“We all change. Are you happy with the results? Good.”
Believe it or not, you are actually a nice person—and so am I. I found out about this while on a plane to Phoenix, Arizona for an InfusionSoft ICON conference. A woman sitting on the plane diagonally in front of me was reading The Wall Street Journal. I noticed the headline of article—“We Actually Get Nicer With Age”. Wow! What a revelation!
When we reached our hotel, The Wall Street Journal lay in front of our room’s door (miracles do happen). According to the article, “from the age of 20 to 65, people report an increase in positive traits, such as conscientiousness, and decreases in negative traits such as neuroticism”. Of course, “nicer” is a relative term. It is like beauty “in the eyes (heart) of the beholder”.
But, what happens after the age of 65 (I am 67)? I have met some grouchy older people, but I think that in their core, people are nice. The question is “Do we want to change?” Most of us are comfortable with our status quo, even when others might not like it. When my wife, Elfa, points out my shortcomings to me, I often do not like her criticism, but in my heart I know that she is right. (You know the platinum rule: “The wife is always right”, right?) But can I change? My common response to her is if I do what you suggest, I am going to become Elfa—not Manny. In the business, it is sometimes easier to just change externally by finding new ways to market without changing who we are (since I am already a nice person).
This was the reason we came to the seminar. InfusionSoft is a very powerful database management system that we use in our business to communicate with clients. At the conference besides listening to very interesting speakers and authors like Seth Godin, Simon Sinkek, and JJ Ramberg (check out their books on Amazon), we met vendors offering different ways to improve our connection to our clients and how to attract new ones. We signed up with one of them, who promised to increase the company’s ratings on the social media channels. This will also help you refer more of your friends and co-workers to us for which I am always grateful.
P.S.
Even in Cuba, change is coming all the time and I think the young people there are ready to create change. You can see more images of beautiful people in Cuba (and buy the book, Soy Cubano) on my website.
DO NOT KEEP ME AS A SECRET.
SMILE AND PLEASE SHARE IT WITH A FRIEND