Entrepreneurship – Stop the Negative Energy
Published March 7, 2012 | 
The difference between “can” and “cannot” are only three uncomplicated letters, three simple letters that have the power to change and determine your life’s direction.
Crush Negativity
All of us have inner thoughts constantly peppering ourselves with thoughts, like whenever your inner voice is quick to snap out things like, “How could you forget that, you idiot” or “whew, it’s a good thing you remembered that.” Most of us are our own worst critic, and sometimes the noise inside our own heads can be our principal stressor. So when negative thoughts pop up more often than they should, just imagine a proverbial stop sign in your head, and slam on the brakes to tell yourself, “Stop!”
Successful entrepreneurs turn things around with positive energy, and trading in the internal put-downs for positive patterns of thoughts and encouragements. A perfect example is when you feel tired during a tough workout, and think, “I am strong” or “I’m going to finish this” when you start work on a difficult task, think, “I can accomplish anything I set my mind to.” In doing so, you empower yourself with positive energy to think positive.
Make the decision that YOU are going to be the one to decide what YOUR thoughts are and will be. You can control what you think about with a daily effort to consciously program positive thoughts and self-encouragements flowing into your mind.
Surround yourself with positive people. It’s true that “birds of a feather flock together.” But, it’s the same with both highly-positive and highly-negative people. Your friends need to be generally positive with little to complain about, rather than negative. If they are negative, then it’s going to be very difficult for you to maintain positive energy. Be honest with yourself and you may, very well, need to make some new friends.
Refuse to accept negativity when you know it’s undeserved. If you’re accused of wasting your time, simply tell yourself that it’s not what I think, it’s not what I believe and I deserve praise instead. 
However, don’t ignore any positive or constructive criticism; otherwise you’ll end up missing out on a lot of great ideas.
Change your language. Get rid of words like ‘should’ve’, ‘could’ve’ and ‘might’ve’. Those aren’t action words and you need to talk action and make promises you are more likely to stick to.
Think for yourself and use your initiative instead of waiting for people. Realize and understand that you can’t waste a lot of time by waiting for others to act that never will.
Brilliant Business Ideas – Avoid Opportunity Greed
Published June 20, 2011 | How to Avoid Opportunity Greed
The “great battle” that faces entrepreneurs each day is to filter through many potentially great ideas and then to decide 
which ones are worthy of pursuit.
I have seen businesses fail regularly from ‘opportunity greediness.’ Understand that when you as an entrepreneur decide to do even one too many ideas you overextend yourself and the whole thing collapses, sometimes slowly… sometimes quickly, but the whole thing collapses.
If you haven’t experienced this as an entrepreneur yet, what happens as an entrepreneur is that you gain a group of friends who are always quick to toss around their ideas and without fail strongly suggest that you get involved with them, but your best answer should more often than not be no. Never forget that you have to remain clearly focused with your own idea.
Whenever you are presented with additional opportunities or challenged with a decision that could have an enormous game-changing impact. You should always ask yourself if the projected results and conclusions are aligned with your core values, beliefs and way of thinking. If the answer is “yes they are,” then you will have made certain that you are not straying from your true course, remaining clear and focused on the achievement of your established objectives and goals. 
If they aren’t, you may most certainly be setting up conditions for conflict and ultimate failure.
I have found it can also help create greater understanding within yourself to honestly evaluate why you tend to react certain ways whenever an opportunity presents itself to you. If you take the time to investigate and reach a clear understanding of your initial reaction, which is usually an emotionally-driven knee-jerk response, you then are completely able to allow yourself to pause, take a step back, and honestly evaluate the situation in an objective manner.
Finally, by doing these things, you will gain more clarity, and make more enlightened choices that will be in keeping with you intention of being the most successful entrepreneur at whatever you choose to do.
Strategies of Successful Entrepreneurs: Mastering the Markets
Published March 5, 2010 | Entrepreneurs who have owned and operated their business for very long have learned to appreciate the impact the global economy can have on their businesses, even at a local level that seems to be in relatively good shape in comparison to other niche m
arkets, and the ripple effect of negative market conditions tend to migrate both nationally and globally, sometimes very slowly, yet at times quickly depending on the initial market impact.
The track economies take always goes up in good times and then comes down in more challenging market conditions, and then back up, riding the optimism of good times followed by the pessimism of shrinking markets, and back up again, leaving the entrepreneur with greater challenges to successfully adjust operations during economic downturns, and the timing of the adjustments is critical to both lessen the effect of negative conditions, and take full advantage of positive market conditions in the most timely manner, and increase the positive effect on the bottom line profit.
The first thing global entrepreneurs need to do to master their markets is grow emotional skin thick enough to not only keep from feeling sorry when the economy slows, but also not to get too excited when the economies turn, start to grow, and begin performing at higher levels.
A realization and considerable understanding has to be developed and reached about the ebb and flow of economic conditions of the markets, as they are going to do what the markets are going to do normally in reaction to ever changing economic conditions both positive and negative, and of course there is very little that anyone can do to 
change the natural occurrence of economic events and cycles, although well-intentioned governments tend to always try and take actions to positively impact economic cycles, but too many times they only succeed in the exacerbation and extension of the negative portion of the cycles.
Once Entrepreneurs are able to gain greater control of their emotions it becomes easier to focus on the many processes of operating the business in the most efficient way in relation to economic conditions, with the goal of maximum efficiencies that directly translates to not only maximum profits, but maximized positive cash-flow as well. Also, when focused and clear thinking is developed, the easier it is to maintain greater focus and the more creative one becomes, the more success Entrepreneurs experience in making the correct, yet sometimes difficult strategic decisions at the right time, especially when there is some level of discomfort.
The focused mind set of the successful Entrepreneur always looks for ways they can use poorly performing economies to their advantage, making “lemonade out of the lemons” they have been handed, and they succeed through innovation, which is wh
at the true Entrepreneurs are best known for. Not only are customers, products and services viewed and thought of differently, but promotional strategies are viewed with an emphasis on regular adaptation and modification based on challenges of shifting and evolving market conditions, or “lemons” the economic world has thrown at the Entrepreneur.
It is critically important to keep in mind that when the local, national and global economies improve, the fruits of innovative mindset thinking remain in the form of new ideas and concepts within the business, and the Entrepreneur has developed and put together a bigger bag of new market strategies, systems and processes that ultimately pay great dividends during both growing economies and recessions.
Entrepreneurs collectively with the other millions of small business owners throughout the world are the global economy’s backbone and ultimate solution to moving it towards any economic turnaround, whether locally, nationally or globally. Together, the collective entrepreneurial mind set of Small Business moves from pessimism to optimism, and as people become more optimistic they in turn spend money, and jobs are created.
The greatest advice to remember is to “think globally and act locally”, take the “lemons and make lemonade”, and always be part of the solution as the markets grow and recede, and economic struggles are fought, won and lost, and people go back and forth between optimism and pessimism.
Unexpected events and tragedies will always have an effect on the economy, but how the Entrepreneur views their business and markets, reacts to challenges and quickly develops innovations, will determine their ultimate survival and the level of success achieved, which is why any of us make the choice to become Entrepreneurs in the first place.