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5 steps to ensure you get through a day you are not looking forward to

5 steps to ensure you get through a day you are not looking forward to

We all have days where things come up that we do not want to do or do not like to do. It could be anything but it has to be done; butterflies are felt in the stomach, we become grouchy and we become restless. Here are 5 steps I use to ensure I get through the day I am not looking forward to.

Step 1 – Get a good night’s the sleep the night before.

A good night’s sleep helps a lot of things. The body relaxes, tension is released and the body’s energy supply is recharged. The good night’s sleep will ensure your body is fit and ready to fight the day ahead and because you are more alert the next day challenges are easier to face.

Step 2 – Wake up early

Waking up early at first glance seems to prolong the agony of the day ahead; in actual fact it truly helps. Setting the alarm clock 20 minutes early from your good night’s sleep eases you into the day ahead, you can take your time in the shower and this will energise you and relax any tension together. You simply wake up unrushed and calm.

Step 3 – Have a good breakfast

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Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The right breakfast gives your body all the nutrients it needs and keeps you full longer. With all the nutrients and a full tummy you feel great and physically stronger to face anything.

Step 4 – Be grateful

Being grateful for the day ahead sounds like complete madness. Being grateful is however perhaps the most powerful weapon in your arsenal to overcome the thing you don’t like doing. Be grateful for it saying for example “I am truly grateful for the exam ahead today because it will make me a better person”  or “I am truly grateful for the interview today because I deserve this opportunity”  or ”I am truly grateful for the court date because this will give me the final answer”. Find the positive in the thing you don’t like and be grateful for it, this will turn your entire day around.

Step 5 – Plan your treat

Any event you are not looking forward to is often somewhat negative, change this to something positive. Plan a small treat for yourself once the unliked event has been completed. Anything, a cake with a cup of coffee, a magazine to read, a slap up meal, a swim; plan something you look forward to and know that you can only have it once the unliked event is complete. Whilst you mustn’t allow this treat to remove your focus on what you need to do, it will nonetheless place a happy thought in your subconscious and make you feel happier and funnily enough make time fly faster – don’t ask me how but it does.

We all have things in life we don’t like doing or have things we must overcome to move forward or upwards. Stagnating and not doing or putting on hold is not good; I have been the master at procrastination, I could perhaps write a book on it because  I know it so well, but events and life changes have reduced my procrastination and I am stronger. I put these 5 steps together as a result of me going nowhere in life; I needed to move forward and this has been my guide almost every day. I changed habits to get going forward, all these steps are is a change of habit and I am happy to help you change yours. Just ask me. 

How to Smile Part 3

1. Method 3 of 3: Making Smiling Part of Everyday Life
   1
   Smile when you normally wouldn't. Have you been holding back your smile out fear that it will make people wonder about you? Smiles attract attention, but it's the right kind of attention. As you go about your day, consider ways smiling can make your world a more positive place.
   • Smiling at work or during other professional occasions is not going to make you seem unprofessional. Quite the opposite, a smile will humanize you and make you appear more approachable. People will appreciate your recognition of their worth and of a job well done when you smile.
   • A smile makes you seem "real." If you're afraid of appearing vulnerable when you smile, accept that any form of vulnerability suggested by a smile is precisely what makes it such a powerful act. You're opening yourself up to others and people will respond better to that than to a serious, unmoved demeanor. Moreover, a smile accompanied by an assertive personality will take care of any sense that people will use your smile to walk all over you!
2. 
   2
   Expect smiling to be difficult in some situations. Smiling on demand can be difficult, whether it's for a photo or for the sake of keeping mom happy when the relatives you can't stand visit. This is because you are feeling self-conscious or you lack a genuine reason for smiling. In these sorts of cases, smiling needs to come from your memory of good smiles along with a little self-kidding or jokes in the head.
   • For a photo, smile 20 percent more than you think you should.^[1]
   • Smile wide and show the top row of teeth. Don't forget to use your eyes!
3. 
   3
   Enjoy the many benefits of a smile. In order to want to smile, it really helps to know what benefits a smile can bring to your day. The following benefits are bound to make you lean towards sharing a grin with others most of the day:
   • Smiles improve your appearance. Charles Gordy once quipped: "A smile is an inexpensive way to change your looks". All you need to do is think about how you feel about a person who is frowning and a person who is smiling – who tends to be the better looking?
   • Smiles make things right again and say much more than words can. If you've goofed, said something less than complimentary, feel lost or alone, or feel down, a smile can restore the balance. It lets other people know that you're prepared to be open with them, and that you're willingly agreeing to make amends where needed.
   • Smiles create trust and rapport. A smile is a great way of establishing mutual feelings of being on the same level as others, whether that is one-to-one or in front of a group giving a presentation. It says "I'm OK, you're OK, and we're all going to enjoy one another's company."
   • Smiles make you feel good. Even if you're feeling a little blue, insert happy thoughts into your mind and just add that smile. It will trick your mind into feeling better, as endorphins are released to reduce physical or emotional stress.^[2]
   • Smiles make other people feel good. An open-mouthed smile is visible from further away than a frown, offering people reassurance that you're friendly.^[3]And it makes people feel better to see a smile, from afar or close-up.
   • Wrinkles are better when they're smile lines rather than frown lines. Mark Twain said: "Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been"; viewed this way, smiles are an indication of your overall character, which becomes more and more outwardly telling as you age!
   • Smiling is a good long-term predictor of happier life outcomes. It's correlated with health, happiness, friends, success, and a longer life.

