Elements of a Pleasing Personality

The view of success has shifted over the years basically from just industry, patience, honesty, integrity, etcetera though most of these still form the foundation in every success. However, success both in personal and corporate matters now revolve around the human factor. Over ten twenty decades the focus was on machines and industrialism as a factor for individual and corporate success. There was the sense of you can if you’ve got the machines.

Success has become a function of personality, human relation and interaction which revolve around the human factor. In the corporate world public/customer relations has become a key and sensitive aspect of any corporations’ efficiency in service delivery. And it will further shift in that direction. If we must think success in the individual, corporate and communal aspects of life in this age where the human factor is key, then we must consider the fundamental and most outstanding element in the human factor – personality (pleasing personality).

The world’s grown into a tiny village where everyone is virtually a neighbor and distance seems not to be a barrier anymore. The world wants to meet you; and the minimum requirement is a pleasing personality. To an extent you can make a success out of yourself or work by the number of people you know or are ready and able to attract. The question is not whether they care; the truth is that the world wants to meet who. A pleasing personality engenders the discovery and development of many other personal abilities.

Success is not something you achieve, it’s something you BECOME, your achievements you will always leave behind but what you become remains with you only that it gets better. Character development is the minimum requirement for becoming a success. A pleasing personality has everything to do with character development. Here are some elements for developing a pleasing personality.

1. Become the best: If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbor said Emerson, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. A pleasing personality is not confined all in good looks. The spirit and character of it is in becoming a person of value – value in the entirety of the word. You owe yourself and the world a personal responsibility to become better. That I think is the hidden essence of creation – growth. Wouldn’t it be a great disappointment for the world to meet you and you have nothing for them? Not even a single value to add to their life. Becoming the best not because you have something to prove, there is nothing to prove, man has never been satisfied by it. You have all to become. Consciously work to become better, have that mind in all you do. When you constantly work at it, luck will not stop you from becoming a success.
2. Become a person of unwavering character: there is nothing more pleasing in a person than being known as steady, dependable and trustworthy. As I walk through life when I see a man – a great man, I see his test. Everyman has his test. Character stands you out in a crowd where material and mundane elements masquerade the majority of folks who present themselves. There seem to be more need for people with integrity of character now than any other time in human history. If there are three fundamental things in man’s life, character development should be one of them.
3. Clarity in communication: communication is a vital instrument when wrongly applied can turn friends into enemies and plunge nations into wars. It’s the most frequent tool used in daily living, yet most people never improve in the use of it. Your voice is your most important asset; most people try to talk like someone else thereby selling their identity. Have we not met people who have something to say but make a mess of it? It’s important you develop good communication skills; it’s not what you say but how you say it. Be bold and clear in speech, let every statement represent what you actually intend them. Getting a word out of your mouth doesn’t mean it’s communicated anything. Let your every word and statement leave no one in doubt of your intention. Especially when giving advice, don’t mold a mountain of words and throw it out there. Let you words be few, clear, bold and precise.
4. Smile a lot: Obviously a smile helps a lot aside it’s medical and psychological importance. Like a butterfly is attracted to the buoyant attractive flower, so you endear yourself to people with your smile. You want to be the guy or lady every other person wants to talk to and associate or stick around, the contrary may be the case when you approach them with a stolid appearance. Laughter is the closest feeling to happiness. People want to be happy, there’s enough sadness and worry to do for another lifetime so don’t go about the place with that face. Some people think they gain respect with serious faces, smiling wins more friends than frowning. One can easily sum the rest of your personality on it. Meet people especially for the first time with a smile. If possible put a smile in everything you do, it’s a sign of competence. If you notice, people who are very good at their jobs do it with a smile; the opposite is as true.  A smile creates a sense of hope and expectation of good, this is the feeling you want to create as well as the impression you want to give about your personality when people come across you.
5. Be confident: confidence is usually a result. It’s not something you ordinarily wield on, it’s what you build. People hardly believe in one who lacks self confidence. There are however cases where people wield false self confidence; where their confidence is disproportional to their abilities. Competence engenders confidence. The more you set goals and achieve them the happier and more confident you become. People readily trust you when you are self confident. You grow in confidence when you meet your goals, you gain trust when you meet others need and expectation.
6. Show understanding: You make yourself likable when you show good sense of understanding. Show a sense of understanding in conversation and response. This you can achieve by good listening. Listen to understand and not basically to answer or respond. A lot of people think their understanding is best expressed only by their response, so they listen very hard.

