More Success Content Than Ever!

I'm so excited this weekend because I have launched a podcast called Success Radio 11:11 and it is indexed on Itunes! There are already to segments, the first a personal introduction, the 2nd an interview with professional real estate investor Rick Leonhardt.

If you have Itunes, you can simply click this link to subscribe (clicking this without Itunes won't do you any good, another link follows) http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=154040993&s=143441

If you don't have Itunes you should! But for now if you'd like to gain access here is the RSS feed:
http://rasheedali.audioacrobat.com/rss/success_radio_1111.xml

With that announcement out of the way, I've been thinking a lot about communication and relationships. If you stop to consider how important your relationships are to your own success you immediately realize how important good communication skills are as well.

I had a conversation yesterday with a client of mine and he was telling me about how he realized that respecting peoples internal beliefs is critical to good relationships. He noted how having "things" in common made short term relationships, but having "beliefs" in common created long term relationships. This really struck me as a very interesting truth. This means that finding out a persons beliefs either through direct questioning or by exceptional listening skills and the implied beliefs you can learn from listening is a very important thing to emphasize if you want to be more succesful. If you know what a person believes you can avoid conflicting with the belief.

I would have to add to that a sidenote that I do not believe in using the litmus test approach to life. I do not bend my beliefs or misrepresent myself to anyone in order to obtain favor. Your beliefs are at your very core and to make them adaptable whenever the wind blows in a different direction only makes you a very weak person. I merely mean that if you show respect to someone for their beliefs they will have more of a rapport.

I can give you a great example of this. Go back a generation or two and you will likely find someone in your family that isn't open minded to the homosexual lifestyle. Right or wrong that is what they believe. In my own family I have a relative who is a homosexual and who is very much shunned because his insistance is that one of our old timers accept his lifestyle. I'm not taking sides here, just stating facts. If he would simply not shove his lifestyle in the "old-timers" face he would be much more involved with parts of our family he is currently excluded from. He seems unwilling to do this. I think this unfortunate because I don't think a person's sexuality is by any stretch of the imagination the totality of the person's being. He has thrown himself into exile by parading. I am not saying he should stay in the closet...but that he shouldn't force feed this aspect of himself to people who aren't accepting.

I've always felt that sexual preference only matters when you want to sleep with someone.

In my direct experience, as a Christian, I know that preaching the gospel to everyone I know isn't going to inspire people to come to Christ, in many cases it will simply cost me a friendship. I pray that my friends can see the glory of God, but I don't force feed it. I find that by living the principles of Christianity I can deliver the message much better. When people want to know why my life goes so well, then I can tell them.

Success happens in the "real world." Not everyone will have the same beliefs. Respect that people have beliefs and you'll find friends everywhere you go.

I've always heard people say "Success is more about who you know than what you know." I have to say that my own experiences support this idea. Another one is "you are judged by the company you keep." To know more successful people you'll want to start out by hanging around with the most successful people in your own social circle first. You then network with the most successful people they know, and keep going. You can rise very high into the upper ranks of success in this manner. Be willing to help people accomplish what they want along the way and you'll be a prized new friend!

That's it from me today! I'm off to enjoy my weekend.

All the best!
Bill White

http://www.synchronicity-expert.com