Get Up And Get Moving

Get Up And Get Moving

Once you have decided to take responsibility and make changes in your personal life, your business or your community, it is necessary to take action. You can have all the lofty goals and ambitions you want but until you actually take some action, they remain simply wishes and unfulfilled dreams. The Bible tells us that faith without works is dead. The key to all personal power is action.

Taking Action

Make that extra phone call, write that extra letter, send the email, or do whatever it is that you have a tendency to avoid doing. Procrastination is surely a death rattle. It will stop us from ever achieving our goals. It will prevent us from ever having that which we want and deserve for ourselves and our loved one's. In order to live fully, you must end procrastination -- now. Don't be like the guy who was going to start a club for procrastinator's but decided to wait.

Do It Now

How many times have you had a great idea for a business and six months later saw it sitting on a shelf somewhere? Someone had stolen your idea. How many times have you had an idea at work and hesitated, only to find someone else had made the suggestion and received the credit for it? Let me ask you a question. What was the difference between your idea and the person who actually implemented it? I'm sure you have already guessed it. They took action. It's that simple. Action. The way to realize the power and potential you have is to take action.

Have a plan

Once you have decided on your goal, and written it down. Then, write down the action steps you will need to take to reach it.

If your goal is to increase your sales by 30% in the next six months, write down the actions you will need to take, step by step. This may mean developing an advertising program or hiring a new salesperson. Perhaps you will want to send a letter to all of your present customers. Whatever it is you want to do, there are steps you can take to accomplish your objective. Write them down.

Be sure to include one or two things you can do right now, today, to get yourself moving toward your new goal. Doing something immediately brings into being the law of physics that says an object in motion tends to stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force. By taking the first step, however small, you are putting yourself and your talents in motion and before you realize it, you will have reached your destination.

Telephone Interviews

http://www.seekingsuccess.com/articles/art167.php

Telephone Interviews

By Tamara Dowling, CPRW

Many employers conduct telephone interviews to screen candidates for basic qualifications. It is also an alternative when it is not practical to invite an out-of-area candidate to the office.

Telephone interviews can be challenging because it is more difficult to gain rapport with the interviewer because you cannot see the interviewer's non-verbal reactions and cues. Conversely, the interviewer cannot see your enthusiastic expressions or professional appearance. This places all the weight on your phone manners, clarity of speech, voice tone and the content of your answers.

Here is a quick tip list for excelling at a telephone interview:

• Treat the phone interview as you would a face-to-face interview.
• Select a quiet, private room with a telephone in good working condition.
• Conduct a mock telephone interview with a friend to gain feedback on your voice quality and speech.
• Before the interview, prepare talking points for the call including value you bring to the company and specific questions.
• Arrange the following items: your resume, cover letter, copy of application if you submitted one, highlights of corporate information and brief talking points.
• Dress in business attire.
• Breathe deeply and relax. Speak slowly, clearly and with purpose.
• Smile, it changes your speech and the person on the other end can sense it.
• Write down the full names and titles of each call participant.
• Take notes when appropriate.
• Be courteous and try not to speak over the interviewer. If you do, apologize and let the interviewer continue.
• Support your statements with detailed examples of accomplishments when possible. It is easy for someone to get distracted on a phone call, so paint a vivid picture to keep the interviewer interested.
• Explain any pauses in your speech to ponder a question or take notes.
• If you think of a question or comment while the interviewer is speaking, jot a note on your talking points list, so you remember it later.
• During the interview, if the interviewer inadvertently answers a question from your prepared list, cross it off. If you forget and ask it, it will seem as if you were not listening.
• Offer to provide additional information or answer other questions.
• Use your talking points list of specific skills and accomplishments; cross them off as you work them into the conversation. At the end, if you have some uncrossed items, you might say something like, "I thought you might be interested to know I led a major conversion project, quite similar to what you are planning. I managed a $2.5 million budget and completed it 45 days early, saving over $48,000."
• Before ending the call, be sure you know the next step in the process, and offer to provide any additional information needed.
• Do not hang up until the interviewer has hung up.
• Promptly send a formal follow-up / thank you letter, just as you would for a face-to-face interview.

Maritime Territorial Disputes

SIX weeks ago, an Australian warship sailed into some of the most contested waters on the planet and, off China, opened fire. The ship was the frigate Warramunga and it wasn't the first Australian vessel with that name to fire its guns across the Yellow Sea.

