Anyone Can Steer the Ship, Great Leaders can Effectively Plot the Best Course

Every great leader knows that they must invest time to learn as much as possible, from both their mistakes, challenges and successes. This knowledge will serve them in the present and assist them to plot the best possible course for the future. When plotting any course, all great leaders need to consider two important criteria. They must firstly look inward and draw on all the experience they have gleaned over the years and secondly, they must also look outward, to explore the prevailing conditions, to see how these may affect their progress now and in the future.

When looking inward and drawing on all their experience, they must use all their past successes, failures and challenges, as means to build a strong starting point and to serve as the foundation for the direction they will travel in. As they look outward examining the prevailing conditions; they must take the blinkers off and thoroughly explore the prevailing condition, looking around to identify any obstacles, challenges or roadblocks.

Attempting to move in a new direction, without exploring the prevailing external conditions, would be like the captain of a ship setting sail against the tide, because he did not bother to look at the tide chart or sailing into a hurricane because he did not bother to check the weather report. All great leaders invest time before they start to move their team in a new direction, to count the possible cost of moving in any new direction. This external assessment would include measurable factors such as resources, talent and finances and intangibles such as moral, culture, timing and momentum.  

When plotting any new course, any wise leader will know that, no matter how much they have learnt from the past, they will still never have all the answers. That is why any great leader who wants to change course, must get information from as many sources as possible. Open your mind and look around you, the information you need is available everywhere. I have found the best place to start exploring is with the people and circumstances closest to you.

·         Your team leaders and members are an incredible source of information, as they are closer to the grindstone than you are and thus better equipped to see any changes or trends in the market place.

·         Look at other leaders in similar markets and businesses and see what they are doing. Do not be scared to ask these people to mentor you. It is astounding how many people would be willing to support you, if you can find a way to develop a mutually beneficial relationship with them. The law of reciprocity, where you would do something noteworthy for someone else and they in return, would be more than willing to assist you is a perfect example of the law of reciprocity at work. As long as there is fair exchange almost everyone is willing to help.

·         Great leaders know that they cannot succeed alone and that they must build a team of supportive followers, mentors and fellow leaders around them in order to reach their maximum potential.

As you plot any new course it is crucial to ensure that your planning must include both a level of belief and fact. You must have faith and believe in the ability of both yourself and your team to overcome the inevitable challenges and at the same time you must have as many facts as possible to ensure you are not blundering blindly into something you won’t be able to handle.  As a great leader you must believe in your ability to take your team all the way and must be able to create a crystal clear vision in your mind of exactly where you want to go. If you are unable to first visualise the journey in your mind and create a vision for yourself and your team, you will most certainly not be able to achieve anything in real life.

Communicate your vision to your team and keep your eye on the prize, but be careful not to minimize obstacles or rationalise challenges. You must always have your eyes wide open and be aware of everything in your environment, be vigilant and be careful not to be blindsided, because you were not observing. Jim Collins said it so well in his book, GOOD TO GREAT, when he described the Stockdale Paradox.  He wrote “You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end and you must also confront the most brutal facts of your current reality”

Succeeding as a great leader is a balancing act between optimism, realism, planning, faith, fact and intuition. Keep all these factors in mind as you plot any new course and follow this simple formula for success:

·         Get a crystal clear picture in your mind of exactly where you want to go

·         Develop goals to support this vision

·         Prioritise and ensure that you and your team are taking only the most important actions every day

·         Communicate your vision and goals to all stakeholders. Ensure that everyone knows their individual role in delivering on the vision and goals.

·         Allow time for acceptance and give all team members the opportunity to offer consistent feedback.

·         Pull the trigger and lead from the front as you and your team begin to take action

·         Plan for and expect challenges. They are inevitable and an integral part of any success journey.

·         Offer encouragement, support and praise for all team members

·         Review progress daily.

To become a truly great leader and to successfully lead your team in these ever changing times, you must overcome your fear of change, eliminate ignorance about what is going on all around you and become more certain about your abilities. Pull the trigger today and use your present to build that crystal clear picture you have created in your mind. This vision you have created for your future is achievable, if you and your team take inspired action every day and you consistently measure your progress. The success you and your team will enjoy is not dependant on the size of the project, but rather on the size of the leader you become.

Author: Andrew Horton Motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za                                                                                                                                    

You will grow into a Great Leader Daily, Never in Day

Leadership, like most business skills, is completely learn-able. The secret to become a great leader is to be patient and to allow yourself the time you need to gradually grow into the type of leader you need or want to be. All leaders who commit to grow daily, both personally and as a leader and who consistently commit to grow their knowledge base and leadership skill set. Will over time compound into great leaders, who can positively influence their followers. Leaders are developed daily with consistent and focused effort, never in a day. So anyone who wants to grow into a great leader must see their growth as a process and never an event. All the small efforts invested by leaders, into their development, will add up to massive growth over time.

Oseola McCarty was a humble washer woman who lived in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. On her death in 1999 she had accumulated almost $ 250 000 in savings. How had a humble washer woman managed to accumulate such a sizable fortune, when she had only earned a few dollars every day for her efforts as a washer woman? Well the answer was due to the eighth wonder of the world, namely compounding. Oseola lived frugally and every day she would go to the Trustmark National bank and deposit the few extra dollars she had left over. This consistent effort gradually compounded into a sizable fortune by the time she passed on in 1999.

