Business Coaching
“There’s never been a better time to buy.”
“Act now.”
“Call today.”
The calls to action from marketers are everywhere and come at us non-stop.
And guess what? A lot of times, you’re just as bad as the hucksters with the urgency you impose on yourself.
Gotta make a decision. Gotta get it done. Time’s a wastin’. He who hesitates is lost.
Really?Read More
Competition is good.
It keeps us sharp and spurs us to greatness, since we’re always looking for better ways to do things, ways to get an edge. And that benefits everyone, from the individual competitors to society at large.
Cooperation is essential.
If people don’t work together toward common goals, if they don’t co-operate with each other, there’s no civilization, no progress, only personal advantage-seeking. Dog eat dog, the other guy be damned. And that’s not a world anyone really wants to live in.
I don’t think anyone would seriously disagree.
But what happens when the virtues of competition and cooperation come into conflict.
A strength taken to an extreme becomes a weakness.
You see examples everywhere. We’re all at risk.
The decisive person misses a critical detail by acting too fast, while the careful analyst is paralyzed by over-analysis and the inability to make a decision.
Someone who is good at handling details herself becomes a dreaded micromanager when asked to supervise others.
Someone who is easy going, able to go with the flow and roll with the punches gets taken advantage of by people who know he’s accommodating to a fault and won’t stick up for himself, because he hates confrontation.
What’s that have to do with us as service providers?
The Romans gave us a wonderful expression … ceteris paribus … which roughly translates as “all other things being equal.”
The idea springs from our natural desire to figure out what the truly “active ingredients” are in any success formula.
All other things being equal, why it is that some people are sought after and get paid very well for their services, while others who offer the very same services merely scrape by?
