Building relationships with authenticity

Authenticity is about owning who you are. Timidity (or worse, outright dishonesty) about your true character is an insidious repellent to making real friendships. The people who actually would be your friends won't see that they have anything in common with you if you aren't real with them. 

Defend the things you care about

Don't let anybody trash talk what's important to you. Your religion, your family, your livelihood, your person. Don't shy away from having an argument with someone you should argue with. That's much better than secretly resenting that person and communicating that your convictions don't really matter that much to you. In defending your convictions, you strengthen your ability to have them.

If you're ashamed of something, figure out if you should be

I know some people will disagree with me (but I'm owning it anyway), but there are some things that we do that we really should be ashamed of. I think the best gauge to use is the law of God, since it's not subjective like your own ideas about morality. 

Given that we're talking about making radical changes to the way we live, I only want the best standard to tell me how I should and shouldn't live. And that's going to be looking back to Moses, to the psalms and proverbs, the thundering of Isaiah, the sermons of Jesus, and the writings of Paul.

If it's something that really is shameful, let it go

The key to authenticity is making your public self and your private self the same person. If you can't do that because you're rightly ashamed of yourself, then you'll always keep your true friends at bay. The only person you're fooling is yourself if you think you can lead a double life, because you won't be able to lead either life very well. It's an ugly thing to love something that you can't share with the world.

Authenticity has important applications in network marketing. It's why it's so important to really believe in the industry and the products your company offers because people will see right through you if you don't. You'll have no desire or interest in talking about it if you secretly hate your company. True convictions are contagious.

Immediate action: your most powerful asset

Immediate action 

The principle of immediate action is a simple, but important concept in business. Briefly stated, whenever you know you need to do something, do it immediately. Ten minutes from now it could be too late: your energy and excitement to do it might be lost. The world is liable to move on without you if you wait around for what you think is the right time.

Now obviously, the principle only includes actions that make sense for you to do. For example, don't call someone at 3AM if you remember at 3AM that you need to call that person. But if it's during normal business hours and it's something you could sensibly do now, then just do it now.

What are a couple of parameters to know if the thing is something you need to do now? Here are three:

1) You planned to do it now

How often do we make plans to do something and then when the time comes, we still don't want to do it? In this case, making the plan was a complete waste of time. When the time comes, trust that you were in a better frame of mind when you made the plan, and do what you need to do immediately.

2) You know it's the right thing to do

There's no way you'll keep up with the other guy if you don't know how to listen to your intuition. Your intuition isn't infallible, but it doesn't need to be. The point is to exercise your judgement and your willingness to trust your instincts. You need your instincts sharp so they'll serve you better on future occasions.

3) It won't take you that long to do

If it'll be done in fifteen minutes or less, just do it now. If it's something like cleaning and reorganizing your office, make a plan for it and do it in pieces. You'll create this great rhythm for your day where you move from one thing to the next and you're training yourself to act in that rhythm.

Useful activity is both a curative and a preventive medicine against all sorts of problems. Don't you want that now and not maybe next week sometime? So start taking immediate action with the things that are important to you. If you're looking for a place to start, you can subscribe for future updates, or by send me an email to let me know what you think.