The same is true for anyone, who wants to grow into a great leader. Invest time, effort and resources every single day into your growth and development and allow the compound effect to work its magic. As time passes, you will gradually grow into a really great leader. Someone who can influence other people to deliver their best, for the greater good of all concerned. Great leaders are always lead by example with the adage of Let’s Go Do It” rather than one of ”You better go and do it”.  

Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus made the connection between growth and leadership; they stated that “It is the capacity to continually develop and improve their skills, which distinguishes leaders from their followers”.

If you want to motivate people to take a few steps forward, then see your leadership growth as an event, if on the other hand you want to consistently improve and grow into a great leader, who people will readily follow, then commit to an on-going lifelong process of personal and leadership growth. There is a really powerful boxing analogy, which states that champions don’t become champions in the ring, they are only recognised there. If you want to see who will become a great leader in the future, just look at their daily routine and their commitment to on-going growth.

If you are cheating on your roadwork every day and not consistently working to grow your knowledge, skill and leadership ability, you will be caught out in the future. As Joe Frazier so aptly said, “You can map out a life plan or a fight plan, but when the action starts you are down to your reflexes”  Invest time every day into growing and becoming more, for as you become more, you will most certainly attract more into your experience.  

Action Idea: Map out a plan for your personal and leadership growth. Ensure that you build measurement criterion into your plan and ensure that you take consistent action daily on your plan.

The way I consistently ensure that I am growing both personally and as a leader is to follow a simple system.  I break my year up into ninety day segments. During each segment I choose a specific area I want to improve in my life. For example: presentation skills. I choose two books, four audio books and attend a seminar related to that specific topic during those ninety days. This helps me to keep growing personally. To get the most value from the books, audio books and seminar, I find three new behaviours I can introduce into my life from each book, audio book and seminar. This gives me 21 possible new behaviours I can adopt. I explore these 21 possible new behaviours and discover 4 new super behaviours, which I will actually introduce into my life.

Growing into a great leader is an on-going lifetime commitment, so during each ninety day segment I also include one book and one audio book on leadership into my program. I also attend at least one seminar a year on leadership. I repeat the same exercise for the books and audio books on leadership, where I pull out 3 new behaviours from each and then refine this down to a single new super leadership behaviour.  

These five new behaviours, four related specifically to the area I am working to improve and one new leadership behaviour, become the foundation of my “CODE OF PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT” or my commitment, which I make with myself, to use my willpower and discipline to carry out these five new behaviours every day for the next 90 days. After 90 days these new behaviours are entrenched new success habits.

As you know knowledge is never power it is the application of the right knowledge, which empowers you. It is for that reason my system described above has proved to be so successful. When you use this system, you so not randomly read books, listen to audio books and attend seminars. You have a focused approach to gaining knowledge and you have a system for extracting the most important information and turning it into new behaviours and finally your new success habit set.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za                                                                                                               

Are Leaders Born or Can you Grow into a Great Leader?

Yes it is true that some people are born with natural leadership skills, which initially makes them better leaders. The truth though, is that all leadership skills are learnable and with consistency, determination and a lifelong commitment to on-going growth, anyone can increase their leadership ability. If any of your goals requires you to work with other people, in order to achieve them. Then it is crucial that you commit to grow your leadership ability, so that you can lead these people as successfully as possible.

The results you will be able to realise, will be limited by the ceiling which exists around your ability to lead and influence other people. Maurice and Dick were very effective at building systems and managing a single restaurant. Their efforts made them very wealthy in their own community. They were however not able to grow their concept of a fast food business much beyond 10 stores. They were unwilling to commit to grow their leadership skills and so once they had reached the ceiling of the leadership ability they remained stuck and could not grow their business any further.

Ray Croc on the other hand had spent his entire life growing his leadership ability. He was in his fifties and owned a small milkshake making business, which supplied machines to the McDonald brothers. He had grown sufficiently as a leader and was ready to lead McDonalds when he  started to work with the brothers in 1954. He took an incredible concept that was limited to only a few restaurants in 1954 and with his learnt leadership ability he quickly grew the hamburger chain into a world leader in the hamburger business. There are over 32000 stores all around the world today.

Ray Croc had spent his time leading up until his fifties committed to growing his leadership ability. When he took over the hamburger chain he had grown sufficiently to allow him to lead the business. He gradually led the business to new levels of success with his leadership, exceeding even his own expectations. If you want to grow your business and that growth depends on the input from other people, the only way to make that growth possible is to commit to your on-going growth as a leader. You must effectively raise the ceiling on your own leadership ability.   

The first concept around your leadership ability, which you need to improve, is your ability to influence other people. Without influence, you will never be an effective leader or have the ability to encourage people to offer their best performance. Your ability to influence people is something that you can learn. Your growth as a leader will not happen in a day, but is rather something that will happen daily, as you commit to keep growing every day.

