Ignoring or Inspiring?

When I first moved to Minnesota, I joked  that there was a church on every corner. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, of course, but it seems that most major thoroughfares are dotted with them.

For several years, there was a church that I passed almost every day. Like most churches, it had a message board out in front; unlike most churches, this message board actually contained messages. Even more unusual, the messages were changed a couple of times every week so there was always a new one to check out.

Some of the messages were attention-getters like the one that said, “Satan loves a dusty Bible.”

Others were funny. My favorite one said, “Trouble sleeping? Try a sermon.”

Mostly they were lovely philosophical reminders to be kind and to make a contribution to making the world a better place.

One day I called the church and said, “In case no one has told you this, I want you to know how much your message board is appreciated by those of us driving by.”

The secretary said they’d gotten many positive comments on it, then added that the senior pastor went out at 5:30 in the morning to change the board. “Please thank him for me,” I said.

Several months later, I passed by the church again and saw a gathering in the yard. A fancy new message board had just been installed.

It had a burgundy and charcoal frame and was lighted from within. It was pretty spiffy, but I noticed that the message simply listed the times of their services.

What’s the point of posting the times of their services, I wondered. Those hours never change and surely their members already know when services are held.

If the point of posting them was for the convenience of non-members who might want to join them, I’m not sure there’s any obvious reason to pick this church over any other.

That’s the way it’s stayed. I hardly even noticed it after that.

I’ve tried to imagine what happened here. Maybe the senior pastor retired and nobody else wanted to do it. Maybe not enough people let them know that they liked the effort.

Or perhaps, and I hope I’m wrong here, the church forgot that it’s really in the inspiration business. Most likely, somebody decided it was too much bother to keep the messages up and in making that decision lost an enormous opportunity to contribute some random good.

This church isn’t the only example of losing sight of an opportunity to inspire. I once read an article entitled, “That Angry Flier Just Might Be Your Flight Attendant.”

The article pointed out that all the difficulties experienced by the airline industry are taking a toll on their employees. The sentence that really grabbed me  said, “Even before all the industry’s woes, attendants complained that their pay was too low for ‘friendly’ service.”

I was so astonished by that I must have read it over three times.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once told an interviewer, “It’s not our customer’s job to lie awake nights figuring out how we can serve them better. We have to take responsibility for improving.” Maybe he should talk to the airlines.

If you want to make this coming year the best one you’ve ever had, take the challenge now to find ways to use your business as a tool to inspire.

Whether you’re repairing small engines, teaching yoga or designing websites, you’ll find there’s no shortage of opportunities to encourage other people—if you are so inclined. Inspire them by your joy, inspire them by your commitment, inspire them by caring about their success.

As Alfred A. Montapert said, “There is something better than putting money into your pocket and that is putting beauty and love and service into your life.”

Those are options that inspire.

 

Dithering or Decisive?

Life often seems like an endless series of decisions to be made. Chai latte or decaf Americano? Take a walk or sit at the computer? Plant roses or zinnias? Start a business now or wait until you get fired?

Given the fact that we are called upon to make decision after decision everyday, it would seem reasonable to assume that most of us would have given thought to how we make decisions. We’d have our own decision-making tools that we could employ when needed.

If we  lack such tools, too many decisions are simply based on habit. (Chai latte yesterday, chai latte today, chai latte tomorrow.) That’s not the road to living a creative and inspired life.

Self-doubt—simply not trusting ourselves—is behind much of the indecision we encounter. The sheer abundance of options can make it even more difficult, but living decisively is necessary if we’re to have the richest experience possible.

It may also contribute to our health. According to George Crane, “It is uncertainty or indecision that wears people down and promotes peptic ulcers, high blood pressure and nervous breakdowns.”

Since the decisions we make determine the kind of life that we have, how can we improve our ability to make wise decisions? It may be easier than you think.

My starting point is based on this observation from Stewart Emery: “Nothing in the universe is neutral. It either costs or it contributes.”

That bit of wisdom has simplified decision-making for me ever since I heard it.

However, it’s fairly useless without a sense of priority. You need to be clear about what matters most to you and be determined to set up your life to support that.

If being physically healthy is a high priority, every food choice either costs or it contributes. If finishing your book in the next 90 days is a priority, every time choice you make either costs or it contributes.

It all comes down to bringing your activities and actions into alignment with your personal goals.

