Why I care what people think

Entrepreneurs have many adages and dogmas they live by, and I love the vast majority of the thought processes I am exposed to, although to stay balanced, I subscribe to Eastern thinking; to believe your own truth and to question everything, rather than just accept everything to be true.

One such adage I hear all the time is:

‘When you stop caring what people think, then success is yours’

I have a challenge with this belief, as I think it is very ambiguous, I personally convert what other people think of me as my own self-respect.

Cue 45 years ago; Dad calling me upstairs to inspect with him our family bathroom which I recently just vacated.

“Is this how you leave a bathroom son? Imagine you walked in and saw this mess, what would you think of the people who were here before you?

Great learning, thanks Dad, and it still sticks in my head today 45 years later, and I always glance back just to see the room is respectable for the next person, so how does not caring what others think lead to success?

I think this particular school of thought has deep Multi -Level Marketing roots, where the success of your business will be met strongly with derision and misunderstandings from the outset, and to make it in MLM you will have to develop very thick skin and ignore much of the advice you receive from traditionalists.

If you think about it where would Amway, Nu Skin and Avon be and their billions of USD they make their companies if it wasn’t for the levels of success you receive and the badges and pins you get and the ‘superstar feeling’ that is part and parcel throughout these organisations, they are people businesses and you got to have good people skills and enjoy being put on a pedestal.

Where also I have an issue is; with the hierarchy of needs, as in; what are the chief motivators of people? Money was always quite low in the list and things that made people get out of bed; like acceptance and credibility which have always been high on the list; so if people are driven by the feelings of others, how can we say that you should not care about what our peers think?

Certainly we must choose our own routes in life and walk our own road. I very much subscribe to the realisation that we can never truly understand another person’s road because of the differing factors in their life that got them to where they are and what drives them.

Biz-find Blogs path in life

Sales Managers try best they can to understand their Sales people so as to find the right motivational buttons to press, but nobody is a mind reader, and it is such that makes this world such an enigma and such a wonderful place.

I think motivation very much depends on the person, if you know you are a people person and you are driven by the need to help and be accepted in your community then you should recognise and encourage this to use it as a springboard to motivate yourself.

If you know you are more an introvert then other things will drive you and not so much people and their view about you, then find what your motivational trigger is and use it to get what you want in life.

Why do soccer stars around the world who receive money and accolades aplenty, yet relish the awards that are from fellow players, if they don’t care what people think?

Whenever I see this ‘ Don’t care’ dogma I always think about a colleague of mine who was rushing to get to a job interview in his car, and was in the regular rush hour queue to get of the M56 to the M6 which has always been a tailback at morning times, but many try to push in closer to the junction, this happened to my friend and he pulled up tight to the car in front, so as not to let anyone in and gave a flipped finger rudely at the driver who was not so much pushing in, but seemed quite apologetic and a bit lost, either way he was not getting in that day, only to find that particular driver was the Interviewer when he finally got to the office! Needless to say that was a short lived job!

I think we have to really word this guideline better and to differentiate between not giving a ‘flying monkeys’ about what anyone thinks about you, and the motivation factors of credibility, respect, and that great feeling of being applauded and recognised on stage by your peers!

Have I got this wrong, or are their people out there who just don’t care what anyone thinks and has been a massive success? Be nice now!

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