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FOCUS is key to Success
Focus is key to success, whether for business purposes, or pursuing your personal goals, focus is going to concentrate your energy on the important things that need doing, rather than wasting time on unnecessary activities. Cut to the chase and get what needs doing, done. Think outcomes rather than activities.
Stop being a paper shuffler and be a get results type of person. Below are a few quotes I use to motivate and focus my mind.
#1 Quote
In his book The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
“What’s the one thing you can do now such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary.” – The one thing.
I just love this question. It removes any ambiguity and channels your focus onto the single, most important activity you can do to make progress. Ask this each day, and when you’ve done the “one thing”, do the next “one thing”. Difficult to know how you can go wrong with this approach.
#2 Quote
“What you do in this moment shapes all your tomorrows” – getresults.org.uk
This is one quote I generated myself when doing some deep thinking about getting results and developing a model for it. Living for this moment, the one we are experiencing right now, which incidentally is all we ever have. What you do in this moment really does shape what comes tomorrow.
#3 Quote
“Focus on the one most effective thing in pursuit of your goal.” – getresults.org.uk
This is a variation of the quote above, but is a little more specific with regards to being effective in seeking your goal. Building towards a goal each day adds purpose and we all should have and work towards a goal to give life a sense of direction.
#4 Quote
“Do something today that your future self will thank you for.” -unknown
This is another one of my favourite quotes. Another way of looking at this is asking “what do I wish I had done yesterday?”
#5 Quote
“The decisions you make and the actions you take shape all your tomorrows.” -getresults.org.uk
#6 Quote
“Focus on one thing at a time – multi tasking is an illusion.” – getresults.org.uk
Studies have shown that it is impossible to multi task effectively. Dividing your focus is dividing your effectiveness. Stick to one course of action until successful, as the quote below says.
#7 Quote
“FOCUS – Follow One Course Until Successful.”
#8 Quote
“Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.” – Eckhart Tolle
#9 Quote
“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do and mostly live.” – Dalai Lama
#10 Quote
“Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.” – Eckhart Tolle
#11 Quote
“The future is a concept, it doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as tomorrow. There never will be, because time is always now. That’s one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now.”
#12 Quote
“If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”
#13 Quote
“Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.” ― Eckhart Tolle
#14 Quote
“Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow.”
#15 Quote
“The PRESENT MOMENT is the field where the game of life takes place.”
For more articles about FOCUS, click here.
More Focus Quotes
“What the future holds for you depends on your state of consciousness now.” ― Eckhart Tolle
“Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now, and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?” ― Eckhart Tolle
“When you want to arrive at your goal more than you want to be doing what you are doing, you become stressed.” ― Eckhart Tolle
“You are never fully here because you are always busy trying to get elsewhere.” ― Eckhart Tolle
“Nothing is going to make us free because only the present moment can make us free. That realization is the awakening.” ― Eckhart Tolle
“The present moment is the field on which the game of life happens. It cannot happen anywhere else.” ― Eckhart Tolle
“The most important, the primordial relationship in your life is your relationship with the Now, or rather with whatever form the Now takes, that is to say, what is or what happens.” ― Eckhart Tolle
“Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment.” ― Eckhart Tolle
“The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. And what is a grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion.” ― Eckhart Tolle
“Awareness means Presence, and only Presence can dissolve the unconscious past in you.” ― Eckhart Tolle
“So when you look to the future for salvation, you are unconsciously looking to your own mind for salvation.” ― Eckhart Tolle
We are all guilty of going off at tangents .Chasing that new exciting thing. I have a friend that does property development and he spends every day working on improving his properties and making them more attractive to sell or rent out. He’s focused on this one thing. Each day he adds to his worth via his portfolio. This is the essence of FOCUS.
If I come across any other FOCUS quotes I’ll add them to this post, hope you enjoyed. Please subscribe to my newsletter keep up-to-date with my latest content.
EU referendum: How Intensive Emotions Cloud Decision Making
The EU referendum has certainly divided the country, with strong opinions on either side of the argument. And it has been an argument, rather than a debate. From a psychological point of view it’s been a rough ride for both sides.
Politicians and the media have been guilty of constructing their campaigns in such a way as to play to the fears and insecurities of both sides, by using very emotive and divisive language rather than just presenting the facts. Why have they done this? Well because there are no facts, no one really knows if it would be best in or out of the EU. There are opinions about pros and cons on either side of the debate, but not many facts.
It is a gross understatement to say that the general public have been manipulated during this referendum. Politicians and the media recognised the fear of both sides and played heavily on these to influence voter’s decision-making.
Both sides have their own expectations and preferences about the future, which are in opposition. The leavers want to maintain democracy and see the EU as anti-democracy and a symbol of anti sovereign control. Remain campaigners want to remain part of a EU that promises being part of something bigger, making the UK something bigger than they see it as being outside the EU.
The current reality as perceived is also different for each side of the argument. Leavers feel they are having a bad deal, influenced by decision makers that are not directly accountable, see the UK with an elected government that lacks any real power to influence its own economic, immigration and law-making requirements. Remainers’ believe while the current situation isn’t ideal change is better influenced from within the EU rather than being isolated outside it.
The views are certainly in opposition, but you will never get a consensus. In fact it is good that we question each other’s beliefs. In fact both sides want the same thing, to have an improved quality of life, they just disagree on how best to achieve this.
What is not good, is the way politicians and the media have used emotive and divisive language to intensify the fears of both sides, and position the other side in such a way that they become perceived as the “enemy”
Let’s have look at how it works…..
If you look at how emotion is created, it becomes obvious how politicians and media have been playing us and why we have reacted so aggressively to the opposition, and it has been aggressive, and we do see the other side as “the opposition”, even “enemy”. In fact we are both victims of the same process of emotional and unscrupulous manipulation.
Lets look at the equation of emotion and how it shapes your emotional reactions. The equation of emotion is…
Expectation/Preference (EP) compared to Reality as Perceived (EP) = Emotional Reaction (ER)
When your Expectations and preferences don’t match your perception of reality you will experience a negative emotion. This is a fact.
If the source of this imbalance is not something we are attached to, we will become angry towards it. If we feel the threat to be greater, more real, and imminent, we feel even more angry towards the source. (Find out more about the Equation of Emotion by following this link.)
