Lessons Learned as a New Entrepeneur

As Americans, we are experiencing a significant economic slowdown. With unemployment at close to 10%, currently over 10 million Americans have started their own home-based business and many more are considering it.

There are many distinct advantages associated with a home based business such as freedom, flexibility, working from home, direct control of your income and being your own boss. Being a home based business owner also means, you are closer to your family on a daily basis and other responsibilities. The most successful home based business owners are organized, disciplined and action oriented.

Here are some tips I have learned about being successful as your own boss:

1. Determine your priorities: Write down your tasks in the order of importance, and focus on the urgent ones first thing in the morning. By following your list of priorities, and assigning a time frame to complete, you can ensure that you do no miss out on any income generating task that is important.

2. Plan your day the night before: Plan your day the evening before so that you are ready to act as soon as breakfast is done. Set goals to be accomplished, calls to make to prospects, marketing to complete. During the day, keep updating your plan as you achieve each goal.

3. Help your family understand: Family pressure can be one of the major reasons that many home-based businesses fail to succeed. You need to help your family understand that you are at work, even though at home. Make sure you set aside quality time for the family. Remember, this is your business and not a hobby.

4. Go the Extra Mile: You will have to work harder and longer in the beginning with your business. This effort will help your business build a strong foundation to help it grow and stabilize.

5. Reduce distractions: Try to avoid television and radio. Create a peaceful and quiet atmosphere in your home so that you can focus on work.

6. Set aside time for YOU: You can improve your productivity by spending a few minutes to refresh yourself. Get some exercise, go outside and enjoy the sun, or take a walk. It will do wonders for your focus.

7. Focus on Personal Excellence: Raise your standards by having high expectations of yourself. Hustle and do not let yourself become idle for too long. The best entrepreneurs are always hustling and putting in the effort to take massive action.

These tips will ensure you get off on the right foot in your home based business. In my opinion, being a successful Entrepreneur is 90% discipline, organization and action.

The Recipe For Success

Success has as many different definitions as there are people. We each have different responses to what success means to us. Success involves every facet of your life from your relationships, career, health/wellness, spiritual life and peace of mind.

In this article, I’d like to hit the first of my four ingredients into the recipe of success.

First Ingredient in the Recipe for Success

The "right" mental attitude is critical to the recipe for success. A positive mental attitude is the beginning to your success. We have all met people that have a great “can do” attitude and I bet others view them as pretty successful. The “can do” attitude helps people achieve their goals and build relationships with friends and business associates. We all enjoy being around positive people that are problem solvers and are "good finders" (look for good instead of bad in every situation).

Things to keep in mind about attitude:

• Keep an attitude of acceptance, forgiveness, respect, and consideration in your relationships. It goes a long way in your success.


• An open mind toward new experiences in your life will help you adapt to change. The world is ever-changing and unless you change with it, you will be destined to be mediocre.
  Be self aware of your own abilities and yourself. Be positive and realistic. Through your lifelong personal development journey, you will have a strong grasp of your possibilities in life. I doubt very seriously that I could be a PGA Golf Pro having not played in ten years. Keep it all in perspective with reality and stay positive on the goals that are challenging and realistic in your life.


• Consider a mentor to help you set realistic goals, provide encouragement and motivation to help you achieve your goals. Mentors can also be great to learn from, share lessons learned along the way, and be a role model of success.

A positive attitude sprinkled with realism, and an open mind is the first ingredient in success. This ingredient will allow you to use your own abilities, see the future vision of your life, and develop the skills and abilities to have what you deserve in life.

Stay tuned for the next 3 ingredients to the recipe of success!

I'd love to hear your comments on the first ingredient for success. Please feel to subscribe to our blog on the right hand side of this page and pass along to friends/co-workers that may have an interest in success.

Until next time, Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will...
http://www.destinyahead.com/

Hello, my name is Chris and I Love Leadership

For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by LEADERSHIP. I enjoy reading biographies about great leaders and the characteristics that make them successful. Also, I have kept a personal journal for the last 10 years of observations of behaviors that I have seen in outstanding and "not so" outstanding leadership. My readings and personal journal will be the foundations of a book that I have planned to complete within the next 5-10 years.


