Consistency

Working every day towards your goals is the key to success

This is a very straight forward and to some, obvious, statement. But there’s more to it than one sentence, right? There’s all sorts of tips and tricks and habits and things to actively avoid on the path to success, isn’t there? We have to read “Built to Last” and to take the “Strengths Finder 2.0” test before we can ever be considered  success, don’t we?

Consistency is the key

We all know a number of people who are successful and have done none of the above, they are simple people. Simple people are not bad or dumb, I actually like to think I am simple. Simple people don’t get caught up in fad diets, they don’t buy TV schemes that claim to unlock the secrets of the rich, and they don’t complain daily about what is wrong with their lives. They simply get up, and work towards their end goals.

A key part of this is having goals. Without goals you have no destination and you’ll end up waking every day and wandering, like a zombie without a purpose. Find that purpose in your life and set goals for yourself to achieve. I will talk about goal setting at another time, but don’t wait for me, just start and get some practice!

“If you aim at nothing you’ll hit it every time” – Zig Ziglar

When we have a goal we have something to aim at, and we can get up every day to find that target and start shooting. So many people don’t have direction and are looking for their “calling” but the truth is, it’s not going to fall in their laps. The people who find their “calling” are the ones who get up and forge themselves into the person they want to be day in and day out, constantly improving.

Here are some of mine if you need help setting yours:

  • Run a marathon on December 14th, 2013
  • Read for at least 20 minutes every day
  • Write the book I’ve always wanted to read
  • Own a home in Jacksonville, FL
  • Never have to make a resume again
  • A monthly income of $2,500 from my current venture

I exercise 5 days a week & eat healthy 6 of them, I write every day to practice and build up that book, and I am building my personal brand along with this company every day by the choices I make. Decisions on how to monetize the site, ideas on how to gain customers, sales calls, each day working towards those last  bullet points. Even if it is 1/2 of a percent towards our goals, if we work towards them each and every day we’ll be well ahead of 100% to where we want to be for our long-term goals.

Shorter goals need more of a push, and need just as much of an action plan. I know that I’m not an excellent writer, so I need practice. I don’t expect to just write a book after 27 years and have it fly off the shelves, so I’m practicing… consistently. Because I know what I will write will impact people and if I don’t give it my best effort I’ve wasted my opportunity. Determine what daily actions will get your closer to your goals and put them into practice NOW in order to be successful!

Faith | Hope | Love

In my devotion last night I was on I Corinthians 13:13, regarding Faith| Hope | Love. And I began to connect the dots between leaders and this verse. Leaders should aim to exemplify all of these in their day to day lives if they want to reassure those around them and create a happy, thriving tribe. I will speak on toxicity in leadership at another time, I have plenty of content for that subject… But for today Faith, Hope, and Love are what you should focus on if you want to step up to be that leader that you’ve always heard about. You DO NOT have to be in a position of power to be a leader and you DO NOT have to be someone who is in the spotlight to be a leader, all that means is that you have a larger audience. Everyone has an audience, and if you influence your small audience in a positive manner, it will grow exponentially.

Faith

Leaders need to reassure their tribe that the course they are on is the correct one. So many people in this world do not know where they’re going or what they’re doing or what they are working towards. It is the leader’s duty to help them stay the course and remind them to have Faith. Faith in the leader’s actions and Faith in their own actions, a leader must eliminate doubt. A leader in sports can reassure teammates that their actions are making them better and getting them one step closer to a championship. A leader in business can give Faith to co-workers by showing progress towards that common goal and reminding everyone that it’s baby steps that make up the long road before them.

Hope

Leaders must give their tribes Hope. Hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, Hope that their hard will pay off, Hope that their BHAG is attainable. Hope is not something easily instilled in others and is impossible to feign. Hope is viral and people can feel it when you have hope in your daily work. When people can feel the Hope that you possess, they gravitate towards it and they begin to have Faith in your actions and they begin to Hope that your vision can come true. Carrots, Incentives, Goals…. these all boil down to Hope of things imagined, but not yet seen. As a leader, be sure to give your people Hope in a vision.

Love 

Leaders have to Love their tribes, even when the tribe doesn’t always love them back. There are times when leaders are put in difficult positions and they must make a hard call, but if they are guided by Love for their tribe they will make the right decision. If they are guided by vanity or greed or spite, their actions will resonate so loud with their tribe that Faith, Hope, and any thought of Love will be lost. Actions speak infinitely louder than words, and when you are a leader, all eyes are upon you. Your every move will be judged, which can make leadership taxing for those who aren’t prepared for it. However, if you have Faith, Hope, and Love for your tribe and you let those guide you in your decision making each and every day than that judgement will not affect you, because you know you are leading your tribe in the right direction.