·         As you grow and expand personally, you will firstly grow your character. This will help you with the first part of influencing others. Your character reflects who you are and as you know who you are speaks volumes to people about you. When people see you reflecting good character, they are willing to follow you and your ability to influence their behaviour is dramatically increased.

·         The second crucial element around improving your influence is your ability to build real meaningful connection with people. When you show your real commitment to people, you always act out of integrity and you always deliver on what you say you will do. People will over time grow to trust you and they will connect with you.

·         The third part in the process of growing your influence is a commitment to keep improving your knowledge base. As your knowledge grows, so too will your ability to influence people, through the dissemination of the right knowledge at the right time.

·         The fourth element is something you cannot buy, it is experience. Experience comes from your never ending commitment to continually learn all the lessons life has to offer and then to use these to build a strong base of experiential knowledge. Your level of experience and knowledge are really powerful tools, which will serve you well when you are attempting to positively influence people.

·         The final two parts to the influence puzzle come in the form of your capacity to demonstrate your ability to succeed and your track record around what you as a leader have achieved in the past. Both of these take time to develop, so stay committed to learn all the lessons life has to offer and remain focused on growing yourself as a leader.

As you grow in all these areas, you level of influence will grow too. Leading people and encouraging them to deliver their best is one of the most rewarding things you will ever do. Stay committed to growing as a leader and you and everyone you lead will benefit in the long run.

Author: Andrew Horton Motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

You can never achieve more than you believe is possible

Your beliefs about anything, whether founded in fact or just the figment of your fertile imagination, dictate the quality of the outcomes you are able to enjoy in your life. Almost everyone, who is trapped in a life, which lacks meaning and fulfilment, is causing their own lack of progress, due to unfounded beliefs about themselves and their environment. When you fill your mind with incorrect assumptions and beliefs, you reinforce your fears and insecurities and you deflate or destroy your dreams, effectively sounding the death knell for any success you desire.  

The best way to ensure that your assumptions and beliefs are serving you is to tackle them head on and discover the truth about them. Once you remove all the wrong assumptions and unfounded beliefs, which you hold as irrefutable facts, from your experience. You are able to change your starting beliefs and greatly improve your chances of attracting the success you desire. Use the list of assumptions and beliefs, which I have listed below, to start exploring your own assumptions and beliefs about yourself and your environment and see if you can uncover the truth about your life.

Please use the list of the dream killer assumptions below to assess your own beliefs and assumptions, to see if they are serving you or not. This list will help you to shift your beliefs and allow you to adopt a better set of assumptions and beliefs, which will support, rather than limit your success.

1.    Do you often assume that you know exactly what is going on around you and as such you blunder blindly into projects without sufficient preparation? These constantly evolving and rapidly changing times, requires us to stop and ask enough questions to equip us with all the info we need before we pull the trigger on any new project. The rule of thumb here is when you think you have all the info you need, dig a just little deeper and see what you can uncover. The time must obviously come, where you have explored, examined and discovered and you must begin taking action. This should only happen when you have a respectable level of confidence in what you are about to do.

2.    Never assume that just because you have invested time to acquire as much information as possible about any project and you have developed a plan to bring the project to life, that you will not encounter any challenges along the way. No plan is fool proof; you can never anticipate all possibilities, which may arise. Be flexible and be willing to roll with the inevitable punches or challenges, which will cross your path. Do not allow yourself to give up at the first hurdle, know that challenges are part of any success journey and as such they are never a reason to quit.

3.    Stop assuming that you can succeed alone, great achievement seldom occurs in a vacuum. A mentor, coach or accountability partner will serve you well and offer you an additional set of eyes and ears. They will serve you by offering you an additional set of hands, a different perspective and a second opinion. There are numerous options where you can get the help and support you need. You can never assume that someone is unwilling to help you. Ask the difficult questions, you will be astounded at how many people are willing to help. The secret to get positive responses from the people you approach is to be crystal clear and tell them exactly what you expect and need. My experience has shown that if you can state exactly how much time you need and what you expect from them and you throw in the cherry on top of what you can offer them in return, nine out of ten people will accede to your request.  

4.    Stop assuming that you do not have sufficient knowledge or skill. Success is about ideas, which have been acted upon, never about how many diplomas you have hanging on your wall. Any area where you feel you lack either knowledge or skill, can easily be overcome by investing into books, audio books, DVD’s or attending a seminar on the subject. If you can think it, someone has invested time to ink it.

5.    Stop assuming that you need to have strengths in every area and that you must develop your weaknesses, before embarking on any new project. Nothing could be further from the truth. Focus all you resources on developing your strengths. Ignore your weaknesses and get someone, who plays at what you struggle with to carry out the tasks where you have weaknesses.

6.    Stop seeing a lack of money as a reason not to start any project. Explore all the options available to you. Take a medium to long term view of any project, which seems to require more money than you can raise at that time. Build a plan to first save, earn or borrow the money you need. It is astounding what you can achieve in five or ten years, with concentrated effort, focus and determination.