Let me explain…
Remain campaigners have a strong belief that:
- We are better in EU than out because we are part of a bigger trading block rather than being alone, this comes from the belief we are too small to make our way in the world alone
- We are an open society that welcomes diversity and is outward looking rather than being against immigration and having racist tendencies
- We are more secure sharing security information within the EU, than being out on our own.
- We can affect change better within the EU rather than being powerless outside it
The theme for these beliefs is that we are better together rather than alone. The fear of remain campaigners includes, fear of isolation, fear of not being part of the decision making process, but still being subject to the EU rules of trade, the underlying fear is a fear of being worse off, having less money, having less prospects, having less of an open society. It’s a fear of loss.
Remain politicians have played on these fears by using very emotive language and attacking opposing views as beings racist, xenophobic, anti-establishment fuelled, and of being an isolation mentality.
These are so against remain campaigners views that it positions opponents as the “ENEMY”. There is no greater “other” than an enemy.
So let’s go back to our equation from earlier.
Remain campaigners have an expectation/preference that the UK is open, inclusive, part of something bigger, part of the decision making process within the EU,
Their reality as perceived is, we are no longer that kind of country with over half of the nation having racist, xenophobic, anti-establishment tendencies. Seeing themselves as now being materially and prospectively worse off out of EU than they would have been within the EU.
The emotion they feel as a result of this, is anger. Anger directed at leave voters who have been painted implicitly and explicitly as the “enemy” because of their opposing views. The more remainers’ feel this to be true, the stronger their anger towards leavers. The more they believe they will be worse off, the more they believe leavers to be everything they are not, the more of an enemy they see leavers, the more the anger and hate they direct at them.
Leavers have a strong belief that:
- We are better as a sovereign country rather than giving control to an un-elected EU
- Want to control UK border rather than having no say in numbers and choice of migrants coming into country
- Ability to make and enforce our own laws, rather than EU making blanket laws that don’t fit our particular national circumstances
- Want elected politicians to be accountable and able to be sacked if not doing what the populations wants/needs
- Don’t want to be pushed into ever closer union with a United States of Europe with un-elected officials making decisions for us, without accountability.
The theme for these beliefs are centred around control and democracy.
Leavers see remainers’ as not standing up for their democratic rights and laying down and letting the establishment take advantage. They feel the quality of life is being eroded by a lack of control and accountability of the politicians that have been elected.
Politicians and media have played on immigration fears, and lack of democracy to strengthen the resistance to these issues. Again they have strengthened their argument with emotive language designed to stir up and intensify these fears.
Leavers expectation and preference is to have accountable government who have control of the important aspects of society, like the economy, border control and law making and enforcement.
Their reality as perceived is that, this is now the case, having won the referendum, but let’s assume they had lost the vote, for illustration purposes. Had they lost they would feel that they had lost control of democracy. That the political elite had been given a mandate to take further power from the sovereign countries. They would be blaming the remain voters for allowing this to happen. They would likely see remainers’ as being gullible, spineless people who have foolishly given democracy away without a fight.
The emotional reaction would have likely also been anger. This anger would be directed at those seen as responsible for this unacceptable situation, the remain campaigners.
The truth is, that the exact same internal process is going on in the remain voters as is in the leave voters. Both sides have opposing views but both are doing it because they feel it is right for them and the wider community. They are both doing it from a position of “good will”. Both feel passionately about their views and see opposing views as misguided, ill informed, and the victim of propaganda. The emotion has been intensified by manipulative politicians and the media, who are trying to influence voters’ decision-making, by preying on voters fears and insecurities and over-blowing the consequences of either decision.
The truth is, staying or leaving isn’t as bad as either side believes it to be, and that the politicians and media have been stirring up emotion to serve their own agendas, and voters have been caught up in the intense emotion of it all. We would have survived had we stayed in, we will survive now that we are out.
Try to stop feeling angry and realise that love and caring is driving both sides of the debate. Now is the time to put our differences aside and focus on creating a new and improved Great Britain for the good of us all.
Lessons To Learn From The EU Referendum
A few lessons to learn from the recent EU referendum…..
This morning Britain voted to leave the EU and the reaction of the stock markets was as could be expected, resulting in a lot of turmoil and rush to safety. Much of the political reaction was also based on fear and the prospect of an uncertain future for the country.
Always winners and losers (in every situation)
In reality there will always be winners and losers in any given situation. If we had remained in the EU there were no guarantees about what the future held. Hoping to protect the status quo is a nonsense, there is no such things as a status quo, things are always changing and evolving, whether we like to admit it or not.
When the price of sterling dropped like a stone this morning when the markets opened, had you bought a currency trade and sold it just after the bank of England speech a few hours later, you could have made yourself a lot of money. And so it is with every situation, there will always be winners and losers. It’s not really about what happens to you, It’s about how you deal with it. Change brings opportunities as well as risks. You can either position yourself in such a way as to take advantage of those opportunities or play the role of victim, and lose.
Change includes risk and opportunity
Emotion makes decision making much more subjective and fearful, if you can separate emotion, and emotive language from the facts, you give yourself a chance of making a rational decision. When we hold a strong emotional position, we may refuse to shift our opinion or back down to any opposing views and counter arguments. In truth, it’s not about being right or being wronged it’s about moving forward and making the best use of the opportunities that are inevitably available because of the very thing we fear…change.
We’re different: embrace the fact
Holding a strong opinion doesn’t make you right or wrong. Some people like to feel they have some control over their destiny, others like the sense of comfort and security. There are leaders and followers, risk takers and play safer’s and all have a valid place in society. They value different things and have different perspectives, and make decisions based on what they feel is right for them and their families. Accept this as part of life’s rich tapestry, don’t judge or ridcule others, respect their views, sure give them your opinion by all means, but know they are entitled to hold theirs.
Anger grows out of fear
When things apparently move against us and our perception is that the outcome is going to be bad for us, we may feel threatened and fearful. In an attempt at self protection, anger may result and be directed at whatever is deemed responsible for causing that fear. “Remain” campaigners saying “leave” campaigners are ignorant of the facts, have been brainwashed, are responsible for this mess, and have low IQ’s etc are attempts to make themselves feel better and increase their self worth. Discrediting others, is a defence mechanism, that inflates their sense of self. However a question we should all be asking is why do people feel such fear in the first place?
