Most, if not all, of us have at some point or another known the feeling of rationally knowing something, but then at some point having it really hit home. Get it. Understand it fully and take it to heart. This happened to me in the past few days. Despite constantly reminding my clients and you, my dear reader, to be brave, to be different, to stand out from the crowd, encourage you to matter and mean something to someone, I realised that I myself have been hiding. I have been hiding a part of me as it if were the most terrible secret…

We get so preoccupied with giving the customer what they want that we forget to show our inner selves. We stop being people and start being just a business. A business without a face, formal and professional. We are told that we must meet our customer’s needs, the customer is always right, and that we need to listen to the customer and give them what they want. Which is all true … but as soon as this means sacrificing being ourselves, being the people and the business we really are, and start trying to be something else, we are paying too dearly for their custom. And professionalism does not mean we should not be human. [Read more…]