Keep Your Head Above Water

Imagine a pool. Imagine moving from the shallow end towards the deep end of the pool. Do you let your head go below the water or do you keep your head above water? If you go far enough into the deep end, will you sink or swim?

In a business setting, there are no pools or oceans, so why is it that when it comes to making business decisions, people seem to have their heads below water?

The answer is simple: their heads are in a pool of emotions.

Whether it’s a pool of water or a pool of emotions, to give your business the chance at its well-deserved success, you must keep your head above the pool. You must acknowledge that you, like everyone you know, has emotions floating around inside which will never change-it’s part of our psychological makeup. The key is to identify how your emotions are influencing your vision and business model, accept your emotions as what they are, and isolate them so that your business decisions and behavior can be based on rational strategic planning, rather than emotional and irrational thinking.

Your “business” may be the business of either your professional or your personal life. Despite what project you are actively working to develop, your decisions determine its development and lifeline. Your thoughts heavily influence, if not determine, your actions. Even no decision or action is a decision, because you are choosing to forgo moving forward, which leaves you stagnant. In everything you do, you have a choice – even when there seems like there is no choice, there is one. You are rejecting viable choices and resisting change because of fear and doubt; It’s your emotions that are clouding your vision. Making choices suggests change and with change comes fear, doubt, and anxiety. Your fears likely have little to do with the decision at hand, but more to do with your own individual hang-ups. I can help you put them aside on the Freudian couch so you can head to the boardroom where your business decisions belong. To make a decision you have to make choices that reflect your strategic planning rather than your emotional state of mind. When your emotions are flooding your thoughts and your personal life is your focus, you need to isolate emotions and you go see a mental health professional; when your emotions are getting in the way of your professional life and/or the development of your business, you need to isolate emotions and you go to MyBrandStrategist.

Give Your Business a Chance at a Championship

It’s almost time for Game 6 of the 2009 World Series, who will take the championship this year? Will the Yankees end the series tonight taking their 27^th World Series Championship in their new stadium from the Phillies? The question is whether the two teams (Yankees and Phillies) will approach this game with more intensity, less intensity, or the same intensity than previous games? Does the Yankees’s 3-2 lead have each team more hungry and driven to win tonight’s game because it may be the last game or less driven because it may be the last game?

Imagine being a fly on the wall in the dugouts of each team: Is there a sentiment suggesting chickens are being counted before they are hatched? Let’s hope for each team’s sake that there needn’t be a fly in the dugout biting them as a reminder to abandon any thoughts that the outcome is already set. Moreover, strategy is contingent upon continuous strategizing in response to unforeseeable actions and reactions.

Similarly, although a leader of an existing company or a company in its theoretical framework may think he or she has a plan or two, is that enough? Think about it. If a business leader does not consider the business’s core makeup and goals inside out from multiple angles then the only place for the business really is in Vegas where gambling is commonplace.

Human error has people more often than not coming up with a solution before fully grasping the nature of the challenge, leaving the solution full of holes to sink the ship if, and/or when, the ship finds itself in rougher waters than anticipated. So what does this mean? There’s a great saying,“ when you make a plan, g-d laughs” that should be kept in mind in business, love, and life.  It’s fun and exciting to write out goals, but it’s the execution of planning and development that ensures when it’s time to go up to bat, you have considered every pitch the pitcher has for you to swing at in order for you to achieve the goal of hitting a home run so that your team can reach its goal of winning the game (albeit the World Series). Bottom line is to know the intrinsic nature which include emotions, behaviors, and goals of a system, project, or entity and be aware of extrinsic factors and the interplay between them(albeit a number of possible outcomes) AND don’t be too complacent and hardheaded in your business model that you are shutting out new ideas and new ways of approaching business.

Give your business the opportunity to know itself inside out from multiple angles and manipulations and work together with MyBrandStrategist so that it is fully equip and ready to swing a home run at any viable pitch thrown its way…

Don’t Judge A Business by Its Cover

Have you ever had someone tell you how to overcome a challenge in a project without you telling them what the actual problem is? They
assume that they have all the information necessary because they have
dealt with lots of challenges related to other projects.

Likewise, have you ever had a teacher or boss size you up based upon arbitrary hunches, often assuming something untrue? We can even take an example from the dating world when at some point you that assumed someone was or wasn’t a good match for you based on superficial and  somewhat fleeting characteristics, when you later found out just how wrong you were about your assumption.

If you are nodding your head by now, then you should know as well as I do that all it did was limit the possibilities and take much more time to get to success.

My conviction to you is this: a person can’t know all their possibilities before they discover who they are and who they want to be, neither can a business.

Your life is your business, is it not? When people want help with the
business of their life, they go to therapy. Human nature has us
asking for help to solve a problem rather than asking for help in
developing a strategic plan to avoid a problem. People assume that
therapy is to “fix” something in someone’s life; however, therapy is
simply there to communicate what your life consists of and
provides a sounding board for decision-making strategies for you to apply using behavior as your tool. Therapists can,  if you let them, help you create ways to reach your goals and avoid failures as best as possible through understanding who you are and what you genuinely want and need to
feel satisfied and yes, happy. Therapists help you define what happiness means to you, what your values are, and what dilutes the feeling of happiness.

