Why do some people seem to travel up the success ladder at warp speed, while you’re still stuck where you are? As frustrating as this can be, the good news is success in work and in life is not some random game of chance. Granted, getting a promotion or successfully launching your business is far from a 100% exact science, but there’s plenty you can do to tip the scales in your favor.

Investing effort to develop the following 3 skills should help you in your journey:

1. Creativity

You may not think of yourself as a creative person. But, as it turns out, things are probably not so black and white. Despite what you may have been led to believe, creativity is not a gift that nature randomly either assigns or denies you. It’s a skill that can be developed.

For example, I’m sitting in my garage as I write this article. As I look around I see a barbecue grill and a bicycle. If I combine those two items into one idea I come up with the possibility of some type of delivery service that instead of providing Chinese or pizza, delivers fresh barbecue to your door.

If I look around a little further I see Christmas lights. If I add that to the mix, I come up with the idea of helping the brand stand out by decorating the delivery vehicles with colorful, neon lighting. Is that the best business idea ever? Maybe, maybe not.

But, by strategically synthesizing different things into one idea, I’ve thought of a new potential business in about two minutes. Using the strategy of synthesizing, I could come up with several ideas every day. Eventually, I’m bound to come up with a winner.

With practice, you might be able to do something similar. This strategy could be used to synthesize new ideas for products, marketing campaigns, and management strategies. Just try combining multiple ideas, items, or strategies into one and see what you come up with.

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” – Scott Adams

2. Public Speaking

Although terrifying to some, there are few activities that have more potential to enhance your success than public speaking. There’s no doubt about it, getting on stage in front of a large group of people is hard, especially when starting out.

However, when you think about it, even famous motivational speakers like Tony Robbins or Zig Ziglar were once beginners. And chances are, they were pretty nervous back then too. If they could overcome their fear, then so can you.

Several years ago, my father shared something with me that changed the way I thought about public speaking. He taught me that pretty much anyone could give a 10 minute (or even longer) speech, because everyone has at least one thing that they could talk about for that long. It might be your field of study, a great book, a new video game or your favorite soap opera.

Whatever the topic, chances are there is something that you would gladly talk about for hours, given the chance. The major difference with public speaking is that you’re talking to a group instead of an individual.

Public speaking can be an outstanding way to build authority for your brand and increase your income. So, how do you take advantage of that? First, you make a commitment to not let fear hold you back from achieving success in life. Next, educate yourself on a relevant, useful topic to such a degree that you could talk about it all day long. Finally, start practicing.

Take some time to study and familiarize yourself with a few basic public speaking techniques. Then, start small. (You could even start practicing in front of the mirror if you want.)

For example, try to be more vocal and contribute more in meetings. Consider offering to give a presentation at work. You could also try inviting a group of friends or colleagues to a get-together during which you give a speech or lead a discussion on a relevant topic.

As you gain experience, you’ll probably feel more comfortable. When that happens, you can try working your way up to larger and larger audiences. Eventually, you may find that you’re a highly sought after speaker with a top-notch income.

3. Listening

As simple as this one sounds, it might actually be the most important. It’s no secret that a major part of success is networking. At the heart of networking we find relationship building. At the heart of relationship building we find the ability to make others feel important, special, and well-liked. Being a great listener can do just that.

Among my acquaintances, I seem to be known as someone who connects easily with different types of people. My secret is actually quite simple.

Remember how I said just about everyone has something that they will gladly talk about given the opportunity? I just try to give them that opportunity. I ask questions until I discover something that they seem to enjoy talking about. Then, I listen, ask more questions about the subject and offer my own input as appropriate.

In my experience, this is a powerful strategy for building good relationships, even with people I’ve just met. Subjects I ask about in order to discover a topic that they enjoy talking about include:

• Job
• School
• Hobbies
• Entertainment
• Goals
• Family

“To be interesting, be interested.” – Dale Carnegie

Even though some people do seem to rise to the top through pure luck, I prefer to not leave things to chance. If luck doesn’t find you, then I suggest you create your own luck.

These three skills can help enormously on your journey to success. I suggest you choose one of these abilities and begin investing time and effort throughout the next week to start developing some mad skills. I think you’ll enjoy what follows if you do.

Which one of the above three skills do you need to work on most and why? Please comment below as we all want to help one another.

Image courtesy of Twenty20.com

In the last 6 and a half years I have been fortunate enough to network with some of the world’s most successful leaders in my industry, quit my day job, feature in films (Think & Grow Rich comes out Mid October, 2017) and travel half way around the world and this has all been made possible just by blogging about my passion “Personal Development“. I was even offered Millions of dollars to sell Addicted2Success 3 years into my journey but I turned the multiple offers down because I believed that I was just scratching the tip of the iceberg of what was to come with my brands growth and the positive impact we could have on this world.

