GoHuman Blog

Entrepreneurs are always learning – about their industry, about marketing, about the competition, about the business. They attend courses, seminars and conferences to learn and network with other entrepreneurs.  One of the easiest and least expensive ways to learn is to read business books and/or listen to personal & professional development audios. Most  entrepreneurs have an office filled with a diverse collection of business and success books.

In Barbara Stanny’s book, “Secrets of Six Figure Women,” the story revolves around hundreds of interviews Stanny had with women with incomes above $100,000. During these interviews, the author uncovers seven key strategies for women (and men) to increase their earnings to a level that would be forever life changing.

Have an Intention to Make Good Money:  You need a profit motive. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but poverty doesn’t either. It’s also true that entrepreneurs have multiple reasons for starting a business and making money is definitely one of them. Bottom line, if you’re not making money, you’re not in business.

Letting Go of the Ledge:  Be willing to lose the security of your comfort zone in order to take the necessary leap that will raise your income. Stanny writes: “Their ledges took many forms, both concrete and intangible – from unfulfilling jobs to unpleasant relationships, from inappropriate goals to inaccurate beliefs, from damaging habits to detrimental emotions.”

Get in the Game:  Stanny writes that people are basically playing one of two games: Not to Lose or To Win. The game Not to Lose is about playing it safe; avoiding risks, not looking bad, not making mistakes. As with investing, making safe choices as an entrepreneur limits the risk you take, but it also limits how much you can gain.

When playing the game To Win, it’s not just about acquiring more money than the next guy. It’s about being and doing your best and seeing how far you can stretch. A critical component to playing To Win is being willing to take risks, feel the fear and do it anyway.

Speak Up:  In other words, ask for what you want! For employees it can include asking for a raise and for entrepreneurs, it’s about raising your rates, raising your level of service and value, without cutting your fees.

The Stretch:  Stanny writes “High earners are keenly aware of the immense power of audacity, which comes from the Latin word audace, meaning to dare. The women I interviewed somehow intuitively (if not always early) embrace this strategy as common practice: Stretch, dare to do which you think you cannot.”

If you’re a true entrepreneur, you’ve got to always be stretching. Whether it’s speaking at a networking event, cold calling or negotiating for a good deal. One thing is certain; the things you dislike the most about business, are not good at or are afraid of, are most definitely the things you’ll have to attempt at some point, in order to reach the level of success you want.

Seek Support:  Never be too proud to ask for guidance or support from another person or people. If you want to be successful, this is something you need to overcome because no one can do it alone.

Stanny writes about two types of help the successful women she interviewed talked about: True Believers, people who encouraged and believed in them whole heartedly, and Way Showers, mentors who served as proof that success is possible. These supports help us implement the other strategies.

“They inspire us to set our intention high and stick to it when our faith falls short. They gently pry our fingers loose when we cling too tightly to safety and then lead us into the game, explaining how to play. Maybe most important of all, they assuage our fears so we can stretch even farther.”

Obey the Rules of Money:  Being successful isn’t just about how much you invoice each month, it’s also about how much you keep, how well you get to live. as a result. Stanny’s rules of money are simple: Spend less than you earn, pay yourself first, put your money to work.

If you’re an entrepreneur who’s not earning the kind of money you’d like, Secrets of Six Figure Women is a great read. The stories these women share about how they applied the success strategies to their business are both inspiring and motivating.

For the women out there who are ready to ignite their own businesses to the next level, check out my new women’s group, set to launch in April. Applications are being taken on line. All applicants will be considered, with only a select group chosen for membership.  We’ll share and teach in depth, how to apply these same strategies to your business, in order to increase earnings and create the financial and personal wealth you want in life. www.igniteinnercircle.com.

I’m intrigued with author Frances E. Vaughan’s definition of intuition as “a way of knowing…a way of recognizing the possibilities in any situation.”

Decisions based off of intuition come from an ability to integrate and utilize both the left and right sides of the brain.  The combined product of both facts and feelings that are unclouded by the involvement of personal ego.

