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"to challenge and inspire people 
so that we can realize our full potential"
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Two Ways To Find Your Why

4/29/2014

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Do you know your “why?” Why are you doing what you are doing? Please don’t tell me to make money. Money is a result of what you are doing, it is not the why. Your “why” is your purpose. When you find your purpose and live it, you discover meaning and you get to do what you love. When you do what you love, you never have to work a day in your life.

When you find your passion and your purpose and live out your “why”, your work becomes a labor of love. Work is what we do by the hour, while Labor sets its own pace.  Living out your mission, you tap into a creative stream that allows you flow — an intense focus and crisp sense of clarity that others notice.  Simon Sinek has a TED video with more than 12.6 million views on YouTube in which he explains the importance of finding your “why”.  He points out that “people don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.”  

What is your cause? What are your beliefs that drive you and get you out of bed every morning? Why should anyone care? Most of us can explain what we do. Most of us can explain how we do what we do. But can you articulate your “why”?  Are you passionate about solving problems? Are you driven by continuous improvement? Does helping others succeed drive you? Are you trying to make the industry more professional? Do you love being part of the creative process and watching an idea germinate, blossom and flourish?  Find YOUR Why and live it courageously. Steve Jobs said, “the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. Don’t settle.”

It is your responsibility to discover your “why”. Once discovered, center your life on it and allow it to flood meaning into your life goals and daily activities and become an everyday source of integrity and pride. Your purpose should be rooted in love, not fear; aligned with your fundamentals, your passions and desires; something that moves you emotionally and not just mentally; be energizing and nourishing; inspiring and worth building a life around.

Here are two ways to help you find your “why”.
  1. You’ll find it inside. You already know the answer, but you will find it close. So step back and look inward and then trust your gut. Let go of self-interest and control and reflect with honesty on your values, your beliefs and the things that matter most to you. Ask yourself if your life serves something of value in itself and not just what you think you can get from it. If you can direct your energies in the service of creating a greater good, it will return to you. Allow yourself to have moments of “awe” that put you into the moment. Watch the leaves change color and drift to the ground. Stare at the fire and smell the smoke and hear the pops and crackles. (Hopefully around a campfire or fire pit). Get up and watch the sunrise and see how the colors of the world change and hear the birds greet the new day. And then, listen. To yourself. The answer is inside of you.
Be for the sake of being. Love for the sake of loving. Give for the sake of giving. Trust the world to give it back to you. It always does. It’s the law. The law of the universe. Pursue your purpose with a sense of service to it. When you keep your self-interest at bay, you’re able to find your true purpose.


     2.  You’ll find it by working at finding it.  Steve Pavlina suggests that anyone can do it in about twenty minutes. Begin with an open mind and a commitment to work at it until you get there.  On a blank piece of paper or a new document file if you’re more of a computer person, write “what is my true purpose in life?” Write the first answer that pops into your head. Now repeat that with each new answer that you think of. When you get to the one that makes you cry, you have found it. It could take you one hundred, two hundred or even a thousand answers but when you hit one that hits every emotional nerve in your body, you will have found it.

Will finding your “why” help your business? It will if you make the decision to live it, love it and be it. 
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10 Things You Need To Know To Become a Professional

11/6/2013

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1 - All major sports teams have coaches. If you want to play in the major league, get coaching. Our industry has several good ones.

2- If you want to be good, hang around those who already are. Your regional association is where the really good hang out. Get involved, volunteer, serve.  You’ll meet the best in the industry. You’ll find your mentor.

3- Customers remember only a few of your words. They never forget the essence of who you are. Work on who you are, more than what you say.

4- Don’t rush to make a sale. Clients forgive a lot of the things that can go wrong with an order. A bad recommendation, a promotion that makes them look bad is forever.

5- Everything you ever wanted to know about promotional products can be learned at your regional and international associations. Read the publications from cover to cover. Attend every workshop, seminar and presentation that you can. You are lucky to be in an industry with the breadth of free education and professional development it offers.

6- This is a crazy business, but that doesn't mean that you need to go crazy. Don't go bonkers if someone drops the ball sometimes. It’s going to happen. I know of no long term calamities befalling mankind because of a screwed up order. Yes, it is the end of the world. Until you let go, take the lessons from it and move on.

7- Never compete on price. No one wins.

8- Don't try to do it all. Everything you learn from reps, from PPAI, from ASI, from your regionals, from your reps shouldn't be everything you do. Take only what fits for you, your style, your market, and leave the rest behind.

9- Have a passion for what you do. It will help you get through those missed deadlines, lost packages, bad artwork, unrealistic clients, unreliable resources and those days when the entire universe conspires against you.

10- Have fun. If you are not enjoying what you are doing, why do it?

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Love as a Business Strategy

4/25/2011

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When we talk about the need to “Create Value” we’re talking about making a very real and discernable difference.  For all of us, no matter whom we depend upon for our daily bread, that means making our customers love us.  

If people buy from you because you give them the cheapest price, they’ll buy from the next guy for the same reason.  When we create business propositions around cutting prices, I’m reminded of a joke about a man and a woman in a bar.  The punch line concludes with the recently face-slapped man answering, “We’ve already determined what you are.  Now we’re just haggling over the price.”  That type of transaction in the bar and the ones that we engage in predicated on discounting are not healthy, are of questionable character and are devoid of value and meaning.  We not only can do better than that — we must.

