10 Ways To Help Others That Will Lead You To Success

John Hall , CEO of Influence & Co.,

Helping others should be a natural extension of every business leader’s responsibilities. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come as easy as you would think. As leaders, we often get too caught up in operations or our own problems to give people the help they need. However, in the last year, I’ve realized that most of my best clients, partners and relationships have come from me helping someone. Here are 10 thoughts that can remind you to help others.

1.      Sharing knowledge
One of the easiest ways to help others is to simply share your knowledge. You don’t have to be in front of a classroom to teach. Every day there is an opportunity to educate someone about your area of expertise. The key is to keep educating yourself so you can stay ahead of the curve.

2.      Finding out what’s valuable to them
The number one rule of helping people should be to find out what’s actually valuable to someone. You may spend time and effort helping someone with something that they didn’t even want help with. Make an effort to ask them where they need help, and keep that in mind when you see an opportunity.

3.      Sharing your resources
Think about the resources you’ve invested in and be mindful of whether they can help someone else. Maybe a developer on your team has some extra time and one of your contacts needed some help on a quick job. Or, maybe you have Cardinals season tickets and there’s a game that you won’t be able to attend. Keep those under- or unused resources in the back of your mind and try to connect them to people who can use them.

4.      Making them aware of an opportunity
It’s important to keep an eye out for opportunities. It could be good press, a potential partner, or a general business opportunity. Once you see an opportunity, think about who could benefit from knowing about it. One of the ways I like to help my employees is to help their friends, relatives or significant others if they’re looking for a job. A lot of times I can use my business connections to find a potential good fit.

5.      Giving them transparent feedback
Transparent feedback can be tough because some people don’t take constructive criticism well.  There is a difference between telling someone that they suck and giving them good examples of how they can improve.  Some people won’t take it well but, in the long run, you will help the people that you want to work with and improve the efficiency and success of your company as well.

6.      Being a brand advocate
I was at a conference the other day and an American Airlines employee was going on and on about how she loved her Modify watch. She truly wanted to help the company because she loved the product and wanted to see them succeed. Think about the products and services that you love, and don’t be shy about letting people know about them.

7.      Giving introductions
There’s a lot of big talk out there. Someone knows somebody who is a great contact or client, but they never actually make the introduction. Rather than making and breaking promises, make an effort to actually send out several intros each week. However, don’t let your credibility take a hit: make sure the people you’re advocating are legit.

8.      Volunteering your time
Time is valuable and most people understand that.  When you take time out of your day to help a friend, they remember it. I try and do a guest webinar every couple of weeks for contacts so they know I’m willing to take time out of my day to share my experience with the community. Even if it’s not something as public as a webinar or podcast, set aside some time to help a contact. It could be as simple as helping them move to a new home.

9.      Recognizing them
There are a variety of ways to give someone recognition. You can include them in an article that you’ve written or mention them in a speech or presentation. An easy way to recognize someone is to nominate them for an award. There are countless awards out there that could really help out your network. It will mean a lot to the nominee that you thought of them and wanted to recognize them. On a smaller scale, you can have internal recognition within your company. We have an award called “the belt” that looks like a WWF belt. Each week the current winner chooses the next winner. It’s an easy way to make an employee feel good about the solid work they’ve done for your company.

10.   Giving gifts
Gifts can be tricky because you don’t want to “buy” peoples’ favor. You want to get them a gift that makes sense and will help them.  When Hurricane Sandy hit, we sent care packages with items that survivors could use as they recovered from the devastation. People tend to remember who helped them when they were in need, so it’s important to make an extra effort during these times.

Helping others isn’t always easy. It can sometimes derail your schedule and cost you time, money and other resources. It can even be interpreted the wrong way. However, keep these tips in mind for some easy ways to show your connections that they truly matter to you.

Gratitude Vs frustration

Any frustration you have is simply the result of wrong thinking.  If you were thinking rightly you could not possibly imagine that anything was going 'wrong'. 

Move, then to gratitude when you encounter your frustrations and see every event as an opportunity.

HAPPY DIWALI 2013 !!!

