Lessons from a Recovering Doormat

I hear people proudly talk about the revenge they’re getting on someone. Is achieving it something to be considered SUCCESS? Going after revenge is usually destructive. The behavior that revenge motivates is unhealthy. You might feel successful at hurting someone. Think about if that‘s the kind of SUCCESS you want to own.

Tricia Walsh-Smith has gotten a lot of media attention for insulting her husband about what he’s not giving her after their divorce in her YouTube videos. She must feel a distorted version of satisfaction as she fumes and sputters trying to get her revenge. Many people, women and men, seek revenge when they think someone has done them wrong. They look to hurt, lash out at or embarrass someone who disappointed or hurt them.

Negative revenge is NOT sweet. It’s a harmful action that hurts YOU, as much as or more than the one you want to get even with.

Shame on Tricia Walsh-Smith! Her YouTube video airs her husband’s dirty laundry. She married a guy 25 years older, who she says never wanted sex. It didn’t seem to matter until she found Viagra and condoms, which indicates he went elsewhere for gratification. Hello!! Tricia needs to take responsibility! She asked for a marriage that would probably fall apart. I’d guess her motive for marrying him was financial security.

Was being a kept woman enough for her before she found he was cheating? Now he wants her gone and she’s angry she has to move out of her apartment, etc., according to the terms of the pre-nup she signed. On the video, she whines about losing her gorgeous home.

What does telling it all on YouTube accomplish? Embarrassing him? I think she should feel more embarrassed! It’s an advertisement for all the world to see that she’s a scorned woman.

Marrying to be taken care of creates many of the bitter women that look to get even with the man they hooked for whatever they needed at the time. Marrying a very attractive MUCH younger woman can also create a bitter situation for the guy later on. Revenge SUCKS! I’m sorry to be so graphic but, nurturing your anger to get revenge against your ex, or anyone else, brings nothing but more unhappiness and is counterproductive for being happy.

In your pursuit of punishment for the person who’s done you wrong, you punish yourself too! How? Going after revenge:

* Keeps anger at the person burning. Anger doesn’t feel good! Metaphysicians see the mind as creating all illness, which is my own philosophy, and believe anger creates cancer. It definitely causes common physical ailments, like stomach upsets, headaches, poor sleep, etc. Instead of moving on, it stays with you, driving you to make decisions that seek to hurt someone.

* Sustains a state of stress. Always looking for ways to get back at someone keeps you on edge—looking for the right time to attack; mulling what they did over and over in your head; plotting ways to get even when you should be sleeping.

* Maintains a goal of hurting someone. Looking for revenge is usually a plan to make someone pay for what they did. So instead of happy thoughts, yours are about what nasty, mean or devious deed you can do to the person.

* Blocks forgiveness. You can’t move on from anger if you don’t forgive. Forgiving is for YOU, not the other person. You don’t have to forgive them directly. But you can forgive in your heart, if you stop trying to get revenge.

* Feels lousy in general. I think of it as have a big GRRRRR…. going on inside all the time. Seeking revenge can be a full time mindset that keeps what the person did to you running through your head over and over. You talk about it to whoever will listen. You might even get superficial pleasure at the thought of what you’ll do to get even. But it just keeps that big GRRRRR….alive and kicking your positive outlook to the curb as you wallow in negative retaliation.

* Attracts negatives to YOU. Since revenge is a negative action, the Law of Attraction brings it right back to ya! The more revenge is on your mind, the more the thoughts will attract more stuff you might feel need to get revenge for. Letting it go leaves room to attract happier situations!

If you want true personal SUCCESS, let behavior that bothers you go. Find ways to deal with the results of what someone does instead of expending energy looking for ways to get even. Tricia Walsh-Smith needs to find a good investment broker to help her make the most of the half million she’ll get each year in her divorce settlement. Poor thing! And, she needs to find a new apartment. Making revenge videos won’t garner her the sympathy she wants.

Revenge is NOT positive SUCCESS. It is an accomplishment but one that bites you, which to me isn’t SUCCESS.

