Kitabı oku: «Time & Money», sayfa 3

Once trust is established, people need pleasure. Babies that are untouched as infants grow slower and suffer more illness than those that are held and caressed. People require sensory gratification. After survival needs are fulfilled, recreation needs take precedence. Perhaps that is why the most important U.S. export is films. Entertainment is good for the soul.

Values actually stem from physiological sensations. Our bodies crave pleasure. We want to play and be happy. We perform best when we achieve a complete emotional release that enables us to perform on the stage of life with abandon.

HIGHER VALUES

The new service economy is based on entrepreneurs who spend most of their waking hours trying to figure out better ways to serve consumers. This application of human inventiveness is changing society for the better. Our culture is less focused on exploitation of people and more focused on serving them. Rather than trying to win at the expense of others, we are learning to create greater value for one another. The changes in business reflect a new maturity.

In this positive new environment, we strive for perfection. We expect exquisite service. Poor service still occurs, but now we can make a distinction when it works and when it doesn’t. Humanity is achieving a new standard of excellence.

These new standards lift us up. Higher values offer a defense against our own deterioration and mortality. They lend greater dignity to our existence. By discovering your own values, you gain perspective on what service or product you can provide. Digging beneath the mind chatter and getting down to what really matters in your world requires asking yourself some tough questions.

What matters for humanity? What contribution can you make with your life? How do you feel about dying? Do you have a specific fear regarding death? What do you resist about dying? Is there anything you would give up your life for? Addressing these questions is vital, because having something worth dying for means having something worth living for. What matters enough to you that you would commit your entire life to it? How can you organize a business around something that matters that much to you?

Use these questions to create new possibilities. If you had only a year to live, what would you do with your remaining months? How would you spend your time? What would take priority? What if you were given only a month to live? If you were certain you had only thirty days left, where would you direct your attention? How many days would you schedule for self-pity?

And what if you had only a day or one hour, what would take priority? How you answer these questions is the beginning of a lifelong search for determining your own values. Effective living requires an exploration of your relationship with your own mortality.

There are absolute values coded into your body type and cultural patterns. The more closely you conform to your ideal values, the more alive you will feel. Your perceived value to other people can be measured by accounting for the vitality you experience in your body and by the physical energy you generate in your employees and clients.

When you live according to your highest values, you achieve fearlessness. You may still feel moments of anxiety, but you stare them down. You experience a release from your mental arguments and conflicts. A larger perspective begins to soothe the savage within.

MISSION

According to Albert Schweitzer, those who find happiness are those who have a sufficient purpose. When you distill your values into a challenging purpose, your mission appears.

Before you can hit a target, you need a clear aim. Your mission is a life game that attracts like-minded people to participate in fulfilling your values. By combining your values into one coherent mission, you create a purpose that provides direction for your life. That mission brings together people who share the same values and gives them a way to help each other achieve what they all desire.

Your mission is your personal vision. It may be lofty and wonderful, or it may be simple and sweet. Some people want to change the world, while others may be more interested in earning a decent living or raising a family.

Vision means clarity. Your mission isn’t a mental image, but rather an ability to give your attention to events in the real, physical world. You become successful by seeing things as they are. To succeed, you can’t afford to harbor any illusions about your limitations. What one person can achieve, another can surpass. Viewing yourself as a small player won’t inspire others to join you on your mission.

Reach for great achievements. Make your mission a mighty one. Live your life as a series of amazing events. Throw parties. Schedule trips. Meet the people you admire. Become the person that other people admire. Organize people and events to serve your higher purpose. Goethe’s voice echoes through the ages, reminding us that boldness has genius in it.

Vision means looking to the road ahead. Remaining within the boundaries of your path allows you to more easily enjoy passion and pleasure. When you stray from your natural direction, your body signals you with fear and pain. Over time, pleasurable impulses provide frames of reference that focus your attention and keep you on track. Good sensations are linked to behaviors and procedures that accomplish your aspirations. Your senses provide the feedback that keeps you on course.

When you are focused on your mission, you won’t have much time for conflict. That kind of attentiveness is riveting. It makes you a better person. Your commitment inspires other people. You become so enlivened by living your values and fulfilling your purpose that people ignite their own careers by association with you. Your magnetism increases in proportion to the scope of your mission.

Your purpose sets the tone for your life; it focuses your allies on the same channel. A compelling mission creates attraction. It defines a game that aligns people and encourages them to tell others about your business.

