How would it feel to apply make-up products on your skin face or shave your beard without having a mirror?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since years, I share around this time of the year a thought with you. This year I might focus more on what’s happening and what people feel in some parts of the world and loose the opportunity to catch those who live somewhere else ; the BRICS or fast growing economies ; nevertheless I take the risk.

Accidently, last days’ circumstances gathered all the conditions to go by an interesting experience that is worth sharing with you.

As in some others families, my wife’s family has the tradition to celebrate Christmas eve and Christmas in some ancient property at the countryside. At first this is nothing special, except since families grow year after year, rooms are running out and consequently new rooms must be created and prepared.

It happens that this year, we were logged in new rooms in the roof space of the farm. Huge efforts were made to create new large rooms including bathroom with shower and hot water, to assure that our stay would be as comfortable as possible. In their hurry, one small detail was missing; they just forgot to place a mirror in the bathroom.

When I woke up the first day after arrival, I went to the bathroom to take care of some personal hygiene, including shaving my beard. After brushing my teeth, I noticed that I had no mirror and I didn’t felt going downstairs to look for another free bathroom to raze myself.

I decided to shave me as if I had a mirror there. In fact I visualized myself before a real mirror, putting cream on my face and then razing myself.

How do you think this would feel?

Picture yourself doing something you use to in front of a mirror and doing the same without that mirror. It might be razing or putting blush or eyeliner o your face. It doesn’t really matter what you are doing.

Yes, you are right, it might feel as you lost control or in other words, you might lose the control you used to have and must find another way to keep things under control.

When I started putting cream, I didn’t felt I lost a lot control, but the real challenge showed up when I started shaving myself. Most of the actions were based on intuition and the sequence of my daily shaving actions. But I had no control of the result. I just hoped it was well done. When I completed my normal scheme, I started to check the results by touching my skin and perceiving if it was soft enough or it needed another shave.

After finishing this, I forced myself not to look for a mirror and instead to observe reaction of other family members. Apparently, nobody noticed something different.

Gradually I realized that nowadays while a lot of people are forced to re-invent a lot due to the turbulent times we are facing, more and more we will be forced to shave without having a mirror.

What I want to express is that it is better to be prepared that things we always took for granted might and can change rapidly.

We all know we must have next to our plan A ; which is the one with the presence of the mirror ; another plan B ; no mirror ;  , C ; another new way of shaving ;and even D ;another creative idea ;. However, do we really have these plans ready to explore, any place, any time? I do not know you, but some of these plans might fall short the moment we are in need of them.

Things change quickly nowadays and what works today might only work a bit tomorrow or even not get any of the results we were use to produce, the day after. No, I am not pessimistic, nor realistic, I just feel now that we must be prepared at any moment, at least to shave well without having a mirror.

Therefore, imbed time in your action-plans for the New Year to assure that you have other options available. Focus on real alternatives, things you love to do and which might include major change for you.

DO IT now, with no further delay, prepare your B, C and D plans profoundly ready to be executed whenever needed or at any moment you just feel you need or want to change something.

I wish you a year where you start manifesting your ideas that enable you to bring more fun into your life and in the life of those you love, while making a great contribution for the world.

Enjoy your fantastic 2012

Ronald

think, act & feel

www.ronaldgoovaerts.com

 

 

Focus on where you can create most progress quickly and consistenly

I needed to share sthis, a message I received at the start of a new year,

We spend walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.  Maybe this time, compose another list, walk through the rooms of your life… not looking for shortcomings and flaws, but for hidden potential and opportunity.

Slightly adapted quote from an anonymous writer

Ronald

think, act & feel

Whatever you do, ensure you put your heart into it!

 

2010 – 2011

Whatever you do, ensure you put your heart into it!

Some call it passion: I prefer to use ‘heart’ or what others call ‘hardening of the will’.

Normally we feel passion and are passionate at the beginning of a new emotional relationship, when our heart beats quicker and we feel warm inside.

