By Nicholas Kristof
New York Times
“Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution.
Read the entire article "Saving the World's Women"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23Women-t.html?_r=1
Watch the audio slideshow "A Powerful Truth"
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/20/magazine/kristof-audioss/index.html
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
15 Things on the Verge of Extinction in America
15. U.S. Post Office
They are pricing themselves out of existence. With e-mail, and and on-line services they are a relic of the past. Packages are also sent faster and cheaper with UPS.
14. Yellow Pages
This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry. Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like Reach Local and Yodel Factors. One research firm predicts the falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even reach 10% this year - much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.
13. Classified Ads
The Internet has made so many things obsolete that newspaper classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that could signal the end of civilization as we know it. The argument is that if newspaper classifies are replaced by free on-line listings at sites like Craigslist.org and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind them.
12. Movie Rental Stores
While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000 left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is down considerably. Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost already.
11. Dial-up Internet Access
Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10%. The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access.
10. Phone Land Lines
According to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only and, of those homes that had land lines, one in eight only received calls on their cells.
9. VCRs
For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be found. They served us so well.
8. The Swimming Hole
Thanks to our litigious society, swimming holes are becoming a thing of the past. '20/20' reports that swimming hole owners, like Robert Every in High Falls, NY, are shutting them down out of worry that if someone gets hurt they'll sue. And that's exactly what happened in Seattle. The city of Bellingham was sued by Katie Hofstetter who was paralyzed in a fall at a popular swimming hole in Whatcom Falls Park. As injuries occur and lawsuits follow, expect more swimming holes to post 'Keep out!' signs.
7. Cameras That Use Film
It doesn't require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance of the film camera in America. Just look to companies like Nikon, the professional's choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006, it announced that it would stop making film cameras, pointing to the shrinking market - only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to 75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.
6. Incandescent Bulbs
Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes, 100-watt) bulb was the mainstay of every U.S. home. With the green movement and all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era incandescent bulb. The EPA reports that 2007 sales for Energy Star CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for approximately 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb market. And according to USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase out incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years.
5. The Milkman
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1950, over half of the milk delivered was to the home in quart bottles, by 1963, it was about a third and by 2001, it represented only 0.4% percent. Nowadays most milk is sold through supermarkets in gallon jugs.. The steady decline in home-delivered milk is blamed, of course, on the rise of the supermarket, better home refrigeration and longer-lasting milk. Although some milkmen still make the rounds in pockets of the U.S., they are certainly a dying breed.
4. Hand-Written Letters
In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world's population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant, polite hand-written letter?
3. Wild Horses
It is estimated that 100 years ago, as many as two million horses were roaming free within the United States. In 2001, National Geographic News estimated that the wild horse population has decreased to about 50,000 head. Currently, the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory board states that there are 32,000 free roaming horses in ten Western states, with half of them residing in Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management is seeking to reduce the total number of free range horses to 27,000, possibly by selective euthanasia.
2. Personal Checks
According to an American Bankers Assoc. report, a net 23% of consumers plan to decrease their use of checks over the next two years, while a net 14% plan to increase their use of PIN debit. Bill payment remains the last stronghold of paper-based payments - for the time being. Checks continue to be the most commonly used bill payment method, with 71% of consumers paying at least one recurring bill per month by writing a check. However, a bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers' recurring bill payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).
1. Honey Bees
Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing America is so dire; plummeting so enormously; and so necessary to the survival of our food supply as the honey bee. Very scary.. 'Colony Collapse Disorder,' or CCD, has spread throughout the U.S.. and Europe over the past few years, wiping out 50% to 90% of the colonies of many beekeepers - and along with it, their livelihood.
All good things come to an end, but it's interesting and sometimes saddening, isn't it?
They are pricing themselves out of existence. With e-mail, and and on-line services they are a relic of the past. Packages are also sent faster and cheaper with UPS.
14. Yellow Pages
This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry. Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like Reach Local and Yodel Factors. One research firm predicts the falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even reach 10% this year - much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.
13. Classified Ads
The Internet has made so many things obsolete that newspaper classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that could signal the end of civilization as we know it. The argument is that if newspaper classifies are replaced by free on-line listings at sites like Craigslist.org and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind them.