   In the world around us, darkness is just absence of light. But in the inner dimension of the human being, darkness is absence of clarity.

Diwali is known as the Festival of Lights. It is the festival of lights and killing the darkness inside ourselves. It is the day of lightning the house and the soul of our kind but unfortunately the concept is misconceiver and the day is getting the meaning of loud hard music in the houses.  .

 

 

 

It is also a celebration of clarity and enlightenment. May this Diwali be not just a Festival of Lights, but also a celebration of taking a step towards enlightenment. It is my wish and my blessing that you must have a cracker of a Diwali !

 

 

Festival full of sweet memories,sky full of fireworks,mouth full of sweets,house full of deepaks and heart full of pleasure.

Wishing you all a very Happy Diwali 2013 once again !!! :)


Begin this Diwali by bursting the E-cracker present in the right side of this post. :)

ATTITUDE

Never change your originality for the sake of others, 
because no one can play your role better than you. So be yourself, because whatever you are, YOU are the best. Now that's a Positive Attitude.



 Story: The Thirst
                  
There is a legend of a man who was lost in the desert, dying of thirst. He stumbled on until he came to an abandoned house. Outside the dilapidated, windowless, weather beaten, deserted shack was a pump. He stumbled forward and began pumping furiously, but no water came from the well. Then he noticed a small jug with a cork at the top and a note written on the side: "You have to prime the pump with water, my friend. P.S. And fill the jug again before you leave." He pulled out a cork and saw that the jug was full of water.

Should he pour it down the pump? What if it didn't work? All of the water would be gone. If he drank the water from the jug, he could be sure he would not die of thirst. But to pour it down the rusty pump on the flimsy instruction written on the outside of the jug?

Something from inside told him to follow the advice and choose the risky decision. He proceeded to pour the whole jug of water down the rusty old pump and furiously pumped up and down. Sure enough, the water gushed out! He had all he needed to drink. He filled the jug again, corked it and added his own words beneath the instructions on the jug: "Believe me, it really works. You have to give it all away before you can get anything back."



Happy weekend folks..!!! :)

 

STRUGGLE !!!

            Good Morning...have a blessed Saturday & great weekend.

‘It is okay to be at a place of struggle.'

       Struggle is just another word for growth. Even the most evolved beings find themselves in a place of struggle now and then. In fact, struggle is a sure sign to them that they are expanding; it is their indication of real and important progress.

 

 

Diwali is fast approaching..!! Happy Diwali in advance folks..!!! :)

C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E...?!

Its that time!  Oh yeah!

                                                           Time to celebrate!

Celebrate what you ask?

Anything!   Everything!   Who cares?

Get up off your chair.   Take a look around you.  Take a deep breath.  Oh, yeah, you are BREATHING!  Is that not incredible!  Is that not worth celebrating?

So!  Pop in your favorite CD.   Go on…  Turn it up.   WAY UP!

Now…  start celebrating!   Sing!  Dance! Get groovy! Raise those hands!  Praise!   Shout!  Do the happy dance!

YOU are here!   YOU are alive!   YOU can FEEL!   YOU can MOVE!

Go on.   MOVE!!!   (yes, I am yelling at you!  lol.. :D )

No excuses.  Never mind who is sitting or standing next to you.  We ALL need to get up and move.   We ALL need to take a moment to celebrate our own life.  I bet if we all got in the practice of being a little more thankful for our ability to breath, we might see the world as a little more precious.  We might see our neighbor as a little more endearing.  We might look at our loved ones with a little more appreciation.

So go on. Celebrate!

Sleep

 

   Without enough sleep I find myself struggling—moving through my day the way it feels to move through water.  Everything is harder and slower and I feel stressed all day because I have to push myself to focus and be alert. Besides the headaches this gives me, I have much less energy, am less creative, and can only concentrate on one thing at a time instead of being able to handle several things at once. Moreover, when I am so low on energy, I tend to isolate myself and not interact as much with friends or to participate spontaneously in conversations. I'll usually resort to having coffee to try and boost my energy and alertness levels but the caffeine high only works for a short period. Afterward, I'll be even more tired because my body has been running on overdrive. It's not a good way to operate.

