by Dr. Heléna Kate | Nov 21, 2013 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Someone recently sent me an email asking about what he needs to sacrifice to succeed.
\”Success,\” he wrote, \”is said to come with great sacrifice. I\’m personally trying to figure out what I can sacrifice, while identifying and pursuing specific goals. Are there identifiable sacrifices that you attribute to your success? Or, more broadly, is there a generic schema for personal sacrifice that is consistent among leaders?\”
Though it is true that life is always balanced and if you attain one thing it often comes at the sacrifice of another, the trick is not to focus on the thing you have to give up, but rather the thing you gain.
In my case, money was a sacrifice for a while – but I was happy to give up the money to be my own boss. These days it\’s social life – I\’m not in New York much because I\’m on the road a lot. Though some may perceive that I am sacrificing a lot by being away, the balance is, I get to meet so many amazing people that I otherwise would never have met. Not to mention, the work I do is so rewarding.
In both cases, I focused on where I was going without concern to what I would have to give up.
Success comes not by trying to find something you\’re willing to sacrifice, but by being inspired by the thing you\’re pursuing. When you are in pursuit, sacrifice doesn\’t feel like sacrifice…it feels like balance.
This is different from working long hours and sacrificing seeing your family or friends, for example, in hope of what will come as a result of the sacrifice. In this case, the hard work is in pursuit of a goal not yet realized. The work itself is not rewarding and the stress is high, but the rationalization is that it is all worth it for the promise (real or false) of what it will bring. What if the promise is never realized? Was it all worth it, then? This really is sacrifice. When you give up something for something that does not bring immediate joy.
There is no sacrifice when the pursuit, the journey, is as rewarding if not more rewarding than the end result. And when you can wake up in the morning and feel successful whether some end goal is realized or not…THAT is true success.
reblogged from Simon Sinek\’s inspiring website www.startwithwhy.com (more…)
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Nov 14, 2013 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Challenging ourselves is one of the most important things we can do to increase our quality of life. By doing so, we not only improve as individuals but also enhance the lives of those around us and our communities, as well. You can challenge yourself to:
#1 Grow as an Individual
It all starts with you. The below challenges will all help you grow as a person but there\’s even more than that. Engage in self-searching, learn who you are by writing, work on being more genuine, kind, honest, considerate, spontaneous, spiritual, etc. Much of growing as an individual will be related to the Behavior Needs categories.
#2 Attain Awareness, Knowledge and Education
Not expanding your mind is a waste of life. A complacent, inactive mind is a sad thing. Make your mantra \”I must seek awareness\” and your universe will grow and grow. The more we know the more we realize how little we actually understand. It\’s inherently challenging and exciting! With the Internet, the all-time greatest library of knowledge is at your fingertips. Be curious and seek the truth about whatever interests you.
#3 Challenge Yourself to Become Healthier Physically and Mentally
Without health we have nothing. We can challenge ourselves to lose weight, eat better, exercise, get health care and educate ourselves on how to do so. A healthy body yields a healthy spirit.
#4 Build Wealth
Money, money, money. We all want more but without challenging ourselves we are likely to not earn it. Money can\’t buy happiness but it can help us rest easier and enjoy life more! Set goals and challenge yourself to make more, save more and have more money, money, money.
#5 Become self sufficient
With the world economy struggling, more and more people depend on others to get by. Let\’s face it, it sucks to not be in control of your life. Challenge yourself to take the needed steps to put yourself in a position in which you can be the master of your own domain.
#6 Advance in Your Career
Are you satisfied with your career position? If you answered yes, then good for you! Unfortunately, most of us are not completely happy with our career and would like to make advancements within it. A conscious, well thought out set of goals can challenge us and help us improve our station in life.
#7 Become a Better Friend or Partner
Conventional wisdom says friends, family and health are the most important things in life (I would add \’awareness\’). Having good, real friends is mandatory for being happy, but are we being the best friend we can be? Do we listen enough? Do we reach out to our friends to show them we care? Being a good friend is real work and requires conscious, consistent effort. Challenging ourselves to become a better friend will unquestionably make your life (and your friends lives) more fulfilling.
#8 Seek Inspiration and Be More Creative
All great artists eventually learn one golden rule: you must SEEK inspiration. If Vincent van Gogh waited around for inspiration to strike, we wouldn\’t have his incredible body of work to appreciate and he would have been even more unfulfilled. No matter what you do in life, you\’re in need of being creative and seeking inspiration is a never ending quest that requires real diligence. Challenging yourself to find ways to become inspired is a must.
