Giant start with baby steps

By Francis Kong

There are celebrity sales people who bring in tons and tons of sales and as a result they make tons and tons of money. These are the giants in the industry. And then there are those who would make a sale once in a while and then wonder, what is it with these people that make them continually rake in the sales and make the money?

Is it luck? But no one gets lucky all the time they way they do. Is it connection? Maybe. But how do I get myself to increase my own netwok too? There must be something behind it. And so the question pops out in your mind. “How do these people continue to make six or seven figures and here I am struggling month by month just to reach my quota and make ends meet?”

I have been in the human potential development for so long I see things in common among all successful performers whether they be people in sales or in any field of business.

First of all, successful professionals see themselves as who and what they really are. They are professionals and they hold their craft. They have confidence and they know they can achieve greater things.

Secondly, these giants of the industry continue to learn and stretch themselves. They network with people. They serve in their community. They join service clubs, they serve in church and the more they are in touch with people the more they build their network of friends who may just become their clients one day.

I have handled sales people, I have a network of people who are in sales. And it’s extremely rare for me to find person in this chosen field to actually read a lot of books. Rarer still do I find sales people who would invest in attending non-company sponsored seminars. And in many occasion, the same people who do not perform well are the same people who complain that their companies are not providing them support. Amateurs carry this kind of mindset. They have mastered the art of blamestorming.

Not so the giants because they are professionals. Professionals are of a different breed. They’ve got classy upbringing because they bring themselves up. (pun intended) Sales professionals invest in knowledge, they read magazines, they can’t get enough of web portals dedicated to sales and they do invest in attending seminars and conferences. They buy books and they actually read them. And then a wonderful thing happens. They sell more, they earn more and they are more fulfilled. Here’s the common thread woven in the fabric of the professional’s success journey. They work harder on themselves than they do on their jobs. The hungrier you are for knowledge, the wiser you become. Your self-respect increases, your confidence built and opportunities come by your door waiting for you to open.

Your desire to be successful has to be bigger than a 9-5 job. Giants begin with baby steps and you should begin right now. Invest in knowledge; put the seeds in the small steps and continue to water your skills with actual experiences and information you seek. And when the time of harvesting comes, you will have the fruits of your efforts in front of you. Do not waste time. Always find something to do that would add value to what you want to achieve in life. Whatsoever you sow, you shall reap. This is Scripture Truth that continues to operate everyday of our lives.

Never forget. The road to success is marked with many tempting parking places. Say this to yourself all the time: “NO PARKING!”

Soft is Hard and Hard is Soft

By Francis Kong

Tom Peters is one business guru who does not mince words. I remember attending his seminar many years ago when I saw him and heard him rants about the need to “Innovate or Evaporate.” His background is engineering and therefore logic, analysis, synthesis, mathematics and measurement are important to him. And to read his latest orange colored thick and pricy hard bound book entitled: “Little Big Things” becomes quite of a shocker to me.

Peters says that the one of the most important things for business people to know today is that “Soft is hard and hard is soft.”

For so long soft skills training has been undermined and undervalued by many hard-nosed business executives who stick to hard skills training. And as I have been saying all along, how could anyone invest on training that covers subject matters branded as “soft?”

As I attended the latest World Business Forum held in Radio Music Hall in New York Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, every single speaker extols the virtue of leadership, innovation, teamwork and team play as highest need for business organizations to survive the current atmosphere.

Jim Collins, author of best selling books like Built to Last, Good to Great and his latest “How the Mighty Falls” worked on empirical data and pointed out to the audience that one of the main reasons why businesses fail is that the leader exhibits arrogance due to his successes. The same Collins also mentioned that what his date revealed is that successful companies that have stayed successful through the years exhibited the irrefutable fact that the leader demonstrated humility and that the same virtue carried the companies through prosperous as well as difficult times.