How to overcome a broken promise

When a promise is broken, it’s often a disappointment and when already down it could so easily knock a person into a worse place than they already are. How do you avoid this and how do you overcome the disappointment?

I am asked this almost daily from people who know the challenges I am facing and yet I remain positive and hopeful. For them, and many of them are doing ok in life, my levels of positivity are something they wish they had. How I do it is, as always say, very easy; I do it because I can and it is a choice. Anyone can do it as long as it’s a choice – Ying or Yang? Right or Wrong? Good or Bad? Happy or Sad?  All clear choices that anyone can make.

Broken Promises are the worst kind, but before you know how to handle the disappointment look at yourself. How many promises have you not kept? It doesn’t matter how small the promise was or who it was to, it can even be a promise to yourself. What were the reasons for not keeping it? How did it affect the person expecting the promise to be fulfilled? Answer these and be honest with yourself, a lot of the time the reason for breaking a promise is a pretty pathetic reason, something simple and the feelings felt are not positive.

How often do you cover up why you broke a promise? Covering up often makes the whole matter worse for both or all parties. The covering up, no matter how small the cover up is destroys credibility and trust and often, if you truly admit it, makes you feel guilty. Again not positive.

Looking at yourself you now have a fairly good idea of how you and others feel about broken promises or not doing something as you said would be done. Knowing this on the back end of a broken promise allows you to deal with it in a manner that can and will change you and your life. Knowing the feelings changes everything. Once you know this you will understand that how you react or cope is merely a choice and when there is a choice anyone can handle it and overcome.

The 3 steps to overcoming a broken promise

Step 1

Step 1 is to make the right choice. The choices when a promise is not delivered are simple, smile and move on or get angry and argue it. To enable you to choose which route you need to take you merely need to ask yourself “which route is the best use of my time”. Getting angry and arguing is a total waste of time, it may help to vent a little but generally it only makes matters worse.  The choice is to smile and move on, take a deep breath and smile, don’t let feelings on the broken promise defeat you.

You feel happy.

Step 2

Step 2 is to look around you and be grateful for what you have. The broken promise is something you didn’t really have in the first place; so why do you worry about not getting it? Look around you, stop for a moment and think of all the good things you have and they will soon overshadow the broken promise.

You are grateful.

Step 3

Step 3 is where the magic begins. Forgive the person or people who didn’t deliver on a promise. Deep inside forgive them and feel love for them. It will not be easy but giving love and focusing on it is just as easy and wallowing in anger and pity that something never arrived.

You give love

It’s as simple as that, smile, give thanks and love! These three components can and will change you forever, each has been known for many years, each is written in the bible, told by Buddha, written in the Koran and are known by mankind to be 3 of the most power acts in life.