7.    Remove the dream killing assumption that you do not have sufficient time to tackle any worthwhile project. We all have 86400 seconds in a day; super achievers like Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson and Donald Trump manage to achieve so much each day, because they allocate how they spend their time really well. Once you discover and eliminate all the time wasting activities you engage in every day, you learn to delegate low priority functions to others and you become more efficient and effective, you will most definitely have the time you need to succeed.

Examine your dream killing and limiting assumptions and beliefs, see which ones are limiting you and keeping you trapped in mediocrity. Shift your attitude and philosophy around these silly assumptions and finally pull the trigger on the success you desire and deserve. You truly are magnificent and once you confront your incorrect assumptions and beliefs head on, you equip yourself for greatness.

Author: Andrew Horton Motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

You Really are Amazing and can Become a Super Achiever

You must begin to believe in your unlimited potential. Know with certainty that every day when you open your eyes and look into that bathroom mirror, you are magnificent and a valuable contributor to the world. You are a very important part of this amazing planet and you are perfect just the way you are as you have a perfect balance of both negative and positive traits in both body and mind. I want you to start the journey toward realising your dreams.  This journey starts with you believing in yourself and your magnificence. Know that no matter what you have done or not done you are worthy of happiness and success.

There are unlimited possibilities available to you and opportunities all around. Start to believe in your unlimited potential. The type of self-talk you engage in every day, has a tremendous impact on what happens in your life and will have a massive impact on the quality of life you will lead. Remember that you are the creator of your experience. You get to write the script for how your life will unfold, one thought at a time. The more self-worth and love you have for yourself, the more prosperity, health and happiness you will invite into your life.

Never allow anything that happens in your outer world to affect your life. You are the creator of how your future unfolds and have the capacity to remain poised in your inner world, believing in your own abilities. When you stay poised and believe in your unlimited capacity to prevail, you are able to perceive and interpret external events from an empowered position. You see them for what they really are, merely events, which will have little effect on how your future unfolds.

Nothing has sway over you unless you allow it to have. When you remain in control and believe in yourself, you are in a better position to make the right decisions and take inspired action. Staying in control and making empowered decisions that drive your daily actions will help you to manage and mitigate any events, which may occur in your outer world. You are the captain of your ship and the master of your destiny. Allow yourself to extraordinary and allow your magnificence to shine through.

It is never what happens to you that matters, it is how you perceive what happens to you and the inspired action you choose to take, which will determine how your life unfolds. As Jim Rohn said “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at will change” You can choose to allow events in your life to dictate the direction your life takes or you can change your perspective and see everything that happens in your life as merely polish, which will make you shine. You can completely change the way your life turns out if you merely change your attitude and perspective.

You truly are magnificent and have unlimited potential. Stop reacting unconsciously, where you are ruled by your emotions and start to realise that you are completely in charge of how your life unfolds. Open your mind and take charge of your life, start to consciously direct your life from the inside. You are your own stimulus package and as you become inspired, you align yourself with possibility and everything becomes possible for you.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

 

Achieving Goals, can be Easier than you Think

The easiest way to set and achieve your goals is to reach into the future, where you will discover the most vivid picture of the success you desire.  Look at this picture and discover what you are doing, enjoying and becoming. Borrow this wonderful picture of what is possible and use it as your inspiration today, to begin taking those daily inspired actions, which are going to turn your dreams into reality. The more clarity you build into this picture, by introducing as many of your senses and emotions as possible, into the creation of your picture. The more inspired you will be to take the daily action necessary to bring just that wonderful picture into your reality.

The picture you borrow from the future is the promise of what is possible for you to achieve and the daily action you take is the price you will need to pay to bring that into your experience. The bigger or more inspiring the picture is. Or in other words the greater the promise you are able to create in your mind, the higher the price you would be prepared to pay to make that picture real for you.

Action Idea: Allow your mind out for a walk today; explore all the possibilities available to you in the future. Reach into that future, explore all the pictures of possibility and take one of them, which will stretch you to achieve and borrow it to use as the foundation for creating the future you desire.

Now that you have a vision (promise) of what you want in your future, it is time to use this picture or the promise of what is possible, to create a set of realistic goals to formulise and cement the process. These goals can only get a life of their own, when you explore each one in turn and you build an action plan or a list of the individual daily prices you will need to pay, to turn these goals into your realised future.

Turning your dreams or vision into your future reality is simply a process of first creating a vivid picture in your mind of a future or promise that is challenging and attractive enough, so that you will be inspired every day, to take sufficient inspired action (pay the price) necessary to deliver on your dreams. Living your vision, is really a simple process of creating a big enough promise, which has real meaning and value to you and then committing to pay the price necessary to make that possible for you. There is no great secret to become successful, it is all about investing sufficient time to discover what you really want. Ensuring that you are prepared to pay the price to make it possible and then, applying discipline to ensure you take consistent daily action, to make it possible for you.

This is why it is crucial that you write your vision and goals down and keep them in a very visible place. When your vision and goals are in front of you all the time and you constantly think about the promise of what is possible in your future, you will remain inspired and take action or rather pay the price every day, until you succeed.

Action Idea: Write your vision and goals in as many places in your home and work environment as possible. This will help to keep your vision and goals in front of you all the time. The more you see your vision and goals, the more inspired and driven you will be to take the action necessary to succeed.

