fulfilling a rich social life can be. We live now in a world with more social opportunities than ever. I’m convinced it’s a worthwhile task to make good use of them.

Image courtesy of MorBCN

Filed Under: Lifestyle, People Skills, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , 10 Comments
September 5, 2010

When It Comes To Life Success, It’s All About Crafty Confidence – 5 Unorthodox Tips to Improve Yours

This is a guest post by Jonny Gibaud, co-founder of Emergency Food Storage. Jonny writes for the love of helping people, inspiring people and Katie Holmes. For articles on Life Design, Business and Sexy Money head over to his blog or check out his personal BrandBase.

Confidence Is The Winner

Confidence, more than ability, is usually what separates the winners from the losers and so what better trait to focus on for improving your confidence.

Some people are innately very confident and I am sure we all secretly harbor some resentment towards them because of it but even if confidence does not come easily to you, it can be improved. The 5 Unorthodox confidence boosting techniques we are going to focus on today are:

1. Wear Outrageous Underwear
2. Make Statements – Limit Explanation
3. Learn To Love Silence
4. Dress Dapper
5. Finish Well

1. Wear Outrageous Underwear

Sometimes the only thing you need to do to put your fears to rest is to have a secret that you know and no one else does. Imagining people in their underwear is yesterday’s news, wearing your own outrageous pair of skinnies under your clothes in the new future.

Having this little secret that you and only you in the room know will help you feel more relaxed and settled.

Personally, whenever giving a presentation or networking I like to wear a pair of silk black boxer shorts with bright red hearts on. (Yeah, too much information I know) but it is this little outrageous act that relaxes me and allows me to be at my most confident. Try it and see for yourself.

2. Make Statements – Limit Explanation

Confidence is all about perception and the quickest way to destroy that perception is to overly explain your job, idea, background, latest travels etc. Try to limit the amount of explaining you do unless specifically asked to.

Simply making a one sentence statement is incredibly powerful because it comes across that what you just said does not need explanation or proof.

“I’m a Personal Branding consultant who works with my clients to define and project a powerful Personal Brand both online and offline” is far more powerful then “I’m a Personal Branding consultant who works with my clients to define and project a powerful Personal Brand both online and offline. You need a personal brand because…..and I do this…and this for you…with this on the side”

3. Learn To Love Silence

Silence is your friend, my friend.

Most people hate silences and will do anything to avoid them, and it is for this reason that learning to love them can be so powerful.

Whether the silence falls within a natural lull in conversation or when contemplating an idea, people will normally try to jump in and fill it with repeated words, fill words or just plain nonsense. Anything but the silence.

If you can learn to enjoy the silences, not try to fill them and use the time to actually think (as opposed to having shifty, uncomfortable eyes) then the world is yours. People admire this trait and subconsciously attach a huge amount of self confidence to your character.

4. Dress Dapper

We all make snap decisions, we shouldn’t but we do. If you’re not looking your best, you will never feel and act your best.

Remember how confident you felt in a Tux or a beautiful dress. (Tux for boys, dress for girls. Behave people.) Clothes make a difference and nothing saps your confidence like turning up underdressed and not looking your best.

Take the time to make sure you look dapper and let your confidence expand from there. Your look is the foundation of your confidence.

5. Finish Well

It’s all in the finish people. Fortunately you can make a hash of almost everything but if you finish well, that has the major impact on what the audience takes away.

Focus on always finishing speeches, conversations and network events with a powerful and confident close. Practice and perfect it.

With a powerful close that will leave a great impression you can be safe in the knowledge than no matter how badly things go, people will tend to remember at least a confident close. This knowledge will also help you relax and in turn act more confident. It’s a great fulfilling circle of awesomeness.

Get Confident

So there you have it. Five very simple and effective techniques for improving your confidence. Go out and give them a try, I am sure you won’t be disappointed. Also, as a shameless plug for my new upcoming book keep and eye out for the launch of CHOOSE: Master of Money Or Slave To It.

Rock on all.

