Whether you’ve ever thought of it or not, you’re a company. You compete to get people to choose you instead of someone else for almost everything in your life. Getting picked for the team. Dating. Scholarships. Jobs. Raises. Loan or mortgage approvals. Being a part of your teenaged children’s lives. Getting into an exclusive retirement home. How well you market yourself against your competitors will play a huge role in determining whether you win or lose in many areas of your life.

That can sound crass, and in fact it often is. But again, it’s part of being a business. Some companies choose to compete by genuinely caring for their clients and supporting their communities, while others compete aggressively with a “take no prisoners” bravado. You’ll need to determine which is ultimately the most satisfying and rewarding strategy for your life. I’m certainly confident I know which works best in mine.

Whichever you decide, like any company you will need to invest in the things that will improve your value, and you will get ahead by supplying others with what they need. You will nurture your assets – health, family, friends, finances, business relationships, reputation — and take care of them as best you can. You will produce goods or services — your time on the job, your volunteer activities, your relationships in and out of the workplace — and you will move ahead or fall back based upon how good your goods are seen to be. And like any company, you will succeed or fail based largely on the quality of your strategies and tactics in all these various areas.

Yet, amazingly, most of us never take the time to really develop or even consider a business plan or marketing strategy for our lives, or even recognize that we need one. [Read more...]