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8 Things That Stop People From Having The Life They Want

Your past should never define your future. Regardless of what happens in life, it is possible to have the life of your dreams if you put your mind to it. In this post, I shared with you 8 things that stop people from having the life they want.

The more you want to achieve something, the more obstacles you will likely face on your quest to reach that goal. If you want to achieve success, you have to stay focused and not let all of the possible distractions keep you from pursuing your goals. However, allowing your passions to flourish and not become overwhelmed or discouraged seems impossible at times.

There are a lot of things that actually stop people from achieving goals. Most of the time, people don’t actually write their goals down. And even if they do write them down, they don’t obsess about them enough and build everything around them. Over the years, people have learned that setting goals is easy but fulfilling them is the hard part.

Here are 8 things that stop people from having the life they want:

1. Too Much Clutter In The Brain

Do you feel like your brain sometimes has too much to think about and deal with? Maybe you should give your brain some rest during the day time by shutting down. Go find a relaxing spot in nature or even clear out space in your room, and just leave all the worldly demands behind for a few minutes. Relish in the silence, breathe in deeply and remind yourself that life really isn’t as serious as we presume.

Your brain can easily overtake you if you don’t give it a well-deserved break each day, so give it a rest for at least five minutes. Then, you will feel much more focused when you get back to work.

2. Lack Of Skill

In order to move forward, you may have to pick up skills along the way. As part of your goal setting, you need to understand what skills you need to acquire and how you plan to acquire them. This does not necessarily mean that you need to enroll in a course, although that is a potential idea. Other alternatives such as online study, planned reading, shadowing a successful individual or seeking advice from a friend can also help you obtain the skills you need.

3. Viewing Mistakes As Failure

Progress rarely comes in a straight line. But sometimes, people think one step back means they’re back at square one, which causes them to give up due to overwhelming frustration. Recognize that you’re going to mess up sometimes and that it’s all part of the journey. Instead of declaring yourself a dismal failure, use your energy to create a plan to get back on track.

4. You Do Goal Setting, But You Don’t Do Goal Planning

This is where the bulk of people fail when it comes to having the life they want.  So many people do goal setting, but fail to do goal planning. In other words, they figure out what they want to achieve, but they don’t do the work to put a real plan in place.Remember, achieving a goal in most cases is more a journey because it takes time.

For example, it’s hard to learn to play a guitar this year if you don’t make time for a weekly lesson. It’s hard to achieve your fitness goals if you don’t make time in the morning to actually do your workout at the gym. As you set a goal, be sure that you set a plan of action of how your daily habits are going to enable you to achieve it.

5. Your Core Beliefs Are Holding You Back

We all have a set of core beliefs around what we believe is possible for our lives. We can never achieve anything that contradicts our core beliefs, but we can change our core beliefs. Often times to have the life you want, you have to completely shift the perspectives you may have grown up knowing.

For example, I never knew what it really took to be successful until a few years ago. When I found out what it took, my entire perspective on life took a 360 degree turn. If your goals are truly your biggest focus, you need to find a way to align your core beliefs to compliment them.

6. Setting Unrealistic Goals

Sometimes, we set goals that are so unreasonably high we set ourselves up for tremendous frustration. If that happens one too many times, we give up altogether. When it comes to goal setting, be realistic. Realistic goals can include setting short term goals (monthly) and having a long term goal (5 year plan, etc.).

7. Giving Up Too Easily

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” This popular quote just means that when adversity comes along, the most determined people push through it rather than throwing in the towel. Life will only seem difficult if you make it that way.

No challenge in life will ever seem too great if you decide to never give up. It all comes down to your mentality, do you want to be a whiner or a winner? You have a choice, so if something is really important to you, find your grit and don’t ever back down.

8. Fear Of Failure

Society teaches that if you make a mistake, you fail at life. However, the only way to truly fail is to never try at all. Don’t become so attached to perfection that you stay in your bubble of safety and comfort. If you do, you will never learn and grow if you just cling to the shores of familiarity and order.

Go out on a limb and put yourself to the test. If it doesn’t turn out how you hoped, you will at least have experience under your belt so you can do it differently next time. Simply living is the greatest achievement of all, and you can’t live if you trap yourself in the prison of fear.

Conclusion

Your past should never define your future. Regardless of what happens in life, it is possible to have the life of your dreams if you put your mind to it. In this post, I shared with you 8 things that stop people from having the life they want.

5 Daily Habits That Are Vital For Success As An Entrepreneur

In this post, I share with you 5 daily habits that are vital for success as an entrepreneur. Many business owners rely on small daily habits and routines that keep the needle on their business moving in the right direction.

Whether you are just getting your startup off the ground or you have a well established business, you follow a set of daily habits that keep you disciplined. These habits, when repeated enough times create the healthy and balanced lifestyle that you should be working towards.

The first thing that must be stated is that success is a process and not a single act. This means that you cannot expect to become successful after one day or one week of hard work. Instead, success is about implementing successful behaviors that you perform consistently.

If you examine successful entrepreneurs, you will learn that they are committed to living and performing above the standards of the average person. They understand that every single thing that they do at the moment affects their future. Therefore, successful entrepreneurs implement habits that will yield them the best possible results. When it comes to life, you get what you’re willing to work for.

Habits are so important when it comes to success. Habits eventually become ingrained in your life. You do not even think about your habits; you just have them. That is why it is so important for you to analyze your habits and determine if they are working in your favor or holding you back.

The following habits are what successful entrepreneurs do on a daily basis in order to produce the success that they experience. Learn about these habits and discover why they are so fundamental to your own success.

Here are 5 daily habits that are vital for success as an entrepreneur:

1. Create a Morning Routine

Start by building a habitual morning routine to help you start each day in the best way possible. You should stick to this routine every day, including the weekends. For a morning routine to be really solid, you need to practice it on the weekends too.

