Success Blog

Jury Duty - Your Commitment to the Community

2009-07-06T16:55:00.001-07:00

I spent the last 2 weeks as a jury member in a civil case, it was the best and worst days I have lived in a long time.

Choosing a Powerful Name for Your Company

2009-04-28T19:02:00.000-07:00

It has been said that one of the most agonizing decisions for many entrepreneurs is coming up with a name for their new business. Often, those drawn to the business world are not as strong minded when it comes to such seemingly creative tasks as giving a catchy name to their company. You might be interested to learn, however, that the best names have very little to do with creativity and imagination, and everything to do with business acumen and a thorough research of the marketplace. This should put some of you at ease, who feel as though they missed out by skipping that creative writing course in college and are now at the mercy of choosing a boring, unmemorable name you will hate before the paint is dry on your sign. Here are some things you can do to choose a powerful name for your company.

First of all, you’ll need to think about what you want to get across to people. What types of words or phrases could you associate with your business? You’re at the molecular level at this point, so just remember to take it one step at a time. Think about your business and the functions, products, and services it will provide. Think about your target audience and a few of the things they are likely to enjoy, other than your products. Think about some of your favorite business names and see if you can find a through-line that connects any or many of those names. Do they have a common theme? Think about not only your favorite names, but the names of those companies that are most successful. Consider Coca-Cola, Nike, and McDonald’s, for instance. Do you notice anything similar about these names?

Once you’ve thought about these things, take a while to simply brainstorm some name possibilities. Think of at least ten, and try to make them all fit in with the considerations above. If you’ve found a common element to those names you came up with, see if you can’t follow in kind with some of your own names. Don’t try to sit down and do this all at one time. Keep a notepad by your bed or on your desk and return to it anytime you happen to think of a good name to add to the list. Don’t stretch the task over the next year by any means, but it will be good to let your mind free to think about names and associate your task with different things.

After you’ve completed your list, it’s time to start crossing off the ones that won’t work and coming up with a final list of two or three from which to choose. One criterion for keeping or discarding is whether or not the name is too specific. For instance, if your business will be selling printer ink, you may not want to name your company Ink, inc., even though it is creative and catchy (and incorporates the hard K sound found in those businesses we brought up before). If a few years, you want to start selling a hundred other office products the name could be a limiter, don’t let it.

After you’ve narrowed the list, go with your gut. Choose the name you personally like the best and go with it, no matter what anyone else says. After all, in the end it’s your business, not your friends or family’s. If you like it, live with it. It’s your new business name.

Taking the First Step

2009-04-11T14:18:00.000-07:00

If there are no negatives in your life; if you never have a problem finding positive influences; if you are that rarest of individuals who, when faced with making a decision, immediately does the right thing and never looks back; if you never suffer from self doubt; then you can skip this week's blemails.

But if you are like me, and second guess your decisions time and again, especially in the darkness of an early morning after a night of too little sleep, then this series is right up your alley.

I know that the only thing I can really change today is my attitude. And after I've changed my attitude, all things are possible. But an attitude change is a totally inside job. And it's HARD WORK.

Getting started is the hardest part. But the old adage "a journey of a thousand miles begins with just a single step" is so true. If you are going to build a house, there are steps you'd take, and in a certain order. First, you'd have a dream, a vision. And then you'd put the plan on paper. And then you'd get the tools you need. Only after these are accomplished would you begin to build.

Building (or rebuilding) a life is a lot like building a house. And these are the steps.

1. Dare to Believe.
2. Position Yourself for Change.
3. Use the Keys for Breaking Through.

This posting a new three series step by articles from writer and author, Patricia Thibodeau

Dare to Believe!

2009-04-11T14:17:00.000-07:00

First of three articles by Patricia Thibodeau.

Fort Delaware; 3 December, 1864
Andrew was almost asleep when he heard a voice from the next bunk say "Jackson, what you aiming to do when you get paroled?" Andy raised his head and looked into the gloom. The boy who spoke was tall, and no doubt hearts broke quite regular over him at home, but the months in prison had made him gaunt, gray face bones sticking out in a permanently grim grin that did not extend to his eyes. Andrew shook his head, mentally correcting himself. No, not a boy. He was seventeen and had fought like a man. But at almost twenty-six, Andy felt a hundred years older than the youngster.
"Now, Jim, I told you over and over what I will do!" Andy wasn’t put out, just wanted to tease him a mite. God knew they had little enough to laugh about in that place, and took humor wherever they could find it.
Jim pulled himself up on his elbows a little, looked the other man up one side and down the other, and said, “Not like you had some place to go real quick, now is it? Talk to me, Jackson. It makes me forget where we are when you talk. Tell me again. Please."
Andy smiled at the boy. "Well, you know those mountains way over there, west of here?" Jim nodded his head a little, and now his eyes did smile. "Well, when I get out of here I will walk south 'til those mountains end. When I see Pulpit Rock, I will know I am home."
Jim sighed a little, lay down, and was quiet. Andy lay back on his own bunk, then, hoping to soon be lost in his own dreams. But he didn’t forget the conversation. Next day, when he had time, he took his pencil and added to the steadily growing stack of paper that contained his thoughts.
‘That is all we have to do in this place, remember and forget and dream. We do more dreaming than either of the other two. Our daytime dreams are, I suppose, a little easier to handle because of the daylight.
But when the dreams come at night, screams rip through the darkness, repeated a few minutes later from another raw throat, remembered hell using up the energy of men who can ill afford the loss.
We are, most of us, in bad physical condition. We need more than one good meal to put us back in order, but we survive on what we have each day.
That is the word. Survive. Most of us were hardy stock to begin with. We came from the mountains of Tennessee, the foothills of Alabama, the backwoods of Arkansas, and occasionally the muddy streets of cities. Most of us had worked hard all our lives.
Deprivation was nothing new to us, for none of us were wealthy. If we had been wealthy we would not have been here - we would either be at home with a substitute in our place or dead because we would have been well off enough to be an officer.
All us boys knew how to forage during the winter, and plant during the spring, and harvest the fruits of our labors. We could build houses and shoot squirrels and ride horses and love our families and pray to our God, but we cannot leave the hell we wake to each day.
Now our only harvest is when we collect the dead each morning and take them outside. They say the officer’s prison is even worse than ours. How that could be is hard to imagine. Best not to try.”

And so it was with great granddaddy. Even with the horrors of being a prisoner of war, he had a dream for a future; one that did not include death. A year after that conversation, when they turned him loose at the end of the war, he went out the gate with a glad heart and turned south. It was not an easy journey home, as you can imagine. Afraid to travel at night, because of unseen dangers on the road, and afraid to travel in the daylight, because all he had to wear was his uniform and some folks in the north were still smarting over the war, he walked early morning and late evening. What would take us, today, about 14 hours by car, took him three months by foot.

But the point is, he took that first step. He could have stood there at the gate, doubting his ability to walk; he could have sat down just over the hill, not believing that anyone wanted him to come home; he could have gone to the nearest town and become a stolen whiskey drunk. But he did none of those. He had made it through four years of war, two stays in prison (eight days shy of ten months the second time), and was determined to see the fields of home before he died. Eight hundred miles later, he arrived, unheralded. There were no marching bands, no crowds of people waving flags, only one old cow grazing in the meadow to greet him. But to him, that didn’t matter. His dream of seeing Pulpit Rock was realized. He married, fathered eleven children that lived, ran a successful business, taught school, wrote letters to the editor and was published several times in The Daily Hot Blast (forerunner to The Anniston Star), was a respected member of the community, and at 63, from his own bed and surrounded by the people he loved, said, “I just wanted you all to see how a man of God goes, and is not afraid, to meet his maker.” With his last breath, he tried to voice his favorite hymn. "Oh, sing to me of Heaven. When I am called to die, sing songs of Holy Ecstasy to waft my soul on high. When cold and sluggish drops roll off my marble brow, burst forth in strains of joyfulness, let Heaven begin below." And then he squeezed Merilza’s hand, smiled at his children, and left this world.

We can be like Andy. Despite trials and tribulations, despite prison walls either real or imagined, despite the lemons, we can live life to its fullest. But first we have to have a dream. Immediately after a layoff, or a divorce, or a death, going forward is the last thing we want to think about. Getting through one day at a time, five minutes at a time, is paramount. And the longer it takes, the worse it gets. Doubt and unbelief stand between us and total victory. But what God challenges us to do, we can do. If we want to. If we believe we can. If we will just take that first step.

You see, we have a promise, that we are armed with “incomparably great power for us who believe.” (Ep 1:19) I challenge you today to shake off the double conditions of life. Forget the if onlys. Take the word “fail” out of your vocabulary. We are the children of a great and awesome Father, who wants only the best in life for us. Do not forget the sorrows of the past, but learn from them, have hope for tomorrow, and resolve that the future will be better, brighter, more wonderful than even your wildest dreams. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Rom. 15:13)

Blessings and hugs,
Patricia Thibodeau

Position Yourself for Change

2009-04-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

Second Article in the series by Patricia Thibodeau

We know what we want to accomplish. We have a dream. But how do we get from here to there? How do we find what Joseph Campbell calls “our bliss.” First and foremost is to believe we can do it. Second is to position yourself for change.

Look hard at what you enjoy doing. But be realistic. Not just anyone can be a pilot at age 50. But if flying is your bliss, take those lessons, and get your license. You may not do it for a living with a major airline, but you can still hire yourself out for friends.

Not everyone, even though the spirit is willing, can design clothes for the masses. But if fashion is your bliss, make your own clothes (and be sure to sew in a label with your name on it). And then don’t be afraid to tell people you did it yourself. People who cannot sew are always looking for someone who can.

If travel is your thing, work part time for an agent; you’ll learn the business and may just wind up with a full time job.

If you enjoy talking on the telephone, sign on as a fundraiser. The pay isn’t much, but ASPCA and several other non-profit organizations in our area have yearly campaigns, and are always looking for help.

If you enjoy meeting people, go to work as a greeter at Walmart. I’m serious. Those people want to be there, and it shows in their smiles.

If you like tools, if you are a weekend carpenter, if you can teach someone to make cabinets, then Lowe’s or Home Depot is calling your name.

If you enjoy gardening, buy a good lawn mower, print up some business cards and drop them on doorsteps in your neighborhood.

If you like makeup, sell Avon.

True, working at a hobby is different from working to earn a living, but you still should find something you love to do. Find something that lets you feel after 8 hours just as good as you did when you started the day. Work is a four-letter word, but if it’s not work, then it’s bliss. If you had your dream job, what would it be?

If you like cutting hair, get some good shoes with strong supports, and go to technical college for a degree.

If you love to tinker with cars and have an innate sense for what “that strange little noise” is, search out automotive courses at the community college and start your own business working nights and weekends for people are off only during those hours.

If you love to make jewelry, do it in your spare time. There are several shops throughout the Metroplex that will agree to furnish an outlet (on consignment) for your merchandise.

If you simply love cleaning houses, do that. I’m serious. There is always a market for someone who doesn’t mind dusting and mopping and washing windows and doing laundry for someone else who doesn’t have the time, the patience, or the want to. Now this one will probably involve you being bonded, and that costs money; but there are cleaning services in our area that are currently hiring, and they’ll help you with it.

Are you an out-of-work accountant with tax experience but can’t find a tax service to hire you? Call your friends. Tell them you are available. At discount rates. You’ll be busy at least half the year. Matter of fact, if you’re an out of work accountant with tax experience, call me and I’ll hire you.

OK, so maybe you need something a little more lucrative than part time or minimum wage. It’s hard to feed a family of four on a fast-food-window salary. But without training, that’s about all you’ll ever have. But if you truly enjoy food and like people, take courses in restaurant management at the community college. Did you know that the D/FW area has more restaurants, per capita, than any other area in the United States? Get the training, and then get the job.

And that sounds pretty good, but what if you quit high school before graduation? GED classes are offered at regular intervals in our communities. The cost for the test is $65. After you’ve passed the GED, you can pursue higher education.

Do you like computers? Would you enjoy being an admin or an office manager? Again, community college.

But what if you like computers and would enjoy working with them daily but simply do not have the time (or money) to take formal classes? There’s an answer for that, too. Ask a friend to teach you. And then if you don’t have one at home, use the computer at your local library to practice what you’ve learned. Be diligent about it.

The rule for learning is this: tell me what to do and I may remember; show me what to do and I will remember; let me do it myself and I will not forget.

No, it’s not going to happen overnight. But it will happen. You just have to have a dream, dare to believe in it, and then position yourself for the change.

Blessings and Hugs,
Patricia Thibodeau

Keys to Breaking Through

2009-04-11T14:10:00.000-07:00

Third and Final Article in the series by Patricia Thibodeau
OK, you have a dream, and you have positioned yourself for change.. So what’s stopping you? You don’t know what to do next? You just can’t seem to get it in gear? Well, let’s look at the keys to breaking through.

But before we begin, let me say that if you don’t believe in a Higher Power, you might as well stop reading right now, because the rest of this message is contingent on that belief.

1. Pray. Open your heart and ask for guidance. Ask for grace. Grace is God’s free gift, to do to us, through us, and for us, with love, what we could never do for ourselves. But we have to ask for it. It doesn’t have to be a long prayer, and don’t pepper it with thees and thous, just talk to God the way you would an earthly parent, or a close friend. God loves us and wants the best for us. Ask for what you want. And then listen for the answer. Too often prayer is me, me, me, mine, mine, mine, now, now, now, and then it’s off our knees and back to the same old thing. Prayer is us talking to God. Meditation is us listening for an answer. Spend time each day in both prayer and meditation.

2. Face the truth about yourself. The word of God confronts us. “So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.” (Rom. 14:12). Do you drink too much? Stop. It’s not easy, but it can be done. Don’t be ashamed to ask for help. You can’t save your face and your ass at the same time. There are any number of support groups in this area that are willing to help. Ask your minister. If you don’t have a minister, ask your doctor. If you don’t have a doctor, google “sobriety.” And then go to a meeting and listen with an open mind to what they say. Are you mired in an addiction of another kind? Get help. Are you lost in grief and feel like you simply cannot live another day without that spouse, or that child, or that job? Get help. Are you so depressed in general that you have lost the will to live? I don’t believe it. You wouldn’t still be reading if it was so. Depression is anger turned inward. Get help with your anger. Facing the truth about yourself, your circumstances, your part in it, and your world in general may be the hardest thing you’ll ever do in life. But you can do it. You must. And then don’t repeat the old behavior. You keep doing what you’re doing you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.

3. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Poor me, poor me, pour me another. Pity parties are the easiest kind to throw but self-pity is idolatry. Guard against emotional impulses. Do you spend too much money when you’re feeling blue? Stay busy and out of the mall. And off the internet. Freeze (literally) your credit cards. By the time they’re thawed out, you’ll probably have realized that you really don’t need whatever the impulse drove you to buy. Volunteer at a hospital. Volunteer to teach English as a second language. Volunteer to type resumes for people who are looking for work. If you have the time and resources, volunteer to go on a mission trip. Help with Habitat for Humanity. Deliver meals on wheels. But whatever you do, take the focus off yourself.

4. Stop blaming everybody else. Ooooooooooooh, tough one. Oh, if only he hadn’t left me for another woman. Oh, if only they hadn’t laid me off. Oh, if only she hadn’t died. If only, if only, if only. Did you do something to cause the layoff? The death? The leaving? Then take responsibility for your own actions. I’m not saying you have to look like a fashion model, but quite frankly, ladies, if you can’t remember the last time you combed your hair, if you can’t keep yourself clean, if you can’t put a smile on your face, if you can’t be a “helpmeet” then don’t blame your significant other if they look elsewhere for those things. And gentlemen, you’re not off the hook; if you can’t treat your loved one with the same respect and consideration and admiration you want for yourself, don’t be surprised if that “loved one” turns into an “unloved one.” If the situation is something simply beyond your control, see step 3. If not, read step 4 again.

5. Don’t make a geographic change the answer to your problems. Because if you pick your troubled self up and move it someplace else, all that baggage will go with you, and you’re just the same old tired troubled person in a different location. And before you know it, it’s all back again. Doubled. Changes in attitudes, changes in latitudes works fine as a song, but only the change in attitude will get you where you need to be. Stop running from responsibility. You can’t repent if you won’t admit. Know the real problem. If you truly believe that a change in attitude will not help, that your problems are not of your own making, see step 1. If it’s you, say you’re sorry; mean it; and then resolve with everything that is within you to do better next time. And then do better.

Blessings and hugs.
Patricia Thibodeau

Life Is a Do It Yourself Project!

2009-03-11T03:24:00.000-07:00

If you have not realized it yet, no one is going to hand you the golden platter with your life’s forward path laid out on it for you to follow. You are the only one that can take the steps to improve your situation and life. Change is difficult; I’m here to help you take off. Get started with some very basic steps that will allow you to t can and I show some simple steps to follow in getting started. First let’s understand the three phases you are going to dive into; the what, how and when.

The *What* phase is digging into your self improvement psyche and brainstorming a list of areas to improve about yourself. This list should include anything about you requiring improvement. Dig deep and be honest.

The *How* phase is simply five steps that guide your through your list created the *What* phase, to actions you will take. Examples may include your desire to be a more creative and healthier cook at home, train for a 5k run, learn a foreign language.… the key is list than all. In this phase these five steps help me get going on my self improvement journeys; convince, create, categorize, prioritize and initiate.
1. Convince- you are the only person that can commit yourself to this whole process, if you can not convince yourself no one else can and you will fail. Why, because you will let distractions and setbacks stop you. Any doubts at this point, a close friend or partner may be able to review what you are engaging in a give you that push, I encourage you to talk with them as a way to convince yourself, *I can do this*.
2. Create – write out your list of improvement items, at this point put anything and everything you may think of on the list. Include areas specific to health, personal relationships, family, income, your job, education, sports, family, communication, relationships … the list is limitless as you can see.
3. Categorize – now that you have your list it is time to put the lists in common categories that are manageable. These categories should be such that some of the items may compliment each other. For instance, cooking or eating may fall under improving your health, walking, and swimming or running can fall under improve physical activity and appearance. You get the idea, simplify.
4. Prioritize – Take you categories and review them critically, pick out the top 3 or 4 ones that you seem the most interested in, put the others aside for now but do not throw away, remember this is a Life long journey. With your selection down to 3 or 4, now pick only two … you guessed it … now pick one. There may be more than one item under this category so you need to repeat this same prioritization exercise again until you have identified the one!
5. Initiate – What are the resources you can tap to learn about this subject, is it the internet, local continuing education, on-line universities, seminars ... seek out subject matter experts. This may take a little time a so be patient. A good starting point on the internet search is to identify key words regarding your subject; these will expedite the search and give you greater access to the resources that are available. I have found the resources at Success University to be among the best, here is a link for you - http://start.successuniversity.com/specialoffer.aspx

For just $2 you have 14 days of unlimited access, how great is that!

Next comes *When*, this phase creates milestones and a timeline for measuring your achievement towards the self improvement goals. Do not underestimate or overestimate the time it will take you to achieve some of these life changing activities. Understand and remember how long it took you to be where you are, it will not be easy, but you can do it.
Include in this milestone and timeline chart, specific tasks required to get you towards your ultimate achievement goal. Keep this list with you and visible, not only will this keep you focused. If you are a visual person, stick-up reminders everyplace you can on the specific task to be accomplished as well as you ultimate goal. Many tools can be helpful, calendars, day planners or PDAs are terrific.

You are in control; now just dedicate yourself to giving the 1st project a try.

A Good Memory Equals Greater Success

2009-03-01T12:40:00.000-08:00

If you can learn how to improve your memory you will certainly be able to become more successful. Just think of how nice it would be to be able to recall little nuggets of information from your last business trip. Sure you can write down a lot of information so that you can refer back to it later, but you will not always have the ability to take notes. In a face to face, personal conversation with a prospective client, you may not want to take notes. In this case you will be relying on your memory until you can translate the information onto paper.

There are two important parts to your memory: concentration and recall. These are the two areas that you are going to have to improve upon if you want to have a top notch memory. There are a few ways that you can improve your concentration and recall skills.

The first thing to do is make sure you get the information correct the first time. It is very difficult to obtain bad information, and then replace it with the correct information. Pay attention to the speaker carefully so that you get everything right the first time.

Next, make sure that you understand what you are learning. If you do not have any concept as to what something means, you are going to have a very difficult time recalling the information. If you do not understand something the first time, go over the information again until it is thoroughly understood.

Also, being selective can also help you recall information. Instead of trying to recall the entire conversation that you had with a business associate, concentrate on trying to remember the important points. The less information that you have to remember, the easier it will be to recall it at a later point.

Concentrate on what is important, and try to test yourself as you move forward. If you are reading a manuscript and want to remember the main theme of every page, test yourself at the end. This will let you know if you have fully understood the page. If you have trouble recalling the information read it again.

Finally, remember to take everything that you have memorized and write it down. The second that you leave a meeting or classroom you will want to translate your memory onto paper. This way you can repeatedly study the information at a later date.

A good memory can go a long way in achieving success and reaching your goals. You need a good memory for everything from the business world, to the classroom, to social situations. The above tips are a very good place to start if you need to improve your memory skills.

Goal Setting - Why You Should Do It Now!

2009-02-08T14:45:00.000-08:00

The only way to ever get what you want in life is by setting goals. Whether it is in the business world or in your social life, if you set goals you will have a much easier time getting what you want in the end. A lot of people do not set goals because they are afraid that they will never be able to reach them. But this is nonsense. If you know how to set a goal, and what to do to reach it, you will be able to accomplish what you set out to do. By following the five steps below you will be able to set effective and achievable goals.

1. Make sure that when you set a goal you know exactly what you want. It is helpful to write your goal down on paper so that you can outline the details of your goal. One of the biggest mistakes that people make is setting a goal for something that sounds good in theory, but would not actually fit their lifestyle and current situation. Be realistic.

2. More than likely you will have more than one goal in your life at a time. You have to remember that one goal cannot prevent your from obtaining another. If your goal is to buy a home on the beach it would not make sense for another goal to be receiving a doctorate degree from a university in Wyoming. Make sure that one goal does not contradict another.

3. Staying positive is an important part of writing any goal. Be sure to write your goals as something that you are striving to reach, not something that you are hoping to leave behind. Without recognizing it, many people set negative goals and while they are trying to achieve them they are just adding more negativity to their life. It is imperative to set positive goals.

4. Research every single detail of your goal before starting. Write down details. Instead of writing that your goal is to have a home on the beach, write down what beach you would like to live on, and how much you want your home to cost. This way you have exact details to work towards, instead of just a general idea. General goals are easier to abandon than detailed goals.