#9 Gain New Experiences and Have More Fun
The alarm clock goes off, we get up and go through our daily routines, then return home to finish off our day. Routines are effective but can bog us down into a mundane lifestyle. BORING! The truth is, it\’s easy to do the same old thing ~ it can even make us feel safe (a good thing). Why not challenge ourselves to try new things? By dong so we\’ll meet new people, learn new things, have more fun and grow as an individual. Heck, we may even be rewarded with new opportunities that may lead to a more fruitful career.
#10 Achieve Happiness and Peace
Happiness and peace are usually the end results of successful challenges, but they can be challenges all on their own. Why not challenge yourself to be more happy and find more peace? This will help you better understand exactly what it is you need to attain these two prized life goals.
(more…)
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 31, 2013 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Without any further ado and in their own words, here are some of the biggest mistakes and lessons learned from 13 successful entrepreneurs.
1. “We wasted $1,000,000 on a company that never launched”
Hiten Shah, Co-Founder at KISSmetrics
My co-founder and I spent $1,000,000 on a web hosting company that never launched. We were perfectionist so we built the best thing we could without even understanding what our customers cared about. We have now learned to spend smart, optimize for learning and focus on customer delight.
Hiten has since co-founded two wildly successful analytics companies with KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg
2. “We built the website first and asked our customers about it later”
Robin Chase, Co-Founder of Zipcar
Get to your customers as fast as possible & learn from them to build your product.
With my second company, GoLoco – social online ridesharing – we spent too much money on the website and software before engaging with our first customers. This meant that part of our learning was undoing our first guesses.
Robin is the Founder and CEO of Buzzcar and also the founder and former CEO of Zipcar
3. “One of the biggest mistakes we’ve made at Moz was to build “big bang” projects”
Rand Fishkin – CEO of Moz and Co-Founder of Inbound.org
One of the biggest mistakes we’ve made at Moz was to repeatedly build “big bang” projects that required many months of development time without much visibility into progress. It’s sad because it actually worked a number of times, before we fell flat on our faces with a recent project that started in Q4 of 2011, was initially supposed to roll out in July of 2012, and has now been delayed until (fingers crossed) September of 2013. Missing something you budget and plan for by more than a year is really bad news in the startup world.
Don’t be like us – use agile development, have lots of visibility into progress, and keep your team accountable to each other.
Rand Fishkin is the CEO of Moz and co-founder of Inbound.org
4. “I started too late. I toiled in a job I hated for a long time.”
Leo Babauta – Best-selling author
I started too late – because of fear of failure or a lack of belief in myself. I toiled in a job I hated for a long time, instead of starting a blog or building a business I loved.
Knowing what I know now, I’d have started a decade earlier. Not starting is the worst-case scenario.
Leo Babauta is a best-selling author and an entrepreneur
5. “I tried to do it all by myself”
Leo Laporte – Founder of the TWiT network
My biggest mistake was trying to do it all myself. As a founder I felt like I knew everything I needed to know about media, content, even the technology involved to reach my audience. And I did. I just didn’t know anything at all about making a viable business: finance, marketing, advertising, and human resources.
After a few years of rapid growth my company had stalled out, and I was spending more time fighting fires than I was doing the stuff I loved (and that made us money).
Hiring a business partner then giving her full scope to do her job felt a little like giving up my company but it was a vital step toward success.
Leo Laporte is the founder of the TWiT network and host of The Tech Guy and This Week in Tech
6. “If you’re not 100% excited, say no”
Tim Ferriss – NYT Best-selling author of 3 books
Committing to too many ‘cool’ opportunities and projects. I think it’s important, as Derek Sivers (founder of CDBaby) would say, to either say ‘Hell, yes!’ or a flat ‘no’ to things. They should be definitive and binary.
If you’re not 100% excited, it should be a decline. ‘Kinda cool’ will fill up your calendar and leave you wondering where the last year – or 10 – went.
Tim Ferriss is the best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek and an entrepreneur
7. “I’ve let growth exceed my own ability to fund my business”
Michael Hyatt – NYT best-selling author
In 1992, I made the mistake of borrowing money to fund my growing company. Unfortunately, I did not understand the difference between rapid growth (like cancer) and healthy growth (normal cellular reproduction).
Eventually, our growth consumed our capital and the business failed. I learned an important lesson: Never let growth exceed my own ability to fund it. If I am tempted to seek outside funding, it is a sign of a flawed business model.
