4 Mental Techniques to Improve Your Time Management | Brian Tracy

Essential for new Entrepreneurs. Great tips to get you focused, organised and simply get it done!

Grant Cardone's Top 10 Rules For Success (@GrantCardone)

The Best Sales Advice I Ever Heard ?

Are you getting in the way of your own sales?

The Power of Motivation: Crash Course Psychology #17

WOW he wasnt joking when he said crash course lol ! I'd be surprised he didn't pass out after this video I'm not sure he took a breath lol!

9 New Year's Resolutions for Small Business Success

Kimberly de Silva • Guest Writer
This story originally appeared on Bizness Apps

It's a good time to reflect on your business' progress and plan how you want to grow your business in the new year.

When people hear new year’s resolutions, they often think of “exercising more," “spending more time with the family” or “traveling more." Besides these personal resolutions, you can also create impactful resolutions for your small business. A resolution, after all, is a decision to do something differently to bring about positive change. It’s a good time to reflect on your business’ progress and plan how you want to grow your business in the new year. 

1. I will learn how to delegate and do more of it. 

As a small business owner, your to-do list probably doesn’t even fit on one page. There are so many things to do, and it’s easy to delude ourselves that we need to do all of them ourselves. You can only work so many hours in a day. As a result, you’re probably exhausted, stressed and don’t have any free time outside of your business. Delegation is the key to a healthy work-life balance. However, people don’t delegate because it takes a lot of upfront effort and requires a loss of control. So how do you let someone else do certain tasks, while making sure it’s done correctly? The answer is simple: communication and training. Make sure your employees are trained enough, to the point where they can take over some of your tasks. The next step is to clearly communicate the objectives and deadlines, so that you don’t end up micromanaging.

2. I will learn how to manage my cash flow more effectively.

Cash flow is the lifeblood of any small business. In fact, a prominent study from the financial services company U.S. Bank found that 82 percent of startups and small businesses fail due to poor cash flow management. According to The Balance, “This is a great resolution for small business owners who have drastic ebbs and flows in their cash flow, have been unable to create enough capital to invest back into the business or those who don’t really understand the day-to-day finances of the business.”

3. I will take steps to improve my digital presence.

If it’s been more than a year since your site has been updated, if you haven’t taken action to make your online presence mobile-friendly, if you still haven’t created an email marketing list or if digital isn’t part of your marketing strategy at all, it’s time to add this to your new year’s resolutions. You could even take a step further than mobile-friendly and use a mobile-first approach to your digital presence. 

4. I will charge what I’m worth.

Do you feel that your product or service is undervalued? If so, then it might be time to raise your rates to correspond with the value you bring to the table. You might be thinking that raising your prices will alienate certain people from becoming a customer. That could be the case, but you can’t be all things to all people. “Your target market will pay what the marketplace has proved it will pay”, says Entrepreneur. How can you implement this? Depending on your business, you can shift to a “packaged value” approach. This is where you provide tiered packages that give potential customers choices, so they can focus on the value you offer rather than the amount of time you spent. Your prices can then reflect this value

5. I will learn something new.

New year, new skill. Choose something new to learn in 2018 -- it may be directly related to your business or completely unrelated. Learning a new skill will add a dimension of interest to your life that will help to maintain that work-life balance. It will also help you to get out of your comfort zone and meet new people, if you decide to take marketing classes or learn a new language.

6. I will make business strategizing a weekly event. 

Planning is vital if you want to foster a growing business. But running a small business can be chaotic and it’s easy to get sucked into the day-to-day operations. Business strategizing allows you to take a step back and highlight what worked and what didn’t, while adjusting old goals and setting new ones. So why do it just once a quarter or once a year? Set aside time each week to review your strategies. This will help you stay on track and allow you to have a clear hold on your business. 

7. I will drop what’s not working and move on.

After all that business strategizing, you will know exactly what’s not working for your small business. Maybe your sales method isn’t performing well, one of your products isn’t selling or a specific partnership isn’t working out… If this is the case, it’s time to drop it. As The Balance states, “If a technique or a product or a business relationship isn’t working for you, stop using it. Don’t invest a lot of energy into trying to make the unworkable workable. Move on. Something better will turn up.”