Go into the weekend a happy, thankful and loving person, be powerful and expect the unexpected in an amazing way!

How to smile - Part 1

Method 1 of 3: Improving the Look of Your Smile
Do you want to be the person who walks into a room and lights it up with your smile? Smiling seems to come more naturally to some people than others, but like any habit, it gets much easier with practice. Smiling raises your spirits and makes other people happy - it's a very powerful expression. Read on to learn how to smile.

1

Practice smiling a lot. Have you ever heard of an "easy smile"? People with easy smiles break into a grin effortlessly, and it usually makes those around them feel happy. When you practice a lot, smiling will become easier, and you'll look less strained when you do it. Practice what you feel to be your most attractive smile. Soon your confidence in your smile will increase, and you'll start flashing it without thinking.

• Look at photos of yourself smiling in different ways. Do you like your smile best when your mouth is closed? Or do you like it open? Check it out from different angles. Which smiles and poses make your face light up the most? Which smile displays your other features to their best possible advantage? Which smile comes across as the most natural, the most "you"? Figure out which smile you like best, then practice in front of a mirror until you get it just right. Pay attention to how that great smile feels, so that you'll be able to replicate it without looking in a mirror.
• Practice smiling at random strangers. Simply make brief eye contact with a person and smile. As you do so, think happy thoughts. Not everyone will smile back, but note how you feel when they do!

2

Smile with your eyes. A wholehearted smile will naturally draw in the eyes. This natural smile is called a Duchenne smile. It's not something you can fake; when you're forced to smile for photos, your eyes don't smile. It's only when you truly feel like smiling that you flash a Duchenne. The eyes are essential for a genuine, warm smile.

• To get a feel for how to make your eyes smile, stand in front of a mirror and practice smiling, but concentrate only on your eyes. You may find it helpful to cover the lower part of your face with a piece of paper. Play around with it a bit, and you'll find that you can make your mouth smile when your eyes aren't smiling, and you can also smile only with your eyes.
• When your eyes do smile, remember how it feels, which muscles are working and how. With practice, you may discover how to smile with your eyes at will by relying on your feelings and muscle memory.

3

Maintain good oral hygiene. One thing that can cause you to fear smiling is the worry that there is something stuck between your teeth, or that you have bad breath. Eliminate these sources of worry by taking active steps to keep your mouth fresh and clean.

• Brush your teeth and tongue regularly, carry floss with you wherever you go so that you can clean up after dining, and have breath freshener on you at all times (natural or commercial).
• See your dentist regularly for teeth check-ups and cleaning, as well as discussing options for teeth straightening or other treatments if this is a concern for you. When you smile people will inevitably look at your mouth, so following these considerations will help you make a better impression, and, more importantly, a healthy mouth will make you feel more confident about smiling.
• If your teeth are stained, consider your lifestyle habits that bring this about and try to minimize the impacts of such habits as smoking or drinking too much red wine, coffee, soft drinks, etc. You can also get them whitened if that will improve your confidence.
• Keep your lips in great shape to prevent chapping.
• Deal with bad breath. If it's surface, cleaning and fresheners should be adequate. If these do not work, it may be a sign of an underlying health problem, so see your doctor for advice.

The Point of No Return

The challenges on the road to success are mighty and every inspirational speaker has their “down in the dumps” or “not getting things right” story, that’s their story that makes them who they are, it’s defined them.  I am currently being defined; I know it because I can feel it. What do I feel? I feel resistance and a tug to go back to an old, comfortable but truly less successful and fulfilling me. I have come a long way in 6 short months, I have witnessed my son’s mother attempt suicide, I have seen my young son get to a point where he just needs a parents love and I have seen me give up everything to be a dad. In the journey I have found myself, I have so many days where I really feel I cannot go on and yet I am still here carrying on, fighting, winning and growing.

My story is similar to so many others and many others I know will give in, or give up for the easy answer or the safe solution; they are prepared to give up success simply because it is not easy. I will tell you now if success was easy then the reverse on all the income in the world would be true with 97% of people earning all the money as opposed to the 3%. Becoming part of the 3% is tough, sacrifices need to be made, trust has to be found and confidence has to be felt 24/7. I am not, and have not had things easy but I am doing what I do and do more of what I love, yes LOVE!

I reached the point of no return fairly easily, the point of no return is not a time thing it’s a feeling and knowing thing. It’s been 6 months of a crazy journey, it could have been 6 years but the point of no return was made and found within a day or so of making the change to leave my job. It took a leap of faith and a complete change in circumstances financial and emotional to find my point of no return, in time it took next to nothing but it was and is a feeling inside that defined it.

Today is a very personal post, they happen from time to time. For me to tell you where your point of no return is will be impossible, I can however tell you how to find it and know if you are on the right path or not. To understand where your point of no return is you have to know yourself, you have to be within your values, you have to feel so hungry inside that nothing and no person can or will change your direction and you have to believe in your end result. I know I am on the right path, as I say it is not easy at the moment – financially rock bottom – and the challenges of carrying on are difficult – but I know there is no turning back because of all the factors I mentioned. Above all I feel it; I have a massive hunger and indeed a thirst for what I am doing and where I am going and it feels right!

Waking up with the feeling “I cannot carry on” is common with everyone, but to overcome there is only one thing to do, pick yourself up, change into a positive mindset and carry on. Mountains would not have been climbed if every mountaineer got half way and then couldn’t carry on, fortunes would not have been made if for every hurdle the entrepreneur said “I cannot go on”. Provided you are going in the right direction “cannot carry on” is never an option unless you choose so.

Today, I am carrying on, picking myself up and making a plan to overcome a massive, massive hurdle. In simply reading this, you are truly helping me. Thank you.  Thank you. Thank you. 

Getting the happiness inside

The middle of another week always comes so soon, just as you are just getting over all the good things from the previous weekend the gratitude for the next weekend begins. This is an awesome cycle of giving thanks.

I have recently been going through a superb exercise at the moment focusing on gratitude. I am following a simple “program” of looking back on my life and being grateful for all I have received. Every day I sit quietly and look back to my childhood, I look at all that has been given to me freely, done for me without questioning and giving thanks for all of it. The concept comes from the latest chapter of The Secret called The Magic – order your copy here – and it’s a set of life changing “do this” exercises and it’s a really practical guide to gaining what you want in life.

In doing the exercise I find my heart and my soul in a place of immense happiness and warmth. It changes my whole outlook on life and the day ahead as the happiness and warmth is carried with me. The attitude inside me changes, it’s a deliberate change but one that comes so naturally when allowed.

It takes between 20 and 30 days to start a habit, this blog is one that when I look back to 2010 I see it started in dribs and drabs and then stopped for extensive periods of time only to stop when circumstances changed for the better. Habit needs to stick, if it’s a good habit, no matter what the circumstances are and if my blog is anything to go by, my gratitude time in the morning will now stick; I am in day 5 and its starting to become part of my day. Thank you Rhonda for another amazing book, Thank you Lord for giving the world this woman!

Good habits and giving lots of thanks are perhaps the two most important elements of a good and rewarding life. Doing the right thing, and saying thank you, even before the result is known, make your life good and the rewards excellent and good stuff flows in unexpected and truly awesome ways; it’s called abundance. At first small changes are felt, seen and are realised, some of them you only notice a few days after the fact and its these “after the fact” changes that bring most joy, the small changes increase in number and eventually in size. If a positive change happens and you don’t actually realise until someone points it out or only when you have time to pause and think the feeling inside is so amazing and that amazing feeling brings so much more.

Today I want to leave you with a simple exercise. Take a few minutes and sit quietly, write down 10 things you are truly grateful for and say why. Write as follows “I am truly grateful for                              because                                                              “  it could be anything, your health, you marriage, you TV, the meal you have packed for lunch – write 10 down. When written read out each statement and follow it with “Thank you, Thank you, Thank you”.  it’s a really simply thing to do, repeat this each day and read your entire list at least once a week. You will feel happy, you will feel positive and things will change in your life for the better!

Good luck!

My life now, compared to what it was only a few months ago, is a living testimony of positivity, happiness and gratitude bringing  what I want into life – I am ready to tell my story, I am able to speak and inspire and motivate. I am on the rise and telling my story right now is very real – want to hear it, want the lessons from a man who has not DONE what so many speakers and authors have done (the hard times, the losing it all) but now doing and in the storm? Contact me today. 

How to increase sales through being happy

Every sales book I have ever read and pretty much every sales training course I have attended in the last twenty five years or so has taught me so many wonderful ways to sell but none and shown me how to get a sale and feel happy with my result. Not a single sales book or sales training course I have attended has taught me how I should feel before I go out and sell, yes they all say dress smart and be confident but none have told me how I should feel inside.

I have been reading some of the Frank Bettger books about sales and what they contain is nothing new but at the same time something very new to the current young generation of sales people and those out there getting business done. I have just finished “How I multiplied my income and happiness in Selling” first published in 1955. One thing that became very obvious was contained within the title of the book and it’s something we all must have even before we sell or do any form of business or even just get the most out of life. Happiness, without this nothing seems easy and abundance and increase feel and often are unlikely because inside we are not feeling right.  I believe the title should read “How I multiplied my income from sales using happiness”, the book clearly illustrates a law of attraction fact that is vital for the given laws to work, what you feel you attract. The book is written by a man who is clearly happy, a man that understood that if he didn’t feel happy he would not get the sale, it is perhaps the one sales secret he did not tell anyone.

Reading the book, which is essentially a set of case studies used with some well-known, tried and tested sales techniques it became very clear that the sale is more about the man than anything else. Everything needed for success is covered, planning, time keeping, record keeping and even some guidelines on what to say. Frank Bettger’s books are clear and simplistic and extremely helpful, taking a person back to a place in time where times were just as hard as they are today but without the technology that in many ways hinders mankind.  His books are about getting out there and meeting face to face not sending emails and making phone calls. The books are about energy, the physical doing and in their day were among the best sales books in the world.  Without knowing and without telling, the Law of Attraction was actually being described in detail from a sales person’s aspect, described in a way that only a handful of readers can pick up.  It became very clear from the opening chapters that anyone could follow the basic principles but to gain the results that Mr Bettger suggests will, and certainly do deliver the key is to change the person you are. Whilst it’s not stated directly in the books, intention is felt; perhaps Mr Bettger could not explain the Law of Attraction or the law of success thus simply chose to leave it out. It’s not stated at any point in the book about how you the person should or has to “feel” to get the sale or gain success, it does conclude though that you will feel happy afterwards by following the guidelines but it does not say that you should be happy before venturing out and applying the guidelines which is essential.

Psyching yourself up, convincing yourself, changing your state of mind to happy even when struggling and seemingly not having anything to be truly happy about is not easy, but it has to be done. I personally have been unwell for the last 24 hours, my son has also been unwell so I have not had much proper sleep, and the weather is Cape Town is freezing cold with rain and snow – yes Cape Town can experience this!  On the outset feeling happy is not easy. But if I am to get out there and do what I do and make myself a success I need to change my inside and get not motivated but also smiling inside and out! And I have done so, as I sit here writing this now.

Getting into the happy place is relatively easy. Napoleon Hill regularly spoke of starting the day with a hearty laugh to get him into his happy place, a physical change to change the inner person.  Having a laugh, not just a chuckle but a hearty laugh really can change your day, make it a habit and it will change your life. If you, like me end up with an inbox fairly full of jokes from the “office serial sharer” that person is your saving grace, don’t be afraid to spend 5 or 10 minutes reading the humour sent – it could be the most valuable time of your day! The laughter will change you, it’s actually scientifically proven.  Use what makes you happy to full effect; first thing in the morning do you listen to the news or music?  I used to listen to news first thing but have now changed the habit and listen to music for my first half and hour, my feelings inside change, I relax and I smile and since doing this my days have been more rewarding – try it, change a habit and change you!

In a nutshell, don’t just let sales make you happy be happy and let the success that flows make you.

That’s me, it’s time to get going on this cold wet and seriously rewarding day. Thank you for the day ahead and the rewards I will get!   

