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mindset

Jun 07
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Key Leadership Qualities

By Blogpost, challenges, Entrepreneurship, excellence, Goals, inspirations, Leadership, management, mindset, Success

A leader’s job is mostly about managing people, and a good business owner should also be a good leader. He or she should be able to effectively connect with his or her employees and be able to lead them down the correct path to achieve the company’s goals. The business owner might have great ideas and the passion to succeed but if the team or the staff are not willing to follow then the business won’t go far. As mentioned in my previous article, your top sales guy might not be a good leader. This also applies to business owners.

Running a company does not only mean implementing brilliant ideas and having the passion to run it. Managing people is also an integral part in running a company. Your staff is what keeps your business running on a daily basis. As the business owner, your staff looks up to you for guidance. Weak leadership can lead a company to ruin while a strong one leads to success. Just like implementing a leadership development plan for an employee, as a leader yourself, you can look to working on your own leadership skills to be able to properly connect with your team and efficiently run your business.

Communication

A leader should foster open communication with the team. Your staff or employees are the front liners of your business and they see things that are not seen by the upper management. You need that valuable information to be able to properly plan things out for your business. Allow your staff to speak out to gain insight at the base level. When communicating with the team, be as honest and clear as possible. This will help you gain their trust and confidence which in turn would also encourage them to be just as honest and clear with you. The key here is that excellent communication allows you to gain valuable information from the front line.

Live What You Preach

One great way of connecting with your team is to have strong ethics and living by them. This is all about earning your team’s respect. You can talk all day about doing the right things – but you need to walk the talk, and your subordinates will follow your example. Once you have their respect, they will stand by your every business decision. The less second guessing on every decision, the better chances of positive results.

Ask For Advice

It does not matter how well you know the industry, change is constant in business. Set your ego aside. You do not know everything. Ask for advice if you are not sure of something. Great leaders are always willing to learn new things and the easiest way to learn is to learn to ask questions.

May 21
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Managing High-Performing Teams

By challenges, Goals, Human resources, Leadership, management, mindset, opportunities

You finally have the best of the best and have them working in the same team. You now have your go-to team for high priority tasks or projects. Your team can spearhead your organisation’s path to success. In short, you now have a high-performing team working for you. Having a high-performing team in a company is like having a Special Forces division in the military. These are the guys you go to if you want something done. As mentioned before, they are the best of the best.

Having a high-performing team in your organisation does not mean that you can go on auto-pilot mode. Teams are composed of people and not machines. People within an organisation still need to be managed by people one step above the corporate ladder. If you think about it, even machines need to be guided on how to effectively complete their tasks – but they are not as flexible as humans. As a leader, you might enjoy high productivity from high performing teams but you will also have the difficult task of dealing with varying attitudes from team members. There is also an issue with teams that follow their own rules. This is especially true with teams that have been working with each other for a long time. So how do you strike that balance between keeping the team in top form but at the same time have a semblance of managerial control?

Recognition

Give credit where credit is due. Recognize the team’s achievements. Even better, recognize individuals within the team that went one step beyond what is expected of them. Show everyone in the team how much you respect them and their work. This is after all, THE team in your organisation. Giving recognition not only boosts their morale but also serves as an inspiration to the rest of the company.

Accountability

One of the reasons why high-performing teams are able to achieve success is that they tend to do things their own way. Allow them to keep on doing what they do best, but make sure that they understand that it must be done within a reasonable time period and within the company budget. With this type of freedom, it is also important that they be held accountable for both successes and failures.

Balance

Challenge the team to think creatively but that creativity must be in service to the organisation’s mission and goals. Give them the freedom to choose which methods to go for but the objectives must be in line with the organisation’s goals.

May 07
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Building a Winning Team Culture

By Attitude, Blogpost, inspirations, Leadership, management, mindset

Each organisation or company is different from each other. They may engage in the same line of business but they differ in the way they operate the business. Another thing that would be different is the culture. To be more specific, their team culture. Team culture is the sum of the beliefs, values and attitudes shared by the team members. It is how the team members cooperate and work with one other in reaching a common goal. Teams within a company may have different team cultures but are generally influenced by the company’s culture as a whole. Building a winning team culture contributes greatly to the success of the company.

