- Finger-painting is great for your partnerships and business! Well, okay, maybe not finger-painting per se… but things of a playful nature! Do more fun things, more often! Seriously, we take the idea of our business and partnering WAY too seriously, and the paradox is that when you are taking things so seriously, you can’t be a vibrational match to more fun, more ease, more money, or fantastic partnerings! Your life really is a game – don’t take it so seriously. Remember when you were in Kindy and you were playing dolls or cowboys? The end result of the game wasn’t important – it was the playing that was fun. And in the end, it’s how you play the game that counts. Have fun in your business partnerships – share jokes, help each other laugh and enjoy every day! Be silly! Silly is good! It’s okay to be silly. I know many professional people who have silly down to a fine art! It really is okay to have fun in life – even in the serious business of running a business!
- Live more in your head! Remember as a child when you just slipped off into a daydream of real and imagined wonderful things? Do more of that! In order to attract more of what you want, you need to activate inside you the feelings you would have if you had those things now… so how do you do that? Daydream!! You exercised your imagination in kindergarten, little realizing back then that this was a “muscle” you’d really need in your professional life many years later, and then perhaps, some well-meaning “adult” told you to stop “dreaming” – and I bet that’s when life became a harder game to play and everything became a struggle! Let your vision become real, and do it for the sake of the fun of feeling it – that is the power in it! Share your imaginings with your partner – just as you did with your friends back in Kindy – the power of two people imagining the same vision should never be underestimated!
- Ignore reality! The only way you got to where you are now is by holding your current beliefs so strongly that it created your current reality. So how do you change current reality? You have to activate something else. Think of how you feel when you think about the word money – what do you feel? What are your thoughts? Whatever it is, the first thing that comes up is your dominant thought pattern. It can be hard when you have practiced this pattern over and over… just thinking about the topic can’t help but bring up this pattern. To change the pattern, you need to activate something else, something that feels great and gets you off the topic! Yes… slip off into a place for a few seconds that feels great, just for a few seconds… how will that help you in your partnerships? When you are feeling great more often you will attract more people, things, and situations that feel great… sounds crazy, but it works. You had no trouble ignoring reality back in kindergarten… you can do it now!
- Share. The more you share of yourself and your gifts and come from a place of serving, the more that will come back for you. Whatever you give out comes back to you multiplied. It’s like when you were a kid – the more invites you gave out to your parties, the more presents you received and the more invitations you received in return. By sharing, you will find other people and the universe will willingly share “theirs” with you too.
- You can’t hold onto something tightly… we never really “own” anything… we may pay for something, but we can’t take it with us. It’s all borrowed. Apart from which, when you cling to something, you create blockages – you have to release the old to let in the new… close one door before the next one can open… and you have to keep circulating everything if you want better things to come around for you. In Kindy, if you held tightly to something, your hands were full so you couldn’t play with anything new or anyone else… you were stuck with that same old whatever that you were clinging to with both hands – life is like that – be prepared to let go so your hands are free for better toys and opportunities!
- If You Act Cute You Can Get Away with Things. This one’s pretty self-explanatory. And here’s another one… You catch more flies with honey! Tantrums and stubbornness didn’t work in Kindy… and they still don’t work! People find it more difficult to get cross with you if you are being “sweet” and sincere – it doesn’t mean they won’t still get cross with you, but they’ll probably forgive you sooner!
- Play Nice. While it’s important to practice self-care, cooperation only happens when you pay attention to what the other person’s needs are too. If you grab or have a fit, things probably aren’t going to end up going your way. It’s important to treat others with respect and courtesy. You may not ALWAYS get it back, but most of the time you will, and when you don’t, try not to take it personally… we’re all on different rungs of the evolution ladder… sometimes, we have to make allowances for those who haven’t caught up, in the same way, we hope, that those on a higher rung than ourselves will forgive us for our slip-ups!
- Want to Play? While it’s important to have time for yourself, you can have more fun when you have someone to play with. Collaboration brings excitement and laughter and creativity and joy! Being in partnership allows the sum to be greater than the parts. Allowing yourself to play fully brings immeasurable rewards and satisfaction. Remember the fun you had playing with your friends in Kindy? Much more satisfying than playing by yourself, right? This doesn’t change as we get older… just our games change.
- Be a Friend. You Are My Friend. I think you’re special. I hold you in a certain way and accept who you are. Even when I get angry or frustrated with you I get over it. I trust you and sometimes I overlook things because you are special to me. At the same time, sometimes I overlook things and don’t hold you accountable because I’m afraid you won’t like me anymore. I recognize I’m not really being a good friend when I do this. Mind you, just as in Kindy, there are ways of being honest and holding your friends accountable… be gentle with your friend’s feelings. If you have to say something that borders on harsh, find the kindest words to use before you say it! And don’t backstab your friends – if you couldn’t say it to their face, make sure you don’t say it when they’re not looking. Remember how that hurt, back in Kindy? It still hurts now!
10. Two Heads are Better than One. Remember how, in Kindy, you paired off with a buddy to tackle something special – you were able to solve problems, do jigsaws, build fortresses etc. with his/her help and the sharing was part of the fun? It’s hard to celebrate by yourself… not much fun! Partnerships work the same way – having someone to bounce ideas off, solve problems with, and celebrate successes with makes business so much more enjoyable.
11. Be Open. If you can’t recall your own Kindergarten days, just look at small children now. How open they are with each other. If you ask for an honest opinion (and even if you don’t ask!), you will get it. It isn’t intended to hurt or insult you – these little people just tell it like it is, in a manner that is impossible to be offended by. You need to be this open and honest with your business partner – without offending them. Just tell it like it is – it is your opinion being thrown into the hat, nothing more, nothing less. Now, who can be offended by that?!
12. Kindergartens are a place of learning – learning in a safe, non-abusive, non-offensive environment. Let your business partnership grow like this – allow your partner (and yourself) to grow and learn in a safe environment. Realize you don’t know it all yet and be patient with mistakes – ask your partner to extend the same courtesy to you. Agree that you will help each other “grow”. Allow for experimentation – honor your partner’s ideas and schemes, as you would want them to honor yours.
13. Kindergarten taught you to “grow” and stretch. Think of your business partnership in the same way. Expect to change direction, try new things, expand, experiment and be open to all of this. Of course, this doesn’t mean throwing common sense to the winds… but don’t throw away good ideas just because you didn’t think of them yourself, or because you don’t know enough about it. Successful businesses and successful partnerships continually evolve.
14. Security. There is a sense of security when you are with another person or persons. Going it alone is tough and it’s lonely and it makes everything you do much more difficult than it need be. There is security in numbers. A sense of belonging. For the support factor alone it is worth considering partnerships! The lonely little kid standing in the corner at Kindy – was he having fun? Achieving anything worthwhile? No, probably not. That’s sad. But the friends on the other side, doing things together, sharing a laugh, sharing a problem, sharing everything were not only having fun, but achieving worthwhile things too. You “feel” more secure when you have people on your team – it’s as simple as that, and feelings are everything!
15. See through the eyes of a child… Be interested and excited and curious in your business partnership possibilities. Learn about everyone and everything. Show interest. Ask questions. Try to understand. View your business opportunities and partnership the same way you viewed everything new when you were in kindergarten – you didn’t knock new ideas or concepts back then… your “vision” of the world was not colored by the opinions of well-meaning parents or old-fashioned business gurus and teachers whose advice doesn’t fit “today”… you had a thirst to learn more, to understand, and to put it to good use. The world was your oyster back then… it still can be… if you are open to it. This doesn’t mean being naïve or ignoring experienced “gut feelings” – it means being open to the wonderment of new opportunities and ideas, and open to the concept that you and your business partner(s) can soar to great heights together on shared wings of enthusiasm and the spirit of adventure.