Keep Your, Vision, in Front of you – Dare to dream big dreams and understand the principles of, vision casting.
In OUT OF THE SNARES, MYRNA BERNADETTE TROTMAN shares her story of child abuse, poverty and her success as an entrepreneur. As a certified, Life Coach, she shares ten undeniable resources she used to help her achieve success and live the American Dream. This inspirational and motivational book will help you to reach your potential and achieve new levels of success in your life. Get these ten principles based on biblical principles and Universal Laws, deep down in your spirit and boldly go in the direction of your destiny:
Principle # 1. Keep Your Vision in Front of you –
Dare to dream big dreams and understand the principles of, vision casting.
Like a Blacksmith, you need to keep hitting the Anvil, pounding it daily, shaping your dreams
If you build it they will come
Don’t let life’s challenges knock you off course remember:
“Circumstances does not make the man, it reveals him to himself” ~ James Allen
Man is the Lord and Master of his thoughts and thus is the maker of himself.
In my book “Out of the Snares” I tell a compelling story of my, vision, of America as my promised land. My Land of milk and honey. I kept that, vision, in front of me and kept picking myself up after each failure believing that I would succeed, and I did.
A few weeks ago I was talking to a young leader, trying to upgrade his, vision casting, skills. I gave him four simple tips about communicating, vision.
1. CLARITY. Leaders must create clarity by narrowing the focus when casting, vision. Everything that can be done in the name of God is not sign at all. It is a sign of undisciplined thinking. The leader’s job is to focus the organization on the core essentials. The more we focus on and clarify essentials, the easier it is to identify and eliminate non-essentials.
2. COMPELLING. Once your goals are clarified, it must be communicated in a way that is compelling. A leader who makes an unprepared sloppy presentation can make an otherwise exciting goals seem boring. Compelling goals produces action. Boring goals produces nothing.
3. COMMITMENT. Casting a clear and compelling, vision, without calling for commitment is a waste of everyone’s time. Real leaders are committed and they call others to commitment. Some leaders are hesitant to demand sacrificial commitment because they are not all-in themselves. Commitment is an example that leaders set, not a message they teach. Leadership commitment is contagious. So is leadership non-commitment.
4. COMMUNITY. Clear and compelling goals attracts committed people. As these people sacrifice for the common, vision, community happens. Trying to create community for the sake of community creates unhealthy ingrown short-lived community. Doing goals together creates strong healthy long-term community.
SUMMARY. As a leader, you are the visionary for your church, ministry, or organization. If you communicate a, vision, that is clear and compelling, if you model and call for commitment, you will end up with a strong healthy community. You will also accomplish your dreams.
Are you an, Entrepreneur, or thinking of becoming an, Entrepreneur? Can you guess your startup, IQ? Would you like to know if you are naturally gifted with Entrepreneurship Intelligence or you will have to work harder than most? Silicon Valley have the answer for you. They have a test to find out your startup, IQ.
Owning your own business gives you a sense of freedom and empowerment. You can build things and watch them grow.
Entrepreneurs, make decisions for themselves, realize their creative visions, and develop lasting relationships with other entrepreneurs, customers, and vendors.
It’s a great way to live. But your need an entrepreneur’s, IQ, to be good at starting and running a successful business.
Your Startup IQ could be in your hand
Here are a few natural traits that predict Startup, IQ.
• Openness – A high openness score means you are open minded. You listen to the ideas of others and are willing to learn from them. Sam Walton built the Walmart Empire by learning from his competitors. This is your first, IQ test.
• Conscientiousness – Doing what is right. Integrity and honesty fit into this natural ability and, IQ, as well. Conscientious Entrepreneurs run their companies diligently, solving their customers problems. This is your second, IQ, test.
• Extroversion – We have heard a lot about extroversion as it relates to successful CEO’s and startup, IQ. True in order to sell, you must like people and be comfortable around them; but as an, Entrepreneur, you shouldn’t go it alone. You should create a team. If you are not a natural extrovert, hire a front line sales person. Bill Gates is an introvert so you could be wildly successful even if you don’t have this natural ability.
• Agreeableness – Are you compassionate, warm and considerate? This is a necessary, IQ test. People do business with people they like. Agreeableness does not mean you must be nice all the time. As a business owner you must be able to also be straightforward with customers and employees and to replace the ones who do not conform to your mission.
• Neuroticism – A good indication of Entrepreneurial startup, IQ, success is to score low on the neuroticism test. Neuroticism is defined as the tendency of an individual to experience negative emotions such as anxiety, hostility, depression, impulsiveness and vulnerability. Entrepreneurs, Managers and Leaders must be emotionally stable, self-confident, calm in the presence of chaos, even tempered and relaxed.
• Fluid Intelligence – This refers to the ability to rapidly learn and apply a rule. Entrepreneurs, deal with different issues all day. As a start-up, entrepreneur, they wear many different hats. The ability to switch from one issue to another is very important and is a skill that cannot be learned. Fluid Intelligence is considered the most revealing test for success. If you get stuck and can’t switch roles, you cannot lead and become an Enterprise.
