Time is a Unique Resource

 

Time management is not about squeezing more into a day or eliminating distractions.  It’s about managing activities to achieve goals.  This article shows you how.

How many times have you thought or said, “There just isn’t enough time in the day.”  Reality is that when we say this, we are actually saying, “I just don’t have the ability to organize my time wisely enough to account for all I need to do.” 

 

By taking a brief look at time, you will see that I am correct in what I am saying.

 

Time is a unique resource.  It cannot be saved, stopped, or replaced.  In fact, it is the only resource that can never be regained once it is spent.  This then makes it interesting to see that not very many people actually organize their day out better..  Some people seem to be able to manage the time they are given better than others and are subsequently able to make better use time.

 

The real fact of the matter is, these people cannot ‘find time’ or even manage time any more than the rest of us.  Time cannot be “managed” or “found”.  We all have the same amount of time in a day, a week, a month, and a year.

 

24 hours in a day

168 hours in a week

8,736 hours in a year

 

With the current average life expectancy for a man being 76 and women being around 81, figure out how many hours you approximately have left in your life?  Take a minute to calculate the time.  Now look back at your life spent so far and compare the amount of accomplishments you have achieved in the time you’ve already lived with the goals you want to achieve in the time you have left.  Are you pleased with where you are? What about the time you have left, are you focused on how you will spend your remaining years? What are your goals and how have you planned the achievement of those goals?

 

Ask yourself how you can use the remaining time to accomplish job, career, and personal goals that are meaningful for you.  Ask yourself, “What is the one thing I can do TODAY that would have significant and positive results in my department, career, or personal life?”

 

Truth… managing time isn’t about time at all; it’s about managing priorities.  It’s about those achievements that are most important to you when all is said and done.  It’s about setting achievable goals and using a set and proven methodology for achieving those goals amidst the many forces out there vying for your time each and every hour of each and every day.

 

Align Your Goals With Outside Forces

 

Have you ever started a diet around the holidays?  Unless you opted to go to a health camp for the holidays, you probably succumbed to the many temptations of holiday treats and foods that seem to show up and stick around during these times.  The fact that no one else around you seemed to be on a diet didn’t help matters much either!  In short, your goal of losing weight wasn’t aligned with the realities of the time frame in which you started.

 

The same is true of any goals or objectives.  Goals are easier to achieve if they are aligned with ‘outside forces’ or what’s going on around you.  As an example, if your professional goal is to organize a missions trip to another country but that particular country is looking at reducing or halting the amount of missions-based groups it is giving visas to, your goal is not aligned with the outside forces of the country and you will have a challenge meeting your goal.

 

Furthermore, if your goals ARE NOT aligned with that country’s goal and you try to force the issue, you may be seen as a malcontent or a troublemaker and not only guarantee your visa application revoked, but others as well.  If your goals ARE aligned with country’s goals, you are seen as being in support of their decision and your team is seen as a contributing force willing to work within their guidelines and you are more likely to have your visa go through at a later date.

 

Ask yourself, “Will the achievement of my goals help others achieve their goals?”  If your goals MIGHT NOT align with the goals of those around you, you may wish to revisit your goal.

 

Anchor Your Goals to Inside Forces

 

It’s also important that you have your goals anchored to your inner forces or values.  If you don’t value the achievement of your goal, or the achievement of your goal goes against your core values and principles, your goal will be difficult to achieve because self-sabotage will kick in.

Ask yourself, “Will the achievement of this goal reinforce who I am as a person, leader, minister, or person?”  If your goal does not reinforce who you are, you may need to revise your goal or change it all together.

 

Link Your Goals With Other(s’) Goals

 

As alluded to earlier, achieving a goal is easier if it is linked to another goal that you have or to another person’s goal. You may find that several of your goals may link together nicely; by working on one, you can easily work on several.  Even more powerful is linking your goal to another person’s goal.

 

Ask yourself, “Who else might benefit from the achievement of this goal?”  Discuss your goal with this person to see if there’s a possibility of working on mutually beneficial goals (win/win situations).

 

By aligning, anchoring, and linking our goals, they become easier to achieve.

To quote Zig Ziglar, “You can get everything out of life you want, if you help enough people get what they want.

 

Next time I will discuss in more detail, ways to better organize your day to help eliminate wasted minutes, which add up to, wasted hours. Join me.

