What Do You Think Of Me? No really! What do you think of me? Am I A “Success?”
Do you ever think about success and think that you just aren’t the sort of person who can be really successful? I used to think like that. I am a living example of someone who thought things like “I never win anything” and “I’ll never be one of those popular kids”. Looking back I realize I never thought I was very popular, but when I speak to people today, who knew me back when, I like what I hear. I am told I walked to the beat of my own drum – that it didn’t matter what other people thought. Trust me it mattered – giving off the impression that it didn’t matter was exactly what I was hoping would earn me respect, trust, and confidence. Yesterday I had a conversation with someone who told me that anyone on the outside looking at me would say that I was very successful. My response was that there are days where I feel successful and there are days where I do not feel at all successful.
If you are going to take advice from someone on how to be successful I hope THEY are successful!
When I look at other people and I look online at all of the material that is being put out there I see people who don’t appear to be all that “Successful” claiming to be able to tell people how to be successful. Most people that we all consider to be “successful” had many more failures than successes in their careers. It makes me wonder. Do others see me the way I see myself? I suspect not. It is often said that we are all our own worst critics. What I think I see more than anything is that everyone is looking for and many people are out there trying to sell a “Formula”. If you do x, y, and z then you will become a mega success. No one can sell you a “formula” to become a success. Stop looking for the formula and search fearlessly within yourself. Find your passion.
So What’s The Secret?
I look at people and I think, “what makes them successful?” The tendency is to look at the surface. How do they dress? What is their appearance. What kind of personality do they have? We think if the Quintessential salesperson as the person who has what it takes to succeed. The truth is that none of these things has anything to do with it. They’re just labels we put on successful people and frankly I think on some level we use them as excuses for why we “can’t” succeed. Because we are “not like them.” Why would someone want to do this? Because it is hard to be successful. It is much easier to simply say, “Oh that will never be me”. Then if we did achieve success there is all the pressure to “keep it up”. This is a lie – if you have ever been successful at something then you have experienced that once you “get there” it actually becomes easier and easier to keep it up.
No really then! What’s The Secret? What do all successful people have in common?
So what is the common trait that all “successful” people have? What group of people is success reserved for? The answer is Passion. That is what all of these people have in common. I’m not just talking about liking something or really enjoying spending your time on it. I am talking about wanting something so badly that you are willing to give up everything for it. Your social life, vacations, and all kinds of other things that so called “regular people” enjoy. The idea is that you will have much better vacations and social life later on. Then I’ve realized that I do have a social life, it just looks a little different than what perhaps others’ look like. I meet with people for lunch, dinner, coffee and we talk. The conversation may not be about the latest movie that’s out or what book we are reading. Then again we may talk about books, but probably not the sort of books the “average” person is talking about. We talk about business. We talk about the lifestyle of a small business owner. The fact that we all work 7 days/week and don’t take vacations. We talk about how it really isn’t “Work” to us because we LOVE what we are doing. We talk about the things we are passionate about which usually surrounds our businesses, what we are doing to build our businesses and how we can help one other to do that. This is my community. We are all very busy and have very little time. Sometimes I will try to set up something once per week to meet with at least one person to talk about business and enjoy a meal together.
These days whether you want to run your own business or work in the corporate world it is still about the same thing in the long run. Your online presence. The “employee” may only experience it when looking to move from one job to another. More and more I am hearing that the new Entrepreneur is the “unemployed”. Why be dependent on someone else for your living? The illusion is that working for a company guarantees you a paycheck? Does it? How many people do you know that in the last 10 years have been laid off from long term positions. As an accountant I can tell you that Labor is always the largest expense in any company. It’s the largest line item on the P&L so if profits are down and a company is looking to cut back, the first place they look is Labor. I have yet to hear of a CEO of a major corporation say that he or she is going to cut back on executive salaries before laying people off. Imagine that? Maybe a CEO can sell a vacation home or two and cut back on their own salary to preserve the assets of the company they supposedly love? It may have happened, but I have not heard of one such case. If you have, please post a comment and tell me about it. It would be refreshing to hear about! So do you still really believe that your paycheck is guaranteed just because it comes from a company?
So search fearlessly within yourself and find out what it is that you are willing to give up everything for. Then start writing about it. My passions are about helping people who have their own businesses better understand the financial part of their business so they can use that information to continue building their empire. I have some others. I love to write and I love to record videos and video tutorials. The video tutorials are focused on teaching people the above as well as anything else that will help a person and/or company run more efficiently. More efficiently equals more profitably.
I have also become passionate about helping others to create and build their online presence. It has taken me a little more than a year and a half to create something that really generates interest and a response. I still don’t get the response I want. I don’t have as many people as I would like to see commenting on my content or asking me questions but that is where the other key principle comes in. Patience! That can be really hard for me at times but I always come back to it in order to keep pressing on.
What are you passionate about?
Post your comments please!
