2013 ... The Year of the Snake

Ancient Chinese wisdom says a Snake in the house is a good omen because it means your family will not starve. This could be taken metaphorically to mean that a Snake could never have a problem with his family starving because he is such a great mediator, making him good at business. Or it could mean that a Snake would be willing to sacrifice his possessions, something the Snake has a lot of, in order to pay for his family’s food. Any way it is interpreted is representative of the Snake’s character and is a measure of the value he puts on his material wealth. The Snake is keen and cunning, quite intelligent and wise.

 

People born in the year of the snake may become philosophers, theologians, politicians, or cunning financiers. The snake is the most enigmatic of the twelve zodiac animals.

Such persons are elegant, and enjoy reading, listening to great music, tasting delicious food, and going to the theatre. They are fascinated with all beautiful things in life. Many of the most beautiful ladies and the men with strongest personalities were born in the year of the snake. Therefore, you should have good luck if you were born in that year.

A person born in the year of the snake usually acts according to his own judgment, and doesn't follow the views with others. He may be a religious believer or a pleasure-seeker. In either case, he would rather believe in his own conjectures than accept the advice of others, and he is generally right.

They are not annoyed by lack of money, and are usually lucky enough to own everything they need. If such a person is short of money, he can change the situation quickly. However, he shouldn't gamble, for he may lose everything he has. If he sustains great losses, he will soon come to realize his error and recover from it so that he will not be hit later. Generally, he will be cautious and alert when doing business.

 

Happy Holidays

Famed Swordsman Miyamoto Musashi ...

It

may

seem

difficult

at

first,

but

everything

is

difficult

at

first ...

 

 

How to Stay Young ...

1. Try everything twice. 

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down. 

3. Keep learning: Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever... Never let the brain get idle. 

4. Enjoy the simple things. 

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath. 

6. The tears happen: Endure, grieve, and move on. 

7. Surround yourself with what you love: whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever … Your home is your refuge. 

8. Cherish your health … If it is good, preserve it … If it is unstable, improve it … If it is beyond what you can improve, get help. 

9. Don't take guilt trips … 

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity. 

11. Forgive now those who made you cry. 

Remember ... Lost time can never be found !!

Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

13 Challenges [by Robin Sharma]

Part of the value I hope to add to you is to be a catalyst for positive change in your work and personal life.

To gently push/move and challenge you.

To get better.

To grow more.

To be great ... regardless of your title or your background or your current reality.

13 Challenges

Champion a Child

Encourage a Co-Worker

Read a Great Book

Do Something that Frightens You

Write a Thank-you Note

Do Something Kind for a Stranger

WOW a Customer

Learn Something New

Let Go of a Resentment

Do Better Work

Be More Passionate

Speak Truthfully

Stand for Excellence

Z. Build a Great Resume

Not just a word document with standard sections.

But a different one ... Make it meaningful ... Make it different ...

Use Linkedin to build your profile.

Your blog, your twitter, your projects are all your resume ... Leverage them ...

Y. Build an Attitude

Remember: ATTITUDE > ABILITY

Abilities can be taught.

Knowledge can be given.

But attitude is difficult to give ... A person either has it or doesn't.

Industry needs people with a "can do" positive attitude.

X. Focus on Youir Strengths

Our strenghts make us, not our weaknesses.

While you work on eliminating your weaknesses, don't focus to much on that ... Develop your strengths !!

W. Trust Your Intuition

"It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it, I rely on it. It's my partner." - Jonas Salk

Learn to trust yourself ... Pay respect to how you "feel" about something.

Be open to your inner voice.

Some of the most successful people have defied all the logic to pursue what their hearts told them to ...

V. Stay Inspired

When things don't go as planned, get some inspiration.

Talk to your friends ... Read inspiring quotes ... Watch a good movie ... Travel ... Take a drive ... or ... Just go for a walk.

Do whatever inspires you !!

Stay away from negativity.

U. It Is Okay To Be Different

If you want to do anything worthwhile in your life, stop worrying about what others think of you !!

Avoid "Herd Mentality" ...

Tom Peters says, "DISTINCT or EXTINCT".

Ask yourself; "What differentiates me from thousands of other students/professionals out there ?"

Look for concrete answers ...

Stand Out or Don't Bother !!!

T. Exchange Help

Help others in reaching their career goals.

When you keep offering more help, you also keep getting more help.

Teach a little.

Write a little.

Offer encouragement to others.

You help yourself the most when you help others.

S. Network is the "Net Worth"

You become more like those who you surround yourself with.

Choose a good company of people who can amplify your capacity.

Meet new people and talk to them.

Find common acquaintances who are working in your area ... Seek Guidance.

Do not hesitate to ask for help.

