LIVE LIFE UP HIGH

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The Power of Choice
I know we ended our off last time discussing the power of choice but I think this point is so important that we need to delve into it a little deeper. Your power to choose is one of the most powerful God-given forces in the universe. You can choose to be rich or poor, a winner or a loser, a success or a failure, a giver or a robber, a person of accomplishment or a person of excuse. It is really all up to you. So before we start on this journey to your best business and professional life we must begin with the most powerful thing you can do. Choose.

Make Your Choice a Quality Choice
Most of us have experienced making a choice one day and then violating that choice the next day. What I am suggesting today is that you make a quality choice. A quality choice is one that is backed up with the commitment to do whatever it takes (without causing harm to others or yourself) to live up to the choice you have made.

Check out these 5 great quotes about choice

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.
George Eliot

There are two primary choices in life; to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.
Denis Waitley

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
Kahlil Gibran

What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.
Leo Buscaglia

You are the person who has to decide. Whether you’ll do it or toss it aside; you are the person who makes up your mind. Whether you’ll lead or will linger behind. Whether you’ll try for the goal that’s afar. Or just be contented to stay where you are.
Edgar A. Guest

Here are 12 powerful choices you can make
1. Choose to be the best version of yourself by God’s grace.
2. Choose to constantly increase.
3. Choose to be the best businessperson you can be.
4. Choose not to limit yourself.
5. Choose to be humble.
6. Choose to be a person of faith.
7. Choose to be a winner.
8. Choose to be prosperous.
9. Choose to be generous and loving to others.
10. Choose to discover and use your best gifts to help others.
11. Choose to discover and fulfill your destiny.
12. Choose to do no harm.

I encourage you to make a quality choice to live your best life today. As always I welcome your comments.

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How are you living?

Many entrepreneurs are living their personal and professional lives in a cloudy haze. They don’t have clear written goals and plans to achieve them.  They really don’t know where they want to end up in life so they live their lives without a clear strategic plan, a winning personal culture and definite concrete actions to take them to this destiny.

You are destined for something great.

Some entrepreneurs are even waiting for their destiny to smack them in the face. They don’t know that they must discover the destiny that is already in them. There is a saying I heard recently,  ”destiny is not a matter of chance it is a choice”. This is very true. You have the right to choose your best personal and professional life. You have the right to move towards a destiny and to live a great life. Obviously there are some things you must do to reach this destiny but you can reach it.  

Let’s begin moving towards our destiny.

My fellow entrepreneurs, over the next few posts let’s take the time to explore some of the best information on effective goal setting, effective planning and goal achievement.  I will pull from some of the best thinkers and writers on the subject and synthesize this information for you in a way that you can take action on it right away. Step by step we will move towards your best life.

The power of choice.

If you want this life your first step is to make a choice. Decide today to be the best you can be and to live the best life you can live. Decide today to do whatever it takes to be your best, give your best, and have the best business and professional life you can have. Choose to have a great destiny and to leave a great legacy. I challenge you to choose greatness today.

Please join me over the next few posts as we move closer to our destiny and live our best lives.

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In this post we continue our discussion of Dr. Caroline Leaf’s book Who Switched off My Brain?: Controlling Toxic Thoughts and Emotions. We are specifically looking at the steps she recommends for detoxing your brain. In the previous post we discussed the first five detox steps. In this post we continue by briefly discussing steps 6-9.

Detox Step 6 – Think Forgiveness – Much has been written about the importance of forgiving yourself and others in order to acheive success. Dr. Leaf  joins these writers in expressing the power of forgiveness on your mind and body.  She says forgiveness is like taking an “emotional shower”. Forgiveness allows you to let go of toxic emotions and memories and build new and better memories. Make a decision to forgive and release those who have done you wrong in business and in life. This will add years to your life and life to your business.

Detox Step 7 – Love – Tune Into Your Heart -  Did you know that your heart considers and “thinks” about the information the brain sends to it. According to Dr. Leaf, the heart has a “mini-brain” that functions like a conscience.  She suggests that when you practice love and appreciation many of your internal systems are positively affected and help you live longer and healthier. The key thought here is to tune into your heart and practice love, kindness, gratitude and appreciation. These emotions help eliminate toxic thoughts. These emotions also help you to get more business and serve more customers.

Detox Step 8 – Monkey Hug- Therapy – Touch has long been touted as having a powerful affect on human beings (and others). Dr Leaf relates an interesting story in the book about a study conducted with baby monkeys. This study clearly shows the power of touch. It is a must read.  Caroline also mentions various studies that show that touch releases powerful chemicals from the brain that breaks negative feedback loops. The message: take time to hug and be hugged.

