Jesse Meijers

A lesson in empathy – How to place yourself in someone else’s shoes

Placing yourself in someone else's shoes can be extremely hard. Recently I wrote an article about a lesson we can learn from Abraham Lincoln. Today, I found this fantastic empathy experiment on Ted.com. It is a great experiment and will take you on a journey to understand the world from the perspective of others.

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A lesson in empathy by Abraham Lincoln

One thing that I used to be rather bad at, was empathy. Placing myself in someone else's shoes was hard for me. For an entrepreneur this is very important, it is a lesson worth learning. The story that helped me learn this lesson is about Abraham Lincoln, a very inspiring man. More recently, there was a very interesting TED presentation on the same topic, yet from a completely different perspective. These two sources will help you become more emphatic in no time!

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Beyond proactivity: Accelerating personal development

About 5% of people on the world are proactive by nature. The other 95% are procrastinators. It is no small feat to step through procrastinating and become (more) proactive. Yet this is one of the main things that separates successful people from the rest. But that is just half of the story. Obviously the 95% of people who are not by nature proactive, should aim to become so. But proactivity alone is just the beginning. If it is not combined with thinking, it will lead to nothing.

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The Pygmalion Effect – Using Self Fulfilling Prophecies to your Advantage!

You have probably heard of the Pygmalion effect, usually called a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is used to describe the effect that when you've talked about something bad happening, that it would actually happen. The fact is, this is much closer to the truth than most people realize. And you can use this to your advantage!

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It is good to make mistakes

Most people are affraid to make mistakes. This is only logical. After all, no one likes it when they look bad. Because of this, they will often refrain from doing certain things where they feel the chance of success is small. Or rather: they don't take action. So I wanted to share with you an amazing story that explains how you can increase your success, by not worrying too much about mistakes.

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The difference between value and price

All successful entrepreneurs know that there is a distinct difference in value and price. But most people don't fully understand this difference. If you want to build a successful business, understanding this distinction is simply crucial.

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Easily increase your turnover … without spending a penny!

If I told you there is a way that you could increase your turnover, without even spending any money, would you be interested? Of course you would! You probably spent money on silly things that promised you extra turnover or profit, but actually didn't do anything other than costing you money... Well, let me explain how to do it... for free!

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See one, do one, teach one

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine who has worked for NATO and United Nations. We got talking about learning skills and how rules of thumb which explain methods can help you in easily remembering a process to learn something. In his line of work, the method 'See one, do one, teach one' is used. This is a very good method to remember when you want to learn a skill yourself, and to remember when you are teaching someone else a skill.

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Work smart, not hard!

"Work smart, not hard". Isn't this a big cliche? Doesn't everyone dream of working smart and not hard? And doesn't it turn out differently all the time? Let me explain how you too can work smart instead of hard, and make more money while you're at it! Here's how I did it...

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How to identify great business ideas

You are going into business with a partner, who has developed 2 fantastic products. The first product is a prevention against cancer, that people have to take every day. The second is a cure for cancer, which you take once when you have cancer and heals you. If you have only enough money to market one of these, which would you choose?

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