Thursday 20 January 2011

Taking Control of Your Life - Just Get Started

By K. MacKillop

You know how when you buy a new car you suddenly see other cars just like that everywhere you go? Before you bought it, you never noticed them at all...but now they seem to be all over the place! The same sort of thing happens once you take the first step into entrepreneurship. That is, seeking out the first opportunity and taking steps to pursue it very often expose a multitude of other opportunities as well. All you have to do is take the first step!
Most wealthy, successful entrepreneurs will tell you that they changed direction a number of times from their first startup idea. For some, the final result is just a variation of the original idea, such as a real estate agent jumping into the house flipping industry. One entrepreneur started out with an online car part retail store. A few months after launching, a former metal worker contacted her about partnering to market customized parts. A few months after that, an interested investor financed the launch of a full garage for fabricating specialty parts and customizing street racers!
For others, the change is far more dramatic. Another entrepreneur started out with a dog training business but ended up a regional flooring distributor! The training company was doing just fine, but the income was limited by the number of hours he could train. A client mentioned an open distributorship in the flooring industry and he jumped at the opportunity. Less than one year later, the training facility is run by a staff of employees and the distributorship is rockin' along as well.
Stories like these are very common in the world of entrepreneurship. A recent documentary called Lemonade is about the different paths that laid off ad folks have taken. The guy who made the documentary? He started out launching an advertising industry job board, but when the opportunity to make the documentary came along, he grabbed it and ran. Now, he is focusing his work efforts on creating more documentaries...and loving every minute of it!
The key to really taking control of your work life and financial future is twofold. First, just get started in the right direction. Second, be ready to seize opportunities as they come along. The more hooks you have in the water, the more likely you are to snag a few fish. Don't limit yourself to the ideas you have right now. Entrepreneurship is a learning process. No matter how much schooling or work experience you have, there will be hard lessons and realities that surprise you on your path to success. The trick is to take advantage of every situation and always be looking for the next foothold up the cliff.
Whatever your goals for taking control of your life, just get started. Look for the obvious business ideas, pay attention to what the people around you need. Figure out what you know and what you don't know about entrepreneurship and take steps to fill in the gap. Don't wait for the perfect idea, get going now with a good enough idea! The first one may not make you rich, but it will get you on track to find the right opportunities that will change your life!
About the Author- K. MacKillop, a serial entrepreneur, is co-founder of LaunchX, a company designed to develop and train potential entrepreneurs to succeed. The LaunchX System, delivered through seminar format or at-home study, helps entrepreneurs start a business based on their own idea. It includes step-by-step business startup instructions, key software, business tools, comprehensive entrepreneurial skills training, and more. Visit LaunchX.com to learn more about this revolutionary way to become an entrepreneur.

Saturday 1 January 2011

Personal Leadership Development Plan - Your Starting Point To Success

By Sean McLaughlin and Tegan Hadley

If you truly want to become a successful leader, you need to utilize a personal leadership development plan. All of our great leaders, young or old, have one thing in common. They are all great goal setters and have a plan set in place which provides a pathway for them to be able to live their greatest dreams and desires. They know exactly what they want before they set their goals; simply wishing for success is not enough.
You need to be absolutely determined if you truly want to stand up and move towards your goals and dreams. The main difference between leaders and followers lies in the fact that leaders will do the things that followers do not like to do. Leaders have a purpose strong enough to be able to form the habits of doing the things they don't want to do, in order to obtain the results they wish to obtain.
Here are some crucial steps for your personal leadership development plan:
• Be prepared to do what it takes to achieve your dreams. Saying you want a big house, a luxury yacht or a sports car is all a very nice idea, but the point is... are you willing to pay the price to obtain them? Remember, this is the primary difference between the leaders of the world, and the followers.
• Take 100% responsibility for your life. To blame a situation or another person is saying they have control of your life and not you. Don't let someone else's opinion of you become your reality.
• Act immediately. Stop procrastinating and make the decision to start in your quest to become successful. We don't know how much time we have to achieve our dreams, but we do know that we don't have forever. Successful leaders understand this, and instead of viewing it as a negative platform, they use it as an opportunity to motivate and inspire themselves enough to take the step into leadership.
• Leaders live their lives with purpose. If you have passion about what you are doing is going to make that much easier to achieve your goals and dreams, and you will have fun while doing it.
• Focus is a key aspect of your personal leadership development plan. Every day we are bombarded with phone calls, tasks, messages and everyone trying to take our time away. But in reality, nobody can steal your time away. You are responsible for your time. It is YOU who lets them steal it. If you want to be a leader, you need to learn to manage this inevitable force and work with it, rather than against it. If you make the decision to maintain focus you are investing your time in something that will pay off in the long term.
• Write out a definite plan for Achieving your goals. A goal that isn't written down is merely a wish or a fantasy.
• Here is the hot tip. Go after what you want as energetically and as enthusiastically as you can, for as long as you can. You are not getting any younger.
Where does it all fit in?
Developing an action plan enables you to stand out amongst the crowd. Make the decision today to become an expert in your field. You can be ahead of the game, just through a little research into what the leaders in your field are doing. With that extra little bit of passion, you will soon find yourself the leader of your chosen field. You will be the benchmark, and just by following a few steps of your personal leadership development plan, you will find yourself living in a world where you are everything you have always wanted to be.
Are you desperate to become a successful leader? Are you ready to fight for your greatest dreams and desires? Don't struggle on alone - make the most of the free advice and information on our website,http://yourpersonalleadershipdevelopment.com/