Zenologue

I just finished reading one of the most inspirational and truly useful books I’ve read in a long time – “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek.

If, like many, you’re finding business difficult or you have that nagging feeling that you might have lost focus on what you’re doing… If you’re struggling with how your business life can find a new purpose… If you can’t understand why some people and businesses are successful and others aren’t… then you are going to love this book.

Simon clearly takes us through the idea that it is not WHAT or HOW we do things that make people want to follow us or buy from us, it is WHY we do it that counts – the underlying philosophy and principles that drive us, if you like.

This book is easy to read, entertaining, enlightening and, above all, inspiring. The principles in themselves are simple, yet profound, and affected me on a very deep level that has changed the way I think and feel about my own photography business.

I buy all my books at Amazon and it helps me a little if you do too. But, wherever you choose to get this book from, I urge you to get it NOW – it will change your life.

Motivation education, encouragement, Marketing, Motivation, review

As mentioned in a previous post, fear (in its many forms) is probably the number one thing holding many of us photographers back from success in their business. Few people are completely immune to its effects, but there are ways to combat it and keep our fears in perspective 

Think about your favorite successful entrepreneur for a moment. Mine happens to be Sir Richard Branson, but you can pick whomever you like. Imagine them facing the challenges they’ve had to overcome in order to be successful…

Now, do you think that person has ever experienced feelings of fear in their business ventures?

Of course they have.

The difference between the successful business people and the failures lies in how they respond to what happens to them and how they deal with those things that cause them fear.

For most of us, fear connected with our business comes from insecurity or lack of confidence in our ability to succeed.  It manifests itself as indecisiveness and procrastination, or the tackling of tasks half-heartedly. We may even put off trying something completely, finding one excuse after another not to face the possibility of failure through simple fear alone.

I believe the secret to fighting this insidious enemy of our success is to firstly acknowledge that we are experiencing fear and then to examine it for rationality. How much risk is there really? What are the chances of us appearing foolish? What are the rewards for success? Where can we draw more confidence to try?

Assuming that we want to press forward with whatever it is we’re going to try to do, we can break it down into manageable chunks; slice it and dice it into pieces so small that each one is nothing more than a simple step. Yet each of those steps brings us closer to achieving our goals. Furthermore, with each step we take, our success looks brighter and fear shrinks further back until in the end it’s gone completely.

I am sure that Sir Richard Branson, and others like him, have all faced significant fears in the pursuit of their endeavors. However, they have all faced those fears head on and taken on the challenges to become the successes we know today.

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You’d better answer the door, because it may not come knocking again – worse still, it will probably knock on your competitor’s door to see if they are listening. Opportunity is blind in the sense that it doesn’t really care who answers, as long as someone does.

The inspiration for this post is this great quote I saw this morning:

“The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.”   Benjamin Disraeli

What does this statement really mean? There is certainly more to it than first meets the eye.

Firstly, the literal meaning suggests that we should have our eyes and ears open so that we can recognize an opportunity when it does come along. If we aren’t looking and listening for these things, we’ll never be aware of them and they’ll simply pass us by. There’s no fanfare, no drumroll, no thunderbolt from the blue to announce their arrival; instead opportunities are often presented to us in subtle ways that we have to learn to interpret by ourselves.

Secondly, what does it mean to be “ready”? I’m sure it could have several meanings, but the one that seems most appropriate to me is that we should have the proper attitude and mental state to enable us to recognize, accept and meet the challenge of an opportunity when it’s presented to us.

Finally, there’s another truth hidden in this simple-looking statement; perhaps the most important one of all: 

“There is no such thing as the perfect opportunity.”

If there is, then I’ve never seen or heard of it. Like everything else in the world, no opportunity is perfect. The timing may not be quite right, our financial position may not be as solid as we’d like, the idea may not be exactly what we were expecting, we might lack some of the knowledge we need to execute it properly, we’ll wait until the kids are out of school, and so on…

Truly great opportunities are presented to us very rarely, maybe only once in a lifetime. But, if we wait for all the conditions to be just right, or stall out of fear of failure, we’ll miss out and we could be left waiting for a very long time.

To make it even more interesting for us, opportunities often come along during the most challenging and difficult of times, often when we feel at our lowest ebb. Take the current economic climate, for example. The world is in the grip of a recession but, if we think about it hard enough, we realize that it’s only by rising to new challenges and seizing appropriate opportunites that we’ll be able to discover a brighter future. The time is now; it is often in adverse times when new innovations are born and creatives fires burn brightest.

I’m not advocating that we should blindly seize everything that comes our way. We still need to apply due consideration and risk assessment before we make any big decision. However, few people have become successful without some form of risk, and many have faced down a tremendous personal fear of failure in order to win. 

Meet Thine Enemy

Perhaps being “ready” also means being strong and prepared for a battle with our worst enemy: ourselves and own inner demons. This is a fight against the tendency of our own mind to raise obstacles and whisper inner words of doubt and discouragement, all born out of insecurity, fear of failure or looking foolish.

In order to be successful and to seize the right opportunity when it comes, we have to win this battle before we can even start. In the end, it all comes down to one simple thing… a positive and receptive attitude.

Motivation attitude, business, encouragement, Motivation, opportunity, success