Michael Neely's Blog

Entrepreneurship • Freedom • Success

Change

Focus on Achieving Success

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focus

Focus On Positive Change

Success is the habit of creating positive change. To create positive change, you have to concentrate your attention on your desired result.To me, this is one of the most overlooked requirements of becoming successful. Google defines “focus” as the center of interest or activity. It is where you concentrate your attention and activity on what you want instead of what you don’t want. If you seek success, it is vital to stay focused on what you want. Not only because you get more work done, but because what you focus on expands. In other words, if you concentrate your attention on succeeding, you will succeed. If you concentrate on making excuses, you will find a multitude of excuses of why you can’t succeed instead of the success you desire.

Pursuing success means creating positive change. To create positive change, by definition, you have to end negative change by eliminating negative habits. When you end negative habits, you concentrate on positive habits. When you flood your mind with positive thoughts, you develop positive actions that take you in the direction you want for your life.

“What we focus on is where we go. Where focus goes, energy flows.” -Jordan Belfort

It works every time. If your attention is on injustice, you will get more injustice. If you focus on earning a new income level, you start finding new opportunities to earn the income you desire. What you concentrate on expands.

Change Creates Fear

Changing your life is scary stuff. Your comfort zone will fight back. You will start thinking that you aren’t good enough to achieve the success you want. You must focus on what you want in life, not that which you are afraid. If you focus on your fear, you will get more of what you fear. When I first got started in business, I had a track record of successes from earlier career successes in the military. I could not fail in my eyes. I failed anyway because I did not do my research on the company with whom I was working. I did everything they told me to do but did not get the desired results. I accept responsibility for this event, but the memory of this failure created a fear in my mind. I had to end this fear to move forward in business. I began focusing on what I wanted instead of what I didn’t want, and eventually got what I wanted.

Focus is What Gets You Results

In 1959, Earl Nightingale recorded “The Strangest Secret.” This recording was the predecessor to the Personal Development industry as we know it today. It was the first spoken record that sold to Gold Record status. The main message of The Strangest Secret is not a new message. Many authors, teachers, and magnates have said this throughout history in many forms.

“You become what you think about most of the time.” -Earl Nightingale

Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Allen, and long before them, Jesus of Nazareth have echoed similar thoughts. It is the secret of success that cannot be overturned or ignored. “The Strangest Secret” is not a secret at all.

Have Lots of Problems? Stop Looking For Them

If you consider the quote above if you think about your problems most of the time, they expand. Your problems get bigger than they were. What you focus on expands. If you concentrate on your problems all the time, they don’t get solved, they get bigger and bigger. The bigger your problems seem, the more insurmountable they become. Then, your problems convince you to take no activity and nothing changes. Stop dwelling on your problems. No one else wants to hear about them anyway.

Concentrate on What You Want

Since you become what you think about, think about what you want to become constantly. Stop thinking about who betrayed you in the past, and start thinking about how you will make your dreams come true. Fill your mind with your goals and how you can achieve them with integrity.

Your Job is a Business Decision

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Decisions
Source: iStockPhoto.com

Feeling trapped in your job lately?

You’re not the only one. Some people say that’s the way it’s supposed to be. The monthly job report is just one example. If you pay attention to the mainstream media, you already know that the government and media are selling job-slavery, and most people buy it. The politicians want you to stay put so they can keep you counted in their favorite stack of numbers. The media need you to stay in your job because they are all staying in their jobs even though their employers limit their futures. Your job, according to the powers that be, is your only source of cash flow, your only hope for providing for your family, for giving your kids an education, and for giving you a shot at survival. Your employer doesn’t want you to change, grow, or even think for yourself. If you did change or think for yourself, that means that the overall business wouldn’t need the managers stellar form of “leadership.” It also means your managers would have to work harder, desperately trying to dupe the next sucker into the position you vacated as you chose the red pill over the blue pill, and bolted.

