Business Keys To Success: Turn Up Your Passion

Passion certainly makes things you more interested in whatever you are involved in at the moment. When you are displaying passion in response to a person, situation or event you are definitely more committed whether it be positive or negative.

What about the passion in your business and your life? In my personal business coaching practice I have observed the power of passion to move my clients, whether they be self-employed business owners, entrepreneurs, solo professionals, corporate managers or corporate executives to achieve more.

Passion: The First Step To Greater Achievement

When you are starting up your own business you have a great deal of passion. Yet, once you have made it over the initial hurdles to where it is not about survival but running a small business, I have seen business owners lose their passion.

How come? Many self-employed business owners love the creation process. They are very passionate about it. On the other hand, the maintenance of the daily routine to insure the continued growth and success of the business is not what they are passionate about.

In the corporate world I find that many people are doing well financially but they are not working well. They feel trapped either by the process or the people around them and they slowly lose their passion. They don’t see a way out. They don’t see a better future.

To have greater achievement and to live beyond the ordinary you must have great desire. Weak desires will bring weak results. Have passion to keep the fire strong for greater achievement.

Passion Increases Your Focus

Think about when you have been very focused on something. When you are focused and intense you are displaying passion. Interestingly, when you want something badly enough, your first step is to bring extra focus to making it a reality.

When you bring passion you are more likely to succeed because you are more focused on having a successful result.

Passion Will Change You

As Zig Ziglar once said, “Don’t be a wandering generality. Be a meaningful specific.” When you have passion and focus it will change you. You will become more dedicated and productive. And people will notice. Very often your passion will have more influence than your personality.

It has been said that “Enthusiasm makes things 1,000 percent better. Bring your passion and enthusiasm and it will increase your influence.

Passion Takes You From The Impossible To The Possible

As Audrey Hepburn once said, “Nothing is impossible; The word itself says I’m possible.” Let passion fire your soul and impossibilities will vanish. As John Maxwell says, “A fire in your heart lifts everything in your life.” That’s why passionate leaders are so effective. A leader with great passion and few skills always outperforms a leader with great skills and no passion.

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Business Keys To Success: Being Approachable

Being approachable over my career has brought me opportunities and contacts I could never have imagined.  I attribute much of the success I have experienced and continue to experience to being approachable.  Obviously there are other important factors.  But being approachable and having the ability to connect are in the top five.

Opportunity for a better business and life constantly pass by you but opportunity won’t stop if you are not approachable.  Someone gets the promotion.  The other person doesn’t.  One person gets the sale.  The other person doesn’t.  One person is told about an opportunity to give them a competitive edge.  The other person never hears about it.

In my personal business coaching practice I encourage every client whether they are a self-employed business owner, entrepreneur, solo professional, corporate manager or executive to be approachable.
There is an interesting law at work here.  The more approachable you are the greater the opportunities personally and professionally will come your way.  I’ve never met a rich hermit.

Are The People In Your Life Approachable?

I am sure you have met people who seem cold and forbidding.  And you’ve met people who treat you like an old friend from day one.  This isn’t an issue with just high profile people.  I can look at my associations in the various organizations I belong to and tell you who is approachable and who is not.
To get a perspective on you and your life you may want to ask this question:  How approachable are the most important people in your life? When you need to ask your boss a question, is it easy or difficult?   When you need to talk to your spouse about a difficult subject, do you expect a dialogue or a fight?

Are You Approachable?

As I said, “I have never found a rich hermit.”  What about you?  Are you approachable?  You may think you are.  And, you may be surprised at how others truly see you.  I have clients who are very approachable on what I call “logic” matters.  Yet, they are distant on “emotional” matters.  And, I have clients who are just the opposite.  They are very approachable emotionally but on the logic they are distant.

Can the people closest to you talk to you about nearly anything?   Here’s a test.  When was the last time someone brought you bad news?  Or when was the last time someone strongly disagreed with your point of view on an issue?  Or confronted you with something you did wrong?  If it has been a while, you may not be a very approachable person.
 
Be Approachable

Some people treat the idea of becoming approachable as frivolous; it’s a nice thing if one can be bothered to cultivate it.  I have three online training courses that can give you insights to being more approachable among other keys and ultimately garnering more of the opportunities life has to offer.