As an Entrepreneur, I agree with this predictive startup, IQ test.
As your Success and Entrepreneurial Coach, the foundation of my coaching practice is creating self-awareness and business consciousness. I have seen passion override natural ability; so go for it.
As an, entrepreneur, you’ll be inundated with your business, needing to take care of it all the time. So when you have some leisure time, you might be tempted to read fiction or books for entertainment.
Instead, I encourage you to read case studies. Read biographies of successful, entrepreneurs, who had a high startup, IQ. Read everything you can get your hands on about those who have already been successful.
There’s always something to learn from those who have already done it.
I especially think it’s important to learn from the mistakes of others. If you learn from their mistakes, you won’t have to make those mistakes yourself.
And if you do make mistakes yourself, definitely learn from those.
Building a successful entrepreneurial business can seem daunting, and that’s OK. Building a business from the ground up is a massive undertaking.
Here is a foolproof tactic: Break it down.
Any problem that seems insurmountable, break it down into baby steps.
Once you’ve broken it down into baby steps, take them one at a time. Before you know it, just by placing one foot in front of the other, you’ll be halfway up the mountain.
With grit and perseverance, baby steps will get you far toward becoming a successful, entrepreneur.
The life of a successful, entrepreneur, can feel scattered and disjointed, but it’s important to limit your time spent multitasking.
Research has shown time and time again that multitasking doesn’t work. Humans aren’t capable of it.
And yes, multitasking includes being distracted by your phone and email tabs. Close them and put them away.
Learn to focus and take time to do just one task. Giving one task your full attention will mean that you’re more likely to get it done and do it well.
It’s also important to know that too many tasks on your to-do list can make you ineffective and distracted.
Learn to focus your to-do list on the tasks that you’re capable of finishing in the amount of time you’ve allotted for them.
For example, each night, set the three tasks that you’ll complete the following day. And each month, set the overarching goal for your company that you want to achieve in the next 30 days.
These techniques can help you to learn how to focus and more effectively manage your business, building your, IQ.
Running your, sales meetings, like a, coach, we can take lessons from, Head Coach, Bill Belichick‘s. His greatness comes from the fact that he builds his systems around the strengths and weaknesses of his roster and it led him to 4 Super Bowl Championships. This is good coaching in the purest form; playing to the strengths of one’s personnel.
It may not be something that often crosses your mind, but a football, coach, and small business owners have a lot in common. Both professions require leadership, dedication, commitment and a strong work ethic in order to succeed.
There is an old saying about the strength of the wolf is the pack, and I think there is a lot of truth to that. On a football team, it’s not the strength of the individual players, but it is the strength of the unit and how they all function together.” — Bill Belichick
Just like football coaches, as a small business owner or a Sales Manager; you must take on many roles to ensure everybody is working together as a team to achieve important goals and for operations to run smoothly. Here are a few other ways football coaches and small business owners play a similar game.
Running your, sales meetings, life Pre-game
To prepare for a football game the, coach, research opponents, develop game plans and determine the best lineup of players who will help the team win. Similarly, when starting a small business, sales managers, conduct market research to understand the competition and the key economic conditions and indicators. Entrepreneurs also build a business plan, which sets the strategic framework for the organization and maps out the path forward. In addition, small business owners find top talent who will help them execute the plan and beat the competition.
Over the course of a game, head coaches, make adjustments regularly, shifting tactics to put their team in position to score and win. They consult with the assistant, coach, to get advice on what plays they should run. Entrepreneurs and Sales Managers also make strategic moves and adjust to constantly changing market forces and customer demands.
How does your, sales teams, handle Halftime
A, coach, typically deliver inspiring halftime speeches that motivate players to give their all and function as a team. Entrepreneurs and, Sales Managers, should also motivate their employees by providing benefit programs and encouraging their career growth through coaching and motivational curriculum, that helps to strengthen their teams’ skills. Having a motivational speaker at your monthly or quarterly sales meetings also adds a charge to your team, similar to the Half Time inspirational speeches of great coaches.
Following a game, coaches review footage to analyze which plays and strategies did or did not work and what improvements the team can make to defeat the next opponent. At the end of each day or period of performance, entrepreneurs crunch numbers to determine how well the business performed and identify ways to boost profits, cut costs and improve customer service.
At your Monday Morning, sales meetings, Sales Managers, should be doing the same thing. They should be analyzing which plays resulted in closed sales and which plays didn’t. They should develop strategies and best practices from reviewing the week’s plays. Only then can they become the Tom Brady of management. They will know the strengths and weaknesses of not only their team members but of the competition. They will know if the competition has a tendency to lead with price or service. They could then quarterback their team to run plays that would leave the competition behind or looking in the wrong direction.
It’s still easy to make a case for Belichick as the best.