 It used to be THIS way…

Many years ago, there was a place called the Soviet Union. I don’t remember when I heard it first. One of my teachers in middle school told our class that you weren’t allowed to pick your job in the Soviet Union. The story was that, as a child, your test scores would dictate what job we would have as adults as mandated by the State. I never lived in the Soviet Union, but I have heard other stories since its collapse from Russian people who moved to the United States in the early 90’s. I have also heard of similar stories from Chinese people about how the teachers were the most catered to people in the community because it was their judgement that decided if you went to medical school or straight to the fields as a worker. It is hard to imagine such a thing happening in the “land of the free,” the United States.

 Is Your Job Your Purpose?

Some people have jobs they hate and trudge off to in misery every minute of their day. They have no idea what their purpose is because they’ve never asked themselves the scary questions about their purpose. If you’re dedicating your life to your family and sacrificing your dreams for their well-being, then that is one form of purpose. Either that or someone convinced you that no one really lives their purpose or is truly happy in life. Either way, it seems that the majority of people are working jobs they hate, for not enough money, for too many hours in the day…and night. When you were a kid, did you often fantasize about working a job you hated? Of course not. You were going to change the world, fight evil, or spend more time playing than working. What happened? The world beat you into the shape they wanted, and you gave them your permission. The price you paid was living your purpose.

Forcing Conformity Through Fear

They tell you that you have bills to pay. They tell you that you should be this way or that. They tell you that your job is your life and that you love it…when they aren’t trying to convince you that you aren’t cut out for this job or that job. If you don’t pay your bills, you’ll be out in the street and blah, blah, blah. Fear is how the collective “they” keep you in place. Fear of the unknown is the other force that keeps you in a status quo you can’t stand. The only antidote for fear is courage. The courage to understand that fear is created only in your mind. Since you created that fear, you can also do away with that fear, and start living your purpose.

Your Job Is a Decision…That Can Be Changed

Your job is not a life sentence, unless you make it one. It is a business decision that people make. People make decisions every day for the betterment (or detriment) of their lives and the lives of their families. If you choose to make your job a life sentence and you are not happy with the results, you will have no one to blame, but the person you see in the mirror. If you are not happy with your job, change it! In this day and age, the only thing keeping you from the life you truly want is developing the energy and the belief that it is possible and getting started. Even if it’s only for a half an hour a day, you must start somewhere if you are going to change your life. It won’t happen by itself.

You are free to choose for yourself the destiny you desire. Choose well!

Personal Change and Why It’s Good (aka “What To Do When Your Blog Sucks”)

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New Improved!I was thinking about two titles and I went with the first title…but I also had to include what I was thinking when I started working on this blog again.  I was reading my blog a few months ago and I thought about letting it go.  Then I thought that I might have some relevant information for other people.  I write this blog to help other people, not for my own vanity.  The problem was that I wasn’t helping too many people.  As indicated by my web analytics, not many people were visiting my blog and the only conclusion that I could come to was…that my blog sucked.  I decided that the time had come for me to put some additional work into my blog, change it…and make it…”NEW and IMPROVED!”

In the time that I first started a blog in WordPress in October 2010, it has been an opportunity to improve my knowledge of how web sites are built, how a WordPress theme operates and is interpreted by the browser (how web sites work).  It hasn’t always been easy, but it has been incredibly informative.  It is still, like any part of change, a process.  This blog is a testimony of the process of change.  In creating the positive changes in my life, I have had to change as well.  I have had to get stronger, learn more and get better at everything I do in order to improve my personal results.  It’s called “personal development”…and it’s good.

To get involved with personal development, it means you’re going places…new places.  It means that you are open-minded to changing the direction of your life and that what was once good enough…is no longer true for you.  It means that you understand that the purpose of life is to live by your values and to constantly improve your results.  It means that you are investing in yourself and changing how you do things.  For me, one of the things it means is that this blog is getting a little better and the personal rewards are worth it!