Follow your own agenda
During the EU referendum a lot of emotive language and stories of doom and gloom have been used by politicians and media on both sides of the debate, often designed to manipulate the audience into responding in a way that serves agendas of the politicians and media. It creates division and builds strong emotion, clouding the facts and making rational decision making more difficult. It builds on our fears and when we are fearful, we have a tendency to resist change even more than we would otherwise. Try to separate the emotion, and make rational decisions based on facts, don’t be a pawn in somebody else’s game, play for yourself. And even if you feel you are acting in your own best interests, ask yourself, based on what facts, not opinion or prediction, but facts.
The EU referendum has been one of those monumental moments in history. The future is uncertain, and either exciting or scary depending on your perspective. It is unprecedented in history so we will have to wait and see how it pans out.
I guess we will make it work, we always do. It’s in everyone’s interest for it to be a success. When there’s no alternative we can focus on making the one option we have work for the good of all us all as stakeholders.
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Taking Action is key to Getting Results
Taking Action is the single most important aspect of getting results. Without this part of the equation nothing is realistically possible. It’s true that you need a goal, a sense of direction to work towards, but you can plan your path to your hearts content, but if you don’t then take action, all that planning isn’t going to materialise into your reality.
We have all been guilty of procrastinating, this often manifests as over-planning. keeping busy devising a goal, and perfecting a plan of action, then tweaking and re-tweaking.
Ultimately it’s prudent to have a goal, fashion a plan that can best be described as a “minimum viable outline plan”. Something that gives you a sense of direction, so that you’re not floating around aimlessly but allows you to retain some level of flexibility going forward.
You should progress with a open mind and open heart, and learn from your experience moving forward.
Successful software developers have long since understood the value of producing a minimum viable product, getting it out in the market, and enhancing it via feedback from customers. That way the market helps in the development process in a real world environment for which it was intended. This approach prevents wasted time developing and realising later it has been overdeveloped or developed in the wrong aspects. Letting the end user decide what they want makes sense commercially. Think of it as a collaboration between developer and customer.
And so it should be as you move forwards towards your goal, let the real world give you feedback as you progress. You take action and the world around you reacts in all sorts of unforeseen ways. Whether it be serendipitous encounters with influential individuals, or insights you could never of expected had you not taken action.
Purposeful right action is an even better way to describe it, because you are working towards something, you measure your progress or lack of, tweak and test as you go. Think of it as if you were learning a skill, lets take driving for instance, your instructor watches what you do, informs you when doing something wrong, watches you do it again, corrects if necessary or lets you know you’ve completed the manoeuvre correctly.
It’s true to say that some people are more naturally talented then others, they have physical attributes that might make it easier for them to be successful, but natural talent is just a head start, whether or not you are naturally talented there is no doubt that taking action or practice has it’s also known improves performance.
The 10 thousand hour rule is routinely quoted as being the time it takes to become an expert in most endeavours, a 20 hour rule is also quoted as being the time it take to become proficient at something. The fact is the more you purposely practice or “do” something the better you will get at it.
Ask the focus question as a compass
A good way of focusing your actions so that you don’t waste time doing none important tasks and as a result make sure you’re taking “right” action at all times is to ask this question…
“What’s the one thing you can do now such by doing it, everything else will easier or unnecessary?”
It’s a great question for bringing some perspective to each situation you find yourself in, using like you would a compass, when you feel lost or confused about what needs doing next.
Mini-goals
Another way of ensuring the action you take today is moving you towards your goal is setting up mini-goals, that line up with one another like a pathway to your end goal. for instance have weekly goals that that leads towards achieving a monthly goal, that leads to a 6 monthly goal, that leads to a yearly goal that leads towards a 3 year goal and so on. Line each mini-goal up like you would when domino toppling, knock your weekly goals down and that automatically knocks the monthly goal down and so on.
Summary
So TAKING ACTION is an essential step in achieving any goal, it is probably the most important step, but taking action without direction and purpose is rather like floating at sea without a rudder. Have a goal and take action towards that goal. Have an outline plan but know that you should allow some flexibility as you go. Keep focus by asking the focus question, and use mini goals to keep you heading in the right direction. oh yes and enjoy the journey. Life is a journey, it isn’t a destination after all.
For more articles about TAKING ACTION, click here.
The Basics of Selling
We as humans are constantly driven to avoid pain and as part of that drive we strive to “be” more. Western society has conditioned us to believe the more we “have”, the more we will be. So to that end, we constantly operate in accumulation mode. We love to buy stuff and businesses love to sell us stuff. At the heart of our desire to buy is this simple statement.
“If you believe there’s a BENEFIT in a SOLUTION, and you VALUE that benefit enough, and TRUST the SELLER you’re going to buy it.”
Think about the statement from your perspective, is it right for you, well it’s certainly right for me. So from a selling point of view, if we reverse engineer this and align it from a selling perspective we find the following:
- Sellers should provide a SOLUTION that addresses customer problems or wants
- Sellers should ensure they communicate a VALUED BENEFIT taken from the customers perspective, with regards to a SOLUTION
- Demonstrate you are a TRUSTWORTHY SELLER and able to deliver on your promise
So let’s look at each in a little more detail.
1.Sellers should provide a SOLUTION that addresses customer problems or wants
“SOLUTION” refers to the product or service you are wanting to sell. It should provide a solution to a problem or want that your prospective customer has, if it doesn’t do this than it serves no use.
You can either create a SOLUTION to a problem or want that you personally have, or that you know other people have. Do some further research to establish how wide spread the problem or want is before investing lots of time in developing your SOLUTION.
Alternatively you can create a product or service and see if it provides a SOLUTION to a problem or want afterwards, although this does happen, I wouldn’t recommend it.
