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08 March 2009, 08:46
Commit to Constant and Never-Ending Improvement by J.Canfild
Commit to Constant and Never-Ending Improvement
Jack Canfield June 5, 2008
Jack Canfield, co-author of the "Chicken Soup for The Soul" series , wrote "The Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be" as a roadmap
for anyone—from marketing professionals to small-business owners, from teachers to students to parents—striving to achieve their professional and personal dreams or goals.
The Success Principles are more than a collection of good ideas. They are timeless principles used by successful men and women throughout history. I have studied these success principles for more than 30 years and have applied them to my own life. The phenomenal success that I now enjoy is the result of applying these principles day in and day out since I began to learn them in 1968. Today I’d like to share with you one of them in particular—one that will help you along your own personal road to success: making a commitment to constant and never-ending improvement.
In Japan, the word for constant and never-ending improvement is kaizen. Not only is this an operating philosophy for modern Japanese businesses, it is also the age-old philosophy of warriors, too—and it’s becoming the personal mantra of millions of successful people. Achievers—whether in business, sports or the arts—are committed to continual improvement. If you want to be more successful, you need to learn to ask yourself, “How can I make this better? How can I do it more effi ciently? How can I do this more profi tably? How can we do this with greater love?”
The Mind-Numbing Pace of Change
In today’s world, a certain amount of improvement is necessary just to keep up with the rapid pace of change. New technologies are announced nearly every month. New manufacturing techniques are discovered even more often. New words come into use anytime a trend or fad catches on. And what we learn about ourselves, about our health and about our capacity for human thought, continues unabated.
Improving is therefore necessary simply to survive. But to thrive, as successful people do, a more dedicated approach to improvement in small increments. Whenever you set out to improve your skills, change your behavior, or better your family life or business, beginning in small, manageable steps gives you a greater chance of long-term success.
Doing too much too fast not only overwhelms you (or anyone else involved in the improvement), it can doom the effort to failure—thereby reinforcing the belief that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to succeed. When you start with small, achievable steps you can easily master, it reinforces your belief that you can easily improve.
Decide What to Improve On
At work, your goal might be for your company to improve the quality of your product or service, your customer service program or your advertising. Professionally, you might want to improve your computer skills, your typing speed, your sales skills or your negotiating skills. At home, you might want to improve your parenting skills, communication skills or cooking skills. You could also focus on improving your health and fitness, your knowledge of investing and money management or your piano playing. Or perhaps you want to develop greater inner peace through meditation, yoga and prayer.
Whatever your goal, decide where you want to improve and what steps you’ll need to take to achieve that improvement. Is it learning a new skill? Perhaps you can find that in a night class at the local community college. If it’s improving your service to the community, perhaps you can find a way to spend an extra hour per week volunteering. To keep yourself focused on constant and never-ending improvement, ask yourself every day, “How can I improve today? What can I do better than before? Where can I learn a new skill or develop a new competency?” If you do, you’ll embark on a lifelong journey of improvement that will ensure your success.
You Can’t Skip Steps
One of life’s realities is that major improvements take time. They don’t happen overnight. But because so many of today’s products and services promise overnight perfection, we’ve come to expect instant gratification—and we become discouraged when it doesn’t happen. However, if you make a commitment to learn something new every day, getting just a little bit better every day, then eventually—over time—you will reach your goals.
Becoming a master takes time. You have to practice, practice, practice! You have to hone your skills through constant use and refinement. It takes years to have the depth and breadth of experience that produces expertise, insight and wisdom. Every book you read, every class you take, every experience you have is another building block in your career and your life. on’t shortchange yourself by not being ready when your big break appears.
Make sure you have done your homework and honed your craft. Actors usually have to do a lot of preparation—acting classes, community theater, off-Broadway plays, bit parts in movies and television, more acting classes, voice lessons, accent training, dancing lessons, martial arts training, learning to ride a horse, more bit parts—until one day they are ready for the dream part that is ready for them. Successful basketball players learn to shoot with their opposite hand, improve their freethrow shooting, and work on their three-point shots. Artists experiment with different media. Airline pilots train for every kind of emergency in a flight simulator. Doctors go back to school to learn more procedures and obtain advanced certifications. They are all engaged in a process of constant and never-ending improvement.
Make a commitment to keep getting better and better every day in every way. If you do, you’ll enjoy the feelings of increased self-esteem and self-confidence that come with self-improvement, as well as the ultimate success that will inevitably follow.
