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Grow Your Business, Grow Your Career

Whether you work for big organisation or are self employed, the steps to growing your business or your career are often the same. Here are 3 `Growth Hormones` for growing your career or growing your business.

Growth Hormone # 1: Loyalty. Loyalty to your customer will make them more loyal to you. Frequent flyer points for free trips are expensive ways to buy loyalty. Instead, giving your regular customers a better deal, more then what they asked for or special treatment including recognising their names, one to one attention or a free gift is more effective and demonstrates loyalty. This works in business and in careers.

If you are loyal to your boss, your team, your company, speaking well of them, building them up and standing up for them. This pays off in increased loyalty towards you. A good career move.

Growth Hormone # 2: Perpetual marketing. Do you think this newsletter just happens by itself? Writing, e-mailing and posting it to our Web site  is a major commitment. So are the 2000+ e-mails we send out to reconnect with past clients and prospective clients. Hundreds of postcards, journal articles, writing books and more are all part of our perpetual marketing.

Does all this effort pay off. No way! In reality, very little does. Most people are too busy to respond or to care. Why do it?  Two out of one hundred DO respond and forward this newsletter to someone who hires us or they call us in for work.

In your career, if you expect every little thing you do will get noticed, you are deluded. Most of what we do is what we were hired to do. It is consistency and more importantly, the innovative things we do that get us noticed; another good career move.

Growth Hormone # 3: Think IN the box. Instead of trying to think outside of the box, think IN the box. That is, think of current procedures and how to refine them. How can you make them run on automatic so you can focus your attention on something that will bring you a better return on your investment of time?

Work your systems to get them to run on automatic. Coach your people instead of telling them what to do so they learn to solve problems on their own. Look into your box so it runs so well, you can live most of your life completely outside the box.

In a career, if your team can run autonomously of you, think of the ways you can exert your effort and ideas to transform the organisation you work in and propel your career.

Loyalty, perpetual marketing and thinking IN the box are just 3 tools out of thousands we cover in our workshops, speeches and seminars to help you grow your career or grow your business. The next time you hear of someone looking for a speaker, trainer or facilitator, how about passing on our contact details to them and THEIR contact information back to us? I will gladly send you a FREE e-book for your effort. See… I practice what I preach.

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Attitude Adjustment

We have heard it said that `Attitude determines our altitude.` But HOW do you adjust your attitude? Here are 8 quick tips to help you adjust your attitude to have a richer, more enjoyable your life:

1. Start your day a little earlier and less rushed. Hey, you are going to be tired anyway, right? At least if you get up earlier, you will not be so rushed. Getting up at 4 AM has really helped me get focused, get relaxed and accomplish some major things that had been nagging at me for years.

2. After you wash and get cleaned up, get your coffee or tea and take your vitamins, sit down and have 20 minutes of quiet time. If you have a religion you adhere to, read some of your scripture and meditate on its meaning. Then think how it will apply to your day. You WILL be focused and with a sense of peace in your heart. If you are a `free thinker`, read something inspirational and then figure out how you can inspire those around you.

3. If you did not do it the night before, make a `to do` list to ensure you have a good plan for the day. It helps with your attitude because direction gives you both control and as you accomplish tasks, you feel motivated and successful.

4.  Before going to work, leave a note for someone at home to find. Mom, dad, auntie, wife, husband…telling them you appreciate them and love them. After they find it, they will most likely look forward to seeing you next to tell you they appreciate your gesture. If you are in a sour mood when you see them next, their positive attitude about you can turn the worm in your heart to an attitude of happiness.

5. On the way to work, start thinking of what you will do, how you will do it and how successful you will be today. Start creating your self-fulfilling prophecy.

6. Smile. Forcing a big smile on your face changes your chemical balance and makes you feel better. It is a conditioned response. Now walking into work with a smile (everyone will wonder what YOU did last night) will get you more smiles back. (another conditioned response) Smiles from others makes you feel even better.

7. Got a tough task like correcting a negative person at work? Take a different tact. Do not call them into your office. Ask that person to take a walk with you. Breaking with the mould will surprise that person and may just finally get through to her or him. Also, you will feel better walking as will she/he because walking stimulates your endorphins. Rather than attack, ask questions like, `How did that project go?` `Why do you think it went wrong?` `Rather than blame anyone, what would make sure it never went wrong again?` Then comment on the beautiful day and look the person in the eye, `You have SO MUCH potential. I see it. (SMILE) Do you?`You will have accomplished the reprimand and motivated TWO people at the same time.

8. On the way home, rather than think about the problems with sick children you will encounter, the fact the maid or spouse probably did or did not do something or the frustrations of the day you want to vent, think of how happy you will be to be home. (SMILE) Think of the hug you will give/get. Think of that cool beer or juice will taste. Think of taking a short shower to refresh yourself and putting your feet up while you listen to your favourite music. Then make that happen for you.   An old quote from Abe Lincoln, `People are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.is really true. Amazing how you will have a better attitude if you just make sure you do!

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Recreate Your Life for the Better.

We are a composite of 3 elements, REPUTATION, EGO and CHARACTER. Understanding these 3 elements and building them can boost both our satisfaction in life and the success we enjoy in our field of endeavour, RECreating our lives for the better.

REPUTATION is what others think of us. We acquire our reputation by how we talk and how we act. When our speech and actions are moral, fair and based upon sound judgment, we develop a good Reputation. This Reputation is a bank account full of business, family and friendship possibilities.

EGO is what we think of ourselves. Kept in check, it does not overshadow and drown out our Reputation. An Ego out of control makes null and void any credits earned in the Reputation bank account.

CHARACTER is what God and family know of us. The public `face` comes off when we are home and with those we love and they see, hear and experience WHO we really are inside. If we teach children not to steal but sneak them into a movie theatre on a child`s ticket when they are too old to qualify, they learn what you preach is not what we really believe.
If we apologise to someone at work for offending him, particularly when we do not like that person, we speak volumes about our CHARACTER and EGO. Doing so makes it harder for that person to speak ill of us, preserving our REPUTATION.

When our EGO is small, and our CHARACTER noble and large, usually the REPUTATION we receive is positive and well deserved. If you asked your boss, colleagues, family members, friends and your innermost voice today about your Reputation, Ego and Character, would you be happy with the feedback?

It is always a good time to RECreate our lives for the better.

To have your team learning these lessons and others to boost their productivity and effectiveness, please contact us. In addition to training, we speak at conventions, conduct strategic planning retreats, sales meetings and facilitate sessions to optimise leadership development, team growth and personal productivity.