Belichick’s Patriots are in the AFC championship game for the sixth consecutive season and the 11th time overall in his 17 seasons. If they beat the Steelers tonight and go on to win Super Bowl LI against Green Bay or Atlanta, they will win the championship for the fifth time under Belichick, which would break his tie with Noll for most Super Bowl wins as a coach. Belichick’s 24 postseason wins are a record and his 237 regular-season wins rank fourth all-time. His record with the Patriots is 201-71, a staggering .739 winning percentage. His accomplishments and consistency are terrific, especially during the free agency era.
“His handprints, his fingerprints are over that whole team,” Ben Roethlisberger said last week. “They often out,coach, their opponent. That’s a credit to him, mastermind or whatever you want to call him.
“When you’re playing a defense like [New England’s], you have to be prepared for everything. You may not see the same defense twice. He’ll change things up. He’ll give you looks you’ve never seen before. He’ll do things that it doesn’t matter how much you study. That’s what makes him so good. He’s difficult to go against. You look at, arguably, the most well prepared quarterback to ever play the game, Peyton Manning. How many years did Belichick supposedly have his number?”
Manning lost seven of his first eight games against Belichick and finished his Hall of Fame-worthy career 8-12 against him. Roethlisberger, by the way, is 3-6 against Belichick.
I get that people say Belichick didn’t become a great coach until he went to New England and hooked up with Tom Brady to become the best coach-quarterback combination in NFL history. Belichick’s five-year record with the Cleveland Browns from 1991 – 95 was 36 44 with four losing seasons. No one was preparing his bust for Canton back then.
Let’s bring this, team player, scenario to your, sales team. How are you letting the stars on your, sales team, know that you value their contributions? Do you reward them with praise publicly and personally? Do their bonuses reflect their value?
Who is your favorite, team player? Is it LeBron James in basketball? Peyton Manning in Football, or Derek Jeter in baseball? Regardless of which star you pick, management knows that this, team player, is the “duck who lays the golden eggs” and they treat him with respect and shower him with dollars. On the same team, suiting up in the same uniform, playing the same number of games, going to the same amount of meetings and practice workouts; you can have the star making 10 million per year and his team member making the minimum $300,000 per year. What exactly is the message management is trying to convey with this disparity in salary? The message is “you are the best, you are, the most valuable, team player, on this team. We need you to win. We value you and your skills, we don’t want another team to be able to steal you away by offering you more money.” The other members of the team don’t grumble at the water cooler about the unfairness of pay. Instead they are happy to play in the presence of greatness and they are hoping that some of his skills will rub off on them.
Let’s bring this, team player, scenario to your, sales team. How are you letting the stars on your, sales team, know that you value their contributions? Do you reward them with praise publicly and personally? Do their bonuses reflect their value? I have been on, sales teams, where the top sales representative overachieves by 150% to revenue goal and the Sales Manager offers no public or personal congratulations. No fanfare! On top of that accounting tries to not pay by recalculating and cutting the amounts of bonuses.
The, 20/70/10 rule, of differentiation states that 20% of your team are your star players and should be showered with incentives to continue to perform at this high level. The next 70 percent are average or mediocre team members and management should offer them coaching to improve their confidence and skills sets.
Take the case study of Rolando McClain. He was the #1 draft pick for the Oakland Raiders in 2010. That means that he was one of the best coming out of college; but once in the NFL, he didn’t live up to his potential and he was released first by Oakland Raiders. He was then picked up by the Baltimore Ravens and later released as well. Then when the Cowboys were looking for a linebacker, McClain came under their radar and they decided to check him out. They called his old college coach Nick Sabin and asked him what made McClain good in college. With this information the Cowboys received from Coach Sabin, they called McClain in for a tryout and made him an offer. The story goes that the exchange with the Ravens cost the Cowboys a bag of donuts! Jason Garrett the head coach of the Cowboys and his coaching staff worked with McClain, improved his confidence, and moved him from the bottom 10%, to the top 20%. McClain now starts every game and he and the Cowboys had an awesome year.
We could this sports analogy to show that the job of a Sales Manager is to move his mediocre, team player, up through the ranks with effective coaching. Sometimes an outside coach works best, because the employee can be honest. Beating them over the head with the numbers on the report is not the way to do it.
Who Is a Team Player?
A, team player, is a person who plays or works well as a member of a team or group. Teams in organizations need strong team players to perform well and reach their goals.
Team Players, motivates unity in the workplace
A teamwork environment promotes an atmosphere that fosters friendship and loyalty. These close-knit relationships motivate employees in parallel and align them to work harder, cooperate and be supportive of one another.
Individuals possess diverse talents, weaknesses, communication skills, strengths, and habits. Therefore, when a teamwork environment is not encouraged this can pose many challenges towards achieving the overall goals and objectives. This creates an environment where employees become focused on promoting their own achievements and competing against their fellow colleagues. This is not a, team player. Ultimately, this can lead to an unhealthy and inefficient working environment.
When teamwork is working, the whole team would be motivated and working toward the same goal in harmony.
