Be In The “Pull” And Not In The “Push”

Sometimes you want to rush things: a meeting, a promotion, a trip etc. We believe that our will alone can overcome everything. However, in spite of a steely mentality, it happens that things get stuck, that they don’t go as we wanted. We end up feeling guilty and doubting our value. What can we do about it? How can we think about these apparent blockages or failures?

The will is in a way an external projection of our desire. It simply happens that we have not done the inner work necessary to create a world that suits us. We are ambitious but we don’t want to pay the price of an inner transformation. This attitude leads us to want to find shortcuts, which can make us lose our integrity.

This phenomenon is becoming a bit generalised because of the omnipresence of extroverted personalities on the web, which makes us forget that a majority of the population would define themselves more as introverted.

The push, for example, is to go directly to meet people and try to give oneself more opportunities in all spheres of life. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have glibness because it can give the illusion of looking better than what you really are. However, the only way forward in the long run is to work on improving yourself so that opportunities come of their own accord and your reputation does the rest. Do you think of Tesla cars or iPhones as a product of excellence? Of course, each of these products has been advertised, however the main channel of communication is word of mouth or the free publicity that the media does (especially true for Tesla today) which treats these products as objects in their own right, worthy of being considered events in their own right.

The reputation enjoyed by these products and the brands that designed them are the result of careful work towards achieving a level of excellence. Each of these products offered 10 times more value on one or more criteria than their competitors when they came out (which is no longer true for the iphone today). This comparative advantage created a Wow effect whose echoes spread like wildfire.

Aspire to become a flagship product, finally a person of excellence. Your qualities as a human being are your virtue, your competence, your level of energy and everything that can bring value to the people who cross your path. The more you work on yourself, the more recognition you will get in the long run, don’t let yourself be tempted by short-term gains that could compromise your integrity.