Your company’s team culture can make or break your company. According to most companies, a large percentage believes that a company lacking a good team culture is unlikely to succeed. It does make sense since a good or a winning team culture revolves around the team members efficiently working with each other. To put it simply, excellent teamwork leads to success.

Culture based on your core values

You are the leader. This is your business. You are in the driver’s seat. You need to infuse a bit of your personality, attitude and core values in your team culture. Do you expect the best but still encourage a relaxed atmosphere? Create a culture of balance between work and play. Do you value customer service above everything else? Work with people who have great personality and are accommodating. Is innovation your thing? Nurture and promote innovators within your company. Take the time to think about what type of culture that will fit you, your company and your brand.

Communication

Communication has always been one of the most important aspects in our personal lives. This is no different in business. When developing a team culture, talk with your team. We all want to be heard. People want to be able to voice out their concerns without fear of repercussions. People want to be able to share their ideas. An open communication culture can build trust between the company and its employees.

Just have fun

We all know that saying about all work and no play. This is especially true in the competitive business and corporate world. A burnt out team member is no good to the team. Building a winning team culture includes ensuring that members of the team are happy with their job. A happy team member is more productive and tends to be more engaging to fellow team members. Come up with fun activities or events from time to time. Foster the idea that you take both work and fun seriously.

Let them know that you expect the best, and in turn you are also giving your best to the team.

Apr 23
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Keep Focused: Ways To Shy Away From Distractions

By Attitude, Blogpost, challenges, Food for thought, Goals, habits, mindset

Having focus to achieve what you want is not as easy as it sounds, not with all the distractions that we are facing in our daily lives. Having said that, how do we keep the main thing – the main thing? We are already in the second quarter of the year – do you have a concrete plan on how to spend the next 90 days? Here are some questions I need you to ask yourself and let’s see how these can help us achieve our goals this quarter and on the next.

  • How do you limit distractions?
  • How do you keep the noise out?
  • How do you keep focus?
  • How do you keep the main thing, the main thing?

Typically, this coming quarter we got so many distractions. If you choose to give in to these distractions, we need to consider some things. We’ve got a lot of holidays coming up that the team members can take, clients can take. So,

  • How do you keep focus?
  • How do you ensure that stuff still gets done?
  • How do you ensure that you stay on track?
  • How do you minimize the noise?

How do you keep focused?

There are a couple of things that we do with our clients to help them keep their focus on different tasks or things that they need to do:

  • Phones off unless you’re making phone calls;
  • Emails off unless you’re on email time; and
  • One of the most important things is – who you need to be here right now?

We have over 555 different characteristics. We need to tune in to that person that we need to be for that specific task, for that specific focus on that we need to be focused in.

If it’s making calls, fantastic! Who does that need to be? Who do you need to drop on more of that?

If it’s putting to your proposal, fantastic! Who do you need to be more of that?

So, it’s tapping into that “beingness of you,” it’s all inside of you to ensure you maintain that focus, maintain those characteristics in order to achieve that result.

What happens so often is that people bounce. They bounce from emails to phone calls, to team – like a lucky pinball machine. And what happens when we bounce? Our energy goes up and down. We get overwhelmed so much easily and quicker, and we get frustrated because we feel that we’re not going forward.

Who do you need to be right now?

Now, let’s focus on how do you need to be? This is where an ideal week comes in a place, but more importantly with the ideal week is – who do you need to be in those chunks of time?

That’s the goal thing! That’s the missing link so often I see with people when they’re creating an ideal week, is who do you need to be in that time frame? Not that task associated but who do you need to be in order to do that task on that focused time.

So, there we go! Let’s keep the main thing – the main thing.

Let’s keep the focus.

Let’s keep the drive.

Let’s minimize the distraction.

Let’s achieve some great results today.