Instead of late nights and sleeping in late, consider going to sleep early and doing a short workout in the morning. Follow that up with a cold shower and then you’re ready to kickstart your day. This is one of the best daily habits to keep your body charged, fresh and ready to take on any project that comes your way.

2. Get Important Tasks Done First

You cannot be successful by wasting your time on tasks that are not relevant to your short term or long term goals. A lot of entrepreneurs waste time on unimportant tasks trying to appear busy, instead of focusing on those tasks that will actually produce significant results. It is important that you identify what tasks are worth getting your undivided attention.

Successful entrepreneurs analyze the importance of their tasks to see which ones will help them move closer to their goals. Entrepreneurship is not about trying to do the most because that is just going to be unproductive in the long run. A successful entrepreneur recognizes what is needed for them to be successful and focuses their energy on doing those specific tasks. Doing so helps an entrepreneur to use their time, energy and resources most efficiently.

3. Focus On Revenue Generation

This daily habit will work out perfectly for you if your startup is in its early stages. Every day, focus on those activities that actually add to your bank balance. Therefore, if what you are doing will not get you a profit, you need to stop.

Many entrepreneurs get infatuated with building the best possible product or with branding while completely losing sight of generating cash for their business. At the end of the day, you won’t be in business long unless you have money to keep you afloat. Never forget that and make it a daily habit to think about how you can increase revenues within your organization.

4. Be Creative When Tired

The human body has natural clocks which determine the best times to work, exercise, sleep and eat. Although you might not be able to do every single thing at the perfect time, you should listen to your body clock.

When you feel bogged down and tired, engage your brain in something a bit creative and fun. For instance, if you enjoy swimming, take an hour off work to get some exercise done before resuming your duties. When you get back, you will feel instantly re-energized to take on an even more complicated project.

5. Make Affirmations

Every morning, give yourself a short but impactful positive self-talk. Tell yourself that you’re already successful, sensible, attractive, innovative, intelligent, humble, inspiring, leading, loving, influential, confident, productive and creative.

This strategy will give you the positive boost in confidence you need to get started on the right foot. It will also add that extra confidence throughout the day where no challenge or obstacle will be too big.

Conclusion

Many business owners rely on small daily habits and routines that keep the needle on their business moving in the right direction. In this post, I shared with you 5 daily habits that are vital for success as an entrepreneur.

7 Ways For Business Owners To Deal With Stress

Entrepreneurship is not easy and it definitely is not for everyone. It can provide great rewards, but at the same time it can also be extremely stressful. In this post, I shared with you 7 ways for business owners to deal with stress.

The challenges of owning a business aren’t always about hiring employees or satisfying customers. Sometimes, the struggles are a little more personal. And usually, the end result is stress. Learning how to deal with stress may be as important to your long-term business success as learning how to make a profit. In fact, failing to manage stress can be detrimental to your health according to numerous studies.

Stress is a reality for everyone. As an entrepreneur running a business, you have your fair share of stresses to deal with on a day to day basis. From finding new customers, managing your current customers, financing a business, keeping your employees happy, paying your business taxes and so much more, the list of daily stressors can go on and on. However, as the owner of your business, all you can do is put a courageous smile on and move forward.

Well, a lot of entrepreneurs have a hard time stepping away and keeping their mind off their businesses. I was the same way early on until I realized it wasn’t the right way to deal with things. I found that taking time to clear my head of the day-to-day worries of running a business was just as important as being super plugged into the business.

In this post, I will share with you 7 ways for business owners to deal with stress:

1. Identify The Real Problem

Entrepreneurs often say they just need more sales or more good employees for their problems to be solved. However, this is frequently referred to as just the symptom. More often, the problem is bad marketing, bad management or poor financial management (often pricing and debt-structuring mistakes). It might take someone with more expertise to analyze the situation and identify the weaknesses and solutions. Joining a business group, interviewing new accountants or reaching out to other business professionals you respect can make a huge difference.

2. Get Comfortable Delegating Tasks

Another way to take things off your plate and de-stress is to learn how to delegate. Of course, you can’t say “no” to everyone all the time. Things need to get done for your business in order for it to run smoothly. However, that doesn’t mean that everything needs to be done by you.

Overwhelming yourself with projects and jobs is a common way to get stressed. If you can hand those jobs over to your employees, your mindset and energy levels will be much better off. As a business owner, your business is your baby. You’ve grown it from the ground up so it might be hard to hand your projects over to other people. Nevertheless, you hire competent  employees so it’s time that you trust them to get the job done. If you are a solopreneur with no employees, consider outsourcing work that other people can do for you.

3. Separate The Fear From The Anxiety

Fear is a rational and healthy emotion that keeps us from doing reckless things while keeping us focused. Some would argue that starting a business is reckless, but it’s more of a calculated risk. In business, you have to manage fear and overpower it. Whether the tight rope is 100 feet up or 1,000 feet up, it shouldn’t make much of difference. Don’t look down., look straight ahead and focus.

Anxiety, on the other hand is unwarranted and often times irrational worrying. Do your best to recognize anxiety and eliminate it from your mind. I know it’s easier said than done, but you have to do what you have to do. Go to a professional if necessary, exercise and find alternatives that can help you overcome your anxious feelings.

4. Put Some Structure In Place

Running a business is chaotic. As the owner of a business, you’re wearing multiple hats and building the future of your company. Worst of all, that future isn’t always a predictable one. Thus, whenever possible, it’s crucial to try and create some systems and order in place.

With some structure laid out, you won’t have to worry about reinventing the wheel every time you move your business forward. And for people who thrive in systems and benefit from organization, putting structure into the business might help remove clutter and unnecessary stress from their mind. Plus, when you put systems in place, it’s much easier to delegate tasks and monitor progress. When it’s easier to keep a tab on what’s going on in your business, you’ll save yourself a ton of time and headaches.

5. Think Positively

If you think negatively, you will fail. If things are so bad that you can’t move forward with the proper mindset, it might be time throw in the towel. The way you think and how strong your mind is extremely crucial to long-term success in a business. If you aren’t mentally there, don’t force your business to succeed. Work on yourself and return to the business when you’re ready.