8. I will promote my business regularly and consistently.

Since small business owners wear a lot of hats, you might not always have “marketing” at the top of your to-do list. While you should definitely focus on delivering that amazing small business experience, you shouldn’t forget to market that amazing experience to to the outside world. To attract new customers, you have to make promotion a priority. Take the time to create a marketing plan or, even your funds allow it, hire a marketing expert to help you set it up. To get started, try some of these ways to get press coverage for your small business.

9. I will enhance my technology footprint.

Few things frustrate employees -- and customers -- more than working with outdated technology. Slow internet speeds, clunky operating systems and inadequate tools can eat up valuable time. Make an inventory list of all your company supplies to see what needs replacing. Maybe it’s time to implement that online food ordering system, or maybe your employees could use new computers. Start the year off right by upgrading your technology footprint.

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL POST

The psychology of self-motivation | Scott Geller | TEDxVirginiaTech

Quite funny as well. Very interesting have a look.

Goal Setting and the Magic of the Universe

Back in high school I remember talking to my first official boss, besides my dad who managed my paper route, about my burning desire to succeed. He asked me where I got this so called burning desire and til this day I cannot tell you where I got it or why I continue to have it. I can tell you that my desire to succeed has transformed over time and that is directly a result of me looking inward. I’ve learned so much, over the almost 50 years I’ve been on this planet, about life, living, desires, satisfaction, happiness, love, and yes, goal setting.

There are hordes and hordes of different kinds of goal setting, most of which I believe fails us. I want to give you a few simple ideas and strategies to help you make sure you stay on track to achieve your goals.

First of all, there are a bunch of different categories for which you can set goals. There is also an incredible amount of detail you can get into if you have the time, but I know most of do not. If you read my column last week you know that I like to set New Year’s principles not goals. However, I do set goals on a regular basis, all the time. I’m always redefining what I want and changing course as my desires change.

Looking at the big picture, you can choose a 1 year, 3 year, and 10 year goal. You can also use 3 simple categories of personal, health, and career goals. That’s obviously a wide range and view from the top of your life. I find that while that’s a worthwhile exercise, it’s more productive for me to set daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals as well.

My daily goals are simple. What 3 things am I going to do today that are going to make me feel accomplished? There is a philosophy from Brian Tracy where he talks about eating the frog. If you ate a frog first thing in the morning, everything else you did that day would feel easy. I try to shoot for eating the frog as soon as possible.

My weekly goals are things that I know need to be done weekly or a project I’m working on. For instance, I set a goal to manage my finances every Friday. I reconcile my books, make sure I know what’s coming in and what’s going out. I look at my investments and what I am looking forward to in the future. That is a scheduled event every Friday, but it’s also a goal of mine to stay on track. Then of course, that follows in the monthly, quarterly, and annual goals as well.

Here are a few basic things that you can do to make sure you stay on track with your goals.

Make Them Simple

Too often we get consumed by setting goals, but it doesn’t need to be so complicated. Choose something you want, whether it’s spending more time with your spouse or exercising more, and commit to doing it.

Read Them Daily

This will help you keep your goals at the top of your mind. It will increase your focus and allow you to achieve your goals more easily. I remember it took me years to quit smoking, but I always kept in on my list of goals. Eventually it happened and it was one of the best things I ever did.

Be Relentless

Take some time in meditation, visualize your goals, and begin to see yourself achieving them. Then take your visualization to the next level and see what the world is going to provide for you. Not only will you achieve your goals, but you will reach new heights that you never knew existed. That’s where the magic lies. And someday, you may even have a goal of doing a handstand on top of Haleakula Crate in Maui. I can help you with that one  and I’m always here to help you along your journey. You can find me @teddymcdonald.

Originally published  CLICK HERE

TONY ROBBINS - NEW YEAR, NEW YOU (2018 MOTIVATION)

Still relevant every year for me. Whats your thoughts?

SIX BODY LANGUAGE THAT ARE HARD TO MASTER BUT WILL PAY OFF FOR LIFE

Maintain good eye contact

As Ursula the sea witch famously said, “Don't underestimate the importance of body language.”