Michael Hyatt is the New York Times Best-selling author of Platform and also a serial entrepreneur
8. “Spreading myself too thinly over too many projects”
Neil Patel – Co-Founder of KISSmetrics
One of the biggest lessons I learned was not to spread myself too thin. Like other entrepreneurs I love trying to do multiple things at once.
But once I learned to focus all of my time and energy into one business, I was able to make it grow faster than all of my previous businesses.
Neil Patel co-founded KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg
9. “I built a product without understanding the market or the users”
Sandi MacPherson – Editor-in-Chief, Quibb
Last year, I spent 6 months building a product I wouldn’t use very often, in a market I wasn’t familiar with, for users I didn’t understand – big mistake.
It made it extremely difficult to figure out why things were or weren’t working, and I ended up creating a product that no one wanted. I could never become the product expert, which is what every founder/CEO needs to be.
Sandi MacPherson is the Editor-in-Chief of Quibb
10. “I made the big mistake of being a ‘parallel entrepreneur’”
Dharmesh Shah – Co-Founder and CTO of HubSpot
Here’s my biggest mistake: After having bootstrapped a reasonably successful software company ($10M+ in revenue) I mistakenly thought—Hey, I’ve got a team in place, the company doesn’t really need me, and I’m sort of bored and want to do something new. So, I made the big mistake of being a “parallel entrepreneur”. Trying to head up two different startups at the same time.
This was a huge mistake at many different levels. Turns out, startups are an all-consuming thing. You can’t be all-consumed by two companies at the same time – it just doesn’t work. My original startup team (the team I had recruited personally) felt abandoned. My new startup (the one I angel-funded) didn’t feel enough pressure to find product market fit and get revenues.
So, my advice: Don’t do what I did. Don’t ever, ever, ever try to ride two horses at the same time. It does’t work, and you’re going both a disservice. Even with complete, total focus, most startups fail – to divide interests across them basically guarantees failure.
Dharmesh Shah is a Co-Founder and CTO at HubSpot
11. “Protect your company culture”
Derek Sivers – Founder of CD Baby
Protect your internal culture, no matter what. Once it turns nasty, it never goes back. Fire a rotten apple immediately. Note from Belle: Derek wrote a great blog post about this which expands on how he felt after having issues with his company’s culture. Here’s a little snippet: I cut two chapters out of my book because they were too nasty. They vented all the awful details about how my terrible employees staged a mutiny to try to get rid of me, and corrupted the culture of the company into a festering pool of entitlement, focused only on their benefits instead of our clients.
Afterwards, I spent a few years still mad at those evil brats for what they did. So, like anyone feeling victimized and wronged, I needed to vent – to tell my side of the story. Or so I thought. So do you want to know the real reason I cut those chapters? I realized it was all my fault. I let the culture of the company get corrupted. I ignored problems instead of nipping them in the bud.
Derek Sivers is a best-selling author and entrepreneur
12. “I put myself before Facebook, it cost me $100,000,000″
Noah Kagan – Chief Sumo, AppSumo
When I got fired from Facebook, it was my entire life. My social circle, my validation, my identity and everything was tied to this company. As the company grew, I wasn’t able to adapt. One of the reasons why was that I was selfish.I wanted attention, I put myself before Facebook. I hosted events at the office, published things on this blog to get attention and used the brand more than I added to it.
Lesson learned: The BEST way to get famous is make amazing stuff. That’s it. Not blogging, networking, etc.
Noah Kagan is Chief Sumo of AppSumo
13. “People really are everything in business”
Jesse Jacobs – Founder, Samovar Tea Lounge
One thing I’ve learned over 12 years running Samovar Tea Lounge is the importance of having the right people on your team.
It’s worth the extra effort to find the right investors, employees, and vendors who believe in your company’s mission and passionately desire to contribute to it – not just those who want to punch the clock or get their share of profits. People really are everything in business, and the people you align yourself with will either buoy you up or weigh you down.
Jesse founded Samovar Tea Lounges with the mission to enrich people’s lives
reblogged from The Buffer Blog a blog about: productivity, life hacks, writing, user experience, customer happiness and business.
(more…)
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 29, 2013 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
When Steve Blank appeared on the cover of Wired magazine 19 years ago, his company then, Rocket Science Games, was expected to revolutionize the videogame industry. At the time, Blank didn\’t let the skepticism of critics faze him.
