Do You Have Grit?

Do you have grit?No matter where you live in the world this one fact is indisputable. The end of January is right upon us all next week.

Is this fact shocking to you? Are you asking yourself – where did this month go?

If you made some New Year’s Resolutions – how are they going? There is a saying: how you do anything is how you do everything. 

My guess is how you handled your January, how you handled your New Year’s Resolutions is how you are going to handle each month for the rest of this year and every goal setting or promise you make to yourself as you move forward.

What will it take for this not to be true? GRIT. That is right: GRIT.

Grit means to me how you describe a person who has the resolve, the determination, the strength of character to move through anything to get where they want to go or to achieve something difficult. This is what it takes to move through a list of goals toward one or more objectives.

Now this means the goals still have to be stated in the proper S.M.A.R.T. way. The progress or not toward meeting the goals must still be tracked. It still means the goals must actually be meaningful toward meeting one or more objectives (think – what is my Why?).

Grit means seeking out people who will hold you accountable and meeting or at least communicating with them regularly in a scheduled format. This is to hold you accountable – the missing ingredient for the majority of people who fail to achieve anything through their haphazard resolution or goal setting process.

The question remains for you to answer – Do You Have Grit?

Let’s see if you will get going now and get started –

  1. Write out your top three objectives you want to achieve this year for your personal life (3) and in your business or career (3).
  1. What exactly will you do starting next week toward achieving these?
  1. List out five people you will share this information with.
  1. Ask a person to be your accountability partner. A person who will agree to hold you accountable by meeting with you or communicating with you on a regularly scheduled basis.

Now show your grit. Follow these steps and you will be ready to grit it out this year.

If you are one of those scoffing at this process it is okay. I still love you. You just have no grit!

Mitch Tublin runs a boutique consulting firm with a main focus on Leadership Development, Business Consulting and Executive Coaching. With clients throughout the world the company is based in Stamford, CT.

Be on the lookout for a special call on goal setting. No cost. In fact you lose if you’re not on the call.

Hit Any Speed Bumps Lately?

Speed bumpsThe other day my wife and I were driving to a gathering in a neighborhood we had not been to before. The homes were all unique with stone facing and a variety of styles. The landscaping at each home was meticulous.

As the driver what really caught my attention were the speed bumps. Every single street had two or three of these spaced out based on the length of the street. There was not one single street in this area which did not have multiple speed bumps. Yes there were signs to warn you and to note the exact location for each speed bump.

It turns out the speed bumps were placed there for a few reasons.

The first one, which is the most obvious, is to slow down the speed of any vehicles driving through this neighborhood. The second reason was to protect the children in the area who might be either crossing the road or playing in or near to the road. The third reason, which may not be so obvious, is to reduce the road traffic as people who know the speed bumps are there would avoid these roads unless they had to drive into the area for a specific reason or to visit someone.

Isn’t this how it is in our business and our lives? Don’t we hit speed bumps at various times? Now we are not talking about a dead end, we are talking about a speed bump.

So people might just say – “well I know there are speed bumps if I go that way so I am not going that way.”

Sometimes we take note of the warning signs and other times we are totally taken off guard. Yes, of course there are others who will not slow down at all and just plow right through. We all know what that will do to your car if you try that out on the road. Maybe speed bumps in our business, career and our lives are meant for us to slow down and think about what it is that we are doing?

What are we trying to achieve? What are we really focused on?

The road with the speed bumps may be the road less traveled. The road to success in life and in business may be a road like that as well. It seems clear to me we need to recognize the speed bumps when they are present, take note, slow down and consider what are we doing and why are we doing it?

Mitch Tublin runs a boutique consulting firm with a main focus on leadership development, strategic initiatives and executive coaching. Based in Stamford, CT. he has clients all over the world.

Setting Goals Is A Waste of Time! Right?

By now the majority of people, yes, each and every one of you, have sat through one or more goal setting seminars or workshops. 

You know the drill. There will be slides about S.M.A.R.T. goals and why this is very important. 

There will be a discussion about not giving up on your dreams and having great big goals. Someone might even ask the group, “How Do You Eat An Elephant?”  Answer – “One bite at a time.”   This may be true – what if you don’t eat meat! Seriously this is not meant to make fun of this important information.

All of our goals should be S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Here is the rub, with all of the articles and all of the books and all of the courses, why is goal setting looked at as a chore and worse yet as something that does not work and is a waste of time by so many people?  Why do so many goals which are set each year in December or January when revisited at some point are found to not be attained?

The reason is we all want to keep our goals to ourselves!

Setting Goals - Waste of Time?It is like we have a huge Do Not Enter sign up and no one is allowed to see our goals.

Now the goals we set should be for our career, our business and for our personal life and our families.  Why on earth do we feel these are private matters?

The best way to insure your goals are met is to create a method of accountability.

This may be accomplished in a variety of ways. You might have one or two people at work or on your advisory board for your business each share their goals with each other and have a regular meeting to hold each other accountable.  Unfortunately, this meeting will begin to take last place when a few weeks or months go by and then no one will be held accountable to each other.

You might have a close friend or family member set goals and you set goals and each of you agree to hold each other accountable.  Sad to say what often happens is each person will accept the excuses of the other person instead of pressing for the plan with each other due to the family relationship or friendship. Goal setting and attaining goals is not easy.

It works but it must be worked.

The absolute best way to set goals, achieve goals and move toward your bigger goals is to work with an experienced coach and a group which is guided through the process of goal setting, keeping accountable and continually communicating with the coach and others about your progress.

If you are ready to finally take charge of your goal setting, make certain you are signed up for my weekly newsletter. There will be a free call in December on goal setting. Yes, no charge. You must be signed up to receive the email which will announce the call information. 

Mitch Tublin owns a boutique consulting firm with a focus on leadership development, business strategy and executive coaching. Based in Stamford, CT with clients all over the globe.

 

Knock, Knock – Who’s There? – Fourth Quarter

Fourth Quarter 2016In case you were hiding and hoping no one would remind you, the fourth quarter has started. Yes, we are all in the first week of the fourth quarter. Do you recall way back in December of last year or January of this year? You made plans – set goals – created lists.

How are you doing now?

Let’s not get all caught up in the answer and discussing a variety of reasons why not so great. Some say these are also known as excuses.

Instead let’s look at what we are able to do right now to end the year on a strong and positive note. Make sense?

For A Service Based Business

  1. Reach out to every former client and check in with them. Create a special reason why they may want to meet with you and work with you again. If not, how about three referrals?
  1. Make certain to connect personally with every single current client. See how they are doing. What do they think of the work you are providing them with. Will they refer three people to you?
  1. Are you able to participate in or create your own event or open house at some point in the next four to six weeks?

Each of these three ideas will provide momentum for your business in this fourth quarter on their own. If you are able to conduct all three of these at the same time – even better!

For A Retail Or Sales Of Product(s) Business

  1. Have you been collecting email addresses of your patrons and customers? What do you offer a browser to entice them to provide their email address? A weekly or monthly drawing for a gift of some value?
  1. Prepare to email out and provide print copies, as well, promotions during the next months – October, November and December.
  1. Conduct an inventory check up. What is laying around which either has not been selling or you stopped promoting? Are you able to package up some of these items with other items which are more popular right now and create gift baskets or prizes for your contests as discussed earlier? Look at this inventory as money sitting on the shelf and not in the bank account.

Certainly every business is unique. Take a look at these ideas again and see where you might find a way to work through each concept to suit your specific business.

Create the momentum you need for the fourth quarter.

Mitch Tublin is an advanced, certified executive coach, trainer and speaker based in Stamford, CT. Would you like Mitch to work with you and your business to create fourth quarter momentum? Contact Mitch Here.