Some tricks, like remembering to smile, are pretty easy to implement in your everyday life.

However, there are other techniques that, while relatively commonsense, are somewhat trickier to tackle.

Still, they can make a huge difference.

Here are six body language hacks that can be tricky to master, but will definitely pay off forever once you do:

1. Mirror the person you're speaking to

Mirroring - or aligning your body to match the position of whoever you're speaking to - can be a tough skill to master. But doing it shows admiration and agreement, says Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder.

It can be hard to do this subtly, without looking like you're mimicking or mocking someone, but this is definitely a good trick to employ if you're really trying to make a good impression.

2. Walk with purpose and energy

Not everyone walks with confidence. Some of us shuffle through life with a slumping, awkward gait.

And it can be tough to change the way we walk. But if you take some steps to improve it, you can help to ensure that people don't make snap judgments about your confidence, attractiveness, and trustworthiness, according to Scientific American.

3. Maintain good eye contact

It's all in the eyes.

People with a shaky gaze often come across as anxious, distracted, or dishonest. And it can be tough to master the skill of maintaining eye contact, since it's a very uncomfortable and unnatural thing for some people. But it's a practice that can help you immensely in life.

Luckily, there are some simple techniques for maintaining better eye contact if you feel your stare isn't cutting it.

In How To Talk To Anyone, author and communication expert Leil Lowndes advises that you should “pretend your eyes are glued to your conversation partner's with sticky, warm taffy.”

Once you master this trick, you'll immediately see an improvement in your face-to-face communications with others.

4. Keep your hands visible

It's hard to know what to do with your hands sometimes, especially if you're a somewhat nervous person.

As a result, you might take to compulsively jamming them into your pockets or crossing your arms. Those are understandable moves, but they also project a somewhat negative image.

As Business Insider previously reported, it's important to keep your hands visible, lest you look like you're hiding something.

Invite people in and allow them to trust you by using more open body language. Avoid positions that make you appear defensive (even if that's how you're feeling).

5. Sit up straight

Your parents were right to constantly bark at you to adjust your terrible posture when you were a moody teen.

“If you lounge back in your chair, recruiters interpret it as a sign of your disinterest in the open position or that you're not taking the interview seriously, neither of which will help you land the job,” Amanda Augustine, a career advice expert for TopResume, previously told Business Insider. “In addition, slumping over in the chair can indicate a lack of confidence.”

Instead, she suggests sitting as if there was a string tied from the top of your head to the ceiling. Sitting up straight is seen as a sign of intelligence, confidence, and credibility, she explains.

Anyone with bad posture can tell you that correcting your slouch is not always easy. But it's definitely worth it in the long run.

6. Work on your handshake

No one wants to receive a “dead fish” handshake. Writing on LinkedIn, Ashish Arora notes that “a weak handshake equals a weak person” in most peoples' minds.

So how do you give a great handshake?

Arora breaks it down for us: “When squeezing your hand you want the grip to be tight enough to feel the bones of the other person’s hand lightly pressing into your skin and then keeping the same amount of pressure while you make two to three moderately strong shakes in the vertical plain. Maintain eye contact and a smile throughout.”

• AINE CAIN BUSINESS INSIDER
• Wednesday 29 November 2017 13:19 GMT
• CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE

7 Steps to Achieve Financial Freedom | Brian Tracy

Watch this at your own peril.

You will have to face some tough self reflection but the dividends are astronomical!

Why coaching, not gadgets, is key to getting the most out of employees

Forget the gadgets and “lifehacks” to increase productivity, my research with Julia Milner shows that managers need to become coaches to get the best out of their employees.

Coaching means many things, from simply listening to staff, to helping them set personal goals or understand the company’s objectives. When employees understand the business goals, they can make their own decisions and not wait for someone to tell them what to do.

When employees are listened to, they feel valued and empowered. They have greater ownership and commitment to actions that they themselves have identified as necessary. As one manager in our study noted:

When you coach people rather than command people, you almost always win their hearts and minds, so loyalty, trust and confidence are built.

Our research shows manager coaching led to improvements in productivity, engagement and customer service. One manager reported that coaching led to an increase in output from 35% of the target to greater than 100% within 12 months. One organisation improved customer service by 450% within five months of introducing manager coaching.