If your customers buy from you because of the love that you show them and because they love you, you can profit more — both in your bank account and your heart.  You need to know this—People don’t buy with their heads.  They buy with their hearts.  You don’t compete for their money.  You compete for their feelings and emotions.  If you touch the hearts of the people you serve, they will be loyal and become partners.  Engage their emotions and they’ll become raving fans.  Raving fans don’t just give you referrals.  They become your ambassadors and evangelists.  

Is there room for softhearted words like “Love” in the world of business?  In our self-important universe of trade and commerce, can we use this kind of language?  I believe it is critical that we use it and live it.  Speaker and author, Tim Sanders wrote the bestseller, “Love Is The Killer App” and challenges business people to become “love cats.”  He argues that the way to fix your future is to fix yourself and that in today’s world the road to prosperity is paved with a commitment to generosity.  

Milton Mayeroff in his philosophical book, ”On Caring”, defines love as “the selfless promotion of the growth of the other.”  When we help others grow and become their best selves, we are being loving and we grow.  It is one of the most amazing counter intuitive realities of this world; the more we give, the more we gain.  I speak of this in the presentation that I’ve given at several industry events entitled “How Full Is Your Bucket?” We each carry an imaginary bucket and when that bucket is full of positive feelings, we operate in our zone, at our best and at peak performance.  When our bucket gets emptied through the negative emotions of others, we cannot be or do our best.  But the very best way to fill our own buckets back up is to consciously and conscientiously be filling the buckets of others.

So what does it mean to bring love into our professional lives and how does that create value?  I like Sanders’ definition:  “Love is the act of intelligently and sensibly sharing your knowledge, networks, and compassion with your business partners.”  When we are openly human with each other great things can happen.  We can operate from the perspective of assuming positive intentions from each other and not creating drama skits of ulterior motives.

Some brilliant business minds have stated that the purpose of business is to make a profit or to maximize return to share holders.  I could not disagree with that more.  It leaves no room for the most powerfully motivating force on the planet — Love.  Love can propel you forward and give you a sense of meaning and satisfaction, which will help you do your best work and be your best YOU.  The purpose of work is not to maximize profit.  It is to come together to do good things, to help each other and bring about important and lasting changes to our society and our planet.  

We can build relationships, learn from each other and openly share our knowledge; expand and connect our networks of value-driven people, and express our true selves despite the harried pace we set for ourselves and our business partners.  We can hold each other to higher standards and demand from each other that we leave everything we touch better than we found it.  And we can live out our values and do good things not because we expect a Return on Goodness, but simply because it is the right thing to do.  We can believe in a karmic quid pro quo, but it should not order our days.  Do the right thing because you want to be the right person.  

The passion and compassion that you bring to your customers, your supplier partners, your associates and your world are what defines you.  Compassion and generosity are the best strategies for individual and organizational prosperity.  We must be people of value with the right values. Together we can make a difference for good.

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Ultimate Creativity: Living Life to Your Core Values

3/30/2011

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I was on the floor.  My knees gave out.  My life had collapsed.  I came home from Hong Kong to an empty, dark house.  My life had become empty and dark at that moment when I turned on the lights, but the emptiness remained.  The bedroom was eerily empty.  Nothing on the dresser.  I pulled a drawer open.  Empty. I opened the closet. Empty.  A note.  Two lines.  “I met someone.  I’m leaving you.” Thirty-two years of past and a future full of plans gone in two lines.

The phone call was like a 9-1-1, but to a friend.  By grace, the friend said, “Paul, this is a defining moment.  What you decide to do with this moment will determine the rest of your life.  You must decide who you are and who you want to be.”  That grace touched the core of my being.  My core values.  I chose my attitude.  I chose to live out who I wanted to be rather than who I was expected to be.

The core values became the bedrock that sustained me.  I am a kind person.  Things and stuff and money can be replaced, relationships cannot.  I do not want to allow negative emotions to control me.  I want others to forgive her.  I don’t want to ever regret something that once made me smile.  I will model what I want from others.  I will let go of everything except for love.

Forgiveness is a value.  It is an act of love for oneself.  It is the most selfish thing one can do.  I didn’t set out to forgive.  Forgiveness was a grace that came to me.  Because I lived my values.  I modeled to others what I wanted to see in the mirror. Forgiveness is such a wonderful gift.  The negativity is gone and all that remains is love.  In its purest form.

Your core values are your core.  They will provide a solid foundation when life rocks you. We don’t get to choose the events life will bring.  We do get to choose our attitude about them.  We can learn to not take anything personally and not to make assumptions.  Reality can create enough drama.  We don’t need to add to it by thinking the world or others are acting against us personally or making assumptions on motives.  Life is reality and reality rules.  It’s a godlike property that we need to respect.  We can choose the God-like quality of creativity, of choosing to create joy, peace, satisfaction and a truly fulfilled life.

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    Paul A. Kiewiet MAS CIP CPC
    Coach, Speaker, Facilitator



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