Author’s Note: Scott Ginsberg a.k.a. Scott the Nametag Guy is celebrating the launch of his new book, -ABLE: 35 Strategies for Increasing the Probability of Success in Business and in Life, by challenging his readers to come up with their own –able word and write about it in a blog post. Reading Scott’s blog post announcing the challenge, I realized the one –able word that I would use to describe what I strive to be, and what Scott has nailed, is transferable.

What Does It Mean to be More Transferable?

Transferable is more Memorable

Think about all of the knowledge you gained in High School. What ideas, concepts, or principles stand out most in your memory? If nothing stands out, what events during high school stand out in your mind?

Unless you have a perfect memory, the most memorable ideas or memories are attached to a concept presented in a surprising way or were highly emotional. One idea that I remember is the “Mole scream” from Chemistry class, which was a high pitched scream that our teacher let out when anyone correctly used the concept of a mole in discussions.

Since the Mole Scream was memorable, it caused me to remember the concept of the Mole and the teacher’s knowledge was transferred to me.

What are you doing to make your ideas, products, and services more memorable?

Transferable is more Understandable

To be more memorable, you could stand on a busy sidewalk and yelling random equations at the top of your lungs for a few hours. While that would make you very memorable and possibly get the video of you screaming a few hits on YouTube, like many Internet Memes, the effecive lifespan of your demonstrationwould be short.

In order for you to be transferable, you need to make yourself more understandable. I recently heard about Danica McKellar, an actress turned author who was writing math books for girls by using stories and examples from a young girl’s life to explain concepts in math. These books are understandable because they link familiar concepts to new ones.

Since these books are more understandable, they transfer the power of mathematics to people that might not have taken as much of an interest.

What are you doing to creating understandable products, services, and ideas?

Transferable is more Actionable

Let’s go back to High School (OK, I don’t want to either so let’s just go back to what we learned in High School).

While someone might have presented a quote out of the Federalist Papers in period costume so that you remembered the passage, what good did it do if you were not able to apply that knowledge in your daily life?

When you are transferable, you are able to provide information that is actionable. While many business classes provide a wealth of information, many professionals turn to public seminars, coaches, and consultants in order to bridge the gap between knowledge and execution.

When you are transferable, you are able to help people turn their knowledge into operational improvement, life enhancement, or monetary gain. From a product perspective, this is accomplished through actionable checklists, process diagrams, and worksheets that help people grasp the concepts that they need to take action on.

Though college is a great way to gain knowledge, it does not always provide actionable tools that transfer the knowledge to people that will use it.

Are you providing great knowledge with a heavy does of actionability?

Transferable is more Marketable

When you are transferable, your transferableness is more marketable. 

Which business book would you be more apt to read?

“The book contained a lot of good information, but I had to wade through ten long chapters of extraneous self promotion, archaic terms, and unnecessary definitions to get to the material that was actionable.,”

Or

“This book was great? Using the knowledge in the first chapter alone, I was able to save my business thousands of dollars.”

I would prefer the second. What about you?

When you, your products, and your services are transferable, that transferableness becomes marketable.

Transferable is more Compatible

When you are transferable, you are more compatible.

I could talk about the chemical reasons that oil and water doesn’t mix, but I am afraid I wouldn’t be transferring understandableness in my description. Instead, think about relatives you might have that don’t get along. For some reason they are just not compatible!

What happens when those relatives get together during the holidays? They usually end up bickering, making snide comments, and not listening to what the others person has to say. If there was an important message that had to get from one of them to the other, do you think it would get there with the right intention?

When you are transferable, you are compatible with your surroundings, people, and the technology in your life that allows you to be a superhero.

What are you doing to be more compatible?

Of all the –ables that I can think of, to me, being transferable has the most potential to help someone achieve success. When you are transferable, you are more memorable, understandable, actionable, marketable, and compatible than your competitors which will lead you to amazing successes.

Are you transferable?

Make Yourself More Transferable is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. 5 Reasons Smart People Fail at Creating On-line Businesses
2. Good is the Enemy of Great
3. Limitations? What Limitations?