Teamwork and Team Players offer differing perspectives and feedback
Good teamwork structures provide your organization with a diversity of thought, creativity, perspectives, opportunities, and problem-solving approaches. A proper team environment allows individuals to brainstorm collectively, which in turn increases their success to problem solve and arrive at solutions more efficiently and effectively.
Effective, sales teams also allow the initiative to innovate, in turn creating a competitive edge to accomplish goals and objectives. Sharing differing opinions and experiences strengthens accountability and can help make effective decisions faster, than when done alone.
Team effort increases output by having quick feedback and multiple sets of skills come into play to support your work. You can do the stages of designing, planning, and implementation much more efficiently when a team is functioning well.
Please call me for a free consultation if you are interested in improving the players on your team.
The last number is the bottom 10%. These team members should be moved out to other roles. If on a sales team and selling is not their forte, they could be moved to a supporting role, for example.
In sales, you are the, Bait! Everything you heard is true! People buy from people they like, people they feel a connection to or with people who are like them!
I recently watched the movie “A River runs through it”. I should confess that anything with Brad Pitt I watch with a big smile on my face! Anyway, in the movie Brad and his brother were fishing in this river. Brad’s brother was catching a whole lot of fish and Brad had not caught one. After some time of being a spectator in this fishing expedition, he shouted to his brother, “What are they biting on?” His brother shouted back, “Pimento Bugs”. Strangest bait I ever saw, these bugs had wings! But sure enough, when Brad changed his bait he caught the biggest fish ever! Know your, bait.
1: Use Your Attire as your, Bait, What to wear to an interview.
I will start with an Old Cliché “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” If you are going for an interview or meeting with a customer for the first time; look the part, and that is your best, use the first impression as your, bait.
I went for an interview once at Apple retail Store and I was very confused. Apple, Google and Facebook CEO’s have all made famous the tea shirt and running shoes mode of dress. So I was not sure how to dress; but I decided on a suit. No tee-shirt and runners for me! Better to be overdressed than not get a job because you showed up in tea shirt and tennis shoes. In the movie “the Pursuit of Happyness“, Will Smith was sleeping in bathrooms and homeless; but he made sure he had one suit that always looked good. That is all you need, one good outfit. What to wear to an interview, It is suggested that for the man the color should be blue, black or grey for a suit. For the ladies a pant suit or an A-line dress works wonders. Looking good is always, bait, to the looker.
2: Your Profile picture is also your, bait
Your profile picture is what everyone sees. Just a picture of your head and face, and they from that they form a judgement, whether consciously or not from your, appearance, In a recent LinkedIn training class, the presenter told a story about how he was about to hire someone for a service, then he noticed that their picture was dark and blurred. He said he decided not do business with them. He formed a judgement that if they could not spend $50 to get a good profile picture, then they could not be successful. You might say that he was too judgmental; but you never know what is costing you business. It is best to button it up and use your, bait.
I personally would never connect with anyone who didn’t have a profile picture, because I made the judgement that they were either not active or not serious. Now I connect because I can offer my consulting services because they need Help! Spend the money to get a professional profile picture and it will pay dividends. Whoever you are trying to attract, your picture is one, bait.
3: The entire package or, appearance, is your, bait.
I could never understand the “shoe shine” concept. Why did men favor going to get their shoes professionally shined until it became a mirror and they could see their faces in their shoes?
Now I understand, those men understood the value of “the entire package”. You can’t show up in an expensive suit, and your shoes are not shined! You can’t show up in an expensive suit and your hair looks like a hippie; you can’t show up in an expensive suit and your car looks like you bought it from the scrapyard. People form the wrong impression and then you have to work doubly hard for them to hear what is “coming out of your mouth”. Your entire package is your, bait.
For men, pay attention to the suit, shirt, tie, hair style, shoes.
For women, pay attention to your dress, your hair, your shoes and your pocket book! Yes, people now pay attention to what handbag you are putting your lipstick into!
4: Your Business card, your Website, and your Printed Materials is also your, Bait.
If you want to convey success, then you have to dress for success.
Has anyone ever handed you a business card that was printed at home on cheap paper? What was your reaction? Did you want to run out and purchase their product? I am sure you didn’t. Or you ask someone who has a service you are interested in for a business card, and they tell you they don’t have one. Not having a business card is one way to be sure that the prospect is not going to bite on your, bait.
I should even add a pin to this scenario. In the movie “the Pursuit of Happyness”, there is a scene in which a salesperson bent over backwards to get a contract with Will Smith to produce his story. He called him several times, he made him an irresistible offer, he tracked him down at the airport and when Will was about to sign the contract and he asked him for a pen, he did not have one! Will cancelled the deal. He felt that a salesperson should always have a business card and a pen if he is worth anything!
I don’t know if you have noticed, but most of the leading roles for movies and television commercials are going to actors who sound English! It is like a “cool breeze” to listen to someone with a pleasant voice. You don’t have to have an English accent; but your volume should be right and your pace should be right. As a Toastmaster, when we are speaking, we are gonged when we add fillers to our speech. Fillers are so, umm, ahh, etc. if you are doing a presentation, erase self doubt by not having too many fillers, your audience won’t regard you as a subject matter expert.
