by Julia Felton | Mar 20, 2013
Habits—good or bad—are difficult to break. Aristotle said it best: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act…it’s a habit.”
An excerpt from Habits Die Hard by Mac Anderson & John J. Murphy
I am your constant companion.
I am your greatest asset or heaviest burden.
I will push you up to success or down to disappointment.
I am at your command.
Half the things you do might just as well be turned over to me.
For I can do them quickly, correctly, and profitably.
I am easily managed; just be firm with me.
Those who are great, I have made great.
Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine, though I work with the precision of a
machine and the intelligence of a person.
You can run me for profit, or you can run me for ruin.
Show me how you want it done. Educate me. Train me.
Lead me. Reward me.
And I will then…do it automatically.
I am your servant.
Who am I?
I am a habit.
Think about it. There is nothing that will shape your destiny more than your habits. Why is that true? Because you are invariably the sum of the choices you will make in your life. And those choices are greatly influenced by your habits…good and bad.
You may have heard the quote: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” And so it is…if you’re ready to change some habits that might be holding you back in your relationships, your career or your life, then please contact me
by Julia Felton | Mar 6, 2013
I recently read this great blog my John Maxwell and decided to share it with you as it talks about a subject really close to my heart right now – Perseverance. Perseverance is a trait that all great leaders have and it is what keeps them going when times get tough. Yet all too often I personally find myself slacking off at these times. I’ve been doing a lot of work to try and figure out why and what is going on. Sometimes the results are tough to take, but listen to them I must if I am to continue to grow my business.
“Perseverance begins with the right attitude – an attitude of tenacity. But the desire to persevere alone isn’t enough to keep most people going when they are tired or discouraged. Perseverance is a trait that can be cultivated. And the initial step to developing it is to eliminate its five greatest enemies.”
Perseverance requires determination. If you take the time and effort to cultivate tenacity, you can achieve the impossible. However, there are endless temptations, false beliefs, and distractions that can lead to abandoning what once seemed of the utmost importance.
According to Beyond Talent, we must eliminate the five greatest enemies of perseverance. Eliminating the following five things will bring greater chance of success:
1. A lifestyle of giving up
“Talent without perseverance never comes to full fruition. Opportunities without persistence will be lost. There is a direct correlation between perseverance and potential. If you have a habit of giving up, you need to overcome it to be successful.”
There is no doubt that giving up is the easy thing to do in many situations. When we’re presented with opportunities, we are programmed to want to take the easy route. However, taking the difficult path will allow us to see our talent come to full fruition.
2. A wrong belief that life should be easy
“Having the right expectations going into anything is half the battle.”
It’s common to expect that life should be handed to us on a silver platter. However, expectations don’t always match reality. When faced with tough situations, we have two choices. We can either give up, or we can dig in and get down in the trenches. Perseverance is choosing the trenches.
3. A wrong belief that success is a destination
“If you think you have arrived, then you’re in trouble. As soon as you think you no longer need to work to make progress, you’ll begin to lose ground.”
Success is not a destination. Success is a path we choose to walk down each day. When we stop seizing opportunities, we hit plateaus. As leaders, we constantly have the chance to learn, grow and move forward. With a bit of perseverance, we can move beyond our “success” and through open doors.
4. A lack of resiliency
“We must not become dry, brittle, and inflexible. And we must endeavour to bounce back, no matter how we may feel.”
We can’t let discouraging moments break us. Instead, we must be resilient. By persevering through tough times and taking struggles on, we have the ability to go beyond our talent.
5. A lack of vision
“People who display perseverance keep a larger vision in mind as they toil away at their craft or profession. They see in their mind’s eye what they want to create or to do, and they keep working toward it as they labor.”
What is your vision? Let that be your guiding light as you persevere through the less than desirable moments in life. Know that through perseverance, your talent will be lifted, ultimately reaping great benefits in the end.
Overall, take the time to think through which of these enemies is hindering your ability to persevere as a leader. Once you identify these strongholds, you will be able to rise above any situation and accomplish even the loftiest goals.
by Julia Felton | Sep 19, 2012
Transparency
Today more people have access to more information about you and your organization trough internet, e-mail and social media. With the new information flow we are increasingly moving into a world where prosumers, or influential, proactive, marketing savvy, engaged consumer and “tribes” have much more influence on your business.
In the old world, business communication was somewhat linear between clients and company. Today we have to live with the daily ongoing open communication between the company, clients, employees and prosumers. The power of multipliers on the market has increased, and today it is not sufficient to be merely a supplier of great products and services without having an underlying fantastic purpose, that engages every part of your organization. In the world of radical transparency, the scope for a gap between image and reality has disappeared.
Speed
What is new is that social media has dramatically changed the scale, velocity and the impact on the communication. Consumers could always say things to other consumers and employees could always be positive or negative to the companies they worked for. Independent of the nature of the information, negative or positive, today you or your organization have to act with speed in order to create value out of the situation. A transparent organization, communicating with openness and authenticity have less problem doing this and are continuously creating added value for the business and the customer.
Ways in which you achieve and experience Authentic Success:-
Your full power and potential lies in you being uniquely you, rather than forcing yourself to be someone you’re not. When you are being authentic and living your life on purpose then you are contributing in the way you are meant to. No-one else can touch this and you’ll be amazed at the results you can achieve.
A fundamental key to success is to be able to express your true identity and strengths as an individual, a team and an organisation.
An authentic, successful organization has:
- transparency
- adeptness
- authentic leadership
- effective communication in meetings and contacts with customers, employees and stakeholders
- creativity
- confidence
- power and strength
- provides calm and stable in a changing world
A great way to get your team members and organisation into an authentic, successful state is to ensure that everyone is working in flow, together for the greatness of the company. The first step to take on this pathway is to understand the Talent Dynamics profile of you and your team. You can start
here right now because success in any area of life is an inside out game.
by Julia Felton | Sep 5, 2012
Have you ever wondered why some people achieve 10x the results of others in their business, with what looks like less effort and more ease? It’s a little like the surfer paradox: You can’t surf fast unless you’re on the big wave, but you can’t get on the big wave unless you can surf fast…
How do we get over these quantum leaps in expertise to make it look easy at the next level? Because we learn how to find and then surf the wave of success. When I was a child, I heard the phrase ‘Putting your toe in the water’ – Test the temperature before you jump in. Every good entrepreneur knows how to put their toe in the water with a new market or a new product – how to prove the concept, product and pricing with a small sample before rolling it out and investing in growth.
Today, the waves are much bigger and much faster. Relying on your ‘toe in’ takes on a new meaning with big waves. ‘Tow in’ surfing was invented in the 1990s to allow surfers to pick up enough speed to get onto giant waves – riding behind a jet ski or even a helicopter. It isn’t really the same as just dipping a toe in gently. It’s more about hitching a small ride before the big ride. It’s what all the best entrepreneurs are doing today.
Matthew Inman wouldn’t call himself an entrepreneur. He’s a cartoonist, he created ‘The Oatmeal’ website 3 years ago and wrote his first book a year ago (5 Very Good Reasons To Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth). The popularity of Inman’s cartoons has led to him making about $500,000 in 2012 on his website from advertising and merchandising.
Then, two months ago, Matthew tried a toe in…
Matthew was served with a defamation notice from Funny Junk, for writing blogs criticising the website, where his cartoons were getting posted by users. Funny Junk’s lawyers demanded $20,000 in damages from Matthew. So what did he do? Having heard about crowdfunding but never having tried it himself, he decided to try and raise $20,000 from fans – not to pay Funny Junk, but so that he could take a photo of the money, send it to the lawyer with a cartoon of his mother making love to a bear, and give all the money to charity. He named it Operation BearLove Good, Cancer Bad, and set up the fundraising on Indiegogo. Within the month, instead of raising the $20,000, he raised $211,000 for the charities, and Funny Junk dropped the suit.
