Expanding Your Comfort Zone into POWER

Today's article is to help expand your comfort zone to increase your wealth. If you challenge your mind to expand your comfort zone, naturally, you will expand your wealth zone. By striving to grow your comfort zone, you are constantly taking risks and finding more opportunities, ideas, actions and growth than you ever imagined.

Here are 10 Actions you can take RIGHT NOW that will question your current comfort zone, and will take you to a place of more WEALTH and more POWER.

ACTION #1: THINK LIKE A CHAMPION

Donald Trump says you should ask yourself: If I had nothing to do at all, what would I do? Write out your gut reaction now and discover what might be missing in your life.

ACTION #2: EXPAND YOUR WEALTH ZONE

T. Harv Eker says you should expand your wealth by expanding your mind. Keep track of your thoughts for an entire day, and replace any negative thoughts with empowering ones.


ACTION #3: RECAPTURE YOUR CHILDLIKE WONDER

Mark Victor Hansen says our creativity causes our talents to surface. List your top three talents. Select one that brings you the most joy and makes time disappear. Can you turn it into a business?

ACTION #4: START YOUR BUSINESS NOW

Step off of the recession roller-coaster and control your income source. Find out if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur by taking my quiz.(Private Message me to Receive Your FREE Quiz!)

ACTION #5: TO-DO LIST

Mel Robbins says getting more accomplished isn't about managing time; its about managing YOU. What's one thing you could accomplish today that would make you feel fantastic at day's end? Do it now--and start every day with that question.

ACTION #6: GO INTROSPECTIVE FOR A MINUTE

Are you a good leader? John C. Maxwell says good leadership is not about how far you advance yourself, but how far you advance others. List the ways you are adding or subtracting value to your team.

ACTION #7: STRIP BARE

Richard Branson believes in perseverance, imagination and risk. Write down a risk you know in your gut you should take for your business. Now do it.

ACTION #8: SCORE BIG

Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets says, You can't separate yourself from the pack unless you rise above average. Stop sitting on the average sidelines and step into the game. What two decisions can you make right now to live at a higher level?

ACTION #9: LIFE IS THE BEST TEACHER

Bethany Hamilton, at the age of 13, lost her arm after being bitten by a shark while surfing. Instead of giving up, she learned to embrace adversity and continues competitive surfing today. What three things have you learned from your biggest adversity? Now put them into practice.

ACTION #10: WELCOME CONFLICT

Only GREAT teams argue... Conflict avoidance leads to mediocrity. Send your team members an email encouraging openness at your next meeting. Tell them to refrain from mean-spiritedness or personal attacks, but to speak their mind. Learn what concepts and ideas your team members are passionate for. Compromise and artificial consensus only leads to mediocrity.

What suggestions or other ideas do you find important in expanding your comfort zone that other readers should know? Please share them, so we can all benefit, by commenting below. Thanks, The Sherlocks

It is a Challenge to Succeed

“I am a nice person,” the man says to himself. “How come this other guy is happy and prosperous and I’m always struggling?” He then asks, “I am a good husband, a good father and a good worker. How come nothing seems to work out for me? Life just isn’t fair. I’m even smarter and willing to work harder than some of these other people who just seem to have everything going their way,” he says as he slumps into the sofa to watch another evening of television. But you see...

You have to be more than a good person and a good worker. You have to become a good planner, and a good dreamer. You have to see the future finished in advance.

You have to put in the long hours and work with the setbacks and the disappointments. You have to learn to enjoy the process of disciplines and of putting yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable. You have to be prepared-- and willing-- to attack the challenges if you want the success because challenges are part of success.

Now that may sound like a full menu of activities, but let me assure you that the process of going from average to fortune isn’t really all that difficult. Thinking about it is the difficult part. Anticipating all the effort and the changes and the disciplines is far worse in the mind than in reality. I can promise you that the challenges you’ll meet on the road to success are far less difficult to deal with than the struggles and the disappointments that come from being average. Confronting and overcoming challenges is an exhilarating experience. It does something to feed the soul and the mind. It makes you more than you were before. It strengthens the mental muscles and enables you to become better prepared for the next challenge.
 
I’ve often said that to have more, we must first become more... and to become more, we must begin the process of working harder on ourselves than we do on anything else. But in addition to gathering new knowledge, new skills and new experiences, it is also important to discover new emotions. It is how we feel about what we know that makes the biggest difference in how our lives turn out. How we feel about the chances we have and the choices we have determines the intensity of our effort.  

Whether we try or don’t try.

Join or don’t join. 

Believe or don’t believe.

I’d like for you to discover some strong feelings about your life and about what you want to do with that life. You probably have much of the knowledge and a lot of the experience and perhaps most of the skills that it takes to become successful. What you may be lacking are the strong feelings about what you want and what you want to do. You may be one of those who have become so involved in the process of earning a living that you’ve forgotten about the choices and the chances you have for designing your own life.

Let these strong feelings help you take a second look at your life and where you’re headed. After all, you’ve only got one life, at least on this planet. So why not make it an adventure in achievement? Why not discover what you can do and what you can have? Why not discover how many others you can help, and in the process, how that can help you?

Why not now take the Challenge to Succeed!

Share your thoughts in the comment section below! Post your suggestions on how you plan to tackle your challenges to succeed into your day.

Our Lives Are a Compilation of the Little Things Decisions We Make

Over my career I have read and heard thousands of quotes from great leaders, but there is one I replay in my mind more than any other. Jim Rohn, one of the greatest personal development teachers of our time said,

“Success comes from making a series of good decisions over time, while failure comes from making a series of bad decisions over time.” 

I believe this is one of the most accurate statements of human achievement ever articulated during the 20th Century.

Decisions to Ponder
Every day we each make hundreds of little decisions, most of which seem inconsequential at the time. But every decision—no matter how little—will lead us closer to or further from our goals. Today’s lesson will focus on what I define as “either/or” decisions, because you’re deciding to “either” do something “or” not do something.

• Do we get out of bed early enough to properly prepare for the day?
• Do we straighten up our bedroom and make the bed before heading out the door?
• Do we dress and groom ourselves so that we make a positive impression on people?
• Do we make food choices that will improve our health?
• Do we control interruptions so we can focus on our responsibilities?
• Do we set aside specific time to spend with our children?
• Do we show our spouses that we love them?
• When talking on the phone, do we sound happy to be speaking to the other person?
• Do we exercise even when we don’t feel like it?
• Do we think about what we want to say before speaking?
• Do we show courtesy by holding the door open for someone else?
• Do we compliment people when they are deserving of one?
• Are we friendly in our emails?
• Do we say please and thank you?
• Do we show people respect by letting them finish talking before responding?
• Do we apologize without making excuses when we are wrong?
• Do we have a positive attitude even when things don’t go our way?

The Power of Our Decisions
These and hundreds of other little decisions we make each day may seem insignificant when looked at individually, but when looked at collectively they influence every part of our lives. From our relationships to our health, no part of our lives is exempt from the effects of these little decisions.

We are where we are and whom we are at this very moment in life based on the decisions we have made. Our physical health is largely the reflection of our decisions. Our finances are what they are because of our decisions. Where we work and what we earn is the outcome of our decisions. The state of our relationships is the result of our decisions. Everything we have or don’t have is a reflection of our decisions.

We can avoid accepting personal responsibility for our decisions by blaming others, but if we consider how something occurred, it all points to a decision we made.  From time to time there will be exceptions, but if we are honest with ourselves, our lives are a mirror image of our decisions.

There is also a positive side effect from intentionally making good decisions.  When you make wise choices regardless of how little they may be, you will feel happy with yourself and who you are becoming because you will know you are doing the right thing.

Improving Our Decision-Making
If deep down inside you want to become a better person and enjoy greater success and fulfillment in your life, then consider these suggestions.

• Accept responsibility for your decisions and stop blaming others for where you find yourself today. This is the first step forward.

• Become aware of decisions you are making every day and start making decisions consistent with the person you want to become.

• Believe in yourself and in your ability to make good decisions. Follow your gut and do what you feel is right; 95% of the time you will make the right decision.  Like any skill, as you become intentional about making positive decisions, you will get better and better.

What methods do you use to make these little daily decisions? Which ones present the most challenges? I encourage you to share your thoughts in the comment section below.



The little decisions you make each day will form the person you become tomorrow.

Thinking Outside the Box

According to Dictionary.com, creativity is described as "the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships or the like, to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination.” Said in simple terms, it’s thinking outside the box.

In this entry I am going to share with you one-of-the best techniques for being creative. By implementing this strategy throughout my career and personal life, I was forced to be innovative when it would have been easier to choose a more standard approach.

What do you do?