5. Even though you want to start out with goals that are attainable, you also want to make sure that you are getting something that is worth your time. It may be exciting to reach smaller goals, but after a while you will crave bigger achievements that make you feel like you are really getting somewhere. You owe it to yourself to aim for the stars. There is a great websit to help you get started on your succes oriented journey, it is just click away:
http://shortcut2success.subuilder.com

Why is Failure the Stepping Stone to Success?

2009-01-31T08:40:00.000-08:00

How does failure benefit you? I think it is quite simple, for every failure you experience you learn what does not work or a behavior you know not to repeat.
Do not be afraid of failure. The pervasive misperception is that failure is somehow bad for you.
I think failure is just the opposite and have identified 8 statements for you to think about on why failure is your stepping stone to success.

1. Failure fuels determination
2. Failure forces creativity
3. Failure makes you use your mind
4. Failure facilitates change
5. Failure separates the strong from the weak
6. Without failure you have no motivation to try again
7. Without failure there is limited opportunity to learn
8. Without failure you become complacent

The notion is basic, failure is the change agent to you becoming successful; do not let the negative perception surrounding it bring you down. You are in charge of your life and turning the failure into a positive experience.

Visit one stating point to success at:
Success University: http//www.shortcut2success.subuilder.com

The Effect of Positive Energy

2009-01-17T12:47:00.000-08:00

Positive energy can go a long way in ensuring that your home and work environment is calm and relatively anxiety free. If you have ever worked in an office with people who are constantly giving off negative energy, you surely know what it feels like. You feel suffocated by this energy, and often times it wears off on others.

One of our major social problems nowadays is negative people who are constantly talking about others and turning people against one another. This form of negative energy is one of the quickest ways to divide an office or your home. If you work with negative people, do not let them bring you down. Easier said than done, so what to do about it.

The best way to combat negative energy is to throw positive energy right back at it. In other words, if a person is constantly degrading someone, you need to step to the plate and throw a good word in about him or her. This will make the person realized that this type of attitude will not be tolerated. By letting this negative energy circulate around the home or office, you are doing nothing to help the situation. In fact, if you are not helping, you are just contributing to the problem.

Try to make it a personal goal to show up at your office everyday in a good mood. Often times, positive energy will pass on to your co-workers and family members. If you can get this sort of attitude started, pretty soon everybody is feeding off of each others positive energy. The end result, anybody who brings negative energy to the office or home will quickly be converted; they have no other choice!

The best aspect of positive energy is that it is FREE. You need to look no further than within yourself. Be aware, negative energy is easier to find in some ways. Remind yourself, it is vital to wake up everyday looking at what can go right, not what can go wrong. Try taking a positive attitude to be the night before; you will see a difference in the morning.

In everyday life positive energy seems to be ignored when evaluating successful business or home environments. Businesses or families that do not address the people who project negative energy are never going to reap the rewards possible in their quest for success. Be part of the solution, not an enabler to the problem.

Remember what Brian Tracy said, Excellence is not a destination; it is a continuous journey that never ends.

The positive energy of making the internet work for you can begin in many different places. My lastest adventure begins here:http://shortcut2success.webprosperity.com/

Live Life Your Own Way in 2009!

2009-01-10T11:07:00.000-08:00

Too many of us today rely on other people or services to make our lives perceptibly better and not reaching into our inner self to reach our goals, be happy and enjoy life. Are you one of these people? If you don’t know, maybe asking and answering one question may help. Do you really know and understand what makes you happy and fulfilled? The question is derived from the following quote by Julie Cameron:
*We don't always know what makes us happy. We know, instead, what we think should. We are baffled and confused when our attempts at happiness fail. We are mute when it comes to naming accurately our own preferences, delights, gifts, talents. The voice of our original self is often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people's expectations. The tongue of the original self is the language of the heart.*

If your answer was *yes I do*, then great you know yourself very well and probably have taken the following steps towards self enrichment and are happy. Please read on and you may glean another item you can use sometime.
Most of us at one point or another need to regroup and really try to and honestly answer the question about what it takes to make us happy and are we self fulfilling in doing so. Write this down, capturing on paper your thoughts is a great self improvement tool. I venture to guess many people are somewhere in the middle. There are many areas of our life that can make us happy; here are my most obvious ones for you to focus on.

Financial Stability. Most of us rely on a corporation or business run by someone else to provide our financial success. Sure we do our best to make the company better and thus reap the overall success a personal reward. If this makes you happy great, I think there is more of an entrepreneur in you than you might think if you just extend yourself. Be frugal with your income and try to develop a second or even third source if possible. You always want to have a second choice in case your current situation changes.

Family. As our society changes around us, we must all adapt in various ways to assure the basic roots of family are not severed, but continuously nurtured to assure growth. This is very challenging with all of life’s distractions and challenges each and every member faces. Keeping a family extended by geography or not together takes work and personal sacrifices. Even if you think all the giving is one sided, do it anyway. Time is your friend when it comes to family, because your actions today will reap rewards someday somehow. Think about the birthday cards you sent to a nephew or niece for years, that at some point in time your paths cross and the connection is grown on a different level because they are adults now, not children. Extend yourself in the family area if you have not already, when was the last time you spoke to your Grandfather or Grandmother, Sister or Brother, Uncle or Aunt, favorite cousin? Do it today.

Faith. Believe is a greater spiritual power of your choosing. Having the warm blanket of believing is a wonderful feeling to carry around with you everyday.
Remember don’t rely on someone else to achieve your happiness or success; they just might not be there when you need them most. Believe in yourself and your self reliance and determination to the person you truly are.

One web site I have found very helpful in discovering my own strengths and potential is just a click away, http://start.successuniversity.com/specialoffer.aspx.
Great information and training available if you know where to look.

Have you ever Dollarized Your Time?

2008-11-23T12:07:00.000-08:00

Everyday we all end up waiting … waiting … waiting… so have you thought about what this wasted time is costing you in personal and professional productivity? Better than that, how about $$$$!

If you just stop and take a minute to figure out the amount of wasted time you spend waiting that accumulates during your typical day you might be shocked. Let’s be conservative but realistic, the easiest way to do this is take along a little notepad and just record you time in lines, car trips, breaks, lunch talking on the phone, you name it. Here are the steps to calculate the money you potentially loose due to wasted time.
Step 1. Decide how much 1 hour of your time is worth. Maybe you think it is what you are paid by someone at work; $10, $20, $ 100? I suggest to begin with keep this simple and figure out your hourly wage against you current paycheck.

Step 2. Figure up the number of wasted minutes per 24 hrs, yes include sleep.

Example: Time wasted
- 2 hrs driving to and from work (listening to music not being productive)
- 45 minutes waiting in lines
- 2 hours watching TV (morning news and news at night)
- 1 hour on the phone to home
Total without trying = 5 hours and 45 minutes
My time = $35/hr

5.75 x 35 = $201.25!! * Hourly wage (x) Hours wasted = Wasted money $/24hrs (day)

Incredible! Ok, where did the money go or where will it come from if I get back my 5.75 hours? This is a great question in which you need to things figure out. What am I telling you this for?

If you are happy with a single source of income or your current life as it is, do nothing.

If you are not satisfied, you can spend this time trying to stat an online e business, create a product to sell, get healthier, take self improvement courses, learn another language, read a book, learn yoga to relax … maybe you need some down time improving yourself, just do not waste it!

Look at my example; 2 hours a day I n the car, what if I got some CDs to listen to on improving my vocabulary, or how to make money on the internet (I did this), lean a foreign language series, that is productive! 2 Hours watching TV, zero productivity, why not formulate a plan to seek out a 2nd source of income?

Time is the only boundry during the day you have no control of. There are only 24 hrs in each and every day, however … you are the only person in charge of choosing how to spend those 24hrs being productive or wasted, it is within your control!

Pumpkin Carving Tips for Adults

2008-10-16T18:32:00.001-07:00

This article is a must read for anyone and everyone who is about
to carve a pumpkin. I call these 5 tips, my Simple Pumpkin
Carving Survival Guide. My advice is for you to read these tips
before you begin this endeavor end up with a disastrous event
again. We all have experienced good and not so good pumpkin
carving experiences. Well, here is all you need to know to have
a successful pumpkin carving experience. These 5 easy tips that
are guaranteed to make the day special and ease you mind:

1. Do a little prep work on the pumpkin carving design. The kids
want to have a cool pumpkin, but they also want to have some
design input themselves. Have a pumpkin transfer or template kit
available to start out the process. The kits are available almost
everywhere pumpkins are sold. Also, get the kids or adults for
that matter, to start designing ahead of time. Tell them ahead of
time, everyone must have the design ready for transfer to the
pumpkin prior anyone being allowed to carve their pumpkin.

2. Go out and get your self one of the pumpkin carving kits. The
kit will save your self from rummaging through the kitchen and
allocating “tools” for the people involved. If there are kids,
always handle the knives with strict adult supervision. Sure let
the kids try, but have an adult do the cutting, pumpkins are
tough. These tools can also be shared and can create some pretty
cool images when used correctly.

3. Have plenty of newspaper for the pumpkin guts. This is not
the most enjoyable for the kids, but you need to have them reach
in and get gooey! A large cooking spoon works very efficiently
to complete this job is a short amount of time. If you are the
adventurous type, clean the seeds, soak in salt water (to taste)
and bake until crunchy.

4. Make sure each person has a second pumpkin. Why, well how
many times has the “Oops factor” come into play? The knife slips
or the tooth gets cut off … the eye is crooked … having a backup
pumpkin plan saves the day. Even if you do not need them, send
them home with one of the guests or give away as a prize to
someone!

5. Take pictures of the whole process, it is a great time of year
and everyone is around in good moods. Take a bunch, because some
are destined for the scrap book!

Sorry, but you are on your own to bring light to the finished
pumpkin. Everyone needs to see what works for them, I can
recommend the simple glow stick, and they even come in a variety
of colors and last a good while. Be safe and have fun.

To your Success!

Hope is Not a Strategy When Your Trying to Start a Business!

2008-09-24T17:08:00.000-07:00

Everyone throughout their life has incorporated a belief in hope, or a chance that something desirable will occur to them or is possible. We all hope for things, all I’m trying to point out to you is there is no strategy behind hope when you are truly trying to get something tangible to occur. For instance, everyone can lose a little weight right? Well sitting around *hoping* the weight will trim itself from your body without you exercising or changing some eating habits is a great delusion we all share. Same theme translates to starting an online business to make money, money management or even trying to make sell a product you have created. Without a strategy behind what your expectation is, your chances of gaining a desirable outcome are negligible.

Ok, so what happens, next? We need to get you started with a strategy; it is all about defining what it is you want. Sounds simple, but in fact this is the hardest part. Why? Because you have to put down in writing exactly what it is you want to achieve, and then set out a tactical strategy to accomplish it.

Let’s focus on one aspect; you’re interested in trying to identify an alternate source of income on the internet because you hear all he success stories about internet millionaires. The first place to start is exploring what you think you’re strong and not so strong points are for accomplishing you desired state. Here are the basic 10 questions you can ask yourself when you are about to get started (I suggest you type or write this information out, because specific tasks will be needed to get started and you can refer your responses often):

1. Do I currently have the resources (computer, basic skills, subject matter knowledge) needed to start this project?
2. What type of online business are you thinking about? eBooks, affiliate programs, selling your product, creating a service … you get the idea.
3. How much time am I going to commit to this effort? This is very important; time is your Number 1 Allie or your Number 1 Enemy because you manage it!
4. How much money can I dedicate to this/? Yes, initially there may be some purchases you have to make depending on what you choose to do.
5. Do I try and set things up myself or outsource/purchase some of the items? This can be a simple as website design, initial set-up and linking, seeking out online experts. This can be frustrating and confusing for most people who do not know how to perform this task. I strongly suggest you research and find someone to help you with this.
6. Where do I go online to find out about my area of interest? forums or basic key word search engines are a great place to start.
7. Is the amount of time I have allocated sufficient to support my strategy?
8. Am I committed what are my desired outcomes or goals?
9. What will I do if this does not work out? (Try again is the only answer!)
10. What mistakes I have made in the past that I will not repeat again?

I have been through this process and will give you some sites I have found helpful that may expedite your success.

Product to reality site:
http://CafePress.com

Online magazine Directory:
http://Directoryezine.com

Online Outsource resources:
http://elance.com
http://guru.com

Resource and affiliate start-up:
http://start.successuniversity.com./specialoffer.aspx

Start Building Confidence Today!

2008-09-10T06:25:00.000-07:00

Are you reading about building confidence because you seek
to improve your situation? Just remember, reading about
confidence will not gain you any confidence, action will.
You can read about it your entire life, but you won't have
it until you make a move to achieve it. Confidence is not
something that comes easily to a lot of people. Building
confidence is all about making mistakes, learning from them
and moving forward. You should want to make mistakes, that
is how we all learn remember … by doing, this is the way
towards building confidence and this should be expected.
Just like trying a new receipt, exploring the internet,
creating a business or riding a bike again, you'll burn a
few main courses but who really cares, scrap the pan and
start over.

Just jump in and do it, I don’t care what it is. Do not
become one of the outsiders looking in at all the fun … come
on join in! Watching and reading about it won't do any good
at all if you want to have confidence in life. The real deal
is that you're going to have to get on the saddle and start
to paddle. Why, you say? Confidence is not speculation, but
rather a sensation and state of mind. Start out with simple
confidence building milestones in a subject matter of your
choosing, again I repeat just do something.

Experience builds confidence, reading about it, asking
people about it or spending money on it won't buy get you
the truly innate confidence you desire. The only person who
can give you confidence is.... you got it right, yourself!
You see, the more times you do something (it doesn't matter
whether you fail more times at it than you succeed), the
more you try something the better at it you get. Writing is
a great example, people think sitting down and writing even
a simple article is easy, I challenge you to pick a subject
and write a 500 word article! Then send me your *Easy*
steps, I think writing is challenging, I’m not great at it
but I like doing it. Time and experience are in your
control, utilize them wisely.

I'm just starting out in this Internet world to see if I can
create content for people to use and benefit from. There are
unlimited resources we have available. My confidence is
growing through development of my Blog, what is next maybe
my own website … who knows. How confident you want to become
depends on yourself. You're in charge; you decide when
you're confident enough to take the next step in a career
or personal life, ultimately it boils down to experience.

Can you Fake confidence to build confidence and be
successful? Sure, if you fake it enough, your effort turns
into confidence, I don’t think you really want to go around
faking confidence but, role playing is sure fun sometimes.
And the behavior and feelings become so real and so natural
that you are confident by default!

Remember, whatever that is in your mind will one day
transform into something real and propel you into a
successful life.

Has Personal Responsibility Disappeared?

2008-08-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

Where has responsibility disappeared to in your life and those around you? Do not cop out and say it is the societal norm … please. It is time for you to stand up and take responsibility back in your life and mentor those around you! You hear about responsibility every day, or better yet, lack there of. All we hear about is how no body takes responsibility for their actions … or their children have no responsibility or the parents take no responsibility and on and on.

I have not heard anyone to date offer up techniques to teach and mentor responsibility, so here here we are. Because I feel so strongly abut this, I offer to you my five simple techniques to re-train your self and teach those around you to be more responsible. These proven techniques cross all gender lines and age groups. Integrating these five proven techniques will foster discussion, action and ultimately greater responsibility for everyone involved.

Let’s start by grounding ourselves in what responsibility truly is. Responsibility is defined as; 1: answerable for acts or decisions 2: able to fulfill obligations. Wow, how much more simple can it get? Are you with me on this!!

Five Techniques to get responsibility back:
1. Start with yourself, baseline you daily tasks and conversations as well as commitments you engage in. Do you meet definition 1 criteria? Are you truly answerable for everything or do, or did you make up reasons why something did not get taken care of. Maybe you have too much on your plate and you over commit without realizing it; this is not an excuse but often a reality for people …simplify.
2. Simplify your commitments and responsibilities as much as possible. Start slow, take the time to recognize the signs that you are slipping out of the responsibility mode. This technique may require a little time, and only you can evaluate and eliminate the non value added portions of your day that my hinder your progression towards complete fulfilling the goal of *Taking Responsibility Back*.
3. Recognize the negative leading indicators in conversations or actions that drive you towards the *I’m not responsible for that…* plateau. These indicators are any action or decision you do not stand behind, go back to definition number 1. Remember how simple the definition is; guess what it still…is just practice it.
4. Lead by example, words are cheap. Live up to your commitment and commit to yourself to meet all the expectations. Act accordingly and you will soon realize people around you will follow your example. If they do not, don’t hesitate to call them out in a professional and non derogatory way. Simply reminded them of their decisions or commitments and if circumstance have changed fine, just communicate.
5. Mentor those around you who do not take responsibility as so defined in the dictionary. Professionally and non-derogatorily point out the facts (not your opinion) on a given decision or commitment. The person may deny your statement and become controversial, just state the facts and carry on. You can not make a person more responsible than they want to be.

Maybe the response to those without responsibility could be to send them a coy of this article. Best of luck and much success!

Be On Time Every Time !

2008-07-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

Make it a habit to be on time to every appointment or meeting you have scheduled or accepted. How frustrating is it when an appointment or meeting is delayed due to one or two people who show up late. I know, very frustrating and also disruptive to the rest of your day, especially when you or your colleges were on time. A delayed appointment just delays the rest of your schedule. If a meeting has to start over, schedules get disrupted and again you spend the rest of the day in a catch-up or re-planning mode. Bottom line, it is very disrespectful to be the person who shows up late, so don't.

You can modify your behavior or those people who are late though a few simple actions.

If you are the person facilitating the meeting, curb late attendance by simply:
1.Start the meeting on time with the people in attendance.
2.Close the door, lock it or unlock it is up to you. I would not.
3.If someone shows up late, do not start the meeting over. This is important, even if it is your manager or peer. The missed subject matter discussion can take place after the meeting. More often than not, this step will not be necessary and the other people in attendance will appreciate your leadership and respect you for it.
4.Always have an Agenda
5.Establish a "Late Fee", this may or may not be practical in your situation. But, in small department teams it works well. Peer pressure is a good behavior modifier.

If you are the problem simply:
1.Understand and be truthful to yourself on why you are late.
2.Get a day planner or alternate organization tool and use it.
3.If you have an electronic device, set it to remind you of the appointment meeting 15 to 30 minutes early!
4.Try not to schedule appointments or accept meetings that are scheduled back to back.
5.Personalize the behavior, be the "On Time" example.

Sometimes we perceive being late to an appointment or meeting as acceptable because we convince ourselves whatever caused us to be late is more important than being on time. Don't believe this, the message you convey to people by being late is very negative. Punctuality is one of the easiest behavior modifications you can make in your life, get started today!

Are Your Customer's Satisfied?

2008-07-17T19:06:00.000-07:00

Do you monitor how satisfied your customer’s are with the service or product provided to them? If you do great, if not, you definitely need to start. The reason to maintain customer loyalty is obvious, look at all the competition that is in the market place. Customer loyalty to you and your product or service is a key component to maintaining a successful business.

Where to begin? Begin by improving you & your companies listening skills at all levels. Every contact made by you or your personnel via the internet, phone or in person is a potential “Customer Moment” and can provide early indications of potential problems. I mean everybody, from the dock to board room; train yourself and personnel to listen. Listen to what may be considered a trivial or off the cuff comment, document it and discuss internally. These comments may actually become a real customer issue, and if dealt with sooner rather than later will build customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Next, develop a feedback system that supports the collection of customer information and can even provide a response mechanism when required. To implement this system, you will need to assign a person or small team to decide what is best for your business and customer base. You might even engage some of your faithful customers in this project.

Active listening to you customers is not easy at first, but you will recognize the power and monetary benefit of avoiding customer complaints and heading off problems before they escalate. Just remember the last time you were the recipient of poor customer service! Do not fail to act on what you information gained through your customers voice. If additional training is required seek out subject matter professionals and organizations to assist you.

The investment will be worth it, just ask your customers what they think!

Never Settle for Ordinary

2008-06-08T13:12:00.000-07:00

I have discovered a common attribute among successful people no matter the age, profession or location in the world … they never settle for ordinary.

Successful people in all walks of life at various ages discovered ordinary is not going to get them very far in life. Sure, being ordinary provides stability and the ability to fit in or adapt, but not get them ahead. If getting to the front is what you strive for, then stand out and never settle for being ordinary. Of course you are not going be the front runner in every venture you try, but the important aspect of your life is having the drive to not be ordinary.

Easier said then done? Sure it is, it is true that everything comes at a price, wow how many cliché’s can I get into one article, you get the point. Ok, here are my 6 how not to settle for being ordinary self checks for you.

Self Checks that will not allow you to settle for ordinary:

1. Take on a Leadership role at any age, task or activity. Step-up and start learning about your leadership skills. You probably already have a pretty good idea at this point what type of improvements are needed, this major step that takes experience and time.

2. Learn from your mistakes; do not make the same mistake over again.

3. Continuously Improve yourself mentally and physically. Find new and interesting subjects to learn about, searching out information online or better yet, reading a book provides a foothold into a wonderful habit.

4. Mentor those around you by exhibiting positive behaviors and habits. By teaching those around you about subjects within your span of knowledge you gain even more subject comprehension.

5. Set goals for yourself. Short and long term goals, easy goals or stretch goals … just set them and post them somewhere in writing on your computer, on the fridge in your office or car. Check yourself periodically on progress or lack there of.

6. Be Driven; do not let yourself become complacent or satisfied with where you are at or what you have achieved. When you reach some of your goals set new ones, tougher goals or some people refer to them as stretch goals.

If you do not know where you are going, how will you ever know when you get there?

Let me remind you what E.M. Cioran wrote – We are all geniuses when we dream!

Do Not Post Your Resume' Online - Until You Read This!

2008-05-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

Do not post your resume' online until you understand exactly what you may be getting into. The internet is a wonderful tool to utilize when and if you are looking for a job or a change of career. However, there are some consequences of putting your resume’ out for the world to look at that you may not be aware of.

Some of these consequences has to do with the format of your resume’ and the content you include. Here are my top five items to address before posting your resume’ online and why.

1. Get a unique email address for your resume’. Why? Because you do not want you primary email account tied up with the responses or the spam spiders out looking for new email addresses. You can get additional email accounts from your current service provider or online for free most of the time. Believe me, if you do nothing else, take get a different email account and you may even want to consider getting a different account for each type of career you are searching for.

