trust

So why do we have the tendency to take an expert's words over our own? How come we relate to something thruthful being expressed when it is not said by an expert? In short: why on earth would we have the tendency to take another's word over our own?

This morning I read both a statement saying: 'trust your own inner guidance system' and saw a youtube video of a 8 year old girl with a delightful opinion on how things are being done in Egypt. Many people related to both posts.

It appears we may find ourselves increasingly so in a time where we learn to trust our own wisdom more and more. Only those who are unsure venture out to get confirmation on that which they really already know to be true. (That or if you would find yourself in a position of being lost or clue less.) So how do we get clued in? How do we find that answer we are looking for? Google it?

Self empowerment start at the front door. It starts with the dawning realisation that all has changed, gone to custard or need re-alignment. People only change when they see the need to. Once through the door of realisation we come to the newfound understanding that indeed we are in the ''in between'' stage. We scramble, we muck around, we play, whatever fashion feels right to guide our akward feeling journey towards a new discovery. And then all of a sudden; there it is! An apple lands on our head or something equivalent happens. We know instantly what it is we need to do. No one can deviate us from this because it's one of those big ahas.

And when this happens to us, oh boy, miraculous things happen! We get new work out of the blue, we meet the right people to take us further, we simply focus more on something that inspires us and drives us on, we simply as they say "just go for it".

So who is the best expert about what you should do on any given time? There you are!

Providing value

I have made the decision to thoroughly change the way my website Quality Living is operated. I will turn it into an agency in 3 months opposed to keeping it as a network.

My talent is to CREATE and my time is better spend working on designs and being a creator opposed to setting up a business that is not my passion.

The following text is from Steve Pavlina, entrepreneur on VALUE.

Succeeding by Helping Others Succeed
February 19th, 2009 by Steve Pavlina
(…) How do you know if what you have to share has value? Share it first, and you’ll soon find out. If it provides value, people will tell you. If it doesn’t, people will usually ignore you. As long as you’re getting ignored, keep experimenting by trying to provide value in new and unique ways. The only limits are in your thinking. (…)

I was able to start providing value to others much more quickly because I wasn’t stuck thinking about making money. I focused on the service side. I soon figured out how to use my skills to give people what they need and want.

The most important result to track isn’t how many visitors your website is getting or how much money you’re making. Instead, figure out whether you’re actually making a difference in people’s lives. Are you helping people? Are you providing

strong value? If you’re providing genuine value, time and referrals will take care of most of your other key metrics.

Recently I was talking to a friend in the personal development field. Business-wise he and I both had record years in 2008, and we each expect 2009 to blow it away. We joked about the rest of the economy crashing down around us. Why do we feel so optimistic when so many people are nervous? Because we know that we’re providing real value to people. We know that our skills are aligned with contribution. We also have the capacity to do a lot of good for people who are financially struggling, looking for career changes, or feeling uncertain about the future.

Align your skills with what people need. Helping people grow is a service that’s in very high demand. It doesn’t matter that we’re in a (media-fueled) recession. That just means people are more keen to reduce low-value expenditures, and they’re more sensitive to spending money wisely — on purchases that provide the best bang for buck for them. If you’re providing weak value, you’re on shaky ground during a recession. But if you’re providing solid value that meets human needs, a recession can create even bigger opportunities for you — people will drop the fluff from their lives and seek you out instead.

When your business model is no longer fed by sufficient demand, you can always switch to doing something else. But if there’s one thing humanity needs right now, it’s for more of us to step it up and embrace our true potential instead of settling for the limited roles assigned by our social conditioning. In our current environment, there’s still plenty of room for more people to start businesses based on helping and encouraging others to grow. We’re a long way from being over-saturated in this area"

Helping other grow and supporting them comes naturally to me. I don't even think about it. I will continue to support others but make it a side activity, not a main priority. It's time I got back to doing more fun stuff with my husband, he deserves better. To even have time to (gasp) paint! The world is my oyster haha and I intend to have more laughs about it. You enjoy it too...

Keep on dreaming?

I was told when I was a kid to ‘consider my future’. I had to be sensible and plan ahead. Uhuh. Now look what became off me! Much good that running off with life and doing something so silly as moving to the other side of the world has done for us! Living down under based on a feeling. Pah! What sort of career move is that?

We didn’t move to New Zealand to be sensible. We didn’t move here because we had a neatly outlaid plan. We certainly did not move to ‘up our careers’ but it has done nothing but improve them. We did not move here because of family even though we do enjoy seeing them when we do. We did not move here to escape our lives in the Netherlands or because we had little money.

What I like about us having moved overseas is that even when the sense of adventure has worn off a bit, as work is pretty much the same everywhere, the sense of belonging doesn’t. The further you move away from that which you know, the more you get to know yourself. Most of us look outside ourselves to fill up gaps and fears. If your desire is to simply be, grow and experience, it’s brilliant. I can recommend it. Be warned; it’s not the easy route. You’ll encounter that which you don’t expect, dramas will unfold where you don’t see them but all in all: life improves enormously when you emigrate.

When someone tells you to be sensible and choose a domestic predictable existence: just run for the hills. Literally! Then sit down and enjoy a picnic watch the view and enjoy the company of those that are happy to share the experience with you.

Innovation

When are we being innovative? I like to think I am but probably I’m being more common then I would like to know. God I can be so arrogant! Of course I’m fabulous…. Yeah. Okay.
Innovation comes in different forms:

Being creative
Being original
Being surprising
Being new to the world
Being exclusive

What they all have in common:
They are a clever way of thinking and it’s something NEW. We people like new things. We are like kids unwrapping x mas presents and getting all excited at the latest and greatest. We like seeing our firstborn, buying our first fancy car, booking our first oversees holiday.

What does that mean? Do we like change? Not many people do. Usually we like to have routines and feel safe. Excitement everyday gets tiring too as terrible as this may sound. I guess us homo sapiens are curious in nature. We like to ponder things, discover, grow and develop. We like to be “in the know”, “onto it” and “joining the club”. Trends exist because we like novelties and because we like to belong.

The innovation of all that we do is self discovery. We learn things about ourselves while we experience. We can only do this when we get out of our comfort zone and think outside of the square.

Innovation is self expression through exploration.

Crikey that’s deep.