17. December 2007 by Pat.

You’re all fired up. You want to succeed and you seem so close, but then things begin to crumble and fall apart. Why? It seemed like you were on the right track doing the right things. Historically when you look at those who succeed and succeed in a big way you’ll find they all: had imagination, believed in themselves and what they were doing, were passionate, were very decisive in their ability to make decisions, and were persistent.

Those of you who are more logical than creative may look at imagination and think you’re sunk. You may be thinking that if you have to be imaginative or creative there’s no way you can succeed, but don’t let imagination scare you. The kind of imagination or creativity you need is the ability to see an opportunity to take an application that works in one arena and apply it to a different arena. Or the imagination to see how you could make something work in a better way using either new or existing resources. You don’t have to be an inventor. In fact, other than Thomas Edison few inventors are ever really successful. It’s the people who can find a use or new use for what an inventor creates that are hugely successful.

If you believe you can you can and if you don’t you won’t. If you don’t believe in yourself and what you’re doing you certainly can’t expect others to. What would it take for you to believe you can succeed? Once you have that belief in yourself you need to be passionate about what you’re doing. Your passion will be contagious and will open up opportunities for you.

When you can’t make quick decisions you often lose out. When you find it difficult to make decisions you need to identify exactly why making decisions is so hard for you. Is it that you think you don’t have enough information, are you afraid of taking a risk and being wrong, or do you simply like to procrastinate? You can’t achieve success until you can make good decisions quickly based on your understanding of how the opportunity fits in your plans for success.

When you give up you’re done and you can’t succeed. You have to have the persistence to do the next thing that will move you closer to success. Without that persistence you can be inches from the goal line and never even realize it.

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21. October 2007 by Pat.

Personal Development is a broad category, encompassing everything from the time management to life purpose. Personal development is the process of developing your natural strengths and overcoming your weaknesses. Personal development is a kind of “tool kit” for life. Personal development is an ongoing process, in which you need to: Identify priorities for personal development Identify personal development opportunities Create an action plan Monitor your progress Evaluate your personal performance Identify priorities for personal development.

Personal

Personal development teaches you how to become more productive and effective at work and how to maintain focus on what really counts in all aspects of your life. Personal coaching can have a profound effect on your growth. Personal development training can bring out those skills and help you fulfill your potential. Personal development involves more than learning a set of skills. Personal development training will help you learn to build wealth by working hard and working smart.

Development

People often mis-diagnose themselves when it comes to personal development problems — often what you identify as the problem is merely a symptom of a larger problem. Development implies change, which is not always easy. The field of personal development isn’t as exacting as mathematics or computer programming, but there are some solutions that do work well. Building your own personal development library is easy. The best personal development books contain solutions to universal human challenges, such as how to overcome procrastination, how to get organized, and how to motivate yourself.

Training

Personal development training can bring out those skills and help you fulfill your potential. Through personal development training, you can learn to increase your performance and minimize your risk. Personal development training will help you learn to build wealth by working hard and working smart. With personal development training, you will learn different ways of accomplishing tasks and meeting goals.

Personal development is unique to each individual. Personal development is also about building effective working relationships and making new contacts to allow you and others around you to realise your full potential. Personal development is about improving yourself mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Personal development is an integral part of every manager’s job. Personal development is a key issue in the training and future professional practice is seen as a core element along with skills training and theoretical studies.

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12. October 2007 by Pat.

Leadership is not about getting people to do what they want. If they did what they want, you wouldn’t be needed as a leader. Instead, leadership is about getting people to do what they don’t want to do (or don’t think they can do) - and be ardently committed to doing it.

This paradox lies at the heart of all great leadership.

Unlike management, which involves simply the care and feeding of your organizational elephant, great leadership gets that elephant to jump.

Anyone who knows anything about elephants knows that they may run, they may stand on their hind legs, they may kneel on their fore legs, they may roll over; but they don’t jump.

And that’s what leadership is all about: getting organizations to do what they usually can’t do, i.e., getting great results consistently.

Now, you can’t do the jumping yourself. The elephant must do it. You can’t push the elephant into the air. It must jump of its own volition.

Making the elephant jump involves cultivating a special relationship between the leader and the people of the organization.

Many leaders misunderstand that relationship. They try to use fear and pain to spur the activity needed to achieve consistently great results. “Sure, I’ll get this elephant to jump. Just give me an electric prod!”

But inducing fear and pain are habit forming and ultimately destructive both to the leader and the people.

To make the elephant jump — not now and then but consistently, i.e., to lead people to consistently to achieve great results — deep, human emotional bonding between leader and people must take place. And fundamental to that bonding is the nature of the heart of the leader.

This is the secret: You can’t get the elephant to jump unless you have a kind heart. Kindness in leadership means following the Leadership Imperative: “I will lead people in such a way that we not only achieve the needed results but we, the people and me, become better as leaders and people.”

Most leaders focus on the first part “getting better results” and forget about the second part. But in truth, when you have a kind heart, getting results and helping people be better are not two things but one.

From now on, see every leadership challenge you face as a way of having people increase their knowledge, their skills, their courage, their tenacity, and their leadership abilities. Cultivating that perspective is a kindness.

But don’t mistake kindness for being nice. Don’t mistake kindness for having people simply feel good. Don’t mistake kindness for allowing people to indulge the worst aspects of their character, laziness, inconsiderateness, selfishness, etc.

Furthermore, you may be kind and have people be frustrated with you. Many great leaders I’ve had relationships with got me frustrated as they had me go through the trouble of tackling challenges I might not otherwise have tackled. (In fact, deep, human, emotional bonding cannot happen without a great deal of frustration.) But I was motivated despite my frustrations because I recognized that they essentially had my best interests at heart.

Yes, through skill, persuasiveness, understanding, forcefulness, education, and guidance, you can get the elephant to jump — as long as you do it through the kindness of your heart.

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9. October 2007 by Pat.

Do you remember as a child lying on your back on a beach or in the field and looking at the different shapes of passing clouds? If you do, you will know how enjoyable it can be to focus completely on one thing. To be receptive, you need to allow all your senses to explore the environment. The more sensory pathways you open up, the more extensive and exact your perception will become. This has been acknowledged by scientists in numerous studies. Students can memorize new material twice as well if it is presented in a visual form - for instance, as a film or video - and not just by merely listening to a lecture. This is because visual cues from the eyes play an important part in the learning process.

The best known method for focusing our thoughts towards what is important and training our perception is Meditation. Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years by Buddhist monks for instance for spirituality and to open up the mind to new knowledge. Zen Buddhism is about mastering the art of Meditation to achieve remarkable things in life. Demonstrations have been performed by a skilled archer and meditator with his eyes blindfolded and shooting an arrow so accurately that it will put out a burning candle hundreds of paces away. He performs this feat by accomplishing the highest concentration and entering a state of deepest calm.

In western psychology, the phenomenon of controlled attention is also useful. Anyone who wish to train or improve his or her memory must begin by controlling perception. For instance, if you find that you keep forgetting someone’s name, it’s likely that you are too easily distracted and do not place enough emphasis or importance to the person’s name when you are introduced. A deeper focus on the situation will improve your memory. A quick tip is to look at the person’s face, without staring.

With a quick sweep of your eyes, notice what the person is wearing, the color of his or her eyes, hair, skin. Take an interest in that person, ask about where she was born, what are the person’s hobbies, children, pets etc. Ask the person how his name is spelt. If there is only one way to spell ‘Tom’, the more relevant question is to ask how to spell his last name. Take notice of it and make interesting associations with it and tie it in with what the person is wearing or the person’s physical attributes. Is he or she tall or short, fat or slender? Does he or she have freckles or a tan?

Your creativity is also influenced by how intensely you deal with the job at hand. If you need a new idea urgently - for example, an anniversary gift for a spouse, you perhaps need to let yourself be inspired by the world around you.

We often do not take the time to see what is around us. The flash of inspiration you need will come to mind if you allow your attention to move freely, embracing all possibilities, even the ones you previously disregard. So open up your senses, see to appreciate, smell new scents, listen with intent and start to feel, both physically and emotionally. Start living and be alive and you’ll find your memory, concentration and creativity will start to blossom.

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4. October 2007 by Pat.

Anytime employers are asked about the skills they value most in employees, it’s always in the top five. Senior managers and executives frequently cite it as one of the keys to their achievements. Business coaches, leadership development specialists and peak performance experts say it’s essential to success. “It” is the ability to communicate ideas clearly and persuasively. Yet, it’s often one of the most overlooked areas of personal development. Despite the fact that we spend up to 60% of our workday communicating, people rarely spend time trying to improve their communication skills. One reason for the neglect is that communication is often labelled a “soft skill.” When budgets are tight, training in a soft skill slides down the list of priorities and up the list of things to cut. Given it’s importance in the workplace however, a more accurate label would be “essential skill.”

One of the most visible forms of communication in the workplace is the presentation. Yet in the process of helping professionals transform themselves into more effective communicators, my greatest obstacle is frequently the misconception people have concerning the role and nature of presentations in their professional lives. A comment I regularly hear is “I don’t give presentations.”

If you believe this, you need to expand your thinking about what constitutes a “presentation.” What usually comes to mind is an event where you are standing in front of an audience and speaking for ten minutes to an hour. But presentations come in many more varieties than the formal situation I’ve just described.