Feb 26
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Lifting Up Your KPIs

By Attitude, Blogpost, challenges, mindset

Lifting Up Your KPIs

When we’re driving somewhere we haven’t been to before, we normally turn on GPS and follow the instructions, right? It tells us when to turn right, left or go straight ahead. We don’t have GPS in business, so we have to rely on reviews, and we have to rely on checks and balance along the way. These checks and balance are called KPIs – and they aren’t always easy to hit. Sometimes you just find yourself needing help in lifting up your KPIs.

Where Do You Start?

So, are you hitting your KPIs? There are challenges in finding right and meaningful measures to set up the business’ KPI. But if you are consistently unable to hit the KPI that you set for yourself at the beginning of the year, nine out of ten times, the issue lies with the person in the mirror. How well do you deal with distractions? How good at you with time management?

If you consistently failed at every KPI evaluation, all is not lost. What do you need to improve your numbers? What do you need to do to improve your calls, for example? You need to get your scripts planned out ahead of time. To review and be familiar with the scripts. You need to plan out the scripts the night or the day before.

3 Things That Will Set You Up For Success

Let me share with you three strategies that are sure to lift up your KPI points:

  1. Make sure that you have the entire week mapped out ahead of you. What do you need to do? What tasks need to be completed? Plan your schedule. Prioritise. When you map out your schedule for the week you have a clear idea what to expect, what to do, and when to do it. You have your timeline set, and you know that at this certain day of the week, these pressing tasks should be finished. I should be working on these.
  2. Sticking to Your Ideal Week. Now that you have the week mapped out, all you need to do is to follow the plan. The ideal week is one where everything goes as planned. The pending tasks that you planned to work on, you should be able to complete them by the end of the week. How do you accomplish this? You need to focus, focus, focus. Focus on what needs to be done. Focus on the task ahead and ignore distractions. Manage your time and make sure that the time you spent at work are productive.
  3. Develop a Good Ritual. I cannot say this enough, people are creatures of habit. We tend to do the same things, over and over. This is why it is important to develop a good ritual. Start the day right. Wake up early. Go for a run, exercise. Then have a leisurely breakfast. When you get to work your mind is relaxed, and focused on completing your tasks. If you wake up late you tend to rush through things, and you get to work with your mind on other things that you haven’t done. “What did I forget to do?” “I forgot I have to do this…” and so on, and so forth. You’re not fully focused on the task.

Self-Evaluation

So whenever you see that you’re not hitting your goals and you need help in lifting up your KPIs, ask yourself – how well are you planning each week and each day? How well are you mapping your ideal week and sticking to it? How well are you doing your rituals?

Feb 22
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Facing Adversity: Your Road to Success

By Attitude, Blogpost, challenges, Goals, mindset, Success

You may or you may not know, I recently just we went over to New Zealand, Rotorua and completed another Ultramarathon. It was a grueling 102 kilometre run to Rotorua, which is to the north island of New Zealand.

I’ve done couple of races like this in the past, but this one was absolutely spectacular. And there are different number of elements why the race was so spectacular: It was the inclination, it was the declination, it was the terrain, it was the scenery. There are a lot of amazing lessons I took personally from that race.

Lessons from the BIG RACE

The first lesson was, obviously, how to breakdown a biggie goal. 102 kilometres, right? Huge!

Another element is that, reverse engineering that into one aid station, to the next aid station, checkpoint, checkpoint and checkpoint. It’s a bit like a goal, right? You got a big audacious goal, reverse engineer it down and go through each station as you go.

Another lesson that I took away from doing the Ultramarathon is, what happens when things don’t go your way?

So, what happens at 30km in? Achilles blew out. Hip blew out. I was in a world of pain. So, I had a couple of options: I could push on or I could pull out.

And so, I thought – “I’ve done all the training. I’ve come this far, I’m not gonna be pulling out at 30km.” So, I sucked it up and just kept on going. And obviously, with a bit of help, I got through each aid station.

It’s a really good analogy of – what happens when you’re facing adversity? What happens when you face a challenge? Do you go, “Ah, I’ve check out. I’m out!” Or do you actually push through?