Coaching also transformed some underachievers into star performers. For example, one employee who was described as “very lacking in self-confidence” developed enough confidence to apply for a promotion and became a highly effective manager. Coaching had helped the employee to identify solutions, by providing advice and expertise when needed.

Coaching in practice

Coaching is a conversation between two or more people to find a way forward together. The participants reflect on the current situation, agree on a goal, and identify options and actions for moving toward the goal.

In practice there are four things mangers should do during coaching:

Genuinely listen to their employees, allowing time to think out loud and come up with their own ideas.

Ask questions that help employees develop their thinking. If an employee identifies a problem the manager can ask what solutions they can think of.

Work with employees to set goals. Create an energising dialogue to make this task more than ticking boxes.

Give constructive feedback to help employees align with organisational goals and develop professionally.

The majority of the 580 general managers and human resource managers who participated in our research coached their employees at least once a week.

Organisations in our study used quarterly coaching sessions to set employee expectations, monthly sessions to review progress, and weekly sessions with new employees or employees in new roles. Informal coaching happens whenever opportunities arise – for example, discussing an incident the manager has observed and identifying alternative approaches. The employee can take ownership of the situation by choosing what alternative to implement.

Of course, implementing manager coaching is easier said than done. Most training in coaching does not address the complexities of the manager as coach.

For example, what should a manager do if an employee tells them something in confidence that they would not normally tell a manager? The best way to deal with this is by being honest and upfront about what can and cannot be kept confidential.

Managers also find it difficult to make time for coaching, although they may save time in the long run as employees don’t need their advice as often. This frees up managers to spend more time thinking strategically.

Managers in our study spent more time with new employees or employees in new roles than with employees who were already comfortable in their roles. They also recommended choosing the right time to coach – for example, not starting a session in the middle of a crisis.

You’ve probably heard of “executive coaches”. These people are like consultants who work one on one with managers on how to improve their leadership style, act as a sounding board for their ideas, or manage work-life balance.

But, as our research shows, there’s no reason for coaching to be restricted to outside consultants – managers should coach their own employees.

Coaching achieves fantastic outcomes for employees, for the organisation and for the managers themselves. As one manager in our study said:

Staff who believe their managers and organisations care about them by investing their time in coaching them are naturally more positive, happier whilst working. They are great team players. Their skills improve, they get promoted.

Most importantly this flows on to how your customers are treated. Treat staff well and they treat your customers well. Your business then flourishes.

If managers don’t know where to start, they should begin by listening to employees. They may be surprised by how much staff know and how much they appreciate being asked.

The greatest reward for a leader is seeing their staff develop and grow. Coaching is a practical way to achieve this.

theconversation.com   

Click Here For Article

Eleven skills every 24-year-old should learn before it's too late

The age 24 is a fun time of your life.

You're likely out of college, maybe for a couple of years, meeting new people, and getting your feet wet in the real world. 

But it's also an important time because around age 24, you have unquestionably entered adulthood and your choices could influence the rest of your life.

A bunch of people chimed in on a Quora thread discussing the skills every 24 year old needs to learn before it's too late. We narrowed it down to the following 11 skills:

Become a master salesperson of yourself

Good communication skills have been linked to greater career prospects 

"Sales is the basis of all business success. You are always selling, even if your role does not include sales in the job description. You sell during marketing activities, team meetings, customer service, product management, conferences, business development, engineering, user experience and more. A solid foundation in how to sell can give you a wide advantage over your colleagues and competitors." — Anonymous

Get out of your comfort zone

"Get real world experience. Start businesses, talk to people, ask a pretty girl out, go skydiving, become good at small talk and for the love of god don't take yourself too seriously." — Christian Pretorius

Get very good at one thing

"Your job, photoshop, singing, dancing, whistling, so that if the worst happens, and you get kicked out of your job and house and friends are done using you, you can still earn your livelihood by freelancing... (even whistling will do — you can roam on roads asking couples to dedicate songs to each other and they will pay you – tried and tested)." — Rohit Mishra

Build up your 'advocate network'

