by Julia Felton | Nov 16, 2016
There is a great saying that goes āif youāve never failed, youāve never tried anything newā and Iāve been reflecting a lot on this over the past week. Before I launched my own business I was very proud of the fact that I had never failed at anything. I saw only being successful as a good trait. After all why would you want to fail. I had been brought up only to be successful and in fact failure was seen as a negative thing. It meant you were stupid. So I only ever put myself in situations where I could succeed. Iād study hard for my exams to be successful. Iād work hard to be in all the school sports teams and now I realized I would avoid activities where I had any fear that I might not succeed.
Fast forward seven years of running my own business and I realize that a flawed belief that earlier thinking was. Since running my own business I have had more failures than I care to imagine. Its been really humbling at times, as well as frustrating as very failure has initially seemed like a barrier to my success. And yet what I have learnt from these failures has been the magic dust that has helped me become more successful.
In fact the only failure is not to learn from the failure. This is because there is a lesson in everything that doesnāt work out as you expected. Recently I was speaking to my friend who rather sheepishly admitted to me that she had quit her part time role. She was embarrassed and ashamed by this as she simply could not complete the work required in the two days a week she worked. To try and push on would have been in conflict with her values of integrity and delivering excellent service. So she gave in her notice. When I chatted with her about this I asked her what was the lesson she learnt from this experience and she shared with me that intuitively she had had reservations about taking the role. So the lesson she learnt was to listen more to her intuition. What a great lesson to learn.
Increasingly I have come to realize that life is just one big lesson and that each and every day we are presented with opportunities to learn more about ourselves. Sometimes we might not like the lessons but each of us is given the lessons we most need to learn. And you know what. If we donāt learn the lesson, the universe delivers the lesson more profoundly and acutely, until such time we get it.
That was the case for me with boundaries. I kept avoiding dealing with this issue, which had been presenting itself I now see for decades, but more recently I was literally slapped around the face with this lesson. The universe had quietly been delivering her lesson but since I had been avoiding it the universe crescendoed up the volume until I couldnāt fail to take action.
There are many examples of successful people that have not been discouraged by their failures and these include:
Ā· Albert Einstein ā he wasnāt able to speak until he was almost 4-years old and his teachers said he would ānever amount to muchā
Ā· Michael Jordan ā after being cut from his high school basketball team , he went home, locked himself in a room, and cried.
Ā· Walt Disney ā fired from a newspaper for ālacking imaginationā and having āNo original ideasā
Ā· Steve Jobs ā at 30-years old he was left devastated and depressed after being unceremoniously removed from the company he started
Ā· Oprah Winfrey ā was demoted from her job as anchor because she āwasnāt for for televisionā
Ā· The Beetles ā rejected be Decca Recording Studios who said ā we donāt like their sound ā they have no future in show businessā
In each case they took the lessons they learnt from their so-called āfailed experienceā and used this to fuel their success.
So where in your life and business are you being shared lessons that you are failing to take heed of? What do you need to acknowledge and learn, to move forward with more flow.
A simple exercise to do is to make a list of all the failures (or opportunities that did not work out as expected). Write these down the left hand side of a page and then on the right hand side list what the gift was for each of these experiences and now knowing this what can you do differently to move forward.
If you need any assistance with mastering your growth mindset then please book in for a complimentary chat and letās explore what is possible
Wishing you an amazing aligned and flow filled Wednesday
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
by Julia Felton | Nov 9, 2016
I really hope you are having a great week. I’ve just returned from a four day immersion training with my mentor Clinton Swaine, which once again was incredibly powerful. That’s why I love experiential learning. It really helps you embody the feeling of the situation and you can’t help leaving feeling changed in some way. Reading the Facebook comments of my fellow students I know we all experienced profound shifts in perspective on this programme, and as always it seems the right message always comes at the right time. Spooky how that happens!.
Now, if you have been following me for a while, you will know that if we want to achieve success we have to take action. Nothingās going to happen for you if you just sit around waiting for something to happen. But not all actions are created equal. Not all actions are the right actions. I’m sure you can relate to that. Just think about it. Two people are given exactly the same resources to lets say launch a business and one is successful and one is not. On paper they both seem to take the same actions and yet they get very different results. How can that be?
