College Success Tip – Have Great People Skills

Having great people skills simply means that you can communicate well with a variety of people, understand what they are saying to you and have them understand what you are saying to them.  Make it a goal of yours to get along and communicate with everyone that you interact with.  It will benefit you for the rest of your life to develop this skill.

People always want to help and work with people who they like and trust.  Someone’s likeability is much more important than the way he dresses or how smart he is.  Everyone just wants to be around “people like them” who they can relate to and have a conversation with.  Be likeable and you’ll be just fine.

The Bottom Line:  Regardless of what activities you are involved with in school and what career you get into after you gradate, you will be around people for the rest of your life.  The better your people skills are, the better relationships that you will be able to build with others.

College Success Tip – Study At The Library

Some people claim that they get more out of studying when the television is on in front of them – they may feel like they are retaining the information, but it is very difficult to have a quality study session with distractions.  Throw in phone calls, text messages, emails, people and all kinds of other distractions, and it becomes pretty much impossible to be productive.  You will end up spending hours of your time getting nothing done, which is a complete waste of time.  If you just go to the library, put your cell phone on silent and find a quiet room you’ll get more done in one hour than you would sitting in your dorm room for five hours trying to study.

Studying at the library is an efficient and effective way to get significantly more accomplished in much less time.  You will survive for an hour without a text message, phone call or email, even if it is hard to believe.

The Bottom Line:  When you need to study, find a quiet spot in the library, put the phone on silent and get it finished.  Don’t waste hours on end thinking you are being productive while you are really not getting anything done.  One hour of focused studying is quicker and more effective than hours of putting forth a minimal effort with constant distractions.

Living at Home as a Young Professional

You may choose to live at home at some point as a young professional; people often do this so that they can pay off college loans and/or save some money.  The number of young professionals choosing to live at home after college graduation has been consistently on the rise.  Moving back home to save money may sound like a responsible thing to do, but it also comes with some potential pitfalls, which include:

•    Initially vowing that you will save money and pay down loans only to spend more because you begin to think that what you’re saving on rent is disposable income.
•    Not growing up nearly as fast as you would if you were on your own since you don’t have the same level of responsibilities.
•    Having some difficulty dating due to the potential awkwardness of spending time with a significant other in your parents’ home.
•    Becoming too complacent by having someone else fulfill the majority of your domestic responsibilities.

If you are going to live at home for any length of time after graduation, make sure you have a specific purpose for doing so, such as saving up for the down payment of a home or paying off a substantial amount of student debt.  Set a very specific goal for yourself, such as “I will live here for 18 months, and by that time I will have enough money saved up for the down payment of a home.  I need to save $500 per month over these next 24 months.”  Measure yourself monthly towards this goal and make sure the time period doesn’t get stretched out to 48 months!

Another potential pitfall to avoid is that you do not become too reliant on your parents for chores that you should be capable of doing yourself.  There is no reason why you shouldn’t be managing your own finances, doing your laundry, making your bed, ironing your clothes and paying for your share of household items.  Becoming too dependent on your parents will make it even harder to eventually go off on your own, and nobody wants to be “that person” just starting to become independent in their late 20s.

Unless you are facing uncontrollable circumstances (such as extreme amounts of debt, ill parents, family members going through some very difficult times) or unless you have a specific purpose with a specific time limit (such as saving for a down payment or paying down student debt), try to avoid living at home.  The only way you are going to become completely independent is to…. be completely independent!

Young Professional Success Tip – Start a Business

Let me make something clear; this doesn’t mean that you need to write up a 50 page business plan, raise $100,000 of capital and try to invent the “next big thing.”  This simply means that as a young professional you should offer a product and service to other people.  Determine what you are passionate about and offer it in the form of a product or service.  This doesn’t need to be your primary source of income and you may even offer it for free initially.  Figure out something you are good at or enjoy doing and find a way to offer it to others.  By doing this, you are building something you enjoy, and it won’t even feel like work at all.  Imagine if one day you could make enough doing this thing you love, that you wouldn’t need to do anything else.  So many people across the country have become “accidental entrepreneurs,” meaning that they started to do something they loved to help others and began getting paid to do it. The next thing they knew they were making enough to pay their bills and decided to do it full time.  The bottom line is that you will never know until you try, so give it a shot!

