Success Tweet 20

This post is a continuation of my series further explaining the ideas in my new book Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I am giving away the eBook version of this book to promote my career success coach business.  My goal is to giveaway 10,000 eBooks by the end of June 2010.  If you would like a copy, go to www.SuccessTweets.com.  Feel free to send your friends there too.

Today, I am focusing on Tweet 20…

Your values come from deep inside you.  Spend the time necessary to discover them.  Then hold fast to them.  Honor them with your actions.

I love blogging.  It gives me the opportunity to share my thoughts and ideas with people who can’t afford my career success coach services.  It also keeps me sharp.  My thinking on life and career success has grown and developed because of this blog.  I hope this is reflected in the quality of my posts.   I think I give my better career advice as a result of writing this blog.

There is a side benefit to blogging too.  People send me free books in the hopes that I will review them.  A while back, I received a copy of Masha Malka’s latest book, The One Minute Coach.  It’s a great little book. 

Masha has organized The One Minute Coach into bite sized chunks.  One three paragraph chapter entitled “What Does It Take to be Attractive?” makes a great point about being true to yourself…

“Being attractive comes from having that magnetic power that pulls people towards you.  A power that inspires them to talk to you and find out more about who are; a power that makes them want to be like you!”

She follows this up with five action steps.  I love the fifth step…

“Focus on who you are and not just what you look like.  People fall in love with the essence of you – your energy, the sparkle in your eyes, your passion for living, your unconditional love, everything that makes you unique and special…people fall in love with your beautiful soul.”

What is your essence, your beautiful soul?  It lies in your personal values.  Do you let your essence and values shine through?  Or do you keep them both under wraps, thinking that you won’t measure up in others’ eyes if you let your true self show.

When I was in high school and reading Hamlet, we got to the point in the play where Hamlet is setting off to avenge his father.  Polonius gives him some advice.  We were reading the play out loud.  I was reading just before Polonius’ advice.  Mrs. Yothers, stopped me and said, “This is some of the best advice on life that you will ever get.  Read slowly Bud, and the rest of you should listen closely.”

I can’t remember the entire verse anymore, but there was one line that has always stuck with me. 

“And above all else, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day the night, thou canst be false to no man.”

When my nephew Matt Seaton was going off to college, his grandfather and my father-in-law, Roy Blackman, gave him a piece of advice written on a scrap of paper.  It read “TTOSBT – figure it out and live by it.”

Can you figure it out?  Here’s a hint, read the quote from Polonius.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  We are all unique human beings.  Each of us has wonderful traits.  Our best traits come from deep inside ourselves, our personal values.  We all need to have the confidence to let our wonders shine through.  You create positive personal impact when you live by your values and let your essence shine through.  Pay attention to the advice in Tweet 20 in Success Tweets: “Your values come from deep inside you.  Spend the time necessary to discover them.  Then hold fast to them.  Honor them with your actions.”  Honor your values in the way you live your life.  Let your values shine through the next time you are in a room full of strangers.  You might be surprised at the way people respond to you.

That’s my take on Tweet 20, in Success Tweets – letting your essence shine through.  What’s yours?  Better yet, what is at your essence?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Success Tweet 19

This post is a continuation of my series further explaining the ideas in my new book Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I am giving away the eBook version of this book to promote my career success coach services.  My goal is to giveaway 10,000 eBooks by the end of June 2010.  If you would like a copy, go to www.SuccessTweets.com.  Feel free to send your friends there too.

Today, I am focusing on Tweet 19…

Your personal values are things that you hold near and dear; things on which you absolutely will not compromise.

Kevin Eikenberry is a friend of mine, and a leadership expert.  I subscribe to his blog.  The other day he did a post in which he talked about the importance of a firm and steady foundation.  He used the bible parable about the wise man who built his house upon the rock, and the careless man who built his house on sand.  When the rains and winds came, the wise man’s house stayed strong; the other man’s was washed away.

Kevin went on to say…

“The story speaks to building on a firm and steady foundation.  The parallel for us as leaders is to build our leadership habits, values and beliefs on solid unshakable principles.  It is easy to read a book or article and be excited about a new technique, approach or method.  Most of these are sound and valuable.  But ultimately they will hold the greatest value for you when they are integrated into the foundation of your leadership house – and the techniques, methods and approaches are understood based on their underlying and unassailable principles.”

Your personal values are your career success foundation.  As Kevin says, they should be solid, unshakeable principals, things that guide your life and your decision making.  They should be fad proof; ideas on which you can rely in the long run.

