Listen to I’ve been thinking about failure recently and how it has crippled a lot of people in life.

Listen to what Michael Jordan has got to say about Failure…

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career.

I’ve lost almost 300 games.

26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.

I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life.

And that is why I succeed.

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It is true that the past has an impact on who you are today. If you look at yourself today, you will either see someone who has overcome obstacles positively, or someone who has maybe let the obstacles overcome them. In any case, we all have situations in our life that we might have wanted to play out differently. There are some incidents in my life that I am not proud of, but I have to remind myself that what matters now is the future and I can’t change my past.

Even if I could change it, why should I? It has served as a learning experience and, therefore, it is something that contributes to my development.

So how can you take those not so pleasurable experiences and make them into something usable? Allow me to suggest some pointers when you are looking to leave the past behind you.

1. Do not allow your past to creep up into decisions where it dictates your life. If your past has held you back before, it has no bearings in the future.

2. Let it go and embrace the changes you can make today, tomorrow and years to come. Instead of looking back a year ago, look ahead a year. Set goals that will allow you to accomplish something you have wanted to do. Those goals will lead to more goals. Pretty soon, you will look back over your shoulder and see only positive and smile.

3. If you have gone through a traumatic experience in your life, it is unfortunate. You need to make peace with your past and no longer allow it to control you. It has already got you once- why let it keep bringing you down?

4. Think positive: Make sure you cast out negative thoughts. These thoughts can only bring you down and pierce your personal development achievements.

5. Get rid of physical evidence:  Even though something might cause us pain, we still seem to keep reminders around. For instance, a broken relationship might yield gifts given and pictures. Put them out of sight. Seeing past situations that hurt only make the pain worse.

Conclusion

The only way you can move forward is to accept the past, know you cannot change it and let it go. This will allow you to continue with a bright future with the past lifted off your shoulders.

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Often times we need to create a team to get a certain task accomplished. If you are still working alone thinking that things get done quicker by doing it yourself; you have not seen what it means to divide the work and double the effectiveness through a dedicated team. Your income and productivity is really tied to your ability to create and work in a high performance team. Ignore this law at your peril!

Creating an effective team can sometimes be a difficult task. This is due to the fact that people are very dynamic in character and getting that many differences to work together for a common goal is in itself challenging.

Below are three steps to creating a successful team that will be focused, committed and achieve the desired results.

1. Define the Expectations

If a team is created without expectations, the team will inevitably fail. Expectations need to be in place and clearly defined.

My Personal Tips:

- Give a solid background on why the team was created. The team members need to know their purpose.
- Let them know the importance of their role. Team members that understand that a higher up will be awaiting the outcome is always motivation to get the job done well. Even in a top company like Genetech, janitors know that they have to do a good job so that the rest of the company can focus on developing life saving drugs that will make a difference!
- Support the team. Make resources available to the team if they request them. You cannot expect a team to produce the desired results if they do not have the right tools.
- Give the team perspective: the company needs to communicate to the team how their role in the team will help the company. Show them how the outcome will directly impact and affect the company and the initiatives they have laid out. Knowing how something will fit helps in building a puzzle. Essentially, this is what you are asking your team to do.

2. Commitment and Ability

These are both important factors when building a team. Select team members that are committed in accomplishing tasks. A personality trait that goes far with a team is the willingness to accept challenges with drive. Find a good variety of distinct attributes to create a successful team.

3. Central Control

There should be one person that is distinguished as the person who “coordinates” the group. It is important to note that this person does not contribute to the group thoughts and processes all the time. This person only intervenes to keep the group on track with goals set by the team.

Utilizing these three points will be a great start to accomplishing your team goals. Always be sure to set aside time to review these points with your team. The consequences of not allowing enough time is to backtrack, which takes even more time. So… ready to create your ‘A’ Team now?

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During our Personal Development Night (the first wed of the month), we listened to Jim Rohn’s Teachings about Personal Development. He shares how learning about sales and marketing has changed his life and earned him a lot of money. People pay a lot of money to listen to him, but I got access to his materials for the price of a cup of coffee a day!

Here are some important principles that apply to your business and life that Jim Rohn shares:

1. Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living, but profits make you a fortune!

