Leadership In Self-Help

Decide Fully - Decide Finally!

Lessons In Leadership

If you were to ask a random sampling of low-earning men and women who are past their mid-life, "How is it that you are still working day after day, month to month, just barely earning a living?"

It would not surprise those earning significantly more that perhaps nine out of ten of those questioned might offer a full banquet of reasons for their circumstance.

Reasons including they never had a chance early on to be successful; that they were kept back in some fashion; that circumstances were against them and they had no real opportunities such as others around them who went on to accomplish more.

In fact, the reasons (and excuses) for not living up to ones potential are all to plentiful for anyone willing to deny any personal responsibility for their own present situation.

It's too easy to blame others for our own inaction:

• It's the way I was raised
• I was abused
• I didn't get to go to college
• I'm an addict or alcoholic
• The government keeps people like me down
• The school system failed me
• My employer always holds me back
• Times are hard right now
• I've never had the time or resources

Blah, Blah, Blah!

True leaders understand there is one major pre-requisite before achieving any level of effective leadership. They know that the mentality of "Self-Help" is essential.

Self-help is equivalent to nothing less than one's own personal freedom.

Self-help - the ability to look inward and take personal responsibility and ownership for one's present condition, regardless of circumstance.

Most likely, opportunity did in fact visit, on multiple occasions, each of those low-earning, middle-aged men and women.

Unfortunately, when one allows himself to wear the "shackles of low expectations", he fails to see opportunity when it might be staring him in the face.

"Self-Helpers", on the other hand, take on each task positively, promptly, and are determined to complete the job just as well as it can be done.

Luck, by most accounts, is a myth. LUCK - is when Preparedness meets Opportunity.

Whatever your circumstance, take complete ownership of it. Decide that you will do, learn, study, work, and BE whatever you must in order to improve yourself.

The very instant you become truly determined to improve your life, you become free from being a victim of circumstance; you are freed from being abused and misused or underutilized; and you are saved from an otherwise bleak existence.

Let there be no going back, no reconsidering - leave it up for no further discussion.

Decide quickly, decide firmly - decide finally.

Whatever your situation, always know that the answer lies in you.

Self-Help to the rescue!

Focus is a powerful skill and a highly effective tool for any good leader.

It's been repeatedly proven that whatever one's focus, increased results tend to follow.

Try this simple exercise at your next team meeting to emphasize the power of focus. Then watch your team's results increase!

1. Ask everyone in the room to look up, down and all around the room. Ask that they try to remember as much about their surroundings as possible. (Limit this observation to only 20 seconds.)
2. Tell everyone to now close their eyes.
3. While all eyes are close, except yours, ask the group to tell you about anything in the room they noticed that was Blue. (Keep a master list for the group.)
4. Now explain to the group that they will repeat the exercise for only 10 seconds, and once again they are to focus on all things blue and try to remember them.
5. After 10 seconds, ask the group to close their eyes again. Now, ask the group to further complete the list.

The Lesson on Focus? - You get 4-5 times better results when you focus your effort and you ask a better question.

Excerpts from "Getting On" by O.S. Marden.

"It is the man who can stick to the disagreeable job, do it with energy and vim, the man who can force himself to do good work when he does not feel like doing it - in other words, the man who is master of himself, who has a great purpose, and who holds himself to his aim, whether it is agreeable or disagreeable, whether he feels like it or does not feel like it - that wins!"

"There are people in this country today who owe everything to their handicap, which has been a perpetual spur. It has enabled them to bring out their hidden abilities, when those same abilities would never have been developed but for their tremendous barriers."

"Do not rest for a moment in your thoughts as a head clerk, a foreman, or general manager in any business, no matter how difficult."

"Say to yourself, 'My place is at the top.' Be king of your dreams. Vow that you will reach that position with untarnished reputation, and make no other obligations that prevent or distract you from moving toward realizing your dreams."

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