When you let go of a need for revenge, you can also let go of anger. Find ways to do something good for yourself with that energy behind your anger. That’s SUCCESS you can be proud of! It will come back to you with more positive things.

If you enjoyed my post, please leave a comment and/or click on the bookmark and write a short review at some of the sites, especially Stumbleupon and Digg. Thanks!

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Building good relationships is at the core of most SUCCESS. Whether it’s a romantic partner, friend, or colleague, relationships can be a source of support, contacts, warmth and much more. Business relationships are key for making progress and achieving career SUCCESS. Tdoay Robin Jay is my guest. After more than 18 years as an Advertising Account Manager, she began her current career as an author, speaker, and coach. She shares some insight about building good relationships from her book, The Art of the Business Lunch (Career Press).

Why Building Relationships Beats Sales Training
by Robin Jay

We all have a neighborhood store that’s just around the corner from our house. Whenever I’m speaking before an audience, I ask if anyone in the room has ever gone out of their way – regularly passing by that neighborhood store, traveling a bit farther down the road to another, different store…sometimes even paying more for whatever they needed…JUST BECAUSE they didn’t like the way they were treated at that other, closer store. EVERY hand goes up.

Heads nod and hands go up because we ALL want to feel special. And even though a particular store may have better pricing or be more convenient, we, as consumers, will go out of our way to patronize another business because we LIKE THE WAY THE PEOPLE MAKE US FEEL somewhere else. People prefer to do business with people they like!

I am a business relationship expert who personally hosted more than 3,000 client lunches and, as a result of that, I saw my sales increase by more than 2,000%! It’s remarkable just how much people want to work with you when you take the time to build a solid relationship.

Corporate America spends more than 4 BILLION dollars training its sales people every year! (source: ES Research). Yet, although giving people a rah-rah motivational speech will usually result in a bump in productivity…that bump rarely lasts longer than 90-120 days! However, when you build solid, productive business relationships, the effect is similar to the ripple effect you get when you drop a pebble into a pond. The ripples continue to generate and flow outward….with no end in sight. Your new associates, once they like you, will bring you into their inner circle and in no time at all, their friends will become your friends. Your business will be booming – while others experience the peaks and valleys as dictated by the economy, trends and budgets.

Shortly after I took one of my clients out for an absolutely delightful lunch at Cili – a restaurant on the edge of the Bali Hai Golf Course in Las Vegas, she had a serious budget cut. She cut out every other vendor but ME! Socializing with your clients is one of the best ways to get to know them and build rapport.

While it’s true that you can’t MAKE people like you, you can certainly learn techniques to move a relationship along in the right direction. For starters, make it about them. Ask others about what is going on in THEIR lives. Contribute to the conversation as needed, and don’t be too intrusive. But work at making them feel special and they will respond positively. Think about it…when was the last time someone took you out to lunch and made it all about you? Did they ask what you are up to? What are YOU working on? How can they help YOU? If they did, I’m sure you’d be anxious to see them again! It’s really not that hard to build great business relationships! Just think about how YOU would like to be treated.

Dr. Tony Alessandra talks about the Platinum Rule: treat others how THEY want to be treated. That makes great sense, too. We are each different. While one person may enjoy a nice social lunch, another might prefer to keep to themselves. In that case, you might want to drop off a good book, (or a gift card to the book store), along with a dozen doughnuts to your client at their office.

I used to show up with food a LOT! It’s a great way to get a foot in the door and make friends with the “rejectionist” as we laughingly called many receptionists who took their job as gate-keepers way too seriously! Thanks to the internet or a warmed-up receptionist, it’s easier than ever to find out a person’s likes and dislikes.

I remember one client who loved Teuscher’s champagne truffles. The exorbitant treats were always on her desk…and reps who paid attention quickly learned of that client’s preferences. Show up with those truffles and you would not just get an audience with that client, but you’d be well on your way to building a lasting friendship. Believe it or not, most reps are not that thoughtful. So a little consideration goes a long way – especially when it comes to building business relationships! It shows you care…and who doesn’t appreciate that?

