BEING TRUE TO YOU

One of the best ways to begin the process of being truer to yourself is to stop acting or “per-forming” with a primary impetus being to appease others. Granted, there are times and places when it is necessary to act within certain parameters, such as in a work environment.

However, we all go through times of feeling socially unfulfilled or disconnected, and while seeking approbation and acceptance from a niche du jour, may overcompensate by acting in a manner that belies our true-self. It is actually pretty ironic that at times we may seek personal approval and acceptance from others by not acting like yourself. Yes indeed, life can at times be a stage.

When defining yourself more through the eyes of others than your inner truth, it is not uncommon to begin thinking, feeling and acting less like yourself and more as you would assume they would prefer you to be. However, whatever your assumptions of the preferences of others may be, you may or may not be very accurate nor your actions necessarily expected or effective.

Think about it, you’re assumptions of the preferences of others is based on how they are acting or what they are saying, but what if they are doing the same thing you are? What if they are being just as untrue to themselves and putting on their own show, for the same reasons?

Check Your Productivity In Life

Did you know that the answer to your productivity depends on the first 15 minutes of your day? Physically we know that eating breakfast in the morning is important to getting the right fuel to sustain our energy and metabolism  for the day.  What we may not realize, is  that fueling our brain with what it needs to sustain  focus, be efficient and productivity for the day is equally as important.  How do we do that?  Similar to how we will grab and eat whatever is quickest, but not necessarily nutritious when unplanned hunger arrives, we will grab aimlessly  for something "to do", anything to do, which may not be the most helpful or productive task for moving us forward during the day.

Just like your body, after a night of sleep your  brain is raring to go  for a new day.  Be sure to provide it with something that it can "sink it's teeth "into every morning!  As you prepare for the day:

1. Take 15 minutes every morning to review what is now the most important thing for you to accomplish during that day.  Ideally, this will include looking over your "to do" list and reminding yourself of what is most important now. Then  focusing and completing  these today.  I recommend a T.A.G. system for your list.  "T's" on your list are those that are to be done today, no matter what.  "A's" are those things that need to get done but will get done after the "T's".  "G's" are the  "get it done" items on your list that need to get done eventually, by the end of the week,  but are less urgent  than the "T's" or "A's". 

Definition of Success That Matters

To a small business owner, to an employee--to anyone--there is only one way to determine success. Sure, success in business and in life means different things to different people.  

And success should mean different things. Whether or not you are successful depends on how you define success, and on the trade-offs you are willing to not just accept but embrace as you pursue that definition of success. We can have a lot but we can't have everything.

I get that, but I also get this. To a small business owner, to an employee--to anyone--there is only one way to determine success. The answer lies in answering one question: How happy am I? That’s it. How successful you are is based solely on the answer to that question.

How happy are you?

Extremely successful entrepreneurs--at least in terms of traditional business success--work impossibly long hours while focusing almost exclusively on building their business. In many cases (some would argue most cases) their personal and family lives are to some degree a casualty of that focus.

Is that a fair tradeoff?

Fair or unfair is beside the point.

The one thing successful people never do

Success comes in all shapes and colours. You can be successful in your job and career but you can equally be successful in your marriage, at sports or a hobby. Whatever success you are after there is one thing all radically successful people have in common: Their ferocious drive and hunger for success makes them never give up.

Successful people (or the people talking or writing about them) often paint a picture of the perfect ascent to success. In fact, some of the most successful people in business, entertainment and sport have failed. Many have failed numerous times but they have never given up. Successful people are able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and carry on trying.

I have collected some examples that should be an inspiration to anyone who aspires to be successful. They show that if you want to succeed you should expect failure along the way. I actually believe that failure can spur you on and make you try even harder. You could argue that every experience of failure increases the hunger for success. The truly successful won't be beaten, they take responsibility for failure, learn from it and start all over from a stronger position.

Signs That Make You Not as Smart as You Think

 

It’s a concept that can be difficult to come to terms with, but like it or not our intellect (or our perceived intellect) can often work against us in life. The indications are all there once you have the eyes to see them. Have you fallen into the “I think I’m too smart for my own good” trap? Don’t worry the big part of correcting a mistake is realizing it exists! Check out these signs you are not as smart as you think you are and see if any or all apply to you. Coming quickly to terms with them and correcting this kind of self-defeating behavior can make you truly smarter fast! And perhaps more importantly, much happier too.

Lack of Professional Success

Opinions are by their nature subjective – think of beauty as being in the eyes of the beholder as a classic example – while end results, like numbers in a pay check are very much objective and impossible to argue with. Smart people leverage their intelligence into professional success. If you are thirty five years old, consider yourself brilliant yet are living in your parent’s house, it’s pretty clear you are not as smart as you think you are. Smart people figure out a way to make money not make excuses!

