1.  Can you do the job?
2.  Will you love the job?
3.  Can we tolerate working with you?

I can answer all three with only one word, “Yes”. It is that easy apparently.

Actually, the first question is meant to see your strengths, the second to see your motivation and the third to see if you could fit in. These aspects are essential when recruiting but the problem comes from the fact that you can say anything in an interview. And when confronted with such a situation people will tend to tell you want you want to hear.

Talking is easy. What I would really be interested in seeing is things already done. Those hardly lie about a person’s abilities, motivation and personality.

1.  Show me what you delivered in your previous jobs.
2.  Show me projects you have done by yourself.
3.  Show me your social network accounts or better yet, your blog.

So, the next time you hear those three questions in an interview, try to answer as if you heard the three things I said above. If this won’t get you the job it means that’s not the company you want to work for. But if you get accepted it will surely be a great match. Either way, you win.

Action will always speak louder than words.

Instead of asking others what they can do for you, ask what you can do for them.

Instead of asking what else do you need to achieve your goals, ask yourself what you could do with what you have.

Instead of asking why you got a negative answer, ask yourself what you must do to get a positive one.

If you are not getting the right answers then you are asking the wrong questions.

It’s your fault because you are waiting for other people to do the things you want them to do or be as you want them to.

Changing your actions is much simpler than trying to change others. So, the next time you want something to be different, think about what you need to change in order for that to happen and not what others have to do.

Don’t expect anything, make it happen yourself.

Posting something is your way to send your message, ideas, thoughts, feelings across to other people. This is how you can contribute, how you can inspire, motivate or just inform other people, and how you can create or help spread something. The post is the product you send out there hoping to make a change for the better.

Liking is your way to show appreciation for someone else’s idea, art, work and for the impact it had on you. This is how you can encourage other people to keep doing the things you enjoy, find useful or that you would like to see more often.

Sharing is used to show to others the work someone has done and that they don’t have access to. It is the best way get attention in order to help ideas grow, to help others trying to make a change and to help communities expand.

Comments are used to offer feedback, to debate, to criticize, to suggest improvements. This is how you can directly contribute to someone else’s work with your input.

You can do all these things or you can just use posts, likes, sharing and comments for your own interests. You can post only what will benefit you, like or share the things that when seen by others will make you look good in their eyes, or make comments to make yourself appear in a certain way.

It’s your choice if you want to contribute or you just want to market yourself. Meaningful relationships, change and progress though will only come from showing interest in others as well, not only in yourself.

Doing the right things doesn’t always work. So many people are doing it every single day but they never achieve what they want. When so many people are doing only the right things, doing the wrong thing might be your only advantage.

You should never be afraid of doing something wrong. It might turn out to be the best thing you have ever done. And if it turns out it wasn’t, rock bottom can be a solid foundation for a new, fresh start.

Not doing anything is worse than doing the wrong thing because you will never learn anything new.

saying I’m sorry.

doing things that scare you.

a thing you love each day.

doing more sports.

a healthier diet.

taking risks.

making love.

meeting with friends on a regular basis.

doing your job better.

making something good for others too.

Things won’t change merely because you want them to. The best way to change how things are is by starting to do them differently. After you start, you can adjust on the way and transform everything exactly as you want it to be. But until you get to where you want, you must start moving in that direction.

Doing things is the only plan that produces real results.

People go that far and say that if they had one or a few things then they would be really, truly happy. They build this fantasy, this perfect world, where they would be happy if only they had those things. This is why they will spend most of their time trapped in their quest to obtain those things which should make them happy.

What happens though is that when they do get those things, if ever, they will be happy for a few hours, a few days or a few months at the most. After that they will get used to them and the happiness will fade away. Things can make you happy, but that happiness will not last and then you will have to find another thing to make you happy. That’s how you get trapped in a loop were happiness is just a brief moment of peace between struggles.

True happiness is not found in things.

This made me realize that half-truths were more of a habit for me than an exception to my regular speech. Most of them were just a way to protect other people’s feelings by saying the things I believe in a polite way, masking the truth behind some pretty words, but at the same time losing a bit of my actual beliefs and feelings in the process.

I have also realized that most of the lies I said were, just as the half-truths, meant to keep from hurting other people’s feelings. Most of them were omission lies and not really an attempt to distort facts.

After the first two weeks this constant check to cut out all half-truths and lies made me more present in the conversation, more aware of the interaction and more opened. Many conversations have become more meaningful and deeper than they would usually turn out to be. This is one of the things I’m most excited about.

I said things I never thought I would say before, just because I would think of other people’s feelings rather than my own.

As it comes to others, some people seemed perfectly fine with my new approach, most of them already knew about my experiment, others felt offended by my blunt way of expressing things (some of them I think will never call again), and others were just surprised at first but seemed to appreciate the honesty more than it bothered them.

One month gone and I am still working on having my first full day without a single half-truth or lie. 11 more months to make it happen.

You can choose your education, your job, the way you dress, the way you talk, the way you act. You can choose everything, even the things you think you don’t have any control over. You can’t choose the age you have, but you can choose to act your age or not. You can’t choose your race, but you can choose to not let it matter or not.

Everything we do is a choice. You can choose to talk or listen, to do a great job or a poor one, to lead or follow, to change things or fight against change, to be motivated or to complain, to make commitments, to deliver, to matter, to be memorable, to be irreplaceable, to show up, to act or not.

All you have to do is make a choice and stick to it. Refusing to make a choice and just letting time pass is making a choice. It’s choosing not to pick anything specifically. Stop wasting time and make a choice today.

Everything is up to you.

First of all, customer service is not what you think the customer wants, it’s not what other customers you had wanted nor what consultants or statistics say. Customer service is what the customer wants. Full stop.

Each customer is an individual with expectations you have to meet. These expectations vary from customer to customer and your duty is to adjust to each of them. Once you understand this, customer experience will become even more difficult than you had considered it before.

Now you know what you have to do. Go out there, learn from each of your customers, find out what they need, what they want, what they expect from you and then deliver it.