Because mostly what happens when you push through the other side, that’s where the goal is guys. That’s where true success is. It’s getting through each ceiling. Getting through that next level.

So, you may be having troubles with your team. You may be having troubles with sales. You may be having troubles in any business. But the element of pushing through, that comes from having that support crew around you. It comes from having that team around you. Knowing what resources you’ve got – your backpack on your back, your water and everything like that to get you through to the next checkpoint.

How about you? How do you face your own adversities in your personal and work life? Sometimes, it helps to know that you have reliable people around you. Surround yourself with the right support group and you will definitely overcome any challenges that comes your way.

Feb 19
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Lessons for the Week: Finding Your Genius

By Blogpost, excellence, Goals, inspirations, mindset, purpose

In our team, we go through a cool little sequence. We also did a conference recently to review the year by going through reviewing the four (4) debriefing questions:

  • What’s worked?
  • What hasn’t worked?
  • What’s been some of the lessons?
  • And what do we need to be doing differently?

And when we can look at the week like that, we can sort of stop and reflect how the week has been and what do we need to be doing differently next week.

We had a great week here in the Tribe. We’ve had some huge lessons along the way, and this week we’re starting out strong. This is where I want to segway into becoming the rippling effect.

The Rippling Effect of Finding your Genius

Sometimes, we can be out there and in the trenches and going, and going, and going. We don’t realize the impact that we’re having or the effect that we’re having out there in the bigger world.

Sometimes we are feeling that, you know, we’re slogging away. We’ve got our goals we are working towards but isn’t really happening.

And I talked a lot about your genius, and I talk about a lot around finding that genius.

Finding what really lights you up. Finding those elements in your work, in your business, in your life – that you know, when you pursue it, when you’re actually in it, it’s easy.

It’s a breeze. It flows. Lights you up. Makes you feel good. You feel passion. You feel energized when you’re doing it.

And I think, when you find your genius, the rippling effect that it has out there in the wider world is huge. Because we’re all energy right!? It’s an energy thing out there in the world.

When you find your genius – that sends a vibration out there in the world.

I want to share with you a little story, we’ve had some great wins within the business for us over this last week. But one of the biggest wins was getting home one night and receiving a message from a young man whom I’ve known for 12 or 13 years.

And just the impact on these videos, you know, the Monday Magic Moments and the Finish it Fridays are having in his world and in his life.

To watch this boy develop into this young man, and to receive this message on the impact that these videos and these messages, and the learning and the lessons has had on him – really, struck a cord in the heart, as you can see.

It really goes to show that you don’t know who is watching. You don’t know what the impact that you’re truly having in the world when you are in your genius. You don’t realize the impact that you have on others. Both good and bad, right!?

Stay True to Your Genius

So, my message today is, stay true to your genius. Find your genius and stay true to your genius, and watch the rippling effect. Because you touch many lives out there.

And the more lives that you can touch, the bigger impact that you’ll have for yourself personally. And more importantly for those out there, and the community as a whole.

Feb 15
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The Power of Review

By Blogpost, Goals, habits, management, mindset

Hi guys! Welcome to another great opportunity to stop and reflect. I just did a quick little podcast around this topic. And it’s around reviewing. The power of REVIEW.

You know I’m going in the car, right!? We’ve got this big wind screen out the front – and then we got a little review mirror at the back. And the reason why we had this review mirror, is so we can actually keep on looking at the rear view.

In our reflection we should ask ourselves, “Am I on the right track? Is there someone coming up the side? And if I make that turn, am I gonna get knocked over?”

And so, this is where we constantly – we need to review.

Again, I’d like to go to four (4) debriefing questions or four (4) reviewing questions when we go through this process. And the questions are:

  1. What’s worked for you? What’s some of the wins? What’s been some of the success for you over the previous year?
  2. What’s been some of the setbacks? What hasn’t worked? What’s been some of the challenges over previous year?
  3. What are some of the key lessons? What are some of the Aha moments that you’ve experienced previous year?
  4. What do you need to be doing different this year?