Focus your attention on building solid business relationships and it won’t be long before you start to reap the rewards. Remember, people prefer to do business with people they like….so always try to be likeable and give others a reason to get to know you better.
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For more information about Robin Jay, check out her site.

Life isn’t in black and white. You choose how to color what you see and do. Your life is as colorful as YOU allow it to be. Just like a child brings a coloring book page to life with crayons, your thoughts color your world. I’ve talked about how we can create new habits to replace those that aren’t serving you in a positive way. You can break habits of letting other people program how you view your life and then create a habit of having a more positive perception.

You can create the good habit of coloring your world with bright hues!

Did you ever adjust the color of a TV set? You turn the dial one way and the colors get brighter and more vibrant. Go the other direction and it gets washed out or not there. That’s what perception does to you thoughts! YOU control the dials. Perception allows you to choose your reality; to color it positive or negative. For example:

* You can CHOOSE to see a glass half empty or CHOOSE to see it half full. Which sounds better? You know the answer, yet many people choose half empty, which makes it sound bad. My half full glass always looks good! The glass has no more or less based on the perception you choose. So why not choose half full???

* You can CHOOSE to believe that you’re not good for much because you had a parent who told you that. Or, you can bypass that belief and CHOOSE to do a lot of good! You are the person that your perception allows you to be. Why not be one who SUCCEEDS???

* You can CHOOSE to feel fat because the media says that anyone with more meat than an airbrushed model is fat. Or you can CHOOSE to not compare yourself to anyone and see the beauty of who you are. I felt like a porker for years because not being perfectly thin made my self-perception one of being fat. Now I view me in my own eyes and I’ve gotten a beautiful, soft shapely body without losing weight!

* You can CHOOSE to believe that abuse you get from a romantic partner is your fault because you’re not perfect, or you did something that you don’t understand but he or she says you did. Or, you can CHOOSE to accept that some people have issues that have nothing to do with you, and you should NOT stay with someone who hurts you over and over, since no one can be perfect. And leave fast!

Whose perception rules you? Mom’s? The media’s? Your romantic partner’s? When I was a DoorMat I gave way too much importance to what others thought and not enough—or nothing—to my own view. Ha! I rarely had a view of my own since I was too busy agreeing with everyone else’s. It made me think I was more secure, but that was also a perception. Deep down I knew my security was only as good as my butt kissing. That in itself felt lousy! But I was too scared of losing the people who controlled my perception to change. Now my vision is clear and my security is solid, because I get it from ME, not my erroneous perception of others being there for me.

Create your own perception! How you see yourself and project it commands respect or footprints. Be careful about how you blow up situations that reinforce low self-esteem. Watch for your own distorted perceptions.

• That extra five pounds makes you fat.
• The five-minute incident ruins your day.
• One mistake makes you a screw-up.
• One boyfriend who hurt you makes you a poor judge of men.
• One girlfriend who took advantage of you makes you a pushover.
• You don’t know something so you’re stupid in general.

Enough already! Don’t be your own worst enemy. You can CHOOSE to control this. Don’t blow flaws or problems out of proportion. I remember the pain of seeing only what I hated in the mirror. I never saw my pretty face. For years I was fat and ugly, yet, I was far from that. But a few extra pounds drastically altered my perception. Now, even with some flab, I’m a very pretty, hot chick! Perception is YOUR choice. Do you distort yours as excuses to not risk moves to stand up for you?

* “I’ve never gotten respect. I’m no good!” The past is history. Now is what counts. It doesn’t matter how some people treated you before. You know better now and can show with actions that you expect decent treatment.

* “I can never finish anything. I’ll never get anywhere.” Just because you haven’t finished things before, you’re not hopeless. Take baby steps to complete a project and prove that never finishing isn’t your M.O. anymore!

* “I’m not a cook so I’ll make a lousy meal.” You’re not what you haven’t done. You can follow directions, can’t you? One step a time. Someone once told me I made awful coffee. It was one time but I believed I was incapable of make something worth drinking. When my friend pushed me to try again with her watching, I did it all by myself, and everyone enjoyed it!

