Rohn: 7 Personality Traits of a Great Leader

The qualities of skillful leadership 

Jim Rohn   

If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. Jim Rohn calls leadership the great challenge of life.

What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here’s how:

1. Learn to be strong but not impolite.

It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It's not even a good substitute.

2. Learn to be kind but not weak.

We must not mistake weakness for kindness. Kindness isn't weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell someone the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.

3. Learn to be bold but not a bully.

It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you've got to walk in front of your group. You've got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble. Like the farmer, if you want any rewards at harvest time, you have got to be bold and face the weeds and the rain and the bugs straight on. You've got to seize the moment.

4. Learn to be humble but not timid.

You can't get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. But humility is a virtue; timidity is a disease. It's an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem. Humility is almost a God-like word—a sense of awe, a sense of wonder, an awareness of the human soul and spirit, an understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we're part of the stars.

5. Learn to be proud but not arrogant.

It takes pride to build your ambitions. It takes pride in your community. It takes pride in a cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is to be proud without being arrogant. Do you know the worst kind of arrogance? Arrogance from ignorance. It's intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that's just too much to take.

6. Learn to develop humor without folly.

In leadership, we learn that it's OK to be witty but not silly; fun but not foolish.

7. Learn to deal in realities.

Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony of delusion. Just accept life as it is—the whole drama of life. It's fascinating.
Life is unique. Leadership is unique. The skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. However, the fundamental skills of leadership can be adopted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community and at home.
http://www.success.com/article/rohn-7-personality-traits-of-a-great-leader

10 Things Successful People Never Do Again

We all make mistakes but the people who thrive from their mistakes are the successful ones.

Henry Cloud       

“Never go back.” What does that mean? From observations of successful people, clinical psychologist and author of Never Go Back: 10 Things You'll Never Do Again (Howard Books, June 2014), Dr. Henry Cloud has discovered certain “awakenings” that people have—in life and in business—that once they have them, they never go back to the old way of doing things. And when that happens, they are never the same. In short, they got it.
“Years ago, a bad business decision of mine led to an interesting discussion with my mentor,” Dr. Cloud says. “I had learned a valuable lesson the hard way, and he reassured me: ‘The good thing is once you learn that lesson, you never go back. You never do it again.’
“I wondered, what are the key awakenings that successful people go through that forever change how they do things, which propel them to succeed in business, relationships, and life? I began to study these awakenings, researching them over the years.”
Although life and business have many lessons to teach us, Dr. Cloud observed 10 “doorways” of learning that high performers go through, never to return again.
Successful people never again…   

1. Return to what hasn’t worked.

Whether a job, or a broken relationship that was ended for a good reason, we should never go back to the same thing, expecting different results, without something being different.

2. Do anything that requires them to be someone they are not.

In everything we do, we have to ask ourselves, “Why am I doing this? Am I suited for it? Does it fit me? Is it sustainable?” If the answer is no to any of these questions, you better have a very good reason to proceed.

3. Try to change another person.

When you realize that you cannot force someone into doing something, you give him or her freedom and allow them to experience the consequences. In doing so, you find your own freedom as well.

4. Believe they can please everyone.

Once you get that it truly is impossible to please everyone, you begin to live purposefully, trying to please the right people.

5. Choose short-term comfort over long-term benefit.

Once successful people know they want something that requires a painful, time-limited step, they do not mind the painful step because it gets them to a long-term benefit. Living out this principle is one of the most fundamental differences between successful and unsuccessful people, both personally and professionally.

6. Trust someone or something that appears flawless.

It’s natural for us to be drawn to things and people that appear "incredible." We love excellence and should always be looking for it. We should pursue people who are great at what they do, employees who are high performers, dates who are exceptional people, friends who have stellar character, and companies that excel. But when someone or something looks too good to be true, he, she, or it is. The world is imperfect. Period. No one and no thing is without flaw, and if they appear that way, hit pause.

7. Take their eyes off the big picture.

We function better emotionally and perform better in our lives when we can see the big picture. For successful people, no one event is ever the whole story. Winners remember that—each and every day.

8. Neglect to do due diligence.

No matter how good something looks on the outside, it is only by taking a deeper, diligent, and honest look that we will find out what we truly need to know: the reality that we owe ourselves.

9. Fail to ask why they are where they find themselves.

One of the biggest differences between successful people and others is that in love and in life, in relationships and in business, successful people always ask themselves, what part am I playing in this situation? Said another way, they do not see themselves only as victims, even when they are.