2.Sellers should ensure they communicate a VALUED BENEFIT taken from the customers perspective, with regards to a SOLUTION
So when you have a SOLUTION to a known problem or want, the next thing you need to do is market the VALUED BENEFITS of that SOLUTION to prospective customers. Write down all the reasons you think your customer would benefit from using the SOLUTION in order of importance starting with the most important aspects to least important. Now it’s important to be empathetic with your customers situation and point of view, otherwise you won’t get this right. It’s not what you think your customers “should” want or what you “think” is a problem, it’s what “is” a problem, it’s what “is” a want.
I would also list the objections your customers are likely to have and try to put a positive spin on these, because you will inevitably have to address them at some point in the buying process. You might have to work from a best “guess basis” to start but do as much research as possible going forward. The more you know your customers’ the better you can address their actual situations.
3.Demonstrate you are a TRUSTWORTHY SELLER and able to deliver on your promise
If you can’t provide some way of proving you are a TRUSTWORTHY SELLER you are going to have an uphill struggle on your hands, particularly if you’re selling remotely as with a website store.
Genuine reviews and testimonials are a good way of establishing trust, social media presence and positive interaction is another. Having a physical location helps people to know you are a genuine business, rather than a rogue scammer. If you’re new to business, give a sample of your product to people in exchange for some honest reviews and testimonials, just to get you started. Without trust people aren’t going to risk their cash with you.
This is a short post and covers the very basics of selling, but I believe all businesses should be working from a solid base, so it’s an article that needs to be written, because I see so many websites not paying attention to these basic principles.
Top 17 Gary Vaynerchuk Principles to Improve your Business Performance
Gary Vaynerchuk is described as a “thought leader” and “social media guru”, neither of which he particularly likes. He sees himself as a business builder first and foremost having built a $60 million wine business using the internet and subsequently a $100 million social media company. A lot of what Gary says isn’t new but he frames it in a no nonsense, high energy way, that engages business leaders and entrepreneurs alike. His messages cut to the bone, are frank, honest and on point. He builds his personal brand around giving value, so I thought we should include some of his messages for you to take insight from….
- Ideas are s**t, execution is the game – we can all come up with ideas, but ideas mean nothing without taking effective action that delivers results. Execution comes down to talent. Not everyone is talented enough to execute effectively. This feeds directly into the next point
- Improve Self Awareness -know what you’re good at and not good at. Face the truth and make progress from that perspective. Get help doing the things you can’t do and concentrate on what you are good at.
- Bet on your strengths -Double down on them and punt your weaknesses. To be extraordinary, you have to be an anomaly. You ain’t gonna do that if you spend time bringing your weaknesses up-to-speed. You lean towards doing some things over others for a reason. When you’re good at something, it’s usually because you like doing it, and have tended to do it a lot, so it makes sense to keep doing it even more. The opposite is true of the things you don’t like to do. Make your expertise narrow and deep, rather than wide and shallow, stay in your lane, and delegate everything else if you can.
- Bring perspective to your business -When the going gets hard, instead of fixating on the negatives, be grateful for what you have and realise things could be much worse. Gary imagines getting a call saying his mother has passed away, he says that although this is a dark thought, it grounds his reality and adds much needed perspective to the situation.
- Work your ass off – If you’re in a job but want to be an entrepreneur, grind 5pm-2am to build something for yourself in your off time and, “Stop watching episodes of Breaking Bad” says Gary. If you work 9 hours a day, sleep 6 hours that leave you 9 hours a day to grind and hustle.
Get Results: hustle and execution - Stick to your DNA – Be true to yourself, be authentic, it’s what makes you, you and separates you from everyone else. It’s okay to admire others, but don’t try to copy who they are, be the best version of yourself.
- Do what matters – Don’t get hung up on unimportant tasks. Micro manage or delegate, you decide. Most things don’t matter. Focus on what matters. Take right action.
- Stop making excuses – Lack of time or capital are just two obstacles amongst many others that you will inevitably have to overcome but don’t use them as excuses not to do something. Lack of optimism is the major problem. Overcome the inevitable obstacles. “Lack of ……” are just excuses. There are a million reasons “why not” but just one reason “why” which is you gotta persevere and get on with it. Take responsibility.
- Care for your Customers – run your business with your heart as well as your head. introduce “random acts of kindness” for loyal customers not just when they are leaving you. Find a way to go “the extra mile” at scale
- Learn what motivates your customers – Understand what makes people tick and reverse engineering that so you can add value to them. Be empathetic, and really give a s**t. The customer is not always right but they are always the customer. If you want to take their money, you have to get out of the way, and do what’s necessary to close the deal, put pride to one side. It’s how you make them FEEL that they’ll remember you for. Technology lubricates word of mouth, and customer service is key to creating an experience that will be talked about.
- Find where your customers attention is focused – Understand where your customers can be found. Attention is much more focused on mobile phones and particularly on social media through mobile. If you want to get your brand in front of those customers you’ve got to meet them were their attention is. Stop holding onto what worked yesterday, and realign to what is happening in the world today. Get out of your own way, stop resisting and move with the times. Two questions to ask yourself, “Where are your prospects focusing their attention?” “Are you engaging or telling stories to them there?”
- Be open to change – Roll with the punches. Don’t try to hold ground. Don’t resist what is. Don’t fear change, embrace uncertainty, evolve, and go with the flow. When you try to resist the way things are, you hurt your business. Market in the present day not yesterday. Things are moving fast, keep up, or get left in the dust.
- Be a student of behaviour – This point builds on the previous three. Study behaviour and react to it. Today people are spending huge amounts of time on social media, via their phones, however this is very likely to change in the future as a result of technology advancements, so you need to keep observing and reacting to how the market evolves as a result of these future changes. You don’t have to have a defined plan of attack other than “observing and reacting to what’s happening in the market.”
- You must have TALENT – Do you have the talent to be successful, either by being funny, clever, creative, good at DOING something of value, KNOWING something of value, CONNECTING people. It’s the variable that either makes you and your content interesting or not. For instance, you can get away with a drab setting for your videos, if the content is valuable enough to the audience. Deliver something of value using your talent.
- Use storytelling in your Marketing – if you understand what the consumer wants, you can then back track to get them emotionally there using story. When done properly it is an invisible influencer. We’re wired to tell and listen to stories. Stories lower our emotional barriers and allow ideas to enter our subconscious.