2. Include a professional summary at the beginning of your resume; the statement is about your qualifications and accreditations to date. This summary should be well thought out and only be two to three sentences in length. Why? In this summary you want to target the career specific key words appropriate for the job you are seeking.

3. Do not embellish or inflate the content included in your resume’. Be accurate and concise. Why? Simply you do not need too, just be yourself and promote the qualities and qualifications you have. Also you can be inundated with potential jobs that you may not be qualified for but have to sift through anyway. The resume’ is a first step in introducing and promoting yourself, do not jeopardize a great job because you fibbed a little…you will get trapped eventually.

4. Make sure the last page of your resume’ includes an additional 5 to 10 key words; hide the viewable color by changing the text to white (so these are not printed out). Why? The search engine spiders will find these key words, but they will not show up the print copy.

5. Keep the content specific to the career you or job you are seeking. Why? The effort to sift through the jobs takes time and you do not want to utilize this time wisely. I suggest if there are crossover jobs you use separate resumes for each and set up different email accounts to keep you organized.

One final piece of data you should be aware of, only 20 % of people actually find a job via the internet. Guess how the other 80% got their job? Through personal and professional networking! Think about it, the Human Resource person may get up to a hundred resume’s a day for internet posting, would it not be better to have someone on the inside that allowed your resume to be reviewed by the hiring manager and let them consider your qualifications first! Good luck and keep up the positive attitude on your path to success.

shortcut2Success.subuilder.com

Stop! Don’t Go to Your Interview Until You Read This!

2008-05-18T17:22:00.000-07:00

You got the interview now what? I’ve got the 10 Basic Tools You
need to have prior to your Interview. I Have a short prep list of
10 *must embrace* tasks for you to complete prior to your 1st
interview.

Task #1 Prepare a portfolio of your professional career.
Highlight the examples based on key words included in the job
description. This will be a good test to see if you really do
have what they are looking for. Or you may need to rework some of
the resume’ information you have to fit the job description in
preparation for the interview. Always include a *behavioral*
example; this has become popular method of interviewing. Here is
a quick link if you’re not sure what this type of interviewing
format is. http://www.quintcareers.com/sample_behavioral.html

Task #2 Research, Research & Research the company. Gather
information, search the web, check online forums and inquire with
other professionals on what the perception in the industry is
well in advance of your 1st telephone or personal interview.

Task #3 Understand and thoroughly investigate the position you
have applied for and are interviewing to get. If there is any
doubt contact the HR professional yourself, do not rely on the
headhunter or service you may be working with.

Task #4 Create as list of questions formed while performing tasks
2 & 3. Write these question out in a manner in which you can
categorically ask and write in the response. This will serve you
in two ways, keep you organized and establishes you organization
and pep skills to the interviewer. Also, if there happens to be
multiple people interviewing any contradictions can be quickly be
brought to light in a positive manner.

Task #5 Research salary ranges for the position. Balance your
perception of self worth vs. the marketplace. Business owners or
HR professions will normally have a number in mind and if you
exceed that number without backup … your out! On the same hand,
do not sell yourself short, you regret it and it may translate to
your job performance.

Task #6 Determine the type of benefits that are important to you
and prioritize each of tam because these may be the keys to
negotiating beyond just the money. Some companies are more
flexible at the beginning with vacation, flex schedules etc.

Task #7 Revisit your questions so you can add to, subtract and
re-categorize as necessary. Yes, this takes time!

Task # 8 Practice answering questions your friends and family
come up with. Nothing is out of bounds because you do not know
what some one will ask. The more you can do this the better off
you will be at it. If you get asked a question that throws you
off, just as the interview to repeat it or you ask the question
back to them.

Task # 9 Dress professionally, men this means a suit or as a
minimum a dress sport coat an, tie and slacks. Women, a pant suit
or appropriate dress/skirt. Overdressing is preferred, it also
shows respect to the people you are interviewing with. You can
not overdress, but do limit jewelry, shine your shoes and be
conservative with the make-up and colors you choose.

Task # 10 You must be yourself, be confident and try to have fun.
Practicing will help you out tremendously in this area.

One tip is that you should also carry a business card with
contact information such as phone number that you will answer and
an email you do check.

If you are looking for some self improvement courses and
programs, one online resource I utilize is Success University.
For just a small donation, you get 14 free days to check out all
the resources, great place. Check it out here:

shortcut2success.subuilder.com

Choosing a Powerful Name for Your Company

2008-04-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

Conscientious Planning Guarantees Home Business Success

2008-04-17T03:55:00.000-07:00

It is interesting to note just how careful the average American wedding gets planned yet how little, if any, preparation may be employed when contemplating the opening of a home business. Granted, the dream of the perfect wedding starts – at least for little girls – a lot earlier than the notion of running a business might, but by and large the fact that year after year endless scores of individuals are content with jumping head first into a venture which might, or might not, provide sufficient funds for the family to live on, is at times surprising and quite often downright alarming.

Yet becoming a small business entrepreneur does not have to be a roll of the dice or blind gamble; instead, conscientious planning guarantees home business success! Of course, the first step to any successful business venture is a clear understanding of the nature of the business and the talents and skill you bring to the table. For example, if you love your canine companion and would like to do something involving dogs, you will need to specify exactly what it is that you have in mind. The mistake many small home business entrepreneurs make is spreading out too quickly rather than appealing to a niche and then gradually expanding their goods and services. Therefore, consider if you wish to engage in a business that focuses initially on dog training or dog grooming; you decision should be based on your dominant skill set. Over time, you will be able to add in the other service as well.

Once you have narrowed the focus of the activity that is to become your new business, you will need to explore the legalities involved. Will you need licenses and permits? What are the ordinances with respect to business signage? Is your home zoned for this kind of activity or will you have to rent a store front? Research the answers to these questions well in advance to throwing open your doors to ensure that you have all your ducks, or dogs, in a row. This will protect you from having to shut down your business a week after the grand opening because the city administrator sent you a “cease and desist order” due to zoning violations. This is also a good time to investigate articles of incorporation to protect your personal and family assets should there be a legal action involving your business.

Last but not least are the financial questions that require answering. How will you finance your business and especially the start up? Do you have funds saved up for this momentous occasion or are you planning on some financial shenanigans that might be questionable? Consult a financial advisor for unbiased advice and also speak with a tax accountant to ensure that you will not put your personal finances and perhaps even your home and credit rating in jeopardy. This is also the time to confer with professional organizations that will be able to put you in touch with other entrepreneurs who may be willing to give you some information on getting started as a professional courtesy.

Use Advertising To Create Your Marketing Network

2008-04-09T18:17:00.000-07:00

When creating a business you need to remember that the only way you will get customers is by letting people know you are there. You may have the best business around with the best deals out there but if you do not let everyone know that it is there then your business will not succeed.

Advertising is the one tool that can be used for success with any business, however an internet business can present some added challenges. It can be difficult to find the niche that works well when your business is a dime a dozen on the internet. Often the high end marketing does little good on the internet and can be very costly. Choosing a strategy that works well for your business as well as for the internet world we live in is important.

One way to generate sales is to use affiliate marketing techniques. On the internet you may affiliate with other companies like yourself to advertise on their sites for a percentage of the sales that are generated from your advertising on their site. It is easy to see why you as the owner of a business would want other agents to market in such a way. If you own the business you will find that having many people spend a little bit of money each month to advertise for you can gain you a great deal of advertising for less money then if you had done it yourself. This is because you are generating sales from each individual who is advertising and each affiliate does not have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to do the advertising. Resulting in more sales for less money spent equaling a greater profit for each party involved.

Most internet sites will have several affiliate businesses advertising through their site at once. Keeping track of these is easily done, and can help determine where the most effective advertising is done. When looking at this data the company can determine which advertising affiliates are most effective and can remove the ones that are not effective enough.

Testimonials can be a great way to drum up business. They are used just like word of mouth would be used only these are customers that are sharing their word of mouth in a way that more people then the ones that they immediately know can see and hear. Paid endorsements often fall short with average everyday citizens and can thus hurt the company, but satisfied customers are often not paid for their rave reviews and are therefore more believable then a celebrity would be.

When thinking about advertising you should never count out how much word of mouth advertising can bring to your company. If you go to the store and buy a product you love, you go home call your 2 best friends who love it as well and tell their two best friends you have begun a network of advertising for the product you bought. Many companies count on this and it is the best way to generate sales with little money spent on advertising.

Exploiting the Power of an MLM Forum

2008-03-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

Information is power and in the world of multi level marketing (MLM) there is nothing more powerful than a MLM forum. Yet be warned that not all forums are created equal and even though some offer an astounding array of niches and rooms where information may be gleaned quickly, easily and succinctly, others turn out to be little more than network marketers’ tepid attempts of dressing up their promotional campaign under the guise of a forum approach. Exploiting the power of an MLM forum requires you to spend a bit of time there to get a feel for the posts and posters and to be able to ascertain the genuineness of the information provided.

Begin by simply checking out some of the bugger forums devoted to multi level marketing and look around. Is there lively discussion about a plethora of network marketing opportunities or does the forum seem to be devoted to one or maybe two different products or programs? The narrower the focus the less posters you will find attracted to the forum and the fewer posters will visit the forum the less interesting tidbits of information will you be able to glean.

Next, check the age of the posts. If they are old, then the information you will be able to find is most likely outdated and therefore of little use. Secondly, if you have questions, need help, or simply require a bit of a reality check, then a forum that is not visited as often as others will not be the best place to go in search of these items. In addition to the foregoing, frequent only the forums that have stated posting rules and policies and also have someone in charge enforcing them. Especially newbies are easily intimidated by the posters who will argue and quickly become defensive and thus a well maintained forum should be a place of learning, encouragement and an exchange of ideas rather than a stomping ground for the disillusioned and frustrated.

The community of posters ought to be another aspect to consider when exploiting the power of an MLM forum. Hardheaded, inflexible, and unimaginative posters will offer the same kind of advice that most likely will get you nowhere in the business; similarly, flighty and unrealistic posters will not give you the reality check you need. While each forum will contain some of each, the mix should be its own method of checks and balances. It is interesting to note that the most useful forums are those where different opinions are freely and strongly expressed and while tempers may flare once in a while, they are always kept in check. This kind of dialog will attract a plethora of online entrepreneurs who are not afraid to put in their two cents and thus fulfilling the very role of the sounding board it purported to take on. This kind of exchange truly is empowering and will most likely spur you on to bigger and better things, calculated risks, and may quite possibly be the catalyst that will see your business take off and pass some of the competition!

Create a Business Website Using These Tricks of the Trade

2008-02-08T07:40:00.000-08:00

More and more businesses are finding it easier and more profitable to sell on the internet. The internet automatically lowers cost of workforce and overhead expenses, and the pool of customers to which to sell is virtually limitless. If you want to take your business to the next level, you need to start selling your products on a website and expand your local customer base to a national and even worldwide level. Of course, running a good website requires a whole new set of skills apart from the ones you might have used to make your business a success on the local level.

While service and pricing still matter, you’ll have to find new ways to go about providing them. Also, simply having a website doesn’t automatically mean people will come visit it. You won’t have the luxury of walk in traffic the way you might in your brick and mortar store. Here are some ways to produce a quality website in such a way that people will want to visit, purchase, and return.

One of the best things you can do with your website is make sure there is a place on the site where customers can get hold of a live person. This could be through email, telephone, or simply a form, but you’ll have to provide some form of customer service. Displaying a business address and a telephone number also helps to assuage customer concerns about buying online. Though internet shopping is an industry that is experiencing unprecedented growth, there is still a great deal of hesitation out there from certain people when it comes to buying online. You can help them get over their fears if you provide some proof that your company is not a fly by night, scam
organization.

With a website, as opposed to a published catalog, it won’t cost you anything to provide as much information about your products as you can come up with. The more information you can provide the better. Customers won’t have the luxury (or the inclination) to seek you out to ask questions, so you need to make sure you’ve provided them with all of the information they need to make a decision. Customers will leave a website and never return if they get frustrated with the lack of
available info on the business at hand.

Take the time to write up a history of your business, and a short informational biography about yourself. This is another tactic to make customers feel at ease when shopping with you. The more they can feel like they are dealing with a real company and a real person, the more likely they are to purchase from your online store. Not only will they feel as though the risk is lessened, they will feel good about purchasing from a company that, at root, is simply a mom and pop store in cyberspace.

The internet is the new frontier when it comes to retail sales. Don’t let the myriad opportunities pass you by. Create a great website and you will have revenue streams you would have never thought possible.

Ad Campaigns that Get Results

2008-01-29T07:50:00.000-08:00

Advertising has never been as important or as varied in form as it is in today’s business world. Though it doesn’t take a degree in communications to create a successful ad campaign, nor is it a matter of happenstance and luck (though both of these may play a part in what lies ahead).

When you are trying to decide what tactics to use to get the word out about your business, you should understand that simply following the course of a previously successful campaign, by some other business, is not always the right course of action. One truism in the world of advertising is that different companies get different results with different campaigns. To make the most out of your
advertising, you’ll need to look inward. Decide what salient points you want to get across, what method would be best in doing this, and in what areas your advertising would be best received.

The answers to these questions will give you an immediate head start to creating a successful ad campaign.

The first thing you’ll need to decide when designing an ad campaign is who your target audience is. Once this decision is made, you’ll have a better idea of what to say to them, and how to say it. Most importantly, you’ll be able to find out the best ways to reach them.

If your target audience, for example, is the rich and affluent, it will be a waste of your money to purchase ad time during television shows these people are unlikely to be watching. If your target audience is blue collar, you might want to steer clear of advertising messages and avenues that are more likely to appeal to the rich. Demographics are the numbers advertisers live and die on. While some people argue that these statistics and numbers are stereotyping and unfair, the truth remains they are surprisingly effective. If you want to reach a potential audience, you’ll need to spend some time researching these individuals and families and find out where to reach them.

One of the biggest mistakes many first time advertisers make is to assume anyone cares about what they have to say. They don’t. Your job is to make them care through a quality campaign. While you and your friends and family members may be thrilled with your full color ad in the local paper, most everyone else will just consider it one more thing to flip by on the way to the news. If your ad is just like everyone else’s, this will go double. People stop and take a look at things that are out of the ordinary. Sometimes the best ads make no sense at all upon first look. Sometimes they even serve to annoy or aggravate the audience. This, surprisingly, is a rather effective form of advertising. While a certain percentage of people may see an irritating advertisement and make a statement like, “I will never shop there,”, a great percentage of these same people will not follow through on this vow. They can hate your advertisement, they can fail to fully “get” your advertisement. What they must not do is ignore your advertisement.

Finally, find out what the competition is doing. Do it better. If they are having success advertising on a certain channel, buy advertising during the same time slots and make your ads flashier, more direct, and more creative than theirs. Advertising is a fascinating and expansive field, but it is also cutthroat. Make sure you come ready to play hard.

Your Eight Keys to Success

2008-01-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

Who among us does not want to be successful? Everybody wants to achieve some level of success; whether it be in their personal life, or in the business world. Below are eight keys to success that everybody should follow in their daily routine.

1. Set Goals. By doing this you will be able to work towards success in a logical manner. Most people do not know how to find success, so they jump from area to area in hopes that it falls in their lap. And this rarely happens. Instead, you need to set goals so that you are aware of the direction that you are moving in. After you successfully meet and conquer one goal, you will then want to move onto your next one. After a while, you will see your self confidence rise, and your success increase.

2. Find inspiration for your goals. If you are inspiring to be the top Sales Manager in your company, look for inspiration from somebody who has been their before. Inspiration can often be found in the most surprising places. Many people turn to books in order to find somebody to look up to. This is a great way in finding somebody to look up to that is already successful.

3. Plan out your day in correspondence with your goals. In order to reach your goals you are going to have to know how to get their. By setting out a daily step by step process you will be able to reach smaller goals that will eventually lead you to the big goal at the end.

4. Pay attention to your progress. At the end of everyday make sure that you look back and see if you did what you needed to do in order to reach your goal. If you did not, find out why, and then come up with a way to solve this problem in the future.

5. Don’t give up. There is no reason to ever give up on your goal. If you do it is your own fault. By sticking with your daily steps, you will get to your goal sooner or later. The only thing that can stop you is quitting.

6. Look forward to the end. By visualizing what it will be like to reach your goal you will be pushed to work harder.

7. Think positive. You never want to tell yourself that you cannot reach your goal, or that you are failing. By thinking positive you will always be on the right track to success.

8. Appreciate the opportunity. By appreciating the opportunity to reach your goal you are already half way to the end result. Do not lose sight of why you want to be successful.

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-22T07:06:00.000-08:00

Happy Holiday's to You !

A Salute to Our Present and Past Verteran Soldiers

2007-11-11T07:32:00.000-08:00

I could not be more humbled on this Veteran's Day thinking of all the personal and family sacrifices everyone makes.

Thank you you all! Raise the American Flag in Honor.

Sincerely,

Kent

What Ralph, Emily & Eleanor Said!

2007-10-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face! - Eleanor Roosevelt

We aquire strength from what we have overcome. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all. --- Emily Dickinson

Get Above the Dark Clouds

2007-10-18T17:47:00.000-07:00

There is always Sunshine; you just have to rise above the Dark Clouds!

-- Joel Osteen

“What If Everything You Were Ever Taught About Internet Marketing Was A Myth...?”

2007-10-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

“What If Everything You Were Ever Taught About Internet Marketing Was A Myth...?”

Contact Me!!

Latest Thought?

2007-09-25T19:32:00.000-07:00

What is the Number 1 Negative word?

“Try”

Get rid of it, quit saying it, quit writing it.

Why the word Try, because it gives you an excuse to fail. Yes, fail.

Think about it, if things do not go as planned, you convince yourself, “I tried”. We all have done it, “try “ is just self serving excuse word to make you feel better subconsciously.

Replace the negative word try with I can, I will or consider it done.

What Next?

New Product

2007-07-23T18:01:00.000-07:00

New Product For the Internet Newbie!
What spits out cash 24/7 on the internet?

Go here now and you will see… Just have some fun!

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Family Business – Why Some Work and Others Fail

2007-07-14T11:49:00.000-07:00

Running a business with members of your family is a desirable prospect for a lot of people. I have found out Five (5) key tasks you need to consider and plan on completing. These tasks must be well on their way to completion before you get to a point of no return in you endeavor because any shortfall may influence the chances of you business being successful and possibly straining your family relationships.

Today more than ever, home based and centralized businesses have become a traceable place in many peoples mind, for families and extended family members to begin their entrepreneurship expedition. As in the world of business, each family member should contribute a different skill set for the successful start of a business. However, extensive deliberation and pre-planning must go into the business plan before you launch full force or extend any money into your business project.

Five (5) tasks you need to review and ideally complete prior to committing to your *Family Business*
1. Develop a Business Plan. The business plan as a minimum should describe the Mission and Vision of the business, product or service to be provided, long and short term goals (include financial expectations), roles and responsibilities. This needs to be completed independent as possible of family member role allocation. Why, because you do not want the beginning of your business to get bogged down because you are still in the planning phase.

*Note: The plan can of course evolve as you get farther and further into the process, my point is to have a structured way to start planning and discussion, especially if you are going to seek institutional funding, they will require a very formal business plan. You may seek out professional help in this area.

2. Define Financial Commitment and Goals. How much money is going to be required to start the business, maintain overheads (standard recurring expenses) and of course expected salaries. Where is this money coming from? There needs to be some real sole searching done in this area, benchmarking of other similar companies and a careful look so you do not impoverish your family if things don’t start as fast as expected. The financial plan should extend a minimum of two years, with a goal to break even the first year. Seek out financial professionals to help you with this if there is any doubt what amount of money it may take to start your business, better safe than broke!

3. Schedule Major Milestones you expect to achieve during the first two years. You can be as detailed as your personality allows. The Milestone chart needs to be a large visual reminder to every one of expectations and what you all are working towards. The milestone chart will also serve to keep everyone focused in the event *new ideas* and innovations crop up for discussion that may take peoples focus off the original plan.

4. Identify and Define the Roles and Tasks a family member may fill. This is critical for you as the business *leader* and each family member to clearly help each other and not have overlapping tasks being confounded or duplicated. You want to be as efficient and productive at the start of a business as possible. You can not afford to have any wasted effort or the potential internal conflict of who does what and when. Have a discussion on how conflicts and problems will be addressed and who will be the final decision maker. Everyone must buy into and agree to this process at the beginning because you do not want infighting to carryover into the family side of your life.

5. Disconnect Business and Family. My experience is you must leave the business out of family get together or events as much as you can. Of course there is going to be a discussion or two, but every member of the family must continue to put for the effort into maintaining the separate business & family structure. Minimize the carryover from the business to the family and deal with any conflicts when they occur. What happens a lot is the tensions of the business begin to creep into family events; you must recognize and deal with these situations immediately. I know I’m repeating this point, but it is a backbreaker of many families and small businesses.

A family can have enough of normal stresses in there day to day activities raising children, maintaining a household, paying bills, getting the kids to their sporting events…on and on the list goes let alone starting a business, give your situation careful consideration.

Planning and communication are the keys, as well as a good product or service!

A good resource for personal development is Success University, because the resources are plentiful, and the people supportive. Check it out here:
http://start.successuniversity.com/specialoffer.aspx

Your entrepreneurship and desire to be independent are great personal traits, I wish you all the success and support I can provide.

A Good Teacher Never Stops Learning!

2007-07-05T12:26:00.000-07:00

Think about the phrase; a good teacher never stops learning. What does that phrase mean to you? Recognize that everyone is a teacher through our actions and sharing of knowledge. As a parent, from the moment you wake your children up each day you begin the teaching process. Our children are continuously receiving learning stimulus and seeking knowledge from you and the environment around them. As a manager, coach, teacher, professor, consultant or athlete, your actions are observed, often imitated and directly reflected in your span of influence. The aspect of never stop learning should be taught to your children, workforce personnel, students, players and peers.

Be aware, the decisions you make influence and teach those around you. The phrase, a good teacher never stops learning is grounded in the belief you consciously maintain an open minded approach to situations that arise daily. Keeping an open mind allows the cycle of learning to be part of all phases of your personal and professional life.

If by profession you are a teacher, you realize the interactive nature of teaching and learning directly or indirectly imprinted to your peers, students, children and grandchildren. By keeping an open mind, you have recognized one of the most fundamentally important aspects of the teaching process. I know there are professional teachers out in the world today with many more great lessons to share; I encourage you to do so. Do you remember the favorite teachers of you past and what made them so good? I'll tell you ... they kept an open mind to your inputs, presented choices to you, explored your ideas and shared their knowledge in a fun and interactive way. Good teachers offer two or three suggestions as a way to influence a choice. This technique is a terrific first step in allowing someone to realize the power behind making decisions, and at the same time learning from the outcome.

