The May 2010 issue of SUCCESS Magazine arrived in my mail box the other day.  If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I am a big fan of SUCCESS.  Darren Hardy and his crew put out an amazing magazine every month.  I read it from cover to cover as soon as I get it.  This month was no exception.  As a career success coach, I urge you to subscribe to SUCCESS.  I don’t endorse a lot of products, and I have no affiliate relationship with SUCCESS.  It’s just that good.  You’re really missing out if you’re not a subscriber.

As a career success coach, I’m a big believer in the power of optimism.  I often quote The Optimist Creed on this blog.  I think it is great common sense career advice.  If you want a copy of The Optimist Creed that you can frame and hang in your office, go to http://www.budbilanich.com/optimist.

The “Legends” column in this month’s SUCCESS is about Wally Amos, founder of Famous Amos cookies.  In a sidebar, Wally Amos lists his 13 Keys to an Optimistic Attitude.  Check them out…

1. Stop being your own worst enemy.  Be your own best friend.
2. Don’t put yourself down.  Pull yourself up.
3. Don’t permit others to define who you are.  You can’t be a failure without your own consent.
4. Respect yourself.  Place a high value on yourself.
5. Take stock of who you are and what you’re capable of.  Work on weaknesses and find new strengths every day.
6. Replace “I can’t” with “I can” and “I will.”
7. Treat yourself generously, the way you want others to treat you.
8. Be compassionate. Love yourself, and others will love you.
9. Remember that you are an individual expression of God.  As a work of God’s art, you are priceless and irreplaceable.
10. Visualize what you want from life, then work toward it.  See it, then be it.
11. Allow time to be by yourself, with yourself.  Take time to appreciate yourself.
12. Enjoy your uniqueness.  Out of all the billions of people since the beginning of time, there has never been and never will be another you.
13. Realize that you are important to the entire world; what happens to the world begins with you.

No wonder Wally Amos is famous.  He gets it about life and optimism; at least from the perspective of this career success coach. 

Here’s one last quote from Wally…

“It doesn’t matter how bad things look or what appearances are.  If I can just continue on – one breath at a time – that’s all I have to do.  There’s no tomorrow.  There’s not future or no past because those are just words.  Those aren’t places you can visit.  So, if I can just keep on keeping on with enthusiasm and excitement over what I’m doing, I absolutely believe I will succeed.  And my life demonstrates that.”

In my soon to be released new book, Success Tweet: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice All in 140 Characters or Less, I mention optimism three times…

Tweet 42: Choose optimism.  It builds your confidence.  Believe that today will be better than yesterday and that tomorrow will be better yet.

Tweet 43: Optimism is contagious.  Become a powerful, optimistic person.  Surround yourself with positive people.  They will build your confidence.

Tweet 44: Be an optimist.  Believe things will turn out well.  When they don’t, don’t sulk.  Learn what you can; use it next time.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are self confident.  Optimism is the foundation of self confidence.  Wally Amos’ 13 Keys to an Optimistic Attitude provide some great career advice.  Here are some of his words of wisdom that really resonate with me.  “Don’t put yourself down.  Pull yourself up.”  “Respect yourself.  Place a high value on yourself.”  “Visualize what you want from life, then work toward it.  See it; then be it.” “Realize that you are important to the entire world; what happens to the world begins with you.”  I really like this last piece of career advice.  It highlights the importance of the Power of 1.  The Power of 1 begins with optimism.  I believe in the Power of 1.  Wally Amos believes in the Power of 1.  What a great world it would be if everyone believed in the Power of 1.

That’s my take on Famous Amos and optimism.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us – leave a comment.   As always, thanks for reading. 

Bud

PS – Don’t forget to get your subscription to SUCCESS Magazine.  Go to www.success.com

Earlier this week I did a post about clarity of purpose and direction.  I began it with a story about Jim Collins from the April 2010 issue of SUCCESS Magazine.  This post is also based on something I found in SUCCESS.