  Over the years, I've learned that the best thing I can do for my health and for enjoying my life is to get at least eight hours of sleep a night (individuals vary in the number of hours for optimal sleep). Even a deficit of half an hour a night makes a difference. Because I know this about my body and because I cannot enjoy the moments of my days—ordinary or otherwise—if I am not fully present, there are other areas of my life I will skimp on before I skimp on sleep. For example, I will consciously choose to give up late-night or early-morning activities to make sure I get enough sleep. This isn't the best way to operate either but the discomfort I feel never equals how bad I feel to have to slog through on too little sleep. In terms of affecting the quality of my work, sleep is the single most important tool I have.


I love sleeping.Sleep well.Stay healthy !! :P

Five Motivational Mistake That Sounds Like Good Ideas

To achieve great things – to achieve anything – you need to understand how motivation works.
The thing is, our minds don’t work the way we often think they do. (It’s the Inigo Montoya effect: “You keep using that mind. I don’t think it works like you think it works.”)
Therefore, there are some very popular motivational techniques that sound plausible, but are actually counterproductive if you don’t know exactly how to use them. Here are five of these techniques. For each of them, I’ve given an alternative that does work to produce more motivation and more goal achievement.

 

1. Affirmations

Affirmations do work – but only if you’re affirming something you actually believe to be true.
If you keep telling yourself what you know to be lies about yourself, all it does is create dissonance and disillusionment. If you don’t believe you’re beautiful, standing in front of the mirror saying “I am beautiful” is an exercise in futility. Rather than improving your self-image, it will make it worse.

Your alternative: Find phrasings that reflect reality, that talk about progression rather than achievement, until you have achievements to point to. “I am taking steps towards my goal of…” is a better phrasing than “I am achieving my goal” if you actually aren’t achieving it yet.

 

2. Visualisation

According to a very popular teaching which rhymes with “Flaw of Distraction”, visualising your end goal is pretty much all you need to do in order to achieve it.
In fact, this is an excellent way to ensure that you never achieve your goal, no matter how many seminars you attend or products you buy in an attempt to find out why you haven’t “made it” yet.
Why you haven’t “made it” is that you’re not taking action. And one of the reasons you’re not taking action is that you’re spending your action-taking time convincing your mind that you already have what you want.

Your alternative: Visualising the process of reaching your goal, rather than the outcome, increases the likelihood that you’ll achieve it. This is because you’re practicing the steps that you will have to take in order to reach the goal. It lowers the barrier to taking those steps in reality, because they already feel familiar and achievable. What’s more, you’ll perform them with more skill, just from having mentally rehearsed.

 

3. Willpower

Willpower works to motivate you – up to a point. That’s the point at which you run out of willpower, because like energy or strength, it’s a finite resource.
Whenever you motivate yourself to do something that you don’t, emotionally, want to do, there are measurable changes in your body and brain. You use up blood sugar, for example. It’s an effort, just the same as running round the block is an effort. And just as you can’t run round the block forever, so you can’t keep making yourself do things that you feel negative about doing forever, however important they are to your long-term happiness.

Your alternative: You actually have several alternatives to willpower. One, of course, is finding ways to achieve your goals that you actually enjoy. Another is finding new goals. Yet a third is reducing other drains on your willpower so that you will have more to devote to your most important goal.
But if none of those are options, work on finding the enjoyment and worth in the process of working towards your goal – so that you don’t have to exert willpower all the time in order to keep doing the essential steps. At the very least, find ways to reduce your resistance.

 

4. Rewards

Rewards can be motivational – but only if they relate to what you’re actually doing.
Whether it’s bribing children with candy to get them to draw pictures or offering workers more money instead of more fulfilling work and more autonomy, “extrinsic” motivators tend to backfire and produce less motivation, not more.

Your alternative: “Intrinsic” motivation – rewards directly connected to doing the activity you are trying to motivate – is the way to go here. Again, it’s about making the process itself worthwhile, rewarding and enjoyable, and about celebrating milestones towards your goal, not putting off all the happiness for when you eventually achieve it.

 

5. Punishment

Punishing or scolding yourself (or someone else) may be one of the most commonly practiced forms of motivation. It’s true that negative consequences are motivational, but only if you use them in a particular way. Otherwise, they just produce resentment and backfire – not only because the emotional associations with the goal become negative, but also because the punishments, like the rewards, that are offered are often extrinsic to the goal itself.

Your alternative: First review the positive consequences of the behaviour you want to motivate. Then review the negative consequences of the behaviour you have at the moment. It’s very important to look at them in that order. For some reason, the mind is more compelled by a negative consequence preceded by a positive than the other way around, or by either consequence alone.
Notice that these are the intrinsic consequences, the consequences that arise directly out of the behaviour itself. It’s not an external carrot and stick.

  ***

You’ll notice that there’s a common theme in what works. It’s the process – the very thing we don’t want to think about, don’t want to go through – that holds the key to success. By paying attention to your process,
you give yourself a motivational advantage and you’re much more likely to achieve your goals successfully.

Getting to the Root

Getting to the Root 

 

Weeds. Plants that are considered undesirable, unattractive, and troublesome. They grow where they're not wanted. They seem to be much more hardy than the vegetation planted on the hillside. I'm talking about the kind of weeds that are tough! The kind that won't come out of the ground without a fight.

Once when I stared at the hillside , I tried to calculate the amount of ground not covered with weeds. Not too much. Okay, so it's been awhile since I've weeded. But who'd have thought the weeds would take over so completely? Within a couple of minutes I'd made a discovery. There weren't as many weeds as I'd initially thought...they were just much bigger than I had originally anticipated.

When I began yanking on the long, green, tentacle-like growth, I came away with handfuls of weeds, but no root. Without successfully extracting the root, the weed would continue to grow. When I eventually came to the root, I was flabbergasted to find that these weeds were huge. Easily three to four feet in diameter. The shoots that radiated from the root seemed to grasp the soil in a death-grip. Not only did the tentacle-like shoots need to be pulled, but the roots needed to be removed from the earth, as well. When I was patient enough to follow the shoot from beginning to end, I was always able to find the root.

Concentrating on one section at a time, the hillside began to be transformed. The weed pile grew and became a hillside in its own right. The plants that remained seemed to breathe easier, having sensed the removal of the weeds that threatened to choke them.

   

Things I struggle with can often mimic this monster weed. Several 'shoots' grab for footholds in my life - desiring my own way, ignoring words of wisdom, speaking words out of anger. Only as I peel these 'shoots' away from the soil of my heart, do I get to the root of the problem. Pride. The 'shoots' are only symptoms of the real issue. Treating the symptoms won't extract the root. Pride has to be dealt with first...Wonder how nature teach us such awesome lessons for our lives !!!.

Ups and Downs

Ups and Downs

 

We all experience ups and downs. Whether we’re talking about jobs, relationships, energy, motivation, happiness - life is often about moving from ups to downs and so on without losing faith.
If you’re experiencing an up, I hope you are enjoying the moment. It must feel special. It must feel great. Enjoy it. Do more. Make the most of it. Spread joy, love and happiness. Be careful about over promising in a good mood while you’re at it. Laugh !




If you’re on a down, I hope you are keeping the faith. As dreary as things seem when we go through downs, they don’t last. And the best things about these downs is that they keep us humble and grounded. Of course, we don’t like or want them for sure... but what would life be if we ever given everything we liked and wanted? Look around. You probably have everything you need. Now what do you think at this moment?

And if you’re in the between, that’s a great place to be too. The next up or down will arrive soon enough. And when that happens, do remember to come back and read this post.!!  :)

Happy weekend folks...

On Cookies, Radishes and Self Control

On Cookies, Radishes and Self Control 

 

This week's book learning draws inspiration from 'Switch' by Chip & Dan Heath.

A group of hungry student volunteers were led to a room that smelt of chocolate chip cookies.
There were 2 bowls - one with cookies and the other with radishes.

Half the group were asked to eat from the cookie bowl and not touch the radishes. The other half had to do the opposite. Researchers left the room for 10 minutes to bring about temptation and studied the situation with hidden cameras. They found that, despite looking longingly at the cookies bowl, the radish eaters stuck to their word - that was will power at work!

