Beliefs and Views Archives - Nuggets of Wisdom from 40 Years of Self Employment

When someone says no, don’t take it personally

March 7, 2022 No Comments

People say no all the time. No, I’m not free for coffee. No, I don’t want another cup of tea. No, I can’t go with you to the Art Gallery. Do you take it personally? Why not? I hope not.

There are lots of signs around – some say no parking; some say no walking on the grass; some say Stop. Do you take them personally? Why not?

There are many rules in our society – you must wear seat belts in a car; no parking here; no smoking. There is a fine attached to these ones. Do you take any of them personally? I hope not.

I ask myself repeatedly why we as women take things people say personally.

Was it caused by something that happened to us in childhood?
Are we afraid that we won’t continue with that person’s friendship?
Do we ask ourselves “what will people think?”
Are we lacking in self confidence?
In business, are we often afraid that someone denying us a promotion is saying no to everything?
If we’re self employed, when someone says no to buying our product are we afraid they’ll never buy from us? Or worse yet, that they won’t like us?

When I was at Althouse College of Education in 1972 (I was 22), an instructor was teaching a particular topic to about 50 of us. There was unrest in the other students around me, so I stood up and asked him the question that most of us were thinking. I don’t remember what it was. His reply shocked me. He paused and answered “I’ll have to rethink my opinion of you.”

He hadn’t answered the question I’d asked.

I could have taken his comment personally but I didn’t. I stood there silently thinking I was only asking the question that many people around had thought.

It was either my naïveté or self confidence that allowed me not to let his remarks get into my head. Whatever it was, I didn’t let his statement upset me.

Back to the subject at hand – you need to be aware that “taking it personally” is an issue for you and the problems it causes for you.

It takes time and experience to get rid of it but it’s possible to change a belief. Be patient with yourself :-)r

Do you have this “limiting belief”? Have you become conscious of it? Have you been able to end it?

Beliefs and Views

Curiosity – everyone should have it

September 3, 2021 No Comments

You’ve heard the expression “curiosity killed the cat”. It’s used to get others to avoid inquisitiveness that could lead one into dangerous investigation, experimentation or situations.

Of course there are certain circumstances that are physically dangerous. These include helping an injured person after an accident, parachuting, or rushing into a burning house to get someone out.

What is dangerous to one person isn’t to another. It’s the job of firefighters to run into fires and of our first responder ambulance folks to attend accidents.

But I digress. This post is about curiosity.

I don’t agree with the expression “curiosity killed the cat” unless it’s properly used. Curiosity leads to creativity.

Definition

“Curiosity is a strong desire to know or learn; having an interest in a person, thing, or experience that leads to making an inquiry.”

When we’re little we wouldn’t know how to do anything especially walking and talking if we weren’t curious. Why aren’t most of us still curious like children are? Kids ask why all the time – so often that it bothers their parents. Why? They’re so new to this world that’s one of the ways to learn.

What about immigrants who come here from third world countries? Things we take for granted are often new to them. The children are still curious therefore they learn the new language faster than their parents do.

We wouldn’t have life-saving drugs if scientists weren’t curious. And technology. Where would we be without planes, physical telephones, computers, smartphones, video calling, online banking or shopping? Still in the dark ages.

Whenever I get a blood transfusion (35 of them since 1979) I thank someone for discovering it otherwise I wouldn’t be alive.

Two questions to ask

1. Curious people wonder “what if” and after a multitude of trials find a way to make what they imagine real. Curiosity is a key ingredient of learning. There’s a quote by an unknown author that says, “The day you stop learning is the day you die.” A life without learning new information would be mind-numbing and exhausting.
2. Another question is “why isn’t there something that …”. A curious person asks it aloud and they or a listener takes action to make this inquiry an actuality.

What can you do to become curious again?

I’ve been training and coaching entrepreneurs for 40 years and I’ve always told them that one of the top three qualities they need is curiosity.

