College Success Tip – Get Involved and Become a Leader

Getting involved in campus activities and organizations is not a good idea – it is a great idea and 100% essential for your success as a student, then eventually as a professional in the workplace.  Student organizations will give you the following:

• Real world experience that you cannot receive in the classroom
• A great boost to your resume
• Interesting stories to share while being interviewed for internships and careers
• Will force you to become much better at time management
• Access to organizations’ advisors and alumni
• Much more!

So what types of organizations are available?  This obviously depends on the size of your campus, but pretty much anything you can image will be available to you. Groups can be fraternities/sororities, academic advisors groups, intramural sports, student senate, the university alumni association, political groups and many others.

How do you pick the right organizations to join?  Simply figure out what you are passionate about – what do you enjoy doing?  What activities will help you learn the skills and get the experience necessary to be successful in the real world?  You may choose one activity that is really fun and another one that will focus on the field you wish to get into after school.  Make sure to get involved in multiple organizations and that they serve you in a variety of ways (such as personal and professional growth, rather than joining three organizations that are all social based).
Initially, you may not be a leader in the organization, but you need to strive to have a leadership position as quickly as possible.  If you are going to be part of an organization, you might as well be a leader and get the most you can out of the experience.  This will be a great way to separate yourself from the “average” people.  The experiences you receive from being a leader is the kind of real world stuff that will earn you a great career opportunity and give you a head start over others after college.

The Bottom Line: You are missing out on a huge opportunity if you don’t get involved in at least two organizations on campus.  You will have a great time, meet new people, add to your resume, learn and become a better person who is more capable of getting off to a fast start after graduation.

Awesome Story From Dennis “Mr. Belding” Haskins

Just heard a great story from “Mr. Belding” that I wanted to share with everyone.  As you may know, Dennis travels around the country speaking to colleges about his time on Saved by the Bell and the lessons he feels are important for college students as they strive to be successful in and out of the classroom.  A group of four freshman at the University of Texas in Austin, TX heard that Dennis spoke at colleges and wanted to bring him to UT.  Their friends laughed at them and told them it was stupid and impossible.  The four freshman pulled together $75 and officially formed a student organization called the “Bayside Preservation Society”.  Once again, their friends laughed at them and told them it was stupid and impossible to bring “Mr. Belding” to campus.  Within four months, they were able to raise the appropriate funds to bring Dennis to campus – the result was an audience of 950 people and a huge success for the four freshman and their new student organization.  The lesson is so simple, yet most people don’t get it – when you put your mind and heart towards something, you can accomplish just about anything.  So the next time you have a crazy idea, just go for it!   Worst case scenario is that it fails, but you still learn a lot…  Best case scenario is that you accomplish something awesome!!

Using the “V-C-P” in Social Media

If you are a business owner in the valley who enjoys receiving referrals and would like to learn how to generate significantly more, one of the absolute best resources available to you is Victoria Trafton, who owns the Referral Institute of Arizona.  Victoria has a variety of classes and programs that show entrepreneurs how to more efficiently grow their business through referral marketing.  One of the main concepts she teaches at her introductory classes is the idea of building Visibility in your target market, then earning Credibility among those folks, and finally, reaching Profitability from those activities.  This certainly doesn’t happen instantaneously, but it is the most effective way to strategically build your network so that you aren’t just running around town trying to “close deals” with new people every week for the rest of your working life.

As I build social media strategies for businesses, I always educate our clients on this concept.  Regardless of whether we are talking about face-to-face networking or building a network through social media, this concept is the most effective way to build, nurture and grow your network.

Let’s take a look at “V-C-P” in social media:

VISIBILITY – To be visible, you must be out there.  In other words, you need to be searchable and visible to your target market.  You need to utilize the right keywords in all of your copy and have a search engine optimization expert on your team.  You must also have the appropriate accounts set up, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, a Blog and videos on YouTube.  (Reaching more people = More opportunities for your business)

CREDIBILITY – Once you have begun attracting the right people to your social media sites (your target prospects), you must quickly establish credibility with them.  Some of the ways you can do this are by using a professional looking picture of yourself, having your complete profile filled out, being on all of the major social media sites, consistently updating your profiles, interacting with “friends”, receiving comments on your posts, being truthful and genuine, not selling your product constantly and many others.  When we do our initial consultation with clients, we often see really great people making mistakes they aren’t aware of because they were never taught the proper way to build credibility online.

PROFITABILITY – What is a new client worth to your business?  What if every week you received two new clients that found you through social media?  This is the beautiful part of social media – once you are visible and credible, you will attract new business just because you are out there and have a powerful message.