When numerous individuals combine their visions into one shared mission, together they create a living system. When you start to understand yourself in terms of deeper connections, you find your place in the timeless flow of life. You achieve immortality by merging your intelligence into a purpose that continues beyond your life span.

In the world of worries, on the other hand, you drift, lost in time. You are a wretched mortal striving to acquire all you can before your miserable end. Recognizing your role instead in the larger family and community gives you a long range perspective. It provides a sense of meaning.

SEE OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US

How do other people view your business? What do your clients experience? You must know the answers to these questions in order to structure your business. When you achieve sensitivity to the needs of your customers, all other aspects of your business will fall into place.

People who have found their purpose move purposefully, as if they are going somewhere. Their aim is clear, their stride is confident. Those with no aim meander through life, trying to fit into someone else’s vision. They begin to exaggerate the losses and feel cheated by life.

Begin your business journey by establishing your own purpose. Try to summarize your mission in a few brief sentences. Be sure your mission ignites your passion. Just thinking of and stating your purpose should quicken your pulse and brighten up your day.

Design your purpose to benefit others. A great purpose serves humanity. As you formulate your mission, share it with people you respect. See if they react favorably. When your mission is meaningful, your natural enthusiasm inspires other people. Find the primary thing that moves you. It’s hidden within the activity that you most enjoy. The more you refine your mission, the happier you will become. Life is much more interesting when you make a big impact.

A proper mission is based on ambition. It requires a strong ego. Leaders are moved by one of three basic drives: Wealth, fame and winning. At the most basic level, entrepreneurs are not more noble than other people. We just want to get our way, just like happy children who demand everything without guilt.

To harness your inner drive you must know which of the three motivators moves you most powerfully. Do you secretly dream of fame? Or does financial freedom seem more important? Perhaps you are one of those people who prefer to win at any cost? Don’t use logic to figure it out. Instead, see which one excites you most. You might initially feel the excitement as fear. Don’t let that deter you. By facing your “positive” fears you unleash the power to thrill.

Even if you aspire to all three desires, one will emerge as your primary driver. If you are like most people, you have probably lived in denial of what you really want. Until you recognize your fundamental drive, you can’t even get on the game board. In lieu of fighting against the base side of human nature, learn to harness it. Ambition is the drive that determines the size of your target. False humility suppresses your arousal. Hiding from your challenge dulls the senses.

As you step out onto the playing field you leave your timid character behind. Standing up for your mission makes people see you in a new light. Think about how you want others to view you. Brand yourself with the image you want to live, before someone else puts their brand on your hide. What kind of character will you play? How will you costume that character? What position will you play in the theater of business?

The image you convey is the only direct link most people will have to your purpose. Your business style must relate to the people who are your target audience. It must arouse their desire to do business with you.

In the beginning of your career you may need to try some different images. Trial and error lets you know when your “look” is right to bring you the connections you desire. People are birds of a sort, who associate by their “feathers.” How you present yourself determines your flock. Evolve an image that expresses who you really are. If you aren’t being yourself, you are presenting a false image that will halt the growth of your business.

BARRIERS TO LIVING YOUR DREAM

It takes a compelling reason to exact real change in anyone. Determining your purpose provides that compelling reason. That reason must be stronger than the obstacles you will face.

The moment you embrace your purpose, your faults will begin to show themselves. You will discover that your self-image is at odds with reality. Part of refining your aim in life is seeing yourself more clearly. Be prepared to not like all that you see. Your evaluation of your capabilities is based on assumptions that don’t hold up under fire. The very act of deciding where you want to go will force you to notice some of the things you are doing that are taking you in the wrong direction.

Maybe you are too pushy. Or do you quit too easily? Perhaps you even secretly prefer to prevent other people from enjoying their own lives. It is impossible to find your fatal flaw by simply looking for it. If it were so easily found, you would have already fixed it. Still, unconsciously you think you know where the problem resides. But each step of business reveals a new crop of petty attitudes that must come to the surface to melt away.

One way to confront your weaknesses is to get help from people who love and respect you. Ask them to be candid. Ask them if they see any patterns in your behavior that might interfere with your success. Set up ground rules. No criticism and no advice. No personal agenda. Just accurate descriptions of actions and behaviors they have seen that might sink your craft. Some of what you hear might sting, so don’t respond. Sit with their feedback for a couple of days. Then go back and repeat their observations to them without comment to make sure you heard them right.