- Embrace your uniqueness – Technology will inevitably take out the B, C, D players in many industries and niches, because they have commoditised themselves, but the “A” players will grow and take B, C, D’s market share. So concentrate on growing your brand. Be authentic, be genuine and don’t try to fit in, or blend into the background, or copy what others are doing, otherwise you will become a commodity (same as everyone else). Ask what makes you different? What makes you, you? Dare be noticed, and stand out.
Get Results: Branding - Nothing happens overnight – It takes lots of work, talent, luck, and serendipity. to be “an overnight success”. Put yourself in the best position to succeed and take a long term view if you can, rather than looking for quick wins. Think Branding over “transaction marketing” for instance.
Hope you enjoyed this article, please check out my Ultimate Guides relating to Health, Wealth and Wellness.
The Opposing Forces of Motivation
Motivation lies at the heart of getting results. Without it you can’t get anything done. However motivation is made up of opposing forces, which makes progress more difficult than it otherwise would be. Let’s first look at the forces that help us move closer to our goals these forces are made up of internal and external supporting motivations.
Internal Supporting Motivations
Become Self Awareness
Self awareness is a key aspect of motivation, simply because it allows you to know why you do and don’t do certain things. If you can hack your subconscious and align your goals in such a way that they fit in with “who you are”, then the journey to achieving them will be a much easier one. This article is designed to allow you to discover and question what is going on inside your head, and force you to take a deeper look at what is helping you and more importantly. hindering you making progress towards your goals.
Take Responsibility
It is so important that you take responsibility for your results. Stop blaming your situation, your living arrangements, your job, stop blaming other people around you, like your spouse, your boss. When you pass blame to someone or something else, you also pass power, the very power you need to do something about it.
When you take responsibility, you empower yourself to find a solution and take action. It is a huge mental shift in the way you approach situations. You become a problem solver instead of a just a problem spotter. You access the creative part of your brain, rather than being in “wait and see what happens” mode, hoping for someone else to sort it out for you.
Tap into your Purpose
If you have purpose, a strong reason why you want or even need your goal, and you desire that goal so much, taking action is going to be that much easier. If you’re about to lose your home because you can’t make your next mortgage payment, you’re more likely to take that shitty job, than you would if you had a years worth of savings in your bank account. What’s changed, your purpose has. You suddenly have to do something, you have to earn some money or else. This might not be an aspirational purpose like “bringing an end to poverty” or “finding a cure for cancer” but it is a purpose, the purpose of getting money to pay your bills, so you still have a roof over your family’s head. If that purpose is strong, or as desperate enough (as in the case of the previous example) you are more likely to take action, that you might not otherwise have taken. Purpose doesn’t have to be some romanticised great deed, it just has to work for you, and get you closer to your goals.
Form good habits
Habits are formed to ease the burden on thought processes. We don’t have to mentally process every little thing we do, especially with regards to things we do on a regular basis. We form habits that we just do, without thinking about. This frees our brains to concentrate on other things.
As part of this process we often form bad habits that no longer serve us. The best way of getting rid of bad habits is by replacing them with good ones. To do this you have to begin to take action on a regular basis and do something that serves your goals. If you want to be a writer, start to write 200-300 words a day. Do this everyday for 30-60 days, after which you will have formed a habit of doing it. Then up the word count by a further 200. when you have done that everyday for a month or so, up it again.
Embrace Change and risk taking
One of the main reasons we fail to take action, is fear, we will deal with fear later in the article when discussing blocking motivations, you might want to read that part of the article first and come back to this section.
“Embracing change” and “risk taking” are the same thing. We resist change because we fear the uncertainty that “change” brings with it. Embracing change is a difficult mind shift, but an essential one, if we’re to grow into our goals.
Many people falsely believe there exists a status quo, some fictional place where everything stays the same forever. The reality of course is that everything is always changing, and change is part of life. Life and change are inseparable, so face the truth, and stop resisting it. Be excited by the opportunities that come about because of it.
Risk is also a part of life, we risk death every time we walk out the door, every time we get into the car. We risk embarrassment every time we open our mouths, we risk loss of possessions every time we leave the house empty, or every time we put something in our pocket or bag when we go out. We can try to mitigate risk but we can’t live without being exposed to it.
Live with Gratitude
I’ve included gratitude here because, gratitude adds some perspective to our thoughts. If we are grateful for what we have now, our health, our family and friends, our ability to reason, and make decisions, our ability to communicate and get on with other people, if we are grateful for everything we have, we don’t need to take the attainment of our goals too seriously, so that the fear of not attaining them, paralyses us from reaching optimal performance. We want to achieve our goals but not so badly that not achieving them means we drop into a great depression. Make life a game to be enjoyed, not one that feels like life or death depends on your success, because in most cases it really doesn’t.
External supporting motivations
External supporting motivations come from things we get from other people rather than from within us.
Incentives
Incentives can be tangible and intangible. Tangible incentives can include money rewards, a chance of winning something like a holiday or prize. Tangible incentives are used to reward us for outstanding performance at work for instance.
Intangible incentives on the other hand are things like getting a pat-on-the-back, or a “well done”, a “thank you for your effort” from someone we respect or have done something for.
Incentives push us to behave in a certain way usually for the benefit of others, but we can use them to help us get results for ourselves. An accountability buddy for instance can spur us on, say “well done” when we do something good, and at the same time put us right when we fail to do it or do something that is counter-productive to our goal attainment.
Internal Blocking Motivations
Fear of ….
Well fear has such a grip on the human psyche, that it stops the majority of people ever pursuing their dreams. Fear is a perceived possible future devaluation of our sense of self, which simply means that we fear the thought of something that “might” happen to us or to things, people or ideas that are important to us. We fear death, embarrassment, rejection, being negatively judged by others, disappointment, being vulnerable, loss, poverty, the unknown, uncertainty, change, being let down by others, some people even fear success. In fact we fear most things. Fear is a thought about the future, and as we can’t do anything about the future, until it becomes “this moment”. Fear is nothing more than a made up thought or series of thoughts that might happen, but is much more likely not to happen. Stop focusing on what might go wrong and start dreaming about what might go right.
