#6 Have the Wow-factor, Stand Out among the Best

Always be the first one to reach out for the others in whatever situation

     When we were little, we were educated to say ‘Thank You’ when we receive something from someone as a simple gesture as well as an expression of being grateful. 

When we accidentally spill a cup of coffee on the table of our friend, naturally the first thing that comes to our mind is to apologize profusely in order to soothe our friend’s immediate anger. At times, all of us are pleased to mix around with someone with good manner and impress us the most.

The manner in which how we treat the people around us will determine how the others view us. In other words, the way how the others treat us is a blatant reflection of how we treat them in our daily lives. We cannot change the perception of the others on us, but one thing for sure is, our every action and behaviour will change the way they treat us, if not for good.

It is normal for us to feel happy and appreciated when someone treat us good in a way we wanted it to be, and, peeved when we feel we do not get the treatment we deserve. But the perennial question is why certain people among us always stand out and likeable by their peers whereas some appear less amiable? We are all human and our natural instincts favour dwelling in an environment blended with cheerful people and positive vibes rather than the dooms and glooms.

If you greet a colleague in your workplace today but were rewarded with a distasteful reply, and then you greet him whenever you have the chance again tomorrow but still reap the same respond, then it is OKAY and nothing to be dispirited about. The moment you have the opportunity to say ‘Hi’ to him for the third time, fourth and so on, there must be an event that particular colleague will greet you in return because he feels repentant and disgraceful on his past actions.

What I am trying to endorse is not to ask everyone to repeatedly greet every single person we get to meet but we must acknowledge the fact that even the most ‘erratic’ type of person have a soft spot. Referring to this, it brings us back to the first line where I stressed everyone of us would prefer someone who treat us good rather than bad. Therefore, it is always up to us how we treat the people around us no matter what kind of person they are.

Being successful is different from having good affiliation with the people around you. We may be successful in our lives, yet, we may not be successful in building rapport with our subordinates or relatives. By putting everything into perspective, we can be mega-rich – having all sorts of property, cars, cash and almost everything; but that cannot be fully translated as being successful in us, if nobody think that we are good enough and undesirable at times. 

If we want more cash in our pocket or simply own a more luxurious car, we have to work harder to earn more money. But building strong and bona fide rapports with people around us is a money-can’t-buy enterprise. Instead, it requires virtue and dedication from us for a period of time to really win over the heart of others.

And there must always be some criteria to follow in order to achieve that. From my point of view, I have broken the criteria into five simple ground rules:

    Top 5

Always be the first one. It ranges from a multitude of aspects – greetings, carrying out a task, proposing an idea, striking a conversation and many more. Having said that, it does not mean being the second or even the last person of doing something is a failure, but by becoming the first party to do so is simply amazing. 

If we are to meet someone for a meeting during the lunch break, then be the first one to say ‘Hello’ upon seeing that person. If we know we have a mission or a task to complete, take the initiatives to start that task earlier. If we just get acquainted with a new friend, try to find some topic for a conversation rather than being shy and remain silent the whole time. All in all, it takes effort to make it. But considering the final rewards of that change, why don’t we have a go for it?

   Top 4

Take a look at yourself. When the outcome of a labour does not meet our expectations, we blame the others. We seldom think that the failure in a venture or business that we participated in could be our mistakes or fault by some means. Well, I would say it goes both ways because, in the end, wrong is wrong. There is no statement such as who is right most and who is wrong the least. Since we cannot overturn the results of a predicament, it is wise not to point the fingers when things go wrong and instead, focus on our own mistakes to see if any improvements can be made.

    Top 3

Be trustworthy and develop trust. As I mentioned earlier, true friendship and strong networking are impossible to achieve if we are affluent alone. We have the responsibility to uphold the right moral values in us if we want genuine friends in our social activities. When someone request our assistance to help him for the first time, it is imperative that we perform that task efficiently. The goal is not to win over the heart of many but to show that we do not take any things assigned to us lightly. If we think we are not up to that task, then it is better for us not to take it up.

