Success is a topic that everyone loves to talk about, but few will do what is necessary to achieve success. When it comes to success, it’s about shutting up and getting down to the business of success:
I can’t stress how important it is to actually define success. Without a clear definition of what success means to you, you’ll never know if you are successful.
So what is your definition of success? What does success look like? What does it feel like?
I wrote a short article for my weekly newsletter on goal getting - that is, accomplishing goals. So often in our society and especially in the development field we focus on the first part - goal setting.
The key to a great strategic plan, that most people forget, is not the goal setting part. I work with many clients on goal clarification. Without the clarification, nothing else can happen, so don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here.
To make a strategic plan truly “great” or effective, the focus needs to shift to goal getting once the plan is in place.
The simple version of what success is can be summarized into two parts - set the goal and be clear about what it is and do actions necessary to accomplish the goal. So simple! And here’s the thing - most entrepreneurs struggle with this because it is so easy. Entrepreneurs aren’t into doing things the easy way - they exist to figure their own way of doing things. That’s a great trait to have and at the same time it can be a huge detriment. The key is knowing when to use this strength and when to lay it aside. When we master that, simple is acceptable - the switch flips in our minds that says that what we are doing is easy, so long as we allow it to be easy. And that’s where the goal getting starts to happen.
I wrote a post on my EADD blog about taking time off from work - whether you are the owner or not. Here’s a small sample of questions people should be asking themselves:
If you have your own business, take a moment and answer this question - why did you start your business? Was it because you got tired of being told what to do? You wanted more freedom? I’m sure for many of you, those reasons were a part of the equation.
If you work for someone else, you can ask yourself a similar question - why did I go to work for the company I work for? I’ll bet that one of the reasons has to do with having more freedom in some form.
Ok, so here’s the deal - we entrepreneurs need to take time off in order to be refreshed, renewed, and re-charged. Without taking time away, even the most creative entrepreneur becomes stale. Without time off and away from the business, even the hardest working person becomes prone to accidents and mistakes.
Take time right now to determine when you will take some time off, even if it’s only a day. Spend time with your family, take a small trip, or just take a day and go to the park and read.
I wrote a post on the idea of an optimist vs. a pessimist. Here’s the beginning:
Oscar Wilde once defined a pessimist as “one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.”
I suppose, based on that definition, you could define an optimist as one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses neither.
What does this have to do with your business or job? Everything. Every day we are confronted with options - do we delegate or just do the job ourselves? Do we organize our space or invest time in marketing? Do we do what is urgent or what is important?
How do you make your decisions? Are you the type of person who looks at a glass with water filled to the halfway mark and says that the glass is half-empty or half-full. Or are you someone who says that both of those answers are wrong - the glass is always full, it’s just a matter of what it’s full of.
I wrote a post on the subject of freedom vs. security. This subject goes way beyond politics. Every day we make decisions that are towards freedom or security, or atleast what we think is security.
Here’s a different way of thinking about freedom and security:
It’s easy to choose security - it’s familiar, it’s stable, and it’s predictable - i.e. we gain a sense of control.
The choice of freedom on the other hand is unpredictable. It may come out as assisting an employee towards their dream job or career - knowing full well that you’ll “lose” a great employee if you do that. But imagine how happy that employee will be for the duration they remain under your employ. What’s the ripple effect of that on your customers?
I wrote a post on managing conflict. When it comes down to it, regardless of the obstacle, what matters is how we look at the situation. Do we respond with an emotional reaction, or do we see the experience as a learning opportunity?
This past week, I was presented with a conflict. My initial reaction was one of anger - a very normal response. I was not happy about the situation. I wanted to publicly confront an individual about a situation.
Then I decided that being angry wasn’t going to solve anything (and would probably make the situation worse), so I decided I would determine what I could learn from the situation.
What I learned first was a reminder that I cannot control other people - either in what they do or how they think.
Read the rest here.
Recently, I wrote a post on the idea of change and status quo. The deeper issue is control - what is control? What do we have control over? How do we use this? How does control affect entrepreneurs? All great questions.
Here’s a short part of the post:
It’s been said that the only thing that stays the same is change. Yet how often do we attempt to hold on to something? Why is it that we attempt to keep things the same?
The simple answer is control. As human beings, most of us are obsessed with control - especially us entrepreneurs. We will do whatever we can to prevent change and hold onto the status quo in order to have control of a situation or our lives.
Read the rest here.
Today I wrote a post about control. Here’s an excerpt:
What do you have control over? Be honest, and I mean really honest, with yourself - what do you really have control over?
The answer is - not much. You really don’t have control over much of what happens. About the only control that you have, to some degree, is how your react to things. Even then, our subconscious habits control most of how we react.
Today on my EADDblog, I posted an article on saving money and how it relates to life and business. Here’s an excerpt:
This past week, I cut out about six different monthly services that my wife and I haven’t been using all that much. These were for both business and personal use - including the landline phone at home. It’s been months since I picked up the landline to make a call - so why did we keep paying the phone company $35 each month?
In total, we’ll be saving just under $200 each month by canceling the services that we did. So why didn’t we do this months ago? Why did we keep sending our hard earned money to other people for things we didn’t use?
and…
The lesson is simple - small things, when combined, can make big impacts. It’s true when in comes to money. It’s also true when it comes to time.
I posted an article on my EADDblog about urgency and putting out fires. I based it off of a blog post from Seth Godin on the subject. It’s really an excellent piece and worth the read. Here’s a piece:
You can have grand visions for remodeling your house or getting in shape, but if there’s a fire in the kitchen, you drop everything and put it out. What choice do you have? The problem, of course, is that most organizations are on fire, most of the time.