Failure

What is failure? It is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day. They get repeated because people don’t think it matters.

When you hear about a business closing down it appears to be one big event. It is a big event for that day but the reality is that what caused it to close down had been going on for a long time. Just look at Montgomery Ward or Steak and Ale as examples of errors in judgment that were repeated every day over a period of time. They failed for years before it became official.


You may ask, “How come failure is not recognized sooner?” That’s a good question. Failure is not as obvious as it may seem. It can be like the fog that creeps in on little cat feet. What worked for years in a company may gradually not work as well. But people hold onto the hope that the old ways will work. Then, all of a sudden like the fog, you are in the middle of it and can see no way out.

The fact is that we are resistant to change. The first step to failure is in our thinking. We refuse to change the way we see things. We get comfortable with the status quo and how things were in the past and hope that somehow things will work out.

But, they never do, if we don’t change. Why? Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.

And there is only one way to lessen the likelihood of failure and increase the odds of success. We must not only embrace change. Even better we must be the change. With a strong personal philosophy in favor of change we increase the odds of success and weaken the grip of failure.

For more information visit : http://www.thehoustonbusinesscoach.com/

Peer Pressure-A Powerful Force

Peer pressure….much is said about it but what makes it so powerful. Very often we think of peer pressure as being around people who would like us to do things as they would do, even when it is not part of who we are.

Peer pressure more often than not is not direct. It is an especially powerful force because it is subtle.

If you're around people who believe that it is good to spend all you make, then you have increased the odds exponentially that you will spend all you make. If you are around people who go to more parties than concerts, the chances are excellent that you'll do the same thing. And, if you are around people who don't read, chances are excellent that you won't read.

Yes, peer pressure is subtle. It’s like the fog, as poet Robert Frost once said that, “creeps in on little cat feet.” Suddenly it has enveloped you and you lose your perspective. You cannot see things clearly.

Understanding the power of peer pressure is essential to lead a good life. People, many with good intentions can keep nudging us off course a little at a time until finally, we find ourselves asking, "What happened?" or “How did I arrive at these circumstances?”

Be aware of the subtle influences of peer pressure. Be a keen observer and when you are your life is much more likely to turn out the way you planned.

On what course is peer pressure taking you?

About Author :
First things first, I like to have fun with people and what I do. I am a personal business coach.Yes, I have received training and been coaching since 1983. I have gone through and continue to happily go through more personal development.
Personal development and its quest for personal growth, more often than not, are the missing links in the chain of business and personal success.As Warren Buffett once said, “Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”

For more information please visit : http://www.thehoustonbusinesscoach.com
http://www.businesskeystosuccess.com/

Business Keys To Success: Focus And Leadership

Control Your Internal Wheel

Control can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing.  For most people, the first thing they think of is that if I am in control that’s good and if someone else is then it is not.

Over years in my personal business coaching practice I have observed while collaborating with and supporting self-employed business owners, entrepreneurs, solo professionals, corporate managers, executives and individuals that most of them when they here the word “control” think of it externally.  Externally means either they are controlling someone or they are being controlled by someone.

To have small business success or any success for that matter, understanding and practicing internal control is essential.

Control What’s On The Inside

Yet, the most important control is not external.  It is internal.  Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, one of the greatest coaches who ever lived, said, “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”

Wooden was known for stressing excellence to his players and encouraging them to work toward their potential.  He understood that what was happening on the inside controlled what was manifested on the outside.
 
Focus On What’s Under Your Control

He never made winning a championship his goal.  He focused on the journey, not the destination.  He and his players focused on being the best they could be on the inside.  And he had some major challenges with his star players including his famous center, Bill Walton.

Yet his work ethic and focus on the things within his control and imparting that to his players earned his UCLA teams four undefeated seasons, an eighty-eighth game winning streak, and an incredible ten national championships.  No one had ever done that before him, and no one has done it since.

