Recruiting the right people is the no one Business Skill that ensures sustainable business success

Your business is no different to any other, it is simply a group of people that have joined together to achieve a mutual outcome or result that will be beneficial to all stakeholders. It is irrelevant what the objectives of your business or organisation might be, the success or the quality of the outcomes you will enjoy is directly proportional to the calibre of the people within your organisation. Your most valuable asset owned by your organisation is thus your people. They will serve as the greatest determining factor that will determine how successful your business will be or in many cases how unsuccessful it will be.

It is for this reason that you must have a really refined recruitment policy within your business. When the success of any organisation depends on more than one person to achieve any outcomes, it becomes imperative that you ensure that you only bring the correct people with the correct skills into your business. It is not only crucial that you have the right people sitting in the correct seats on your businesses bus of success, but that they are all committed to give their best to achieve the common purpose or vision of the organisation.

When you explore any great business that has become very successful, the one factor present in all of them is that they are filled with great people, who are driven to accomplish a unified purpose and inspired by a great vision. No great success can ever be achieved in any organisation without the support of everyone within the business. The secret to building your business and turning it into a huge success is to fill your business with people that have strengths that support your efforts and are aligned with the outcomes you are trying to achieve.

Never be shy to fill your teams with people that are smarter, more skilled or far more talented than you are. This will equip your business for great achievement and long term sustainable success. One of the easiest ways to ensure that your business becomes really successful and a great contributor to all stakeholders is to surround yourself with people that excel in areas where you struggle. This next piece of advice may sound obvious and common sense; I assure you that it is by no means common practice. You should aim to fill all the positions in your business with people that have strengths and almost feel like their work is fun and what they love doing. When your management team is smarter, more talented and skilled than you in their specialised areas, you have built a quality team that will turn your business into a super organisation. 

   

The message I want to pass onto you is that it is never your intelligence, experience, knowledge, skill or background that will decide how successful your business will be. The way your business turns out will depend on one thing only – Your ability to find, train, retain and empower the right people. The number one skill you thus need to develop and hone is the ability to assess, hire and inspire the right people to deliver their best every day. Always strive to hire people that are authorities in their field. No one is inspired or driven to succeed by people that act from a position where they are IN authority. No matter what product or service you sell, how large your manufacturing facility or warehouse may be, your most valuable asset will always be the quality of the people in your organisation.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Awaken Your Internal Champion

Before the advent of video games and the constant bombardment of 24 hour entertainment streaming directly into our lounges, the highlight of our year was attending the carnival, when it came to town. We could hardly wait to ride the bobbing wild animals and whirl, round and round to the music that was blasting out of the old antique pipe organ. Surrounded by flashing lights and strategically placed mirrors, our hearts would race as we all competed to be the one who could reach out and grab hold of the gold ring, thereby winning another free ride. I believe that the simple act of always giving my all, trying desperately to reach out and grab that gold ring, helped give birth to my competitive spirit.

I would always compete in every sporting event I could, trying to win at all costs and overcome everyone around me, so that I could be the best and be recognised. Watching world class athletes standing on the highest pedestal in the centre of the stadium, raising their hands to the loud roar of approval from the crowd, was a huge joy for me. I would feel the pride and honour as though it was me standing on the podium. I held onto that dream of one day standing on that podium myself, wallowing in the glory.

I believe that the dream to be the best is ingrained into us from an early age. Going back to riding the merry-go round and being the one who managed to grab the gold ring. It was not just the fact that you won another free ride on the merry-go round that drove me to win; it was the fact that your name was announced over the loudspeaker and all the other kids and parents would applaud your success.

Due to the pressures placed on us to always be the best and to win at all costs, we are mistakenly led to believe that success and winning is something you earn by reaching outside of yourself. Constantly trying to prove to others that you were worthy of their praise, as you strive to prove yourself, earning more, winning all the time or attempting to perform in some special way.

