Motivation

The best leaders are readers of people. They have the intuitive ability to understand others by discerning how they feel and recognizing what they sense. I have found that leaders overestimate the amount of time and effort needed to get to know someone. In fact, in only one hour with you in private conversation, I could, probably by asking three questions, find the passion of your life: What do you dream about? A person's dreams are powerful revealers of passion. When a person starts to talk about their dreams, it's as if something bubbles up from within. Their eyes brighten, their face glows, and you can feel the excitement in their words. What do you cry about?  Passion can be uncovered by peering into the hurts deep inside a human soul. The experience of pain or loss can be a formidably motivating force. When listening to a story of grief, you hear a voice thick with emotion, you see watery eyes flooded with feeling, and in that moment you glimpse the intense connections bet...

There is a saying that there are only three types of people in the world: those who watch what happened, those who wonder what happened and those who make things happen .  Entrepreneurs fall into the last category, of course. They are change agents, people who don’t see the world as it is but as it could be. Entrepreneurs don’t sit on the sidelines and wish for a better world. Rather they go out and create it. They don’t wait for things to be different. They are the difference. Being forward thinkers, entrepreneurs continually push themselves to become better and do better. They are game changers. They ooze confidence and inspire greatness. Today is a great day to become an entrepreneur because the price of admission into this elite club is free and yours for the taking. Do you really want to succeed as an entrepreneur? Follow these five steps and you’ll be well on your way to developing the leadership qualities it takes: 1. Willingly fail and reflect.  “Ever tr...

Ever heard of the relevant story close? Well, this is a useful closing technique to use when there is hesitancy from your prospect about purchasing your product or service. And his/her objections can be about anything. Here's how it is used... People love a good story. So with this in mind, when you experience resistance in the closing stage, you simply tell the prospect a story of a happy client that had the same objection or concerns as the prospect but they followed your advice, purchased the product and was extremely please with it. I also call this the "social proof close" because you are providing a real life example and proof rather than what the product will do for the prospect. Here's an example of a typical conversation... PROSPECT "It's just too expensive" YOU "I agree My Prospect, it is more expensive than the other products out there and WIDGETS LTD and BLOGGS INC thought exactly the same as you are right now but they took my advice, pu...

If you want to be emotionally free, you must accept certain facts about being human. One:   A human being needs companionship above all else, which includes physical contact. Two:   You do not know the truth about yourself. You will imagine and believe yourself to be a certain way but that is not the reality of what drives you. Three:   You are ruled by the subconscious drive for companionship which you can only deny for so long but it will eventually effect your actions, decisions, and mood. This is why we have conflicting desires and actions which we cannot explain. Four:   You are not at all in control of your life. As much as you would like to believe you are, you have no control because rule number One drives you in every moment of your life whether you like it or not. Because we are driven by the instinctive need for companionship, but in a world in which finding true and sincere friends is increasingly difficult, we would like to believe that we are fine on ou...

What have you accomplished in the past year? Don’t like the answers? Wish you had better ones, more fulfilling ones? You can—just one year from now.  You have within yourself the power to decide that when someone asks you just one year from now, “What have you been up to?” you will respond, “Let me tell you—I’ve been on fire!”  You aren’t getting any younger, and neither am I. If nothing changes, next year you will be one year older and still stuck in the rut wondering when you will achieve your dreams. But you can change.  1. Decide what you want this year .   What is it exactly? You will never pursue it, nor get it, if you do not know what “it” is. Crystallize it in your mind. See it. Know it.  2. Put some sort of physical reminder where you will see it every day. Maybe you want to lose weight. Put a picture of someone who looks the way you want to, or perhaps a picture of yourself from when you weighed what you want to weigh again. This will keep it in you...

I want to zero in on something because I have found it to be true, having studied lots of organizations… Those that have gone on to dent or shape the universe, and those who could have, should have, but  didn’t… THIS is one of the biggest reasons why: Wait… Before I tell you… What do  YOU  think is the main bottleneck to your organization’s greater success? The answers I hear most often are… The economic climate Competitive threats Technology issues Hiring great people Gas prices Supply chain issues Nope. While all those might be considerations, the  main  constraint to the future growth of your organizations is… drumroll… drumroll… drumroll… YOU. YOU are your organization’s greatest bottleneck. Period. I remember interviewing the CEO of a multibillion-dollar homebuilding company in Mexico. At the time his company was building 200 homes a day, he had 16,500 employees and 6,000 vendors, and had been averaging a 2,000% growth rate for the last seven years. This is...

Hip hop icon Jay-Z once observed “I’d rather die enormous than live dormant.”  And I know you totally get that your days (and mine) are numbered. So this day’s the right day to start living FULL ON…  With this outcome in mind, I spent many hours reflecting on and then writing 39 of my best ideas for living in a way that will cause you to make history…  May these 39 insights fuel your rise. And transform your game…‎  #1. ‎Dream up a vision so brave it makes all around you roll with laughter. Or reply with ridicule.  #2. Care a lot more about how many people you help than how much recognition you receive.  #3. Become the heavyweight champion of your craft. The undisputed titan of your field. And–quite simply–the best there ever was.  #4. Protect your pristine reputation. It’s an asset of priceless value. And each day, make your good name worth even more by doing acts of excellence, work that astonishes and gestures that inspire.  #5. When you fall, ...

One of the difficulties we face in our industrialized age is the fact we've lost our sense of seasons. Unlike the farmer whose priorities change with the seasons,  we have become impervious to the natural rhythm of life.  As a result, we have our priorities out of balance. Let me illustrate what I mean: For a farmer, springtime is his most active time. It's then when he must work around the clock, up before the sun and still toiling at the stroke of  midnight . He must keep his equipment running at full capacity because he has but a small window of time for the planting of his crop. Eventually winter comes when there is less for him to do to keep him busy. There is a lesson here.  Learn to use the seasons of life. Decide when to pour it on and when to ease back, when to take advantage and when to let things ride. It's easy to keep going from  9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  year in and year out and lose a natural sense of priorities and cycles. Don't let one year blend i...

I just recently turned the “Dirty 30,” which led me to contemplate a common question I get asked from college students after my speaking engagements: “How do I become a successful entrepreneur by the age of 30?” The answer I discovered is simple: Stop talking about it and do it. No excuses. No waiting. In fact, the sooner you start the better. There are so many reasons why you should not wait until you are older or "more established" to start your entrepreneurial journey. The most important reason being that it is far less risky to start your business at an early age. As a young person, you generally have less responsibility and more energy than your older counterpoint. For instance, you are far less likely to have a mortgage, family or relationships that demand most of your time, energy and money. (Even your health insurance can be covered by mom and dad until you turn 26.) You also have the rare opportunity to risk it all with not as many long-term consequences as older fou...

Think your personal and professional lives aren't intertwined? Think again. Chances are that despite your best attempts to keep the two separate, the quality and stability of your personal life often have a direct impact upon the quality and success of your professional life. In fact, for many people, their professional life mirrors their personal life. When your personal life is stable and happy, this mirroring is a good thing. Your professional life will be productive and rewarding because you'll be able to direct your attention and energy to your work, your customers and your teammates. However, if your personal life is filled with turmoil, grief or pain, your professional life will very often suffer. When you're emotionally drained from hours of conflict, sadness or abuse at home, it's difficult to focus on even the simplest work-related task. Although many employers do realize there will be times in their employees’ lives when circumstances beyond their control may...

Business leaders and entrepreneurs with superb people skills have a competitive edge over others. These skills often take more time to learn than technical abilities, but the results are well worth the investment. Everyone wants to work with people they enjoy being around. If you’re extremely likable, you’ll be able to attract new clients and retain long-standing relationships with minimal effort. Clients evaluate who they want to hire and continue to work with based on what I call the BLT factor: believability, likability, and trustworthiness. They ask themselves, “Does Pamela know what she’s doing and is she enjoyable to work with?” If you’re disliked, it may not matter how competent you are, people simply won’t want to work with you.  Likability is the culmination of three traits: empathy, reliability and integrity. Here’s why each characteristic is important and what you can do to cultivate it. Empathy.  Empathy is your ability to relate to and understand someone...

When it comes to meeting and conquering the negativity in your life, here is a key question:  What can you do, starting today, that will make a difference? What can you do during economic chaos? What can you do when everything has gone wrong? What can you do when you've run out of money, when you don't feel well and it's all gone sour? What can you do? Let me give you the broad answer first. You can do the most remarkable things, no matter what happens. People can do incredible things, unbelievable things, despite the most impossible or disastrous circumstances. Humans can do remarkable things because they are remarkable. Humans are different than any other creation. When a dog starts with weeds, he winds up with weeds. And the reason is because he's a dog. But that's not true with human beings. Humans can turn weeds into gardens. Humans can turn nothing into something, pennies into fortune and disaster into success. And the reason they can do such remarkable things...