A couple of days ago, I did a post in which I identified my personal values: common sense, simplicity, optimism, human potential, value, trust, individuality, hard work, the power of 1.   These values are the foundation on which I have built my life and career.  They guide my decision making.  I turn to them when I need help figuring out what to do.  They have served me well.  And, I will not compromise on them.

Let me give you an example.  Back in December I was approached by an HR executive at one of my corporate clients.  He asked if I would be willing to provide some coaching for one of the leaders at the operation for which he is responsible.  Of course, I said yes.

I submitted a proposal outlining how I would approach this specific coaching project.  Then, over the next few months, I answered a lot of questions about my approach to the coaching, how much it would cost etc.  I sent the HR exec several of my books gratis.  I really thought I had the gig sown up.  Last week he called me to tell me that while he would have preferred to use my services, his HR boss at corporate headquarters instructed him to use another coach who was doing some work in another part of the company.

If you’ve ever worked hard to make a sale and then lose it due to something completely out of your control, you know how I felt – frustrated.  I was discussing this situation with a colleague.  She said that she would have been very angry about this situation.  I wasn’t angry, stuff happens in business.  I was a little frustrated, but I chose to let it go.

I value optimism.  The Optimist Creed guides my behavior.  Point 1 of The Optimist Creed says, “Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.”  Point 4 says, “Promise yourself to look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.”  As I truly value optimism and this advice, I had to let go of the frustrating situation.  Holding on to it would have created negative energy that would have impacted my work.  I don’t have time for negative energy.  I’m an optimist.  As Point 10 of The Optimist Creed says, I am “too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.”  I value optimism.  Therefore, I let go of the situation and moved on.

By the way, I have created a frameable .pdf of The Optimist Creed.  If you would like free a copy to frame and hang in your workspace, go to http://budbilanich.com/optimist/ to download it.  I have given away over 1,000 copies of to readers of this blog and my career success coach clients.

Here’s another example.  I value trust.  I am a trustworthy person, and I assume that on the part of other people.  That’s why most often I do business on a handshake.  I will sign a contract if it’s absolutely necessary, some companies won’t hire me without a signed contract.  But I prefer my working relationships to be less formal.  Some people say this is naïve.  I think it is trusting.  I’m not trying to convince you to do business on a handshake.  I bring it up here to show you how my personal value of trust impacts my work every day.

I value hard work.  It’s in my genes.  My belief is that the dictionary is only place success comes before work.  This doesn’t mean that I am inefficient about what I do.  That’s not the case.  I outsource a lot of my technical work because I’m not good at it.  I don’t want to become an html expert.  On the other hand, I use my time to do the things I’m good at – like writing books and this blog, appearing as a guest on internet and broadcast radio interviews, working with my career success coach clients.  I work hard at doing the things that help me advance my business and career success.  I believe the old adage, “the harder I work, the luckier I get.”

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people use their personal values as a foundation.  They will listen to new ideas, but don’t change on a whim.  They heed the advice in Tweet 19 in Success Tweets, “Your personal values are things that you hold near and dear; that on which you absolutely will not compromise.”  This means that you should think long and hard about your values.  They should come from deep inside you.  Once you clarify them, live them.  Be true to yourself and your personal values.  You’ll find that your personal values are a foundation that will serve you well when things get tough and frustrating.

That’s my take on Tweet 19 in Success Tweets.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment.  I value and appreciate all of your comments.  Thanks again for reading.

Bud

Success Tweet 18

This post is a continuation of my series further explaining the ideas in my new book Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I am giving away the eBook version of this book.  If you would like a copy, go to www.SuccessTweets.com.

Today, I am focusing on Tweet 18…

You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.  Your values help you make decisions in ambiguous situations.

If you know your rock and roll, you know that the first sentence in today’s tweet is the title of a John Mellencamp song – one of my favorite recording artists.  And it’s true.  You, me, all of us, need to stand for something if we’re going to create the life and career success we want and deserve.  Your personal values are what you stand for.

In yesterday’s post, I shared my personal values: common sense, simplicity, optimism, human potential, value, trust, individuality, hard work, the power of 1.   These values are the foundation on which I have built my life and career.  They guide my decision making.  I turn to them when I need help figuring out what to do.  They have served me well.

In April of 1988, I was facing a major life and career decision – stay in a good, secure, albeit somewhat unsatisfying job with a top notch corporation, or strike out on my own as an independent career success coach, speaker and consultant.  I looked to my values.  Optimism, human potential and hard work jumped out at me.  I am an optimist.  I believe in human potential, including mine.  I have always been a hard worker. 