If I were to sort and categorize those characteristics and behaviors I believe that make successul leaders, there are several that would be a common theme across a high percentage of successful leaders. Here's a brief snapshot of the dimensions of successful leadership from my observations and readings:

1. Integrity - #1 characteristic. Without this, a leader is not a leader because they have no followers. In my opinion, this is the cornerstone of outstanding leadership.


2. Desire - Outstanding leaders have a strong and burning desire to be leaders and to succeed. Almost an obsession-like focus. Most people are looking for leaders, these people want and know they are leaders.


3. Results Orientation - Leaders are in leadership roles primarily to make things happen through other people - get results. They are very goal oriented, planful, organized and focused when it comes to achieving challenging results.


4. Focused on People - I have met and worked with many good leaders that talk the talk on people focus but don't show the behaviors. They may be 3s on a 5 point scale. The best leaders ( the 4.5s and 5s on a 5 points scale) deeply care about their team and each individual. Outstanding leaders take the approach that their team is their #1 customer and the #1 customer needs to be treated as such. They realize that nothing happens without their team and the development of their team is crucial to the success of the mission.


5. Vision - Vision can be an "overused" word in leadership. I view vision as the ability to innovate and create the needs and plans for the future while the team is focused on the current mission. Without vision, the organization becomes stale and complacent. Complacency is a tragic flaw in leadership. Outstanding leaders have the "pedal to the metal" 95% of the time, if not a 100%.


6. For my sixth and final dimension, I will select passion. The "cream of the crop" leaders have a burning within them about their expertise, people and business. They gather as much knowledge as they can about their business on a daily basis. They enjoy what they do and thrive on teaching their team and others. Their work ethic is second to none because they are so passionate about what they do. Outstanding leaders can get others "fired up" about their business because they can transfer their passion to the audience.

I realize that I have not mentioned dozens of characteristics and behaviors such as communication, interpersonal, social, technical and financial/business skills. This list is my top 6 and ones I have observed in my career.

I would love to hear your comments on this list and other views of leadership. That's what makes leadership such a great topic - we could discuss and debate for hours. If you are ever interested in doing that, give me a call I'd love to participate.

Until next time, Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will...

http://www.destinyahead.com/

Give Yourself To Others - Inspire Someone

We all have known a person in our lives that inspired us to set challenging goals, provided advice and wisdom along the way and celebrated the victories in life that we achieved. Many times these people are teachers, parents, supervisors, church members or sports coaches.

What if you could become one of these people or even enhance your ability to inspire others? How would that make you feel? How would that make the other person feel? In my opinion, it’s a win/win situation for everyone involved.

I like the list Michael Angier developed on ten simple ways you can inspire people (family, friends, co-workers) to be their best:

• Be a good example. People watch what you do more than they listen to what you say. Be someone worth emulating.


• Care about others. People don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care. Ask questions. Take a genuine interest in people.


• Encouragement. Everyone goes through tough times. When you support people and encourage them through these times, you’ll be inspiring them to see the best in themselves and in the situation.


• Be inspired yourself. Look for people, ideas, environments and knowledge that you find inspiring and motivating.


• Share from your own experience. You have more to share than you realize. Mine the rich experiences of your life and share your wisdom from your unique point of view. You may be the only one who can touch someone with your inspiring message.


• Be vulnerable. Be willing to share your failures as well as your successes. Others will relate to you. They’ll understand that they’re not the only ones with challenges.


• Tell stories. Facts tell and stories sell. They inspire, too. We learn best from parables and we all need to develop our own inspiring stories.


• Be a good communicator. Increasing your ability to communicate effectively is a critical element for you to inspire others. Watch how you speak and what you say. Invest in your communication skills.


• Challenge people. Many of us have had teachers who at times seemed more like tormentors than mentors. They challenged us to do our best, and we were better for it. Practice "carefrontation"—the careful and caring confrontation of others.


• Read. It may not follow that all readers are leaders, but certainly all leaders are readers. Stay informed. Share what you read with others. Tell people about books that have inspired you. Share the knowledge.