 

The purpose of these blog posts is to help you strive to be more successful and to create a life worth living, so I never want to end a post without giving your some sort of “power question” to ponder over. Answering these questions will help you to take action.

 

Power Question for the day:

In a previous post I asked about what you wanted more of in life, so now I am asking, What do you want less of in life?

Evaluating Your Associations

Never underestimate the power of influence. The influence of those around us is so powerful than often times we don't even realize we're being strongly affected because influences generally develop over an extended period of time.

Peer pressure is an especially powerful force because it is so subtle. If you're around people who blow all of their money on wasteful things, chances are excellent that you'll spend all you make on the same wasteful things. If you are around people who invest more into video games and movies than education and books, chances are excellent that you have a house full of video games and movies with few books. If you are around people who “play” church on Sunday, but live like the devil the rest of the week, chances are excellent that you only show your “faith” on Sundays. People can keep nudging us off course a little at a time until, finally, we find ourselves asking, "How did I get here?" It is these subtle influences in our lives that need to be studied carefully if we really want to take control of our lives and truly direct our own path.

Let me give you three important questions to ask yourself in order to help evaluate your association. They may help you to make better analysis of who you are allowing to have influence over your life and the directions they are taking you.

First question: "Who am I around?"

Make a mental note of the people with whom you associate with the most. It is important that you evaluate everybody in your life who is able to influence you in any way, from your closest family member to that guy on the corner that you carry on occasional conversations with to the person on your Facebook page that you never actually met, but somehow became connected with.

Second question is: "What are these associations doing to me?"

This is a major question to always ask about every association that you have.

What do they have you doing?

What have they gotten you to watch and listen to? What kind of entertainment have they directed you into accepting? What have they gotten you to read? Where have they got you going? How are they directing your thoughts? How is your speaking around them? What are you feeling when around them…guilty, frustrated, happy? You have to make a serious study of how others are influencing you, both negatively and positively.

Final question: "Is their influence positive or negative and am I alright with that?"

Whether everyone you associate with is a positive, energizing influence or there are some bad apples in the bunch, you need to take a close and objective look at each one. Everything is worth a second look, especially when it comes to those who hold a power of influence over you. Both will take you somewhere, but if they are not taking you in the direction you need to go, then that relationship needs to be reevaluated.

It's easy to just dismiss the things that influence our lives, but everything and everyone in our lives amounts to something. You have to continually investigate to find out whether your associations are leaning you more toward the positive or toward the negative ends of the spectrum of influence. Ignorance is never the best policy; ignoring negative influences will only hurt you in the long run. In the very least, they will hold you back and keep you in the current place you are in.

Jim Rohn tells a proverb about a little bird…

The owl said to the bird, "You are crying." "Yes," said the little bird, and he pulled his wing away from his eye. "Oh, I see," said the owl. "You're crying because the big bird pecked out your eye." And the little bird said, "No, I'm not crying because the big bird pecked out my eye. I'm crying because I let him."

It's easy to let our influences shape our lives, to let associations determine our direction is to let them determine our destination. The big question is: Are we working toward becoming what we wish to become or what others have planned for us?

How to handle the negative

Now let’s discuss some ways to handle associations or relationships that are holding you back.

1) Disassociate. This is not an easy decision, nor something you should take lightly, but in some cases it may be the only way to take care of an association that is holding you down.. It can be the hardest decision that you will ever make, but some people and situations are like a cancer, that you need to cut out of your life completely or it will only continue to become more of a negative influence in your life until it devours you. If you have a drug problem, for example, you need to completely disassociate from those who give you the drugs and make it easy for you to access them.

2) Limited association. Spend major time with major influences and minor time with minor influences. It is often times, easier to do just the opposite if we are not careful, but don't fall into that trap. Take a look at your priorities and your values. Time is the only thing in our lives that we can never get back, and to waste it on influences that drag us down and keep us from the things that will help us achieve our goals is a negative influence, but not necessarily one that you would totally have to dismiss from your life, just limit the amount of influence by limiting the association. Invest it wisely and the investment will pay off. If your goal is to lose weight, it is all right to eat chocolate cake every once in a while and it will not affect you, but if you eat it all the time, good luck keeping the weight off. Evaluate those who influences in your life that less association will benefit you and work on ways to limit your association with those influences.

