Start with what you don’t want, to get to what you want

One many levels, whether it was a big emotional decision, a new business venture, a risky leap of faith into a new opportunity, making new goals and targets, evaluating new pathes… You find your self in the status of a definite confusion.

” Should I do it? … Should I take that opportunity ?? ”

or simply you’re in the stage of evaluating your life or path and start asking the question

“Am I on the right track? what should I do with my _____ life ” (professional/ spiritual/personal / love… you fill in the blank)

This week’s tip, is inspired by a brainstorming technique used by artists and writers and later on evolved into the world of business to land into how “Innovation” is done.

The technique is simple, you start with what you have, and evolve from there, knowing that you DON’T know where that might lead you. But it’s Still OK 🙂 because that is the point of the technique. ( You need to start while being ready to reach somewhere you may not like… And be comfortable that it’s OK to be wrong)

Now let’s say you’re thinking of changing your career, and confused between the possibilities. practice this:

  • Which careers you DON’T LIKE (Le’ts say you don’t like Numbers, so you start putting accounting, finance etc on the board)
  • Which industries you DON’T like (Advertising? Food & Beverages ? etc)
  • Which Lifestyle you DON’T like to have?

The list will go on and on, and you’ll realize that although you may not know what you Like to do, you are more certain about the things you DON’T Like to do 🙂

The more you go in depth in this exercise, new ideas will start popping up in your mind, and you will start seeing things more clearly, and at some point you will get to one of 2 points:

  • You have found a good starting point to where you need to continue
  • You don’t have the frustration that you’ve not done anything about it!

Either way, you’ll be happy with the progress!

You’ll realize that although you may not know what you Like to do, you are more certain about the things you DON’T Like to do.

Enjoy your Week!

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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Believe in the Law of Averages

If you look up the Law of Averages on Wikipedia, you’ll come up with the following definition:

 ” The law of averages is a layman’s term used to express a belief that outcomes of a random event will “even out” within a small sample.

As invoked in everyday life, the “law” usually reflects bad statistics or wishful thinking rather than any mathematical principle. While there is a real theorem that a random variable will reflect its underlying probability over a very large sample, the law of averages typically assumes that unnatural short-term “balance” must occur.Typical applications of the law also generally assume no bias in the underlying probability distribution, which is frequently at odds with the empirical evidence. “

 This week’s tip is inspired by successful sales persons and one of their secrets.

According to Jim Rohn, the Law of Averages says that if you do something often enough a ratio will begin to appear.  If you talk to 10 people per example and 1 says yes, a ratio will begin to appear; you are at 1:10.  You’ll notice that once it starts, it tends to continue.  If you talk to 10 you’ll get 1.  Talk to 10 more, get 1 and so on. And in Digital Marketing, this is often referred to as a Conversion Rate and of course the higher that CR is the more successful your ad is performing or so.

So the key from these sales people is that you will need to keep moving and keep talking to more people, keep meeting, calling and exploring opportunities to increase your chances and to increase your ratio. And this way Mathematically, you can increase your chances of Winning more deals.

And further to that, we need to start enhancing this Ratio… to Make it 2:10 , 3:10 …

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. ~Stephen Hunt, The Court of the Air

The other benefit of believing in the law of averages, teaches us to ACCEPT that bad things would happen that we cannot control even if we were very well prepared and have everything in order. Like the Story of the Sower and the reaper

In short: You’ll face many struggles along the way if you are seeking success and happiness. If you are the sower, your seeds will get picked up by the birds first and won’t give a return. Then they will fall on shallow ground, leaving you with nothing again. Then they will fall on thorny ground and the sun will shine so hot that your small plant will die after the first day. No return either.

Then, one day, the seeds will fall on good ground and finally give you the expected return and success.

So instead of worrying on the opportunities that fled you, just keep moving and you’ll get the next one and the next one… And remember, Success usually Comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it!

Enjoy your Week!

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Image courtesy of suphakit73 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Sometimes you need to slow down, to speed up!

If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough. ~Mario Andretti

In order for you to understand this week’s tip, I will need you to do this small and simple exercise, you don’t need to move from where you are right now, just close your eyes and imagine for a second the following:

You’re going for a run… >> You’re Holding some weight while you’re running >> You’ve been running for a while >> it’s getting hot and you’re sweaty and getting tiered….