10. Forget that their inner life determines their outer success.

The good life sometimes has little to do with outside circumstances. We are happy and fulfilled mostly by who we are on the inside. Research validates that. And our internal lives largely contribute to producing many of our external circumstances.
And, the converse is true: people who are still trying to find success in various areas of life can almost always point to one or more of these patterns as a reason they are repeating the same mistakes.
Everyone makes mistakes…even the most successful people out there. But, what achievers do better than others is recognize the patterns that are causing those mistakes and never repeat them again. In short, they learn from pain—their own and the pain of others.
A good thing to remember is this: pain is unavoidable, but repeating the same pain twice, when we could choose to learn and do something different, is certainly avoidable. I like to say, “we don’t need new ways to fail….the old ones are working just fine!” Our task, in business and in life, is to observe what they are, and never go back to doing them again. 
10 Things Successful People Never Do Again

Rohn: Better Is Something You Become

Your life will change when you do.

Jim Rohn

January 8, 2017

     

A wise and resilient old gentleman who used to dine every month in his club downtown—sitting at a long table covered with a white linen tablecloth and sporting silver candlesticks, and served by tuxedoed waiters—loved to regale companions with the fruits of his many years of experience. After dessert and coffee were served, he would push back from the table and light an enormous imported cigar.
“This cigar is the only indulgence of an old man,” he would say with a chuckle as he struck the wooden match against his thumbnail, and then he’d launch into one of his stories.
They usually began with a question, such as, “Did I ever tell you about the time when I was setting up factories for the Giant XYZ Corporation in the backwoods of Georgia and was compelled to teach them a little lesson in business and good manners?”
Although the stories always started out the same, no two stories were ever alike, and there would always be a wealth of wisdom through example, a veritable mother lode of remarkable instruction. And this man who was so old, so wise and so flexible had one ironclad rule for dealing with other people. This rule involved learning and growing from every experience, so the negative ones need never happen again.
He said, “If a man fools me once, I think, That’s not nice, and I remember it. If the same man fools me a second time, I think, Shame on you. If the same fellow tricks me a third time, well, I have been warned and should have changed my ways and didn’t, so I think, Shame on me.”
If you’re not changing your responses to the situations and circumstances that make up your life, you’re not being flexible, and you’re throwing away the greatest asset as an individual human being. None of us can completely control external events, but we can always control and adapt our responses. None of us can know which cards fate is going to deal out, but we can always control how we play them.

 None of us can completely control external events, but we can always control and adapt our responses.

I once did a seminar for a group of oil company executives during their convention in Honolulu. While we were sitting around the conference table, one of them asked, “Mr. Rohn, you know some important people around the world. What do you think the next 10 years are going to be like?” I said, “Gentlemen, I do know the right people. I can tell you.” So they all listened very carefully. I said, “Gentlemen, based on the people I know and from the best of my own experience, I’ve concluded that in the coming 10 years, things are going to be about like they’ve always been.”
I said that to make a point, but also because it’s accurate. Things are going to be about like they’ve always been. The tide comes in, and then what? It goes out. That’s been the case for 6,000 years of recorded history, and probably long before that, so it’s not likely to change.
It gets light and then what? It turns dark. For 6,000 years. We are not to be startled by that now. If the sun goes down and someone says, “What happened?” he must have just gotten here, I guess. It always goes down about this time of day.
In rotation, the next season after fall is winter. And pray tell, how often does winter follow fall? Every time, without fail, for 6,000 years that we know of. Of course, some winters are long and some are short, some are difficult and some are easy, but they always come right after fall. That isn’t going to change.
Sometimes you can figure it out, sometimes there’s no way to figure it out. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it gets in a knot. Sometimes it sails along, sometimes it goes in reverse. That’s not going to change. That last 6,000 years read like this: opportunity mixed with difficulty. It isn’t going to change.
Someone says, “Well, then, how will my life change?” And the answer is: When you change.
Whether I’m talking to high school kids or business executives, my message is always the same. The only way it gets better for you is when you get better. Better is not something you wish for; better is something you become.
Source Rohn: Better Is Something You Become

7 Ways to Keep Yourself Motivated for Entrepreneurial Success

The success you seek ultimately lies within you.
Drew Hendricks

So you’ve swerved onto the rumble strips along the road to your entrepreneurial dreams.
Welcome to the club.
The club includes just about every other member of the human race who has ever started something brave and new. In every entrepreneurial success story, there is a time, if not multiple times, when setbacks occurred, chances were taken and motivation was lost.
Think about Steve Jobs getting fired from his own company. Or Mark Zuckerberg dropping out of Harvard and moving to Silicon Valley on a whim. At least you’re in good company. At moments like these, it is important to take the right steps to get yourself back on track.