Your, Bait is you! Once you make a good impression and the fish are biting; then you can get on with the business that you came to do, and that is to sell your product or service.
You want to catch some fish!
Find out some other ways to Create Influence
Register for my Free Pre-recorded Webinar
Are you a, failure? Can you recognize your, failure, symptoms? How often have you said “life is short”?
Well It is! We are here on earth for a limited time to fulfill a purpose. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could go to the doctor and tell him our life symptoms and he would give us a diagnosis of success or, failure? For example if you go to the doctor today with itchy bumps and a fever, he would look at you and without running any tests diagnose you with the chicken pox.
Recognizing your, failure, symptoms early in life before you get to your 5th or 6th decade is the only way to take action to modify your behaviors. As we head into 2015, I would like to offer you the gift of consciousness. Do you have any of the symptoms below? If you do, call me for a free coaching session. Take control of your life and get a step closer to success.
Do you sleep more than 6 hours per night or day? Thomas Edison took only 2 hour naps on his desk while he was working on his inventions. He didn’t want to sleep because he was so invested in his work. He called sleep a waste of time.
I read Donald Trump’s biography and he said that he hated going to sleep because he was so excited about his business and he didn’t want to miss anything.
Donald Trump credits only sleeping for three or four hours with staying ahead of his competition. “How does somebody who’s sleeping 8 and 10 hours a day compete with someone that’s sleeping three or four?” he’s said.
Political leaders across the globe run their countries on short spurts of shuteye. President Obama has said he can get by on a four-hour doze. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ran the U.K. for a decade, on four hours a night.
The saying “the early bird catches the worm” is meant to tell you that rising early is best if you want to catch the opportunities. If you go to bed early and sleep late, that is a, failure symptom, that you will not be successful.
A shy kid might look longingly at other kids playing in the schoolyard, afraid and unsure about how to approach them, but an introvert is perfectly content on her own.
Laurie Helgoe
Introverts, are sometimes called the “walking sleepers”. Introverts, usually allow activity to pass by them without participation, indulge in time killing pursuits, taking only the most minor role or unconstructive parts. Introverts, are also the solitaire players, the pathological bookworms, the endless crossword puzzlers, the couch potatoes. In order to succeed in business or life, you need to have the ability to sell yourself, you need social skills. You don’t have to be the life of the party; but you must be able to be comfortable at the party. Being an, introvert, and sleepwalking through life is a, failure symptom.
3. Are you drinking more than 2 drinks daily?
Drinking heavily brings on a waking sleep. Drinking affects your ability to think straight and handicaps the drinker. You will not be able to contribute fully in staff meetings, argue sensibly, plan or be proactive if you are under the influence of alcohol and thus could become a, failure.
“I always thought I was an extrovert until I became a theatre major. Then I realized I just didn’t like silence.”
― Cora Carmack, Losing It
Do you count the day lost if you did not attend a dinner party, go to a movie theater, dancing at a club or hanging out with friends? To be successful you need time alone to plan, to be creative and to ponder your next move.
5. Having no goals could lead to, failure
Dr William Menninger says “a fellow must know where he wants to go, if he is going to get anywhere”
No goals are bad enough but low goals are worst. Is your goal to just keep your job and make just enough money to pay your bills? Is it to live to retirement and then collect social security? Or is it to be the top player in the “candy crush” video game?
The bible says “people without a vision will perish”. Not necessarily physical death, but spiritual death. It is exhilarating to work towards a goal. Happiness is defined as working towards a goal.
“We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the journey toward the goal we’ve established for ourselves.”
The great leaders and legends of our time, all had goals, vision, mission and as they achieved one goal, they started on the next.
10 Signs You Are Going To Be A, Failure
You love wasting money and expect your parents to foot the bill. …
You are not disciplined. …
You don’t finish what you start. …
You love playing the blame game. …
You don’t believe in yourself. …
You don’t set goals. …
You care too much about what others think. …
You don’t take care of your health.
Join me for a Free webinar on how to set and achieve clear goals, how to create vision and mission statements, how to motivate your staff to excel and how to create influence.
As a CEO, it doesn’t matter whether your company is only “you” or you have a staff of one thousand. If you are the CEO, you are the visionary. You are all your company has, and your company will rise or fall depending on what you do with your “thought seed” or, inception, ideas.
You are the lid!
Limits, like fear, is often an illusion.
Michael Jordan
What we are today comes from our, inception, thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind.
Buddha (563 BC-483 BC) Founder of Buddhism
Let’s say you are a Law student at Harvard University; but your passion is writing software. You spend most of your time in the computer lab writing code. One day your friend and fellow computer enthusiast show you an edition of Popular Electronics magazine, featuring a kit to build one of the first mini computers, the “Altair 8800”. You think to yourself, this new computer needs software to run, inception, thought, idea! I can write the code for the software to run this computer!. So you call the company and tell them that you have already written software that would run on this new computer. Not true, you don’t even have a model! But you get them to agree to give you a meeting to demonstrate. You bust your ass to deliver; and you meet the deadline. Your code worked perfectly. The company gives you the contract. You quit Harvard and go full time into your own company; you call it Micro-soft! All because of an, inception, thought, idea.