Control Is Necessary For Greater Success

Coach Wooden focused on the journey, not the destination.  As you move forward on your success journey you need to remember that what happens in you is more important than what happens to you.

You can control your attitudes as you travel on this journey but you need to remember that you have no control over the actions of others.  You may influence someone but you can’t control them.  Too often, people mistake influence for control and end up being disappointed.

Control Comes From Self-Education

As you move forward learning internal control is part of your self-education process.  It doesn’t come from online training, online courses, corporate training, continuing education or business training.  All of these can add to your perspective on control.  But ultimately control resides inside of you.

Be In Control And Reduce Stress

Unfortunately, the majority of the fear and stress that people experience in life is from things they can do nothing about.  Don’t let that happen to you.  Be in control.see more at : www.thehoustonbusinesscoach.com

Business Keys To Success: Connection

Connection

John Maxwell in his book, “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” talks about the importance of connection.  The following is an excerpt from this book.

Connection For Stronger Relationships

The stronger the relationship you form with followers, the greater the connection you forge—and the more likely those followers will be to want to help you.  Whether you’re speaking in front of a large audience or chatting in the hallway with an individual, the guidelines are the same.

• Connect with Yourself:  you must know show you are and have confidence in yourself if you desire to connect with others.
• Communicate with Openness and Sincerity:  Legendary NFL coach Bill Walsh said, “Nothing is more effective than sincere, accurate praise, and nothing is more lame than a cookie-cutter compliment.”
• Know Your Audience:  Lean people’s names, find out about their histories, and ask about their dreams. Speak to what why care about.
• Live Your Message:  Practice what you preach. That’s where credibility comes from.
• Go to where They are:  I dislike any kind of barrier to communication. I adapt to others; I don’t expect them to adapt to me.

Connection With Focus, Belief and Direction

• Focus on Them, Not Yourself:  The number one problem of inexperienced speakers and ineffective leaders is that they focus on themselves.
• Believe in Them:  It’s one thing to communicate to people because you believe you have something of value to say.  Its’ another to communicate with people because you believe they have value.
• Offer Direction and Hope:  French general Napoleon Bonaparte said, “Leaders are dealers in hope.”

Connection With Intention

Intentionally connect with the people you lead today.Make a difference in your life and the lives of others. Connection is the key.
See more at : http://www.thehoustonbusinesscoach.com

Business Keys To Success: Leadership

Leadership-Be Out Front

One of my favorite quotations on leadership states, “Leadership isn’t taught.  It is caught.”  I can assure you that in my career as a self-employed business owner and as a personal business coach that there are several people who served me well as excellent role models of leadership.

In fact today, when I am in leadership positions, I refer back to some of those experiences to help guide me and make me a better leader.

Leadership-Think In A Larger Context

One of the things I have learned is that good leadership thinks in a broader context.  Leaders start by asking themselves, how will this impact my people or those around me?  But they go one step further.  They look at the impact on those above them and below them.

They look at things in the larger context.  They try to see everything in terms of the entire organization and beyond.

Leadership—Be Global

Good leadership has the ability to be global.  Leaders that are global have the ability to create the positive vision of the future that they and their team want to accomplish.  But in being global they also see how what they are doing will have in impact on other areas of the organization.

Or, if they are a self-employed business owner, entrepreneur or solo professional, how they are going to have to change and what other changes are going to happen in order to grow the business and have small business success.

Leadership Is Influence

As John Maxwell says, “Leadership is influence.”  You can extend your leadership skills even further if you have what I call a spectrum component to add to the global outlook.

The spectrum component is the ability to see in broad terms the steps, time lines and project management that will be needed to take the team to the realization of the goal.

Leadership involves many other things but the above are a start.  Start looking at things in the larger context.  This leads to more global thinking.  Provide a linear or spectrum component, or what I call, the “how tos.”

