Be Different or be dead

July 19, 2019

How to stop failure from breaking you

Let’s say you are teaching your baby to walk.

He trips and falls and can’t even seem to stand up.

How many attempts will you give your baby before you say “Nah that’s enough, you are not walking”?

You will let the baby try as many times as it takes.

Because you interpret his falling over (failure) as a learning experience. And why not do this with everything else in your life?

Failure can be harsh.

If it’s perceived in a certain way. It can make you give up on yourself.

I failed a lot.

I struggled with weight loss — kept failing on my diets.

In relationships — couldn’t make anything work long-term.

In my business — I made videos for one year and nobody watched.

In my studies — I dropped out of school.

This was me “failing” right? How did I stop failing?

My life changed when I changed my interpretation.

#1 Change your interpretation

I changed my interpretation to this is me trying and experimenting.

I stopped saying; “I am a failure, I just don’t follow through.”

I started saying; “Look at all these things I learned by failing”

In weight loss; I learned that it’s about burning more calories than you consume.

In my business; I learned I have to find ways to generate traffic.

In my relationships; As long as you are vulnerable and honest things will work out.

In my studies: Well, they weren’t for me anyways.

The interpretation has to change to experimenting, experience and growing.

You can’t keep fueling the swaying negative self-talk and expect a different result.

If you label everything as a failure —“Oh I am never good enough” well then you are a failure and will stay one.

Because you are interpreting everything as a failure.. failure ..failure.

#2 Learn the lessons

If you didn’t fail and you won’t have a reference point to learn from.

When a baby falls, it learns; Maybe not lean so far to the left…. don’t take long steps…

It has to fall over and over to get the whole picture.

So will you, if you want to achieve something.

#3 Be patient

Instead of being caught up in; “Oh I don’t have what I want yet, will I ever get it?”

Why not grant yourself some patience?

“We are gonna get it. We just have to stick through. Everybody goes through this. It’s one step at a step.”

Why not talk to yourself like that?

If things in your business aren’t popping out for you, maybe it’s okay to be patient and stick through.

You don’t need that instant result to make you happy. And it’s okay to keep going.

We get so obsessed about getting our goal that we forget it’s one step at a time.

And If you don’t step out of it, you will stay stuck and never get what you want.

The moment I said; okay I am going to stick with this. It’s one step at a time. Things started to change.

#4 The wrong thing

If you are working on something you don’t care about then good luck being positive.

No wonder you would be easily discouraged or would want to quit.

Good luck; if you are trying to get a degree to make your parents happy. It’s not going to make you happy.

If you are going to fail at something, fail at something you love. Because on the other path there is no salvation.

Listen to your heart and work on something that matters to you.

If you are doing what you love then make sure to swap your interpretations and success won’t be hard.

#5 Be different

When you get impatient and you seem to keep failing, remember it’s a learning experience.

This is how you get better.

And if you are not okay with going through this then you don’t deserve success.

The world isn’t a crazy place where you get rewarded for doing nothing.

The things that you want will take effort and sacrifice.

You have to be different than other people. You have to be willing to wait and fail and fail until you get better.

Because if you don’t then you are just like the rest of the masses.

They want things but aren’t willing to go through with this and there dreams wither away and die.

Live a life of unrealized potential or go through this transformative journey of giving your best effort daily to achieve your wildest dreams, the choice is yours.

It seems hard to put effort with no instant results but it’s not if you use the right interpretation.

Live in an upward spiral and the journey will get way easier.

When you put in the effort with the right interpretation and have patience — you will get what you want.

— Rafael Eliassen is Life and Business Coach. He works 1-on-1 with business owners and helps them get astonishing ROI’s by making the most of everything. Want to take your life and business to the next level? Book a 30-min consultation call: Rafael Eliassen

• Posted 7.19.19 at 04:41 am by Roy Osing
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July 18, 2019

Practical ways mom and pop shops can succeed

Business competition is fierce, but even in the face of competition from big box retailers and the rising popularity of eCommerce, there’s still a place for the classic mom-and-pop shop.

