Have you ever been in a situation where you look at the same picture with someone, and end up with both of you having two different conclusion?  Or you read and perform a written instruction, only to find out that it’s not what the result should be?

I had a situation where I posted on a discussion and thought the person was looking for advice.  I entered into the discussion, offered more than 2 cents of advice only to find out that I misread the essence of the discussion.  What went wrong?  Maybe too much sugar or the Lakers doing good nowadays?  I misunderstood the other person’s baseline – their point of reference.

I am reminded by Stephen Covey, the author of the book ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’.  He mentioned one instance where he was on a train with a man and his children.  The children are everywhere and is getting into other people’s nerves.  He approached the man and ask him if he could tell his children to quiet down.  The man told him that it was a tough day for the children because they just lost their mother.  Now, if you’re in that situation, what would you have felt?  Your point of reference shifts.  You now look at the situation in a different way.

Whether it’s on a discussion or not, the point of reference is important.  It establish a place where everything starts.  A project that needs to be done, a venture that needs to be establish, a relationship that must be nurtured, all of these needs to start and must be met on a common ground.

I think that’s one of the reason why a lot of people have a hard time succeeding on their online ventures.  It seems that every guru claim to have the magic formula for your success only to find out later that you’re actually making the guru attain success by buying into his offer.

What’s my point?  Success is attained by achieving an end result that we have set beforehand to accomplish.  It has a beginning and an end point.  If we are going to work with other people to achieve our success, we need to align our vision to the result that we want to accomplish by establishing a common point of reference where everyone understands it.  Conflicts will be lessened as all parties to accomplishing the goal have a common point of reference.

The road we have to take starts from where we are now.  Let the journey begin.