Self Interest in Business and Life

Have you noticed that everyone does things for their own self-interest?

Think about this for a few minutes.

Even when we do a kind and generous act –
maybe we do it to feel good about ourselves,
or to get love or acknowledgement,
or to avoid a bad feeling,
or with the expectation that the favor will be returned,
or to look good in the eyes of others,
or to get a tax break
… the list is endless.

I am hopefully bringing awareness into your life,
because this becomes a problem in all kinds of relationships

Let’s take a business relationship, for example.
If you meet someone and instantly think
“What a dream – we are meant to work together!”

Realize that after the “honeymoon” phase is over,
there will be a lot of hard work and financial demands.

You and your “partner” may both have completely
different memories of the initial verbal agreement,
including who has rights to a new product and profits.

Here are some tips:

1) Take a step back and make sure you have a written agreement
in place with your business partner / fiancé / tenant / etc,
before investing your time, money, and ideas.

2) Have realistic expectations of yourself, and whomever you are interacting with.

3) Don’t expect things to always go the way that you want them to.

4) Don’t convince yourself that something is OK when you feel it is not.

5) If you feel you’ve been wronged, take a day or two to reflect on the issue before retaliating harshly
– you may decide to forgive the person,
and forget past difficulties or mistakes or even errors in your own judgments.

6) Have clear direction of who is running the show.
Is it you and are you flexible enough to adapt or grow?
Can you roll with the punches or jabs that might come your way?

7) Have you delegated critical work to that other person,
so that if they left you would not be as effective
as you had been when you were working together?
I know that I am guilty of doing this
and every time that situation arises I am lost as how to now proceed!

8) And if all these steps don’t work or no longer work
then its time to realize that the relationship has burned itself out
and you may have to seek legal council to extricate yourself from this quagmire that you find yourself in.

Think about this in your own life and whether you agree or disagree, I would love to hear from you!