Love is the greatest and without it, neither Faith or Hope will exist. Everyone responds differently so that Love should be expressed regularly, whether it’s through speeches, a blog, videos or any other medium you choose. However, your tribe should know how much you Love them through your actions above all.

#140charactersorless

Twitter has changed the world. Whether you use it or not, it’s changed your life. It’s not necessarily because of the brevity of Tweets, it’s due to the fact that Twitter entertains us. All of social media is there for our entertainment, and we are so engulfed in it that we expect all information to come at us as it does via Twitter, or Facebook, or Pinterest: Visually appealing, Simple to understand, and Amusing.

We are in the process of re-vamping our website to have an online library and it’s going to be tricky because on one hand we need an excellent, extensive, in depth content side that pleases the search engines and helps us get discovered by our target market. On the other hand, we will need a very simple, straight-forward portion of the website that is very instructional based to retain the attention of our potential customers. The instructional side of the site will have “how to” & “where to” & “what not to” do sections with short outlines that are user-friendly and don’t scare people away. Intimidation is exactly what the FWC (and all government run sites) does through information overload, so we’ll simplify things through info-graphics, bulleted lists, and instructional videos. Essentially we’re taking the FWC’s website and transcribe it into short burst of information so people are more likely to be entertained by it (Tweets).

Entertainment is the key to engagement today

People have been trained to learn in very short bursts of information (Tweets) and that is what they expect out of today’s businesses, minimal thinking involved on their part. Thus making the job of the business to serve up a pre-made set of information that is useful and helpful while simultaneously entertaining our consumers. Is hunting fun? Yes. Is cleaning a gun? No. But you better believe we’ll do our best to make that gun cleaning instructional video as entertaining as possible to keep your attention.

If you have a great product or service but can’t seem to get the traction you want, analyze your presentation. How appealing is your storefront? Is your website easy to use and filled with helpful and entertaining information? Do customers know what they’re supposed to do when they get to your site? Does your sales process flow? Are your designs too cluttered? Ask yourself these questions and be honest with yourself, don’t compromise. Put yourself in the consumer’s shoes and challenge yourself to simplify everything you can, eliminate that which is unnecessary, and focus on get to the core of your message so it is crystal clear. Once you know what your message is then it’s time to engage your users by making it easy to understand, simple to get, and visually appealing.

Simple and entertaining enough for you?

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P.S. I edited this post at least a 10 times, and each time I took something away to use less words and make it easier to read simplify it. Try it with your next ad and see what happens.

Trading Places

Problem solving in business can be difficult. The problem may be not enough web traffic, it may be soothing a problematic customer, or it may be a dispute between co-workers. In any of these situations as well as countless others, there is a relatively simple solution that many people do not understand. Put yourself in their shoes. We don’t have enough web traffic because people don’t know we exist, and if they do how to use our site. The problem customer has perceived that she’s been wronged, when in reality she just hasn’t been communicated with. And those two co-workers both have valid arguments, however there’s always a compromise that can be agreed upon.

Problem solving is infinitely more difficult for arrogant people. When an arrogant person attacks a problem, the solution is simple, it’s theirs. Instead of putting themselves into another person’s shoes, they see the issue from their perspective. This can be especially detrimental to an organization when the person in charge is this short-sighted and is not willing accept another’s view. Happy customers don’t just pop up out of thin air, they have to be communicated with, not talked at. Productive employees don’t just stroll in one day and stay for 15 years, they need their needs met. Arrogant decision makers will ruin that. Arrogance sounds like this…

  • “I don’t get it, we made a great website that is easy to use, I can see how it flows great. Where are the customers?”
  • “What is that lady complaining about? She shouldn’t be complaining about that small defect, the product still works.”
  • “You two need to just shake hands and get over this, period. I don’t have time for this stuff.”

I want to challenge you to put yourself into the opposite party’s shoes. Can you see where they’re coming from? Do you understand why they’re upset? Should you be more compassionate to their needs? Are they going to benefit from your edict or are they going to be gracious for your caring?

The best leaders and managers (yes they are different) can put themselves in other people’s shoes with ease. They do not approach problem solving from their own view, they put themselves at the opposite end of things. From your perspective, you get a surface view. Whereas you get to the root of the problem when you are able to look at issues from other people’s point of view. It can be the difference in 10,000 ft to 10 ft or it can be a matter of different angles. All are valid and perception is reality. Don’t force your reality on the issue, be humble enough to care why this affects them.