Some decisions require gathering information in advance, of course. Wise leaders in all walks of life have sounding boards, people whose opinions they trust. The trick for us, whether we’re the leader of the free world or not, is to exercise wisdom in choosing the voices we listen to.

Often that means getting advice from strangers, not from those nearest and dearest to us. Then thoughtfully weighing that advice while keeping in mind your ideal outcome, can make the process smoother.

The more familiar you are with your own intuitive voice, the easier it will be to rely on it when it’s time to make a decision—especially a big important one.

Even if that’s not your usual method of deciding, here’s an exercise that can be helpful providing you pay attention while you’re doing it.

How can you tell if you really want to do something? Toss a coin. Literally. It works—not because it settles the question for you, but, as the Danish poet and mathematician Piet Hein said, “While the coin is in the air, you suddenly know what you’re hoping for.”

Success, prosperity, all the good things in life only come to us after we’ve decided to let them in. Minute by minute and hour by hour, decide in favor of your dreams.

 

Excuses or Options? What’s in Your Wallet?

Five years ago, Marilyn decided to leave her soul-squashing job and start a business that would share her love of animals. Today she’s still dragging herself to that same job and her entrepreneurial enthusiasm is weak from neglect.

When questioned about her business plans, she replies, “Oh, I decided in this economy it was better to hang on to what I had. Besides I hate to give up my benefits and I really need the money from my job so I can remodel my family room.”

What Marilyn—and so many others— demonstrate is that whenever we ignore our dreams we rationalize it by creating a villain. It’s never our fault, for goodness sake. Someone or something outside us is standing in our way.

That thinking leads us to look for the villain which is often disguised as an excuse.

Since finding an excuse is not a creative exercise, most excuses aren’t too original. Knowing that, syndicated columnist Dale Dauten put together the Excuse-O-Matic which can be a handy tool.

Just find your age and under it you’ll find the corresponding excuse not to take a risk.

Under 30—too young

Need to get established/planning marriage/ kids/house

No experience/no credit/no capital

30 to 40—too busy

Have spouse/children/mortgage

Too much credit/need to save for college tuition

40 to 55—too stretched

Kids in college

Need to pay down debt/save for retirement

Over 55—too tired

Not up on latest technologies

Too late to risk capital

Concerned about losing retirement benefits

Deceased—too dead

The final and best excuse

Now I’m not a mathematician, but I can see that if you add up these excuses all you’re left with are excuses.

If you want to amaze and dazzle yourself,  give up, once and for all, anything that sounds like an excuse.

Giving up all excuses is not enough, however. In the part of your brain where you’ve stored reasons and excuses, start building an Option Bank.

An Option Bank, just like the place where you store money, is a repository of good ideas, dreams and goals. Like an ordinary bank, the more you put in, the more you can draw out.

The best way to get started at this is to convince yourself that there is never just a single option available. Never. If you begin with that premise, your creative spirit will be free to go to work.

A word of warning: this is not the same as the frequently used expression, “I’m keeping my options open,” which usually means, “I have no idea what I want and am waiting for something to happen to tell me.”

What I’m talking about is a proactive listing of any and every possibility that occurs to you.

Another key to building your Option Bank comes from Harry Browne in his book How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. “As you view any situation in which you have a goal,” Browne writes, “there are basically two types of alternatives available to you. I call them direct and indirect.

“A direct alternative is one that requires only direct action by yourself to get a desired result. An indirect alternative requires that you act to make someone else do what is necessary to achieve your objective.”

On a blank sheet of paper, draw a line down the center. At the top of the page, write a goal that you have in the form of an affirmation. Over the left hand column write Excuses and over the right hand column write Options.

Think of your excuses as debits and your options as deposits. Now write your lists. If you can’t simply ignore your excuses, what direct alternative can you take to eliminate or change them?

When you repeat this exercise regularly, you’ll discover that your Option List will grow while your Excuses List will shrivel.

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage,” Anais Nin wisely observed.

Keep building your own Option Bank and you’ll discover that life not only shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage, but also in proportion to one’s options.

 

Multiple Passions, Multiple Profits

Marlena De Blasi was settling nicely into her new home and  business in St. Louis. Besides being a food writer and wine consultant, Marlena was the chef in her own restaurant.

That all changed on a trip to Venice where she attracted the attention of a banker named Fernando who was certain she was the woman of his dreams. Although he spoke almost no English, he made his intentions known and within months Marlena had uprooted herself to join him.

She recounts this improbable love story in her delightful book, A Thousand Days in Venice. The subtitle could be Love is Bigger Than Culture Shock.