The No. 1 Reason you're too busy

We have a problem—and the odd thing is we not only know about it, we’re celebrating it. Just today, someone boasted to me that she was so busy she’s averaged four hours of sleep a night for the last two weeks. She wasn’t complaining; she was proud of the fact. She is not alone.

Why are typically rational people so irrational in their behavior? The answer, I believe, is that we’re in the midst of a bubble; one so vast that to be alive today in the developed world is to be affected, or infected, by it. It’s the bubble of bubbles: it not only mirrors the previous bubbles (whether of the Tulip, Silicon Valley or Real Estate variety), it undergirds them all. I call it “The More Bubble.”

The nature of bubbles is that some asset is absurdly overvalued until — eventually — the bubble bursts, and we’re left scratching our heads wondering why we were so irrationally exuberant in the first place. The asset we’re overvaluing now is the notion of doing it all, having it all, achieving it all; what Jim Collins calls “the undisciplined pursuit of more.”

This bubble is being enabled by an unholy alliance between three powerful trends: smart phones, social media, and extreme consumerism. The result is not just information overload, but opinion overload. We are more aware than at any time in history of what everyone else is doing and, therefore, what we “should” be doing. In the process, we have been sold a bill of goods: that success means being supermen and superwomen who can get it all done. Of course, we back-door-brag about being busy: it’s code for being successful and important.

Not only are we addicted to the drug of more, we are pushers too. In the race to get our children into “a good college” we have added absurd amounts of homework, sports, clubs, dance performances and ad infinitum extracurricular activities. And with them, busyness, sleep deprivation and stress.

Across the board, our answer to the problem of more is always more. We need more technology to help us create more technologies. We need to outsource more things to more people to free up own our time to do yet even more.

Luckily, there is an antidote to the undisciplined pursuit of more: the disciplined pursuit of less, but better. A growing number of people are making this shift. I call these people Essentialists.

These people are designing their lives around what is essential and eliminating everything else. These people take walks in the morning to think and ponder, they negotiate to have actual weekends (i.e. during which they are not working), they turn technology off for set periods every night and create technology-free zones in their homes. They trade off time on Facebook and call those few friends who really matter to them. Instead of running to back-to-back in meetings, they put space on their calendars to get important work done.

The groundswell of an Essentialist movement is upon us. Even our companies are competing with one another to get better at this: from sleep pods at Google to meditation rooms at Twitter. At the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos this year, there were — for the first time — dozens of sessions on mindfulness. TIME magazine goes beyond calling this a movement, instead choosing the word “Revolution.”

One reason is because it feels so much better than being a Nonessentialist. You know the feeling you get when you box up the old clothes you don’t wear anymore and give them away? The closet clutter is gone. We feel freer. Wouldn’t it be great to have that sensation writ large in our lives? Wouldn’t it feel liberating and energizing to clean out the closets of our overstuffed lives and give away the nonessential items, so we can focus our attention on the few things that truly matter?

People are beginning to realize that when the “more bubble” bursts — and it will — we will be left feeling that our precious time on earth has been wasted doing things that had no value at all. We will wake up to having given up those few things that really matter for the sake of the many trivial things that don’t. We will wake up to the fact that that overstuffed life was as empty as the real estate bubble’s detritus of foreclosed homes.

Here are a few simple steps for becoming more of an Essentialist:

1. Schedule a personal quarterly offsite. Companies invest in quarterly offsite meetings because there is value in rising above day-to-day operations to ask more strategic questions. Similarly, if we want to avoid being tripped up by the trivial, we need to take time once a quarter to think about what is essential and what is nonessential. I have found it helpful to apply the “rule of three”: every three months you take three hours to identify the three things you want to accomplish over the next three months.

2. Rest well to excel. K. Anders Ericsson found in “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance” that a significant difference between good performers and excellent performers was the number of hours they spent practicing. The finding was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell as the “10,000 hour rule.” What few people realize is that the second most highly correlated factor distinguishing the good from the great is how much they sleep. As Ericsson pointed out, top performing violinists slept more than less accomplished violinists: averaging 8.6 hours of sleep every 24 hours.

3. Add expiration dates on new activities. Traditions have an important role in building relationships and memories. However, not every new activity has to become a tradition. The next time you have a successful event, enjoy it, make the memory, and move on.

