How to become extraordinary person.

I am going to be sharing with you what it means to stand out of the crowd. You can stand tall amongst several. It is beyond your stature, what you wear, the brand of your costume and colors of your make ups. It is the size of your soul. It depends on the largeness of your heart. There is "how" to almost everything in life.If you want to be an extraordinary person in life, you've got to learn the how.You must know the principles to becoming a person of influence. An influence can be said to be an authourity,a tangible effect, some unusual power, an impact which some people have over others. It can be a reverence for someone, such respect that makes them more valued in the life of people than everybody else.Influence can be reduced to a question of how many lives we have meaningfully touched, affected, and impacted. Who can we say that your life have actually touched? Who made it through,by associating with you? who got it right by watching your lifestyle? How do people see you? How do they talk about you? What do they think of you? When your name is mentioned, what ring in people's hearts? How comfortable do people feel in your presence? These questions and more determine the extent of your influence. Although there are no insignificant people; basically, there are two types of people in life. There are influential people and un-influential people. People who make you feel great when you enter into their presence and people who make you feel inferior and intimidated when you enter their presence. People who make you leave their presence feeling filled and fulfilled and those who make you leave their presence feeling empty and worthless.

Now I must quickly say that influence can become so contagious. Depending on who you associate with, you can be a good influence or a bad influence.I have classified influence into sweet influence and sour influence. You can be energetic, charismatic and still not be a sweet influence on others. An example was Adolf Hitler. You can be oppressive of people, dragging everybody to suit your selfish plans and stampeding everyone to win. Your negative attitude will only be tolerated rather than celebrated. In order to be a sweet influence on people, you must be human, be natural, be sincere, selfless, giving up certain things for people, helping people, celebrating people. When considering influence, i like to think of Nelson Mandela. Although, he already handed over power in South Africa. He is still influential till date. Several Presidents have gone to him for counsel. They went to learn and tap from his wisdom. When it comes to knowing what makes someone sweet and the other sour. It depends on you as an individual. It also depends on the people you are serving, your area of influence and what you are doing there. If you are lording it over people, using people to climb, dragging them into suiting your programs and exploiting people. You can bet it that your influence will not last. It will soon fade. You will count for nothing in their record later on. They may pretend to be inspired by you, but they are actually scared of you and when you turn your back, they will mock you. Being a sweet influence require that you lead people rightly with integrity. You can be so good at mobilizing people and leading them yet you are untrustworthy. People want to be able to trust their leader. If you are a terrible follower, it will be difficult to be a sweet influence even among the crowd of followers. There are certain people whose lifestyle command great respect anywhere, yet they have no position or title. Their oppinion count always with people. That is influence. This thing is greater than any prefix of nomenclature. It is a matter of the heart, a question of impact, input and contributions made to other people’s lives.

It is important to make sure that people leave our presence feeling great. It is vital they leave us, feeling motivated, feeling elated, and ready to capture their world. This is determined by how we behave, how we listen, how we speak what we speak to them and with them. It is when your life begins to make a meaning to others; that is when you are actually living. People need to be comfortable around us. People who make you feel uncomfortable whenever you are around them are the ones with problems. They should be tactfully avoided. They suffer low self esteem. That is why they will try to put you down to feel good with themselves. Some cover it up with material things. They use their toys to tease you. They are covering up that vacuum in their hearts. There is a wound that has refused to heal in their empty hearts. It takes a person who is secured in himself/herself to see greatness in others and celebrate it. It takes such people with a good heart to extend praise and grace to others. It does not cost a thing to give compliments to others, a smile is a gift. These and more are what sweet and influential people do because they are full of life. When people extend a warm handshake it does not mean that they are welcoming. The heart determines the person beyond all his charms. Do they reflect authenticity in their gestures? How open-minded are they? How do they feel around you? What do they say about you? Does it appear as though they really want to hear from you? Does your struggles and success mean something to them? Does your story interests them? Do they just care about their own stories of endless conquests without listening to yours? Again it all depends on how secured they feel firstly in themselves...Insecure people hardly become truly influential.

Through business, whether profit oriented or non profit, you serve people. It is a matter of stooping to lift others up. You are either doing this or you are oppressing people. Basically how you do whatever you do will determine how much of influence you command. If you are concerned about having a positive impact and leaving a good legacy, it is important you serve. Hence, it is through service or by service! There is no other option. When you are concerned about people’s lives, you will easily influence them. When you are not greedy for gain, you will impact people. When you start thinking of how to give back, and what to give to others; you will gradually become influential in their world. Some people just want to be influential. They think being influential is an end in itself. A successful person knows that it is in being able to serve other people, that s/he earns the people's trust. And it is important we earn people's trust. It is in earning that trust from people that they are able to take us serious. It is in that we become their role models. It is in their acceptance of us that our success is partly measured. It is in earning their trust that they choose us as their leader . If you don’t want to serve people; there is a very little chance of being successful or being influential at all.

Michael Jackson was so influential during his life time. He influenced both young and old through his Pop music such that when he died, the entire world knew and felt it. What was so remarkable about this legend? He has been influential from childhood. He kept at what he knew how to do best. He was focused. His fame spread like wildfire. He was doubtlessly attacked. He was lied against but the truth remain that, he brought the whole world to a stand still in his death. Wait a second. Was he insecure in himself or not? That is not my focus right now. What I am driving at here, is that you can learn certain things from his life. You can learn his principles by using what you have to take the world. With your consistency, in being focused, you will influence the world. Did Michael Jackson serve people. I think so. through his songs. You will need to use whatever gift you have to serve people. You will need to work on your gift as well as on your attitude. I am still working on mine too. So you aren’t alone.