Mom-and-pop shops, like the name implies, are typically small, family-owned businesses. They can take any number of forms, such as bookstores, specialty clothing boutiques, restaurants, or other types of physical storefronts.
Even though shopping options have expanded and consumer preferences have changed, in-store purchases still account for the majority of sales, and customers still value in-store experiences.

Mom-and-pop shops stand apart from large, mainstream retailers because they can offer a unique, personalized in-store experience that big retailers can’t quite replicate.
Knowing customers on a personal level and hosting in-store events can level up a mom-and-pop shop’s position in a local community and add character to what makes a city or town special.

Mom-and-pop shop owners, however, must employ strategies to help their businesses continue to stand out as retail continues to change.

Make the most of Independent Retailer’s Month this July by checking out this infographic courtesy of Fundera for actionable tips to help your mom-and-pop shop succeed against competitors.

— Meredith Wood is Editor-in-Chief at Fundera. Specializing in financial advice for small business owners, Meredith is a current and past contributor to Yahoo!, Amex OPEN Forum, Fox Business, SCORE, AllBusiness and more.

• Posted 7.18.19 at 04:04 am by Roy Osing
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July 8, 2019

6 reasons why being broken is better than being beautiful

Source: Unsplash

6 reasons why being broken is better than being beautiful.

The stereotype of success these days is based on the notion of perfection; a flawlessness that people believe is somehow responsible for yielding consistent brilliant results.

Successful business strategies are described as ones that get it right the first time. They have amazing insight at the outset to predict with uncanny accuracy what people will desire in products and services.
And their creativity unleashes the imagination of the crowd who flock in ridiculously long line ups to buy the latest and the greatest.

Successful people are portrayed in elegant attire, sporting a body image devoid of any unsightly signs of the ordinary.
Their body image exudes the winner attitude and destiny.

Does anybody buy this? Does anyone really believe that incredible business performance is a function of getting it right the first time, or that physical perfection is the necessary precondition to personal success?

There are no silver bullets to success in my experience. Rather, success is normally achieved (notwithstanding the odd blistering single magic act that rarely happens) by a series of actions taken in relentless painstaking fashion aided by unmatched sweat, passion and emotion — by being broken in one way or another.

Here are 6 reasons why being broken will get you where you want to go and why being beautiful, while a fashionable notion, is a non-starter for capturing the prize.

1. If you’re broken you’re prepared when you fail

You know your first attempt at anything rarely succeeds and that the future “never unfolds as it should” (i.e. the way you hoped it would).

Broken prepares you for the journey of change that every new idea is destined to endure. Broken implies imperfection at the outset, and this is the reality of virtually 99.99% of the solutions we create to the challenges we face.

There are very few immaculately conceived plans and strategies that produce the exact results expected; every plan is flawed in some way with degrees of imperfection that are realized only when the real world does not conform to the assumptions made about it — actual product sales, for example, rarely mirror their original forecast.

So if you enter the race to win knowing full well that your plan is flawed in some way (which you will discover only after you are in the middle of full-on execution), you will be well positioned to spot irregularities and take corrective action.

People who assume their plan will work are not prepared to shift when it doesn’t; their feet are stuck in mud, unable to recover from unexpected body blows.

2. If you’re broken you know action speaks louder than words

Broken demands action. Broken can’t be productive by pontificating or exercising the intellect; by merely thinking about what has to be done to create a higher level of performance and better results — the brain can’t DO anything.

The only way better outcomes are produced is by taking decisive action in the face of uncertainty; without knowing if what you do will produce the result you want.

Broken promotes the strategy of trying; making as many attempts as you can to accommodate the impact of real world events on your plan, because if you don’t try, little happens in terms of returning to winning ways. You get stuck believing that eventually your original plan will see that light of day.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein

Broken demands that you act first and think second and that you TRY incessantly.

3. If you’re broken you know you have to work harder than others

Broken requires hard, excruciating and often painful work. Broken can’t be fixed by slight-of-hand or by finesse; the appropriate solution often cannot be found neatly or elegantly.

Successful broken strategies are not produced by sophisticated algorithms that cleverly manipulate the independent variables at play, rather they are created by hard work put in by individuals who are unafraid to get dirty.