Well, it’s all to do with alignment. You have to take action thatās in alignment with your core values and beliefs because unless you do your actions don’t resonate with others, and they fail to connect with what you are saying and doing. And the result is frustration and exhaustion. You can feel like you are stuck on a hamster wheel, running and running but not making progressā¦Maybe you can relate to this?
I know I do. For some time I have had a deep, inner feeling that everything has not been aligned. My head, heart and gut have in some way been dis-connected, and yet I haven’t been able to figure out why. It has been a painful time, knowing something is misaligned and yet not knowing what. These times have led me to face uncomfortable truths about my life and start examining facets of it that quite frankly I had not been willing to look at. The truth remains unconscious, until the pain of denial becomes stronger than the pain of facing up to it.
The AHA moment that I had on my immersive training is that I have been conning myself that if I have the right knowledge (after all I am the course junkie!) that I would succeed, and yet I had forgotten that you have to take responsibility to get your mindset, programming and influences right first. When we trip up, itās usually because we jumped to the knowledge and action part before we have sorted out our mindset, subconscious programming and external influences first.
Once I realised this I was mad at myself until I remembered that of all the successful and abundant people Iāve met, many of them did go through tough times due to misalignment, before having an āahaā moment and breaking through.
So, my question for you today is where are you misaligned? Where are you experiencing any incongruence in your business or your life? I now know what has been holding me back, so expect to see some changes in my business over the next few weeks, as I get more aligned and congruent and stop doing what everyone tells me I should do rather than what feels right to me.
The horses are masters at alignment and sensing when your head, heart and gut are not aligned, so if you’d like them to act as your barometers to get you back on track just book in for a complimentary strategy session and we can get a session booked in for you.
Wishing you an amazing aligned and flow filled Wednesday.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
by Julia Felton | Nov 6, 2016
“Without solid foundations you’ll struggle to create anything of lasting value”
Many of us are familiar with the story, from the Bible, of the two men who built houses. One built his house upon a rock and another who built his house upon sand. The house built upon a rock weathered the storm, and the builder was called wise; but the house built on the sand collapsed during the storm, and the builder was called foolish.
The meaning of this parable is quite obvious: proper foundations are necessary. With a literal house, it is unwise to build on sand, because the foundation will be unsteady and the house will eventually suffer some kind of damage. This will waste resources, and all the time and work put into building the house in the first place will have gone for nothing. In contrast, it is wise to build oneās house on a sure foundation; anchoring to bedrock makes a building withstand the test.
And so it is the same in business. Oftentimes we get so excited about starting our business that we fail to put the proper foundations in place, and the result I come across time and time again is that whilst the business is prospering there is little or no negative impact, but when the tide turns and the storm comes in, orders dry up and cash flow is tight, then the unsteady foundations of the business start cracking and in many cases the business doesn’t weather the storm.Ā It’s so sad to see this as some well thought out structured planning at the outset could have prevented this and ensured the business would survive and thrive.
Many of you will be familiar with how I like to relate everything in business to nature and the natural world and the foundations of your business are no different.Ā There are five natural elements found in nature and they each represent a different season of the year and provide a different business focus which is critical to creating the foundations of your business.Ā These elements and their seasonality provide us with a foundational blueprint of how to run our businesses by keeping our people, teams and processes in flow.Ā Each element is inter-dependent on each other and this is why we must have all these five elements aligned if we are to create solid cornerstones for our business.Ā This can be clearly seen in the diagram below of the Five Element Business Focus Model.
Water Energy (Mission):
Water energy has a duality in that it can be fast flowingĀ and powerful or still and peaceful. The water element is associated with the season of winter and is always asking us the question Why?Ā The key business foundation that the water element seeks us to get clarity on is why we are in business. What is the business mission and what is the real purpose of the business. For every business it is essential to have clarity of the mission and why you are in business, as this is the fuel that keeps you going when the going gets tough.Ā Today more than ever customers are seeking to do business with purposeful organisations. Companies that know why they are in business and the real impact they want to make in the world.Ā And interestingly for all these companies it is not profits, although interesting all the research shows that companies that focus on their purpose and impact actually generate 10 times more profit than companies that just focus on this metric.
Wood Energy (Merchandise):
Wood energy is associated with Spring which is a time of new beginnings. It is the season in which we ask What are we doing. In business this relates to what merchandise will be selling, what innovation and products and services will we be offering.Ā It is essential that every business has clarity on what they are offering, because without this clarity the customer doesn’t know what they can buy and so can’t make a purchasing decision.Ā In my experience at the outset keep things simple and just focus on a few key products and services. Get known for delivering these well and then you can expand your product offering. All too often I come across companies with a plethora of diverse merchandise and this just confuses the customer.
Fire Energy (Magnetise):
Fire energy is associated with summer when there is lots of movement and connection. In business the fire element relates to Magnetise and who are the clients you are seeking to attract.Ā Knowing who you want to serve is a key cornerstone of any business and one that often gets overlooked. All too often new business owners want to serve everyone and in the process serve no-one. Getting clarity on your ideal client and niche is of paramount importance in creating a sustainable business. The other advantage of being niched and serving a specific target audience is that you can more easily position yourself as an expert and so command higher fees. Simply by niching you distinguish yourself from the crowds and so avoid your products and services becoming commoditised and therefore competing on pricing with others.
Earth Energy (Monetise):
Earth energy is associated with late summer, a time of slowing down and also of expert timing, of knowing how long to leave the crops until they need harvesting.Ā The earth element is always asking the questions when and where and in business this translates to knowing how to monetise our products and services.Ā Where and when should we be selling and at what price.Ā These are key business decisions that can impact the business success and which we must be continually striving to master.Ā Discount a product too early and we lose valuable income, whilst leaving a discount running too long also has the same effect. The challenge here is to learn how to master the art of distribution so that you maximise the return on your assets.
Metal Energy (Mechanise):
Associated with autumn metal energy is super efficient and effective. It is always asking the question How can we make things more effective.Ā How can we change our procedures to get a better result?. How can we Mechanise operations so they are as streamlined as possible, and so they can be automated.Ā How can we organise things and what systems and metrics do we need in place to monitor performance?.Ā Implementing systems is oftentimes the area that many business owners overlook – after all it is not the most sexy of activities – and yet time and time again systems can save the business time and money when created in a structured and well thought out manner.
Each of these energies and its corresponding “M” activity are key cornerstones to ensure the success of any business. Just like in nature, these cornerstones need to be aligned to keep the business in harmony and when one or more of these cornerstones is missing this is when poor performance and trouble can occur.Ā Just like the house built on the sand when these cornerstones of Mission, Merchandise, Magnetise, Monetise and Mechanise are out of balance then when stormy conditions arrive the business is more likely to implode.
If you’d like help creating solid foundations for your business then why not book in for a Joined Up Business Strategy Consultation with me and lets see what needs to happen to get your business back on track.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
by Julia Felton | Nov 2, 2016
I just love this photo I came across this week, as it so clearly demonstrates how to stand out from the crowd. We live in exponential times and the pace of technology is accelerating. Consumers are drowning in technology overload from emails to social media posts. At the same time business competition has never been fiercer and the challenge for all business owners is how to distinguish themselves in a crowded marketplace.
Welcome to the world of disruptive marketing. A world where innovation, creativity and out of the box thinking reign. A world where imperfect action is better than no action at all. A world where speed is of the essence and where organisations need to be agile to be able to respond On-The-Hoof to changes in the marketplace.
As Richard Branson notes: “Disruption is all about risk-taking, trusting your intuition, and rejecting the way things are supposed to be.”
Uber and Airbnb are two companies that between then have changed the face of hospitality and travel industry over the last couple of years by being disruptive. What is amazing is that neither company has any assets, but rather they have both created a platform to connect users to a service that didn’t exist before. In the case of Uber you can easily locate and book a taxi with a few clicks on your phone, whilst with Airbnb you can find quality accommodation to stay in when visiting virtually any location. For many the idea of staying a home, either on a shared basis, or alone, provides a refreshing alternative to traditional hotel accommodation solutions.
Here are five things you can do to make your business stand out from the crowd:
1) Be Authentic
Whatever we say people buy from people who they know, like and trust, so make sure your brand truly reflects who you are and your personality. This is an era where quirky is good. Share your vulnerabilities and stories so that people can really connect with you. Showing that you are not perfect can make you more likeable. Share your vision and why you are really in business. What impact you want to make. All the research shows that the more purpose driven your company is, and the more your customers relate to this, the more successful you will be.