I am not just talking about what you call bad habits, but I am talking about the activities you do the same way every day without thinking about why you are doing them.

The habits I am talking about can include when you wake up in the morning, what you have for breakfast, or how you brush your teeth. Think about those activities for a moment

What about after getting out of bed and getting moving? Do you go to work the same way, eat lunch with the same people, and go home the same way? When you get home, do you change into the same style of clothes, follow the same dinner schedule, and watch the same television shows before falling asleep?

How to Know When to Change Habits

Let’s talk about a simple habit for a moment . . . brushing our teeth. How do you brush your teeth? Are you an up and down person, side to side, or do you do the little circles as you were told to do by your dentist?

Now ask yourself, what are the results? Does your brushing keep you cavity free or do you always find yourself facing the drill and a hefty dentist bill?

If getting a nice big filling is not the result you are after, then why don’t you change your brushing style, your diet, or flossing habits?

Does Changing a Habit Have to be Difficult?

As irrational beings, we often know what will get us the results we desire but we don’t want to change the habits are preventing us from getting those results. We reach a level of comfort in how we do things and we find it difficult to change those habits, even if it could mean a beneficial outcome in the future.

Does it really need to be that difficult? Can’t we stop buying Pretzel M&Ms, eating ice cream, or making excuses for not exercising? Of course we can, but we often don’t because we are not focused on the results.

Are You Feeling the Pain?

Too often we focus on the pain of ridding ourselves of a habit instead of focusing on the pleasure of an optimal result.  It can be very painful to stop a habit, but starting to focus on the pleasure of an improved result and being to get your focus on changing the habit.

While focusing on the outcome can help move you forward, what will continue you down the path to change your habits are two things:

1. An inventory of the habits that are not delivering the results you seek.
2. Accountability for changing your habits.

A Habit Inventory

Sometimes we don’t realize what habits we even have that could be holding us back. To capture our habits, for a week, perform a time audit of your activities. For seven days, track in as close to 5 minute intervals as possible, every activity you perform through the day. If possible, review your activities and find a trusted mate or friend to review them and confirm which of your activities are negatively habitual.

Being Held Accountable

Once you have made a commitment to change, find someone that will help you change your habits every day. Then before you go to bed every evening, review the habits you are trying to change and call your accountability partner to tell them if you were able to avoid the habits that are not serving you. I recommend doing this exercise for at least 90 days or longer if possible. You will find that if you are kept truly accountable, then you will begin to break the habits that are not serving you.

For many of us, changing habits is a difficult task. It can be painful to change your morning routine or your after work routine. To really change your habits, you have to focus on the positive outcome you are trying to reach, know what habits are holding you back, and be held accountable for changing the habits.

Once you change the habits that are holding you back, you will start to set yourself free.

Watch the blog for more information on creating freedom in the coming weeks. Until then, tell me a habit you want to change in the comments and why it is painful for you to change that habit.

Habits is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Success and Dental Floss
2. There Are No Magic Bullets
3. Energy Through Exercise

Why Massive Action is Important

Here is the kicker; taking massive action to get something accomplished is the only difference between successes and failures. It is only in action that we are able to live the life of our dreams.

My Story

When I graduated from college, I barely achieved a 3.00 GPA. The quarter before graduation, I had a 2.97 GPA and earlier in my college career, I was heading towards a 2.00 GPA. From the look of my transcript, you would have thought that I wasn’t cut out for success in higher education.

Fast forward four years. After begging on hands and knees to get into graduate school, I graduated with a 3.93 GPA. If you would look at my transcript from graduate school, you would see that I had one B and the rest were A’s.

Was I A Bad Student?

If you had looked at my undergraduate grades, you might have thought that I didn’t spend much time on my studies. Here is the thing, I rarely missed classes or assignments. If you had seen me in class and working in front of the computer at the library, you would have thought I was a star student.

What was my problem?

The problem was that I wasn’t taking action.

Instead of actually taking the action to read what the professors wanted me to read; I was studying how to study, looking for simple explanations, or trying to find out how to better schedule my study time so that I could be a more effective student.

