Wanted: need filler

Are you a need filler? Someone who takes the time to ask good questions, listen to the answers, then clarify how you can be of benefit to them? In sales, the emphasis is always on  "find the pain", and that can be a legitimate way of helping a potential client or customer, and lead to getting their business. However, truly filling their needs is a bit more involved. You see, sometimes people ( or companies) don't even realize they have an issue because the pain hasn't hit yet. That's where you can be of real value to them. You are giving them a fresh set of eyes to see their situation. It's possible that as you go through this process, they will say " we've already got all this covered" in which case you will have helped them by verifying  their conclusions. More likely you will have touched on an area that may not be on their radar yet.

So feel good about going out into the world and engaging with people and businesses. They're looking for what you have to offer... if you are a Need Filler.

Happiness

I recently came across a TV program where the guest was speaking about his new book on " happiness." Now He wasn't an expert on the subject, rather he was part of a study that took place all over the world and interviewed thousands of people from many different counties and economic strata.  Based on this they were able to say which nation was the happiest ( it was some Scandinavian county). More importantly, since happiness is hard to gauge ( ask someone on a scale of 1 to 10, they'll probably say 10)  he gave the factors that led to it being the happiest country. They include: Trust, Tolerance and Socialization (community activities, actual face to face contact for up to six hours). Individual happiness would normally be thought to be driven by motivation or positivity. But just asking if someone is happy won't be an accurate gauge, because we can only remember 3 % of our past experiences ( usually extremes of good or bad).  Continued input on how they were experiencing their 24 hour day, day to day was used.  They determined the key factors that led to individual happiness are: Where you live and Getting enough sleep ( at least six hours).  Having enough money was also a factor, (forty to 75 thousand dollars a year being the magic number).  The obvious conclusion being that: money does buy a degree of happiness, get plenty of rest and if you aren't happy were you are now-  move.