2) Focus on the Customer Experience
The reason people will stop doing business with your company is because they have a bad experience, so focus on wowing your customers with great service. Get to know your customers so you can deliver them promotions customised to their needs. Make then feel special, and really get to understand their motive for buying from you and the solution you are solving for them. This customer feedback is gold dust and enables you to be able to shape your offering quickly and so stay on the innovative edge.
3) Stay Visible To Your Customers
One of the most common problems I come across with my clients is that they fail to stay visible with their customers. They assume that because the customer already knows what service they provide or has already brought from them that they will automatically remember them in the future. Incorrect. Customers are overloaded with marketing messages so unless you remain front of mind with them they can easily end up buying from your competitors – not necessarily because they intended to but rather your competitor happened to send them a promotion on the day they needed that service, so they took the easy option and used the solution that was right inf front of their nose. Combat this problem by providing your customers regularly with value added materials that they can use so that you stay front of mind.
4) Have Absolutely Clarity On Your Niche
Now I know many of my clients resist niching but the reality is you can’t serve everyone and if you do you are a generalist not a specialist and so you can’t command such high rates. You end up in a commodity bidding war for work and that is just not a great place to be. Just think about it. If you need heart surgery do you go to your GP or do you go to a heart specialist.? Who do you think would charge the most? It’s the same in business. It is actually easier for customers to purchase from you if they know you are the expert in X, and because they know you are the expert they are also willing to pay more for your services. So what could you become a real expert in? Getting clarity on this and then ensuring all your marketing collateral supports this will automatically help you stand out from the crowd.
5) Add Value In Ways That Might Not Be Obvious
Find innovative ways to make your product or service different and more luxurious from the others in the marketplace. Simple things you could do include sending gifts to customers on their birthday; packaging additional services together so for example if you are a hair dresser you could offer all your clients a glass of champagne with their haircut. One thing I do is send all my clients a picture of them with one of my horses after their Unbridled Success VIP Day. It gives the client an immediate reminder of the experience they had and helps them embody the learning as every time they look at the picture, they recall what they experienced. It also proves to be a great marketing promotion for me as they tend to show the picture to their friends and the photo has my website address on it so my business stays front of mind with them. It is simple add on’s like this that help retain customers, flood you with referrals and allow you to charge higher prices.
So how are you going to start standing out from the crowd.? I’d love to hear about the disruptive strategies you are using. And of course if you need any help just book in for a complimentary strategy session so I can help you decide on the way forward.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
by Julia Felton | Oct 26, 2016
As you know I have been on the road over the last few weeks. Firstly I had a week unplugged Musketeering in the south of France and then I had a whirlwind trip to San Francisco to attend the annual conference of the Association of Horse Assisted Educators. So time has become an even more valuable commodity to me than usual. Of course, we all have the same number of hours in the day, so I got to reflecting on how come some people seem to achieve more than others.
When I dug into this further I realised that those that get more done have an amazing team supporting them. One of my mentors used to live in a small town and what she realised was that: in a small town:
- You don’t have every talent and skill you need to do well, or even survive
- Few do
- Even those individuals who (seem to) know how to do everything don’t have enough time to do it
- If people work together, talents and time can complement each other, then the whole can be stronger than the sum of the parts
- By working in teams, you learn how to teach people how to treat you, and how to treat others with respect
When people collaborate together as a team, they collectively can achieve more and as a result everyone gets more time. Just think about the millions of tasks you do everyday as a business owner. I’m sure there are some you love and some you’d rather not do. I know that is the case for me. In fact, have you ever noticed how you procrastinate about the tasks you hate doing and then how they take even longer than you thought!!!
How would it be if that task that you hated doing someone else loved doing? You could outsource the task to them and hey presto you have created more time for yourself. Now when I suggest this to my clients the initial comment is often: “Julia, I can’t afford to do that”, and my response is, “You can’t afford not to”.
Just think about it like this. Say your time is valued at Ā£100 per hour and it takes you three hours per month to do your book-keeping. That’s a monthly cost of Ā£300. Do you think you could outsource it more cheaply? I bet you could, and the best thing is that the book-keeper would probably take less than three hours to do it. Now, what else could you do with that time? If you use it to do revenue generating activities, not only have you created time but you have also created the revenue to pay for outsourcing. It becomes a win-win.
So how are you going to start leveraging the power of team to help you create time.? If you’d like my help with this then please book in for a complimentary strategy session to explore the best activities for you to outsource and how you can find the best team members to help you grow your business.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
by Julia Felton | Oct 19, 2016
Did you know that going the extra mile is what makes the difference between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following. So why donāt more people go the extra mile and what does the extra mile look like?.
Over the last two weeks Iāve been travelling across Europe and the US and I have literally gone the extra mile. This amount of travelling has been tiring and at times exhausting ā especially my whistle stop trip to San Francisco for three days to attend the annual conference of the International Association of Horse Assisted Educators. Has it been inconvenient? Hell yes, but it has also been so rewarding. In San Francisco I was honoured to be able to spend time with the incredible Barbara Rector, who I regard as the pioneer of Horse Assisted Education, as well as other industry trail blazers. It was great to learn from them and have them share their wisdom with us. For me I know that the trip to San Francisco with all the new connections I met and the wisdom I learned will help make an incredible difference to how I achieve my goals over the next year.
During my recent Musketeer Academy I also got to experience the power of going the extra mile in the form of conscious training. We often think that in order to improve in a discipline ā whether that is a sport or business ā you need to practice, practice, practice. Well nothing can be further from the truth because if we just practice, practice, practice without getting any feedback on how we are performing, it is easy to start developing bad habits. This is why we need to engage in conscious training where we are receiving feedback on how we are doing and so we can re-calibrate our performance and make changes.
It was my Musketeer Sword Master, Jared Kirby, that shared this wisdom with me and on reflection I realize how correct he is. When I was learning the art of fencing it was relatively easy to keep practicing the moves, but unless I really slowed down and actually consciously thought about each movement step by step and engaged in perfect practice I was in fact just going through the motions and not actually training the skills required. Conscious training required us all going the extra mile.
Oftentimes however we donāt go the extra mile because going the extra mile can be inconvenient. It can be exhausting training at fencing for three hours a day just simply to improve a single move and yet I know when I made that commitment of training slow and getting every detail perfect, that in the end the results would be amazing. And they were. Over seven days by slow consistent training and going the extra mile I honed enough skill to be able to participate in a sword fight and storm French castles.
In business going the extra mile involves ensuring we deliver amazing value to our clients. It means exceeding customer expectations and wowing them with great service. Because when we go the extra mile and deliver great value our clients appreciate it and our more likely to want to work with us again and therefore help us achieve our goals and create success.
So are you prepared to go the extra mile to achieve your goals, or are you merely happy to follow others?. Are you prepared to engage in conscious training to improve and get regular feedback so that you can develop, or are you happy going through life just practicing, and missing those nuances that make all the difference? If you are ready to go the extra mile then you need a coach and mentor that can give you quality feedback on how you are performing, so lets connect and explore if I am the right coach for you.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
by Julia Felton | Oct 12, 2016
My motto for last week as I was transported back into time and rode through France as a Musketeer was “All for One and One For All”.Ā Before I decided to attend this Musketeer Academy I have to confess to not really knowing about the stories of the three musketeers and the important role they had in serving the French King and protecting him. And I certainly never really gave any consideration to their motto “All for One and One For All”, and yet the more time I spent as a Musketeer, the more I experienced how this philosophy was critical for their success and how it’s essence is fundamental to business success too.
To me the phrase “All for One and One For All” embodies the real need that we have in business right now for collaboration and co-operation. No longer can an individual be successful by themselves, but rather success comes from being part of a team. It comes from the collective actions of everyone rather then the results of one individual.
I often talk about Shared Leadership and how in today’s fast paced environment there is simply too much going on for just one leader to pay attention too.Ā This is why the leadership role needs sharing, and it is what the horses do so well.Ā They act seamlessly together to collectively ensure the safety of the herd – and if any herd member is not playing their part, they are quickly reprimanded and if necessary expelled from the herd.Ā The herd act as one and understand that value of “All for One and One For All”, after all their very life depends on it.
I experienced the importance if “All for One and One For All” whilst learningĀ fencing too.Ā As our troop of Musketeers stormed the castles it was imperative that we all worked together if we were to overcome our adversaries. After all in battle your odds of success are considerably stacked in your favour if you’re fighting two on one, rather than one on one!!.Ā But this is only possible if you have a clear focus and everyone knows the direction and the goal you are aiming for.
So this weeks Wednesday Wisdom thought is how can you collaborate and connect with others, how can you share your dreams and vision and in the words of Jim Collins “get the right people on the bus” so that you have a team working alongside you that are all focused on the end goal, rather than their own personal agenda and ego and who live the adage “All for One and One For All”
As always Iād love you to share in theĀ Facebook group about what you are doing to create your own team of Musketeers who embody the values of “All for One and One For All”
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
by Julia Felton | Oct 5, 2016
Good morning. Hope you are having a great week.Ā This week I am just sending you a quick shot of Wednesday Wisdom inspiration as I’m in the south of France with very limited internet access, except for today when I’ve travelled to Amsterdam to co-deliver a workshop for Centre of Creative Leadership. I am beyond excited to be helping facilitate this workshop which we are running concurrently both in the US and Europe for a global client. This is an industry first as we all come together and collaborate under the Teaching Horse philosophy designed by my good friend June Gunter.
As I landed at Amsterdam this morning I was wondering what I would share with you this week, and then this great quote landed in my inbox from June and I simply knew this is what I had to share, “Trust Your Vision”.
In business we so often have to trust ourselves and others, and yet just as importantly we have to have trust and self-belief in what we want to accomplish. June has trust in us to deliver an awesome workshop for her company today.Ā It is not something I take lightly and yet it has been made possible by the trust and relationship I have built with June over the last few years.Ā Without June extending her trust to me and my colleagues her vision of simultaneous delivery of Equine Guided Leadership programmes across the world would not have been possible.
On a personal note I’m in the south of France this week participating in a Musketeer Academy. We have been transported back to 1624 and are training to learn the art of fencing.Ā We are also riding horses into the medieval French castles in full Musketeer costumes and then fencing here.Ā This whole experiential adventure has been made possible because Clinton Swaine, my mentor, trusted his vision that we could actually get permission to do this.Ā Again something that had never been done before.Ā And my fellow Musketeers trusted that Clinton could deliver on his vision, and so far it has not disappointed.Ā I’ll share lots more about my adventures next week, I know the pictures will be amazing.
So, I’m curious to hear about what activities in your life and business will you have had to have unwavering trust in your vision to achieve. As always Iād love you to share in theĀ Facebook group.
Wishing you an amazing week
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
by Julia Felton | Oct 3, 2016
This week I have been thinking a lot about luck and why some people seem to have it and some donātĀ Luck is the phenomena that Swiss Psychiatrist, Carl Jung, termed synchronicity and it is ultimately related to flow. So as your flow grows, so your luck grows and vice versa.Ā This is why it always seems that those that have a lot seem to get more.Ā They are in flow and luck is attracted to flow.Ā So how do you master how to create luck and flow. You focus on becoming a Wealth Creator by creating the conditions for success to occur.
The foundation of luck is built on four conditions namely Location, Understanding, Connections, Knowledge and great Wealth Creators know how to leverage these phenomena so that they are working for them rather than against them.
Location: luck comes with being in the right place at the right time.Ā The problem is that so many of us are busy and not paying attention to what is happening around us that we fail to find the opportunities to be in the right place at the right time.Ā Itās no coincidence that a football player like David Beckham always knew the right place to be in on the football pitch so he could get the ball and take the winning shot.Ā In business sometimes it means being at the right networking event at the right time.Ā Iāll never forget sitting next to someone at a conference who then turned out to become my best source of business bringing me two new corporate clients. Thatās the power of synchronicity and being in the right place at the right time.
Understanding: luck comes from knowing the rules of the game so that when an opportunity presents itself you know how to respond. Too many people are spectators in the game of life and business. We observe what is happening around us but we donāt actively engage in the process. Take the football analogy again. The footballer might be in the right place at the right time but if they donāt realize that the aim of the game is to get the ball in the net they might not take the shot.Ā In business this might translate to not making the offer to a potential client to work with you.Ā When I met that potential client at the conference I knew that the rule of the game at that time was not asking for the business but rather building relationships. I did this over the following year and then in time the business referral resulted.
Connections: business is all about connections but many business owners that I work with have not invested in developing their wealth connections and so donāt have anyone sending them any referrals.Ā Expanding the football analogy again, you are on the pitch, you know you need to put the ball in the net but no-one is passing the ball to you. And the reason is there is no-one else on the pitch!!.. Great wealth creators have loads of people on the pitch with them passing them balls, so their opportunity to score is increased exponentially.Ā (Just a word of caution here. Connections are not the same as your network. Many of us haveĀ big networks, but networks are full of spectators, not players, this is why you can have a great network but still have no opportunities coming your way!).
