The Cain and Abel of the Expectation bloodline

Expectation has two offspring; disappointment and confidence. As with any family there is always a favorite which ironically happen to be disappointment in our scenario. Strange you might think—well it is in fact the case that we spend more time on our disappointment than its older brother.  Confidence is the first of the two and disappoint is the last; you know what they say about last babies. Disappointment gets the most attention for most people and there is a reason why. People tend to remember the bad things more than the good ones. Like most last babies, too much attention breeds some sort of a negative behavior. 

If you have ever been disappointed you know it is because of your expectation. You also know that your expectation has given you confidence either to do or not to do something in other situations. Disappointment themselves are not always a bad thing so you may want to consider not throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath water. Very often, we find later that the disappointment we cried about was in fact, a blessing in disguise.  Go through your list of major disappointments and you will find a few that will make you feel foolish for crying. It is not everything we think we need that is the best for us. And it is not true when we decide to think we cannot live without someone or something. Spousal disappointments are probably the most devastating and I have had a few of my own.  There are many stories about people who have ended up in mental hospitals because of non-conforming spouses. The depression list is much longer. Of the many women I know who have suffered this; most have later decided that they didn’t really need him anyway. They are in fact better off without the man they wanted to die for. They soon learn that there is a better man and a world of new possibilities awaiting them.

In the final analysis, it is expectation that is the root of the problem. Even when the signs are as clear as day light, we choose to hope for the best. That’s the other one— HOPE is an accomplice in this matter. Well the signs are always a warning of what is coming but we choose to ignore them; not necessarily because we want to give the benefit of the doubt—that will be more purposeful. But more because we are comfortable leaving the work to others and we do not really want to shift from expectation’s comfort zone.

Humans love predictability. If we didn’t, prophets won’t have a job and they do get a lot of clients I can tell you that. People go to very serious lengths to be able to know and control the future. They want to shape it to meet their expectations.  We are more comfortable and confident when we think we can predict what will happen next. So we expect a spouse to do this and that. We expect staff to do this and that- after all what are you paying them for? We expect a friend to do this and that— yeah what are friends for? We expect good customer service— doesn’t the book say we are entitled to it. We expect everything and when they fail, the emotional price is quite high if we do not know what to do. Disappointment is on the loose and he is no easy child to control. His cuts are deep and almost impossible to forget. Since our lives are full of expectations (and we need them), it doesn’t appear to be something we can get away from. This means that we are going to experience a lot of disappointments and you probably have a few stories of your own. The emotional price can take a very heavy toll on your performance in your occupation and larger life. Don’t forget to run the race, you must shed the weight. Emotional baggages are among the worst kind and they without a shadow of doubt force low performance.

Think of a team member who is depressed all the time because his wife is cheating. Or maybe his children won’t do what he wants.   This person might not give their work all the attention it needs forcing team members to do more to fill the gap. Some people even have the wonderful talent of turning their problems into other people’s problems forcing the whole team to slow down. They infect others with their emotional viruses. One depressed person can depress a whole team with their negative thoughts and its attendant negative attitude and before you can say Nkrumah, one kiss refused at home has evolved into a corporate disaster.

So how do we maintain performance in the face of the endless network of emotions that surround any environment with human beings in it?  The solution starts with being aware of emotions themselves; how they are generated and how they affect performance. This helps to develop a management system. There are only two kinds of emotions and they are both generated from the two kinds of thoughts—negative and positive. Like generates like. Knowing what to think to generate the right emotions that will result in the right action is emotional intelligence (EI). The creator of EI (Daniel Goelman) asserts that success becomes more certain for people with high emotional intelligence. The person who is high on the EI scale also exhibits very good social intelligence and hence is socio-emotionally competent. He knows how to navigate around people to ensure they don’t become obstacles and ensures that an emotion doesn’t slow his performance. This also means he knows how to manage others well enough to ensure their emotional baggage are not transferred over. Since people are the key actors in the performance of organisations, we must see how this issue is important for organizational output. Machines are only as good as the people who man. This makes it prudent to invest more in people than in machines to ensure high performance.