"We all need people we can rely on to potentially expose us to new opportunities, people, and ideas that can further our career. Focus on creating value for other people, rather than just meeting them. The golden rule of networking: Measure your networking success not by how many important people you’ve met, but by how many important people you’ve helped." — Christian Bonilla, software designer, author

Learn how to code

"Learning to code is one of the most important skills any 24-year-old should acquire. It goes for people who have nothing to do with technology. In fact, the younger generation is already mastering technology better than us adults and learning coding in days. Kids nowadays have tablets, smartphones and other tech gadgets. Learning to code is an important tool that can be used for future development of a person. Everybody knows how to read and write and so they should know to code as well." — Maria Antsuk

ADVERTISING

inRead invented by Teads

Fall in love

"Yes, fall in love as love is the purest of all emotion and what is more beautiful than love? If you have not fallen in love, you have undoubtedly missed a vital emotion/feeling in the world." — Karan Jaiswani

Learn how to meditate

Research suggests meditation can improve brain cognition 

"In today's world of distraction, this is the only tool to keep oneself focused. It has been proven by research that twenty minutes of meditation is equivalent to two hours of sleep. It's like homeopathy; takes time to act but is worthy in the long run. But it's a complex process and you really need a very strong determination to practice it." — Sanjay Kadel, Realist

Travel more

"Create a passion to travel around the world. Travelling teaches you different walks of life. Explore Africa if you are in the west. Explore Canada during winters if you are in a temperate climate. You will get a feel of life on earth and develop a loving sense and meet new people." — Anonymous

Invest in personal growth

"Don't watch TV and stop fooling around, read as many books as you can, go to seminars. Always increase your value, because we get paid about our value, what we bring to the marketplace. So if you become more valuable then ... exactly, you get more paid." — Janis Butevics, 23-year-old Entrepreneur & Author, creator of Awake or Be Slaved

Stop worrying all the time

"Worrying is a useless energy sucker. Your life and circumstances will not change by worrying. Only planning and actions will lead you to where you want to be in your life. Experiencing life and the world with a carefree yet organised attitude while at the same time taking care of your health and feeding your mind with knowledge, that could benefit you in the future. Enjoy the present and always keep your eye on progress." — Deme Alexis

Start saving money

"Whether you're working for someone else or for yourself, you need to save your money now. Compound interest can make you a millionaire in 20 years’ time, simply by putting away a really small amount of money consistently every month. With a degree you can earn more, put away more money and become a millionaire sooner." — Stefan Stoman

Read the original article on Business Insider UK. © 2017. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.

• Eugene Kim, Business Insider 
• 2 days ago

CLICK HERE

4 personality traits that successful entrepreneurs share

When you think of the greatest entrepreneurs in history, a few names likely come to mind: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Henry Ford, just to name a few.

The legacies of these business geniuses can be both inspiring and intimidating. And while they probably had more than a few unique traits that helped drive them to success, there are also several personality traits that they share, along with virtually every other successful entrepreneur. And, lucky for you, these are traits that can usually be cultivated over time, with some careful practice.

Persistence

At the top of the list is persistence. Entrepreneurs face failure again and again, but the thing that separates the successes from the failures is whether or not you allow failures to stop you. Virtually every successful entrepreneur throughout history has faced failures, and they’ve come back again and again until they achieved what they’d set out to do. The ability to dust yourself off and try again is an invaluable trait if you want to be a successful entrepreneur.

Self-Belief

Most entrepreneurs are natural confident. But don’t confuse self-confidence with true self-belief, or what researchers call “task-specific confidence.” This isn’t just a belief that you can get things done. “It’s a belief that turns the risk proposition around—you’ve conducted enough research and have enough confidence that you can get the job done that you ameliorate the risk.”

So for those who are not naturally self-assured, this can be a good thing. Because this type of self-belief is not necessarily ingrained in us from birth. It comes from persistent research and hard work that allows you to feel confident in your business. Once you’ve built up that self-belief, hold onto it, and let it drive you forward through the tough times.

Tolerance for Risk

Successful entrepreneurs are the ones that take risk. It’s for this reason that, contrary to popular belief, most entrepreneurs aren’t Type-A personalities. Type-As don’t tolerate risk well. In fact, most entrepreneurs are C students who aren’t afraid to take the long shot or do something slightly crazy for the chance at a big win.

Entrepreneurs often show their risk-taking habits from an early age. Multi-millionaire and entrepreneur Tai Lopez shared a story that demonstrated his entrepreneurial spirit and willing to take risks at just six years old. He said, “My mom had these cherry tomatoes she would sell. The problem was, nobody really bought the tomatoes. So, I took it upon myself to sell lemonade with sugar instead. In the time I had sold one bag of tomatoes for 25 cents, I was able to sell ten times more with my lemonade stand.”

A Type-A kid would probably have just done what his mom told him to do and continued to try to sell the tomatoes. But Tai saw a chance to make more money, and took a risk when others might have held back. This attitude is a vital trait in a successful entrepreneur.

Curiosity

Entrepreneurs are out-of-the-box thinkers and innovators, as most people know. But what truly drives that kind of innovation is a certain curiosity about the world. One analysis of 23 different studies, entitled The Big Five Personality Dimensions and Entrepreneurial Status, looked at the different traits of entrepreneurs and managers. It found that entrepreneurs tended to rank much higher in the category of “openness to experience,” which was identified as “someone who is intellectually curious and tends to seek new experiences and explore novel ideas.”

This willingness to explore and ask questions is essential to entrepreneurship, because it is questioning the status quo that leads to world-changing innovations. So start asking yourself “what if,” and start wondering how things around you could be changed for the better. You never know what ideas can come from a simple question.

While not everybody who has these traits will be a hugely successful entrepreneur, these are still essential characteristics if you hope to be one of the world’s great innovators in the future.

About Business Matters

Business Matters staff

Click Here For Original Article

Tony Robbins: ONE OF THE BEST SPEECHES EVER (Tony Robbins 2017)

You cant listen to Tony and not be motivated to take action!

Science Of Persuasion

Having troubling getting the team or staff on board. Worth checking this out,
it will save you hours of extra work! As always let me know how you get on.

3 Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills

Good quick starter for anyone who wants to improve there communication let me know your thoughts?

Three powerful steps in personal development for leaders

Nevertheless, when the rug is pulled out underneath your feet and you stand there sweating, heart racing, in that moment, those words will not have much meaning. Yes, the title of this article could have been “How to deal with failure”, but really, these are growth opportunities.

All too often, people try to compare themselves to the Trumps, Kochs and Zuckerbergs of the world. People focus on their successes and are sometimes not aware of all the failures that happened in the lives of their role models.

But, oddly enough, these successful people who we look up to, are the ones who have failed the most. However, what made them successful, is dealing with what has happened and finding ways to move on.

So, what we should grasp are strategies to overcome our failures and then to use them to our benefit. As such, here are three steps to move through a failure and turn it around to lead us to success.

Be irrational in that moment

When you are faced with a setback, such as where you have failed at something, you might feel extremely negative, and no matter how many people tell you to stay positive, none of that advice will work. Now, before you are paralyzed by your experience, you need to handle failure with a rational mindset and not react to failure irrationally. That might not be easy as we go through a process of second-guessing ourselves, as well as questioning our abilities.

In fact, you want to treat failure as a stepping-stone on your path to success. And just remember that innovation and action are the two elements for success, but to block yourself off due to the fear that you will fail or that once you have failed you will never get it right, are irrational. Failure is when innovation and action take place, and we all will face different problems in your lives, but we also need to move forward.

Go take a walk, just clear your head, but also understand why this happened to you. Then start to accept what has happened, but you need to start to think rationally again.

Accept, own and learn

You should understand that you are not alone; all of us will have disappointment in our lives. What, however, differs are how people handle that failure. Many have the problem with accepting failure. They would rather ignore it, but in reality, you can’t. If you do, you would have learned nothing and will just keep on making the same mistakes repeatedly. Rather take ownership of your failure. Here again, if we take ownership of our mistakes, then we can also take ownership of the benefits that come with failure, that of innovation, and the action that was taken.

Once you have accepted and taken ownership, then you should also apply the principle of failing forward, by learning from your failure. To do that, you can take some self-reflection time, speak to other members of the team or even use data. By self-reflecting, you need to have a clear head, and this might be difficult.

Therefore, to get a better perspective it might be useful to have a chat with other members of the team. Not only can they help to place some of what has happened to you in perspective, they can also share how they tackled their own failures with a similar situation.

Still, you can also use data, and this will show the chain of events clearer and you can gauge where things went wrong. So, to conclude on this, all the information and ideas from others, we should gather as it can help us to learn from our own mistakes and then we can create a better outcome the next time.

Move on but prepared for battle

It can be extremely discouraging when you fail, all you own demons preying on you and your fears and weaknesses. But you need to keep on moving forward and keep on trying.

Now, it might be a bit too romantic stating that you should just keep on trying, learning from your failures and in the end, you will find success. In reality, however, it can be a cutthroat business.

As part of experiential learning, we need to state clearly what went wrong. But if you are passionate and driven, and apply those qualities to your work you can demonstrate to superiors that even though you had a failure in the project, you have also found ways to improve.

By Adriaan Brits https://www.thesouthafrican.com/3-powerful-steps-in-personal-development-for-leaders/

3 Skills That Will Make You A More Successful Entrepreneur

In my previous article, I drew a parallel between the CEOs of Fortune 50 companies and their educational background in science. Being an entrepreneur means being a CEO and a leader more than anything else, and embodying those two qualities is both a science and an art. I believe that harnessing your mathematical skill set will make you an outstandingly better CEO and a leader. The reason for that is because being a CEO involves a vision that can be achieved practically and soundly. In our data-driven world, it involves understanding the relationships between numbers and trends, in order to outsmart your competition and this is where having a mathematical mind gives you an advantage. Here are three ways embodying a mathematical mindset will set you apart.

Faster Decisions -- Seeing The Connectivity of Relationships

Mathematics, more than anything, is a study of relationships and connections. When one studies math, what is really being studied are the connections between various formulae and ways they interweave. Of course, this is natural, because those formulae describe the physical world around us, which is connected. Thus by studying mathematics, our brain is trained to see the world in terms of connections and relationships. Recognizing patterns and seeing loopholes between things, ideas, numbers, and trends is the mindset that mathematicians work in. In entrepreneurship, this is important because if your mind is trained in recognizing connections then you can make faster and better decisions than your competitions and be the first to gain market share. It also gives you leverage to adapt faster if certain problems arise. Speed is important because we all know timing is crucial.

Better Insights -- Leveraging The Power of Data-Driven Trends

As the mathematician, we are trained to look at data and draw conclusions from it. In our data-driven world, a person leaves a digital imprint that can have more than a million unique parameters that store rich information about spending habits, likes, and dislikes, as well as behavioral patterns. As an entrepreneur, in order to make key decisions in this digitalized landscape, you must be very comfortable with using data. And the more comfortable you are with it, the easier it becomes to spot certain trends or problem areas, which leads to a more efficient decision making and insights. Thus, leveraging the mathematical mindset allows you to draw better insights which translate to a better bottom line.

A More Perfected Execution -- Choosing The Best Approach

Decisions predeterminate outcomes. When we make decisions in business, they can have an enormous effect on our bottom line, hopefully in the positive direction. Of course, the definition of a decision implies that there is more than one way of action. Thus the most crucial component of the decision-making process is picking the best outcome. Having a mathematical mindset, one is able to better understand outcomes and their probabilities and picking the outcome that will hedge the best case scenario.

Dr. Anna Powers is an entrepreneur, advisor and an award winning scientist. Her passion is sharing the beauty of science and encouraging women to enter STEM fields.

Anna Powers ,  WOMEN@FORBEs
Click here for original source 

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

4 ways to keep a successful team motivated

You’ve done the hard work and hired an all-star squad. Without your staff, success isn’t an option. So how do you keep them happy and motivated? Here are four things you can try…

Set the tone: If your work ethic is top notch, your employees will notice. Over time, it will do wonders for the culture in your office. Try and keep your office energized by being full of positive energy that your staff can feed off of.

Communicate: Being open and honest with your employees helps them to be open and honest with you and this is great for motivation. Listening is magical. Employees love when they feel like they have a voice and feel valued. And remember to always give positive feedback. When someone is doing something well, let them know it. Don’t underestimate the power of communication.