This crazy notion that you need to always outperform, outmanoeuvre or outplay everyone around you, is the single biggest reason why people give up on their dreams. They are so desperately trying to win all the time, trying to earn self-worth through external praise from others, that when they are unable to be no 1 all the time and they no longer get the external praise they so desperately need, they simply give up and stop trying.

We are mistakenly led to believe that the approval of others always precedes feelings of self-worth and self-confidence and that you are only entitled to feel good about yourself after you have outperformed everyone around you. It saddens me to think how many people still live by this mistaken belief and keep themselves trapped in lives they hate, because they have not realised that the key trait needed to live a life of meaning and fulfilment is, simply creating a fundamental belief in your own internal value.

It has taken me many years to realise that the wellspring of personal and professional success is found by applying the following principals in your life:

The value you feel must be an inside job. Never rely on the opinion of others to develop your feelings of self-worth or self-confidence.

Your performance is only a reflection of your internal worth and never a measure of it.

Your own sense of value must determine the quality of your performance.

The less you strive to impress everyone around you, the more impressive you are.

Believe in your own internal value and stop looking around for approval from others. You are truly magnificent and unique and have so much to offer the world. Stop measuring your success by your external possessions or you will be constantly subject to anxiety. Do not rely on the cheers of your peers to drive your success. You can never succeed in the long run, if your concept of success depends upon always winning, offering a perfect performance every time or hearing the cheers of everyone around you.

It is very clear that good looks, talent and other attributes are not equally distributed, but the one thing none of us is ever short of, is value. We are all filled to overflowing with value, more than we could ever hope to use in several lifetimes. The game of life is never played on a level playing field, in terms of education, supportive environments, available resources and many other circumstances beyond our control, but I know that you were born with unlimited value and the ability to be the best possible version of yourself. What are you waiting for, unlock that value and become the best you can be. Note I said be the best you can be, not be the best all the time.

You were born a champion, but you have allowed yourself to be broken down by perceptions, unrealistic expectations, exposure to a judgemental environment and your need for external recognition. You came into this world a winner, but have programmed yourself to not live according to your highest potential, because of responses you have received from your environment. Recognise your internal value and use that as the foundation for achieving your full potential. Become an inner winner, believe in yourself and you can succeed at anything.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Author: Andrew Horton Business Motivational Speakers

Cash-in and turn Goal setting into success

How many times have you started a New Year, proclaiming that this is your year, this is going to be the year that you finally transform yourself and deliver on your promises and begin living your dreams? Has this year been any different, are you finally delivering on your big mouth promises this time? Or has this year proved to be the same as every one that has gone before? Succeeding and turning off, this perpetual cycle of failure, is just a few small shifts in thinking and attitude away. You do not need to reboot your life, you need to make a few well directed shifts in the way you do things.

A few years ago my son was in his final year at school. He was really struggling; he was in that part of the class that makes the top half possible. In fact he was in the part of the class that makes the bottom of the class look like geniuses. Once a year my wife and I go away to address our goals and plans for the next year. It was around May and as Clyde was struggling so much, a lot of our weekend was spent discussing how we could help him and just get him through the year. Eventually after going backwards and forwards, we finally came up with a plan to help him address a few key areas in his life. He never had enough time to reboot his life, all he had time to do was to make a few important shifts in the way he did things. These few small shifts saw him go from the bottom of the class, to the student that got the prize for the most improved student of the year. I want to share these concepts with you today. They completely changed the course of Clyde’s life. I know they can and will do the same for you, if you are willing to try them and bring them into your life.

Focus on only a few

Focus your energy and concentrate all your efforts on only the most important priorities. Stop sweating the small stuff and give 100 % of your energy and focus, to only a few things that will make the most difference. Experience has shown me that it is only about half a dozen actions, done every day that deliver more than 80 % of the results in our lives. When you try to tackle too many things at once, you land up doing none and achieving nothing.