1. Be mindful and restore yourself physically.

We tend to neglect our bodies when our minds are overwhelmed by stress. But keeping and maintaining a regular health routine is critical for entrepreneurs, especially when faced with challenges. Take a yoga class. Sit in a quiet room and meditate. Go for a jog near a body of water. The point is to do something to get your endorphins flowing, to clear your mind a bit and to re-energize yourself. As the saying goes, “Sometimes you have to slow down to speed up.” Take a moment for your health and it will pay dividends in the long run.

2. Read fiction.

Step out of your world for an hour and read a good fiction book. As our society moves toward more bite-sized, digital content, the benefits of fiction for entrepreneurs are increasingly being recognized. After reading fiction, individuals tend to empathize better, demonstrate superior focus and learn to approach obstacles in new ways. Reading, similar to exercise, helps to replenish us in a seemingly counterintuitive manner. It helps us to step away for a moment, then approach our challenges more effectively. And you never know, the right reference to a client’s favorite character or novel just might close the deal one day.

3. Hear from leaders who have been through it.

There’s nothing quite like an inspirational I-did-it-and-you-can-too story. The entrepreneurial world is full of stories of tragedy and triumph that inspired great new businesses. Latch onto those stories and learn from them. Try out a few tips that successful entrepreneurs who have overcome adversity have tried when they were struggling. This could mean checking out the biography of one of these leaders or just browsing YouTube for their inspirational speeches and interviews. Learn from others’ experiences as much as you can in this moment to better your chance of success in the future.

4. Level up your approach with strategic reading.

If you read any two books during this time, check out What Got You Here Won’t Get You There and Lincoln on Leadership. The first is a great read on retooling one’s thinking as an entrepreneur and manager who must constantly evolve in a leadership role. The author, Marshall Goldsmith, writes on personal development as the key to better management. Again, focusing internally on changing behavior patterns is crucial to finding the means to overcome trying times and ultimately improve as an entrepreneur. The book on Abraham Lincoln emphasizes the powerful lessons of leadership to be gleaned from one of the most remarkable leaders in modern history. Talk about a leader who went through tough times!

5. Talk to your mentors.

People love giving advice, so take full advantage. Think of your network of mentors as a personal board of directors who you can consistently reach out to in search of support and guidance. Some of them might even be able to offer material support in the form of investment, referrals and key introductions to influencers. Your mentors are an opportunity to expand your reach and broaden your thinking.

6. Write it out.

Whether it’s a blog or a personal journal, some of the most thoughtful leaders and entrepreneurs in the field keep a record of their experiences on the road to success. Many of them turn these snippets into best-selling novels when they make it big—Bill Gates and Richard Branson, to name a few. At the very least, use writing as a way to process what you are going through, to strategize, and maybe even to build a following of peers who share ideas and support each other. Although it can be hard to find time for writing, schedule it into your workday (at least 15 minutes) because, in the end, it will add value.

7. Keep calm and do what you do.

Take this moment to recalibrate your goals and stick to them. The path to entrepreneurial success is never a straight one. It is a winding road full of thorns, thickets and all types of obstacles. That is part of the fun! But in the frenetic pace of an entrepreneur’s life, sometimes you will need to pause and reassess how you are approaching those micro-challenges.
Remember that you are where you are for a lot of good reasons. The success you seek ultimately lies within you. You’re just doing the work right now to let that even better version of yourself shine through. You’ve got this. Enjoy the ride.
Source: 7 Ways to Keep Yourself Motivated for Entrepreneurial Success

Certainty in Uncertain Times - Tony Robbins

Certainty in Uncertain Times - Tony Robbins

A new city. A new job. The loss of a loved one. The loss of a dream.
Change is a part of life. Sometimes it’s positive, and other times less so. But regardless of what form it comes in, you have a choice: you can either ride the wave of change, or let it crash upon you as you struggle to remain afloat.
Sure, it’s easy to adopt a laissez faire attitude when turbulence comes your way. It’s the path of least resistance to shrug your shoulders, step back and watch as the events unfold and take their own course. But while that certainly requires less effort, it also disempowers you and precludes you from taking control over your own life.
The secret to handling change is to focus on progress. If you can make progress on a regular basis, then you feel alive. Now, you may be thinking that this is easier said than done. When you are lost, or trapped in an emotional fog, it’s hard to even make sense of what is happening, let alone understand what steps to take to move yourself forward. But by following these mandates, you can bring a sense of structure and certainty to an otherwise chaotic time, and start building something new, and perhaps even better.
MANDATE 1: CREATE A VISION
Create a vision for what it is that you truly want. If you find yourself unemployed, what does your ideal career look like? If you recently relocated to a new city, what do you want your life to look like there? If you and your partner are having trouble, what does your dream relationship with him or her look like?
The vision must excite you. It has to be compelling. It has to pull you. It should not be something that you have to push yourself toward, it should be something that you desire more than anything else so that it moves you emotionally. Envision this goal, see how it makes you feel, and then dive in.