There is a charm in a gracious personality said Orison Marden, from which it is very hard to get away. It is difficult to snub the man who possesses it. There is something about him which arrests your prejudice, and no matter how busy or how worried you may be, or how much you may dislike to be interrupted, somehow you haven't the heart to turn away the man with a pleasing personality.

The Most Common Risk People Take

If success had a formula most people would still not get the answer. Good things await the individual who would dare to take a step to improve towards a higher goal. The good thing is that if he does not quit in advancing towards his goal he will achieve it. Unless we change direction, we are likely to end up were we are going. The successes most people fail to achieve are often the ones they fear to attempt. The most risk is not incurred in pursing higher goals where success is uncertain. Not knowing one’s weakness is what incurres the biggest risk. If everyone must be certain before they attempt anything, we may well still remain in the stone ages.

Most people don’t believe in impossibility. They believe that whatever is necessary is possible. Isn’t that why necessity is the mother of innovation? That's the doers' attitude, it's the spirit that has driven some of the most helpful innovations we enjoy today.

  

We risk failure to achieve the best. Fear takes the upper hand when risk tends to only a selfish end. No success in life said Frances E. Willard is anything but an absolute failure, unless its purpose is to increase the sum of human good and happiness.

The diligent farmer does not cease to sow because of uncertain weather conditions which may not favor his efforts. Very few things favor good when it’s conceived, it will wither in conception for fear of not succeeding if the conceiver (for fear of failure) fails to birth it. However, when it manifests it harmonizes with the forces that encourage and fulfill its cause. Good is like gold, unpleasant in its ore but goes through the most punishing conditions and becomes finer and better, it knows to make friend with what would be assumed enemy, unlike wood which knows to avoid virtually everything. Man is what he makes himself.

The most common risk which I think of as a common mistake is, not having a goal and then setting out without a plan. The tragedy is not having a goal to reach, you are most likely to achieve a thing with a goal setting than without a it. Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down — Ray Bradbury.

To read more about risk taking, why and why not take risks, click the links below

Misconception of High Risk - High Success 

Is it Worth the Risk 

Risk factor: Everyday brings Opportunity 

3 Reasons Why You Have to Take Risk

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How to Give Yourself a Chance to Achieve Your Utmost Aspiration

Success is not achieving a goal but it has everything to do with it. Success said Gustave Flaubert is a result, not a goal. If the statement ‘success is a journey not a destination’ is anything to go by, then success means more than just a goal. To achieve you earnest desire, you have to go about it realistically and purposefully. And to do that there is need for laying down a plan with specific goals in mind. Goal setting means to success more than a map or light in darkness, it helps you really get a handle on what you really want.

Control is key, isn’t it obvious why most people fall short of expectation or cant’ achieve desired goals even when they really want to? They had nothing on it. Responsibility is a hidden handle to control. When you shift or dodge responsibility, you consciously by neglect or unconsciously by ignorance sabotage your ability to exercise authority and control or even effect change. Seeds of success is about bringing to the fore those little but fundamental factors or levers as I call them which when applied produce incremental effect.

In a broad sense success is a continuous journey which involves setting goals and achieving them, breaking barriers, improving the status quo, enlightening the understanding, pursuing higher values and becoming a better, broader, finer and cultivated being towards the ultimate good. Success is a continuum. But the challenge that immediately presents itself is incontinuity (whether as a result of failure or lack of ability). The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.

There isn’t a level of attainment where anybody is guarantied problem or challenge free life, if the individual is of the improvement conscious breed and not the mediocre class who would rather maintain the status quo than meeting failure in the attempt to improve. In the journey of success there’s no fantasy land where problems don’t exist. So don’t think you are hard done when you don’t find one.

But the tweak lies in seeing problems as challenges that prepare and improve you for the next, that’s a winning attitude. Imagine a lad playing a computer game, no matter how difficult a level is, he attempts to win it, in doing that knows the next level will be harder but he expects it with excitement. He sees the next as his biggest challenge thus far and knows he must improve his performance to win. That’s a progressive attitude.

You have heard that success is not a sudden flight. Your biggest dash may not get you from point ‘A’ to point ‘Y’ but it can get you from ‘A’ to ‘B’ and that is improvement. You can measure success, yes you can categorize it. What level of success do you want now and here (bearing in mind then and there)? Most people have a clear picture of what they want, the amount of success they aspire and I think but not moderately that everybody knows what they want to a reasonable precision whether in business, relationship or personal life, we all want good success. But is that enough? With that alone your biggest dash may not get you from point ‘A’ to ‘B’. The mistake most people make is equating their ultimate goal to the current objectives they have to fulfill to eventually achieve the success in the big picture. At different times, success means different things. The success of tomorrow may make little sense in the face of today’s challenges. Hence the pursuit loses steam and fall short. Be practical and intelligent in your pursuit. Goal setting is your most important tweak in your tool box to really get a handle on the success you intend.