Keep the door open to learning, seek new information and interact with different people as often as you can. Watch out, soon you will grow and want to seek out knowledge and subject matter you may have never considered before. Be open to challenges and questions you are confronted with from your peers, students and children. Take on those questions in a positive manner and discover the possibility there may be a different ways to perform tasks or solve problems.
I have discovered a great resource for self improvement, Success University at this link:
http://start.successuniversity.com/specialoffer.aspx

Great information, give it a try for just a $2 donation.

Is Quality Really Free?

2007-07-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

We have all heard the phrase; *Quality Is Free*, but is that statement really true? I think it is true from the perspective when you personalize *quality* to an individual, not a product or consumable item.

Webster’s definition of quality is simply, 1: peculiar and essential character, or feature 2: excellence or distinction.

Perform a little introspection and ask yourself, *Do I perform all of my tasks at home and work in such a manner for them to be identified with the term excellence?*. If you can good for you, it is very difficult for me to say I perform everything at that high of level, but I do try and complete every task to the best of my abilities.

We have a tendency to over use some words when describing products, Quality is one of them. What I do not see is the term overused when describing people, either their character or work habits as an individual. I believe this is true because, when *quality* is used in describing a person, the word carries a mark of high distinction and excellence.

If you find yourself using the term *quality* to describe anything short of excellence, stop and realign yourself. Why, because if you don’t there might be a tendency for you in your life to fall short in some tasks, work performance or even relationships. Do not shortchange yourself, do everything within your power to perform even the simple tasks to the best of your ability. Lead by example and soon positive changes will materialize around you and success will follow.

I do caution you to be wary of products on the market that over hype quality. For example if the advertising is something like; *Quality is Job One*, as Ford Motor Company used to, then there should be some quantifiable facts to substantiate the claim. Do your research; check out all possible sources of information when making your selection.

In the world of consumer products, Quality is Free … Assurance is the expensive part. Only you can change yourself and the perception about what your character is, make it positive, froth with excellence and distinction.

One quality Self Improvement site I have enjoyed is Success University. What a great support team of people they have, check it our today through this link.
http://start.successuniversity.com/specialoffer.aspx

Start Building Confidence Today!

2007-06-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought about Dollarizing Your Time?

2007-06-27T18:20:00.000-07:00

PIP Review - 1st Try

2007-06-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

I'm just beginning to understand a little more about internet marketing and the advantages of utilizing the resources that are established. These systems are worth investigating ... I'll keep you all posted on this one!

http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-16688

Create Your Own Destiny!

2007-06-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

Every now and then situations occur in our daily lives that we believe are a result of a greater good or I like to characterize simply as destiny. Some of us believe these events are supposed to happen, others rejoice in them and yet some watch them go by and disappear.

I’m a person who is very conscious of situations and events occurring around me including decisions made by myself and others. Situational awareness is very important in defining your destiny because each twist or turn through out your day can be part of a defining moment. I believe each of us follow a basic course of life set forth by our creator, but we each influence the direction by our daily decisions and planning. Think about how many decisions you make every day, it is truly amazing. My latest decision cost me six hours on a plane back to Texas. Why, because I was trying to get an earlier fight out of California at the same time a storm was halting all takeoffs to Dallas. Well to make a long story short, I arrived and my destination at exactly the same time I would have without any changes to my original plans. Note to self, *Stick to your plan*. However, I took advantage of the delay to formulate the content of this article.

The key is first developing your plan, and then have the conscious awareness to identify situations when they occur so you can make the accurate decision to influence your destiny. I have no resource available or know of one to help you make *accurate* decisions. Your decision making process is a byproduct of experience, environment and personality traits. All I trying to do is make you think and possibly change the way you are influencing you life’s plan towards your ultimate destiny. Maybe you are the thinker and need to be more of a doer, or worse you are the impulsive decision maker that does not take the time to think through your decisions. Whatever the case is, awareness is critical so pay attention to the little things and make the necessary adjustments. Pay attention to the outcome of your decisions and if some of them did not turn out so well, try to breakdown what went wrong. Take responsibility and do not blame someone else. There are a lot of good resources available on critical thinking, or self improvement no matter what your profession or age.

One such online resource I use is Success University.
With Success University you sign into a multitude of programs and opportunity.
http://start.successuniversity.com/specialoffer.aspx

What is really exciting is the trial period that only cost $2. I think of it as trying multiple learning courses without having to pay a fee. http://start.successuniversity.com/specialoffer.aspx

Why is Failure the Steppingstone to Success?

2007-05-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

How does failure benefit you? I think it is quite simple, for every failure you experience you learn what does not work or a behavior you know not to repeat. Do not be afraid of failure. The pervasive misperception is that failure is somehow bad for you. I think failure is just the opposite and have identified 8 reasons why failure is your steppingstone to success.

1. Failure fuels determination
2. Failure forces creativity
3. Failure makes you use your mind
4. Failure facilitates change
5. Failure separates the strong from the weak
6. Without failure you have no motivation to try again
7. Without failure there is limited opportunity to learn
8. Without failure you become complacent

The notion is basic, failure is the change agent to you becoming successful; do not let the negative perception surrounding it bring you down. You are in charge of your life and turning the failure into a positive experience.

What Do You Think?

2007-05-21T18:50:00.000-07:00

"We have to become more conscious of our feeling-world. By learning to identify the 'emotional baggage' and manage our feeling-world reactions, we can view life based on current information instead of being held captive by our past."
-- Doc Childre

"Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge."
-- Audre Lorde

Instead of resisting any emotion, the best way to dispel it is to enter it fully, embrace it and see through your resistance."

-- Deepak Chopra

"Every human action, whether it has become positive or negative, must depend on motivation."
-- Dalai Lama

"There are three kinds of people and three kinds of richness:
- people who want to have, to collect
- people who want action, work and labor
- people who want to be
The real richness is in be-ness. People can take all that you have, all that you collected. People can stop your labor, or an accident can stop you. When you are, you never lose what you are."
-- Torkom Saraydarian

Get Seven Steps Closer to Finding Financial Freedom

2007-05-20T13:45:00.000-07:00

Many people make reaching a level of financial freedom harder
than it actually should be. In order to find financial freedom
all you have to do is follow a few simple steps and be committed
to the cause. Financial freedom can be achieved by people who are
not millionaires. It can be had by everyday common people who
know how to work within a system and get what they want. By
initiating these seven simple steps, you to will be on a path to
financial freedom.

1. First and foremost, you need to find out where all of your
money is going every month. You need to remember to pay yourself
first, and take care of everything else next. In other words,
make sure that you are not taking every paycheck you get and
paying off debt. You do not have to pay everything off at once.
By keeping some money for yourself you will be able to live a
nice life.

2. Stop creating debt. This is painful but a must in you gaining
the upper hand in managing your money. If you have a spouse that
spends, spends & spends … you must have a heart to heart
discussion about living within your means. Wrong, just because
you qualify for another *Free Interest* credit card does not is
not giving you anything but … DEBT! All you need is ONE credit
card to manage your expenses.

3. Use your ONE credit card for everything, but do not spend
beyond your budget, why because you see exactly what you spend
your money on and how often. If you are like I was, cash for
this, credit for that, check for groceries … No way I could keep
up with these expense sheets.

4. Invest automatically. This is one of the most time-tested to
be true but often overlooked steps people ignore. People don’t
like to not see their money for some reason, they feel like
cheated by not getting to see any of their money; but this is the
exact point. If you don’t see the money you will not be as likely
to spend the money. Make it a point to invest directly from your
paycheck and you will ensure that your money is getting to the
proper investment without any being taken up front.

5. If you have a personal portfolio, make sure you diversify your
portfolio. In other words do not put all of your money in the
same type of investment basket. You will want to make sure you
have money going to a lot of different places. The real estate,
savings accounts, stock market (small amount) or start an
internet business is all realistic options.

6. Quit procrastinating and get started today. This is the number
two problem that plagues a large percentage of the population.
Remember number one? See Number 1. They always say that they
are going to get started, but never seem to have the time to get
around to it. Remember, as time goes by so does your opportunity
to save money. Each paycheck that you spend without investing is
one that could have gone towards one of your investment option
choices.

7. Develop multiple steams of income. What is this? Quite simply
instead of getting one paycheck, figure out ways to get 2, 3 or 4
paychecks. How & where you get into multiple streams of income
is endless … I’ll simply say, write down what your favorite activity
is, or subject, maybe a hobby. Do a little research on the internet
by seeking out forums, chat rooms or similar products that cover
your subject and let the ideas flow. One other method is to get
into marketing on the internet, affiliate businesses can yield
great rewards if that is something your interested in.
Example-Click Here http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-16688

These are simple steps, I am not a financial expert but I think
hearing the basics again are valuable insights to get started.
Build a solid foundation, get started right away and do not be
afraid to make mistakes, they happen to everybody including the
professionals. The future is yours to grasp so take it!

How To Prepare for Your Exit Interview

2007-04-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

Deciding to change jobs was the easy part, telling you boss and going through the exit interviews is difficult and you need to be prepared. So, you have decided to leave the company and turned in you paperwork to your manager after much thought and introspection, what you need to prepare for are the next three to four exit interview sessions. This process is similar to buying a new car and getting bounced from one person to the next, they try to counteroffer and talk you out of leaving al the while trying to wear you down. It is always fascinating to me how companies can come up with extra $$$ when you tell them your leaving. Trust me on getting ready, you need to be prepared or you will wake up tomorrow and go back to you same position, in the same company and will soon be just as miserable as you were when you decided to leave the first time. There are three areas of planning for the exit interview process that you need to prepare for.

Step 1. Prepare a notification letter that you will give to your manager. There are two subjects to cover in your letter; planned exit date and brief explanation on why you are leaving. The question on *why* you are leaving will be asked several times, it is better to put you thoughts in writing so you can refer to them later. In your explanation, be succinct and straight forward in a positive manner. Do not single out any person or event that could turn against you and be the sole focus of discussion that may eventually turn into an emotional confrontation. Be firm in you convictions and refer to your letter for guidance, refer to professional growth, demonstrated company stability, communication, work environment, you now the reasons, put them in writing. After you complete the letter, have a trusted peer or family member read it back to you for critique and comment. Plan for staying the customary two weeks, this is the professional approach and allows time for management to try and back fill and cross train as appropriate.

Step 2. Realize when you turn in your letter, the psychological game begins. Be prepared with a counter offer when asked. I say *shoot for the moon*, because if they say yes, you do not want to have any regrets. The people you speak with will try to negotiate and talk you out of leaving. Be prepared for this and firm in your decision to resign. Common questions you will be asked besides why are:
*What company are you going to? My response would simply include comments such as, the company name is not important for our discussion and not any of your concern. *There is no reason for you to disclose this information to them, other than giving them an opportunity to degrade that company and convince you going there is a poor choice.
What would it take to keep you here? Counter with, what are you offering? You know what you want because you are prepared, but do not disclose that information first, let them offer you something. Think before you open your mouth!
*Why haven't you discussed improvements for the company before? Maybe we can implement some of your ideas. Bla bla bla I say... in my opinion the company should be doing these improvement activities anyway, why are they waiting for a person that is leaving to jump into action? Don't buy into this strategy; you have been around long enough to see what the priorities are and what actually changes from a leadership team perspective. If the company was on top of their initiative, you would have already seen activities for improvement.
*Have you thought about what this will do to your pension & retirement? Often the comment is, if you say for xx years, your pension will double or triple by the age of 55. Think about all the money you are loosing ...stop and think, I don't have that money now, how can I loose it? Again, you have researched the POTENTIAL impact to your pension and retirement when you were preparing to leave. I say potential because these people you are talking to have no more of an idea that the company will be profitable let alone still be operating in 5 to 15 years than you do. This will probably come from the Human Resource manager, and will be the last straw in trying to tell you what a poor decision it is to leave.

All in all, you should spend no more than 5 minutes with each person you speak with after your initial discussion with your manager. The reason I say this is, you can be assured they have spoken to their management and HR about your desire to leave and been coached on counter offers, discussion points etc. Realize that anything they have to offer will be should be of no interest to you, be professional and polite to a point, they are only trying to get you to stay. What can you do, take the initiative when speaking to each subsequent person by asking what do you want to know that is not in my letter? This is a great tactic to see if they have even read it, if not that should also tell you a lot.

In summary, leaving a position is going to be emotional, think through your decision completely, discuss with your trusted peers, family and friends. Consider the options and above all be prepared for the exit interview barrage. You can do it, go with your instincts as well because you don't want to wake-up with any regrets!

Time to Set Your Success Strategy

2007-04-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

Every person and professional should have a success strategy in place that he or she can follow. The success strategy you produce for yourself should be specific and personal. As a professional, you’re departmental and company organizational goals must be incorporated to be successful, otherwise there may be conflicts. A success strategy is not only good for you, but it can also help your employees succeed as well. By having a success strategy in place, you will be able to track your results, and then deal with any shortcomings appropriately.

In order to write up a solid success strategy you should get together with anybody who is going to be involved. If you are a manager, you will need to get all of your employees together in order to ensure that everybody is on the same page. Setting up a meeting in which everybody will be able to contribute to the strategy can do this. One of the most important parts about putting together a success strategy is making sure that your employees believe in it. And if they have had the chance to help you put the strategy together they will more than likely believe in what it stands for. Employees will also be more prone to stick with a plan that they helped to devise. If you decide to put together a success strategy without consulting with your employees, you may get a backlash from them when they come across something that they do not agree with. So in order to avoid this problem, all you need to do is get everybody on the same page from the get go.

Also, when putting together a success strategy makes sure you set goals to go along with it. This way everybody will have something to work towards, and they will be able to feel a sense of accomplishment when the goal is completed on time. On the other hand, if you fail to reach your goal, you will then be able to reassess your success strategy and find out where you went wrong. If you have no way of tracking success, you will have no way of making sure that your strategy works.

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Finally, make sure that you success strategy is worthwhile. You do not want to set easily obtainable goals that do not take any hard work by you or your employees. If you do this you are only cheating yourself as well as your employees. Nobody will feel good about themselves if they only strive to be average.

A success strategy is something that every company should have in place. If you do not have one at this time, you should seriously consider it. Putting together a success strategy is a relatively quick job, and with the help of your employees you will have no problem at all collecting ideas. Do not overlook this much-needed aspect of you personal and professional life to achieve your desired levels of success.

What You Need To Know About Interview Attire

2007-04-10T17:07:00.000-07:00

One sure fire way to miss out on a job is to show up at an interview dressed poorly. If you do this, the hiring manager will have a bad first impression of you, and you will probably have a very difficult time overcoming it. Showing up underdressed or with too many accessories on can put you in a bad light from the get go. It is important to remember that regardless of what kind of position you are applying for that you need to dress professionally.

First off we will review some tips for women.
1. Remember to wear a conservative suit that is a solid color. You may also want to consider wearing a common color such as black, brown, or dark blue. These colors will not make you stand out or draw attention. Avoid wearing bright colors such as pink or orange.
2. Choose shoes that accommodate you well. If you are a bit short and would like to gain a couple of inches feel free to wear high heels. If you are conscientious about your height wear something that has a flat sole. Remember to never wear sandals or tennis shoes.
3. Keep jewelry and accessories to a limit. There is no need to wear four bracelets and five earrings. Show your professionalism by wearing a couple (one or two) classy accessories.
4. Do not overdue it on the make up Give your face a nice, natural look that people will enjoy looking at.
5. Bring a portfolio or briefcase with you that will contain anything that you may need. This will include work samples, extra resumes, and additional references.

Now for the men.
1. Just like the women, wear a solid color, conservative suit. Black, dark blue, brown, and gray are your best choices.
2. Regardless of recent trends, you will want to wear a long sleeve white or light plain dress shirt. More and more people are going with colored shirts, but for an interview you will want to stay basic.
3. Keep your tie simple as well. If you are wearing a black suit with a white shirt, consider going with a solid black tie. If you want something to spruce up your outfit, look into a brighter color tie.
4. Many guys overlook their socks and shoes. Remember to wear socks that match your suit, and shoes that are professional.

Good Memory = Greater Success

2007-04-05T18:52:00.000-07:00

If you can learn how to improve your memory you will certainly be able to become more successful. Just think of how nice it would be to be able to recall little nuggets of information from your last business trip. Sure you can write down a lot of information so that you can refer back to it later, but you will not always have the ability to take notes. In a face-to-face, personal conversation with a prospective client, you may not want to take notes. In this case you will be relying on your memory until you can translate the information onto paper.

There are two important parts to your memory: concentration and recall. These are the two areas that you are going to have to improve upon if you want to have a top-notch memory. There are a few ways that you can improve your concentration and recall skills.

The first thing to do is make sure you get the information correct the first time. It is very difficult to obtain bad information, and then replace it with the correct information. Pay attention to the speaker carefully so that you get everything right the first time.

Next, make sure that you understand what you are learning. If you do not have any concept as to what something means, you are going to have a very difficult time recalling the information. If you do not understand something the first time, go over the information again until it is thoroughly understood.

Also, being selective can also help you recall information. Instead of trying to recall the entire conversation that you had with a business associate, concentrate on trying to remember the important points. The less information that you have to remember, the easier it will be to recall it at a later point.

Concentrate on what is important, and try to test yourself as you move forward. If you are reading a manuscript and want to remember the main theme of every page, test yourself at the end. This will let you know if you have fully understood the page. If you have trouble recalling the information read it again.

Finally, remember to take everything that you have memorized and write it down. The second that you leave a meeting or classroom you will want to translate your memory onto paper. This way you can repeatedly study the information at a later date.

Implementing these tips will improve your memory and go a long way in helping you achieve success and reach your goals. http://www.TheOnlineSuccessUniversity.com

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Favorite Leadership Statements and Quotes

2007-03-29T04:24:00.000-07:00

The ultimate leader is one who is willing to develop people to the point that they eventually surpass his/her in knowledge and ability.
- Anonymous

Good leaders make people feel that they are at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he/she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens, people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.
- Anonymous

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say “Thank you”. In between the leader is the servant.”
- Max De Pree

“Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without strategy.”

- Gen. Norman Schartzkopf

Time Management - Why You Need It !

2007-03-20T18:40:00.000-07:00

One of the most overlooked skills in the business world is time management. Without this you will never be able to achieve your maximum level of success. Time management skills go a long way in ensuring that you get all of your work done on time and efficiently. There are a couple of tips that you can follow to make sure that your time management skills are the best they can be.

1. Keep an activity log in order to stay on track. If you keep a log of your daily activities you will soon be able to find out where you are losing valuable time. After a couple of weeks of doing this you may be able to see that you are taking an extra morning coffee break everyday, costing you over an hours worth of work time each week. This may not seem like a lot at the time, but over the course of the year you have cheated yourself out of 52 hours of work! Imagine what you could have accomplished, and how much money you could have made during that time period.

2. Setting a schedule for yourself will help to ensure that you do not stray away from your work. If you know your tasks for the day you should block out time for each one on a calendar or in an organizer. This will help you to keep track of what tasks you have already completed, and the tasks that you still need to get done.

3. Personal goals are also a great way to make your time management skills work for you. Setting a goal that you will get an important project completed by a certain date will give you a great deal of confidence. Also, remember to reward yourself for reaching these goals. You worked hard to achieve them, and everybody deserves a reward every now and then.

4. Time management work shops can be very helpful if you are looking to improve your skills. These work shops are conducted by professionals in the field of time management. You may also want to suggest to your company that your whole office or team attends the work shop. Chances are that you are not alone when it comes to needing to improve time management skills. Attending one of these seminars may be all you need to take your skills to the next level.

5. Purchase books or DVDs on time management. Over the past couple of years hundreds of books and DVDs have been made available to the public on how to improve time management skills. The best thing about purchasing these tools is that you can use them over and over again.

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Don't Let Yourself Go!

2007-02-28T17:47:00.000-08:00

Have you read a book or participated in a physical activity lately? I had no idea how soft I was getting mentally and physically. Stop and Look at yourself, you see what I'm talking about, but do not want to believe what you see. I am right on point concerning this matter for most of us, think about it and be honest with yourself. I want you to stop here and take a minute to assess you mental and physical state on a scale of 1 to 10. Times up, anything less than an honest 5, you need to make a mental note to yourself as I have done. My mental note was simply to remind myself, as I get older do not stop challenging the mind and keep the body physically active. For those of you who are physically and mentally fit, you may opt out at this point or possibly learn something, even feel free to move on to another article or just stick around.

What I mean by soft is the lack of mental or physical endurance I used to have, is just not there. I'm no talking about running a 5K race or studying for your CPA Exam, just an improvement in the frequency of engagement in a mental and physically challenging activity. This will require a few basic preparation steps because you are the only one that can change you current behavior that allowed the softness to prevail.

You have already started by simply getting this far in the article, next step is to breakdown your day and select times for simple mental and physical activity. I started on the mental part first by creating a brainstormed list of subject matter I wanted to read about or research. The brainstorm list for mental activity was all over the place and included improving my Internet business skills, professional education, learn a new language, read mystery and science fiction books visit self improvement websites and internet forums. My commitment was to read for at least 15 minutes each day on one of the chosen items on my list. I found at the beginning I read books of interest such as Birds of Prey by Wilbur Smith, Sahara by Clive Cussler. After a while 15 minutes was nothing, and I actually found my vocabulary was growing. Another part of the reading effort was to write down words I did not understand or know the meaning of. I kept these in a notebook that I regularly refer to and make myself find out the definition. Usually I have the word, and book it was from referenced, not always for some people this may be a little much. Here is my latest word: Turgid . I have been in the mental activity groove regularly for 5 months now and can definitely tell a difference in my mental sharpness and attention span, not to mention I am actually learning new words and using them.

Onto physical activity…this will be up to you to get out of the chair, off the couch and computer. Get outside and do something besides trim and mow the lawn. You know your physical limitations and I do not want to attempt to promote something beyond your capabilities. Just enjoy some level of physical activity engagement. There are chair aerobics, go for a walk, ride a bike, go visit a neighbor, play basketball with the kids or even join the local health club. Again brainstorm and create a list of physical activities you can perform, start slow, check with your doctor and begin. I started last week by committing to a local health club, 3 times a week to do treadmill and machine resistance work. One week in and I'm on my third trip to the gym. Guess what, I'm actually looking forward to going, soon you will also.

Have You Experienced The “Chicken Little” Syndrome?