Turn Resolutions Into Goals

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The New Year 2012 has begun and it’s a great time for positive change, optimism and encouragement.  I used to hear about the resolutions that everyone had written down for the New Year.  Recently I have noticed that it’s not something I hear other people talking about anymore.  Maybe with the new tools people have these days, it’s because everyone would rather Tweet, post on Facebook or blog about them (like I’m doing now). This year, I didn’t have too any resolutions.  I’ll explain why.

According to the US Government (wow, I didn’t realize the government did this too), the most common resolutions look like this:

  • Drink Less Alcohol
  • Eat Healthy Food
  • Get a Better Education
  • Get a Better Job
  • Get Fit
  • Lose Weight
  • Manage Debt
  • Manage Stress
  • Quit Smoking
  • Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
  • Save Money
  • Take a Trip
  • Volunteer to Help Others

I have actually crossed a few of these off my resolutions list like these:

  • Quit Smoking
  • Quit drinking alcohol
  • Get fit
  • Manage Debt Better

I’ve got a few more to go…alright a LOT more to go.  I want to focus on a little known trick I did to do this.  It’s really not little known or even a secret.  It’s called turning resolutions into goals.

What is a resolution?  The way I’ve seen resolutions made in the past, it’s something you start saying after you’ve got a few drinks of champagne (enter your favorite alcoholic beverage here, if applicable) and you’re going along with the crowd.  This year’s going to be different!  “I’m going to finally quit smoking, drinking, beating the dog, beating the kids, whatever…”  Statistics show that by the 20th of January, it’s a wash.  Depending on whether your paying attention to, by January 20th somewhere between 80%-92% of resolutions are not followed through on until completion.  You still doing the same things you were doing before the New Year’s Eve party you can now barely remember.

This is my challenge to you.  Do something different this year.  Get serious about your resolutions.  Write them down.  Chart your progress. Make them Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Tangible and achieve them!  Amaze your friends!  Here’s the real secret: commit to your resolutions and make them goals!

I do want to give you a warning, though…if you get really good at achieving your goals, you might have to get a new set of friends!

Happy New Year Everyone!

I guess it’s time to get serious…

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I now have a new blog address..kind of…again.  The main question you may be asking is “What the hell is he doing?”

My answer is “Solving problems…and being creative…”  Yesterday, I broke the Terms and Conditions of my free WordPress site I was playing with about the same time that I was starting to like it.  I was going to do this anyway, I just wasn’t planning to do it today.

Oh well, this post is also serving as a test post to see what happens with social media outlets.  They were on auto, but I think I lost that feature.

By the way, if you’d liketo help me with a “tagline” in the place that “Just another WordPress site” line is now, I would sincerely appreciate it! 🙂

 

My Turn to Face Reality Part Three

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I know that I am not “religious” about my blogging but it would really be helpful for you, the reader, to locate and read the first two parts of this series My Turn to Face Reality.  I am working on being better at blogging though, so please stay tuned!

After reading The Entrepreneur Equation: Evaluating the Realities, Risks, and Rewards of Having Your Own Business by Carol Roth this spring, I had to question what I was doing based on the results I was getting.  I decided to work on my Entrepreneurial Resume.  Not because I’m going to post it at Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com or scour Craigslist.org jobs ads for the “Entrepreneur” job title.  In my opinion (and I could be wrong), that is something I create myself.  I wanted to identify IF I had indeed developed the skillset of a successful entrepreneur.  According to my bank account, I had not.  Over the years, I confess that I have been duped into thinking that if I sign up (giving them my money in the process) with the right mentor and work my ass off doing what they are doing that I would be successful in any business area.  This is not true.  I have tried that many times for many years.  I failed.