Once they have survived Italian bureaucracy and a reluctant priest who isn’t sure he wants to marry them, the couple begins their new life together.

One day Fernando announces that he’s tired of working at the bank where he’s been employed for 26 years and wants to work with Marlena. Apparently, our resourceful and adventurous heroine didn’t just awaken love, but also Fernando’s sleeping entrepreneurial spirit.

The account of their new venture is recorded in her second book, A Thousand Days in Tuscany.

In many ways, Marlena De Blasi is a classic entrepreneur with a willingness to try new things and create new income sources. In fact, one of her mantras is “always a beginner.”

As a result, her businesses are kept fresh and vital by the introduction of new profit centers.

Multiple profit centers, as I’ve been saying for years, are the key to growing a business. Every time you add a new product or service, you’re creating another profit center.

Although the idea of multiple profit centers is highly appealing to those who think that business is just about making money, the concept is equally interesting to Renaissance souls who have numerous ideas and interests.

As James Dickey pointed out, “There are so many selves in everybody and to explore and exploit just one is wrong, dead wrong, for the creative process.”

Whatever the motivation, mastering Multiple Profit Center creation is essential to running an inspired business.

If you run your business on the assumption that it is a vehicle for innovation and fresh thinking, profit centers  seem to bubble up naturally from your creativity. When these different profit centers involve a variety of activities, synergy is generated.

For instance, running a restaurant, being the chef and writing about food all come out of a passion for gastronomy, but each has its own requirements and activities.

As you build your collection of profit centers, you’ll find that some are going to be bigger than others, some the mainstays of your business, and some will be periodic. Since entrepreneurs adore new ideas, this keeps their imagination in high gear.

Charles Handy is another advocate of developing multiple profit centers. “Think of it this way,” he advises. “You will have a portfolio of work like an architect has or your stock portfolio. No prudent investor puts all his savings into one stock and no sensible business goes after only one customer.”

Multiple profit centers are the antidote to putting all your eggs in one basket.

No matter whether you call them passions, projects or profit centers, they’re not just the building blocks of your business: they’re the life blood.

Creating a business that engages you physically, intellectually and spiritually is a richly satisfying—and highly individual—undertaking.

And when one idea has served its time, there’s a new one ready to take its place.

 

What’s Your Sign?

When I moved into my new home last December, I was determined to find the most colorful Welcome Mat available. Not only did I want my visitors to know I was happy to see them, I wanted to remind myself that I was entering a place where good things happened.

There may have been another factor motivating my insistence that I get it right; my downstairs neighbors have a mat in front of their door that growls Go Away. Since I pass by it every time I come home, I felt obligated to counterbalance that grumpy message.

When it comes to your clients, customers and potential clients and customers what’s your sign? Are you putting out the Welcome Mat—or hanging a Do Not Disturb warning?

You don’t have to look very hard to see that every business invites you in—or warns you not to bother them.

I  learned about the Do Not Disturb sign from years of flying with Northwest Airlines. Apathy and indifference seemed to pervade the corporate culture.

As the planes got grubbier and dirtier, the crews got crankier. Questions were often treated as an irritation and passengers were an unfortunate interruption.

There wasn’t much smiling going on during the million miles I logged with them.

Now that I am not limited to NWA (merged with Delta) as a carrier, I avoid them at all costs. In fact, I’ve not touched my frequent flyer miles with them despite the fact that I could have a free trip to Europe if I was feeling the need for more abuse.

On the other hand, my trips these days are mostly on Southwest Airlines and I find myself anticipating these trips since I never know what friendliness may be in store.

Is the flight attendant heading to Las Vegas auditioning as a standup comedian? Will the passengers be invited to sing  Happy Birthday to a fellow traveler? Will I manage to read all the interesting articles in their in-flight magazine before we land?

You don’t need to operate an airline to recognize the importance of sending a message that welcomes.

Of course, there are times when the Do Not Disturb sign comes in handy—especially if you live with other people who don’t understand that you have a business to build, but in every part of your business where you’re connecting with other people, keep the Welcome Mat out.

Here are a few easy ways to do just that:

° Answer all telephone calls with friendly expectation. Yes, it might be a telemarketer on the other end, but unless you’re a really gifted psychic, don’t risk it by sounding grumpy.

Your voice message needs to be upbeat as well. (Skip the trite, “your message is important to us” stuff, however.)

° Get into the conversation on social media sites. If you’ve got gas or you’re bored, keep it to yourself.