12. Movie Rental Stores
While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000 left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is down considerably. Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost already.
11. Dial-up Internet Access
Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10%. The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access.
10. Phone Land Lines
According to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only and, of those homes that had land lines, one in eight only received calls on their cells.
9. VCRs
For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be found. They served us so well.
8. The Swimming Hole
Thanks to our litigious society, swimming holes are becoming a thing of the past. '20/20' reports that swimming hole owners, like Robert Every in High Falls, NY, are shutting them down out of worry that if someone gets hurt they'll sue. And that's exactly what happened in Seattle. The city of Bellingham was sued by Katie Hofstetter who was paralyzed in a fall at a popular swimming hole in Whatcom Falls Park. As injuries occur and lawsuits follow, expect more swimming holes to post 'Keep out!' signs.
7. Cameras That Use Film
It doesn't require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance of the film camera in America. Just look to companies like Nikon, the professional's choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006, it announced that it would stop making film cameras, pointing to the shrinking market - only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to 75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.
6. Incandescent Bulbs
Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes, 100-watt) bulb was the mainstay of every U.S. home. With the green movement and all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era incandescent bulb. The EPA reports that 2007 sales for Energy Star CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for approximately 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb market. And according to USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase out incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years.
5. The Milkman
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1950, over half of the milk delivered was to the home in quart bottles, by 1963, it was about a third and by 2001, it represented only 0.4% percent. Nowadays most milk is sold through supermarkets in gallon jugs.. The steady decline in home-delivered milk is blamed, of course, on the rise of the supermarket, better home refrigeration and longer-lasting milk. Although some milkmen still make the rounds in pockets of the U.S., they are certainly a dying breed.
4. Hand-Written Letters
In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world's population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant, polite hand-written letter?
3. Wild Horses
It is estimated that 100 years ago, as many as two million horses were roaming free within the United States. In 2001, National Geographic News estimated that the wild horse population has decreased to about 50,000 head. Currently, the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory board states that there are 32,000 free roaming horses in ten Western states, with half of them residing in Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management is seeking to reduce the total number of free range horses to 27,000, possibly by selective euthanasia.
2. Personal Checks
According to an American Bankers Assoc. report, a net 23% of consumers plan to decrease their use of checks over the next two years, while a net 14% plan to increase their use of PIN debit. Bill payment remains the last stronghold of paper-based payments - for the time being. Checks continue to be the most commonly used bill payment method, with 71% of consumers paying at least one recurring bill per month by writing a check. However, a bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers' recurring bill payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).
1. Honey Bees
Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing America is so dire; plummeting so enormously; and so necessary to the survival of our food supply as the honey bee. Very scary.. 'Colony Collapse Disorder,' or CCD, has spread throughout the U.S.. and Europe over the past few years, wiping out 50% to 90% of the colonies of many beekeepers - and along with it, their livelihood.
All good things come to an end, but it's interesting and sometimes saddening, isn't it?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Scale Every Business Needs Now
(I wholeheartedly agree with the sage and poignant critique of where business went awry and how we can set it right! Trish)
Beancounter 1: "Our new widgets business — we think it's amazing".
Beancounter 2: "We've ridden the learning curve, the product mix is optimized, the supply chain's streamlined, the market's tightly segmented."
Beancounter 3: "But we've got a burning question for you, Umair — will it scale?"
UH: "You know what doesn't scale? The point. Dudes, welcome to the 21st Century. It's so not about pushing more toxic junk at people."
Beancounters 1, 2, and 3: (enraged, attack UH with pitchforks).
That's what happened to me not so long ago in one of the anonymous boardrooms of the universe. And it's happened quite a few times over the last few months. So in the interest of my own personal safety, let me explain the scale every business should strive for today.
Here's what the economic historians of the 23rd Century are going to say about the 20th.
"They built giant, globe-spanning organizations, that employed tens of thousands of people working around the clock, to produce... sugar water, fast food, disposable razors, and gas guzzlers. Perhaps the defining characteristic of the paradigm of 20th Century capitalism was its astonishing lack of ambition. Rarely in history has such a void, a poverty of imagination been so deeply woven into the fabric of humankind's economic systems."