Most of us have experienced this, but this feeling does not persist for ever and that’s the moment when the passion becomes love or simply disappears.

Doing things with passion does not guarantee that we will persist until achieving great results. But when we put our heart into it, we will be strengthened with fresh energy in moments of doubts or despair.

Many years ago while attending a seminar from a wise man Eduardo Martin in the Dominican Republic about unveiling the relationship between Fear and Love, it became so clear that they are the opposite of each other.

Your FEAR will simply disappear when your LOVE is strong enough!

Over the years I  have been sharing a special message with you at the turn of the year, and this habit starts sending signals at the beginning of December. These signals help me to be extra alert and observe remarkable moments that can be transformed into a message and a moment of reflection.

I invite you to look around and discover people that are doing things with their heart in it and learn from them.

Let me share 2 true stories.

Olga is a woman of mine in her mid 40s working at the payment checkout of a Portuguese hypermarket. I met her when I started the day early and went for some shopping around 10.00 o’clock. When finished I accidentally greeted her ‘good afternoon’, she looked at me and replied ‘you woke early’, ‘yes’ I said ‘I started the day at 6.00 am,’ she smiled and replied ‘I win, I started at 5.30 am!’ A little bit surprised I asked ‘you start as early in this supermarket?’, ‘No, I worked at another place before starting at 8.30 am here’ and ‘after I finish here I am going to run for 1 hour, I am preparing myself to run the marathon again’. We discussed for another 3 minutes about her inspiration and her way of living life.

Another true story, only a few days ago while arriving back from our Christmas break and celebration with my family in Belgium. As usual, we caught a taxi at Lisbon airport. Most of time, none of the drivers are really interested in making a difference. This time, Tina, a woman around 40, did her utmost to make our trip as agreeable as possible. She made it clear to us how much she loved her job as a taxi-driver and used to do her very best to make her customers more that just satisfied. She even promoted her home town, Lamego and informed us where to find the best places to try the local gastronomy and the best time to go there. Remember, for those who love cherries, Lamego is the place to be at the start of May!

Both women were enthusiastic about their job and life and expressed this simply by speaking from their heart. No doubt their story would be an inspiring message for many people. They focused on what was great and worked very hard to rise above challenges.

Most of us, including myself, are facing several challenges, some more complex, others more simple; depends on how you look at; and it is does not look as obvious to make a breakthrough all of the time.

Be sure you put your in heart in all your actions and you will be surprised at how:

Difficult turns into less difficult or even easy

Impossible turns into more possible

Hopeless turns into hope

Trapped into freedom of choice

Now it is your turn to decide what you will share with others so that they will understand that other options are available … than those they used to focus on before.

Wish you all a great breakthrough in 2011

unlocking you inspiring contagious energy and messages

Stop selling, start negotiating and obtain better results

Since I took my first steps in sales more than 20 years ago, I have always questioned myself about the classical model of selling: someone selling and someone buying.

That’s the reason why I never felt as if I was the salesman convincing a buyer to buy things from me. To be really honest I never acted as a salesman.

  

At that time, we were supposed to have a briefcase loaded with all possible sales techniques and tips in order to use the right technique at the right time with the right type of person.

Consequently, we attended numerous seminars to keep up to date ourselves and the stuff in our briefcase.

 In fact after studying positive science for 10 years and  engineering for 4 years I was again filling my brain with ‘logical material’.

In my hunt to become really good, a real expert, I devoured everything on sales and negotiation. I spoke with the top sales people in my field. I understood that human beings (= our customers) are mainly psychological and not logical creatures; that decisions depend more on emotional than economic factors.

  

That’s why negotiation grasped me and turned out to be one of my most exciting activities, one of the things that I most love to do.

What I want to share with you is this: “If you are in sales or your job consists of bringing your products or services to other people (=customers), you have a choice to adopt an attitude of selling or do something else”.

Research reveals that your ability to listen, ask open questions and rephrase without imposing your perception is by far the most important skill your need to be successful. In other words, habit 5 of Stephen R. Covey’s 7 habits: Seek first to understand and then to be understood.

 

After several years of training my negotiation muscles and adopting an attitude of becoming better and making progress and a difference every day, I started working with this new paradigm and I now produce results.

 

I strongly believe that you can boost your sales success, selling less by focusing on the things that matter most.

  

Recent studies involving opinions of more than 1500 CEO worldwide show that the ‘reinvention of our customer relationships’ is as crucial as our capacity to embody creative leadership and design process agility to be successful today and grow this success in what will be a complex future. 

  

Stop selling means that your first concern is not to sell. Yes, you are reading this very well: your objective is not to sell, but to shift your attention so as to get a better understanding of your customer’s needs, today, tomorrow and in the future.

For you to be successful today, tomorrow and in the future it is crucial to gather all possible information that will help you to serve your customers the very best your can. Reinventing customer relationships means that you want more than just to satisfy a customer. You want to surprise and make a real difference.

This kind of negotiation requires new professionals with their briefcases filled with other stuff, interested in developing long term relationships based on trust, hard work together and achieving great mutual results.

This new 21^st economy based on integration and FREE has moulded the necessary tools to multiply your on-line results with classical face-to-face negotiation.

 

If you are willing to pay the price necessary to replace your current sales paradigm with this new empowering one, you will reap the rewards of your investment. You will sell less and produce more results, investing less effort and feeling more fulfilled in many areas of your life.

If you are somewhere in between the old and the new paradigm, I wish to congratulate you and wish you all the strength to head on and persist on this path. 

If you feel I can be helpful to you somewhere, please feel free to contact.

I look forward to reading your observations and comments,

think, act & feel

I believe I can fly, … I believe …

Since early mankind, some people were obsessed by flying and many executed several experiments to fly with few or less result.

Even today when we ask young children what they would like to be capable of, being able to fly is for sure one of the highest answers on their lists.

Although, we all know it might be not tomorrow people will be able to fly just like a bird, most of us has many more capabilities than they actually use. Personally I am convinced that even most entrepreneurs do not achieve better results because they believe they aren’t capable enough.

Consequently they cut off important possibilities simple by believing, it is not possible!

FEAR is merely on of the most important reason and/or justification for this.

One of the things I could only resolve the lasts years was my incapacity to swim and jump into deep water.

During my early childhood, I did not cope very well with deep water, it gave me a feeling of ‘none control’! Because I could never overtake this FEAR, year after year I got more frustrated. In fact a huge negative anchor was installed in my mind.

 Since I became a father of young children who started to love water and doing crazy things their father FEARED all his life, pain overtook me and brought me to the point and gave me leverage that I wanted to change this.

You can hardly imagine what I felt when I finally jumped into deep water. More recently I even jumped like ‘tarzan’ into a deep river and they only thing I felt was massive pleasure.

Fact is that I always loved these experiences, unless they were related to water. During my more than 10 year journey as a boy-scout, I triumphed over many challenges, but I never felt enough courage to jump into deep water.

Today I realize the huge amount of pleasure and opportunities I missed all those years.

 Like jumping into deep water was related to mayor FEAR, other FEAR’s might withhold you of achieving better results. During all those years I had the potential but I did not produce the results and deprived myself from new worlds full of opportunities.

 Imagine NOW, you could fly!!

Would this help you to realize other goals or obtain better results?

Humm, you would say, of course, but we all know we cannot fly and most probably will not be able to fly .

 Let me state it this way : What does flying means to you?

Which skills do you possess you are not using because of FEAR.

 Decide to overcome at least one of those the next week. Yes the next week! You do not need to wait until you feel the pain, like I felt.

 At the end it was not a important thing to jump.

Enjoy your new world of opportunities!

think, act & feel

What makes negotiating fascinating?

I imagine, most of us first reaction will not reveal emotions related with enthusiasm and love to do.
As to my experience, most people I meet, train, coach are work with like to negotiate or DO NOT like to negotiate at all.
It seems that sales or negotiation are perceived with extreme labels. Some love it and find it fascinating, others prefer to execute whatever activity, less selling or negotiating.

Why this extreme difference in perception?

Quite some time ago, when I finished my degree in engineering and entered the business world. I remember I asked myself a question. This question helped me to make a choice and to cut off immediately some professional directions.

How do I feel with the next scenarios?

1st
You are in front of your office desk and at the left side; there is a pile of papers, at the right side you have another pile of papers, much higher. At the end of the day, when you finish your time at work, an important part of the papers that were on the right side are now on the left side. You dealt with the paperwork of the process and closed the subject.

2nd
For several months you are dealing with an important prospect. During the several personal meetings, information exchange and phone calls you could get a clear picture of what you need to do to turn this prospect into a client. You know you worked on the relationship to establish trust and really made an extra effort to really understand the interest. Things are not always easy; your competitors did their jobs too. But finally after more than 6 months of intensive contact, you are ones again face to face, explains in detail all possible solutions. You state it so clearly, you are well prepared that you can easily help to melt some remaining doubts away. Suddenly your customer stops the conversation, restates what you said and you confirm and then announces: “you got the deal”.

Sure you understood already, just by reading and reflecting on both scenarios that the one that gave me the best feeling is the second one.

And you? Which of those 2 scenarios do you prefer?

Even today, after more than 20 years of experience, no negotiation is easy; it is always a challenge and another opportunity to train these muscles.
But I can assure you, I do not regret the choice I made. Sales and Negotiation are so fascinating: It is a constant discovery, a succession of success and moments to reflect to get better.

When you felt YES and did NO in the past, because of FEAR, REJECTION or what ever reasons that might withhold you. Grasp the challenge NOW and start discovering the fascinating world behind Sales and Negotiation.
You will love it.

If somewhere in the process you get caught, count with me to get through.

Why ‘being catching’ can help you to face current challenges?

The turbulent times we have been living through and most of us still feel that every day has brought to the active entrepreneur not just sleepless nights but a lot of new insights.

Whether our products and services were unique and successful for many years and brought us the results we needed, all of this was questioned when global economy rules faced serious stormy weather.

Even more, 21^st century entrepreneurs know that what makes the real difference is their personality and the skills they possess to market their product or service.

Most of these critical success competences are part of a Catching Person :

5 of them are discussed here.

Know how to use your network

-          Building, maintaining and working on your network is important, but you need to have a net with appropriate mesh size to grab your target.

Be an excellent communicator

-          You can spread anything with few or massive energy, but if you have butterflies in your hand they will spread by themselves.

People captivate what brings them charm, beauty or excellence.

Listen attentively to really understand what will make a difference for them.

Surprise with real uniqueness

-          Nobody will be surprised with green, red or yellow or whatever color apple. What will make the difference is whether it is round or cubic.

Hook them surprisingly using your creativity.

Be present in their minds

-          It is not enough when people know us, like us and follow us unless we leave a real mark to be sure to be remembered in the future.

Be sure you get anchored.

Inspire them by being contagious

-          Real success is not possible without the possibility of extreme challenge, push them out of their comfort zone and inspire them to chase for new challenges and be sure you provide enough grips.

You may have noticed that none of these are really tangible or directly related with your product or service. Although it is obvious we improve these substantial factors constantly.

Our success in business negotiations is governed by the 50 % economy and 50 % emotions concept and what really matters and will increase our turnover are the emotions.

Investing to develop your skills as a Catching Person will immediately contribute to raise your impact on the ‘emotional factor’ of the negotiation and help you close more deals and get better results.

Decide now to become a stronger Catching Person and write down immediately 3 actions on paper or in your organizer that you are committed to accomplish in the next 10 days.