by Sunil Bali, 02-09-18

Do you remember playing pass the parcel as a child? Holding onto the parcel and hoping that the music would stop whilst it’s in your hands.

Hoping that you would get the big present in the middle of the parcel?

With both personal and business relationships we need to un-wrap the outer layers to get to the prize at the middle.

The world of business is overflowing with "professionals" who try to be pristine and perfect, but they come across as having suffered a charisma by pass and have as much depth as a cardboard cut out.

It’s not about being professional, it’s about being authentic.

When it comes to building trust "If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine" works.

Wearing a mask on the other hand wears you out. Faking it is fatiguing. The most exhausting activity is pretending to be who you know you’re not.

Wnen you choose you, there’s a good chance that others will choose you.

Being personal is far more important than being perfect.

Many leading brands are now being human and telling it how it really is.

Domino’s is allowing customers to post their unvarnished reviews – warts and all – on a Times Square billboard:

Car insurer Aviva is doing the same on its website.

The following brands make a virtue out of being transparent, and highlighting a possible weakness:

1. We’re No. 2, but we try harder. (When you’re not no. 1 you have to) – Avis

2. The taste you hate twice a day – Listerine

3. Reassuringly expensive – Stella Artois

It’s not about B2B, or B2C anymore, it’s about H2H: Human to Human.

Fashions may come and go, but the one thing that will never go out of fashion is being human.

When you come from a place of authenticity doors open and people let you in.

When you speak your truth people will trust you.

When you open your heart, it gives permission to those around you to open their heart.

Your authenticity removes the wrapping and is the foundation to your brand.

 

Humour

A police officer came up to me and said, "Where were you between 3 and 5?"

"Nursery school," I replied.

Fed up of having no money and being in trouble, a teenager decided to walk around his neighborhood, to find any odd jobs that needed doing.

He was just about to give up after having been refused what seemed like a hundred times, when one man said he that he could paint his porch. The man gave him a bucket of white paint and told him that he would give him £40 when he finished.

The man walked into his house laughing and told his wife what a great deal he had got. "You’re so mean Steve, our porch covers over half of the house!" his wife replied.

90 minutes later, the teenager knocked on the door, and gave the bucket of white paint back to the man. The astonished man handed him £40 and asked him how he had finished painting the porch so quickly? "There were one or two tricky bits, but it was pretty easy," he replied. "Oh, and by the way, it’s a Ferrari not a Porsche."

 

Live big & love deep.

Sunil

www.sunilbali.com