But you don’t have to become an entrepreneur. Be curious about nature, other cultures, photography, foods, plants, history, climate change, your genealogy or why people have a specific opinion about something. Look around you and wonder “why” – why are there billboards; who invented computers; why do we eat hamburgers (or anything else); where did plastic come from. Watch TV shows like Nature on PBS or The Nature of Things on CBC. You see, don’t you?

Curiosity requires you to listen, be open and wonder.

Be aware of things around you and be curious about them.

Read this book if you want learn more about curiosity. It’s called Curious. https://toddkashdan.com/curious/

Beliefs and Views

Asking for help

July 27, 2021 No Comments

What does helping mean to you?

I believe that people are basically good and want to help if they can. What do you believe?

Why did I call this post “may I help?”

One of the things I learned in 1980 when I became self-employed was to ask for and accept help. In the 90s, as part of all of his presentations Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the Chicken Soup books, said to “Ask, ask, ask..” for sales, for knowledge when you didn’t know how to do something or from others who were experienced business owners.

In the 80s when we owned an Apple computer dealership, my partner and I would take one of our customers for lunch and pick his brain when we needed help. He’d been a startup once as we were now!

How did we ask?

The most important thing is that you don’t want to waste the time of the person you’re asking, so do the following things.

Be polite.

Tell them that you’d like their help and ask them if are they’re fine giving it.

Know what you want and be very specific about what you want the other person to do.

How do you and they feel?

We both feel good. To repeat what I started with, I believe that people are basically good and want to help if they can.

If you don’t ask, I believe you’re taking away the other person’s chance to feel good. They can always say no – it’s their choice.

My personal experience

Since the stroke in 2005 when I was 55, I’ve been a physically disabled person and need help frequently. As everyone with a disability does, I want to be treated as a person who can do most of the same things as you do. I just do these differently and more slowly.

Let me give you a few examples.

I can’t physically cook so buy frozen dinners and heat them in the microwave.
I can’t carry heavy things so either I put them on seat of my walker or I have someone lift them up to an accessible (to me) place.
I can’t open jars or containers so I wait until someone is coming here and ask them to do it for me.
Buttons are an issue so I buy tops that go over my head.

You get the idea.

I plan and make lists of things for people to do for me when they come here. Thank goodness that I’ve always been a planner and listmaker!

ASK for what you need!

My next post will be about how to ask when you see someone who YOU think needs help.

Beliefs and Views, Small Business

The best way to learn is to teach

June 29, 2021 No Comments

: Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

There are hundreds of reasons NOT to teach.

I’m not a “born” teacher.
I don’t know how to teach.
I don’t have the knowledge yet in my subject area.
I don’t like public speaking.
I’m not a techie so can’t use the technology tools necessary to do an online class.
I don’t have a group big enough to teach a seminar to.
I’m an introvert or I’m shy and don’t like big groups.

The fact is that these are just excuses. In fact, teaching is one of the best ways to learn – your subject matter, technology, speaking in public and the skills needed to teach.

There is also an answer for every one of the excuses.

“I don’t have a group big enough.” Get to know people who do have groups they influence and talk to them about publicizing your event or interviewing you about your subject on their webinar or podcast.

“I’m not a techie.” Learn the technology yourself and better yet get to know someone who’s already done several webinars.

“I’m not a teacher.” Everyone has had a good teacher at some time in their life. What was it that made them good? What did they do? Learn those things yourself. Take courses. Read articles about how to teach.

So what is YOUR excuse?

What is teaching?

Teaching is much more than delivering information. People can find information on the internet. It’s taking that information and translating it to knowledge so people can use that same information to reach their objectives. It means that you deliver knowledge.

Wisdom means that you have the ability to make judgments and decisions. Wisdom is an intangible quality gained through your experiences and through learning more about your subject.

Information leads to knowledge leads to wisdom.

Let me repeat – teaching is the best way to learn something new – your subject matter, technology, speaking in public and the skills needed to teach.

It’s also a way to keep young when you’re older. You already have the knowledge and experience. Why not share it with others! Teaching IS sharing.

Beliefs and Views

What I realized at a women’s network

June 20, 2021 No Comments

I’ve merged 2 pictures of people at tables You can see the overlap!

(Written in October 2017 before the lockdown in Ontario) I looked around the table at a network I attended and realized that nearly all of the women were in their 20s, 30s and early 40s. There were only a couple of us in our late 60s.

When they got an insight from something someone said, I smiled. I already knew what they had just realized. I couldn’t remember when I learned it since my realization of it had come many years before. It had become embedded in my knowledge and DNA and was second nature to me now.

I wanted to tell all of them that whatever they do or decide to do, their decisions all work out no matter what. There is no right way or wrong way to do something. As Yoda is quoted “There is no maybe. There is only do.”

It’s their life and all they can do is live in the moment. Timing doesn’t matter. Whatever choices they make and whenever they make them, they are right for them at the time. They don’t have to know everything. Experience teaches one.

Learn from those who have already done what you want to do – your elders.

What do you want to pass on when you’re older? Tell me and them.

Beliefs and Views

Let yourself feel the fear and do it anyway

June 12, 2021 No Comments

Did you feel afraid when you saw this picture? Would you do this anyway?

In 1984, I sailed in the British Virgin Islands for two weeks with the man with whom I was in a relationship. We rented a 39 foot sailboat and the two of us set off. Picture it – blue water and skies, beaches, many islands and for him lots of scuba diving. It was a wonderful trip full of adventure, predicaments, learning, and new experiences.

What does this have to do fear? Let me set the stage.

Before I begin I need to tell you that I don’t know how to swim. When people ask me why I sail if I can’t swim, I answer ” I don’t fall off the boat!” Also that’s why I only sail on keel boats – they don’t tip.

Back to the story.

We had a dinghy tied to our sailboat so we could go ashore at each of the many beaches on the islands. One time there was a coral reef with large waves that kept us from one of those beaches. We fought about the danger of taking the dinghy to get to it and in the end we didn’t. Later that day over dinner in our sailboat we talked about it. I said I had been afraid and fear was what held me back. I also said that I didn’t think he felt fear of anything.

Boy was I wrong! He said that he always felt fear but never let it stop him from doing things he wanted to do. His revelation left me speechless.

I had to change the way I thought about fear and thus acted or didn’t. It made me become aware of fear and how I let it dictate me.

In 1987, I bought the book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Dr. Susan Jeffers. When I read it I thought about that saiIing episode and how I’d allowed fear to affect my choices in life.

I still feel fear but I recognize it. I have many fears like all people do. Mine include a fear of heights, fear of snakes, fear of drowning since I can’t swim and fear of taking drugs that are new to me. When I look at them I know that none of them stop me from living my life.

I don’t let fear have the power over me that it used to. I CHOOSE how long I allow myself to keep feeling it and how I react to it.

How often have you let fear run your life?

Beliefs and Views

Are you paralyzed by choices?

June 5, 2021 No Comments

Everything in life is a choice.

Some of them are more evident than others. If you look at everything you do, you’ll see that 99% of the time you made a choice.

What do I mean by evident? In this case, it means that you’re aware that you are making a choice.

You choose to cross a street at a certain time. You may leave work at a different time every day and therefore ride a different bus home each time. You choose what book to read, what TV show to watch, what to wear, what to eat …. you can see how life is made up of many small choices every day.

Kinds of choices

There are at least four kinds: easy choices, difficult choices, life-altering and life-or-death choices.

1. Easy choices relate to preferences. What do you prefer at that time.

Examples include choosing a flavour of ice cream, a colour of a sweater, a style of pants, what kind of cereal to eat for breakfast, what TV show to watch or what book to read.

2. Difficult choices include things like choosing a desk, a computer, a new mattress or an air conditioner.

These are ones where you have to develop questions and answers before you pick one. They could require research. Questions include what do you want the computer for? How much memory do you need? Do you want to be able to add memory? Do you need to carry it with you? How big a screen do you need?

3. Life-altering choices are about things such as whether to get married, whether to get a divorce, how to decide which job to take or whether to leave your job and start your own business.