Leaders with good intuition see new opportunities in any given situation. They visualize the future and are well equipped to move an organization forward, in response to it. These leaders are particularly good at generating new ideas and providing fresh, creative solutions to old problems. They function best in quickly changing environments, and moments of crisis.

Most men tend to refer to their intuition as a “gut feeling,” whereas women are more comfortable calling on their “feminine or women’s intuition.”

Because intuition originates from a certain feeling in our body, when someone asks how we know, we can’t explain the rationale behind the conclusion. As a result, we’re inclined to keep these thoughts to ourselves in fear others will label us as being unreasonable or foolish.

In the business world, effective leaders understand the importance of using logic and analysis when making certain decisions that will or have the potential to heavily impact the overall standing of the organization. Furthermore, leaders who possess these key traits also understand when to call upon their intuition, not as a substitute to analysis, but as an equal to it.

Clarity accounts for nearly 80% of success and happiness. Lack of clarity leads to frustration and underachievement. Those with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than those without them. Everywhere and under all circumstances!

In fact, the three keys to high achievement are, “Clarity, Clarity, Clarity.”  Success in life is largely dependent upon how clear you are about what you really want.

The more you write and rewrite your goals and think about them, the clearer you will become about them.  And the more likely you are to do more things that are consistent with accomplishing them.

Experiencing an “A-ha” or a “light bulb” moment, is like discovering an important piece to a difficult puzzle.  It’s rejuvenating, motivating while adding new challenges and opportunities for learning and growth.

In order for a fresh idea to become fully developed, it requires more flashes of light and self reflection. The idea must be evaluated to determine if it’s worth pursuit and further cultivation. Things will have been overlooked, and you’ll find ways to make the idea better, or why a certain idea isn’t ready to fully pursue.

The quickest way to gain clarity is to simply take action! When we take action, we get immediate and direct feedback. We gain insight and great knowledge as we continue to work through a situation. Things happen rapidly these days and therefore, there’s not much time to contemplate starting a project.  It’s always better to take action and learn along the way, than to spend time over-engineering without ever seeing any results.  Taking action, provides many answers to questions we were previously uncertain about. This doesn’t mean jumping totally into the project, but it does mean knowing that no plan is totally set in stone.  A road map is essential, but don’t let the absence of having one prevent you from moving forward.

When working towards meeting personal needs, or maintaining relationships, it’s important to consider how big decisions impact other people in our life. Most often, a change in one area of life, will ultimately affect other areas and therefore, we need to consider any potential negative consequences. When it comes to getting clear about relationships, ask yourself, “How much does the relationship mean to me?” “How much does my personal goal mean to me?” Remembering that relationships are a major key to happiness, so be certain to gain clarity in how this area of your life will be impacted.

It doesn’t seem like it would be true, in that by slowing down we’d get more done. But it is true and it does work. Every day you do it, you will get more done. Every day as you experiment with slowing down and focusing on doing what’s most important, the better understanding you’ll have about the truth behind the legendary story of the tortoise and the hare.

Think of it this way, if you’re on the wrong road, it doesn’t matter how good you get at traveling faster down that road because it still is and always will be the WRONG ROAD.

On the flip side, when you take whatever time is needed to think some major (or not) personal or business decision through with a clear, uncluttered mind, and act accordingly with your complete and only focus being on “doing it right the first time,” the sooner you’re able to cross it off the list as complete and move on to the next priority.

Those who recognize the value of slowing themselves down, soon realize how quickly it speeds up their success. When they slow down and focus on that next small step ahead of them and TAKE THAT STEP, they’re surprised at how their whole world changes by doing that.

Every little achievement raises the self confidence. As your confidence increases, your achievements become greater and greater. The real success in reaching any goal is achieved by breaking down a plan into small steps to take along the way, and then start taking them. With each of these steps your self-esteem rises. In the end, the goal itself isn’t even as important as the huge strides you’ve made in self-confidence and self-respect along the way. Because of the increased self-confidence and self-respect, the next challenge that comes your way, will be that much easier to handle. It’s those small steps that build the self-confidence.

