In his article On Leadership by Allan Leighton, Rondeau talks about one of those business leaders, Allan Leighton, and his book “On Leadership”:

“It is a great book if you want to learn from those Managers and Leaders who are household names in the Corporate world.

“Individuals like James Dyson.. Lord Browne (BP), Sir Philip Green (Arcadia), Sir Terry Leahy (Tesco), Rupert Murdoch (NewsCorp), Stuart Rose (M&S), plus 50 others. It is jam-packed with ideas.

“One of which I am implementing now – meetings only lasting 20 minutes. No more. It keeps you focussed, you make decisions and then you agree the next steps. Try it.”

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“The key is to claim a niche –a select group of people whom you serve to the point where you become an expert. This results in being better known, getting great referrals, having greater success and making more money!

“Claiming who is your ideal client is easier than it might sound.”

She goes on to detail a number of steps to follow, starting with discovering your gifts: “Know that you have unique professional and life experiences and a way of being in the world that is unlike anyone else.

“And there are people out there who want it just the way you serve it!… Build your business around what you love. It takes courage to focus only on the areas you are great at!”

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In her article How To Find Focus And Turn Your Talent Into A Thriving Professional Business, she summarizes several strategies for success, such as “Know Your Unique Brilliance” -

“Your unique brilliance isn’t a particular skill, like driving a car or delivering your service. It describes you when you are at your very best no matter what you are doing.

“It’s as if the best moments of your life are encapsulated into one simple statement. The goal is to one-by-one, ditch, delegate, or redesign every task that falls outside of your unique brilliance.

“You are now free to use your unique brilliance nearly 100% of the time. What’s exciting is that as you hand off each task, you become more and more energized, productive, and profitable.”

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“Suppose in your life, you have your very own inner call, your personal Mount Everest to climb.

“At its pristine peak you might envision your own business, being a great parent, going to Tahiti for a winter, forgiving a spouse, or starting a church. Its nagging sensation is always calling you. You feel it with great passion.

“Because your inner voice gets drowned out by the chitter chatter of everyone around you, you can begin to believe what others tell you — that you’re stuck, that you’ll never be able to forgive your spouse, or that you’ll never earn enough money running your own business.”

But she also writes about the payoffs of having the courage to keep following your vision.

“You definitely get tired, but you keep going anyway, huffing and puffing your way uphill toward your own peak… With time, you become rewarded with a better view of a world you couldn’t see from down below.

On the switchbacks of the ascent of your dreams, you stop to look back on how far you’ve come. This is where you witness the peaceful expression of your faithful efforts. Your spirit is thanking you for wanting more — for trying so hard and for not giving in so easily.”

More in The Ascent of Your Dreams

Related:
When Family Dreams Clash, Find a Way for Everyone to Win, By Valerie Young
More articles by career counselor Valerie Young
My article: Negative self-talk
More Achievement / Vocation articles.

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Molly Gordon - president of a coaching and training company for “Accidental Entrepreneurs” - writes, “How long do you stay tuned to a radio station when the music is drowned out by static? Not long, I’m guessing.

“But how many times do you stay tuned into the same problem in spite of the static caused by overwhelm? Overwhelm is a physiological, mental, and emotional state that drowns out any clear signals that might otherwise come through…

“No one can handle more than one thing at a time. The moment we believe we need to do more than that, we start to get anxious.

“As anxiety increases, clarity diminishes. And when you work for yourself, who’s going to break the vicious cycle?”

She goes on to describe Three Keys to Shifting Out of Overwhelm in her article How to Make Your Business an Overwhelm Free Zone.

Being an entrepreneur, but also a highly sensitive person, can make overwhelm even more likely and intense.

Jenna Avery writes in her article Overcoming Overwhelm, “As a sensitive soul, it’s easy to get overstimulated. With stimulation all around, it’s not surprising. Our urgency-addicted culture and mainstream work ethic is overstimulating.”

She describes a number of strategies to help.

[Image from Employee to Entrepreneur: A Mind, Body and Spirit Transition, by Suzanne Mulvehill.]

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“As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: ‘The ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function is the sign of a first-rate intelligence.’

“His comment is cited by Roger Martin, author of The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking.

Evans adds, “Unfortunately, most business people follow a this-or-that, either-or approach that oversimplifies the complexities of the real world.

“What they require instead, Martin argues, is to learn new “integrative” thought processes that would allow them to embrace contradictions and attain more nuanced decisions and business strategies.”

Continued in article Openness to conflicting ideas urged.

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She advises, “Discover your passion by paying attention to situations or things that grab and keep your attention.”

From her article 10 Steps to Escape the Job World and Create the Life You Really Want.

But Molly Gordon notes in an article that “everyone wants to tap into their passion, create work they feel passionate about, or express their passion.”

And, she adds, “If you’re assuming that just-right and a business you’re passionate about are the same thing, think again.

“There are several ways that passion can derail your business, not to mention obstruct your personal growth.

“Wanting to feel passionate about our businesses can derail us by requiring our work to provide most of our emotional and spiritual nourishment.

“This places a huge burden on even a mature and healthy business. It can strangle a new business before it can take root.”

Continued in her article How Passion Can Interfere with a Just-Right Busines.

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We’re all aware that many people feel that we must be careful when focusing on money or affluence or abundance… that in the pursuit of those things, there is danger. If you pursue money and affluence to the exclusion of other values in life, you have lost, not won.

However, let’s consider this question: If you could do better financially, should you? In the time you have allotted to labor, economics, success, achievement, productivity, the creation of value, the development of skills and creativity, if you could do better, should you?

I believe one of the greatest satisfactions of living life to the fullest is doing the best you can with whatever you have. Doing anything less than your best has a way of eroding the psyche.

We are creatures of enterprise. Life seems to say to us, “Here are the raw materials — your creativity, and 24 hours to use it. What splendid things can you produce?”

From article Cultivating Your Enterprising Nature, by Jim Rohn

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If an undertaking is going to have staying power, it also has to have a built-in challenge that engages the person running it.

I have been willing at every step of the way for my business to morph into something completely different if that’s what it wanted to do.

I’m also willing to bet that many businesses close, not for financial reasons as is commonly thought, but because the founder gets bored.

Entrepreneurs, by their very nature, are curious souls and if they make the mistake of thinking that running a business is solely a moneymaking operation, but doesn’t offer new challenges and growth, the true entrepreneur moves on to something else.

So while many people resist the call to work on their own, citing potential dangers and fears, the savvy entrepreneur sets out with great clarity about the potential REWARDS.

Barbara Winter ["Making a Living Without a Job"] - from her article Want Longevity?

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RE: Visionary Advanced Entrepreneurial Training

Dear Colleague: Look, right now is a tumultuous time to be an entrepreneur. The markets are down, investors are tight-lipped and tight-fisted, and interest rates on other forms of capital are rising.

That doesn’t even touch on the traditional hardships of the business owner! So how do you plan to tackle 2008?

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If not, don’t be surprised. You’re like 95% of entrepreneurs out there. However, you may be worried by a couple little facts…

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SCARIER FACT: 95% will fail within the first five.

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