Gather Greatness

Imagine, if you will,  two individuals with equal intelligence and equal ability entering the marketplace.

Both given the same opportunities,

what causes one individual to achieve average success,

 and the other to excel, really excel,

……………………………. possibly to Greatness!?

I used to ask myself these questions.

I went to work everyday.  I showed up on time, I kept my uniform looking good.  I learned all the basics of my job.  I even went the extra mile to learn the details of each component task that contributed to the quality of the final product.   Quality was, in fact, an important piece to the overall objective of the Company.  If the quality wasn’t 100% accurate, the reputation of the company was severely damaged.  Every detail was important.

My employer seemed to recognize my competance, the Company was flourishing, the bosses were happy, but I was miserable.

I had been with the same company for four or five years.  I had a good relationship with my co-workers and my immediate supervisors.  Why then was I always passed by for promotion?  Oftentimes the Comany would hire upper management from outside the Company.  I had even seen individuals that I had worked alongside, advancing in the Company, ahead of me.

What was wrong?  I did a better job than most of them.  Maybe if I had worked a little harder, worked more hours, or had been a more dedicated employee, I would have been recognized for what I was worth.

Or maybe not!

I was already one of the hardest workers.  I put in the extra time.  I was a model employee!

These things didn’t work!

They don’t work!

As it turned out, these were exactly the things that were holding me back.

Was I destined to remain miserable, underappreciated and underpaid ?

I was frustrated.

It was at this low time in my career that I discovered an important lesson. 

 No matter how hard I tried to succeed, I would not receive what I wanted, until I changed something internally. 

It was still important to keep doing all the little things that made up my job,

But,

instead of wasting energy on further improving my job skills,   (they were about as good as they could get ), I needed to focus on something inside.

I needed to focus on Me.

I needed to improve Me.

I needed to become more Valuable.

I needed to help others become more Valuable.

I short, I needed to develop my training skills, my relationship skills, my leadership skills.

I learned two very important lessons that eventually helped me move my career forward::

“ EVERY LEVEL OF ADVANCEMENT DEMANDS A NEW YOU. “

and

” LEARN TO WORK HARDER ON YOURSELF, than you do on the Job! “

I wish you every good wish,

On the Road to Greatness,

On the Road to Your Greatest Self.

Bill

www.GatherGreatness.com

I get up kind of early in the morning, usually at 5:00 am.  This morning was like any other, I shaved, showered and dressed.  I sat down at my computer to check my e-mail about 5:30.  It must of been 10 or 15 minutes later, I felt the strangest sensation.  We have a treadmill in the room next to mine and it felt as though someone had turned it on.  But, No one in my house gets up this early, I thought.  My thoughts flashed to the furnace in the basement.  I hope the belt or motor wasn’t going bad.  A few seconds later the vibration stopped.  I’d check it out when I got done on the computer.

A half hour had past and I caught a bit of the news.  There had been an Earthquake, 5.4 in the neighboring state, somewhere around Evansville, Indiana.

I live in Southern Ohio, so I guess we had felt the ripple effect.

What’s really bizarre was that I was reading an article on the internet about the same time, concerning the Law of Attraction. It was eluding to the idea that our thought waves send out vibrations and resonate through the Universe.

I thought, “this is pretty powerful stuff.”

In this case, I know it was just coincidence, but I really got a chuckle out of the timing of it all!

Here’s to increasing your Greatness,

Bill@GatherGreatness.com

I wise man once said:

“You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.”    [Mike Litman]

“Ignore the rules. There are no rules. There are no regulations. You get out and you do what you need to do because you believe in what you’re doing.”

John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten), punk rock musician 

Don’t Wait Until You’re Great

By David Cross

David Howell Evans is not known for being a technically accomplished guitarist - although few people really care. He developed a trademark sound that contributed to the success of the band in which he plays - a band that has sold over 170 million albums worldwide. Rolling Stone magazine proclaimed him #24 on their list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

The Edge - as Evans is better known - is the guitarist for U2, one of the greatest rock bands ever. Did he wait until he was a virtuoso on the guitar before joining U2? Nope.

The Clash - a pioneer of punk music - didn’t care a lick about being “great” either. When they started, only two of the band’s four members could even play an instrument. Despite that, The Clash produced one of the top-selling albums of all time (”London Calling“) and wound up as #30 on Rolling Stone’s list of The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. And they went on to kick-start thousands of other bands… including U2.

The world is packed with thousands of successful people who leapt right in. People who became great because they were willing to take a risk.

Still, I often hear of people who say the reason they have not started their business is that they’re not good enough. They feel they need to wait to acquire more information, deeper knowledge, or more specific skills.