Hopefully this was helpful as you build or refine a social media strategy for your business.  There is an unbelievable amount of opportunity out there; if you don’t take advantage of it now, your competition will.  Best of luck building “V-C-P” for your business!

Why Your Career Search Must Be Done The Right way, Not The Easy Way

Why Your Career Search Must Be Done The Right way, Not The Easy Way

The reason this process needs to be done the right way, not the easy way, is that it has such a large impact on both your career and life.  Finding the perfect opportunity earlier in your professional career will accelerate your journey to success.  The sooner you are able to find the right situation, the sooner you can have the experience and knowledge under your belt to achieve success.  Refuse to be like most other young professionals who are too lazy during the search process and settle for something that will not make them happy or allow them to grow.  We all have to earn an income, so take the time to find the right opportunity that you enjoy, constantly challenges you, teaches you and will take you to where you want to be.

Young Professionals – Establish a Vision of Your Future

As a young professional, it is absolutely critical that you develop a vision of your successful future.  You must have a clear idea of what you want your future to look like and then you can create a specific plan to get you there.  Nothing is more important as a young professional than knowing where you want to be in the future; aligning your actions to this vision will allow you to reach your goals and dreams.

The objective of this exercise is very simple – you will think about what your successful future looks like through your eyes on this day.  It has already been discussed that often as people get older they give up on the dreams they had when they were younger and become complacent.  By writing down your vision and aligning your daily actions to it, you will not allow your dreams to diminish as you get older and life becomes more complicated.  This exercise will force you to dream big, something that very few people in this world are capable of doing.

Read through the following and write down your answers to each of the questions.  Use these questions to help you clarify what your successful future looks like:

•    Do you want to start a family?

•    Will you ever support anyone financially (such as helping parents or putting children through college)?  If so, who will you be supporting?  How do you feel about this?

•    Do you want to actively participate in your religion?  If so, how would you like to be involved?

•    Are there any organizations you would like to volunteer for?  If so, which ones and when?  How many hours do you want to spend volunteering each week?

•    When do you plan on retiring?  How much a month, in today’s dollars, will you need each month to live on?

•    What type of home do you live in?  What does it look like?  How big is it?  How does it compare to the other homes in the neighborhood?  What are your neighbors like?

•    How many really close friends do you have?  How often do you talk to them?

•    How often do you travel?  Where do you go?

•    Who are the most important people in your life?  How close are you to them?

•    What kind of a car do you drive?

•    What will you need to accomplish personally in order to feel successful?

•    What are you doing to have a positive impact in your community?

•    Are you being financially responsible?

•    How important is it for you to have what you feel is a great career?

•    What are you doing each day to learn more about your profession?

•    How important is it to you that others perceive you to be successful?

•    Would you rather be unhappy making a lot of money or love your career making much less money?

•    Would you rather be unchallenged and bored while making a lot of money or making a lot less money while learning a lot and constantly being challenged?

•    Do you ever want to own your own business?  If so, when?

•    Will you go back to school to get an advanced degree/designation?  If so, what will you study, when will you do it and where will you do it?

•    How much money each year do you need to make in order to be happy?

•    What are you truly passionate about?  Are you doing this each day?  If not, what is holding you back?

•    What do you need to accomplish professionally in order to feel successful?

•    Who are you mentoring?  Who is mentoring you?

As you read answered the questions above, did you begin to have a clearer idea of what your vision of success may look like?  I strongly encourage you to take those answers and write a few paragraphs on how you visualize your successful future.  Make sure to write it down in present tense; for instance, you might say “I have three children, a great wife, a successful business and….”.  The more specific you are with your vision, the easier it will be for you to reach it because you will constantly be visualizing it while making any important decision.  Get started on your vision immediately – the sooner you start, the sooner you will reach your vision!

College Success Tip – Get Practical Experience

College students around the country have complained seemingly forever that nothing they learn in the classroom applies to the real world.  The good news is that if you feel that way, doing something about it is easy.  Your campus, without a doubt, will provide you with thousands of ways to get practical experience that will help you succeed in the real world.  You can do an internship on campus, be a leader in an organization or even volunteer locally.  Volunteer activities can include coaching a youth sport, tutoring kids, teaching a class or spending time with the elderly.  Any of these activities are better than simply going to class, going home and sitting in front of the television.  The more real world experience you can get, the better off you will be when you graduate.

Your grade point average means very little unless you are going to graduate school, and having a college diploma is nothing special anymore.  Having practical, real world experience while you are still in college is the best way to separate yourself from everyone else.  This experience will give you the edge that you need in order to be successful at a young age.