2. Use stories to share with your friends. They are impactful and touches the hearts of people. Personal stories are great because people usually remember stories.

3. The Magic of Part-Time is a great recruiting tool for MLMers. Eg, I earn xxx from this part time job. or This vacation was paid for by my part time job. If you earn another $1000 from a full time job, nobody wants to know about it, but if you earn $1000 from a part time job, everyone wants a piece of it!

4. Its not what happens that determines your life future, its what you do that determines your life future.

5. Opportunity is always mixed with Difficulty.

6. For things to change, I have to change.

7. Don’t wish it was easiler, wish you were better.
Don’t wish for less challenges, wish you were wiser

8. If you do something enough, a ratio will appear- The law of averages always appear. (Useful for sales people to know)

9. I make up for numbers for what I lack in skill.

10. To Achieve Greatness- Service to Many leads to Greatness.

To gain instant access to over $848 in Downloadable courses for just a cup of coffee, Check this Great Personal Development Site.

Have you ever made your staff, the Rock Stars of your company? People idolise stars for their accomplishments and talents, so why not highlight your staff and make them the centre of attention?

Here’s how Intel made one of their staff into a Rock Star! A simple gesture, but it goes a long way in staff recognition, excitement within the staff, and knowledge that their company is doing something great! All this at a little cost and creativity.

Here are some Themes that I suggest you can try out: Print posters on certain people you want to highlight and make them into…

• Super Heros! (Have you watched the series: Heros?) Eg, Melissa, aka Storm, she can tune down the storms in peoples’ lives.
• Boy Bands (Yes, form your own band with the males)
• Star Trek Characters

So.. when are you going to celebrate your staff?

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This man inspired millions to want to pursue their dreams and take the challenges that hit them hard in life. Winning to him is not about how hard you hit but it’s about how hard you get hit and still keep moving forward.

His name is Rocky Balboa.

Let me tell you something you already know; the world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.
It’s a very mean and nasty place.
And I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.
You, me, nobody…is gonna hit as hard as life.
But it ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can Get hit, and keep moving forward;
how much you can take, and keep moving forward.
That’s how winning is done.
Now if you know what you’re worth, go out and get what you’re worth.
But you got to be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody.
Cowards do that, and that ain’t you!
You’re better than that!
Until you start believing in yourself, you ain’t gonna have a life.
- Rocky, “Rocky Balboa”

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Have you ever run across those people who always seem happy? These people have become very few over the past few years. Getting yourself to that point of a successful nature takes effort on your part. No one has ever gotten anywhere by doing nothing. To dial in a successful and meaningful life, you first have to gain the mindset of a successful person.

Getting Your Mindset in Order

There are a few things you must do in order to get your mindset to where it needs to be. Throughout the years you have been training yourself just the opposite in most cases. The first piece of advice is to be patient.

When you begin focusing in on personal development, here are some aspects you need to consider:

1. Keep your mind open

Think out of the box and never shut your mind to ideas. People who succeed are those that overcome obstacles, not give up. There is a solution- find it.

2. Keep Learning

Truly successful people have realized they can learn from anything. Even witnessing something done completely wrong will pave the way for avoiding the same mistake in the future. By the same token, accept that mistakes do and will happen. There is no avoiding this fact. Learn from mistakes to contribute to your personal development. Pick up something motivational to read rather than a tabloid. There are many resources available that will keep you on the right track. I have personally been using this personal development website and it has taught me many new lessons that have shaped the way I think and act.

3. There is no luck

Successful people in the right mindset will make sure they set themselves up to be in the right places. When most people attribute being in the right place at the right time to “luck”, successful people view it as an achievement.

4. If you want to be successful, act and believe you are successful

If you do not believe in yourself, who will? To really commit to this notion, surround yourself with people who are successful. Being around people you aspire to become can only help. Seeing people in action with the right mindset will aid you in your personal development as you build confidence in your efforts. There were many times I was so encouraged by their energy and mindset that could overcome all obstacles.

As you can see, having the right mindset relies on many factors. The only person that can make this change is you. Creating a solid mindset will be the foundation of your personal development goals.