Reflecting on my values – especially these three – made the decision easy.  An optimist, someone who believes in human potential, and a hard worker would take the chance and start a small business – which is what I did.  I became The Common Sense Guy over 22 years ago and have never looked back.  My values guided me through the decision making process.

Here’s another example.  As I began my work as a career success coach, I found that many of my clients were overwhelmed by the complexity of creating the life and career success they wanted.  They were looking for simple answers to complex questions.  I created my 4 C’s of Success Model to help provide these answers.  By studying successful people, I was able to create a simple, straightforward, common sense model that showed my career success coach clients how to create life and career success…

1. Clarify your purpose and direction in life and your career.
2. Commit to taking personal responsibility for your life and career success.
3. Build unshakeable self confidence.
4. Get competent in four important areas: creating positive personal impact, outstanding performance, dynamic communication, and relationship building.

I’ve used this simple model to help hundreds of people create the life and career success they want and deserve.  Success Tweets is organized around it.  Tweet 18 is one way to clarify the purpose and direction for your life and career.  My personal values of common sense, and simplifying the complex helped me figure out a simple, but comprehensive model of life and career success.  I use this model in my work as a career success coach.

I am a career success coach in large part because of my commitment to my personal value of the power of 1.  I believe that one person can change the world.  That’s why I work so hard to help the people in my life see that they can become a life and career success. 

My personal value of value comes into play here as well.  I always provide my career success coach clients with more than I have to.  I give away a lot of my books.  In this way, people have a reminder of the things we’ve talked about to which they can refer over and over again.  I have a goal of giving away 10,000 copies of the eBook version of Success Tweets.  If you want a copy, go to www.SuccessTweets.com.  Feel free to send your friends there too.

The career success coach common sense point here is simple.  Successful people clarify their purpose and direction in life.  Your personal values are an important part of your personal clarity of purpose and direction.  Tweet 18 in Success Tweets says, “You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.  Your values help you make decisions in ambiguous situations.”  Once you’ve clarified your personal values, you need to live them.  Using your values to guide your decision making is a great way to live them on a day to day basis.  Your values will help you stand for something – so you don’t fall for anything.  Just ask John Mellencamp.

That’s my take on Tweet 18 in Success Tweets.   What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  And, if you leave a comment sharing your favorite John Mellencamp song, I’ll send you a copy of the eBook version of my bestseller, Straight Talk for Success.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

Success Tweet 17

This post is a continuation of my series further explaining the ideas in my new book Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I am giving away the eBook version of this book.  If you would like a copy, go to www.SuccessTweets.com.

Today, I am focusing on Tweet 17…

Clarify your personal values. Your values are your anchor.  They ground you. They center you.  They keep you focused on what’s important.

Your personal values are important for a number of reasons.  They can help you determine the types of people with whom you want to spend your valuable time.  They can help you determine which company you want to join.  They can help you make decisions in ambiguous situations.  This career success coach is a big believer in the power of personal values.

Here is what I value.  These values guide my life.  They ground me and center me.  They keep me focused on what’s important.

Common Sense. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “nothing so astonishes men as common sense and plain dealing.” I agree. I help my career success coach clients figure out the common sense solution to creating the life and career success they want and deserve, and then to do the work it takes to apply their common sense.

Simplify the complex.  I believe that all too often people make things more complex than they really are. I help my career success coach clients simplify the complex, and develop and implement common sense solutions to their problems and issues.

Optimism. I believe that optimism is essential for anyone to grow and flourish.  I live by the words in The Optimist Creed.  I share these words with my career success coach clients.  If you would like a copy, go to http://budbilanich.com/optimist.

Human potential. I believe we all can accomplish great things.  I help my career success coach clients use applied common sense to achieve their full potential.

Value.  My career success coach clients pay hard earned money for my services. I provide them with extraordinary value-added services in order to justify their faith in me.

Trust.  My career success coach clients trust me. They openly discuss their hopes, fears, problems and opportunities with me. This trust is sacred. I will not violate it.

Individuality.  All of my career success coach clients are unique individuals. I honor this uniqueness. I don’t sell one-size-fits-all coaching  services. I am diligent about gaining a complete understanding of each individual’s unique needs as I begin working with him or her.

Hard work.  There are no shortcuts.  I am willing to put in the time and effort necessary to succeed.  I share this message with my career success coach clients.  I encourage them to be true to themselves by being diligent in pursuing their career success goals and dreams.

The Power of 1.  One person can make a difference. I do the work I do, because I believe I can make a difference — in the lives of my career success coach clients, and in the world. 