The simple fact is that you can get much better at doing almost anything by doing that thing. Another important thing to note is that you never really know - until you get out there and do it - whether or not you’re good.

Until you actually start your business, it’s all theory. You don’t know how well your idea will succeed until you put it into practice. But the last thing you want to do is wait around until you’re sure. For one thing, you run the risk that your idea will become obsolete. By waiting, you allow the quick and the brave to one-up you in the marketplace. Plus, no matter how long you tinker or research, you STILL won’t know if your idea is good until you put it out there.

Start marketing your widget today, and you’ll know in a few weeks or months whether it’s a big success or a stinker. Keep planning for decades, and you could find out it’s a flop… after having wasted too many years of your life banking on its success. Michael Masterson calls this approach “accelerated failure.” Pick up his best-selling book Ready, Fire, Aim and learn more about it.

This advice holds true for practically any business I can think of. Internet marketing is no different.

We’ve been urging you to get a little Internet side business started for some time in ETR. If you’ve been waiting to do it, here are four things you can do immediately to jump right in:

1. Launch a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ad Campaign

Google, Yahoo, and other major search engines allow you to display your ads by bidding on keywords relevant to your business. When someone clicks on one of your ads, you pay a pre-set fee of a few cents. You can set a daily budget of a few dollars so you can ease into PPC advertising and perfect your technique before upping your budget.

Agora Inc. brought in hundreds of thousands of new customers last year alone through effective PPC campaigns.

Learn more about setting up a PPC account by reading Patrick Coffey ’s article, “Mastering Google AdWords in 3 Easy Steps.”

2. Start Collecting E-Mail Addresses

A huge factor in the success of many online businesses is e-mail marketing. Establishing regular, relevant, and timely contact with your customers and prospects is a proven way to generate more sales and to turn prospects into customers. Offering a free report, useful advice, or information that you deliver by e-mail will help you do it.

For more details about collecting names online, take a look at Patrick’s article “How to Build Your E-Mail Subscriber List Quickly and Easily.”

3. Start an E-Mail Newsletter

Start to regularly send out useful information to the people on your e-mail list. Don’t know what to write? Not to worry. Write about what you know. If you have a music store, send out tips and advice for playing or caring for instruments. Garden store? Timely, seasonal, local advice on what to plant and when and how to tend a garden. Try to remember some of the meetings or phone calls you’ve had with your customers and recount them. Voila! You’ve started an e-mail newsletter. Spice up the articles with some relevant product or service information - and don’t be afraid to ask for an order!

For more about how to create an e-newsletter, read my article “The 3 Basics You Need to Start an E-Mail Newsletter.”

4. Start a Blog

One thing that takes longer to master with an online business is search engine marketing. That is, creating content and copy that is both attractive to search engines and readable by humans (your customers and prospects). With a blog, you can quickly amass a plethora of information that will attract search engines… and customers. As with an e-newsletter, just write about what you know and offer advice and tips that will be useful to your readers.

Starting something new is both exciting and scary. But sometimes the fear of getting started can stop you right in your tracks. If you don’t start, you can’t fail. But then again, you cannot succeed either. There is no better time than right now to get up there, plug in your guitar (or laptop!) and start strumming away. Do not wait until you are great. Start small. Start now.

[Ed. Note: David Cross is Senior Internet Consultant to Agora Inc. in Baltimore. People from all over the country have already experienced the power of managing their destinies through motivation, determination, and goal setting. Discover the secrets that have made them successful.

He knocked on my door,

I shook his hand, and I gladly handed him a check for $1000.00.

It only took him 90 minutes to convince me.

What he had for sale, I could no longer live without, not even for another day!

That was it.

I finally had found  ”the solution to a problem ,”  a problem that I have had for the last ten years.

I could tell you what I bought,

 but it doesn’t matter.

Until now, I had been frustrated.  No one had come up with an answer that really worked.  I tried many different products.  They all had the same negative issues and shortcomings.

Until yesterday.

It’s funny, the solution is not the same for everyone. 

For some,

it was the wrong solution; 

 the price was too high, the benefits did not match their wants,

or it was not the right time in their life, for this product to be of value to them.

I spent a $1,000 in 90 minutes.  The price was fair, the benefits were abundant, and I was a happy customer.

A day later,

I still feel the same way.

Isn’t this the ideal sales outcome?

From my perspective, this is what made it so:

1. an excellent quality product
2. a knowledgeable sales person
3. a clear and organized sales presentation
4. salesman displayed a caring attitude
5. salesman focused on the benefits, more than the features
6. he let me try the product
7. he pointed out, it was a limited time offer
8. several options of payment were offered
9. a lot of gratitude was continually displayed during the presentation
10. he went the extra mile, even after the sale.

