Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

What does wealth mean to you?
Monday, December 29th, 2008

Today’s success tip comes from Anni Haque.

Anni is a sought-after coach, strategist, conceptualiser, facilitator and commentator. Over the years Anni has worked across a wide range of industries with individuals, teams, industry leaders and even royalty.


What does wealth mean to you?

To me wealth means freedom of choice and this is what I observe drives people to be wealthy. The property, shares, business and the money they generate are the vehicles and the currency. I define wealth as an abundance of choice. My acronym is:

* W is for Wonder - the opportunity to be curious and ponder the ‘what ifs’ in life.

* E is for Ease - when people achieve choice, they can automatically operate from a place of ease.

* A is for Abundance - versus scarcity. I believe scarcity thinking is the reason for just about all of the world’s problems.

* L is for Love - all its types and forms.

* T is for Thriving - imagine a plant that is well watered and fertilised; wealth allows us to thrive and radiate.

* H is for Health, Happiness and Hooray - have fun and celebrate your freedom and wealth!

Did you know that the small Asian country of Bhutan has begun to move away from the economic measuring sticks of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Product (GNP)? With the help of the Canadian Partnerships Program, Bhutan is aiming to focus on the social, economic and environmental components of their country by introducing Gross National Happiness (GNH). This involves measuring the value of voluntary and unpaid work, natural ‘capitals’ (soils and forests), the cost of crime, human freedom and other aspects of ’social capital’. Perhaps we could learn something from a country like this.
This website contains even more great tips from Anni Haque.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE NOW.

Filed under: Personal, Success Tips — Rob Orriss @ 4:31 pm
Today’s success tip comes from Rosie Pekar.
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

Today’s success tip comes from Rosie Pekar.

Rosie is a ÔBut-kickerÕ Ð author, motivator and columnist to over 60,000 entrepreneurs globally and she travels regularly delivering seminars and ÔDeliberate CreationÕ workshops in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and the US.

What has been one of the biggest challenges you have had to face in your life and how did you overcome it - how did it shape your life?

The biggest challenge I have had to face, and one that I continually have to overcome, is me! Now, this may sound strange considering that I’ve had to overcome the fiery and violent nature of burly angry men intent on bashing me with baseball bats, tyre levers and bricks; that I had a contract taken out on my life within my first six months of policing; that I had to prepare myself to jump off a third-floor balcony in order to escape from a man with a shotgun; and that I had to face a knife-wielding man who kept reminding me that he was ‘ready to carve me up’. Hmmm…yep, I am definitely my own biggest challenge!

Why? Because of my own mind-set and habitual limiting thoughts. I have met many other people with the same problem or as I like to call it, ‘poor-me-itis’. Essentially it’s when people blame everything on a specific moment in their life.

Unfortunately, we get conditioned to keep on repeating our story - ‘poor me I grew up with’ or ‘I was diagnosed with’ or ‘I was abused by’ The truth is, if you live long enough you’ll always have a story to tell, the challenge is to not hinge the rest of your wellbeing on it. That is, don’t use it to restrict your personal power for a happy life.

It’s the thoughts in our heads that make us prisoners to the past and keep us locked into our ‘feeling bad’ states. Then we wonder why more bad stuff keeps happening to us and lay blame on anything and anyone. Once we understand that it’s not ‘out there’ and that the problem is ‘in here’ (nasty self-talk) then we are at least on the right track to the root of the problem.

I have met some professional victims alongside career criminals. I call them professional because as I see it they have mastered the art of criticising and condemning while holding themselves aloof. (Yep, guilty as charged, your honour! I especially excelled through my teens and early twenties.)

Some will justify the validity of their claims, ‘I have every right to feel bad, mad, tired, or whatever’ and sadly it becomes their way of being in their life. Not only is this sad for them, it’s toxic for all those around them too, and we all know someone like this. I have even watched one die holding onto this attitude.

‘Live a life so that when you die, even the undertaker is sad.’ Since you can’t escape your thoughts I choose to continually challenge myself and believe in more than I dreamed possible. I choose to make my self-talk my friend - not my enemy. Why not make your thoughts something that is exciting and makes you feel good, and in the process attract fabulous results into your life? Makes sense to me!
This website contains even more great tips from Rosie Pekar.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE NOW.

Filed under: Marketing, Personal, Success Tips — Rob Orriss @ 12:14 pm

Today’s success tip comes from Stephanie Williams.

After watching a live performance of the Australian Ballet Company at the age of 11, Stephanie Williams realised her deep passion for dance. She has since competed overseas and now studies at the Australian Ballet School.

What do you do to pick yourself up when you’re feeling down?

Ballet is not only taxing on your body, it can also play quite heavily on your emotions. Through happiness, disappointment and mental anguish my love for dance has always helped to guide me.

Over the years I have experienced every emotion possible, but sometimes the moments of extreme despair are not a result of outside experiences. Because of my perfectionist nature I can be extremely hard on myself, which results in a destructive mental attitude that is horrible to experience. I now know that there is a definite line between working hard and being too hard on myself. I had to learn this through personal experience and have found that when I trust myself and my abilities I can ensure that I stay positive every step of the way.
 
Whenever I do find myself feeling down I will read inspirational quotes that I have collected over the years. This always helps to put everything back into perspective. I have also always had my family around me for support and to help pick me up when I’m down. It always helps to have people to talk to because bottling thoughts and feelings up is extremely unhealthy. And often I will put my music on and dance. Despite the fact that I may have been scorned by an experience to do with ballet, I am at my happiest when I’m dancing and find that this always helps me to feel better.
This website contains even more great tips from Stephanie Williams.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE NOW.

Filed under: Personal — Rob Orriss @ 4:01 pm

Today’s success tip comes from Jeremy Lim.

Young Ambassador of the Children’s Medical Fund and freelance writer, Jeremy Lim, is a 16-year-old boy who has ‘Brittle-bones’ Disease. His numerous achievements and positive attitude despite his daily challenges has attracted media attention all over the world.

What do you do to pick yourself up when you are feeling down?

Feeling down is as natural as feeling pain when you are hit with an object. How much pain you feel depends on the degree of impact. Sometimes, I feel miserable. I think it is perfectly fine to feel that way, after all I am only human.  However, I know I don’t have to stay down forever and the quicker I let it go, the better it is for me.

What do I do to pick myself up? I don’t make a big deal of what has passed because I cannot do anything to change it. Instead, I use my time and energy to think of solutions that will bring back my smiles. I also remind myself that spring would not be so pleasant if there was no winter.

Of course, there will be times when I feel sad because of reasons beyond my control. One of the things I do to feel better is to write about it. I write my column for Today newspaper and this feels great because it gets the negative feelings out of my system.

In challenging times, I pick myself up by looking at funny pictures or comics and reading jokes to have a good laugh. I will also turn to my books for inspiration and words of wisdom.

This website contains even more great tips from Jermeny Lim.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE NOW.

Filed under: Personal, Success Tips — Rob Orriss @ 10:32 am
How to get more done with less effort?
Monday, October 27th, 2008

Today’s success tip comes from Laurence Harrould.

Combining his three passions of business, science and astrology with a love of working with people, Laurence has developed the Aviel brand. Laurence has also achieved diplomas in education, business information systems, orthomolecular nutrition, clinical ecology and workplace training.

For most business minded people, there are never enough hours in a day. What’s your advice for getting more done with less effort?

Everything keeps coming back to focus. If you know what your objectives are then whenever something comes up you can make a decision about whether it needs to be dealt with now. Steven Covey (author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and First Things First) uses four quadrants: (1) Important and Urgent, (2) Important but Not Urgent, (3) Not Important but Urgent, and (4) Not Important and Not Urgent.

When we are clear about our purpose we can more easily put tasks into these quadrants. If it is in quadrant four, ignore it; quadrant three, get someone else to do it. Ideally life should be about working in quadrants one and two.

Particularly challenging for small business owners is getting caught in the trap of thinking, ‘If I don’t do it, then it won’t get done’. Something I find useful is to have a sign above your desk that says, ‘Whose job am I doing now?’

Delegation is very powerful and often misused. It is about having people who are responsible for specific tasks and allowing them to carry out their responsibilities without micro-managing. The other important point here is that your staff must have the authority and the tools to enable them to perform their roles. There is little that is more soul-destroying and stressful than having responsibility without the authority or ability to fulfil that responsibility.

Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth is a must for any business owner; the basic premise is about having systems in place. The other must-read is The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson.


This website contains even more great tips from Laurence Harrould.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE NOW.

Filed under: Personal, Success Tips — Rob Orriss @ 9:00 am

Today’s success tip comes from Michelle Bowden.

At 28, with a baby and a huge mortgage, Michelle opened her training business, with AMP as her first client. She is an accredited NLP practitioner and master trainer in presentation and influencing skills. She works with CEOs and their teams to help prepare them for presentations at company meetings, conferences and sales pitches.

What are your top tips for influencing others in a positive and empowering way?

Rapport, rapport, rapport! Before you can influence others you must build rapport with them. My advice is to:

* Understand the person’s personality filters - the way they experience, respond to and manage their environment.

* Make a plan - what do you want to achieve?

* Use pacing and leading - pacing involves being like your audience in your dress, body language, eye contact, vocal variety, style, language, interests and attitudes. Some people call this matching or mirroring. Leading is taking the audience where you want them to go. Your audience won’t follow you or give you permission to lead them unless they feel an affiliation with you. You really can’t ask for anything until you have first built rapport.

* Show them what’s in it for them to change - we know this as the WIIFM or ‘what’s in it for me’.

* Cialdini’s influence patterns help you identify the other strategies to use - for more information I recommend you read Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini.

This website contains even more great tips from Michelle Bowden.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE NOW.

Filed under: Marketing, Personal — Rob Orriss @ 4:58 am

Today’s success tip comes from Jennifer Jefferies.

Today Jennifer speaks to corporations throughout Australia, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, the United States, Europe and New Zealand. She is the author of 7 Steps to Sanity and seven other health-related titles which are sold throughout the world, and have been translated into four languages.

Why is it so important for people to learn to say ‘no’?

Most of us are our own worst enemies when it comes to saying ‘yes’ to everything that is asked of us. I can’t tell you the number of people that I have treated over the years who felt overloaded, fatigued and resentful for having been put in situations where they’ve had to do things that they either didn’t want to do or didn’t have time to do.

The reality is that you create this situation by saying ‘yes’ when you should have said ‘no’. You choose to forgo your own needs rather than having the courage to say ‘no’. You choose to accept being overloaded rather than risk being thought of as selfish or inconsiderate. But have you ever thought about how unfair it is to say ‘yes’ to someone and then feel angry at them for it? If you are going to say ‘yes’, you need to mean it, get your head around it and get on with it. If you are saying ‘yes’ but meaning ‘no’ then you are heading into trouble.

There are enough stressors in life without creating new ones for yourself every time you are too afraid to say ‘no’. No one likes to disappoint or let anyone down, but in life it’s a reality - the only question is whether you will choose to always let yourself down by never letting anyone else down.

It’s time to show some respect for yourself and to start saying ‘no’. It doesn’t mean that you are selfish or don’t care. It demonstrates that you understand your limits and are realistic about what can be achieved given your time, resources and capabilities. Respectfully saying ‘no’ shows others that you are not willing to disappoint their expectations by promising more than you can give.

We also have to learn to say ‘no’ to ourselves when we’re not acting in our own best interests. You might have experienced the ‘I’ll just finish this one thing’ syndrome, where you become so single-minded about your work that you neglect to look after the other areas of your life.

It usually strikes after 5pm on a weekday and every time you think, ‘I’ll just finish this one thing’ another hour slides by with you still sitting at your desk - then you grab something fast and fattening to eat, decide it’s too late to go to the gym or that you’re too tired to catch up with friends as planned and the ‘poor me’ behaviours begin to creep in. Negative emotions like ‘poor me’ suck the life out of you. It is generally unnecessary fear that stops us saying ‘no’.

This website contains even more great tips from Jennifer Jefferies.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE NOW.

Filed under: Personal, Success Tips — Rob Orriss @ 1:25 am

This video showcases the stunning marine life and underwater scenery at Rottnest Island, as seen on 17th January 2008 on a scuba diving charter trip with Perth Diving Academy. Footage includes buff bream, wobbegong shark, massive bull stingrays, western blue devil, juvenile jewfish, talma, scalyfin being cleaned, a crayfish being bagged, the skipper freediving and much more. I’m so glad that I live in Perth where such stunning scuba diving is so close to home!

Filed under: Cool Videos, Personal — Rob Orriss @ 5:43 am

Today’s success tip comes from Andrew May.

Andrew runs Switched On, a consulting company based in Sydney and
London. He is one of Australia’s leading experts on performance and
gives keynote presentations around the world and coaches CEOs and s
enior managers. He also runs PT Plus, a mentoring and coaching business.


What are your top tips for dramatically increasing personal productivity?

The first thing I teach people to do is to work to their natural energy
platforms. Then I teach the concepts of chunking time, the half-day
lock-out, forced isolation and avoiding the Noddy syndrome.

Chunking - at first thought, multitasking seems a logical response to our
compressed and tightly-packed schedules. While doing a couple of tasks
at the same time might sometimes feel more productive, multitasking is
not nearly as productive as most people think.

Chunking is about doing similar tasks at the same time. While this is a very
simple concept, it can make a massive difference to daily output. For
example, check and respond to emails at two or three specific times a day
only, and block out time to work on proposals and reports. Modify these
ideas to fit into your job responsibilities, I’m sure most people have a lot
more control over organising their day and their precious time than they
think.

The half-day lock-out - a lot of people who have participated in our
corporate programs have picked up the concept of an uninterrupted
half-day. This lock-out means turning off the mobile, not checking emails,
avoiding constant interruptions and walk-ins, and is best completed when
your energy platforms are at their peak. Focus on being present and
attentive on the task. This works especially well when you have to write
a report, finish a proposal or do some high-end cognitive planning.

Forced isolation - I use this concept when I have a big task to finish. A
friend of mine has an amazing holiday house two hours’ south of Sydney
in a little place called Gerroa. I regularly shoot down to Gerroa and chunk
my time working on finishing an activity (thanks Gary Green - you are a
legend!). I find that when I am in the office, interruptions just happen!
There is no email access at Gary’s house and I turn off my phone and
work in chunks of time. I usually give myself a small energy break every
45 to 60 minutes and a larger energy break, to walk on the beach or swim
in the ocean, every few hours. Over two or three days at Gerroa I get more
work done than I would working at home or in my office.

If you don’t have the luxury of having a mate like Gary, build forced
isolation into your current environment. I used to set up a desk in my garage
and lock myself away from all of the noise of my flatmates. Working from
home on a normal
working day is also a form of forced isolation. Just make sure you don’t
settle in and watch the TODAY show and then read the daily papers before
turning on Oprah or Dr Phil.

Avoiding Noddy syndrome - I think most of us suffer from Noddy
syndrome - always nodding ‘yes’ to please other people. Sometimes it’s
hard to say no because you feel like you might be letting someone down,
but in the end if you say yes to everyone and everything else in your life
the only person you’re really saying no to is yourself.

I like the old saying, ‘Sometimes you need to say no for a great yes down
the road’. Be assertive with others and practise saying no to other people’s
requests if they are not essential. Whether you are doing so many things
for ego, because you don’t want to let people down or because you are
pressured into doing them, there comes a time when you must learn to
say no.

This website contains even more great tips from Andrew May.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE NOW.

Filed under: Absolute Success Arena, Personal, Real Estate — Rob Orriss @ 1:43 am