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What Do "Givers Get"?

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Do We Figure Someone Else Is Giving Back?

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I’ve watching giving bloggers and talking to them about people asking for favors. What I see is friends of giving help with requests. Many come from people that the bloggers don’t even know.

When I Googled, “givers get,” I got links to websites that were obviously selling things.

Then I found this explanation at ROCK YOUR DAY. The answer seems to be in the title of the skill.

Skill #1: Giving (Before Taking)
There’s an expression you may have heard before: “Givers Get.” This is the mantra, the cornerstone of successful networking. What you want your contact to remember when they think of you is how you were a contributor, how you actually helped add value to their business or their lives.

Givers — my heroes — are in an awful position. They give answers or help. Word gets out and even more folks who want things start showing up. When the giver gets totally overwhelmed with requests and finally learns to say, “Sorry, I just can’t.” He or she hears words like selfish, or too full of oneself. It’s sad.

Do we think that someone else is giving back?

Makes me wonder, what is it that givers get?

Are we using up and wearing the sources of our best help?
Will there come a day when there are no givers left?
You can bet I’m looking for solid ways to give back.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Check out Models and Masterminds too

Show Your Workspace Some Love

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I Don’t Read Your Desk

Messy Desk


Productivity.
A desk is like a garage — it’s where you keep your tools. It helps if it’s organized, but your car will run fine when it is not. But messy writing is a sign of messy thinking. It’s proof our ideas aren’t under control. No one wants to be behind the wheel with someone who can’t keep the car on the road.

The thing is it’s a whole lot easier to do clear focused thinking when we don’t see clutter all around us looking back. If we take a few minutes to straighten where we work, our thought come through more easily. Here’s a way to make work more motivating when you return Monday morning.

Friday’s Answer to a Motivated Monday

Finish your last work task early on Friday, so that you have time to complete this list. If you’re working late this week, do all you can to take a “last half hour” anyway. On Monday morning, you’ll be glad you did.

  • Put things done away.
  • Lay out things that still need attending to. Mark what needs to be done. Make a to-do list, if that’s your way.
  • Use the things you laid out to make a plan for next week. Decide what you will tackle first and what your three most important goals will be.
  • Order the Monday tasks by putting what you can get done fastest first. Do this for two reasons. You’ll quickly have a sense of accomplishment, and you’ll be able to pass on what you finished to someone else can take that piece to the next step.

Then consider the week closed, leave the work at the office, give your brain a break, and have a weekend. What a great way to remind yourself and everyone else that you can enjoy your job — head for the weekend with an office that looks like it could be in a magazine . . .

Whether you work in a building away from home or in your bedroom, it’s boost to your Monday to walk back into a space that’s ready to work in.

Don’t you think the way that we take care of ourselves shows in our work? Show your workspace some love. You’ll feel it back guaranteed.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Are You a Leader or a Pleaser? Take the Test

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Find Out Now

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When I work with folks who are finding their path, we often talk about famous leaders and what made them what they are.

Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Jesus, Mother Teresa . . . where they leaders or fools? Each did things that were praised as the ultimate sacrifice for the good of others, but were they leaders really or did they just give themselves away?

Ah, there’s the trick, figuring that part out.

I’ve known a few “victim types” in my time. They thought they were the next Mother Teresa or such, but it wasn’t who they were, I don’t think. Truth is I won’t ever know. The decision isn’t mine.

The reason I can’t determine the answer is because the actions look the same whether the person is a leader or a fool. The answer to question is fully inside the person’s own mind.

You can take the test for yourself. It’s easy. Pick the one that’s you.

  • Do you give others what they need, but give that same thing to yourself first? Then you’re dealing from strength. You’re a leader. You’ll have your proof in that it’s easy to say “no,” when you find that you can’t or shouldn’t give more than you have. You’ve got what you need.
  • Do you give others what they need in hopes they will give back to you? Then you’re dealing from weakness. You’re a pleaser. You’ll have your proof in that it’s almost impossible to say “no,” even when your whole being says that you should. You’re trying to get what you don’t give yourself.

Are you a leader or a pleaser? Only you know for sure. But I suggest you to for the first.

Give yourself what you need. It’s easier to say “no” to the folks who don’t deserve what you’ve got.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Decide to be a leader. Work with Liz!!
Check out Models and Masterminds too

Listen to the Folks Who Aren't Listening

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Communication Breakdown

Change the World!

When something happens one, I figure it could be an accident.

When it happens twice I wonder whether something could be in the air.

In the last week, it’s happened three times. That makes me wonder whether I’ve got a problem.

The scenario was almost the same every time.

I told a friend about something I was working on. As it happened, the project was different in each case, but that didn’t seem to matter. Before I finished the second or third sentence, the person I was talking to began to tell me what the project should be.

Each person was turning my project into theirs.

I recognize this behavior. It’s been my own more times than I care to admit. They got the response I remember. I quit talking and let them decide what their project would be.

I knew that the people I was with were trying to help, but they didn’t listen to get enough information to know where their help would have made a difference. They simply started making new ideas.

Relationships and understanding come from listening to what folks want to talk about — dreams, desires, unexpressed needs and wishes — what they find marvelous, annoying, heartwarming, concerning, breathtaking. At least, that’s my experience.

Three times, though, makes me wonder. Maybe I should listen closely to the folks who aren’t listening.

Maybe I’ll find out what is making this happen.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Check out Models and Masterminds too

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If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

Change the World: Be a Leader on Your Path

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March to Your Own Drummer

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When I was a child, people said I marched to a different drummer. It was said with a bit of love and a forgiving smile. The implication of such a condition was a sad prognosis. It meant that I would never get where folks were supposed to go or that it would take me a hard long road to arrive there.

I’m not sure that I really followed that different drummer. Seems I ended up in a life much like most others. I didn’t take nearly the risks that I might have, nor did I reach for the rings that dreamed of. Secretly I thought those dreams meant for other people.

I’ve come to realize that we’re all leaders who have been following someone else’s path. First in school we learn to lead inside their corridors and conventions. Then in the work world where a veer to the left will get a bad review or an escort to the door with no thought of returning.

We’ve been trained to change ourselves to make ourselves fit into the cars that drive us to the buildings where we work in the jobs that we study for so that we have the right skill sets. And we wonder every day if who we are is good enough to be there. It’s the dilemma of the square peg worrying that someone will find out it doesn’t belong in a round hole.

I guess I finally fell in step with that drummer, because now I show people how to live and work their passion. It’s an amazing thing to see the change when they realize they can be exceptional and make a living.

What if we all fit jobs to ourselves and best skills instead trying to fit us them? Wouldn’t we be outstanding performers? Couldn’t the world use some original thinkers who brought their best to solve the hardest problems? I’m thinking that we would see that sort of work as noble, invigorating, and productive.

What if we became leaders on our own paths following our own drummers?

How could bringing our best be anything less than outstanding?

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

You Have Made Me a Better Person

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Working on the eBook Tonight

While I was rearranging and changing what I was saying in the ebook I’m working on.
I came across a few words that were fine just as I had originally written them.
I had to stop to make a collage of photos, so that I could put them up tonight.

The more I bring to the folks who come to read, the more they give me. People who read my blog make me smarter, better every day.

How has my blog changed how I think of relationships? It’s only made them more dear, more important, and more cellular to every letter, every link, every learning that is in this text.

I can’t imagine looking at any part of my blogging career without seeing the people who, in a word, have made me who I am.

People of SOBCon08

Thanks to everyone who’s ever read a word, or said a word on this blog.

–ME “Liz” Strauss