2007-02-20T16:52:00.000-08:00

Everyday in business and or our personal lives we encounter situations that at first appear to be catastrophic. Appear. After a little investigation we often find things are not as bad as they first appeared. How do you handle these situations? Do the people involved go running around as in the story we all know; Chicken Little? I refer to this crazy reaction as this as the *Chicken Little Syndrome*.

I have found that if you address the problem in eight (8) phases each and every time you can counter these situations very efficiently and effectively.

The 8 phases are:

Phase 1. Keep the emotions in check. Emotional control gives you the edge in these types of situations because it allows you to think clear and make rational decisions.

Phase 2. Define the real problem. Ask the people involved what the real problem is, you need to get this defined clearly before any other actins are taken or you are wasting your time as well as others.

Phase 3. Double check to verify the problem. Always double check the facts, data measurements, original plans or whatever triggered the issue in the first place. This is also a critical step because you do not want to be chasing or reacting to non problems. In most cases, seek out the person who discovered the problem and review with them what the facts are. Sometimes the problem is only communication or a misunderstanding. If the facts warrant, you may be able to resolve the situation at this phase.

Phase 4. Understand the Magnitude of the problem. After you have in fact verified there is a problem, now you must understand the impact. What ramifications will this problem cause to support groups, customers or family members? Will it shut down the manufacturing process, is safety involved and so on.

Phase 5. Containment. Try and understand if this affects a single item or multiple items in work of that may have been shipped outside your facility. If the problem is product related you must go to both sides of the supply chain to determine the effect on previously produced product or not. Try to establish boundaries for the problem, have you heard of something called a *Recall*?

Phase 6. Investigate and define root cause. Determine the most efficient way to determine root cause, depending on the problem this phase can take many different paths and required actions.

Phase 7. Correction. Simple, find it fix it. Keep in mind the economics involved when evaluating any correction of a problem.

Phase 8. Closure. Communicate to all affected parties is a clear and concise manner. More often in business, the management team wants to know the problem, what it took to fix it, are there additional resources or costs involved. Beyond that, spare the details unless you requested to provide them to someone.

One of the key threads throughout this whose process is your ability to communicate with affected personnel. As you can tell this takes an organized approach, but still relies on your leadership ability to manage the process and closure of each phase. One suggestion is to utilize this approach on a smaller problem just to see how it works for you and gain some experience to improve your skill set. You will be successful, try it.

What?

2007-02-10T12:22:00.000-08:00

How aggravating is it when you are speaking to someone and the first word out of their mouth is *What?*. My first reaction is thinking the person was not even listening to anything I was talking about or even paying attention to me. Frustrating, oh my yes and also a waste of time for you and anyone else involved.

If you are as I am, a person that values their time, there are three tips that I can give you to prevent this type of encounter from ever happening.

Tip # 1. When you first engage a person, start out with an introduction; initiate a hand shake or some other simple greeting that makes the person engage you. What this 1st contact engagement establishes is eye contact and gives you a sense of whether this person is focused on you or potentially distracted by someone or something else.

Note: If the person is not interested, break off and move on. If you need to engage this person, do it at another time and try again.

Tip # 2 Tell the person what the subject is you are going to speak to them about. Ask them if they understand, and if the response is positive press on and keep eye contact.
You can tell if the person is maintaining eye contact that you’re the focus of attention, just be cautious of not making the eye contact an uncomfortable situation for them. Some people are not real comfortable in prolonged eye contact.

Tip # 3 Depending on the situation and person, when the response is *What?*, you can ask them a question to establish and understand why they responded in this manner. Often when speaking to someone, your tone or clarity may be the reason and it is mush better to understand this before each of you get into a *What* back and forth conversation. At times people can not hear certain tones or thy may be nearing challenged, the better you understand the person the easier it will be to continue the conversation and it also makes the person fell as if you are paying attention to them.

Remember conversation is a two way street, you must take charge and establish the other persons listening level. On the same hand, check yourself to make sure you are not the *What* person! You are in charge of making your own successful way in this world, embrace it.

Overcome Procrastination

2007-01-30T18:19:00.000-08:00

If you are suffering from a bad case of procrastination, welcome to the club. Thousands of people all over the world are having the same problem right now. And most of them think that there is no way to beat this problem. But they are wrong. If you know how to get yourself into the proper mindset you will be able to overcome procrastination without any problems at all.

1. Instead of thinking that you have to do work, think of it as you want to do work. One of the biggest reasons for procrastination is because you feel absolutely obligated to the task. But if you make the task fun by looking forward to doing it you will cut down a lot of your problem.

2. Do not think about how hard it is going to be to finish a project. Instead of jumping ahead and seeing the task as one giant problem, break it down and look at it as a bunch of separate steps that you will have to take. This will make the task seem more formidable.

3. Never obsess about the project or task at hand being absolutely perfect. If you do this, you will be afraid to start because you know that you will never be able to live up to your own expectations. Instead treat yourself as a human, and realize that you are going to make mistakes along the way.

4. Do not think that by undertaking a task that you are going to be missing out on so much else. Instead, think about what you will be gaining by completing the project. This is a common mistake by a lot of people. After you learn that you are not missing out elsewhere you will be much better off.

5. Never try to tackle the entire task all at once. If you try to sit down and put in a days worth of work without taking a break you are going to burn out before the project is complete. Take time off and break the project down into separate sections. This way you will never feel overwhelmed by your work, and at the same time you will be able to rest your mind in between sections. Not to mention the fact that if you work like this your results will most definitely be better.
Procrastinating is a huge problem in the working world today. Many people do not know how to overcome this problem, so they simply put the task off until somebody else gets around to it. This is not necessary. If you follow the five steps listed above you will be on your way to beating the procrastination bug forever.

Keeping People Motivated

2007-01-27T16:25:00.000-08:00

As we approach the summer months, many people will be distracted from work or normal routines by increase outdoor activities, vacations, and our kids out of school, business cycles and even the warmer weather. Your challenge as a parent, manager or small business owner is how to keep people motivated to perform their assignments. I think there are three key factors that you need to recognize and prepare for behavior adaptation and modification during this period. Recognize you are the example people are keying off of.

Key Factors for Successful Motivation.

Communication, always important, but this time of year it is critical. Why, because everyone else is juggling their personal schedules as well job assignments. You must encourage two way communiqué, this will assure everyone is involved and keeps the work flowing smoothly with minimal disruption. Start communicating the critical milestones or dates that need to be supported and planned for now, then each of these items can be planned around. The identified critical dates can be the customer orders, product releases, holidays, planned vacations, depending on your situation identify these through the summer months. Be aware, your normal routine may not begin again until up to 3 months for now when the kids are back in school. Maybe you should backwards plan from this date week by week until you can arrive at today.

Flexibility, is your ability to adapt to change at any given time or when presented with an abnormal situation. If you have are a company with built in flex time (window of arrival and departure times for worker schedules) around standard core hours, communicate this to everyone and as a manager treat each situation differently if possible. You may be limited by Human Resource procedures or State Workforce Regulations, check into these if you have questions. The key is to let the flex time work in your favor, but everyone must be communicating so the work or task is still ultimately covered.

Positive attitude, keep your smile it truly is contagious. Sure there are going to be disappointed people during this period, but focus on the bigger picture, not just the individual situation. Keep the goals informant of everyone, why are we doing this, how we are doing against the goals. Schedule an activity that can be viewed as a reword and positive gesture about the midpoint and if possible prior to a holiday. This can be a catered lunch for everyone, prize give-ways of some type, let everyone off for the afternoon with pay. You get the idea, let the people know you appreciate their efforts during this time of year.

Set forth a constructive model for everyone to follow, do not become the negative case in point.

Why Do You Need To Slow Down?

2007-01-23T17:20:00.000-08:00

Think about the last few months and pace at which we all were operating. Some of it is now a distant memory or a blur because we simply did not slow down enough to enjoy the moments we were experiencing. Every challenge or task had to be completed quickly to get on to the next one, this person, that person had to be contacted, people were on vacation, out of the office and who knows where else. STOP and take a deep breath, inhale and exhale that’s better … now that we have slowed down for the moment let me share with you a favorite quote of mine and a few reasons why you need to take a quick break.

Robert Sardello wrote -* The soul requires duration of time -- rich, thick, deep, velvety time -- and it thrives on rhythm. Soul can’t be hurried or harried.... We may go through many events in the day and experience nothing because the soul has not had the opportunity to feel them from many different points of view.*

How does this apply to your life? Let’s first admit we all rush through the day and subsequent week to get to the weekend, right? Then what happens, we pack all of our task and lists of thinks to do into two days, and oh by the way, anything leftover from the office or week that did not get done piles right on top of the “*restful* weekend.

Ok, so we all fall into this trap, what to do? Here are my Four simple *Slow Down* techniques:

1. Schedule time off into your planning book or weekly scheduler. Simple to say but not often planned for. Think about time off this way, we plan and plan for the tasks that we want to accomplish, make time off a task to e planned for because it does not just happen these days. Look at your week and if there is not 30 minutes a day or during the week then make it 15. On the weekend you need to schedule 3 – 4 hours off to slow down, read a book, catch up on the news watch a movie or just veg-out for a while. Try it.

2. Plan a day off once per month (if you have that much vacation saved) in advance from work or your business. Put the day off into in your planner, let everyone know about it and stick to your schedule and take the day off. Why once per month? Because it gives you a chance to re-charge and get some of the carryover tasks completed quicker so they do not linger into subsequent months. Don’t wait to take time off until the big planned vacation because that event requires all sorts of tasks to be done right up to the moment you leave and is often stressful in itself.

3. Get better organized with your time. Time is a valuable commodity to all of us and the better we utilize the time we have the more efficient and productive you will become. Plan your time around vale added tasks; try to eliminate the non-value added tasks. Think about what takes up a lot of time and see if there is a better way to complete the task. Do you do you grocery shopping once a week or is it every day like most of us. Just think about the couple of hours you could save per day by NOT stopping at the local grocery store for just a few things.

4. Spend quality time for your family. Have you ever noticed how your spouse or kids can get caught up in the rush around I do not have enough time frenzy? Look at your family and see if your schedule has any family time built into it and what this actually is. I’m not talking about the kid’s organized soccer or basketball game. What I am talking about is true family time. Completing a project together, playing a game inside or outside, going to the zoo or museum. When was the last time you went bowling? It really was fun.

I close with this quote: H.G. Wells wrote -*We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.*

Slow down and enjoy life, you can do it if you just try.

Family Members in Business Together – Is it Right For You?

2007-01-09T17:49:00.000-08:00

Running a business with members of your family is a desirable prospect for some people; let me give you five (5) items to consider before you get to a point of no return that may influence the chances of you business not being successful and possibly straining your family relationships.

Nowadays more than ever, home based and centralized businesses have become a perceptible place in many peoples mind, for families and extended family members to begin their entrepreneurship journey. As in the business world, each family member may provide a different skill set that actually can contribute to the successful start of a business. However, extensive consideration and a lot of pre-planning must go into the business plan before you launch full force or extend any funding into your business project.

Five (5) items you need to consider prior to committing to your *Family Business*
1. Create and develop a Business Plan. The business plan as a minimum should describe the Mission and Vision of the business, product or service to be provided, long and short term goals (include financial expectations), roles and responsibilities. This needs to be completed independent as possible of family member role allocation. Why, because you do not want the beginning of your business plan to get bogged down in the creating phase.

**Note: The plan can of course evolve as you get farther and further into the process, my point is to have a structured way to start planning and discussion, especially if you are going to seek institutional funding, they will require a very formal business plan.

2. Define Your Financial Commitment and Goals. How much money is going to be required to start the business, maintain overheads (standard recurring expenses) and of course expected salaries. Where is this money coming from? There needs to be some real sole searching done in this area, benchmarking of other similar companies and a careful look so you do not impoverish your family if things don’t start as fast as expected. The financial plan should extend a minimum of two years, with a goal to break even the first year. Seek out financial professionals to help you with this if there is any doubt what amount of money it may take to start your business, better safe than broke!

3. Establish a Schedule of Major Milestones you expect to achieve during the first year. You can be as detailed as your personality allows. The Milestone chart needs to be a large visual reminder to every one of expectations and what you all are working towards. The milestone chart will also serve to keep everyone focused in the event *new ideas* and innovations crop up for discussion that may take peoples focus off the original plan.

4. Identify and Define the Roles and Tasks of each position a family member may fill. This is critical for you as the business *leader* and each family member to clearly help each other and not have overlapping tasks being confounded or duplicated. You want to be as efficient and productive at the start of a business as possible. You can not afford to have any wasted effort or the potential internal conflict of who does what and when. Have a discussion on how conflicts and problems will be addressed and who will be the final decision maker. Everyone must buy into and agree to this process at the beginning because you do not want infighting to carryover into the family side of your life.

5. Separate the Business and the Family activities. My experience is you must leave the business out of family get together or events as much as you can. Sure there may be a discussion or two, but every member of the family must continue to put for the effort into maintaining the family structure and values as hard as they are putting effort into the business. You want to minimize the carryover from the business to the family and deal with any conflicts when they occur. What happens a lot is the tensions of the business begin to creep into family events; you must recognize and deal with these situations immediately. I know I’m repeating this point, but it is a backbreaker of many families and small businesses.

A family can have enough of normal stresses in there day to day activities raising children, maintaining a household, paying bills, getting the kids to their sporting events…on and on the list goes let alone starting a business, give your situation careful consideration.

I support you in your entrepreneurship and desire to be independent with the caveat; do your preplanning and preparation before getting into a *family* business because you can not let the family part of your life fail!

Why You Must Have a Vision

2007-01-05T04:44:00.000-08:00

I know...I know... I am not telling anyone something new by writing about this topic. Every now and then we all need to be reminded of what we have learned, re-think how it applies to our current situation and implement actions as appropriate. Basically, I just wanted to emphasize the importance of having a vision statement. Having a vision statement for your company, group, team, family or yourself makes common sense because it provides direction on where you want yourself or the group to go. Without a vision, neither you nor anyone in the group knows where they are going or what needs to happen to get there. Your vision statement needs to be to clear and concise.

Vision statements should not be complex nor take too long in developing. The best way to get started is by brainstorming a few key phrases, formulate a sentence or two and think about it for a while. Ask yourself, if I were reading this for the first time, would I get it? If not try again, you will get it. After you create the vision statement, write it down, communicate the message and display with pride. One very effective technique in creating vision statements is to incorporate the use of your company's name and key words such as; we, our and us. Avoid the generalization and soft words such as; transform and create.

In support of the vision statement, many companies develop the supporting mission statement and at times have combined the two. I think keeping the vision and mission statements separate promotes better communication of your message and keeps people focused. The mission statement explains what a company does and supporting attributes distinguishing your company from another. Again keep the mission statement clear and concise when your create one.

Here are two vision statements I like:
Amazon.com: Our vision is to be earth's most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.
3M Canada Vision Statement: We will grow by helping our customer's win-through the ingenuity and responsiveness of people who care.

The vision statement facilitates decision making by aligning everyone towards a common purpose. For the decision makers, the power of vision statements supports timelier and less controversial decision discussions. If you are part of a company without a vision statement, I'm sure you have observed the chaos that can be created when different agenda's collide. Even back during biblical times, people realized the power of a vision; refer to Proverbs 29:18... without a vision people will perish...

There are many helpful resources online; a little research may be of assistance to you if creating a vision seems confusing. Put some thought into your vision statement and see the positive results and benefit of having one. May your hopes and dreams turn into reality and success.

Eight Keys to Success

2007-01-02T17:08:00.000-08:00

Thought Provoking Quotes

2006-12-24T12:56:00.000-08:00

"What you must dare is to be yourself."

-- Dag Hammarskjold

"The time to relax is when you don't have time for it."

-- Sidney J. Harris

"I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently."

-- Ernest Hemingway

"I want to know the thoughts of God;
the rest are details."

-- Albert Einstein

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself."

-- Abraham H. Maslow

Dealing With The Death Of A Friend

2006-12-19T06:46:00.000-08:00

Our close group of acquaintances had our friend Wayne die after a courageous 10 month battle with cancer. Dealing with the loss of Wayne was very difficult in a number of individual way’s for our group to deal with and it got me to thinking … I should share how we succeeded.

I had heard of one statistic that really touched me that now I know has a high probably of being true. That is, everyone will be personally loose a friend or loved one to cancer in their lifetime, not a big shock to anyone these days. You and I can no longer expect to avoid the grief that cancer will deal to us and or families in our lifetime.

There were many facets throughout this ordeal we had to deal with as a group and individuals. Family support (emotional and physical), time management (through the long days after chemo), medical, financial and funeral planning, were all challenging and emotional, but the one facet we individualized was grief or rather the emotions and thoughts the days following Wayne’s death. Grieving is a very personal and individual undertaking that I will not give advise on, but give the reasons why you need to grieve.

We all know and have been taught and experienced the cycle of life in some manner. We have all had to deal on different levels with the loss of a family member, friend or pet at some point during our lives. I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert on the subject of grief, but have garnered six reasons why I believe you need to:

1. Recognize that life and death need to be shared experiences, so do not isolate yourself from either.
2. Cry because it is good for you during this experience. Crying is an emotion we do not let happen enough in our lives. Men especially refrain from crying, at least in public, we need to get over the presumption crying is not good for us.
3. Share your feelings and emotions with someone. Pour it out in person, on the phone, in writing a farewell note or an e-mail; just express yourself and what you are dealing with.
4. Create a personal remembrance memory book or file. Gather photo’s or related memorabilia that pertains to the person or pet and keep it handy so you can periodically reminisce.
5. Discuss the person when you are gathered with your friends or loved ones that new them. Discuss the experiences you each had.
6 Talk to the family members of all ages; part of the grieving process is following up with loved ones. Encourage your children to ask questions and ask tem how they feel or have felt though out this period.

A personal note, I hope each of you have planned and though about your own life, health and family future; good for you. If not, let this experience be a wake-up call for you, do two things if nothing else:
1. Set up a living trust for your family so secure your hard earned assets from going to the state or government.
2. Plan your funeral, deal with making the provisional plans and letting family member’s know what your wishes are. This will ensure a little less stress and prevent a family dispute about what *you* wanted.

Dealing with death and the process that surrounds it is difficult but one we all must not delay in addressing in our lives. I wish you the best of luck and much success in your lifetime.

Pessimists … This is A Must Read for You!

2006-12-03T13:32:00.000-08:00

My assumption is you started reading this article because on some level you are a pessimist. I believe inherently we all have pessimism ingrained into our persona and if we let it rule our lives, this is not a good personal characteristic. Maybe you started reading this article because you are seeking how to become more optimistic, this is my hope. Let’s define both Pessimism and Optimism:
Pessimism, from the Latin pessimus (worst), denotes a belief that the experienced world is the worst possible. It describes a general belief that things are bad, and tend to become worse; or that looks to the eventual triumph of evil over good; it contrasts with optimism, the contrary belief in the goodness and betterment of things generally.
Optimism, the opposite of pessimism, exemplifies a life view where one looks upon the world as a positive place. Optimists generally believe that people and events are inherently good. They have a so-called "positive" outlook on life, believing that things will work out in the end.

I do not know a lot about pessimism because I am an optimistic person and upbeat person. Sure I have my moments of less optimism, but overall I have adopted a mindset that keeps me thinking and acting optimistically. No everything in my life is not great or rosy or always upbeat, but I do try and keep the inner belief stoutly positive.

How do you maintain the optimist point of view or change from the pessimist you are?

Let me share with you my 12 secrets:
1. Self Confidence
2. Belief in a higher being
3. Strong Family values
5. Ability to Smile
6. Laugh when you can and often
7. Set short term achievable goals … set long term goals
8. Reward yourself for achievement
9. Become physically active
10. Get a pet... (the pet does not have to be a dog or cat) try a turtle or bird
11. Challenge your senses
12. Have the will to try

You can become more optimistic and positive; just give it a try today.

One of my favorite Quotes on optimism comes from Helen Keller –
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway to the human spirit.

Do You Know The Seven Negative Perceptions Holding You Back?

2006-11-19T09:27:00.000-08:00

Guess what? You have no hint of what people’s perception of you
is do you? What a revelation…some people first respond with “I do
not care”… what a mistaken retort this is. Let me warn you in the
business and public environments that you exist in today, you had
better care. I’m not telling you to put on a happy face everyday
or go out of you way to be nice to people because if it is not
within your normal character, it will not be sustained or
believable. What I am telling you it to be attentive to the fact
people are constantly forming a perception model of you from the
first time they meet you and at every successive meeting.

The point I am trying to get across is simply to treat people and
situations with respect. Try not to react with ill advised words
or anger. Everyone tries to make a good impression the first time
they meet someone or are put in a new situation. More often than
not good impressions and perceptions are the take a ways from
these initial interactions.

Of course there is the most obvious first perception anyone has,
you physical appearance. I did not touch on this trait because
each of us is physically unique and individual in dress and
appearance. You and only you can decide to dress for success or
the appropriate situation, got it!

Sustaining a positive perception in other people’s minds about
you is the difficult chore. We all naturally drop some
formalities the more and more we are around other people and
become more familiar in repetitive type environments such as; the
office or periodic meetings with the same basic group of people.

There are 7 Negative Perceptions you need to be mindful of and
must try to avoid:

1. Arrogant
2. Biased
3. Know It All
4. Unapproachable
5. Short Tempered
6. Impatient
7. Poor Listener

How to check your self is relatively easy. There are three easy
questions to answer:
1. How you perceive other people, physically first then
mentally?
2. What traits do you like or dislike about them?
3. What behaviors or mannerisms at any given time become caustic?

Another easy perception check, if you are willing to put yourself
out a little, is to ask 3 or 4 people what their perception of
you is in a given scenario. We should never stop trying to
improve ourselves, think about how powerful perception is in our
daily lives and make yours exemplify nothing but positive
feelings.

Favorite Quotes For You

2006-11-15T17:37:00.000-08:00

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else – Charles Dickens

No act of kindness, no matter how small is ever wasted – Aesop

Friends are born, not made -- Henry Adams

It does not require many words to speak the truth -- Chief Joseph

Friendship sooths the soul – Baltasar Gracian

Failure is simply a reason to strengthen resolve -- - John W. Gardner

Life always gives you back what you give out. Your life is not
a coincidence, but a mirror of your own doings. -Author Unknown

Why Technology is Ruining Your Life!

2006-11-08T17:55:00.000-08:00

What am I thinking or talking about? Technology has provided our society global connectivity as well as access to a multitude of higher education and unlimited resources never dreamed of 5 to 6 year ago. Think about what the cell phones, the internet, recording devices, personal technology items, and hand held computers … what an outrageous statement I have made.