4. Say no to a good opportunity every week. Just because we are invited to do something isn’t a good enough reason to do it. Feeling empowered by essentialism, one executive turned down the opportunity to serve on a board where she would have been expected to spend 10 hours a week for the next 2-3 years. She said she felt totally liberated when she turned it down. It’s counterintuitive to say no to good opportunities, but if we don’t do it then we won’t have the space to figure out what we really want to invest our time in.

A hundred years from now, when people look back at this period, they will marvel at the stupidity of it all: the stress, the motion sickness, and the self-neglect we put ourselves through.

So we have two choices. We can be among the last people caught up in the “more bubble” when it bursts, or we can see the madness for what it is and join the growing community of Essentialists and get more of what matters in our one precious life.

Greg McKeown is the author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. His "why" is inspiring people to design their lives and careers in order discover their highest point of contribution.

Originally posted on HBR.

Photo: deathtostockphoto

Breaking Eggs to get success

On the road to success and your absolute glory you will soon find you have all the ingredients you need. The trouble is you don’t have, and perhaps never will have a recipe or set of instructions to make your success.  This troubles some people but it should not,  the recipe needed for success is within you and what to do with the ingredients is entirely up to you.

Some of the ingredients you have and how to use them are blatantly obvious, time for example is something you have to manage and manage well, other ingredients such as your own skills and gifts you may have to look at a little more closely, scratch your head and work out how these form part of your success. Imagine giving the ingredients of a cake to someone who didn’t know what an egg is; flour, sugar and butter you gave them in bowls with the correct quantities, but the eggs were whole and unbroken. Mixing in the other ingredients could be easily worked out but the egg, if the person didn’t know what an egg is would prove a challenge. It is known by all of us, or at least I hope it is, that one has to break open the egg before it can be used. Herein lies a secret to your success; an ingredient or element of your glory may need to be broken open before it can be used.

Generally the main ingredient that needs breaking open is the person or something about the person. It’s not something many people enjoy or look forward to but it may mean the small difference between just remaining where you are or becoming amazingly successful. Like a cake, without breaking the eggs it cannot be made the same goes for success; therefore do not be afraid to open yourself up, break yourself a little, to get the success you need. The breaking could be anything, a change of job, a change of routine, giving up something to create time; whatever it is and if success if your goal then don’t be afraid to do it!

Have an awesome week ahead!

How increase things to be grateful for

Fridays I keep things easy and it’s something I am fast appreciating. Friday is what I call my gratitude day and whilst I get work done I make plenty of time to give thanks and be grateful.

With the pace of business today people seldom set aside time just to breathe, close their eyes and simply rattle of the things they are grateful for.

Today I am keeping things short and simple, I have a huge amount to be grateful for. I am grateful, or is that would be grateful?, for the donation button being hit and small amounts coming into support me and my blog.

 

Grace - thankful what is about to be received

Are you grateful for what you expect to get but yet haven’t received? A crazy notion you may say but it’s not at all. Being thankful for what you are about to receive is something we should all be and all do. Christians before a meal will often pray “For what I am about to receive may the Lord make me truly grateful”. No matter how big of small the meal, no matter how good or bad it tastes the person is thankful and indeed truly grateful before a single mouthful has touched his or her lips. This attitude of gratitude must not be just when we have received something but before and even in anticipation of receiving.

Here's the How to!

The week end is fast approaching, come Sunday evening it will be over and you will be reminiscing and being thankful for what you have had, done and more. Why don’t you turn it around and be thankful and grateful that firstly you have a weekend and then say thank you for what you expect and what you desire this weekend?  Trust me, in doing so your reminiscing on Sunday will be done with an even bigger smile!

Have a blessed weekend and I will say thank you for my amazing weekend ahead right now!

Thank you for the awesome weekend ahead and all the love, excitement and happiness I am going to receive!

Road Signs

Every day we pass road signs. On our regular routes I guarantee that you dear reader never read the road signs. I sat this morning thinking about road signs. One of the oldest forms of communication still in everyday use but in today's hectic world what with GPS systems and other electronic maps are they really used?

But how does a humble Road Sign bring me to motivation. Like the Pelicans in past blogs we all need direction, we need to know where we are going and how to get there. Road signs are essentially markers, they mark the spot where you are and show you your next spot. Stepping stones to success.

Success is not something that comes instantly. Success comes from setting goals and completing them one by one, stepping stones.

I have drawn up my goals, or what I want. Here they were in 2010 when this was first posted

1. Own my own house
2. Have a second car in my household
3. Ensure my wife does not have to work
4. Have spare cash each month to do something I enjoy
5. Pay for my Sons Education in full up to and including University.

Here they are today:

1.  Be self employed
2. Write my book
3. Live in a house with a garden
4. Share my life story with others
5. Comfortable Financially

5 Goals for now but it is all well and good to have the Goal but how to get it? That's where the road signs come in. Direction is needed with time (distance on a road sign) and processes in between. A road map for success.

Do you know less than 5% of people actually write down their goals? Do you know it is these 5% that pretty much make up the most successful and wealthy people in the world today

How to plan for the unexpected

Planning as has been discussed before is key to success and essential for growth. When it comes to planning there are always areas that cannot be planned for… or so we are all told.  When something cannot be planned for things start going wrong, mistakes are made, delays are caused but these are merely a result of not planning correctly or not planning for unforeseen forces. There is truly no such thing as being unable to plan for something even something so remote it may never happen, if you can imagine it you can imagine how you would deal with it… Correct?

A plan is not merely a set of instructions that takes a person from A to B to C in a set time at a set pace, with certain tasks undertaken and completed, planning is a process and a process has to manage the exceptions or the very simple “what if” scenarios to move forward to an end goal. A plan, in business, should also be measurable.  Without considering the exceptions your plan cannot remain watertight, and its these that make you plan you plan.  Perhaps the best example of not covering every possibility or eventuality is that of the Titanic that sank when it hit an iceberg. Hailed as unsinkable and setting sail with great pomp and ceremony, it was essentially planning that sank the unsinkable.  The designers of the ship built the ship in such a way that bulkheads could be sealed to contain water should the hull be breached, but it was never foreseen that multiple hull breaches would occur and bulkheads even damaged by the side of the ship being ripped open. Perhaps the only 2 sinking options considered were torpedo and a terrorist attack, I don’t know, but the ripping open of the hull with multiple, conjoined breaches wasn’t foreseen. It was essentially a lack of planning and even more so a lack of imagination.

In your planning have you taken into consideration, imagined, all the possible options and answered all the “what if” scenarios? In life these can be overcome with relative ease, if for example you hear the weather report saying heavy rain the next morning, you will pack a rain coat and leave earlier. Do you have a plan though for when your car won’t start?  Most people don’t have an immediate plan, they make a plan for sure but the plan is a process that if followed you overcome. 

In business planning is less easy, planning or lack of planning costs time, money and even the business itself in some cases. Every business has processes, but how many of them cover the many “what if” situations that may seem unconceivable but nevertheless can occur? In most cases for businesses the planning or process management falls very short at this stage and when the unforeseen happens the business goes into a tailspin.

How well planned is your life or your business? Do you have a coping mechanism? Do you go into the “tailspin” when the unseen happens?

In life you simply have to manage how you react to the circumstance, you can’t go putting in business process management software to manage your life. You can though ensure you have a list of numbers you may need, write them down and keep them somewhere safe and accessibly not just on your phone, for when you have to call for help. Letting others know where you are is also a simple solution. Try not to think or worry about the unseen, we all know that what you think about comes about, but in the back of your mind just reassure yourself that no matter what comes you will be ok.

In business, control has to a little but more rigid. Instruction manuals for fire drills and the like are common and these can be either manual/paper based or can be put into a business process tool. Ensuring staff know where the process or manual is, ensuring they know how to use it is vital. Mapping out the many processes takes time but the value when it comes to the unseen happening in time vs cost will be worth every second if done and done properly. If your business is looking for a solution that can manage your unforeseen the click here.

Ask yourself, “have planned and can I or my business cope with the unexpected?”

Planning is essential, planning for the unseen more so.