When the good things happen, do you give thanks? Do you assume it is purely your charm and magnetism which brings good things into your life?

Are you thankful for the little blessings when you think you need a big one? And whom do you thank when you are giggly with glee over the latest good thing?

Gratitude is not just a means of increasing contentment, it is also a means of increasing the blessings in your life.

In the midst of hardship, we often focus on the negative. But sometimes we forget that while we feel we’ll sink any minute, we don’t sink, and not sinking is a great blessing. It is easier to cry that we didn’t get what we wanted than it is to say thanks because something worse didn’t happen, or to be thankful for pennies when we need dollars.

Every fall I ask for deer or elk. And every fall we get antelope. Antelope stinks, the meet is edible, but not at all tasty. You work just as hard to process an antelope as you do a deer or elk, but you end up with only about 25 lbs of boneless meat, instead of 50 to 100 lbs. That’s a lot of work for very little meat. Then you have to marinate it, and season it highly just to be able to swallow the stuff.

We made jerky one year, and sent some to a friend. He said, “I like it, but if I open the bag the smell of it will drive my wife from the room.” That pretty much describes antelope.

I have had to learn to be thankful for antelope. How can I expect to be blessed with anything better if I am not thankful for the small blessings? And antelope IS a blessing. It keeps food on the table that does not have the chemicals that make me sick. Sure, deer or elk would be MORE of a blessing, but I am happier when I acknowledge that even stinky gamy antelope is a blessing.

When a business contract is signed, a contract phase completed, when the client LIKES the design, when a client is pleased with our work, the credit is not solely ours. Yes, we made choices which contributed to the success, but a measure of it goes to the Lord. The greater measure, I believe.

Gratitude helps us see what is really there, instead of focusing on the negatives, and it helps us to receive more.

The application in business is directly relevant.

Being human, it is easy to assume that the advantages we have are available everywhere. That the rules of marketing and business are the same everywhere. I’ve been guilty of making those assumptions, and I’ve been on the receiving end of many of them.

We’ve had some suggestions made for marketing our business which made assumptions. If we lived in a metro area, or in 80% of the other locations in the US, the assumptions would be true. But we live in an isolated area, and the rules are different here.

Local advertising does not work, due to the particular demographics of our business in relation to the areas we have to market into. Someone suggested we use a cell phone to overcome the limitation – fine and dandy, but a cell phone won’t work where we live – no signal.

I think the cell phone suggestion was the real eye opener. The person who suggested it could not imagine a place where there was no cell signal. It never would have occurred to them.

There are other things that can be unique to a particular region, business owner, target market, talent pool, etc. Assumptions are made with the belief that everything fits in a box. It doesn’t.

Consultants, coaches, and service providers have to really listen and find not only how their clients fit the rules, but how they DON’T fit the rules. Then they can give good counsel that tailors the solution to the client in a way that is successful.

It is in the exceptions that truly personal service is found, and where success is found for those who have to deal with those exceptions.

“When you wrestle with a pig, both of you get dirty, but the pig enjoys it.”

Some people like to argue. The truth is twisted, and reality is warped to perpetuate the argument. It isn’t about what is good, true, or sensible. It is about putting down, insulting, and false superiority. Miserable people like to make other people miserable.

There comes a point in an argument when it is time to walk away. When you find that another person is oblivious to reason, and when you start feeling hateful toward them, it is time to back out gracefully. It is not necessary to “win”.

Often, leaving is the best choice – it says, unmistakably, “You will not control me.”

When another person is there for control, and for ugliness, they’ll enjoy the conflict, for the sake of conflict. There is no winning against that, because the goal is not to exchange, it is to control.

I’ve encountered this in networking, in business situations, and in family. Learning to walk away was very hard – and I still struggle with it. My mind engages with a good debate. But when it makes me want to win at all costs, I leave – because I do not want to become the other person.

I don’t need to get dirty.

I take challenges because even when I’m not 100% sure how to do something, I know I can probably figure it out. Experience has taught me that. Oh, I don’t take credit for that – I know that to be a blessing from the Lord, and give Him credit in it.

But it isn’t arrogance that makes me believe I can take on certain challenges and succeed. Arrogance would have me believe I could do anything at all, regardless of my own limitations. Confidence acknowledges the limitations realistically, and stretches amazingly within them.

I’ll never be a coder. It isn’t a LACK of confidence that persuades me of that, it is a knowledge that my strengths simply lie elsewhere. I’ll never play the piano either – again, my strengths do not lie in the realm of playing more than one note at a time!

I think that someone with confidence can view their limits realistically, and go forward to accomplish the things they need to accomplish, and much more. They take their strengths and magnify them into something amazing. The limitations do not hold them back, because they don’t waste time focusing on them. They are identified accurately, and then the person moves on to work around them.

Could I learn coding? Probably. I’d spend years just mastering the basics that someone who is gifted in that area could grasp in a day. That is not a worthwhile expenditure of my time! I have better things to do!

As it is, within my business, I know I am always capable of just a little more than I am doing now. I am not pompous about that, I just know that if I ask, I’ll learn, and the Lord will bless me in that effort.

It is a good place to be – it opens endless possiblities for challenge and success. And I like that!

I often talk about the importance of loving your work. But it does not mean you love every single bit of it, and you don’t have to in order to be happy doing it.

• Probably 10 to 20 percent of it is stuff you just look forward to doing, and that is the part that gets you up in the morning excited to go to work.
• Another 60 to 80 percentage is just stuff. Ok, part of your competency, part of the day, and tasks that are neither exciting, nor dreadful. Just there.
• The remaining 10 to 20 percent is stuff you dread, and do not want to have to do. You do it, because the part that you love makes it worth it to do the part you don’t love. Of course, this is the part we hire out to others as soon as we can!

I think that this concept is one that is misunderstood in many directions. Some people don’t realize the importance of finding a business that fills the hidden corners of their heart. But others get confused and think it all has to be fun and exciting. Either extreme is untrue.

Often, what makes me love what I do isn’t even the tasks themselves. It is what we accomplish. It has meaning, and it is worth doing. That is what makes the exciting parts that way, and it keeps me going when I have to face tasks that I dislike.

If I had the money to stop working tomorrow, I would not. I’d keep it up. I’d probably hire out some of the less interesting things, and many of the things I dislike doing, but I’d keep at it, because I truly love what I do.

When you find something you can feel that way about, you got the right thing.

What they say about you has a lot more power than what you say about you.

The real power in networking connections is when they help you. But that isn’t something you can directly control. It is only something you can inspire.

When someone else says something about you, it carries more weight than when you say the same thing. People will help you promote your business for the following reasons:

1. They have reason to believe that you are a nice person. They don’t believe that because you SAID it, they believe that because of what you DO.
2. They think you know your stuff and can really help someone. They don’t think that because you told them, they think that because of what you teach, and because of the kind of help you offer, or by how you do business.
3. They feel that something you offer has value for other people. Often this is a free resource that is so good they want to share it.
4. You made a difference in their life for the better. This also takes more than words.

Are we seeing a pattern here? Other people help promote you when you help them, and when you give them something good.

All comes back to the word, “give”. It doesn’t happen from advertising, and it doesn’t happen from saying things about yourself.

It is powerful precisely because you cannot directly control it. But you can set out to inspire it, and if you give because you love people, it will come back in surprising ways. When it does, you know you got it right!