It's about you

Seth Godin had another excellent point regarding the fact that to other people, it’s never about us, it’s all about them. We know this, but don’t always act on it. (I find it especially good to remember when writing a blog.) This is true in friendships, work relationships and others like talking to the neighbors. Of course it’s kind if someone’s actually interested in my life or in me as a person, but if I’m not bringing something of value or interest (also value) to the table, many people will get bored or annoyed and are more likely to leave me alone.

It's fun nowadays with superficial relationships (like the ones we enjoy online) and the real ones because: how can we tell who that someone in cyberspace really is? It will still be about exchange, about value and about assessment. I guess it’s all up to interpretation. Why do people listen or care? Because you add something. Offering value in some way always helps.

How then do you make a distinction between having a relationship, bringing knowledge, products, support or whatever to the table, and not being taken advantage off? This is one to check out. I’ve seen it before and I’m sure you have too. Not that I’m advocating you should put roadblocks in any relationship and ‘measure’ the give and take ratio, but I do suggest to be ‘aware’. Marketers know this, hard sales people do too. Pounce. Ouch. Whack with handbag in retaliation? No. You should have seen it coming.

When we are being nice we will have a very high change of being trampled on. This is clear as day. It’s good to remember to be less naïve, but still loving. There’s a difference between genuinely giving without expecting anything in return and to give knowing we are stacking up brownie points to get somewhere. Also there’s the thing about whether we demand things from others or if we nicely ask for it. The good ol’ famous balancing act is what it boils down to and the respect we have. Some people use the guise of friendship to clean you out. Others simply try and smooth you over until they no longer need your valuable assets. We learn from experience.

To me it always comes back to the following:

• What goes around comes around: people attract what they send out. Be the “most optimal” you can be and it will reflect well on you.
• If you’re being yourself and know where you’re at including setting boundaries it should be quite good sailing. Be clear to others and they are more likely to be clear to you. Well they have to don’t they?
• Never exchange or do business with someone you don’t trust or don’t even like.
• Always give people the benefit of the doubt but take the pink sunnies off. Everyone makes mistakes.
• Keep smiling but show yourself, there’s no harm in that. If you don’t have anything to hide then there’s nothing to be afraid of.
• Whatever you do: make sure you do a regular system check: make it neither too neurotic nor too fluffy ducky. The funny thing is that you don’t even have to say something sometimes: just backing off might be all it takes.
• Trust your instincts always. Any time I talked myself out of it, it turned out to be a mistake.
• Last one: we forget to like ourselves sometimes if we’re too critical. Love yourself in whatever way you feel best.

Have a life. It's worth having.

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...