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Motivating yourself is often times the most difficult aspect of personal development. The concept of personal development is to improve the overall well being, attitude and actions of a person. In doing so, you will run into many obstacles and how they are met is dependent upon you. I have made many mistakes by constantly thinking that other people can motivate me, but in essence, only I can motivate myself. Others can only create an environment for me to motivate myself!

What happens when you jump start yourself with a little motivation and then start to plateau? From there, you do not feel like you are getting anywhere, and then you start to slip. Keeping yourself motivated is a hard task, but can definitely be done.

Outlined below are some ways you can coach yourself into success.

1. Goal setting

The first and most important aspect of personal development. This is where it all starts. Without a goal, you have no direction. Without a direction, you have no purpose. Lay out your goals clearly and with detail. Once you have a goal with defined values, you will know when you achieve them. Seeing success is the best motivator around. When I set one of my goals to create my own training video this year, I finally achieved it in March! It is indeed every trainer’s dream to have their own training video! This would not have happened if I did not write down my goals and review them almost every night!

2. Write it out, Draw up a plan!

Do something! You have to make your goals and aspirations visible to you. You need to make sure you have our goals on your mind every day. Each day is a different set of goals looking to achieve a bigger goal. If you want to take a cruise to the Bahamas, but do not have that extra cash right this minute, work to get there. Put a picture of a beautiful beach on your nightstand so you see it every time you wake up in the morning and every time you go to bed. Plan out how you are going to get there and follow it.

3. Take Action!

There is no sense of making goals if you are not going to do anything about them. Take action on your checklist! Make it a goal to get a certain amount of tasks done every day that is out of your normal daily schedule. Shift it around, make it more exciting; enjoy meeting goals and then celebrate when you achieve them. If you have to, make them smaller so you can reach them easier and then graduate to larger goals. This works for me and gives me confidence when I constantly achieve smaller goals.

4. Surround yourself with the right people

Being around people that are supportive and positive can really make or break success in personal development. You need to make sure you have people around you that want to see you succeed. They will be there for you and offer positive words of encouragement. They are also the people that are around when you celebrate success. Anyone who offers negativity has no place in your personal development goals.

With all these tips in mind, stay focused and positive. There will be roadblocks in the way; there always are. Keep track of your past achieved goals and review them when you doubt yourself. Stay Driven!

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Just want to share with you that my article is featured in the Recruit Section of the Straits Times. I previously wrote so many articles to them and this one got published! This incident taught me about persevering to achieve results!

To read the entire unedited article, click on Are You Going From Good To Great?

Featured in Straits Times, Recruit (Friday 17 Apr 2009)

Great News! I just want to share that I am a Featured Speaker in this year’s Learning & Development Summit 2009. HR Professionals from different companies will be gathered to address key communication strategies for learning and development in the organization as they measure the performance of learning and development programmes.

There will be TOP level professionals from who will be sharing best practices in their field. Companies include:

Agilent Technologies
Deutsche Bank AG
Watson Wyatt
Mercer
TNS

I will be speaking on one of the Workshops: “SECRETS OF DYNAMIC TRAINERS REVEALED” on 24 Apr 2009.

Here is a description of it: What makes Training Powerful and Effective? Are there ways to teach so that participants will be involved, always learning and responding with high energy? You will learn the techniques on how top trainers use Accelerated Learning Techniques to teach with passion, stir their hearts and impact lives. If you want to deliver in a powerful manner, this session is a MUST.

Highlights:

• How to create a High Energy Environment for Learning
• How to ALWAYS get participants to participate and share their learning experiences
• Techniques to effectively increase memory retention to at least 80%
• How to get instant BUY-IN from the audience
• Get Hands-on experience in creating a training program and delivering it 

From what I have heard, the workshops have been filled and there are still tickets left for the main conference on 23 Apr 2009.

For Those in HR, I have SPECIAL DEAL FOR YOU. I managed to negotiate with the organisers and they will be giving FREE tickets to my clients in the HR Field!

Email James directly at       james(a)alleventsgroup.com      Please change the (a) or call him at +65 6506 0960

Tell him that you are a HR contact of Deep Impact and he will follow up with you.

Download your brochure here.