The old scale was about stuff. Do your distribution channels, your factories, your giant evil marketing campaigns, your cashflows scale? Sadly, today, that's the first question most CEOs, investors, and assorted execs ask. But it's the wrong question.
Everything scaled in the 20th Century except what mattered most. What never scaled was ambition. That's what 21st Century scale is about — and it's the basis for both next-generation advantage and a more authentic prosperity.
In the 21st century, "stuff" is a commodity. The stuff of scale — low-cost labour, materials, processes, even service — can be bought from the lowest bidder with a mouse click. Foxconn, Gokaldas, and Pou Chen are, respectively, Apple's, the Gap's, and Nike's biggest (or close enough to it) suppliers — and increasingly, anyone with a few million can buy yesterday's scale from them for peanuts. Try leasing a pop-up store in your local mall or high street, to sell it — again, for peanuts.
The real question for today's builders is: what are you going to do with that raw stuff? Are you going to use it to pump out more sugar water — or are you going to do something radically constructive instead? Are you going to do something merely innovative — or something world-changingly awesome?
If it's the former, wave bye bye: an organization that has a bigger ambition will do radically more with the same resources — yielding an almost inexorable, unstoppable advantage. It's what Google did to big media, Apple did to big music, and Wal-Mart's doing to...itself.
From whence, then, ambitionlessness? By design. 20th Century organizations were built to have strategic intent. The point of a strategic intent is merely to best rivals. That's the opposite of an ambition: it's just combat. Yesterday's organizations were missing the burning desire to improve on yesterday in their very DNA. That's what reduced them to passionless machines — and it's what ultimately made our lives smaller, our economies less vibrant, and our societies poorer.
A real ambition, in contrast is a living expression of how an organizaton answers the four-word challenge of 21st Century economics. Twenty-first Century businesses have ambition — at giganto-mega-universe-sized scale instead. "To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible:" now there's an ambition at scale.
Twenty-first Century scale is about ambition, not stuff. So here's a killer question to kick off 2010: Does your ambition scale?
An ambition that scales is one that takes an organization already creating thick value, and expands it to affirmatively answer the three questions below:
Beancounter 1: "Our new widgets business — we think it's amazing".
Beancounter 2: "We've ridden the learning curve, the product mix is optimized, the supply chain's streamlined, the market's tightly segmented."
Beancounter 3: "But we've got a burning question for you, Umair — will it scale?"
UH: "You know what doesn't scale? The point. Dudes, welcome to the 21st Century. It's so not about pushing more toxic junk at people."
Beancounters 1, 2, and 3: (enraged, attack UH with pitchforks).
That's what happened to me not so long ago in one of the anonymous boardrooms of the universe. And it's happened quite a few times over the last few months. So in the interest of my own personal safety, let me explain the scale every business should strive for today.
Here's what the economic historians of the 23rd Century are going to say about the 20th.
"They built giant, globe-spanning organizations, that employed tens of thousands of people working around the clock, to produce... sugar water, fast food, disposable razors, and gas guzzlers. Perhaps the defining characteristic of the paradigm of 20th Century capitalism was its astonishing lack of ambition. Rarely in history has such a void, a poverty of imagination been so deeply woven into the fabric of humankind's economic systems."
The old scale was about stuff. Do your distribution channels, your factories, your giant evil marketing campaigns, your cashflows scale? Sadly, today, that's the first question most CEOs, investors, and assorted execs ask. But it's the wrong question.
Everything scaled in the 20th Century except what mattered most. What never scaled was ambition. That's what 21st Century scale is about — and it's the basis for both next-generation advantage and a more authentic prosperity.
In the 21st century, "stuff" is a commodity. The stuff of scale — low-cost labour, materials, processes, even service — can be bought from the lowest bidder with a mouse click. Foxconn, Gokaldas, and Pou Chen are, respectively, Apple's, the Gap's, and Nike's biggest (or close enough to it) suppliers — and increasingly, anyone with a few million can buy yesterday's scale from them for peanuts. Try leasing a pop-up store in your local mall or high street, to sell it — again, for peanuts.
The real question for today's builders is: what are you going to do with that raw stuff? Are you going to use it to pump out more sugar water — or are you going to do something radically constructive instead? Are you going to do something merely innovative — or something world-changingly awesome?
If it's the former, wave bye bye: an organization that has a bigger ambition will do radically more with the same resources — yielding an almost inexorable, unstoppable advantage. It's what Google did to big media, Apple did to big music, and Wal-Mart's doing to...itself.
From whence, then, ambitionlessness? By design. 20th Century organizations were built to have strategic intent. The point of a strategic intent is merely to best rivals. That's the opposite of an ambition: it's just combat. Yesterday's organizations were missing the burning desire to improve on yesterday in their very DNA. That's what reduced them to passionless machines — and it's what ultimately made our lives smaller, our economies less vibrant, and our societies poorer.
A real ambition, in contrast is a living expression of how an organizaton answers the four-word challenge of 21st Century economics. Twenty-first Century businesses have ambition — at giganto-mega-universe-sized scale instead. "To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible:" now there's an ambition at scale.
Twenty-first Century scale is about ambition, not stuff. So here's a killer question to kick off 2010: Does your ambition scale?
An ambition that scales is one that takes an organization already creating thick value, and expands it to affirmatively answer the three questions below:
- Is it globe-spanning?
- Is it world-changing?
- Is it life-altering?
Thursday, January 14, 2010
10 Critical Points When Seeking Capital
By Kirk Taylor
http://sbenco.com/
Here are 10 critical points when seeking capital. The ideas are based off my experiences. They will ring true for you too, don't doubt them, don't dismiss them and you will find yourself in a considerably stronger negotiating position for whatever comes your way.
http://sbenco.com/
Here are 10 critical points when seeking capital. The ideas are based off my experiences. They will ring true for you too, don't doubt them, don't dismiss them and you will find yourself in a considerably stronger negotiating position for whatever comes your way.
- Investors rarely do what they say they will do. They get cold feet, they try to renegotiate, and they will risk destroying their previous investment for the opportunity to grab even a stronger position.
- When an investor tells you that you are going to be good friends and they want to hang out, RUN. This is not a good situation. Great investors don't hang out with you, they are focused on making sure the investment performs. It is business and they don't want to mix business with pleasure. Too many strings attached with this type of person. Investors should be business partners, never friends.
- When a Venture Capitalist or Institutional fund says they will commit to investing, the money always comes 3-6 months after they promised the money. There is always an excuse, a reason for delaying. You only secured the money when the check has been written and the money is in the bank.
- Never spend investment money that has not been received. Too many times the investor is late or never comes through. You don't want to be stuck figuring out a backup strategy to keep your business from failing. Nothing is for sure, until it happened.
- Never take an investor in your business if you are debt free, cash flow positive. Grow slower and deliberately. It is not worth giving up your ability to run your company as you wish. When you take on the new investor, you now have to run the company with the best interest of the shareholders, not yourself.
- Always take an equity investor over debt. Equity does not require it to be paid back, debt does and it causes you to take longer to get to cash-flow Positive. Always be focused on making profit and having positive cash flow as fast as possible.
- If you think taking money from a particular investor is a bad idea, even if it is just for a split second, don't! That investor will become your worst nightmare when you need them most. You do not need a spoiler on your team.
- Owning 51% of the business only gives you control when your business has sufficient capital to operate or you are able to raise capital from alternate sources to ensure your business has sufficient capital. Your other investors and potentially creditors can force you to sell them equity in the business as whatever price they want. It does not matter how much of the business you own, the business and the board must act on behalf of the shareholders best interest. (hence, the hostile takeover)
- When your investor says yes to purchasing stock, don't count on them coming through, but use the momentum to seek other investors until you have secured the investment amount you have been seeking.
- Currently it is my belief that entrepreneurs should avoid starting businesses that require substantial investment capital from outside sources and/or businesses that will require future investment. The market is to volatile, the laws are unsettling, and businesses that are not self-sustaining are riskier than ever in current market conditions. You are better off reformulating your business plan to a business that require no or minimal capital to launch. You will be happy you did.
Monday, January 11, 2010
A Few Thoughts on Winter...
