Tag Archives: Success principals

Question–Why Wear a Suit?

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When I first entered the business world with my first job I never really understood the requirement for “business attire”.  Now being part of the Sr. Management Team where I work, I fully understand why people wear business clothing and in some cases a suit.  It all comes down to being taken serious and credibility.  If I showed up to Sr. Management meetings in shorts and a t-shirt and tried to present the Information Technology five year strategic plan, I highly doubt I’d be taken serious, in fact I know I wouldn’t be. 

Unfortunately in this day and age we are judged buniversity-of-successy how we look as we are a very visual society.  I’m sure many of you have heard the old adage of “Dress for Success”, if not, all you need to do is pick up one of the many success books that are available via your local book store.  You’ll find that appearance is a key to being successful and how you dress is a big part of that.  I’ve partially read University of Success and interestingly enough even the style of your shoe says a lot about you.  Check out a small paragraph here that talks about the different shoes and what you should look out for.  One side effect of dressing well, helps boost confidence.  If you look good then you immediately feel more confident and I can attest to this, wearing a well fitted suit just feels great.

So how does this relate to our business and how we dress?  Quite simple, take the adage of “Dress for Success” and apply it to you and your business.  We’ve had new business owners ask us how to dress and there are recommendations that World Wide Dreambuilders has set out (let me reiterate that again, these are recommendations) and for me it’s pretty much how I dress at work so no big deal.  We set our own example of how we want to represent our business and so we dress appropriately.  I can tell you not everyone does that and we hold no judgement; how they represent their business is up to them.  Not saying other people don’t, but we treat our business serious when we are at business events, or when we are sharing the business opportunity with others who are interested to look. 

If I was shown this business opportunity by someone in shorts and a t-shirt I don’t think I would have given this a serious look (credibility as mentioned above).  However if I’m sitting down on purpose to show this opportunity then I’ll dress appropriate to the situation.  I don’t always wear a suit and tie because success principals state that you need to adjust to every situation but more often if I’m sitting down on purpose and they know it’s to show this opportunity, I’ve got on a minimum dress shirt and tie.  There needs to be a standard in place for people to rise up to, but grace for those who either cannot afford it or just don’t want to.  Where else can you find a business opportunity that doesn’t judge? Pretty rare these day’s that’s for sure.

Stay tuned as I share more questions I’ve heard over the years…   

Distractions

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distractions2Life is sure full of them that’s for sure.  Your exposure to them and how you handle them will most certainly determine your success in whatever it is your doing.  I’ll put a disclaimer out there this isn’t JUST about our Amway business because I know some out there will try and twist it around and make it out that way.  I was thinking about it today because we are packing and moving to a larger place on the south end of town and while the thoughts are fresh in my mind I figured I’d write about it. 

Distractions or as some may call it, life, can certainly throw some curve balls and distract you from your overall goal, whatever that may be.  For us we are moving and with that comes a ton of things you need to do in order to prepare and get setup in the new place. Utilities, moving vehicle, asking friends and family to help, purchasing things to fill voids in a new place or things that broke in the move, the list goes on and on and on.  For most it can easily be an excuse to not do the things that we originally have set out to do.  What I’ve learned in the last two years is really how to prioritize things in my life and really be a master of my schedule.  A great book I read on this even before I got involved with World Wide Dreambuilders and Amway, was a book called ‘Getting Things Done’ and it talks a lot about prioritization and organization.

Continuing with my example of moving, I could easily fall into the procrastination trap and wait until the last week or two and pack like crazy.  Studying success principals has taught me that maybe I should start earlier than later.  Yet some may say that just sounds like common sense, and it is, but I can’t tell you how many people I’ve moved in my lifetime that leave everything to the last minute.  Doing things earlier not only makes it easier but it gives me time to do other things and it reduces the stress in my life significantly. 

For us those other things include continuing to build our business and sow into the people we are working with by showing the plan, doing counsel sessions, meet and greets in our own business and in our tap roots, and so on and so on.  We can’t use the excuse that we are moving to distract us from the people we’ve committed to help build their own organizations.  Other things like date night(s) which are very important to keeping our relationship on track and making sure we at minimum set some dates to reconnect.  You’d be surprised how little couples do this.  Things like family time and making sure W gets to see his Grandparents and other family members.  The list goes on but if we get distracted by things that really shouldn’t be a distraction and apply some success principals to our lives, we’d be much better off and get a lot more accomplished. 

Its easy to read some books and say you’ll put these types of principals in place, but if you don’t get around others that do the same, you could end up spinning your tires or be frustrated why you let distractions get the best of you.  Learn to control them and you’ll be that much more successful in whatever it is your doing.

Goals, Dreams, and Aspirations oh my!

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I’ve always been a goal setter even before getting involved with World Wide Dreambuilders and Amway.  However I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is putting those things in the forefront.  My post today is actually inspired by @KimLiving who’s blog is http://www.mynaturebaby.ca/blog/.  She posted last night that she was working on building a life board.  Check it out here.  Kim, I hope you don’t mind me sharing, however you did publish it publicly so I figure that’s okay. 