Image courtesy of pasotraspaso

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , , , , 18 Comments
August 31, 2010

The Corporate Person’s Guide to Loosening Up

In my experience, there are a lot of stiff people in the corporate world. Their manner is so formal, their words are so contrived that they often give the impression of robots made on the same production line, having no people skills.

Whenever I find myself interacting with such a person, I have a somewhat hard time feeling relaxed and trusting them. And I find that most people feel the same way. Their conduct seems so fake and insecure that it’s hard to feel otherwise.

A Good Idea Gone Insane

Ask a corporate person about their manner which appears stiff to you and they will often tell you it is a business and professional manner: “This is how corporate people behave”. While there is some truth in this, I believe the formal corporate conduct has gone way beyond reflecting professionalism.

Dig a little dipper and you will discover a conduct which prevents people from enjoying their interactions and working well together. It is a conduct rooted in:

  • A false image of professionalism and the professional image;
  • A tendency to blindly follow traditions and conventions;
  • A fear of being authentic in business interactions;
  • Giving too much significance to clients, colleagues, bosses and their opinions.

My Top Ideas for Loosening Up

I think that loosening up as a corporate person is something anyone can benefit from and an excellent way to improve your business people skills. Here are my top ideas on how to loosen up:

1. Don’t wear a formal suit all the time. Nobody likes to wear a formal suit all the time. Not even James Bond. And the fact that official company policy may demand you wear a full-piece suit all the time is not a good excuse in my view. This is one policy you can bend. Try dressing in a way which still reflects professionalism, but is less formal.

2. Relax your body. Many corporate people I know have this really stiff posture and body language, which they force on themselves. A corporation is not the same as the army. It’s OK to relax your body and even slouch a bit, and you can do this while still marinating dignity in your posture.

3. Do joke once in a while. Some corporate people hardly make a joke in a business meeting or in a discussion with a client. They take their work and their professional image that seriously. Learn to have fun while interacting with others in the business environment and joke about things once in a while.

4. Do talk about other things besides business. It’s OK to be focused on results; it’s not OK to do so without adding a human side to your interactions. Make personal conversation with your clients and your colleagues; get to know each other as human beings. It is this human component which often strengthens the business side.

5. Avoid using clichés. The signature trait of a stiff corporate person is the fact they talk in clichés. They are so afraid to say the wrong thing and be improper that they end up only saying the old, over-repeated and predictable things which add no real value. Avoid this and speak your unique truth.

6. Do work you love. The more work you do which you are passionate about, the more you become passionate in your general conduct. The fact you enjoy what you do gives you more positive energy and more confidence to express yourself as you are. The most relaxed people I know are those who don’t care and those who are very fulfilled.

If you happen to be a somewhat tense and stiff person in your manner at work, I can tell you now that changing your ways and improving your people skills in this area will take a degree of persistence. However, you will see it happen.

As a final thought, consider this: you will be spending about 1/3 of your life working. Don’t you wanna express yourself and have some fun with it in all this time?

Image courtesy of DaveAustia.com

Filed Under: Attitude, Career, Communication Skills Tagged With: , , , 8 Comments
August 25, 2010

Get Off the Therapy Couch! Why Exploring the Past Is Nonsense

Client: “I’ve always been lacking the confidence to speak up. In childhood, my parents were very harsh with me and would always criticize me when I opened my mouth. There was this one time when I was 9…”

Me: “Aham (cough)… I don’t really need to know that. Give me an example of how this lack of confidence manifests itself NOW.”

The fascination many people have with doing a heavy, skilled analysis of their past is something I understand very well and in terms of practical benefits, I find pointless.

Coaches have traditionally been making a lot of fun of some types of therapists for focusing to much on the past and not enough on the present. I guess somebody forgot to inform the potential clients as well about this frequent weak spot of therapy.

Why We Like to Explore Our Past

There are several reasons for which I believe that many of us put a lot of emphasis on exploring our past in our personal development:

  • We have a need to know ourselves, which includes understanding clearly how our past experiences left their mark on us. This is all fine but, do you really want to put a lot of effort and sometimes money in that?
  • We have this idea (probably induced by cheap self-help books) that there is this one negative experience in our past which is single handedly responsible for a certain flaw or fear we have. And we need to find it.
  • We think that in order to change our beliefs or get rid of our fears, we need to understand exactly their source in the past. And when we do and we embrace our past, the change often happens just like that.
  • We sometimes us it as a way of running from the responsibility of acting and changing ourselves. We focus on the past so we can forget about the person development work required in the present.

The Reality of Personal Development

I will sometimes read a psychoanalyst’s opinion on how our present problems are rooted in the past and we need to skillfully uncover the past in order to heal the present. And it will crack me up; because in all my research on this topic, I haven’t found a single convincing shred of evidence to support this.

Analyzing your past, digging dip and unraveling all sort of stuff may sound cool, but it is basically a useless process judging by the improvements it creates. The bottom line is this:

Exploring your past is not necessary or very useful in transforming yourself.

Why? Because our present ways of thinking and feeling may have their origins in the past, but it doesn’t really mater. Our beliefs, thinking patterns and emotions have a life of their own in the here and now.

Consequently, it is in the here and now that we need to address them if we wanna see results. Understanding the kind of experiences that created them may give us some extra clarity and help us discover irrational thinking, but that’s about all it can do. And we only need a small amount of past exploration to get this effect.

This is why I use principles and techniques from CBC (Cognitive Behavioral Coaching) when I assist my clients change their thinking and emotional reactions, in order to improve the people skills they aim to improve. CBC has a focus on the present and on getting real, quantifiable results.

If you’re looking for improvement, focus on the present. Identify those limiting ways of thinking you have now and combat them now. Do this repeatedly, systemically, and you’ll see some real progress. The answer to your personal development is not in the past, it is in this moment.

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Filed Under: Inspirational, Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , 22 Comments
August 20, 2010

How to Deal With Toxic People

We’ve all met them: they are the people who drain you of energy instead of enriching you, the people who pull you down instead of pushing you up, the people who require more then they can provide; the negative, wining, needy, manipulative people who can turn a happy day into a living hell.

I call them toxic people. One thing I notice is that no matter how good our people skills are in general, most of us have problems with dealing effectively with this kind of people. Even those with really sharp people skills often get caught up in the polluting relationships (personal or professional) toxic people create.

The good news is that there are effective ways to deal with toxic people. Working as a communication coach, I came to realize there are certain patterns of behavior and communication which work really well with this kind of persons. Here are the most significant of them:

1. Avoid toxic people

I believe the best way to deal with toxic people is to not deal with them at all; to avoid them. In some cases it may not be an option, but more often than not, it is. This is why I encourage you to really think about the options you truly have with every toxic person in your life.

It is common to think you have to deal with someone, when you actually do not. It is also common to believe you can get a toxic person to change while interacting with them. My experience is that unless you are a professional, you will not get them to change and trying it simply is not worth it.

2. Anticipate toxic people

It is harder than usual to get out of relationships with a toxic person. Toxic people tend to have this ability to make you feel bad for avoiding them and to attach to you like a leech. This is why it’s important to be able to spot them quickly, and start avoiding them before the relationship truly develops.

The best way I know to do this is to come up with a list of clues which you believe might indicate a toxic person. Then, every time you meet a person and a significant number of these clues are there, distance yourself from that person.

3. Set firm boundaries

Toxic people will often use you, one way or another. The may complain to you all the time while you listen hopelessly (?), or they may constantly get you to get them out of trouble. This is where boundaries come in. Boundaries are reflections of what you are and are not willing to do.

Setting firm boundaries means not allowing toxic people to use you in any of these ways. It means refusing to listen to them complain, refusing to get them out of trouble. When you have firm boundaries, there is basically nothing bad any person can do to you.

4. Get over your guilt

Most toxic people are very skilled at making others feel guilty when they don’t do what they want. This makes it particularly hard to set and maintain firm boundaries with them. But, there is a way out of this dilemma: getting rid of your guilt. It is your own guilt which toxic people use to break down your boundaries.

When you can set and maintain boundaries with them without feeling guilty, the weapon they have against you is gone. Realize that your guilt is irrational, pointless, and it is used against you by toxic people. This is the best way to get over it.