To finish off, here is a promise I can make you with my head on the line: You will experience countless disappointment in all aspects of your life. Even in your bedroom. In fact you have already experienced so many already, it is shocking you are not used to it. The solution is to develop a way of managing expectations and its trouble child while maintaining your confidence. Emotions are the results of thoughts and they express themselves in our actions. No bearer of negative thoughts is able to give their best.  EI therefore is a major influence on both occupational and life performance. By all means, have expectation; in fact engage her to Hope. Because without them, you might be discouraged from taking action and we don’t want that.  No one does something for nothing and that includes you. To improve your performance however, you must learn to manage disappointment with big brother confidence. It is how you will be able to identify the famous hidden opportunities that hide behind the notorious disappointment. Like any spoilt child, he is not all bad- listen carefully to what he has to say and choose wisely or he will take you off your performance track.  It is no coincidence that the two are from the same source and you must understand the source very well. Emotional intelligence makes you more powerful and makes your success in your occupation and larger life more certain. The uptimetrics® training program includes Socio-emotional competence testing and development as part of the information management module. Join us in our next training program for more.

Answering the following questions is a great way to start.

Email the answers to  info@csdafrica.com to join our no-obligation,  one month free performance coaching program.

Recall a major disappointment in your life?
What was the feeling that came with it?
How did it affect friends and family?
How did it affect your performance at work?
How would you handle things differently if the situation repeats itself?

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Gain jet-speed performance with Compact Thinking

Compact thinking develops the mindset that insists on things being tightly put together-- nothing is left loose. It requires one to ensure a well-structured life where every asset is useful and focused on a set objective. Unnecessary gaps, loose components and unsure destinations have no place in the scheme of things if performance is desired.

Often we are not aware of the things that weigh us down and stop us from giving our best. Consider the case of an athlete who is wearing heavy clothes and high heeled shoes.  Perhaps even carrying a backpack whiles trying to win a hundred meter race. You can’t even imagine it- I know? Athletes do not dress like that for a race and there is a reason why. They strip till they are almost on birthday suit level and they run in very light shoes designed to ensure fast movement of the feet. Everything about them is organized to lose baggage and make them as light as possible. Well… the idea is simple: lighter is faster. It is the reason high performance cars now have engine blocks made of aluminum and TVRs have fiberglass bodies. It makes them lighter and hence faster. It allows the full performance of the engine to be released as it has less to carry.  You can do the same for great results in your current occupation and larger life.

However, compact thinking is not only about minimizing your baggage or weight. Most importantly it is about tightening the loose screws and a careful selection of essential tools and maximizing their application. This part of the idea while simple can also be tricky. There are a countless number of tools out there but what you really need is one that can give you the maximum while demanding very little from you.  Tools must not become liabilities and they can. A long distance biker knows he needs water to keep him going but he doesn't bring a whole drum with him; he brings a bottle. He needs to secure himself so brings a helmet with him albeit an aerodynamic and light one so it doesn't rob him of speed.

There are those who walk around with tools that they do not need. Take for example a person who cannot read but walks around with an iPhone and a blackberry. These are advanced Smartphone’s that have very powerful capabilities and hence cost lots of money. They are however, rendered useless in the wrong hands. In my estimation, many only use 10% of our phones leaving the 90% capability to waste and yet the price remains the same. The two phones will set them back some $1000 or more but we will insist on having them just to belong- the need to belong is an emotional baggage. Besides walking around with two to three phones makes it easy to lose one and this happens a lot. This is a financial leakage that can affect performance in more than one way. 