* “I should be further along in my career so I’m a loser.” Says who? Individuals work on different timelines. Not advancing enough doesn’t make you a loser unless you choose to be. Learn more skills to be a mover, not loser! Appreciate what you have done instead of dwelling on what you haven’t.

* “People don’t like me.” Paranoia will destroy ya. Do you expect rejection and emit an air of self-protection? Act friendly and expect friendliness. You truly do get back what you give out.

Pay attention to what beliefs you have that nurture a negative perception. Look for ways to reinforce a more positive one. That leads to SUCCESS. Just because you’ve believed something for a long time, doesn’t mean it’s true or that you must continue living up, or down, to that perception. Remind yourself that your perception is YOUR choice, so make it yourself! Then focus on coloring your world a brighter shade of happiness! This recovering DoorMat can attest that it feels like the biggest high you can get!

Pay attention to how you see situations and consciously choose to be fair to you. Have a very blessed weekend, full of colorful, positive perceptions.

If you enjoyed my post, please click on the bookmark and write a short review at some of the sites, especially Stumbleupon. Thanks!

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Tim Westergren’s passion has always been music. He began his career as an independent musician, a composer for films and other aspects of the music industry. In 2000, he created the Music Genome Project™. An enormous collection of songs were gathered and analyzed, one by one, along close to 400 musical attributes, by a trained musician. They break down music into its most basic components—every element of melody and harmony, rhythm and instrumentation. An analyst gives a number to each of those attributes and together they make up a song’s musical fingerprint. When you type a song into Pandora, it looks at that song’s music fingerprint and starts connecting it to other songs that are its nearest musical neighbors.

Working as a film composer Tim had to figure out the director ‘s musical taste and translate what they said into a musical composition, which gave him the idea of creating the Genome. He shared it with a friend who’d already started and sold a company. A week later they began a business plan.

The original plan was to build a recommendation technology and license the Music Genome Project™ to other companies, such as, AOL and Borders, so they could use it to recommend music to their customers—a business-to-business licensing company. They tried to make that idea work for about four years. It was a bad time to launch a company, right before the dot com bubble burst. But Tim had already invested a lot of time and money, and also felt an obligation to the people who had been working with him, so he became even more determined to get it off the ground.

Every door that could be tapped for possible investors was tapped hard. Tim was relentless in his determination to make his Project happen. In fall 2005 he launched Pandora. His initial intent was to have a subscription service, but he quickly switched to a free site that’s supported by ad revenue. He has direct deals with AT&T and Sprint so people can listen to Pandora on their phones. It gets bigger almost every week.

I’m a big fan. After you register, you can choose an artist you like and Pandora creates a personal radio station of many songs that are similar. They don’t all sound alike. The Genome knows what other music I’d like by the artist I enter. I have a bunch of stations chosen and listen all day long to a stream of only music I enjoy. That to me is the best radio station on earth!

Pandora is fast becoming THE online radio station to go to for great music! If you’re a music lover, check out Pandora and create your own stations! And if you’re a musician with a top quality finished product, submit it! Now here’s some questions I asked Tim. Hearing his joy about what he’s created illustrates how SUCCESSFUL Tim and Pandora are.

Why do you think Pandora continues to expand its SUCCESS? The two reasons behind our growth, which is outpacing other forms of online radio, is 1) It’s super easy. Pick one song and we immediately deliver you a very personalized stream of music. That’s a big promise to make and a hard one to deliver. That’s the function of the Genome. 2) Since the Genome is blind to popularity, you hear a ton of music on Pandora that you’ve never heard before. So it’s a huge fountain of discovery. That, to my mind, is really the magic of a good radio.

Why did you keep going when you ran out of money and were in a deep hole? I knew I had to make it work or head to Mexico. I had nothing to fall back on. In some ways, when you start the kind of businesses, a little bit of naivety is healthy. If you knew the odds against you or what you were getting yourself into, you might never try. Once you start, you keep going. It’s kind of like gambling—just one more hand. We owed so many people so much money that we had to keep going and going, hoping somehow we could get across the desert. I had no idea what I was signing up for.