I was studying everything about studying, but not actually taking action on the materials I had in front of me.

Success Comes From Massive Action

I succeeded in Graduate School, because I spent hours in the library reading my textbooks, taking notes, summarizing notes, and working through my homework problems. I took the action required and worked my butt off in order to get the grades I wanted.

What do You Want?

Do you want to create and sell your own products online? Then stop spending $2000 on products that tell you how to create and sell products and start creating them.

Do you want to find a better job, lose weight, or fix your relationship? Spend 12 hours writing and revising your resume, exercise, or talk to your partner about the problems you are experiencing in your relationship.

Too often we know what we want and we don’t take the action required to get what we want. Instead we head to Google and start reading about how to find a better job, lose 10 pounds in a week, or what we need to say to our spouse to fix our relationship. Instead of spending 10 hours taking the action required to do something, we spend that time reading about how we should be taking action.

This post will not help you unless you are willing to help yourself.

If you want to do something, take action to do it. Don’t think about it, don’t study the problem, and don’t buy a product that gives you a formula for figuring it out. Just take action and do the work required to get it done.

Will you have to work at it? Yes.

Will it be hard? Yes.

Deal with it.

This Post Will Not Help You is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Time is an Illusion
2. Why You Should Hate Your Parents
3. There Are No Magic Bullets

After my discussion of why I love my feet, I want to get back to talking about creating energy. While Thursday we talked about controlling what we put into our mouths, today I wanted to talk about the topic many people love to hate . . . exercise (Screams can be heard in the background).

Can I be honest with you?

Exercise is one of those activities that I know I should be doing more of, but I find myself having a hard time motivating myself to do. Do I know that I could be walking more, practicing tai chi longer, or doing some simple strength building exercises? Yes, yes and yes is the answer to all of those items.

I am like many people in that I see exercise as a chore, but I still do it. When I travel I get up early and use the gym, I am on the elliptical after work for 30 minutes, and I practice my tai chi form a few times a day.

Do I enjoy exercise? Sometimes I do, but other times I have to remind myself that I love my feet and have to focus on the outcome and not how I am getting there.

Exercise really does help you raise your energy levels so that you can produce the mindset of massive action.

However, if you want some more advice, here is the best I have to give:

1. Put exercise on your schedule for either first thing in the morning or right after work in the evening.
2. Have all of your exercise gear in one place and ready to go at all times.
3. Stop researching what to do and just do something for 30 to 60 minutes. Take long walks, jog, or do push ups and sit ups.
4. Make exercise a ritual. If you have it as a habit, it is easier to fit into your life.
5. Take it easy. You don’t need to exhaust yourself with every workout. A long slow walk can have many of the same benefits as a tough workout.

As with diet, exercise is one of the key factors in having energy to take action in life. It is not always easy for everyone, but if you love your feet, then you will find the motivation you need to exercise more.

Let me know your favorite exercise plans in the comments.

Energy Through Exercise is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Why I Love My Feet
2. Time is an Illusion
3. Mindset Moves Mountains

What do you have control over?

When it comes to having the energy that helps you create a mindset for massive action, what is the one thing that you have total control over?

You have total control of what goes into your mouth.

If you are an adult living on your own or with a partner, you have complete control of what you are eating. Are you eating foods that are benefiting your energy levels or are you eating foods that drag your energy down?

When I feel good . . .

Last week I was facilitating a training class in North Carolina. The first day of class, I had eaten two bananas, an apple, and a small bowl of oatmeal with walnuts for breakfast. Throughout the day, I was drinking a lot of water, and snacking on fruit that I had smuggled out of the hotel during breaks. At lunch, I had a salad. I had not slept well the night before, but I was filled with energy during the day.

When I feel bad . . .

Compare that to day two, where I slept well, but struggled to stay energetic during my training class. Looking at my dining, the night before I met some former coworkers for barbecue pork, I skipped breakfast, and loaded up on more barbecue for lunch. By the middle of the afternoon, I was ready to lie down and take a nap.

What did I do to boost my energy?

