by ColoradoCoach.

Failure: Dealing with failure is a key leadership skill. A leader needs to develop a good sense of recognizing failure and turning it into a learning experience. Failure does not have to be a big deal, but most people’s natural tendencies are the opposite of what needs to happen in order to turn a failure into a learning experience and not a confidence breaker. Too often those in leadership make failure too personal and try to cover up those failings. The road to success is paved with stones of failure.  The two truly go hand in hand.

In racquetball I often state that winning is great but it does very little to improving my game.  Losing on the other hand exposes many opportunities for improvement.  The overwhelming feedback that winning provides is that I am better than the other person.  My evaluation usually stops there. Losing causes me to examine so much more.  What did I do well?  What did I do horrible? What can I do next time to improve. what were the weaknesses in their game that I can better exploit next game. Losing creates a new passion inside me to succeed next game.

The fear of failure is ingrained in us at an early age.  We become afraid of the potential negative instead of the reward of the potential gain.  On a walk yesterday with my 4 year old I observed this practice.  He was walking along a ledge that was beside the sidewalk. There was a step up in the ledge, about 4 inches. The ledge was now about 4 feet from the sidewalk (on the other side was rocks and they were about two feet down.  My son froze.  All he could see was the four feet he would fall. When I asked him about this, he said he was afraid of falling.  When I asked him why he wasn’t afraid of falling before the step up, he replied ” I just wasn’t thinking about falling then.”

How often does this play a role in your life?  How often, after a little change or variation in your plan, do you only see the possible negative outcome?  How does this affect your results?

This is why it is critical that you understand that only through failure, will you find success.  The faster you experience failure, the faster you will discover the lessons for success. Leadership expert Robin Sharma shares that “the more you go to your limits, the more your limits will expand…The fears you don’t face become your walls.” In his book the Leader Who Had No Title one of the main characters, a ski instructor, points out that “tough runs build better skiers.”

Why does understanding this principle help to overcome the fear of failure? Basically, there is a shift in perception on the value of failure. Stop associating failure with no value or negative value. Create the paradigm shift that failure is a benefit, that it is the accelerant so that you can succeed faster. By changing this value the fear of failure is reduced.  The power is placed on the correct purpose.

Posted in Failing, Personal Development, business, success, habits, goal setting, Coaching, mindset | Print | No Comments »

by ColoradoCoach.

No matter if your final destination is the moon or the stars or financial freedom, can you imagine being off course 97% of the time? Some days it seems like that, doesn’t it. So what is the trick to staying on course? Evaluation and Correction.

Actually more accurately Constant evaluation and Constant Correction. Can you imagine trying to get better at making free-throws if you only took 1 shot from the line each month. It would be pretty hard to assess what you did wrong (or right) and make the appropriate adjustments. Yet this is exactly what most of us do in our lives and in our businesses. We check the monthly balance sheets to look at how we did. Sometimes we only take time to assess what went wrong long after we have been off course.

This video talks about establishing a daily routine of evaluation and reflection to make the necessary course corrections, so that you can arrive at your determined destination. This was shot at the Grand Canyon Sep. 2009.

Please share your comments and examples.

Posted in Personal Development, business, Failing, success, Coaching, habits, goal setting | Print | No Comments »

by ColoradoCoach.

As a small business coach I often see small business owners running themselves ragged, working long hours,  not spending time with their families nor doing the things that they enjoy and not experiencing the freedom they hoped owning their own business would bring.

It is easy to get stuck in some of the common pitfalls of business ownership.  These bad habits can be difficult to break out of. The key is really to  start working smarter, not harder.

I thought I would share the  most common mistakes I see small business owners make, and how you can prevent (or stop) yourself from making them:

1. Not setting clear goals. Operating without a clearly defined outcome, where you want your business to go is a sure recipe for disaster.  It is important to take actions with a purpose. Too often I find business owners who are doing many of the right things, but with no direction or purpose and then they get frustrated because the results are not what they expected. Creating a solid vision, and establishing clear, measurable & attainable targets are the first steps.

2. Confusing being busy with being successful. It’s really easy to believe that working 70-hour weeks in your business is just part of being successful.  But what about having the personal freedom and financial freedom to do the things we enjoy and spend time with those we love?  What about creating a balance in your life?  Become aware of how you spend your time.  Assess whether you are spending it in the most efficient way.

3. Weak marketing message.  If your marketing message doesn’t speak directly to your market’s needs and wants your marketing materials will get lost in the storm.  A strong and consistent marketing message that speaks to the question “what’s in it for me?” will trump sexy design every time. Be clear on what problem you or your product solves for your target.