5. Do not defend yourself

When you avoid toxic people and you set boundaries with them, they frequently resort to accusing you, complaining and playing the victim in an attempt to get you to change your behavior.

One of the worst things you can do when this happens is to defend yourself. It is usually a futile action and it only keeps an immature dialog going which eventually helps the toxic person get what they want. You won’t get anywhere with them by defending yourself and your actions.

Unfortunately, toxic people are everywhere. And they tend to attach themselves to those persons who are kind and have the most to offer. When you have the people skills to deal effectively with toxic people, you have the option to respond to their attaching in the best ways for you.

As for helping toxic people change their ways, I encourage you to leave/pass this task to the professionals in this area.

PS: I now blog and share advice over here. Connect with me.

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Filed Under: People Skills, Psychology, Relationships Tagged With: , , , 95 Comments
August 15, 2010

Beyond People Skills: My 3 Life Lessons

This article is written at the invitation of fellow blogger Abubakar Jamil, as part of the Life Lessons Series. You can find out more about this project and the people involved on his blog.

It’s a very enjoyable activity for me to look back at my life so far, at the experiences I had, to reflect on them and to draw lessons. It’s something I do periodically, in a systematic, pen & paper way, and something I encourage everyone to do.

As I’m doing this process now, there are 3 very valuable life lessons which stand out. They go beyond improving people skills and they’re the lessons I want to share with you.

Life Lesson 1: Your weaknesses are your strengths.

When I was a teenager, I was frequently described as ‘annoying’ because I asked a lot of questions and always wanted details about things I didn’t quite understand. The result of this was that I started asking questions about why it’s bad to ask a lot of questions. I never got a satisfying answer, but I also didn’t want to annoy people so I ended up shutting up a lot more.

As time passed and I got seriously into psychology, I began to see all the potential benefits of my tendencies to ask a lot of questions. I was basically an analytical person, which enjoyed decoding various phenomena. So instead of repressing this side of my personality, I decided to express it and find the best ways to do so.

Now, the fact I ask a lot of questions is what makes me have a good understanding of how people skills work; get a good grasp of my clients’ needs and provide real results through my coaching services. I still annoy some people, but I don’t mind that anymore. I know that if I look in perspective, my weakness is my strength.

Life Lesson 2: Perfectionism kills productivity.

I started writing at the same time I started coaching. I remember that it took me then almost 4 hours to write a one page article related to people skills which I now write in less than 2 hours. Part of this visible increase in my writing speed is due to the fact my writing skills have improved a lot in the passing years, and part is due to the fact I stopped being a perfectionist about my writing.

When I was writing articles for the first time, I felt this need to make them look perfect. I wanted the perfect structure, style, words and ideas every time. Later, I realized that perfection was not necessary. My readers wanted very good writing and high quality ideas (this made them read my stuff and buy my other services) but they did not require perfection.

By being a perfectionist about my writing, I was using a lot of time for each article, without a significant increase in the benefits to justify it. So, I gradually started to tolerate imperfection and give less time to each article. I continued to have a high standard in my writing, but I no longer sought perfection. Because perfectionism was killing my productivity.

Life Lesson 3: Hope is not enough, you need a good strategy.

This is a lesson which fortunately for me, I’ve learned mostly from the experiences of other persons around me. I say fortunately because it was a lesson learned mostly through big failures and loses.

I have seen people in my professional network lose a lot of money and fail miserably with all sorts of business ideas. And most of the time, these people had one thing in common: they weren’t applying realistic business strategies. They had a lot of hope and optimism, but no real understanding what it takes to make their business ideas work. They were very slow to learn from their mistakes, to develop their strategies, and so they’ve made businesses plummet.

I have seen this happen beyond managing a business, in managing a career or a life. And it’s the same pattern: hope is good but it is not enough. At the end of the day, you need to know what the heck you’re doing and have a solid strategy to reflect it. Hope is a good companion, but not a replacement for competence.

These are my 3 life lessons. What are your most important life lessons?

Image courtesy of Paco Alcantara

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Lifestyle Tagged With: , , , 21 Comments