1. You start being successful the moment you know specifically what you want and declare to achieve. Develop the habit of being precise with what you want and declaring it. What do you want? Anything, any kind of job replied a job seeker. Ok, go downstairs ask the cleaner to put you through with his routines, you will be working with him onwards. No, please Sir replied the job seeker, you know that’s not what I want, I’m better than that. 
2. You get what you want. How often we here that and how little the sense most people make from it? If you want success you will get it and it’s no different with failure. Who in the right senses wants failure you ask? Obvious answer, everybody wants success but very few choose it. We usually know what we ultimately want by our good intentions but when it comes to how to get it, majority choose wrongly by poor decision making. What informs your decision?
3.  You get what you ask for. How do you ask and from whom do you ask? Let’s start from the latter, it’s clever to seek professional advice, it’s wise to begin the asking from you. Ask yourself all the questions that be and provide the answers to the best of your intuition. That way you get to assess yourself and possibly cover your bases. Imagination is powerful and boundless; it’s the best source of knowledge.  A good way of asking is setting a course, a line of action or plan and then demanding that the objectives or goal of the set plan be achieved. Heaven, the universe, people (call it what you want) help those who help themselves. There is no way any of these three can help you, if in effect they have nothing to help you with. Ask for their help but give them a handle at least. He that needs help must first show himself ready to receive it.

It’s not enough to know what you want, that doesn’t get you far, take another step to know how you can achieve it. Questions are very powerful especially the how questions. Goal setting helps bring into perspective what you can expectant if you derail along the line it help realign your attention on the course. It’s quite easy to lose attention. Nobody knows tomorrow they say, but we can know what to expect don’t we? I will prepare myself said Lincoln and my opportunity will come. Opportunity wastes no time with the unprepared.

A good way to prepare for the unknown is to know what to expect. You increase in confidence when you meet your expectations. You win trust and respect when you meet other people’s expectation.

The big picture of the success we desire is always there in clear view of our mind, the natural question however is how do you intend to achieve that?  Afford yourself the opportunity to actualize it, have a plan set the goal and pursue it, it’s that difficult. Whether you can achieve it? I strongly think you can. Just note the 3 keys to achieving anygoal. All successful people are characterized by this one virtue, they know what they want and then they pursue it with dogged determination. What keeps them on track? They constantly focus their mind on achieving what they want; they plan and purposefully pursue it.

Quote of the Day: You Just Have to Risk it Sometimes

Letter from Antiquity

Here is a letter from a pietist to his son

…in order to serve God faithfully at all times, remember that wherever you are God is with you, seeing and hearing everything you think, say or do. This thought will often keep you from doing evil and spur you on to do good; it will even be the reason for all the good you do…

Be diligent in your work, pay attention to everything and remember always that the profession you are learning now will not only be the means of earning a livelihood for the rest of your life but also that of serving God and your fellow man. Remember also that to a large extent, it depends on you whether you will be a useless person or whether you will amount to something in the world.

Therefore you must pray to God with all your heart for His Holy Spirit, and also expend all possible effort and care during your years of apprenticeship.

Courtesy World History: The Human Odyssey

                                                                                                                      

Envy Factor: 6 More Reasons Why You Must Not Envy

Do you envy? If you answer that question faithfully, then you have taken the first step to disclose to yourself some really helpful counsel. But I must warn you, this blog is liable to purge you of some fitly envy ailments, so prepare your mind (you will be better for it anyways). To a large extent, envy is a result of ignorance. It won't be too loud to say that people envy because

1. They lack knowledge of their calling, but it’s true. If you know what you are cut out for, you will understand that you are in a competition, not with any other but with yourself; to consistently improve upon your effectiveness. The knowledge and practice of this fills and annuls every opportunity for envy.
We definitely can’t avoid competition, it happens virtually everyday. However, is to improve your effectiveness and not to use others as total yardstick for your existence. Comparing yourself to others is ok to an extent but end up calling the ill emotion cause they can’t help the solution.

2. They can’t control their desires. Envy could equally result from not having what you think you want and not being able to bear it because another has it and you think or wish they shouldn’t. if you seek to rule the world or perhaps your ‘world’, you must first control your desires and emotions. Vain glories are not to be desired.

3. Anyone who has a stony mind towards change most certainly tends to envy. When you ignore the reality of change, and envy would be certain when you see others sailing safe on the tides with change while you are stuck on shore by an unwilling attitude towards it. Change could be risky. We take risk to achieve the best.