Limiting Beliefs and Values
We’ve all heard the stories of kids that were told they wouldn’t amount to anything, only to go on to become big successes. These people felt they had something to prove, and this motivated them to succeed, but for many, negative reinforcement can kill their motivation, and keep them trapped in mediocrity.
Social conditioning -the environment where we grow up, the people we are surrounded by, the stories we are told has a big impact on how our beliefs and values are formed through childhood and as teenagers, and these values have a major impact on our lives as adults. As the saying goes “If you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right”, the question is where did this belief come from?
Our thoughts are formed by our experiences which are shaped by our actions, reactions, and behaviours which are affected by our thoughts. It’s a cycle that feeds itself. It can be a virtuous cycle or downward spiral. If you can feed your psyche with positive thoughts, beliefs and values, this will positively affect your actions and behaviours, and this will in turn dictate the quality of your experiences and the way people react to you, for the better.
Conflicted Thoughts
If you feel conflicted about your goals you may feel you want them on the one hand, but also feel in some way you don’t want them. When you feel this way, you might sabotage your progress. you might want to be wealthy, but at the same time feel it will ruin important relationships you have presently, and this dampens your motivation to take action to pursue your goal.
Another type of conflict comes in the form of “want” versus “should” situations. If you have a goal to be thinner, and healthier, but you see a delicious looking cream cake that you really want to eat, you are going to feel torn between “wanting” the pleasure of eating the cream cake and knowing that you “should” reframe from doing so, if you are to achieve your weight loss goal. If you give in and eat the cream cake you are not just failing to moving closer to your goal, but are in-fact moving further away from it, which is likely to make you feel even worse. “Wanting”, more often than not outweighs “should” as a mental choice calculation. This is why we so often give in to temptation. The best way to overcome this is avoid situations that present such a choice in the first place. If there is no cream cake waiting for you in the fridge, you aren’t going to feel you are missing out on it.
Moving forward
Overcoming the blocking motivations by strengthening the supporting motivations is the name of the game. If we can have stronger supporting motivations and hack our blocking motivations we stand a better chance of progressing towards our goals.
Become more self aware, take responsibility, have a strong purpose, replace bad habits with good ones, embrace change and risk, be happy and grateful with the positives in your life today, get help from others and get them to reward you for good behaviour. Be less fearful of your imagination, lose those limiting beliefs and straighten out your conflicted thoughts about your goals. Do this and success is your next destination.
Check out our “Ultimate Guides” relating to business, marketing, health and wellbeing.
Self Improvement is the Secret to Success
Self improvement or self development as its also known, is key to improving the quality of your life. Jim Rohn said it best when he said “You can have more than you’ve got, because you can become more than you are. The other side of this coin is unless you change what you are, you’ll always have what you got.”
#1 Emotional Intelligence
One way to improve yourself and your results is improving your Emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is seen as a predictor of highly successful people. Individuals that are high in Emotional Intelligence tend to be emotionally balanced, in tune with their gut instinct. They have an innate ability to listen, empathise, creatively problem-solve, and understand the why behind the actions of others. Gary Vaynerchuk is a strong advocate of Emotional Intelligence, he believes it to be one of his greatest strengths, and key to his success.
Gratitude
One way of tapping into your Emotional Intelligence is to give gratitude for what you already have. Lets call it an appreciation perspective. If you live a life of striving, it’s really easy to get lost in that striving. You are always looking to the future to find happiness, and as a result you are internally torn between where you are now and where you want to be.
This can lead to negative emotions, even chronic negative emotions such as anger, frustration, despair. Such emotions can adversely impact the quality of your life, even ruin it. While motivation is indeed key to driving action, you shouldn’t allow it to get out of control.
I recommend using gratitude to help you gain perspective. We can all benefit from remembering we are here by the grace of god. Our lives can be cut short at any moment, that alone is worth a great deal of gratitude. If you are healthy, mentally and physically, again you have a great deal to feel blessed about. If you find it hard to internalise such gratitude simply by thinking about it, do a few weeks volunteering at a local kids cancer unit, hospice, or care home to gain some much needed perspective.
Manage Stress
Another way of managing Emotional Intelligence is by managing Stress. Stress is caused by a fear of “a future potential devaluation in your sense of self”. You might fear there is a gap in your ability and the requirements of a future event, in other words you might fear you aren’t going to be strong enough, smart enough, wealthy enough, or good enough to cope with something that might (or might not) happen sometime in the future. Often the worry is greater than the actual event. Stop telling yourself stories and embellishing the downsides and worst case scenarios, instead be aware of the risk and try to mitigate it as much as possible, there are always ways around obstacles. Worry and fear are thoughts and only exist in your mind. When the event comes round you will either find you can deal with it much better than you anticipated, or that it doesn’t turn out to be half as bad as you thought it would be. This happens ninety nine times out of a hundred.
Become Self Aware
Another way of improving Emotional intelligence is by being Self aware. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses. Knowing what you like to do and don’t like to do. Instead of burying your head in the sand and trying to ignore these things, be honest and open with yourself. Confront them head on and work out the best way to either overcome them or find a work-around solution.
Self Reflection
Something that is closely related to self awareness is self reflection. Honestly auditing yourself, your thoughts, your actions, your performance, your results good and bad. Stand up to them. There is no failure in life, failure is a chance to learn something, make yourself better and move on.
Work on self first then observe others
To improve emotional intelligence you need to work first on yourself. Once you open yourself up to honest analysis, you will see with greater clarity what shapes the actions of other people around you. You will understand their motives better. You will pick up on the subtle signals and be able to read between the lines. You should as a result be more empathetic, more open to communication, by listening better you learn much more. Empathy is one of the greatest skills you can develop in your personal and business life.
Develop a Feedback Loop
As part of your growth, you should be open to, even encourage constructive criticism from people you trust. Encourage a feedback loop that helps you improve your game. Now this part comes with a caveat. You should have a strong sense of what you are about, who you are, what you want. Otherwise you can easily be manipulated into following other peoples agendas, or take on their insecurities and fears.
Its also important to understand that you are not going to get on, or be liked by everyone you meet, there will always be haters. “Haters gotta hate” as the saying goes, and it’s important to not let these people chip away at your self-esteem simply because they don’t want you to get on in life, or want to bring you do a peg or two. Ignore the views of these people, they don’t understand you and their opinion isn’t relevant, they probably have their own internal issues shaping their view.
