Tag: Guest Post Page 6 of 7

Sing was kind enough to give me some excerpts from his book to share, this is 4 of 4. I don’t think anyone would take me seriously if I gave my take on this book, if anyone’s going to convince you to read this book, it’s going to be Singh himself, so I’m going to let him — make sure you read them all!

Are you acquiring the patience, self-discipline, and knowledge we’ve talked about in previous blogs? Those qualities are critically important to your success But the truth is, all the self-discipline, knowledge, and patience in the world won’t get you to the finish line. Only action can do that. Are you ready for action?

It’s such a simple concept. And yet people resist taking action on even the smallest of things. Why? Mainly, it’s the Fear Factor. Fear of what, you ask? Think about how many of these fears are getting in the way of your success every single day.

Fear of:

• Looking bad in the eyes of others
• Being rejected
• Making an irreparable mistake
• Creating even bigger problems
• And above all, fear of failure

The fear of failure is the #1 cause of failure. Think about that for a moment. You have a goal. But you never get started working toward that goal because you are so afraid you’ll never make it. It’s easier to do nothing. Well, guess what? You failed before you even started!

(If any of these ideas sound like concepts you’d like to explore further, you’ll find an in-depth discussion in my new book, Prepping for Success, available on Amazon on (date).

Here’s the big takeaway: your inbred fear of failure demonstrates itself in your life every single day. It’s called overthinking or “analysis paralysis.” Do you notice that you continually have difficulty making the decisions that will move you toward the success you seek? You’re getting bogged down in the swamp of decision fatigue. It’s exhausting to keep researching, analyzing, and thinking and never arriving at a conclusion. Not only does this decision fatigue inhibit your ability to clearly assess your career and business decisions, it also makes you more likely to sink into bad personal habits, like eating unhealthy foods, skipping the gym, and scanning Facebook or the Internet news feed rather than working on a pet project or learning a new skill. In other words, over-analyzing a decision makes it much more difficult to make high-quality, long-term choices later on.

If you know that analysis paralysis, overthinking your decisions, is an issue for you, consider the impact this tendency is having on your overall success and happiness.

• Overthinking impairs your performance. You’re putting too much time and energy into analysis. There’s no room left for action.
• Overthinking stifles creativity. Creativity demands freedom. If you’re stuck in analysis, you’re not free.
• Overthinkers are less happy. Of course they are. When you consider the lack of creativity, the information overload, the poor performance we’ve described, it’s not a happy picture for the compulsive analyzer.

People think it’s intelligence that separates the successful from the unsuccessful. However, that is not the case. Action is what separates them, and this is easy to prove. Let’s pretend I have an IQ of 100. Can anyone have 10 times my IQ ? History has shown the highest ever recorded IQ to be around the 240 range. So that proves it’s impossible for anyone to have ten times my IQ or even five times. So how do some people achieve ten times the success that others have? How do some people make ten times as much money as others? One simple reason: the leaders of this world, the successful people of this world TAKE ACTION ! Are you ready?

This was an excerpt from the Book Prepping For Success: 10 Keys for Making it in Life by Anmol Singh, Learn more about the book and get a Copy at www.Preppingforsuccess.com/book

Sing was kind enough to give me some excerpts from his book to share, this is 3 of 4. I don’t think anyone would take me seriously if I gave my take on this book, if anyone’s going to convince you to read this book, it’s going to be Singh himself, so I’m going to let him — make sure you read them all!

Invest in yourself. That’s what you are doing when you make knowledge acquisition a top priority in your life. There’s a billboard-size sign hanging in the workout room at my local gym. It says: “Never Stop Moving.” We should all have a similar sign hanging somewhere, even if it’s just in our minds: “Never Stop Learning.”

(Want to explore this topic in specific detail? We’ll show you how in Chapter 3 of my upcoming book, Prepping for Success).

As you consider your own lifelong learning status, ask yourself these questions:

1. Am I curious and anxious to explore new territory?
2. How do I find out what I need to know?
3. How do I organize information?
4. Do I understand the recurring patterns and themes in my life?
5. Am I a creative problem-solver?

For now, let’s focus on Question #1. Real learning demands a certain curiosity. How curious are you, really? If you want to enhance your level of curiosity, spend a lunch hour or two visiting a neighborhood playground. There’s nothing more curious than a child. How come the slide is crooked? Can I make the swing go higher? Why is the tree losing its leaves?

