Getting kids motivated to do the things that will help them become successful adults is not an easy job for parents. Part of the reason for this is that kids can’t see the immediate benefit of getting straight A’s. High school, college and the adult world are far into the future. It’s also difficult for children to define their dreams. The few that can visualize their dreams and see their future are better able to focus on achievement. Parents who want their kids to live up to their potential, need to awaken their genius. [Read more…]
Archives for March 2014
Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – Managing Expectations
March 6, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Rich Habits Word of the Day
Transcend – Exceed. Tom always tried to transcend other’s expectations at the end rather then at the beginning, by under-promising.
Rich Habits Fact of the Day
Prior to the Battle of Trenton, the general perception among the colonies was that the war was lost. Their expectations were so low that they lost all hope. George Washington’s daring midnight crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas caught the enemy by surprise and their victory rippled across the nascent nation and across the Atlantic ocean.
Rich Habits Lesson of the Day
Wealthy, successful individuals make it a Rich Habit to exceed expectations. Expectations are a tricky thing. Unsuccessful people have a tendency to want to “wow” others, so they make promises out of the gate that exceed another person’s expectations. They “wow” them at the beginning. That’s backwards. It sets you up to fail by not meeting expectations.
Successful people make it a habit of changing the other person’s perception of reality, out of the gate, reducing their expectations at the beginning of the promise stage. By reducing expectations this way, they set themselves up for success, making it easier to exceed expectations by over delivering. This allows them to “wow” them at the end.
Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – Don’t Fear Change
March 5, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Rich Habits Word of the Day
Cowed – Afraid, fearful. Tom would not be cowed by his fear of rejection and decided to take the baby step of starting his new book.
Rich Habits Fact of the Day
The world famous minister, Joel Osteen, sells out places like Yankee Stadium and speaks live to 40,000 a week who visit Lakewood church every Sunday (the mega-church meets in Houston at the former Compaq Center). Osteen says the week before his first sermon in 1999 marked the worst days of his life. “I was scared to death,” he says. At the time he knew very little about speaking or preparing a message. In fact he was perfectly content to sit behind the video camera during his father’s sermons. When his father passed away, Osteen’s wife and family encouraged him to take the stage.
Osteen did not overcome his fear for a long time. The conversations he heard didn’t help. “I overheard two ladies say, ‘he’s not as good as his father.’ I was already insecure and—boom—another negative label.” Words, he says, are like seeds. If you dwell on them long enough they take root and you will become what those words say you’ll become—if you let them. Osteen says negative labels—the ones people place on us and the labels we place on ourselves— prevent us from reaching our potential.
Rich Habits Lesson of the Day
Fear rears its ugly head in the face of change. Even if that change is good, fear can hold you back. Do not confuse fear with intuition. Fear is a Poverty Emotion. Giving into fear is a Poverty Habit. Wealthy, successful individuals have made it a Rich Habit not to give into fear. Fear is one of those limiting beliefs that hold many of us back. The key to overcoming fear is to make a habit of overcoming fear by embracing small change in your life through baby steps and leaning in, just a little. Small baby steps help you to gain momentum. Each time you conquer your little fears, you gain confidence to face the larger ones. Once you overcome your larger fears, the experience will give you confidence to embrace change and not fear it.
Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – The Power of Mistakes
March 4, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Rich Habits Word of the Day
Gaffe – Mistake, blunder. Tom’s pursuit of his dream resulted in many gaffes and, through the process of elimination, found those things that did work.
Rich Habits Fact of the Day
We have just celebrated the 135th anniversary of Thomas Edison’s success in heating a spiral of carbonized cotton thread to incandescence for 14 hours in his lab in New Jersey. He did that on Oct. 22, 1879, and followed up a month later by keeping a filament of common cardboard alight in a vacuum for 45 hours. Three years later he went on to light up half a square mile of downtown Manhattan, though only one of the six dynamos in his design of his central power station worked when he pulled the switch on Sept. 4, 1882.
“Many of life’s failures,” the supreme innovator said, “are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Before that magical moment in October 1879, Edison had worked out no fewer than 3,000 theories about electric light, each of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true — but in only two cases did his experiments work.
No one likes failure, but the smart innovators learn from it.
Rich Habits Lesson of the Day
Success is built on a mountain of mistakes. The greater the number of your mistakes the higher your mountain of success. This is why it is important to push yourself out of your comfort zone by pursuing goals and dreams. The pursuit of goals and dreams forces you to reach in life. This reaching into new territory elevates your learning in two ways: learning created by self-education and learning created by making mistakes. Both increase your knowledge and skill level. Learning what not to do is very often the best education because mistakes cost you time and money. As a result, they aren’t easily forgotten. They stick out like missing teeth in a smile. Mistakes force you to make course corrections; to adjust your thinking and behavior.
Tip o’ the Morning to Ya – Seeking Feedback is a Rich Habit
March 3, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Rich Habits Word of the Day
Acumen – Knowledge, wisdom. Tom’s habit of seeking feedback increased his acumen.
Rich Habits Fact of the Day
Bill Clerico, CEO of payment collection service WePay, found he gets the most information through voice-to-voice conversations with his customers. “Last month the CEO, COO, marketing director, marketing coordinator, PR manager, three sales managers, three customer support reps and even some engineers got on the phone with a variety of customers — both pleased and displeased — and simply asked for feedback on the product, support and how they perceived WePay as a company,” he says. “The information was more valuable than any digital survey we’ve ever completed.”
Rich Habits Lesson of the Day
Everything you do, that is related to your job or career, can improve dramatically if you simply seek feedback. Getting feedback from your colleagues, supervisors, staff, clients, customers and business partners will help you improve. Continuous self-improvement is one of the hallmarks of successful, wealthy individuals. If you typically avoid feedback you are operating out of fear. Fear is a Poverty Emotion that holds you back in life from being successful and wealthy. Giving into your fear of criticism is a Poverty Habit. Seeking Feedback is a Rich Habit.
