Article Contributed by Dr. Joey Faucette
While studying Great Depression businesses created by successful entrepreneurs, I discovered five core practices that were daily habits for them. They asked themselves five questions daily that charted their course to success.
You become a successful business person, also, by asking yourself these same five questions daily:
What Am I Thinking?
It really is all in your head. Everything starts or stops there. Your thoughts guide your every action, relationship, and sale. Your thoughts either help or hinder your journey through the current economy. Your business either succeeds or sucks because of your thoughts.
Positively successful people guard their thoughts religiously, insuring that they only rent space to positive ones. They place border guards around their mind that maintain a singular perspective: focus on the positive and filter out the negative. They have little patience with purveyors of negativity—think 24/7 news channels—and constantly feed their minds mentally positive nourishment.
Who Am I Attracting?
While success begins in your head, it bears fruit in relationships with customers, clients, suppliers, team members and others with whom you invest time. As Jim Rohn reminded us so well, “You are the average of the five persons with whom you spend the most time.”
Positively successful professionals guard their relationships like their thoughts, insuring they invest time only in positive ones. They have firm social boundaries that limit availability to negative persons—“Eeyore Vampires”—and focus on attracting ideal customers, clients, team members, and suppliers. They know it costs too much to do business with some people and delete them from their contact databases.
Why Am I Working?
Success begins in your head, and reflects back through relationships into your heart. “Why am I working?” clarifies your purpose and desire. Successful people engage emotionally on a passionate level with their labor. Their work matters.
This positive engagement fuels their imagination and frees them emotionally to discover solutions to customers’ problems in innovative, added-value ways. Such creative expression satisfies their “Why?” and furthers their success journey.
How Am I Doing?
Positively successful business people understand that the what, who, and why questions beg for reflection, i.e., “How am I doing?” The key is to acknowledge areas for improvement while accelerating what’s moving forward now.
Their singular focus is, “How am I strategically acting on my what, who, and why?” This positive focus is the clear pathway to successful achievements.
Where Am I Going?
These Great Depression gurus understood that once positive results emerge from their positive mental, social, and emotional achievements, the successful path requires sustaining. You must keep going.
They discovered that what serves them best is to serve others. They ethically acted in the best interests of their team and community, giving servant leadership to improve others’ lives daily. Gratitude for their achievements fueled their philanthropy.
So how’s your work? Ask yourself these five questions daily and enjoy success as you Work Positive!
About the Author
Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), Business Success coach, & speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they leave the office earlier to do what they love with those they love. Discover more at www.GetPositive.Today.