Life-altering ones are just as the name suggests. They will change your life for the long term. In 1972, I decided to become schoolteacher. After eight years I left teaching to become self-employed. That was a life altering choice!

Choosing not to have kids is another example of a life-altering and a long term decision.

You see what I mean.

4. Life-or-death choices need no explanation. In my case, if I need a blood test to check my blood thinner level (INR) I get it. If I need a blood transfusion, I go and get one. If you’re in a car accident and injured, you go to emergency. If you find a lump in your breast, you get it checked right away.

Are you paralyzed when faced with some choices?

You may be paralyzed to make some choices especially the life altering ones.

Fear of the unknown is often what’s holding you back. I know it does me. I do two things when I feel frightened of making a choice.

One, I call a friend and talk through my feelings. I’m not looking for a solution but rather someone who will listen, let me talk, ask a few questions, let me “vent”, and most of all, not judge.

The second thing I do is to get more information. I go online to learn more and I call someone I know who’s already made the decision facing me, or a friend who I trust. For example, in 1980 when I was thinking about becoming self employed, there was no internet so I talked with a few store owners (the only people who I knew that were self employed.) Nowadays, I use the internet to search.

Another example was deciding whether to take a particular drug for my rare blood condition. I looked up the drug online and made a list of questions I needed answered. I then took those questions with me to my haematologist and to the specialist to whom he referred me. Both times I took my brother and I recorded the sessions (with their permission).

Does this help you?

I hope it does. You see, I don’t make life altering decisions alone. It’s better to be open with friends about your dilemma.

Even though the final decision is yours to make, it helps to talk about it. You feel supported as I always do.

What do you do when you have a difficult choice to make? How do you make your decision?

Beliefs and Views

Do you expect good or bad outcomes?

May 22, 2021 No Comments

If you expect something to go wrong, it does. If you expect things will go okay, they do.

I had a “thing” on my shin. It was there for six months before called my family doctor about it.

Before I called her, I looked up a clinic nearby and got the name of a dermatologist so when my family doctor asked me to whom she should send the referral, I was able to give her the doctor’s name at that clinic.

Six weeks later, I had a phone appointment with the dermatologist to whom I had emailed the photo of the “thing”. She looked at it then said she couldn’t tell what it was and that I should come for an in-person appointment the following week. I did and she cut out the “thing” on my leg and called me with the results of the biopsy three weeks later.

I went back in one month for another treatment at which time she said that I didn’t have to come back for one year.

My point is that I assumed things would go fine.

It never crossed my mind that they wouldn’t. I thought that six weeks to get a dermatologist appointment was quick. I also believed the dermatologist knew what she was doing was the right thing. I trusted her.

Someone could have looked at what happened and thought the opposite. That things would not go fine. That six weeks was too long to wait for the referral. That the doctor’s diagnosis wasn’t right so went to another doctor … and another.

My question is, was my outcome a result of positive expectations? Flexibility? Acceptance? All of those?

What do you believe?

Beliefs and Views

Have a beginner’s mind when you’re learning

May 5, 2021 No Comments

When you learn something new, are you afraid of failure or how you look to others? Don’t.

Look at children. They’re wired to learn. When my nephew was learning to walk in the early 90s, he fell more than he walked but it didn’t matter to him. He got up and tried again .. and again .. and again.

When I was 10 in 1960, I learned to ride a two-wheel bicycle. A teenage boy who lived across the street from us held my bike seat and ran down the road with me lots of times. I didn’t learn. A teenage girl who lived several houses down from him did the same as him three times. Then she let go of my seat while I was riding. I made the mistake of looking back to see if she was still there and I fell. She yelled down the block to get up and try again so I did. I rode!!!

When we were kids, neither my nephew nor I had worried then about what people would think. We were learning and making progress and eventually we succeeded.

He and I have both used this attitude (except for a few times when we didn’t) over the years.

Can we learn something from children’s behaviour as they learn to walk, run, jump, swim and talk? Yes. We can and should apply this “can do” attitude every time we learn a new skill. As the song Pick Yourself Up composed in 1936 says …

“Pick yourself up. Take a deep breath. Dust yourself off. And start all over again. Nothing’s impossible, I have found. For when my chin is on the ground I pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.”

Remember the following every time you learn something new.

Have a “beginner’s mind”. Think of yourself as a child and how you learned to talk, crawl, walk. Everything was new to you and you looked at others and wanted to do what they did … and you eventually did.

Plan to fail – a lot. Then get up and try again. Each failure is one step closer to success as you define it.

Feel uncomfortable. Look foolish. Everyone does as a beginner. You don’t have a choice of how others see you (and you shouldn’t care) while you’re mastering something new. Smile. Laugh. Try again.

You can read about how to do it but that will never be enough to take you from a beginner to an expert. You have to get off the sidelines and DO IT!

Prepare for the bumps and bruises you get along the way. It’s the only way to learn, isn’t it. When children are learning to walk, they fall and when they do they sometimes hurt themselves and cry. But they don’t cry for long. They fail, shed a few tears, pick themselves up, and try again.

As someone once wrote “having a beginner’s mind means you’re fearless”.

“Beginner’s mind means having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level.”
Lisa Bloom, Storytelling Coach

Think about a time as a child when you were learning something new. How did you feel? Remember that feeling and let us know in the Comments.

Beliefs and Views

Why do we humans need to connect?

April 24, 2021 2 Comments

“The more we get together …The happier we’ll be… ‘Cause your friends are my friends …. And my friends are your friends ..”

I heard this children’s song which was written and sung by Raffi, a Canadian children’s singer and it made me think about why we humans need to get together and connect. I know that there is a pandemic and most places where we used to gather are closed here in Ontario and most of Canada.

I had a debilitating stroke in 2005 and moved from my house to an apartment. I live alone but rarely feel lonely and I’ve been thinking about why that is.

Maybe it’s because I need a lot of physical help and had several people who came in to help me. Before the pandemic, there were only three days a week that I was alone and had no human contact. Once or twice a week, I would take a taxi to go to a local restaurant to meet a friend for coffee or lunch. I belonged to a few networking groups who met in person.

The pandemic means that I don’t go out now and allow fewer people into my apartment only for essentials. There are now more days a week that I’m alone but … I still belong to a networking group that meet every two weeks, my mastermind once a month, a woman in France every Friday – all via zoom!

Recently, I was flipping channels on my TV, and ….

…. came across a show about a man who travelled alone, by a Volkswagen beetle, from Alaska to Argentina to learn why humans need connections. In each town he started by asking individuals if he could stay at their house that night. Many said no so he kept asking until he got a yes.

One of the towns he stopped at was Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. He had heard that we Canadians are known for our friendliness so he asked someone in a shop there where he could go to find the most friendly person in town. She directed him to an Immigrants Welcome Centre where he was told the name of that individual and where he could find him.

To make a long story short, the man he was introduced to held barbeque get-togethers every Wednesday evening for immigrants – newcomers to Canada. At the end of the episode, the guests there sang “The More We Get Together”. It made me smile.

Many of those who have come here are from war-torn countries, immigrant camps, persecution or to flee attacks or kidnapping and usually have nothing.

If they can find a way to be happy, why can’t we?

The following are the lyrics to “The More We Get Together” by Raffi. And if you want to sing along to the song, here’s the link on youtube.

The more we get together
Together, together
The more we get together
The happier we’ll be

‘Cause your friends are my friends
And my friends are your friends
The more we get together
The happier we’ll be
Oh, the more we get together
Together, together
The more we get together
The happier we’ll be
There’s Chris and Tanya
And Jason and Justin
The more we get together
The happier we’ll be

The more we get together
Together, together
The more we get together
The happier we’ll be

‘Cause your friends are my friends
And my friends are your friends
The more we get together
The happier we’ll be

Source: LyricFind Songwriters: Ken Whiteley / Raffi Cavoukian / Unknown Pd Writer; The More We Get Together lyrics © The Bicycle Music Company

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