Detox Step 9- Play and Laugh – This one is self-explanatory. An interesting point here is that laughter releases feel-good chemicals that boost the immune system and does other great things in the body. To be a successful, well-rounded entrepreneur you must take time to play and laugh. Entrepreneurs by nature are driven to succeed. We must be reminded to take time and enjoy ourselves. Our lives depend on it. Consider this your reminder.

Check our Dr. Leaf’s book and as always I look forward to your comments.

Recommended Resource

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Entrepreneurs, in this post I share with you an eye-opening article that I read in graduate school. This article helped me to be more aware of the reward systems that I was using in every area of my business life. I changed the way I interacted with my employees, peers and clients.  I hope this classic article (updated version) is as helpful for you as it has been for me and many other business people. Read, learn and enjoy.

Kerr, S. (1975). “On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B.” Academy of Management Journal, 18(4): 769-783.

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Well, we have made it to deadly mistake number 6 in our discussion on the 7 deadly mistakes new entrepreneurs make and how to avoid them. I hope by this point you have learned how to avoid some of these mistakes based on the information I have supplied. Why repeat mistakes others have made if you can avoid them?

Deadly Mistake No. 6 – Not Placing a High Value on your Customers

Many entrepreneurs have been taught how important the customer is but few have really embraced this concept so that it permeates every aspect of their business. Valuing your customer goes beyond customer appreciation days and rebates. In order to value your customer you must take the time to get to know them and then design your business around them.

Many entrepreneurs start out with the customer at the heart of the business but somewhere along the line the customer becomes secondary. This is especially true of growing companies. The entrepreneur’s focus moves from the customer to building the business and dealing with internal issues. This is a hugely costly mistake. The customer must remain the main focus of the business if the business is to thrive.

Here are three simple keys to help you keep your customer front and center in your business:

1. Focus on your customer – As the leader of your business the customer must be your personal focus. Spend time thinking about your customer’s lifestyle. What do your top customers do for work? What do they do for recreation? What are their biggest problems?  You also need to know how your customer interacts with your product or service. Why do your top customers buy from you and not from your competitors?  How are your top customers’ needs changing? What is the biggest problem your customer is having using your product or service. Start thinking along these lines about your customer and you will help keep them front and center in your mind.

2. Build your systems around your customer – This is really self-explanatory. Any system you build in your business should be built only if it helps you serve your customer better. If it doesn’t help you serve your customer better it is not a good system for your business. Simple.

3. Teach your employees how to treat your customers- Your customers are gold to you and they must be gold to your employees. Make sure every employee knows the link between their jobs and how they treat every customer. They must understand that without the customer there is no business and therefore no job for them. It is your responsibility as the entrepreneur to communicate this message to your employees both orally and by example. You may also want to reward your employees for going the extra mile for your customer.

In the final post in this series we will discuss the 7th deadly mistake. As always I welcome your comments.

photo credit: hans.gerwitz

In part one of this post we discussed the fact that many entrepreneurs allow their past failures to hold them back. We discussed 3 bite-sized nuggets that entrepreneurs should consider to help them move past these failures on to success. 
In this post, we will introduce and discuss the four remaining nuggets.

Seek the advice of others who have gone before you – This is probably a step that many entrepreneurs skip. I think for many of us it is a pride thing.  However, it is imperative that we take this step my entrepreneurial friend. Seeking competent advice is very wise. You should seek advice on three levels:

1.Seek advice about whether you have properly defined the failure . Knowing how to properly describe and define the failure is key in determining the causes. It is also a key factor in ensuring you don’t have a repeat performance.

2. Seek advice about whether you have correctly identified the 1 or 2 key factors that led to the failure. It may be hard to be objective about what caused the failure. Discussing your list of possible key factors with a competent advisor can help you clearly identify the key contributing factors.

3. Seek advice about possible approaches to circumvent the failure in the future. This is very important if it turns out that your failure was due to an error in judgement. We all have blindspots in our lives that others see clearly. By seeking advice about solutions you will multiply the odds of succeeding this time around.

Create an action plan – After you have sought competent advice and combined it with the information you gleaned from your own analysis, it is time to create a plan for moving forward. Take your time and consider all the steps you need to take to move forward. A great action plan should include steps to take, deadlines for completion of each step, resources needed to complete each step, possible obstacles to completion and steps to circumvent any known obstacles.

Implement the action plan – There is no need to create an action plan if you are not going to put it into action. At this point, you need to commit to the action plan and get started. After each step, review your plan and see if you need to make any adjustments. Remember things change and we need to be flexible.

Review - After you have accomplished your goal it is important to review. You want to see what went right and what you can improve. The key is to understand the process so you can improve it and repeat it. 

