Simple Stuff – Persistence

(Simple Stuff – a bunch of inspirational, motivational and other quotes meant to make you think, reflect, smile, even laugh a bit. Hopefully helpful, useful stuff….)

When you tough it out, hold the line, and stay the course, I promise you there will soon come a day when you look back over your shoulder, shake your head in dismay, and seriously wonder what all the fuss was about.  Just like all the other times,     The Universe http://www.tut.com Mike Dooley

Ambition is the path to success, persistence is the vehicle you arrive in. -William Eardley IV

Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence. -Colin Powell

Energy and persistence conquer all things. -Benjamin Franklin

 

the fool  would persist in his folly he would become   wise.” –                                                                                William Blake

How do you immediately improve your life? By discovering and modeling the habitual questions of people you respect. If you find someone who’s extremely happy, Ican guarantee you there’s one reason: this person focuses relentlessly on whatever makes him or her happy, and continually asks questions about how to become even happier. People who do well financially persistent by asking different questions as they look at investments than people who produce meager rewards. – Tony Robbins

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www.onewebstrategy.com

Class of 2013: Your Degree Doesn’t Mean Squat

I saw this article and had to post it. I believe, to a large degree, that this may be true. Action, relationships, and what you do make it happen. You don’t find success just because you have a degree. You may need it as a starting point but it is just one step, one factor to success….

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Class of 2013: Your Degree Doesn’t Mean Squat

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Simply having a college degree will not get you hired. We need to break away from this idea. In all reality, most employers could care less about your GPA or where you went to school.

Today, getting hired in entry-level positions requires experience and fine-tuned skills, not a 4.0 GPA. This probably isn’t what most new grads want to hear, but it’s the truth.

Many new college graduates enter their job search with a why-wouldn’t-someone-hire-me mindset. But most employers aren’t going to take on an entry-level hire unless they’re certain they’ll positively impact the company.

So the real question for new graduates to consider is this: What can you bring to the table that makes you worth hiring?

Here’s some food for thought for those entering the workforce:

1. Your degree isn’t a golden ticket. We need to put an end to the “silver spoon complex.” Simply obtaining a degree may only help you out if you’re planning to go the corporate route, where companies have more time and money to invest in training programs. But at my company, I don’t even know which of my employees has a degree or not–it makes no difference to me. I care more about the impact my employees have on my company.

I’d much rather hire someone who has been freelancing as a web developer for three years than someone who has a master’s degree in computer science. They’re bound to be more passionate, driven, and profitable in the long run, as they know what it takes to impact the bottom line.

2. It’s all about experience. I started my company Ciplex when I was 17. Throughout college I ran my business on the side, in addition to working in my college IT department. Today, undertaking one internship isn’t enough to prove your experience to employers. The reason so many college graduates can’t find work is because they lack experience.

One simple way to get more experience within your industry is by taking on freelance work and contracting gigs. These types of experiences will help you learn and grow while developing a sense of independence, responsibility, and drive. All of these traits are highly attractive to employers.

3. Passion will help you succeed. If you’re just looking to get hired anywhere, employers will be able to tell. I get emails all the time from job seekers who are just looking to get hired and don’t indicate any passion for their work or my company.

Passion will get you hired. Experience is one way to showcase this, but you also have to learn to properly articulate it on your cover letter, resume, and during networking. If you use the same cover letter for every employer, do you really think you’re conveying your passion for the position you’re applying for? Remember, it’s not just about looking for a job. Employers want employees who are truly passionate about what they do and have a vision to benefit the company.

4. Companies hire the person who is certain to cause the most positive impact. Before you apply to your next job opening, ask yourself the following: What can you do for the company? How can you turn a profit? If you aren’t able to answer these questions, then don’t apply. Employers–especially small businesses and startups–are only interested in hiring someone who is going to positively impact their company.

When I review emails from job seekers, it’s very easy to tell who’s just looking to get hired and who’s actually going to impact my company. Make the effort to prove to employers you’re worth hiring.

5. Go the extra mile. Success doesn’t come to those who wait. You have to give everything you do your all … even if it means working late or on the weekends. Some people describe this as paying your dues, but it’s really just putting in the effort required to make an impact.

What do you wish someone would have told you when you graduated college?

Photo courtesy of Daniel Rocha.

About Ilya Pozin:

Founder of Ciplex. Columnist for Inc, Forbes & LinkedIn. Gadget lover, investor, mentor, husband, father, and ’30 Under 30′ entrepreneur. Follow Ilya below to stay up-to-date with his articles and updates!

Happiness Is An Inside Job

Wizard Within – follow up

I am reading a book by Deepak Chopra called “Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want”

It is quite good.

It is something that I have written about on occasion and sometimes try to put into practice in my own life, but often do not.

The Wizard can represent a number of things or beings – it could be our own Spirit, the Universe, the Source, God, the Universal Intelligence, the Higher Self….or whatever you might refer to the power, love, force, and spirit that runs through us all. The Wizard is a metaphor….

HERE ARE SOME KEY THOUGHTS FROM THE BOOK THAT I THOUGHT WERE WORTHY OF NOTE….

“when the doors of perception are cleansed, you will begin to see the unseen world – the wizard’s world. – …purification (cleansing) consists of getting rid of the toxins in your life : toxic emotions, toxic thoughts, toxic relationships….”

“The wizard lives in a state of knowingness. This knowlingness orchestrates its own fulfillment. The field of awareness organizes itself around our intentions. Knowledge and intentions are forces. What you intend changes the field in your favor. Intentions compressed into words enfold magical power. The wizard does not try to solve the mystery of life. He is here to live it.”

“The wizard is the teacher of alchemy. Alchemy is transformation. Through alchemy you can begin the quest for perfection. You are the world. When you transform yourself, the world you live in will also be transformed….”

“TIme and the timeless are not opposites. Because it embraces everything, the timeless has no opposite. At the level of the ego, we struggle to solve our problems. Spirit sees that struggle is the problem. The wizard is aware of the battle between ego and spirit, but he realizes that both are immortal and cannot die. Every aspect of yourself is immortal, even the parts you judge most harshly.”

“Seekers are never lost, because spirit is always beckoning to them. Seekers are offered clues all the time from the world of spirit. Ordinary people call these clues coincidences. To a wizard there are no coincedences. Every event exists to expose another layer of the soul. Spirit wants to meet you. To accept its invitaiton you must be undefended. When you seek, begin in your heart…..”

“The reality you experience is a mirror image of your expectations. If you project the same images every day your reality will be the same every day. When attention is perfect, it creates order and clarify out of chaos and confusion.”

“The uncertainty you feel inside is the doorway to wisdom. Insecurity will always be with the quester – he continues to stumble but never falls….Human order is made of rules. The wizard’s order has no rules. …it flows with the nature of life.”

….wishing you some magic and wizardry in your life….

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🙂

Memorial Day Weekend

It is with gratitude and thanks that I offer this short, humble blog post….

Thanks to you that have served this Country in one way or another.

Thanks to those who have served and are now gone from this world.

Thanks to the families of those who have lost someone serving this Country.

We have so many great things, great opportunities, great people in our Nation. We often focus on the negative things, things that aren’t working well – we often forget what does work well here in the U.S. Sure we have our challenges but I believe no other country can offer all that we do. We are a giving and helpful Nation.

This Nation was build with the help of many men and women who served. Many lost their lives.

I honor them, and I respect them.

Enjoy the long weekend and consider what good things we all have going for us.

Enjoy your Freedom.

Simple Stuff

Three quick bits of media to inspire and make you think.

Basically, getting what you want is most efficiently accomplished by pretending you already have it.   All of the time. So, how do you like your steady flow of cash, abundance, and happiness, Jim?  The Universe (mike dooley, tut.com)

Then a photo, then a video

Your Brain on Habits

When I see a good article, I gotta pass it along….

This Is Your Brain on Habits

  By Noah St. John  http://noahstjohn.com/blog/this-is-your-brain-on-habits

Remember when you got your driver’s license and had to back your car out of the garage for the first time?

If we could have peered into your brain at that moment, we would have seen a flurry of activity…

Because this brand new skill requires thousands of tiny, complex calculations that must be performed in fractions of seconds.

For example… “Don’t hit the gas too hard, don’t hit the side of the garage, don’t hit the garbage cans on the sidewalk, and don’t hit any cars or pedestrians that may be coming down the street.”

Hey, it’s a lot for any brain to handle!

But guess what – now that you’ve fully mastered the skill of backing your car out of the garage, you literally don’t think about it.

In fact, if we were to look at your brain on a brain scan machine today, we would see an incredible drop in brain activity when compared to the flood of activity taking place when you were first learning this new skill.

That’s because your brain is highly efficient and conserves as much energy as possible, in case it needs it for truly momentous things, like fighting predators and raising children.

This very fact of the human brain is both the good news AND the bad news about habits and their relationship to success.

Why? Because on the one hand, it’s fantastic that you don’t have to consciously think every time you perform simple tasks every day: things like tying your shoes, brushing your teeth, or backing your car out of the garage.

However, because your brain is so efficient, it also makes it very difficult to CHANGE a habit, even when you WANT to change it.

Because your brain is essentially saying, “Hey, I’ve got a good thing going here! Why do you want to mess around with it!?”

It’s the classic, If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – but it’s all happening inside your brain!

Take Action Challenge:

Notice which habits you’re doing today that you don’t think about any more. Which habits are you doing that you would be better off replacing with more productive habits?

PS. Leave a comment and share with friends if you enjoy today’s article

Noah St. John, Inventor of Afformations

Keep swinging or Throw in the towel?

Did you ever have a day when you were just down, depressed, and discouraged? We all do to one extent or another…..

Maybe there were lots of things that happened during the day to make it so, maybe it was just the accumulation of things over time.

Not long ago, my wife and I were facing some tough financial times. She quit a job to start another business, we had some expenses that came up unexpectedly, and her business startup was delayed, the cost of startup ended up being three times our expectation due to one cost, and things were slowing down with cashflow there, and things were so tight!

For so long before that point, things had already been tight. I was not happy with my career, at that time, and I had other concerns about the future.

I was really concerned. I remember that it was a Friday, my wife and I would be alone for a change (our kids were on a trip) and we could relax. Instead of living in the moment, enjoying our time and relaxing, I allowed myself to get all freaked out about things and I ruined the day we had. I didn’t yell or scream or go bezerk but I was “out of it” and certainly not fun to be with…just kind of ‘zoned out’. I recall that I was exhausted from being stressed, I think I had an ulcer, and I was feeling ill. I was totally in a bad mood and unhappy. My wife did try to make the day better but it was a very rare time for me that I couldn’t recover.

Recently I was looking through some old things and this day came flashing from the past and was now fresh in my mind. I suddenly felt that desperation and bad feelings from long ago.

Did you ever have a time when you just wanted to give up?

You just wanted to throw in the towel and say, ‘take the house, my car, I’ll go live in the woods or something.’ For a moment I thought about just running away and working on a boat in Alaska or something. I remember feeling that desperation.

We do have a choice, we can give up, but why? What would you gain by giving up? You’d gain some guilt, embarrassment, lack of achievement, more unhappiness, and a bunch more negative feelings than you feel already….

• If we can make it through those moments of desperation, that’s when we grow the most.
• If we can change the meaning why things are happening to us, we can improve.
• If we change the questions which we ask ourselves, change is again easier.

“Behind your greatest fear, lies your greatest gift.” –  The Universe, Mike Dooley, www.tut.com

If we focus on what it working in life, and what we can do to take action towards a goal today, that works much, much better than focusing on what we lack or what is wrong with life. THIS IS the primary reason we all get in a desperate state of mind form time to time. We’re desperate, sad, angry, bitter, whatever because we’re focusing on the wrong thing and asking the wrong questions

I’m not here to preach, we all do it,  I’m just offering thoughts from my own experience.

Focus on what works, focus on what you can do now towards what you want. Ask better questions. Take action and get some exercise.

Sure, the facts may still be the same but you’ll feel a lot different about them.

And when you’re in a better state of mind, the facts will begin to change for the better, slowly at first then faster and faster.

I wish you the best, keep swinging!

 

🙂

www.onewebstrategy.com

Words To Live By: Focus, part 2

(This is one of a part of a series of WORDS TO LIVE BY. This series grew out of a workbook I first made for my young daughters and discussed at the dinner table. These Words include values, good ideas, and Words to aspire to….and learn from….enjoy!)

 

Focus , Focus , Focus

Focus (cognitive process), selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things (Wikipedia)

I’ve written about and blogged about FOCUS before.

Yet it is still important for all of us to remember and practice!

Here are some quick yet key thoughts to ‘focus on’….

“Focus On What You Do Have — Not On What You Don’t Have” 
 Whenever we are trying to accomplish something, there will always be things that we don’t have. Maybe we don’t have enough time to pursue our dreams. Perhaps we don’t have the funding that we need. Maybe we don’t have the expertise or experience that we need to be successful. I am here to tell you that there are always answers that you can find to each of these issues. 

When we focus on what we don’t have, we fall into a negative spiral and we limit ourselves. If you’re not sure that you have everything to achieve your purpose, just ask your spouse, a friend, a relative, or a boyfriend or girlfriend. Before you know it, you’ll have a long list of assets that you can use to achieve your end goals. – Bob Stearns www.perpetualpotential.net 

Remember, it’s not the events of your life that determine how you feel and act but, rather, the meaning you create from your life’s experiences. Learning to ask empowering questions – especially in moments of crisis – is a critical skill that will ultimately shape the meanings you create, and therefore the quality of your life. It is what you focus on that matters. – Tony Robbins

Don’t  dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies  on moving forward toward finding the answer. -Denis  Waitley

That’s  been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than  complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But  it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move  mountains. –Steve  Jobs

Focus  90% of your time on solutions and only 10% of your time on  problems. -Anthony  J. D’Angelo

Live  life to the fullest, and focus on the positive. –Matt  Cameron

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🙂

My Story, Chapter 8

(This is a quick overview “MY STORY” of my life, mostly to highlight the victories, challenges, and roller coasters we all ride in life. I offer some lessons that I learned at some points, and hopefully my perspective and experiences can help at least one person. Plus, some of you have just simply asked to learn more about me…)

….in Chapter 7, I mentioned how I was finally focusing on the right things and doing well. That’s when I got a call out of the blue to try something new and different, and to leave the world of self-employment. It was a little risky, too, because I entered the world of banking and SBA lending for the first time and I knew nothing about it….

Before I jump into new info, I wanted to reflect on what I consider to be guidance by our inner Self, or the Source, or God or the Universe – whatever you want to call it. To me, it is much the same. I believe we’re connected, so if you’re true to your Self and in the right state of mind and heart, your Self should equal = God.

Anyhow, I find it interesting, now looking back, at the ways I have guided myself, or been guided, along the way in life. While I was in the moments, it wasn’t much fun and wasn’t “interesting”. It was just plain rough. Now looking back, I’m glad and sort of relieved things didn’t always work out like I hoped. I think that I was being led by my ego during many of those moments into a job I thought I wanted, a job that paid a lot or looked cool, or both. Luckily my Self led me another way.

I can think of a few times where I wanted a job, even Needed a job. I applied for a position and did everything right. Then I got to the interview and blew it or just didn’t get a position that I felt I was definitely qualified for…..while I was in the MBA program I made contacts that got me an interview with Arthur Andersen Consulting. At that time, Arthur Andersen was doing very well nationwide and locally. They were in the news in good ways often. I had 4 interviews with them and they seemed to all go well. I loved the culture, the age groups, the compensation packages, etc. I wanted the job!

I was scheduled for a 5th interview. I was pretty happy that things were moving along well. Then I heard Arthur Andersen’s name in the news again. It seemed this time Negative! They were identified closely with ENRON and some of the ‘creative accounting’ there. Soon all new hires were put on hold. Soon after that a few people started to leave the local Arthur Andersen office. Soon after that more things came out and things got worse for them.

I had worked for the federal government, as I mentioned, and in one case later in my life, I tried to go back into the government and get re-hired by the same agency. The economy was shaky and I thought the government would offer some security while I got back on my feet. I had applied and many people and old friends thought it would be a slam dunk hire. Then, I got a form letter that I was declined. I had accidentally filled out the form wrong in one spot, I erroneously put a wrong grade number for the application and they denied my application. Even after I called and explained I was told that they could not modify an application and I’d have to wait until next year. It really was depressing and disappointing. However, not long after, it was announced that this agency was going to close. 300 people, many of my friends, would now need to look for new jobs. Had I been accepted, I would have been there only a short time and then required to go out and look anew. It would have been worse.

I’ve had many other instances when I wanted to work for a company, been passed over in some way, and then found out that there was an issue, it closed, or the job was not a good one. In some way or another I was lucky and it seemed like someone was watching out for me. What appeared to be bad luck seemed like good luck.

More recently I considered a career move and was again denied. I took it to heart and felt pretty down for a while. Then I recalled these past experiences in my life…I’m still “too close” to see big picture so far but I tell myself that this too shall pass and that something better is coming, this opportunity wasn’t right for my path and some Intelligence is helping me…..

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…I think that it helps to have a Vision where or what you want. Have a clear idea, picture, thought, feelings – where you want to go, how you want it to be, and why. Don’t worry about the How. You need to stay focused on that vision – what you can do today, how you can take action – and avoid focusing on what doesn’t work, avoid focusing on the negative. Setting goals is great. Having faith in yourself and faith in others, and faith in the world helps a lot. Giving, being open-minded, being happy, and being persistent are other lessons that I’d have to pass along too…..

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…..to jump back into my Chapter 8 timeline and get back to the story – I was going to start telling you about how I was hired to a large bank for the first time and how well things went for some time……had I not had the previous denials, challenges and even failures, I would not have had this new job at the bank. Those doors that were closed may or may not have been good for me, we will never know, but certainly when I started this new job at the bank, I was very happy to be there……to be continued.

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