But that was just the toe in. Having suddenly realised the power of crowdfunding, this month Matthew was back on Indiegogo again. This time, to try and raise $850,000 to buy scientist Nikola Tesla’s original laboratory and turn it into a museum. Just two weeks after launching ‘Operation Let’s Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum’ he has already raised over $1.2 million, and there’s still another 30 days to go… Now Matthew is on the wave.
If Matthew hadn’t tried the $20,000 idea, he wouldn’t have tried the $1 million idea. He put a toe in, and now he’s jumped in. What can you test right now? Crowdfunding? Micropayments? A mobile site? Rapid prototyping? A new market in a new country? A partnership with a hyper-growth company?
We all know that the days of just having the better product – or the prettier surf board – are over. Success is dictated by not just the surf board, but how you surf it and the wave you choose. Don’t wait to build the perfect board for the perfect wave. Put your toe in today, test the water, take a ride. Do it. Now. Use the toe to build both your confidence and competence. If it’s not the right wave, try again. When it is, let go of the rope and fly.
What will you do today to find your next wave so that you too can surf the wave of success?
by Julia Felton | Jul 25, 2012
Success comes in many shapes and colours. Regardless of what success looks like for you, it involves being and doing certain things in order to achieve it.
One of the most empowering concepts you can discover on your journey to entrepreneurial success is that self-responsibility – in all its forms – is the key to reaching your goals and enlightening your spirit.
Did you know that self-responsibility actually leads to more happiness, success, and yes, freedom?
Everyone has distinct memories, beliefs, and patterns of behavior around self-responsibility. Sometimes those patterns will trip you up and keep you stuck and frustrated in your business… until you identify them and consciously develop new thoughts and new ways of understanding what it means to be self-responsible.
To be clear, being self-responsible doesn’t mean feeling being the Lone Ranger or taking on the feelings of others. Self-responsibility is much more enlightening and empowering than that!
The key is to fully accept that your success depends on your willingness to do whatever it takesto achieve your goals, regardless of whatever else is going on around you.
Here are 3 essential ways that you can take charge of your business and your success:
#1 – Find Solutions Instead of Excuses
When things go wrong, admit your errors and then take action to correct them – without drama, guilt or lengthy discussion. And this includes making excuses to yourself! Excuses are a time-waster that drain you emotionally and physically.
Put your energy into creating and implementing solutions. Positive action creates positive momentum, which leads to more positive action. Within that framework, “mistakes” simply become learning opportunities, rather than roadblocks.
#2 – Stop Waiting for the “Perfect Moment”
Waiting for your life or your business to unfold in a specific way before you can take action is a guaranteed recipe for inaction. There will probably never be that exact combination of circumstances you’re imagining – life is ever-changing!
The concept of the perfect moment is actually a sneaky way the brain avoids responsibility because it makes you feel like you’re being “rational.” What’s really happening is the ego is trying to protect you from whatever it is you fear.
Use your intuition as a compass to guide you into taking action now, rather than waiting for some idealized scenario that you’ve constructed in your mind.
#3 – Own Your Divine Feminine Power
If you truly want success, you must step fully into your power – as a woman and a business owner. That means being the visionary leader and creator of all that happens within your business, without exception.
Too often, women give away their power to others – demanding clients, unresourceful team members, even holding back so they don’t make their friends and family feel less successful.
Playing small and denying your innate power is simply another way of avoiding responsibility. The result will be less satisfaction and less fulfillment. When you own your power and let yourself shine, being responsible actually re-energizes you!
It’s time to release the childhood notions that responsibility equals having to do something undesirable. The moment you shift your mindset around this concept, you can begin to see how taking full self-responsibility is the ultimate tool for success in business and in life.
Need help with discovering your path to success, then I highly recommend taking the Talent Dynamics test and find out
by Julia Felton | Sep 5, 2011
“Skill set without mindset results in upset”, these words of Rob Moore from Progressive Property are still ringing in my head after the amazing weekend I experienced at the Power to Achieve Seminar led by Andy Harrington. The entire weekend was devoted to shifting my perspective to having a “Millionaire Mindset” by really pushing you through your comfort zone. Over the course of the weekend I broke a one inch think wooden board with my hand and with a colleague bent a 1.5 metre metal rod using our throats. When you achieved both those feats, which quite frankly I thought would be impossible, then you believe that anything is possible in life. All too often we go through life believing that things are not possible, when quite frankly everything is achievable if you have enough focus, certainty and a big enough reason to do it. Of course the activity of breaking the board and bending the metal rod were made much easier by the fact that there were over 100 people urging me on to do it. Yet, how often in our daily lives do we have that number of people urging us on to achieve our goals. In my experience it’s usually the opposite, loads of people telling us how we can’t achieve our goals. No wonder the majority of people fail to achieve their dreams and settle for a life of mediocrity. How sad is that.
So what has this got to do with horses you might ask, well Rob’s quote I feel sums up so well that I observe happening in the equestrian world. There are loads of equestrian people out there with great skills and yet I see equally as many upset horses. Horse owners are always complaining to me about the bad behaviour of their horses – he bites, kicks, pushes me around, doesn’t do what I want – and yet what I also observe is that these people are in the wrong mindset. They turn up to “work” with their horses in a bad emotional state. Their mind is racing thinking of all the other things they have to do today, what happened yesterday, in fact anything to stop them being present and in the here are now. And these thoughts trigger off a range of emotions. For example, anger, rage, frustration, confusion. As master communicators horses read what state we are in and respond appropriately. Have you ever noticed that when you are anxious and in a hurry to load your horse to get to the show guaranteed your horse will never load. I had an experience of this yesterday morning when I went to check my horses. Toby (who is a bit overweight) had managed to get his grazing muzzle off overnight. I was in a rush to get to London to this seminar and sure enough I couldn’t catch him for love nor money to put the grazing muzzle back on. Funny how that happens.
So why is mindset so important when we are working with our horses. In my opinion if you are not in a good emotional state then your horse will not connect with you If your mind is chattering away detailing all the things that you need to do that day, then you will never be present and aware of what is happening around you. And as we know we can’t be a good leader for your horse if your attention is elsewhere. So every time you go to the barn or yard just spend a few minutes and think about how your mindset is right now, and if it’s not great change it because you can have the best skills in the world but if you fail to get into the right mindset then you won’t attract the results you desire and upset will occur.
by Julia Felton | Jul 3, 2011
What Controls Your Decisions was just one of the themes covered by Tony Robbins, a key-note speakers at the National Achievers Congress which is being held at the ExCel Centre this weekend. Tony spoke for an incredible four hours. I’d never heard him speak before and he was inspiring. How he maintained his energy levels for that long I’ll never know. I was exhausted just being in the audience.
A key message from Tony’s presentation was that our state, along with our blueprint of life, governs everything we do. It affects our decision-making in ways we could never imagine. Tony got us to do a load of exercises trying on different physiologies and the really interesting thing was that with over 7,000 people from a number of different countries in the audience we all immediately knew what physiology to adopt to be in a particular state. For example, for the frightened child state we all make our posture small and crouched, we dropped our energy and lowered the pitch of our voice. We breathed shallowly and approached other people gingerly, from the side and not from the front.
The exercise reminded me of how well my horses can read my physiology. They know my state often before I do. As master readers of body language they are acutely aware of what is happening in their environment and how things and people show up. They need to be in order to survive. So I’m writing this blog sitting in a field with my horses. After such a motivating and inspiring weekend I’m in a great state and guess what my horses are all crowded around me. My energy is great and they want to be with me. Trust me this is not usual behaviour for them, typically they graze far away from me when I sit in the field with them. Watching the sun set and listening to the birds tweet, whilst a deer bounds through the field I’m really happy. Tony explained that we are happy when our life conditions and blueprint for life are aligned whilst depression occurs when we feel helpless to change the disconnect between our life conditions and blue print.
So my questions for you this week are what makes you really happy and how are you influencing your state so that you can make better decisions?