Where is reality in this story? How many CEO’s operate in this space of total confidence, vision and action? The ordinary would have said, “We would need to get an Altair computer and understand the Bios before we can write code.” The ordinary would wait for the right time to make the call. The ordinary would waste this, inception, idea because they are waiting for the right time or the stars to line up.
You know the end of the story. Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft after that. At 23 years old, Bill had 25 employees and his company was grossing over 2 million annually. This was before IBM and MS-DOS. Today he is the richest man in the world with a personal fortune in the billions.
How to Care for your, Inception, or, Thought, seeds.
Care for your, “thought, seeds” or, inception, ideas. Ideas that are in alignment with your purpose will light you up and make you feel good. Most of us, you and me, when we get, “thought, seeds”, we filter them through our reality filter. We ask the question “does this make sense”.
“Dare to be unrealistic. Saying this is not realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity”
Will smith
What do you do with your, “thoughts, seeds“? Are you like the farmer from the scriptures? Do you sow some of them on rocks? Where the winds of negativity or your friends and family discourage you and tell you it would never work? Thoughts, are incepted into your mind so you can water them and make them grow.
thought seeds
“A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”………Mathew 13:4-9
Each moment as you move through this world, you are planting seeds. Those seeds are your, thoughts. Once planted, they take root and grow into a forest of reality which surrounds you. So how is your forest growing?
Is it filled with beautiful, productive flora, growing from a steady stream of, positive thought seeds,? Or is it filled with gnarled, thorny, tangled vines which hold you back in every direction?
The trees that grow depend upon the seeds that are planted. Though each thought is a small, seemingly insignificant thing, once it has passed through your mind it begins to grow into something real and substantial.
Each, thought, combines with the other, thoughts, that came before it, and the, thoughts, that come after it, to set the direction of your reality. Even the most secret, hidden thoughts eventually become obvious because of the direction they give to your life.
You can decide how to direct your mind, and by so doing you can profoundly affect the reality of your life. Plant row after row of positive, empowering, thought seeds, and these, inception, thoughts, will grow into a rich and magnificent forest of value and accomplishment.
So, when you have a, “thought, seed” or, inception, that excites you; you plant it in the ground, you cover it up, you water it and it WILL become a tree.
I started off talking about CEO’s; but each and every one of us wants to grow up to be something.
Michael Jordon wanted to be the best at basketball. So he hired a coach and every summer he practiced and mastered one skill.
Coaching helps you take stock of where you are now in all aspects of your life, and how that compares to where you would like to be.
Elaine MacDonald
Join me for my new webinar workshop entitled “The Leader Within“. I am offering to HELP you either water the, “thought, seeds” already planted or plant new “seeds” to realize your vision. This webinar will be absolutely FREE!. Its purpose is to help you discover where you are today and plant your, inception, idea of where you want to be.
So if you want to be something tomorrow you are not today then: REGISTER FOR FREE!!
Feedback, plays an integral role in, employees potential, and development, as it is often the only personal communication that employees have that gives them, feedback, about their work.
Feedback, is the breakfast of champions. – Ken Blanchard
Case Study employee, feedback
As a sales manager, you have a team of 10 sales persons: Two are overachievers and the other eight are happy being average. You know they have the potential to do so so much more… What do you do?
• How do you find out what really motivates them?
• How do you offer, feedback, that inspires instead of deflates?
sandwich feedback method
The Sandwich Model of Giving, Feedback
Think of your favorite sandwich… It has bread on top, lots of juicy meat and condiments in the middle and bread at the bottom again.
In the Sandwich Model of giving, feedback, the top of the bun represents the good things you see your salesperson doing.
Eg “Patty you did an awesome job on that PowerPoint presentation. You kept your audience interested, you listed facts and supported them, your tonality was awesome and you had good volume. Excellent job; BUT….”
Now you get to the middle of the sandwich, the meat. This is where you offer, feedback, on what Patty could have done better to close the sale. Psychologist’s reports that people are more receptive to hear negative, feedback, after you make them feel good with a positive comment.
However your, feedback, is not going to get the desired result if you are not genuine with your praise, the same way if you use a tired overused line at the bar! You get nowhere and the party feels insulted. So dig deep and find something genuinely good to lead off the, feedback. In our case study, Patty gave an awesome presentation, but she did not get the sale. So we pick up at:
Excellent job Patty but; the customer said that they needed to check out other suppliers before they made their decision. It might be a good idea to ask your salesperson what she feels she did wrong. If she says that she felt the customer needed to compare before they bought, you can tell her that they would have made a decision if she had SOLD them on the product by offering a solution to satisfy their real need behind the want.