Encourage honest, constructive feedback from people you genuinely trust and respect. Close family are not usually good for this because often they project their own fear and insecurities onto you and what you are trying to do, they don’t want you to get hurt so tell you not to do it. Instead of turning to family, try to find mentors or role models that have done what you want to do and encourage them to share their experience, and advice with you.
Assume the Best in Others’
Assuming the best in others is another way of improving your emotional intelligence. The human condition is driven by the need to avoid pain and desire to be more. This condition makes people irrational, isolated, and selfish. Most people operate in this mode almost unconsciously. It is their self preservation instincts that are ruling their behaviour, and we shouldn’t mistake this to be who they are. People are good at heart, they are possessed by their Ego’s, for more about this check out my wellbeing guide.
Become a Giver
One last point about emotional intelligence is one of becoming a Giver. Give back, or just give. The world would be so much better if people were more giving. Giving of their time, their attention, their love, their patience, their understanding. Looking at each of your relationships from a “what can I give to this person” will open up a vastly more expansive life than you currently live.
#2 Having a Strong work Ethic
Having a strong work ethic is also vital when it comes to self improvement. If you’re not willing to invest the time and effort in working on yourself, than you’ll just have to be content with where you are and what you have now. Gary Vaynerchuk advocates “working your ass off” to get what you want in life. “Hustling” your way towards you goal, instead of watching every episode of House of Cards. If you’re not where you want to be, the only way to get there is, to take action, massive action. The maths is simple, there are 24 hours in a day, if you sleep for 8, that leaves 16 hours. If you work 9 of those hours, you still have 7 hours to work on developing yourself.
While having a good work ethic is important, it’s not just about putting the time in but rather it’s about working smart. It’s about being effective rather than busy. Jim Rohn says “Don’t spend major time on minor things”, and this is so true. Success won’t come from hustling 16 hours a day unless you’re doing the right things during that time.
In his book “The One Thing”, Gary Keller offers up a great focusing question that you can ask yourself and keep asking yourself to make sure you’re not wasting your time on unimportant activities. “What’s the one thing you can do now, such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary”. I’m not going to go into detail about this question here. If you want a detailed explanation, check out the book for yourself below
The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
#3 Work on your strengths
Focus on developing your strengths rather than wasting time on bringing your weaknesses up to speed. Gary Vaynerchuk advocates “doubling down on your strengths and punting your weaknesses”. It’s good advice, even though it goes against the conventional advice of working on your weaknesses. Why is it good advice? Well because generally your strengths will be the activities you are naturally inclined towards. They are likely to be things you enjoy doing, and as a result will be more willing to do going forward. There is generally a reason why you do what you do and don’t do what you don’t do. It comes back to self awareness and knowing yourself better.
So it’s vitally important to know what you’re good at and not so good at. for instance, not everyone is cut out for business and being an entrepreneur, just because it’s the sexy thing to do at the moment, doesn’t mean you should do it. Be honest with yourself.
Stay in your lane, make your knowledge deep and narrow, rather than wide and shallow. To stand out you should aim to be exceptional at one thing rather than average at a lot of different things.
Summary
So there you have it, work hard to improve yourself. Consider it a lifelong project, one that you will never actually finish, but which keeps you pushing yourself to be a better person throughout your entire life. Be a master of what you know and a student of what you don’t know. Never take the view that you know all that you need to know, never. Be open to new ideas, open to new ways of doing things. Don’t be content with doing things the best you can do them, but aim to do them the best way they can be done. Most of all enjoy your personal journey of self improvement.
Check out our Ultimate guides for some self help information.
100 Business Principles You Must Know
Here is a list of ‘Business principles’ that I have found useful to know over the years so I thought I would share them with you, hope you find them useful…
- Look for huge expanding markets – a contracting market means you have to work harder each year to maintain previous revenues and margins. Get your timing right – ahead of trends not behind them for the same reasons.
- Provide unique and consumable products . if not unique then you must have a retention strategy, if not consumable then you are redundant until next sale
- Pay attention to timing
- Make sure you business/ product is ahead of trends not behind it.
- Study what creates trends. i.e. Follow the Baby boomers (1946-1964 18 years, 1 billion worldwide control 65% of all money)as they age, products that fend off aging, retirement issues, wills and estate planning, security and money, efficiencies (making life easier), identity theft detection, now 41-59, concentrate on the 60 year olds not the 42 otherwise you are behind the trend.
- Stop resisting progress and technological advancement. Instead be on the front foot and be hungry to find out what’s coming next. Disrupt your own business, look how you can put your existing model out of business. It’s better you do it to yourself than someone else does it to you.
- Where are prospective customer’s spending their attention. If you’re business isn’t there, you’re competitors will be cleaning up in your absence.
- Have a strong work ethic. Work harder than the competition
- Work smarter than your competition. Productivity is about focusing on the activities that have the biggest impact on your business.
- Employ others – leverage their time and effort
- Identify your market segment and focus on them
- Where are the gaps in your market?
- Where is the growth and profit?
- Look for needs and translate the benefits.
- Always answer the prospective customer’s question ‘what’s in it for me?’
- Look after the customer – go the extra mile.
- Be professional at all times, but it’s okay to be human. People do business with people they like, respect and trust.
- Plan your objective.
- Ask, listen, sell.
- And make your business fun – life is not a rehearsal.
- Decide what you do (and what you don’t do).
- Decide who you serve (and focus on them intensely)
- Decide what makes you different (and do it)
- Manage cash flow (very closely)
- Manage employees (incentivise them for success)
- Set goals (and go for them)
- Expose yourself (tell the market what you do)
- Persevere (though the tough times)
- Always maintain your integrity (in everything you do)
- Systemise your business.
- Deliver full range of values – which means anything that satisfies needs, including money.
- The 80/20 rule – leverage yourself and your resources
- Apply principles not formulas
- Think with your whole mind – logical and gut instinct
- Define success. What is success to you?
- Focus on results – effective better than efficient.
- Use your “double vision” (long term and short term view)
- Keep a healthy perspective – big picture view.