Check out the following:

www.BusinessKeysToSuccess.com
www.WinningPersonalDevelopment.com
www.WinningCharacterTraits.com

Being approachable is a key to your success.  It is a powerful asset to have in your relational toolbox.  In the words of the famous shoe manufacturer, “Just Do It.”  Be approachable.

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Business Keys To Success: Self-Discipline

The road to success and ultimately more happiness is paved with self-discipline. Author H. Jackson Brown Jr. said, “Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.” If you know you have talent, and you’ve seen a lot of motion—but little concrete results—you may lack self-discipline. The road to small business success, or any success for that matter and happiness is paved with self-discipline.

Self-discipline-Sort Out Your Priorities

What two or three areas of your life are vital to your success? Write them down, along with the disciplines that you must develop to keep growing and improving in those areas. Develop the disciplines and more importantly develop an action plan with concrete steps that you must apply whether it is daily or weekly. Plan how they are going to become part of your life.

Self-discipline-List the Reasons

What are the benefits of practicing the disciplines you just listed? Starting something new is not easy. Without a positive vision of the benefits it is more challenging to follow through. Post these benefits somewhere where you will see them daily. In my personal business coaching practice I have observed the importance of constant visualization of what we want to accomplish and how it gives impetus to making it a reality.

Self-discipline—Get Rid of Excuses

Whether you are a self-employed business owner, entrepreneur, solo professional or corporate manager or executive all of us come up with excuses as to why we are not getting things done. To eliminate the roadblocks to developing your new disciplines write down the reasons as to why you may not be able to follow through with them. Read through them. And then dismiss them as the excuses they are.

Here’s the hard part. Even if a reason seems legitimate, find a solution to overcome it. Don’t leave yourself any reasons to quit. Remember that a discipline is the bridge between a thought and an action. Only when you have the discipline to act do you have the power to achieve your dreams.
There is a nursery in Canada that displays this sign on their wall: “The best time to plant a tree is twenty-five years ago…..The second best time is today.” Plant the tree of self-discipline in your life today.

About Author :

First things first, I like to have fun with people and what I do. I am a personal business coach.Yes, I have received training and been coaching since 1983. I have gone through and continue to happily go through more personal development.

Personal development and its quest for personal growth, more often than not, are the missing links in the chain of business and personal success.As Warren Buffett once said, “Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”

For more information please visit : http://www.businesskeystosuccess.com

Love, Wealth and Success

A woman came out of her house and saw 3 old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said “I don’t think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat.”

“Is the man of the house home?”, they asked.

“No”, she said. “He’s out.”

“Then we cannot come in”, they replied.

In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened. “Go tell them I am home and invite them in!” The woman went out and invited the men in.

“We do not go into a House together,” they replied.

“Why is that?” she wanted to know.

One of the old men explained: “His name is Wealth,” he said pointing to one of his friends, and said pointing to another one, “He is Success, and I am Love.” Then he added, “Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home.”

The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed. “How nice!!”, he said. “Since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let him come and fill our home with wealth!”

His wife disagreed. “My dear, why don’t we invite Success?”

Their daughter-in-law was listening from the other corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: “Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!”

“Let us heed our daughter-in-law’s advice,” said the husband to his wife. “Go out and invite Love to be our guest.”

The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, “Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest”

Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other 2 also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success, “I only invited Love, Why are you coming in?”

The old men replied together: “If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would’ve stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever He goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!”

For more information please visit : www.businesskeystosuccess.com/

Following Through

According to Gregg Harris, two-thirds of people surveyed (67 out of 100) set goals for themselves. But of those sixty-seven who set goals, only ten have made realistic plans to reach their goals. And out of those ten, only two follow through and actually make them happen.

What makes the follow through so low? There are several reasons.

You can set the goal. That is a good start. But it must be realistic enough to have the possibility of you attaining it. One of the things that many people do is they set goals when they are desperate. They hope that by setting a goal they can turn things around immediately. They set the ‘too big’ goal and when they realize that it is not going to happen they become discouraged and quit.

Another reason for poor follow through is that people set goals to please other people. If you set a goal without true ownership of it for yourself you are much less likely to follow through on it.