The common thread running through what might at first seem to be rather diverse activities is an effort on the part of one person to communicate with others. And regardless of the message, you’re always presenting yourself. In fact, you’re presenting yourself every time you:

1. Motivate people to accept change 2. Launch a new program 3. Give a safety briefing at work 4. Solicit Donations for a charity 5. Train people to use software 6. Unveil a new policy 7. Present opening arguments in a trial 8. Convince a jury of the merits of your case 9. Give a sales presentation 10. Report your 3rd quarter sales results 11. Pitch for an account 12. Calm angry employees 13. Instil confidence in customers 14. Introduce a speaker 15. Facilitate a discussion 16. Depose a witness 17. Reassure stakeholders 18. Honor a community leader 19. Deliver an orientation to new employees 20. Reinforce commitment to an idea 21. Entertain an after dinner crowd 22. Change attitudes or beliefs 23. Accept an Award 24. Persuade prospects to buy 25. Talk to a service group 26. Position your service or product 27. Ask for a promotion 28. Promote your brand 29. Apologize for a mistake 30. Answer questions 31. Arouse interest in a new product 32. Explain how something works 33. Attract Investors to your business 34. Demonstrate your product 35. Negotiate a deal 36. Conduct a meeting 37. Express your support for a candidate 38. Articulate your vision as a leader 39. State your point of view at a meeting 40. Question a witness 41. Gather information from a patient 42. Teach a Professional CE course 43. Eulogize a friend or colleague 44. Spark interest in your new product 45. Review an employee’s performance 46. Speak on behalf of your organization 47. Approach prospects for a first appointment 48. Address a group of shareholders 49. Discuss alternative solutions to a problem 50. Interview for a job

Make no mistake about it: just like death and taxes, presentations in some form are an inevitable part of your working life. Ignore them at your own peril. Anytime you communicate you are presenting yourself. People will make judgments about your competency, your credibility and your character based on the quality of that communication.

The good news is that when you make the commitment to improve your presentation of self, you will have gained a skill that is transferable to dozens of other situations. When you learn how to plan your communication strategically, how to analyze and adapt to different audiences, how to craft compelling words and phrases and how to deliver your message in a way that commands attention, you’ll have a powerful set of tools with a lot of portability. They will contribute to your success in any job you may hold in the future.

If you recognize that you could use improvement in this area of your professional life, it’s important to get started now. Read books and articles on becoming a more effective communicator. Consider taking a continuing education course through your professional or trade association. Your local university or community college probably offers courses that range from one day workshops to semester long classes. It’s an investment of your time that has a guaranteed return.

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25. September 2007 by Pat.

“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.” Conrad Hilton

Every one of us possess the most powerful and inspirational tool and that is our imagination. Using our imagination and visualization will create a positive change in our life.

The more vivid and clear our imagination, the quicker we will achieve our dreams and desires. Start out by laying down a foundation of what you want to create in your life. Write it out; draw it and start from the bottom and work your way up. This becomes your success foundation. Once it is written down or drawn, then you want to start visualizing every detail and the feeling associated with that desire.

Focus on one idea at a time. If you try and focus on more than one success, then you may not succeed at anything.

If you want a new house, draw the house or get a picture in a magazine or on the internet. Put it on a board. Look through every part of that house. Look at the bedrooms and your new furniture. How many bathrooms you have in the house and what each bathroom looks like. Do you have a pool, a tennis court, a trampoline, a golf course? Whatever it is, draw it or visualize the picture you have.

Ask yourself what changes need to be made in my life to accomplish this?

Again, action, action, action. By building up a foundation, you can see each step growing upon each other.

In taking advantage of the wonderful possibilities opened up to us through the law of attraction, we must remember that we ourselves contribute nothing to its efficacy. We can do nothing to assist in the manifestation except crystal clear visualization and some kind of action. We simply comply with the law, and the All-originating Mind will bring about the result.

The Universal Mind will find the ways and means for bringing about any necessary manifestation. We must, however, create the idea, and this idea should be perfect.

Abundance will not come to you out of the sky, neither will it drop into your lap, but a conscious realization of the law of attraction and the intention to bring it into operation for a certain, definite and specific purpose, and the will to carry out this purpose will bring about the materialization of your desire by a natural law of transference. If you are in business, it will increase and develop along regular channels, possibly new or unusual channels of distribution will be opened and when the law becomes fully operating, you will find that the things you seek are seeking you.

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25. September 2007 by Pat.

Welcome to the new blog for Cre8 Your Wealth.  The intention is to share ideas and provide new information for readers interested in Personal Development and Home Business and reaching their personal goals through both topics.  Please feel free to contribute and make comments at any time.

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