R. Manager Your Time

We all have just 24 hours in a day ... Use them well !!

Set up a schedule (i.e. read a book for one hour early in the morning).

Stick to the schedule.

Routines are a powerful way to commit to ourselves.

"Time is our most precious commodity"

Q. Collaborate

We learn most when we are with others.

Form a Group of likeminded people ... Discuss ... Debate ... Explore ... Dig Deeper ... Research.

Find out ways to learn more about your subject.

Be a good team player.

P. Difficulties are OPPORTUNITIES

Why would we work so hard if everything in life was easy ?

Difficulties shape us in life.

Take every difficulty in your career as an OPPORTUNITY.

O. Be Disciplined

When you are working, be "with" the work. Concentrate and eliminate all distractions.

Stop wasting excessive time on social media platforms like Facebook.

Be tough on yourself. Track your progress against goals.

"Successful people have a habit of doing things that failures don't like to do."

N. Prioritize & Say "NO"

Every "No" is a "Yes" to something else.

"No" to an average job offer could be "Yes" to a great one.

Learn how to say "No" firmly and politely.

Say no to unproductive tasks ... Simplify your life so that you can spend more time doing things you love.

Know what is important for you, and say a BIG Yes to it !!

M. Find a Mentor

Mentor is one who accelerates your growth.

Your mentor could be your parents. Your teachers. Your seniors or your colleagues.

A mentor is someone who is more experienced to help us grow.

A mentor is the one who stands behind you with a torchlight when the road is dark.

L. Don't Be Afraid Of Mistakes

Every mistake is a stepping stone to some learning.

Making mistakes is fine as long as you learn from them.

But, don't repeat the same one over and over again.

Make new mistakes. That's the only way I know to learn fast.

K. Start Personal Projects ... Volunteer

Start something that you love. It could be a blog, writing a book, writing a software or a magazine in your college.

Alternative pursuits keep you creative and sharp-minded.

Volunteer for great projects that you believe in.

Contribute ... Get into it ... See how it works ... Learn.

J. Hardwork is Mandatory

Depending on your Luck is a lame strategy.

Luck is not in your control, but hard work is.

Don't count hours of work, but count what you do in those hours.

I. Enjoy the Process

One of the best gifts we can give ourselves is to enjoy the work while we are doing it (being in the moment).

Don't be too Anxious about the results ... If you enjoy the process, results will follow.

Your career is not a race - so don't just rush.

Goals are important to achieve. What you become in process of achieving your goals is even more important.

H. Experience

Experience is the greatest teacher.

Your degree is just a foot in the door. Real learning begins when you are "thrown into the fire".

Experience does not mean number of years spent in industry. Experience is how much you know about the job, and how well you do it.

G. Read ... Read ... Read

A Person who does not read good books has no advantage over the person who cannot read.

Reading expands your brain cells.

Reading makes you more open to ideas.

Read at least one book outside your area of work.

F. Learn to Communicate Effectively

What you know is important. How well you can represent it is even more important.

Communication is what makes or breaks your career.

Learn how to speak.

Learn how to write well.

Moreover, learn to listen. (Listening  is also a part of communication)

E. Focus on Value

Value is what you contribute against what you get.

The higher your work offers value, the faster you grow.

To find value:

Learn the work that offers higher value
                        OR
Find whqat you love doing and identify how it can add value.

D. Experiment

Experimenting is critical for learning.

Try things out. See if it works. If it does, you learn. If it doesn't, you still learn.

You remember 100% of what you learn by experimenting.

C. Learn - But Act On It ... Execute

You learn the most, not by reading, but by doing. You cannot learne Swimming by reading a book. You have to dive.

Do something with what you learn.

See what wroks, and what doesn't.

Do more of what works.

That is how you build expertise, isn' it ?

B. Learn Constantly

Learning is not a one time event. It is a lifelong process.

Remain curious.

Some sources of learning: Books, Friends, Blogs, Websites, Wikipedia, YouTube ...

Pursue Certifications. Participate in seminars.

If you "want to" learn, sources are many.

A. Do What you Love Doing !!

Life is too short to spend eight hours a day doing something you don't care about.

Passion breeds excellence !!

Ask this often in your career: "Am I enjoying it ?"

Success in Your Career ...

Over the next 26 weeks I am going to post a Career A-Z for Success in Your Career, this is based on a presentation by Tanmay Vora (http://qaspire.com/). The presentation has ALLOT of good/common sense information in it ... that many of us have forgotten.

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own. An you know what you know.
You are the one who'll decide where to go" Dr. Seuss

Young Students/Professional (i.e. YOU) are the future of our business, economy and our organizations.

Getting a "job" is not the destination. It is the beginning of a journey.

The journey of growth. The journey of becoming. The journey of expressing yourself in your area of work.