What DO I know about designing and starting a successful business?  I declared that I am a self-educated businessman.  The last formal school I graduated from was US Naval Nuclear Power School that used to be in Orlando, Florida.  They didn’t teach me much about business. My next step was to identify all the business books that I have actually read and when.  I was not afforded the luxury of a formal business education and have not positoned myself to do so since my college-aged years.  I did come across a book called The 100 Best Business Books of All Time: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten.  With all the arrogance I could muster, I thought that SURELY I had read 100 business books.  I counted the books on my bookshelves.  I didn’t come up with 100.  As I was outlining my “business education,” I did read the majority of the Portable MBA series that was written in the early 1990’s…and that was it.  Except for a few books that I have read since 2004, I really had no idea what I was doing.  It sucks to admit that, but knowing where square one is becomes the beginning of the new journey.

I decided to start my own list of 100 best business books of all time. I discovered The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman.  This is where my business education will begin…at least the “book” part.  Since then, I have discovered about 30 additional books on about 20 different business topics and even a few new business ideas that I might be able to develop into new businesses.

It’s amazing what you can find when you start looking…

My Turn to Face Reality Part One

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Again, here’s the book that made me start thinking this. It’s the first time that I ever looked at business ownership and entrepreneurship from the perspective of an investment banker/venture capitalist. I mentioned in Facing Reality that this book “forced me to look at my business career and my life in an entirely new manner.” I HIGHLY recommend reading this book if you are considering entrepreneurship as a lifestyle.

I wish that this was easy. In a way, it is a great relief and in another way it is creating the opporutunity to re-create and (re) begin(?) my business career (see re-invention ). I usually don’t disclose all this pesonal stuff, but I’m writing this for my benefit so I can figure out what’s next in my career. If someone should read this and help them NOT quit their job too soon, lose their spouse and/or family, the roof over their head, etc. (and you think I’m kidding), then I’ve done a good thing.

It’s time for me to sharply take a look at who I am and what I really have been doing. I am not without personal accomplishments, but my business accomplishments are on a short list. This re-invention process has been something I have been working on for a couple of years now, but tonight I am feeling the need to pick up the pace a notch.

I seem to be making a whole lot of new friends, so now MIGHT be a great time to re-introduce myself…and I’m about to find out (the hard way, as usual). First, my name is Michael Neely and I have fancied myself an entrepreneur for many years now. I’m the guy who bet the farm and lost…a few times. I basically wanted to become what I thought was an “entrepreneur” from what I saw in the movie “Wall Street.” After all, everyone was making LOTS of money, staying up all night, getting wasted with a lot of beautiful women running around half-naked…hell yeah, sign me up!

I got out of the Navy in 1989 and jumped straight in…with all of my money and absolutely no training. Then again, in 1989 there wasn’t any training (still isn’t), internet, personal computers, cellphones, iPods, iPhones, or anything else the “Technology Revolution” has bestowed upon us. My main motivation was not working for anyone else. This has proved to be a mistake (learning experience).  Needless to say, I failed miserably in my first business attempt and returning to college was not an option any longer.  A few years later, I financed my life and businesses by waiting tables in restaurants, you know, like the late JFK Jr. SAID he would have done IF he ever lost everything in the Barbara Walters interview in 1991(?).

After a few more years, I racked up about three more complete business failures as sole proprietorships.  By the way, they don’t make a “smiley” for this emotion.  Due to my second to last business failure, I left my hometown of Birmingham, AL and headed to south Florida (where my mother lives) to put my life back together again.  I got into the commodities and currencies options and futures “business,” except the companies I was working with were “less than ethical” (and that’s being kind). After making absolutely no money and, once again “betting the farm,” I found myself working at Chili’s as a server in Coral Springs, FL and sleeping on a picnic table in 2003. I worked with Fast Company magazine’s readership network as a volunteer coordinator (means “not getting paid”) for the Entrepreneurship and Small Business Special Interest Group at the Palm Beach Community College library that was open to the public. This kept me somewhat sane over the next couple of years as I got into the habit of keeping a roof over my head.  I got to write (rant) about business ownership and meet some cool people (albeit, through the internet) like Steve Farber
and Barry J. Moltz. I moved to Atlanta with my last $20 in January 2007 and, with the help of a few friends, the re-invention has been an ongoing process ever since.  I stopped getting wasted a couple of years ago and finally started taking care of myself and my career.