W. Clement Stone was the publisher of an earlier version of SUCCESS Magazine.  He became a millionaire selling insurance during the great depression.  Along with Napoleon Hill and Paul J. Meyer, he is one of the best known pioneers of the modern success industry.  He was known as Mr. Positive Mental Attitude. 

As a career success coach, I believe in the power of having a positive mental attitude.  That’s why I am such a big fan of the Optimist Creed.  If you want a copy of the Optimist Creed to frame and hang in your office, just go to http://budbilanich.com/optimist. 

However, positive attitude isn’t what caught my eye in the current issue of SUCCESS.  On page 88, the “Turning Your Knowledge into POWER column says…

Big Doors Swing on Little Hinges.  W. Clement Stone says you are what your habits make you, but you can choose to change.  Write down two habits you should keep doing and two habits you need to eliminate, then get started.

That is great common sense career success advice.

Here are two habits I will keep doing…

1. Writing and publishing a blog five days a week.  This helps me deepen my understanding of what it takes to become a career success.  As a career success coach, I need to have as deep an understanding of the subject as possible.
2.  Beginning every day with a prayer asking for help in beeing a loving husband, good friend, productive member of society, and a positive influence on other people’s lives.  If I do all of these things, I will be not only an effective career success coach, I will be a good person, one who is worthy of the trust others put in me.

Here are two habits I will eliminate…

1. Giving myself permission to eat poorly and slack off on exercise when I travel.  I need to be as physically fit as possible to be effective as a career success coach.
2. Procrastinating on attempting to do things in which I might fail.  This includes things like regular podcasting, commenting on others’ blogs and video blog creation.

I have stated these publically.  That’s the first step in maintaining positive habits and in ridding myself of negative, unproductive ones.  I’m asking you to hold me to these commitments.  And I will help you do the same.

I have created a forum to help us all stick to our positive habits and change our not so positive ones.  Just go to http://www.BudBilanich.com/positivehabits and register for the forum.  Once you’ve done so, you can post the positive habits you want to keep and the negative habits you want to eliminate.  We can use this forum to help each other build positive career success habits.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people commit to taking personal responsibility for their career success.  One way of demonstrating personal responsibility for your career success is by publicly committing to building on your good habits and breaking your bad habits.  I am creating an on line habit mastermind group.  In this group, we will help one another build on positive habits and break negative ones.  If you want to participate, join my new positive habits forum.  Go to http://www.BudBilanich.com/positivehabits.  Share the two habits you want to reinforce and the two you need to break.  I’ve set up this forum so we can help one another.

That’s my take on the power of positive habits and success.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  By the way, my friend, Dan Robey has written a book called The Power of Positive Habits.  You can get it at www.thepowerofpositivehabits.com.  If you’re interested in building on your positive habits and breaking your negative ones, you need to read this book.  Tell Dan that I sent you.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Jim Collins is on the cover of the April 2010 SUCCESS Magazine.  He is the author of Good to Great and How the Mighty Fail.  In my book, he’s a thought leader.  Since I’m a career success coach, and he writes about success, I pay attention.  By the way, the April issue of SUCCESS is terrific.  The folks at SUCCESS just keep getting better.  If you’re not already a subscriber, I suggest you go to www.Success.com and subscribe as soon as you finish reading this post.  Trust me on this one.  I am after all, the Common Sense Guy and a terrific career success coach.

The SUCCESS article begins with a great story that highlights the importance of clarity of purpose and direction in creating your personal career success…

“One of his many mentors, business management guru Peter Drucker, advised Collins early on that he would have to make a choice: building an organization that lasts, or ideas.  Collins chose ideas.  ‘There have been lot’s opportunities to build a large organization, institute, consulting firm, and all those things are fine and good, but Peter said you’ve got to choose.  And that’s why I decided to keep everything small and focus on the research, which has been a very good decision’.”

Clarity of purpose and direction is the first of the 4 Cs in my Career Success GPS System.  The other three are: commitment to taking personal responsibility for your career success, unshakeable self confidence and competence in four key career success areas – creating positive personal impact, outstanding performance, dynamic communication and relationship building.

The first step in clarifying your purpose and direction is to figure out what success means to you personally – not your parents, not your professors, not your friends – you personally.  Jim Collins figured out that he has a passion for ideas, not building a large organization.  Then he followed his passion.  Good for him; and good for us.  That simple, but fundamental, decision guided everything he has done as he has gone about becoming a life and career success.

When I was 25, if you asked me what I wanted to be doing when I was 60, I would have told you, “Running a one person consulting, career coaching and speaking business from my house.”  Guess what?  I have been running a one person consulting, career coaching and speaking business from my house ever since 1988.  My clarity of purpose propelled me toward my goal.

I have a friend who is a serial entrepreneur.  He started a software business when he was 27.  He built it up and sold it to a major computer manufacturer by the time he was 35.  He has since started and sold four other companies.  His clarity of purpose lies in the challenge of creating something new, building it into a viable sustainable business and then moving on.

I have another friend who recently retired as the Executive VP of Human Resources for a Fortune 50 company.  We were chatting a few days ago.  She told me that when she was in college, she decided that she was going to join a good company and work her way up the ladder.  She took an entry level HR job with a company she liked.  It took her over 25 years, but she eventually became the most senior HR person in that company.  Her clarity of purpose and definition of career success was different from mine and the serial entrepreneur’s, but she reached her goal.

My second friend told me that her son has yet a different definition of career success.  He is not interested in climbing the corporate ladder, or in being an entrepreneur.  He wants an interesting job where he can contribute, but he doesn’t want to spend inordinate amounts of time at work.  He wants to spend as much time with his family as he can.  His definition of career success is different from his mother, me and my friend the serial entrepreneur.

All four of us have created our own versions of career success.  As a career success coach, I say “right on.”

There is no one correct definition of career success.  There are as many definitions as there are people in this world.  Your definition of career success is what’s right for you – not anyone else.  I would not have been happy building and selling a number of businesses in succession, climbing a corporate ladder or working for a large company in an individual contributor position.  However, as you can tell from the stories of the three people above, they were.  They knew what they wanted and they went after it.  Jim Collins would not have been happy building a large organization.  He clarified what his personal definition of career success and created it.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people clarify their personal sense of purpose and direction.  Your clarity of purpose provides both a foundation and launching pad for your career success.  The old saying, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t know when you get there” is a cliché but true.  Clarifying your personal definition of career success is the first step to becoming a career success.  As a career success coach, I suggest you take some time and develop your clarity of purpose for your life and career.  Answer this important question.  “How do I define career success for myself?  Keep that purpose and definition of career success in mind as you go about creating the career success you want and deserve.  Your clarity of purpose and direction will help you make important career decisions when you’re confronted with differing opportunities; just ask Jim Collins.

That’s my take on the importance of clarifying your purpose and direction for your life and career.  It’s the important first step in creating the career success you want and deserve.  What’s your opinion on this?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Competence is one of the four keys to career and life success in my Common Sense Success System.  I also discuss it in some detail in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success; Your Success GPS; and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to succeed you need to develop four basic, but important competencies: 1) creating positive personal impact; 2) becoming a consistently high performer; 3) dynamic communication skills; and 4) becoming interpersonally competent. 

There are four key competencies that will help you become a career and life success:

• You have to be able to create positive personal impact.
• You have to be become an outstanding performer.
• You have to be a dynamic communicator – in conversation, writing and presentations.
• You have to build strong, lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with the important people in your life.

Dynamic presentation skills are a crucial competency to develop.  More than one career has been made on the strength of one or two really good presentations. 