The goal of this presentation ... To help aspiring students and professionals in navigating through the complexities of this wonderful journey.

18 Tips for Receiving Feedback ...

DO:


1. Seek feedback on a regular basis, especially after you have identified development goals. Exchanging information and perceptions is a process, not a single event.

2. Receive feedback as a gift that provides you with honest information about your perceived behavior/performance. Be open to what you will hear.

3. Let the person finish what he or she is saying.

4. Try to paraphrase what you are being told, either back to the person or in your own mind.

5. Ask clarifying questions.

6. Ask for specifics, if not provided.

7. Ask the person to give you alternatives to your behavior.

8. Monitor your nonverbal and emotional responses.

9. Thank the person for being helpful to you.

10. Take the time after the feedback interaction to evaluate the information and consider specific actions for improvements.

11. Teach yourself to recognize situations in which a certain behavior needs to be altered. Feedback can help you self-monitor your behavior at times when you are less than optimally effective.

12. Use feedback to clarify goals, track progress toward those goals, and to improve the effectiveness of your behaviors over a period of time.


DON’T:


13. Take it personally.

14. Become defensive or explain your behavior. (You can either spend your time mobilizing your defenses or you can spend your time listening. Defending your actions is counterproductive, where listening is extremely useful.)

15. Interrupt the other person.

16. Be afraid to allow pauses and periods of silence when you receive feedback. This gives you time to understand what is being said and it gives the other person time to think about what they say.

17. Ask the person to defend his or her opinion (there is a difference between “defending” and “explaining”). Feedback is purely subjective perceptions of information. You can place your own value on it later.

18. Don’t make excuses or try to explain your behavior.



Posted by Dan McCarthy on the Great Leadership Blog

Strategy for Personal Success

Rich Horwath is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author on strategy. As the CEO of the Strategic Thinking Institute, he leads executive teams through the strategy process and he has trained more than 50,000 managers around the world to develop their strategic thinking skills. Rich and his work have appeared on CNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC and FOX TV. As a former chief strategy officer and professor of strategy, he brings both real-world experience and practical expertise to help groups build their strategy skills.
http://www.strategyskills.com/

Rich has developed a very interesting Five Step Plan to help you develop a Strategy for Personal Success ...

In its simplest form, strategy is a bridge for getting from where you are today to where you want to go.

Whether in business or in your personal life, strategy is how you plan to get from your current
position to your desired goals. There’s a good chance you have a strategy for your business—
whether it’s effective or not will determine how long you’ll be around. But tell me—do you have
a plan for your life?

If you answered “no,” you’re not alone. In a study I conducted with Harris Interactive, I found
that while 82 percent of business executives have a written strategy for their business, a mere 22 percent have a written strategy for their lives. The research involved more than three hundred Fortune 1000 business executives, consisting of chief executives, presidents, executive directors, general managers, and vice presidents representing more than twenty-five industries across the United States. These dismal numbers showed that the practice of developing a strategic plan for our businesses is not being carried over into our personal lives.

Without a strategy, we have no clear way to get to where we want to go. Without a strategy,
we risk falling into the gaps and being held back by the barriers. Without a strategy, we
are powerless to create the life we want. But with a strategy, there are no limits to how far our
bridge can take us. We can build a bridge to the greatest days of our lives.

The Five-Step Plan ... My work as a business strategist is to help managers develop
the strategies that will, in essence, create the bridge to their greatest business performance.
During the past ten years working as a chief strategy officer and founder of the Strategic
Thinking Institute, I developed tools and frameworks to help multi-million and even multi-billion dollar organizations identify their business goals and the strategies for reaching them. I had never helped people apply these business strategy principles for success in their individual lives … until now.

I’ve created a five-step plan for creating a bridge to the life you want. This framework takes the
foundational principles of business strategy and helps you apply them to your life. The result
is a simple plan you can follow to become effective, successful, and happy at work and at home.
The five-step plan includes the following elements:

1 } Discover — Selecting Your Bridge’s Location. Just as you can’t build a bridge without
first determining the starting and finishing points, you can’t build a strategy for your life
without understanding where you’re starting from and where you want to go. The Discover
step is the process of uncovering your purpose—what you want and why. Purpose takes the
form of a mission, a vision, goals, and objectives.

2 } Differentiate — Imagining Your Bridge’s Style. Bridges come in all shapes and sizes,
from small, wooden covered structures to shiny, sweeping waves of metal. Their differences
begin in the mind of the designer. The Differentiate step requires you to identify the unique
characteristics of your personal bridge. These elements include your individual combination
of strengths, weaknesses, background, and abilities that set you apart from the pack. To
differentiate means to deviate from the norm in ways that people value.