4. Envy could result from low self-esteem. People who think low of themselves often use others as a yardstick in the aspects of their lives.

5. Envy is not far from pride. Yes that’s true. Pride will envy in seeing another do with humility that which it can’t do out of pride. Out of the many definitions of pride, one is striking. Pride is failing to do what you should.

6. People who lack common sense of basic judgment tend to envy. Not distinguishing what is permitted from what is pertinent , they wonder in the valley of wrong choices or indecision. Sometimes common sense is not common at all. It takes common sense to know what is right for you (job 5:2).

It’s believed that there is a positive aspect of envy (benign envy) the one that motivates towards improvement. It’s ridiculous how some are driven by envy to do right, when the right is in sharp contrast to their will, values and tendency. They do this to either get even, prove a point or to even satisfy their envy. But at the end, if there be any such thing as good envy, a right minded person will be sure to use it wisely. I’m among the few who believe something good can come out Nazareth.
Show me what you lack and I will show you what you don’t value to work hard for. Envy could refer to being angry for not having a thing and wishing on the other hand that others shouldn’t have it too. If you consider these words, you will do well to get that sinful emotion out of your back. Hope to meet you tomorrow on this uplifting blog. Good luck.

Succeed in Service by Humility

Did you know that humility can work in you, through you and for you towards success? Humility is not a trait of weakness. Only the strong can be gentle, it takes a great deal of self worth, character and understanding to be humble.

The first action line of humility is personal, it concerns itself with improving ones mental frame, and it equips one with the understanding of who one is. We know what we are to ourselves, it’s not the same with what people see of us. It’s necessary we see ourselves also in the light of how people see us. Humility helps us in this aspect. It not only helps us appreciate or show concern, it makes us see value in people. When you don’t value people, it’s hard to see any good whatsoever in their opinion or contribution even if they have the perfect solution.

A master piece is not produced only by the skillfulness of the craftsman alone, flexibility is required on the path of object of work. As much as we want to be flexible to change, we equally desire to be agents of the change we desire. That’s what humility does, it reeds you of rigidity.

we are yet to realize and utilize the potential of possibilities we are capable of. Humility is a key virtue in making one a ready agent of impact, change and empowerment. These can only be achieved by service.

To be humble you must not only conquer pride but self. If you can conquer and control self, you can possibly conquer anything. You are humble not because you don’t realized who you are, but the correct idea about is; you know who you are so you must be humble.

3 Factors That Would Most Definitely Guaranty Failure

Today’s topic on seeds of success brings on vital issues we encounter on a common basis. Fundamentally one might be tempted to believe that if one could avoid failure and all that it stands for then one would be reveling in the realm of success. Since success could be viewed as the opposite of failure it might not be wrong to think in that direction. However, success is not necessarily the absence of failure; as not being a failure does not ultimately declare one a success. You can decide not to be a failure and yet not be a success (strong words huh?). It’s a two way decision process. When the decision not to be a failure is not followed or by the decision to , mediocrity automatically fills the void (nature does not permit vacuum). Things don’t just happen. There is a safe haven between success and failure for anyone who thinks he has arrived. Yes you guessed right – average. Average is the diplomatic way of saying mediocrity. Decision not to be a failure helps you to where you are not a failure but yet not a success. On this ground, many arrive and build mansions rather than tents. However, this is not a surprise. You will push to the goal despite the achievement on the road, if you know what you want. On the other hand, if you don’t expect a thing and eventually get it or something close, it’s only natural that you revere it or probably settle for it. Donald Trump puts it well, “think big… or in my words expect big. Out of the many that are called, few choose to push to the end. Three factors would almost certainly guaranty failure in any venture.

1.Starting with only the now in mind: the statement “now is the best time” is not a general rule. Start with the end in mind. Man is intelligent; he will avoid certain misdeeds If only he pauses to consider the eventual outcome be his act. Anyone would readily take an opportunity that has an appealing now. Latter is a procrastinating word. They usually meet disappointment, those who do things for the present rush alone. If you start small in doing the right thing, you will most certainly grow with persistence, applying the right principles. If you start big, despising the small but necessary things that form your basis for laying the right foundation, you will most definitely end small.


2.Starting with the wrong motivation: your motive determines failure or success, it works In line with nature. Though it’s hidden and might not be lived out, by nature you will attract what you ask or deserve. Good motives often attract the right opportunities, events, and people to achieve its goals. Bad motives no matter how secretive and painted would eventually attract as it deserves. Motive is primary, it forms the basis on which values are created and habits formed. These two are key pillars on which character is created. Your character is who you are. Progress no matter how progressive is only temporal when the motive is wrong.