Somewhere along the line, that unfettered curiosity was bred out of us. Maybe there is a point where we think it’s not grown up or cool to ask questions. That point of view is totally out of sync with lifelong learning. Start now to get your curiosity back. Find a spot in your calendar right now and plan a visit to a neighborhood playground or the children’s reading room at your local library.

Then start asking questions. People like it when you question them. Most people love to share what they know. They feel flattered that you would bother to ask. So ask away. And listen to the answers.

Questioning is the first of seven qualities that you need to cultivate in order to become a successful lifelong learner. The second is to crave knowledge. In order to acquire knowledge, you have to want it more than you want other things. Your learning must take priority over Sunday night football, or a weekend of golf (unless golf is what you crave to learn, of course.)

Third, you must practice. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin America, still works to perfect his listening skills. “Listen more than you talk,” he advises. Bill Gates practiced his perseverance skills when others said he couldn’t do it and he founded Microsoft when he was barely 20. Steve Jobs practiced daily creativity and took Apple public when he was 25.

(If you really want to make progress on the path of lifelong learning, you’ll want to know the other four qualities. Find them in my new book, Prepping for Success)

Once you get started on the knowledge path, you will find resources everywhere. There are blogs, books, webinars, community college courses—the list goes on. As you begin to implement your plan, commit at least one hour every day to studying, listening to CDs or podcasts, writing down your ideas.

In addition to the time you spend with yourself, which is important, reach out. Network with groups in your profession. Attend Chamber of Commerce meetings and look for online meetups. Find someone who has done what you want to do and ask them to mentor you.

Wherever you are in life right now, you can get where you want to go if you are willing to invest in yourself. Invest in your health, your relationships, and your education. Believe in yourself because you are worth it.

This was an excerpt from the Book Prepping For Success: 10 Keys for Making it in Life by Anmol Singh, Learn more about the book and get a Copy at www.Preppingforsuccess.com/book

Sing was kind enough to give me some excerpts from his book to share, this is 2 of 4. I don’t think anyone would take me seriously if I gave my take on this book, if anyone’s going to convince you to read this book, it’s going to be Singh himself, so I’m going to let him — make sure you read them all!

Self-discipline. Sounds hard. Boring. Takes forever. Maybe all of the above are true on occasion. But self-discipline is one of the necessary keys to your success in life. So what exactly is it and how do we acquire it?

Speaker/comedian Andy Andrews defines it like this: “Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do something you don’t necessarily want to do, to get a result you would really like to have.” So it is, in every sense of the word, an inside job. Nobody can do it for you or to you. Rather, it is a combination of commitment and hard work, often over a long period of time, to get where you want to go. It all starts with your ability control your thoughts and actions through discipline. This means managing your thoughts, your behavior, your personal habits, and your emotions. You must keep all of them in check. Does that make you into some kind of unfeeling robot? No, definitely not.

Your self-discipline starts when you learn how to create a personalized set of habits that will enable you to keep moving ahead when the going gets rough. Is it easy? No. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it and everyone would be ragingly successful. As you look around you, you are well aware that’s not happening.

Consider this contrast: in one month, 2,800 people searched the Internet for “self-discipline.” More than 200,000 searched for “fun.” So most people would rather have fun, that quick hit of instant gratification, than go through the lengthy and sometimes painful process of controlling their thoughts and actions and sticking to a job until it is complete. Because after all, isn’t it easier on a cold, dark morning to hit that snooze button and catch an extra hour of sleep that to roll out of bed, make a cup of coffee, and do some inspirational reading? The choice is yours.

Most successful people are long-range planners. Consider these contrasts.

• Short term: grab that beautiful outfit on sale at your favorite boutique. Long term: pay off your credit card debt.
• Short term: grab a cigarette to help you relax. Long term: breathe deeply and get healthy.
• Short term: join the office gang for happy hour after work. Long term: save a few bucks and fatten your savings account.

You get the picture. And you probably know which actions you would be most likely to take.

Whether or not you choose to develop self-discipline is strictly up to you. But before you decide on your next move, consider what NOT having it could be costing you. Listed below are just a few areas of your life where having self-discipline brings success and not having it leads to discomfort, unhappiness, and possibly outright failure.

Self-discipline means looking at the various aspects of your life and quitting activities or habits in those areas that are producing unhappiness and outright dysfunction. Consider how you are functioning in each of these areas of your life right now.