Knowledge:Ā just as there is no point in having the ball coming to you if you donāt know how to kick the ball, there is no point having opportunities come your way if you donāt know what to do with them.Ā Knowing how to act on opportunities comes with experience, so the more you play the more skillful you become. This is why it is imperative to get over the perfectionist syndrome and get in the game, as the sooner you start playing, the sooner you will gain the knowledge and so the sooner your luck will begin to flow.
Now the great thing is that we build these four conditions of success not by investing our money but rather by investing our time. The challenge is that so many of us have been so busy going to work trying to build our businesses that we have not invested any time in building our luck, and so we are no luckier today than we were five years ago.
Remember wealth isnāt about how much money you have, itās about what you have left when you lose all your money.Ā Because so long as you have your talents and understand how to create luck then you can rebuild your wealth.
So what actions will you take today to start building your luck?.Ā As always Iād love you to share in theĀ Facebook group.Ā And if you are free tomorrow join me at 10am for an in person masterclass on how to build your wealth connections.Ā Simply email me for more details.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
by Julia Felton | Sep 25, 2016
There are seven secrets to entrepreneurial success that you must practice throughout your business life if you are to achieve maximum results. They have been taught and repeated in thousands of books and articles over the years, and I have summarised them here for you as they are such a great reminder of what to focus on.
1. Clarity: You must be absolutely clear on who you are and what you want. You need written goals and plans for every part of your life. As Zig Ziglar would say, you must become a “meaningful specific” rather than a “wandering generality.”
Begin with your values. What do you believe in and stand for? What is most important to you in life? What would you pay for, fight for, suffer for and die for?Ā What do you really care about? Someone once wrote, “Until you know exactly what you would do if you only had one hour left to live, you are not prepared to live.”
What is your vision for yourself and your future? What is your vision for your family and your finances? What is your vision for your career and your company? Peter Drucker once wrote, “Even if you are starting your business on a kitchen table, you must have a vision of becoming a world leader in your field, or you will probably never be successful.”
What is your mission for your business? What is it that you want to accomplish for your customers? What is it that you want to do to improve the lives and work of the people you intend to serve with your products and services? You need a clear vision and an inspiring mission to motivate yourself and others to do the hard work necessary to achieve business success.
What is your purpose for your life and your business? Why do you get up in the morning? What is your reason for being? And here’s a great question: What do you really want to do with your life?
Finally, what are your goals? What do you want to accomplish in your financial life? What are your family goals? What are your health goals? What difference do you want to make in the lives of others? And here is the best question: What would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?
The greater clarity you have regarding each of these issues–values, vision, mission, purpose and goals–the greater the probability that you will accomplish something wonderful with your life.
2. Competence: To be truly successful and happy, you must be very good at what you do. You must resolve to join the top 10 percent in your field. You must make excellent performance of the business task your primary goal and then dedicate all your energies to doing quality work and offering quality products and services.
To be successful in business, according to Jim Collins, author of Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . and Others Don’t, you must find a field that satisfies three requirements. First, it must be something for which you have a passion-something you really believe in and love to do. Second, it must be an area where you have the potential to be the best, to be better than 90 percent of the people in that field. Third, it must involve a product or service that can be profitable and enable you to achieve all your financial goals.
According to the Harvard Business School, the most valuable asset a company can develop is its reputation. Your reputation is defined as “how you are known to your customers.” And the most important reputation you can have revolves around the quality of the products and services you offer and the quality of the people who deliver those services and interact with those customers.
3. Constraints: Between you and your goal, whatever it is, there will always be a constraint or limiting factor. Your ability to identify the most important factor that determines the speed at which you achieve your business goals is essential to your success.
The 80/20 rule applies to constraints in your business. Fully 80 percent of the reasons that you are not achieving your goals as quickly as you want will be within yourself. Only 20 percent will be contained in external circumstances or people.
What are your constraints? What holds you back? What sets the speed at which you achieve your goals? And what one thing could you do immediately to begin alleviating your main constraint? This is often the key to rapid progress.
4. Creativity: The essence of successful business is innovation. This is the ability to find faster, better, cheaper, easier ways to produce and deliver your products and services.
Fortunately, almost everyone is a “potential genius.” You have more intelligence and ability than you could ever use. Your job is to unleash this creativity and focus it, like a laser beam, on removing obstacles, solving problems and achieving your goals.
