Give any child a smaller piece of cake than you give his sister and you're sure to hear something like, "That's not fair!" We've all been there. Fairness is an experience based on perspective. Often we realize after the fact that the experience was fairer than we originally thought.
Life is not 100 percent fair because "fairness" is a relative term. What's fair to me may not be fair to you, and vice versa. One of the biggest lessons you can learn (a lesson that has saved me a lot of frustration over the years) is to go into every situation with no expectation that you'll be treated "fairly." Sometimes you will feel good about how the situation turned out – sometimes you won't. But if you approach it with an open mind, you won't be disappointed or upset when it doesn't seem "fair."
But even more important than this lesson is that you always be fair in your own dealings with other people. By this I mean make sure YOU provide a fair exchange of value (whether physically, emotionally, or financially) to any of your business deals and personal commitments.
If you bend over backward to make every deal good for your partners – and not just for you – you'll find that people will want to do even more deals with you. And when everyone wants to work with you, it is much easier to grow a profitable business.
Of course, this doesn't always mean doing exactly what the other person wants or expects. Trying to do what's good and fair and best for others is something you can apply to your everyday life – not just your business dealings. In fact, learning how to be fair to others can have a big impact on how you accomplish your goals.
The sad fact is that, no matter how hard you strive to be fair in your dealings with others, some people just don't play fair. Yes. But instead of sulking and thinking about how unfair it is, realize that YOU can't change anyone else's behavior. It’s much more productive to focus on whether there will be a fair exchange of value instead of how fair the experience will be for me personally. After all, my goals may be different from those of whomever I'm doing business or with whom I have a relationship.
The next time you have an experience that is unfair to you, take the following steps:
- Don't waste your time, energy, or emotion on things you cannot change. You may not be able to change the past, but you can work on the future. Direct your energy toward how you can accomplish your goal despite the unfair experience.
- Learn from the experience. Every experience will result in some positive lesson, even if it's only that you learned not to treat someone a certain way, or that you shouldn't deal with a certain person in the future.
- Make a new goal. If you didn't get the promotion by creating a product with Tom, come up with a new way you can get that promotion. Go to your supervisor and ask for assistance in understanding what needs to be done to be considered for a raise.
Winners have options! If your situation in life doesn't seem "fair," don't worry too hard or long about it. WRITE DOWN your options because you DO have options and choices. Then, TAKE ACTION!
I am a Social Media Marketing Strategist and Facebook Marketing Expert, a business coach, seminar resource person, published and serial entrepreneur. I help businesses to get extraordinary results from their marketing campaign thus ensuring steady increase in their incomes.
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