Case in point:  Take a secretary who has access to a desktop computer at work. She also has two Smartphones in her handbag. She may have a laptop before she got a tablet. Sometimes she even has a desktop at home. Not to mention the digital camera and iPod she also has stashed away somewhere.  The total cost of her gear can be estimated at some $5000 and that doesn’t include maintenance (two phones means two bills). Yet she might complain about finances. It is a clear case of a lack of financial intelligence; a key cylinder that needs to fire at full capacity if one is to hit the peak. It is a leakage in a person’s life and until blocked will continue to affect output. $5000 is better invested in a financial instrument.

Compact thinking in this case will be having a really good high-end Smartphone that does it all. Perhaps having a decent laptop may solve the rest of the computing problems. The argument is that often these gadgets are barely used and will cost more money to keep. The tools in these devices when used will help improve performance in many ways but they must be focused and not scattered. You don’t need more than one calendar or appointment scheduler. You will struggle to find valuable information. It is easier to manage when it is all in one place. Synchronize your smart phone with your laptop and liquidate the rest of your gear. Upgrade your phone to a better one when the time is right.

There are those who prefer a very expensive 4.0 liter engine car to drive around town everyday burning a lot of fuel when they might be better off with a good quality smaller car with less consumption, maintenance and parking problems. Compact thinking is not being stingy and old fashioned. It is shedding your ego and emotional bagged and doing what is necessary so you can maximize your performance. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having the latest devices but we must ensure that they are assets and not liabilities. Baggages and leakages are not only physical, they can manifest as emotions too.

In performance theory, everything is either an asset or a liability and this includes people. This matter is treated in more detail in another article. Compact thinking is the reason why we now want to have three children and not ten like in the old days. We want to be able to give them the best and that won’t happen when there are too many mouths to feed. When one has a too many friends he increases the possibility of conflict and reduces quality of friendships. Wrong friends can affect your performance negatively. Friends need attention and when you have too many you will have to divide that attention among them. Chances are some might get more than others and conflict will be the result. The best thing to do is to have very few but quality friends. Quality friends are those you can call asset people. Their very presence adds something to your life but of course you have to ensure that you are a quality friend yourself. People dynamics explains this in more detail.

This idea also applies very well in your job. When you sit at your desk in the morning it will be useful to be clear about what it is you must achieve and assemble what is needed while eliminating what is not needed. What is needed must be well positioned in the right places for easy access. People needed must be made aware from early and all distractions like social media must be eliminated. It is in fact recommended that you disconnect your computer from the internet for most of the day. Of course this must all be done in the context of what you need to achieve and how you will achieve it. Don’t forget there is no one-size-fits-all solution to anything.

So let us summarize the idea for easy understanding:
People, emotions, gadgets and tools must work for you and never against you. They must not be baggage that weigh you down or obstacles that get in your way or leakages that steal your power. When assets have been identified they must be tightly put together as loose and badly integrated components can also affect performance. Loose components refer to having assets that are not well put together and hence run in directions of their own. Everything must work in unison and be closely knit together towards a specific object. No loosed ends. When they are too many, you have to eliminate wisely and focus using the best tools you can get. When aircrafts are in trouble they dump fuel. Compact-Thinking will make you lighter, sharper smoother and faster. In a nutshell it will release your true performance. It is a very simple way of thinking that has miraculous benefits as it eliminates waste from your life and seals leakages allowing you to be the best you can be.

Answering the following questions is a great way to start.

Do you have more than one mobile phone and why? Explain what impact your two phones have on your finances and where in your life extra finance is needed.

Are all the devices you have being used at maximum capacity and how have you reached this conclusion? If not, why?

Are there identifiable leakages in your life that must be sealed? What are they and how can you achieve this?

What kind of support do you get from your spouse and friend regarding what you do?

How many children do you have or want to have and why?

Are there any loose ends in your life that you need to tighten and what are they?

Email the answers to  coaching@csdafrica.com to join our no-obligation,  one month free performance coaching program.

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KISs your life welcome

My friend Theodore Albright is a man who has this interesting habit of teaching something every chance he gets. He manages to do this even during the most mundane of conversations. Sometimes it is so subtle you don’t notice it until much later. He recently told me a little story about Steve Jobs, a man who has by all standards left a large mark on the world. While any story about Steve Jobs is worth listening to, this one was special.

His first lesson: “simplicity is the highest form of sophistication”. I let that pass. I mean it doesn’t really sound like much until you start meditating on a deeper level. But when I chanced upon a message on Richard Branson’s Google plus page that read “complexity is your worst enemy” it all sunk in. I guess you can say I had one of those Aha moments Oprah and her friends have been talking about and the result is what you are reading now. 

I have been aware of the KISS principle for many years but its practice is another thing altogether. In case you didn’t know, it simply stands for Keep it Simple maybe even stupid. It is supposed to save time and increase speed among other things. When you think about it, the most outstanding products are those that have been made simple and easy to use. So then Steve’s iPod , iPhone and iPad fit very well with this idea with their one button control system. When I first encountered these devices I experienced a shift in thinking regarding to what a phone or an mp3 player can be. I have found that people who are easy to deal with are some of the most loved people and in most cases the most successful people. They have something called social intelligence but that is another story.

Those who make things simple for us actually put a lot of work into what would have ordinarily been really complicated.  It appears that product designers have now bought deeply into the idea. Now we hear about airplanes that are so simple to fly they can even land themselves.  Cars with sensors in so many places they can decide for themselves what a good parking spot is and take the pain out of the parking for a certain segment of our specie. Often we tend to do some very complicated stuff maybe to show off what we are capable of. In the IT industry programmers are known to spend valuable time building complicated but useless stuff when they could have built some really simple and useful things. The tendency to want to complicate things to look smart is so high most of us fall for it. Point and click thinking put more computers out there because they became easier to use. Prior to that one needed very advanced skills to do some very simple tasks with computers. This made computer literacy some kind of a rocket science. When computers got easier to use they were able to affect our world more. Now everyone is computer literate, more computers have been sold and billionaires have been made. The world has improved drastically in the last few years.

I recollect the days of DOS and what one had to go through to get a printer to work. You had to install all kinds of drivers and all kind things happened on monitors that displayed only one color. Your programs were usually on a floppy disk and floppy disks in those days were really floppy. They get damaged at the slightest opportunity which made them not so simple to manage. Just to display the content of a folder you needed a set of commands that were not so easy to memorize. Now we have what you call plug and play; stick it in and it works. Serial cables had countless pins that can easily break but a USB has only one block. You click your y through folder to find files. Now you don’t really need computer lessons to write a simple letter.

There are many service providers who do not seem to be aware that their methods and processes make it difficult for patrons. They have not thought through how they are delivering their services to see how they can make it easy for clients. Anyone who has been near a government department in Ghana probably has a few stories to share. Simplicity will raise your performance. If you cut out all the fancy gimmicks and focused on what is important and kept it simple you are on your way to great things. They do say that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line. Long winding lines just complicates everything and make things harder.   A person who tells the truth, has integrity and is direct with concern for others makes a useful member of any team. I find that every time I have tried to look what I call my best I have ended up looking ridiculous with weird color combinations when a simple white shirt would have done the job nicely. 

I don’t know what you are involved in but I know that if simplifying something for others is your objective it will get you the right response- your performance will bear fruits then. On the macro level, it will improve your life performance and increase your chance of success. A straight rout will get you anywhere fastest. Kissing your life is a simple principle in itself. Your output must make the life of others simple and easier or your effort will not be appreciated. To be honest with you; I do not have a problem at all taking advice from Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and even my friend Theo who is arguably one of the smartest men I know and neither should you. KISS your life for the day you do that is the day your life begins a new trajectory of performance. Well guess what; Einstein subscribes to the idea too

Answering the following questions is a great way to start.

Does your work make others Life easier and in what ways?
Is there something you can do to make things even easier for others?
What is the usual feedback you get from your colleagues, supervisor and clients?