3) Expanding your associations. This is the one I suggest you focus on the most. Find other successful people who you can spend more time with. Invite them to lunch (pick up the tab) and pick their brains. Now, this is not just about financial success; it can be someone who you want to learn from about having a better marriage, being a better parent, having better health or a stronger spiritual life. If you only eliminate influences in your life without filling the void with an influence that will help direct you in achieving your goals, then you are merely creating a void in your life that will eventually be refilled by the influence that you got rid of or another negative influence that is just as bad or worse. The drug user that quits drugs and drops his drug dealers from his sphere of influence, but doesn’t replace that influence will find it getting replaced down the road with someone who will eventually lead him back to drugs.

It is called association on purpose—getting around the right people by expanding your circle of influence. And when you do that, you will naturally limit the relationships that are holding you back. Give it a try and see for yourself.

The purpose of these blog posts is to help you strive to be more successful and to create a life worth living, so I never want to end a post without giving your some sort of “power question” to ponder over. Answering these questions will help you to take action.

Power Question for the day: What do you want more of in life? (make a list)

Brand Your Way To Success

As a business owner for over 5 years now, I have found that branding is very important for any business that is looking to expand and move forward in today's economy. A company's brand is like the glue that differentiates it from all of it's competitors. In today's world of economic turbulence and uncertainty, it's vital for many to most businesses, no matter what your field, to have a remembered presence in order to remain competitive. Effective branding can create a visual imprint in the minds of your clients. Simply put, whether online or off line, branding helps you get and stay remembered.

Brand Your Way To Success

Simple Branding Techniques That Work

While branding can offer vast opportunities for your business, whether you are the CEO of a top 500 company or a blogger using affiliate marketing to add additional revenue to your account, in order for it to be great and serve you well, we need to first draw in and engage our clients. This isn't as easy as it sounds, but if done correctly, it can bring you in a bounty of new and interested clients as well as keeping the old ones engaged and eager to continue coming back. Unfortunately, branding isn't as simple as putting your company logo and motto on a business card or (now days) creating a social media page. The branding strategy that you use must make your brand not only noticeable, but relevant in your market place so that a client sees you as a trusted authority and thinks of you first. If I say, "Just Do It" we all know what company that I am talking about. The same holds true if you see a webding style image of an apple with a bite taken out of the top.

Branding Basics

New Perspective

Branding, especially when you are working with online branding, has many tools at our disposal that we can utilize to produce a visual presence for our business that makes our companies pop when it comes to making a visual impression, and many of them are inexpensive to free. Web graphics and animation, great web copy, and your overall website design, a killer logo and tagline are just a few of the significant factors that will bring your brand alive. This magnetic appeal that helps your viewers easily and quickly think of you first when they need what you provide is the number one most fundamental key to turning viewers into paying customers. The branding that you use should include great design and factor in a visual uniqueness that visually captivates interest when producing your total impression.

The Branding Reflection: Your Visual Presence
A strong, easy to recognize image can make the difference between someone who buys from you or goes on to your competition. For example, a client online, can easily go from your site to your competitor's by simply double clicking their mouse. First impressions are everything and a lot hinges on the impression they get from your web site, your newspaper ads, or any other advertising media that you use. Branding, or so I have found, conveys a unique message about who you and your business is to your target market.
There many requirements for a successful branding campaign. If you are totally out of your element here, you could try to hire a branding agent to help give you some ideas, but before you do, continue reading. My goal is to give you some pointers and hopefully encourage you in creating your brand without spending hundreds, if not thousands on branding.

Baby Steps

Taking it slow so you don't fall short

I discussed the importance of having a great, easy to recognize logo, but branding is much more than simply having your logo or slogan and it's more than simply using a unique color scheme on all of your documents. Here are some initial baby steps to take that need to happen in order to begin your successful brand creation.

First steps

Where To Start

Analyze Your Competition

Probably the number one key, as I have come to use many times over in my own business as well as helping others, is to produce a successful brand by differentiating yourself from your competition. You will have to know how buyers see your competitors and then, equally as important, know how they see you in comparison to your competition.

You must recognize how your competitors set themselves apart from their competition. In addition, you should also make yourself aware of all of the areas in which they excel as well as fall short in. Your business may benefit more from knowing where your competitors drop the ball than from where they are killing it, and learn how to use their shortcoming to distinguish your company from the rest of the pack.