The Illustrious former chairman of GE Jack Welch, evidently older now is like good wine becoming even better with age. Welch is feisty. Welch speaks his mind maybe because he has nothing to prove. Welch says “My main job as a CEO is to develop talent.” He says just like a baseball team, the team with the best players win.

At one point he became serious and quiet and then with a pathos I can identify with, looked straight at the four thousand leaders and executives gathered from 126 countries all over the world and said: It is unbelievable that leadership development is still very low in many company’s priority even today.” And then he cited cases after cases of businesses that are failing and pointed straight to the fact that the same companies do not invest in leadership training on their people.

Rio de Janeiro born Carlo Brito of Anheuser-Busch Indev was emphatic when he said that the success of his companies even after going through five major mergers is to develop and build a performance culture. He says something simple yet profound. “Companies are built by people and he has never heard of great performing companies say, “We are here to hire average people.”

And I have been doing leadership training all over the country and some abroad but what I heard from him made a lot of sense for me. Brito says: “When you have complacent people in your organization, great people walk out of the door.”

Charlene Li, author of the famous book “Ground Swell” talked about the impact of Social Networks today and its effect on business. Li lamented the fact that most businesses still do not know how to mine the potential of social networks while those who do are reaping in the profits.

Martin Lindstrom made a pitch for his book “buyology,” came up with slides after slides and film after film that are cleverly and expensively produced emphasizing the need to understand how the human brain responds to buying and marketing. Bill McDermott, Joseph Grenny, David Gergen completed the line up of the speakers for the first day.

The second day featured Steve Levitt of “Freakonomics” fame, Joseph Stiglitz, former US vice president Al Gore, A.G. Lafley of P&G, Renee Mauborgne, Vijay Govindarajan, Luca Majocchi, Nando Parrado and James Cameron of Avatar fame. I don’t even have enough space to share what I learned from the second day of the seminar.

Filled with fresh and new information and my mind spinning with new ideas, I walked back to my hotel in Manhattan and realized that the money invested in the learning is just too little compared to the benefits of what I have learned. And I just can’t wait to work on the information, process them and apply them to my trainings back home.

Soft is hard and Hard is soft. Things like values, attitude, behavioral, motivation, inspiration and other “soul” issues do count these days and guess what my conclusion is? They have always mattered through the ages.

Attitude with Gratitude

By Mac Anderson

It gave me goose bumps...

The date was July 16, 2008. It was late in the afternoon and I was sitting in my hotel room in Louisville, Kentucky. I was scheduled to speak that evening for the Kentucky Association of School Administrators (KASA).
I was a little "down in the dumps." I hadn't gotten to exercise lately because of my traveling schedule and recently I'd experienced some mild bouts of vertigo (that inner ear condition that can cause the room to start spinning.) You got it...speaking and "spinning" are not good partners!
My keynote presentation was scheduled for 7:00 PM, but I had been invited to show up at 6:00 to see a performance they said I'd enjoy. Little did I know that I was about to see something I would never forget.
They introduced the young musician. Welcome...Mr. Patrick Henry Hughes. He was rolled onto the stage in his wheelchair, and began to play the piano. His fingers danced across the keys as he made beautiful music.
He then began to sing as he played, and it was even more beautiful. For some reason, however, I knew that I was seeing something special. There was this aura about him that I really can't explain and the smile...his smile was magic!
About ten minutes into Patrick's performance, someone came on the stage and said..."I'd like to share a 7-minute video titled, The Patrick Henry Hughes story." And the lights went dim.
Patrick Henry Hughes was born with no eyes, and a tightening of the joints which left him crippled for life. However, as a child, he was fitted with artificial eyes and placed in a wheelchair. Before his first birthday, he discovered the piano. His mom said, "I could hit any note on the piano, and within one or two tries, he'd get it." By his second birthday, he was playing requests (You Are My Sunshine, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star). His father was ecstatic. "We might not play baseball, but we can play music together."
Today, Patrick is a junior at the University of Louisville. His father attends classes with him and he's made nearly all A's, with the exception of 3 B's He's also a part of the 214 member marching band. You read it right...the marching band! He's a blind, wheelchair-bound trumpet player; and he and his father do it together. They attend all the band practices and the half-time performance in front of thousands. His father rolls and rotates his son around the field to the cheers of Patrick's fans. In order to attend Patrick's classes and every band practice, his father works the graveyard shift at UPS. Patrick said..."My dad's my hero."
But even more than his unbelievable musical talent, it was Patrick's "attitude of gratitude" that touched my soul. On stage, between songs, he would talk to the audience about his life and about how blessed he was. He said, "God made me blind and unable to walk. BIG DEAL! He gave me the ability...the musical gifts I have...the great opportunity to meet new people."
When his performance was over, Patrick and his father were on the stage together. The crowd rose to their feet and cheered for over five minutes. It gave me giant goose bumps!
My life was ready to meet Patrick Henry Hughes. I needed a hero, and I found one for the ages. If I live to be a hundred, I'll never forget that night, that smile, that music, but most importantly, that wonderful "attitude of gratitude."
I returned to Chicago and shared Patrick's story with my wife, my friends, and our team at Simple Truths. About two weeks later, I received a letter from a friend. He said, "Mac, here is a quote from Vivian Greene that I think you'll love!"
"Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass...
it's about learning how to dance in the rain!"
I thought...that's it! We all face adversity in our life. However, it's not the adversity, but how we react to it that will determine the joy and happiness in our life. During tough times, do we spend too much time feeling sorry for ourselves, or, can we, with gratitude...learn how to dance in the rain?
It almost sounds too simple to feel important, but one word...gratitude, can change your attitude, thus, your life, forever. Sarah Breathnach said it best...
"When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present....we experience heaven on earth."

What I just shared is the introduction to my book, Learning to Dance in the Rain...The Power of Gratitude. My co-author is BJ Gallagher and she is one of the most talented and creative writers I've every known. It was an honor to work with her on this beautiful book that can truly change the way you think about life.

A Lesson from the Tea Business

By Francis Kong

There’s a sign on a small-time lemonade stand:

"Lemonade 25 cents a glass. Special offer: 10 cents a glass only if you bring it back fast enough so I can use the ice again." Well it looks like this boy knows how to do cost cutting at his young and tender age.

Let me share with you another story.

Benny had told all his friends about the delicious steak he'd eaten in the newly opened restaurant the day before. So they decided to go down there and see if it was really as large and delicious as he said. But much to their disappointment, the waiter brought them the tiniest steak they'd ever seen.

"Hey waiter!" Benny barked. "I was in this restaurant yesterday and you served me a big juicy steak, and now today, when I've organized a party, you serve such a small one." Why is your business so inconsistent?

"Yes, sir," replied the waiter. "It is true that yesterday we gave you a large and juicy piece of steak. But you see sir, yesterday; you were sitting by the window. And today you’re not!”

Many eating-places would love to bring you to their window seats because they want people passing to see that their business is always full. But here’s the problem. This technique could augment business but the one principle they need to understand is that they can have all the marketing techniques they want and employ it but if their products are not good and their services not excellent, they may as well kiss their business goodbye. In all things, especially in business, you and I need to be honest all the time.

Driving home from her office one summer day, a woman noted that there were four places within two blocks of her home where she could stop and buy a five-cent glass of iced tea. Each little stand had two or three youngsters behind it, all eager to serve any customer who came their way. During the next two weeks, the woman managed to stop at each of the stands to encourage the kids. In each case the tea was very good. Small talk revealed that all the youngsters were selling tea made by their mothers, who used tea leaves and real lemons in making the tea.