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Goals create gaps. Fill em! |REV UP®

When you set a goal you have created a gap that will continue to dwell between you the goal until you fill it with your actions or life fills up for you. And if you think a gap is nothing, think again. Imagine what the world would be like with the number Zero and please do not say zero is nothing and therefore not a number. The change it brought to our number system is groundbreaking. So gaps are something in themselves. In fact they can be obstacles if you let them.

However it is space that your actions fill in an effort to build the stepping stones or the bridge that will take you to the destination you have in mind. The proponents of the law of attraction seem to imply that we must not worry about the in between. All we must do is to hold the goal in mind long enough for it to be realized leaving the “hows” to the mysterious universe.

If you have seen the movie “the secret”, you will recollect Jack canfield (co author of chicken soup for the soul series) saying that when he set the hundred thousand dollar goal, he had already written a book waiting to be published. Long and short of the story: he soon found or should I say attracted a publisher who gave him a cheque for a hundred thousand dollars. The thing is, he was prepared and had a product worth a hundred thousand dollars as the book turned out to be a bestseller. So it makes sense that the magic of the universe will deliver a hundred thousand dollars to him. I am wondering what the universe would have done if he hadn’t written the book. Before all of this he had given a talk at a workshop after which he was interviewed by a journalist from an influential magazine. Somehow that is how he got connected to the publisher.

It seems to me that gap between the goal and you are filled based on a number things. Among them are what you are and what you have are key components. A completed book, presentation in a workshop and a publisher are stepping stones to a hundred thousand dollars that has been visualized and designed on a one dollar note. There must be a thousand and one ways of reaching a hundred thousand dollar goal so why the publishing of the book? I am guessing it will be easier for the universe to use what you have to get you where you need to get. Something that raises a big question for purpose.

But what happens when we set a goal and have absolutely nothing in hand. How does the universe fill the gap we create? I am suspecting that the universe will look for something to use and I am suspecting that it might take a hard look  at us and what we are interested in as well as the things we cherish the most. It will probably take a close look at what our values are and start creating circumstances around them. 

This is when the random life begins. When a person who doesn’t have a job or a means of earning a living decides they want a BMW 5 series and dream about it every day and even make a vision board about it because they have seen the law of attraction movie, the universe doesn’t have a choice but to fill in the gap with little information to work with. Opportunities or Trapportunities begin to appear:

A brand new BMW X5 series parked by the road with engine running with key in ignition begins to look like an opportunity. In the absence of values, you might just drive it off thinking your prayer has been answered.  Well… even the law of attraction requires some guidance in order to do its job. It needs the codes in order to determine how to fill in the gap and unless you provide these codes, it will fill in the gaps with some not so good materials. The law doesn’t appear to think much.

This is why a person may achieve something that only brings trouble later down the line because of how they have done it. Of course all things are possible but out of the endless pages of life’s catalogue what will you choose? The answer is in purpose. It is when you are focused in a very certain direction guarded by the knowledge of what you will -and will not do that goal gaps are filled with the right stepping stones.

It is a bit like what happened on my front lawn when I just left it there for the weed to grow and overgrow. Very soon I was visited by a snake who of course found my front lawn super attractive. I didn’t want the snake there; I just didn’t do the things that keep snakes away. To be honest every time I walked past the lawn, I always got the thought, “what if a snake is hiding in there”. It seems I may have attracted the snake by thinking exactly what I didn’t want.  How it got there has everything to do with my actions and inactions and I couldn’t tell you who decided the in between.

So what is the point here: the goal gaps you create will be filled with stepping stones which resonate with your own person and values? When you have purpose, life can only respond to you through that purpose filling your goal gaps with the right stepping stones. If you are a musician who wants to make a million in five years, it becomes believable because somehow, you know that if you could make an album, you have increased your chances to reach that goal. Law of attraction then finds it easy to fill in your gaps and eventually lead you to your goal and all of this will be painless.

If you know anything about the law of attraction then you probably know that it requires belief to work. I believe that your honest believe in the ability achieve a goal will largely depend on your own capability. Where it is not up to scratch you will have some difficulty authenticating your own belief. Belief itself has a way of activating you into action. Sometimes before you even think about it and those actions contribute to filling the gaps.

Your goal gaps will be filled but you do have a say in what it is filled with, you say it with your purpose and your value system and life will respond accordingly. You live life, life doesn’t live you. You develop your own philosophy for it. You see it through your own eyes and it responds to you according to you. It fills your goal gaps with the right stepping stones for you. What does this have to do with Peak performance? Ask me later. REV UP at http://revupblog.blogspot.com/

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The distinguished gentleman from Ada

Whiles it is highly possible to meet someone called Markus and maybe even a person called Markus Kennedy, you are not so likely to meet someone called Markus Kennedy Katey. It’s like trying your luck with a combination lock system. And even if you did, his Markus will not be spelled with a “K”. But if for some impossible reason I was wrong and you did find a Markus spelled with a K, it will mean that person must be German in which case, they are unlikely to have the name Katey. They will still need to come from the Aklie family and bear the name. Ok just maybe…that might be possible because he could be half German and half Ghanaian which will make it possible to have a name like that but that will mean then that he comes from Ada. But that still doesn't make him me because I am not half German. Besides he will have to be born on the 16^th day of the month of May and it will have to be a Thursday by which virtue Yaw will have to be added to his names. Now how likely is it to get all the combinations right out of the billion possibilities?

The combination that became me is much more complex than that. It is what makes me impossible to replicate unless you resort to cloning. But I am not even sure what the result of that will be. Let us go down the rabbit hole and see why I am so impossible to copy. See… even if you had the same name as me (something I doubt very much) you will still need to come from Kasseh and Akplabanya which is where my mum and dad come from respectively. And you will have to have grown up in Accra with all the gutter-to-gutter, piloloo, stay, guava and mango raid experiences. (Lets just leave out the Julor ke police, alokoto (please do note that the word is not alikoto), and bayler chasing for now).

There is more- you will have to have six siblings from your mum and wonderful nieces (of course). You must come from a highly disorganized extended family. You must have been a Mazda RX 7 fanatic turned a BMW freak and you will have to have done countless number of reckless things in order to find yourself. You must have been crazy about the Amiga 16 and adored the early macs. You will also need to win a gold medal for Ghana in a West Africa Karate Championship after experiencing countless number of bruises that will still be with you fifteen years on. 

You are also going to need friends who sell you a pair of jeans only to come back and borrow them never to return them. You must have lived in a community where your TV doesn’t come back after its been picked for repair and be related to somebody who will borrow your very cherished Sony amplifier and never return it; leaving you with a turn table and a set of vintage reggae and hi-life vinyls that will eventually be abused and tortured when you are away for a few years by individuals who have no appreciation for the delicate contact between needle and plastic and the soothing magic that follows. You are also going to need a countless number of siblings from your dad of which you have met only a few; making it possible for you to hit on your own sister at a family funeral. You will also need to have started countless number of businesses failing woefully at some and simply just abandoning many of them because of youthful exuberance and an unstable mind. Oh I forgot to mention the motor bike accidents especially the one at Kingsby junction that will leave you with a few scares that will itch occasionally and remind you about what it means to be riding at 120km/h in the night without safety gear for the sole purpose of showing off (something you can share with your son some 20 years down the line).

You will need Sensei Ben, you will need Big Dread, Marley, Voltaire, Kant, Plato, Rockstone, Twinkle brothers, Yeshuah Ben Yosef a Mashiak, Garvey, Ghandi, Madeba, Adler, Dennis Brown, Frankl, Apostle Paul, Nkrumah, William James, Chesterton… I can’t give you the full list here. You are going have to do a lot of 360 degrees in order to arrive where you should have been a long time ago. You are going to have to lose the love of your life and she will have to come from Winneba and you will need to spend the rest of your life looking for a replacement hoping to do all the things you didn't do and undo all the things you shouldn't have done. And when she marries a doctor, you will need to find a reason to run away from the wedding before the reception starts. And on the way, still carrying the present that was meant for her in your hand, you will have to wonder why you didn't go to medical school. Eventually you will arrive at a “happy yourself” conclusion because you think of yourself as one who has mastered the tools of emotional intelligence.