Show...Know your muscles: Identify your strengths

Now, after you recognize where the competitors are dropping the ball when it comes to how the client sees them, you are able to start cross-comparing their weaknesses with your strengths, because their weak areas need to be part of your company's strengths in order to catch the eye of the clients they are turning away because of the weaknesses. You can perform a target market analysis (formal or impromptu), learn from it, and utilize it in every way that you can to your advantage. This is a valuable tool when first creating your name in the market place.

Once you've recognized AND LISTED your strengths, and made note of which ones are most significant to your clients, you should be able to think about ways to successfully market these assets and incorporate them in your branding campaign. For example, when I started my engraving company, it was really difficult to find engravers that would personalize individual gifts purchased elsewhere. Part of my slogan and our mission statement was "We make your memories more personal." I also incorporated quite a few pictures of original, one of a kind engravings on the website to catch attention. Through this we, not only gained more clients, but actually had some of our "competitors" sending jobs our way.

Hark! Who goes there? Know YOUR client

Learn everything you can about your target market. Know their buying habits. How often do they purchase? Do they have a habit of only purchasing during special promotions? How detailed are they when purchasing? what I mean by this is, do they stick to specific name brands, are their only certain sites they visit online?

These are questions you really need to ask to better market to those that you serve. In addition to that, know your buyer's lifestyles, needs, mentalities, and attitudes. Knowing and working with things such as personality traits and shopping habits are key to your marketing success with these potential clients.

Think da brand, know da brand, BE da brand

Make certain your company truly reflects what your brand identifies. As another example, if one of the traits your brand attaches to your company is professionalism, then show professionalism in every aspect of your business. If your website hasn't been updated in years and still references a sale or event that happened years ago, this isn't professional. If you have a brick and mortar place of business and it is disorganized with employees looking disheveled, this also does not reflect professionalism.

Be the Guru

Become the expert that your client needs

Demonstrating yourself as an authority in your field will help you acquire both recognition and respect from your peers, your competition and, most importantly, your clients. Like I mentioned earlier, I actually had competitors sending me clients.

When those around you see you as the expert, you become the expert, i.e. you become the first one they think of when they need the product or service that you provide.

This is where good visual and auditory branding come in to play.

Making the Grade

Some things to think about when creating

"you see what I mean?" Now you are probably saying "FINALLY!" I know, the preceding was kind of long winded, but it was important to lay some groundwork out before jumping into the actual physics of branding. You can have the best logo in the world, but if it doesn't represent what you do, then it is a lost cause and could actually end up repelling potential customers.

The Logo

A big mistake many businesses get into when they first come up with a logo is to try to make this ornate, elaborate design. Yes, its nice and, yes, it is definitely original, but how does it look at 1 1/2"? How does it transfer in black and white? Can it be embroidered as easily as it can be printed?

These are all questions that have to be asked in the design process. Always remember the K.I.S.S model (Keep It Simple Sweetheart). This is a golden rule. It doesn't matter if it is embroidered or printed; every color has a price tag attached to it. Cost of production is always a factor when producing quality promotional pieces. You also have to factor in that if the logo is small enough, will it effectively go through the four color printing process? If your logo has 9 colors and it is printed at 1 1/2" tall, you may get a blob of colors that are unrecognizable.

Tag It and Bag It

A tag line is a great way to be remembered. If, for example, your marketing includes a radio spot, the listeners can't see a logo, but a great tag line can be an instant auditory visual. It doesn't have to be a tag line either. A catchy jingle is nothing more than an elongated tag line. "Give me a break...give me a break...Break me off a piece..." Don't tell me that you didn't finish singing that.

Commit to It

Once you have a logo, commit to it. Incorporate the colors into your web page, your letterhead, even the color scheme of your showroom if you have a brick & mortar place of business. Once you have it all worked out, own it because if you don't, it will promote you as being wishy-washy and can go as far as to concern people of your reliability if your logo changes at the drop of a hat.

Now once you have your logo in place, you can modify it as long as the core concept is there. The Niki icon has changed since it was first created, but it is still the swoosh that people the world over have come to associate with the name.

Final thoughts

Being original is the key here. To copy someone else is to run the risk of trademark infringement as well as running the risk of someone associating another company to your brand as per the photo example to the left. Walgreens sues over the use of the 'W". It was in the news for quite some time and you can click on the photo if you want to read up on it. I hope the connected links to the helps serve you well when creating your next branding campaign.