Inspirational people can spread cheer, hope and optimism wherever they go and make others feel good about themselves. That's a guaranteed way to make friends, influence others and put a smile on peoples' faces.


Until next time, Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will!

Developing Ourselves...Just Do It!

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
- Aristotle

I think we would all agree that our world has become a very fast paced and ever-changing environment. It will only get faster as technologies and ability to communicate with anyone in the world increases. I truly believe that developing ourselves personally and professionally is critical, and not an option, in our new world if you want to be a true success. Personal development requires a serious commitment to your daily habits, on-going learning, networking and relationship building.

I’d like to share some practical tips that I learned along the way in my personal and professional life. Some may work for you, some may not. Pick the ones that may work for you to increase your focus and results around your personal development.

Put your action step for your development goal in your daily to do list and make it a top priority. For example, to listen to 20 minutes of an audiotape on Effective Selling Techniques may be a daily personal development goal.

Visualization is a technique that athletes use quite often and I have found to be effective in keeping the motivation strong. Visualize your goals so you see a crystal clear picture of what success looks like.

Learn from others. Our spouses, family and co-workers have knowledge. People love to share their wisdom with others. Just ask for advice or lessons learned. I remember before having children asking parents what advice they had for us as new parents and got a lot of great feedback.

Consistency. Do just one thing every day to move toward your personal development goals. In working with leaders in my past jobs, the top 5% percentile of successful ones said they spent at least 5-20 minutes a day on their personal development, whether that was reading a magazine or journal focused on a topic they wanted to become more knowledgeable in, or having lunch to seek advice from a mentor. They weren’t too busy to invest in themselves because they knew the investment would create positive results.

Limit your focus – Progress on 2-3 most important goals is more meaningful than having a laundry list of 10-15 things you want to focus on. Keep your focus tight and get laser focused on 2-3 things. Once you knock those out, move on to 2-3 more.

Take the time to reflect – Examine what happens when you focus on your development and the lessons you have learned from feedback and experience. Think about how you change and adapt based on those lessons. Ask yourself everyday “What have I learned?” and keep a journal and refer to it periodically to reinforce and remind yourself of what you have learned.

Consider investing in a top-of-the line self development program - My wife, Jewell, and I just completed the premiere self development product on the market and it has significantly changed the way we view our beliefs, marriage, family life, self-confidence and business. It has also helped us to get dialed in our priorities, mission in life and vision for the future. We invested 56 consecutive days in this program and it was time and money well spent.

Think of yourself as a company, You Inc., and ask yourself how you can make this company better, a leader in their market and more prepared for the future. Personal development does take time in our busy lives along with our career, family, leisure activities, and spiritual events. Start out by trying to spend 5-10 minutes a day investing in yourself, your success and your family’s destiny. If you can do that, I guarantee you that you are in the 95th percentile of all people. You may come to enjoy spending that time on yourself and will become more effective, knowledgeable and an expert in whatever you seek to learn. A wise mentor of mine once told me “it’s good to be considered an expert in something”.

We would love to hear your comments about your experiences with Developing Ourselves… Just Do It”. Please feel free to write back on our blog site with what you experienced. Also, if you know of others that may benefit from this, please pass our blog along to them.

Until next time, Control your Destiny or Someone Else Will!

Are You Open To Some Feedback?

My wife, Jewell, and I have been giving each other positive and constructive feedback for 20 years. Many people think the way we give feedback is “weird” or “strange”. It works for us. I learned this technique in corporate America and brought it into the Team Tunstall household.
Many employees and even senior leaders I have worked with in my business career view feedback as a four letter word. Bad four letter words. Most of us instantly think of being called into the boss’ office and being given “negative” feedback on our performance or style. The best leaders use positive and constructive feedback as a way to develop their employees’ careers and motivate higher work performance. We believe this philosophy can be used in relationships as well.

Jewell and I do view feedback as a four letter word. That word is GIFT. It’s a gift to have someone care enough about you to be genuine, candid and honest enough to let you know what you are doing well and what you can improve in to be a better person, spouse or parent. It is such a strong message of “I care about you and want you to do well”. It is not meant to hurt the other person, which is manipulation.

