Quote of the month (25)
Written by blpgirl in September 2, 2010 at Quotes
“All our dreams can come true – if we have the courage to pursue them.”
– Walt Disney
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Surfing the web: 5 great articles from August 2010
Written by blpgirl in August 31, 2010 at The 5 of the month
*vía Bennett
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Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything
“It’s not inherited talent which determines how good we become at something, but rather how hard we’re willing to work. [...] If you want to be really good at something, it’s going to involve relentlessly pushing past your comfort zone, along with frustration, struggle, setbacks and failures.”
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7 Ways to Smash Procrastination
“So what exactly is procrastination, and what causes it?
I think of it as “Doing anything and everything but the work I really want/need to do”.”Some good advice about stop procrastinating and start acting. For me, personally, what works best is deciding in advance every night what I´m going to do the next day.
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Nothing great is ever accomplished with just good luck, it takes preparation to recognize and make the most of your shot when you meet opportunity. But, most important it takes action to keep moving forward.
“If you’re not in action today, you don’t have a tomorrow, just a longer today. So get into action now, and begin to move in the right direction.”
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Living Self-Employed Online: The Manual They Forgot to Give You
Great guide for entrepreneurs or freelancers who are starting to develop they business and making career choices.
“Write a Mission Statement: A sentence or two about why you’re doing what you’re doing, and what you hope to achieve. [...] This isn’t an elevator pitch you need to tell anyone, or a mission statement you need to share. Instead, the aim of these sentences is to help you stay on track. If someone offers you a partnership in a large project, you simply have to look towards your mission statement to decide whether it’s a good use of your time.”
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Top 10 Ways Your Brain Is Sabotaging You (and How to Beat It)
Some curious facts about how our brains cheat us without us ever realizing it.
“You Give Priority to Experiences that Prove You’re Right.
Everybody you know is getting an Android phone! What’s more, it seems like Droid phones have taken over your city’s billboards, and absolutely nobody wants to keep their BlackBerry anymore. Or, you know, maybe that’s not the case at all”
Lessons from August 2010
Written by blpgirl in August 30, 2010 at Lessons
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“Someday? When is ‘someday?’ Someday is not a day at all. It’s a foggy generalization of a time that will likely never come. Today is the only day guaranteed to you.”
-Via 10 Lies You Will Hear Before You Pursue Your DreamsDon´t keep postponing your dreams. Stop talking about the things you want to do “someday” and start doing actions towards accomplishing at least one of those things now.
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“No matter how much you love the work you do, doing the same thing over and over will quickly become boring and demotivating. You should always aim to improve what you do and learn new things.”
-Via Staying Motivated Through the Years - Always sell the problem your company, product or service is solving.
“No business buys a solution for a problem they don’t have.”
-Via Sell the problem - What you choose to do for work is not who you are. Companies own job titles you own your career (Via Manage a career change decision as part of an ongoing decision management process).
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“Ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.”
-Via Ideas are just a multiplier of executionBusiness Success = Brilliance of Idea * Quality of Execution.
- And 1 to remember:
*Stand for what you believe in even if it means you stand alone.
Using metaphors in business
Written by blpgirl in August 23, 2010 at Business, Creativity
A methaphor is a comparison between 2 ideas or concepts that are unrelated or indirectly related.
Metaphors are useful to make an idea or concept clear by relating it to other concept or idea we are already familiar with. Also, they are helpful to create new solutions by connecting the behavior of something to our organization. For instance, in companies, an area where there is huge potential to use metaphors to communicate ideas is marketing:
The art of the start
Written by blpgirl in August 17, 2010 at Business
Make meaning
“The reality is that entrepreneur is not a job title. It is the state of mind of people who want to alter the future.”
-Guy Kawasaki
The greatest reason to start an organization is to make meaning, this is the most powerful motivator. Create a product or service that makes the world a better place. Having that desire for a cause won´t guarantee that you´ll succeed, but if you fail, at least you failed doing something worthwhile.
“Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him, and the choose that way with all his strength.”
-Hasidic Saying
Start doing
Quote of the month (24)
Written by blpgirl in August 2, 2010 at Quotes
“In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.”
– Harold Geneen
Surfing the web: 5 great articles from July 2010
Written by blpgirl in July 31, 2010 at The 5 of the month
*vía Manchester Library
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Higher Education Is Overrated; Skills Aren’t
Really great article talking about something I, unfortunately, learned late at university which is: “You go to college, primarly, to do networking not to learn”.
“Knowledge may be power, but “knowledge from college” is neither predictor nor guarantor of success.”
Actually, it is a myth that simply getting A’s in exams means you have the skills to put all the theory to practice, it even doesn´t mean you really get the theory correctly.