Anyway I love seeing things like this and it’s the same concept of having your goals and dreams done the same way.  Having what you want out of life and making it visual will only make it that much more real and that much more easier to obtain.  Things like “celebrate every moment”, “be your best”, and this one “make a lasting impression” are amazing quotes of affirmations.  Kim, you have actually inspired me to revisit some of the things around our house and update and add to what we have already on our walls and fridge.  So thank you!

I fully believe everyone who is serious about the goals, dreams, and aspirations they have in life should make them visual.  Pick up a success book of any kind and when you talk about these things they all say to write them down or make them visual.  They all have different percent’s of how much more likely you’ll achieve them but any percent above 0 is good in my books.  It’s kind of a no brainer however some people will just make fun of you for doing it.  That’s fine, your not building your life for them, your doing it for you so just ignore the naysayers and as I like to call them “dream stealers”.

We actually have a budget for magazines so that we can do something like what Kim has and since it’s now September we are going to head down to Whyte Ave, probably to http://www.hubnews.ca/ and check out some new magazines to expand our dreams and things we want.  Thanks Kim for the added inspiration.

Follow other bloggers for this year’s Summer Blogging Challenge here:

Zita of Ignite Strategic Solutions, Cliff of Peer Pressure Works, Tammy of Tam I Am, Peter of Crazy Wookie Cookies, Chad of The Daily Grind, Vlad of Analog Coast, Robb of Blogging Life, Kim of Nature Baby Bloggings, Liam of ln The Now, Natasha of Natural Urban Mamas, Earl of My Name is Earl (J. Woods), Brad of Kick Me Out Soon

Also follow this on twitter with the “Official” hash tags #SBC #SummerBlogChallenge

Price and Prize

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trophy goldWith this year’s Summer Blog Challenge I’ve read a few new blogs and there are quite a few entrepreneurs on the blog roll.  The thing about being an entrepreneur is it takes a lot of work and sometimes the rewards are not apparent right away.  The thing some people don’t keep in mind is the whole mind set of price and prize.  Price and prize ALWAYS correlate, the greater the price the greater the prize. 

This mindset doesn’t just apply to entrepreneurship it can also apply to every day life.  Take for example my weight loss I blogged about the other day, my price is my gym membership, the trainer I pay for and my time at the gym.  Some would say that’s quite a high price, especially the trainer.  Your right it is a high price and trainers are not cheap, however my prize, my weight loss and feeling great is my prize.  It was worth the investment because health is a high prize which comes at a high price and honestly you cannot argue with that.

This isn’t a long profound post but a simple lesson on success I think and can be applied to all aspect of life.  What is the prize in your life your fighting for? Are you paying the price for it? Something to think about on a Thursday…

Follow other bloggers for this year’s Summer Blogging Challenge here:

Zita of Ignite Strategic Solutions, Cliff of Peer Pressure Works, Tammy of Tam I Am, Peter of Crazy Wookie Cookies, Chad of The Daily Grind, Vlad of Analog Coast, Robb of Blogging Life, Kim of Nature Baby Bloggings, Liam of ln The Now, Natasha of Natural Urban Mamas, Earl of My Name is Earl (J. Woods), Brad of Kick Me Out Soon

Also follow this on twitter with the “Official” hash tags #SBC #SummerBloggingChallenge

Communication as Parents

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communication-cansNow that my wife and I are parents and we’ve had a few days now to see how we communicate under what sometimes are frustrating circumstances.  Having a new baby really brings change to your marriage and ways of doing things as you no longer need to worry about just yourselves.  It’s quite an amazing experience we are having with our new little one however I can say without a doubt our experience with our new baby would be quite a bit different if it were not for personal growth.

So what do I mean with personal growth?  I mean things like reading books, listening to audio’s like podcasts and getting around an association that has the qualities that we like or were looking for.  Almost two years ago my wife and I had what we considered to be a pretty good marriage.  We communicated, we hardly had any “loud volume conversations”, and we were in love big time.  Now don’t get me wrong we don’t look back at where we were in disgust, we look back at where we were and look at where we are now and have seen huge improvements in our communication and overall relationship.

How I can measure that is how we’ve dealt with some of the frustrations of being new parents with little sleep and everything else that comes with that.  We’ve been able to stop what could have been massive blow ups which only would have caused our baby to become agitated.  Babies feed off parents big time and if your frustrated, yelling and upset, then so will your baby and it’s no wonder people end up pulling their hair out.  That would have been my wife and I pre-two years ago had we not had the personal growth through World Wide Dreambuilders and the association we get to plug into. 

World Wide Dreambuilders in no way forced things on us or did things for us, the organization only enabled us to take advantage of great books, audio and association that we applied to our lives and have seen hands down success with.  Not only with our baby and our relationship but in all aspects of our lives and for that we cannot be more thankful.  I’d hate to see what we would have been like today with our baby had we not personally grown, It would have been a nightmare with a lot harder sleepless nights, fights galore and a stressed marriage relationship wise and financially.  There is no other organization that I know of that puts family and relationships at the top priority and because of that we’ve done the same with aspects of our life and it’s damn good.

If I can impart any of what I’ve learned through WWDB, that’s read books on all areas of life.  The biggest one that has helped us is “Your Personality Tree” and “The 5 Love Languages”.  Just those two books will help you understand your mate in ways you never thought.  Check them out!