The technique that Jewell and I use is to ask the other person for permission to provide feedback by simply stating “Are you open to some feedback?” Those six simple words set the stage to eliminate all defensiveness and ensure the timing is right for a healthy dialogue. We all have had times when now is not the right time for feedback, it happens and it’s OK. Jewell and I have had many instances where we said “not right now, maybe later”.

Keep in mind this technique is for positive feedback as well as constructive feedback. When we have examples of something wonderful that the other person did, we make sure we use those magic six words. This is critical because we don’t want ‘Are you open to some feedback?” to be only for constructive feedback. Remember, it’s a gift and we do it because we care.
A couple of critical things to keep in mind when giving feedback in this style are to make sure it is immediate and specific as possible. You don’t want to wait two weeks to give someone feedback. They may not remember the situation and you lose two weeks in modifying or continuing that behavior.

Specificity is critical. Eliminate general statements like “you seemed upset”, “you were angry” or “I liked your style”. Get in the details of what you saw or heard like “I noticed you were crying”, “Your face got beet red and you raised your voice to him” or “You walked with confidence by having great posture and making eye contact”. The more specific you are the clearer the person can replay a movie in their head of what they did in the situation. The better the person can refer to the situation the more likely a dialogue will take place. You want a dialogue to happen not a monologue.

I challenge you to give this technique a shot in the next week. It will feel awkward at first but all new behaviors feel a little strange in the beginning. Try the six magic words with positive feedback first. Positive feedback is always more comfortable to give than constructive feedback. Notice how the other person reacts when you ask permission to provide them feedback. Reflect on how it made you feel.

We would love to hear your comments about your experiences with “Are You Open to Some Feedback”. Please feel free to write back on our blog site with what you experienced. Also, if you know of others that may benefit from this challenge please pass our blog along to them.

Until next time, Control your Destiny or Someone Else Will!

MMA...

With this weekend's big Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) Pay Per View Extravaganza, I thought this title might draw some attention.

This MMA is Manage My Attitude...That's my focus for the week.

Many people believe that attitude is everything. I believe attitude is extremely important in being successful, but isn't everything. Other critical areas of success include goal setting, relationships, action and reflection but this week it's all attitude for me.

Our attitude plays a key role in our relationships, career, and family life. Our attitude affects many people, whether we believe it or not. A crummy attitude can turn a great atmosphere into a "get me out of here" environment just as a positive attitude can turn a disengaged group into an inspired team. John Maxwell states, "Our attitude can be our best friend or our worst enenmy". We have that choice.

This week I have documented three "lessons learned along the way" in managing my attitude.

• Realize that I have at least two ways to look at things. Pessimism or optimism. Do I look for difficulty or opportunity in challenges? What can I do more of, better or differently to make a situation better? This week I will focus on the opportunity and look up instead of down.


• Use positive affirmations. When I started using this technique over 10 years ago, I thought it was "goofy" and not for me. I learned I was wrong. Zig Ziglar turned me onto this technique in his recordings. This has been a critical tool for me because I do believe the words we say to ourselves can impact our attitude. I use positive affirmations throughout the day and recently have set aside 15 minutes in the morning to focus exclusively on positive statements. I repeat statements to myself such as: "I have a vision in life for myself and my family", "I can use today to make myself a better person", "I look forward to helping someone today", "I have many things to be grateful for", "I will improve in my mind, body and spirit", "I will surround myself with positive people", and "I am a hard worker and will have balance in my life".


• Desire and persistence. I truly believe the most successful people in the world have an excess of these two traits. I like to focus on using statements around the desire to keep to the work, keep believing, keep hoping and staying focused. I must believe I have the ability, persistently hone and develop my skills in areas of expertise and really have the confidence that what I am doing is important and significant.

I am starting to find that focusing on these three areas of my attitude first thing in the morning has helped me to start the day with the expectation that today is going to be a great day. If the expectation is right in front of you first thing in the morning, it is more likely to continue throughout the day. We get what we expect.

Thanks for taking time to read this about my attitude, and how I try to make it the most positive everyday. Doesn't work all the time but I do my best. Take a look at monitoring your attitude throughout the day and make changes if you need to. As Will Rogers said "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be".