6. Learn To Say “No”

When you’re a business owner, it’s much easier to say “yes” than it is to say “no.” You’re trying to help your business reach new heights so you’re willing to go above and beyond to satisfy other people. I had the same issue early on, but I realized that the word “yes” was very costly.

If you pile up too many things on your plate, you’ll quickly get overwhelmed by everything you have to do. If you can learn to say “no” to the things you don’t really need to do, both your stress levels and your business will be better off in the long run. By saying “no” more often, you’ll have more time and energy to execute on the things you said “yes” to.

7. Take Care Of Yourself

Taking care of yourself both physically and mentally is one of the easiest ways to manage your stress levels. You might not realize it, but staying healthy has a huge boost in your energy levels and your mental state. So, do your best to maintain a healthy diet, drink lots of water, get a good amount of sleep and get enough exercise each day. You’ll find that when you’re in great physical and mental shape, you’re much more prepared to deal with stress when it comes around.

Conclusion

Entrepreneurship is not easy and it definitely is not for everyone. It can provide great rewards, but at the same time it can also be extremely stressful. In this post, I shared with you 7 ways for business owners to deal with stress.

5 Valuable Books Every Startup Founder Should Read At Some Point

Reading books for a startup founder is always a great idea to acquire new knowledge and thinking patterns. In this post, I share with you 5 valuable books every startup founder should read at some point.

Most startups fail, but many of those failures are preventable. New approaches are being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and the ways new products are launched.

To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to be able to juggle several hats at the same time. Identifying a problem and developing a scalable solution is often considered the easy part. In addition to that, you have to manage employees, customer service, finances and so much more to be successful in the long haul.

In an ideal scenario, founders already have experience in what it takes to build a company. They might have worked different jobs in the past, acquired a college degree or built a startup company in the past that has given them enough insight to get started. For those that don’t have that insight, there’s a wealth of advice out there from people who’ve achieved brilliant things and wanted to give their knowledge to others like them.

Here are 5 valuable books every startup founder should read at some point:

1. The Hard Thing About Hard Things

The author, Ben Horowitz is the co-founder of one of the most recognized names in venture capital – Andreessen Horowitz. Before his role as a VC, Ben worked at Netscape, eventually going on to build an enterprise software company called Opsware. That company was later sold to HP for $1.6 billion USD in cash. He’s been there and done that.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things outlines Ben’s journey in refreshing honesty. It takes you through the highs and lows, an inevitable course for any entrepreneur trying to make it big. The book is written more in a personal narrative style and it goes to show no founder can ever dream of making an impact without having to go through trials and tribulations. There’s advice on almost everything you need to do to build a world-class company. You can find quality content on acting and thinking like a leader, measuring performance and focusing on product.

2. The Lean Startup

Rated as a New York Times bestseller, The Lean Startup teaches founders how to hustle, stretch budgets and scale operations without burning too much cash. The author, Eric Ries, wants you to learn how to be successful without wasting too many resources. The book counts on five basic principles as the cornerstone of success, allowing you to make better, faster business decisions in a landscape where speed and execution are everything. It cites Dropbox as one of the companies which successfully incorporated their advice to scale quickly.

The beauty of The Lean Startup is that it preaches failing fast. As a startup founder, you’d much rather fail in the next 3 months than in the next 3 years. Those additional 33 months can allow you to launch new ventures or improve the existing ones. The Lean Startup takes a fast paced approach that gives startup founders all the information they need early on to decipher whether they’re wasting time or on the right path.

3. The $100 Startup

In The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau shows you how to lead a life of adventure, meaning, and purpose all while earning a good living. In preparation to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group, he’s chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies. In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their passions that could be monetized and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.

The author, Chris, tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running. In addition to that, he shares what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash, some of the key mistakes they made along the way and the crucial insights that made the business stick.  If you’re looking for a book to show you how to launch a business for close to nothing, this is the one for you!

4. Hooked: How To Build Habit Forming Products

Why do some products capture widespread attention while others flop? What makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit? Is there a pattern underlying how technologies hook us? Nir Eyal answers these questions and so much more by explaining the Hook Model. The Hook Model is a four-step process embedded into the products of many successful companies to subtly encourage customer behavior. Through consecutive “hook cycles,” these products reach their ultimate goal of bringing users back again and again without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging.

Hooked is based on Eyal’s years of research, consulting and practical experience. He wrote the book he wished had been available to him when he was building his businesses. Hooked is written for product managers, designers, marketers, startup founders and anyone who seeks to understand how products influence our behavior. If you’re looking for practical insights to create user habits that stick and actionable steps for building products that people love, this is the book for you.

5. Startup Playbook 

Sam Altman is the president of Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley-based accelerator and he is also one of the most prestigious names in the startup world today. The accelerator is responsible for companies such as Dropbox, Airbnb and Reddit. It is known for its unnerving focus on urging founders to “build something people want.”

The Startup Playbook is an effort by Sam Altman to accumulate all the advice Y Combinator gives its resident companies. The book discusses how to start a company, one that users love and are eager to spread the word about. The entire focus of this book in particular is to help individuals identify what it takes to build a company that is actually wanted and in need by others. He does plan to launch a second book, which will discuss the scaling of companies.

Conclusion

Reading books for a startup founder is always a great idea to acquire new knowledge and thinking patterns. In this post, I shared with you 5 valuable books every startup founder should read at some point.

How Successful People Spent Their Time When They Were Young

Success does not happen in the blink of an eye, in a snap of your fingers or overnight. Success is hard work and sometimes your career path can be shaped during the early years of your life. In this post, I shared with you how successful people spent their time when they were young.

Believe it or not, most people find their purpose and passion in their thirties and forties. Studies show that significant life milestones previously reserved for twenty-somethings, such as marriage, buying a home and starting a family are now occurring much later in life.

However, that doesn’t mean that the teenagers and twenties aren’t important decades for personal and professional development. Instead, they are a time when character development occurs and choices set a course for the future.

For the millennial generation, it can feel almost impossible to stay fit and healthy, maintain a social life and have a career sorted by the time you hit your 20’s. It’s easy to look at the most successful people in the world and wonder how they got there. However, while some famous icons knew what they wanted to do and achieved success early on, others took a longer, more twisted journey to get to that point.

Here’s how successful people spent their time when they were young:

1. Bill Gates Was Busy Writing Computer Code

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates discovered his love of computers at age 13 while at a prep school in Seattle. There, he wrote computer code for a version of tic-tac-toe, which was also where he met and went into business with Paul Allen. Paul was business partner and also the co-founder of Microsoft.

Gates attended Harvard University, but then dropped out at the age of 20 in 1975 to focus on Microsoft, which then made him into the world’s richest self-made billionaire.

2. Warren Buffett Was Rejected From Harvard

By the time the world’s most famous investor was 16, he had earned today’s equivalent of $53,000 (£41,000). One of Buffett’s first jobs was being a paperboy delivering “The Washington Post”. He also sold golf balls and stamps, buffed cars and set up pinball machines in barber shops.

He was rejected from Harvard Business School, but then attended Columbia Business School and worked as an investment salesman, securities analyst and stockbroker upon finishing his time at college.

3. Oprah Winfrey Worked For A Local Radio Station

Oprah Winfrey is now one of the most famous talk show hosts, actresses and producers in the world, but she realized she loved media at the age of 14 when she moved to Nashville. She found her first job at 16 as a broadcaster for WVOL, a Nashville radio station.

At age 19 as a sophomore at Tennessee State University, Winfrey left school to start her media career. However, she had a bumpy ride into fame after being fired from hosting the 6 p.m. news on Baltimore’s WJZ-TV in 1977.

4. Arianna Huffington Was President of The Cambridge Union

In her 20s, co-founder of The Huffington Post and businesswoman Arianna Huffington was studying economics at the University of Cambridge. There, she became the first foreign, and the third female, President of the Cambridge Union.

At age 21 she met British journalist Henry Bernard Levin while on a panel for a quiz show. He became her mentor while she wrote “The Female Woman,” which was published when she was 23. She and Levin then traveled the world for a few years together, attending music festivals.

5. Mark Zuckerberg Was Creating Computer Programs

Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg got into developing computer programs at a young age. At age 12, he used Atari BASIC (a programming language) to create a messaging program that he called “Zucknet.” In his early teens at high school, Zuckerberg built another program called Synapse, which learned your music taste.

Microsoft offered to buy it for $1 million (£772,857), but he declined the offer. In high school, he also learned to read Hebrew, Latin and Greek, before he was accepted into Harvard University. This is where Facebook was born after he was approached by the Winklevosse brothers, which Zuckerberg built in a week. He dropped out in his sophomore year to commit all his time to Facebook.

6. Richard Branson Started His First Business

Richard Branson is the founder of the Virgin Group, which owns over 200 companies in more than 30 countries worldwide. He started his first company when he was just 17 years old after dropping out of school at age 16.

He struggled with academia, but not with business as he founded a youth culture magazine known as “Student”, which sold $8,000 (£6,183) worth of advertising in its first edition. Two years later, Branson started selling records via mail, which turned into a record store, which then turned into a recording studio called Virgin Records.

7. Elon Musk Was Making Video Games

At age 12, the PayPal, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk had written code for a space-based video game called Blastar. In 2015, a software engineer at Google turned it into a working game, according to The Verge.

At age 17, Musk moved to Canada to attend Queen’s University but then moved to the University of Pennsylvania to study business and physics. After this, he pursued a PHD at Stanford University in energy physics, but he dropped out after just two days to become part of the “internet boom” in the 90s.

8. Barack Obama Went To Harvard Law School

The former president lived in Honolulu for most of his childhood. At school, he was skilled at basketball and graduated in 1979 at age 18 with academic honors. He was one of only three black students at the school, Punahou Academy, which is where he became particularly aware of racism and what it meant to be African American, according to numerous sources.

He then went to Harvard Law School and got his education there. Notably, he was the president of the Harvard Law Review and would eventually become the President of The United States of America.

Conclusion

Success does not happen in the blink of an eye, in a snap of your fingers or overnight. Success is hard work and sometimes your career path can be shaped during the early years of your life. In this post, I shared with you how successful people spent their time when they were young.

5 Of The Greatest Marketing Disasters In History & What We Can Learn From It

In this post, I share with you 5 of the greatest marketing disasters in history & what we can learn from it. Marketing blunders and disasters happen, and these can give future marketers and aspiring ones to learn from them and avoid the same mistake.

Everyone makes mistakes, even marketers. Usually, we learn from them and move on with our lives, maybe escaping without the general public noticing. But what happens to those companies that make mistakes on a much greater scale and cost their company millions in clout or even dollars?

Every company has a marketing budget that they use to pay the best and brightest in ad campaign creation to create terrific new branding initiatives, slogans and commercials. The goal is to always motivate the customers to buy more of their products or services. While it often works out, sometimes these companies fall flat on their faces. Some setbacks are easy to recover from while others can lead to the downfall of an entire brand.

Even the most reputable companies make marketing blunders which they have to pay for in many ways. There are many different reasons why something like this can potentially happen.  As customers we may not often realize, but marketing campaigns actually play a big part in whether or not we make purchases.

Here are 5 of the greatest marketing disasters in history & what we can learn from it:

1. Coca-Cola

In 1985, Coca-Cola tried to introduce a new, sweeter version of their beverage to combat their new competitor, Pepsi. As people preferred the taste of Pepsi over Coke in blind taste tests, Coke felt the need to regain market share with a new recipe. So, how did it turn out?