Darren Hardy is the Publisher of SUCCESS Magazine.  I love SUCCESS.  It is full of very useful and usable information every month.  Darren also sends very informative emails to subscribers.  A while back he posted a great piece covering his best tips for delivering dynamite presentations.  He was gracious enough to allow me to repost it here…

Darren Hardy’s 10 Tips for More Compelling Presentations:

1. Prepare. Nothing beats great preparation. I usually write out a presentation word for word, then I reduce it to a skeleton outline, then bullet points, then just key words on paper in case I need to quickly glance down at trigger words to guide me along, but I will rarely use the notes. Just going through the process is my process for learning the presentation.

2. Know your audience. Find out the demographic mix of the audience. Find out who the key players are so you can use their names during the presentation. Understand core aspects about their company, cause, products, ideals, etc. Understand the trends, competition and key issues that the audience faces. If they know you know who they are in the first few minutes, they will be your ally for the rest of the presentation.

3. Sell it. Not necessarily you or what you are promoting, sell your presentation. Open up with an attention getter. Imagine the format of an infomercial. Explain the grand benefits they are going to get by listening raptly to the information you are about to share.

4. Package it. Tell them what you are going to tell them (through benefits, outcomes, the difference this information will make in their lives), tell them (deliver the goods), then tell them what you told them (post-sell the benefits so they know you have just given them great value).

5. Be entertaining. Yes, you need to be informative and enlightening, but you are talking to humans—they are bored easily. If people are entertained, they are engaged and are more apt to actually listen to what you are saying.

6. Be visual. I think in pictures, so I talk in pictures. I use visual aids and talk in word pictures and metaphors. People seldom recall words, but they do remember pictures.

7. Tell stories. I am not a natural storyteller. I have to force myself to break off and tell a story, but the best speakers, lecturers and influencers the world has known were all great storytellers. Collect them and get good at telling them. BUT, make sure they are relevant to the point you are making. I dislike gratuitous storytelling for stories’ sake in a keynote. I can read a book or go to a movie for that. Make sure the story is on point.

8. Overdress. My grandmother taught me this. People look at you before they listen to you. How you show up communicates 80 percent of whether someone should (or will) listen to you or not. During the first 5 minutes people will assess you up and down and draw all sorts of conclusions. Make sure the conclusions they draw are: professional, polished, credible and sensible (at least).  Whatever you think the dress code will be dress at least one or two steps above it. There is nothing worse than being underdressed—it’s disrespectful. You are going to be onstage; people expect that you respect that position and dress UP for it.

9. Be Yourself. Don’t try to be Zig Ziglar or Tony Robbins. Me? I don’t like beating on my chest and yelling, having the crowd jump up and down on their chairs, run around the stage or drop to my knee for dramatic effects. You will never see me do that; it’s not me.  My best advice for you is to be you. Be onstage as you are offstage. Be real, authentic and communicate through your true feelings and conviction—it is from that place you can be persuasive, rousing and influencing.

10. See the ‘O.’ I always spend a few minutes before each keynote visualizing the presentation and the audience response: the rapt attention, the awe-inspired looks on their faces, their laughing and having a good time, then the rousing standing ovation at the end. It helps me get into the ‘zone’ and raise my emotional energy before getting started.

Hopefully there are some tips you can borrow and utilize to improve your own presentations. I hope that I’m standing and clapping in the audience of your keynote presentation soon.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are competent in four areas: 1) creating positive personal impact; 2) performing at a high level; 3) dynamic communication; and 4) relationship building.  Dynamic communicators are competent in three basic communication skills – conversation, writing and presenting.  Darren Hardy, publisher of SUCCESS Magazine suggests that there are 10 things you need to do to become a master presenter. 1) Prepare.  2) Know your audience.  3) Sell your talk.  4) Package your talk.  5) Be entertaining.  6) Be visual.  7) Tell Stories.  Overdress.  9) Be yourself.  10) Visualize yourself doing a successful talk.  These are 10 common sense tips for becoming a great presenter.  Use them and you will succeed.