Use social media to praise, share, ask questions, interact. That’s not difficult stuff, but it does take conscious effort to do so.

Keep in mind, too, that this is about connecting with other people. No matter how adorable your kitten is, use your own photograph since you’re the one we’re responding to.

° Don’t make busyness an excuse for rudeness. Dazzle people with your fabulous and thoughtful good manners. If you really want to astonish people, send them a hand written thank you note or express your gratitude publicly.

Keep asking yourself if you’ve got your Welcome Mat out. It’s one of the best business building tools you’ve got.

As Anita Roddick reminded us, “You will never fail as a result of any investment you make in humanizing your business.”

 

Wishing or Willing?

We’re coming to the time of year for reflection and resolutions, but once a year doesn’t seem nearly often enough to me. Too many of us reach this annual ritual reflecting and resolving the same old stuff.

Let’s close out this year by eliminating, once and for all, the dithering that keeps us from boldly moving ahead in our lives.

And let’s start with a favorite mantra of the cowering: “I don’t know how.” Instead of seeing this as an invitation to learning, it becomes a convenient hiding place (and a crowded one at that).

There’s an exercise I created a few years ago after reading that when his flight seatmate asked author Robert Fulgham what he did, Fulgham suggested that they spend the flight lying to each other, describing some fantasy occupation that they had only imagined. That produced one of the liveliest trips of Fulgham’s life.

Although I’ve never tried it on a plane, I thought it would work in a seminar. People are put in pairs and instructed to take turns answering the question, “What do you do?” with a fabricated story.

The listener asks questions about how they chose this occupation, what they love most about it, etc. The only rule is that participants have to pick something they’ve never seriously considered.

Suddenly the room explodes as faux symphony conductors, espionage agents, innkeepers and horse trainers start sharing their stories. People are smiling and laughing as they weave their fictional tales.

They also startle themselves as they discover they know more about “how” than they realized. The dangerous, actual lie, then, is, “I don’t know how.”

If you’re tempted to use this worn out excuse, stop and notice that you have the world’s largest  How-to Emporium at your fingertips—the Internet. Add on libraries, bookstores and living examples and “I don’t know how,” appears to mean, “I don’t want to be bothered.”

Moving from wishing to willing involves a few other changes as well. In fact, one of the most critical steps is often overlooked: making room for what you want.

Writer Truman Capote  said, “I  believe more in scissors than I do in the pencil.” That applies to all sorts of creative endeavors in life.

Metaphysical teachers talk about creating a vacuum  by clearing out what you don’t want and trusting that it will be replaced with something better.

Letting go ahead of the evidence is terrifying to many people who seem to have forgotten a basic teaching from high school physics about two objects not occupying the same space at the same time.

That’s not just true for rocks, of course. We like to tell ourselves that we can’t let go until we have our replacement lined up, but that’s wishy-washy thinking that can keep us from moving ahead.

Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann seemed to be speaking for many of us when she said, “I had a life with options, but frequently lived as if I had none. The sad result is that the woman I’ve become is not the woman I could have been.”

Here’s a question worth pondering as we head to the new year: What am I willing to do to make a difference in my life and the lives of others? What  new options am I going to exercise? What is the best way to make room for that?

Once you know the answers, remember that wishing won’t get you there.

Are you willing?

 

Spooky Questions

My mailbox has been getting some truly spooky messages lately. It’s not the first time, of course, but I’m still startled when I get one of these cries for help.

The scariest of these messages goes like this: ”I think I want to start my own business. What should I do?”

I also shiver when someone asks, “I want to write. What should I do?”

No, these aren’t zombies asking the question, but they send chills down my spine because they remind me that too many of us are lacking some basic tools—tools that could get us pointed in the right direction and keep us heading that way.

The next time someone asks, “What should I do?” I’m going to send them this list of answers.

° Start an investigation. Do your homework. Head out to the library. See if your community has resources that can be of help. As Jim Rohn said, “If you wish to find, you must search. Rarely does a good idea interrupt you.”

° Make space. If you’re going to start a new project, you need to make room for it. That frequently means you must first clear out some space. Frequently, that requires spending your time on things that don’t serve your true goals.

“What I discovered,” says architect Sarah Susanka, “is that when you make the time and space for what you long to do, everything else shifts to accomodate it. It never works the other way around. If you wait until there’s time to do what you want, you’ll be waiting until your eighty-fifth birthday.”