I loaded up on coffee, grabbed a moon pie, and forced myself to work after consuming too much sugar, caffeine, and fat. By the end of the second day of training, I felt sick. I was groggy, unable to focus, and ready to pass out in bed.

Coming Out of A Rut

The third morning I felt like hell. I stuck to fruit for breakfast, a fat free smoothie for lunch, and as much water as I could handle through the travel day home. After grabbing dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant, I ate a healthy dinner and got a good night’s sleep. I didn’t feel great the next day, but I was starting to get back to normal.

What is happening to me?

This trip really highlighted for me how much changes in my diet have affected my energy levels throughout the day. When I eat poorly, I can feel it in my energy levels.

While I am not an expert in this topic, here is a general plan to what I have been eating that has helped me gain the energy I need to accomplish more during the day:

Breakfast
A cup of coffee and a spinach, banana, frozen blackberry, and ice smoothie.

Morning Snack
A Banana or Apple and a few almonds

Lunch
A banana, small cup of vegetable based soup, and a vegetarian sandwich.

Afternoon Snack
Apple, Banana, or Larabar

Dinner
Large Tropical Dinner Salad

Water
I will drink about 2-3 liters of fresh water a day in addition to any coffee, tea, or occasional sodas that I may drink

My goal throughout the day is to eat a large amount of fruits and vegetables while limiting the animal proteins and fats.

Another thing that my fiancée and I have been doing is eating on smaller plates. Due to a late night E-Bay Purchase, we have come to own some vintage salad plates that are 1/3 the size of a normal dinner plate. Eating off of them in the evening has really helped us cut down on our portion sizes and feel fuller with less food.

Whilethere are still a few trips out to dinner, I find myself gravitating towards healthier options than I have in the past.

What Eating Well Can Do For You

The most important lesson I have learned out of eating well is that it does affect my energy and I encourage to see if eating like a Men’s Health (or Women’s Health) magazine tells you to puts you on the track on improved energy.

If it does, then you are ready for the next step in increasing the energy you need to have the mindset for massive action.

Are you still with me? If so, make sure that you subscribe to the feed by e-mail or RSS and we can talk more the next step to boosting our energy tomorrow.

Until then, leave me a comment and let me know if you are what you eat.

Are You What You Eat? is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Energy Through Exercise
2. Why I Love My Feet
3. This is Why You Are Fat

What is Your Reason?

When most people talk about the reason they have for not taking massive action in their lives, what reason is the first that is verbalized?

“I don’t have time,” is what I hear out of most people’s mouths.

Is that the one you use?

Many of us often complain that we don’t have time to read, write, exercise, study for a new career, or start our own coaching business. We claim that our jobs take away our time, we are busy with our children, or the demands of our home lives does not give us the time we need to peruse activities that move us forward in life.

Complaining About Not Having Enough Time is Crap

Everyone has the same twenty-four hours in a day to get done what they want to get done, so why aren’t you getting done what you dream of getting done? (Don’t worry, I am not going to tell you that you are lazy.)

Time is an Excuse

While there are some people that waste thousands of hours a year on needless activities, it is not time that most of us lack, it is not vision, and it is not determination. Most people lack energy.

Energy is the Key to Success

It is having the energy to get everything that you want to get done that will help you determine your success in life. When you think about the end of most of your days, think about what you are really saying to yourself. Is it really that you do not have enough time left in the day or have you just run out of energy and feel like you are going to collapse?

For me, it is energy. I cannot begin to imagine how many times I have wanted to write, read, or exercise and have given up because of how fatigued I felt in that moment. Just right now, as I write this post, I have had to get up three times to clear my head because I have felt too drained to finish my thoughts. I am exhausted, but because I want to help you my readers, I push on.

So what can we do to create more energy so that we can have the mindset needed to take the action we need to make changes in our lives?

Subscribe to the feed by e-mail or RSS and we can talk more about that tomorrow.

Until then, leave me a comment and let me know if you really don’t have the time or if you don’t have energy.

Time is an Illusion is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. This Post Will Not Help You
2. Energy Through Exercise
3. Are You What You Eat?

