Early in my career, I worked for a global organisation and travelled the world.

Some years, I spent over 200 nights in hotels to do my market research, meet retailers, deliver training and support clients, and put a list together of the people I wanted to do business with. 

An opportunity popped up that caught my attention. Up until then, I had mainly travelled throughout Europe, the USA, South America and Canada. 

An exciting role was up for grabs in a tropical place called "Hamilton Island" near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The land down under!

You might recall the famous Island Caretaker campaign that was on the news all around the world. 

A pay check of $180K for six months of 'work' which consisted of lying on the beach, sleeping in a 5-star hotel, diving, flying in a helicopter, and posting daily on social media.

1 job.

Over 50,000 applicants.

Seriously.

And my 59-second video got me shortlisted!

The next step in the application process was a...

Yesterday, I met with someone I really value. 

He talked about his father passing away unexpectedly and they hadn't been able to resolve a conflict between them that has lasted for years. 

Needless to say that he felt disturbed and sad that the last opportunity to resolve the matter with his dad had vanished. 

I feel for them, because I had a similar situation with my uncle who I haven't spoken to for the last 7 years of his life. And then... he was gone.

Both situations show that communication can easily break down. We think we are right and the others are wrong. We'd rather be right than be happy. We let our ego get in the way. 

In business, I see a similar dynamic undermining people's success.

We judge people that are different to us. We label someone a 'difficult' client or staff member. We call them all sorts of names, just to conceal that we don't know how to deal with them effectively.

Seriously - it's not about them, but all about us.

Blaming others is so...