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Don’t believe everything you think

Believe in yourself

We all know not to believe everything we read in the media.

The media is full of sensationalist stories, designed to make you believe what the publishers want you to believe. The stories are designed to sell papers, magazines, and advertising. Stories make money and the more sensational the story, the more chance you will buy. The more money the publishers and share holders makes. Therefore you shouldn’t believe everything you read.

You shouldn’t believe everything you think either! Your thoughts are often just stories you’re telling yourself to “sell” yourself an idea and validate your situation. You might have heard the old saying, ‘there are three sides to every story: your side, my side and the truth’. Your perspective can create a completely different story in your mind compared to the reality of the situation. Watch out! Your perspective can sometimes have you on the wrong tracks.

Same situation, different reaction

How is it that the same situation can illicit completely different reactions in two different people. Two individuals could lose their job: one spirals into a pit of depression, believing that it’s the worst thing that has ever happened. The other sees a huge opportunity to try something new or venture out into a new career.

As humans we are notorious for creating mountains out of mole hills and for inventing drama for the fun of it. It’s so common to believe in excuses which have no merit and to tell yourself stories about all kinds of awful things that may happen which are simply not true.

Your thoughts are seeded in self-preservation. It’s human nature to do everything possible to stay safe and stay alive. Instead of taking the easiest road from point A to point B, you might find yourself taking the hard road instead because you don’t realise there is a better way. Your thoughts are designed to help you avoid pain, and to protect you from harm. But in protecting you from pain and harm, your thoughts can lead you away from doing what may be necessary to achieve growth.

So the next time you’re listening to your thoughts, make sure they’re thoughts worth listening to. If not, be aware that they might just be “sales” hype leading you away from success!

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One more step…

What if success was just one more step, one more action or one more brave decision beyond where you stopped because you thought success was beyond your reach?

What if all it took was for you to keep trying just a bit longer or just one more time?

Success comes from determination, persistence, consistency and resilience. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, as long as you keep going long enough to get to the end goal.

It doesn’t matter if you fall down once, if you fall down ten times or one hundred times. All it takes to achieve success is for you to get up again, one more time after the last hurdle.

You can do it. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.

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Questions versus caring

As a business owner or sales person welcoming a new customer into a business, you have two choices – you can ask them questions, or you can genuinely care about helping them.

This morning, while I was stretching after my workout, I witnessed a cringe-worthy example of all questions and no care. A new prospect walked into my gym to join. The girl behind the desk had clearly never met this man before.

In the most uninterested tone I have ever heard, she asked the gentleman, “How did you hear about us?”. “What is the reason you are joining today?” and then “Can you fill this out.”

She answered his questions about the cancellation policy. And then she said “oh by the way my name is Jenna.” (And she did this while staring down at a the desk while he was staring at the form he was filling in).

She never came out from behind the desk. She never shook the man’s hand and welcomed him. She never asked his name. She never cared about anything he said. She never once genuinely cared about helping him in any way.

Once his form was complete, she handed him his access card and told him it would be active within half an hour.

He left.

She never said goodbye. She never thanked him for becoming a member.

Business is about relationships. It is about helping people and solving their problems. If you’re not in business to help people, then you’re in the wrong game. If you’re in any type of customer service roll and you’re not genuinely interested in serving the customer, then please get out and go do something else.

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Fill the gap

Achieving success really is a simple process. Work out where you’re at right now. Identify where you want to be. Fill the gap.

Ok, so there’s a few steps in between that I’ve missed but essentially that’s the gist of it. The problem is most people think they want success, but are not willing to do what’s it takes to fill the gap!

And that’s the harsh truth.

The reason that only a few select people achieve extraordinary success in a given field is not talent or ability. These people are not more worthy and do not deserve success any more than you.

There are literally millions of incredibly talented people who live mediocre lives. And some of the most amazing feats on this planet have been accomplished by very ordinary people.

Call it what you will – determination, guts, motivation, resilience, backbone, bravado, conviction, courage, spunk, tenacity.

Everyone has it. Only a few select people use it, and these are the people who enjoy success on a level that the rest can only wish for.

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It’s time to re-assess your ambitious goals

Do you have big goals for your life? Are your goals based around something that you want to achieve or something that you want to have for yourself?