But in the end, your leadership will be as effective as your influence.  Leadership is creating in others today a future willingness to follow you into something new for the sake of something great.  And the great leadership stories are about just that.  Leadership is about taking a group of followers into something new and ending up with something great.See more at : http://www.thehoustonbusinesscoach.com

Business Keys To Success: Self-Discipline

The road to success and ultimately more happiness is paved with self-discipline.  Author H. Jackson Brown Jr. said, “Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates.  There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.”  If you know you have talent, and you’ve seen a lot of motion—but little concrete results—you may lack self-discipline.  The road to small business success, or any success for that matter and happiness is paved with self-discipline.

Self-discipline-Sort Out Your Priorities

What two or three areas of your life are vital to your success?  Write them down, along with the disciplines that you must develop to keep growing and improving in those areas.  Develop the disciplines and more importantly develop an action plan with concrete steps that you must apply whether it is daily or weekly.  Plan how they are going to become part of your life.

Self-discipline-List the Reasons

What are the benefits of practicing the disciplines you just listed?  Starting something new is not easy.  Without a positive vision of the benefits it is more challenging to follow through.  Post these benefits somewhere where you will see them daily.  In my personal business coaching practice I have observed the importance of constant visualization of what we want to accomplish and how it gives impetus to making it a reality.

Self-discipline—Get Rid of Excuses

Whether you are a self-employed business owner, entrepreneur, solo professional or corporate manager or executive all of us come up with excuses as to why we are not getting things done.  To eliminate the roadblocks to developing your new disciplines write down the reasons as to why you may not be able to follow through with them.  Read through them.  And then dismiss them as the excuses they are.

Here’s the hard part.  Even if a reason seems legitimate, find a solution to overcome it.  Don’t leave yourself any reasons to quit.  Remember that a discipline is the bridge between a thought and an action.  Only when you have the discipline to act do you have the power to achieve your dreams.

There is a nursery in Canada that displays this sign on their wall:  “The best time to plant a tree is twenty-five years ago…..The second best time is today.”  Plant the tree of self-discipline in your life today. see more at : http://www.thehoustonbusinesscoach.com

Houston Business Coach Steve Scott Teaches Key Leadership and Business Skills For Small Business Owners

In the last 35 years, Houston Business Coach, Steve Scott has started and built up several businesses. They ranged from a sole proprietorship to a multimillion dollar corporation with 80 employees. He’s worked in a variety of industries including financial, service, retail, manufacturing and international markets. Those experiences combined make Scott an ideal business coach to work with small business owners and solo entrepreneurs to tackle key skills that may be holding them back in making their business successful.

Sandy Vilas, CEO, CoachInc.com, MCC explains that Steve Scott has a gift of taking difficult concepts and putting them into ways that she can understand and remember. “For me, his approach and memorable stories have created pathways for greater accomplishment. Steve has given me a clarity of thought that has helped me see through the fog, and focus on the future.”

Scott’s goal as a business and life coach is to collaborate with and support professionals and business owners who are committed to having more in their businesses and lives. He works with clients who understand that through coaching they will have the accountability to create the future in business and life that they desire.

“I have known Steve Scott for over 40 years and I am hard pressed to think of anyone that I trust more and have more respect for,” Bryan Gorrie, Retirement and Business Coach says, “Steve is not only a good friend but someone that is deeply committed to supporting people in attaining what is most important to them in their lives.” Gorrie originally coached Steve to get trained as a coach because he saw a passion for working with others to find their bliss and attain new levels of success in their lives.

Client Reiland Larry, Owner at The Water’s Edge Spa says, “Steve Scott has provided me a way to find my own path in this complex world in which we live and work. He is the ‘Coach’ in every sense of the word!”

Scott’s coaching style utilizes stories and examples as well as real world application so clients can go out and make real changes to their business and themselves to become more successful. He’s built up a solid reputation as “The Houston Business Coach” over the last seven years and in recent years; he’s gained national and international coaching clients who appreciate his warm manner, true listening skills and practical solutions.

Learn more about Steve Scott, “The Houston Business Coach” at: http://www.thehoustonbusinesscoach.com.