When employees start getting feedback, they feel they are part of the company. Employee, recognition plays a huge part in boosting performance and maintaining high levels of engagement. It is also one of manager’s best tools and an important part of organizational communication.When done regularly, feedback, stops being a thing to be anxious about and becomes another part of your work.
Never forget that, feedback, is a two-way communication. Your suggestions, like any other opinion, can be right or wrong. Provide a chance for discussion. Show that you are as willing to listen as you are to share your opinion.
Getting, feedback, to your, employee feedback, may sound silly at first, but we never get better by ourselves. We always need a new perspective to assess things objectively. Take note of what kind of feedback works and what doesn’t.
As a rule of thumb, good managers are good listeners as well. Need a hand? Lend an ear.
Offer Constructive, Feedback
Keep in mind the basic human psychology. People respond better to positive information, so always open your, feedback, with praise and then continue with constructive comments. In no way does this mean you have to sugar-coat your opinion, but there is a reason we still use the idiom “take the bitter with the sweet”.
Not wanting to be too negative is a commendable thing. But you have to keep in mind that, according to Gallup study, employees who get predominantly negative feedback are 20 times more likely to be engaged than those who get no, feedback, at all.
The meat in the sandwich, feedback, method: Excellent Job with the presentation Patty, but the customer did not buy. I believe the reason is because you did not identify and therefore could not offer a solution to the real need. The customer told you they needed to purchase a new computer system because their old system does not give them enough storage capacity. Your presentation focused on listing our product with features highlighting our iCloud storage. If you had qualified the customer more thoroughly and understood why they needed more storage, you could have tailored your presentation to highlight the unique features of our product to satisfy the real need and eliminated our competitors.
I have a suggestion, for the next month, when you meet with customers for the first time, I want you to really understand their needs behind the want. Ask questions like “I understand your need to have more storage. What would more storage really give you?” The customer may say, something like “We would be able to look back at data for 5 years and understand our customer’s buying history. We also would be able to really identify trends and analyze what worked and what did not work.”
No sandwich is complete without the bread at the bottom. So you end with encouragement. To finish off your, feedback, you could say something like “You can become the star on this team, you just need to tweak your qualifying questions to understand the customer’s needs and you will see your close rate shoot through the roof.”
This sandwich model is the best way to give, feedback, to your subordinates. It motivates instead of deflates!
As a gardener of your, mind, you have to be vigilant about tending your, mind garden. Imagine your, mind, as a garden. Positive thoughts are the beautiful flowers that brighten your life. Negative thoughts are the ugly weeds that spread and suffocate your happiness, by cutting off sunlight. Just like plants we need sunlight to thrive.
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” ~Buddha
Negative thoughts can take the form of fear, self-doubt, guilt, anger, blame, insecurity, prophesying or any thought that makes you feel bad!
Garden your, mind, to kill the ANTS, Automatic Negative Thoughts
Fear – defined as false events appearing real, is the number one reason that we don’t achieve success in this life, it grows when we don’t tend our, mind garden. Fear of the unknown, that feeling of uncertainty. Our, minds, spin tales of past events when we failed or of someone we knew who failed. One way to Kill this, automatic negative thought, or weed in our, mind garden, is to imagine what is the worst that could happen. If you hate your job and are afraid to leave for fear that you would be able to find another job that pays as much or more than you are making now; talk back to this fear and say that you are skilled and you would so get another job. If the worst that could happen is that you run out of money and can’t eat or become homeless; then you plan ahead and either find another job before you quit or acquire the necessary skills to get the job you want. Doing nothing because you are afraid should never be an option. There is also a positive side to this ANT or weed in your, mind garden.
If you are afraid of losing something be it your spouse, your job, your home; it tells you that these things are important to you and that you should do the necessary due diligence to keep them. For example if you fear losing your spouse, then you should work on keeping the marriage fresh, you should keep yourself attractive and don’t let yourself get to 300 lbs and you should serve your spouse and make them feel special.
Self-doubt – or lack of confidence is a very powerful, automatic negative thought, or weed that could unchecked in your, mind garden. One of the most essential character traits to have is confidence. It is sexy and it allows you to command attention. When this, automatic negative thoughts, is telling you that you are not good enough, you will not get that promotion because you don’t have a degree for example; talk back and tell it that you are the best person for this job and that it is their loss if they don’t hire you. Tend to your, mind garden and pull up this weed. If you don’t, you will never move from where you are today. You will never be an over achiever or the top sales person on a team! You need self-confidence to achieve success.
Guilt – guilt is a result of your conscience in your, mind, telling you that you have violated your own core value. It is telling you that you did something that is moving you away from your predetermined goal. You can pull up this weed from your, mind garden, by telling yourself that you recognize your mistake and that you have forgiven yourself. Don’t let the guilt and shame arrest you and keep your, mind, in bondage.