° Listen to informed sources. Seems so obvious to me, but I’m astonished at how often people take advice from people who don’t know. The more you investigate, the wiser you’ll become about who has the information that you can use.

° Learn to synthesize. Adopting and adapting in order to produce something new is a time-honored tool of the creative spirit.

If you’re growing a business, that means paying close attention to the things you like and don’t like as a consumer and asking yourself which policies and procedures you will integrate into your own enterprise—and which you’ll consciously avoid.

° Break your goals into 90-Day Projects. Give your projects a theme. Immerse, don’t dabble.

At the end of 90 days, evaluate and decide if you’ve accomplished your objectives. If not, decide if you are up for giving it another 90 days.

° Remember this: “Good things as well as bad are caught by a kind of infection,” writer C.S. Lewis pointed out. “If you want to get warm  you must stand near the fire; if you want to get wet you must get into the water.If you want joy, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.

“They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you; if you are not, you will remain dry.”

Throughout our Joyfully Jobless Journeys we’ll need help. New goals require new information, new ideas, new connections.

Don’t hesitate to look for it, but also realize that the ultimate responsibility for making your dreams happen is in your hands.

Happy Halloween!

 

Staying Positive When Things Turn Negative

“April is the cruelest month,” mused T.S. Eliot. Obviously, he wasn’t around in October a few years back. While the weather had been magnificent, many people were not so inclined.

For background noise there was the nightly news with an unrelenting stream of stories about war, recession and political nastiness.

Closer at hand were the two women who left their manners at home when they came to my English tea class and the burglar who removed the battery from my car.

Staying positive in a negative world is challenging even in normal times, but this felt as if guerilla tactics were in order. Here are some of the most helpful I’ve found for getting past negative times and creating positive ones.

° Bombard yourself with positives. Overcompensate. Sondra Ray has a wonderful affirmation that goes, “Every negative thought immediately triggers three more powerful positive ones.”

If things are looking dim, consciously create the opposite thought. Keep your favorite books of inspiration close at hand and read at random during crisis moments.

° Take a proactive stance—and keep it. Nobody does a better job of explaining proactive vs. reactive behavior than Stephen Covey.

In his classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People he writes, “Proactive people focus their efforts on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying causing their circle of influence to increase. Reactive people, on the other hand, focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language and increased feelings of victimization.”

If you need more information about moving into a proactive position, revisit Covey’s book for practical suggestions.

° Indulge a passion. One year, I created two challenges for myself: to discover all the ways that chocolate and raspberries could be combined and to see all of the Monet paintings I could with my own two eyes.

Both of these quests added hours of pleasure when I was traveling—and when I was not. I highly recommend you give yourself a similar challenge.

° Catch someone doing something right and let them know. I noticed a woman at the airport in Chicago wearing a smart outfit. When she reappeared in Minneapolis, I walked up to her and told her I’d been admiring her clothes.

She thanked me and said, “You can probably tell by my accent that you’d have to go a long way to get one for yourself.”

“Where are you from?” I inquired. When she told me London was her hometown, I said, “Oh, but I’m going there next month!”

I came away with a warm feeling and a great shopping tip.

° Take yourself on a mini-retreat. Sometimes the only way to diffuse negative energy is to move yourself completely out of it. So plan a day or two doing something you normally wouldn’t do.

Spend Wednesday doing the Sunday crossword. Watch the seasons change at a cabin at the lake. Have a massage at bedtime.

While you are so engaged, concentrate fully on what’s going on in front of you—not the situation that upset you in the first place.

° Discover the hidden gift in the problem. When my car was burglarized, I was mighty upset. Then one of the handsomest men I have ever met arrived at my door (wearing his police uniform) and things began to look a bit brighter.

We even managed to laugh about the situation when he asked me to check the car for further theft. I looked around and told him all of my music CDs were in place. “I don’t suppose that people who steal batteries would steal Mozart, would they?” I asked.

Negative times can be profoundly diminished if you have tools for dealing with them.

Abraham Maslow once described the self-actualized person’s response to chaos by saying they behaved “like a clock ticking in a thunderstorm.”

It’s a picture I’ve tried to remember in crazy times and attempted to duplicate.

None of us is immune to life’s negative events, but it’s possible to minimize their impact. In the end, it’s really a matter of learning to starve our upsets and feed our opportunities.

 

Want Better Answers?

We humans are born question askers. Listen to any toddler and you’ll hear a stream of questions about any subject that catches their attention. “Why?” is the most frequently used word in their vocabularies.