When you face failure this way you will no longer fear it. You will eat failure for lunch. As always, I look forward to your comments.

photo credit: hans.gerwitz

Too many entrepreneurs allow their past failures to keep them from moving forward and pursuing new opportunities.  They tend to magnify these failures and allow these failures to hold them hostage. Don’t let this be you. In this post I give you 3 of the 7 bite sized nuggets to consider about your past failures and show you how to use these as stepping-stones to new opportunities.

Forgive yourself – It is amazing how hard we entrepreneurs can be on ourselves. When we make mistakes we often blame ourselves and then condemn ourselves to the entrepreneurial dungeon. To be truly successful as an entrepreneur you need to take responsibility for the mistake but don’t dwell on it and condemn yourself. You also shouldn’t blame others either. Even if they were a part of the reason you made the mistake, forgive them. Lack of forgiveness is a negative drain on your present and it sabotages your future.

Don’t allow fear to hold you hostage – Sometimes we are able to forgive ourselves but we are afraid to try again. We allow the fear of failing again to hold us back. It is imperative that we get past this stage. The key is to properly define failure. As entrepreneurs we must realize that to fail at something is just an event not a state of being. We are not failures because we have failed attempts. As a matter of fact, most successful entrepreneurs have had many failed attempts. They usually have many more failed attempts than the average entrepreneur. In order to move forward we must resolve to make another attempt using the information we gained from this event. 

Glean lessons from the failed attempt – As an entrepreneur it is important to measure and analyze. Think of yourself as a scientist when it comes to attempts. Look at the failed attempt objectively and determine what went wrong. Identify all of the contributing factors that went into this being a failed attempt and then prioritize the factors. You will probably find that one or two factors contributed to the failure considerably more than any other factor. Isolate these factors and do an analysis to see what you can do to make changes in this area.

In Part 2 of this series I will share with you 4 other nuggets. As always I look forward to your comments.

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Here are 22 more things you can do if you want to fail as an entrepreneur. If you want to fail as an entrepreneur, go ahead and implement these items  and you will fail miserably.

1. Don’t give back to the community and to charities around you. This is your money anyway and you worked hard for it. You deserve all the spoils from your hard work.

2. Don’t bother hiring talented people. Hire your friends or hire people because you feel sorry for them. Hiring talented people is expensive. Yes, you may be better off in the long run with talented people but it costs too much right?

3. If you do hire talented people don’t pay them well. Try to get them for the cheapest rate you can and don’t give them any bonuses. If they go somewhere else then they just didn’t belong with you anyway.

4.Don’t provide incentives for your customers or your employees to bring you good ideas. You have all of the good ideas anyway.

5. Work yourself into the ground. Don’t live a balanced life. It is all about the business and the money anyway. What else matters?

6. Think short term in your decisions. Only care about the here and now. Don’t even think about how your short term decisions affect you in the long-term.

7.Don’t bother trying to understand economics and how it can affect your business. Your business is not even affected by what happens in the general economy right?

8. Don’t spend anytime learning the emerging trends in your business and in your industry. You will always have this business and it will always bring in income.

9. Don’t go to conferences in your industry so you can learn something new. You already determined that you know what you need to know. Besides, conferences cost money and they take time.

10. Neglect your family and friends. Who needs the hassle? They should understand that you are building a business. It is all about the business.

11. Don’t be flexible. Be as rigid as possible.

12. Don’t work on your communication skills. What’s that all about anyway. You talk and others listen. Problem solved.

13. Don’t create a business strategy. Just run your business by the seat of your pants.

14. Create a strategy and then take forever to implement it. Analyze the heck out of it but never really act on it.

15. Don’t create a unique selling proposition. Just be like everyone else. Don’t be original.

16. Let fear stop you right in your tracks. Fear is good. Even unhealthy fear that is not based in reality.

17. Constantly talk yourself out of good ideas. Keep doing the same thing.

18. Give up easily. As soon as an obstacle comes throw up your hands and quit. You knew it wouldn’t work anyway right? I mean that is what you constantly said.

19. Don’t learn from your mistakes. Keep repeating them over and over again. At least this is familiar.

20. Criticize your customers and your employees. They deserve it. Really give it to them. And do it often.

21. Neglect social media marketing. Who needs these new fangled strategies? Stick with the old way of doing things.

22. Procastinate when it comes to addressing issues. Put is off until it becomes an urgent matter that will take up a great portion of your time and resources. Who wants to deal with issues when they first present themselves?

Again, as I said in Monday’s post, I don’t want you to fail. Please focus on doing the opposite of what is presented here and you will be moving in the right direction. As always I look forward to your comments.

photo credit: markwgallagher

Do you want to fail miserable as an entrepreneur? Well in this post I will share with you 22 things you can do if you want to fail miserable as an entrepreneur. Follow these steps I can almost guarantee you will be a big failure.