Expect challenges

When you are on any journey, there will always be challenges and roadblocks. Expect them, plan for them and know that they are not what define you. Allow yourself to make mistakes, give yourself some room for error. Mistakes are all part of the human experience. Mistakes are things to learn from, not to shrink from. Mistakes are just a part of life and they are just another part of the journey, they are on your way to discovering the success you desire.

Clarity

Get a crystal clear picture of exactly what you want to achieve and quantify the outcome you want to achieve. When you have a clear picture of what you want and you focus all your energy on making just that happen, magic begins to unfold. When everything is clear and quantified and all your actions are measured daily, weekly and quarterly, you have a everything you need to stay on track. Whatever gets measured gets done.

Introduce these three simple strategies into your life and you will finally see all your dreams begin to unfold and you will finally begin to live in the magic of life.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Your Thoughts Create your Future

Your Thoughts Create your Future

Business Motivational Speakers

It is possible to change everything in your life with one decision or a single thought. All that you need to do, to start this miraculous process, of creating exactly the future that  you desire, is to make that one decision, to begin doing things differently. This single thought can positively change everything in your life.

This one single thought or single decision can:

• ·         Unlock your hidden potential
• ·         Improve your health
• ·         Create great wealth
• ·         Create great relationships and forge bonds of deep love and connection
• ·         Inspire new levels of joy and happiness.

We only get out of life, whatever we create. That sounds like such a simplistic statement and one worth exploring a little further. In other words if we want more of anything in our lives, we must create it. Accept that we are amazingly creative beings that can create and achieve incredible things, if we choose to. Everyone arrives on this planet, naked, scared and ignorant. The way our lives turn out, after that miraculous arrival, is determined by what we create or fail to create in our lives due to our creative activity or our negative inactivity.  

So I hear you ask “What drives our creative Capacity”?

In one word “Expectation” It is very rare that our achievements outstrip our expectations. When you create great expectations around what you are able to achieve, you determine the scope of what you are able to create. In a nutshell, whatever you think about creates your expectations and your expectations become the driving force behind your creative potential. That is why there are so many books on personal development that have titles like, Think and Grow Rich, As a Man Thinketh, The magic of Thinking Big and The Power of Positive Thinking. Our thoughts most definitely drive our expectations and our expectations most certainly manifest into all the possibilities that are available to us. Our expectations manifest into creation.

One of the most powerful thoughts that we experience and one that can transform our lives in the most remarkable ways, is the choice to think thoughts of gratitude. The reason this works so effectively, is because of how our brains are designed to work.  Our brains are in effect only auditing devices that search through our environment, discovering what is wrong, lacking or missing. The major role our brain undertakes is to ensure that we remain safe and that our survival is ensured. This is done through fear, hesitation or suspicion.  If we allow these protective, negative thoughts to dominate our mind, they will become our expectations and as I described above our expectations become the driving force behind what we create in our lives.  These negative thoughts will determine the direction your life will take and will drive the creative process inside your brain. Allowing these negative thought processes to decide on the direction your life will take will result in a lifetime of disappointing experiences and unfulfilling outcomes.

Business Motivational Speakers

The amazing thing about our thoughts is that we can control them and make better choices about what we think about. The way we do this is to stop the natural tendency of our mind to think negative protective thoughts, by redirecting it towards thoughts of abundance and what is possible for us, by focusing our thoughts on all the wonderful things we are grateful for in our lives. This small shift away from focusing our energy on the negative can very quickly change the trajectory of your life and put you on the path to super achievement. There are no magical things that happen around focusing your energy on abundance and all the wonderful things that you are grateful for in your life. Whatever you think about and focus your energy and thoughts upon, you will eventually bring about. You only see and experience the things that you look for. You create your reality by what your thoughts focus on and thus your creative energy is always focused on your dominate trend of thought. If you continue to focus on the negative thoughts and scarcity, that will be exactly what your reality will consist of. Open your mind and think thoughts od=f gratitude and abundance and your creative energy will be directed toward creating exactly that in your life. There is really no magic about this at all; it is simply a case of learning how to use the most incredible tool ever, namely your brain, to its full potential.

When you are in an attitude of gratitude you alter the aperture of your mind and you focus your thoughts on positive outcomes. This has incredible positive health benefits as well, you reduce your stress levels, you feel more positive and you are filled with far more joy and happiness. Besides the obvious benefits that your improved positive thoughts bring and how these thoughts help you to become more creative, there are a number of additional benefits too.

When you focus your thoughts on gratitude you improve your health by positively changing your emotions and improving your physical wellbeing. This has been shown to reduce depression, lower blood pressure, reduce or eliminate heart disease and boost the immune system. Your wealth will also start to improve as you choose to feel gratitude for all the abundance that already exists in your life. When you view everything in your environment as being filled with abundance, you have an open mind that is searching for new ideas and opportunities. This opens your mind to be constantly searching and discovering more abundance, prosperity and allows you to see all the opportunities that surround you.

Gratitude is most certainly a choice and choosing gratitude will eventually become an integral part of your new success habit set, if you are willing to practice this crucial concept, every day until it becomes who and what you are. This simple shift toward appreciating everything that you have in your life will help you to create the circumstances, which will help you to enjoy the abundance you deserve in all areas of your life.

Author: Andrew Horton Business Motivational Speakers

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Professional Speakers Association of South Africa Breakfast 17 August 2011

Workplace Ethics and Meet Your Future

The Professional Speakers Association of Southern Africa presents two of South Africa's foremost Speakers , Cynthia Schoeman and Andrew Horton to share some of their valuable insights so that you can ramp up your business and your profits.

Date:Wednesday 17 August 2011

Time: 07h30 for 08h00 - 10h15

Venue: Cafe Culture, Pineslopes Centre, Fourways (opposite to Monte Casino)

Investment: R150 -Includes a full buffet breakfast,

The Opportunity:

Tap into the expertise of some of South Africa's top expert professional speakers and network with other business owners.

There's only space for 60 guests, so book early because it will be on a first come first served basis.

Click here for more details and bookings 

 Meet Your Future
by Andrew Horton

 

  Are you frustrated and convinced that your life is going nowhere? Do you feel like you have tried every possible tool, technique and gimmick to help you find success and meaning and yet you are still trapped in a life that is unfulfilling and empty? If you answered yes to either of these questions, you are not alone. The vast majority of people are just like you. They feel frustrated and incomplete. They are searching for answers to unlock their potential and turn it into fulfilment and long term success. This talk is built from the laboratory of my personal experience. It offers some practical advice on how to make a few small shifts that may change your life forever.

Click Here for More info on Andrew

Workplace ethics: Illusion, luxury or necessity?
by Cynthia Schoeman

Is workplace ethics an illusion, something that may be talked or written about, but does not really exist? Or is it a luxury - In theory, it's the right thing to do, but  competitive pressure forces you to pursue results at any cost? Or, is workplace ethics a necessity? Cynthia's talk explores the benefits, costs and consequences which make ethics essential in the workplace of today.

Click Here for More info on Cynthia

Programme

07h30 - 08h00 - Registration, network and connect

08h00 - 08h45 - Buffet Breakfast

09h00 - 09h30 - Workplace ethics: Illusion, luxury or necessity?

09h40 - 10h10 - Meet Your Future

10h15 - Closure

Creating a Success Habit Set for Long Term Sustainable Success -Business Motivational Speakers