“College transcripts spackled with As and Bs — particularly from liberal arts and humanities programs — reveal less about a candidate’s capabilities than most serious employers need to know.”
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10 Mistakes You’ll Make When Starting a Business
If you are considering starting a business for the first time, this is the article for you. It is important that we learn from the mistakes of others if we can.
“Being a CEO doesn’t mean that you get to boss people around and tell them what they have to do. It means that you are responsible for the company’s well being.”
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If you built it, they won´t come
Great advice on how to get your startup noticed right from the beginning.
You’ve probably heard the cliched phrase “If you build it, they will come.” More importantly, I would like to counter that with an even more important cliched phrase “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
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Let´s get real now, every idea, feature, article, etc. you put on the internet or market for everyone to see can be copy and will probably get copy if it is any good.
“The only real competitive advantage is that which cannot be copied and cannot be bought.”
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The Dangerous Art of the Right Question
The key to finding solutions is asking the right questions and this article gives you a sight on how to do just that.
“Real questions, useful questions, questions with promising attacks, are always motivated by the specific situation at hand. [...] You cannot frame a painting without knowing its dimensions. You cannot frame a problem without knowing something about it.”
Lessons from July 2010
Written by blpgirl in July 29, 2010 at Lessons
*vía woodleywonderworks
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“Action trumps intelligence. If you want to get smart, get doing. In my experience, few things are impossible if you’re willing to exert an extraordinary, almost fucked up amount of effort to make your dreams come true.”
-Via Achieving the Impossible -
“Education needs to work by pull not push.”
-Via Charles Leadbeater: Education innovation in the slumsEducation should find ways to make students love studying instead of just being something forced on them.
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People behave according to how they think they are going to be measure.
If people think they are measure by the amount of hours they are busy, then they will keep themselves busy all day even though they aren´t productive. If, on the other side, people think they are measured by the amount of profit they bring to the company, they will try increase sales or decrease expenses.
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“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
- Stephen Hawking - And one to remember:
“There will always be people questioning your great ambitions, and aspirations. Remind them what you are capable of and prove them wrong.”
-Via 15 Things I Learned (or was reminded of) During Obama’s Inauguration Speech
6 tips for great teamwork
Written by blpgirl in July 27, 2010 at Leadership & Management
Together
Everyone
Achieves
More
-Carol Murray
I think we all know for some experiences that is really hard to build a team and even harder to make it work. So it makes sense to wonder, What does it take for a team to be effective?.
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Trust in each one of the team members
If there is no trust between team members we will doubt of the skills of everyone else, which could make us discard all of their opinion without thinking about whether they are right or not.
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Be clear about the strengths of every member
We all have different talents for at least one thing and is normally something we like to do. So, if we get chosen to work in something related to what we like and we are good on, then our productivity and our motivation would increase.
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Acknowledge that everyone is a leader
Every team member must be able to lean on their team on any problem, thats what the team is for.
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Good communication
It is important that everyone knows the status of the project all the time, is there a problem?, did we get ahead of schedule?, how is each member doing according to schedule?, is there any suggestions?.
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Everyone must be clear about their tasks
The only way to arrive where you want to go is knowing where you want to arrive, if there is a team member who doesn´t know the goal of the team, they won´t be commited to this.
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Have a good attitude
It is very important that the work environment is friendly, otherwise the members on the team will start to loose their motivation.
The impact of attitude on life
Written by blpgirl in July 14, 2010 at Personal Development
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.
It will make or break a company, a church or a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change the past, we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is plan on the one thing that we have, and that is our attitude.
I am convinced that life is 10% ofwhat happens to me, and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.
-Charles R. Swindoll (Via Attitude…)
Is incredible how attitude can impact our lifes in so may ways, for instance, have you ever wondered why elephants on circus never escape even though they are really big and strong?.
Elephants never escape from the circus because just as many of us, when they were little, they were kept tie to a rope in one of their leg and since they wanted to be free they pull again and again but they weren´t strong enough yet to get free and because of that, they probably got hurt a few times until they got a callus and not only on their leg but on their head too, a callus of “I can´t”, so once they are big and strong they don´t even try anymore.
“Sometimes we are limited more by attitude than by opportunities.”
- Anonymous
Just as the elephants, there are many people who think they can´t do any better and why is that?, because since they were little they heard: “you can´t do that”, “you will fail as always”, “you are an idiot”, etc. So, once they were older they don´t even try anymore because on their minds they are sure they will fail.
What happened to everything you dreamed of when you were little? Where are the goals you wanted to pursue in college? What about all of the things you want to do? When are you going to start trying? and most important, When are you going to start doing?.
Our Attitude Defines Life…
Laugh so Hard That even Sorrow Smiles at You,
Live Life so Well That even Death Loves to see you Alive,
Fight so Hard That even Fate accepts its Defeat….