Those are my values.  What are yours?

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people live their lives by a set of well defined personal values.  They follow the advice in Tweet 17 in Success Tweets: “Clarify your personal values.  Your values are your anchor.  They ground you.  They center you.  They keep you focused on what’s important.”  If you haven’t taken the time to clarify your personal values, you need to do so – the sooner the better.  This is some of the best career advice I can give you.  Clarifying your personal values will help you deal with the ambiguity and complexity the world throws at you. 

That’s my take on Tweet 17 in Success Tweets.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment.  Better yet, share your personal values with us.  As always, thank you so much for reading.  I really appreciate it.

Bud

Success Tweet 16

I’m really excited about the positive feedback I’ve been getting on my new book Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I have a goal of giving away 10,000 copies of the eBook version of it by the end of June.  I’ve already given away over 1,000.  To claim your free copy, just go to www.SuccessTweets.com. 

I am blogging about each tweet.  Today is Tweet 16…

Use affirmations to realize your vision of your success.  Affirmations are statements about the future stated in the present tense.

Self confidence is an important key to life and career success. This career success coach has learned that self confidence is an upward spiral.  Self confidence leads to career success, which leads to increased self confidence, which leads to higher levels of career success, and so on.

You might be saying, “That’s great, but how do I become self confident if I’m new in my job or if I haven’t had a lot of success to bolster my self confidence?”  There’s an old saying that applies here: “Fake it till you make it.” In other words, act as if you are a career success already. This will help you succeed. Your success will help you build your self confidence.

How do you “fake it, will you make it?”  As Tweet 16 in Success Tweets says, begin with affirmations. If you’re in a new job, tell yourself something like, “I have the skills and desire to succeed in this job,” several times a day.  If you repeat this to yourself often enough, you will begin to believe it. This will help you perform at the level necessary in order to actually succeed in your job.

Affirmations are positive self talk. The idea behind affirmations is simple.  When you think of the things to which you aspire, like becoming a career success, and then tell yourself that you are a career success, you will believe that you can become a career success. More important, you will be more likely to do the work it takes to make your career success aspirations come true.

I follow my own career success coach advice.  A couple of years ago, I wrote a book called Star Power, Common Sense ideas for Career and Life Success. I used a star to depict this model. I urged readers to think of themselves as a star and to aspire to becoming a career and life star. I like the star metaphor. Daily, I repeat the following affirmation to myself: “Bud Bilanich is a star.”

I’ve done a lot of working in making this affirmation a reality – redoing my website, developing better promotional materials, speaking, writing books, blogging.

I’ve also done something a little unusual. A few years ago, right after Star Power was published, I went to the “Name a Star” website and named a star after myself. Now I can say “Bud Bilanich is a star” and really believe it, because Bud Bilanich really is a star.

Bud Bilanich the star, is Catalog Number TYC  868-1011-1 in the constellation Leo. Bud Bilanich has a Visual Magnitude indicator of 11.2. Right Ascension is 11h 58m 21s. Declination is 11degrees, 43,’18.”

I don’t have a clue what all of these things mean, except the constellation Leo, which I chose because my birthday is August 14. But I do know one thing. Bud Bilanich is a star!

How’s that for an affirmation?

Affirmations work. I have become a minor star in the career success coach world. 

You don’t need to go to the lengths I did to make your personal affirmations work either. Just decide what you want, visualize yourself as having it.  Tell yourself you have it.  Repeat that affirmation several times a day. Then do whatever it takes to make your affirmation come true.

Affirmations alone, however, are not enough to guarantee your career success. You have to do the work. Spend the time necessary to accomplish your goals. Volunteer for projects that will get you noticed. Become an expert on your company, its competitors, and your industry. In other words, bust your butt, and you will succeed.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are self confident.  If you want to become self confident, you need to become an optimist, face your fears, and hang around with self confident people.  Your self confidence will improve as you begin to become a life and career success. The self confidence => career success => self confidence cycle is an upward spiral. You have to enter the cycle somewhere. You might not have a strong track record as you begin your career, move into a new job, or start a business. Therefore, you have to “fake it till you make it” by “acting as if” you are a career success.”  Find ways to bolster your self confidence until you have some real successes on which you can build.  Tweet 16 in Success Tweets says, “Use affirmations to realize your vision of your success.  Affirmations are statements about the future stated in the present tense.”  Use this career success coach advice.  Affirmations are a great tool for helping you “fake it till you make it.”

That’s my take on Tweet 16 in Success Tweets, self confidence and faking it till you make it.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud