Better you,

…better life. Better you, greater rewards.

All my life people have said I was different. Sometimes I was hurt by it but over the years I’ve grown into it. How come? Because part of what makes me different is that I don’t do what people expect.

In my life as a business transformer, it has given freedom for me to fully self-express. I’ve gotten to a place in my life where I don’t feel compelled to be rich, famous or the leader of anything. Actually, that’s not quite true. There is something I want to lead in my own way.

I want to lead a transformation in the way my clients do business. I want to lead a change that makes doing business a kinder, gentler process that creates mutual benefit for all parties.

Some people see business as a blood sport and a binary thing. Winners and losers. I guess the best example of this would be Donald Trump who views everything as a battle in which he must prevail, always.

Some of these people are irredeemable and will never get through this brutal reality. But I’ve learned a different reality and one that has truly transformative possibilities. I’m not talking about some crazy cult to follow or even the highly popular 15 steps to an amazing life.

If I’m not talking to something inside you, by all means stop reading. But if you’ve ever found your life feeling a little empty and meaningless, your business doesn’t stir your soul, you feel like you’re going through the motions, you don’t really feel connected to your team, your clients or your suppliers, or even your family (if you’re really honest), there might be something in this for you.

I have always advocated for a people first approach to business. On its own that sounds like some kind of bumper sticker bullshit bit it actually has many layers and complexities because in this 21st century world, there is little space given to true human connection. Just about everything is superficial and bluntly, transactional.

Social media encourages this hugely. You post something from your world, whether it is your morning cup of coffee to the latest beach holiday and the people in your circle are compelled to thrill and delight in it. Obligatory. But look at it differently. It isn’t so much relational as transactional. Like my cup of coffee and I’ll like your new car.

Of course there are opportunities for very good and genuine things to come of social media. Facebook and especially LinkedIn can be the very best or the very worst cameras on the human condition. We all know how the evil, bigoted and dark gather in Facebook and spawn ever more hatred and perversion. But we also know about the found puppies, the donated school uniforms to those who can’t afford them and the other countless goodnesses that happen.

When I first joined LinkedIn, I thought nothing of it. It was just something you did when you have a professional life. Then over the years I grew to despise it. I kept getting endorsed for skills I didn’t know I had by people I didn’t know. Didn’t seem very genuine to me. I worked out that it was a giant mutual back scratching exercise. You say lovely things about me and I’ll say lovely things about you.

As it happens, I have made very few endorsements and all of them have been utterly genuine.

But I’ve latterly discovered that LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for connecting in real ways with people either of like mind, very different mind, people who could be valuable for my business or for whom my business could be valuable. The distinction is that this doesn’t have to be transactional.

I have met people on LinkedIn who I will have enduring relationships with because of who they are, not what they’ve got. I’d also like to mention Twitter before I move off social media. Twitter is a cesspit of vile pile-ons and hatred. But, if you want to read some of the best writing you’ve ever seen, it is a treasure trove. Getting a coherently and complete thought across in so few words is an art in itself. Dostoevsky once said “I’m sorry my letter is so long. I didn’t have time to make it shorter.” Dostoevsky would have loved Twitter.

Anyway, I deviate from my main theme.

This think piece springs from a seminar I delivered recently on negotiation. As I was writing the material, I realised that my approach to negotiation is a bit different. I learned a long time ago from David Levene (many will hopefully remember him as the genius behind Levene & CO and the iconic Levene Extreme stores). David had a philosophy around negotiating that was pretty simple – “always leave something on the table for the other guy”. This is born of a concurrent belief – “just because you can take it, should you?” and for me the answer has always been no.

What I want to leave the people I work with is a very simple philosophy. Life and business is not a war and encounters with people are not battles to be won. If you do business with someone and they want to do more of it with you, that’s a win. If you employ someone and they grow to love and respect you and own the success of your business as if it were their own, that’s a win. If you negotiate a deal with a supplier and they want to keep doing business with you into the future, that is a win. If you gain a customer and they stick with you because they trust and believe in you and become “friends” of your brand, that’s a win.

So, what is winning in business? It is exactly the same as winning in life. It is the discovery of people, relationships that nurture your heart, soul, mind, finances and future security.

I can promise that a people first approach in business will profoundly effect your personal life too.

RegenerationHQ has two simple values Be better people and Make things better. Corny and simplistic? Maybe, but when taken seriously, deeply transformative.

Happiness, quality relationships, profitability – interested?