A couple of hours later, they were called for a second 'unrelated' study about problem solving and given complicated unsolvable puzzles. And the results were telling.

The cookie group i.e. the untempted students spent, on average, 19 mins on the task making 34 attempts. The Radish group, on the other hand, gave up in 8 mins, after 19 attempts on average.

Self control, as this experiment dictates, is exhaustible . Exercising it is like doing bench presses at the gym - the first one is easy and then it gets progressively difficult.

I think the big question here is - Are we wise in our use of our exhaustible self control every day?

Happy week, all!

Success breeds success - a story

  

There was a farmer who grew superior quality, award-winning corn in  his farm. Each year, he entered his corn in the state fair where it won honors and Prizes.

One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew his corn. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.

"How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?" The reporter asked.

"Why brother" the farmer replied, "Didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen grains from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior, sub-standard and poor quality corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I have to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors to grow good corn."

The farmer gave a superb insight into the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor's corn also improves. So it is in the other dimensions and areas of life!

Those who choose to be in harmony must help their neighbors and colleagues to be at peace. Those who choose to live well must help others live well. The value of a life is not measured by how long one
lived it is measured by how many lives it touches.

Lessons to Learn from this Story: Success does not happen in isolation, it is most often a participatory and collective process. So share the good practices, ideas and new knowledge with your team
members and colleagues.
--
Even if there is an apparent 'loss' sharing ideas in the short run, in the long run, it is sure to help us all get better! :)

Do we learn more from success or failure?

Do we learn more from success or failure? 

 

A ton of research over the past years has pointed us in the direction of learning from bright spots or successes. So, do we learn from failure? And do we learn more from success or failure?

I believe we learn from both. That shouldn’t be too much of a surprise coming from someone who writes under the banner of a blog called “lessons for life.” That said, I do believe learning from success is more powerful. 

Out of every 100 projects we attempt, it is likely we have about 80 failures and 20 successes. So, failures are a huge part of our life and learning from them is essential. That said, their primary function is to teach us that something doesn’t work. However, for every 10 ways that work, there are a 100 ways that don’t and thus, successes are few and far between.

So, we should learn from failure. That’s how we grow up, become wiser, and stay humble. But, we must focus our energy on learning from success. Luckily, we don’t have to restrict ourselves to our successful experiences - learning is an equal opportunity employer. When you see something working, copy it.. and then develop your own style. I have my eye on learning from Ben Franklin’s Junto at the moment..

Isn't failure a wonderful thing?

Isn't failure a wonderful thing?

 

I was just grappling with a few thoughts and it occurred to me that failure is among the best things that can happen to us, like it or not..

Let's visit Man Utd after the Champs league final in Moscow after beating Chelsea. The mood is jubiliant, players partying and the like. It's only when Ferguson gets back to Old Trafford does he go back to the drawing board to plot next season's trophy attack..

How about when Utd were given a lesson in Rome this summer? Every player's mind must have had just 1 thought - what could we have done differently? What went wrong?

It is true that we must focus on things that go well but if it isn't for failure, we would never question, we would never ponder as to what went wrong...

1) Failure makes us humble. It does to me at atleast.. else I'd be flying too high for my own good..

2) Failure makes me think as to the things I can change - that within my circle of influence that would make me a better person that I would not have thought of had every step of mine led to success..

3) Failure makes me thankful for the things I take for granted.. a lovely family, wonderful friends, blessed teachers and mentors and great blessings like lovely food, money to spend and the like..

4) Failure makes me question my own deepest values, as to what really matters and whether this would matter to me 50 years from now.

5) And failure keeps me prepared for change..

Failure unfortunately is treated as a negative word. I've never felt its wrong to fail.. Falling down and staying down are two very different things.

And in the words of Rocky Balboa(from memory..inaccuracy alert :)) - 'Life will make you fall down to your knees and stay there if you let it. It is never about how hard you hit but about how hard you get hit and keep moving, how hard you get hit.. and keep moving..'  :)