This article is taken from The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. Copyright ©2005 Jack Canfield. All rights reserved. Published by HarperCollins.
Enjoy!
To you from http://www.successmagazine.com
Margarita Nomeikiene
Content
03 March 2009, 00:44
Why You Should Start Your Own Business Today
Why You Should Start Your Own Business Today by Erin Casey , John David Mann
John was 53 when the bad news hit: His department was being moved offshore. Since joining the company eight years earlier, he had worked his way up to a solid position in middle management with a decent salary and great benefits. Now, he was out of a job.
Having spent his entire adult life in corporate positions, he knew he could go job hunting. But this was the fifth time he’d had a “secure” position shot out from under him, whether through downsizing, restructuring or other reorganization. With a wife and two teenagers to clothe and feed, he was no longerwilling to trust his future to this game of corporate roulette. It was time to go into business for himself.
The Great Migration
Across the country and around the world, legions of people are abandoning their dependence on big business and seeking independence through their own enterprises. Every month, about 1 million Americans go through some type of job change or loss, and increasingly they are deciding to start their own businesses.
In a recent report titled Work, Entrepreneurship and Opportunity in 21st Century America, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said, “Millions of Americans are embracing entrepreneurship by running their own small businesses, through independent contracting or direct selling.” The report also cited a recent Gallup poll finding that 61 percent of Americans now say they prefer to be their own bosses.
Security, which may come as a surprise, is a big reason behind the move. Only a generation or two ago, going into business for yourself was considered risky, and the safest route was to get a good job in a large firm. Back in the 1960s and ’70s, companies like IBM made “employment for life” the gold standard of job security.
Now, working for a traditional corporation has become the risky option. Working for yourself has become the new job security. “If I’m working for someone else, I’m trading time for money, but I’m not building any equity,” says Duncan MacPherson, co-founder and co-CEO of Pareto Systems, a consulting firm. “As an entrepreneur, I’m the master of my own destiny.
A Better Lifestyle
One of the biggest reasons for the self-owned business boom is that people love the benefits of working for themselves and enjoy the freedom they gain from designing their own prosperity. No more commute and no more boss. You get to choose when you work, how you work and with whom you work. Best of all, you don’t have to make the agonizing choice between time for family and time for business.
E-mail, cheap teleconferencing and a new generation of Web tools make it possible to run a fully competitive business from a home desktop. As a home-based businessperson, you can expand your business to Chicago, San Francisco, Hong Kong and London—and still make the soccer game.
Greater Financial Opportunity
The masses making this migration also have a clear eye on the bottom line: There is far greater opportunity to make money by building your own business than by working for someone else’s. There was an implicit trade-off in the old 40-year plan: Working for a firm typically meant there was a fixed ceiling to the wages one might earn, but the benefits and job security were worth it. Now that the benefits and job security (half of the equation) are evaporating, millions are asking, why settle for that arbitrary income ceiling?
“Everyone has heard the phrase, ‘The American Dream.’ I look at it as ‘The American Reality,’ ” says Jeffrey Gitomer, best-selling author of the Little Red Book of Selling and the Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude. “When you’re in business for yourself, you write your own history, you write your own success story, you write your own legacy and most important, you write your own paycheck. Being in business for yourself gives you the opportunity to work your heart out for something you love.”
A Life of Greater Impact
In the Decipher study, 84 percent of respondents said they would be more passionate about their work if they owned their own business. The No. 1 reason they gave for wanting to work for themselves: “to be more passionate about my work life.”
The nation’s 78 million baby boomers are just starting to reach retirement age, yet they’re realizing that they can’t afford to retire. What’s more, they don’t want to.
Dr. Mary Furlong, author of Turning Silver into Gold, says, “Boomers are looking for ways to give back. They are taking the reins of their own futures and redefining their lives. They want work that reflects their values and identity; they want to make a difference.” A landmark study by MetLife Foundation and Civic Ventures found that 50 percent of Americans in their 50s and 60s want to do work “that matters.”
Taking the Plunge
“Leaving the rat race is not as daunting as it may seem,” says author Dan Clements in his guide to worklife balance, Escape 101. “You’ll look back in later years and marvel at how easy it was and how much you gained for so little cost.”
So what does it take? First, let’s look at what it doesn’t take. You don’t need an MBA or high-powered business background, and you don’t need to be rich or to take a second mortgage on your home. Some self-owned business opportunities require expertise, such as consulting, or can take significant capital investment and possibly training, such as real estate investing and franchises; some can be started on a shoestring and prove quite lucrative, including direct selling and online opportunities. Many of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time began with no advanced degrees and hardly any startup capital.
But make no mistake about it: What you save in cash capital you will make up for in sweat equity and passion. The major investment in most self-owned businesses is investment of one’s self in the form of time, focus and persistence. You don’t need to be a genius at negotiation or a whiz at numbers. You need a burning desire and determination fueled by a strong dose of passion!
Enjoy!
To you from http://www.successmagazine.com/
Margarita Nomeikiene
Content
25 February 2009, 15:47
Career Success Begins with Leadership by Stedman Graham
Leadership begins with self-discovery
Stedman Graham
We cannot touch and feel “leadership,” though we can see and often hear the results of it when it is effective or ineffective, of good character or poor ethics. There are literally hundreds of leadership programs available for executives, mid-level managers and new leaders. Many of these address developing the abilities of leaders in the areas of strategic and critical thinking, enhancing relationships, negotiating, managing risks, people, change, conflicts and financials, making the right decisions, managing work-life balance -- all of which are no less difficult to transact than the technical skills required in any strategic leadership function.
But beyond fundamental academic or technical skills, people need to learn how to identify their strengths and combine those with their passions in ways that empower them to establish and achieve a vision for their lives. They need to learn how to manage their time and to set, pursue and systematically reassess their progress toward achieving goals that empower them to realize their potential. Equipping people with the tools they need to seize control of their futures is a powerful step toward securing a strong future for these individuals, and also our nations as a whole. The best solution to our countries’ problems lies in helping people, especially our future leaders, to learn to live reflective, purposeful lives.
Helping our leaders to learn and understand who they are is important. Through their triumphs and trials, they will have the processes and tools to know how to draw from inner strength and act with discipline. This understanding will help them cope with the pressures of addressing the issues and opportunities of globalization and consolidation, the changing go-to-market strategies, the explosion of available information or more sophisticated, knowledgeable clients and customers. And, for those just trying to survive each day, they must have this strength and understanding to develop the means to access fundamental necessities of living, and to persevere beyond their circumstances.
The earlier we initiate this process of self-discovery, the better. Our new hires often become the leaders of corporations, organizations, communities and government. In serving as executives and managers, these leaders are expected to serve as community influencers and corporate representatives who heed the needs of those experiencing poverty, health crises or lack of education, all the while assessing any political and governmental discrimination, criminality or other implications. Giving them self-knowledge and a vision at the outset of their careers gives them the freedom to choose the direction they desire and the environments in which they want to work and live. It helps them from stumbling into the quicksand of life’s disappointments.
To be successful, people must have a vision of what success looks like for them. With a well-understood, deep motivation for their personal and professional pursuits, their priorities will come into focus. They will not be thinking about procrastinating, taking a detour from their calling, or sabotaging their success. When people are truly focused and engaged, they become the masters of their destinies. They are truly free.
Gaining self-awareness—and then doing something about it—is not a task everyone is willing to take on. Many people are content with things the way they are. People may desire greater success, but they don’t want to exert the effort to improve themselves. One possible reason for this is they don’t even realize they have the power to do something about it if they wanted to. If you’re not aware there’s a problem, or you don’t think you have the ability to change your circumstances, you will stay where you are. The good news is that by the act of looking inward to seek our true selves, we are taking responsibility and moving toward self-actualization. You can only start to maximize your potential once you know exactly who you are, and what is important to you.
Leadership abilities and characteristics must be well-developed in order to lead effectively. Yet, there is a fundamental dimension missing from this equation. It encompasses leaders discovering the core of who they are -- and who they can become. There is a constant in leadership. It is the freedom of the individual to know precisely who he is and what drives him, and on this platform become clear on how he must lead, exercise his abilities, display his character, make his choices and serve his constituents. Exceptional leaders are able to adapt to new tasks, to new roles, to new environments, and still be productive. They realize that with the management and growth of their “internal strength,” they can and must positively respond to the external environment, which is often outside of individual control.
A leader’s depth of internal knowledge and strength stands the test of time, congruently, consistently, and no matter the nature of the circumstances. This leadership foundation can be one of the most elusive to discover, unless the process and tools for doing so are made accessible. Once accessed, the ensuing discoveries are keys to opening doors for developing new abilities and characteristics, as well as creating or recognizing new opportunities.
Leadership is everything, whether you are leading a life, a community, an organization or a business, or you are in school. If you want ownership of your life, business and its privileges then progress and transformation should begin with you.
Enjoy!
Margarita Nomeikiene
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