Before I share this strategy with you, I’d like you to consider your own. When you go into problem solving mode, how many different options do you generally consider? When you search for a better way to do something, do you make a list of your choices?

If you’re like most people I’ve met, you probably consider fewer than 5 options and these are the ones that immediately come to your mind. Are there others? Where are they? Deep in the recesses of your brain? It’s time to bring them out!

Make a list of 20 options

According to Todd Smith of the Little Things Matter, the next time you need to solve a problem or explore a better way to do something, compile a written list of 20 options. Not 5, 10 or 15. I said 20!

"The first five things you think of will be the tip of the iceberg. They’ll probably be the same five things everyone else would think of in a similar situation. They are the most obvious answers. The key here is to stretch yourself to think of 20. You will struggle getting up to 13 or 14, but your biggest breakthroughs will come when you push yourself to 18, 19 and 20. Often times it is in those final three where you will find the hidden jewels."

Here are some circumstances where you can apply this lesson:

• Where your family should go on vacation next year
• Evaluating where you want to move
• Considering restaurant options for a special occasion
• Your career options
• Ways to cut expenses
• Making investment decisions
• How to stand out from the crowd in your profession
• Strategies to drive sales
• How to provide a higher level of service to your customers
• Choosing different incentive programs for your sales team
• Improving your ability to reach your target market
• Finding a baby sitter on New Year’s Eve

The biggest challenge you will have is sticking with the process. It takes more effort than you think to make a list of 20 options. I have experienced several occasions where I had to really push myself to think of 20. Many times I had to take a break and come back to it. But the intense focus always opened my mind and forced me to ponder things that I normally wouldn’t have considered.

Here is my recommendation to you: The next time you have to solve a problem or think of a better way to accomplish something, sit down with a pad of paper and a pen and make a list of 20 options. Don’t stop at 17... Push yourself to 20.

Todd Smith then recommends, as your next step, to make a list of pros and cons for each option. From there, narrow your list down to your top options and study them. If you remove emotion from your decision and focus on the facts, it’s likely you’ll make the best decision. And at the very least you’ll feel confident that you’ve explored all of the available options.

For example, my husband and I were recently making plans to travel abroad to attend a close family member's funeral. The weekend prior to our scheduled flight all airports in the United Kingdom were shut down due to volcanic ash from the erupting volcano in Iceland. When they eventually opened, many people were vying for all available seats to and out of the UK. My husband and I were forced to take emotion out of the equation, and focus on the facts... should we continue out plan to have us both go and possibly not make the funeral on time, or do we send just one person with the guarantee to make the funeral on time. We chose the second option, and thus were able to have my husband take a flight to Paris and then a train to London. Had we not take emotion from the decision making process, we would not have obtained our goal to attend the funeral.

So, is there anything going on in your life right now where you can apply this lesson? If the answer is yes, grab a pad of paper and get started.

To be creative you must go where you have not been before. You must expand your mind to new ideas, opportunities and a fresh way of thinking. Only then will discover a new world of possibilities.

Discipline and Loyalty: Are They Dead?

We live in a world where these two great words (discipline and loyalty) are becoming meaningless.

Does this mean that they are worthless?

On the contrary, they are becoming priceless qualities because they are so hard to develop in the first place. And should you be one of the fortunate few who have caught the vision, your battle has just begun because the greatest battle is to keep what you’ve learned from these two priceless qualities.

Discipline is that great quality few people use that enables them to be constructively busy all the time. Even in discouragement and defeat, discipline will rescue you and usher you to a new place to keep constructively busy while you forget about doubt, worry and self-pity.

If more people in this day-and-age would realize the absolute necessity of discipline, and the degree of growth and happiness to be attained from it, what a better world this would be.

Most people think that loyalty is to a "thing" or to a "person", when actually, it is really to one’s own self. Some think that it is to a goal or an objective, but, again, it is to one’s own convictions. If loyalty has to be earned, then it is deserved, more than devoted emotion based on a temporary feeling. Loyalty is the character of a person who has taken upon them-self the task before them, and they will always realize that out of a loyal heart will spring all the other virtues that make life one of depth and growth.

As my mentor Jim Rohn once said,

"The best motivation is self-motivation. The guy says, ‘I wish someone would come by and turn me on.' What if they don't show up? You've got to have a better plan for your life."

If you aren't disciplined and loyal to yourself, your goals, your convictions, you will never have the motivation to accomplish the goals most valuable to you.

Will you commit, today, to write down your game plan, and commit yourself to achieving the desired outcome?