   Top 2

Respect yourself. Coming to the Top 2… arguably one of the most important aspects in human well-being. Think of the feeling of the others and do not neglect your privilege at the same time. In fact, we are all the same in our own rights – we are all unique and irreplaceable in a sense that there is only one of us. Imagine. If we are behaving awfully bad in front of the others, we lose our image and standards. The way how the people around us perceive us change absolutely because our actions and behaviours do not reflect the respects we deserve from the others. There is always no other method to change the perception of the others on us except for ourselves. If we do not respect ourselves by behaving accordingly, then how are we going to expect the others to respect us?

 Top 1

Smile more often. Ha! For Top 1, your guess may be as good as mine. There it is! Smile. The choice is between being a cheerful and happy-go-lucky person and a heavy-hearted person. While researches suggest smiling can secrete a hormone in the brain called dopamine which is responsible for making a person happy, smiling easily beat the blues away and make us look brighter and more confident. Also, we like to mix and talk to people who always appear to be happy. The same thing goes to the people around us, they like to see us smile. There is no boundary between a happy and a sad person, the only exception is their mindsets.

We may not always be the man who can stand at the top because someone can be better than us. At least, the ‘best of the rest’ tagline should be adopted when you feel discouraged. We cannot ensure that we always remain to be the best in our field or work or study most of the time but as I said, be among the group of high-achievers may provide some indigestible food for thought.

By: Vincent Ti

#5 Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

It is always the hardest part for us to explore new things and doing tasks out of our expertise

     We wake up early in the morning feeling as if the new day looks like an endless hurdle.  When the alarm clock rings, we just want to crawl deeper under the covers. 

Be it being tired or because of insufficient sleeping hours, one reason for sure is the reluctance of us to get out of our comfort zone where we feel it is more comfortable lying on the bed longer rather than overcoming the ‘fatigue’ to wake up sooner.

    

Similarly, we would use the same roads to our workplace every day because we know if we follow the same routes it will definitely lead us to the right destination. Exploring different pathways or routes to the same aforementioned destination is therefore viewed as superficial as we are afraid of accidentally turning up at the wrong places and simply do not want to take such a risk, hence, we tend to stick to the former instead.

You are an officer in a company responsible for auditing its account and in one particular day, your boss demands you to take charge of the human and resources department. In this case, of course, the disgruntled of you will abhor at the prospect of switching a task that you are familiar, to another which is something outside your expertise. You find it undesirable because you are doing something not your cup of tea.

In regard to the above statements, we seemed to fancy whatever we have or what we are doing at the moment whereas, at the same time, treat particulars beyond our expertise with disdain. As a matter of fact, the scenarios that seem indifferent to most of us today may lead to a catastrophe in the latter stages of our lives, not to exaggerate the remarks.

Just because we feel that learning some new skills today may prove difficult, we will gradually feel the impacts that hit us hard when we need those skills in our future undertakings.

At most of the time, we find ourselves hard to take the first initiatives in order to begin doing something. When your mother asks you to sweep the floor, you are either engaged in doing your own stuffs or find it difficult to oblige to her. Once you have taken up the broom and sweep the whole house, your brain does not produce the ‘difficult’ and/or ‘reluctant’ mindsets anymore.

The reasons is simply because to take the first step to do anything is always the hardest part, once we start or are in the process of carrying out that particular action we automatically do not feel that task is ‘hard’ anymore. The key is, to constantly tell yourself that we always find it extremely difficult to start doing something is because we are unwilling to step out of our comfort zone.

The next time you encounter something ‘fresh’ to you or tasks beyond your comfort zone, just ask yourself; 

‘Will I suffer any losses in doing these things?’ or maybe 

‘Even in the worst circumstances will doing these be harmful to me?’ 

Then, you just have to evaluate and tell yourself that it is fine to step out of your comfort zone and progress forward. Steps by steps, you will see the differences in you as you get more accustomed to doing something you feel reluctant to explore in previously.

What I said is not the necessities to jump out from one’s comfort zone in our daily lives, but I think should more or less serve as a guide to remind ourselves just how important we can be to the people around us, if, we can be more proactive and not just doing things within our comfort zone.

By: Vincent Ti