But more than that,

It was right for me.  I don’t know how many other people this saleman had spoken to, today, this week, or this month.  I’m sure not all of his prospects became paying customers.  Everyone would not be interested in his product.

It is important to note, he could not be everything to everyone, 

but he could be a very important something to someone. 

To me!

I gladly handed him the $1,000.00

I have discovered a very useful tool on my journey toward self-realization and self-actualization.

This may vey well turn out to be ‘a golden nuggett” of information for you.

Let me explain.

I have been studying the work of Dr. Mike Davison, and have been using some of the techniques he has recommended for achieving personal peace.  In the third chapter of  ”An Invitation to Personal Peace,”  he talks about the benefits of journaling, or writing down your thoughts, to help you live your life more purposely and with more focus.

Isn’t this the same as goal setting or using a daily planner?

Not exactly.  A planner is great for organizing goals which you have already defined.  Journaling exercises brain cells that may have been lying dormant for perhaps a great deal of time.  How are situations that happened to you a year ago, five years ago, or in your childhood affecting you right now? 

Maybe, more than you know. 

Well, some say that writing opens the way to inspiration, new ideas and helps to clarify our vision.  Writing can help you become clearer about challenges you may be having in your business life, your relationships, or your personal development. 

I have made a committment to doing each of the exercises in chapter 3, that were recommended by Dr. Davison.  One of the exercises was to write about some issue that has been on my mind these days.  It was very strange what my subconscious mind had revealed to me.  I had been worried for the last several years about the direction that my youngest son had taken.  He had fallen into a bad pattern of attracting other friends that were continually getting him in trouble at school, home and eventually with the legal system.  My wife and I seemed to have tried everything to get him to change, with little success.  

 I had been very discouraged as of late.  I guess I had even given up on him, at times.  I could only wonder what would become of him.  I couldn’t recall the last time he had done anything, that gave me any sign of hope, that he could change. I had fogotten the joy he had once brought to our lives.

I could go on and on, but let me get to the point.

 As I thought about Dr. Mike’s assignment, a clip from the past flashed into my consciousness. I had recalled a time in our family life, a much younger son at that time.  We were a family of six, and quite frankly, struggling to keep our heads above water.  The bills always seemed to outdistance the money that my wife and I were earning.  As I recall, we were all at home one Sunday and trying to figure out what to fix for dinner. The possibilities were pretty grim.  We were all kind of bummed out, having eaten the same unwholesome foods for the entire week.  As it was, my wife and I had not been very mindful of what the kids were doing.  It turns out, that my youngest son had found a dozen or so recipes books, (10 or 20 recipes in each book), in the garage.  I think my mother had given them to us, I can’t remember.  Anyway, my son had gathered them up, he being 5 or 6 years old at the time, and had gone door to door in the neighborhood selling them.

He came home with $30 in his hands!  After we had ascertained where the money had come from, I remember the strangest feeling of amazement, and pride, a feeling I had never experienced so strongly.  I remember thinking, ‘this little guy was destined for greatness.’

As it turned out,

We all went out to the buffet and had a great meal.  He was the hero of the day, the week, and for some time thereafter.

It has caused me to re-think my feelings for him.  Maybe all he needed was a little more encouragement, a little more confidence, a little more direction.

As I journaled about this incident, I then realized how powerful writing things down can be.  I experienced a new perspective, an expanded sense of solutions, and a new-found clarity in my relationship with him.

I tell you this story to help you understand how you may find value in  ”exercising your right to write.”

If you need clarity concerning something, try sitting in front of a blank paper, with pen in hand.  Close your eyes for a few minutes and let yourself relax, then just write what comes to mind. I think you’ll be suprised in what you may discover.

It really does work.

Gather your time,   Gather your talents,  Gather your Greatness.

“Here’s to Your Greatness!”     May you find Peace and Prosperity.

Bill

www.gathergreatness.com

“Who can I encourage today? Who can I bless today? What
problems can I solve today?”

Those are all good questions, the answers to which,  can help to move your life forward.

I would like to share a place where entrepreneurs or someone aspiring to become an entrepreneur can discover a wealth of information.

A place *Where Entrepreneurs Gather.*

There is a forum where questions can be posed and information can be shared.

Check it out at:

http://gathergreatness.ning.com/?xgi=9dgZEoM

Thank you for sharing,

Bill
‘The Great Bill from Ohio’

Bill Baumgartner wants you to check out “We all have a purpose in life.”

on
Gather Greatness Network!

The Gather Greatness Network

“Where Entreprneurs Gather”

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Gather Greatness Social Network.

View my page on Gather Greatness Network

Bill  @   www.gathergreatness.com