Companies who deliberately create a culture to work with systems and allow themselves to see the underlying system beneath everything create a wonderful mind-shift.

Every system is perfect for what it produces. Once your mind shifts to see the perfection of every system, you’re in a clear enough state to produce new systems that provide different results.

Even in situations when customers are upset, it can be said that a perfect system was used to anger the customer. It certainly doesn’t mean you have to like or tolerate the system that produced this particular result, in fact, applying this type of system thinking to anything you don’t like allows you to immediately correct it: “We have a perfect system for producing poor quality product, low margins, low productivity, high employee turnover,” and so on.

Declaring the existence of a system, allows you to avoid the habit of blaming other people for things that go wrong. Nothing can ever be improved or corrected that way. You’ll always get what you’ve designed a system to get and therefore, the solution to any ongoing problem is to design a new system. This is referred to as “systems thinking,” which is a higher order of thinking than we normally use. Once the mind shifts to systems, everything begins to change for the better.

Many companies have ongoing problems with politics, ego and insecurity issues of certain managers. Such companies assume they’re always going to have these issues and chalk it up to the price of working with people!  Not true. One company, Microchip, proclaims that politics, ego and arrogance are “NOT ALLOWED.”  How so? Because they deliberately created the culture they wanted. When it’s crystal clear that something isn’t allowed, people just don’t do it.

The thought of achieving any big goal can often be overwhelming and seem so far out of reach that we decide it’s not worth pursuing. So how do you get past that daunting, dreading feeling and transform a dream into a project? By taking action. Any action. You accomplish it one step, one task, one measure at a time.

Ask your superior or yourself, “what’s the one thing I do that is more valuable than anything else?” Whatever the answer, look for continuous ways to perform more and more of that task and learn to do it a little better each day. It’s amazing how much and what you can accomplish by breaking your tasks down into bite-sized pieces, setting deadlines, and then taking action, every single day.

Get into a routine where you’re regularly improving your skills through personal & professional development. Designate a specific amount of time each day to reading about your field. Listen to audio programs on your way to and from work. Take additional courses whenever you can. These activities alone will jump-start your entire career and get you on the fast track in no time. When you invest an extra hour or two per day in personal/professional-improvement, the cumulative effect on your ability to get the results you want is extraordinary.

If you can measure it, you can manage it. In every area of your life, carefully analyze your activities and choose a specific number that will determine your level of success in that area. Focus all your attention on that number because just as a plant depends upon water to prosper, the same is true for people, what you focus on is what grows. The very act of being and remaining focused will allow you to perform better in that area, consciously and unconsciously.

The Webster’s Dictionary definition of failure is: omission of occurrence or performance; specifically: a failing to perform a duty or expected action.

One of my favorite quotes is by a gentleman who, in my opinion, is the epitome of what “failure” cannot be defined as. Words recited by an individual who, with absolute certainty, knew his own potential and recognized an opportunity not worth giving up on.

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas A. Edison

It took Thomas Edison 10,000 attempts before successfully creating the light bulb. When asked how it felt to fail 10,000 times, he responded by saying he didn’t fail at anything, but rather learned 10,000 ways of what didn’t work before discovering what did work.

Whether with personal life struggles or professional challenges encountered at the office, there are times when we allow ourselves to see no other way out of a bad situation other than to “give up” and walk away because we’ve failed. We have failed at doing something with a specific outcome intended and in turn, produced all other results other than what was expected, anticipated or desired.

What most people don’t understand is they haven’t failed because something didn’t turn out the way they anticipated or due to certain decisions made in a situation they believed to be right, didn’t produce the results they wanted. People only fail when they decide not to do anything about the situation. They throw their hands in the air and give up. They turn their backs and chalk it up as a loss. Better yet, they’ll play the victim role and walk around with their heads down telling everyone how “circumstances beyond their control,” were to blame. It was the poor economy. It was his fault. It was her fault. It was their fault. It was always someone else’s fault, other than theirs.