By Jim Rohn, The Seasons of Life
"Let winter find you planning for the arrival of spring, not contemplating the errors of commission and omission of last year. Let winter find you with a joyful countenance and a happy heart... with a good word for all those around you; with confidence in the future, not apprehension; and finally, with gratitude for your achievements, adversities, and uncertainties of life, for each is a form of blessing which removes all limitations from the future possibilities of life.
Winter is a time for examining, pondering, and introspection. It is a time for re-evaluating both purpose and procedure - for rediscovering an often misplace sense of purpose. It is a time for finding new ways for solving old dilemmas, and for devising unique plans for contributing to others, less fortunate than ourselves. It is a time for understanding and controlling anger, that frequent human emotion which causes us to pass judgment without fair deliberation. It is a time to analyze our fairness and to overcome our tendency to hastily spew forth condemnation without full investigation, for such is the height of ignorance.
Winter is a time for being sincere with ourselves, about ourselves, when the tendency is to fool ourselves. It is a time for developing skills that allow us to get along with imperfect people, for even a fool can get along with perfect people. It is also a time for becoming wise enough to know what to say. The wisdom that comes with the careful use of winter teaches us also that evolution is merely revolution at a slower pace, and that constant gradual change is the order of the universe. Only those worthy human attributes of honesty, loyalty, love, and trust in God and in our fellow man are meant to remain constant. Winter is a time for being grateful for our achievements, or for having endured our lack of achievement."
Winter is a time for examining, pondering, and introspection. It is a time for re-evaluating both purpose and procedure - for rediscovering an often misplace sense of purpose. It is a time for finding new ways for solving old dilemmas, and for devising unique plans for contributing to others, less fortunate than ourselves. It is a time for understanding and controlling anger, that frequent human emotion which causes us to pass judgment without fair deliberation. It is a time to analyze our fairness and to overcome our tendency to hastily spew forth condemnation without full investigation, for such is the height of ignorance.
Winter is a time for being sincere with ourselves, about ourselves, when the tendency is to fool ourselves. It is a time for developing skills that allow us to get along with imperfect people, for even a fool can get along with perfect people. It is also a time for becoming wise enough to know what to say. The wisdom that comes with the careful use of winter teaches us also that evolution is merely revolution at a slower pace, and that constant gradual change is the order of the universe. Only those worthy human attributes of honesty, loyalty, love, and trust in God and in our fellow man are meant to remain constant. Winter is a time for being grateful for our achievements, or for having endured our lack of achievement."
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Ready to Move Beyond Mediocrity in 2010?
Goodbye, 2009! Hello, 2010! New year… new decade. New resolutions to be better, work harder and attain more. But how? If it were that easy to change our lives, wouldn’t we have done it already? How do we say farewell to mediocrity in the coming year and learn how to thrive?
Webster’s defines mediocrity as “moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance.” Ugh.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I intend to make 2010 a great year. In order to fulfill that promise to myself, it is necessary to put some concrete plans in place today to facilitate success in the future. We all possess internal tools that can help take us beyond blasé and make our lives an affront to mediocrity.
There are three key elements to keep in mind when embarking on any new life trend:
1. Attitude
You can’t excel if you don’t believe you can, so you have to find creative ways to stay encouraged and inspired.
2. Action
Thinking happy thoughts and setting aggressive intentions isn’t ever enough. You have to change your behaviors.
3. Accountability
Follow through and commitment will help you transform a short term resolution into a new lifelong habit.
Six months… are you ready to kick your life up to the next level? In this upcoming series we’ll explore:
Courage. We all tend to be a little timid and fearful about change – no matter how passionately we give lip service to our dreams. Courage gives you the strength to take risks and move beyond historically dependable behaviors and conventional approaches to discover a whole vigorous new you underneath.
Fresh Perspective. Before you tackle any great task, you have to make peace with the possibility of both triumph or failure. You are neither as fabulous as your latest achievement nor as pathetic as your most recent defeat. Get ruthless about stretching your intellect and finding the path of least resistance to your destiny.
