Preparation - Be Prepared to Succeed

1.What does it mean to prepare?

Preparation is a principle where you get yourself ready to do something and do it well. It could be getting ready for a future event, a milestone or even the accomplishment of a project. If you are making something, for example a meal or baking a cake you are meticulous in your preparation so that the outcome is acceptable and enjoyable by others. Preparation is a life principle. It applies whether you want to produce a work of art, an enjoyable meal or a successful business. What you produce in life is a result of your level of readiness. What you do behind the scenes when no one is watching is more important than what you get to showcase. Preparation, though costly, is worth it because the results will show in one's life. A successful life means that you prosper financially, in your career, in your health, mentally as well as spiritually. If you look around that person's life there's nothing you can pinpoint as not working and it takes readiness and preparation. It follows then that in order for you to prepare you must have a vision, a goal or an object of attainment. What is your desired outcome? Decide what it will take to accomplish it and put a plan in place.

2.When do you prepare?

You do not prepare on the day of battle, performance or execution. Speak to any mother and they will tell you that you do not do "preparation" for the baby the day she is born. The wedded will tell you that for the day to be glorious there is a lot of effort and resources that are invested in the success of that event. If you should ace that interview, you cannot prepare on the day and expect to be successful. I have spent many years in sales and marketing. I have learned that going for a sales pitch or a product demonstration with a prospective client demands preparation. Ill- preparation simply leads to a diminished likelihood of your product being bought by the client. Professional athletes do not practice on match day. The movie stars we admire and love to watch have taken years honing their skill. The same can be said of musicians, medical professionals, engineers, teachers, in fact everyone who takes what they do seriously.

Preparation is done in advance. How far in advance depends on the undertaking. Some things take a year, a month, a week or a day. Yet others will take decades and a lifetime of doing it over and over again. Just a thought: we prepare our children for a lifetime of success by training them and teaching them good habits whilst we live with them. That way, they will know what to do even when you are not there to instruct them.

3.Why should you prepare?

Preparation ensures victory. Do you have plans? What preparations have you put in place for their accomplishment. If you go into a battle ill-prepared you will be outwitted, outplayed and outmanoeuvred by your opponent. Master farmers understand the need to prepare their fields for a great harvest. What have you done so far to ensure that this year is better than last year? Some new year's resolutions are laughable because they will simply not be achieved. The reason is because they are made out of tradition without putting in place mechanisms for attainment. In the event that you do not win you have the assurance that you did you best, you came prepared and it just wasn't your day. You minimize your chances of regret when you take the time to condition yourself mentally, spiritually, emotionally and physically for what you are about to face. The other reason is that you are nurturing a good habit for success that will pay off at a certain stage of your life. So you are not just preparing for the specific event but you are building yourself up as a person.

4. How do you prepare?

Are you looking at a "next level" move in your business,career or relationships? Get ready! Maybe it's time to launch that new product or improve on your current offering. For some people it might mean enrolling for school or an online course to gain a new skill if the objective is to find a new job or a promotion. For others it may mean putting together a physical fitness plan in order to participate in that gruelling marathon that you have been putting off for a long time. As I mentioned earlier, the nature of your preparation and the length of your preparation is determined by what you are getting ready for. If you sense that you can achieve great things if you had a bit of guidance get a mentor or a coach. The help you get will bring out the best in you.

In conclusion, you may be the kind of person that spontaneously jumps into things without much preparation or consideration of what it will take to win in that endeavour. It's not too late to develop a culture of preparation. For the things that you need to know that you do not know there are plenty of resources online, books, tutorial videos. You can tap into that wisdom and most of all there could be someone, somewhere in your network that has already walked the journey you are about to embark on. Have a chat with them and you'll be surprised what insights you will get. A wise man once said, "It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one, that to have an opportunity and not be prepared for it"

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The Training

Preparation is the Mother of skill. Understanding is the Father of skill. We all love to win, but who loves to train? With all of the variations of those quotes I have used over the years so many times, and in so many ways. I still act and genuinely feel that my own advice is fresh meat I am biting on as if it is new meat freshly killed for survival. Indeed, I am like a rabid wolf chomping on reality when it comes to what counts. I named this article the training because reality is mostly preparation, and the actual action compared to that training is not too much compared to the training it takes to take the genuinely winning actions.