Yesterday, I thought I’d put together my entrepreneurial resume as if I would go out and finance a company. After staring at the neatly typed screen for a couple of hours, I came to the conclusion that I’ve never had a success. There have been other hints that I haven’t achieved the success I desired (trophy-wife, Ferrari, etc.), but this was the first time I had a “NO BULLSHIT” viewpoint of whether I’d been successful or not. The weird reality is that instead of thinking in terms of “risk/reward,” I was thinking totally in terms of “risk.” It’s like someone told me years ago that I would never be successful as an entrepreneur (ex-wife, ex-girlfriends, ex-employers, ex-friends, ex-family members, ex-dog, etc.) and I have been following their orders, taking on as much “risk” as possible for no apparent reason (reward). Some of that psychological, self-fulfilling prophecy stuff might be right after all.

I have devoted myself to personal and professional development and study over the last two years and Carol Roth’s book, The Entrepreneur Equation: Evaluating the Realities, Risks, and Rewards of Having Your Own Business, has been a part of that. If you do just one thing and think of the Return on Investment and Return on your Time investment realistically, you MIGHT have a better “run for the money.”  It would be better to buy the book, so you don’t have to sleep on a picnic table one day.

Facing Reality

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There is a book out there that forced me to look at my business career and my life in an entirely new manner.  It’s called The Entrepreneur Equation: Evaluating the Realities, Risks, and Rewards of Having Your Own Business by Carol Roth.  People have always looked upon me as a little crazy, if not completely off my rocker.  All this time, I thought it was because I had some really stupid friends.  Not so fast, Skippy (speaking to myself, another reason that my friends…um, nevermind).

Growing up in Birmingham, AL, there weren’t a great deal of entrepreneurial role models (outside of prison) to follow.  Even some of Birmingham’s greatest entrepreneurs are currently serving prison time.  I got bit by the entrepreneurial “bug” when I was in the Navy (living in New England) and thought this was what I wanted to dedicate my life to.  That was 1989.  I thought “Entrepreneurship is easy!  Just get started and saunter to the bank laughing everyday!”  Since 1989, technology has made this a completely different world and entrepreneurship looks easier than ever.  There are many less responsible people that still get people into entrepreneurship today without looking at the downside risks or even mention a “risk/reward ratio.”  I didn’t even know what that phrase meant until I had lost everthing at least a couple of times.

The Entrepreneur Equation: Evaluating the Realities, Risks, and Rewards of Having Your Own Business does just as it’s title says it does.  I laughed several times as I realized that I had made some of the mistakes that Carol outlines in her book.  I also realized a lot of mistakes that I have been making over and over again without solving them (the classic, not to mention expensive, definition of “insanity”).  I realized that my business education (the books I read or should have been reading) was WAY behind the times.  In short, this book will defintiely make you re-think what you do as an entrepreneur and make you re-think IF you should become an entrepreneur in the first place.

This is an outstanding book with a lot of great advice, to your advantage if followed and to your financial detriment if ignored.  It even made me question what I’m doing and I am one stubborn S.O.B.

Hwæt! OMG, LOL make Oxford English Dictionary

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Remember the high dive that terrified you as a kid?  You were scared silly of jumping off of it, but one day came that you jumped off anyway.  You return as an adult and realize that the “high dive” that once was a part of your nightmares was only six feet off the water and no big deal at all.  I remember the daunting site of the Oxford English Dictionary sitting in the school library.  It was kind of a hallowed place that we looked up words only if we wanted to re-write the paper we were working on.  For me, the American dictionary worked just fine…which might explain a few of my literary short comings (LOL).
Well, the standard for “proper” words of the English language has been updated and there are a few additions that surprised me, additions that criticizing them makes me sound like my parents and my teachers.  The additions that are most notable arrived from the digital age and are text lingo such as OMG and LOL.  I can’t say that I was a stickler for perfection in my English classes, but I guess I am getting older.