MANDATE 2: MAKE THE RESOLUTION
Now it’s time to declare: “Okay, I am not going to just sit here and hope everything will be okay. I am going to take control of this situation.” Cut off any other possibility. If this is what you want, then burn the boats. Make the resolution that you will find a way to make things work and mentally put yourself on the path towards achieving the vision you just set forth.

MANDATE 3: FIND YOUR REASONS
Now that you have your vision, and you have dedicated yourself on a fundamental level to reaching this goal, you need to find your reasons – your purpose for wanting to achieve this result.
This is one of the most important components to making progress because without it, you will lose your emotional drive. You will inevitably face hurdles, challenges and obstacles along your journey, but the reasons will help push you through. When the stress and pressure come, your reasons will propel you along and you won’t let the fear or negative talk take over.
Your reasons can be framed in a positive or a negative manner – “If I don’t do this, this is what it will cost me,” or “If I do this, then this is what I can gain in my life.” What matters most is that your reasons resonate deeply within you. They are not superficial, but rather, stem from a powerful purpose that carries a profound emotional weight.
Just remember, when you feel stuck or lost, reasons come first, answers come second. Find the meaning behind achieving your goal, and allow that to help you get on target when things get rough.

MANDATE 4: MAKE IT PART OF EVERY DAY
Think back to something you wanted more than anything, something you were so hungry for that you felt a deep emotional need for it, something that you were intensely clear about it, and thought about every single day. You just didn’t know how to make it happen. Then suddenly, you attracted the right situation or the right people, and everything just came together.
Why did that happen? Is it the Law of Attraction? Not exactly.
There’s a part of your brain called the RAS – reticular activating system – and it determines what you notice in the world. When you set a goal, become extraordinarily clear on it, and have strong enough reasons behind your intent, you trigger the RAS. Your brain then becomes incredibly acute at noticing anything that comes into your world that could help you move forward.
Invest yourself fully in your vision. Make it a key part of your focus every single day. Then start to take note of what pops up in your life. The opportunities and key insights that arise may just surprise you.

MANDATE 5: RAISE YOUR STANDARDS
Ultimately, if you want to create real change in your life, you have to raise your standards.
How many years ago did you come up with what you could or couldn’t do in your life? Take a look at any area in your life where you have a limitation and ask yourself when you decided to accept that. For many of us, it’s these self-imposed limitations that prevent us from making any real progress in our lives. We have convinced ourselves that our status quo is exactly what we deserve, and we in turn, base our identities around that – wherever people have their identity attached to, they live.
If you want to create a new life for yourself, then you have to raise your standards. You have to let go of the limiting beliefs that keep you locked in complacency. Make progress a “must” for you. Refuse to settle for anything less. This will take practice, it’s not something that happens overnight. But the more often you adopt the thoughts, behaviors and rituals of a new identity, the more powerful your brain will become at finding ways to bring you there.

MANDATE 6: ADOPT RITUALS
You have to back up your standards by what makes those standards real – rituals. Rituals are little things that you do each day that eventually build up so much momentum that it becomes a clear path to your vision.
If you are unhappy with your status quo, and feel that creating the life you desire is just a massive challenge, then break it down to bite-sized steps. Condition your body and emotions with a few small rituals. Maybe that means going for a short run in the morning. Or taking the time to make a healthy breakfast. Maybe it means incorporating incantations into your day. Or catching up with one good friend every week. It could even be doing something kind for someone else once a day.
Rituals are where the power is. They define us. They help us put our standards into action. Remember, when challenging periods come our way, we have the choice – to relinquish control, or to take action.
Creating the life you want is not an overnight event. It’s in the little things. It’s having a vision. It’s making it compelling. It’s seeing it and feeling it with absolute emotion. It’s caring about other people. It’s calling to say “I love you” for no reason. It’s about taking every opportunity to connect. To be playful. To honor and cherish your loved ones.
Change, no matter how devastating, does not have to define your life. You get to make that decision. And if you adhere to these mandates, then no matter how lost you may feel, you will be able to start designing the life you want, and living the life you deserve.

