An excellent collection of ideas about life and business, drawn from years of experience of various professionals and compiled by Geoffrey James. Mr. James is a journalist, author and regular blogger at Inc.com.
I have to admit that the points Geoffrey has gathered make this article simply excellent: they are 9 great truths we should keep very much in mind both in business and in life in general, since everything is connected. If you understand people, you understand what customers need. If you understand what customers need, you understand how people in general think.
1. You may be able to do anything, but you can’t do everything
Life, like business, has an infinite number of possibilities, and your capacity to succeed is unlimited. Yet sometimes moving in one direction keeps us from moving in another. We can’t do everything.
2. You can’t argue with someone about their beliefs
Most people think their beliefs are objective facts, when in reality people interpret facts according to their beliefs. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about religion or politics. It’s enough to know that their beliefs, and probably ours too, are unfounded and anything but objective.
3. Pressure creates resistance
The natural human reaction to being pushed is to push back. That’s why the “hard sell” doesn’t work today. In fact, it never did, and that’s also why heavy-handed management techniques always fail. (Read: 6 myths about great salespeople.)
4. The only things you can change are your thoughts and actions
Most of the disappointment in life and business comes from pursuing two specific things:
- Trying to change people.
- Trying to change the course of external events.
You’ll never control any of that, but you can control how you think, what you say and the actions you take to make things happen.
5. You never know what others are thinking
Bear in mind that everyone has three faces. The first is the one they show the world at large, the second is the one they share with friends and family, and the third is who the person really is. That last one is the least known, since you rarely get to see that face of someone.
6. You live up (or down) to your expectations
Geoffrey tells how he once met a man who was on drugs, an alcoholic, overweight and just out of prison. On his shoulder was a tattoo he’d had done at 16. It read “Born Loser”. That man clearly lived up to his expectations.
7. The good old days weren’t that good
Many people wish they’d been born in a simpler, less complicated era, such as the 1950s or the Middle Ages. That’s nonsense, because we’re probably living in the best moment in history, when anyone can reach their goals as long as they’re willing to fight for them.
8. Ideas on their own are worthless
There are millions of business ideas floating around that, if put into practice, could make the people behind them millionaires. But ideas are worth nothing. All that counts is the ability to execute the idea and turn it into something real.
9. Nobody has a monopoly on the truth
Politicians, priests, prophets and experts in one field or another claim that they (and only they) know the truth and are right. They may genuinely believe it, but they’re human beings, and so “their truth” is the product of a fallible, incomplete human mind.
Further reading
- 18 business lessons you’ll learn sooner or later
- 26 lessons to prepare your child for the real world
Featured image: Wonderlane, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