Those are Darren Hardy’s 10 tips for creating and delivering great presentations.  What are your best presentation tips?  Please take a minute to leave a comment sharing them with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

For the record — this content was republished with permission from Darren Hardy, Publisher of SUCCESS magazine. For more great insights, tips and strategies on success and achievement go to http://DarrenHardy.SUCCESS.com More about Darren Hardy can be found at: http://DarrenHardy.SUCCESS.com/About

Commitment to taking personal responsibility for your personal and professional success is one of the keys to career and life success that is part of my Common Sense Success System.  I also discuss it in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, Your Success GPS, and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success. 

If you want to succeed, you must commit to three things.  First, you must take personal responsibility for your success.  Only you can make you a success.  You need to be willing to do the things necessary to succeed.  Second, you must set high goals — and then do whatever it takes to achieve them.   Third, stuff happens; as you go through life you will encounter many problems and setbacks.  You need to react positively to the negative stuff and move forward toward your goals.

Tomorrow is December 1.  There is one more month left in 2009.  I’m a big believer in finishing strong.  December is a month to finish strong.  Finishing strong will help you complete your 2009 goals and give you some momentum as you enter 2010.  I work hard all year; but I always work the hardest in December and January.  I work hard in December to finish strong and in January to start fast.

Over the weekend, I came across two quotes that go to the heart of taking personal responsibility for finishing strong and starting fast.  The first quote comes from Jerry Rice, an NFL Hall of Fame player and the man who scored more touchdowns than any other player in the history of the league.

“Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.”

The second quote comes from Orison Swett Marden, the founder of the original version of SUCCESS Magazine. 

“A strong, successful man is not the victim of his environment.  He creates favorable conditions.  His own inherent force and energy compel things to turn out as he desires.”

I really like this quote.  And, if you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I am a big fan of the current incarnation of SUCCESS Magazine.  I read it cover to cover every month as soon as I receive it.  Cathy really likes it too.  If you’re not a subscriber, give yourself a holiday present and subscribe.  In his Publisher’s Letter this month, Darren Hardy makes another great point about taking personal responsibility for your success…

“Make sure your calendar represents the priorities you claim to be most important in life.”

Let’s go back and look at these three quotes; Jerry Rice first. 

Jerry Rice was famous for his devotion to physical fitness.  His workouts were legendary.  Every day he did what others wouldn’t so he was able to beat them on the field on Sunday.  What are you willing to do that others won’t?  The answer to this question is your slight edge in business and in life.

Orison Marden suggests that we triumph over our environment by choosing to how we respond to the things that happen to us.  As I’ve pointed out many times, stuff happens; good stuff, bad stuff, frustrating stuff, hopeful stuff.  And, the stuff that happens isn’t important.  How we respond to it is.  You create your own “favorable conditions” by choosing to react positively to the negative stuff that happens to you. 

Finally, Darren Hardy provides concrete advice on how to commit to taking personal responsibility for your life and career – get the important stuff on your calendar.  This is great advice.  Things are difficult to ignore when they’re on your calendar.  I enter “publish blog” on my calendar every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  Each of these days the first thing I see when I log on to Outlook is a message that says “publish blog.”  This helps me focus on one of my most important tasks – publishing this blog.  It helps me do something that others won’t and helps me control my environment by doing something positive first thing every day.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people commit to taking personal responsibility for their lives and careers.  You demonstrate your commitment to taking personal responsibility when you do three things.  1) You do the little things that others won’t.  2) You choose to respond positively to the people and events in your life.  3) You make sure your calendar reflects your career and life priorities.  If you do these three things, you’ll not only be taking personal responsibility for your life and career, you’ll finish strong in 2009 and start fast in 2010.

That’s my take on finishing strong in 2009 and starting fast in 2010.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to comment on this post, sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud