Get Uncomfortable, Laugh And Make Money

“You don’t close a sale, you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term successful business.” – Patricia Fripp

Sometimes we can get far too serious about making money and can lose sight of the process. Although we need to take care of incidentals such as having a place to live, clothes to wear and food to eat, we shouldn’t (it’s not healthy) get our britches all in a knot about making money. We might get stressed about getting a job, worry about keeping it or we might stress about building our business, We can get all caught up in the sticky details and pressure of making money that we lose sight of the goal, which, hopefully, is not just to make money.

Money is a renewable resource; it can be gained, lost and gained again. Many people have a “scarcity mentality” about money and become overprotective of what they have.  Some people may fear that if they give money away generously, they will somehow be losing money. They forget, or maybe do not realize that money is a resource to be shared and invested in others and, where there is investment, there is always a return on investment.

With all of this preamble done, let’s talk about: Getting Uncomfortable, Laughing and Making Money.

Making money is first and foremost based on the exchange of service between two people, so relationships are extremely important in making money. People are important. No money can be made if the trust between two people is not established and trust is built on relationships.

Make a Friend, Build Trust

“There are no strangers here, only friends we haven’t met yet” – William Butler Yeats

We don’t know a person (or our customers) until we meet them and they meet us. Everyone is a stranger until we say hello. All relationships, business and personal, begin with saying hello. This is the start. If we want to make money, we need to first say hello – that is to say, people need to know who we are and what our name is and we need to know them. This is the beginning of trust. We can not expect to make money until we have built a foundation of trust, which means we need to first invest in building the relationship.

Build Relationships

Here we go from making a friend to being a friend, that is to say, someone who can be trusted and who has your best interests in mind. Making money is really all about serving others and thinking about their interests first. In order for people (new friends, employers, customers, business contacts, etc.) we need to show them through example that we care more about them and their interests than we do about making money. So we need to first be a friend, find ways that we can add value to them. We need to know about them, what they are interested in, what their goals are.

Not only do we need to build these relationships; we also need to maintain, or should I say, nurture them. Business relationships, as well as personal relationships, need to grow and thrive over the long term. If we want to make money, we should first invest in growing relationships.

Get Uncomfortable

Money cannot be made unless we are first willing to get uncomfortable. Most jobs can not be had unless we are willing to be authentic and step out of our comfort zone. Businesses can not be established unless we are first willing to move out of our familiar and altogether too comfortable way of being and doing.

Usually, when we afraid of being uncomfortable, it is because we are afraid of how people will perceive us. We fear rejection or ridicule. But people are just people like us with their own fears and insecurities, no matter what position or title they hold. One way to get over this fear is to realize, that ultimately we are all connected to someone we know who knows someone we know. In fact, we may not even be strangers at all

Worrying about what others think is really none of our business. Our business is to do our business and not to care what people think. And, whatever we think that others think about us is probably wrong anyway. So just do your business at hand, laugh and make money.

Have Fun

Seriously, have fun and make money. Don’t take yourself too seriously. One way to have fun and not take yourself too seriously is with humor (properly dosed). This does not mean that you do not take your business or your job seriously,  Business is serious business and we should always provide excellent service. But we can have fun doing so. We can be professional and appropriate and have fun as well.

Here are 2 quotes from the book Giving Candy to Strangers, by Stan Holden;

“People need fun and levity in their lives. With all the current stresses of the world that we deal with today, there is a deficit of humor in many people’s lives.”

“If you make just one person happy or get one laugh on any given day, you have done your job.”

Use Humour

While we are on the subject of having fun and making money, let’s look at the role of humor. Humor is a great connector and can open many doors of opportunity. Humor disarms people so that they let their guard down and become their real selves. Humor puts people at ease even in otherwise stressful situations. It can cut through the heavy atmosphere of conflict and reconnect people. Humor can also help others to open their minds to new ways of seeing things, and new ways of doing business. Finally, humor opens the door to creativity, connection, and great teamwork. So have fun, laugh and make money!

Leverage Your Relationships

As mentioned earlier, we are all connected to someone who knows someone who knows someone. We can leverage this reality by making connections with the people we already know and people they might not know yet. We never know who knows whom and who is connected to whom. And, when we are busy connecting people, we are helping them build their network. It’s a win-win for everyone. It has been said that everyone is just 6 connections away:

“Most of us are familiar with the concept of six degrees of separation – the idea is that anyone in the planet can be connected to anyone else in just six steps. So through just five other people, you’re effectively connected to the Queen of England, Tom Cruise, or even a Mongolian sheep herder” – Science Alert

At any rate, we can all benefit fro getting to know more people, building new relationships and making new friends in business and in our personal lives. The more people we know, the more connected we are.

Make Money

Lastly, make money! It’s not a bad thing to want to make money, but it should not be our only goal. If we focus on people, building relationships and having fun, there is a greater chance will make money as a result. Money is the outcome of excellent services rendered between people who like each other and trust one another and who want to continue in their business relationship. Making money should be because we are helping others and are enjoying the process of doing so. Money flows where love and trust flow.

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Diana Lynne loves to travel, pursue self-improvement and debt-free life. She also loves hanging out with family, friends and her dog Skye. You can connect with her through livingandstuff.ca