I remember the "Rocky" movies (yes, the "Rocky" movies with Sylvester Stallone), every last one of them including the "Creed" movies so far. Most of the movies as you would astutely notice are not about the fight, most of those movies are about the preparation, training and drama, actually very little winning when you really and realistically think about them. So, that brings me to a point: Reality that is won and successful depends mostly on your preparation to handle it. Think about a singer like Susan Boyle, as a better example than the "Rocky" movie example: She was at least thirty years of preparation, singing in her bathroom mirror and in small halls and training, and a few moments on a big show of winning. That is my point, miracles happen, I believe in them and everything, but they take preparation to be valid and working in a genuine sense that is lasting, or the miracle is just genuine "flash in the pan" luck without that substance to make it last if the miracle successfully happens.

Indeed, we must evolve, grow and prepare to make a miracle work for us genuinely and permanently. The genuine failure in life is to depend on luck and miracles from the beginning without preparation or understanding of what is happening. To appreciate and understand anything fully without doubts or fears, we must train. As Yoda essentially said in "Star Wars, Episode Five: The Empire Strikes Back": There is not try, only do. In the sense I am writing about, that is reality. The person who depends on luck and miracles without preparation essentially tries even if they do succeed, and does not do and just depends on a lucky break or a "miracle" prayer to succeed without consciousness or conscience. The prepared person always does, especially when they genuinely succeed, and if they fail, it is a slip and not a fall, only to succeed later through a better of consciousness and conscience of what needs and wants to be done. So, essentially, to really win without doubt and repeatable results, we must genuinely train and desire, or winning means nothing but a "flash in the pan" like the lucky single three-point shot in a basketball game from mid-court that is not easily repeatable because it is a "buzzer miracle". In this sense, there is not try, only do, also. Reality is training, and our genuine actions and results in it are the championship game, always.

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Feeling Defeated? How to Overcome Failure & Power Up Your Confidence

A couple years back, a client was talking about acting. They had performed in plays most of their life.

They told me how much sweat, blood, and tears goes into one single play. The hours and HOURS of learning the material... memorizing their lines... and getting ready for the show. Despite all this preparation, something inevitably happens the day of the show... something you wouldn't expect...

They said, more often than not, someone will forget their lines or make a mistake on stage.

So NOT just a mistake but a VERY PUBLIC mistake. (In some cases in-front of hundreds of people)

What do they do about it?

When it happens, the cast members simply adjust to the mistake.

They flow with it.

They roll with it.

They play along with it.

They even make up lines if they have to.

I had no idea!

Looking back on all the plays I'd seen, I wondered how many had to be adjusted because of mistakes.

Crazy thing is, I didn't notice and neither did the people I was with...

The truth is... most people don't.

I heard something similar from a former Chicago Cubs employee. He told me how one day, they were preparing for the first pitch of the game, when the guy who was supposed to bring out the ball, waltzed out there WITHOUT it...

(Mind you, that's in-front of thousands of people and on LIVE television.)

Once he realized it, he just kept waving to the crowd, casually walks back to the dugout, grabs the ball, and goes back out there.

Besides management, hardly anyone noticed it...

Now think about both of those situations. Hundreds if not thousands of people are watching when these mistakes happen...

Yet hardly anyone notices the mistake.

If a VERY public mistake like that is hardly detected - what are the chances that the little ones in our daily lives are?

Very often though, people beat themselves up about little mistakes they make - and think that EVERYONE is going to notice what happened.

Chances are no one saw it...

And as long as you "mend the fence" or "course correct" you have nothing to worry about.

So instead of pummeling yourself (Which most people are VERY good at!)

Maybe we should take lessons from theater (and the Cubs) when mistakes happen...

Roll with it

Play along with it

Have fun with it

Because the show goes on.

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Living With Purpose After Selling Your Business or Leaving Your Job

You've just made a major decision about your life. You want to sell your business or leave the company you are working for and start your retirement. However, retirement cannot be solely about travelling, enjoying your grandkids, or some other activity you desire, especially since you have anywhere from 10 to 30+ years ahead of you. How do you transition out of a business to not running a business or step away from your long-term career?

With the Baby Boomer generation headed towards making a transition in the near future, it is imperative that individuals do not end up without a plan for what they will do next. Too often, business owners who leave the business (or individuals leaving their careers) will think that they can deal with their lives in a positive manner once the transition is done. However, the following negative experiences are likely to occur in the case where the business owner has not planned for this stage of their lives:

"Retirement Remorse" - People who don't have a plan for a fulfilling new future and don't know what they are going to do with all the free time they suddenly have will often become depressed, bored, and angry with themselves or others. They miss their old lives, because at least then they had something interesting and meaningful to do. They often wish they could go back to "the way things were".

