Remarkable. Creative. Successful. Upmarket businesses push the envelope -- does yours?
The most common objections I hear about getting organized, planning, and de-cluttering is that such order is at odds with creativity. But there’s a huge difference between building a fire in a fire pit and triggering a wildfire. Understanding that difference will help you find the right level of organization for your creative process.
I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with lists, especially those that claim to contain the secrets to success. That said, I’ve been reflecting for several weeks on what I could say about succeeding in life and business that would be generally true, widely applicable, broadly useful. What do I know about being successful that might possibly hold still long enough for me to get it into words without deteriorating into self-help pablum?
In the fog or darkness of our lives, we have to stop looking outside for answers. We must stop struggling to see what is obscured and turn our gaze inward, attending to another source of information and guidance.
A “have-to belief” is a way of understanding that resonates so deeply with your sense of purpose, meaning, and service that you willingly embrace it and subordinate your choices to it. A “have-to belief” is one that you hold with conscious commitment and self-reflective awareness, knowing that it is a belief (not a fact) and being responsible for the ways this belief endows your life with meaning, purpose, and focus.
Attempts to make a profit are necessarily public, and that brings up all kinds of stuff: embarrassment. Feelings of rejection. Self-doubt. All of these can make you reluctant to try again. And if you don’t try again (and again, and again), you’ll be lucky if you make ends meet, let alone make a profit.
Don’t wait until you have something to sell to bring marketing and sales home. Whenever you get triggered by a sleazy marketing or sales technique, run these 4 questions…