Now what will happen next??  

After a while, can you continue speeding up? I guess not!!

I guess at most of the times, we are too afraid that if we stop we may lose the capacity of keep going and don’t realize that from time to time, we really need to let go and take some time for our selves, to relax and then we’ll get back up and continue whatever we were doing before!

Like an old story I heard a long time ago, and did try it and recite it over and over in my seminars and even included it in one of my books; About the professor who asked his students while holding a cup of water,

How Heavy is the Cup of Water?

And while some tried to match the weight of water in ML with Grams and started giving different values and answers… The Professors simply said:

“It Depends on how long I hold it!”

If I held the cup of water for 5 minutes, then it’s not so heavy… But I wouldn’t   feel the same one hour later… and 4-5 hours later.. I wouldn’t be able to Lift my hand from pain of holding this half full cup of water!

The Professor was talking about Stress Management, and how important it is for us to remove the burden that we keep holding even for a small while and relax and then get back to carry it again… only this time, it will be lighter 🙂

Have a nice week!

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Image courtesy of  ponsulak / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Pack Your Bag For a New Beginning

On a day like today, exactly one year ago, I was packing my bag for the journey that would change my life…

To tell you a bit about my self, in the past 15 years, I have been on airplanes more than I have taken Buses… so Flying for me is really not a big deal, it’s more of a day-to-day experience rather than anything else, and packing for a trip was not something special… But that night was different… You see, I was flying OUT… Out of my old life, out of my past and especially out of my present.

I was not trying to escape from tomorrow, I was simply signing off on the last page of the book of my life story today, and start a new book with the story that will BEGIN tomorrow..

At many points in life, we feel that we need to start over, to experience something new, to change our lives and move forward to a brighter day, we close our eyes, and we pray and hope really hard for the moment we will open our eyes and realize that all of our issues are gone…

Well the big and most important point that try skip, is not the decision of starting over or having a new beginning, but it’s more of  the bag-pack we will have on that day… What will it include.

A Beginning by definition, is the very first starting point of “anything”; so on your timeline of thoughts, a beginning shouldn’t be the “continuity” of the past… but moreover a start of something new… But let’s face it, how could you FLY if you can’t let go of the thins that weight you down? how can you move on when you can’t let go of the things that made you miserable in the first place?

It’s that night where you need to decide to leave so many things behind, – Unfortunately, things to let go will include both GOOD and BAD – , pack your bag with the things you will need for your next journey… and Move on… That’s this week’s Tip 🙂

 Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life.

The following is a speech from the movie up in the air starring George Clooney as Ryan Bingham. I kinda relate so much to this movie; and although it may seem a big harsh, it does have a lot of truth in it depending on where you stand right now…

How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life… you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV… the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home… I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office… and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.

Enjoy your Week!

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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

You’ll cross that bridge when you get there!

Did you know that the amount of energy directly impacting your productivity that is fleeing your system because of worrying about the future is beyond enormous??!!!

Worrying is one of the main causes of Stress, and of course, almost all the bad health issues can be easily attributed to stress.

Last night (or pretty much early this morning), I woke up around 4 AM, checked out my mobile phone to find 2 missed calls that I received at 2 AM from the janitor of the building where my apartment is in Beirut. Although I am in Dubai now, I couldn’t help not to start asking my self on what was the news that couldn’t want till morning to be shared with me… Of course I couldn’t sleep afterwards thinking and over-thinking… Possibly on all the scenarios  that may have happened… Although what I would normally coach anyone,is to go back to sleep and attend this matter first thing the second morning… But I couldn’t… I gave in to the twisted thoughts that were flowing my mind…

At around 7 AM Beirut Time (8 AM – Dubai Time), I called the Janitor… And he told me, it was by mistake that he called my number and there’s nothing at all…

I can’t say these types of similar incidents don’t happen often with me 🙂 … But I normally manage to treat 8 out of 10 of them with the Tip of this week!

It’s simple, and it’s very straight forward… You Will Cross that Bridge when you get there… an expression that means you will not worry about a possible future problem but will deal with it if it happens

You can’t change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future

Enjoy your Week!
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Image courtesy of marin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

How to quit bad habits? Replace them with good ones!

I guess each of us at some point in time, take some decisions on quitting some habits that we don’t fancy or think they are bad for us… Some of the most popular items on that list would be: Smoking, Drinking, Eating Fast food or even cursing and saying bad words.

