Success Advice
The Quest For Self Discovery
I was at a cafe today talking with a new friend.
Halfway through the conversation, I realized we were both on the same quest. That quest is called “Self Discovery.” What is it you ask?
It’s about finding yourself. Now that’s a big useless, ambiguous statement. Simplified it means:
- Understanding your beliefs
- Knowing what’s important to you
- Finding your purpose
Self-discovery can only happen when you are prepared to make the tough decisions. You will not make progress on your quest for self-discovery unless you push past the fear and doubt, and cut off from all other possibilities.
Where does the quest begin?
Change has always come about for me from a pain-in-the-ass problem. Maybe someone told you that you were fat and you had enough. Maybe you finally got a bill you couldn’t pay and said, “I’m sick of being dirt poor!”
The quest begins when you decide to no longer settle for your current circumstances. To begin a quest that may reveal parts of you that could be uncomfortable or even scary, requires real courage.
All of us will attempt some form of self-discovery quest in our lifetime. The trouble is we may not journey far enough to get to the end of the quest, or at least make some tangible progress. I empower you to not be in that group.
What I discovered during my quest
I always thought that I had more to learn or more mentors to talk with. On my journey of self-discovery, I figured out that for the last five years, every answer I have received has been similar.
Every answer I got was essentially the same, said slightly differently. See the thing is that I already had the answers.
“The part I was missing is that I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t have the confidence to execute on what I knew”
This quest is about finding you. I am certain that finding yourself is about coming to the realization that you control everything. Once you understand that all the power you need exists within you, you can conquer almost any enemy. You can get over almost any struggle.
My advice is not about some invisible force that was hiding within you that came out after you drank some mystical potion. The advice I’m trying to make clear is that you do not require any external force.
It’s about discovering who we are and looking within ourselves. It’s easy to see what we don’t like about ourselves, but much harder to look at what we love about ourselves.
Trusting ourselves and leveraging what is already within us comes from learning to love the good parts of us, and the flaws as well. It’s knowing that the flaws are critical, and beautiful at the same time.
To go even deeper, it’s about knowing that the best you requires your flaws and your good attributes. It’s about exploiting the parts we love about ourself, and then optimizing what we believe are our flaws or weaknesses.
To exploit the parts we love, and optimize our weaknesses, we need personal development. That’s why I drank the Kool-Aid of this self-help phenomenon. I wasn’t looking for a pump up; I was looking for ways to continuously grow.
All this “Purpose Talk”
I don’t know about you, but the word purpose is being thrown around like a used tissue full of snot these days. This post is a lot about simplifying things that are a must in life.
I think that the purpose part of your journey of self-discovery is about finding meaning. When you know your purpose, you know why you’re here on Planet Earth.
For me, I realized that my purpose has consistently changed. I’ve used different vehicles such as djing, sound engineering, business and blogging, but the road of my purpose has stayed the same.
That road/purpose for me is about inspiring people through making them have an emotional experience. Emotion is what drives us to action, and makes us pay attention. So I tell you all of this so that you understand that the way you thought about your purpose may need reshaping.
Maybe your love of fitness, food and business is all related to the desire to coach and mentor. Maybe that’s your purpose and the fitness, food and business are just vehicles on the road called coaching.
“Finding the answer to ‘What is my purpose?’ takes some serious inner reflection”
Put another way, finding your purpose requires you to go on a journey of self-discovery.
What’s probably confusing is that many of the concepts I’ve presented overlap and are dependent on each other. This is because life is complex, and the concepts I’m presenting are your life’s work.
I know you are smart enough to understand that your life’s work is not meant to be easy. The great thing is that it’s phenomenal when you start making real progress. It’s incredible when you start to answer your life’s biggest questions.
I’ve found that as I’ve answered some of the deepest questions related to my purpose, I’ve seen the following:
- Increased confidence
- Calmness of where I’m heading
- A sense of what I need to do next
- A reason for existing
- A way to help others
- A fearlessness in doing uncomfortable tasks
Now that list should give you some motivation!
The result of this quest
If you make the choice to stop being mediocre and head out on the quest for self-discovery, there are again, four simplified outcomes you will get. These outcomes make it all worth it, and should get you jumping out of your seat.
They are:
- You’ll discover a deep sense of happiness
- You’ll gain a sense of fulfillment (a must for success)
- You’ll have this crystal clear clarity about your life and what you must do
- You’ll become enlightened (simply put: you won’t need external validation and you’ll trust yourself)
If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net
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Success Advice
How to Alter Your Business Approach With Technological Advancements
Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner.
Technology’s evolution has impacted everything, and business is no exception. Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner. Entrepreneurs unable to do so are being wiped out of the market.
There is no doubt that AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) have taken over the business world. These technological advancements are impacting decision-making, success percentages, and other entrepreneurial aspects.
Adapting to these developments is integral to business success. Let’s explore how you can accomplish these milestones.
Embed the strength of AI and ML.
AI has modified business operations in major ways. For instance, companies have employed bots for customer support. These bots go through an effective learning process via Machine Learning before being able to answer like humans.
Bots can also perform detailed data analytics and make business moves with high success percentages.
ML is used more for the analysis of data chunks and generating successful predictions. This simply means that business owners do not have to worry about large-scale financial losses.
In terms of deployment and usage, a reputed company like Netflix employs machine learning for decision-making.
Blockchain is increasing the count of business opportunities
Tampering of financial transactions is quite common and causes severe monetary damage to customers. With the rise of digital payments, this risk has increased.
Blockchain is used to elevate your experience for monetary transfers. It combats penetrating events to extract confidential customer information.
Most business sectors are using block chain but finance and supply chain management sections have a higher count. These two corporate sections have several monetary deposits and withdrawals taking place.
In terms of percentage, approximately 72% and 5% of finance and supply chain firms have implemented block chain successfully.
Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Learning and Individual Development
You invest in learning some of the very important skills, including digital marketing, financial management, and how to gain customers as an entrepreneur.
You need to set up your knowledge base about doing business on Coursera and Udemy with the basics that are necessary for the business, building further by networking with experts through webinars.
Besides, Agile methodology will introduce elasticity to your company: this review and feedback system with further correction regularly will allow for enhancing efficiency and promptly reacting to the market.
Developing key skills to achieve goals
Running a business successfully is not only about having niche/domain knowledge. Business owners need to have communication / soft skills as well in addition to niche information.
Here are some key technical/domain-related areas that business owners should have a strong grip on.
Data Storage on Cloud: These days, companies do not store their data on physical servers. Therefore business owners should know how data is stored/edited/removed/updated via AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and other platforms.
Data Analysis/Interpretation Qualities: These days, data is as precious as gold. Business owners with data analysis abilities make correct predictions. As a result, their ventures grow in volume.
Development/Coding Knowledge
Programming knowledge gives business owners an edge whether the application is developed in-house or outsourced. It assists in getting updates deployed and handling application underperformance without getting professional support every time.
Hacking proof framework
There is no benefit of having an advanced automated system if can be penetrated. Successful business owners have above-average knowledge of cyber security and hacking attempts. They are able to choose top-notch anti-hacking software without much of an ambiguity.
Communication Abilities/Soft Skills
Here are some key communication qualities that business owners should have:
Communication/Conversation: Business owners should use to-the-point sentences in both written and oral communication.
Issue Resolution Abilities: Business owners should be able to drill down to problems and solve them. This is done successfully only if an entrepreneur has in-depth business domain knowledge.
Agile Implementations
It is mandatory for business owners to have knowledge of iterative/agile models. With such a competitive environment, it is impossible for business owners to succeed without adopting an agile framework.
Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy
A productive business venture starts with a clear vision. The first factor making a business successful is the idea behind it. It helps with endless growth and combating competition successfully. Katherine Philips once mentioned that business goals are inevitable if goals are set concretely.
- Goals should be based on smart achievements instead of complexity. Focus on the value that each one of them adds.
- Business objectives should not be vague. Key indicators should be constructed to measure the success/failure of each milestone.
- Be realistic when setting goals. Do not aim at impossible milestones since they can be demotivating.
- Milestones/goals need to be time-bound. Set a completion deadline for each one of them.
- Business goals should not be alien. Owners can think out of the box but not be obsolete / unrelated.
Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy
Business owners cannot succeed without having a network. Some tips help in this case. Attend conferences and professional gatherings to connect with other entrepreneurs.
Here are some other related points business owners should pay attention to.
- Attend meetings and conferences to stay updated with trends and meet business owners who already have well-set ventures. This helps in enhancing the learning curve of new / growing entrepreneurs.
- Being a part of business communities/groups is very productive. When one shares opinions and discusses decision-making tactics, it helps in preventing errors and enhancing success rate.
- Even the most experienced business owners have mentors as learning never stops. Take part in mentorship programs so there is an assurance that you are following the correct roadmap.
Conclusion
There is absolutely no doubt that business dimensions have evolved with technological advancements. Successful entrepreneurs have grabbed these changes in due course of time and continue to evolve. On the other hand, people following old paths and conventional steps fade out of competition. In a nutshell, keep an eye on the processes and practices you follow as these factors decide success rate.
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From Couch Potato to Go-Getter: A Step-by-Step Motivation Plan for Everyone
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