Young Professional Success Tip – Travel as Much as Possible

There may never be an easier time in your life to travel than right now while you are young – take advantage of this and start seeing the world!  Traveling to new places a lot of great advantages, such as getting to:

- See new places
- Meet new and interesting people
- Leave your comfort zone
- See the world
- Experience new things
- Learn more about yourself
- Find a better place to live
- Visit Your Friends
- Re-Energize yourself
- Have fun!

There are many others as well, but you get the idea.  Take advantage of this opportunity, because it will probably become much more difficult to do as you become older and start a family.  Make it a goal to take a road trip at least once every 3 months and go somewhere you have never been before.  Do that for 5 straight years and you’ll get to see at least 20 great new places that you have never seen before.  By doing this, you will have many more experiences than most others your age.  Travel, travel, travel!

Young Professional Success Tip – Have a Vision of Success

A vision of success is simply a clear idea of where you want to be in the future.  You must be able to close your eyes and picture what success looks like and feels like to you.  Some of the many things that could be included in your vision:

- Family you build
- People in your life
- House you live in
- Cars in your driveway
- Relationship with your faith
- City you live in
- Vacations that you go on
- Career that you build
- Business that you start
- Organizations you are involved with

98% of people in this country do not have goals for their future.  That’s right, if you walk up to 100 people at a mall or in a restaurant, 98 of them would have no clue what they want their futures to look like!  If you wake up every day without a vision of your future success and the goals you want to accomplish, it will be very difficult to accomplish a whole lot!  

It isn’t difficult; you just need to determine where you want to be and then align your decision making with it.  For instance, if you want to become a business owner then you’d better be investing in books on business leadership, surrounding yourself with entrepreneurs, building a business plan and doing the other activities necessary to begin building a successful business.  You can’t just say you want to do something – you must begin executing your vision immediately!

Your vision may change over the years, but it is important that you are working towards something, not just getting up, going to work and trying to survive.  Have a huge vision, know what your success will look and feel like and then start taking the steps necessary to reach your vision!

Young Professional Success Tip – Always Persevere

As an ambitious young professional, you will undoubtedly face some major obstacles.  Because you aren’t content waiting for things to fall on your lap, you more than likely have some lofty goals and dreams that you want to make happen as soon as possible. In order to break through all of the adversity and negativity you will face, you MUST be able to persevere and stay focused.  It is easier said than done, but you have to do it.

Perseverance means steadily working towards your vision and pushing through the obstacles in your way.  In some ways, it is the most important characteristic for your success, both as a young professional and for the rest of your life.  Every young professional faces obstacles, problems and issues that provide a road block; your success will ultimately be determined with how you handle these.

Take a look at some successful people that you know personally or celebrities that you admire – I guarantee you that each of them faced significant obstacles to become successful and wouldn’t have reached their visions if they weren’t incredible at persevering.  I share many of these stories in my book, The Course They Forgot to Offer, as a way of showing readers the price you must pay to reach your dreams in this world.

Stay focused on your end goal, surround yourself with positive people who will support you and keep pushing forward!

Lessons I Have Learned as a Young Entrepreneur – You Have To Surround Yourself Well

In order to become a successful entrepreneur, you have to excel in a number of areas.  As far as I see it, you really only have two options:

1.  Become an expert in everything
2.  Surround yourself with experts that will help you grow your business

Which of those sounds more appealing?  Which one do you think will give you the time, energy, focus and resources necessary to grow your business?  In order to become a successful entrepreneur the fastest and easiest way possible, you MUST surround yourself with quality individuals that have a high level of  integrity, share in your vision for the business and are experts at what they do.  Building this team around you will let you work on your business, not be  an employee in your own business.  Here are some of the amazing people that I have on my team:

- CPA
- Mentors
- Business Coach
- SEO Expert
- Social Networking Expert
- Family & Friends
- Printing Expert
- Referall Marketing Expert
- Marketing Coach
- Grammar & Editing Expert
- Professional Partners with High Levels of Integrity
- Any many others….

This doesn’t even include all of the people that I invest in through books, audio programs, home-study courses and seminars.  Those individuals have also been instrumental in my business and don’t even know it!  Surrounding yourself with these people will make your road to success and a business owner so much easier and exponentially increase your chances for success.  Surrounding yourself with these people will also teach you incredible lessons and learning as  much as possible is a huge key to your success as an entrepreneur.

Lessons I Have Learned as a Young Entrepreneur – This Has To Be Your Passion

If you truly want to be a successful entrepreneur, then you must love what you do and have a passion for it.  You can be rich and famous while hating what you do or not loving it, but you cannot be successful.  Being a successful entrepreneur is loving every second of the time you spend in your business and being willing to do it for free if you had to.  For 99.9% of the entrepreneurs out there, you will have to work incredibly long hours, face huge obstacles, take substantial risks and live/breathe/eat/sleep your business for years and years.  Do you really want to do all of that for something you don’t love to do?

I say this a lot during my keynote talks – imagine how much happier and more successful everyone in the world would be if we all did what we were passionate about.  Imagine all of the lawyers who would be much happier owning a restaraunt or the accountants that would rather have a landscaping company and work in jeans everyday.  Unfortunately, most people disqualify themselves from doing what they are passionate about, with such thoughts as:

- “I’m not smart enough…”
- “I don’t know how to start a business…”
- “I’ll never make any money doing…”
- “If I started this business, people would think that I…”

If you are going to start your own business, you need to do what you are passionate about.  For those of you willing to take the risk and put in the effort necessary to build a successful business, then you absolutely have to start something that you will enjoy doing for the rest of your life.  Owning a business is already difficult enough; by combining it with something you don’t have a passion to do you will almost certainly fail.  Even if you do succeed you won’t love it, so whats the point?  Make it your passion and give it your absolute best!!

Lessons I Have Learned as a Young Entrepreneur – You Have To Persevere

I hate to say it but I believe its best to always be honest – if you plan on starting a business, it is extremely likely that more people will doubt you than will believe in you.  It is also very likely that you are going to face critiscm, a lack of capital, major setbacks, poor decisions and a whole host of other negative occurences with your business.  How you handle these will be a huge factor in the ultimate fate of your business – this is why perseverance is critical for entrepreneurs.  Here are just a few examples of the obstactles I personally have faced and how I persevered through it:

A professional editor and family friend reviewed my book manuscript and told me to take it and put it in my top desk drawrer for at least 3 years so that I could “gain perspective” and then maybe take another shot at the book idea.

How I Persevered – After about 15 minutes of being angry/sad/depressed/furious/doubtful and every other negative emotion you can image, I re-read the letter and came across one sentence that made this letter mean absolutely nothing – the person that wrote this letter to me had a book idea but never had the courage to have it published.  I thought to myself “Why in the world would I ever take advice from an editor that didn’t have the courage to get their own book published?!?!”.  I put the letter, not the manuscript, in my desk drawrer and got back to work publishing my frist book within 3 months of receiving that letter.

A mentor tells me that I’m making a huge mistake by starting my business

How I Persevered – I told him that I respected his opinion and appreciated him looking out for me but that I believed in my heart that I had a message and a business that would ultimately reach millions of people and I wasn’t willing to keep it bottled up inside of me because of the “risks” involved with it.

I have many others as well, some of which were much harder to deal with, that I will share at some point in the future.  Who knows, maybe I’ll write an entire book about some of the world’s most successful people and who they proved wrong on thier road to success.  Do you think anyone ever told Michael Jordan that he should quit basketball?  You betcha someone did!

I used the above examples to show you how I personally persevered through these difficult situations.  I want to use them as an example of the difficulties you could potentially face on your road to becoming a successful entrepreneur.  By no means were these easy situations and I’d by lying if I said they were simply to handle, but I ultimately found it within myself to persevere through the because I knew in my heart that what I had to offer needed to be shared with the world.  I expect you to do the same and believe in yourself no matter what obstacles are in your way of your vision of success.