The essence of creativity is contained in your ability to solve the inevitable problems and difficulties of business life. Colin Powell said, “Leadership is the ability to solve problems.” Success is the ability to solve problems. And remember: A goal unachieved is merely a problem unsolved.
The way of the successful entrepreneur is to focus on the solution rather than the problem. Focus on what is to be done rather than what has happened or who is to blame. Concentrate all your attention on finding a solution to any obstacle that is holding you back from the sales and profitability you desire. And the more you think about solutions, the more solutions you will think of. You will actually feel yourself getting smarter by focusing all your energies on what you can do to continually improve your situation.
5. Concentration: Your ability to concentrate single-mindedly on the most important thing and stay at it until it is complete is an essential prerequisite for success. No success is possible without the ability to practice sustained concentration on a single goal or task, in a single direction.
The simplest way to learn to concentrate is to make a list for each day before you begin. Then prioritize the list by putting the numbers 1 through 10 next to each item. Once you have determined your most important task, immediately begin to work on that task. Discipline yourself to continue working until that top task is 100 percent complete. When you make a habit of doing this–starting and completing your most important tasks each day–you will double or triple your productivity and put yourself solidly on the way to wealth.
6. Courage: Winston Churchill once wrote, “Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.” It takes tremendous courage to take the entrepreneurial risks necessary to become wealthy. In study after study, experts have concluded it is the courage to take the “first step” that makes all the difference. This is the courage to launch in the direction of your goals, with no guarantee of success. Most people lack this.
Once you have begun your entrepreneurial journey, you also need the courage to persist. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “All great successes are the triumph of persistence.”
The word entrepreneur means “one who undertakes the risks of a new venture in pursuit of profit.” Fully 90 percent of the population will never have sufficient courage to launch a new venture, to start a new business, to boldly go where no one has gone before. You need, first of all, the courage to begin, to move out of your comfort zone in the direction of your goals and dreams, even though you know you will experience many problems, difficulties and temporary failures along the way.
Second, you need the courage to endure, to hang in there, to persist in the face of all adversity until you finally win. When you develop these twin qualities–the ability to step out in faith and then to persist resolutely in the face of all difficulties–your success is guaranteed.
7. Continuous Action: Perhaps the most outwardly identifiable quality of a successful person is that he or she is in continuous motion. The entrepreneur is always trying new things and, if they don’t work, trying something else. It turns out that most entrepreneurs achieve their success in an area completely different from what they had initially expected. But because they continually reacted and responded constructively to change, trying new methods, abandoning activities that didn’t work, picking themselves up after every defeat and trying once more, they eventually won out.
Top people, especially entrepreneurs, seem to have these three qualities. First, they learn more things. Second, they try more things. Third, they persist longer than anyone else. The good news is that, because of the law of probabilities, if you learn more things, try more things and persist longer, you dramatically increase the probability that you will succeed greatly. If you launch toward your goal and resolve in advance to never give up, your success is virtually guaranteed.
The Ultimate Reward
Jim Rohn once said, “The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the amount of money that you earn. It is the kind of person that you have to become to become a millionaire in the first place.”
To have more, you must first be more. For you to set out on the way to wealth and become a self-made entrepreneurial millionaire, you will have to develop many qualities at a higher level than you ever have before. You will have to become an exceptional person. You will have to become more than you ever imagined possible for you.
To realize your full potential and achieve all your financial goals in your own business, you must develop the virtues of integrity, courage and persistence to a much higher level than you have up to now. You will have to practice the qualities of clarity, competence, creativity, concentration and continuous action until they are as natural to you as breathing. You will have to accept complete responsibility for your life and everything that happens to you, and especially for the way you think in every area.
When you develop these qualities and become a completely different person, you will eventually achieve all your goals in life, including financial success. The best part of becoming an extraordinary person is that, if something happens and you lose it all, it won’t really matter. Because you have become a different person, you will be able to make it all back again and more, far faster than the first time.
Welcome to The Way to Wealth. You are about to embark on a grand adventure that may last for the rest of your working lifetime. But if you have the courage to begin and the persistence to endure, nothing can hold you back from achieving all your goals and dreams. If you decide that, no matter what, you will never give up, you will eventually become unstoppable.
(Adapted from an article by Brian Tracy)
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