Socialize: Get to know the personalities of your employees and find out what gets them out of bed every day. Finding a little time each week to bond with your staff can create a strong business relationship. Be friendly and open but make sure it doesn’t get too personal. Providing opportunities for your staff to bond with you and each other will make them more excited to come to work every day.

Recognize: Any time your team does well on a task or project you should let them know. Positive recognition will make your employees feel appreciated and valued and motivate them to have repeated success. Give your employees incentive to succeed by offering bonuses or other rewards that will give them the desire to go above and beyond.

Click here for original article

November 21, 2017 by JOHN PETTIT

The True Cost Of Poor Communication

                       

We all aspire to be better communicators. We all know that communicating well will help us accomplish our goals, impress our colleagues and our superiors and generate business. We all want to feel confident and project leadership.

But while we see the benefits of good communication, we generally think about poor communication as a momentary setback. We fail to see the ways in which poor communication costs us personally over the long term, in a loss of credibility and a drag on advancement. As individuals, poor communication essentially equals an inability to communicate our value to the team — and a loss of value could mean the loss of a job.

There’s a bigger picture, too: Company leadership often fail to see how poor communication hinders the organization as a whole. Collectively, poor communication can disrupt business on a fundamental level.

Where do we most often see the cost of communication failure?

1. Lack of focus: In an organization where communication is not prioritized, meetings are inefficient and ineffective. Because little gets accomplished in them, more meetings get scheduled, so that every member of the team feels overbooked, under-informed and generally unhappy.

2. Failure of purpose: When we are unable to communicate well on a day-to-day basis, it is generally symptomatic of a larger communication disruption. If a company can’t communicate its vision and purpose, it has effectively lost them.

3. Lack of innovation: Imagine yourself in a meeting where a team is presenting a new project, product or process. The audience has clearly checked out: Half the room is checking a device and the other half is flipping through the PowerPoint deck to try to figure out the point of this meeting. Does anyone understand the new product or its benefits? Probably not, which means that it will likely be discarded. Multiply this across multiple meetings and multiple products, and you have a company that is stagnating.

4. Drop in morale: The sum of all these issues? The people who work and make the company successful aren’t happy. And that means they aren’t as productive and/or that they are looking to leave the company for a better job.

5. Loss of credibility: This can happen at both a company and an individual level. As an individual, your ability to express yourself confidently and persuasively has a direct effect on your ability to effectively accomplish your goals. As a company, the way your goals and innovation are represented outwardly — through client meetings or public relations — has an immediate impact on your business metrics. Without clear, effective communication, everything from sales growth to stock price will decline.

The next question is, why is poor communication at an organizational level so common? Generally, I’ve found that it is because most people and organizations lack a system to truly improve their communication. Instead, the focus is on creating PowerPoint templates and emphasizing “executive” (read: not nervous) demeanor. That transfers the entire responsibility for communicating better to the individual, without adequately providing the tools to do so. It’s a recipe for failure.

Now, how can we do better?

First, we can take an organizational view of communication opportunities. When a persuasive challenge arises, how difficult a challenge is it? What degree of change are we asking for? What hurdles do we face in enacting that change?

Next, what skills do all our team members have? Is one person a master of confident, persuasive delivery? Who can craft the most persuasive message and who knows how to support a message with a powerful slide deck? How do we most effectively deploy our talent? And how do we equip our talent with a full toolbox of skills?

Finally, using these assessments, map a plan to for the most effective way to address this specific challenge and this specific audience.

This doesn’t mean that Sally Star takes every meeting. Joe Ordinary is using similar assessment models and skill enhancement techniques to improve his communication proficiency. On an individual level, we are honing our abilities, and ratcheting up our challenges at every opportunity. But on an organizational level, we are matching skills to challenges. Not only does it set up the company for success, but it eliminates the tendency to set up individuals for failure.

By investing in a system for evaluating challenges and rising to meet them, we can flip that column of costs into benefits, both individual and organizational.

Dean Brenner

Dean Brenner is a recognized expert in persuasive communication, and is president and founder of The Latimer Group.