This to me is probably one of the most accurate definition of success. In 1904, Bessie Anderson Stanley wrote the following definition of success in Brown Book magazine:
He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children, who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it, who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had, whose life was an inspiration, whose memory a benediction.
I joined Toastmasters a little over a month ago and yesterday I gave my first speech; the so called ‘ice-breaker speech’. I think I did well. For anyone who does not know what Toastmaster is, it is basically a public speaking club. I am a member of the North York Toastmaster’s club in Toronto. It’s a very diverse group since there are first timers to very experienced public speakers. Everyone’s very friendly and very encouraging. There are a lot of talented speakers there too, which is amazing because it will give me the added motivation to keep improving myself. I absolutely get totally engrossed in listening to some of the speeches.
I went full out and gave it all that I had in my own first speech. I actually went way over the time limit,…hehe, but yes since it was my first speech it was quite flexible. I will have to work on that in my following speeches.
Overall it was an amazing experience. Can’t wait for my next speech. 
Spring is here and this season brings new hopes, new opportunities and hopefully brighter results. I am keeping myself busy with projects. Keep those ideas pouring in and hopefully we can collaborate and build something exciting.
Many requests for blog sites and shopping carts have come to me and as always I’m happy to be of service. For those who do not know yet, I am also providing strategic couching in areas of social media marketing, online business strategy, career planning, kick-ass study plans for college and high school kids and help for folks to get out of the analysis paralysis and into putting passion into action.
Just recently I had a client hand me a $100 cheque for my advice which hardly took 20 minutes.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If there is a solution out there then I can do it, if there is no solution out there yet, let’s go get down to it and make one. I don’t believe any business that I do can be done alone. Like I said in my previous articles customers are collaborates of success, so every success solution comes with your efforts and mine.
So why pay me to do anything? Well, when everyone does, I watch, and when everyone stops I do! I love uncommon sense and I love the challenge!
So contact me and lets get down to business!
Who are Customers? Have you heard of the saying, ‘Customers are always right”? Why does this saying have a huge importance in business? Well, customers are the people who pay for the products or services that you produce or provide. It is their money that ultimately fuels the growth of any business.
Customers and businesses are really two sides of the same coin. I even dare to take it one step further. Customers really are partners in business and collaborators of success.
Leaving out customers in important decisions of business is like tossing one wheel out of your 4×4 while going up the hill. The law of nature is that what does not grow gets eliminated. Businesses must grow and customers are becoming more and more important.
I am not a master businessman(not yet) and I have no degree in business. The closest I come is having 2 courses in economics and 1 in administrative studies and I am self employed. But what I am is an observer and I am observing that businesses are moving away from shareholder’s game to a stakeholders game. Although this shift has been happening for quite a long time now, there are few businesses that have taken this game to heart and these are the ones that truly seem to be pulling away from and ahead of the rest.
Ultimately everyone is playing their part. The workers are playing their part, the businessmen are playing theirs and customers are playing their part. The world is becoming smaller and smaller by the minute. A product or service is no longer made or provided by one party or even one part of the world. Collaboration is in a big part the soul of progress in our world today. What’s really making it happen is technology – the Internet to be very specific and to be even more specific – Web 2.0!
If the parties involved in providing products and services are working together, then why not take things a little further. Why not let the customers or the end users play a big role in  it as well. Because ultimately this work, whether it be some product or a service, is for the customers. Make customers your partners in business and collaborators of your success!