HOW TO GET THINGS DONE WITHOUT SPENDING CASH [Part 3]

I learnt some of these principles I am about to share from my mother. Like so many people, my background and upbringing have shaped me. There are certain things we just pick up in growing up. There are certain principles we didn’t even read from books but which we are now writing into books. My mum likes to get things done without spending too much of cash. If she has to spend at all, she would prefer to pay a fair amount. She got a lot of things done so cheap! When I read her life like a book; I discovered that she knows how to make friends easily. She can make friend with a stranger in a blink! In getting her things done; she persuades people. Sometimes, it can be embarrassing because she will just apply this principle on anyone at anywhere. She just doesn’t care what you think of her.

Enough on my mother! If I ask you to take an inventory of your life right now, if you were to make a list of all your previous transactions, all the deals you’ve ever involved in. Is there anything you can find that you have bought that you could have gotten for free? What got in your way? Could it be your ego, Pride, class, or status? What were the things you bought recently? How much did you spend on each? Who could you have spoken to, that may have given you one or two of those items for free? Who in your network is able to give you things you may need next time? How will you prepare yourself, how will you package your request? Do you know how to deliver a speech delivery in order to make your request granted? Do you know what to do so that the other party will not say no to you?

The problem sometimes is in how we package our words...it is in how we ask what we ask for. Yes, I still make a mistake in this area myself. For instance, I ask hurriedly, I ask when my target is too stressed. I asked when my giver has nothing to give in some situation. I don’t wait patiently enough for the person to process my request positively. Sometimes I even want it right now! I could have asked for things that I have not earned enough trust to receive. Every now and then; I get into bumps like these and I get a no because I asked amiss. Sometimes, when we ask different things consistently from the same person, the person may feel overburdened and overwhelmed by our series of requests. That is why our approach matters. I am still learning how well to ask without getting a no from people. It may mean that I will need to become better at my negotiation skills. It may mean that I will have to stop asking desperately. It may mean that I will find a common ground. It may mean that I will need to think win-win more than ever before. It may mean that I will have to learn how my request will benefit the other party before I even make that request at all. That way, it will be a super win-win deal for us both.

Summarily, there are three vital aspects of getting things done without spending cash:
#1. Negotiation
#2. Speech delivery,
#3. Relationship

Negotiation: Here, we are concerned with details of the cost. What is the price? What is the amount required to get that thing done? What is the bargaining power involved? What is the amount on you as a potential buyer with which you want to trade? What is the flat rate? What is the industry price? Your target here is never to provoke the other party because you want to get things done for free or cheap.

Speech delivery: Here we want to know how to say what we want to say. What are the ways to package our words in such a way that it will be appealing to the listener? How can we avoid asking like a beggar? Sometimes, depending on the situation at hand; I will literarily beg the other person if I know that I have not been able to earn trust up to that time. We are concerned with the time that we must ask and the moments we don’t have to ask especially if for any reason the other person is biased, angry, et.al. When do we stop begging and start asking like we are actually making a fair offer? When do we start asking like we are trying to help the other party? It is in being flexible, sensitive enough to know the right time, the right mood, the right person, the understanding of the temperament before asking. When in transaction or negotiation, it is important to know what it means to be a great word processor, what it means to be a better speech packager. The writer of the book written to the Colossians wrote: “Let your words be seasoned with salt and grace that you might know how to answer every man accordingly.”

Relationship: Here we concerned about who we are dealing with? How long have we known the fellow? What have you done personally for the person? Were they things that count as great deposit in terms of their emotional bank account? Sometimes we think we have earned enough trust in a relationship but we are only presumptuous and full of assumptions because the other party don’t see things the same way. We need to understand what kind of person we are dealing with? We need to know what makes the person tick. We must find out what puts them on and off? Understanding how to earn trust. It will make us have access to people and with people. And that access is very important. Once it is abused. There is no remedy. And that is the thing that determines if people will do things for you for free or not. I would rather beg if I knew that I don’t fall into a person’s good book, rather than become so forceful in my request. If you don’t want to continue receiving a negative response in getting things done for free; you need to pay more attention to your relationships and how you ask. Queen Esther knew how to ask and when to ask for the lives of the Jews from the king Ahasuerus; when Hamman, a certain officer wanted to destroy them.

The relationship you create, nurture and sustain will bring everything to you for free. The bond we have with someone will determine if we will be able to get things done through them for free. So you may want to ask: what is bond or bonding? How do we create that? A bond is when the chemistry becomes one in any relationship. When your personality, ideology, perception, paradigm, perspective, principles, beliefs and sometimes behaviour; seem aligned with another person’s. Then you are able to relate better. Then we can say that there is a bonding between you both.

I am still learning how to make friends and influence people every day. I learnt from Dale Carnegie's book some principles of creating relationship. However, I have learnt over the years how important it is, to keep and sustain these relationships I create. I also discovered that in trying to keep relationships, not all relationships are worth keeping. Some like bread grow moulds and they can't be kept. In so doing, I have learnt how to sustain friendship with only people that matter to my destiny and life callings. I have learnt in a hard way how to let go of difficult people from my network. The reason is because you cannot carry everybody in the course of your life. That will sap you of energy if you are trying to carry difficult people along at all cost. Some people are opinionated; there are prejudiced people. There are biased, parochial people. There are racist. There are difficult people. These are people you will never be able to form any bonding with. They wouldn’t understand you. No matter how much you try. They won’t give you the benefits of the doubt, so why try?