Inaction. I know, I know… I just talked about action. But all action is not physical. There is the crucial element of quiet reflection that also bears remembering. As the yin to action’s yang, give yourself space to relax, quit trying harder and experience a personal revolution. Slow down and shift gears so that you can hit your maximum velocity.
Uncommon sense. Logic is important. But so are intuition and elegant solutions that come to us in daydreams. While you don’t want to blithely leap off a cliff to your doom, sometimes we have to take a step of faith before the true path becomes clear before us. Your heart always knows the way forward before your head figures it out, so trust your gut and stand back as amazing things unfold in your world.
Suspended disbelief. Disbelief is the enemy of innovation and progress. If you truly want to manifest greatness, you must believe that success is possible - that you have all the tools you need to reach your goal – and, most importantly, that you have infinite worth and truly deserve the fulfillment of all your secret hopes and desires.
Encouragement. Any long-term life shift that you sustain is powered by a vivid picture of the dazzling impact you can make on the world, and that vision breeds endurance to drive relentlessly toward your target. The gift of encouragement can certainly come from others, but you must find within yourself the strength and fortitude to weather storms and to ignore the disapproval of others. A few trusted supporters combined with your own confidence will give you the power to build a firm foundation with the bricks that are thrown at you.
Right now, in this moment, you are capable of exponential improvement in your performance. You truly do have the ability to reach new highs, shatter old records and attain amazing achievements. You don’t have to be content with the status quo or improve things incrementally. Let’s take the next six months and move beyond mediocrity together!
Webster’s defines mediocrity as “moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance.” Ugh.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I intend to make 2010 a great year. In order to fulfill that promise to myself, it is necessary to put some concrete plans in place today to facilitate success in the future. We all possess internal tools that can help take us beyond blasé and make our lives an affront to mediocrity.
There are three key elements to keep in mind when embarking on any new life trend:
1. Attitude
You can’t excel if you don’t believe you can, so you have to find creative ways to stay encouraged and inspired.
2. Action
Thinking happy thoughts and setting aggressive intentions isn’t ever enough. You have to change your behaviors.
3. Accountability
Follow through and commitment will help you transform a short term resolution into a new lifelong habit.
Six months… are you ready to kick your life up to the next level? In this upcoming series we’ll explore:
Courage. We all tend to be a little timid and fearful about change – no matter how passionately we give lip service to our dreams. Courage gives you the strength to take risks and move beyond historically dependable behaviors and conventional approaches to discover a whole vigorous new you underneath.
Fresh Perspective. Before you tackle any great task, you have to make peace with the possibility of both triumph or failure. You are neither as fabulous as your latest achievement nor as pathetic as your most recent defeat. Get ruthless about stretching your intellect and finding the path of least resistance to your destiny.
Inaction. I know, I know… I just talked about action. But all action is not physical. There is the crucial element of quiet reflection that also bears remembering. As the yin to action’s yang, give yourself space to relax, quit trying harder and experience a personal revolution. Slow down and shift gears so that you can hit your maximum velocity.
Uncommon sense. Logic is important. But so are intuition and elegant solutions that come to us in daydreams. While you don’t want to blithely leap off a cliff to your doom, sometimes we have to take a step of faith before the true path becomes clear before us. Your heart always knows the way forward before your head figures it out, so trust your gut and stand back as amazing things unfold in your world.
Suspended disbelief. Disbelief is the enemy of innovation and progress. If you truly want to manifest greatness, you must believe that success is possible - that you have all the tools you need to reach your goal – and, most importantly, that you have infinite worth and truly deserve the fulfillment of all your secret hopes and desires.
Encouragement. Any long-term life shift that you sustain is powered by a vivid picture of the dazzling impact you can make on the world, and that vision breeds endurance to drive relentlessly toward your target. The gift of encouragement can certainly come from others, but you must find within yourself the strength and fortitude to weather storms and to ignore the disapproval of others. A few trusted supporters combined with your own confidence will give you the power to build a firm foundation with the bricks that are thrown at you.
Right now, in this moment, you are capable of exponential improvement in your performance. You truly do have the ability to reach new highs, shatter old records and attain amazing achievements. You don’t have to be content with the status quo or improve things incrementally. Let’s take the next six months and move beyond mediocrity together!
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