Without a sense of humility this will never happen. Being able to put your pride on the shelf to really address problems at their core is difficult, and many people don’t like to do it. We don’t like to do it because it makes us grow, and that scares people.

Think about it, which one of these adjectives sounds better, “I love working for Bill, he’s so [arrogant/humble] that it hurts. We always have a solution when he gets involved.” What kind of Bill would you rather be?

Fear Not

Many times we are put into situations that make us feel uncomfortable and we are scared to face them. Without facing them we can never overcome them. Without overcoming them we can never grow from them. Without growth we are stagnant. Have you ever heard a successful business (or person) that was described as stagnant? I haven’t.

When facing these situations that put the fear of God into us, we cannot be paralyzed by that fear. Many people have faced the same or similar situations and have overcome them. How? By facing it head on and knowing that you want the desired outcome more than you are afraid of the situation.

I first learned this from football. I played safety and I was often times put up against running backs or tight ends who were much larger than me and were running full steam ahead and it was my job to tackle them. I knew they had the momentum, I knew that collision was going to hurt everything from my neck to my toes, and I knew that they wanted to run over me just as much as I wanted to stop them so they weren’t just going to go out of bounds when they saw me coming. But I in football you don’t have time to be paralyzed by fear, you are forced to make decisions FAST. I knew going into that situation that if I didn’t throw all of myself into that opposing player and sacrifice my body to make that tackle, they would run for a touchdown and I would let my team down. I wanted to make that tackle more than I was afraid of the pain of that collision. Football hurts, anyone who tells you otherwise A.) Never played past JV or B.) Was a kicker. And if I never accepted that it was going to hurt, put myself in that mindset, and faced the fear early, I never would have been able to make a play.

Business is just like this. Nobody likes to fire people, nobody likes to tell someone they’re not doing their job, nobody likes to cold call and push themselves on some unsuspecting bystander. But those all need to be done, and the faster you look that fear in the face and attack it, the faster your path to success will be. Your most difficult, taxing, dreadful tasks are the ones that will force you to grow the most. As soon as you transform that fear into optimism for your desired outcome, you will have what it takes to attack it. Do not focus on how awful reprimanding a colleague will be, focus instead on how much better your work will be once they pick up the slack. Do not focus on getting denied during a sales pitch, focus instead on that commission check when you close the deal. Do not focus on how long it’s going to take you to read that book, focus on how much you’ll learn from it.

Shift your focus from dread of the discomfort the to the joys of the outcome.

Face fears and grow!

Just start

Everyone has ideas for a company, everyone says, “Man that would be cool to build that, that sounds much more fun than my job!”
But the truth is that just because your job sucks, doesn’t mean you’re going to like working for yourself.
When working for yourself, you need to turn that shallow idea into a deep idea. That simple concept needs to grow roots and you need to get in depth and actually think through how that plan is going to work. You need to walk through processes from customer acquisition to product development and everything in between. Working for yourself is so hard because you have to stay so focused on what you want and how you want to get there. Each and every decision you make will take you either one step closer to your goal, or one step farther away… That is, if you’ve set goals and determined a direction for yourself. Do you have a vision? Do you an end-goal? Or do you just have cool idea?
Some businesses start as a side-project with no end-goal, and that’s awesome, those tend to be great companies because the founders have a passion for that idea. But at some point, that side-project took on a life of it’s own and started to pay the bills, and needed employees, and came into demand from consumers.
{Insert Long-Term Vision here}
If you do have a passion, if you do have an idea, just start. Tinker with it, don’t necessarily quit your job and sell everything you own just yet, but look into the details. Check out how much a domain costs, try to build that prototype in your garage after work, and write out your thoughts in a notebook to see if they can materialize. It’s easy to have a thought, it’s hard to verbally communicate it, and it’s even harder to write it out for someone to understand.
That’s what I did. I always thought I liked writing, and when I finally pushed past the resistance, I found that I didn’t want to get up, I liked this writing thing. And that’s where this blog started. I tinkered in my spare time with domains, hosting, and my personal notes that I’ve written to see if it would make sense. I’ve done it with furniture: I built a coffee table from scratch with an old friend of mine, it’s the coolest thing I own. I’ve done it with a business: Epic Day Outdoors. I did it when I moved: it wasn’t the perfect spot, but I made it perfect for me.
Learning to be content with your decisions is a huge part in life. You can’t change the past, you can only learn from it.