In this post, I am infusing a lot of my personal experiences about how I set my standards and raise it over time. Through my stories, I want to show you how you can set your standards and raise it over time in three important categories in our life, in a relationship, in entrepreneurship, and most importantly in ourselves. In this PART 1, I am going to write only the first 2 categories:
Standards In Finding Love
Having a boyfriend at school was really not ‘my thing’, not until my gang ‘forced’ me to have one. So, I had one on duty. I dumped him in a few days right after he tried to hold my hand. I didn’t have that ‘love’ feeling to him although he was a nice good-looking guy. I did not set any standard about what kind of boyfriend I wanted to spend time with because I simply didn’t have one. This is what happened when you don’t have a standard, your friends will give one for you. But when you know what you want, it may come in a bonus deal. Samuel for me is the perfect fit standard in companionship for life. He is a non-smoker, non-drinker, smart, geeky, handsome, super kind, very gentle and a true gentleman on the daily basis, into cheese, chocolate, and house chores. And he is TAKEN.
Standards In Business Practice
I am very open to an idea of helping others and supporting other people especially when it is a woman with talents. One day, there was a woman, a complete stranger, she directly came approaching me, knocking my door –at our shop, and proposing to have a joint-collaboration work with our FridaSkincare project involving her talents. I felt like hitting a ‘Jackpot’ until she showed me the true nature of her character and her hidden mission behind her ‘genuine’ proposal a couple of months back. This person admitted that her relationship with me was the longest she has ever had. I should have taken her words seriously. She tried to put me into so many ‘dramas’ but I always came out with the nicely offered solutions that she had never expected. I stood with her for quite some time until she chose to screw things up completely. I got my lesson to never trust any ‘genuine offers‘ from anyone without knowing the true character of the offerer. Now I know that I have to first test the quality of the person who wants to become our ‘business partners’ through some conflicts over the year. It must be screened through multiple conflicts and study the way this person can come up with solutions instead of storming with all the negativity. It is indeed a long haul task, but this is so important to know in advance to avoid future ‘unnecessary’ drama like I had with this person.
Moving forward…
Now we have 3 respective and trusted business partners. We have one official partner in Indonesia where she has been handling FridaSkincare Indonesia for 2 years before we tied a knot legally in a partnership agreement. And just recently, we have two South Korean partners to soon-launch FridaSkincare Korea.
If I didn’t sharpen my standard to surround myself with only the people who have quality characters, my life would be busy with and full of drama-loving people. And I would never get enough time to know our current trusted partners deeper. I would regret to miss out these partners who share the same philosophy, optimistic mindset, and high work ethics as we do have. Finding the same like-minded people is one of our core business practices in building a standard for FridaSkincare Global.
To be continued in How Do I Wisely Set My Standards Overtime PART 2
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