We can have ‘too big’ goals. We can have goals that we truly don’t own. But let’s say that your goal is reasonable and that you own it. What keeps you from following through?

There are two things I have seen that can hold you back. First is not having a clear plan with the tiny steps that you are going to take to make the goal a reality. Secondly, it is important to have someone holding you accountable for fulfilling the goal.

Goal setting without accountability can be like do-it-yourself heart surgery. It can become extremely challenging to be successful. Yes, follow through is a challenge for all of us.

As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said, “Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.”

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What’s Your Path?

As we go through life we learn from our failures and from our successes.

And the more quickly we recognize the errors that are on the path of failure, the sooner we can start moving along the path of success.

Both paths are well traveled. How can we make sure we are on the path of success more often than the one for failure?

First, the path of failure is necessary so we can learn how to take the path of success. But when we take the path of failure too often then, because of its high degree of difficulty and extreme demands we no longer have the energy to take the path of success.

Both paths involve decisions. And these decisions have future consequences. And these consequences can be rewarding or hurtful.

To stay more on the path of success you must make the future, what you desire to have happen, part of your every day philosophy. Ask yourself, is this taking me where I want to go a month, a year or 5 years from now?

If the answer is ‘Yes’ you are on the path to success. You may have a temporary failure but at least your decision was made in an effort to achieve something worthwhile.

When you don’t have your future vision as your guide, you are much more likely to fail and in the process not learn much that can help you. Why? You have no vision of where you are going.

Just as when you get in your car you have a clear vision of your future destination. And you make all the adjustments along the way to get there. Sometimes because of traffic or construction we may have to make a detour. But because we have a clear vision we get back on track and successfully arrive at our destination of choice.

Make your vision of the future part of your decision making every day and you will increase the odds of traveling the path to the success you desire.

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Keys To Success: Passion

Throughout my business experience I have found that passion is a key ingredient to small business success.  After all, if you don’t have passion about your product, service, company, and most importantly, yourself, it makes it that much harder to achieve personal and small business success.
In my personal business coaching practice I have observed that the clients who have the most passion also have the greatest degree of success.

Keys To Success:  Passion About Yourself

You have probably heard that true success is an “inside” job.  To succeed you must have passion about:

1. “Who” you are.
2. “What” you do.
3. “How” you do it.
4. “Why” you do it.

Lack of excitement in any of these areas will hold you back much more than you may realize. The most important area to be passionate about is YOU.  If you feel stuck or overwhelmed look at yourself and find something to change that will make you more excited about you.
After all, in business and life, we, so to speak, leak who we are.  What are you leaking about you?  How do you think?  How do you speak?  How do you dress?  Do you act with respect, kindness and consideration?

The answers to these questions and your passion about them are important keys to success.

Passion Is Your Value Proposition

In answering Who you are, What you do, How you do it and Why you do it you are establishing your value proposition to prospects, customers and client.  Too often this is forgotten.
I have collaborated with self-employed business owners, entrepreneurs and solo professionals who had the best technology and efficient systems but who fell short of where they wanted to be.
Once they understood that small business growth was not just about a great product or service and its delivery, but the passion with which it was delivered, their businesses and lives started to move forward and up.

Passion:  Look At Your Priorities

In running a small business or starting your own business I see self-employed business owners with passion but lacking clear priorities.  This is a recipe for disaster.

Be a person with passion but also priorities.  Without the right priorities and taking action on them personal and small business success is more likely to elude you.  Make sure that your daily priorities are in alignment with where you want to take your business and life.

With your priorities in alignment your passion will grow and help take you to the personal and small business success you desire.  Your success will be in your passion.

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Vacation : Become An Observer

Vacation makes you an observer because it forces you to step outside your normal routine.  If you are seeking greater personal or small business growth then take the vacation break.

Just as a muscle cannot develop when it is always worked, neither can you have the personal development and small business success that you seek unless you get away and become an observer.

Being a business performance coach is similar in many ways to being an athletic coach.  You engage in routines that will build performance.  You tweak them.  And at some point you rest.  Then at some point you take an extended break.  Look at your top athletes and all of them take an extended break.  It is called the off season.

During the off season they stay in shape but they do something more important.  They study films and look for ways to improve their techniques and performance.  They become observers.

Vacation Is The Rest That Strengthens You

A muscle needs a break and rest in order to grow and develop.  And the small business owner, whether you are running a small business or starting your own business needs to schedule, needs to take a break and rest in order for him and his business to grow.

Even in nature, virtually nothing grows all the time.  There are times where plants and animals take a break from growth.  Only when you take a break can you grow.  Unlike the plants and animals which have no choice, we as human beings have been given the dignity of choice.

We can choose an extended rest or not.  Choose a vacation and you will increase the odds of your personal growth and small business growth.

Vacation—A Change In Attitude

As a small business coach one of the most important benefits from a vacation can be a change in attitude.  This becomes apparent when the self-employed business owner returns.

Vacation allows you to heal up.  You become very sensitive to pain.  The nice calmness that vacation brings over you can turn to turbulence very quickly.

And with this increased sensitivity it is easier to see where changes need to be made.  When we are in the middle it is harder for us to see and act.  I have observed that some of the greatest progress in small business occurs when the owner returns from vacation.

Where there was tolerance of things that weren’t quite right or processes that were irritating, vacation and the clear perspective it brings creates the impetus for positive action.

After all, you are feeling good and calm after vacation and you want to retain that feeling as long as you can.  You can more clearly see what is getting in your way and creating turbulence and discord.  Your attitude becomes one of eliminating the discord.

This is called progress.  Taking a vacation is about progress and key to success.  Take a vacation and become an observer.  Take a vacation and have the rest to build strength.  And, take a vacation have the attitude on your return to make changes to improve your business and life.

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Keys To Success: Employees

One of the keys to success for many small businesses is when they hire their first employee.  As an entrepreneur, solo professional or self-employed business owner you can only grow your business and influence with the help of others.

Unfortunately, many small business owners see employees as a babysitting task or unwelcome responsibility as opposed to an opportunity to take them and their business to a better level.

Yes, having employees brings a new dynamic to your business.  It also brings increased paperwork and the discipline of making a payroll and the paperwork and procedures that must be implemented to have a good work environment.

Keys To Success:  Get Over The Hurdle 

One of the keys to success in small business growth is to get over the hurdle of hiring your first employee.  Very often, in my personal business coaching practice I have business owners who are reluctant to take the step to hire someone.

Yet, if they don’t they will stay on the treadmill they have created and ultimately wear out and quit their business.  Once the self-employed business owner truly understands that employees are the way to have a better business and life then they are ready to step up to becoming more and having more.

So, what holds the self-employed business owner back from hiring employees?  There are many reasons.  Some don’t want the extra paperwork.  Some don’t want the responsibility of an employee.  They really don’t want someone else to be accountable to.

Notice that the focus is on what the business owner does not want.  When the small business owner is focusing on what he doesn’t want, instead of what he does want, he is being ruled by fear.  And, the likelihood of him or her taking the action to move forward is quite small.

Keys To Success:  Focusing On What You Want 

Instead, as a small business owner you must focus on what you do want.  One of the keys to success and small business growth is to continually focus on what you do want.  If you want to get to a point where your business isn’t your life and your life isn’t your business then you must learn to depend on others.

One of the keys to success in small business is to have good processes.  Too often, the focus is put on outcome.  In truth, it is process that determines outcome.  To be ready to hire an employee it is better if you have good processes in place.  And, it is even better to have them written down.

Keys To Success:  Good Processes 

The first process is in the hiring employees.  It is important to have an application form.  There are numerous reasons that I won’t go into here.  Suffice it to say, that one of the keys to success is to have a good application form.

The next part of the hiring process is to be specific in what you need the employee to do.  Have a written job description.  If you don’t, start creating one when the employee starts.  Having a job description allows the small business owner to hold the employee accountable and to measure performance.

In coaching success I find that the businesses that truly succeed on a higher level have policies, procedures, accountability and measure performance. If this is not something you like to do, there are people who you can hire to help you do this.

There is a great deal that could be written on this subject.  My goal here is to give you a start and possibly the impetus to take on your first employee.

Get in the right mindset.  It is part of success planning. Employees are an asset.  To go forward in running a small business or a small business startup and to have small business success, we must learn to be dependent on others.  And, in being dependent on others, one of the keys to success is to create a process where we are dependent on the right people.

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