Not well. Public response was so negative that people were hoarding the old Coke and selling it on the black-market for grossly inflated prices!

Why were people so upset? Coke’s brand embodied classic American traditions and people didn’t want new a version of Coke. They wanted that classic beverage whose secret recipe was guarded under lock and key in Georgia for so many years! After finally retiring the “New Coke” recipe, sales of the old classic Coke were significantly higher.

What do we take away from this marketing mistake? Learn what your customers want before spending time and money on a top-secret product or service change!

2. The New York Times

In December 2011, the New York Times sent an email to people who recently canceled their subscription asking them to reconsider by offering them a discount to sweeten the deal. Sounds like a great idea to get a customer back, right? Too bad an employee accidentally sent it to 8 million subscribers instead of the list of recent unsubscribed users they had.

Subscribers instantly assumed that this spam email was the result of hackers and some were even mad that they weren’t getting the same discount as a loyal customer. Of course, employees responded immediately apologizing and telling people it was an unfortunate human error. Still, this is every email marketer’s nightmare and it serves as a much-needed reminder to always double check your list before clicking ‘Send’ on any campaign.

3. The Cartoon Network Bomb Scare

In 2007, The Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming block launched what would become the penultimate example of a guerrilla marketing gone wrong. In a clandestine effort to promote the first full-length film based on the absurdist cartoon series Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a group of artists posted these Lite Brite-like circuit boards featuring the show’s pixelated Mooninite characters Ignignokt and Err on public structures around the city of Boston. What they and Cartoon Network’s parent company Turner Broadcasting failed to take into account was that such a stunt wouldn’t be possible in the age of 9/11 without causing an incident. Many mistook the unorthodox ads as bombs and Turner had to pay $2 million to the Boston Police Department for the resulting investigation.

Guerrilla Marketing can appear random and spontaneous to the public, but it shouldn’t when the local authorities have to get involved. Always inform the local police of what you’re doing and get the permits and licenses that are necessary from the city to pull off such public spectacles. One of the mistakes the PR firm behind this campaign made was that they still didn’t tell the police or Homeland Security that this was being used for an ad campaign for a movie.

4. Ford Edsel

Often called the worst car of all-time, the Edsel is one of those legendary failures of automotive history. However, it wasn’t the car that had problems. Instead, it was the marketing. After all, the car may have been a gas-guzzler and a tad overpriced, but it was no less functional than a Mercury and that’s part of the reason why Ford lost $400 million within three years on that car. Part of the problem was the Edsel suffered from overblown advertising hype. Claims such as the car could float on air were spread. However, the car was almost identical to Ford’s Mercury without adding anything new. Mercury and the Edsel were manufactured in the same factory, which led to a mix-up of parts that resulted in technical issues that killed any demand there ever was. Top that with 1957’s recession and the Edsel was doomed before it ever launched.

Of course, the recession was a factor beyond Ford’s control, but it could have managed its quality control better and it could have made the Edsel different enough to appeal to the American public. As a business, you can never rest on your previous successes, you must always be innovating and as a marketer, it’s important to sell the reality, not the hype.

5. Ayds Candy

Ayds was a popular diet candy in the 1970s and early ’80s until it was saddled with the unfortunate luck of having the same sounding name as AIDS the disease. Not only that, but those battling the disease lost copious amounts of weight, so the product’s purpose became a cruel joke in more ways than just its name. Of course, the diet chew could not recover from the unavoidable association and eventually went out of business.

The story of Ayds is a lesson in rebranding and not doing it soon enough. The moment its product was confused with the disease, the company should have relaunched it with an entirely different name as if the old product never existed. When things change, you have to pivot fast. There is no sense in going down with the way things are when you can adapt and try to save yourself.

Conclusion

Marketing blunders and disasters happen, and these can give future marketers and aspiring ones to learn from them and avoid the same mistake. In this post, I shared with you 5 of the greatest marketing disasters in history & what we can learn from it.

7 Bad Habits You Must Give Up In Order To Be A Good Leader

It pays to be aware of your own habits, despite their tendency to slip by unnoticed. Giving up bad habits will improve your leadership and productivity. In this post, I shared with you 7 bad habits you must give up in order to be a good leader.

Professionals often assume that becoming a leader requires adding new skills or habits to your arsenal. While this can help, doing the opposite can be just as effective. Giving up simple things and habits is crucial if you want to be a good leader. Simply put, leadership requires great sacrifice.

Success isn’t always about dominating the landscape. Sometimes, to be successful, you have to be prepared to give up some counterproductive behaviors that are holding your entire organization back. Most of the time, these are all old habits and old habits are often the hardest to break.

As an entrepreneur, success is not negotiable. Unfortunately, despite your knowledge, ambition, and talent there are a few disastrous personality quirks that can hold you back from realizing your full potential. Here are 7 bad habits you must give up in order to be a good leader:

1. Micromanaging

The opposite of delegating, micro-managing wears people down, wastes your time and turns you into a petty tyrant. If this is a habit you suffer from, it might mean that you don’t trust your team to get things done on their own. If you have a good reason to feel that way, maybe it’s time to trim some fat. On the other hand, your micro-managing may just be a nervous habit. If that’s the case, you need to work on it before you drive everyone else away.

2. Being Reactive Instead of Being Proactive 

When you only work reactively, you’re only acting upon things once they happen. The key is to deal with things long before they even start flying your way. You need to foresee trouble and find ways to deal with it long before it spirals out of control. If you’re not proactive, you’re very easy to throw off balance and a prime target for your competition. Be ready for problems before they happen. Good leaders mitigate disaster long before it happens.

3. Indecisiveness

As a leader, you’re under a lot of pressure to make the right decisions that drive your business forward. However, there’s something worse than making the wrong decision, which is making no decision at all. If you have a list of to-do items that you’re postponing simply because you aren’t yet sure what to do with them, you might have a problem with indecisiveness. This inability to commit to decisions leads to a halt in productivity for your entire business. Commit to decisions, even if you’re not 100 percent sure of the outcome. A bad decision is still better than no decision.