Sixty years ago, Warramunga's namesake was in the same waters, firing to kill Chinese and North Korean troops during the Korean War.

There was no warlike intent in the more recent incident: the latest Warramunga was taking part in an exercise, sailing on calm seas under blue skies alongside a Chinese warship. It was the first such exercise by any Western nation with the Chinese navy - a navy that Royal Australian Navy chief Vice-Admiral Russ Crane praised for its ''constructive contribution'' to regional security.

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Six days ago, in Melbourne, the United States and Australia reaffirmed their commitment to an alliance that was formalised around the time the first Warramunga saw action in the Yellow Sea. With warm words about a fundamental commitment to an enduring partnership based on common interests and shared democratic values, they agreed to increase co-operation on defence, cyber and space security. Who they were defending these spheres from was left unstated. ''We're not in the business of naming threats,'' Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said after the talks. Not publicly, at least.

Yet China was the dragon outside the room when Rudd and Defence Minister Stephen Smith met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defence Secretary Bob Gates in Government House last Monday.

China is mentioned just once in the 2433-word communique issued after their annual AUSMIN meeting - a reference to a shared goal of ''seeking a positive, co-operative relationship''.

Yet the talks, and the agreement to expand defence co-operation, were clearly aimed at bolstering American dominance of the Pacific in the face of China's dramatic rise.

The talks may also be another sign of a new cold war, according to Hugh White, one of Australia's leading strategic thinkers.

(In case you missed it, the first Cold War between the US-led West and the Soviet Union lasted for 40 years. The world lived in fear of possible nuclear Armageddon, the reality of proxy wars like Korea, and constant tension between the superpowers.)

This new cold war is already taking shape, says White, professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University and a former deputy secretary in the Defence Department.

The front lines of emerging conflict could be seen in a new Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, the Yellow Sea, and in territorial disputes with Japan in the East China Sea, which reveal ''worrying things about the way policy is being made in Beijing''.

The AUSMIN communique refers to these pressure points and calls for respect for international law of the sea and the peaceful resolution of maritime territorial disputes, suggesting the fear that China might not respect the law or settle its claims peacefully.

Equally worrying, says White, are American efforts to retain its dominance as China rises, fuelled by its rapidly growing economic power. ''Unless the US can articulate what it's trying to do, China will conclude it's trying to preserve the old order, in which China plays a subordinate, not an equal, role,'' he says.

''If that's what the US is attempting to do, then it is running a very high risk of conflict, or at least of escalating strategic competition, with all the risks of conflict flowing from that.

''What does that look like? It looks like the beginnings of a cold war, and we know how dangerous that can be.''

Australia is caught in the middle of this new Pacific tussle.

Our biggest fear is having to make a choice between American primacy, which has brought four decades of regional security and stability, and our economic future, which depends on China and its hunger for our mineral exports.

The trouble is, White argues, we can't have both.

''I just don't think it's going to be possible, because the very thing which is keeping us afloat economically is undermining the structure which keeps us safe strategically. This falls into the 'shit happens' school of international affairs.''

White's argument, first spelt out in the Quarterly Essay in September, is based on the premise that China's challenge to American power in Asia is a reality, not a future possibility. China could overtake the US as the world's richest economy by 2030, would no longer accept American leadership in Asia, and would look to lead in its own right.

This left the US with three options: withdraw from Asia; compete with China, which would create ''a real and growing risk of major war''; or agree to share regional power in an equal partnership with China and the other regional powers, India and Japan.

White says the best option for Australia - shared leadership - is also the hardest to achieve.

Paul Dibb, who preceded White as deputy secretary of defence, also sees worrying signs of Chinese assertiveness, highlighted by a recent outburst by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi that ''China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that's just a fact''.

But Dibb advocates a radically different response to White's.

Citing China's claims over the South China Sea, its ''bullying'' of Japan over disputed waters in the East China Sea, and its obstruction of US naval exercises in the Yellow Sea, he warned last week of a growing challenge to regional security. The US and its allies, including Australia, had to decide how it would deal with China's rising naval power, he said. ''That may mean one day that China will have to be taught a military lesson at sea.''

The problem with this argument, says White, is that China is now too big to be slapped down: ''The trouble with international politics is that the Chinese can teach us a lesson, too.''

For his part, Kevin Rudd reckons White has got it wrong. He insists we can manage our different interests with ''skilful, careful diplomacy''.

''The idea of some zero-sum game, head to Washington or head to Beijing, is frankly nonsense,'' he said last week. Instead, he propounds ''a rational third way'' for Australia, between rowing with China and kowtowing.

Rudd says this can be done through a ''comprehensive political and economic relationship where we agree on our common interests, both in the region, at a world stage and bilaterally as well, but also not walking away from those areas in which we disagree''.

The Foreign Minister had more soothing words ahead of the weekend's APEC summit in Japan, where Prime Minister Julia Gillard had her first formal talks with President Barack Obama. Japan is the last stop of an Asian tour by Obama that he had used to reassert American interest in Asia.

In an interview with Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper before APEC, Rudd said he was confident China wanted to resolve its row with Japan over disputed islands through diplomacy.

He also spoke of the need to create a firm regional framework that addresses ''the need for us to have in east Asia the evolution of confidence and security building measures between everybody''.

If Rudd prefers the language of diplomacy in public, a secret strategic briefing given to Defence Minister Stephen Smith after the federal election is more forthcoming about the government's views, even if the public version is heavily censored. It talks of a more confident China, boosted by its strong economic performance, while US and European defence budgets are under pressure.

The briefing cited last year's defence white paper, which predicted US primacy in the Pacific would be ''increasingly tested''. (The white paper, by the way, called for the biggest expansion of defence spending since the Second World War. It was heavily influence by Rudd and didn't name threats, either.)

China had emerged well from the global economic crisis, with its growing defence budget ''shifting the balance of military power in Asia'', the briefing said.

Its navy now patrols disputed waters ''with increased frequency and in greater strength'', it said, while a new navy base on Hainan Island, with underground docks for submarines, enhanced China's ability to deploy forces into the South China Sea.

Australia is not the only uneasy spectator as the region changes.

Beijing's closer neighbours, concerned by China's leadership ambitions and territorial claims, are looking for a renewed US commitment. Among them is Vietnam, America's old enemy.

Paul Monk, an author, consultant and former defence intelligence analyst, says hoping China's neighbours will fit in with Beijing's expectations is an invitation for disaster.

''China, as a new power on the block, suddenly getting a rush of blood to the head, is not well placed to make cautious decisions that take the interests of others into account,'' Monk says. ''The signs are it's not doing that very well. It's getting ahead of itself a bit.''

Instead, China needs to fit into an agreed security framework with its neighbours and the US.

''If a new set of rules emerges that we can all be comfortable with, then we can be OK, however wealthy China becomes.

''But if China says 'no, butt out, we're going to set the rules, the South China Sea is ours, the Yellow Sea is ours, the East China Sea is ours, and you will kowtow, there's going to be trouble, there's no two ways about it.

''The question is, how much trouble?''

As for Australia, Monk says we need to be part of a coalition of states, that says to China:

''Not that we want to keep you weak, but you need to work with us on terms everyone can live with, otherwise we will have to contain you. Make no mistake, we will.

''That's what you can see with Japan and Vietnam and others, saying to the United States, 'Hey, don't go away any time soon'.''

What Is The 80/20 Rule

What Is The 80/20 Rule And Why It Will Change Your Life

• Written by Yaro
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I mention the 80/20 rule frequently in my writings so I thought it was about time to write a proper introduction to the concept. I believe it’s fundamental to every business person – to every human being – so if you have never heard of this rule, please read on and absorb everything I’m about to tell you, it could potentially change your life.

The 80/20 rule sounds like a statistic and in some ways it is. Personally I’m not a big fan of maths and beyond basic web statistics like pageviews, impressions, unique visitors – and when I stretch myself – conversion rates and split testing, I try and avoid all complex numbers. I work better with feelings, ideas and concepts.

The good thing about the 80/20 rule is that you don’t have to understand statistics to be a believer. Yes it has foundations in economics and yes, it was “proven” using statistical analysis by a man named Pareto, but it is not meant to be understood only by economics professors.

Here’s what the Wikipedia has to say about it:

The principle was suggested by management thinker Joseph M. Juran. It was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of income in Italy was received by 20% of the Italian population. The assumption is that most of the results in any situation are determined by a small number of causes.