Then again let’s think about it.  I also studied Latin and it a given taht the Latin language was what is termed a “dead language,” not because all the Romans were dead, but because there were no new words created in the evolution of the language.

Here is the difference between a living language and a dead language:

Hwæt! We Gardena        in geardagum,
þeodcyninga,        þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas       ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing       sceaþena þreatum,

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monegum mægþum,       meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas.        Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden,        he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum,        weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc        þara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade        hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan.        þæt wæs god cyning!

 

Translation (I guess):

LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve
till before him the folk, both far and near,

who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!
This is epic poem Beowulf from 4th Century ad England.  I copied and pasted this from another web site, and I don’t speak Old English.  No body does, anymore that’s why they call it Old English.  I have no idea if this is a valid translation or not…but it is close.

I guess we should be thankful that our language and our culture are changing and (I guess) growing.  One could also argue that are culture is now in decline, as our language is becoming over-simplified.  It also is a challenge that I hold dear that I can communicate with people who hold the traditional English language dear to their hearts and at least be able to understand what people are intending to mean when they say something stupid like “O-M-G” (typed, yes-  spoken, personally not a fan).

I guess the good news is that “WTF” didn’t make the Oxford English Dictionary…or did it?

MBN

Everyone Needs a Partner…

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Nightingale-Conant

Many years ago, I was wondering where I could find the answers to the difficult questions in life. I was wondering why some of my friends were doing well and I was not living the life I wanted to live. I needed skills I didn’t have, I didn’t even know how to type and from the late 1980’s to today, let’s just say that the world is a drastically different place. When I was in high school, the biggest threat to our freedoms and our way of life was the Soviet Union and instead of the much-debated issue of global warming being the “biggest threat” to life on Earth, it was global thermal nuclear warfare (which I guess is a lot like “global warming,” but on a much greater scale).

I found myself a little lost when I decided not to stay in the Navy and retire. My transition from the Navy to civlian world was a little tricky, to say the least. The Navy didn’t teach us anything about the Law of Attraction and, if I had to guess, they probably still don’t. I didn’t learn any negotiation skills or any skills I needed to succeed in today’s world. Going back to college was not going to happen for me and finding a great, high-paying job was also not in my future…unless I created it. That led my thoughts to having the best job in the world, the job I created for myself. I have since been involved with several different companies representing several different products and services over the years. My life as I wanted it was put on hold from 2002-2006 when I wandered in south Florida searching for the right brokerage firm for me, selling currency and commodity options and futures. That didn’t work either. Then finally, a couple of years ago, I realized that the problem wasn’t the government, the tax structure, my business associates, the businesses I was involved in or the products I represented (and until a couple of years ago, I represented poorly).

I realized that I was the problem of why my life wasn’t going the way I wanted. I didn’t have the skills, the education, the mindset or the information. In the past couple of weeks, I have partnered with the Nightingale-Conant Corporation. Nightingale-Conant was formed by Earl Nightingale and Lloyd Conant in 1960 and is the world leader in personal development materials.

I have been a customer of Nightingale-Conant’s for years now and I’d like to share one of the sources for the information I have needed and used to change my life. Now, with all of the advances in technology, change happens quicker than ever. If you don’t stay ahead of change, change will wipe you out. You have to be stronger mentally, you have to know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. You have to associate with the personal coaches that have already helped countless thousands to achieve their goals, over the years. You have to maintain your belief that you can overcome obstacles and turn adversity into opportunity. You have to devlop the conviction and the perseverence that says “I will never give up!”

This is one of the companies I represent today because I use their products. In my library is some of the greatest audios available by some of the wisest leaders who have ever walked the planet. I have access to this enlightened world of knowledge, skills and motivation…and you can too! Living successfully has been and always be a choice. At any time you want you can change and improve your life…if you have the right information.

Nightingale-Conant is where I get my information to improve my life. Click on the link above and find something to change your life…because change is the only constant there is in the world.