There has been some ups and downs a long the way, some technical issues and doubts that I have faced, but I am lucky that I stuck it out because I have learned over time, what does and does not work when it comes to creating a successful blog.

So here are 10 things that I have learned along the way that I feel are super important for any blogger out there to know.

1. You Have to Have a Vision

6 and a half years ago I casted my 10 Year Vision for Success whilst sitting in a workshop with Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of WallStreet. I wrote out a 6 page Vision and started with the 10th year and reversed engineered it back to that very day of 14th April, 2011.

By the 6th year I was already living in my original 10 year Vision. This is the power of a Vision Game Plan. Your Vision disciplines you, it chooses your friends for you, it teaches you what to say “Yes” to and what to say “No” to. This plan has kept me on track over the last 6 and a half years and is the core reason why Addicted2Success has become the top Motivation & Inspiration Digital Media company online.

I remember working up in the desert of Western Australia catching snakes, lizards and kangaroos and many other wild Australian animals in the environmental team during some of the hottest days of summer in 130 degree fahrenheit heat. Although the money was good, the shifts were long as I was working 12 hour shifts, 28 days straight and was surrounded by negative people who did not believe in my dreams.

My vision pulled me through the tough times in the beginning and inspired me to work additional hours in my day to overtake my 9-5 income to a point where I had to tell my boss this 9-5 job was costing me too much to be here.

2. Don’t Try and be an Ace at Everything

You will burn yourself out and spread yourself way too thin. Eventually you will want to be covering every angle but to begin with pick one avenue and dominate that field.

Addicted2Success.com was my main focus to begin with. I could have started a podcast, written a book or Vlogged my way to the masses but I knew if I spread myself too thin in the beginning then it would take me 2 – 3x longer to hit my 10 year vision of 10 million views worldwide (which, by the way we are only 6 and a half years into the vision and we have hit 133 Million views so far. Im telling you a 10 Year Vision works!).

When I first started out, I chose Twitter to be the #1 social media platform to promote Addicted2Success.com. I made sure that it was a finally tuned channel, and the traffic from Twitter would then convert into Facebook traffic and mailing list subscribers. I then moved to Facebook and focused on that and so on and so on..

Twitter isn’t what it used to be but it sure did start as a great stepping stone that has lead us to a combined social media following of 2,500,650 followers across all channels to this day.

Find the hottest Social Media platform now and dominate the space so you can elevate from platform to platform like we did at Addicted2Success.

3. Don’t Alienate Yourself

Don’t forget that you are part of a community. The worldwide web is a community of people who are sharing information with one another. If someone has created a great article that you have been inspired by, why not refer to that article by linking to them. Other bloggers love this and in most cases (not all) will link back to you, visit your blog or tell others about you sometime in the future.

I used to think that if I linked out to others that this would take away from my blog. The truth is, people will look at other websites anyway. They will remember that you hooked them up with links to quality articles and bloggers and they are more likely to come back to you out of a loyalty for your quality at the end of the day.

I believe Abundance is a practice and to be honest, I didn’t crack through the lack mentality to reach the land of more abundance until I practiced sharing the success with others.

The Serial Entrepreneur & Best Selling Author “Yanik Silver“ once said to me:

“Why worry about breaking off too many pieces of the pie? When you can just bake more pies”.

So the lesson is, there is more than enough to go around, so share and care and you will be amazed by how many amazing opportunities come back and how many people will be willing to support you in your journey.

4. No More Billboard’n

One big standout mistake that I see a lot of bloggers make is covering their entire site in ads. Choosing to throw an annoying ad that is totally unrelated to the content you post right in your viewers face as soon as they enter the site, or even placing a video ad in the middle of a 200 word article is super douchey and people can tell that you are all about the money and that your priority is not about delivering valuable content to your audience.

You don’t want your site to look like a billboard. It devalues your website and is very distracting. If your viewers wanted to see an overload of ads they would just google a video of Times Square and stare at that.

5. You Can’t Do It All Alone

My good friend and business mentor “Tai Lopez” told me many years ago “You can’t do it all, if you wanna go big-time you need to find a partner that will compliment your weaknesses so you can focus on your strengths.”

Bill Gates had Paul Allen, Warren Buffett has Charlie Monger, Steve Jobs had Steve Wozniak. They all found a strong, skilled partner to take their business to the next level.