"Retirement Rut" - Often, individuals who have successfully left their full time positions will find themselves spending their time on meaningless and purposeless activities just to keep busy. They become dissatisfied with their lives because these activities don't give them a sense of meaning or purpose.

"Post Transition Stress Disorder" (The other PTSD) - This is often experienced by individuals who have left their companies without doing proper thought-provoking planning for their lives prior to leaving. They often have a loss of enthusiasm for life, they feel that there is nothing to look forward to, and that life has no more meaning and purpose. These individuals will often end up making poor life decisions and rash personal choices in order to make sense out of life once again.

"Gray Divorce" - The rate of Baby Boomers that end up in a divorce is markedly increasing. Spouses are often not prepared for the "full nest" syndrome that occurs when the business owner/individual is now home 24/7.

So what does a person do to plan a purposeful and meaningful life post transition? The answer lies in doing internal preparation as well as external preparation for their retirement years. One of the most important activities an individual should do to prepare themselves internally for the transition is to come up with a list of all of their fears, problems and challenges they have surrounding this change. Then, they need to really expand their thinking about how these negative conditions can be turned around into opportunities.

Another activity a person should consider is how to define themselves into a whole person - not a person defined by what they are pre-transition. One exercise to consider would be to list all of their accomplishments they have done throughout their lives on a personal vs. professional level. They can also brainstorm through all of the life transitions they have gone through and analyze and become aware of the lessons learned by going through past transitions. Often this can provide individuals with new insights on how these lessons learned can be applied to the future transition in a positive manner.

Next, an individual should do some thought-provoking exercises on what provides meaning and purpose to them as a whole person, not just as a business owner or career professional. What brings them joy? What makes them happy? What gives them a sense of direction in their personal lives? What gives them positive self-worth? The more an individual can give answers to these questions, the better!

The external preparation involves an individual coming up with lifestyle ideas in the following areas:

Physical Health Activities

Intellectual Stimulation

Recreational/Creative Activities

Activities with Spouse/Partner

Activities with Family Members

Residence - where Ideally do I want to be?

Social Connections

Spirituality/Faith

Income Producing Work

Volunteer/Philanthropic Activities

Once a person has brainstormed ideas for each of these areas, the time comes to make a final decision on what they want to do for each of these areas and which ones provide the most meaning and purpose for themselves. Then, individuals can come up with a tactical plan on how they are going to implement these activities into their lives post-transition, and how to prioritize them.

Of course, these suggestions are only a small part of what a person can do (and should do) to make a successful transition out of a business or career. Couples should work on developing these plans together. Often, it makes sense to seek out a professional consultant who is trained and/or certified in transition planning. These individuals can provide a systematic process that takes into account many of the mental and emotional issues and concerns that an individual may be facing with the pending transition. They often have proven tools, exercises and programs to make the process successful and positive for the individual.

If you are looking at transitioning in the near future, don't make the mistake that many individuals do, which is essentially ending up on the "other side" without a comprehensive plan for your lifestyle that will provide you with ongoing meaning and purpose. Take the time for planning and you will experience a wonderful retirement and quality of life after your transition!

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3 Important Powerful Principles That Will Improve Your Success

What does it take to be successful?

Ask all the self-help Gurus, Life Relationship Career Coaches, and anyone who promotes personal growth and self-development, and you will most definitely get different answers as to their formula for success.

The truth is success does leave clues. You can achieve the success you desire by observing some basic principles, paying attention to them and putting them into practice.

One of my favourite quotes about success is from Colin Powell. Here is what he has to say about success:

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure."

These principles are actually quite simple; in fact they are considered to be common sense, but most people do not take the time to follow them.

Let's take a look in more detail at what Powell is actually saying.

1. Preparation

Do you know where you are going, what you are doing and why you are doing it?

People who are prepared do.

Preparation means having a vision, a destination, a purpose, a goal and putting a clear action plan in place to move you in the right direction.

You don't have to be rigid about your action plan; some flexibility is often required. Regardless, however, to achieve the success you desire, you must focus and put positive energy into what you want to achieve and then, through your action steps, work towards preparing for the moment when the opportunity knocks on your door.

You don't have to wait for everything to be perfect. But you do have to move and take that first action step and then just keep going.

"Failing to prepare is preparing to fail."

Famous words from Benjamin Franklin.

· Reading, attending workshops webinars conferences, acquiring new knowledge and skill

· Connecting to a mentor or coach to improve accountability, learn new skills

· Joining a Master Mind Group to integrate learning and to gain ongoing support.