Team Tony
Team Tony cultivates, curates and shares Tony Robbins’ stories and core principles, to help others achieve an extraordinary life.


Source Certainty in Uncertain Times - Tony Robbins

To Achieve Something Outrageously Extraordinary Requires Extreme Effort

To Achieve Something Outrageously Extraordinary Requires Extreme Effort

It’s your decision to be amazing. It’s an attitude. It’s how you live your life.   

Dan Waldschmidt

December 28, 2016   

    

We aren’t doing enough. Sometimes not even the bare minimum.
But it’s worse than that. This lack of effort is poor, lazy behavior. In every sense of the words.
I’m not even sure how we got to this point, but here is what I do know:

• We talk ourselves out of action before we even get started.
• We spend time, mental energy and emotion trying to look good rather than getting results.
• We debate the plan rather than working on it.
• We make excuses for our mediocrity.

If we want to be successful, it takes doing more. A lot more. To achieve something outrageously extraordinary requires extreme effort.

Effort is the great equalizer.
Seth Godin says ever so brilliantly the following about effort: “People really want to believe effort is a myth…. I think we’ve been tricked by the veneer of lucky people on the top of the heap. We see the folks who manage to skate by, or who get so much more than we think they deserve, and it’s easy to forget that these guys are the exceptions…. For everyone else, effort is directly related to success…. And that’s the key to the paradox of effort: While luck may be more appealing than effort, you don’t get to choose luck. Effort, on the other hand, is totally available, all the time.”
It’s inescapable. Effort makes the difference.
Effort is more than “If you pay me more, I’ll work harder.” It’s about not cheating yourself out of your own potential.
Think about that for a minute. Does anyone else really care if you are only putting in a half-ass effort?
No! You know deep down you are cheating yourself. And you are the only one who is really hurt by your actions.

No one cares about you like you. The least you can do for yourself is to put in the effort to give your dreams the chance to come true.
Think about what you want out of life right now. Perhaps you want:

• More self-assurance about your financial future;
• A better relationship with your spouse and children;
• A happier and/or more fulfilling lifestyle.

Are you willing to put in the effort to make these a reality? Not brains or money or manipulation. EFFORT!
If all that seems too overwhelming, if your dreams and goals seem too far off, let me offer the simplest of insights: Effort is simply you taking the next step. Again and again and again.
When you look closely at how ordinary people achieve amazing things, you begin to see it for what it is: one foot in front of the other. That’s all. A step is infinitely easier than a journey.
It’s your decision to be amazing. It’s a commitment to take the next step. It’s an attitude. It’s how you live your life. Relentlessly moving forward.
The world is full of good people doing good things in good ways. What will change the world is you putting in enough effort to do great things. One step at a time.
Be edgy. Put in extreme effort:

1. Avoid the need to blame others for anything.

Mean, small-minded people know they suck. That’s why they are so cranky and eager to point out others’ mistakes. They hope that by causing others to feel inadequate, everyone will forget about how woefully off the mark their own performance is. Don’t blame anyone, for any reason, ever. It’s a bad habit.

2. Stop working on the things that just don’t matter.

Not everything needs to be done in place of sleep. If you work for a boss, then you owe them solid time. You can’t cut that out. You can, however, cut out TV time, meetings and anything else that gets in the way of achieving your goals. Replace entertainment with activity toward your goal.

3. Refuse to let yourself wallow in self-doubt. You’re alive to succeed.

Stop comparing your current problems to your last 18 failures. They are not the same. You are not the same. Here’s something to remember: Your entire life has been a training ground for you to capture your destiny right now. Why would you doubt that? Stop whining. Go conquer.

4. Ask yourself, What can I do better next time? And then do it next time.

If you spend a decade or two earnestly trying to be better, that’s exactly what will happen. The next best thing to doing something amazing is not doing something stupid. So learn from your mistakes and use the lessons to dominate.

5. Proactively take time to do things that fuel your passion (for example, exercise).

Living in the moment requires you to live at peak performance. A huge part of mental fitness is physical fitness. So go fight someone. Or go running if fighting seems a bit extreme. Physical activity accelerates mental motivation.

6. Apologize to yourself and those around you for having a bad attitude.

Do this once or twice, and you’ll snap out of your funk pretty fast. When you start genuinely apologizing for being a bad influence on those around you, you learn to stop whining and start winning.

Excerpted with permission from EDGY Conversations: How Ordinary People Achieve Outrageous Success by Dan Waldschmidt

Source To Achieve Something Outrageously Extraordinary Requires Extreme Effort