Success Lessons From 2014 - Part 10 - Promote Your Work

Dear Loving people,

Today, we live in an era that seems to call for the constant announcement of one's own existence. Imagine that you've spent countless hours even years producing the excellent content that could keep you ahead of many competitors. Pat yourself on the back, and then get back to work, because people need to know your stuff exists! you might have been talking to close friends or pulling some strings within our community. But there's another important constituency: The whole wide world. To some people sometimes, the hardest part is knowing where to start. That's why Living Lectures is there for you.

The days are over when an author for example, could relish the quiet days of writing a book, then pass it off to his publisher who would do the dirty work of promoting it. If you have a publisher, they will work hard for you and will help connect your book to their networks. Today, the work of promoting the book requires just as much work as writing the book, if not more so.

Whether you're just starting out in a new career or are a seasoned professional, it is important to promote your career. The times have changed from when it was simply enough to shake some hands and distribute a few business cards. In order to promote your business today, you must highlight past accomplishments, continue your education, network in new ways and share your expertise. Sailing through in all that you do today means that you should:

1.    Emphasize past accomplishments and successes. Use your career accomplishments to build your reputation when talking with other professionals.

2.   Enhance your education and expertise. With jobs adapting to emerging technology and methods, it's important to stay at the forefront of your career.

3.   Create a stellar resume. Include key words, honors and accolades, and specific ways that you fulfilled your role in your office or company.

4.   Network with other professionals. Join professional organizations and get to know others in the group. Use social media networking sites to share what you are working on and to demonstrate your abilities and aspirations.

5.   Share your expertise. If your current job doesn't allow you to demonstrate all of your abilities, creativity and potential consider sharing your expertise other ways.

6.   Advertise your services if you are self-employed. Create a marketing plan that will get information about your business to potential customers and clients.

7.   Strive to be the best. Exceed performance goals, create new methods of accomplishing tasks and work as efficiently as possible. Excelling in your career is one of the best possible ways to promote yourself.

“Every tournament I play gives me a great opportunity to market whatever I am working on or wearing,” says Serena Williams.

A central part of promoting your work is equally taking the time to own up to and learn from your mistakes.

Dan Schawbel, Founder of Millennial Branding & Author of Promote Yourself says “It’s what you do that makes you who you are and how you project that to others that makes you memorable.”

Success Lessons From 2014 - Part 9 - Make Each Day The Very Best

Dear Loving People,

Has it occurred to you that every single day in your life is an opportunity to be your best? We live in a very different time now than we did 10 years ago. No other generation has enjoyed such an impressive shift in technology and lifestyle changes. But guess what, time is running out. I know that is cruel to say, but it's true. For us to forget ahead in a better way, we need to realize that our time is now limited, so we need to make the very best of it. As a matter of fact, time is a tool. It can be manipulated, shared, divided, and saved. There are guaranteed ways to make the most of your time. In your quest for success, you have to realize that time is you most valuable resource. If you learn how to control and use it wisely, you will maximize your output both spiritually and financially.

Mark Twain says, "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." Part of the finding out why lies in your capacity to say “No” at times. You must realize that every time you say "yes" to a request, you are in fact saying "no" to something else. Time is yours to use so don't let someone else use it up for you. You will be surprised how easy it is to deflect non-essential requests for your time by others. Simple things like keeping your door shut while working on priority tasks, not answering the phone, and letting people know that you are too busy will help you find more time for yourself.

One fact is that no matter how you plan your time, its not going to be a bed of roses all the times. Dr. Robert Schuller puts it clearly that “Tough times never last, but tough people do.” It’s true that even the toughest of times don’t last forever, and as long as you remain strong you’ll make it through and be able to weather whatever storms come your way. The human spirit has shown that it’s capable of making it through tough times, and getting to the end of the tunnel. The best part of dealing with adversity is that it toughens you up for the next trial in your life. Knowing that you’re only getting better with each new struggle can be an inspiration during those times when you feel like giving up. Being a tough person doesn’t mean you have to be callous, it just means you have an inner strength that’s battle-tested.

