I’m not going to be talking about something unheard to all of you: in fact, what I will be talking about is very familiar. It has to do with keeping that fire burning, after a good amount of time has gone by and you feel like you are on a routine. Only in this article, I will be taking the employer’s perspective and what employers should be doing to keep their employees interested, creative and engaged in the operations.

Before I jump into that, let’s address a question to get it started: Why should a company-employer seek to have creative, energetic and engaged employees? What is the ultimate goal?

It is pretty obvious for everyone (I believe) that having employees that love waking up and going to work, will result in greater productivity rates and more innovation. A team of working people doesn’t consist of a leader. If the team isn’t taking a leadership position as a whole, then you aren’t evolving as a company. So it goes without saying, that the results of having happy employees can be fundamental for the success and progress-growth of a company or business.

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Today we are going to talk about a very common insecurity we all have once in a while (especially when we are brand new in our jobs.) That being a fear of not being respected enough by our peers. It’s something that many times is just in our minds, or we are very anxious about our public image. In any case, there are specific things you can do to ensure you get along with everyone greatly and have a great respectful business relationships that can turn into friendships. 

Let me first start talking about the “respect matter” being something in our brains. Many times, because we think too much of ourselves, we will misunderstand certain behavior around us and take some things personally. One day for example if a coworker doesn’t greet you the way you wished he/she did, you start wondering: what’s going on? It’s very common and as I said earlier, when you are new to your job it will happen more often to you. Know one thing: that especially if your progress isn’t threatening someone else’s position directly, no one really cares about your public image. I mean, sure we all form opinions for others, but it isn’t all that serious. It is more of a way to tag people and give them descriptions so you can communicate easier with them when you see them. In other words, they don’t want you any harm (most of the times) and they may not be interested in your company and what you do. It’s normal, it’s chemistry. Sometimes you get along with people greatly and some other times it’s a very sorry experience.

If you are getting the feeling of people not respecting you and are certain about the accuracy of your assumption, the first I would suggest as a job coach you do, is check yourself again. How are you treating them? Maybe you aren’t being as respectful as they hoped and they are just returning that behavior to you. Are you always getting into arguments and can’t have a normal conversation? Many times a person that always likes being in tense situations, is ignored by others. It’s not that they have something personal with you. They just want to go to work and do their jobs and get on with their lives. In any case, no matter what the reason may be of this, you should first make sure you are clear on your end. Maybe you aren’t delivering as well as you should be in your line of work. It’s easy to throw the “ball of responsibility” to others. But many times we need to understand that we may hold that “ball” and are responsible for what’s happening.

No matter what, I think public image and those kind of things are nonsense. You can’t expect to get along with everybody. Sometimes you can’t even get along with your family members. So imagine how harder it can be when you are working along complete strangers. If you want to have peace in your mind, don’t worry about your public image and what people think of you. It will only distract you from your work and will always create this “cloud” over you that you will worry about. It will only add stress to your life. My advice would be: Do the best you can do, give it your best everyday, and then the rest will just happen. Make sure you are being responsible on your end, and all the rest really doesn’t matter. You can’t please everyone.

If you were expecting a “magic solution” from this post, I can tell you I didn’t give you it. When it comes to human relationships, it gets too complicated so the best route is the one suggested above. If these incidents were easy to handle with, we would have solved them already. So don’t worry about anything and don’t let this affect you. Keep on moving.

I always welcome your feedback so keep on sending it. Have a great weekend and wait for more posts in upcoming days.

The topic of today’s article will be based on some techniques on how to maintain an authentic personality in a world where popular ideas exist, and we all try to please everyone around us adapting to different circumstances. I am not going to get political or talk about politics, ’cause that would be very specific. Instead, I will generalize it and talk about ways via which you can ensure an authentic personality that isn’t copying someone else just because he is “cool.” If you don’t understand yet what I’m talking about, then it’s simple as this: When a popular opinion exists (or least popular) and there is a status quo, how do you remain original and don’t switch behaviors and points of views?

This is an issue mainly for people that have lower levels of self esteems. The people pleasers are a good example of that group of people. It’s the ones that don’t necessarily have leadership positions or are working really hard to maintain such positions. It would be fair to say that everyone gets influenced by other opinions and other people everyday. Which is why you see someone and he/she has changed so much after a certain number of years. It’s natural: we are all living between us, interacting with each other and exchanging ideas. It’s part of being a member of society. Members of society though can also have bad influence. For example when you were younger (teenage years) your parents will probably telling you to make sure you stay away from things like drugs, alcohol and people what abuse these. And even though everyone “tries” to protect themselves and families from such disasters, you see the percentages of people using substances to get their day started and it’s really sad. This comes back to what I was saying about “weaker” personalities. It isn’t that those people don’t have a personality. I believe everyone has some kind of personality that is very unique (but yet can be categorized.) It’s simply genetics: Some people are born with a stronger character and others with lower self esteem and levels of confidence. That is perfectly fine: we can’t try and change genetics. It’s not humanly possible. I as an example deep inside am very insecure and have low self esteem. On the outside I appear perhaps stronger, but deep inside there is a soft part of Tony. That soft part is the one that always switches around, depending on the views and ideas that the brains enhances.

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This article will be discussing the importance of having very good sales skills in your daily life, in order to be able to prosper and do well in both life and business. What I mean by that, really ties into what I’ve said elsewhere, which has to do with being very confident and having high levels of self esteem. The first thing you need to try and understand is that no one will promote you more, than you will personally. No one will care for you, as much as you care for yourself. In other words, if you don’t do the promotion, who do you think will? The obvious answer is nobody!

Because of the nature of my job, I get to meet pretty interesting people and I tend to hang out with the sales geniuses so that I improve my sales skills too. So over the years (done lots of travelling) I have maintained certain business relationships with such people. The most memorable is the one I’ve maintained with a buddy of mine who offers the greatest limo service Columbia, South Carolina can offer. I mean you can’t get any better than him. And I am not talking just about limousines. I’m talking about his approach to the sales calls, closing a deal and being able to serve the customers well to get excellent reviews. From beginning ’til end he is your perfect sales person. I was able to chat with him back in the day to answer the question “how do you do it?” How does one become very good in that aspect of the business? 

His answer was pretty clear and it was confidence. He explained further that it isn’t just personal confidence of closing a deal. He is more confident in his team and company, than anything else. He knew that from the minute he got the client’s payment information on the phone, his drivers would be delivering significant services. That helped him remain calm, polite and efficient in his calls.

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In this article, what I want to do is try and get into the topic of noise around us that takes place very often. What I mean by that, is people discouraging our efforts, ignoring our hard work or under evaluating our results. This happens to everyone here and there. No matter how high you are on the pyramid of success, you will get such behavior very very often. In fact, no one that got to the top of their industry can say that they didn’t face similar incidents. The common re probation and similar behavior can often “hit” you pretty harshly.

So how does one cope with all this? Doesn’t it make you furious? It probably will make you furious and the first few times you come across such behavior,  you will be seeking for help and no one will be providing you with it. These types of behavior won’t take place from people that are necessarily in other company setups or other walks of life. Very often, it’s the people you know best. It’s the people that you are probably competing with. Think about it: Why would anyone try to take you down? Why would anyone want to take down any other human being? To take their place, obviously. It’s a nerve racking game played by people, hoping that you some time burst and lose control of your situation. And as I said earlier, everyone has come across such behavior at some point in their lifetime. High caliber CEO’s take such heat all the time. And it’s even worse when you get such discouraging behavior from your peers. It makes you feel an emotion in the sense of “I’m going to show them.” It really angers you and makes you want to prove them wrong, just to rub it in their face. But after (if or when) you achieve it, you will notice that it doesn’t feel good. You come on top, everyone understands now who you are and how great you are with your accomplishment. But you will end up feeling the same. The need to rub it in their face won’t be there, because you did it.

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In a previous post I made, I talked firmly about the importance of believing in yourself and that you can make things happen. I explained how important it is to understand, that you will only get ahead if you help yourself. You can only succeed in this life, through your effort and your activities. No one else is going to push you to the finish line. You have to create your own destiny and you are the only one that will make sure you succeed.

What happens when we fail though? When we have been working hard, but yet something unexpected happens that shatters all our good effort and makes things difficult for the upcoming days. What should or attitude be towards those incidents? Personally I think it’s pretty simple: pick up yourself from the floor, dust yourself off and get back on that horse. It really is that simple in theory, and it should be easy in practice as well. That is because after you lose, you are given again the opportunity to do something. Failure, is really opportunity. An opportunity to take another shot. Understand this: when you hit the ground, you have nothing to lose. When you fail, you have nothing else to lose since you lost it. So all you have to do is get back up, and give it your best. You really don’t have anything to lose. Take as an example companies and individuals that file for bankruptcy. They are protected by law, and they have plenty more chances to make it right. You are blessed to live in the greatest country in the world, and now other countries also have such laws in place that allow you to make mistakes. You need to understand, that in life you will make mistakes. If you don’t make any, it means you didn’t really try anything (Einstein.) Unfortunately in school we are taught to not make mistakes and be excellent. Although we rather prefer those situations, we would be naive to think that no one fails. Look at the greatest business people: they fail all the time. Our current president was down $1 billion. That is many “zeros” behind that 1. He is now worth way over $4 billion. And other successful people fail every year. In fact people investing (bankers etc) always lose money. They are just able to make more, and cover their losses. That means they are ready the next day, to go make it happen.

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I probably don’t even have to make an article about this: you can see it all over the place. Simply type in Google things like “get rich fast” or “work from home, earn quick money” or anything related to that, and rest assured you will get hundreds (if not thousands) of similar offers. But even on TV you see so many commercials of special education that will make you think like the rich people do, and operate businesses the way successful business people do. There are many so called Universities that teach you the tricks and everything about the game so that you become rich. Trump University is an example. I’m not going to debate whether this was actually beneficial for the students, or it was kind of a rip off. The facts are out there, and frankly, depending on your political preference you will accept one of two opinions.

Are all these sources necessarily bad? No! Absolutely not. In today’s world there are actually many ways to make money from home, or make passive income. The “quick” part of it though is the misleading part. Honestly, I believe anyone can become rich if they work hard enough. I ain’t talking about working a 9 to 5. I’m talking about working to improve your position every single day. You will never get rich with a paycheck. Which is why medical doctors aren’t considered to be rich. You can be well off or live comfortably, but that doesn’t mean you are rich. No one can be rich with a paycheck, simply because the employer is always going to make more (and that’s how it should be.) Even if you look at high caliber CEO’s, they don’t just get a salary of a few million/year. They also get stock options and stakes in the company so that if they push the company forward, they actually get a much larger chunk from the action. So in this paragraph, what you need to keep in mind is that you won’t ever ever get rich and even live comfortably (in most cases) by working a job. And so I don’t get misunderstood: I ain’t saying don’t work. I am not saying don’t make money for you and your family. If you don’t work and you are a lazy person, then you should be ashamed of yourself for throwing your opportunities out the window. What I am saying though is, don’t stick to that job for the rest of your life. Improve yourself, evolve. If you are blessed at some point, become a business owner – not a staff member. Because if you are always dependent on that paycheck coming, rest assured you will find your sorry behinds on the streets after some disaster in the company takes place (or worldwide like in 2008.)

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I know, I know…Cheesy topic, very much spoken about and discussed. The fact of the matter though is that it it’s an important one. We are taught to just walk passed that advice and take it lightly. When in fact we shouldn’t. I’m not going to tickle your ears telling you that you are the number one person on this planet with the greatest gifts given to you. I don’t know your background, and you very well may be a very gifted person with many capabilities. The thing is: what are you doing with them? I have seen people with less capabilities perform better in their lives compared to people that were more gifted and took it for granted. 

It’s pretty obvious and I hope everyone understands up to this point, that each of us has been given very unique talents. If you don’t want to take my word for it, see what the scriptures say. Each person’s talent is different and unique. But we all  have something that makes us special. Our duty is to unlock that inner gift, and let it shine. I have many times made the argument that a lower achieving person that had odds stack against him and achieved his potential in comparison to one who settled for less, is much more worthy in my view. You can be born with a silver spoon in your mouth, and the success you acquire personally in your life may not be your full potential. In other words, someone who was less privileged may achieve the same results with you or slightly smaller ones. But he in my eyes will be much more worthy than you.

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I’ll be talking more about myself (I love the sound of my own voice) in the “about” page, however I was so excited to start meeting y’all and couldn’t help myself.

My name is Tony, and I have been a motivational speaker my entire adult life. My journey has included a lot more than just motivation. I inspire and empower people to make that extra step, that will bring them to success. I have worked with many students, a lot of which you see daily on TV. Yes, I am a big deal and I plan making you my success story as well. The focus of this site won’t be so much on me teaching you things and secrets of business. The purpose of this project is for me to gather material and knowledge from all over, and deliver it to you in a very customized and interactive way. So I will bringing up some pretty fancy coach names, such as Tony Robbins (hey look, we have the same name) and others you know. My plan is to be able to share with you a world in which everything is possible. People say “America is the land of opportunity” and that is correct. Move a step further though, and you will understand that you are the person of opportunity. You are filled with opportunity. You just don’t know it. I will try to dig up your inner awesomeness and make it shine for the world to see.

This is my vision, this is my plan. And I plan to be successful in it. The same I way expect you all to be successful. There is no fail in life. You can only pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back on that horse. Let’s take advantage of our God given potential, and let’s put it to work. Let’s try to make a difference in the society we live in, so that then we can empower others to do the same.

My name is Tony, and I’ll be your mentor for a long time!

You made it so far, so you deserve a little something from this buddy of mine: Mr. Tony Robbins (by the way, I am not Tony Robbins, I just share the same first name.)