4. Ignoring your true target market.  Too many businesses operate without a good understanding of who their target market is, including how they think, and how they behave.   Trying to market to everybody  is a recipe for disaster, all marketing initiatives are just shots in the dark, and money into the fire.  With this knowledge about your market, all leads are qualified and conversion rates soar.

5. Forgetting the value of current customers. I often see small businesses work so hard on bringing in new business and forget to serve the current business they have.  An example of this is answering the phone during a customer transaction. Or offering discounts to new clients, but not honoring the same discount for current clients.

Customer retention and satisfaction drive profits. It’s far less expensive to cultivate your existing customer base and sell more services to them than it is to seek new, single-transaction customers. Most surveys across industries show that keeping one existing customer is five to seven times more profitable than attracting one new one (Graham Roberts-Phelps.)

Customer retention is about relationship and keeping them active.  Customer loyalty programs are a great way to reward frequent customers, plus it is a helpful way to learn these customers names and get contact information. Use the customers name.  Remember details about them (birthdays, vacations, spouse, children, etc).

If you identify with any of these concerns now is the time to address them.  As a business owner you are not expected to be perfect in all areas of the business, but you should expect that you know which resources to allocate to each concern. Not addressing a problem will definitely not solve it. Throwing more money at it only makes it a more expensive problem. Take time now to clearly identify, create a vision, implement a plan and evaluate the outcomes.

Posted in Vision, business, Failing, success, Coaching, goal setting | Print | 2 Comments »

by ColoradoCoach.

Did you know you are born with the secret knowledge to achieve ultimate success and satisfaction in your life?  People spend millions of dollars each year searching for this “secret” and we are all born with it.  The problem is we get so good at at, that we forget it after a few years.

A year or more ago I stumbled across a cleaning blog, that spoke about breaking up really big challenges, like cleaning up a filthy kitchen, into 10 - 15 minutes a day. That is how I conquer the stacks of papers on my desk. 10 minutes here to organize business cards. 10 minutes before lunch to file away clients folders. Breaking up what would otherwise seem like an overwhelming task into 10 minute segments over a series of days, takes away the FEAR and prevents PROCRASTINATION.  

Now I realize that this has become a common life hack, but at the time I read it, I still wasn’t applying it to my life. Now I apply this strategy in all areas of my life. I mow the front yard a different day than the back yard. I rarely ever vacuum the entire house in one given day.  Reading, journaling, writing old friends– all these have become enjoyable again.  Conquering miniature tasks on a daily basis is way more manageable.  And accomplishing little things can make a huge impact over time. If you were to improve just .003 each day- that’s only 3/10 of one percent, a very minor improvement, but if  you kept that up for the next five years, here’s what would happen to you:

The first year, you would improve 100 percent (you would already be twice the person you are today. By the completion of year two, you would improve 200 percent. The third year, 400 percent. And in the end of the fourth, 800 percent. AND BY THE COMPLETION OF YEAR FIVE-by simply improving 3/10 of one percent each day-you will have INCREASED your value, your skills, and the results you accomplished 1,600 percent. That’s 22 times BETTER than you are today.  That doesn’t even take into consideration compounding. That’s just adding on 3/10 of one percent each day. WOW! This is the concept behind Jeff Olson’s The  Slight Edge.

If you have had the distinct pleasure of watching a child learn to walk, you know that it doesn’t usually happen in a weekend. First there is crawling, then they begin to pull themselves up, next is cruising–moving from one piece of furniture to the next for support and mixed in all these steps is lots of falling. In the process of learning how to walk, you probably spent more time failing than you did succeeding. But did you ever have the thought of quitting? Did you ever tell yourself, “I’m just not cut out for walking-I guess I’ll crawl for the rest of my life?” No, of course you didn’t. So, why do you do that now?

Why are your goals today any different? What’s changed? When did you lose the ability to set a goal, go for it, and achieve it? How come you don’t do what you did when you were one or two years old?

The answer is quite simple:

Somewhere along the way in your life, you became unwilling to take baby steps and you became afraid to fall, afraid to fail. You lost belief in the basic truth that the simple little disciplines done again and again over time would create the desired success. The people around you became more jaded and less supportive.  You came to expect immediate results.  You forgot “the secret” you were born with.

Stop seeking immediate results and start taking baby steps again.  Find small ways to make improvements in your life.  Do it daily. Remember that small improvements daily, a mere 3 tenths of one percent, can add up. 10 minutes each day toward your goals will add up.

You see the “secret” you were born with is that you are capable of amazing feats.  You were born with the ability to set goals and the basic hardware to achieve them — all of them, if you are willing to cast fear aside and are willing to fail several times before you get there.  Failing is merely a part of the baby steps. You must crawl before you walk, and you must persevere through all the falling, before you walk on your own.  And soon after you walk you will run and jump.

Posted in expectations, Failing, success, Coaching, goal setting, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »