Perspective
Written by PETER BREGMAN
Monday, 20 July 2009 01:36
Every time I ask a roomful of executives to list the five moments their careers leapt forward, a story of failure always makes the cut. For some this involved the loss of a job. For others it was the failure of a larger system, like an economic downturn, that required them to step up. Yet most of us spend tremendous effort trying to avoid situations that could lead to failure.
According to Stanford University professor Carol Dweck, we have a mind-set problem. She has done extensive research in order to understand why certain people give up in the face of adversity—or evade it altogether—while others strive to overcome it.
If you believe that your talents are inborn or fixed, then you will try to avoid failure at all costs because setbacks are proof of your limitations. People with fixed mind-sets like to solve the same problems over and over again. Children with fixed mind-sets would rather redo an easy jigsaw puzzle than try a harder one.
But if you believe your talent can grow with persistence and effort, then you seek out failure as an opportunity to improve. People with a growth mind-set feel smart when they’re learning, not when they’re flawless.
Michael Jordan has a growth mind-set. Most successful people do. In high school he was cut from the basketball team, yet he learned how to leverage failure in order to succeed: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career; I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-wining shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
A growth mind-set is the secret to maximizing potential. Want to develop your staff’s skills? Give them tasks above their ability. Tell them you expect them to struggle, that it will take more time than their familiar responsibilities, and that you expect they’ll make some mistakes along the way. But you know they can do it.
Want to increase your own performance? Set high goals that you only have a 50 to 70 percent chance of attaining. Then, when you fail, figure out what you should do differently and try again. That’s practice. And according to recent studies, 10,000 hours of practice will make you an expert at anything—no matter where you start.
*A very interesting article which is related to building your own business, your failure threshold which is part of your emotional make-up is one of the key factors within the mind that you can develop.
Click Here to Read More...
Showing posts with label Goals for Success. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Goals for Success. Show all posts
One day, me and my business class members identified 3 essential things that a New Entrepreneur needs to have:
1. The Skill to Sell- in one of my previous articles, I mentioned that Selling is the primary skill that one needs to have to succeed in business. "Nothing happens in a business unless someone sells something." Selling includes profiling your customer and which segment you might want to target for your given product.
2. An Understanding of the Market- this includes knowing who your customers are, who is the competition, what are your advantages over the competition and your key selling points. Understanding the market also includes picking the right product or service to sell. Being a micro entrepreneur, you may want to sell a product or service that already HAS demand. Or in other words, find a SELF-SELLER. If you notice that most of the businesses that our Chinese brethren are under the roof of living 'essentials'--Food, Medicine, Hardware supplies etc., these are all high demand products. It does not mean finding a business with self seller products will guarantee success, all I am saying is that the chances of success increases when there is already high demand for those products that you carry.
3. An Understanding of Financial Statements- Yes, even a carinderia needs a financial statement and needs to keep good records. It is not as difficult as you think, algebra and calculus were more difficult subjects than financial ratios. Income statements, Cash flow statements and Balance sheets are minimum requirements for the Entrepreneur. Click Here to Read More...
1. The Skill to Sell- in one of my previous articles, I mentioned that Selling is the primary skill that one needs to have to succeed in business. "Nothing happens in a business unless someone sells something." Selling includes profiling your customer and which segment you might want to target for your given product.
2. An Understanding of the Market- this includes knowing who your customers are, who is the competition, what are your advantages over the competition and your key selling points. Understanding the market also includes picking the right product or service to sell. Being a micro entrepreneur, you may want to sell a product or service that already HAS demand. Or in other words, find a SELF-SELLER. If you notice that most of the businesses that our Chinese brethren are under the roof of living 'essentials'--Food, Medicine, Hardware supplies etc., these are all high demand products. It does not mean finding a business with self seller products will guarantee success, all I am saying is that the chances of success increases when there is already high demand for those products that you carry.
3. An Understanding of Financial Statements- Yes, even a carinderia needs a financial statement and needs to keep good records. It is not as difficult as you think, algebra and calculus were more difficult subjects than financial ratios. Income statements, Cash flow statements and Balance sheets are minimum requirements for the Entrepreneur. Click Here to Read More...
Early in my business life, a mentor shared his definition of SUCCESS and it was something that went like this: "Success is the fulfillment of worthwhile pre-determined goals." The definition of SUCCESS is important and vital for an individual since it will determine by large how one will measure it.
Most of us, consider success as monetary in value or something that is associated with having much money. That is only one side of the definition of SUCCESS, if you go back to my mentor's definition you will not find a word that is linked to having tons of money and yet it is very clear as to how he will measure his own success.
It would be a little weird if we account our success to having much money since this would mean that the Entrepreneur has run out of ideas on how to let his money circulate in ventures that would create more. Remember that the money we have today is actually a 'currency', from the root word 'current', it must needs circulate or it would die.
Some of us may have heard of comments like this: "Magnenegosyo lang ako kung malaki na ang aking capital!" Again, it boils down to how you define success. The business inertia that stops us from doing and getting into planning, starting and building your own enterprise is very hard to overcome and in my book, I would greatly consider that a great success in the part of the individual.
On the other side of the coin, if I see a business person having too much money in his hands, I would consider that individual as someone who has stunted growth financially since having too much cash on hand will usually mean that one is running out of good business ideas. And what does such an individual do? Buys useless 'doodads', toys or liabilities like a new car, expensive camera etc..Not that these things are bad but they need to be purchased in the right perspective and not as a means to illustrate being 'successful.'
Well, what are you waiting for? Retreat and meditate on the word Success and what it means to you. Click Here to Read More...
Most of us, consider success as monetary in value or something that is associated with having much money. That is only one side of the definition of SUCCESS, if you go back to my mentor's definition you will not find a word that is linked to having tons of money and yet it is very clear as to how he will measure his own success.
It would be a little weird if we account our success to having much money since this would mean that the Entrepreneur has run out of ideas on how to let his money circulate in ventures that would create more. Remember that the money we have today is actually a 'currency', from the root word 'current', it must needs circulate or it would die.
Some of us may have heard of comments like this: "Magnenegosyo lang ako kung malaki na ang aking capital!" Again, it boils down to how you define success. The business inertia that stops us from doing and getting into planning, starting and building your own enterprise is very hard to overcome and in my book, I would greatly consider that a great success in the part of the individual.
On the other side of the coin, if I see a business person having too much money in his hands, I would consider that individual as someone who has stunted growth financially since having too much cash on hand will usually mean that one is running out of good business ideas. And what does such an individual do? Buys useless 'doodads', toys or liabilities like a new car, expensive camera etc..Not that these things are bad but they need to be purchased in the right perspective and not as a means to illustrate being 'successful.'
Well, what are you waiting for? Retreat and meditate on the word Success and what it means to you. Click Here to Read More...
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