I was talking to a friend the other day, and we were discussing quitting smoking; She wants to quit smoking because she is convinced that it’s affecting her health negatively and wanted to ask me for opinion on how to do that.

Although admitting there’s a problem is always the right first step towards solving it, having the WILL to do changes in your life is easier said than done.

This week’s tip, is about how to set a “change” goal and work towards achieving it….

First here’s something to think about: If you’re a smoker of 20 cigarettes per day, and it was the time of your regular cigarette and you suddenly received a phone call or bumped into a friend, it’s very likely you would choose to drop that cigarette for the sake of taking that call or talking to the friend. But let’s say that you only had One Cigarette left… and you know it’s the last one you will have… How would you react to the call now? chances are that you’re not going to turn off that – Now VALUABLE – cigarette for anything less than Super important 😉 .

The example above illustrated a very important issue, which implies that when we STOP something instead of replacing it with something else, it’s more likely that we’re giving or let’s say CONSOLIDATING all its values and importance.

So here’s my tips for you, whether you were thinking of implementing a small change or a Major change in your life:

  • Set small achievable goals, like instead of smoking 20 cigarettes per day, now you will smoke 17 instead
  • Avoid the VOID… meaning if you removed 3 cigarettes, replace them with something else, like drinking water, or eating a chocolate (use your best judgement on that 😛 )… Just don’t keep it floating!
  • Repeat the 2 steps above periodically… (Instead of 17 now it’s 15… etc)

And finally, remember this:

“You won’t FIND time to do something, you need to decide NOT to do Something else”

Enjoy your Week!

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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

It Only Takes One Small Change… To Change Everything!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Douglas “Dick” Fosbury (born March 6, 1947) is one of the most influential athletes in the history of track and field. He revolutionized the high jump event, inventing a unique “back-first” technique, now known as the Fosbury Flop, adopted by almost all high jumpers today. His method was to sprint diagonally towards the bar, then curve and leap backwards over the bar.

You see at one point in time, some Olympic records (in this case, the High Jump record) were already set and with very few progress on breaking them. Until one day Dick Fosbury did something unexpected and tried to Jump Backward or with His Back first, he did a FLOP, that made him break the high score record… And ever since that day, High Jumps are all using this FLOP method…

Same Thing in Life, we sometimes need to do a change, maybe something small, but that change will Change everything!

And that my friend, is the essence of innovation! we would be limited with our boundaries, until we would try to do something different with what we have!

Enjoy your Week!
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Stop looking for the Silver Bullet to all your Problems!

In the past 10 years, I have spent some decent amount of time coaching and mentoring individuals on topics related to career path, exceptional thinking and mostly reaching goals and enhancing their chances in getting to where they would like to go in life.

One pretty COMMON issue I’ve seen that still dazzles me in almost 90% of the people I worked with, was what I’d like to call “The Search for the Silver Bullet”

If you’re not familiar with the concept of the Silver Bullet, it’s a mean to kill a werewolf  in horror stories, where the beast can’t be killed except with that specific bullet. So we normally call any “Ultimate Solution” a Silver Bullet

It seems for each one, there is a specific silver bullet that would *in their personal opinion* solve all of their problems in like ONE SHOT. All Together!!! yes just One Solution 🙂

Examples of Silver bullets I’ve encountered:

  • When I move to Dubai / Canada / Europe / <______ Fill in the blank with the country of your choice>
  • When I get married (That’s mostly with single women from the arab world)
  • When I win the lottery (or get a big load of Cash that I don’t have to work for it… Pretty applicable to all of those who think that money is the solution to everything…)
  • and the list goes on and on…

Now let’s pause for a second and try to visualize the following:

If you’re feeling cold, you would long for WARMTH, and would crave to be sitting next to the fire for hours… When you finally do, you would enjoy this priceless and incredible feeling of both satisfaction and happiness crawling all over your body… It’s simply the best feeling in the world…

Then after some time… (mostly not too long after)… The same spot will make you feel hot and few more minutes, you won’t be able to stand it that you decide to move AWAY…

So what just happened? isn’t it what you “wished for”?

This week’s Tip, is divided into 2:

  1. I advise you NOT to set the solution of your problem (s) as a destination with no time-bound
  2. Not to Tie EVERYTHING all together, so there will Only be ONE solution… But instead divide your life into 3 separate layers (which influence each others but not too interconnected):
    1. Personal: that will include your friends, parents, society, love life etc
    2. Professional: that will include your career and job etc
    3. Self: that will include your dreams and hopes and physical and spiritual objectives etc

Enjoy your Week!

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Image courtesy of  David Castillo Dominici/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice

The first impression people would notice about you, may not be long lasting, unless it’s a negative one; for some reason, creating a great first impression is an excellent push for your talk, work, personality and so on… But you will need to hold up to this impression. While normally a Negative first impression, will remain in your audience’s mind for a long time, (even when if you manage to change it afterwards).

But with the efforts you sometimes do to “leave an impression” and to “shine” in the eyes of your audience, some do not have to do that efforts, as they have already won their audience over (and over and over), they are the ones we call “Important”. So Celebrities, Major authors, Spotlight Actors, Singers… and many more, are already Important for their audience to notice. And normally outside of their spotlight, they can practically be anyone and do anything without paying too much attention to small details or even caring about what some people would say about them.

One of a life changing experiences for me happened during an encounter with a famous TV Celebrity many years back; this person I literally hated both his show and his style in presenting, Nevertheless I was Shocked by how “nice” he was in real life… SHOCKED… He was very decent, very respecting, modest and a true gentleman in his behavior and speech… I looked at my self in shame, as how I used to picture him, and how he really turned out to be… and all what needed for him to do to me, despite his 100s of times appearance on TV, face on the billboards and name everywhere in the media… was a simple act… he was Nice to me. And that’s all what it took to change my view on him… and NEVER PREJUDGE another human being ever again (VIP or Not).

You see in many occasions, we can act or even BE a celebrity or an Important person to someone, you may be that to the security guard of your building, to the office boy in your office, to just a random person seeing you appear in a conference or Taking a #SELFIE in a foreign place… So That’s NICE… Congrats you’re now IMPORTANT to someone… but it’s more important that you be nice to other people, when you can simply SMILE to the security guard and greet him when you walk inside the building, Say a Genuine Thank you to the person bringing the food to your table even if there’s no reason for you to do so… because believe it or not, those small details are the one that would make or break how LONG you can keep being Important.

It’s Nice to be Important… But it’s More important to be Nice!

Have a Nice Week!
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

How to keep going when you think you can’t

It was already 9 PM when I got home after a long day, I had to do so many things before leaving to the airport again, what do I do first, what to start with, and I need to remember to get some sleep… Well, either way it’s not going to make much of a difference. So I packed my bag, prepared my cloth, took a shower and went to bed…  at almost 11 PM, my phone rang with the alarm and I may have woke up from one of the best sleeps ever, and It really felt that I want to get back to sleep no matter what… Even to miss my flight for that sake. But something amazing happened, I smiled and stood up, dressed up, grabbed my bag and left to the airport and here I am sitting at the departure lounge and writing this post 🙂

I Chose this life, and I’m happy that I did… I have a sense of purpose in the goal I designed for myself, and with every obstacle, with every sleepless night, I know that I’m getting closer to where I want to be, knowing that I’m happy where I am right now… and that alone is what keep me going day after day, challenge after challenge; that special feeling that I’d like to call: “Positive Thinking”.

In so many years and decades of research, science has revealed one very important thing about the human nature… We Are what we Think about ourselves. and whether you think you CAN or CANNOT do something… You’re Right!

I was speaking in a Regional Conference last week in Tunisia about Strategic innovation in Education, and I was on a Panel of experts of education, and someone asked me about the pressure that educators get with all the tasks they have to do during the day leaving them no time or energy to innovate, so I answered the professor with another question:

“Let me ask you this professor, why do most people feel more energized at 5 PM as they leave their day job while they have just spent 9 hours at the office WORKING? and why do students and teachers get this unique energy as they are about to leave while in the middle of the day, you see some of them almost fainting from the experience… The Answer is simple… It’s MOTIVATION, that’s the Fuel Professor!”

So it really is irrelevant what you may think about time, energy you need to accomplish a specific task, if you’re Motivated Enough you’ll have access to UNLIMITED energy or Fuel to accomplish whatever you want… you could stay awake all night working without feeling tiered, you would feel an adrenaline rush all over you… even if you’ve been overloaded all day long!

Now the tip for this week, is simply to use the power of positive thinking to give yourself continuous motivation not to do a specific something, but to be who you are… and being satisfied by YOU, will grant you an explosive energy that will get you places you can’t even imagine you could get there.

Stay Positive! Everyday, even when times are not looking great… no night was ever eternal, just like sunlight…

Enjoy your Week!

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Image courtesy of winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

One Secret to Success: Keep an eye on the Ball!

 [From the Movie Forrest Gump] You know how to play this? Come on. Let me show you.

Now the secret to this game is, no matter what happens, never, ever take your eye off the ball.

“Where did I go wrong?” said most of us at one point in time… Felt frustrated and started blaming things on life and on outside circumstances, blaming so many factors that are not within your direct control on your failures while crediting only yourself on the successes. Was that person You in one point in time? is that you now?

Well, let’s put it this way, we will never ever reach to a point where we can be totally in control of our Fate; Life will always hit us, push us, surprise us; External factors might play in our favor or not and the person who will surprise us most might simply be our selves when we CHANGE.

I was having an interesting discussion with a Fellow Business Mentor at an Entrepreneurship Boot-camp in Lebanon few years back, and the conversation took a broader diversion to take us to understand the role of a Life Coach and the importance of having a Coach and a Mentor in one’s professional life. One Simple analogy I still remember today from that conversation that would act as a great example for this week’s Tip.

 “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ~Søren Kierkegaard

My Good Friend told me something then, he said to me that life sometimes is like playing Tennis or Ping-Pong; there is no way that the game will keep up for ever, you will lose and win and lose and win again, and at the end it’s the score that will define if you succeeded or not, and there’s really only One Secret to winning in that game… Keep your eyes on the Ball, and ADAPT. 

So here’s a Good tip for this week, When you Start the Game:

  • Never take your eyes off the ball, at all times
  • Move and Adapt; it’s almost impossible that you can survive the game while you can’t move a single inch… and your Moves are dictated by the movement of the Ball.
  • Predict the Moves of your opponent; The more experienced you become at playing the game, the easier you would start moving towards the ball EVEN BEFORE your opponent decide on the direction he/she wants to toss it towards you.
  • Realize that winning some and losing some is part of the game, and you show NEVER get frustrated by early losses or get very excited about your early winnings.

When I asked My friend the Executive Coach, on the role of the Mentor or Coach in such a game, he told me: “A Good Coach will make time slow down, and the ball will come at you in a slower-motion giving you enough time to take advantage.” | Thank you Adrian for the Lovely Talk 🙂

Cheers,
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

The Secret to Innovation: Dance Like Nobody’s Watching!

“Sing like no one is listening,
Love like you’ve never been hurt,
Dance like nobody’s watching,
and live like it’s heaven on earth.”

~Mark Twain

In my pursuit of Finding Innovation, I’ve studied the trends and the essences of what made the great innovators of our times INNOVATIVE, what were the patterns, and how can they be replicated, and then I went deep down to analyse their dynamic behavior to the hope that I would find the secret…  

I also traveled around the Middle East & Africa, and worked closely with hundreds of Educators on the topics of Innovation in Learning & Teaching and noticed the same conclusion of what would constitute the secret of being “Innovative”.

Steve Jobs, didn’t believe in focus groups. Actually, he avoided them like the plague. Jobs believed in building great products that he would want to use himself.

Once you want to free your mind about a concept of harmony and music being correct, you can do whatever you want. So nobody told me what to do and there was no preconception of what to do.

~Giovanni Giorgio

So The Secret & Common Pattern that I Found in the heart of the great innovators of our times, is that they did things that they would want for themselves, music they would like to listen to, books they wanted to read, technology that would excite them… Without caring if the rest of the world will actually like it or not.

Our Tip for this week, is to find the essence of Innovation within you. So you can do the following 3 simple steps and repeat them as necessary 🙂

  1. Ask yourself this question: “If I was the Last person on Earth, and I wanted to use this product, What should it be like?” Think that you’re the last person on earth and there’s literally no one to judge your product, and no one else to use it.
  2. Think of it as a Legacy: if you’re going to leave this product for your children to use it after you do, what would you want them to think about it? don’t think too much, JUST MAKE IT AS GOOD AS IT CAN POSSIBLY BE!
  3. Frankenstein it 🙂 : Make your product ALIVE, in a way that it will continue being great without you being involved, whether it was an article, a book, a software, a technology or whatever it was… Bring your stroke of innovation to awaken it to change the world.