READ FURTHER DOWN AFTER THE CUT

Reasons Great Careers Require Imagination

The faster the world changes, the more critical it becomes to exercise your imagination. If you don't, you'll always be surprised by what happens next.
I get calls and emails from all sorts of people, but the most interesting ones are from people who look at the world around us and imagine something different than exists today. Some want to reinvent entertainment industry with a new S.W.A.G. Others want to make  Banking more customer-friendly, or do the same to a different industry. All have an active imagination, or have partnered with someone who does.
There used to be lots of careers in which you could thrive without an imagination. Many industries did not change that fast, and many career paths were pretty stable. Neither of these statements is still true.
Here are reasons career – and life – success requires that you exercise your imagination:

All business growth starts with imagination. Every new product and service starts with someone saying, "What if?" To succeed in this realm, you don't need to have the imagination of a great artist or inventor. You might simply ask: what if we offered a different size, or package, or payment plan, or service plan, or logo?
Long ago, when I worked at a finance firm called Kakawa Discount House Limited , I was often surprised at how a tiny change in idea would result in millions of Naira in incremental sales of investment packages.  .

Qualities of Truly Confident People

 

Confidence is not bravado, or swagger, or an overt pretense of bravery. Confidence is not some bold or brash air of self-belief directed at others.Confidence is quiet: It’s a natural expression of ability, expertise, and self-regard.

I’m fortunate to know a number of truly confident people. Many work with me, others are fellow founders of their own startups some of whom I've met through Nollywood. But the majority are people I’ve met through my career and who work in a variety of industries and professions.

It comes as no surprise they all share a number of qualities:

They take a stand not because they think they are always right… but because they are not afraid to be wrong.

Cocky and conceited people tend to take a position and then proclaim, bluster, and totally disregard differing opinions or points of view. They know they’re right – and they want (actually they need) you to know it too.

Their behavior isn’t a sign of confidence, though; it’s the hallmark of an intellectual bully.

Truly confident people don’t mind being proven wrong. They feel finding out what is right is a lot more important than being right. And when they’re wrong, they’re secure enough to back down graciously.

Truly confident people often admit they’re wrong or don’t have all the answers; intellectual bullies never do.

To Know Yourself: Why It Matters---- Wisdom and Illusion

Wisdom has become a musty word even though it described the highest vision of life for many centuries. In a previous post I described what the wisdom principle is. But the only real test must come in daily life. Someone who makes wise choices in life should wind up happier and more successful than someone who doesn't. This test depends on knowing what wise choices are and what they aren't.
One can take a very broad view of wisdom - it was taught by Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, Plato, and Muhammad, different as they were from one another. Because we classify these figures as either religious or philosophical, the application of wisdom to the hard realities of work, family, relationships, and so on has been largely ignored. That, I think, is a grave mistake. Wisdom is about skill in living, here and now.
In the earlier post I suggested that the first requirement for anyone who wants to be wise is a desire to know reality. The world's wisdom traditions agree on this point. The desire to know reality implies many things. The first is that reality doesn't exist right before your eyes. It is veiled by illusion, and illusion is born of the mind. Here is a list of illusory ideas that countless people live by, today, as much as they did two thousand years ago.

How To Get A Job Fast

In today's unpredictable economy, the idea of job security with any company would seem to be a thing of the past. Large company layoffs, golden handshakes, mergers, leveraged buyouts, company acquisitions and similar business moves have left people of all ages out of a job they need to live. 

While there may be some compensation upon being let go from the firm you work for, this money won't last forever. Or, if eligible for unemployment benefits, this also has a finite period of time attached to the check. Sooner or later, job hunting will be necessary.

But it's not only individuals who have been turned out of jobs that this booklet can help. How happy are you in the business you're in? Do you long to do something else with your career? If so, you're not alone. You have plenty of company in wanting to change one's goals and focus in life.
Perhaps you've just turned 40 and realize that you're into the second half of a working career you've never really liked. Studies have shown that working in a job because you have to, not because you like it, can have some effect on an individual's life span. Why take years off your life when you don't have to? 

Open Your Heart Up to Abundance!

Do you see all the abundance around you? How many trees and flowers and birds and blades of grass can you count? There is abundance everywhere! And yet most of us fail to see and allow it into our experience because we tend to focus on what is wrong, what is missing, or what we don’t have—our attention is on the multitude of unfulfilled desires that our senses continuously produce and the external world reinforces.

Infinite Consciousness knows no limitations; only the ego does because it has a self-restraining nature and cannot perceive anything beyond its limited existence. Think about this for a minute. The nature and purpose of the ego is to keep you trapped in the illusion of individuality to experience life in human physical form; that is, to prevent you from seeing how everything and everyone is connected and how in reality we are one and the same Infinite Consciousness manifesting in a myriad forms and shapes and colors.

The mind is a vehicle of infinite creative potential, but the ego filters that potentiality to keep the sense of individuality and maintain you “safe” in the same emotional place you found yourself when you were a young kid. Why? Because it was back then that your tendencies and impressions (and your interpretation of life) were “set” as your psychological foundation.

Now, why wouldn’t the ego simply stretch as we grow up so that our physical, mental, and emotional growth would be harmoniously in synch without any aspect getting stuck anywhere? As a matter of fact, that ideal growth model is what psychologists use as a point of reference and aim for: they want us moving forward emotionally to function and integrate in the world. Heck, if we could grow emotionally in the same manner we grow physically, that is, without any effort or even thinking about it, we’d be all set and happy, right?