• Finances
• Physical health
• Mental health
• Important relationships
• Job and career
• Spiritual life

It’s entirely possible that you are functioning at peak performance in some places and not in others. For example, many people are so focused on their job, their career, building a business, producing an income—that they are neglecting their health and their important relationships. Right now you can choose to bring things into better balance. You can see the areas where you need to change and begin to develop habits that will bring your whole life picture into clear focus.

The secret to successful change and habit-building is to begin with micro-changes. Let’s say you know your work is consuming the majority of your energy and you’re neglecting your significant other. A micro-change might be to sit down together for a glass of wine one evening a week. Devote all your attention to the other person. Don’t discuss your work, or theirs. And here’s the REAL secret: be consistent. If you’ve promised yourself to do this once a week, do it no matter what. Don’t do it once or twice and then go back to your old ways. That is not habit forming!

An organized life is a disciplined life. Do one small thing each day to improve your personal and business environment, your health, your relationships. That’s all it takes. Before long, you will have become a self-disciplined success.

This was an excerpt from the Book Prepping For Success: 10 Keys for Making it in Life by Anmol Singh, Learn more about the book and get a Copy at www.Preppingforsuccess.com/book

Sing was kind enough to give me some excerpts from his book to share, this is 1 of 4. I don’t think anyone would take me seriously if I gave my take on this book, if anyone’s going to convince you to read this book, it’s going to be Singh himself, so I’m going to let him — make sure you read them all!

Remember the famous race between the tortoise and the hare? The tortoise didn’t care who saw him plodding along, a little road dust clinging to his feet. He was making progress every minute. The hare, on the other hand, relied on the flash and the speed that the tortoise lacked. He sprinted down the path and then felt so confident in winning the race that he stopped for a nap. And when he woke up—oops! The tortoise was crossing the finish line.

And the moral of the story? The race does not always go to the swift. Sometimes it goes to the patient, the plodder. What’s your PQ (Patience Quotient)? Would you rather be flashy or persistent? Which one offers the greatest benefit? Let’s take a closer look.

A related word to patience that’s common in today’s vocabulary is GRIT. The definition boils down mainly to words like “courageously persistent, brave, plucky, showing resolution and fortitude.” GRIT is also described by an acronym that stands for Growth, Resilience, Instinct, and Tenacity. Bestselling books have been written about GRIT. College campuses hold seminars for beginning students to teach them how to acquire and apply GRIT in their studies and careers. There are GRIT boot camps and GRIT support groups. In order to reach your goals, you must have patience; you must have GRIT.

Unfortunately, too many management seminars and self-help course today ignore grit completely. They teach the fallacy of needing Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C. Just by approaching your goals that way, you are subconsciously admitting that Plan A might not work. Something might go wrong, so you should not waste time trying to fix it. Instead, plan in advance to change course. No grit to that strategy, is there?

Here’s a better plan: call on your grit and devote 100% of your energy to Plan A and not even 1% to Plan B. The only time you should move into Plan B is when you have done EVERYTHING you can about Plan A, and you know from your experience that it will not work. According to some experts, grit is the ability to dig deep within ourselves and do whatever it takes — including sacrifice, struggle, and suffer — to achieve our highest goals.  That is a Plan A strategy all the way. That is grit.

We now know WHAT it is. The big question is: HOW do we go about acquiring it? Here’s the good news: grit and patience can be learned. Of course, it doesn’t just happen. You don’t wake up some sunny day and find you have a lifetime supply of patience at your fingertips.

Try this experiment to build your grit capacity: once a week, schedule a Day of Patience. The keyword for this day is FOCUS. Focus on the now, each moment, one instant at a time. Boring client on the phone? Listen and take notes. Pick up on key points of the conversation you can repeat back to her. For one entire day, don’t look forward or back. Live in the moment. Savor it.

Have you ever been to a wine tasting? At a formal tasting, you are presented with five or six different glasses accompanied by five or six different kinds of wine. The sommelier tells you a few things about each wine. Then, slowly, he pours a small amount in your glass. First, you put your nose deep into the glass and inhale. What do you smell? Flowers? Fruit? The scent of soil? You swirl the wine around in your glass. You notice the color and clarity. Then very slowly you take a small sip. You hold it in your mouth and savor the taste. That is the key word: savor. The wine not just something to drink. It has a past, a story, a process all its own. Producing a premium bottle of wine takes years and infinite patience. But the reward is sensational.

Savor your life. Live it with patience and grit. Because the reward is worth it every second of waiting.

This was an excerpt from the Book Prepping For Success: 10 Keys for Making it in Life by Anmol Singh, Learn more about the book and get a Copy at www.Preppingforsuccess.com/book