Realize the Value of Time: Time in Perspective.

Imagine there is a bank which credits your account each and every morning with $86,400. This account carries over no balance from day-to-day, allows you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you failed to use during the day.

What would you do?

Draw out every cent, of course!!

Well, everyone has such a bank account: its name is TIME.

Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as a lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you, and each night it burns the records of the day.

If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours.

There is no going back and there is no drawing against tomorrow. You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success!

The clock is running, so make most of TODAY.


To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.

To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.

To realize the value of ONE MILISECOND, ask the person who won a SILVER MEDAL in the Olympics.

Treasure every moment you have. Treasure it more because you shared it with someone special… special enough to spend your time.

And remember: Time waits for no one.

6 Mistakes To Avoid As A Home Based Business Owner

For the last 7 years, I have been researching and developing communication and sales techniques that turn people into millionaires. This list is a compilation of the rookie mistakes that many new home base business owners make when they first enter the business. I confess that I have personally committed a number of these mistakes in my day, and still fall prey to them on the occasion. Through continuing education, you, as did I, will be able to recognize when these mistakes arise, and quickly readjust your thinking as you build your home base business.

Mistake #1: We Hunt and Hound Instead of Attract

You are not in the business to “hunt down” prospects to look at your business opportunity, nor do you want to be continuously “hounding” prospects. This is time consuming, emotionally tiring, and plain ol’ bad manners. As in all things, the Golden Rule should apply:

Do unto others as you wish they do unto you.

Do you like to be convinced, manipulated or sold to? Most likely, you like the power of choice, the power to make decisions… and so do the people you want to attract and work with. What/ who are you really seeking after?

You are looking for people that are looking for you.

Be the kind of person you want to work with—a dynamic leader—and dynamic, charismatic people will hunt you for your business.

Mistake #2: We Talk Too Much/ “Puke Information”

When we start a new home based business we are excited, love everything about our company/ product, and want to share it with the world! While we think we’re sharing, in actually, we are “information overload”ing.

In this industry, more is less and less is more. The more you say the less your prospect wants to hear, and the less you say the more they want to hear.

Questions are the answers… Engage your prospect by asking questions about their business, their family, their interest. Find common ground. They in turn will ask you questions, and if they are sincerely interested, they will ask for more information.

Mistake #3: We Exaggerate the Opportunity

Frequently we say to people “It’s so easy, all you have to do is get people on the call” or “I only work 20 minutes a day and now I’m making $5,000/ week” or “I used to wear glasses to fix my eyesight, but this product cured me and now I can see without glasses”.

And they’re thinking… “I need to run away from this person as FAST as possible!”
Honesty is always the best policy. This goes back to mistake #1…
You are looking for people that are looking for you.

Do you really want to work with a person who is easily convinced and swayed by outrageous exaggerations? They will probably leave your opportunity as soon as they joined for the latest fad next week.

Mistake #4: We Spend More Time Managing Instead of Prospecting

When you prospect people for business partners and customers, you will inevitably enroll people, and thus, your business grows. When you spend more of your time training your enrollees, this is called managing. A prosperous home based business will always have this ratio:

80:20 Prospecting: Managing

The moment your ratio shifts into “management mode”, your business will stop growing. It is important that your prospects and enrollees value the time they meet with you. If they are unable to commit to appointments or neglect their assignments prior to meeting with them, guess what you tell them?

You are too busy to manage their business!

Mistake #5: We Look for Needers and Not Leaders

Inherently, we want to help those who stand to benefit from this business most. However, you cannot help those who do not want to help themselves. Aim to work with people that deserve your home based business opportunity, who deserve your time and help, not those who are not will to put in the time, creativity and passion.

People are attracted to leaders… be the leader they are searching for. This will aid you as you shift out the people who will not grow your business.

Mistake #6: We Treat out Home Based Business as a Hobby

This proclamation says it all. Concentrate on your behavior and activity, not on the results. A farmer plants his seeds in the spring time, and may not seed anything appear for weeks. Then the young shoots appear, and then the shoots turn into saplings, and then into true plants. Harvest Time does not appear for 4- 6 months. The farmer knows that he needs to be consistent in his effort to have the results he needs.

We home base business owners must maintain the same, consistent approach. Remember sow now and reap the benefits later.

Result?

Now that you are aware of the most common mistakes a new home base business owner make, you will be able to recognize when these mistakes arise, and quickly readjust your thinking as you build your home base business.