The less selfish you are, the more you achieve

I write diaries and they are raw. They detail everything that happens in my life, and I find by doing this, I can often look back and relate to my experience or think about how little significance that it may have had in the scheme of things. In some cases, it may be how important that milestone or occasion may have been in my life or for that matter, someone else's.

Never do something by halves

What I have promised myself is to never short-change myself. Never do something my halves. Don't sacrifice my values for a quick win or a whim. Always strive to be the best person I can be and help others around me my constantly reinforcing the positives in their lives and how special they are to not only me but to others. Never lie. Never not tell the truth. Never do something that deliberately hurts another. Just basic things, that I live by but unfortunately not everyone is the same.

It's easy to be more selfish and self-centred

I have learned about selfish - the hard way. Not from myself but from another. It's a great thing to see up close because when you realise something for what it is, you get to look within yourself and ask yourself whether that is a value that you respect or not. As a person who has had to only look after myself (and the pooch) in the past few years, it's easy to be more selfish and self-centred. However, if you are aware of this predicament, you are more likely to push yourself to think less about just yourself and give respect to those around you.

Most people including myself are selfish in some way, but the less selfish you become, and the more emotionally aware you are of your own shortcomings, the better you will become. As I have found, the more successful version of yourself comes to the forefront, simply by seeing the world in this way.

I don't have a lot of time to myself

I do not have enough hours in the day. I am involved in too many projects and I don't have a lot of time to myself. But this is a short term problem, not a long term one, and I am doing this only to make the world a better place.

Last week alone, I worked 42 hours on The World Incubator (TWI). TWI a not-for-profit that I founded to help people in Charters Towers, a rural town in far North Queensland strickened by drought, find empowerment in becoming entrepreneurs who do not see their local town as the place that they need to sell their products or services, but see the entire world as their market.

They "talk themselves up"

You cannot imagine how hard it is for people to change what they think they are going to be doing for the rest of their lives, to something that is foreign like entrepreneurship. If you read many of the magazines, including ours, about entrepreneurship, and you come from the land, you may think these people that tag themselves as entrepreneurs are a tad full of themselves. They "talk themselves up" and "self promote" and somehow that seems to do the trick in most cases. 

But for a person from the land, that is quite simply "big noting" and it's not them. It's not how they have been brought up.

So you can imagine the struggle I am going to have in the years to come where I encourage people, young and old, of Charters Towers, to "talk it up". That in itself will be the hardest struggle in achieving success when it comes to The World Incubator. I need for people to not only have business ideas, but believe in them so much that they are happy to share why their business is so great with others. Actually, I just need them to share, which in itself is not the done thing to do.

They work harder than anyone else

Don't get me wrong. People in Charters Towers are not backwards and they get business. Many still pay cash for everything, which is refreshing and certainly how I was brought up. They are humble and everyone I encounter still have the same good old fashion manners that is the norm for country folk. They work harder than anyone else. They don't job hop - ever. They respect their elders. They tell you how it is, not some load of bullshit that they think you want to hear, or is in their best interests that you hear.

Part of being less selfish is to spend more time in Charters Towers. While that certainly is not a hard ask, it is a long way to travel with my dog in hand on a regular basis and there are no direct flights. The airlines also aren't exactly the easiest service businesses in the world to deal with. I will be without many of my friends, who might be celebrating special occasions, but I am use to missing these things as I have spent the past few years building an international business.

Giving up something, to do something for others is rewarding. It may take you out of your comfort zone and it may mean that you might miss out on a few things. It may mean your life is on hold for a while, but gosh, if this is successful (and I have every belief that it will be), I am going to change the lives of at least 45 people next year, and perhaps hundreds more through the jobs and career opportunities that they gain from the hard work that I do, and the people who help me along the way.

Now that would be a success and more meaningful than anything else I could achieve.