The Bottom Line: Everything that you do as a college student is intended to prepare you to leave campus and successfully enter the real world.  Gaining practical experience will make you smarter, build your resume, give you more interesting things to talk about during interviews, and will give you a better chance to make an immediate impact in your career.

Lessons I Have Learned as a Young Entrepreneur – This Has To Be Your Passion

If you truly want to be a successful entrepreneur, then you must love what you do and have a passion for it.  You can be rich and famous while hating what you do or not loving it, but you cannot be successful.  Being a successful entrepreneur is loving every second of the time you spend in your business and being willing to do it for free if you had to.  For 99.9% of the entrepreneurs out there, you will have to work incredibly long hours, face huge obstacles, take substantial risks and live/breathe/eat/sleep your business for years and years.  Do you really want to do all of that for something you don’t love to do?

I say this a lot during my keynote talks – imagine how much happier and more successful everyone in the world would be if we all did what we were passionate about.  Imagine all of the lawyers who would be much happier owning a restaraunt or the accountants that would rather have a landscaping company and work in jeans everyday.  Unfortunately, most people disqualify themselves from doing what they are passionate about, with such thoughts as:

- “I’m not smart enough…”
- “I don’t know how to start a business…”
- “I’ll never make any money doing…”
- “If I started this business, people would think that I…”

If you are going to start your own business, you need to do what you are passionate about.  For those of you willing to take the risk and put in the effort necessary to build a successful business, then you absolutely have to start something that you will enjoy doing for the rest of your life.  Owning a business is already difficult enough; by combining it with something you don’t have a passion to do you will almost certainly fail.  Even if you do succeed you won’t love it, so whats the point?  Make it your passion and give it your absolute best!!

College Success Tip – Work Harder Than Anyone Else

The single most important characteristic that will determine your level of success in college is how hard you are willing to work.  It all comes down to how badly you want to succeed in the classroom, with internships, in your activities, with your social life and everything else that you are involved with.  Get involved in as much as you can and give your absolute best to all of it – you will be glad you did!

The easy thing to do is skip class frequently, not get involved in activities, play a bunch of video games and lay around all of the time.  The right thing to do, and the thing that will determine your level of success for the rest of your life, is to get off your butt and make stuff happen in your life!  The quickest way to do this is by having an exceptionally strong work ethic in everything that you do.

Here is a challenge for you – make your Return on Investment for your tuition higher than anyone else’s.  In other words, gain more value from your tuition dollars than anyone else on campus receives.  Learn more, get involved in more, meet more people, lead more organizations, take advantage of all the programs, build relationships with your advisors and do everything else in this book.  Make it a goal to look back one day and know your tuition didn’t cost a dollar because the experience you received in return was worth millions.

The Bottom Line: Your success as a college student will not be determined strictly by a grade point average.  It will be measured by what you accomplished.  Your success will be based on the experiences you have, the friendships you make, the relationships you build, the lessons you learn and the impact you make.  The harder you work, the more you will accomplish.

How to Have Successful Relationships as a Young Professional

As a young professional, you deal with many different types of relationships.  You have relationships with your faith, your family, your friends, significant others, co-workers and mentors.  Rather than focusing on any of them specifically, we are going to look at the characteristics you need to be successful in every relationship that you have.  Also understand that relationships have a huge impact on the person that you are and the people that you will become.  Part of having a well balanced lifestyle is your ability to have quality relationships.  This article details the five things that are critical in building and maintaining great relationships.

Be Loyal and Dependable

Always be loyal to those in your life who have taken the time to help you become a better person.  You have had people in your life that have gone out of their ways to teach you, mentor you, give you gifts, support you and have been there for you during difficult times.  Remember those acts of kindness, return those favors and be loyal to those people.  Also be dependable.  Be the person who your friends know they can go to during a difficult time.  When you tell someone that you are going to do something, always follow through on that promise and make sure your word is as good as gold.

Be Respectful

Have respect for each and every person that you encounter in life.  Respect successful business owners for their leadership and entrepreneurial skills.  Respect volunteers in the community for their selflessness and ability to take time out of their lives to help others.  Treat everyone in your life with a great deal of respect, whether it is your boss or the person taking your order at the drive-thru window.  Be respectful of everyone, whether there is a crowd of people around or nobody is looking.  Be the one person who asks the check out lady at the grocery store how her day is going during her 8-hour shift.  These little acts of respect to everyone around you add up over time and help you become a person who others will respect.

Positive People Only

Unfortunately you do not get to pick and choose every single person with whom you interact with daily.  You do, however, choose the people with which you will spend the most amount of time.  Make sure that your best relationships are with people who have a positive attitude and outlook on life.  Also make sure that these positive people you surround yourself with will have a positive impact on your life and help you become the person that you want to become.