 

The purpose of these blog posts is to help you strive to be more successful and to create a life worth living, so I never want to end a post without giving your some sort of “power question” to ponder over. Answering these questions will help you to take action.

 

Power Question for the day:

What are you tolerating or putting up with that would make your life easier if you didn’t have to?

Thanks for reading, take care.

 

5 Life Altering Questions

 

“Judge of a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

                                                                                        -Voltaire

 

One good question can transform your life, but one bad answer can ruin it. In some cases, many do not ask questions because they do not want the answer; they are content going through life, never asking the questions that need asking.

 

There is the chance that you just “happened” upon this post, in which case…Welcome! However, for most of you reading this, you are on a journey; a journey to a successful life.

 

As such, you cannot move forward without asking yourself questions and searching out the answers. That is what this journey is all about. It’s more of a quest; a quest to seek out answers to specific questions and not just be content to allow things in our lives to just happen.

 

So lets get started…

 

 

Question #1: What makes me happy?

 

The answer to this question will truly change your life. Many people don’t even ask this question.

If you ask yourself this question every day and you can work on the answers and implement a plan of action then your life will change forever.

Now, I know that this is not a simple question to answer and that is where the other questions start to come into play.

 

Question #2: Am I truly happy in the job I am doing?

 

We spend about a quarter of our lives working. If we are not happy in that job it literally means that we are unhappy for nearly a quarter of our lives. Most of us have to work and most of us are not working at a job we love, however it’s difficult to do a job we love and put money on the table. Though most of us can’t just drop the job and go into business for ourselves right this second, there is ALWAYS something we can do about the job we are in, you’re never too old to change careers, you might need training for a career change but 1 -3 years of your life studying for a new career is better than another 20 years being miserable in a job that you can’t stand. Whether it is changing careers or starting your own business, it doesn’t have to be a dramatic change. Start slow, part time, and at your own pace. In a later post I will discuss the value of the “side-preneur”, but for now, just know that you aren’t stuck; just start looking for the answer.

 

Question #3: Am I truly happy in my relationship?

 

When I say relationship, most minds wander to their significant other, but it goes beyond that. Not just the relationship with your mate, but what about the relationships with your family, friends, colleagues, associates, even your pets.

It is important to evaluate every relationship that you are in and ask this question.

To stay in a relationship out of convenience or procrastination or, in some cases, fear is to allow yourself to not grow. There are obviously some relationships that you can’t just cut off, but you can start to limit the amount of access and input those relationships have in your life.

In a future post, I will get more in-depth about relationships, but for now, ask this question and start figuring out which relationships need work.

 

Question #4:  What can I do to make a difference to someone else?

 

Trust me, this is not as altruistic as it sounds, but if your heart is in the right place then it doesn’t matter. The fact that you are helping someone will make a difference. Helping other people to achieve massive goals or simply helping someone with their shopping can make a difference. Giving feels much better than receiving and gives our spirits a lift.

Zig Ziglar always said, “You’ll get everything in life that you want, if you just help enough people get what they want.” If you truly want to be successful, then this is a question that you need to ask yourself every day. Do one thing a day for another person and you will see a difference, don’t worry if you don’t receive anything back from it, just know that it will make you feel good.

 

Question #5: What can I do to be healthier?

 

Most of us know the answer to this question already; it’s just that we rarely ask it out of fear of what the answer involves and what is needed in order to get there.

10 minutes of exercise per day could change your life if you are willing. Watching how much junk food we consume daily could change our lives.

You don’t need me to give you advice on your health, ask yourself this question and the basic answers will come to you, just work on answering the question if you are brave enough to ask it, that is. Health plays a major role in success believe it or not.

 

Bonus Question: What is the worst that can happen?

 

Yes, I had to slip in a bonus question here.  By answering this question, it will help alleviate any apprehension in answering the other questions as well as give you the confidence to ask yourself even more questions.

This is a fantastic question that will help you out in times of stress. The undue pressure we put on ourselves causes stress, which leads to worst case scenario thinking that ends up leading to more stress over what ifs that don’t exist.

Most situational stress can be alleviated by just asking ourselves this one question, as the answer.

More often than not, the answer usually isn’t as bad as we often think.

 

The goal of this post is to get you to asking the important questions in your life that will lead you to success. Don’t be afraid to ask the question, but more important, don’t be afraid to look for the answers.