Who Is Going To Light Your Fuse?

lights-your-fuseIn the United States the Big Bang Holiday is Independence Day each year – July 4th. It is a National Holiday where communities get together, families get together and there are Bar-B-Que Grills fired up everywhere. The colors to wear are definitely Red, White and Blue and the Flag is waving all over the place.

Growing up in the New York City area you had to make your way over to watch the Macy’s Fireworks show live at least a handful of times in your lifetime. Of course as a parent, who grew up in NYC, with kids who grew up in Connecticut, it was something they had to experience live as well! So we all did together! Similar to experiencing and eating real pizza – that is a story for another day!

In terms of Fireworks these are displayed both professionally and by your average citizen. Please do not light or set off Fireworks and keep your kids informed about the very real dangers of Fireworks. What sets off the firecracker? A regular citizen lights a match and puts the flame to the fuse which then ignites and ultimately sets off the explosion. The professional show is now a digitally controlled display choreographed to music where the explosives are set off through a variety of ignition techniques. Here is the point – the explosions – the displays of color and sound – are all set off by the lighting of a fuse or the ignition of an explosion.

Now that half of the year is completed are you where you want to be?

  • Personally
  • Developmentally
  • Business – wise
  • Career – wise

If you have your goals you had set for this coming year back in December or January pull those out and let’s have a look. Make adjustments or changes for real reasons if you must.

Please don’t start making excuses!

If you are not where you want to be then – who is going to light your fuse? 

How about adding a bit of fireworks into your schedule? Are you working on the things that really matter to make the items on your original-start-the-year-out-list happen?

If you are not maybe it is time for you to start working with a Business Consultant – Coach like Mitch Tublin – Click Here.

Mitch Tublin is an advanced certified Executive and Personal Coach, Business Consultant and Professional Speaker based in Stamford, CT.

Do You Take Action?

There is something about taking action that stirs things up. Yet often, the taking action part, does not happen at all or if it does, it is not soon enough.

There is a story in an email going around, maybe you saw it, where Jack Canfield refers to his speaking engagements where he is standing on the stage with a $100 bill in an outstretched hand. “Who wants this?” He asks the audience. Many people raise their hands. At some point a person from the audience gets up on the stage and takes the $100 bill from his hand. The person from the audience took action.

My question is what stopped everyone else from taking this specific action? Was it a behavior model drilled into their heads for years – “No, No, No – you don’t get up in the middle of a show or presentation and go up on the stage!” What was the reason? Would you have stood up and gone up to Jack Canfield on the stage and taken the $100 bill from his outstretched hand? Write your comment in the comments section.

Please do not scoff at the notion that we were not brainwashed to some extent in our younger days. Of course much of what many of us were taught turned us into good citizens.

phone booth“Respect your elders.”

“Help those in need.”

“Give up your seat to a pregnant woman.”

However, some other often heard statements, upon reflection, make me wonder?

“The Early bird gets the worm?”

“Good things come to those who wait?”

“Speak when spoken to?”

“Always carry some change with you for the pay phone?”  (Do these even exist anymore?)

How about you? Were there certain phrases or often heard statements which you may need to consider over-coming the impression they made upon you?

Positive Affirmations are a great way to overcome negative thoughts or past ideas in our heads. Read this article on creating Positive Affirmations. Another way to stir up activity and move past lingering negativity is to take action. Even the action of setting one or two goals would be a great step. Write the goal or goals out on index cards and have these with you all day.

Enter these goals on your laptop, send the goal or goals to yourself in an email. Place a date and a time next to each of the goals for when you are going to achieve it. Tell others you know about your goal or goals and why it is important to you and when you are going to achieve them. You might be able to tell there is much more to come in terms of goal setting and attaining goals. The point is, it starts with taking the action!

Is there something you should be taking action on and you have not? Why not? Let’s go!

Mitch Tublin is an advanced certified executive and personal coach who resides in Stamford, CT.

Do you feel the need to be empowered to take action? Coming up soon – empowerment series – click here to be invited to the free call.