The mind is incredibly effective at self-delusion. That’s why you want to learn to think as objectively as possible at this point in your career. Further refine your ability to stop thinking in terms of who is right and who is wrong. Instead, expand your skill at viewing each situation in terms of what worked and what didn’t work. This theme will come up again as you grow into new stages of business.

Until now your mind has been trained to focus on simple answers and seek simple solutions. Associate with people who think differently. Practice thinking with scenarios that allow you to consider many possible courses of action. Use analysis to catch the inconsistencies in your thinking. Let logic replace the mental habit of twisting events to make your view right and prove that other interpretations are wrong.

Stop making excuses. Let your results speak for you. Allow your mind to concoct all the reasons explaining why you have yet to reach your goals. Acknowledge those ideas, and then let them float by. None of them hold any clue to your effectiveness. Train your attention to watch the outcomes you produce.

Assess your cash flow and your intimacy every day. Both are dependable barometers of your aliveness. If you are doing without these essential qualities, you are probably frozen in your mental interpretation of life.

Clarity comes from observing the outcomes of your actions. Every experience either provides additional energy or robs you of it. The rest is just explanation or justification. When you truly learn something, your vitality increases. Your mind may react with confusion. That just means you are entering new territory. Often when your plans go awry and your whole life is collapsing, you will catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror with eyes as bright as fire.

Contemplation is a technique of relaxing while considering many possibilities and perspectives. By remaining calm, you can accept all possible outcomes emotionally. Once your mind is clear, a clear mission begins to emerge.

THE MISSION STATEMENT

Your mission requires a plan, just as a journey requires a map. The details may be fuzzy at this stage of business, so don’t worry about getting a business plan together yet. Just start with a simple mission statement that communicates to other people what your career means to you. Write your aim in a few simple sentences so that potential associates can evaluate your intention. What will your project or business deliver to other people? How will you achieve your purpose? Why would others be inspired to assist you? Be sure to put your aim in positive terms.

GOALS

As your mission evolves, your business game grows increasingly attractive. Because you are forging ahead in a specific direction, the kind of excitement you generate makes other people want to join your cause. To organize your efforts you must break your mission down into specific goals with measurable outcomes.

You are setting goals from the first moment you decide to start your own business. But now, your goals take center stage. This section refers to the phase in business building in which you begin making the promises you intend to keep over the course of your career. You don’t pay professionals to play. You pay them to win. Other people will base their own careers on the assumption that you will keep your word and win your game.

Planning gets more specific at this stage. What will you accomplish with your life? What will you achieve in the next week, month, and year? What can your team count on you for? Having goals is important, but achieving those goals makes you more trustworthy.

The words integrity and integrated stem from the same root word. Your integrity refers to the extent to which you earn your fortune while remaining true to yourself. It isn’t morality. No one else can define or dictate your integrity. When you are authentic, you will attract one half of society while repulsing the second half. If you do what you say, you will win over the people who are right for your product or service.

Some goals are tangible. You want to earn a hundred thousand dollars or buy a new home. Others are intangible. You need the good will of your customers. What are the people whom you admire saying about you? What are your customers saying about your business? The ultimate goal of business is to get people talking about you and your product. While some goals can be measured by money or things or outcomes, the most valuable goal you can achieve is the good will of others.

We all have deep, primary goals that underlie all other goals. These essence goals reflect your basic needs. Often people set goals and reach them, only to realize that they really don’t fulfill. Owning a nice house or beautiful car is important, but there are goals that are closer to our heart. There is nothing wrong with wanting to become an executive vice-president. But our true desires are psychological needs that define us and give us a reason to live.

The most essential goals you can pursue are good connections with people who are points of light in your world. These folks are luminaries, because they light up your life. They inform you of when you are traveling the right path by the pleasure and aliveness they glean from your services. They make you want to be a better person. You feel good about yourself when you are near them.

Good people return your gestures of good will. By building their satisfaction you are setting up a web of connections that can generate a fortune. Your success in life derives from the story that influential people tell about you.

Along with our essential needs, we all have lots of things we consider personally important. These goals reflect our desires. Desire is an obsession. People have a tendency to focus on desires at the expense of actual needs. Desires are important. To ignore them is to repress the things that motivate us. It is important to give priority to our essential needs, but we should also pursue our desires.