Above all, keep in mind the words of David Foster “There is no dress rehearsal. You can either lay in bed all day and feel sorry for yourself or you can get up every morning at 6 and try to make the best of the day.”

Success Lessons From 2014 - Part 8 - Live In The Moment

Dear Loving People,

To live in the moment or now, means being conscious, aware and in the present with all of your senses. It means not dwelling on the past, nor being anxious or worrying about the future. When we concentrate our attention on the present we focus on the task at hand. We give our full attention to what we are doing and we let go of outcomes.

Live like there’s no tomorrow. Live as if you’ll die today. You here this said over and over but the fact is that Living in the moment takes practice. When you learn how to live this way, you will lead a fuller life and appreciate the beauty in every activity every second of the day.

Focus on the now and savor the present; Pay attention to the small things in order to cultivate more positive experiences; Smile in order to influence how you feel; Perform random acts of kindness that help others and help you live for the moment of making others smile; Give thanks in order to feel grateful and express that gratitude; Don’t worry in order that you are not taken out of the moment and transported into the realm of future possibilities because it's impossible to live in the moment and worry at the same time.

Henry David Thoreau puts it beautifully as follows “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

In 1994, Michael J. Fox began to accept Parkinson’s disease and live in and enjoy the moment. “Yesterday’s losses and tomorrow’s trials were no longer the only poles of my existence,” he writes in Lucky Man.

Success Lessons From 2014 - Part 7: Empower and Respect

Dear loving people,

A significant part of focusing on your dreams, involves giving respect to and empowering the people you meet along your path to be the best they can be, this is one of the main objectives of Living Lectures. In this post, we are looking at the rewards you will get when you empower and respect other people.

Empower means that you need to provide meaningful resources to your partners or the people you interact with. Whether it's funds, trainings, marketing prowess, or something else entirely, we all have valuable resources that we can share. In the business world according to Kinicki & Kreitner, empowerment is about “sharing degrees of power with lower-level employees to better serve the customer”.  If you asked me, I would say, empowerment is about giving employees the permission to give customers priority and to use their creative talents to find solutions when issues arise, without having to run to management and ask for permission to do something. How do you like that? Just so sweet isn’t it?

Respect on its part, means that you need to trust your partners, associates, friends, family and the people you are bound to interact with to set the tactical agenda: they know how to inspire people in their community on your issues, so you should (to a great degree I would say) follow their lead.

Respect must play the most important role in any personal or working relationship. One fact is, we all as human beings are not perfect. I must insist that no one is. But we enhance the skills to get any situation, no matter how difficult, to correct course and move forward. Life has taught me that it is not by mere accident that you come in contact with the people you are in contact with daily. They definitely have a role to play in you reaching your goals and making success in life.

Richard Branson says so well “Inspire people to think like entrepreneurs, and whatever you do, treat them like adults. The hardest taskmaster of all is a person’s own conscience, so the more responsibility you give people, the better they will work for you.”

What more do you need to exhale? Be blessed…

Celeberating 4 Years of Success

Success Lessons From 2014 - Part VI - Get Your Mind In Shape

Dear loving people,

If you asked every ten people you meet, chances are high that you would get a I would say that what goes on inside you (in your mind) is much more important in determining whether you're happy or miserable than any of the outer circumstances of your life. Did I just say that? Yes of course and does what you just read sound reasonable? Do the inner workings of your mind really have a greater effect on you than, say, your possessions or your surroundings? After all, big companies spend billions every year trying to convince you that the opposite is true! In their eyes, your best shot at achieving happiness is to buy whatever they're selling. They appeal to the "if only" mentality: If only you drove a fancier car, lived in a bigger house, wore the best clothes you can find in the market, and used a softer perfumed toilet paper — then you'd be truly happy. Even if you don't believe everything advertisers tell you, don't you believe that the external conditions of your life determine how well off you are?

To get a picture of what I mean, consider the following situation. Two friends of yours, call them Jovi and Joni, take a vacation together to Zanzibar in Tanzania. They stay in the same luxurious guesthouse, eat the same food prepared by the same master chef, and engage in the same recreational activities. But, when they get home and tell you about their trip, their stories sound like they vacationed in two completely different worlds! For Jovi, Zanzibar was heaven on Earth, but for Joni, it was pure hell. For every wonderful experience Jovi brings up, Joni tells you about two awful ones. This situation is hypothetical, of course, but doesn't it sound familiar? Hasn't something like this happened to you or your friends? True stories like this scenario aren't rare, so how can you account for them?