Now, I try this question all the time. What’s the most important question out of those four? And people go, “Oh, what didn’t work?” and other goes, “Oh, what do I need to be doing differently next time?”

What Did I Learn?

The most important question is, WHAT DID I LEARN?

What was my Aha moment? What were some of the key lessons? Because we run patterns. Everything we do in life, we run patterns.

And when we can look at the good patterns that we run, and the bad patterns that we run – we can go, “you know what? I want to do more good patterns,” right? How do we amplify that?

But then we also need to see our bad patterns – what are those patterns that are holding us back? What change do we need to make, to go from bad to good?

So, the third question is – what are my key lessons, is the most powerful question.

What Do We Review?

Obviously, we go through – and I’ve got a number of area I’m going to suggest you review:

  1. We review health, super important.
  2. Relationships.
  3. Your finances, your investments.
  4. The places that you’ve visited or the experiences that you had.
  5. Also look at new learning throughout the year that you’ve done and achieved.

Are there any other areas, you know?

And obviously, you have on your work front. Looking at, you know, your key lead generation strategies. Your conversion strategies. Client fulfillment strategies. Your business structure – so your legals, your account, your systems, your processes, your planning.

When we go through this, and we do this every quarter with our clients. When we go through this review process, it gets the Aha moments to start to pop. Because now, they’ve reviewed all those four key areas of what’s worked? What hasn’t worked? Key lessons? And what do I need to be doing differently?

And then, boom – when they start to plan for the next quarter, enables them to really go to another level.

So, I’ve got the full outline of that on our upcoming podcast. So jumped on to our website, jamesshort.com.au. Go to podcast. Subscribe. And I’m looking forward to share all or some of the secret sauces with you on other podcasts.

So, there we go! Monday Magic Moments, great way to get started for the week. Let’s get into your review process this week.

Looking forward to speaking with you soon.

Feb 12
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Plan Ahead: Resolutions or Goals?

By Blogpost, Goals, mindset

When the year ended, what did you do? Did you make a list of all your new year’s resolutions, or did you set a list of goals that you want to achieve the following year?

Take note of your answer. There are three things I want to discuss:

  1. Why new year resolutions don’t actually work.
  2. The importance of creating vision boards and why it’s crucial for the year ahead.
  3. Why is it important to map out in the next 90 days?

Resolution versus Goal

So, RESOLUTIONS!

The stats say that at least 80% of resolutions wont last until June. And I totally I agree with that. I reckon it’s even more. Because resolutions are usually set in a stage where, you know – “Ah, I wanna stop smoking,” or “I’m gonna do this, I’m not gonna do that.”

And usually what happens with resolutions is there’s no plan behind it. So it’s all well and good. You write it down, put it in the drawer at the end of the year. It’s like the dust gather on it and that’s where it leaves.

So, what is the difference between a resolution and a goal?

A goal actually has a plan associated to it. It has mapped out of what the actions, what needs to get done, the reasons why and how to go about it. Where resolutions is just like, oh yeah, it be its nice to have. That’s why resolutions, I personally feel don’t work but goals actually do.

Create a Vision Board

The second component is creating a vision board.

Now some of the thing that we do as a family, is sit down on Christmas break and we get our laptops out – we review our previous year’s vision board and then we set up the next year’s vision boards. So its pretty cool around the kitchen table, all of us we start to map out.

We get our goals written down in relation to what we want to achieve throughout this year, then we go, “okay, if there’s a picture that would associate to that goal what that look like?” So we go to Google images and we type out that goal. Then we have that goal and we put in a slide on a PowerPoint.

So what happens is you create what’s called a montage – of all the different goals, different pictures of what you want to achieve for 2019. And that’s super easy, cause then you save it, you print it, laminate it, and you put it in the shower.

Importance of Creating a Vision Board

The reason why it is so important because this is what when you get up, you have your shower. When you go to bed, you have your shower – you just see it constantly each time your in the shower. It reminds you of what the activity is. It reminds you of what you need to start to be doing, who you need to become more of.