Our desires fall into two categories. Business objectives are what we want to achieve and personal desires are what we want to acquire. Everything you want can be categorized as either a personal or professional goal. If you fail to achieve your goals you will unconsciously thwart the desires of other people. But when you take care of yourself you free up your mind to attend to others.

GOALS MAKE THE GAME FUN

Human beings are obsessed with obtaining that which we desire. Goals refine our aim. They bring the target into focus and increase the intensity of the business game. Goals include the things you want and those that you want to do. The wrong goals add pressure to your life. The right goals lift your spirits. They may cause stress, but never strain.

Make sure you have the right goals by noticing if they light you up. Be certain that you are aiming for an outcome that will really satisfy you. Goals are a public declaration of what you want. People typically shoot for ego-based desires that don’t bring much joy when they are fulfilled. Unless your goals elicit spontaneous enthusiasm, achieving them is not satisfying. A lot of people get everything they never wanted. They don’t realize until it is too late that they are going nowhere fast.

Will Rogers once said that too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like. Your real goals don’t just please other people. They please you.

Some of your goals might seem totally outrageous. You may find that you are an undiscovered rock star, or that you’d rather be a fishing guide in Alaska. If such seemingly outlandish goals turn out to be genuine, you must honor them. But remember that each thing that lights you up is only a piece of a very complex puzzle. Only when you see how all of the pieces fit together will you fully comprehend what you should be doing.

Goals work best when they are stated in positive terms. Start by saying exactly what you want. Don’t even consider what you don’t want. Whatever you resist persists. If you try to avoid conflict, it will find you. If you work to escape poverty, it will lurk behind every tree. Accentuate the positive.

Desired outcomes happen automatically when you organize your work properly. Hankering after things only creates frustration. If you bend yourself out of shape and push past resistance to produce an out come, you lose your aim. The monetary result becomes insignificant.

Aim directly for what you do want. Declare it publicly to attract other players who may want to participate in your game. Chart a precise navigational course. Give your magnificent brain a game worth playing and a dollar amount worth earning. Instead of saying you want prosperity, set an exact number you will achieve and a specific time when you will achieve it.

Set goals that will attract people with compatible skills. If you aren’t an accountant, ensure that your game earns enough to attract a person with good accounting skills. If you don’t enjoy selling, set goals that enable sales people to contribute. Cooperation occurs when your goals jibe with the goals of other people.

Millions of people tune in to professional sports because they love the thrill of watching people work hard to score goals. Goals lift us up to our essential nature by forcing us to face reality. You can’t fake a goal. You either reach it or you don’t.

GOAL SETTING

You can reach your goals most effectively when you write them down. The mere act of committing them to paper makes them seem more significant in your mind. Begin by listing your primary goals. What do you want to accomplish that would really change your life? Then spend some time deciding how much you want to earn and what you will get with it. Every goal is sacred if it comes from you.

Put enthusiasm into goal setting. Low vitality goal-setting leads to boring results. If your goals don’t energize you and make you want to yell, they are probably just ideas bred from your worries. Make your goals realistic yet challenging. They must be trying enough to flush out your hidden talents. Set goals for all of the important areas of your life. Well-rounded goals balance business with career, health and family. Balanced goals transform life from a bleak never-ending chore to an exciting adventure.

Let the enjoyment of life organize your thinking. If you need help, don’t be afraid to ask. No one can achieve goals alone. Find people to assist you. Reaching goals requires teamwork. People love to participate in exciting games.

The first step in goal setting is brain storming. Record everything that occurs to you. Avoid analysis at this point; otherwise you will make up reasons to stop before you’ve even begun.

Some goals matter more than others. Over time, your goals will self-organize according to a spectrum of importance and you’ll see which goals you can turn into promises. Test your early ideas with action. When you start doing what you love, natural goals emerge that entice you to keep on enjoying yourself.

Keep your goals simple. State your goals loud and clear to everyone who supports you. Communicate them repeatedly. As you continue to declare your desires in various ways, they will become clear to other people. But if you fail to repeat your goals often, people will write them off. Advertisers understand the importance of stating the same message over and over again until it becomes a part of people’s thinking.

As your goals crystallize, implement them with all your energy. Putting off your desires confuses other people. Speak your mind. Begin immediately so you don’t get distracted. Act, or you will deprive yourself in a way that also interferes with what is best for other people.