I Still remember the discussion I’ve had with my Editor when I was in the process of Publishing my first national Best selling book, when she was telling me that my writing style was too casual for a non-fiction book and there’s a risk that the audience not liking it… I smiled and told her that I’ve simply written it in the Style I would’ve loved to Read :); She did a great job afterwards preserving that touch .

Have a great week & Cheers,
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If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
–Henry Ford

Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Fake it ‘Til you Make it

“Don’t wait for the world to recognize your greatness, Live it and let the world catch up to you” ~Unknown

When you walk on the street, and see someone smiling and laughing, do you have doubts that they are happy? if you see someone with tears in their eyes, what would be your first impression?

We often perceive the inside of a person’s feelings from the simple projection that they have on their outside, and we do not only do that with others, we do that with ourselves too, Unconsciously. So the next time you put a smile on your face, your body will think you’re happy and spread those happiness hormones across and you will start feeling better.

One of the keys of being able to realize your dreams, is First when you can visualize yourself at the finish line, and second and foremost, ACT AS IF you’re already there; and that’s the essence of this week’s Tip.

If a friend of yours showed you his new wallet, and you thought it was of average quality, but then he would tell you that it’s a 1,000$ Gucci Wallet… Then instantly you would re-think its value and the wallet will look “different” to you now…

Now let me ask you this question, if you ever went to a store to buy cloth, whom you would like to buy from, that miserable salesperson or that joyful and great looking? Do you want to take advice about how to look Great from someone who doesn’t? will someone buy your products if you wouldn’t buy them??

Here’s 3 things you can start doing Today!

  1. Pay Attention to the Details: in your Day-to-Day, pay attention to how you look, sound and act with others… and it starts with the smallest things like the way you hand your business card to the way you answer your phone and how you would thank someone… PAY ATTENTION.. it’s Super Important!
  2. Imitate what is working: didn’t you find yourself one day sounding “interesting” before other people, just by memorizing and repeating some smart phrases you’ve read or heard earlier that day? so YES, you will be sophisticated and highly intellectual one day, and today you can start by borrowing from your idols.
  3. Be true to yourself: almost everyone is attracted to SELF-Confidence, and what is shown on the outside is always a reflection of how comfortable you are with your self…

“To be a great champion, you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.” ~Muhammad Ali

When you take care of your self, you dress up, you’re looking at your best, and talking like you’re worth 1 million dollars… Everyone will think you do… Including you.

Have a great week!
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade

You can spend your whole life building Something from nothing, One storm can come and blow it all away… Build it anyway

You can love someone with all your heart For all the right reasons And in a moment they can choose to walk away… Love them anyway

~Martina Mcbride, Dream it Anyway

Sometimes you do everything right, all the pieces are where they should be, but something happen and you don’t reach your destination… Something out of your reach, out of your control… and you get disappointed.

Sometimes the Whole Football team  plays exceptionally well, and everyone just played his role exactly as he should… But one of them Misses… and They Lose the game.

Life is full of these moments, just like there are moments of Joy and surprises, there are those moments of disappointment.

One of the first things I learned from living alone, was that problems won’t solve themselves when you shout and yell at them, and most importantly, there’s no one to hear you… So there’s no point in taking it negatively, you just accept the fact that something is wrong, and you will find a way to fix it.

In our tip for this week, we will look at embracing what is natural in life, and dealing with it the way we should:

  • Issues & problems will continue to happen: it’s a healthy indicator that everything is going normally… Look at it from this perspective, just like when a teacher keeps getting questions from his or her students saying that they didn’t understand the lesson… At least they are paying attention or let’s say they are Trying 🙂
  • The more you face Disappointments, the more you grow stronger: it’s a fact that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and our tolerance to problems and stress grows more and more with every issue we OVERCOME.
  • Sometimes a Disappointment is an opportunity in disguise: so many found wealth and prosperity in times where the market was down or the hope was gone and everyone thought otherwise.

So no matter how many times you thought  you have “failed” or got “disappointed”, never Fail or Disappoint yourself and Keep Trying… Because the Sun will always Shine..

Have a great Week!
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project