4. If you’re broken you know that you’ve got to constantly keep moving

Broken requires competence in juggling. Broken solutions are rarely singular; they’re not produced by a single cause. For example, an underperforming product rarely happens because of one breakdown in the go-to-market chain. It’s not just a price, customer communications, supply or value proposition issue but is most likely a mixture of all of them to varying degrees.

Fixing broken, therefore requires a balancing touch to skillfully mix a bit of this with a bit of that — revise the value proposition to communicate uniqueness among the competition, adjust the price accordingly and modify customer communication tactics.

Broken generally requires synthesis and integration; a TWEAK mentality that applies many potential solutions simultaneously rather than rely on the traditional sequential approach of try this >> study the results >> try something else.

5. If you’re broken you know that you will make mistakes and you must learn how to turn them to your advantage

Broken creates insane loyalty.

The popular notion is that getting things right the first time is the ultimate goal; avoiding mistakes and errors is the way to achieve high levels of performance. In business avoiding mistakes eliminates the need for rework which in turn mitigates against margin dilution. In one’s career, when you don’t make mistakes your veneer as an unblemished professional is maintained.

Well, I’m afraid to say that mistakes are here to stay — humans and technology don’t always perform the way we expect — so we need to find a way to leverage them for success.

Being broken forces us to do just that. It prepares us for the fact that events will not always go the way we intended, and it drives us to salvage something from the screw-up that will place is in a better position than if the mistake never happened.

Being broken makes us recovery experts. It teaches us that there IS a way to turn a soured event into an amazingly successful experience. It teaches about the power of surprise and the unexpected.

6. If you’re broken you know you must depend on relationships with others

Broken results in a deep respect for relationships because if you don’t have a circle of trusted friends you’re disadvantaged. Broken people understand they can’t achieve anything substantial as an “only child” but rather through the collective efforts of their tribe.

Broken is real; beauty is superficial. Real delivers results; beauty is a distraction.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 7.8.19 at 03:13 am by Roy Osing
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July 1, 2019

Why success demands that you are out-of-step with others

Source: Unsplash

Why success demands that you are out of step with others.

How many degrees do we need? What academic credentials should we gather, and from which institution?

What courses should we take to attract potential employers?

Who should we hang out with to take advantage of their network?

Why are there so many people with amazing degrees doing jobs that are way below their qualifications — taxi drivers with PhD’s?

How can I climb the ladder when there are so many other people who want the same thing?

How can I get noticed in my company and show what I am capable of?

I want to take on more responsibility and prove that I am worthy of a promotion: how do I get it done?

So many questions behind the challenge to be successful, and so many opinions on how to achieve success — and here’s mine.

I have seen many people with incredible academic backgrounds fail to reach their potential.

I have seen many highly skilled professionals fail to move up in an organization and achieve their career goals.

I have seen experienced managers and leaders not rewarded for their contributions.

Is Google your best friend?

And, in my view, the common denominator in all of these circumstances is the fact that most people generally tend to practise rote; they follow the established doctrine of their trade.

When approaching a challenge, they employ the toolset that everyone else uses. When facing a “How should I do it?” question, they go to Google for the most commonly used approach.

And they hunt for a best practice; a method that has worked for others that they hope will work in their particular circumstances. And they try to copy it.

Copying what others do has no long term redeeming value and being in-step with the crowd is a formula to define YOU as a common version of everyone in it — welcome to your role as a member of a common denominator.

Join the out-of-step crowd

In my experience, I have seen success follow out-of-step people; those who reject crowd thinking and find best practices repugnant.

People who consider a Goggle approach as a solution to morph to be a better fit for their particular situation.

People who are constantly asking themselves “How can I do this different than everyone else?”

People who look for weird, off-the-wall methods and outcomes as an expression of their individuality.

Out-of-step people make the world an interesting place to be. And they are rewarded by receiving the recognition and reward they deserve.

Think DiFFERENT

My message to you: everyday when you get out of bed, decide that you will do something — some little thing — that is different than the in-step crowd.

If you make ‘different thinking’ part of your daily routine eventually it will become part of your persona and will begin to govern the outcomes you deliver.

And success will follow. I guarantee it…

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 7.1.19 at 04:12 am by Roy Osing
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