What motivated you? I never stopped believing in the idea and that it would have its time. It wasn’t just me who made it happen. It was a group who were willing to sacrifice because 1) they believed in it and 2) you start feeling an obligation to each other and some sense that I’ve invested so much already I’m not going to walk away from it. So there’s a natural momentum that keeps you going. Plus, I felt an intense sense of responsibility for all the people I borrowed money from, all the people who hadn’t been paid in a year or two. I was either going to make this happen or die trying. There was no choice.

What do you consider the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur? When they hit a road, they immediately start problem solving. And they adapt. They figure out how to get around it. They don’t view it like a sign saying you shouldn’t be going this way. They view it as an obstacle that has a solution. You can’t be rigid in your thinking. You’ve got to be able to be creative and resourceful. People really ought to learn the lesson—that you can do extraordinary things with your mind and body.

How did you find investors? I looked everywhere and pitched it hundreds of times. The pitch that led to the real financing in ’04 was my 348th. I pitched anybody I could find. I was always networking and trying to find somebody—from friends and relatives to bankers, investors, wealthy people, musicians, celebrities. I’d go pitch anybody who’d listen to me. In the end, to get over that four year period, I found money in the most unlikely places. You never know what stone you turn over will be the right one. Ironically, being in a band and being a self-employed film composer was great preparation for trying to raise money for a business, because you don’t get deterred by being told no. When you’re a musician, that’s your life. And you have to learn to sell yourself. If I believe in something, I can be pretty convincing.

At what point did you get advertisers? In November 2005 we made a commitment that it would be ad supported and free to use it. The strategy for that, and products we have for that, have evolved steadily since then. That’s been a combination of innovation on the product side, creativity of the ad sales team—a bunch of people coming together. One of the position challenges for online radio is that most people don’t look at it. We thankfully learned about Pandora is that people like to look at it a lot. They go back to it a lot to skip a song or go back to one, to see who an artist is that they don’t know. So it generates a lot of interaction with the site and driv
es enough advertising inventory to support the business.

Why travel around the country to do town halls? People want to meet the company that’s helping them discover such great new music. That excites them. There are people who come to the town halls that are 75 years old. They’ve been checked out of music for 50 years and now they’re back in the game. They’re finding new stuff, buying music, discovering old hits, finding new music they like. Tommy Dorsey fans have discovered Michael Buble and Red Hot Skillet Lickers. They’re getting reintroduced to music in a way.

How did the Town Hall meetings begin? It was kind of by accident. I originally planned to drive around the country to spread the word about the Genome in local music scenes across the country and let people know we were looking for music. Someone in my office suggested I have meetup in each town. I’d post on my blog where I’d be if people wanted to meet up and talk about Pandora. The first ones had just a few people. Now there are hundreds of people when I do one. I’m going to keep doing it!

How important to follow your passion? For me it’s impossible not to. There is something so uniquely satisfying and rewarding in doing what you love to do. Nothing compares to it. That love kept me going during the worst times of this company.

What are you most grateful for? A lot right now! I pinch myself all the time. I’m grateful for all the folks who have hung with me and this company all these years—a lot of people. People made tremendous sacrifices and put themselves under tremendous personal pressure to get through it, when there were a lot of voices saying “What are your doing?” I’m very grateful for that.

What does SUCCESS mean to you? A musicians middle class. That’s really how I’m going to measure the SUCCESS of Pandora. If I sold the company for a bunch of money and it got pulled into Clear Channel and wrecked, I wouldn’t be happy.

What do you see for the future now? I think a lot about possibility now. Even when we launched, I used to think, would people like it? Will it grow? Will it work? The usual kind of stuff. Now I think about what kind of a difference it could make. We could really change this business in a very fundamental way, for the better. It could be enduring. That’s what really excites me now.

Do you feel successful now? Yes! I’m very proud of what we’ve done. There’s a lot to be proud of in having taken it this far and survived.

So what are you waiting for? Go to Pandora and listen to some great music as you continue!

If you enjoyed my post, please leave a comment and/or click on the bookmark and write a short review at some of the sites, especially Stumbleupon and Digg. Thanks!

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