Ask yourself if the people in your life will be able to help you in your journey towards success.  Also determine if these people align with your vision of success.  If they do, continue to build relationships with them.  If they don’t, then you must determine if an adjustment can be made in your relationship with them, or if they no longer should be a large part of your life.  Remember that your relationships with family, friends, mentors, co-workers and others are a large part of who you are.  You are reading this because you want to be successful – make sure that the people in your life are going to positively impact your journey towards success.

Communicate Constantly

Make sure that you are in constant communication with everyone in your life.  This refers to both frequency and openness of communication.  Frequency is important; don’t let time slip by in between calls to loved ones, friends and mentors.  Stay in constant communication with them because life is too short to let time slip by.  With current technology, there is no excuse for not communicating on a regular basis with the important people in your life.  Send a text message, make a phone call on your way home from the office, shoot over an email or put up a wall post on Facebook.  Any of these are better than going weeks or months without talking to the important people in your life.

The other important part of communicating is having open and honest dialogue with everyone in your life.  Being honest about your feelings will make you feel better and lead to less confusion or arguments over time.  Tell people how you feel, what your goals and dreams are and what will make you happy in life.  Know how they feel, know what their goals and dreams are and understand their perspectives on things.  Have conversations and be completely honest with everyone in your life, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much easier and more enjoyable your life can become.

Learn From Every Relationship

Relationships can take on all sorts of shapes, sizes and colors.  Some are great, others are not.  Some will continue on forever, others will end badly.  In those great relationships that will go on forever, make sure to learn why they are so great.  Understand what makes you happy, why they are so valuable and figure out how you can have more just like them.  When bad relationships come to an end, do not view them as failures.  Be fortunate that you had the relationship regardless of how badly it ended, and take from it lessons that you can carry with you.  Learn why the relationship didn’t work and let it make you a better person who has a clearer idea of what types of relationships will make you happy.  Whether a relationship is great, terrible, wonderful or awful, learn from it and let it grow you into a better person.

A Final Word

Relationships have a huge impact on every aspect of your life.  The biggest question to ask yourself in any relationship you have is whether or not it is helping you achieve your vision of success or hurting your progress towards your goals and dreams.  Make sure that you surround yourself with people who will positively impact your life, make you a better person and support you as you work towards everything you want to accomplish in life.

Lessons I Have Learned as a Young Entrepreneur – You Have To Persevere

I hate to say it but I believe its best to always be honest – if you plan on starting a business, it is extremely likely that more people will doubt you than will believe in you.  It is also very likely that you are going to face critiscm, a lack of capital, major setbacks, poor decisions and a whole host of other negative occurences with your business.  How you handle these will be a huge factor in the ultimate fate of your business – this is why perseverance is critical for entrepreneurs.  Here are just a few examples of the obstactles I personally have faced and how I persevered through it:

A professional editor and family friend reviewed my book manuscript and told me to take it and put it in my top desk drawrer for at least 3 years so that I could “gain perspective” and then maybe take another shot at the book idea.

How I Persevered – After about 15 minutes of being angry/sad/depressed/furious/doubtful and every other negative emotion you can image, I re-read the letter and came across one sentence that made this letter mean absolutely nothing – the person that wrote this letter to me had a book idea but never had the courage to have it published.  I thought to myself “Why in the world would I ever take advice from an editor that didn’t have the courage to get their own book published?!?!”.  I put the letter, not the manuscript, in my desk drawrer and got back to work publishing my frist book within 3 months of receiving that letter.

A mentor tells me that I’m making a huge mistake by starting my business

How I Persevered – I told him that I respected his opinion and appreciated him looking out for me but that I believed in my heart that I had a message and a business that would ultimately reach millions of people and I wasn’t willing to keep it bottled up inside of me because of the “risks” involved with it.

I have many others as well, some of which were much harder to deal with, that I will share at some point in the future.  Who knows, maybe I’ll write an entire book about some of the world’s most successful people and who they proved wrong on thier road to success.  Do you think anyone ever told Michael Jordan that he should quit basketball?  You betcha someone did!

I used the above examples to show you how I personally persevered through these difficult situations.  I want to use them as an example of the difficulties you could potentially face on your road to becoming a successful entrepreneur.  By no means were these easy situations and I’d by lying if I said they were simply to handle, but I ultimately found it within myself to persevere through the because I knew in my heart that what I had to offer needed to be shared with the world.  I expect you to do the same and believe in yourself no matter what obstacles are in your way of your vision of success.