It’s time to scrap those goals and here’s why.

Hear me out. Goals are great. But here’s the problem.

Most people set goals based on some ambitious outcome that they’d like to work towards. A goal, by its very nature, is usually something that has not yet been achieved or something that has not yet been acquired. In setting a goal, there has to be some level of positive expectation attached to it.

A likely potential gain of some sort.

But that’s not always the case. Most people set a goal, make a plan and then they work their butts off to achieve that goal. They put in extra time and make huge sacrifices.

And the process of working towards that goal (whether or not the goal is achieved in the end) can result in stress, heartbreak, relationship breakdown, worry, illness or even financial ruin.

If and when that goal is reached, does it always bring happiness? The answer is no.

Why is that?

A goal in itself is not enough. The reason to work towards a goal is for what that goal is going to mean for you and your life. It’s not about the goal, it’s about the meaning that goal has for you; how it will make you feel to achieve it.

If you could wake up tomorrow and change everything that wasn’t working, everything that caused you stress, everything that upsets you and everything you’re doing in your life that you don’t like, what would that feel like?

The important thing to realise is that you must stop going after goals just because it seems like a good thing to go after or just because others are working towards that same goal. Instead of setting goals based on what you want to have, or what you would like to accomplish, set goals based on how you want to feel as a result.

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6 essentials for success

6 essentials for success

1.       Do the unrequired work that others aren’t willing to do

The overwhelming reason that some people succeed and others don’t is that only a few people are willing to go above and beyond and do more than everyone else. Those who succeed are generally not better, not more talented, not more skilled, not more educated, not more worthy. They simply do more than everyone else. They are more determined, more consistent, more persistent and they don’t stop when they reach a road block. If you want to succeed, you just have to do the unrequired work that others won’t or don’t.

2.       Know what’s really important to you and go after that with everything you’ve got

Having complete clarity over who you truly are and what you really want is the one driving factor that will keep you going in the right direction. In order for you to keep making progress you need to know exactly why you’re doing it. You need to know that you are living your true purpose and being your authentic  self. You need to be clear about the bigger picture so that you have the drive to keep doing the tough things that you need to do, to get where you want to go. Reasons come first, results come second.

3.       Know your strengths, mix that with your passion and solve a problem for people

Life is too short to be wasting time doing anything other than what you are completely passionate about. We all have unique talents and have acquired dozens of skills over our lifetime and when you can maximise your strengths, combine that with what you love doing, and then focus your energies on helping people, you have an amazing recipe for success.

4.       Prioritise building relationships with people.

People are your most valuable currency. Always be working towards building better relationships with people all around you. Practice simply talking to people, showing an interest in others and giving more. The easiest thing you can do to get huge return on investment is to simply help someone else.

5.       Shift your circle of influence to people who are already doing what you want to do and who are doing things better than you are.

Proximity is power. It’s hard to grow when you are content with the here and now and only hang out with people who are working at the same level as you. When you are surrounded by others performing at a much higher level, their habits, their mindset and their belief systems are contagious.  “If you want to become a millionaire, talk to billionaires, you’ll get there quicker” – Joe Geneza

6.       Cut your learning curve in half by not only learning from your mistakes but learn from other people’s mistakes also.

One of the best learning experiences you can have is making a mistake and then figuring out how to do it better next time. But you can cut your learning time in half by also learning from mistakes that other people have made and acting accordingly.

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Needle in a haystack

If you run a small business you’ll know how incredibly difficult it is to get and keep customers. Marketing is a constant challenge. Getting traction with any marketing or brand awareness activity can be frustrating and sometimes fruitless. Expecting that you can run one campaign and have customers falling from the sky is… well, it’s just not realistic.

Building brand awareness and getting customers just doesn’t work like that.

Just because you run a small business doesn’t mean that people know your business exists. In fact I can guarantee you that 99.99% of people do NOT know your business exists at all. If you’re thinking otherwise, in the words of Darryl Kerrigan – “You’re dreamin’.”

Even if people know your business exists, they’re probably not looking to buy from you in that moment. Even if they are looking for what you have to offer, that doesn’t guarantee that they will buy from you – there are many other competitors that they can choose from.