You will have to have broken a few hearts and have your broken a few times in return. You are going to need to be betrayed by best friends of many years and an engaged wife in order to wake you up to some of the harsh realities of being Ghanaian. You are going to need integrity beyond reason and you ought to have built several things I don’t want to mention here and loose them in a self-sabotage manner. You are going to need to be used, refused and abused. You are going to need a gift that will haunt you… giving you sleepless nights for some thirty years until you finally figure out what to do with it. You are going to need to be a peak performance advocate in a country where nobody gives a toss.

Now when you have done all that, come back and I will give you another set of combinations you need to get right and I have a whole library of them. In the end you are going to need to decide if it is all worth it and since it will take you a whole life time to figure it out, you are going to have to decide what you will do with the “you” that is waiting with its own set of combinations that others will have to spend a whole life time trying to replicate. And I should mention; that I have not stopped creating new combinations yet so there is still a lot of work to be done for the library.  

There is nothing else like you. It is just impossible. The look alike is a look alike, not the real thing. That Charlie Chaplin took part in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest and came second is an unpardonable fallacy. To distinguish yourself is therefore a very simple matter. Don’t try to. Just “being” is easy, painless effective, and powerful. The masters say you are at your best when you are you. There are those who set off on a journey to distinguish themselves. In the personal development business this is the mantra of many a motivational speaker. You have to work hard to stand out. You must distinguish yourself by doing this and that.

Those who work hard at distinguishing themselves soon find that they are trying to do something or perhaps trying to be something; moving away from what they really are when they already are something of great value. The more they try the more value they lose. Your real substance is what you already are because it is an incredibly unique product. It is being more and more of what you are that is the key. When you finally go on sale, you will have a target audience and there will be absolutely no competitor whatsoever. That’s because there can be only one you: good bad and ugly. Distinguished beyond distinguish. I am the distinguished Gentleman from Ada. Who are you?

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Powering up with People-Centrism

People-centrism is an aspect of socio-emotional competence. Something expert agree makes success more predictable than just having talent. There is a reason for this; a high level of talent could be rendered useless (possibly even self-destructive) without the navigation system provided by socio-emotional competence. The idea is to think in terms of what you have that makes others happy and allow yourself to be occupied by it in your entire life. There is such a thing as the right job and the right spouse. It might sound a bit strange for those who have come to believe that your life is about you and that you must do only what you want and that what others want does not count.  Working only for yourself is unsustainable; it represents defect. Beyond the religious opinions, we have also seen form the work of scientist like the Richard Dawkins that altruism is the best means of ensuring the continuous existence (not that I like the guy).

Life itself is what you say it is and there are no real right ways of doing anything unless we have a clear and specific objective in mind. That is when the road to point x cannot be the same as the road to point y. All philosophies work except; there is such a things as fruits of your seed. You cannot possibly plant guava and reap mangoes. So what you put in must return its corresponding result- that’s among the most constant of all rules and it does not change for anybody. So rest assured the philosophy you choose to live will bring its attendant results without exception. Perhaps this is what informed ideas like “love thy neighbor as thyself”. In the final analysis, it is in your best interest.

People-centrism is to be sure that you are meeting the needs of others by being more of yourself. The last component; the being more of yourself bit is of extreme importance simply because; it is the only way to give the best of you, which happens to be what people want. In fact its true power is demonstrated by modern business theories. Products and services are created for the creator’s own benefit of course- to make profit. But this is only possible when the customer is happy as you probably already know. An unhappy customer is bad business and bad business collapses business. At the same time to give your best, you have to concentrate on what you do best. So there is a clear balance required between the two in order to generate the two way happiness that awaits you.

