Attitude - Action - Lifestyle

Business philosopher Jim Rohn says; "Philosophy drives attitude. Attitude drives actions. Actions drive results. Results drive lifestyles." If you don't like your lifestyle, look at your results. If you don't like your results, look at your actions. If you don't like your actions, look at your attitude. If you don't like your attitude, look at your philosophy.

Who Are You Around?

Who you associate with says a lot about you. The environment you are in influences you greatly. You want to stay around positive, enthusiastic, uplifting people and stay away from the negative energy draining individuals. If you want to fly with the eagles you can't continue to scratch with the turkeys. Think about your own relationships. Some people you should probably spend more time with, others less and some you stop seeing altogether. Then there may be some new contacts you should initiate. Do it!

Hindsight Is 20/20

It is always easy to look back at something once you have all the information and all the insight, after the fact and realize what happened. The real litmus test is to ask yourself; "If I had to do it all over again, and I have the exact same information I did at the time, would I still make the same decision?" If the answer is yes, you probably made the best decision.

Break And Repair

We have heard about stress testing of the banking industry recently. The logic is interesting; when you break it you know how to repair it. When I was little I liked to pull things apart and put them back together again. Don't be afraid to push the limits of your systems. There is a lot of learning available here. If you break it you can fix it and prevent it from happening again in the future.

Two Year Anniversary

Today it is exactly two years ago since Bottleneck Blog was started. One of the keys to success is continuous, lifelong learning. Since the shelf life of knowledge is getting shorter, it's become more important than ever if you want to stay competitive. At the same time information is more readily available. But what you need is not information, but insight - or wisdom, which is the prudent application of knowledge. The question is how you learn and what you do with what you learn.

As A Man Thinketh

What you think about yourself and your prospects in life and business is vitally important to your results. James Allen in his famous little book As a Man Thinketh says; All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is a direct result of his own thoughts. You become what you think about most of the time.

Correct For Skewed Vision

Myopia is a refractive defect of the eye causing nearsightedness or shortsightedness. We have to correct for a skewed vision all the time. In marketing it can help us redefine what business we are in. If a buggy whip manufacturer in early 1900's would have defined its business as the "transportation starter business", they might have been able to make the creative leap necessary to move into the automobile business when technological change demanded it.