Commit to a Daily, Weekly or Monthly Action
Determine what one simple action would be effective in moving your business forward every single day, week and month with out fail. For sales businesses, this might be to have a minimum of 5 prospecting conversations daily. For an internet based business, that might mean doing Search Engine Optimization, placing an ad on a CPA network or entering into a new joint venture relationship at least once a day. For traditional brick and mortar businesses, it might be to place a daily advertisement somewhere, personally support an employee to step into his or her power, or contact an organization to offer your company's benefits to its members. Determine what the most effective behaviour you can do consistently to make steady progress and commit to doing it daily, weekly, and monthly, whatever is most appropriate.
Hire a Coach
If you were a gifted athlete intent on qualifying to compete in the Olympic Games, you probably wouldn't even consider the possibility of not
having a coach to champion your success. Why would striving to achieve great success in your business (or your life) be any different? A coach is a person who is trained to ask the right questions to get you to identify missing elements in these arenas. When these missing pieces are put in place, the result is a significant difference in your productivity, happiness, fulfillment and your ability to impact others. Coaches go way beyond training. Training is about conveying information. Coaching is about gaining access to areas we are otherwise blind to discovering about ourselves and our businesses. Coaches source breakthrough revelations by supporting us to explore the arena of what we don't know that we don't know. They champion our successes, our happiness and our visions. Skilled coaches claim our goals as their own and act as our partners to look with us to see what's working optimally and what's missing that has the results we are after remain elusive to us. They listen to both what we say as well as to what is left unsaid. They do this by asking questions, exploring possibilities, making requests and, at times, confronting issues that may need to be examined.
The most effective coaches are familiar with and skilled in the arenas in which they offer coaching support. For a coaching relationship to be most effective, you must be willing to look with your coach at whatever areas he suggests without becoming defensive or argumentative. Coaches typically do not have the answers themselves. Those being coached do. It is by knowing which questions to ask that coaches are able to best support their clients in examining areas that conceal breakthroughs in their understanding and more importantly in who they are as a possibility for others.
True coaches are values-based and interact with those coached from a position of respect while at the same time operating from a commitment to rigor if that is what's needed to support someone to 'get it.' Effective coaches are committed to excellence and do not step over issues because of a desire to be liked or to avoid uncomfortable topics. They hold their clients as totally capable of achieving break though success in any arena by listening for what may be missing that if put into place would fully honour the person's goals and values.
Decide to Welcome and Embrace Problems
In our culture, we live out of a deeply rooted belief that there are problems and that problems are bad and therefore to be avoided. We are blind to the fact that labelling something a problem is merely our interpretation of what happened, not an actual event. Also, with the appearance of problems comes the interpretation that something must be wrong - with the other person, the situation at hand or even with us.
With this belief that problems should not be, are unwanted and to be avoided at nearly all cost, our relationship to any person or situation that may prove problematic allows us little room to be powerful. As a matter of fact, we typically go out of our way to minimize our discomfort by steering clear of anything that might lead to the generation of a problem. As a result of this orientation to problems, we find ourselves attaching blame, making excuses, complaining, denying, or otherwise hiding or stepping over problems in order to distance ourselves from them. Avoiding problems impacts our relationships, our productivity and our effectiveness in dealing with others.
The invisible assumption or paradigm we all operate out of is that good people do not have problems. Therefore, if we find out people have problems, the natural thing to do is to get rid of them or avoid them as well. This orientation to problems causes us to deny they exist or at least to ignore or minimize them. When they do show up, we tend to attach blame to someone else for them. Of course, all this hinders communication and creates suffering.
We typically are unaware of our natural orientation to problems. By being blind to it, this paradigm controls us much like a puppet on a string. We are so deeply embedded in our belief that problems are bad and to be avoided that we don't even see how this notion runs our lives.
One drawback to our orientation to problems is that to avoid having a potential problem, we avoid making commitments that present any likelihood of resulting in a problem. We play small because we can't risk the problems. How would you act differently if you actually looked for problems because you wanted the breakthroughs that result from them? Instead of inferring that problems mean something's wrong, take on the empowering belief that problems are the source of your growing and expanding. Seek out and embrace problems as an opportunity to take you to the next level in your development. Create the expectation that you will always encounter problems and stop running from them. Look for the gold that lies within each one.
Remember, the problem is never the problem. Your relationship to the problem and the interpretation you create about it is. If you seek to avoid problems at all costs, you will play small within your comfort zone, not risking for fear of creating a problem. Instead, welcome problems as the medium for creativity.
Create a powerful relationship to them as an opportunity to reformulate, look for new possibilities and recommit yourself to the original commitment underlying the problem.
Operate from Your Commitments rather than Your Convenience
One of the biggest challenges that causes people to fail in business is for them to act out of what is convenient for them in the moment. When you act in this manner, you are at the affect of your environment and the prevailing circumstances as opposed to being the source of who you are and what you do. Being the source of what shows up around you in life comes as a result of a declaration you make to see that it is so. By taking such a stand for your excellence or the excellence of others, you are declaring, as an act of courage, your commitment to being the best you can be.
By doing so, you are, in effect, deciding to trust yourself in
the moment of decision to do the 'right' thing. With respect to leading a team in business, that often looks like choosing to empower and champion others when it may be more convenient or comfortable not to do so. You commit to act out of your principles rather than out of what might be most convenient at that particular time. This will require a ruthless commitment on your part to being clear about what you are really most committed to- developing empowered, self-directed leaders In your business, or taking the easy way out by doing what you have always done. It's up to you to decide which is more important every time a decision comes up in which you can either act in a way that forwards your business or in a way that is easier to take.
This critical moment of decision, 'The Y of Leadership' is the
'fork' in the road requiring you to make a courageous choice in the moment.
Be alert for opportunities whereby you can distinguish what your commitments actually are and take bold action in their direction.
Step into Leadership
Leadership is not
a position you acquire as a result of having achieved a certain volume or compensation plan position. It is a place you come from as a declaration that guides your decisions and actions. When you are the source of everything that shows up in your life and in your business, your actions will be in sync with this self-declared leadership role.
The elements that characterize leadership are as follows:
1. A clear and well-spoken vision that serves as an inspirational guiding force for yourself and others.
2. A specific action plan that answers the question, "What exactly will it take to manifest this vision?"
3. An enthusiastic contagious belief level that causes others to join in the cause and get into action motivated by a positive expectation of success.
4. An authenticity and genuine humility that comes from a true commitment to be of contribution to others.
5. A commitment to developing other leaders, allowing them to step into their own power as they eventually assume the prominence you once held as a catalyst inspiring others to greater possibilities. This is an ability to make others greater than yourself, empowering them through example with a commitment to seeing a possibility for them that they might not yet clearly see for themselves. This is what it means to be an inspiration to others.
Leadership is both the driving force that propels a business and the glue that keeps it together long term, allowing it to withstand the inevitable challenges that will develop from time to time.
You'll find more from Dr. Joe Rubino in our Fame and Reputation Gateway.
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Biography
