gathergreatness.com

It’s hard to admit,
but this picture kind of resembles the roadmap that I used to decide on the life-path
of which I would eventually follow.

It was filled with trial and error. I was often confused as to where to make my next connection.
I had even shocked my parents with some of my decisions and I, on occasion, seemed to overload the whole system, to others who knew me.

Looking back, it wasn’t what I would recommend.
I didn’t have much of a plan for my future.
I guess I was fortunate to find my way at all.
I will say, it was a lot more painful than it had to be.

Now, I shake my head at some of the stupid decisions I made.
The real questions that I should have been asking myself:
“Why not ask someone who has walked this path before?”
“If the shoe doesn’t fit, why wear it?”
“If you’re lost, don’t you think it wise to ask for directions?”
“How do you expect to fly like an eagle, if you haven’t even learned to fly?”

Now, many years later, the answers come so easily.

If you want to be the best person that you can become,
If you want to make a difference in your life and the lives of others,
If you want to have lived a fulfilled life,
you have to discover your unique talents.

You are the only person who can do what you were
meant to do.

You will most probably need some guidance along the way.
You should have role models along the way.
If it doesn’t feel right for you, it probably isn’t.
Neither be afraid nor too proud to ask for help along the way.
There are people who would gladly help, if only you would give them the chance.

These 3 steps are key:
1. Determine your life purpose.
2. Develop a clarity of mind, a plan, as to how you intend to get there?
3. Act on your intentions?

Bill

Helping you discover your life purpose,
live your life purpose, and
achieve your greatest self.

I found a different approach to developing your confidence. Instead of trying to “pump up your confidence” by attempting to program your mind with positive affirmations, try looking at new ways to increase predictablility in the area in which your confidence is faltering.

Wow, that sounds kind of confusing.

Let me share with you some ideas from Bobb Biehl, in his book “Stop Setting Goals If You Would Rather Solve Problems.”

“Have you ever struggled with wavering confidence? If you are human, the answer is probably yes. Every individual and team needs a sense of confidence to function properly. But where does confidence come from? What conditions are present when you feel confident? What conditions are present when you don’t?

Consider this statement:

CONFIDENCE IS A BY-PRODUCT OF PREDICTABILITY.

“When I first tell people that confidence is a by-product of pedictability, the most typical response I get is a blank stare. The question in their eyes is, “Huh?”

“The best way I know to explain the principle is with a few what-if’s.

What if:
* you were a marathon runner,
* you have won every race you have run for the past three years, and
* you feel 100% healthy?

Your knees are predictable, so you run with confidence!

What if:

* during the marathon your knee pops out at mile marker eighteen,
* you go sprawling into the cinders, and
* you knee is in a brace for the next three months?

Your knee is not predictable, so you run with less confidence.

What if:

* you train hard, and
* a year later you are running again?

Your running confidence returns to 99% of your confidence level before the accident.

What if:

* during your first marathon after the accident you are feeling great,
* on mile marker ten your knee goes again, and
* you fall into the cinders?

You will never run with the same degree of confidence. You have knees with limited predictability; therefore, you have limited running confidence.”

Now does this phrase make more sense?:
CONFIDENCE IS A BY-PRODUCT OF PREDICTABILITY!

There are several ways to develop predictability in life.

The attached spreadsheet will give you some pretty clear-cut examples:

Just click on the “gg_Predictability” link on the attachment page:
gg_predictability

“In what area is your confidence faltering right now? Do not try to pump-up your confidence.
Look at new ways to increase predictability in that area, and your confidence will return automatically. If it is a new area, develop your predictability and watch your confidence grow!”

Let me know if this has helped you in some way.
I am eager to hear your comments,

Bill

I would like to intoduce you to one of my all-time favorite online entrepreneurs, Steve Pavlina.
Steve hosts a very successful blog and has written an excellent post on how-to develop practical methods to create multiple streams of income.

YOU CAN READ HIS POST BY FOLLOWING THE LINK BELOW:
“How to Earn Your First Love Dollar”

I think Steve did a superb job of explaining the process of developing your entrepreneurial spirit.

Let me know what you think.
I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE YOUR COMMENTS,
especially whether his ideas make sense to you.

Thank you,

Bill

When I first entered the workforce, I began with the philosophy, ‘in order to really succeed I had to work harder and longer than anyone else.’ I upheld this belief for many years, more than I would like to admit.

I took a job that I could work as many hours as possible, one in which I could work toward aquiring overtime pay on a regular basis. It seemed like the smart thing to do. Earning time and a half pay seemed to be what all the seasoned employees were doing. They were the ones with all the newer and more expensive cars and homes.

They all seemed fairly happy, but a good amount of their time was spent at work. I have nothing against hard work, but it seemed to me that there should be a little easier way to make a living. Somewhat discouraged by the status quo (that’s the way life is) lifestyle, I started to notice the most successful people were actually the ones that seemed to have quality pay and quality time.

They were the ones that had managed to be working smater not harder. They had somehow cracked the code to getting more while appearing to be giving less.

How was that?

They were the ones that had leveraged their education, their talent and/or their leadership abilities to elevate themselves above the masses. They were the doctors, the lawyers, the skilled technicians and craftsmen, the CEO’s and the upper management.

What did they have that others only dared to dream?

In hindsight, they were the individuals that had the vision, the ambition, the mentors, and maybe the most important of all, the knowledge that leverage is the key to real success.

Leverage is the Key to Success.

Whether we choose to leverage time, people or money, we need to understand its power.

In effect, we need to spend less effort trying to do everything by ourselves and instead solicit the help of others to get things done. Isn’t this the way big companies get things done, and how managers accomplish their objectives? The more we can achieve without our direct involvement, the more we can accomplish.

When you go to the doctor, does the doctor greet you when you arrive, verify your appointment, check you insurance coverage, and show you to examining room? I’m sure he could do all these tasks, but how would that affect his practice? Would he be able to treat as many patients? The successful doctor, or other professional, understands that it is in his best interest to do what he does best. He leverages other people and leverages time to accomplish more by actually doing less himself.

The initially planning, the attracting of the right group of individuals and getting everything to mesh together may take some time and a lot of effort, but the future can be much brighter for this type of individual.

The successful entrepreneur will know when he has arrived. He or she will be the one that is able to achieve more and more with less and less.

Number five, in my list of 10 ways to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, is living a purpose driven life.

Perhaps the greatest gift we were given, excluding our gift of life itself, is our individuality. Out of the countless millions or billions of people, each of us have our unique physical and mental genes.

Even identical twins have their differences.

This is what makes us, who we are.

That being said, it stands to reason that we all have something different to contribute.
Logically speaking, we all have a life pupose which can only be fulfilled by us. We have unique life experiences and talents which no one else, no one living, dead or not yet born, has, had or will have.

Pretty profound.

And if this is true, don’t we then have an obligation to share these talents with others?

Do you have a gift or talent that your are really proud of? Maybe there is something that you can do that comes almost effortless for you, while others around you struggle to accomplish even half as well.

These things make up your uniqueness and define who you are.

These are the things that make you different and which make you valuable to others.

The traditional job can provide you with the ability to sustain your physical existence, and possibly provide you with the luxuries of life. The purpose driven career will afford you the satisfaction of making a difference in your life and in the lives of others. This is a key element in choosing an entrepreneurial approach to your life work versus the way of the masses, working a job.

I believe we all have a special purpose.

For some of us, our purpose is revealed to us quite early in life. For others, it seems that realizing our life purpose comes only with a lot of struggle and hard work, if at all. By following your God-given talents and approaching each day with the intent of helping others, I believe we all will discover and fulfill our special purpose in life.

Every business has one main objective, to make money. Simple as that, if you can’t make money, you won’t be in business very long.

Am I right?

So what’s the best way to make money? Another simple question to answer, you sell your customer something they need or want.

Am I right, or really right?

And what do people need and want?

It may be a new car, a place to live, or something as necessary as something to eat. You are basically satisfying their immediate desires. You are solving a problem that they have. You are becoming a problem solver for them.

If you create a product that nobody needs or wants, what do you think the chances are that you will become a success at selling this particular product?

Not very good, I would say.

Now, as an individual (you) venture out from the familiar job into the unknown area of becoming an entrepreneur, what data might you need in order to make your transition a little easier and the results more realistic.

If you are going to become a problem solver, you definitely need to evaluate where you stand with the following:

1. Do I have a clear picture of who my customers will be? (What problem will I solve?)
2. Did I ask (survey) my potential customers what they want, to make sure that the problems that I perceive are actually the things that are important to them?
3. Will my product or sevice be valuable to them? (Will it solve a major problem for them?)
4. Do they have the resources (money) to pay me for the product or service? (No money, no business).
5. Are the number of people looking for my solution, in large enough numbers to sustain my business? (If the people that need my help are only a handfull, better look somewhere else).

These are not only important questions, but vital questions.

Failing to get the answer to just one, will most likely mean failure of your business.

The most important step, the most essential step, is to begin. Find a problem that you can solve and start the process of becoming the problem solver.

Everyone has similarities with their fellow man.  You may be good at fixing things, creating things or discovering new ways of doing things. You and thousands of others may enjoy similar likes and similar dislikes.

So what do you have to offer that can really make a difference to anyone else?
What makes you special?
But what makes you different? 

What if Michael Jordan had chosen to become a professional realtor instead of a basketball player?

What if Michelangelo had become a goverment official instead of a painter?

What if Julia Roberts had become a secretary instead of an actress?

Would they all have been as successful? Would we even have heard of any of them? They all had gained noteriety by pursuing their point of difference. Any of them could have chosen a different path. What made them stand out from the crowd was their uniqueness. They all had developed a skill or talent to the point of perfection. They were obsessed with one specific goal, to become the best in their field of interest.

They all had a passion for achieving their greatest self.

These were exceptional individuals, but so are each one of us. We are the best at being us. Think about it, no one else can ever be as great as you are at becoming who you were meant to be.
You and only you, therefore, can bring your unique talents and strengths to the workplace.

So knowing all of this, how will this knowledge help you to advance your career? In what field are you the expert?

Discover and develop your point of difference and become your greatest self.

Have you ever stopped to think just how much you contribute to your company or your boss.
If you really dig deeply into the heart of your company, you will discover that YOU are the one that controls and defines a good part of the customer’s perceived value.

You and every other worker, right down to the least significant employee, shape the overall brand.

So, how much are you worth?

I guess it all depends on how much you actually contribute to strenghtening and promoting the brand, and the positive results you and your department make to increasing the bottom line sales and profits.

It may sound like a lot of effort for the amount of pay you actually receive.

So, how do you achieve maximum benefit for your work?

I like to think about it like this. My boss has given me the resouce to make a living, but I am also given the opportunity to advance myself as well. I saw a short video by the well-known public speaker, Nido Qubein, that really has caused me to think and to set somewhat of a new direction to my activities during my day.  His video entitled Why Immigrants become Millionaires really brings home the point that, it is not the circumstances in which we find ourselves, but ‘the choices we make’  that determines our future.

We must work harder at building our own brand, than that of the company. 

The real bottom line for you will be defined by your success in your own self development. You must learn to “Work harder on yourself, than on your job.”

Work harder on The Brand called YOU.

Bill

“Helping You Achieve Your Greatest Self”

In order to succeed in life or in business, I believe you must stop and step out in front of the crowd. There comes a time when you must establish yourself by becoming the master in your field.

There comes a time when you are prompted to stop following and start leading.

I believe we were born with all the basic information that we need, in order to become the best in our niche.
We all have unique talents that only we possess, and are valuable in some way to others, if only we believe in ourselves and take the time to develop these skills.

The bad news is, most of us loose interest, for one reason or another, long before any serious plans are made to realizing our dreams.

The I can’s and I will’s are all too often replaced by the
If only’s,
and the
Wait till tomorrow’s
of getting things done.

Too many are content to dance to the beat of someone else’s drum, either afraid of failure of content with mediocrity.

The entrepreneur must be willing to rise above both. They must have a strong belief in self and an unsatiable desire to create a business of their own. They know and truly believe that through consisitent effort, they can achieve whatever they set out to accomplish.

By taking small steps each day, they are inevitably moving toward their goals.

They are so strongly driven and focused on their desire, that nothing stops them from realizing their dream.

The die-hard entrepreneur will push through all obstacles and barriers on their way to success.

Most all of us have worked for someone else along our journey. The entrepreneur just reaches a point in their careers where they understood that thier maximum potential can only be achieved by creating their own destiny and building their own business.

They understand that only then will they reach the pinnacle of their greatness.

I used to be stuck in what others have called, ‘The Employee Mindset.’

This is the the mindset of the 2000, 1990, 1980, 1970’s employee.
They traded hours for dollars.
If they wanted to have more,
get ahead,
increase their income,
they had but two choices:
1. Get a raise, or
2. Work more hours.

From my perspective, the only people that lived comfortably were the doctors, lawyers or the business owners.

The regular guy on the street was living from paycheck to paycheck.
Personally, after knocking my head against the wall,
trying to ‘please the boss’ and working two jobs,
I finally resigned myself to the fact that, well,
“that’s just the way life is.”

That is, until now.

Even though I am still working in this outdated mode,
my eyes are focused on something different.
I believe there is ‘a better way.’
I am presently working on re-evaluating my options.
I am developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset, if you will.

An Entrepreneurial Mindset, you ask?
What is that?

Let me explain by pointing to 10 statements that come to mind when I visualize this new mindset:
The way to really succeed in life and business,
will be to:

1. Build you own business instead of someone else’s.
2. Develop your Brand - the brand called ‘You’
3. Pursue your ‘point of difference,’ not similarity.
4. Become a ‘problem solver’
5. Remember that you are here for ‘a special purpose.’
6. Begin to use … less and less, to achieve more.
7. Create multiple streams of income.
8. Action is what matters.
9. Every level of income demands a ‘different you.’
10. The future belongs to the ‘Bold’, not the timid.

Starting today, and continuing for the next several months, I will be examining the process
of achieving my greatness by developing my entrepreneurial mindset.