- Don’t Compete, Create a Competitive Advantage – How will you compete? What will be your business edge? How can you create a winning business model with an advantage? Like the Grateful Dead, the secret is to find a niche where you can be not necessarily the best but the only. Find out what everyone else is doing and then do something different. Your competitive advantage can be based on a unique skill, intellectual advantage, or by selling at an unusual time or location. The alternative to uniqueness is to be ordinary, and sell the same product at the same price as everyone else, making minimal profits if any at all.
- It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the purpose of a business is to make money. But the real purpose of a business is to create value for others.
- Trying to sell to everyone is selling to no one. Focus. Don’t waste time trying to sell to the wrong people.
- Use financial control to aid your business decisions.
- If you’re not already the most expensive in your field, there is room to charge more.
- Adaptability. The species that survives, adapts to changing circumstances.
- Smell what sells and sell more of it.
- Branding and good spelling matters.
- Sometimes less is more.
- The importance of listening – Listen to what your market research tells you.
- Teamwork, creativity, innovation, humility and salesmanship are critical to much of the success in the marketplace. Ego, self centeredness, looking out for one’s self, pride, lack of individual responsibility, and an unwillingness to take risks are reasons for much of the failure in the marketplace.
- Perseverance, tenacity, commitment to learning and growing, knowing your market, having a real passion to succeed and understanding your costs.
- Plan a retirement date and work on plan of action required to get there.
- Its not about who you know but who knows you.
- Do what you love – follow your bliss.
- Buy items that appreciate in value; rent those that depreciate.
- If it sounds too good to be true, don’t jump.
- A pressured decision will always rupture.
- Fast, cheap, perfect…you can only pick two.
- Define your objective(s). find a clear story of cause and effect. Keeping the end in mind increases your chances of success. When planning, work backwards to help identify what you will need to have in place at each stage of progression.
- Avoid insanity. Poor processes produce poor results, if something isn’t working, don’t keep doing it again and again.
- In business, when things are good they’re not really that good, when they are bad they are not really that bad. Keep a level head, don’t let emotion get the better of you.
- Promote your success stories, as story’s.
- Stop thinking and start doing. Actions speak louder than words.
- Get a business name that explains what you do.
- More than simply selling, relationships matter.
- The law of supply and demand – Find the demand first then find a way to supply it, at a profit
- Find your niche, find your unique selling proposition (USP). Learn how to differentiate your product or service.
- Use leverage other peoples, skill, knowledge, money, resources, ideas, time
- Look for scalability. If it won’t scale, how can you re-engineer so that it will?
- Use lateral thinking to approach a situation from a different angle
- Work on your business (system), not in it
- Reap what you sew. You’ll get out what you put in.
- You have to spend money to make money – speculate to accumulate
- Learn to manage cash flow – it is the lifeblood of your business
- Understand human nature/ behaviour – the need to seek more/increase and avoid loss/ decrease
- Innovate, always be looking to innovate.
- Take action, make things happen. You can plan all you like but without “doing the work” you won’t achieve s**t.
- Add value to people’s lives by “Uniqueness” – unique value can be charged more for, “Impact” – the degree you improve peoples lives, “Scope” – the number of people you reach, “Perception” – people’s perception of the value you are adding
- Say it in 30 seconds or don’t say it at all.
- If you can’t explain it simply, you probably don’t understand it well enough.
- Know what you know, what you don’t know and who knows what you don’t know.
- Look for service/product differentiation – don’t commoditise. If you’re not a brand you’re a commodity.
- No one will give you money. Find a starting point instead of an end point, downsize big plans. Find ways to prove your business model on a shoestring budget
- Make your expertise narrow and deep rather than wide and shallow.
- Don’t fall victim to your own BS. Don’t talk the talk unless you can walk the walk.
- Look for win-win situations in all interactions.
- Build your weaknesses into your strengths.
- Make sure people know about you and your service.
- Be lucky. Be open to opportunities related and unrelated, don’t be too focused on one thing. Serendipity and chance come from a higher order, so be open to it.
- Focus, focus, focus. Don’t have too many balls in the air at once. Do one thing well rather than lots of things poorly.
- Spend 10% of your day thinking about new ways to make money.
- Spend 10% of your day networking.
- Analysis risk and rewards, take fewer risks as you get older, because you have less time to pull it back.
- Spend your money wisely, think Return on Investment, but don’t ignore opportunities to build your brand.
- Have fun at work. If it’s not fun, do something else.
- Know when to call it quits, but don’t give up too easily.
- Know what you do, do what you know. Make use of your skill-set to give yourself a better chance of success.
- Act like a startup. Be frugal. Operate within your means.
- Sell more by adding variety. People sell more jellybeans when there is an assortment of colours.
- Get it in writing, don’t trust anyone. Verbal agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.
- Offering something of value to others strengthens your worth. Adding value by providing more value than you take in return.
- Know where you stand legally with customers and suppliers, know your rights and ensure your business abides by the rules
- Adaptability – survival of the fittest. Status quo doesn’t exist. The Risk from NOT doing something. Often feels safe, hard to visualise missed opportunities. Ask “what will happen if we don’t do it”. Because it has worked before doesn’t mean it will always work.
- Trust can take years to build and seconds to demolish.
- Don’t fight the tide, enjoy the ride.
- Live the Golden Rule (treat others with courtesy and respect)
- Be a leader – let others follow your example.
- Be self-aware. Understand what you’re good at and bad at. Why you do what you do and don’t do what you don’t do. What you like and don’t like.
- Employ people that add value and that are better than you at what they do.
- Participate and contribute and give 100%.
- Pursue excellence. Always be looking for the best way things can be done, rather than settling for the best way you can do them.
- Work as a team, there is no “I” in “team”.
- Share knowledge, results grow exponentially.
- Keep it simple (make it easy for customers to do business with you).
- Listen and communicate to employees and customers alike – Over communicate
- Never burn bridges.
- Always be building relationships in business and personally.
- Put the customer first.
- Manage customer expectations. Don’t give them cause for complaint.
- Be resourceful, use your resources to find creative ways to move beyond obstacles.
- Exceed customer expectations always, customer service comes first. Under promise and over deliver – there are more than 100 principles in this article