To break down means to turn it into a craft. But in general it’s almost impossible to describe the process in words; however humanity has found a few names for it. Those are aphorisms and the short two-, three-, four-line poems – for example, Japanese’ tanka. Here are a few sayings.
“The successful networkers I know, the ones receiving tons of referrals and feeling truly happy about themselves, continually put the other person’s needs ahead of their own.”
Bob Burg
As we live through our lives, we encounter a great variety of people, bald and hairy, brave or silly, handsome or not. We judge them by their appearance, posture, how they smell or what field they work by using pre-established patterns we’ve accumulated through our life experiences. It is perfectly normal and that is how vast majority of us find those we like, some not so much and outright hate the others. Some of us will go further and establish business relationships, overcoming natural tendency in ‘trusting the feeling’ and neglecting opportunities to connect while putting aside the emotions.
And of course some of you have realized the power of networking with others, being able to tap into other’s skills and opportunities that arise from having widespread connections into different areas of the world and life. There is a lot of enjoyment involved just chatting to a lifelong friend, discussing their turns on life, week’ highlights or just having a flow of meaningful conversation from one topic to the other. Communication has been there since the beginning of time and it’s not just the verbal part of it that we enjoy, so why miss on the opportunity to meet with an old friend or an acquaintance that you share interests with?
“The future of network marketing is unlimited. There’s no end in sight. It will to continue to grow, because better people are getting into it. They are raising the entire standard of MLM to the point where soon, it will be one of the most respected business methods in the world.”
Brian Tracy
While you’re enjoying the nice evening with your friends or people you’re interested in speaking to, there is an opportunity for you to be someone who can contribute way more than you, personally, can ever achieve. I’m not talking about becoming a superman (or woman), or some sort of genius who can just make things happen using his/her willpower. No, I’m speaking about connecting people with one another, and certainly some of you came to this simple concept as well. It has also been shared at the recent event we’ve attended where Wendy Fogarty has shared the power and strength one can share with the rest by simply being open minded about how he or she can connect people together.
All this needs is for you to think how one or few of your friends/acquaintances can be of benefit to the person you’re speaking to, and then putting them in touch. If you don’t see a way to utilize offered advice or service, you can pass it on and help someone else. Your friends, family or colleagues will be able to tap into the potential of your network, network of your friends’ friends and so on. Wendy called this concept of sharing a ‘the ripple effect’ and it is indeed powerful beyond measure. Let’s see why.
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
Herman Melville
Collaboration has always been a way to achieve goals that were beyond one’s reach and not just in the past, but in this very moment and most certainly into the future. Pyramids were built using collaboration of thousands of people, even though it was ‘forced labour’, it was collaboration nevertheless – single slave can’t really push heavy sand block to the crane after all, no matter how well he was fed and trained. Combined effort of many people was used to reach countless goals throughout history and there’s no need to even give an example.
It has taken on many different forms and shapes, but one of them lies at the heart of social networking. By revolutionising how people relate and communicate with one another, it has fundamentally changed the way of how we speak, contact or connect friends together. And this is precisely where golden opportunities have been uncovered and thereon smelted. Being able to contact someone immediately on the spot has provided even greater opportunities for creating ripple effects amongst your friends, family and co-workers and provide an immense value to others, all while gaining the benefit of being someone who can actually help. People tend to trust those they know personally, and for a good reason – when speaking directly to someone, either face to face or on the phone, they get an impression, a certain degree of understanding about the other person in terms of likeness, trust or some other traits.
“If you would stand well with a great mind, leave him with a favorable impression of yourself; if with a little mind, leave him with a favorable impression of himself”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Thought” generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual’s subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas.
Thinking has been with us since we evolved from the apes and used our mental faculties to stick the stone on the stick. It has been a prerogative of a humain and so far there hasn’t been a successor in sight. For most people it is the process of evaluating chances or events in past or future, modelling situations, reality or finding an answer to a question or the solution of a practical problem. Last one is going to be the topic of this article.
As we go through our everyday lives, we rarely think about the thinking process, even more so about changing or shifting it in the direction that will help us to achieve this or that. The whole idea that our thinking can be changed may seem like blasphemy, but it has been shown by many personal development gurus that it is very much possible to shift the way you think.
thought
noun
1. the product of mental activity; that which one thinks: a body of thought.2. a single act or product of thinking; idea or notion: to collect one’s thoughts.3. the act or process of thinking; mental activity: Thought as well as action wearies us.4. the capacity or faculty of thinking, reasoning, imagining, etc.: All her thought went into her work.5. a consideration or reflection: Thought of death terrified her.
What are the benefits of changing the way we think? Wouldn’t it change our identity and make us not us? How long does this process take? These and many other questions can be answered very easily: do it and you will know. It is quite simply that for each one of us the result will differ in one way or another. You may argue about certain similarities or generalize some aspects, however the fact that you cannot tell what someone else is going to experience to exact same detail as if you were them is undeniable, just as you cannot have someone else’s mind and/or body.
How can we change the way we think? Simple enough – by starting to think about it! If after some time you start to notice that thoughts in your head are not what you want them to be – change them, force yourself to start thinking about what you want. If unwanted thoughts come back again and again, persist, persevere, be consistent about elimination of thoughts, do not give up without a fight! Show your mind that you are its boss, you tell it what to think over what and when you want it. Mind often wanders around topics or reacts to things received through external and internal stimuli. It is a difficult objective on its own to cut those distractions or simply ignore them, however result will worth it and even more. And this is another thing that you might have come across – you are not your mind. Your mind is just a tool, just like your arms and legs, and you have be able to use it to get something when necessary.
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
This is where we come to the point of self discipline, which is a separate topic of its own as well, but, when it is combined with determination, passion, desire, or any of great many other traits, the combined result will be enormous. And when I say enormous, I mean on the scale of compound or geometrical magnitude, which is explained by many great personal development authors who came to the same conclusion that investing into yourself is the most worthy investment of all. You are a common denominator in your life and the more you grow – the higher the remainder (results) will be.
To sum it up: KISS principle applies to thinking as well which should have four parts: question, answer, application and the result, because otherwise you risk going into endless debate with yourself. If this approach becomes the way you live, there will be no boundaries to what you can achieve. Having a goal in mind and next task in clear sight, you become like a tractor that slowly but inevitably gets to the destination. You may feel slow and heavy at the start, but the more you go through, the quicker you become. Reviewing the way you were thinking in the past and are thinking now will assist tremendously, and it can be achieved in a very easy way through diaries or quick notes jotted down on a consistent basis…
… eventually mastering the art of “Using no way as way” or “Having no limitation as limitation” (Jeet Kune Do)
Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.