When I interviewed Bob Proctor for my TV show, he indicated that he writes his goals on a card, which he carries in his pocket all the time. He says that every time he touches the card, he feels an energy flow through his body and this inspires him to take action every day until he realises his goal.

 I have my vision and goals written on the wall in front of the little throne, where I spend time offloading every day, they are stuck on the ceiling above my bed, I carry a card in my pocket with my vision and goals written on it, I have a further set written on a card next to my bed and finally I have a set on the wall in front of where I work on my computer. These constant reminders help keep me focused and inspire me to do what it takes to succeed. Since I have introduced this practice into my life, I have achieved almost every goal I have set myself.

What are you waiting for; write your goals down in as many places as possible and let the magic begin.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Anyone can Make the shift from Mediocre to Magnificent

It is extremely rare for anyone to exceed their own expectations, so if you can only see yourself achieving mediocre results, that is exactly what you will experience in your life. If you want to break free and create a life of meaning and satisfaction. You must first commit to create a vivid picture of exactly what you want in your mind's eye and then believe that it is possible for you to achieve just that.

Michael Angelo coined the phrase "People stop themselves from achieving their full potential not because they aim too high and miss, but because they aim too low and hit" Now is the time to accept that you can achieve almost anything, if it feels natural and possible for you and you are prepared to take action to make it happen..

Action idea: Find yourself some quiet time, sit, relax and breathe deeply, search within and ask yourself these few simple questions.

• What is my maximum?
• Why do I feel that is all I can achieve?
• What can I do to raise the ceiling on what I believe to be my maximum?
• Is my commitment to ongoing learning, expansion and growth adequate?

Examine all the answers you come up with and try to discover the action you need to take to start moving toward achieving your full potential.

It is crucial that you realize that no one's opinion about what you can achieve matters. All the opinions of other people offer you, is feedback and information. The only opinion that matters at all is yours. There are many documented stories where scientists who measured, experimented and came up with empirical evidence, to support their claims, that mankind had reached their limit in a specific area. Only to be proved wrong soon afterwards, by people who did not listen to them or believe what the evidence showed.

One of the most well-known cases is that of Roger Banister. The scientists of the day believed that it was impossible for a man to run under 4 minutes for the mile. Their experiments showed that mankind did not have the physical ability to sustain the effort required. Roger Banister did not believe them and despite what other people thought and said, he saw himself breaking that barrier.

The miracle was not found only in the fact that Roger Banister actually ran below four minutes for the mile, but that soon after he proved it was possible, a number of other people also achieved the impossible and ran below four minutes for the mile too. Athletes now routinely run under four minutes for the mile at training sessions.

I know that you are capable of achieving far more than you believe possible for yourself, the secret for you to unlock all these possibilities available to you and turn this into your future reality. Is for you to stop listening to what people and your environment are telling you is possible and for you to begin believing in yourself.

You can increase the number of opportunities available to you, if you stop only believing in possibility, when you can see evidence, which proves it is possible for you to achieve it. The saying "When I see it I will believe it" is not true. The wiser way to think about this is to see things differently and rather say to yourself. "When I believe it, I will see it". After you make this shift, you will soon realise that everything is possible for you. If it feels natural for you and you believe it is realistic for you to achieve it.

The process is simple:

• First conceive the idea
• Explore the idea and see if it feels natural for you to achieve it
• Believe it is possible for you.
• Grow your knowledge and skill to align with your idea
• Take inspired action daily and anything becomes possible for you

Now all that is left for you to do is to decide what you want and then to follow the simple process described above and you can bring fulfillment and meaning into your experience. To get started answer these few questions listed below:

• What do you believe you are capable of achieving?
• What do you want to have, do and be?
• What is the maximum amount of skill, knowledge or ability you see yourself obtaining?
• How many meaningful business connections do you see yourself making?

What are you waiting for; begin making the positive changes you need in your life.

Author: Andrew Horton Motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

How do you Respond when faced with a Challenge?

The real measure of any super achiever is not in how they operate during the good times, but rather how they respond, when faced with any challenges. People who have mastered their life, do not expect things to always go according to plan; they equip themselves with a set of tools, which will help them handle any curveballs, which may cross their path. The secret to invite success into your life and sustain it in the long term, is to be able to regroup quickly, when faced with any challenges and to get back in the saddle as soon as possible  after you have been thrown off the horse.

Be Alert – Always Review and Look for Feedback

Create a habit of reviewing your progress as often as possible. The more often you are able to review your progress and to check for any warning signs, that things may be going off the rails, the sooner you can begin to take corrective action. Be vigilant and look for any warning signals, they are almost always there. Major changes and challenges usually give you a series of warnings, before they arrive on your doorstep.

Some of the clues might be crystal clear and easy to measure, like how many people have signed up to buy you product or is your social media strategy working – are people clicking through and buying what you have to sell. Other clues are a little more subtle, things like your emotional or energetic clues, where that little voice inside of you starts to get louder and louder, or you start to feel more stressed or distracted. These are usually signs that things are out of kilter. Learn to listen to your intuition, when your gut is telling you something is not connecting or something is out of kilter, it is usually correct.