Similarly, a business’s happiness is when its goals are achieved and failures are minimal. The personality of the business determines how it achieves its goals and avoids and/ or responds to failures. Uncovering the personality of a business and what the business is defined by is essential to discovering not just a strategy, but the right strategy for the business entity. Then the business can determine how to best use itself through its development and behavior to achieve its own inherent goals.

Whether you are the person running the business of your life, or the person running the business of a business entity, discovering strengths, weaknesses, wants, needs, and goals may be the resisted road less traveled, but it’s the one to take you to the other side where the unknown possibilities lie dormant.

Join me on my mission to help businesses move into the next level-their inner stream of consciousness! Discover your business’s  needs, wants, and goals through a strategic assessment developed by MyBrandStrategist to ensure that you develop not just a plan, but the right strategic plan based on the “Who” and “What” of your business entity.

Are you ready or not? Well, your business is ready so it’s time for you, ready or not, to let MyBrandStrategist in…

Face the Truth, the Value is there

Have you ever tried to follow a recipe of a Celebrity Chef like Bobby Flay’s to make a special meal, but tried to use spray when it calls for oil? It certainly is edible, but is it as good as it would be with the oil. Let’s be honest, absolutely not! When you think about it, is Bobby Flay about cutting calories, or is another Celebrity Chef specifically known for that?  Nevertheless, following the actual recipe by using oil versus spray is the natural way, the way that ensures the flavor that the original chef and expert meant for his or her creation to be made.  Point is, adaptation is great, but it changes the brand and in truth, the essence of the entity.

Using the chef-recipe example, when you are building a business you aren’t cooking for your diet- you are cooking to sell to customers. If you are diet-determined- use spray in your recipe, not in place of the original ingredient…be you, let it be its intended self. Why? Because YOU are YOU.  Allow and encourage your business to be itself-it will attract the customers that are there to stay, rather than who are going to be there once and affect your predictions for your annual profit.

Take stock in what your strengths and weaknesses from the get-go
rather than avoiding or rejecting what’s true to find out right before
your big “moment” that you really didn’t evaluate and leverage your
value proposition. Ask the hard questions that take you more time than
you would have imagined to answer. It’s rather simple, the more
problems you find early on, the more solutions you will be (should be)
forced to develop, and the more strategic your model will be.

Facing the truth is much easier and wiser than spending all the time, energy, and money used running away from it because eventually that’s what you need to find to succeed.

Passing the Torch

There are songs about it. Books about it. Movies about it…letting go
is hard to do.

Letting go of control is key to reaching the top of insurmountable mountains.

Imagine a house being built. Is it reasonable to anticipate the
architect, the builder, and the owner of the house to be the same
person? No, of course not. Then why do entrepreneurs insist on being
the builder, architect, and owner of their business? Letting go of
control is essential to reach the highest peak. Strengths and
weaknesses are not a figment of an imagination, they exist and are
undeniable in some cases. This point lends to how when I invest in my
home or my business, I only want the best…I only want strengths to
build my entity. Pass the torch. You have your vision (maybe). You
have you passion (entrepreneurial passion, I bet). Be sure to develop
your home and/or your business into the best it can be…leaving your
ego aside, focusing on your entity’s needs and wants so it can have
the best shot at success.

Letting go of people, expectations, money, fame, lies, fear…it’s
related…it boils down to one thing, control. Why not let go of some
control to give your dream more strength from outside sources to soar?
Be honest with yourself, is your control just a cover up
for a weakness or insecurity that you are afraid to face and change?

If you want to give your business the greatest chance at success, just like putting a child on a school bus so he or she can get to school to receive a formal education to grow, figure out when and where you need to Pass the Torch so your business can grow

Life is a journey, not a destination

In 2006, I left South Florida, the clinical psychology doctorate program I was in, my immediate family, and the rest of what was comfortable for me to live my life where my life began (in New York) pursue my career goals where I felt the energy was like no other (in New York) see my little cousins grow up (in New York) and mostly, be who I am (even if that meant wanting to figure it out) Life is a journey, not a destination, right?

Figuring out who I was has been my journey…Knowing who I am is the destination…being who I am and channeling my entrepreneurial passion along my path is my current journey…

Do you see your life as a journey or a destination, or both?

Do you see your journey as the steps you take towards a goal,  your goal being a destination?

Hello world!

Well HELLO WORLD…I finally have arrived!

I am so excited to begin my journey of blogging; I am fresh out of the oven, but I can guarantee this meal’s got flavor, spice, and no, not always everything nice;)

Before I start my opinionated, direct, and smart (that’s the goal) blog, some basic features are needed… Stay Tuned world, I’m on my way…