3 } Decide — Choosing Your Bridge’s Materials. Before a bridge can be built, the designer
must decide which materials to use, based on functional needs, the size of the span to be
crossed, and desired aesthetics. All these choices require trade-offs. The Decide step involves
the process of allocating your resources—time, talent, and money—to achieve your goals.
The act of deciding requires you to make trade-offs, choosing what to do and what not to do.

4 } Design — Building Your Bridge. It’s one thing to think about a bridge. It’s another to
actually build that bridge. While natural bridges like logs over streams exist, the majority
of functional bridges are man-made. The Design step asks you to develop an action plan that
will help you reach the goals you’ve set, using the appropriate resources. Just as a designer
creates a blueprint for a bridge, we can design a Strategy Print for life.

5 } Drive — Crossing Your Bridge. Once the bridge has been designed and built, the true
test begins. Can you move across this bridge, from one side to the other? A bridge that looks
good but crumbles when used is of little value. The Drive step guides your actions and moves
you forward on a daily basis according to the strategy you have designed. It includes the
ability to execute your plan without becoming distracted and taken off task by “urgent” but
unimportant things that eat away at your time.

You can read the rest of the manifesto at the following link:

http://changethis.com/manifesto/download/91.04.StrategyForYou

Enjoy …

The Power of Thinking Like You are "Superman" ...

I want you to start thinking like you are Superman.

Sound Crazy?

Sound a little nutty?

It's powerful.

It's based in quantum physics science.

It will change your life.

Read on …If there was any person real or fictional person whose qualities you could instantly possess, who would that person be?

I would like to put forth the proposition that "Superman" would be the perfect person.

Now you are probably thinking I have lost my mind right?

Read on, I think you will like what you are about to hear.

Superman is a fictional Action comic book superhero widely considered to be one of the most famous and popular of such characters and an American cultural icon.

He is indestructible, the man of steel, he can stop a freight train in its tracks....great powers to have in this day and age, wouldn't you say?

OK, this is sounding crazier by the minute, how is it based in science, and how can it change my life?

This is where it gets fun.

(For all my female subscribers don't worry we have not left you out. There is also a female version of Superman named Superwoman she has the same powers that Superman has, you will refer to her as you do this mental exercise.)

This is where you will learn about the scientific marvels of the human body.

First let's look at the qualities that Superman possesses, that you want to make yours.

1. Superman is powerful.

2. Superman is virtually indestructible.

3. Superman has amazing self esteem.

4. Superman has supernatural powers.

5. Superman can stop a speeding freight train.

6. Superman jumps into immediate action when troubles arise.

OK, we know that Superman has incredible supernatural powers, how can that help us?

What good will it do us to simply think we are Superman?

Here is where science comes in ... this is the part where you will be AMAZED when you learn about the supernatural powers "YOU" already possess!

Best-Selling author and M.D. Dr. Deepak Chopra tells us that our brains make certain chemicals called Neuro Peptides. These are literally the molecules of emotion. (Fear, Joy, Love, Etc.)

These molecules of emotion are not contained in your brain only, they actually circulate throughout your entire body.

Your immune cells which are protecting you from diseases like infection and cancer, and many other illnesses are also contained throughout your body.

Deepak tells us that the amazing part about of these cells of emotion and immune system support is that they are intelligent cells.

They are thinking cells!

He also tells us that these immune cells which are protecting you from disease are constantly eavesdropping on the conversation that you are having with yourself.

Your self-talk.

They listen in and adjust their behavior based on what they hear from you....their master.

So imagine what would happen if you started to think like Superman.

Here are some of the thoughts you might have during the day:

"I am indestructible"

"The challenges I face day to day are easily overcome, after all I am Superman/Supergirl"

"I have supernatural powers."

"I have incredible strength."

"Nothing can stop me.....nothing."

The billions of thinking cells in your body listen.Their mission is to complete the picture of you they see when they hear yourself talk.

They must obey.

Since you are "Superman" you cannot get sick. Your immune system cells are now fortifying themselves to make sure of that.

They are making you stronger everyday!

You have the ability to fight off all attacks, physical, disease, illness....after all you are Superman.

Superman is confident, your cells of emotion relating to confidence will now create more Neuro Peptide chemicals that promote feelings of power.

Superman is fearless, your cells of the emotion relating to fear will now create more Neuro Peptide chemicals that promote feelings of well being.

A feeling that you fear nothing …

Go for it!! by Dan Robey

Formula for 2012 Personal Success ...

Think you can,
Build up a head of steam,
Ask for help,
Give it all you've got,
And be humble & grateful when you make it up the hill.

I love this, it's simple and achieveable !!

Happy New Year ...

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or you can email him personally at salesman@gitomer.com.

The Secret to Life in Two Words ...

Happy New Year !!!