Procrastination is nothing more than having the wrong goals. If your objectives are comprised of things you love to do, no one will be able to distract you. If you are really a dancer, you must dance. You will overcome any obstacle to do so.

Enlist effective people to collaborate on your goals. Cooperation with others is central to everything you want to accomplish. You must understand other people and make yourself understood in order to get where you want to go. All of business is organized around goals. People work together to accomplish complex productions. Invest the time to learn what people want because you’ll only reach your own goals by helping others reach theirs.

Goal achievement is a natural human process. Children don’t think of playing; play is their whole entire existence. When they try to have fun, it is lost. If they try to be cute, it is impossible. These things just happen. The same is true of achieving goals.

Goal setting is part of the preparation stage. Contemplate your goals often. Stay relaxed during the times you spend sorting through your goals. Business isn’t busyness. Take action, but don’t rush around in pursuit of them.

People who take action without preparation wind up going around in circles. Learn to let your intelligence do all the work. Intelligence incorporates mental, emotional, and physical vitality. We recommend goal setting parties where you can share ideas as they roll off your brain. Let your imagination run wild. You can sort through them later to see which ones are viable.

Too many people fail to reach their goals in life simply because they won’t speak up for what they want. When anxiety clenches the throat, they squelch their desires so they can avoid making waves. This condition is called constriction. It leads to disappointment, and, if continued for too long, eventually hardens into melancholy and depression.

It requires an act of will to keep the words flowing when you are choked with fear. Take a deep breath and speak up. Do it every time. Keep your needs and desires front and center, since they are the script for the life you were meant to live. Keep insisting on expressing yourself or you will be shouted down.

GAME STRATEGIES

One reason for America’s economic success in the last century is our use of game strategy in business. People love games and sports. Some will go any distance or pay any price to watch their favorite team play. Smart managers design their businesses to make people feel like they are playing for their favorite team. Goals are designed to make life into a game.

Kicking a ball around can get a little boring. Put up two goal posts, however, and watch the excitement grow. Millions of people organize the meaning of their lives around watching others kick a ball back and forth. Wise business leaders tap into that playfulness.

People love to play. When human beings are fully engaged in a delightful game, their fears and worries dissolve. Action is the attraction. Focused action is the secret ingredient to pleasure. Games are simply sustained patterns of focused action.

Men and women tend to be attracted to different games. Masculine games simulate combat. They are generally contests with winners and losers. One person triumphs over someone else. Sports, computer games, and board games fall into this pattern. These are win-lose games.

Feminine games are more like stories. Women are more likely to talk in detail about connections between people. They put less emphasis on defeating another player. The focus instead is on uniting and cooperating to overcome external conditions such as separation or ignorance. These are win-win games.

The public education system is based on masculine games. Some children get top grades while others fail to make the grade. Movies and literature carry the same theme, featuring good guys and bad guys, winners and losers. Masculine games predominate throughout human culture.

The win-win concept has been refined by twentieth-century mathematicians. Combining win-win theory with business creates an extremely beneficial game that generates great value with little waste of resources.

Capitalism and communism were masculine games that squandered time and money. Now we are seeing a new force in business. Today’s entrepreneurs are defining a new economy that makes winners of us all. This new service economy values nurturing and receptivity to customer needs as highly as it values capital and natural resources.

The service industry favors soft skills such as politeness and good communication. Modern entrepreneurs are more alert to what people want. When customers win, business wins. Sensitivity is as valuable as forcefulness. Business is becoming a warmer, friendlier place.

Masculine oriented businesses take bigger risks, grow more quickly, and fail more often. Feminine oriented businesses avoid risk, grow slowly, and enjoy a longer life span.

America clearly leads the way in integrating men and women together into the work force. Other countries may aspire to our productive levels, but they keep half of their team—women—on the sidelines. Women who play the business game in other countries are not in a position to contribute much to the overall goals of their nations because they are kept from power and are poorly paid. There is a strong correlation between the prosperity of a nation and the degree of opportunity they allow women.

It’s true that there are a few jobs that men can do better than women, but there are also plenty of jobs that women can do better than men. A service industry favors sensitivity over strength. Entrepreneurs and business leaders must learn to view goals through a different lens to understand how both genders can work together to achieve the goals of the entire culture. Larger goals can be achieved by dedicated groups of professionals who play on the same team, move in the same direction, and work for the same outcome.