 

We are about to get into the bare bones of copywriting, marketing and building a successful business that will lead to a successful life, but to do that, we must be able to ask ourselves the hard questions.

 

The purpose of these blog posts is to help you strive to be more successful and to create a life worth living, so I never want to end a post without giving your some sort of “power question” to ponder over. Answering these questions will help you to take action.

 

Power Question for the day:

After creating a goal, how would you feel about aiming to double that goal? For instance: if your goal is to make $50K this year, how would you feel to change that goal to $100K?

Five Steps to Building a Legacy of Success!

I have found that, on my journey to developing a legacy of success, there are five initial steps that need to be taken in order to set you on the right path. In later blogs I will break down each one of these in more detail to show easy ways to develop these steps into habits of success.  

Step 1, Be a Dream Catcher
Become a dream catcher of ideas. Collect good ideas and store them. One of my mentors, Jim Rohn, taught me to never rely on memory when it is just as easy to write it down. Mr. Rohn taught me the importance of keeping a journal. Not only does this help in the collection of ideas, but also it adds to the physical legacy that you leave behind. They will be passed down to your children and grandchildren. If you hear a good health idea, catch it, write it down and never lose it. Then, at least once a year, once a month, or whenever else that it may strike your fancy, go back through your journal and read through the ideas that you have jotted down; ideas that may have changed your life, that may have saved your marriage, the ideas that bailed you out of a tight situation, the ideas that helped you become the success that you are, the ideas that made you the person that future generations will look up to.  

Step 2, Become a Planner
Have a good plan, not only for the day, but a good plan for the future. Building a successful life is like creating just about anything. If you just throw it together it may go up and it may stay steady, but it may not go the direction that you want it to and may, in fact, come crashing down around you. Or you can build from a plan and know that it is well constructed and will weather any storm or situation. Planning helps you control time. When should you start the day? As soon as you have it finished on paper. Brian Tracy would always say “Don't start the day until it is pretty established or at least outlined on paper.” In fact, most successful leaders will tell you to plan out your days, weeks, and months in advance. Leave some room to improvise. Leave some room for extra strategies, unexpected events, etc., but plan it before you get started. It's also not a bad idea to sit down at the end of the year, review the previous year and then map out the coming year and don’t forget to do this for every area of your life. Too often, people will do this level of planning for their business, but forget about other areas of their life. It is important that every area of your life be planned out. Set down with your family and work out a family plan for the year, places to visit, vacations, hobbies, etc.  

Step 3, Become a Problem Solver
 Become a problem solver. Business problems, family problems, financial problems, emotional problems, etc, being able to solve problems as they arise makes you invaluable in the work place, at home and in life. I have found that one of the best ways to treat a problem is to view it as an opportunity to grow. Mr. Rohn quoted his mentor as saying, “if you will change, everything will change for you." I have personally taken this statement to heart, and, sure enough, the more I change, the more I can see everything changing for me. By being able to solve my own problems without a lot of fight or fanfare, I find others coming to me to help them with situations and problems which then opens up doors that allows others to help me with my problems; a circle of mutual assistance.  

Step 4, Become Patient
The fourth step to a legacy of success can be really challenging for some. It’s learning to handle the passing of time. Know that it takes time to build a career, it takes time lose weight, it takes time to grow a family, it takes time to make any changes that will bring you success, and it takes time to build a legacy, so give yourself time. It takes time to master something new. It takes time to make changes and figure out or refine your philosophy as well as the activities that develop them. Give yourself time. I have found that it is far too easy for us to be impatient with ourselves. Just remember the first time that you tried to ride a bike. Heck, for me, the fine art of mastering shoestrings seemed to take forever, but, finally, I got it. It seemed like for a while I'd never learn, did the loop go over or under? Now , not only can I tie my shoes with the best of them, but I can also tie neck ties (another great challenge of mine) with the greatest of ease. Give yourself time, and you will become better at what ever you are working toward.  

Step 5, Be an Overlooker
I know that sounds odd, but one thing that stops people in their tracks and keep them from, in some cases, even starting on their journey of success is the naysayer. The fifth step on your journey to build and grow a legacy of success is to limit your time around or even avoid those people who discourage you from reaching for your dreams. All of us have these people in our lives, the ones who have something negative to say about every idea that you have. They try to talk you out of decisions that will benefit you. This isn’t always the case, but many times I have seen that these people see you succeeding or on your way to success and have to reevaluate their lives and ask “why is he/she successful and I’m not?” and the answer is usually a harsh reality that they have a difficult time facing, so they find it easier to pull you down to their level than to pull themselves up to yours. I realize some of these people are family and it’s difficult to just cut them out of your life, but you can limit your exposure to them and surround yourself with people who will support your actions and help you develop. Soon you will notice that the input from these people will become less and less. Eventually they may even come to you for advice. So learn to master good ideas, have good plans, solve problems, handle the passing of time and learn to overlook the naysayers, and you will be on your way to more success than you could ever imagine! Again, I will break each one of these down in future blog posts and give you action steps to take that will help you on your journey to be being the success that you are meant to be. The purpose of these blog posts is to help you strive to be more successful and to create a life worth living, so I never want to end a post without giving your some sort of “power question” to ponder over. Answering these questions will help you to take action.  

Power Question for the day:
What could you work on now that would make the biggest difference in your life?

4 Tips Toward Making Resolutions That Matter!

As we move forward together toward building your success and creating that legacy that you deserve, we will discuss everything from organization to specific business skills such as marketing and branding yourself. It is going to be a fun ride that I hope you will enjoy with me.

However, this is January and those pesky resolutions have reared their ugly heads again, so I thought it fitting to start this journey of success with some tips on how to keep resolutions.

Making resolutions is one thing, keeping them another. Matt shares four tips to help you reach your goals and to reward yourself for a job well done!

Turning the calendar over is an excuse to make personal resolutions for the coming year. It is also a way to bring about certain frustration for you if the goals that you set for yourself are unreachable, unattainable, or just something you have no interest in doing.

Making resolutions can be done at any time of the year, but if you have been thinking about several new ones for 2015, here are four tips to help you not only make resolutions, but to keep them.

I Resolve To...

Okay, so you have made your resolutions. Now, step back and take a look at each one.

Are they resolutions you wanted to make or resolutions that others have maybe “guilted” you into making?

Make certain that each resolution is something you definitely want to keep, not a halfhearted attempt at reaching a goal that you really aren't interested in reaching.

If your resolution needs to be modified, do it at once.

My Goals Are...

Are your resolutions reasonable or are they reaching well beyond what can normally be expected?

Let's say your goal is to lose 70 lbs in the coming year. While the weight loss resolution is admirable, do you have the time to exercise regularly? Change your eating habits? Change your lifestyle?

Is the 70 lb weight loss goal too much, too soon? Would it be better for you to stretch the amount you want to lose beyond one calendar year?

Consider your health: both physical and mental when evaluating your goals. Keep in mind how your resolution may impact friends and family members...you may be a "bear" to live with over the next twelve months!

I Have Fallen and I Cannot Get Up!

Do you quit at the first sign of failure? If you splurge on food, do you consider your diet and resolution to be over? If so, why? Simply start again and continue. The road to any goal is paved with pitfalls and you are bound to backslide from time to time.

Best advice: Find an accountability partner who knows [and understands] your resolution and can encourage you to keep it.

Reward Yourself

At the end of the year, reward yourself based on how well you kept your resolution. If you hit your weight loss goals, consider going on a cruise -- don't overeat as a reward for good behavior. If you miss your goals, keep the cruise idea open for when you do meet your goals and take a day trip somewhere to celebrate what you did accomplish. In other words, some resolutions are ongoing and shouldn't be restricted by a 365-day calendar.

Remember this: resolutions are for your benefit, not your detriment. Your attitude toward a particular resolution will help you determine whether you should make that particular resolution or not. Any resolution made which doesn't have your enthusiastic backing will certainly become a hindrance come February or March and forgotten altogether by April. Make resolutions that matter and be the better for it!

If you haven’t subscribed to the RSS feed yet, do so now. Creating your legacy has begun and success is just around the corner.

The purpose of these blog posts is to help you strive to be more successful and to create a life worth living, so I never want to end a post without giving your some sort of “power question” to ponder over. Answering these questions will help you to take action.

Power Question for the day:

What areas of your life could be upgraded or tweaked?

Why You, Why Now?

Success is ethereal; it isn’t the same thing to every person. This simple fact keeps many from creating the life that they so desperately want and so justifiably disserve. My new goal for 2015 is to help as many people as I can to jump the walls of the rat race maze, to break free from the golden handcuffs that are keeping them down and to help them find their true level of success and create a life and a legacy worth living. So, that being said, I ask again: Why You, Why Now? There is an old proverb that goes something like this, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Whether you believe in fate, the directing hand of God or simple coincidence, you have found yourself here for a reason. In this first blog, I am going to discuss What is keeping you from success in life How to start redirecting your future now A mind shift that will allow you to start seeing yourself as an entrepreneur and know that you can do this How big is your "WHY"? Ben Franklin once wrote, "I would rather have it said ‘He lived usefully' than 'He died rich.'" More than just words, it was the way Franklin lived his life. It was never about money. Like so many wealthy people will tell you, money is a tool, not a reason. As I get older, I have gained new perspective on the illusion of wealth and status as it relates to fulfillment. I no longer see my life as being measured by dollars and cents, or by the number of books I've authored. Rather, I want to be remembered by the lives that I've helped. With each day that passes, I feel a greater sense of urgency to make sure my time and energies are properly invested in the creation and development of new leaders and entrepreneurs. That however isn't enough. That isn't my big why. My biggest why is my daughter. I want to leave a legacy behind for her. I decided that I didn't want a life where my little girl only saw me for a few hours a day while I missed watching her grow up. Every day I see her face and it inspires me to do whatever I can to create a better life for her while, at the same time, developing a legacy that she can be proud of when I am gone. Decide now what your big why is? Think on this as long as you need to. Don't be flippant or flighty; think long and hard, why do you want to get out of the rat race? In this blog series you are going to find the tools, expertise and marketing techniques to move you along in creating the life that you want, but it's all for not if you can't define the number one reason, the WHY, for doing it. The future is now We find, in life, that we are defined not so much by the moment of an experience or situation, but by the response that we give to the experience. Do we throw in the towel and quit or do we bounce back with a new perspective? Do we hold on to bitterness or choose to forgive those who wronged us? Do we play the blame game or do we work toward acknowledging our role in the situation and improving ourselves? Whatever the case, the experiences in our lives profoundly touch us. Our life experience that we encounter is varied and different for each of us, but here are a few invaluable truths on gaining the most from them in order to change perspectives. 1. Evaluate the experience: Contrary to popular belief, experience in and of itself is not usually the best teacher. Being able to properly evaluate the experience is. Always look at every experience as a learning tool. Draw on your experiences to grow and gain wisdom. Using the present to learn from our past directs our future. 2. Properly manage emotional aspects of each experience: We are emotion driven creatures and our experiences come with attached emotions—sometimes positive, and sometimes not so much. Teach yourself to counteract the negative feelings while harnessing the momentum of the positive ones. 3. Share you story: You will find in this blog series that I teach best with stories, as do most of my mentors. I find that storytelling and using my personal experiences are some of my richest teaching materials. Make a habit of sharing the lessons learned from the experiences that have shaped your life and you will see that this is the start of a legacy that will live on way past your physical body. Sell results, not hours! The number one thing that keeps people struggling is the mindset that is often referred to as the 'paycheck mentality' or the 'scarcity mindset', but no matter what you call it, it is a mental hurdle that needs to be crossed before you can move forward. In working for someone else, they are buying your time. The most difficult obsticle that I had to overcome was shifting from selling my time to selling my knowledge. In this blog series, we will cover free and low cost ways to market, develop product, etc. but before we can do any of that we must first realize that time is the only thing that you can never get back. You can lose posessions and gain them back, you can lose friends and gain new ones, money is lost and gained every day, but once time is gone, it is gone. When you truly grasp this, you see how valuable your time is and you can start creating systems and ideals that help you to stop allowing others to control your time. This is the first step to entrepreneurship and creating a life you want and can be proud of.  If you haven't signed up yet, click on the opt-in box and enter your information. Not only will you receive my newsletter and blog updates filled with valuable content to help you grow a successful entrepreneurial venture for little to no cost, but by signing up now, you will also receive my latest report. Lets get started on creating that life that you dream of, need and deserve. Congratulations of taking the first steps to getting out of the rat race. Welcome to your new future. The purpose of these blog posts is to help you strive to be more successful and to create a life worth living, so I never want to end a post without giving your some sort of “power question” to ponder over. Answering these questions will help you to take action. Power Question for the day: If you were to FULLY live your life, what is the first change that you would start to make?