Creating a Success Habit Set for Long Term Sustainable Success
Business Motivational Speakers
Long term sustainable Success is all about having a system that you apply in your life over time, until this new system for success becomes your new success habit set. Everyone that makes achieving their goals look simple and seems to succeed at everything they do is merely someone that has a great daily system or daily routine of success habits that they practice without much thought at all. These people seem to get ahead faster, are able accomplish far more, even though you seem to work far harder and you put in longer hours. The road to becoming one of these top achievers that makes achieving success look so easy is really simple. All that you need to do is invest time and effort into learning a system for success that works and then applying your willpower to turn this system into your new success habit set. This system I want you to learn and apply in your life has taken me more than 20 years to develop and refine. As you learn, practice and execute this system you will gradually learn to accomplish far more, earn more and be more, all without spending any more of your available time.
Inspiration is that fire in your belly that drives you to begin and to keep taking the necessary daily actions that will help you to realize all your dreams. Aligning your values with the success you desire and developing a success habit set are the catalysts that will help you to sustain your efforts and allow you to live a harmonious and balanced life. When you are in alignment with your values and you have created an ingrained success habit set to support you, you have the makings of creating and sustaining what will appear to be effortless success. This new set of daily routines or ingrained habits is what will keep you going even when that initial fire in your belly begins to burn out.

You will be introduced to the three simple concepts or new habits that will encourage success, balance and harmony in your life. You will be guided to gradually introduce these three new routines into your life. Once you have learnt and are applying these tools on a daily basis, you will have introduced three fundamental tools for long term sustainable success. You will carry out new daily routines almost on autopilot and most importantly you will have created daily time slots to work on your future. These activities will be measured regularly and tweaked until they deliver the desired outcomes. Bear in mind that once mastered, this approach can be used to create success in any area of your life.

Meeting Your Future - Business Motivational Speakers

The first part of this system is to create time slots in your day, to carry out the activities that will move you along the path to success. We seem to go through our days doing plenty of things, feeling really busy, but by the end of every day we seem to have achieved very little. When you commit to introduce “Meetings with Your Future” into your life, you very quickly change this and you start to see remarkable progress toward achieving the success that you desire. This is your new success tool that is introduced into your daily routine to equip you with the time needed to carry out your inspired daily actions. This is time that you set aside every day to work on yourself and on your future. When you introduce “Meetings with Your Future” into your daily schedule you are teaching yourself to make time available to carry out the necessary daily activities to create the future that you desire. This is the time you make available every day to carry out the 5 daily activities or codes as described below. These are the almost insignificant daily actions that, compounded over time, allow you to create the future you desire, moment by moment, day by day, until they add up to the success you desire. Real long term sustainable success is not about huge effort carried out over a long period of time. It is about small almost insignificant actions performed indefinitely over the course of your life.

Scheduling meetings with your future is time that you schedule every day to devote to making a meaningful difference to the way your future will turn out. Choose to include this very simple tool into your daily schedule and make it an integral part of your success habit set. This will remove the illusion that there is no time available to work on exploring and exploiting your own potential. There are endless possibilities and opportunities all around you. Break free from the prison of perpetual ‘busyness’ and stop allowing yourself to be a victim of a perceived lack of time. Choose to introduce this system for time efficiency into your life. You will then have time available to perform those few small daily activities that will add up to massive success over time.

Code of Personal Achievement - Business Motivational Speakers
This is a unique set of commitments or codes that you set for yourself every day, to carry out five activities that are aligned with the goals, you are trying to achieve. These activities when carried out daily will move you closer to the outcomes you want to achieve. They are the daily actions or tasks you are attempting to develop and turn into your new daily routines. These daily activities will over time turn into your success habit set.
Initially it will require willpower to carry out these very necessary daily activities. After about 46 – 66 days these activities will become entrenched habits. To ensure that you have the time and inclination to carry out these tasks, we have created the concept of daily “Meetings with your Future”. (See above). Once you have developed the habit of scheduling “Meetings with your Future” every day, to ensure that you have time to carry out these actions. You will have created a daily routine that will help you to build any new success habit set that you desire.
For example: If your goal was to improve your health.
You would choose five daily activities or “commitments to yourself” that would help you achieve this goal.

