Everyone cares about ME is a guest post by Jared Latigo. He’s a super passionate guy who is helping others live their passion through personal brand consulting and creating effective, targeted messaging. Check out his blog and grab his free eBooks. He also tweets, if you’re into that.
We’re born with it! And we never grow out of it.
Whether you’re 9 or 90 – everyone cares about ME! Right?
It’s easy to focus on self. Though some may deny placing themselves first, it’s very difficult for anyone to avoid the ME complex.
Grow on Purpose
Personal development is incredibly important. If we aren’t growing personally, we will never be able to be the leader or follower the world needs.
The great thing about this is that there is an incredible amount of information available today to help us to grow exponentially. Much of it is free or available at little cost.
It’s important that we take time to grow internally and think about the things we value most in our lives – work, family, spiritual. For more on this, check out Michael’s post, 4 Critical Gauges for Your Life and Work.
When we grow intentionally, we are able to serve and lead more effectively.
Help Others Grow
Then, help OTHERS grow. Help others gain traction and momentum. In fact, we should surround ourselves with people who are intentionally growing.
I have been around far too many people who are a total time and energy drain because they have little or no interest in growth.
You can feel them when you first meet them – and your conversations go nowhere. It’s draining to drag someone up the hill of personal development.
It seems counterintuitive – yet when we focus on the growth of others, we grow. And when we grow, we are able to lead with greater clarity, focus, and energy.
So what about this ME complex?
Make Everything About YOU
Turn the ME complex into a YOU complex! Make everything about others.
When you write, make it about helping others. When you sell, make it about benefiting others and when you buy, make others feel good about what they sold.
For example – one might say:
I recently started a podcast and I’d really like to have you on the show. I know you’ll share great information with the listeners. Do you think you could help me out?
Or they could say:
You’ve been doing some awesome writing lately and I’ve been intrigued by the ideas you’re churning out. I’d like you to be a guest on a podcast and share some of your wisdom with the listeners. We could even plug your product. What do you think?
See the difference?
Replacing I’s with YOU’s makes a huge difference!
I think you get the point – focus on others! When you do, they read it as, It’s all about “ME.”
Try this
The ME complex isn’t complicated to overcome. Just remember that most people are wondering, How does this benefit me?
Spend some time looking back through emails you’ve sent to people. Ask yourself, Are my emails ME focused?
Try a little exercise over the next few emails – make them about others. My guess, you’ll get better responses.
Question: What do you think? What did you notice about your recent calls and emails? Are they focused on you or others? Let us know in the comments!
You did a great job with the changing I’s to You’s example! 🙂
Yep – Jared did a great job! Thanks Jeremy!
Thanks Jeremy! Glad you liked it.
True that! Customer service has taken a hit lately so it makes it pretty easy to stand out 😀
I agree David!
I have found the more I focus on helping other people, the more good things come my way. No matter how you look at it, it is hard to fail when you are focused on other people.
Yep – it’s hard to fail when you are focused on other people.
Like Zig’s quote “Help enough other people get what they want, eventually, you’ll get what you want.” My fave from him!
He had a TON of ’em…we lost a legend last year when he passed. Glad his work can live on.
Me, me, me, me. I hate thinking about me all the time. Usually, I’m too busy thinking about “my” problems. Instead, I should be focusing on others people’s needs.
As an example, I did a hospital visit yesterday afternoon. The woman died while I was there. Her young children were grieving, crying, and desperate for answers. Moments like that tend to put things in perspective.
Life is so much more meaningful when others’ needs are placed above our own!
I’ve found that visiting retirement homes and hospitals put a lot of things into proper perspective. Thanks for the reminder, Charles.
Wow that sure does put things in perspective! Crazy. Thanks for sharing…I often get caught up in the ME thing too. I guess we all do though.
Congrats on landing a guest post on Michael’s site Jared. It’s great to see you over here!
Interesting way to test the me-focus. I’ll have to go through older emails and see how it pans out.
Thanks Joe! yeah, please do!
Great post Jared, what comes out in our language tells our intensions. If we are me focused or you focused. Michael, having a look around your blog some of the other posts look interesting.
Thanks Jeremy. Glad you liked it.
That’s very true about our language. I feel we can start to change our perspective on things over time if we watch the words we use. Almost like tricking ourselves to grow more “others focused”. Make sense?
yeah, I agree with you. We can change our habits/actions to change our language, and we can also change our language to affect other habits. I talk about this idea with many of my coaching clients and you were right on with this post!
I agree, Jeremy – our intentions are apparent to others. Let me know how I can serve you.
Thanks man