What is it that you are known for?

How do you see yourself in your business and in your life?

Does your reputation really reflect who you think or know you are deep inside?

I am asking these things because Dave Schoof of www.thedisquiet.com “tagged” me to list my ten main lifelong goals, post them and tag some other people to list their goals. So this has gotten me thinking along the lines of when I am a memory on this earth, what would I like to be known for?

My deepest goals all revolve around how I want to live in generosity, gratitude and kindness to others. You know the old sayings about how when you die would you want to be known for being a warm, generous, thoughtful human being or a financially successful SOB. Or would you want to be known for having worked yourself to death, etc., etc…..

I hope to have left as much light in the world as I can while living in spontaneity and wonder with this amazing thing we call our life. I hope to have touched some lives to live and work in greater harmony, recognizing the fulfillment and natural abundance of treating one another as best we can. Of course there will be conflict, and I certainly have not always been a model representative of my own message, but maybe that is why I am so conscious of it, too.

And that got me thinking about business reputation in light of the core of who we are. Are you living your core values in your business? If you aren’t, I am sure you are feeling the “disquiet” that Dave Schoof works with so perceptively.

After a couple of years of tentatively accepting what others said about customers just waiting to take advantage at any turn if they could, and knowing that this did not feel good at all, I took the chance to do my business more and more from the place of guidance in my gut. My gut said just be honest, speak directly to the issues at hand, make customers and associates laugh, be kindhearted and thoughtful, and so on. And be more and more skilled at what I did.

Well, sigh, thank God, this was my truth, and it yielded some wonderful results. As I was being more who I really was, people responded to that. Barriers dropped. Mutual appreciation soared. The heck with the conventional business wisdom of protecting yourself first and foremost, and you need an “angle”.

I watch people I value a lot, such as Dave I have mentioned here, Dawud Miracle of www.dmiracle.com Mark Silver of www.heartofbusiness.com Adam Kayce of www.workingmonk.com and some others as their lives are exploding in connection and goodness as they take the leap to live more and more from their deepest gut. I also want to give a nod to Karin at www.thekissbusiness.co.uk/ Karin has taken the service level of her business deep inside, and her flooring business spreads a lot of goodness in the world while it helps cover horizontal surfaces.

Doing business in a spirit of great generosity and integrity while spreading more light in this life; wow, it is good stuff. And it snowballs.

The possibilities are literally endless.