Where you’re from says everything and nothing about you and your character. The two most important attributes you can develop over your lifetime are integrity and authenticity. I can remember when I was young thinking I didn’t belong in my town. I wanted so bad to experience different parts of the world and different cultures, attitudes and mentalities.
I finally got my chance after I finished my studies. I travelled to Australia and ended up living there for nearly five years. I spent almost a year in New Zealand. I then moved to London and lived there for nearly six years in order to expand my business throughout Europe. I travelled to Denmark, then Kenya and Uganda to expand my operations.When my first child was born I moved to The Netherlands and raised a family. After 12 years in The Netherlands my wife and I decided to take on a new challenge and move to Vancouver Canada.
Here’s the thing. When I left my home in Tennessee I thought I was leaving behind all the bad and would only discover the good. And my findings after all these years is that I can find rudeness or kindness, narrow-mindedness or open mindedness, good attitudes or bad attitudes, integrity or deceitfulness anywhere I go. I know I’m going to get a lot of flack from people for saying this and I’m sure you could have told me this was the case and I would have saved a bit of time and money from all my travel. The joke and all my amazing experiences is on ME 🙂
“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” Franz Kafka
Kafka aside. People are people and we all have a choice on how we decide to live our lives and conduct our business. The best strategy for long term success is to keep true to your own values. Strive to be the best version of yourself each and every day in every interaction. Choose to do the right thing and treat people, all people with respect. Everyone has a high level of intelligence in them. Some have chosen to abuse this gift and continue to make the same bad choices every single day. Even though the right choice can be made on any given moment in any given interaction.
All business is personal. Those that choose to conduct business in a way that separates them from humanity in a normal way have chosen to play their role as a machine. To honour profit over people is a short term game. Companies and the people who run them that consistently work from that premise will not stand the test of time and will ultimately get overtaken by a smarter, honest, nimble, thinking organization of people that work together for the benefit of all.
The great thing about life is that we can choose our own behaviour, we are in charge of our own world view. We can choose to change directions if we recognize that we might be going down the wrong path.
If you could only choose two words that would sum up your values both in life and in business what would they be? You know mine, authenticity and integrity. I’m curious to know yours?
Dominic Kotarski – Author of “The Making” and Founder of Sales Success Academy
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Dominic Kotarski writes, speaks, inspires, motivates and teaches on the most important aspects of your business including Sales, Coaching, Team building, People Management and Business Development. Get weekly access to his blog & training videos FREE by subscribing below
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