You can change your mood in 60 seconds and this quick technique will not only improve your mood, but it will help you create the mindset you need to take rapid action in your life.

I have learned the past few months that I do not smile very often. I am not naturally a bubbly and smiling person. Because of that, it hurts when I do the following exercise I am going to teach you. While this exercise will not fix all of your problems, it will help you realize a few key facts about mindset and hopefully get you practicing to look better in photographs.

The Mind Body Connection

I am not an expert in the mind body relationship, but I know from reading Mind Hacks (Amazon Affiliate Link) that there is a connection with the muscles in your face and your body’s production of serotonin, one the brain chemicals that make you happy.

In Mind Hacks, they prescribe smiling for 60 seconds or longer in order to “trick” your brain into thinking you are smiling and trigger the production of serotonin.

Sounds crazy right? It is crazy, but it works. So start smiling right now and hold it for at least 60 seconds.

To make this Mind Hack work better, you can do the following:

1. If you cannot hold a smile, put a pencil lightly between your teeth. This forces the corners of you mouth up and has the same effect as smiling.
2. For a few minutes while you are smiling, feel grateful for the things you have in your life right now. Think about the positive experiences, that you are alive, or other positive things that have been happening.
3. Now think about the positive outcomes you want to have in your life. The people you want to be with, the career you want to have, or the places you want to visit. While you are smiling, think of these for the next few minutes.

Give it a try right now. Put the pencil lightly in your mouth and practice doing this every day for a few weeks.

Does it hurt to smile?

As I mentioned earlier in the post, it really hurt me to smile for more than a few minutes. Now I find that by doing this exercise, I am smiling more and I am able to hold a smile for much longer. Doing this exercise also starts making you feel happy about what you have in your life and puts a positive spin on your future.

What is your experience with this exercise? Let me know in the comments.

Does it hurt to smile? is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. There Are No Magic Bullets
2. Energy Through Exercise
3. Why I Love My Feet

Today I want to share with you the mistake that most people make when it comes to the mindset of massive action.

Living Life on If . . . Then . . .

Do you ever say to yourself, “When I have more time, then I will start to workout more?”

You could replace time for working out with money to travel, the knowledge needed to start a new profession, or any number of reasons why you can’t do something right now.

When I am in conversation with someone about their future, an if . . .then . . . mindset is the one thing I hear in the conversation that separates someone that achieves from those that just want to achieve. It is changing that, “If . . . then . . .,” into, “Now I will . . . , ” that could unlock the doors to success in your life.

It might not seem like much, but by putting prerequisites on what you want to achieve you limit your mindset and hold yourself back.

Think about how often you have said:

1. If I have a better job, then I will have the money I need to travel.
2. If I had more time, then I could eat better and exercise more.
3. If I had went to college, then there would be more opportunities for me.

Don’t feel bad if you just realized that this is your mindset, because it is the mindset of many people. Instead focus on how you can change this mindset in your life right now.

How can you take the action you need to stop living on if . . . then and start living on now?

1. Start taking action on achieving your goals. Instead of saying if you had more time to do something, just start doing it in the time you have. For example, even when I don’t have time to workout a full hour, I will still hit the elliptical for 15 minutes between meetings in order to get some movement in my day.
2. Do you think not having a degree is stopping you from achieving great things? Call a community college and ask what options they have available for getting you started on a degree program.
3. Do you want to create web pages? Many communities have cheap classes in the evening that teach web design, blogging, speaking, and other topics that can lead you to the skills you need to turn your passion into a career.

There are thousands of ways to say if . . . then . . ., but can you think of how you can say, “Now I will . . .”

Got anymore ideas on how to get out of this trap?

It would be great if you could let us all know them in the comments.

Are You Living Life On If . . . Then . . . is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. The Greatest Moment in Your Life
2. Energy Through Exercise
3. The Source of Every Outcome

How are you feeling?

Do you feel like you better understand what mindset is and how it affects your life? If so that is great. If not, don’t worry, you have what it takes to get control of your mindset in order to take massive action in your life.

