Selfishness Isn't Always a Character Defect

There are times when selfishness is necessary to the attainment of your goals. Selfishness doesn’t always have to be a character defect.

Once you have determined your goals and started executing your action plans to attain the goals, you are going to have to be selfish as it relates to where you spend your time. You are going to need to narrow your focus and concentrate on those key items that you need to achieve to attain your goal.

You cannot be a jack of all trades and a master of none. You have to narrow your focus and concentrate on the high payoff items needed to accomplish your goals.

You will need to make some tough choices to accomplish what you want to accomplish. You have only so many hours each day to accomplish what you want to accomplish so you have to use your time wisely.

When I was building my career, I became very selfish with my time. So much so that I took a little criticism from colleagues of mine since I would not take the time to go to lunch with them. I was nicknamed Mr. Time Control for a while.

I loved those folks but I also knew that I could not sell them anything and the conversation at lunch would be more locker room banter and gossip than an exchange of ideas where everyone could learn something to make themselves better. I used that time to get better. I ate lunch in my office the majority of the time when I did not have a business appointment as I could save time, money and grow by reading business articles and studying during the lunch time. I made the time work for me. I was selfish with my time.

The colleagues who criticized my time control did benefit from my time in the office rather than going to lunch. The knowledge I gained enabled me to be a good resource for my associates as it related to product and sales information. I became known as Karnack in the office for the character Johnny Carson used to portray on his Tonight Show. If you will recall and for those not around to see that show, Johnny would dress in a turban as if he was a magician and could read through the envelope and give you the answer to the question inside. He would give an answer and then open the envelope to show the question.

I became Karnack to the agency. I had the answers and many times could answer them before they finished the question.

Additionally, I found that some of my best creative moments were on Friday afternoon when everyone else in the office was gone. I spent that time getting organized for the following week but more importantly I spent time asking myself what actions could I take to grow my business which would enable me to make more money and get closer to my business goals.

Some of my best ideas came on Friday afternoons when everyone else was on the golf course or had left for the weekend. I cherished that alone time as I was not distracted by people walking into my office. I could focus on the high payoff items.

I also had to postpone going after some of the items on my goals list that would have been nice to have or to have accomplished so that I could spend time on the high priority goals I had set. My focus had to be on my career and my family. I did not have time to pursue a lot of external activities as I wanted to spend my time building my career objectives and what time wasn’t spent there was given to my family. I kept the outside influences to a minimum.

I learned to be selfish with my time. If you are selfish with your time, you will accomplish more of the things you want to accomplish for you and your family.

Selfishness is one of the character defects that alcoholics and addicts possess. When the addiction is in full bloom, the selfishness can be damaging to everyone around the addict.

However, selfishness doesn’t have to always be a character defect. To accomplish one’s goals for oneself and his or her family, there will be times when you have to be selfish.

Remember, you have to establish habits. Habits can be broken if you become too distracted and try to do too many things.

Be selfish with your time to protect the habits you have formed to take you where you want to go.

Selfishness isn’t always a character defect!