Getting ahead in the world: Sī valēs, valēo

I was speaking with an entrepreneur, writer, and general wise-sage of programming last week and we were discussing some finer points of a software idea I had and, well, to be honest, a lot of what he said fell into that “areas for improvement” or “how to improve” the work category.

I say both of those phrases above in quotes not because it was really a hatchet job of my work, it was an opening of eyes to new ideas.

At the end of that he asked, “But what else can I do for you?”

And I’ve decided this is the key for success in business, and perhaps, life itself.

My next invited step was to elicit more wisdom ( or abuse ;) ) and the forum was still open. Nothing was closing, everything was a beginning point for further negotiation and understanding. I bet you could try it with your spouse / SO. I bet you could try it with your boss / client. I suspect that if you were to keep track of responses and enthusiasm pre- versus post- you would be mightily surprised.

• Productivity

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