Career Advice from a Real Life Horse Whisperer and an Alien

People tell me that I can find career advice in the strangest of places.  I agree.  I find common sense career success advice because I look for it.  Recently I saw a couple of movies that at first glance have nothing to do with life and career success – but they do.

The first was Buck, a documentary about a real life horse whisperer, Buck Brannaman.  Buck travels the country giving clinics to people on how to work with their horses.  The second film was Super 8; a latter day ET – only the extraterrestrial being was more scary, a lot bigger, and a lot more unfriendly than the cuddly ET.

Buck Brannaman teaches people to respect their horses and to treat them as partners – to show them that they have nothing to fear.  In Super 8 the alien life form’s spacecraft had crashed landed in the US.  Apparently, he/she/it meant no harm.  All he/she/it wanted to do was repair his/her/its spacecraft and head home.  The US government was worried that the alien was going to attack and so they mounted a campaign to capture and neutralize he/she/it.

The career advice here comes from Tweet 132 in my book Success Tweets.  “Trust is the glue that holds relationships together.  The more you demonstrate trust in others, the more they will trust you.”  That’s the message I saw in Buck, and Super 8.

Buck Brannaman is all about teaching people how to teach their horses to trust the.  In Super 8 the extraterrestrial being just wanted to be trusted.  He/she/it lashed out only after we humans demonstrated our lack of trust.  I may be stretching the point about trust a bit when it comes to Super 8, but maybe not.  I’ve never met an extraterristrial.

Strong, lasting, mutually beneficial relationships are an important key to life and career success.  Building relationships comes down to two words: trust and abundance.

When you trust others you are willing to put yourself out there – to give with no expectation of return, to act in a non quid pro quo manner.  I wrote several chapters for a book called 42 Rules for Creating WE.  One that applies here; “There Is No Quid Pro Quo In WE”.  In that chapter, I pointed out that while there is nothing wrong with returning the favor when someone does you a good turn, waiting for others to help you is not a good idea when it comes to building relationships.  Successful people are willing to put themselves out there – to pay it forward to extend their trust to help build relationships.

This is simple to understand in the case of Buck Banaman.  Humans need to take the initiative to build trusting relationships with their horses.  They can’t expect the horse to do so.  But many people seem to be unwilling to extend their trust to other humans – or in the case of Super 8, extraterrestrial beings.

Taking the initiative to build relationships, paying it forward takes trust, but it is great career advice.  Trust yourself to do for others with no guarantee of return.  Trust that others won’t take advantage of you.  Trust in the universe in that the good you put out will come back to you in unexpected ways.  Trust is the glue that holds relationships together.  The more you demonstrate trust in others, the more they will trust you.  Just ask Buck Brannaman.

Abundance is also important in building relationships.  People who come from an abundance mentality see life as a non-zero sum game; a perspective that holds that we can all be winners when it comes to life and career success.  They realize that there is enough for all of us – enough money, recognition, career success — the things that people who come from a scarcity mentality see as in short supply.  People who come from a scarcity mentality see life as a zero sum game; if you win, I have to lose and vice versa.

I choose trust and abundance because I have seen them work in the real world – and I find that I am happier with myself when I am trusting and come from a place of abundance.  What do you choose – trust and abundance, or mistrust and scarcity?  The choice you make can have a huge impact on your ability to build relationships and create the life and career success you want and deserve.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people are competent at building strong, mutually beneficial relationships with the important people in their lives.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 132 in Success Tweets.  “Trust is the glue that holds relationships together.  The more you demonstrate trust in others, the more they will trust you.”  A trusting attitude and abundance mentality are the best way to build relationships.  When you trust yourself, other people, the universe – as well as horses and extraterrestrials — you will approach life from an abundance mentality.  You’ll be willing to give of yourself with no expectation of direct return.  This world view will make it easier for you to build and maintain the relationships that will help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s the career advice I took from the movies Buck and Super 8.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success – and the movies.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest career success book Success Tweets Explained.  It’s a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

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