Being successful in small business is incredibly challenging and that’s why only a fraction of small businesses succeed. I know this sounds all a bit doom and gloom but it’s just the reality of small business. Understanding just how little of your marketing efforts people actually see is vital to understanding just how much marketing is needed and how consistent it needs to be to be effective.

Our senses are bombarded with over 11 million bits of data every SECOND. The average person’s working memory can handle 40-50 bits, max. That means we ignore 10,999,950 bits of data every second we are awake. It’s most likely your marketing activities are in THAT 10,999,950 bits of data that are being ignored!

Does that mean you stop doing marketing because “it’s not working?” NO! Does that mean you have to do a HELL of a lot MORE to get noticed! YES!

I did an interesting exercise today on my morning commute. In a half hour period, I wanted to count the number of cars and trucks who were advertising brands I either knew or had never seen before. The results?

In 30 minutes, I counted 38 cars and trucks which were signed with brands I knew. What was staggering was that I saw 51 cars and trucks signed with brands I had NEVER seen before.

The brands I recognised were companies that had put themselves in front of me not once, not twice, but probably hundreds if not thousands of times. They were brands like Coles, Bunnings, Toll, Ventura and Jim’s.

If you think people know your business exists, they don’t.

If you think a few weeks of marketing is going to have people banging your business door down, unfortunately it won’t.

If you think just by showing up once or twice, you can draw the crowd, I’m here to tell you it just doesn’t work that way.

Your business is a needle in a haystack. You need to market your business as if it’s a needle in a haystack and be persistent, consistent and relentless. You have to hussle. You have to go to your customers; they will NOT come to you.

Only the most determined will survive!

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The meaning of business

Today’s post is for all the small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs….

So you run a small business. What exactly does being in business mean? What is it that you do? Here is one definition: being in business is the act of trading goods or services with customers, for money

Here is my definition – business is an exchange of value.

Now the whole money thing is interesting. Are your thoughts around being in business anchored in the ideal of money? Are you constantly in fear of not enough money coming in or too much money going out? I know I have been. It’s only natural. Most likely you are in business to make a living. I think it’s probably safe to say most people in business are pretty focused on money. Would it be safe to say then that most people in business would add money somewhere into the definition of business?

Let me ask you this question – if business is all about money, how was business conducted before money was invented? Hmmmmm………

Through history, the art of business was about trade, not money. Once upon a time, there was no such thing as money. People traded goods, food, livestock, grain, fur, cowry shells, beads, weapons, even other people in the act of doing business with another person. The act of business was about trading goods or services of equal value.

Business was about value, not money.

Then along came precious metals such as gold and silver which were highly sought after and became valuable commodities for trade. Coins began being produced and used for trade before paper money, plastic money and now in the 21st century, virtual money in the cloud.

So is business really about money or is it about value? What do you think?

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3 things you need to master to turn things around.

It’s part of the human experience to go through tough times. It’s a cliché but difficult periods do make you appreciate the good times. When you’re in business for yourself, hard times are inevitable and to be in business with an illusion that everything will be rosy and things will never be bleak is setting yourself up for disaster.

No one wants to fail or feel like things aren’t going in the right direction. But when it happens, how do you pull yourself up and keep moving yourself and your business forward?

In all the time I’ve been in business for myself, I’ve had more ups and downs than a roller coaster but for every single slump, I’ve been able to pick myself up, dust myself off and move myself and my business forward to even greater heights each time.

The 3 things I believe you need to master in business to turn things around –

1.       Gratitude, – a huge shift occurs when you operate from a place of gratitude. Your whole mindset changes, your energy changes and as a result, your outcome changes slowly but surely. People who practice gratitude experience more joy, have strengthened relationships, experience less stress and feel more connected to others. Be grateful for what you have and acknowledge small victories each and every day.

2.       Positivity – your thoughts become actions, your actions become habits, your habits determine your result and a positive result is what every business owner needs in tough times. People who are more positive are more likely to engage in consistent activities that will move their business in the right direction.

3.       Generosity – what you give to others comes back to you. People who are generous in nature are more likely to find those around them will go the extra mile to help and support them. Be generous to your customers, your staff, your suppliers and your network. Being generous does not have to mean giving away money. Be generous with praise, compassion, understanding and your time.