3.Doubt: doubt is when you can and think you cannot. When you doubt you create a war-zone between two strongly opposing parties within you. When this happens you divide your strength, skill and mind to achieve. You also call two incompatible forces, that of fear and faith. This leaves you handicap in the game of decision choice and focus. Though there be skill and ability doubt kills the strength and will to perform. And most certainly failure would be inevitable when you so much look in the direction of fear than faith.

We Get What We Want

It’s said that we have the power to attract anything to ourselves. As a man thinketh in his hearth so is he. In order words, you are what you think. Or you become what you think of yourself. You are outwardly, what your internal members concur to. It’s interesting to know that we are of different parts; the outer person and the inner person. So you can’t easily change the outer person without influencing first the inner being, as everything we become outwardly is eventually what we have up inwardly. The inner person could be an entirely different character altogether or could be controlled in a different manner from the outer person.

You live out what is already inbuilt within you. You can’t act out what your internal members have not built up within you. It’s believed that everything, action, words and mood a person displays outwardly is only an outcome of what reclines within him. Out of the abundance of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Out of the scarcity in the heart the mouth keeps mute.

It takes wisdom and a wonderful personal character to reserve your comments when there is enough in your hearth to speak of. It only takes a little folly and lack of self control to always comment your reserve even when the reserve does not help the solution.

Can we actually attract that which we seek? Ask and it shall be given to you, Seek you shall find, Knock and the door shall be open to you. This is not a conditional statement. We usually get what we ask, whether by words of mouth or by our action. The action part is where people miss it. Whether you know it or not, every act you put has equal capacity to call things, as your words can. We usually attract what we think. However, there are things we deserve that we don’t get and there are things we ask we equally don’t always get. Why it happens that way I can’t tell.

When one is prepared with confidence in one’s ability he prays thus “oh God I have worked hard for this, give me what I deserve; victory is what I deserve”. The one who has prepared less and is unsure of winning then pray, “God gives me what I want, I want success”. While some people don’t deserve what they get, others simply get what they deserve.

Skill Without Strength Of Mind

You need skill to be competent and efficient; strength of mind is to anyone what a propeller is to a helicopter. Efficiency is key. Virtually everyone demands efficiency from everyone. As the world grows in population and innovation, the need for efficiency is emphasized in daily operation to solve the human problem.
There is opportunity in every day. There is opportunity where you are. You can create opportunity for achieving that which you desire. But it doesn’t end there. When the opportunity finally comes what do you do with it? What does it take to achieve what you want in the light of opportunity? Opportunity is not always a guaranty to achieve what you want.

One new skill might be the missing link between a person and his goal. Every personal virtue attracts opportunity for it to be demonstrated as every thought would attract the equivalent situation or opportunity for it to manifest whether they are good or bad. Skill is important but not all mighty. Skill can convince you to seize an opportunity, but it may not give you the stuff to go all the way. But by the way, why do people take the initiative to do what they do?

1. Because opportunity is available. Do you do what you do just because you have the chance to do it? Yes a lot of people do; without counting the cost and considering the process, they take opportunity head on without proper thought. And in the middle of the whole thing when the outcome is view or when they meet with any slight opposition it suddenly dawns on them. Learn to take opportunity not because they exist for the taking.

2. Because others are doing it. There should be a better reason for doing what you do. People who do this don’t do it because they don’t have idea of the goal they want to achieve, but because they lack the right plan to achieving what they want. It’s like knowing your destination without the slightest idea of how to get there. Usually the result is that you get to end up in the wrong bus, with the wrong people and at the wrong place. Talk about being moved by what you see than what you are sure of.

3. Because they cant see the end from where they are. A good way to avoid an embarrassing or calamitous outcome is by starting with the end in mind. It’s an issue of concern how people often take opportunity just for the motivations without considering the beneficial good it could bring. Motivation can get you started but doesn’t always keep you moving. It can inspire the will in you but doesn’t always give you the strength to walk the way. A common but powerful motivation here is money. There is a tendency to readily take opportunity to do anything once money meets the willingness at the other end.

4. Because they have not matured enough. Maturity is not growing old. Here maturity can refer to developing character enough in turning down a lot of good opportunities but never missing the best one. The more mature and successful one becomes the more he narrows his engagements and opportunity he chooses to accept though his options of choice be numerous. He no more takes opportunity only for the sake of meeting an end. On the other hand when one is yet maturing one is apt to virtually take every opportunity that comes one’s way.

The ability to perform a task creditably to a prescribed standard require skill. In the face of opposition and challenges where persistence becomes vital, one must have strength of mind to push against the odds of opposition.