Train yourself to pay closer attention to the external measurable factors as well as your internal warning systems. Listen to all the feedback you are receiving and you will be able to make the necessary course corrections, before things fall off the rails altogether. It is too late to do anything when you are in a boat, which is caught in the rapids, only 50 meters away from a waterfall and you have no paddles. The time to have taken corrective action was when the boat was many km away from the waterfall. In those calmer waters you could have easily paddled to the shore, cut some branches from a tree and fashioned a pair of oars for yourself.

Explore your Options                                                                                                                

When faced with any challenge, resist the urge to; take the first solution, which pops into your head, as the new course to follow. Give yourself a chance to stop, assess the damage or potential for damage and then make calculated decision about the best course to follow. Very often all that is needed is a few small tweaks or improvements to keep the process on track, but on the rare occasion when the entire process is floored and no matter what you do, nothing seems to work, have the courage to go back to the drawing board and start over.  

Keep the End in Mind

When reviewing your progress, always keep the end in mind. The more clarity you have about the outcome you want to achieve, the easier it is to assess how you are doing and to pre-empt any challenges. Examine your actions and see which of them are delivering the desired result and which are not. Ask yourself two simple questions:

·         What should I be doing more of?

·         What should I be doing less of?

Identifying what you should be doing more of allows you to see, where things are working. This allows you to prioritise and to put more resources, behind the things that are working. This simple strategy allows you to focus your resources where they are needed most, i.e. they deliver the best results.

When you ask the question what should I be doing less of? You shine the light on areas, where you are investing resources, but getting less than satisfactory results. This allows you to either stop or reduce these actions and gives you a chance to polish your approach toward overcoming any challenge.

Know Why Something is important to you

When you encounter any challenges or you are broadsided by something you didn’t see coming, it can be very painful. The easiest way to pick yourself up and get going again is to remember why you decided to achieve this goal in the first place. Remind yourself of your big reason why this is important to you, stay focused on your vision and begin taking positive inspired action as soon as possible.

Turn down the volume of your inner critic

Encountering challenges is difficult and stressful enough, without having to contend with a barrage of criticism from your own inner critic. Learn the art of offering compassion to yourself. Criticism serves no good purpose, all it does is weaken your resolve and disempower you. The most beautiful pearl starts out as a grain of irritating sand within the oyster. Think of any challenge you face in the same way, they are simply grits of sand that over time will turn into the most beautiful oyster.

Life does throw curve balls at us on occasion. Next time when you are caught off guard or needing to regroup after encountering a challenge, review the advice offered in this article and see if one or all of them can help you gain a little perspective.

Author: Andrew Horton Time Management Training

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Your Words are Packed with Power, Choose Them Wisely

I am sure we all heard the little rhyme when we were children, which said “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”. Nothing could be further from the truth, words have incredible power and can either fill us with hope and encouragement or if we allow, can break our spirits and dash our hopes and dreams. Words do indeed have incredible power and when used properly can be incredible tools, which can help you along the road to sustainable long term success.

The words spoken by great orators, like Winston Churchill, who buoyed the hopes of an entire nation, giving them strength and the will to overcome the tyranny of a hostile nation intent on destroying them, show the great power to be found in words. Who can ever forget the impassioned pleas of Martin Luther King, as he spoke to a nation about injustice; his powerful words changed the course of history and allowed us all to live a better future.    

It is not only spoken words, but written words, which also carry incredible power. The liberty and social justice, of an entire nation is entrenched in the American Bill of Rights and the declaration of Independence. Words do indeed possess far more power than any stick or stone, so be prudent with the words you speak and write as they are loaded with far more power than you can imagine.

The simple sayings that we often bandy about with abandon, instil really powerful beliefs in our minds. Simple little sayings like “Ignorance is Bliss” Create the belief that we should not have enquiring minds and not commit to on-going growth and development. This is reinforced by other silly belief entrenching sayings like “What you don’t know won’t hurt you”. These little sayings seem unimportant, but the beliefs they entrench in our subconscious mind is most certainly real. These little sayings, become part of our habit set as we repeat them unconsciously without even thinking about it.

I want you to change these two sayings and for you to learn this new way of thinking. “Ignorance is most certainly not bliss, consistently learning and applying knowledge is bliss”. “What you don’t know WILL hurt you” Most of us are well down the path to uncovering the success we deserve and desire and all that is required to bring this success into our experience, is a few small shifts to the way we do things. As you gradually change your subconscious programing and replace those negative dream killing thoughts, by changing the words you use to program your mind, you immediately unlock the path to live your unlimited potential.

Charles Osgood said it so well when he said “Compared to the spoken word, a picture is a pitiful thing indeed” Imagine the power found in the words expressed by a father, after attending a three day seminar, in which he stands up and for the first time, tells his teenage son that he loves him and is proud of him. Can you imagine the joyous tear filled connection this father and son would experience as a result of those few words? Our words do indeed possess unlimited power, choose yours very wisely from this moment on.