But if you think this applies to business alone, think again. In fact business might be several thousands of years behind as the authors of scripture had already figured this out earlier. And if we had been paying attention we might have gone a lot further in our civilization skipping several crude ages. I guess in a way, it explains why the likes of Daniel Goleman think that emotional intelligence (which is an aspect of socio-emotional competence) makes success more predictable. Those whose job directly makes people happy are usually very successful. Take comedians and musicians for example. What about writers and filmmakers. When they are good at what they do then they are guaranteed patronage from almost everyone. Why? Happiness- good feeling.

Your output generates a feeling within people whether you want to accept it or not. You have a choice to decide whether this feeling is a positive one or the opposite. To set out to deliberately create a product that generates a good feeling for people is people-centeredness. It is deciding that people are the reason why you do what you do and hence you are going to make sure that they are happy with what you give them.

This idea makes your life better because it is only when people are happy with you that they tend to want to make you happy in return. They give you what they have; their attention, their money and their most treasured assets.

A father who is happy with the potential son-in-law is happy to bless the marriage. Simply because he is happy. He likes the son-in-law enough to give away his precious daughter with a blessing. He might be happy because he is sure that the son in-law will make his daughter happy. So before straying too far, let’s get a grip on the idea. The happiness that you think you are looking for depends on other people’s happiness. If you can give happiness then you are bound to receive it back in plenty. It is kind of like willing to forego your grain of corn and putting it in the soil. You can only reap thousands in return.

So you are wondering by now, what influence does people-centrism have on your performance. I have already said that being competent in the social environment makes your success more predictable than just having a skill or talent. I have also pointed out that it is how people are feeling about what you do that counts. What they really buy is the happiness or good feeling you create. In a team your work might be the raw material for another person’s work. If it is bad, it makes their work harder and vice versa. People- centrism means that you consider the effect of what you are doing or not doing on others in order to ensure a good feeling. Such behavior represents quality as people are always the end users of what we do.

It cuts through communication as well as what we say have a way of stirring up the emotions of others. Considering the fact that the run of people are largely emotionally unintelligent, it may rest with you to find people-centric ways of delivering a message or making a point. You are probably already aware of the important role communication plays in any environment. When staff is people-centric it is a double win for the organization as they will respond to both internal and external needs the right way. The marketing concept of understanding the needs of the customer and creating the perfect product for a targeted group is therefore a powerful one. But so is the economic idea of firing from a competitive edge. Your goal is to combine bother both for a powerful outcome. Not surprising that marketing is rumored to be a wayward child of Economics.

People are not the same and hence their needs differ. People-centrism is therefore begins when we identify that group that has a need for the advantage we have. The lesson here is that, regardless of what you are; there is a group that needs you as much as there is group that does not. To force yourself on the wrong target is to create friction and discomfort for others and yourself—not a very people-centric approach to things. This can affect performance or output in countless number of ways. People-centrism ensures great management and great staff. It develops great products and guarantees success. As people we are micro-businesses in our own rights and we can consciously apply some of these principles in our lives for better relationships and better performance.

Friction in all its forms negatively affects performance which is supposed to be an effortless venture.  People must be the central focus of what we do and that will help ensure that the maximum output is obtained out of people, systems and equipment. The most valuable assets of any organization or nation are its human resources. People are the key ingredient. What we do is by people and for people and about people—maybe that sounds familiar. The most advanced theories of business and even the survival of mankind are people-centric in nature. This article is just a scratch on the surface of a much bigger idea that is captured in the uptimetricse® system available at the CSD®. Please feel free to share your comments with us. It will be highly appreciated.

Some questions you can play with in your mind.

How people-centric are you on a scale of 0 to 10?

Identify someone you are unhappy with and state clearly, reasons why they generate this feeling within you?

Identify ways in which this situation can be turned around?

Is it possible to treat all your communications and actions with doses of people-centrism or or do you find this difficult?

What is the real reason why you do what you do?

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