1.Neglect cash flow and cashflow management. Don’t even create an Excel spreadsheet to show your daily, weekly and monthy expected cash inflows and outflows. Who cares about cash and the timing of those flows anyway as long you have profits right?

2. Forget about marketing and personal selling. Don’t even bother to create a marketing plan. Who needs to do all of this work. If you build it they will just come right?

3.Don’t bother to setup and document systems for your business. Run it by the seat of your pants. Who needs all of these structures?

4. Listen to no one. Don’t seek advice from those who have gone before you. Just go it on your own. You are smarter than everyone else anyway. Or even better, pretend you are listening to them and then do your own thing.

5. Don’t build your financal intelligence. Don’t learn about financial ratios that affect your business. All that matters is that you are making some money.

6. Spend no time talking to your customers. Or if you do talk to them don’t ask them questions about the business. Just shoot the breeze all of the time.

7. For goodness sake don’t spend time analyzing the metrics of your business. Who needs to know how many new customers are coming in and where they are coming from anyway? You don’t need to know why they chose you instead of your competitor. Stuff like that is useless.

8. Don’t write the vision plan for your business. Just work it everyday like a job. A business is just a glorified job right?

9. Don’t focus on a particular niche. Try to do it all even if you don’t have the budget for it. Be all things to all people.

10. Make sure you think of the glass as half-empty all the time. Don’t be tricked by those who think optimistically and implement realistic plans. You want to be as negative as possible so if something positive does happen in your business then great. At least if you don’t expect great things you won’t be disappointed.

11. Neglect your customers and focus only on the mechanics of your business.  Your customers are a nuisance anyway. They are always asking for something different. Can’t be just be satisfied with what you give them?

12. Work in the business but don’t spend time working on the business. It is the day to day that matters anyway, forget building the business for the long-term.

13. Do not waste your money on educating yourself and learning more about your industry and your business in general. Who needs the extra expenses? You already know everything you need to know about your business. What worked in the past will continue to work. All this talk about change is just that, talk.

14. Don’t bother to work on your leadership skill and your sales skills. Who needs the headache? You are good just like you are. Anyway, who wants to a bunch of people following you.

15. Don’t change with the times and please don’t anticipate change and try to get ahead of it. This takes too much time.

16.Don’t spend time growing your employees. If they want to grow they have to do it on their own. That is not your problem.

17.Don’t delegate. Try to do everything yourself. You are a one-person show anyway. Who needs other people?

18.Don’t take the 80/20 rule seriously in terms of your work. Don’t even spend time determining what the 20% activitives are in your business that brings you 80% of the results. What’s the use of that anyway?

19. Don’t take the 80/20 rule seriously in terms of your customers. Treat them all exactly the same even though about 20% of them provide about 80% of your profits. Don’t even identify these people.

20. Isolate yourself. Who needs to network with others who are in the same line of business or others who can provide critical services.

21. Don’t read. Spend all of your time working on your business and don’t bother learning new material. If you do read, only read about your industry, don’t bother expanding yourself to see if something in other industry can help you.

22. Forget being creative. That is for the artsy types. Don’t even learn anything about creative problem solving.

Ok. I know you know that I am being sarcastic. I don’t want you to think about failing as an entrepreneur but I do want you to take these things seriously. Obviously you want to do the opposite of what is suggested here. Take a good look at this list. If you are an entrepreneur, you may be doing some of these things. If you are, you may want to make a change. If you have not started on your entrepreneurial journey yet, please look at these items and avoid them like the plague. On Wednesday I will give you another batch of these items. Happy entrepreneuring.

Suggested Additional Resources

There are a lot of great business books out there for aspiring entrepreneurs. To me, the best business books are the ones that provide structure to your thinking and that explain the systems behind great businesses. The books that I recommend in this post do just that. To get your business right, you have to think right. These books help you think right about business.

This is a very important book for aspiring entrepreneurs. One trap that many entrepreneurs get caught in is the trap of spending all of their time working in the business and not enough time working on the business.  This has caused many businesses to fail. Michael Gerber effectively addresses this issue in his book.

Most entrepreneurs know about the Rich Dad series of books. While this whole book is great the reason I recommend this one for entrepreneurs is because chapters 30-36 provide structure to business ideas. In these chapters Robert Kiyosaki talks about the B-I Triangle and describes it as the key to great wealth. I agree.

This is a wonderful book for those who want to make innovation a part of their daily business lives. Yes it is a textbook but any person who is really serious about being a successful and innovative entrepreneur should read this book. If you can’t read the whole book at least read chapter 3 which helps you think beyond new products and new services to entirely new business concepts. With these tools you can go nonlinear in your thinking about business models. You must check this one out.

Do you have other great business books that you would recommend to other entrepreneurs? Please let me know in the comments.