Anger – Anger ANTS, automatic negative thoughts, keep telling you that someone had no right to do something. The more you think about it, the angrier you get. Psychologists say that anger is like an iceberg, what you see is just the tip but there is more ice for miles below the surface. If you are conscious you have an Anger Management problem, then you should understand (with the help of a Therapist) what is causing your anger. You can pull up this weed from your, mind garden, by telling this , automatic negative thought, that you cannot control what someone else does; the only person you can control is yourself.
Blame – this, automatic negative thought, can be very destructive. When you blame others for the results you are having in your life, you assume the role of the victim. As the victim, you have no power to facilitate change. You pluck this ANT from your, mind garden, by becoming a player. As a player you take back control. Regardless of what the dealer is showing, you can still win! You are not the product of your circumstances. Everybody has a story, it is how you handle adversity and challenges that define and grow you.
Prophesying – the prophesying, automatic negative thought, talks to you about what it knows about the future! It tells you things like “you are never going to close that sale”. “The customer is going to string you along and they will never buy” or “it is never going to work out”. You remove this ANT from your, mind garden, by declaring that you cannot predict the future. You do not have a crystal ball!
My, Automatic Negative Thoughts, generally take the form of conversations. These ANTS usually starts crawling when I get a trigger. You know what happens when you step on an Ants nest? The Ants all run out at the same and start attacking, they bite! Tony Robbins teaches about anchors and how to replace the negative ones with positive ones. If you have this problem you should check out his book “The Power Within“. The way I handle these, automatic negative thoughts, is by shaking my head when I become conscious that they are crawling around. I physically shake my head like I am trying to shake them off me, then I bring my attention to my breathing for a few minutes. If they come back again and they usually do, I download them in my journal and that usually takes care of the problem for me and frees my, mind. This is how I tend my, mind garden.
I tend the Garden of my mind by becoming Conscious of the thoughts that make me feel bad!
Positive thoughts on the other hand are like flowers, they beautify your gardens and bring smiles to anyone who stops and pays attention to their beauty; in a similar way positive thoughts make you beautiful to anyone who you have interpersonal relations with. But the beauty of positive thoughts is that they make you feel good. It is not only sex that makes you feel good!
Tending to the garden of your, mind, is an ongoing process.
I’ve seen firsthand how dangerous it is to let the weeds of negative thinking take over your, mind, and just like in your natural garden the weeds thrive more than the flowers or plants. In a similar way when you allow the, automatic negative thoughts, to run free in your head; they snuff all the joy out of your life. All you see is darkness, because they are blocking the sunlight from getting in! Let’s look at a garden metaphor to bring an awareness of what happens when weeds take over a garden. Left alone the weeds flourish, creating a dark, tangled mess.
Is your, mind garden, full of weeds?
This morning I stepped outside and noticed one of the largest weeds I have ever seen. I didn’t notice it before because it looked like a tree. It had a trunk, and was taller than the other flowers. I thought to myself; how on earth could a weed grow so strong and big? The answer is simple: their purpose is to take the nutrients from the plants, so they get big when your plants become weak and die.
So it is too with your, mind: An unattended, mind, can create havoc for you because your, mind, is amazingly receptive to whatever suggestions may be dropped into it. It has been said that the subconscious mind cannot take a joke. This simply means that whatever belief is introduced to it, it takes seriously as an instruction to grow that thought-seed into a full-blown plant–be it a rose or a weed, and it can’t tell the difference.
How to plant positive seeds in your, mind garden
When you stop and consider how many thought-seeds are purposefully planted in your, mind garden, on a daily basis, it may cause you to tend to your mental garden with a bit more regularity. This is in addition to all the seeds that were planted in your mind unconsciously. As you listen to the radio, watch TV or even sit in a restaurant where others are talking, your mind hears it ALL, irrespective of whether you are conscious of it or not. Given what’s going on in our world today with all of the talk that comes from fear and anger, this is a vital point to grasp. Even when you engage in gossip or negative conversation with or about others, your subconscious mind hears it all. Be careful of the seeds you let in.
A, mind, expanded with an implanted thought cannot be returned back to its original form. Leonardo DiCaprio starred in this complicated movie called “inception”, the implantation of another person’s idea into a target’s subconscious.[Hollywood understands this concept. The only way to avoid this type of mind pollution is to be consciously focused on positive activities and limit news and gossip.
There are some companies that have a zero tolerance for gossip. They treat it like a cancer and remove the gossiper immediately.
The action you and I need to take is clear isn’t it? It has been proven that the human mind thinks thousands of thoughts a day. Instead of planting a mixed bag of thousands of various seeds, from fearful to simply confused and unfocused thought-seeds, which will require a full time gardener to pull up the weeds, why not specialize in planting one or two types of seed? Plant thought-seeds about yourself and others that are rooted in reverence and loving-kindness.
Plant seeds that focus on God’s Presence at the center and circumference of all you say think and do, at work, home, or play.
Be mindful…be skillful in the seeds you plant and how you nurture them. Your life is your garden; keep the weeds out because that is one way in which you can personally beautify our world. You owe that much to yourself and to those who receive the benefit of the seeds you plant along the way.