4. Not Doing What You Say You Will

Leading a startup or a new company is exciting and there are a lot of different offers and opportunities that will come your way. But until you are sure of something, be cautious about announcing it to the company. It’s understandable that with new companies, things will change, but the more you can stay true to your word and correctly set expectations, the more credibility you will have with your employees. Do what you say and say what you mean. Having credibility with your staff not only boosts morale, but it will also increase overall productivity and camaraderie.

5. Lack Of Humility

The person who acts as though they can do it all and are the only one who can do it right is unlikely to rise to be a great leader. There is a fine line between confidence and cockiness. Arrogance is never good for leadership, but confidence is a necessity. Find the right balance between the two and you can be a very successful leader.

6. Failure to Inspire And Motivate Others

The number one most devaluing quality of ineffective leaders is their inability to motivate their team. Most leaders know how to push to get results, but very few understand how to pull. Leaders with this bad habit of only pushing and not pulling have been described as autocratic and micro managers. Others were described as unenthusiastic and passive. Energizing people and inspiring them to peak levels of performance is the most challenging struggle for many ineffective leaders.

7. Being Too Risk Averse

Nothing worthwhile happens without either risk or commitment. You need to know when one is going to work better than the other. If you’re afraid of risk, you may try to compensate it by committing yourself to the regular, diligent effort. Obviously, there are greater vices in the grand scheme of things. However, failing to recognize those moments when the value of a given risk is optimal can make you non-competitive in your industry.

Conclusion

It pays to be aware of your own habits, despite their tendency to slip by unnoticed. Giving up bad habits will improve your leadership and productivity. In this post, I shared with you 7 bad habits you must give up in order to be a good leader.

8 Body Language Hacks To Utilize When Meeting Someone New

Body language plays an important role in making a good impression towards a prospective client or business partner. Being aware of the proper body language to use in the first meeting is vital to the outcome of the meeting. In this post, I shared with you 8 body language hacks to utilize when meeting someone new.

Meeting new people could be awkward for many of us. While some of us bask in the glory of meeting new people, it’s hard for many people to get out there and make a solid first impression. The way you present yourself in your first meet could potentially make or break your long-term relationship with that person.

In the business world itself, the first meeting can determine everything. If you’re pitching a client or looking for investors, how you behave and portray yourself during the 30 to 60 minutes you get is vital. One of the most undervalued things about making a good first impression is body language. Successful people are able to effectively tell people exactly what to think of them by controlling their body language and facial expressions. They use people’s instincts to their advantage.

Here are 8 body language hacks to utilize when meeting someone new:

1. Greet Them With Your Best Smile

A smile does work wonders during an initial meeting. A genuine smile delivered correctly signifies that you care for the person. A big and warm smile adds more richness and depth to the way a person perceives you.

A friendly smile has the ability to change a meeting from cold to warm really fast. People feel far more comfortable when they see that their counterpart is happy. Smiles are not only a great way to acknowledge someone, but it’s also a solid way to let the other person know that you’re enjoying their company. Cracking a smile in between conversations helps keep the mood just light enough.

2. Embrace The Power Of Touch

Gentle touches on the forearm or the shoulder of the other person while greeting them is another way to create a genuine and friendly approach. When first meeting someone, it’s all about doing little things to ease any possible tension that may be in the room.

You will understand how important a bit of touch plays in meeting and greeting a new person. A tap on the shoulder will also give away a feeling of warmth and friendliness. This shows that your care is genuine and it breaks down the barriers of communication, letting you get closer to this person.

3. Keep Your Posture Upright, Not Rigid

The secret to maintaining confidence while speaking is to have your spinal cord completely straight. A straight and firm back lets you articulate your thoughts correctly and gives you further confidence while speaking to someone new. Try to keep your body lose and your back straight without being rigid.

A Harvard study concluded that people who hold expansive poses and take up larger areas exhibit better levels of confidence as compared to those who don’t. Never shrink yourself in, because it may give out the impression that you lack confidence. Keep your chest out, back, straight and relax your body because these are all signs of a very confident person.

4. Point Your Feet Toward The Person You’re Talking To

In social settings, people pay the least amount of attention to their feet. I mean, why would you be thinking about your or someone else’s feet? You wouldn’t. That’s largely because the feet are furthest away from the eyes allowing nobody to see them (unless they blatantly look down).

However, since people don’t consciously pay attention to their feet, you can learn a lot about what someone is thinking subconsciously by looking at their feet. You can also improve your body language and first impression by paying attention to what your own feet are doing.

5. Make Your Neutral Face A Happy Face

Ever heard of ‘resting bitch face syndrome’? Some people claim their face at rest looks annoyed/angry, which makes people perceive them as unapproachable. You preferably wouldn’t talk to a person with that kind of an expression on their face or would be far less likely to approach them with a question.

It says nothing about the actual person though. However, it’s still a massive disadvantage to a person with that look in a business setting. Make sure that your face at rest (e.g. when you are working on a laptop) looks relaxed, if not happy. A simple trick is to have a look on your face like something is mildly amusing to you.

6. Don’t Break Eye Contact Instantly

People have a habit of looking away if they meet a person’s eyes. Try not to do this. Keep eye contact and smile. Often people will look away, though some people will hold your gaze.

–    Doing this has multiple effects:

–    People perceive you as more open

–     You will feel more confident

Please note that when you hold someone’s gaze, be sure to smile. Looking impassively can be perceived as very creepy.

7. Use A Firm But Gentle Handshake

Men are very judgmental when it comes to handshakes. A weak or ‘dead fish’ handshake will instantly cause another person to perceive that man to be lacking confidence or strength.

–    Don’t just ‘offer’ your hand; a handshake requires teamwork

–    Use the pressure you would use to grab the stick of a heavy pan

–    If a person is offering you a ‘dead fish’ handshake, don’t squeeze too hard (respect them)

8. Pivot Completely Towards Them

This is something that should be taken care of the most. In environments where multiple people meet and greet, your attention should be towards the one you want to make an impact upon. Once this person approaches you, try to pivot yourself towards that person completely and not just your face. Doing otherwise can convey a negative message that you don’t care enough about the person and are only conversing with him/her as a formality.

Give the person your undivided attention and completely turn towards them. To further improve it, try leaning in just slightly towards that person giving an impression that you are eager to listen to their thoughts. We only like people who respect us and show us that they really care for us by being attentive.

Conclusion

Body language plays an important role in making a good impression towards a prospective client or business partner. Being aware of the proper body language to use in the first meeting is vital to the outcome of the meeting. In this post, I shared with you 8 body language hacks to utilize when meeting someone new.

A CEO’s Guide To Being A Top-Notch Leader

There is a thin line between a LEADER and a BOSS. For a CEO to become a top-notch leader, he needs to act more as a leader and learn leadership. In this post, I shared with you a CEO’s guide to being a top-notch leader.

Having great leadership qualities is not about winning a popularity contest. Good leaders may not always be liked, but they are always respected. Most importantly, a leaders job is to create harmony in an environment where people want to work together.

Learning how to become a leader is essential to your success. Whether you own a business, teach at a school, manage a small group, coach an athletic team or are working to advance a worthwhile cause, you need to get help from others to accomplish your goals. This not only requires you to hold a vision of what success is, but it also requires you to practice coaching and training skills that will inspire others to want to help you reach that goal.

Here is a CEO’s guide to being a top-notch leader:

1. Adaptability

The best leaders adjust their management style to suit the needs and personalities of those on their teams. For instance, they might hold brainstorming sessions to generate new ideas on a business process, but also welcome suggestions in writing, which may encourage less vocal employees to participate.

As a leader, you have to survey the team that you will be leading. Access all the individuals in the group and how you have to adjust yourself to best lead this group. Leaders who are stubborn or unwilling to change their ways will struggle to be good leaders.

2. Strong Communication Skills

Top-notch CEO’s promote open, two-way communication with staff members. They’re able to convey complex information effectively, both verbally and in writing. They also listen intently to feedback from employees and follow through with appropriate action.

As a leader, you have to constantly communicate. Whether you’re communicating to your team or to potential customers, you will always have to utilize your words to get what you want. Learning how to communicate properly is going to be crucial to your success.

3. Ability To Inspire

Leaders set the example for their teams by arriving at work each day eager for the challenges and opportunities ahead. They work one-on-one with employees to identify career paths and provide the necessary support for people to be successful with their goals.

As a leader, you have to serve as a role model. What time do you come into the office? What time do you leave the office? It’s tough for a leader to ask their employees to work hard if they don’t do the same. It’s one thing to talk the talk, but can you walk the walk as a leader?

4. Vision

Respected CEO’s also stay one step ahead of the curve with business developments. For instance, when making purchasing decisions, they look for products that will suit their team’s needs many years down the road. They also explain to employees how their work ties into the firm’s goals and priorities so they feel connected to the company’s long-term success.

CEO’s are also visionaries because they have a vision that they need to carry out. In order to carry out this vision, they have to convince others to buy in and help them execute on it. As a leader, you need to know exactly what your vision is and how you want it carried out.

5. Trust

When it comes to leading a team, you have to be willing to go out on a limb for your employees to show you have their back. Exhibiting a genuine interest in your team’s well-being shows you care and are willing to protect them when necessary.

When you build trust, it demonstrates that your interests and actions will never supersede the goals of the organization or your employees. The best leaders also know they can’t handle all of the group’s key projects themselves. They delegate authority to employees, giving them the power to do what is needed to accomplish their assigned tasks without being micromanaged.

6. Decisiveness

When you undertake the responsibilities of being a leader, you have to be comfortable making big decisions and sticking to them. You can’t be afraid to be decisive and make tough calls when circumstances require it. Ensure your choices are not just beneficial to you, but with the organization’s goal in mind.

Strong decision-making abilities are also essential. You have to quickly review all the information pertaining to a decision and move forward. Respected leaders can make big decisions and they are also willing to live with the consequences down the road if things don’t work out.

7. Respect

As a leader, how you treat people is everything. And while books and the internet may be filled with tons of advice on how to handle employees, it all boils down to one word – RESPECT.

Leaders who respect their employees will never look/speak down to their employees, they will give their employees a voice, they won’t make assumptions about anyone, they’ll respond with compassion and they are respectful towards everyone. Having these types of qualities as a leader will allow you to achieve massive goals on a large scale.

8. Self-Awareness

Great leaders know that self-awareness is essential to their effectiveness. They weren’t born on a special planet. They haven’t always been models of self-discipline and productivity. They haven’t always been satisfied or proud of how they’ve handled every situation. They’ve made their share of mistakes.

The one thing they have in common is their constant attention to their behaviors and its impact. Top-notch leaders study themselves and the people around them to see themselves through the eyes of others and learn why they do what they do. Not only that, but they are truly interested with what works and what doesn’t, how to control their least productive instincts and how to handle every situation better.

9. Take Accountability

We’re all human. Mistakes will happen. But it’s not always easy to own up to mistakes and be receptive to feedback and change. Business growth involves taking risks that don’t always pan out. Be willing to stand up for your employees and their decisions when expectations aren’t met. This will motivate your employees to take risks knowing that the ownership team will have their back.

A good leader has to support and assist the team through thick and thin. Give them the confidence to take risks and speak up without being punished. When the mistake is yours, take ownership. Be credible because people want to follow an honest leader. Be candid about why things didn’t work out, learn from the mistake and move on. People will trust someone who actively holds themselves accountable for their mistakes.

10. Have A Mentor

No matter who you are, it’s always helpful when you have someone to look up to who is experienced with strong leadership capabilities. Rarely will someone offer to be your mentor, you’ll likely have to do the courting. It may be someone in your business area, but a great mentor relationship doesn’t necessarily need to be in your same industry.

Identify potential mentors who have similar values. Be prepared to explain what you hope to learn, why you value their insight and expertise and what you bring to the relationship. When faced with a big decision or obstacle, imagine how your mentor would handle it. Think about what they’ve done to overcome similar situations. This can help point you in the right direction when you find yourself being challenged.

Conclusion

There is a thin line between a LEADER and a BOSS. For a CEO to become a top-notch leader, he needs to act more as a leader and learn leadership. In this post, I shared with you a CEO’s guide to being a top-notch leader.

8 Secrets To Success I Uncovered In My Entrepreneurial Journey

I consider my extreme impatience to jump in the entrepreneurship one of the best things that could have happened to me. I was able to start my entrepreneurial journey at the age of 17! As a result of that, I have realized that I’ve been pursuing my own dreams for the last 7 years without ever looking back.

What is it that makes people successful? Are successful people smarter or do they work harder? Are they risk takers or do they have powerful and influential friends?

I have been able to learn numerous secrets, tricks and strategies in regards to what it takes to be successful as an entrepreneur. I have learned from my own experiences, from being mentored by other successful entrepreneurs and simply from educating myself on various topics. Here are 8 secrets to success I uncovered in my entrepreneurial journey:

1. Success Only Comes From Hard Work

We all know that there is no such thing as overnight success, but many of us fail to believe it regardless. For every successful person you see, they had to work and sweat behind the scenes for years before getting to where they are today. The only easy success comes from winning the lottery.

People with luck will tell you there’s no easy way to achieve success purely based on luck. Getting lucky is about working your ass off and having opportunity meet your hard work at the right time. Successful entrepreneurs always give 100% of their efforts to everything they do. If you know you are giving your best effort, you’ll never have any reason for regrets. Work like others are unwilling to work and you will find yourself achieving success.

2. Trust Your Instincts

There are times when you’ve got to stick to your ideas and beliefs. Then, there are other times when that’s the worst thing you can do. In most situations, there never really is a right answer. Even if there is a right answer, you won’t find out until later down the line. So what do you do?

In business and entrepreneurship specifically, you’re going to be faced with tons of dilemmas. Rather than sitting around trying to figure out the best answer, trust your instincts from time to time. Successful entrepreneurs are ones who can make a decision based on their instincts and live with the consequences later.

3. Be Willing To Adapt When Necessary

Sh*t happens and that is a reality of any entrepreneurial journey. Businesses changes, industries change and various issues arise on a daily basis. Running a business can be very unpredictable and can end up throwing a serious wrench into your plans.

Regardless of what challenges or obstacles you face, it isn’t the smartest or the strongest entrepreneurs that survive. Just like Charles Darwin said, it’s those who can easily adapt to their circumstances. As an entrepreneur, you have to see what is happening around you and utilize logic to make the best decisions possible. This will often times require you to change and adapt even when you aren’t comfortable doing so.

4. Rely On Your Team, No Individual Can Do It All

The quickest thing I figured out from being an entrepreneur was that no matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t do it alone. I needed help to really be successful in the long run. Successful people develop and nurture a network of partners and employees that share a common vision as them.

Everyone has limitations. The quicker you figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are, the better your odds of success will be. Find employees or partners to fill in your weaknesses and focus on your strengths. That’s what I have done for the past few years and I’ve seen my success amplified as a result of it. Best of all, I don’t feel as burned out as I did when I first started out because I’m not stressing over things I’m not so good at.

5. Enjoy The Journey Because It’s Going To Be Long

Every entrepreneur who has come before you and has become successful will tell you that you need to focus on your journey to success. Along with focus and determination to succeed, you also need to enjoy the journey. The journey will take a long time, maybe even a lifetime for some depending on your goals. Enjoying it is part of being successful and reaping the fruits of success later on. What is a success if you are not having fun with it? When you have fun, you are more likely to attract people who want to join you.

It’s the journey that changes you. The journey is how you grow, expand yourself and how you have fun. The journey is how you learn to cope with struggles and get back up when you’ve failed. Embrace the entire process because it’s great!

6. Make Tiny Improvements Each Day

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out. There is a continuous process of improvement until you reach your goals. We don’t become the best or great at anything overnight. We need to improve our craft constantly. Ultimately, we need to do our best each day while always striving for excellence. It’s all about how much effort we put into our tasks and what kind of results we want to achieve. If we want to succeed, we need to be willing to do everything it takes and never give up.

The road to success is a tough one. There will be challenges each day and accomplishments along the way. Not every day is ever really the same, but we can make sure that we put our full effort in each day. Learn from each day by reflecting on what went well and what went poorly. After that, improve day by day and you will see yourself achieving far more in a 24 hour span than ever before.

7. Go The Extra Mile

There is one sure way to get what you want in life, but few people do it. Put this practice firmly into your day to day business activities and you will have an advantage at anything you do for the rest of your life. Successful people realize their life long dreams by doing things that most people are not willing to do.

Going the extra mile is part of a small business success mindset. It’s your business; you are ultimately responsible for the results. Setting deadlines for yourself and writing down your goals makes it easier to go the extra mile. With everything you do, don’t just put in 100%. Instead, put in 200%!

8. Don’t Stop Networking

Networking and going to events around the clock for me was one of the toughest things to do. I couldn’t be at the office working and it was rather tiring. However, the connections that I was able to make along the way were vital to my success. I like to say that it’s important what you know and who you know in business.

Understand that networking is crucial to success in most industries. As an entrepreneur especially, you can build lots of valuable connections. I met investors, employees, partners, clients and much more just from putting myself out there. Networking is very important regardless of where in your entrepreneurial journey you are.

Conclusion

Every individual who wants to succeed and has already succeeded has secrets that they followed to achieve their goals. In this post, I shared with you 8 secrets to success I uncovered in my entrepreneurial journey.