Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Do You Know Where You're Going?
Here's a favorite quote from Yogi Berra:

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there"

You've gotta love Yogi Berra. His ability to mangle the English language created some fun quotes. Whether he said them unintentionally or tongue-in-cheek, he provided some truly memorable malapropisms.

This one has particular relevance to new business owners because almost all of us start out not knowing where we're going.

Sure, we have some general idea in mind. We want a more comfortable lifestyle, more money, freedom from the constraints of a 9-to-5 job.

Most of us, though, when we first get started, don't have a clue about what it will take to get us where we want to go. It's like going to the airport, standing in the middle of the of the ticketing area and yelling, "Please take me somewhere better than here!" and counting on someone to put you on a plane to a dream destination that you yourself don't even know.

If you don't know where you're going, you aren't going to get there.

How do you figure out an actual destination (other than that vague dream of "someplace better than where you are")? Best is to start with getting to the root of your core emotions.

Most of the time, the dreams we have -- the things we THINK we want out of life -- are nothing more than the dreams we adopt merely because society tells us that those are the things we're supposed to want. What we really want, deep down, we usually keep locked so deep inside us that we usually can't articulate them ourselves.

Digging down to our core emotions is not all that hard. It takes a little distraction-free time and a willingness to delve into that shadowy part of us that we often try to avoid: our emotions.

It's essential, though, to finding the destination we truly want to reach.
Jeff


P.S. There isn't space for me to lay out the whole process here for digging down to your core emotions. I do cover it in my Employee-to-Entrepreneur Blueprint business training program, where I give detailed guidance on making the essential transition from employee-thinking to entrepreneurial-thinking and building a successful business. I encourage you to check E2E Blueprint out.

Labels: inspirational quotes

Are You Looking Up?
Here's a favorite quote from Oscar Wilde:

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars"

I have to admit, I've never been much of a fan of Oscar Wilde. You might say I'm not wild about Wilde (sorry about that!).

And I've got to say that something in this quote doesn't sit well with me. I don't like Wilde's cynicism, and I have to believe that he said this particular quote with a great deal of disdain for anyone who didn't share his disdain for everyone who wasn't just as cynical as he was.

Once I get past my feelings about Wilde, though, I like what it says about the potential we have for getting out of our own, personal "gutters."

That's the way that most people see themselves, after all, even if they don't come right out and say it. We might not articulate that we live in a gutter, but we sure tend to talk like it a lot.

We focus our eyes on the things that keep us down. "If only I wasn't hampered by this disadvantage or that disadvantage, I could make my life better."

All that is, though, is keeping our eyes firmly focused in the gutter instead of looking up and seeing what more is out there.

There's a saying that we move in the direction where we're looking. If we keep looking toward the things that hold us back, we'll continually be held back. If we look up... well, the sky's the limit!
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes

Are You Expecting Enough of Yourself?
Here's a favorite quote from Sam Walton:

"High expectations are the key to everything"

I like this saying, but I DON'T like the way that some people would take it. A lot of people look at this saying and read it as that by expecting a lot of the trappings of success the universe will reward us with them because... because... I guess because we EXPECT it of THE UNIVERSE.

I don't think that expecting the universe to change to fit his expectations, though (ala "The Secret"), is what old Sam was talking about. Sam Walton wasn't a man who sat around and waited for the universe to change to fit his desires.

Sam was a doer -- in a big way. Sam Walton took action to change his world. If you had told him that all you needed to do was to hold high expectations and then wait for them to happen, I think he would have laughed in your face.

I think Sam Walton's philosophy was more along these lines: "High expectations OF YOURSELF is the key to everything."

What really stops is isn't that we don't have big enough dreams of what we'd like the world to give us. It's that we don't trust enough that we are capable of taking action that can bring us closer to those dreams becoming reality.

We look for the magic wand that will bring us untold wealth without any effort on our part. I don't think we do that because we're lazy. I think we do that because, deep down, we feel that if we have to play any role in making our dreams come true, we'll mess it up. So we look for something that doesn't require any involvement on our part.

That wasn't Sam's philosophy, though. He expected that he could make a difference in what he saw around him. Did he have some magic wand that made everything happen for him without any effort on his part? No, he worked hard to build his WalMart empire.

Did he make the right choice in every decision he made? No, I'm sure he made plenty of blunders. But he learned from them and kept going. He took further actions to negate the blunders and keep his business on an upward trajectory.

He grew up in poverty during the Great Depression. But he took continued action in the firm belief that he could change his situation. And he did -- big time!

Don't wait for some magic wand to appear in your life. Take action. Believe that you can make a difference. You might be surprised to find out that you can.
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes

What Are You Looking for in Life?
Here's a favorite quote from Robert Lewis Stevenson:

"An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding."

How many of us live our journey through life looking for things? It's a common approach. Surround ourselves with enough things and everything will be all right.

It's not a be-all and end-all to life, though. I know a woman whose husband was an extremely wealthy man. They lived in a beautiful home in a ritzy lakefront setting. They had all the trappings of wealth.

Then one night as she lay in bed reading, he walked into the bedroom, casually sat down, pulled a pistol out of the nightstand and, without a word, blew his brains out.

He had more money than he knew what to do with, but his life had become purposeless. There's more to life, and more to business, than just accumulating money.

Find a purpose in life through what you do. Find a way to make the world a little better place. Focus on solving people's problems through your business or through whatever else you do. Only then will you find a life worth living.
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes

The Importance of Promotion
Here's a favorite quote from PT Barnum:

"Without promotion, something terrible happens -- NOTHING!"

Many of us tend to avoid promoting our businesses (or ourselves, in those situations where self-promotion is called for). We feel that promotion is somehow dirty, and makes us look dirty by association with it.

In reality, though, promotion is simply a means to let others know that we have something that they will find to be of value.

It may be a business owner promoting a product that solves potential customers' problems. It may be a job-seeker affirming that they have skills that will help a potential employer. Or it may be someone simply stepping forward to assert that they have something worthwhile to offer others.

In all of these cases, there's nothing "dirty" about stepping forward with something of value for others. And if you don't do it, nothing good happens for you -- and nothing good happens for those we are in a position to help.
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes

Conquering Ourselves
Here's a favorite quote from Sir Edmund Hillary:

"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves."

We keep looking for our life to get better by things around us changing. Nothing around us changes around us, though, unless we first conquer a bigger obstacle: ourselves.
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes

Getting More
Here's a favorite quote from Oprah Winfrey:

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough."

I've experienced this a lot in my own life. You don't get anywhere worthwhile by bemoaning the fact that you aren't where you want to be. You only get there by picking yourself up and heading in that direction. It's along the way that good things start to happen.
Jeff

Labels: inspirational quotes