Let me expand on my statement and I beseech you to take a minute to reflect on the last 5 years (post 2000 and the global computer crash theory). What I am referring to gets back to the foundation of communication between individuals, business professionals, your peers and what our expectations are or in this case are not today. Have you talked to your kids lately? Their preferred method of communicating with adults is by cell phone, text messaging or an e-mail? Ughh, how have we as adults let this happen? Are we so busy with our own “technology” we have pushed our kids into a position that is not reversible by telling them to call, , text or somehow let me know were you are and what you are doing??? My answer is yes; can you think about getting through your day with out a cell phone?

Besides the kids, each subsequent generation seem to have their preferred method of communicating via text message, cell phone, smart phones interactive chat rooms, online video groups this is unbelievable. Thank goodness my parents still prefer to be called by telephone (landline so they can hear) so we can laugh share stories and listen to what a person is actually trying to tell you.

Not something like: RU Ok? G it! U2? Anyway I think you get my point, I’m purposely avoiding the test message world. I did check myself other day at work, someone in my office still has a pager (remember pagers?), guess what he had to do when he got a page … borrow my cell phone … Jeez.

What 4 things can you do to slow down and maybe stop technology from ruining the communication portion of your life?
1. Make it a point to have a personal conversation with someone in you office everyday.
2. Make you kids talk to you face to face o at lest turn of the electronics while you are driving in the car. I know sometimes this is not such a good idea.
3. Try to make sure your e-messaging is fundamentally correct in grammar and vocabulary usage. Do not truncate words or ignore using proper grammar.
4. Correct you children if they incorrectly communicate with you to your guidelines. Control over this when they communicate with you, there is no way for you to control outside communication between our children and their world, don’t even try.

I’m not saying technology is a bad thing at all, what I do think has happened is let our fundamental principals of good communication slip to a point I am not comfortable with. I am going to start changing my behavior and would like to re-establish a communication with my family on a face to face personal level. We may never get back to eating dinner together on Sunday, that is probably just a bygone tradition in many homes … too bad what a great place to catch up and talk through any number of subjects. Just give it a try, go shake you neighbor’s hand, slow down and talk to someone.

I started to think about this subject while standing the line to vote yesterday. A person behind me (younger by at least a generation) piped up and said; *Why can’t we vote by phone?* Think about what that may do to our concerns over voting fraud … to your success, make it happen!

Pumpkin Carving Success

2006-10-28T09:51:00.001-07:00

You must read this article if you or someone you know is about
to carve a pumpkin. I call these 5 ideads, my Kent's Pumpkin
Carving Survival Tips. My advice is for you to read these tips
before you begin this endeavor end up with a disastrous event
again. We all have experienced good and not so good pumpkin
carving experiences. Well, here is all you need to know to have
a successful pumpkin carving experience. These 5 easy tips that
are guaranteed to make the day special and ease you mind:

1. Do a little prep work on the pumpkin carving design. The kids
want to have a cool pumpkin, but they also want to have some
design input themselves. Have a pumpkin transfer or template kit
available to start out the process. The kits are available almost
everywhere pumpkins are sold. Also, get the kids or adults for
that matter, to start designing ahead of time. Tell them ahead of
time, everyone must have the design ready for transfer to the
pumpkin prior anyone being allowed to carve their pumpkin.

2. Go out and get your self one of the pumpkin carving kits. The
kit will save your self from rummaging through the kitchen and
allocating “tools” for the people involved. If there are kids,
always handle the knives with strict adult supervision. Sure let
the kids try, but have an adult do the cutting, pumpkins are
tough. These tools can also be shared and can create some pretty
cool images when used correctly.

3. Have plenty of newspaper for the pumpkin guts. This is not
the most enjoyable for the kids, but you need to have them reach
in and get gooey! A large cooking spoon works very efficiently
to complete this job is a short amount of time. If you are the
adventurous type, clean the seeds, soak in salt water (to taste)
and bake until crunchy.

4. Make sure each person has a second pumpkin. Why, well how
many times has the “Oops factor” come into play? The knife slips
or the tooth gets cut off … the eye is crooked … having a backup
pumpkin plan saves the day. Even if you do not need them, send
them home with one of the guests or give away as a prize to
someone!

5. Take pictures of the whole process, it is a great time of year
and everyone is around in good moods. Take a bunch, because some
are destined for the scrap book!

Sorry, but you are on your own to bring light to the finished
pumpkin. Everyone needs to see what works for them, I can
recommend the simple glow stick, and they even come in a variety
of colors and last a good while. Be safe and have fun.

Positive Energy In Your Office

2006-10-19T18:30:00.000-07:00

Positive energy can go a long way in ensuring that your office environment is peaceful and stress free. If you have ever worked in an office with people who are constantly giving off negative energy, you surely know what it feels like. You feel suffocated by this energy, and often times it wears off on others.

One of the biggest problems in offices nowadays is people that are constantly talking about others and turning people against one another. This form of negative energy is one of the quickest ways to divide an office. If you work with people like this, it is very important that you do not let them bring you down. But it is easier said than done.

The best way to combat negative energy is to throw positive energy right back at it. In other words, if a co-worker of yours is constantly degrading your boss, you need to step to the plate and throw a good word in about him or her. This will make the person realize that this type of attitude will not be tolerated. By letting this negative energy circulate around the office, you are doing nothing to help the situation. In fact, if you are not helping, you are just contributing to the problem.

Try to make it a point to show up at your office every day in a good mood. Often times, positive energy will wear off on your co-workers. If you can get this sort of flow started, pretty soon everybody is feeding off of each other’s positive energy. This means that anybody who brings negative energy to the office will quickly be converted; they will not have any other choice.

The good thing about positive energy is that it does not cost a thing. If you are looking to find this energy, you need to look no further than inside yourself. Everything that you need can be found within yourself. But remember, you can find negative energy just as easily. So it is important to wake up every day looking at what can go right, instead of what can go wrong. This is nothing more than getting in a good mindset from the moment that you wake up. It will take a little bit of will power at first, but after you get used to looking at the good side of things, you will never go back.

Positive energy is one of the most overlooked aspects of a successful business. Companies that have people who are circulating negative energy will never live up to their potential. Don’t be a part of the problem; show up at work tomorrow with a lot of positive energy and be part of the solution.

Take A Leadership Role Now!

2006-10-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

If you recognize there is a situation at your company that is headed down the wrong path, step up and offer to take the lead to correct it. Somebody needs to right the ship, consider your options and step up and offer to take a leadership role. This is often a tough position for anybody to be in, especially if your company has been struggling with this problem for a while. Nobody wants to be in charge of a situation without any apparent upside or a portion of the company is floundering. You need to get over these fears, and tell yourself that you can step up and makes things right. The situation may be rough at the beginning, but you will be continuously energized when the situation starts to turn around and recognition follows.

There are a few strategic items to keep in mind before you jump in and decide that you want to "run the show". First off, you will probably need to formulate and review your proposed leadership role with your manager to gain his or her buy in. Keep the proposal simple by answering; Why I'm the right person for this position 5 times. Upon completion of the 5 Why technique, you are now prepared for any questions or concerns that might be brought forward. You will want to explain the situation to manager, and let them know that if given the chance, you will be fully committed to being successful and willing to do just about whatever it takes to help out.

At this point the decision is out of your hands. Many times you will be told to brainstorm some ideas, come back and talk them over. Other times, you may not be right for the situation and the offer to help may not be wanted. This is not because you are not appreciated, but the timing may not be right. Remember, if you do not ask or show your willingness, you may be overlooked for the next opportunity, don't give up. It is better to express your interest as taking over as a leader, instead of sitting in the back and waiting until somebody asks. Many times when people wait, somebody else ends up taking over, and you are left in the dust.

Taking a leadership role over any project, group or organization is a great undertaking. You will have a whole new set of responsibilities put on your shoulders, as well as many new problems that you have never seen before. But, if you want to be leader, you must go after it. Be honest, take responsibility for wrong and right decisions, and do not be afraid to ask for assistance from support organizations. Good Luck, you will never know unless you try!

How Generation R Got It Right!

2006-09-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

Who is generation R? I’ll tell you, they are our retired mothers
and fathers, and even our grandparents who were born in the 20’s
and 30's. Why am I writing about this generation of people?
Because I think there are five (5) basic principles that were
utilized by this generation to set themselves up for a very
comfortable retirement and lifestyle in their senior years. One
overriding trait through out this population of people is their
common inherent work ethic. You have to work hard to get ahead,
this seems a little lost in today’s younger (people in their
20’s) work force. The plan seems simple; have a goal, plan what
you want to do, save for it and retire. Simple enough for them
let me tell you how you can be better prepared for your
retirement by understanding and implementing the 6 basic
principles of their success.

Principle # 1 You need to have a clear definition and separation
of wants and needs. What I mean by this is a clear and distinct
written definition of a want (nice to have or luxury item) and
need (must have this to function daily).

Principle # 2 Cut up those darn credit cards. Quite frankly I do
not even think they could get credit or credit cards, you can but
do not. If you need to have an emergency credit card, fine but
have strict usage rules associated with it. Simple thought, if
you think it is a need, but has to be purchased with a credit
card, it must not e qualify and you might have screwed up
somewhere else to have a need purchased with a credit card!

Principle # 3 Limit you luxury items to the bare minimum This is
by far the most difficult principle to get people o grasp, why
because they think a lot of luxury items are Needs, hah. My
favorite is the latest in electronic equipment or that 50 inch
big screen TV to watch sports on.

Principle # 4 Save as much as you can out of every paycheck. You
have heard this over and over again, nothing new but you must
initiate the action to garnish your wages.

Principle # 5 Set financial and personal goals. Without
financial and personal goals you will never know where you are
going or if you are ever going to get there.

Finally, you are going to need medical services, plan on this as
part of you needs and appropriate the amount you will need. I
can not tell you a $ amount or percent, everyone must do this
based on family history and life style. My advice to you, do not
count on the government to continue with social services take
charge of your own destiny. Be responsible, start today and
success will follow, we truly can learn from the past.

Job Etiquette Rules – How Many Do You Know?

2006-09-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

There are 10 basic rules of job etiquette you need to follow when you begin a new job or transfer to a new organization with in your company. Above all, you must be prepared to meet and greet a number of people ranging from top management, to your peers and even the security guards. These first few meet and greets with people set the foundation for future discussions and interactions. Following these 10 simple rules will assist in your preparation for the days ahead and aid you in becoming recognized as the successful person you are.

The 10 Simple Rules:
1. Smile and be energetic. More than likely you will be introduced by your manager for the first round blitz and after that a peer or co-worker will continue introductions over an extended period of time. You want to smile and act enthusiastic to promote the persona you are personable and approachable. Putting on a happy face has never been more appropriate; most people will take this first meeting to heart and judge you by your initial actions and body language.
2. Do not try to be the expert. Recognize the people are knowledgeable and have been doing their job competently or they would not be employed. Give yourself time, the top and bottom performers will surface over the course of the next few months.
3. Ask questions. This is your opportunity to as many questions as you can. At no other point in your new position do you have the window of opportunity granted to you, as you do in the first few weeks on a job. Nobody expects you to know what is going on … use this to your advantage in knowledge acquisition.
4. Do not be afraid to ask for help. Asking for help is going to be necessary because there are terms, systems, databases, people you just do not now about. Treat this as another opportunity to get to know people, their functions likes and you might even get a few *watch out for this* type of responses.
5. Do the dirty work. Yes you can do the odd jobs; the tasks that everyone does not like to do but are necessary for the business to operate. Take this as a learning opportunity, you will acquire functional job knowledge as well garner some respect from your peers. I would guess you may have to perform the task(s) for a few months, but these will soon be passed on to the next new hire.
6. Plan to get to work early. You’re new; make getting to work before your manager a priority. Why, because it shows respect, willingness to learn and will provide them an opportunity to have one on one time with you early on. The other benefit is you can see a pattern of arrivals by fellow peers and managers that may at some point help you settle into a normal routine. I would keep the early schedule for at least the first month, and then figure out what is an acceptable compromise.
7. Plan to stay late. You’re new; plan your schedule around leaving work after your manager a priority. Why, because it shows respect, dedication, and provides people the flexibility to meet with you in a larger window during the day. The additional benefit is you can see a pattern of departures by fellow peers and managers that might at some point help you settle into your normal routine. As with Rule # 6, I would keep the late schedule for at least the first month, then figure out what is an acceptable compromise.
8. Respect everyone’s time. A majority of the people you will meet are probably time challenged anyway, and may perceive the *new hire* as just another burden to them achieving their daily goals. Sure they will be willing to help you, but recognize their time is valuable also. Prepare for these interactions as well as you can, be personable but DO NOT OVERSTAY YOUR WELCOME.
9. Be on time or early to meetings. You need to be the person sitting n the conference room prior to the start of the meeting. This situation helps let people know you are respectful, facilitates additional introductions and does not detract from the meeting agenda or content.
10. Complete your required training. If you were trained on a particular task or support function process or procedure previously, complete the training because many companies require current certifications to their requirements. Sure they May be the same, but there is always the possibility you may learn something you did not know. This also shows your willingness to learn and participate, both good characteristics to portray early in your new job.

Above all, be enthusiastic, the people around you will be willing to assist your because everyone by nature wants to do a good job and help people. I know, some do not and you will find out quickly by their personalities, and more than likely they are not the most popular people in the company. Time is on your side, figure out who the knowledge experts, you will need them in the future. Great success awaits you, have fun!

Career In Limbo, I'll Tell You Why A Career Coach Can Help

2006-08-27T16:42:00.000-07:00

Hiring a career coach is just like hiring a personal trainer. They can help you to establish realistic goals and give you a plan on how to reach them. A career coach will personally work with you to plan out a strategy to improve your prospects of moving up in the business world. In addition to planning your route to success, a career coach will also ensure that you stay on the appropriate path in order to reach your goals.

A lot of people are intimidated at the thought of hiring a career coach, but this is because they do not fully understand the position. A career coach is hired to act as your friend, partner, and business ally. They are in no way, shape, or form hired to degrade you and tell you that your goals cannot be reached. The role of your coach is to listen to you, and then give you positive feedback. They assist you in helping to find new career goals, and realize the potential of particular situations. Also, anything you speak about with you career coach will be kept confidential.

If you are reluctant to hire a career coach because you think that it is the same as hiring a therapist, you need to clear your mind of these thoughts. A career coach well help you achieve your goals, and reach your maximum potential. On the other hand, a therapist is hired to tell you why you are not fulfilling your goals and why you feel inadequate in the business world. As opposed to a therapist, a career coach is upbeat, energized, and goal oriented, just like you.

Time should not be a factor in considering whether or not you need a career coach. Everybody has time constraints, and these coaches will work around your schedule. If you can only speak at lunch or on weekends that can be arranged. It is important to remember that coaches will work with you face to face, over the phone, or via email. And not every session has to be long. You can specify up front how long you want each session to last.

Being able to track your success can sometimes be a difficult task, and is different with each and every person. One obvious way to judge if your career coach is working is to see how many of your goals you have reached. Also, ask yourself if you have been feeling more self confident and motivated. If you feel like you are not getting what you should out of your sessions explain this to your coach and devise a plan to get back on track.

Overall, a career coach is a great way to achieve your goals and reach your maximum potential.

Think About This!

2006-08-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
- Aristotle

"Explore and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it."
- John Steinbeck

"Quality improvement will result from people improving their processes and from management improving the system."
—Thomas Pyzdek

"Cause and effect are two sides of one fact."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Failure is simply a reason to strengthen resolve."
- John W. Gardner

"It is those who can spot opportunities who are truly exceptional."
- Chinese proverb

Put Your Change of Career on Hold Now - I'll Tell You Why

2006-08-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

Thinking about a career change is a challenging and often stressful time in a person’s life. If this career change you are making was a choice you made on your, good for you. If the company you worked for has opted to push you out the door, good for you also; some people need a push. Regardless of the reason behind your career change, there are three initial steps that need to be addressed by you in preparing for your next profession.

Step 1. Evaluation - This is where you perform the reality check of yourself and situation. Yes, it is an emotional time and you will feel to some degree anxiety about what the future holds. This is normal and a needed part of building a new foundation for a successful transition. Let your emotions out, and let's get on with the evaluation. As part of the evaluation process you must take stoke of your financial situation as this will dictate what type of actions you will take in step 3. Evaluate these items first.

* Financial - If you are living paycheck to paycheck, you will continue to live paycheck to paycheck. So the easy solution is to get a job that will sustain you through this period while you are working on getting the job you really want. Yes you are going to work hard, yes you will make sacrifices to get through this, but you and only you will control this effort - You Can Do It!. Be realistic and seek professional advice and help if there is any doubt about how to establish and meet your short term expenses based on your current income situation.

* Reflection - You have been successful and can be again. Start reflecting and documenting your career, experience, things you do well. List skills you are proficient at, professional achievements and continuing education. Begin thinking about how all of these attributes will come together in a professional summary that forms the first part of your resume.

* Future - What do you want to do for a career? Simple question to ask, but for most people a very tough one to respond with a good answer without first thinking about it. You just got out of a job that you may or may not have really enjoyed, do you want to go back and do the same thing with a different company? Maybe you want to go into teaching, retail, food service or open your own business. You must decide and do so in a timely manner. List out all the possible career options or jobs you can think of, and then really scrutinize these down to three. For these three, list the positive and negative for each, if done correctly this process will yield your next career or desired job.

If you can not decide or the results are unclear, try it again and let your gut instinct play apart. Maybe a little more research or information is required, again take the time to make a comprehensive and informed selection, it is your future we are talking about.

The Evaluation step is the most important and toughest step to get through. Do Not Give Up, this takes time ... walk away and come back if you get overly frustrated. Take some time and refer to old documents or resume's as needed to assist if, I found these very helpful in simplifying a historical timeline and organizing my key words and activities. This effort creates your career template.

Step 2. Readiness - Now that you have completed the evaluation step lets get ready to present yourself to a future employer, business partner or the marketplace. Remember, you are now going to have to sell yourself and create value.

* Resume - Create a comprehensive and focused resume containing a lead in paragraph of you professional summary. I can not go into all the types of resume formats that are acceptable theses days. Do a little research and decide what best format is for you.

*Introduction - Prepare and practice for the initial meeting with a prospective employer or market place representative. It is critical you practice this introduction in front a mirror and with friends. Think about when you meet someone, most new face to face situations there are about 30 seconds of real attention, you either sell yourself or you do not in this initial meeting. Make it short, easy to follow, have it contain key words without a lot of fluff and get to the point. It is a good idea to get personal business cards with contact information on it so when you meet someone, you can hand them you card.

Step 3. Action – You completed the evaluation and readiness step, now for the exciting and most engaging step; taking action. Research the companies you desire to work for, utilize your network of personal and professional contacts.

Let your network of contacts know you are interested in a career change, solicit references and let them know if they need any help you are available. During this step, attitude and assertiveness are key elements to keep in mind. Be persistent, because you never know where you next opportunity may come from. Attend professional meetings, church group gatherings and any other social event you think can offer a lead or two. Explore and pursue all priority leads that support your desired job, even if they may not exactly match. Sometimes the words fail to describe the job or position adequately, again you will not know any of this until you explore.

Positive attitude yields great results, keep it up and good things will come your way.

Do Not Post Your Resume' Online - Until You Read This!

2006-08-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

Favorite Quotes

2006-07-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power.
-Abraham Lincoln

All of life is education and everybody is a teacher and everybody is forever a pupil.
-Abraham Maslow

Life always gives you back what you give out. Your life is not
a coincidence, but a mirror of your own doings.
-Author Unknown

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results
–Albert Einstein

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
-John W Gardner

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
-Aldous Huxley

When Your Authority is Challenged

2006-07-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

You need to anticipate and prepare yourself personally and professionally for the inevitable challenge to your authority in any given situation. I refer to this as situational awareness. My goal in this article is to initiate your thought process on situational awareness and to prepare you for the possible confrontation that may occur. You need to think this through so you can react thoughtfully, not just emotionally. We will discuss two different situations, one as a parent the other in a business setting.

In a business situation, we are each confronted with making decisions on a daily basis. Regardless of your position in the company, everyone is required (and expected) to think, decide and react to situations as they occur. More often than not there are policies and procedures that will guide 90 % of these decisions, but every so often someone challenges your decision and at times tells you directly;

*No, I will not …*
*I can not do that …*
*You can not tell me to do that…*
*You are wrong, this is what needs to happen …*
*You are in no position to request that …*
* I refuse to …*

When your decision or request is challenged, common words you need to recognize are and be aware of are: no, refuse, not and wrong. Ok, so your first though is emotional, most often this is anger. You can not let anger surface, because anger often over rides the rational thought process. So now you are past anger, the next response should be to ask the question *Why?*. Use of the word *why* repeatedly requires the person to respond in a thoughtful manner and may diffuse the situation allowing you to get the root of the challenge. Often there is an underling reason for a person to challenge someone in a business or professional situation. Putting your anger in check and discussing the issues should resolve the problem. If discussions do not resolve the situation, think though what alternatives are available. Is there a policy, procedure or dispute resolution person available? This person may be the supervisor, manager or even Human Resources. Try not to allow the challenge situation go to this extent, it should be you goal to resolve the matter in a professional, no emotional way and move on, there are always bigger issues to address.

How about the personal authority challenge at home from your children, spouse and possibly family. Children of all ages are always pushing their boundaries, why because it helps them learn situational awareness and begins to teach the process of decision making and the resulting outcome, good or bad. What is your responsibility as an adult or parent; keep the boundaries, repercussions and limitations in front of the situation. What I mean by this is, if they have a curfew if 10:00 pm, discuss prior to their departure the repercussions of not meeting this, and possible alternatives if confronted with the deadline that an not be met; a phone call to alert the parent. Why, so when they are confronted with a situation there is an understanding of what the outcome will be if not met and you offer them a solution that will be carried out in many different scenarios. Simply, if you are late to appointment make sure to call first in order to let the person know you are going to be late. What if your children refuse a request? Oh, no hit the anger button … stop and ask the question *Why?*, repeating this often to children a terrific technique to open up discussions. If the refusal continues, take your time go thorough your steps, discuss the repercussions of the refusal, discuss alternatives, review the importance of making your request, watch out you may even learn something about your children in the process. How successful would it be to get your children to discussion situations with you? These same techniques can work for any person, spouse or family members, even the neighbors. Remember; try to keep your emotions in check when the situation is negative.

Try to think through a couple of situations in your own life that have already occurred, see if these techniques might have worked, I hope so. Good Luck and much success to you. Seek professional help if situations are out of control, only you can judge if this is the case or not

Hypnosis and Public Speaking

2006-07-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

If you are having a difficult time with your public speaking skills you may want to consider visiting a hypnotist. Even though it may sound a little far fetched, many people have overcome their fear of public speaking by being hypnotized. There are many professionals worldwide that specialize in this form of hypnosis. They can be found by a simple internet or yellow pages search. But before you get started, you may want to get some more background information on what this entails.

Even though nobody knows exactly who hypnosis happens, they do know the basic gist of things. Hypnosis is a state of trance where the subject is extremely relaxed and has a heightened state of imagination. Contrary to popular belief, being hypnotized is not the same as being asleep. This is because during hypnosis the subject is alert to their surroundings the entire time. Most people describe it as daydreaming where you are awake but you are tuning out mostly everything going on around you.

During hypnosis a person will take the suggestion of the hypnotist as if they were reality. So in other words, if a hypnotist suggests that you will no longer be afraid to speak in public, you should be able to follow this command. But while all of this is going on, the subject is essentially just pretending with a high level of intensity. This state also means the subject will be willing to take on almost any suggestion. This is a very important part of the process. Because of this subject did not take orders, it would be almost a pointless undertaking.

Hypnosis is widely believed as a way to reach somebody’s subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is in charge of the things that you do everyday without thinking about them. Therefore it is believed that if a hypnotist can access this information, they can make the subject less prone to being intimidated by public speaking. By connecting directly with your subconscious, the hypnotist will be in charge of your every move. If you have ever seen a hypnotist show, you know that the subject will take every suggestion to heart.

Another important factor to consider is that the subconscious is where all of your memories are stored. So again, if a hypnotist can access your memory, he or she can make you believe that you actually enjoy public speaking.

Even though hypnosis will not work on everybody, it can most definitely be an effective form of overcoming a fear of public speaking. You will never know if this will work for you until you give it a shot. So seek out a local hypnotist and get started. This may be the break you were looking for in order to advance your career.

Thank You for the Input, Now Go Do Your Own Job!

2006-06-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

What is a professional, neighborly and tactful way to get the neighborhood or work environment busybody back to work and quit distracting you? You all know the person I am talking about, they never seem to have enough time for you or your request, but sure as heck can tell you what needs to be done and how! Am I right on this?

Ok, here are my 10 tactful methods you can use to get your message across to this type of person:

Ask the person;
1. Why are you concerned about that subject or task?
2. What are you currently doing to support the task or information you are asking about?
3. How will this information be of value to you and utilized you?
4. Ask them to go and get information, or divert an actionable task back to them if possible.
5. If the person asks general questions about a task or subject you know that is outside of their scope, you can respond with "I do not think those questions or actions are information that you would find helpful."
6. If there are areas that you think some assistance is warranted, go and talk to the manager, or team leader about it.
7. If the diversions caused by this person become uncontrollable, go and speak to your manager or team leader about the issues created by this person and seek their input situational resolution.
8. Tell the person asking you don't know; please go see the person in charge or in management.
9. When true and appropriate, tell them they do not have a need to know or I can not comment on that.
10. If all else fails, tell the person you do not think they are in a position to request that information or assistance from you. If they persist, offer to review with your manager or team leader.

Everyday we all will come across people that want to be in the know, have to know and tell you what they know. You can not avoid this personality type, as they are very persistent. What you can do is minimize the commotion these personality types create. You do not have to be rude (unless of course the just do not get it) but remain firmly in control. When you are confronted with this type of situation, try to remember and implement one of the 10 methods above, I think you'll be pleased with what transpires. If their persistence prevails and you feel yourself loosing control, take back control and get out of the situation quickly by simply physically walking away.

Good luck and much to success to you.

Three Sports Related Lessons We All Can Learn From

2006-06-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

Everyone in some form or fashion is exposed to sports on a very regular basis either through participation, watching an event on television, reading an article about a team or athlete. Even if you are not an avid sports fan, you will inevitably come across a sports related situation on a daily basis. Due to the popularity of sports and increased media exposure, I think sports are a great teaching tool for all of us; young and old, if put in proper perspective. Proper perspective from my standpoint is categorized in three general groups.

* Win humbly and lose graciously: Easy to put into words, very difficult to implement especially when you are on the losing end of a sporting event. Look at the NBA Finals and how Dallas reacted after game 5; these are professional people that let losing take each of them in some way out of character for a moment. Ok so what is the lesson here? Look introspectively at yourself and children, talk about the reaction of the team, owner, management, fans and with how you might have felt in a similar situation. Point out the power of emotion, both positive and negative; discuss the need to let emotions out but, in a controllable manner. Review the way almost every person stood up and was accountable for their reaction *PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY*, understand what drove them to that level and frustration and yet got past it. The great thing about most sporting events is at the end of the game, there are only two possible outcomes; a winner and loser. How you mange the outcome and perspective can go a long way in building personal character and teaching our children correct values.

*Teamwork: For a team to be successful, all of the members must work together and accept different roles and responsibilities. Not everyone can be a quarterback, someone has to block. When you participate in a team sport, you recognize the different talents and personalities very quickly. Pretty soon the dynamics of a team focuses people to different roles, sometimes reluctantly. When a person is exposed to the team environment for the first, their behavior is interesting to observe. This is simply due to the fact they have a predetermined role defined in their mind prior to going into the team situation. What tells a lot about the team dynamics is how people adjust to the personalities, values, leader and attempt to focus on what the collective efforts are trying to achieve. There are books on the dynamics if teams and their effectiveness, if you want more team information the resources are endless. I just wanted to briefly point out, participation on a team is an important part of personal development, learning to cooperate, and teaching the favorite cliché; there is no *I* in the word team.

*Can a sports person be a Role Model? Not as a stand alone Role Model. Why, the reason is simply because on a daily basis we do not observe all of the aspects of that persons daily life, we see only the person in one aspect, a sporting event. The Role Model you choose, in my opinion needs to be someone that can be observed frequently, approachable to the point of engaging in conversations, observed in different social and professional situations and consistent in the application of their values. This may sound a little strange, but I developed a morphed Role Model with multiple traits of people close to me. I took from my parent's patience and teaching skill, my grandparent's unconditional expressive love, the power of family and faith from all my relatives.
Can a sports person be the example for a specific achievement or trait that forms part of a person's character, you bet. Pick a sport, choose your Role Model and try to play the game that way. An example of this would be John Elway, why because he a great example of perseverance and a never give up attitude. Have open conversations about Role Models with your family and friends, the conversations can get very entertaining.

In many ways, sports participation and involvement opens up learning experiences for the body as well as the mind at a young age. As we get older, a sport gives us opportunity to relive moments of successes and failures that we can share with our friends and family.

**Go out and enjoy a sporting event soon, be careful you are not as young as you were last time you played football with your children and the grandchildren**

Manners and the Remote Control

2006-06-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

I was reminded the other night watching TV with my wife, there are manners associated with the TV remote controller. I knew that...sort of. The situation was this, she was watching a show that went to commercial, so she left the room and remote on the table. So, I picked up the remote and flipped to the sports channel to check scores, no problem… I indented on switching back to her show after the 3 minutes of commercials. Whoop’s was I wrong, no sooner had the channel been surfed, there came a booming *what are you doing? I was watching that TV show and listening to the commercials so I knew when to return to the living room *. What followed that comment was a dissertation on remote control manners and common politeness that extends to the use and handling of the almighty electronic marvel. Furthermore, I also learned that somehow I should have recognized these unwritten rules about *channel surfing* when I did not have control of the remote. My warning to you all, make sure the remote control (literally) is under your control and in your hands before changing the channels.

Ok, enough about the remote. The topic got me thinking about manners in general and raised this question; when was the last time you implemented the manners you were taught a child? I’m not talking about the formal manners that some people learn in preparation for social events, formal dinners or dances. I’m talking about the basic manners we all were taught as children and in turn passed onto our children. We all need to be reminded to practice manners everyday, teach our children by example and hopefully they will catch on. When I refer to the basic manners (some may categorize as common courtesy), here is my top 10 list:

*Say Please when requesting or asking for something
*Say Thank You upon receiving assistance or service
*Open a Door for someone
*Listen when someone else is talking, do not talk over them
*Offer your assistance to someone by saying Can I help?
*Correct a child’s behavior when they are disrespectful of family or other people
*Show Respect to everyone in your family, including your children
*Do not yell at anytime… in my book yelling serves no purpose in any situation
*Be Understanding
*Exercise patience

I strongly believe, everyday you are exposed to multiple situations that facilitate utilization of one or more of the manners listed above. The opportunities to use manners are endless and become available to you first thing in the morning. All you have to do is recognize your behavior patterns to see if you can exercise manners when an opportunity presents itself. It may take a while to catch on with the family or peers, but I assure you in a very short amount of time changes will occur. I hope with the implementation of basic manners in your daily regime, positive attitudes prevail and success in your life occurs.

Managing Communication of Purchased Part Lead Times

2006-06-09T15:15:00.000-07:00

If you are a supply chain person, you realize the perpetual swirl surrounding your attempts in communicating purchase part lead times to interested personnel. In my estimation there are two key points you need to assure are understood before attempting anymore communication.

Key point number one: The manufacturing planning system must contain understandable, credible and maintainable lead times that include dock delivery dates. Through your supply chain organization, get the supplier to commit realistic lead time delivery dates to you in writing. After this is established, make sure the date and lead times are loaded into the appropriate planning system for your company. Your supply chain personnel need to be relentless in managing these dates to assure all the other program and manufacturing schedules, testing faculties, customer interfaces and milestones are accurate. It is imperative the dates are managed and changes are communicated immediately. Depending where you are positioned in the company, the process to communicate and establish credible dates must be detailed, documented and adhered to.

Key point number two: Make sure the message is clear; Supply Chain manages the dates in the manufacturing planning system, don't plan on the dates getting pulled in, rather manage and plan on the parts being received as specified in the planning system on time. Any other system, manual or intuitive will only disrupt and compromise any credibility the system has established. This message must be communicated to all support organizations, especially customer service and sales personnel, as these organizations will always respond to customer requests for upside and shorter lead times. Every customer is concerned about the lead time; more often than not the people who are committing your company to a delivery date are not fully informed or understand the impact of providing a compromised (unachievable) delivery date. The lead time message regarding managing lead times, shall come from senior supply chain management, at the same time being supported throughout the company by senior manufacturing personnel and understood by management. What must be clear and consistent is the basic message; the lead times in the system are accurate, supply chain will continually work to better the dates, do not plan on a different date until the manufacturing planning system date changes. The part of the message that often gets ignored is when personnel fail to check the planning system date first, and jump right into the "fly-by" questions on upside requests. Try to contain the fly-by, frequent communication and system integrity will help minimize this practice. If not, establish a single point of contact that all requests must flow through, the more senior a person the better.

The organizational discipline associated with lead times shall be:
*rely on the system dates
*assure supply chain manages and communicates dates and changes
*do not allow organizations to regularly request pull-in dates
*communicate all the manufacturing planning dates regularly
*keep sales and customer service informed
*train the staff on using the manufacturing planning system

As everyone is aware, two way communications are critical in all areas of product manufacture, service and personal interaction.

Accurate and disciplined communication is imperative to the high performance supply chain and manufacturing organizations. Through out the whole delivery process, lead time management, consistent communication and discipline to plan against the system dates (good or bad) is required. The challenges are going to be when a *big $$* sale is presented to management and the *superman mentality* takes over through out all disciplines. Everyone is transformed (in their mind) into a procurement specialist and knows how to help out the true professionals in the organization. Don't support this superman mentality, you must remind everyone of their responsibilities and rely on the accuracy of the planning system to guide decisions so stick to the processes you have put in place. I wish you all success.

Isolated Intellectual Property

2006-06-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

Every company has Intellectual Property (technical and practical knowledge) that is a critical component to its future. Your company standard processes may not even identify a method to capture Intellectual Property (IP) or define what IP is. Retention and definition of IP is key to your product and market place profitability; take a look at your situation. More often than not, the IP is isolated in the minds of your technical staff, scientists and senior engineers and tenured technicians. These IP people are not paid to document or capture their intellect, let alone reproduce in an understandable format unless formally queried and reviewed by senior management. Initiate action today to address your company’s situation if there is a shortcoming in this area.

Often there is no standard procedure to capture the IP in a documentation format, thus it is not reproducible and has the high risk potential of becoming lost or worse, transferred to the competition! In today’s market place there is a high probability of knowledge networking at trade shows, seminars and technical subject matter symposiums. Do you honestly think every person asking questions is a consumer? I do not think so, wake up or you will loose your IP edge. Don't think this is true, just look at the competitions products 3 months after a trade show, see any similarities?

Where to begin is simple, your technical director should have a couple of standard process’s outlined for defining to the staff what IP is and how to capture it. Most companies have engineering journals that are company property and issued to every new hire, but where this process falls short is in the use and implementation. If your chief scientist has been with the company 20 years, just thinks how many journals they might have filled out in longhand, read any Rx prescriptions lately? The journals are probably not cataloged or indexed that would allow easy identification and research of topics, or even kept in a common storage area or library. It is not too late to start reviewing how this technical data is captured by your IP personnel. Just ask a few questions to get an idea, it should not take long and the results my startle you.

If you are paper rich and organized poorly, one method may be to electronically scan the pages into archive database that can readily be indexed, searched and identified. Yes, this method will take some work and possible equipment purchase, but in the long run company IP survival is worth it. You m ay task you technical staff to organize their own journals, and of course look at the procedures when journals are issued. The first step should be with the issuance of journals and assuring there are formal steps that identify and implement how IP it to be documented and captures so the company does not loose any more time.

You will know how to best address your situation, if you have a formal method in place that is working great, many companies do not. Do not let the isolated IP become lost, act today, good luck and I hope you are successful in your endeavors.

Unless You’re in Charge, Avoid Office Politics

2006-05-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

Whoosh out the door goes another executive, manager, salaried or
hourly worker. No one is exempt or excluded from the negative
repercussions associated with office politics. Unless you are at
the top of the company, you have no business being involved in
any aspect of the office politics that play out everyday.

Why should you avoid the game; because there is always someone
more devious, tactful and unscrupulous than you think? You are
going to loose, it is just a matter of time. Our natural
curiosity and human instinct draws us to office politics because
we are curious about the information, insight and perceived
influences that can be derived from being in the game, as I
refer it. There are no-long term benefits for you, just
distractions and a dead end. If you find yourself drawn into
the game, stop and ask yourself these two questions:
*What are the benefits you will gain through your involvement
in this situation?
*How is getting involved going to help you do your job better?
I hope your answers leads you back to being focused
on your job task a hand and not allow yourself to be diverted to
a negative situation. Implement these three behavior modes to
avoid office politics.
Ears – You can not help but hear conversations that are controversial
and fit into the office politics category. Don’t repeat or propagate
what you have heard to others, most of the time the information is
without merit.
Eyes – If you see or read controversial subject matter, do not
pass any of it on to someone else; do not bring the issue up as a
power play against someone involved. In the end if you do, you
will look like the fool and often the one person not to be
trusted.
Mouth - Keep Your Mouth Shut.

Ok, what are some signs that there may be some degree of office
politicking that you need to recognize. I am paraphrasing from an
article found on the Conway Management web site (a) on Patrick
Lencioni author of, Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive:
Four Disciplines of Making Any Organization World Class. In his
book he targets the company’s top leaders in addressing the
subject of office politics.

*Leadership or executive team unification – observe if the
executives are unified in their goals, thought process and there
is no distrust during rough cycles.
*Are the processes and actions consistent and closely controlled
at all times?
*Is the top down communications about the organizational goals;
frequent, clear and understandable?
*Reinforce Organizational Clarity to the point everyone in the
company can recite the organizations goals and company priorities.

If you are an executive and want to truly get an understanding of
the office politics in you business, think about purchasing the
Office Politics Game. refer to web site:
http://www.officepolitics.com/op_game.html
(a)http://www.conwaymgmt.com/pdf/Obsessions_Of_An_Executive.pdf

My final words on this subject are; stay out of the office
politics.

Have You Turned Green Yet?

2006-05-25T06:16:00.000-07:00

You’ve heard the comment; Lead Follow or Get out of the Way? Watch out the Green wave is coming and will get you. If you have not noticed, environmental (green) initiatives are in abundance at the local and governmental levels. Let’s start by determining where you fit on the environmental scale. Do you consider yourself environmentally friendly? On a scale of 1 to 10, are you a 1 (I care, but don’t practice good habits) or a 10 (I care,I recycle, my company recycles and I ride my bike to work or drive a hybrid)? I suspect most of us fall some where in the middle; we do care and try to implement programs at work and home that support caring about the environment. Please be informed as there are a number of formal government actions across the U.S. and world that may impact you.

On a local level, have you seen the recycling auditors, yes there are people working for local communities that check to see if you are recycling properly. I think should be an indicator, we need to take personal responsibility and do what we can to comply with your program. This is a perfect time to initiate or restart your home program with summer upon us. Recycling should be a fun family activity, you may want to invest a little time and energy to get this started, who knows it may even grow within the neighborhood if you don’t have a formal program yet. Start with your family, implement a program at home and see what happens. A lot of schools and communities educate and promote recycling programs. Participate in your waste disposal company’s program, every little bit does help. Here is a terrific interactive web site, go on and play the game, http://www.epa.gov/recyclecity/mainmap.htm. Additional information can be found through Recycler’s World,
http://www.recycle.net. Try a program at home; it is never too late to begin. By the way, never throw anything out the window of your car you are setting a bad example for the kids.

How about your business sales forecast? Has the forecast been impacted yet by two European Union (EU) directives specifying restricted substances (RoHS) use or Waste Disposal (WEEE)? Simply put, there are banned substances that the 25 EU countries will not allow to be imported beginning this summer. The internet is full of information on RoHS this subject, you can type into and search engine RoHS. Guess what, California is going to implement similar RoHS legislation to be in effect, January 1st, 2007 concerning product sold in and shipped to California. How do these directives and legislation impact you? That depends on your product, of course there are exemptions but the best advice I can give at this point to research the directives and decide a course of action based on you product and potential revenue impact. Different states already have variety of green programs in place; my intent was to get you started again Thinking Green.

Here is a shortlist of links to get you started:
US and European Union http://www.eurunion.org
California http://www.greensupplyline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=187201273
UK http://www.rohs.gov.uk
USA http://www.buyusa.gov/europeanunion/standards.html

Happy Recycling.

My Future Starts Today!

2006-05-18T04:09:00.000-07:00

My future starts today, say it out loud, say it silently to yourself, just say it! Like a lot of people, I looked at my past in an attempt to see what my future would be. After years of thinking about my future in this manner, I came to realize I’m actually stuck in the past in a lot of ways. Why, because of the comfort zone the past provides for us. I liked my routine, I was comfortable doing my job in a familiar work environment, I drove the same way to and from work everyday. I could even tell you how much extra time the school zones added to my drive; jeez I was stuck and did not realize it. Sure I thought about the future, my goals and dreams, but for some reason I could not take the step out of the past. My advice to you, do not let the past dictate your future.

I found it difficult to break from the habit of reflecting back to my past, even when I was trying to determine my next step towards the future. This reflection to the past was a very annoying cycle I that I fond myself stuck in. My breakthrough came after I started reading about successful people and learning about their mind set. A major amount of focus and effort during this period of time was trying to determine and improve my financial future. As a result, I set out to research and read about financially successful people to see if I could gain some perspective on improving my financial future. A few of the books I read included; Donald Trump’s Think Like a Billionaire, T. Harv Eker’s Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, Robert Kiyosaki Rich Dad Poor Dad , granted most of the content is about how they made their money, but they also offer valuable insight into their thinking habits. What I found during this research was for you to understand the past and learn from the past, but do not let the past dictate your future. Look forward, take chances, sure there is going to be risk involved because you will be out of your comfort zone. This is the breakthrough I needed and will you need to make in trying to achieve your goals and step towards the future. If you have tried and not done so well on your own trying to change your mind set, do not get frustrated.

There are a number of companies offering courses, seminars and training opportunities to help you out. Success University http://www.successuniversity.com is a terrific resource. Some of you may be familiar with Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)http://www.nlp.com/, again there are many. Figure out what matters to you, be willing to change, get over the blame game, and trust in yourself and others thus allowing yourself to be successful.

When I talk to people about change in general or why they argue not to change a behavior, or habit, I often refer to Albert Einstein and his definition of Insanity; Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Step into the future, if and when you have set backs just say, what’s next…and move on.

Have You Tried Writing Your Own Biography?

2006-05-12T15:57:00.000-07:00

I had no idea how difficult it is to be articulate, concise and yet be informative about key facets of ones life. Let alone make your biography interesting enough, that it may spark some level of interest for someone to explore more about what you have to offer. It was a great exercise for me and I think writing your own biography will be introspective, fun for you, your family, friends and even colleagues.

I had no idea where to begin, so I researched the internet and found a couple of good starting points to learn a little bit out biographies and what they contain; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biography, http://www.infoplease.com/people.html, http://www.mozartproject.org/biography/index.html.

I found the research interesting because of the variety of famous people documented and commented on. One common editorial on biography writing is, be careful about telling a false story about the actual events. As one critic commented, do not fall in love with your subject, stick to a timeline, key facts and points you want to make. By all means select you can select positive, actionable words, but stick to the events; do not make up a story.

Ok, here is what I think the key items are that need to be included in your biography. First you need to set a time frame, birth to present day, started my career xx years ago, during the years between 19xx and 20xx, you get the idea. Next, include geographical location, key events, milestones, adventures and incidents that shaped who and what you were about during this time frame. Include historical events (natural, world or local) if you believe they add significance. Close with where you are at today, geography if important and what you see yourself doing in the future.

This is one biography example I wrote:
Kent Jacobson is a traditional working professional, graduated college, accepted an engineering position in Dallas 23 years ago and over the years has developed a keen sense of what it takes to be successful in a corporate environment. Through his years of experience, training, professional certifications and corporate instinct, Kent has acquired a broad perspective on what it takes to become successful and now shares his insights for success with a loyal following of Blog readers at: http://www.Shortcut2Success.com/blog

There are different as many different ways to write your biography as there are kinds of apples, my intent was to help get you prepared so when the request is made you are better prepared. Have fun with your biography, you might even surprise someone in your family or one of your friends by writing about them.

Create Your Personal Success Equation!

2006-05-09T04:28:00.000-07:00

Do you have any idea how to measure your success? I really had not thought much about how to measure my success until I was asked the same question. Some of my initial responses were; money, power, paying off debts, raising children and so on. All of these are factors in what I refer to as a success equation. Ok, what is a success equation going to do for me? My answer, to help keep you focused on the big success picture. To help you answer and save you a little time, I need you to think about your success factors (words, phrases or number's) that will ultimately contribute to equation. Begin to formulate these factors into a basic equation. Document your success equation so you can refine it and refer to it frequently. I like to carry mine around with me, because sometimes I need to refer back to some of my factors and what they truly really mean to me. Everyone's success equation will be different and your ultimate success is dependent upon your personal or professional situation and how well you assimilate your critical factors.

For this discussion, I will share with you my personal success equation and how I developed it. By the time you finish reading this article, I want you to create you own success equation, believe in the factors you document and implement actions to be successful.

My success equation (Success=F+F+F+O+P) involves five equal factors.
Faith*Believe in a higher presence
Family*There is no greater priority
Failure*Do not be afraid of failure, learn and grow from it
Optimism*Maintain a positive outlook
Perseverance*Relentlessly pursue your dreams and goals and recognize opportunities

The first step in developing your equation is listing key factors (words and phrases) that are important to you. Initially, put down all your thoughts, then review and eliminate the less critical ones until you have five to seven factors. To many or to few may lead to conflicting decisions or priorities. This is why I recommend you initially omit money from your equation, your choice.

The second step is to review your factors during the next few weeks as you interact with family, friends, business associates etc. Document and carry with you your success equations during this time fame. As you progress through your normal routine, allow yourself time to reflect on the factors you have identified. Ask yourself, are my decisions and actions are consistent with these factors? Do I need to change my behavior or maybe a factor? Keep notes; do not be quick to change anything until at least a week has passed. This is your development and learning period; there is no need to rush this step.

Third and final step is to critically review your success equation. Look back through the notes and experiences from the second step. Refine your success equation, document the final result and carry it with you. That's it your on the way!

I close this article with one my favorite quotes from Pope John Paul II, he said, "The future starts today, not tomorrow."

Make Your Meetings More Productive

2006-05-04T04:11:00.000-07:00

Oh no, not another meeting request! We all dread the meeting invitation, not because of the content, but because a majority of meetings we have to attend are so poorly run. You know a good productive meeting vs. the unstructured, why am I here, one. Do not let the next meeting you hold or attend be poorly executed. You have the ability to hold a productive meeting and influence a poorly run meeting headed in the right direction by implementing a basic strategy.

Establishing your basic meeting strategy allows you to hold and attend effective meetings, yes even if someone else is leading the effort. The only difference is, as an attendee you may have to tactfully ask appropriate questions when the situation warrants, of the team leader, sponsor or facilitator on a key point during the meeting. Be aware of your audience and also who is running the meeting, too much of a push can focus the attention on you and detract from the meeting purpose. Just mentor the meeting along it my point.

Your basic meeting strategy should include the following elements.
* Establish and be able the articulate the purpose for holding the meeting.
* Identify the desired outputs for the meeting, or what you want to accomplish.
* Present an agenda by key topics to be addressed and estimated duration.
* Identify someone to take meeting notes or minutes for you.
* Control comments or discussions that are off topic by focusing on your purpose and but allowing comments to be captured in the minutes for review at a later time.
* Stick to your agenda and time schedule if possible.
* If required, establish set a follow on time and date to meet again.
* Ask if there are questions?
* Wrap up a meeting with a summary of accomplishments against your purpose and cover any open items.

Obviously there are more steps involved if a meeting is in support of a larger team project or more complicated effort. However, I think this basic strategy will form a foundation for you to hold productive meetings and influence meetings you attend.

As our time becomes more compressed, influencing the environment around you can and will provide benefits to you in the long run. Remember, your success depends upon how effective you are in continuously improving yourself and those around you.

Why Do Performance Measurement Tools Work?

2006-04-24T16:47:00.000-07:00

As a business owner, manager, quality professional or entrepreneur, performance measurement must be part of your basic business plan for improvement and continued success. A performance measurement tool allows you to establish minimum and great expectation levels against the goals set for individuals and organizations. A good set measurement tools provides a visual representation of current performance levels against a specific set of goals. There are a number of good tools you can select from, investigate what fits into your business or individual preference, and then get started. What you will find very positive after tool deployment and implementation, is the ability to communicate your priorities clearly. Additionally, visually represented data in a chart or graph is easy to explain, easy to understand, and it keeps people focused. Display the charts or graphs in a place that prompts people to stop and look and can even fosters discussion. Allow enough room around the display for group discussions and review.

A few examples of performance measurement tools are: Pareto Chart, Run Chart, and Histogram, Cause and Effect Diagram, Cycle Time studies or packaged SPC programs. The point is there are a number of tools available for your situation and implementation. If you have questions about application or usage of these tools, seek out quality professionals in your organization or go on-line and search for training and or product demonstrations. There are quit a few good reference web sites providing free information as well as links to professional quality organizations such as the American Society for Quality.

After you get your goals understood, measurement tools up and running, take the next step towards organizational communication and performance improvement by utilizing a scorecard or summary performance matrix. The scorecard is a simple summary matrix identifying the overall key business goals and their respective performance indices. A lot of people refer to these performance matrixes as stop light charts, because of the incorporation of the colors red, green and yellow. If you incorporate red (poor), green (good) and yellow (marginal) highlights, the focus of resources can be deployed to understand and correct the poorer performing indices.

The flexibility of the scorecard matrix allows alignment and deployment down through as many levels an organization as you see fit. The scorecard matrix allows integration of many indices vertically to the top company priorities. Normally, companies look at three general categories; financial, quality and customer satisfaction. Pick what your key business performance goals, identify how to measure, understand the data and reward the successes.

My check and balance before starting a performance measurement activity is simply asking: Am I sure this activity is meaningful and measurable? Good luck in reaching your goals and in continuously trying to find ways to continuously improve.

Ten Tips on Surviving Reorganization

2006-04-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

How do we survive the ever-changing dynamics of the workplace related to frequent leadership changes and personnel moves? Here are my basic tips for survival. There was a time in the not so distant past, that staying with an organization too long was a negative mark on your resume. I honestly do not believe you need to be concerned about this today. Have you noticed personnel and leadership changes are occurring on 18 to 24 month cycles. Look at what has happened recently in Washington D.C..
Ok, what should you do to prepare yourself?
1.Understand a change in leadership is out of your control, accept it.
2.Keep an open mind to this change and be flexible.
3.Establish a clear and concise understanding of your job that you can articulate to someone by identifying critical tasks in a clear manner.
4.Be able to relate your job and associated activities the overall business. If you can not articulate and relate the critical points of your job to the business, stop and complete this review now. Seek out assistance if this becomes challenging.
5.Get your goals and performance measurement statistics up to date. Look back at your most recent personnel performance review document. Having this baseline of previously approved goals can benefit you when and if questioned on why you are currently involved in something the new manager does not understand or think is important.
6.Figure out a way to associate your job function and tasks performance to the overall organizational goals and promote the benefits you provide.
7.You may want have available to list tactical (daily or repetitive) activities and also strategic (long term) activities.
8.Do not be afraid to discuss issues or problems you are currently addressing id called upon. This is not about whining, but showing you have the ability to be a problem solver.
9.If you don't like the job or direction of the company after the change, seek out alternatives internally or outside the company.
10.Maintain your network of professional contacts, even if you have not spoken to some of them recently, do so soon.

I have experienced 2 new company presidents, 3 new direct managers and multiple peer level personnel re-shuffling within the last 14 months myself. Prepare yourself for change, do not let change overwhelm or stress you out. Above all, take control of the aspects of your job that are with in your span of control. Adopt the "it's about personal survival" attitude.

Does Your Judgement Process Involve Intuition?

2006-04-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

This may sound like an odd topic to discuss, but I believe a large part of your decision making process is intuitive (feeling). Let me try to explain this relationship by defining two words; Intuitive and Feeling.

Intuitive: 1.spontaneously derived from or prompted by a natural tendency. 2. obtained through intuition rather than from reasoning or observation
Feeling 1.physical sensation derived from one of several physical senses (touch, smell, sight, taste and hearing).
How does this information relate to our judgement process? We like to believe the outcome of our decisions is based on three premises; fact, observation and experience. I think there is a fourth called intuition, or intuitive feeling. Think about your decision process and how you arrive at the decision point. I think you will agree, there is a lot of intuition (gut feeling) we tend categorize as experience. One example everyday situation is related to the hiring decision process occurring everyday. As a hiring manager, you are required to choose future employees based on a 3-5 minute interview process and a data sheet provided to you by the applicant. Tell me they this is not a process of making a decision based on first impressions and intuitive feelings with a little bit of data presented.

My point is this. Do not disregard your intuition, rather use it to your advantage and rely on it. Certainly there will be times when you make a "wrong" decision, but this is still better than no decision at all. Evaluate your decision making process, understand what you require in the way of information and trust your intuition. Ask people you respect about their decision making process. I believe this self evaluation can be one of the most beneficial areas to explore. The result should assist you in confidently making decisions when confronted by complex or difficult situations. Learn from wrong decisions, understand them and accept the consequences. You will make many more correct decisions than poor ones on your journey towards success.

Clothes Make a First Impression

2006-04-13T04:32:00.000-07:00

How many times have you been out in the workplace and caught a glimpse of somebody who is completely underdressed for the situation. This not only happens at work, it can also be a major problem in social settings as well. Before you leave your house you need to ask yourself where you are going, who you are going to be seeing, and if what you have on will be comparable to your company. So in other words, if you are going on a job interview you have to be aware that everyone else will have suits on, and that in order to make the best possible impression you will also need to be dressed up to their level. This problem also occurs a lot in everyday social settings. I am sure on more than one occasion you have went out to a fancy restaurant dressed to the nines just to sit down next to somebody who has on a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt.

The best way to combat this problem is by finding out in advance what you should wear in order to make the best possible impression, and to fit in with the rest of the crowd. If you are going on a job interview it is usually a given that you should show up in a suit. The only time that you would not do this is if you were specifically instructed not to; and that happens one time out of a million. On the other hand, if you are going out into a social setting there are many tips that you can take in order to ensure that you are dressed appropriately. First off, if you are going to a restaurant you can call ahead and ask if they have a dress code. If they do you will know exactly what to wear. If they do not it is more than likely a casual setting so you can get away with dressing down from a suit. Also, you may want to ask the people you are going to be going out with what they are wearing. If your company is going to be wearing a suit you will most definitely want to do the same. This will ensure that you do not stick out like a sore thumb. It will also make you feel more comfortable throughout the experience.

Clothes are a very important factor in making a good impression on people. If you meet somebody looking good you will more than likely feel good about yourself as well. This will show through in your conversation that allows you to better connect with your company. Remember to check your clothes every time you leave your house, people do look!

Definition of Leadership

2006-04-11T18:15:00.000-07:00

I challenge you to ask five different people what the definition of leadership is and see what they say. Look up the definition in the dictionary. Network with people, you know a leader when you meet them. Start formulating your leadership definition and by default style. All of us have even experienced leadership in different situations, starting when we were very young. Think back on examples of leadership you have experience at various stages of your life and see if there is a common trait that appealed to you. Start your thought process were ever you like in your life, maybe as a kid in school. Think back, there was just something about certain people that made you follow them; want to be part of the group. Maybe a person on an athletic team you were part of, even look your friends and peer group.

As you go forward and grow in experience, take notes on what you like and don't like in certain leadership styles. I'm not about to pick a particular style for you, you need to develop you own. I will tell you what I believe needs to be in a key word in your definition of leadership; Trust. Having people trust in you allows opportunities to come your way and facilitates your continued growth and eventual success. Get started, and best of Luck!

Avoid Constant Complainers

2006-04-05T04:44:00.000-07:00

Is there somebody at your place of work, or a friend of yours that does nothing but complain? Does this start to get on your nerves so much that you cannot stand to be around the person? Do you feel like there is no way to fix this person? If you answered yes to this question you do have a way out. Simply avoid the person that is complaining. Even though you do not want to alienate anybody, you have to keep your best interests in mind as well. And by constantly being around somebody who does nothing but complain, you are going to soon find yourself falling into the same trap. People who complain do so for a reason. And most of the times they would love for somebody to tell them that they are right, and then join in on the bashing. But you do not want to bring yourself down to their level.

People that complain constantly are going to eventually bring you down. By avoiding these people you will be able to stay in a positive frame of mind that will help you to lead a meaningful and successful life. More times than not, the people that are complaining are really going on and on about nothing. If they would take the time to stop and listen to themselves they would find out that if they directed their energy towards something worth while that they would be able to achieve a high level of success.

Before phasing anybody out of your life for complaining too much, you will want to take the time to try and remedy the problem. Sit down with the person and let them know that they are bothering you with their constant complaints. Many times people do not even realize what they are doing. By bringing the problem to their attention they may be able to cut out the problem without causing a fuss. If the person becomes defensive, and claims that they do not complain too much you will want to site specific examples. Explain to them that you see where they are coming from, but that there are also better ways of handling the situation. Often times if somebody can see another point of view they will be able to better tackle the task at hand. If nothing seems to work simply explain that you have had enough, and would like to take some time off. In many instances a person will see the light after a couple of people begin to avoid them.

You do not need habitual complainers in your life. They will only bring you down to their level, and keep you from achieving the goals that you have set.

Take a Leadership Role

2006-04-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

Take a Leadership Role

If you recognize there is a situation at your company that is headed down the wrong path, step up and offer to take the lead to correct it. Somebody needs to right the ship, consider your options and step up and offer to take a leadership role. This is often a tough position for anybody to be in, especially if your company has been struggling with this problem for a while. Nobody wants to be in charge of a situation without any apparent upside or a portion of the company is floundering. You need to get over these fears, and tell yourself that you can step up and makes things right. The situation may be rough at the beginning, but you will be continuously energized when the situation starts to turn around and recognition follows.

There are a few strategic items to keep in mind before you jump in and decide that you want to "run the show". First off, you will probably need to formulate and review your proposed leadership role with your manager to gain his or her buy in. Keep the proposal simple by answering; Why I'm the right person for this position 5 times. Upon completion of the 5 Why technique, you are now prepared for any questions or concerns that might be brought forward. You will want to explain the situation to manager, and let them know that if given the chance, you will be fully committed to being successful and willing to do just about whatever it takes to help out.

At this point the decision is out of your hands. Many times you will be told to brainstorm some ideas, come back and talk them over. Other times, you may not be right for the situation and the offer to help may not be wanted. This is not because you are not appreciated, but the timing may not be right. Remember, if you do not ask or show your willingness, you may be overlooked for the next opportunity, don't give up. It is better to express your interest as taking over as a leader, instead of sitting in the back and waiting until somebody asks. Many times when people wait, somebody else ends up taking over, and you are left in the dust.

Taking a leadership role over any project, group or organization is a great undertaking. You will have a whole new set of responsibilities put on your shoulders, as well as many new problems that you have never seen before. But, if you want to be leader, you must go after it. Be honest, take responsibility for wrong and right decisions, and do not be afraid to ask for assistance from support organizations. Good Luck, you will never know unless you try!

Dream Big!

2006-04-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

Everybody, regardless of who you are, has a dream that they want to accomplish in life. No matter what it is you are working towards reaching that final goal, that final dream, that is going to make your life complete. But make sure that before you set out and continue striving to reach your dream that it is something that you really want. Remember, if this is your life long goal you want it to be something huge; not just something that you can reach easily and then say that you have done everything possible in life.

Dreaming big is one of the greatest things you can do in life. If you are an author do not set your biggest goal to simply publish a book. Set your life long dream as reaching the best seller list in the New York Times. If you want to be a great salesman do not simply settle for reaching number one at your branch. Set your sites on the entire country. This way when you finally reach your big dream you will really feel like you accomplished the greatest thing in the world. You want to be able to look back when you are finally done and see how far you have come. Nobody wants to look back and say, "I reached my dream, but I could have done so much better."

So when you are setting your setting goals you will want to look at the big picture. By simply looking at your life as it is you will not be able to see what lies ahead of you. Again, if you are an author you cannot simply look at what this year is going to bring. You need to dig deeper and see where you want your life to go from this point on. This way you will be able to determine where you want to end up when all is said and done.

Dreaming big is something that everybody should do. All too often you come across people who have small goals in life and nothing more. Of course there is nothing wrong with setting smaller goals, but you want to make sure that they will go towards helping you reach your final dream.

If you are having a hard time setting goals try to speak with other people for inspiration. If you want to write a best selling book, talk to people that have done this. They will be able to tell you what it will take to reach your goal, and also what you should avoid along the way. Remember, there is no shame in asking for help. In fact, it often pays off to be able to bounce your ideas off of other people. Dream big, and shoot for the stars!

Why You Must Manage Your Emotions

2006-03-31T04:18:00.000-08:00

How many times has each of us been involved in or observed the dominate emotion; anger, overtaking a given situation? Way to many in many I suspect. Emotions, especially negative ones (such as anger) can surface at work, play, with family, friends in the boardroom or on the ball field. Independent of the situation, anger is on of the most detrimental of the emotions you must learn to recognize and control. More often than not, how a person reacts at that moment when anger surfaces, or is confronted by someone who is angry, defines a positive or negative outcome and potentially your status among the group of people impacted.

The simple example is when children get angry, yell, scream, cry and sometimes lash out. Our first thought, yell back! What happens, the yelling gets louder and your blood pressure rises the situation deteriorates. We have all been there and it is not a positive situation to be in and takes a while for everyone to calm down. Conversely when you remain in control, the anger subsides and situation becomes manageable and resolves itself quicker. You can express your disapproval, explain how getting angry is negative, prompt discussion and listen all while attempting to get to a resolution.

In a professional setting, it is very uncomfortable to be present when yelling and or finger pointing become the focus instead of he subject intended. Besides, anger diminishes our ability to reason and think clearly. Granted this is not easy, there are times when the other person grandstands and refuses to relinquish the situation, it is then best to re-schedule the meeting or agree to talk at an another time.

I’m not indicating you will never be angry, but keep your emotions in check and be conscious of what you say. It is far better to be silent than say something derogatory, hurtful or irreproachable. Silence sometimes is your best strategy.

Respect is difficult to attain, and can be easily lost by not controlling your negative emotions on your road to success. Seek out professionals in the field of anger management if you feel that additional assistance is required for you, a loved one or co-worker.

Cost of Poor Quality

2006-03-30T17:11:00.000-08:00

What are your business costs due to poor quality (CoPQ) and their effect on your bottom line? For this discussion, CoPQ is any costs (dollar amount) you can associate with the inability to correctly perform a task the first time. Common contributors to CoPQ are; rework, scrap, customer returns, waste, meetings, shipping, travel. The list is lengthy and can cover a wide range expenses a business incurs.

Every business probably has "CoPQ" expense accounts set-up in their accounting structure but, categorizes them as standard or expected expenses. In other words, "Just part of doing business, plan for it". You or your company's management may or may not be conscious of the potential savings available. The potential savings can be assessed by simply initiating performance measures on a few of these key expenses. Look at the obvious ones, scrap, rework and customer returns for the last 6 months to a year. You may have to work through the financial group to get reports applicable to your situation.

Take action if there is an expense that looks out of the ordinary, assign someone to track down the root cause. Traditional organizations have the quality professionals perform this task. One cause could be there is a single expense account or general fund for all scrap, which should be broken down into detailed accounts that allow specific tracking of expenses. If you are not comfortable undertaking this investigation, inquire who may be the correct person by contacting your manager or quality professional.

The basic framework to track CoPQ expenses should be in place, take a look at your situation and see. There could be an opportunity for you to contribute to the continued financial success of your business.

Success Blog

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Choosing a Powerful Name for Your Company

Taking the First Step

Dare to Believe!

Position Yourself for Change

Keys to Breaking Through

Life Is a Do It Yourself Project!

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Goal Setting - Why You Should Do It Now!

Why is Failure the Stepping Stone to Success?

The Effect of Positive Energy

Live Life Your Own Way in 2009!

Have you ever Dollarized Your Time?

Pumpkin Carving Tips for Adults

Hope is Not a Strategy When Your Trying to Start a Business!

Start Building Confidence Today!

Has Personal Responsibility Disappeared?

Be On Time Every Time !

Are Your Customer's Satisfied?

Never Settle for Ordinary

Do Not Post Your Resume' Online - Until You Read This!

Stop! Don’t Go to Your Interview Until You Read This!

Choosing a Powerful Name for Your Company

Conscientious Planning Guarantees Home Business Success

Use Advertising To Create Your Marketing Network

Exploiting the Power of an MLM Forum

Create a Business Website Using These Tricks of the Trade

Ad Campaigns that Get Results

Your Eight Keys to Success

Happy Holidays!

A Salute to Our Present and Past Verteran Soldiers

What Ralph, Emily & Eleanor Said!

Get Above the Dark Clouds

“What If Everything You Were Ever Taught About Internet Marketing Was A Myth...?”

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New Product

Family Business – Why Some Work and Others Fail

A Good Teacher Never Stops Learning!

Is Quality Really Free?

Start Building Confidence Today!

Have you ever thought about Dollarizing Your Time?

PIP Review - 1st Try

Create Your Own Destiny!

Why is Failure the Steppingstone to Success?

What Do You Think?

Get Seven Steps Closer to Finding Financial Freedom

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Time to Set Your Success Strategy

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Good Memory *=* Greater Success

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Time Management - Why You Need It !

Don't Let Yourself Go!

Have You Experienced The “Chicken Little” Syndrome?

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Overcome Procrastination

Keeping People Motivated

Why Do You Need To Slow Down?

Family Members in Business Together – Is it Right For You?

Why You Must Have a Vision

Eight Keys to Success

Thought Provoking Quotes

Dealing With The Death Of A Friend

Pessimists … This is A Must Read for You!

Do You Know The Seven Negative Perceptions Holding You Back?

Favorite Quotes For You

Why Technology is Ruining Your Life!

Pumpkin Carving Success

Positive Energy In Your Office

Take A Leadership Role Now!

How Generation *R* Got It Right!

Job Etiquette Rules – How Many Do You Know?

Career In Limbo, I'll Tell You Why A Career Coach Can Help

Think About This!

Put Your Change of Career on Hold Now - I'll Tell You Why

Do Not Post Your Resume' Online - Until You Read This!

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When Your Authority is Challenged

Hypnosis and Public Speaking

Good Memory = Greater Success

How Generation R Got It Right!