\”I thought I was a genius,\” he says. Three months later, when he called his mother to let her know he was about to lose $35 million in investor funding, he wasn\’t feeling quite so genius anymore.
\”I had lots of choices, including that I could have quit,\” he says. \”Learning from that failure for me was one of the best experiences of my life.\” And learn he did. In 1996, Blank founded the startup E.piphany, which went on to earn $1 billion for each of its investors.
In the past 10 years, says Blank, the culture around entrepreneurship has become increasingly failure-friendly. Serial entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley hop from one failed business to the next and billionaire entrepreneurs like Richard Branson wax on publicly about their failures almost as much as their successes. Still, \”no one likes to fail,\” says Blank. \”We are hardwired for success.\”
But what if you could actually use failure to help you succeed? Here are five keys to start failing your way to success:
1. Call failure something else.
When was the last time anyone got hired for a senior-level position without any experience? For serial entrepreneurs, \”experience\” is simply another word for \”failure,\” says Blank. By labeling a failed effort an opportunity to expand your knowledge base, you\’re framing it in a more positive light, allowing yourself to add to your credibility as a more seasoned entrepreneur.
2. Use failure as a stepping stone.
With every failure, identify what you know you did wrong and be conscious not to repeat your mistakes. This will bring you one step closer to success, says Steve Siebold, a Palm Beach, Fla.-based consultant who works with corporations and entrepreneurs on mental toughness and critical thinking.
\”I\’ve never heard [a millionaire entrepreneur] say they hit it right the first time out,\” says Siebold, whose book How Rich People Think (London House Press, 2010) is a culmination of nearly three decades of interviews. \”The bigger they are, the more they\’ve typically failed.\”
3. Never fail alone.
Entrepreneurs like to be trailblazers. But make a mistake on your own and you might have a hard time determining what went wrong. Having a partner you trust and respect can turn every failure into an opportunity for collaboration. \”A good partner can help you determine what not to do again,\” says Karl Baehr, director of business and entrepreneurial studies at Emerson College, a private four-year college in Boston focused on communication and the arts.
4. Don\’t hide your failures.
Be proud that you were brave enough to take a risk in the first place. By being forthright about your mistakes, you open yourself up to learning from others.
Baehr\’s mentor, Walter Hailey, whose insurance company Lone Star Life Insurance went on to become a Kmart insurance company, used to take an hour-long walk at 5 a.m. every morning with a group of close friends to talk about ideas, successes and failures. \”By the time they got back to the house, they had solutions,\” says Baehr. \”They had a plan for the day.\”
5. Redefine what you want.
Revisit and refocus why you got into business in the first place. \”Look for your emotional motivators. We are emotional creatures. Logic doesn’t motivate us,\” says Siebold, who launched five consecutive unsuccessful businesses before he started his current consulting company. For Siebold, that motivator was one day becoming a millionaire, a goal he achieved at age 31. \”Most people only half-heartedly decide they want a lot of things. You have to get really clear on what you want,\” he says. \”The question is: How badly do [you] want it?\”
Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com (more…)
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 17, 2013 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
Life pulls us in many directions. No matter the phase of development our work is in, we can get caught in the tangle of competing interest and loss of motivation.
While I think it is unlikely, and perhaps even unproductive, to always stay on track, there are tools for getting back on track faster and easier. When we develop these abilities we also develop trust in ourselves. This makes the time we spend “off track” that much easier and more productive.
One of these tools you may have heard me talk about is the Vision Statement. There are just about as many ways to define the vision statement as there are people in the world, but one thing is sure – the vision statement is a useful tool for getting back on track.
When I talk with my clients, I am continually inspired by the dedication they show in bringing their work into the world. At one point, everyone works to get clear on their vision and their mission. It is not an easy thing – sometimes, the more we care, the more difficult attaining clarity becomes.
Your vision is the heart of what you do. Putting that depth of feeling and complexity into simple yet powerful words is a big task. But when you do it, you have managed to create the very thing that will pump life-blood through your work for years to come.
This means that, when you get off track, you are able to reconnect to the heart of what you are doing just by rereading your vision statement. The benefits do not stop there. Your vision statement also helps you every time you communicate with others about what you do because you are clearer about the real reason you are doing it.
So what is your vision for your world, your community, or your business? What would you like to see be different?
….
Need more ways to stay on track? A little coaching cal go a long way. Join Dr. Kate\’s Inner Circle and get access to her skillful coaching for a low monthly fee.
(more…)