• Drink 2 litres of water
• Exercise 30 minutes a day
• Eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day
• Cut down on fat intake
• Take multi vitamin daily

You will consciously carry out these five activities every day using your willpower to drive you, for 66 days, until they become entrenched habits. Current research has shown that it should take between 40 to 66 days for these activities to become entrenched habits. It will initially require discipline and willpower to carry out these activities but soon enough they will become ingrained habits and will become an integral part of your new success habit set. This is a tool that allows you to start developing a new daily routine that will ensure your success. This code or commitment you make with yourself, acts as a daily reminder for you to carry out activities that will help you learn new positive habits. Over time as you apply discipline to carry out these carefully chosen daily activities, or codes, you instil a new set of behaviours that eventually evolve into your new success habit set.
Performance Management System - Business Motivational Speakers
Whatever gets measured gets done. The performance measurement system is designed to measure your performance on a daily, weekly, quarterly and annual basis. This system is designed not only to measure performance but it is also a way to celebrate success. When we constantly celebrate our successes, we are better equipped to remain inspired and driven to succeed.
It is not enough to merely have forward motion, where you are like a feather blowing in the wind. Yes, you are moving forward toward achieving your dreams, but at the first obstacle you become stuck and lose all impetus. This new success habit system will show you how to build momentum in your life as you work to achieve your goals. You must learn to feel and operate like a strong free flowing river, where you become virtually unstoppable. This is only achieved if you constantly measure your performance as you take action daily, to ensure that your activities are delivering the desired results. As long as your daily activities are achieving the outcomes you desire, you bring some of the most powerful forces into play namely momentum and compounding.
Author: Andrew Horton Business Motivational Speakers
http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Recruiting the right people is the no one Business Skill that ensures sustainable business success

Recruiting the right people is the no one Business Skill that ensures sustainable business success
Business Motivational Speakers
Your business is no different to any other, it is simply a group of people that have joined together to achieve a mutual outcome or result that will be beneficial to all stakeholders. It is irrelevant what the objectives of your business or organisation might be, the success or the quality of the outcomes you will enjoy is directly proportional to the calibre of the people within the organisation. Your most valuable asset owned by your organisation is thus your people, as the greatest factor that will determine how successful your business will be or in many cases how unsuccessful it will be, is the quality of the people within your business. It is for this reason that you must have a really refined recruitment policy within your business. When the success of any organisation depends on more than one person to achieve any outcomes, it become imperative that you ensure that you only bring the correct people with the correct skills into your business. It is not only crucial that you have the right people sitting in the correct seats on your businesses bus of success, but that they are all committed to give their best to achieve the common purpose or vision of the organisation.
Business Motivational Speakers
When you explore any great business that has become very successful, the one factor present in all of them is that they are filled with great people that are driven to accomplish a unified purpose and inspired by a great vision. No great success can ever be achieved in any organisation without the support of everyone within the business. The secret to building your business and turning it into a huge success is to fill your business with people that have strengths that support your efforts and are aligned with the outcomes you are trying to achieve. Never be shy to fill your teams with people that are smarter, more skilled or far more talented than you are. This will equip your business for great achievement and long term sustainable success. One of the easiest ways to ensure that your business becomes really successful and a great contributor to all stakeholders is to surround yourself with people that excel in areas where you struggle. This next piece of advice may sound obvious and common sense; I assure you that it is by no means common practice. You should aim to fill all the positions in your business with people that have strengths and almost feel like their work is fun and what they love doing. When your management team is smarter, more talented and skilled than you in their specialised areas you have built a quality team that will turn your business into a super organisation.   
The message I want to pass onto you is that it is never your intelligence, experience, knowledge, skill or background that will decide how successful your business will be. The way your business turns out will depend on one thing only – Your ability to find, train, retain and empower the right people. The number one skill you thus need to develop and hone, is the ability to assess, hire and inspire the right people to deliver their best every day. Always strive to hire people that are authorities in their field. No one is inspired or driven to succeed by people that act from a position where they are IN authority.
Author: Andrew Horton Business Motivational Speakers
http://www.andrewhorton.co.za