Yesterday I talked about why you should hate your parents. It was a little controversial, but it only got to part of the problem with getting the mindset needed to take massive action.

The major reason that most people can’t change their mindset is that it is the hardest and easiest thing you can do.

It is easy, because you can literally change your mindset in an instant. Right now you can say to yourself, “I will never doubt myself again. I will always take massive action to live the life of my dreams.”

Sounds good on the screen . . . right?

That is the fallacy of the self help industry. Changing your mindset in an instant sounds good on paper, but it takes overcoming a lot of negative influences and conditioning to make a lasting change in your mindset.

Here is what I want you to do today . . .

Realize that changing your mindset is easy, but know that there are no magic bullets. Spend a few minutes pondering that and write out exactly what steps you are going to take to make sure that you change your mindset a little each day.

Could you:

1. Leave love notes for yourself to remind you that you can make a mindset change right now or will you wait to change when you are ready.
2. Smile more. Even faking a smile can make you feel better.
3. Accept that you can change on your time and in your own way.
4. Tell yourself that you have what it takes.

It is the little things that you do everyday that help you change your mindset. It is easy, but it is one of those easies that is difficult to execute everyday. If you are finding it hard, don’t fret it. I struggle everyday with being more positive, knowing I am on the right path, and knowing I am doing the right things to move forward.

Take it slow and know that you will get to where you want to be if you work towards it everyday.

How do we do that?

That is the topic of tomorrow’s post.

There Are No Magic Bullets is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Does it hurt to smile?
2. The Source of Every Outcome
3. If you don’t know where you are going . . .

Compare that to the person that saw when you were having difficulty with a move. What would that person do for you? They would slow down, show you, and guide you to doing it correctly. They didn’t try to show off or hurt you. That person let you learn the techniques without fear that you were going to get hurt.

Which of the two people would you want to practice?

The first person, call him Mr. Hard. He wants you to know that he is good. When he is able to toss you around like a rag doll, it makes him feel like he knows what he is doing. By knocking you down, he is pushing himself up.

The second person, call her Ms. Soft. She wants you to know that it is OK that you are not good, but she is here to help you become great. She knows what she is doing, and wants you to get there as well. By helping you up, she will get helped up as you grow.

How are you growing yourself and your business?

Are you balancing on the backs of people that you knocked down or are you being held up by the people that you brought up with you?

Many times, whether we realize it or not, we are Mr. Hard when it comes to our business and personal development. Consider the last time you saw one of your competitors in business or at work fail. Did you offer your hand to pick them up or were you cheering their failure?

If you are feeling bad at this point, don’t fret. It is common in our society to cheer for the victors and to bash the losers. If you have ever read Stranger in a Strange Land (Amazon Affiliate Link) by Robert Heinlein, then you might have learned from Valentine Michael Smith’s humor hypothesis that all humor is at the expense of someone else. This is one of the consequences of being human that we have to realize. It is OK to laugh, but also feel for someone’s misfortune.

Start Lifting Others Up

The first step to change from pushing down to lifting up doesn’t have to be large. It could be asking a co-worker that is struggling with a problem if there is anything you can do to help. Maybe a committee member of an association needs some help getting a project done. It doesn’t have to be a huge act on your part but sometimes, many times, the small things you do to lift people up have a huge impact in the future.

I believe that our lives and our businesses cannot be sustained on pushing others down. The only way to build a sustainable future is by supporting others so that they will support you whether it is in success or failure.

What do you think? Is it better to succeed from other’s failure or do you try to help everyone have a chance at success?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Are You Raising Yourself Up by Pushing Others Down? is a post from: As A Dude Thinketh
As A Dude Thinketh is written and edited by Chris Elliott. Chris helps small businesses figure out what their big idea is, how to get it to market, and how to get people to notice their wonderfulness. He is also a dynamic speaker and trainer in personal growth and public speaking. Do you need help with your next big idea or speech? I encourage you to talk with me to see how Chris can be of service.

If you liked this post, then you should also check out:

1. Pushing Through
2. How to be a Superhero – Part 5: Joining Forces with Other Superheroes
3. That is Not How This Business Works