Perhaps your desire to please the other person or make him think you agreed with him became more important than honoring your own viewpoint about the subject.

That's the point where you end up violating your integrity — you are no longer "one" with yourself, no longer whole, but split between your own viewpoint and that of someone else. (After all, the root of integrity means "whole".)

Then you have created an internal tug of war.

It takes a certain amount of courage and confidence in yourself to see something and really observe it and tell someone else what you observe.

Why? Because maybe he doesn't observe the same thing and maybe he will shake your belief in yourself if he's trying to get you to do something against your will.

But your first responsibility is to yourself and what you truly observe and believe.

Don't violate that — it's more important than you may have thought. And if you have violated your integrity at times in the past — ok — just recognize that and go back in your mind and realign yourself with YOU again. It's quite refreshing and reinvigorating!

Keep yourself whole! It makes life a lot easier and is part of your road to success!

By the way, don't confuse this with learning and accepting new information from someone and then willingly changing your viewpoint. Yes, you most definitely can change your mind about things when presented with new information. That's all part of living and getting smarter and saner.

You'll know the difference between the two when it occurs — violating your integrity makes you feel bad. Learning something new and changing your viewpoint makes you feel great. Pretty simple, actually.

I keep coming back to the simplest things — all based on good communication.

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of listening and acknowledging people. I still consider that one of the most important things you can do to build good relations with friends, family, business associates — anyone, for that matter.

Another part of the communication equation is delivering your own communications with certainty — you know, the way Michael Jackson delivered his music. There was no question in his mind that he wanted to reach his audience and create a certain effect on them. And he did it perfectly — over and over again.

So what did he have to do to achieve that incredible effect? It, no doubt, started with the DECISION to create an effect.

If you don't first have the INTENTION and MAKE A DECISION to do something, you can't do it. You might dribble out some words that sort of fall flat 2 inches in front of your face, but if you really have the intention to project your thought to thousands or millions around you, you have to DECIDE to do that and practice until you get good at it.

But it starts with the intention and the decision to communicate. That is paramount. Without those, no real communication takes place.

Check back for more ways to jump-start your communication skills!

www.meetdebbielewis.com

Now the world is mourning the death of Michael Jackson and acknowledging his accomplishments, his creativity and his incredible productivity.

But wouldn't he have liked to get all that acknowledgment while still alive?

What about your loved ones? Do you listen to them? Do you acknowledge their many positive qualities?

Have you ever said something to someone, only to be ignored? It feels awful, doesn't it? When it happens to me I wonder, "Maybe they didn't hear me." "Should I repeat myself?" Or worse: "Maybe what I said was of no interest, it wasn't important, who cares anyway. I'm not important."

Wow — it can be a real dwindling spiral of internal thoughts that are sparked off by the failure to listen and acknowledge.

See what you can do to bring someone to life just by listening and acknowledging them. But you really do have to listen and understand what they said and then, and only then, acknowledge them.

It doesn't matter if you agree with them or not. So long as you understood what they said, you can respond as simply as, "Wow, I get what you're saying," or "Hey, that was well put" or "Thanks for letting me know how you feel. I really do understand."

You really DO have to mean what you say. Otherwise, you will be perceived as a phony and that is the opposite of the effect you want to create.

So make a resolution today to acknowledge those you come in contact with — even the grocery store clerk as they check you out and give you your change. Acknowledge them for doing their job well.

You can really make a difference in people's lives by doing this.

Don't wait till people die (like Michael Jackson) before you acknowledge them. Do it now and maybe they'll live a little longer because of you!

But the first thing is to decide what your money goals are — what are you trying to achieve?

Money is simply a vehicle (the energy) to achieve something else in your life. Just to HAVE money is not a very useful goal. You can have money and still be miserable.

So what is it you REALLY want to accomplish in your life that money will help you achieve? It's really important to figure that out.

Unfortunately, most people go through their lives never even figuring out what they want to accomplish — and end up never accomplishing anything.

Hopefully, if you're reading this, it's because you are not one of those people. I hope you're here because you do
want to accomplish something and simply need some help getting there.

So, first step: figure out what you really want to accomplish. List out all the things that come to your mind. Go through the list and cross off those that are not really all that important to you and narrow down to the one(s) that mean the most to you. These are real "deal breakers" — the one(s) you are willing to sweat for because you know that your life will have meaning if you devote yourself to these things. These may include things that you gave up on long ago because someone discouraged you. Maybe someone even told you, "Oh, you'll never be able to do that." And you gave up.

Well, it's time to dust those off because you can do it. It starts with identifying what that goal is and then deciding you can do something about it.

When you've done that, send me an email and tell me what you discovered. I really look forward to hearing from you. debbielewis@vzavenue.net