Timing is everything
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Continuing from my blog about the book The 4-Hour Workweek, I'm known to be in the habit of saying: Timing is everything.
I picked up this view with respects to sales, but it applies to so much of what we do.
Tim outlines in his book, "when you ask for something often has a bigger impact than what you ask for".
Think about how this applies to:
- Humour. The difference between a good joke and a bad one is often a person's sense of timing;
- Buying & selling something. The July 10th 2008 Economist article titled Breaking up is hard to do looks at the impact of timing with regards to asset sales;
- Surfing. Get the timing right and you get to ride that wave;
- Growing a plant. Plant it too early in a season and the plants growth can be stunted from exposure to low temperatures; and
- Asking for help. As CNN outlined in November 2008, the US Congress wasn't particularly thrilled that the CEOs of the Big 3 auto companies asked for money, fresh off their private jets.
Searching high and low for the right terminology here was challenging. I went past sapience, consciousness, self-awareness, conscientiousness and settled at empathic. Being empathic means being able put yourself in the other person's shoes (not literally please), but don't confuse being empathic with sympathetic (the former is awareness where the later involves having a positive reaction).
Of course, the counterpoint to "timing is everything" is that "the timing is never right".
I hope you enjoy mulling over the yin and yang of timing. Next time you need to ask for something from someone, take some time to think how timing plays a role in getting the result you want.
Labels: Personal effectiveness, Sales and Marketing, Sociology
posted by Lee Gale @ 12:59 AM,
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