A few subtle changes in the way we say things can completely change their meaning and the way people respond to us. What if we said to our spouse “What is wrong with you” when what we really meant to say “Are you OK” The first confrontational way of asking the same question, is filled with insinuation and would probably get a curt response, whilst the second option would be seen to show real concern and caring. How about a service representative who can respond to a question with either the answer “I will have to get back to you”, which means little, vs. offering a more friendly response like “I will be very happy to get back to you with the right answer today” These very subtle differences, will leave your customers in two very different emotive states.

Words do indeed possess unbelievable power; changing only a few words in a sentence can completely change the meaning and emotion associated with any words. How about if you overheard someone describing someone like this, “she is a really intelligent and beautiful lady, but she wears glasses” The first part of the sentence would create a really positive picture in your mind, only to be destroyed by the last few words in the sentence.

As you choose your words in future, remember that by changing only a few words in a sentence, you can change people’s thoughts. These thoughts, which you are helping to mould and form, result in either positive or negative action, so is it not wise to ensure that you choose you words very wisely. Speak the right words, which produce the right action and you will eventually start to see the right results in your life.

Author: Andrew Horton Time Management Training

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Gain a Few Hours Each Day - Do, Delegate or Delete

There are numerous distractions, which compete to get any business professionals attention every day. The biggest challenge they face, is to know where and how to focus their attention. When they lose their focus and they give their attention to the wrong things or they try to do too many things at once, they lose their ability to build or sustain a successful business.  

Allowing too many distractions to cause you to spin your wheels or attempting to get too much done each day, where you are not ensuring that each hour you invest, is the most valuable use of your time. Is a recipe for disaster in any economy, but because the external conditions are as challenging as they now are, the astute business professional must focus their time and energy on doing only the highest priority things and avoid wasting their day spinning their wheels, with unimportant things.

Action idea: Look back at the way you invested your time, every hour for the next week and ask yourself one simple question, ‘Was that the most productive way I could have invested my time”? If you consistently keep coming up with the answer that you are spinning your wheels and you find you are merely keeping busy, going through the motions every day. It is time to look at introducing three important concepts into your life, namely Delegate, Delete or Do.

Delegate

Most business professionals feel they are the best person to carry out any task and they cannot bring themselves to delegate. I want you to examine all the tasks you carry out and to see if there is not someone else who do the task as well as you could do, at a lower cost. When I speak of cost I am referring to how much each hour of your day actually costs you. Look at your revenue expectations for the year. Use the formula below to calculate your hourly rate.

Hourly rate =                                     annual revenue (Income)

                                         (12 months) * (4 weeks) * (7 Days) *   8 (Hours)

 
After doing this calculation you will astound yourself at how much an hour actually costs you. Armed with this information take another look at how you are investing your time and see if typing a letter, filtering out junk emails or attending unnecessary meetings is indeed the best way for you to spend your time. Delegate any tasks that bring low or no value to you and your business. You will astound yourself with how much time you can add to your day by simply delegating the low value tasks to someone else. Top achievers like Oprah, Richard Branson or Donald Trump; do not have more hours in a day. They just allocate their time better, delegating tasks, which only consume their day, to people who can in many cases do them better than they would.

Delete

We fill our days with so many unnecessary functions, such as reading junk email, we copy everyone in on every email, so they in turn fill our email box with copies of every email they send, we constantly look at our smart phone throughout the day, distracted by the constant barrage of emails and text messages, which come through all day. We also break our focus and concentration to attend meetings, which serve very little purpose at all.

These constant distractions keep us from ever focusing our attention on our biggest priorities. So we spend our days spinning our wheels, arriving home every day feeling like we have really worked hard. When in reality all we have done is spent the day distracted, sitting in unnecessary meetings, where we constantly look at our smart phone, because the meeting had very little interest to us, read emails that meant very little and had almost no interest to us and in-between all this productivity we try to get some meaningful work done.

Action Idea: Delete or remove all unnecessary meetings from your day, stop copying everyone you can think of, in on every email you send and ask everyone else to do the same for you.

You can gain a few extra hours every day when you learn the art of deleting all the time wasting activities from your day.

Do

Stop putting off all the really important things you know you need to do each day. The things you procrastinate or put off every day are in most cases the most important things you need to do.

Action Idea: Plan your day the night before, set aside time every day, preferably first thing in the morning, close your door and get those tasks, which you normally procrastinate done. Once you have completed these important tasks each day, the rest of your day just seems to work better.

When you introduce these three simple principals into your life, you will not only gain a couple of hours every day, but you actually get to finish all your priorities each day.

Author: Andrew Horton Time Management Training

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Why are you Sabotaging your Progress?

Are you sabotaging your potential, because you are afraid of success or worse, you have never taken the time to find out what success really means to you? Don’t be too hasty to answer this question. Give yourself time to sit and contemplate it. Allow your mind out for a walk today and allow yourself the freedom to explore, discover and refine your feelings toward success and what being successful really means to you.

Stop allowing yourself to remain trapped in a life of mediocre, when you are capable of so much more. I see people around me all the time, who have incredible skill and ability, yet they remain trapped in unfulfilling lives with no meaning. That ends today, break free from the limiting bonds, which are restraining you and walk boldly into the future, where limits exist only in your mind.

Give yourself permission to think and like a child once again. Allow yourself to open your mind and allow yourself to have those big dreams you once had, have huge expectations and see all the possibilities that are available to you. Prepare your mind to become massively successful and begin living a life of influence and meaning. It is never too late to have a fantastic childhood, where you can dream big dreams and you see yourself achieving the most incredible things.

Use the formula described to guide you to unlock your unlimited potential:

Make time to sit back and decide what success really means to you. Until you have absolute clarity about what success really means to you, you will be chasing after something, which may not even be what you want. Does “success” mean fame and fortune to you or is it simply the freedom to spend time with the people that matter most in your life?

Believe in yourself and dare to dream. See the possibilities that abound all around and allow yourself to have huge expectations that are aligned with your unique concept of what “success” means to you.

Keep investing in your personal growth and keep preparing for the opportunities that are going to cross your path. As Oprah says’ “Success is when opportunity meets preparation”. We all have many opportunities cross our paths, throughout our lives. Make sure that you are investing enough time and resources, into your personal growth, so that you are adequately prepared when the next opportunity comes your way.

Stop pursuing success and shift your mind away from “how can I get it?” and start asking yourself the question “What do I have to become to attract or deserve the type of success I desire?” This shift will see you invest your limited resources into becoming more. As you become more everything you desire will be drawn into your life. Become a great steward of your existing talents and skills and invest energy into growing these into the skill and knowledge base, you need to achieve everything you desire.

Allow yourself to break free from your trained expectation that says that all progress must be linear in nature. Stop thinking that you are only warming up for the success that it is coming, start living every moment as part of the journey and allow yourself to enjoy every step in the process. Everything that comes your way is on the way to the success you desire. Nothing you encounter is ever in the way.

Always give 100 %. If you are resting give yourself completely to rest. If you are working or learning new skills, then give 100 % to that. Giving 100 % commitment and effort, striving to be your best all the time is crucial when you want to succeed. Note I said give your best, not be the best.

Align you private and public personas, strive to always be authentic and show the world your true self. Always strive to project your true values and show integrity in all dealings with others.

When you introduce these few new behaviours and philosophies into your life, you have created a solid foundation for inviting sustainable success into your experience. This strong foundation will serve as the beginning of your success journey and will be the strength you need to keep you focused and on track.

Author: Andrew Horton Time Management

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

How Important is it to Know what Success Really Means to you?

Success means owning a large house in the best neighbourhood, filled with all the latest gadgets, driving a fancy car, having prestige and standing in the community isn’t it? Or does success mean something completely different to you? My objective with this article is not to judge and state that any one definition of success is any better than other. My objective is to show that, unless you know what success really means to you and you have clarity about what you really want from your life, you are going to continue to pursue something that you may not even want in the first place.

There are numerous cases of people, who thought success was defined by fame and fortune, only to get there and realise that money and notoriety mean very little at all. Elvis Presley, Amy Winehouse, River Phoenix and Lindsay Lohan, to name but a few, all achieved incredible levels of fame and fortune, but destroyed their lives with drugs, because they never defined what they really wanted from life. So when the fame and fortune crossed their paths, it was a hollow victory, with little meaning at all.

Invest the time today and allow yourself to explore and discover what success really means to you. What will you be doing, having and being when that ideal picture of success shows up. Until you know what you really want and why that is important to you, you will continue to flounder blindly through life pursuing a dream, you don’t even care to realise.

Success may mean:

·         Spending time with the people you love

·         Freedom to choose what you do when you do it

·         Money, prestige or fame

·         Academic achievement

·         Connection to your spiritual self

·         Great Health

·         Financial security

·         Great meaningful career

Your definition of what success really means to you could be one or a combination of any of these ideas above. The definition you come up with is of little importance though, what really matters is that you no longer see success as a destination. Success is an exciting journey of discovery and growth.

I have reached many milestones in my life and I can report that the euphoria associated with reaching any destination was short lived. I remember eagerly waiting to finish high school, counting each day until I was done, got to graduation day and felt empty and asked myself the question “So What”. I never learnt anything from my high school graduation experience and went onto university, wow, was I in a hurry to graduate so that I could go and get a job. I was once again disappointed by the anti-climax associated with graduating and being awarded my bachelor’s degree.  

When you see success as a destination you are setting yourself up for a fall, success is an on-going process of growth and development, never a single event. To avoid the inevitable disappointment and anti-climax, which comes with reaching any milestone in your life? Create a crystal clear vision of where you want your life to go. Keep traveling in this direction every day and see each destination as only a part of the journey, never the end of the journey. Success is a direction and never a destination.

It does not matter what your definition of success is, all that matters is that you never define success as a whole lot of destinations. Change your belief that says, “I will be happy when I get that promotion or I will be happy when I earn X amount of money” and instead see success as a direction. As you travel in that direction and grow and expand, keep expanding your vision and allow new possibilities to open up to you. Allow yourself to enjoy each milestone that you achieve, but always remember to stay focused on the direction you are traveling. Completely immerse yourself in enjoying the journey and love what you do. Life is a fantastic journey, enjoy the ride.

Author: Andrew Horton Motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za