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Focus Your Ultimate Mission with Purpose (4-4)

March 18, 2009 by 12 Comments

“A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or it may be a worldly object, according to his nature at the time being; but whichever it is, he should steadily focus his thought forces upon the object which he has set before him. He should make this purpose his supreme duty, and should devote himself to its attainment, not allowing his thoughts to wander away into ephemeral fancies, longings, and imaginings. This is the royal road to self-control and true concentration of thought. Even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose (as he necessarily must until weakness is overcome), the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true success, and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph.“- James Allen

There simply is no mission without purpose. Without purpose, you are left with a series of misguided, unfocused, lonely, irrational sets of behavior and action that ultimately leads toward nothingness or worse yet oblivion! This may be familiar to some of you as we all have a friend or two that is consistently hopping from job to job or from one deep meaningful relationship to yet another torrid love affair. We all know people that can’t make tough decisions even if their very life depended on it. Don’t get me started on our general sense of societal malaise and obvious lack of creativity. It seems that today’s fast paced high powered world is simply marred with mediocrity; substandard ideas, from mindless people seeking marginal results. If this describes you or someone close to you, don’t get upset, I’m just the messenger! You see without a clear purpose, all of us fall victim to this kind of thinking and we all participate in our own destruction by bringing forward and institutionalizing ideas that put downward pressure on our very society. In my humble opinion, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you are better off doing nothing. I’d rather have you in my way, than on the way to nothing. Besides, there’s a better than average chances that you are not out there by yourself. There’s probably someone that you work with or care about blindly following you off the cliff! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mission Series Tagged With: , , , , ,

What is The Perfect Follow-up Strategy for Today’s Active Networker?

March 18, 2009 by 4 Comments

Just a few weeks ago I asked this magical question to all of my contacts on LinkedIn. The answers that I got were absolutely fantastic! I can’t wait to share them with you here.  After I throw my two cents in, I’ll be summarizing some of the best answers.  Here we go!

When I think of follow-up, my mind naturally begins to remember methods that pushy self absorbed sales people have used on me in the past. Here are some of the issues I’ve had to face. I’ll bet that you will identify with at least a few:

  • They don’t even know my name
  • They haven’t gotten my permission to contact me
  • They talk to me only about their offer or why I should be interested in them
  • They don’t prove any level of competency that even a reasonable person would trust
  • They fumble through a canned presentation
  • They’re too familiar (I don’t even know you for heavens sake)
  • They don’t even tell me how they came to contact me (I really want to know which of my idiot friends put you up to contacting me)
  • hey ask stupid questions like “would you like to save money or make money Mr. Powell” (my answer is “NO-click”)
  • They follow the same old sales tactics that didn’t work when I actually did answer the phone
  • They offer no real value up front (really why should I listen to you or call you back?)
  • They pass me on to someone that really knows what they are talking about (Did I say that I hate that? Just in case, I HATE THAT!)
  • I know more about their products or services than they do
  • They argue with me about what I want (If I don’t know what I want by the way, they tell me that their product is the solution for everything I could want)
  • They make outlandish unsubstantiated claims
  • They make no promises or interesting claims at all

[Read more…]

Filed Under: 30 Days of Coffee Tea You and Me, Coffee Tea You and Me Best Questions, Networking Planning Contest Tagged With: , , , , ,

Vision Defines Purpose (Vision 5 of 6)

March 18, 2009 by 38 Comments

If Vision is our sense of destiny; a sacred understanding of where we are going, then purpose is its more meaningful partner. Like yen and yang, these two ideas are each other’s greatest compliment. Neither can stand alone very well without the benefit of the other. Of course, you can have “vision” with no purpose, but there won’t be meaningful results. We need to have a compelling reason to engage in any change of behavior. “Purpose” is most often defined as the anticipated result that guides decision making. That’s right when you are moving with purpose; you are simultaneously anticipating an outcome. You’re thinking about your end game with some reasonable expectation. Your results can be either positive or negative but the results are inevitable.

Purpose quite often has two characteristics: it provides meaning and simultaneously answers the question “why”. It’s easy to decide on a destination that you want to reach in life. The hard part is providing a sense of contextual meaning or reason to that destination. Without a good compelling reason, it’s harder to accomplish anything. Yes, often we find ourselves engaging in thoughtless activity simply because someone in whom we have a great amount of respect for, asked that we do so. I would submit that keeping up with this course of action, never having a clue as to why your mother, for example, wanted you to bath five times a day would be difficult. Eventually, you’ll have an understanding of how other people behave and begin to question why they can get away with only one or two cleanings a day! You may even begin to resent your mother as you use up more and more body soap in your quest for absolute germ-free cleanliness. Anger and disappointment will soon give way to rage and disgust until you simply cease to comply. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Vision Series Tagged With: , , ,

Why is vision such a big deal? (Vision Part 1 of 6)

March 18, 2009 by 71 Comments

Over the years my clients have asked me over and over in various different ways about vision. In fact, one of my newer associates recently asked me “What’s so important about vision anyway?”

As a business coach I’m often shocked at how many business leaders and business development specialists take this topic for granted. I mean some people don’t even consider having a well articulated vision and mission statement a priority. What they don’t know is that their lack of a clearly defined vision is just as powerful as having one in the first place. In fact, if you don’t know where you are going, you are likely to get there faster. Where is that you ask? Well nowhere of course! You can’t create something from nothing unless you have an idea.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Vision Series Tagged With: , , , ,