This is the motivator, this is the juice, the pictures of where you want to travel, the things you want to have, the person you want to become more of. Its so important to have this as your visual component.

The 90 Day Plan

The third component is, why is it so important to get the 90 day plan ready to go right now?

Because it’s so easy to get overwhelmed when you get back into the business. So when you’re having a clear right map of what you need to get done over in the next 90 days, you get back in the super charged mode knowing – “okay this week I need to that, next week I need to do that.”

And so the frustration completely goes out the window, because you’re super clear, you’re super focused and you’re on track of what you need to do.

So, resolutions or goals? Ask yourselves and think about what you need to do.

Feb 05
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Breathe, Visualize and Move

By Blogpost, Attitude, Food for thought, habits, mindset

Was there ever a time that you felt overwhelmed by so many things that are going on around you? Tasks that you need to finish, work that are piling up by the minute? How did you cope?

I want to share with you today the importance of B.V.M.: B for Breathe, V for Visualize, and M for Move. It’s a cool exercise that we do with a lot of our clients.

This is also an opportunity to really give you a tool that’s going to help you to get through the next couple of weeks at least.

So often, we have so many plates that are spinning around and around at the same time. What I notice is that people go from one plate, starts spinning, and go to another plate – and start spinning, and so on and so forth.

And what it does, it actually results to headache. People get overwhelmed with too much going on at the same time. People get frustrated.

So B.V.M actually allows you to transition those plate spinning. Transition those different tasks, activities or deliverable that you need to be working on throughout that day.

And this process really gets you centered, and it allows you to get clear on who you need to become and what you need to step into.

Breathe

Obviously breathing is a huge component. We all breathe, but how deep and how often do we actually really breathe? So, what happens is that when emotion is high – when you got so many stuff happening, your emotion’s through the roof – logic is usually low.

What happens is that, when we become quite emotive, we start to breathe from the neck part up. And we start to take short breaths, and we start to get more emotional.

And so, by breathing – it has to be some nice deep belly breaths. It enables you to decrease that high stake emotional component and start to get into more of a logistical kind of way of thinking.

Then, it starts to ground you. It starts to decrease that frustration and decrease that feeling of being overwhelmed. And when we do just a couple of, say 3 nice deep breaths, it starts to center us and it starts to ground us on where we are at right now.

If you are feeling overwhelmed then you can try this step right now. Clear your mind and take three deep belly breaths. How did that make you feel? It’s not time to move to the next step –

Visualize

Second component is Visualize. V for Visualize. Visualizing then moving into that next task. Moving into who I need to become or what am I about to do. You, seeing that task. You, visualizing that task in your mind.

Because what happens is that, when we play up our video screens in our internal mind – it starts to shift our behavior. It starts to shift our physiology. It starts to shift that internal reaction, those reactive models inside of us.

When it starts to shift our responses, then our physiology changes. Our behavior changes. Then our activity changes. Therefore, our results also change. So, V is to Visualize what’s coming up in your mind.

Visualizing the task is you preparing your mind and body to do the task. It may be a task that you do not particularly enjoy. It could be something tedious. Instead of putting it off, visualize yourself doing the task. Get a clear picture in your mind of yourself doing it.

Move

The last component is M for Move. And what I love to do, and I love to suggest to clients is, when we’re going through this B.V.M – we’re energetic beings. So, the more you move, energy creates energy. When people go out and don’t have enough energy on time – it’s like, nope, wrong.

Movement helps you do more, it creates more energy. And so, you know, if it’s a lap around the block – if it’s a lap around the office, if it’s a lap around your chair – by shifting your energy, by utilizing that movement, it starts to release those endorphins. Release those hormones that you can start to then find the energy to do the activity that you need to move in to.

So B.V.M: Breathe, Visualize and Move – this really helps you to transition from task to task. Really helps you transition from going to one conversation, then to a different conversation. And starts to help you get through the day and get through the activities, and obviously help you to achieve the goals that you want to achieve.