One day the woman discovered that only one stand was operating. Behind it was the new kid on the block. She stopped and ordered a glass of tea. It was served in a paper cup and it cost 10 cents. Some conversation brought out the fact that the young man's father was a lawyer who specialized in charging, which had inspired the boy to buy out his competitors, bartering with baseball cards, marbles, and stuff he had laying around in his garage.

His first act, he explained, was to raise the price of the iced tea, and cut costs. He was using a powdered tea mix from the supermarket, he said, which eliminated buying real lemons as well as the bother of squeezing them or putting them in the charges.

He didn't have to charge real tea either, he pointed out. He had plans to cut costs further, he said, and with his competitors out of the market, he expected sales to grow.

Intrigued, the woman made a half dozen more stops at the stand and became aware that the tea was getting weaker and weaker. One day the young man confessed that sales were dropping and he attributed this to the fact that he was using less and less of the chariot mix.

Then one day he went out of business, as attempts to turn things around failed. The moral of this story is: HONEST TEA IS THE BEST POLICY.[1]

Charge accordingly but deliver quality. This is being honest. Even if you cut on prices but deliver sub-standard quality, your business will not be sustainable. Respect your customers. Be honest and serve them well.

Seeds of Thought

by anthony fernando

One of the most important principals for achieving success is to understand that your mind is like a garden bed where you cultivate and grow the seeds of thought.

When you plant a positive seed of thought in your mind and nurture it carefully, it germinates and grows until it leads you to take action.

As soon as you begin acting on your idea, your seed of positive thought becomes a seedling of positive action.

If you continue to feed and encourage this seedling, it gradually develops into a tree of positive habit.

Once this habit has become solid and immovable, it is then only a matter of time before it blossoms to produce the fruits of success.

However it is important to be aware that the garden of your mind does not discriminate between positive and negative seeds of thought.

A negative seed of thought planted within your mind often leads you to take negative actions. These actions gradually develop into negative habits that will inevitably produce the fruits of failure.

When you understand that your thoughts lead to actions and your actions develop into habits and that it is your habits that determine your results in life, then you’ll appreciate why it’s so important to be careful about the seeds of thought that you plant within your mind.

One of the real secrets of success is to become a watchful caretaker over the garden of your mind and make sure that you only plant and cultivate thoughts that will develop into the positive habits necessary for making your dreams a reality.

So what does this mean in the real world?

It means that you should carefully monitor the thoughts that you are planting within your mind each day. Whenever you catch yourself planting or nurturing a negative thought, make the conscious decision to uproot and discard it.

For example, when Andrew went to see his doctor, he was told that he had high cholesterol and needed to lose 10kg. In response to this advice, Andrew joined his local gym and started exercising three days a week.

A few weeks later Andrew stood in front of his bed room mirror and assessed his reflection.

His first thought was, “I look exactly the same! All that hard work and I don’t look any different. This isn’t working at all.”

Then he stopped and realized that this was a negative seed of thought.

He knew that if he continued to nurture this negative perspective it wouldn’t be long before he started skipping sessions and pretty soon his exercise program would be a thing of the past.

Having recognized his negative seed of thought, Andrew made the conscious decision to uproot and discard it before it took hold in his mind.

He took a second look at his reflection and told himself, “Every training session is making me fitter.” This was a positive seed of thought that made him feel good about the action he was taking.

Over time, Andrew continued his training program while protecting his mind from the disempowering seeds of negativity. Eventually he reached his goal weight and brought his cholesterol level down to a healthy level.

So today I’d like to encourage you to become a watchful caretaker of your mind. Whenever you identify a seed of negative thought, uproot and discard it.

Remember, it is much easier to uproot a seed of negative thought than it is to chop down a tree of negative habit that has taken root over many years.

By planting and cultivating seeds of positive thought, you will set in motion a truly remarkable process.

In the same way that a tiny acorn develops into a mighty oak tree, your positive seeds of thought will germinate into the actions and habits that will ultimately lead you to success.

Until next time,
Dare to Dream!
Anthony