The example (and relevant ones from your own experience) demonstrates that the outer circumstances of your life aren't the only factors or even the most important ones in determining whether you're content or not. If external conditions were more important than the condition of your mind, both Jovi and Joni would've loved Zanzibar, and no rich and famous person would ever contemplate suicide.

The more closely you look, the more clearly you'll see that your mental attitude is what mainly determines the quality of your life. This is not to say, however, that your outer circumstances count for nothing, any more than a person has to give away all of his or her possessions to be a sincere spiritual seeker. But, without developing your inner resources of peace and mental stability, no amount of worldly success, whether measured in terms of wealth, fame, power, or relationships can ever bring real satisfaction. Or, as someone once said, "Money can't buy happiness; it can only allow you to select your particular form of misery."

Cancer survivor Lance Armstrong says: “Real healing meant getting my mind in shape; it meant getting my confidence and priorities in shape, too.”

 

Carolyn Warner adds, “I am convinced that attitude is the key to success or failure in almost any of life’s endeavors. Your attitude, your outlook, how you feel about yourself, how you feel about other people, determines your priorities, your actions, your values. Your attitude determines how you interact with other people and how you interact with yourself.”

Success Lessons From 2014 Part V - Sync Your Priorities With Your Finances

Dear loving people, 

Dreaming is good and necessary for success but at the same time, having too many dreams that are not prioritized could rather lead to failure. It’s my experience that priorities lead to prosperity. If you put things in perspective by putting your priorities first, then you will prosper. 

Lots of people say they want to start a business or buy a house for example but when you look at how they spend their money, you have the feeling they will never get there.  They are feasting continually, buying video games and unnecessary gadgets or eating out principally. This means they value those things more than their stated goals. If their goals were truly home ownership or starting a business, then that's where the money would go. Then they will prosper. Your financial plan should be about your values. What do you want out of life? That's your financial plan. 

It's critical to set goals so you know where you're going. If you want to buy a home for example, you need to know the exact cost equally know that you'll need at least 10% to 20% if not all of that amount for a down payment, so that figure should be your goal if you plan to buy a home. 

But whether your goal is starting a new business or just building up an emergency cushion, you have to know that number and save every month to reach it. If you don't have goals, you won't know where you're going, so you can't take the steps you need to get there. 

The most important thing about setting financial goals is having them in the first place. One of the best things to think about is that you want to be deliberate about your spending and saving. You don't want to do things randomly without thinking about them first. That's how we get into trouble.

Suze Orman emphasis “Don’t buy things unless you have the money to buy them. Don’t expand your business unless you have the money to do so. Realize people are the key to everything—money can’t do anything without people. Think about and understand what you’re doing and why—with your money.”

Success Lessons From 2014 - Part IV - Put Your Dream To The Test

Dear Loving People,

The world enjoys television today because John Logie Baird once had a dream of making motion pictures to be transmitted over a distance through radio waves and his dream came true after hard work in 1923. You then can agree with me that every major achievement in history started with a dream. Yes, you got me right but there is a catch and Colin Powell makes it abundantly clear “A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.”

Of cause, dreams are not reserved for some cherry-picked people, everybody is endowed with the capacity to dream and dream big. Jesse Owens confirms this by saying “We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.”

“All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose,” says Brian Tracy. That is the difference between big dreamers and daydreamers.

Confused? hang on, John Maxwell throws in some wise council “If you are unsure of what your dream might be—either because you are afraid to dream or because you have somehow lost your dream along the way—then start preparing yourself to receive your dream by exploring the following: Read and study in your areas of greatest interest. Engage in activities related to your interests. Put up pictures of people and things that inspire you. Get your body in optimal shape to pursue your dream. Seek God’s help for a bigger-than-self dream.”

While you dream to change the world, remember that a central part of your success lies in the your capacity to synchronize you’re priorities with your finances. This we shall see in the next post…

Success Lessons From 2014 Part III - Leave a Legacy

Dear loving people,

Lesson two was asking you to make a decision. Lets look at one of its outcomes, which involves leaving a legacy for generations to come...

Dwyane Wade says, “ Whenever I feel like I'm getting too far away from where I need to be, I think about my sons and the legacy I have to leave for them - and it always brings me back to reality.”

Even at the start of such a promising year as 2015, a fundamental question remains relevant for many a people on the quest for a fulfilling life. What will happen if you’re gone today or tomorrow? What will be left after you? How will people remember you? And will they remember you at all? These questions are scary, I know. And we avoid them as much as we can. Actually most people ask themselves that only once in a lifetime. And it’s often when it’s too late to do anything about it and make a change.

Many come to the conclusion that there’s nothing left after all the years they spent here on earth and more sadly; it’s like they’ve never lived at all. What they do as a result of that illumination is to spend their last years in total regret and disappointment.

It’s amazing to have hope, to enjoy life and try everything you want. But it won’t hurt if you start contributing earlier so that when you turn back you see that what you’ve done matters. That will also prevent us from feeling the deepest regret and desperation once we realize we’ve done nothing for so many decades.

It’s one thing to improve yourself daily, to be grateful, happy and live for the moment. But it’s completely another to make all that with a purpose, meaning and desire to make the world a better place than you met it.

“You want to leave something, you really do. I mean, in the end, statues and all those things, that doesn’t mean anything. Leave something we are all going to benefit from.” Says George Foreman

But before you can leave a legacy, you must have a tested dream. That, we will see in the next post…

Success Lessons From 2014 - Part II - Make a Decision

Dear loving people,

Having talked about lesson one which was asking you to stop avoiding failure, one of the ways to do that is to start making decisions that move you forward.

Lesson II:  Make a decision.

As we move through life’s gigantic stage, we are bombarded with lots of options and thus, we make hundreds, if not millions, of micro-decisions every day – from what to focus our energy on, to how to respond to an email, to what to eat for lunch. However, people often find it hard to make decisions - inevitably we all have to make decisions all the time, even if some are more important than others. 

Some people put off making decisions by endlessly searching for more information or getting other people to offer their recommendations.  Others resort to decision making by taking a vote, sticking a pin in a list or tossing a coin.

Colin Powell, a man I admire so much for his prowess says, “At some point, before we can have every possible fact in hand, we have to decide. After you have acquired 40 to 70 percent of information about a situation, go with your gut.”

Why not, you want to be remembered, and so the decisions you MUST make each day whether you like it or not will determine the legacy you leave behind. That comes up in our next post….

Success Lessons From 2014 Part I - Stop Avoiding Failure

Dear lovely people,

Welcome to the mighty 2015. One fact is crystal clear, 2014 is gone for good. For some people, it was a year of bliss, for others, it was nothing but bad, rough and not to be remembered. I had my ups and downs in 2014 too just like anybody else but out of the good and bad of 2014, I distilled 12 lessons learned to share with you within the next few days as we all face 2015 positively.

Lesson I: Stop avoiding failure

Failure is a given in life; expecting to sail through without a glitch is unrealistic and sets you up to fall harder when failure does happen. Avoiding failure also prevents you from focusing on gaining the resiliency needed to cope with it, a vital element of bouncing back. Moreover, it is unfortunate that in societies obsessed with success and achievement, failure can be made to feel like the worst thing that could ever happen to a person.

The reality is that failure is commonplace but so is overcoming it and pushing through to more successful endeavors in the future. Even where a failure cannot be salvaged, there is always something to be learned from it. Staying focused on what matters to you if a first step to growing through it. When you don't let the mishaps of life keep you down too long, then nobody else will be able to keep you down too long either.

“Failure is often necessary for real learning to occur. If you didn’t get the results you want, learn from the experience so that you reference how to make better decisions the next time around. Too many people want to avoid any hint of a problem. But overcoming obstacles is what gives us psychological strength—it’s the very thing that forms character.” Says Tony Robbins

That is why you need to make a decision, as we will see in the next post …