I have aligned with a few business partners who are incredible at what they do and this has only added to the business and vision, it has never taken from it. That’s why I love helping others to achieve success online too. I create guides and run mastermind groups to show others how I have been able to achieve this success online so they too can help and inspire others with their journey.

If you haven’t already, make sure you get your hands on my guide, The Formula (The Secret Ingredients of Online Success)

This is the guide that I wish I had 6 and a half years ago. If I had this knowledge back then I would be where I am today in 1 to 2 years.

 

6. Understand Your Audience

Do you know what niche’ you fall under? A lot of people are just throwing everything out there that they think will stick and they are not holding or attracting their viewer’s attention because their subject is a little too broad.

Work out what your niche is. If it is a website about “The Art Of Hackey Sacking” then stick to hackey sacks. Don’t expand it out to sports of all sorts because it loses its edge and becomes a website that is going to leave you in a cesspool of millions of others that are covering the same old topics.

One guy in the US pulls in $10,000 a month from his blog about fancy cactus designs. If he can make 10k from cactus lov’n, you can just about make it with any creative niche’ that comes to mind.

7. Don’t Copy Your Competition

In most cases in business it is a great idea to study your competition so that you can out compete them. In the world of blogging, don’t do it! The key is to have your own unique flair and to be found by YOUR like-minded peers through search engines.

So if you are just writing articles the way that you would, and you are not writing an article for the sake of competing with an other, then you will position yourself in a place where you have no competition.

Multi Millionaire blogger Pete Cashmore said something that really resonated with me, he said:

“We are really competing against ourselves, we have no control over how other people perform.”

Pete Cashmore hit the nail right on the head with that one. Just do you! and you will be rewarded for it over time.

8. Use Your Blog As Leverage

Once you get a good amount of traffic in place ie..10,000+ a month then you can really start leveraging off that. Reach out to those with a large follower base and exposure than you and ask them if they would like to be featured on your site. Once you feature them, send them a ReTweet link or an e-mail blast out letter of the article that you featured them in so that they can share it with their network.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, among many celebrities who have supported Addicted2Success over the years, seemed to appreciate whenever we would write articles about him and every time he would share our articles on his Twitter channel we would get a flood of 10,000+ viewers.

I have also been able to use Addicted2Success and its reach to build a successful podcast called The Addicted2Success Podcast which is one of the top Business podcasts right now featuring Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Gary Vaynerchuk, Gabby Bernstein, Jack Canfield, Simon Sinek, Grant Cardone and 100+ other incredible leaders.

Start being resourceful. Look for ways that you can platform and leverage yourself off other materials and connections you have in your reach.

9. Minimize Your Page Load Time

Google pays a lot of attention nowadays to page speeds when it comes to SEO. All you need to do is head over to Google’s Page Speed Test and run a test on your domain name and it will give you an idea of what changes are needed to speed up your website load time.

I run Addicted2Success through CloudFlare which not only secures my site from DDoS attacks but surprisingly speeds up my page load time by 20%. Cloudflare is free and easy to set up so you should check it out when you get a chance.

The more graphics, flash and plugins you have on your page, the slower your site is going to load. Sometimes you have to sacrifice big files for a faster load. So it is a good idea to go back through your site and see what is in your sidebar, what plugins are activated and what un necessary old content is taking too long to load.

10. Get In The Zone (a little feng shui blogging)

So this has got to be one of the most important parts of blogging, which I believe has played an important part in my success online.

So before you start your day with blogging make sure you have had something to eat, something to drink and you are comfortable in your environment. Make sure that you have a clear and concise idea of how much time you have to work online for the day. Remove any distractions around you and time block your social media explorations so that you aren’t wasting your time on Facebook, reading ridiculous stories about Justin Bieber and cats.

If you want to inspire the world with your content then you need to live buy the rule of “Create > Consume”. Don’t be ruled by the robots, unplug and create so your content can be consumed by everybody else.

Make sure you start your day right with a little stretching, exercise, hydration and gratitude or prayer. Something that awakens a little energy in you, because you will need it when it comes time to be creative and to shine online. It may sound a little cheesy but if it helps you to feel more professional by wearing a suit, a beanie, or even having a coffee at arm’s length, then do it!

You have to be in the zone to produce your best material.

As you can imagine we are just scratching the surface with what I have written above. So Here’s One of the Facebook LIVE Videos I shot out in Colombia where I answered online business questions that I think you will Love:

If you love this article please don’t forget to share it and if you’d love to learn step by step how I built a blog worth millions with millions of views and millions of followers make sure you get a copy of my guide – THE FORMULA (The Secret Ingredients of Online Success).

There’s this dude at the office. He’s fucking unstoppable.

His shit don’t stink and everything he touches turns to gold. At least that’s what I used to think.

Really, in reality, he’s just charismatic.

That’s how he got the cool job, the hot wifey and why everyone wants to be friends with him including me.

What does he do? Let’s delve a little deeper and discuss the eight things that lead to being charismatic:

1. Being confident baby!

This dude at work has swag. He backs himself even if he has no freaking idea what’s going to go down homey. In a business context, people that are confident are proven to be more trustworthy.

We trust confident people because it’s infectious. We want to work and be around confident people because it feels good. When something feels good, we do it, and do it lots!

My buddy at work walks into the room and people shake his hand because his presence changes the game. He also does these few things:

– He dresses confidently
– He pops his chest out just a fraction (not like the guy on the Bonds Singlet packet)
– He looks people in the eye

Out of these three, looking people in the eye is the hardest to do. To look into someone’s eye is the most vulnerable state you can put yourself in.

“The difference is that when you’re vulnerable, you connect with people better”

It also shows that you’ve got guts and allows you to enter their world. Okay, that’s wacky stuff and I may sound like I’ve read one too many “Power Of the Universe” type books. Take it or leave it chief.

2. Passion surrounds them. It pours out of their eyeballs!

Even the words I write demonstrate this. You can tell from everything I’m saying right now that passion pours out of me. I freaking love what I do and it shows even though you can’t see me or hear my voice. Okay, that’s a fraction creepy…enough about me.

This almighty bloke at work is charismatic because his values and beliefs are based on his passion. Passion is like a magnet according to science. When we see passion, it makes us start acting with more passion. You’re drawn to charisma in the same way because you want more of it.

There’s no point pretending you don’t like to be passionate because we all do. Sometimes, we just get lost and lose our passion for life or our career. That’s okay! None of us are perfect souls who don’t lose our way once in a while. I’m fucking lost more than I’m on track half the time.

Bottom-line: charismatic people are surrounded by passion. I don’t care if it’s collecting matchsticks or building sand castles – find something to get excited about and then show your passion for it.

3. They’re not vain: selfies are not their highest priority.

This charismatic chappy at work doesn’t spend half his days taking selfies of himself and then posting it on social media.

He doesn’t take photos of his food and then post it on social – he just eats it. He’d rather jump off a bridge than be a pretentious snob who’s insecure and has an inflated ego to compensate.

“The number one sign of a pretentious person vs a charismatic person is that they take credit for things they didn’t do”

Or they make things sound ten times bigger than they actually are in reality. Don’t fall for this trap young Indiana Jones. You’re better than that!

4. Expressing yourself through great stories

Storytelling is one of the many traits a charismatic person has. If you listen closely to their stories, you’ll notice they use strong phrases like “I know X to be true” instead of phrases like “I think,” or “I hope” which sounds weak.

Through stories, you can be: funny, vulnerable and share embarrassing moments. That’s what charismatic people do and they draw everyone in through their stories. As a side note, their stories don’t go on forever and they know how to get to the point.

Become a charismatic poet through stories about your experiences. Educate and inspire people around you and you’ll be acting charismatic by default.

5. Make other people feel comfortable around you

Not everyone is a hero and is comfortable being charismatic and confident. You can demonstrate charisma by learning to make others feel relaxed around you. Make other people the center of attention and let them feel special. There’s a subtle difference between charisma and hogging the conversation with your own bombastic, overpowering, unnecessary and selfish talk.

Back down; you’re not that big of a deal. Once you do that, you’ll have entered the universe of charisma.

6. A clear purpose and vision. In other words, they know why.

Part of what makes up the DNA of a charismatic person is their purpose or vision for their life. Quite simply, they know what they’re on this planet to do. They have a goal, it’s measurable, and they’ll stop at nothing until they achieve it.

To be in this state requires a certain sort of self-confidence that charismatic people have in spades. People seem to rally around a person who knows their purpose.

You can’t do anything and be motivated unless you know why. Without a why you’ll never build up enough momentum to reach any sort of peak performance. Mediocrity happens to us when we give up too easily. When we start a new pursuit for 4 weeks and then give up.

Map the seven seas of why you exist. Do a heap of self-reflection if you need to, to find this vision and bring it to the surface.

7. They look approachable

Most people look like they’re zombies when you walk past them and they almost look like they’re going to explode if you dare talk to them. That’s not charisma pal!

That unapproachable zombie look is called being scared, fearful and afraid due to a lack of self-awareness and a lack of self-improvement. It’s not the end of the world and it can be turned around.

The difference with charismatic people is one little, tiny thing: they smile. All you have to do is change one little thing – smile a bit more. Smiling is contagious and it makes people feel confident. It also makes you feel freaking amazing too!

8. They give more than anyone else and expect jack in return

This last one is the toughest trait of charismatic people. It sounds incredibly difficult and that’s because it is. We all have our own selfish desires that make us feel good, although only for a moment.

Charismatic people wow everyone around them by always going above and beyond to give. They either give time, money, knowledge or a listening ear to those who need it. The crazy, passionate, charismatic people even combine several of these to produce an outcome that can only be described as extraordinary.

Many of us do in fact give; the challenge is we expect something back. Worse, we even complain when we do an honorable act and get nothing in return. This is not how to play the game of life. This selfish behavior will make you very unhappy until you cut it the hell out!

“The secret to living is giving ” Tony Robbins

So let’s go over this one more time boss. To harness the superpower of giving that leads to charisma you must:

– Be prepared to give more than anybody else
– Expect nothing in return
– Ensure your own foolish and selfish desires are not front of mind every day

If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net

Everyone has dreams. We all want to make something of ourselves yet it’s only a tiny percentage of people ever follow through. The self-help world encourages us to “Think Big”, “Follow Your Passions”, “Live as if there was no such thing as failure” and it usually just leads to keeping people stuck in a dream state, wishing, hoping and fantasizing yet never actually moving forward.

Why is this? Thinking big is just one part of the equation. This missing piece in the jigsaw is a bias towards massive action. Big Dreams + Little Action = disappointment and frustration.

Thinking and dreaming big must match with the equal and equivalent amount of action for it to go anywhere. When you combine big thinking with massive action you will be surprised at how much you are capable of, once you tap into the power of momentum.

What stops most people from achieving their goals?

I’ve been reading Grant Cardone’s “The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure” and in his view success comes from taking 10 times more action than you previously anticipated.

What stops most people from achieving a goal is underestimating the time, effort and energy involved in completing the project. They don’t spend enough time listing the steps required to succeed, the adversity they will need to overcome to push things through and the price they must pay to attain the goal.

If the number one sticking point in goal attainment is a lack of action then it’s obvious that the solution is in massive action. So what happens is they give up at the first sign of frustration or disappointment.

“Never reduce a target. Instead increase actions. When you start rethinking your targets, making up excuses, and letting yourself off the hook, you are giving up on your dreams.” – Grant Cardone

When I look back on my own life, anything I have ever achieved that was worthwhile did take an extraordinary amount of effort. Anytime I have ever coasted or done a “normal” amount of work, I would fall short of my target and feel the pain of frustration and disappointment which lead to reducing my targets.

In “The 10 X Rule” Cardone talks about his own failures in business and how he bounced back; “I committed to making this work by increasing my efforts 10 times. And as soon as I did that, everything started to change – immediately. I went back into the marketplace with the right estimation of effort and started seeing results. Instead of making two to three calls a day, I started doing 20 to 30”

Most people fail only because they are operating at the wrong degree of action. There are 4 degrees of action which you can choose from:

1. Do Nothing
2. Retreat
3. Take Normal Levels of Action
4. Take Massive Action

At the “do nothing” level people are just accepting what comes their way. They are not pushing themselves or motivated to improve any area of their lives.

Retreaters are those who have taken action, experienced some setbacks or failures and retreated back into “doing nothing”. Examples of this include “Most businesses fail anyway so I am going to give up”, “Marriages aren’t working out these days so I will stay single”, “Businesses aren’t employing so I am going to file for unemployment benefit”.

The third degree is normal levels of action which is usually considered adequate. Grant says this is the most dangerous level where most people blend in, never stand out and thus never achieve the real success they wanted.

Lastly there is massive action which Cardone states is our most natural state. This is where you burst forth with 10 times the action you previously anticipated. “The goal is to be seen, thought of and considered – in one way or another. Your only problem is obscurity not talent”.

Obscurity is your only problem not talent. I like that. I am sure you all know someone who is less capable than you but experiencing much more success than you are. Why? Because they are more known and fearlessly putting themselves “out there”. So which degree of action are you taking currently? And will you commit to taking 10x action?

“Regardless of which degree of action you operate in, they all require work in their own way.” – Grant Cardone

So why not set your goals and actions higher than you ever imagined because it is highly likely you are not only underestimating the time, energy and effort involved in your endeavour, you are also likely underestimating your own capabilities and potential. Set high goals and never stop fighting.

Share with us one goal you have for 2017, and how you plan on achieving it. Comment below so we can see!