Paradoxically, when we take full ownership of who we are being, the choices we make and how we react in a difficult situation, we can do anything, because when we own the problem, we own the solution.

“A common cause of business failure: seeing that a strategy isn’t producing the anticipated results- and responding by going unconscious. A common cause of failure in your personal life; the same policy.” –Nathaniel Branden

Before compromising who you are, your integrity or the service you offer to customers by discounting your fee, in order to give them a “deal,” ask yourself one question: “Is my intent to serve or please my customers?” If it’s serving-that means you have something (product or service) they want and they see the benefits of how it can add value to them/their business. If your response implies you’re more concerned with whether or not the customer is pleased, that’s as good as saying you’ll lower your price, your morals, the belief you have in yourself and the product or service you offer, just to get “a sale.” That’s not serving to you or your customers.

They’ve already won, if you have a great service. You don’t have to add a new win for them on top of that win. If what you have is valuable, they’ve already won.  They’re coming in with a win; you don’t have to add to that. You need to stand proud and allow yourself to win, too, because they’ve already won because they’re doing business with you.

If who you are is great, they have already won by sitting down with you. You don’t have to add to their win by cutting some financial deal with them, and by helping them out of money mismanagement. If you’re in a negotiation for any contracted services, you don’t have to keep pushing money over to the other side of the table to help them out, and then cover it with thinking you’re trying to go for a “win-win.”

In many cases “win-win” can actually be defined as “I bailed out and gave them a deal because I really needed the business.” People do business with people they know, they like and they trust.  If they know you, like you and trust you, then they trust you are selling them exactly what they want and more.

A coach helps others improve their performance. When I say improve performance, I don’t merely mean that coaching can and will improve a person’s working life; it will also boost their productivity, the enjoyment and fulfillment they have at home and in other aspects of their lives. It’s about drawing out the untapped potential in others, to allow them to discover the things they don’t see within themselves. A coach recognizes their strengths and shows them how to leverage those strengths and use them to their advantage.

The travesty is that most people don’t get proactive when it comes to boosting their own performance. Many people do quite the opposite. They look for ways to get away with the minimum possible amount of work. Unfortunately, this type of attitude holds back many talented individuals.

Most of us know someone who’s failed their high school/college exams, miserably. There are; however, countless examples of such people who for one reason or another, went back to school/college and passed their exams with flying colors, the second time round. What changed? The answer is simple; their attitude changed. It is attitude which separates the good from the great. Given the choice of somebody to work with, I’d rather take someone with an outstanding, highly driven and determined attitude, who is hell bent on succeeding, then a person with a weaker attitude but notably, more ability.

Disciplining ourselves to do what we know we need to do to be the best in our chosen field is perhaps the most difficult, and at the same time, easiest request we could ask of ourselves. Self discipline is defined as this: “Self discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.”

It’s always easy to do something when we feel like doing it. It’s when we don’t feel like it and force ourselves to do it anyway, that are we able to transition our personal/professional lives onto the fast track.

So how do you get started? By asking what decisions need to be made today, in order to start moving up the success ladder. Regardless of what they may be, either get in or get out, make a decision today and get started. This one act itself, can change the entire course of your life.

-The first action step to take is deciding what you want in every part of your life. Be specific, rather than generalizing.

-Next, document it, detail for detail. A goal that’s not in writing isn’t a goal at all. Having a goal in writing puts it out there and makes it real. It’s no longer just a thought swimming around with the other 5,000 thoughts you have throughout any given day.

-Set a deadline for your goal. A deadline allows you to have a targeted completion date to work towards. A deadline motivates you to do what’s necessary to make your goal a reality

-Make a list of everything you can think of that will have to be done, in order to achieve your goal. As new tasks come to mind or occur that you might not have thought of before, add them to your list until it’s complete.

-Organize your list by priority. Determine what tasks or project items are more/less important. Begin with the most important item and work your way down to the least important, until complete.

-Take action! Regardless of how large/small the action step taken is, do something every day that will move you one step closer to achieving your goal. A plan is only as good as the paper it’s on, until it’s fully executed.