You can prepare for success or you can prepare for failure, but those most likely to succeed are the ones who invest their time and energy in doing what it takes to succeed - and this includes preparation.

2. Hard Work

Success needs hard work. Hard work means taking bold actions, working smarter and going the extra mile. It is about working on the right things and doing them in the right order. Another Colin Powell quote:

"A dream does not become a reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work."

In the final instance, nothing worth having comes easy; if it does, you will not value it as you will not see it as being important.

Having a powerful vision is crucial to focus your energies and inspire and motivate you; however, it is "hard work," a willingness to learn and go the extra mile, and a dedication and commitment to working on yourself and your goals that will lead to successful achievement, as well as building your character.

3. Learning from Failure

Successful people do not shy away from failure, they do not see it as such. Failure to them is just information - important information on what is not working.

Thomas Edison found 10,000 different ways of how a light bulb doesn't work before he successfully found the right way. Had he not continued on with his experiments the world might still be in darkness.

Failure provides us with lessons, it gives us insight into what we need to do differently. The failure comes from when we do not heed the lessons; this is when we fail to learn, fail to change and fail to grow. Failure is thus success, if we take the time to learn from it.

By adopting this mindset, by turning each failure into a learning lesson or opportunity, we will always succeed.

There is no failure unless we actually give up.

"Your dream does not have an expiration date. Take a deep breath and try again."

Preparation, hard work and learning from failure are the fundamentals to building a successful, bright future. Armed with these three powerful principles identified by Colin Powell, you now have a potent formula for success. Use it and you will be well on your way to achieving the success you desire.

http://ezinearticles.com/?3-Important-Powerful-Principles-That-Will-Improve-Your-Success&id=9604548

5 Weird Environmental Hacks That Increases Your Productivity

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

Similarly, before you dive in to your daily work routine, isn't it wise to make sure everything in your environment is supporting you?

Below are 5 weird little environment hacks that most people ignore when it comes to increasing their productivity, do not overlook them.

Hack #1 Ergonomic Desk, Keyboard and Chair

Not sure what "ergonomic" means?

Well, ergonomics is the scientific study that concerns the understanding of human body structure and how we can apply this physical mechanics into designing products that optimize human wellbeing and performance.

While this is not a new discipline of work, there are plenty of ergonomic office chairs, desks and keyboards that aim to provide as much comfort your body needs to work efficiently.

For example, do you have a comfortable cushion that supports your back? Does your chair contain a nice arm rest on the side? How are you placing your mouse and keyboard on your desk? Are your computer monitors adjustable to fit your eye level?

Make sure these money-making tools are supporting your health as well.

Hack #2 Standing Desk (My Favorite)

What's more important than a nice chair is the ability to stand while you work.

For the past few decades, we've shifted from being industrial revolution factory slaves to office-in-a-box slaves.

Our bodies are designed to move, not to remain sedentary. While it may be difficult to incorporate a standing treadmill desk, having an option to stand while you work is definitely something you should do.

My father is a brilliant DIY guy and right now I'm using his craft to deliver value to the world. I can't explain how much more energy I generate (especially after lunch) than sitting on a chair all day long and suffering from some butt hurt...

So a standing desk is definitely one of my top picks to invest in!

Hack #3 Proper Lighting

Simply put, dim lights strain your eyes and they will make you headache and tired. However, an overtly bright artificial light can also hurt your eyes and generates much discomfort.

So the best thing you can do is to combine artificial light with natural light.

Natural light can enhance your mood and it gives you an opportunity to look outside and relax your eyes.

While I'm not an ophthalmologist, I do recommend you checking out LED and incandescent light bulbs as they don't emit light in the UV range so they pose less risk. However, you should avoid fluorescent bulbs as it was reported that they might emit invisible UV light.

Hack #4 Quiet Room

Such a simple productivity trick but often got ignored; you want to find a quiet corner when you work!

Preventing any potential distraction is the first thing you should do to increase your productivity.

So close your doors, put on a headset if you need, and get focused.

Hack #5 Clean Desk, or Not?

Kathleen Vohs' research, as reference in Psychological Science, shows that an organized desk promotes making healthier choices while a messy desk leads to more creativity.

So unless your work requires you to be a creative genius, you normally want to organize your documents, papers, files and stuff nicely to avoid wasting time locating them.

However, when it comes to brainstorming, creating, designing, maybe it's good to throw papers around and bounce your ideas across the room!

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