23 principles to become an incredibly effective and attractive professional.

Let's dive right in:

1. Don't worry about what people are thinking about you. They aren't. They are too busy wondering what people think of them.
2. Listen to understand. Not to reply. As a general rule, listen more than you speak. He who speaks, repeats what he already knows. He who listens, will grow and learn. Information is power.
3. Strive to be a positive influence on everyone you touch. With every interaction, we help the other person to either grow or shrink. There is no middle ground. Choose which effect you want to have.
4. Have a generally positive outlook on people. Praise, trust and believe. People want to do good. People want to help. All they need is for someone to believe in them. Watch them follow your lead. Watch them grow.
5. Analyse and rationalize. Observe as many facts as you can. Before any good decision or action must first come an analysis. Emotions are signals. Learn to interpret them before you let them run free.
6. Have a plan and execute systematically. Know the playing field and the stakeholders, define goals, decide on the assets to be used and the people you need. Then follow the plan.
7. Take responsibility. It might not be your fault, but it’s your problem to deal with.
8. Do not be too serious. Experiment. Play. There is a fine line between professionalism and (terminal) seriousness. This killer disease will cause you to lose people, diminish creativity and negatively impact results very quickly.
9. Keep reinventing. Everything you knew yesterday might not be true today.
10. Build relationships based on common growth, not transactions. Add value and invest long before you need something. When the day comes that you need someone, they will be there.
11. Move past your ego. Real strength lies in vulnerability. Do not mistake this for weakness. Don’t hide your shortcomings.
12. Biohack. Feed your machine. Sleep. Move. Take an ice bath and do breathwork. Learn about the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nerve system. Shut off, start again fresh tomorrow. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
13. Schedule time to do nothing. Have free space in your agenda. Our mind needs space to be creative, connect the dots and look for new solutions.
14. Know your demons. Do the work to discover your own (negative) patterns. Have a coach. Learn about family history and why you behave a certain way, systemically.
15. Be passionate. Form an opinion. Speak out. Have a moral compass. Know what you stand for.
16. Seek the perspective of others. It's very dangerous to believe you know best without consulting your surroundings.
17. Embrace change and adapt. Change is the one constant in our time. Never before have our surroundings changed as much and as quickly as now. Nothing goes exactly as planned.
18. Hire smart people so they can tell you what to do. Leading does not mean having all the answers (yourself).
19. When you want to be heard, start listening. Chances are, the others have the same need but haven’t mastered the art of being heard. So help them out. They will immediately want to listen to you as soon as they feel heard.
20. Have boundaries. Stand by them. Protect yourself and your environment.
21. Play the infinite game. Work is never ‘done’. The end goal is never achieved. There is always more to do. Be proud of reaching each goal. Focus on making a difference and progressing.
22. Keep going. Keep moving. Even if you don’t know where you are going. If you move, you will literally look at things from a different angle and things will become clear.
23. When you overthink, shift your attention to your body and the physical world. Feel the water on your skin, dance, stand in the rain, smell the forest, walk on the beach, hug your dog. Run, swim, sing, laugh. Nobody has ever stopped thinking by thinking about stopping their thoughts. The only thing that works is to shift the attention elsewhere.

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Thank you!

Kind regards, Mike Raaijmakers