During the days when I taught high school English, I used to say that my idea of hell was being in a roomful of teenagers all screaming, “Do we have to?” It was a question that often erupted after I gave a challenging assignment.

Questions are such a common part of everyday communication that most people don’t give much thought to them.  I’d like to suggest that you to pay more attention.

I started to do so when I noticed that a popular television talk show host seemed to turn the most fascinating guests into complete bores. As I watched more closely, I discovered that his questions often led to dead ends, giving his guests no place to go or no story to tell.

People who have charisma, who draw others to themselves, usually have a reputation for being good listeners. Part of their secret, it seems to me, is that they ask great questions to begin with and then give their full attention to the answer, prodding and encouraging when necessary.

They make people feel valued because they listen to the answers.

Asking good questions isn’t just a way to win friends and influence people, however. It’s an overlooked key to success.

Not all questions are illuminating. Many, in fact, stop us dead in our tracks. “How are you going to do that?” or “Why haven’t I gotten farther?” are the kinds of questions that lead us down the path of doubt, not dreams.

Learning to ask better questions of ourselves can get us headed in the right direction and keep us moving forward.

Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen, the authors of The One Minute Millionaire, point out that when we ask the wrong questions we condemn ourselves to living below our potential. They write, “If you ask yourself, ‘How do I earn or create a million dollars?’ your mind goes to work to discover the answer. Your mind is compelled to work ceaselessly until a satisfactory answer is found.

“Note that most individuals ask themselves questions like these: ‘How do I get a job, salary or work?’ or ‘Can I earn $50,000 doing this?’ The wrong question will generate the wrong result or a less than outstanding outcome.

“Questions predetermine the answer. The size of your question determines the size of your answer. Few people ever ask million-dollar earning, inventing, innovating, generating and creating questions.”

If you keep a journal or idea notebook, start making a list of provocative questions you’d like answered in your own life. Ask them in the most compelling way you can think of.

For example, “How can I deliver the most fabulous service possible?” is a lot more intriguing than, “How can I give better service?”

Consider questions about spirituality, relationships, personal growth and improving the overall quality of life, as well as questions about creating the most brilliant business possible.

Keep adding to the list and leave room after each question for the answers to come. Be willing, also,  to be patient in receiving your answers.

As writer Zora Neale Hurston reminds us, “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” The important thing is to ask the best questions to begin with—the ones that are worthy of your dreams.

Advice on Getting Advice

As anyone who’s started a business knows, doing so invites an avalanche of unsolicited advice. Obviously, we need advice from those who have experience and information that can help us, but we also need to ignore the detractors.

How can you sort the wheat from the chaff?

Rule #1: Consider the Source

The most important thing about receiving advice is to know your source and trust them. It’s surprisingly easy to be influenced by bad or even false advice.

Sometimes it happens because the advice-giver sounds authoritative and so we look no further. At other times, maybe out of laziness, we accept negative or discouraging words as an excuse for not giving something a try.

And sometimes we just don’t know if the advice is accurate. (This is a particularly new and thorny problem caused by the Internet where advice is posted but not edited or verified.)

The Persian poet Rumi advised,  “When setting out on a journey, do not seek advice from someone who has never left home.”

When setting out to build a business, do not seek advice from those who haven’t done so successfully.

Rule #2 : Get a Second Opinion

While too many opinions or too much advice can serve to confuse, if you’re exploring unknown territory,  serious research is in order before setting out.

Get advice from people who know what they’re talking about—and then get a back-up opinion or two.

Rule #3: Make the Most of It

When you ask advice of another person, your initial role is to be a quiet listener or to ask clarifying questions. (“Yes, but” does not belong in the conversation.) Whether or not you act upon the advice is a matter for a later time.

When you’re trying to make a decision or need information so you can proceed with a decision you’ve already made, seeking outside input is just part of the information-gathering process. Sifting comes after you’ve got all the information collected.

The world is full of teachers, experts and amateur advisors—all with varying qualifications. Finding the right ones to help you learn what you need to know so you can move forward in your own life is not to be taken lightly.

The experience of others can save us time, add deeper insights, prevent us from making costly mistakes. Pay attention to those who can help, not hinder, your success.

As C.S. Lewis so eloquently said, “Good things as well as bad are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm, you must stand by the fire; if you want to get wet, you must get into the water. If you want joy, peace, eternal life, you must get close to them. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you. If not, you will remain dry.”