I can’t remember exactly when I was first exposed to the 80/20 Rule but I know when it first really hit home. I was in my local bookshop and I picked up a copy of Living The 80/20 Way by Richard Koch. Koch took the 80/20 Rule and made it his own by writing a series of books on the topic. Living The 80/20 Way fit me well because it discussed living life productively seeking maximum satisfaction by focusing on your passions (Koch has written other books focusing on the 80/20 Rule for business and managers that I didn’t enjoy quite as much). At the time I sometimes accused myself of being lazy for not “working hard” but I realized what I was doing was living an 80/20 lifestyle and in fact probably being a lot more productive than those working harder than myself.

What Exactly Is The 80/20 Rule?

By the numbers it means that 80 percent of your outcomes come from 20 percent of your inputs. As Pareto demonstrated with his research this “rule” holds true, in a very rough sense, to an 80/20 ratio, however in many cases the ratio can be a lot higher – 99/1 may be closer to reality.

It really doesn’t matter what numbers you apply, the important thing to understand is that in your life there are certain activities you do (your 20 percent) that account for the majority (your 80 percent) of your happiness and outputs.

You may have expected me to say that 20 percent of your activities produce 80 percent of your financial rewards, and that is true, there are probably a handful of activities you do each week that produce your income. You can definitely apply the 80/20 Rule to most aspects of your business or working life, however I believe your overall happiness and satisfaction are much better variables to focus on. Money certainly plays an important role in your happiness and your money is influenced by 80/20 relationships, but it is only a component that leads to your overall well being, which should be your primary concern.

80/20 Examples

There are many economic conditions, for example the distribution of wealth and resources on planet earth, where a small percentage of the population controls the biggest chunk, which clearly demonstrate the 80/20 Rule. There are business examples such as 20 percent of employees are responsible for 80 percent of a company’s output or 20 percent of customers are responsible for 80 percent of the revenues (or usually even more disparate ratios). These are not hard rules, not every company will be like this and the ratio won’t be exactly 80/20, but chances are if you look at many key metrics in a business there is definitely a minority creating a majority.

At a micro level just by looking at your daily habits you can find plenty of examples where the 80/20 Rule applies. You probably make most of your phone calls to a very small amount of the people you have numbers for. You likely spend a large chunk of your money on few things (perhaps rent, mortgage payments or food). There is a good chance that you spend most of your time with only a few people from the entire pool of people you know.

I’ll present to you how the 80/20 Rule applies to my life and how I have used the concept, although not always deliberately – it’s just the way I construct my life (for maximum pleasure!) -to improve the efficiency of my output and enhance my overall lifestyle.

My 80/20 Life

In my life I’ve noticed plenty of 80/20 ratios and generally they relate to my core competencies and passions. I really enjoy writing articles such as this, recording podcasts and interacting with other business people through Skype and blogging. In terms of rewards, the two-to-four hours or so per day that I spend writing – when I’m in the creative zone and my best work comes out almost effortlessly – is my money time. My articles and podcasts work hardest to generate income for me, create business opportunities and allow me to express myself creatively. I get the most financial and intrinsic satisfaction from this time.

I expect you could tell me a similar story about your life. During times you really enjoy yourself your output is at its peak. Your passion activities probably don’t pay your bills at the moment, which unfortunately means that you can’t sustain your life by indulging only in what you enjoy. I’ll talk more about transforming your life to a financially stable and personally fulfilling 80/20 format later in this article.

During some times in my life I struggle and waste time performing activities I don’t enjoy or I am not good at. For example bookkeeping is not high on my fun list. I don’t always like managing keywords in Google AdWords campaigns because I don’t have the patience to thoroughly test the variables and track the numbers. The same can be said for things like Google Analytics. These activities are more numerical in basis, I’m not a numbers person so when possible I leave these tasks, along with other activities like programming, graphic design and proofreading to other people, the specialists who enjoy them.

Some of my time is spent procrastinating or working inefficiently doing activities that provide very little benefit. This often occurs when I am tired or below peak physical condition. I sometimes lack the mental throughput to motivate myself to be productive (and boy, my writing stinks when I’m tired!), but I’m working on it and getting much better at reducing time wastage. When I’m in this state it’s smarter for me to study – read books and ebooks – because I’m not capable of producing quality output, but taking input – learning – is a good use of time when I am not there 100 percent mentally.

80/20 Business

When I look at one of my businesses, BetterEdit.com, it’s very clear that a small handful of repeat customers account for most of the income. The customers who become longterm users, who gain the most from the services and fit well demographically and socially with the business model, are key. They provide 80 percent of the value but only represent 20 percent (or much less) of the overall people that use the business. My job is to determine the best way to attract and convert more customers into longterm users.

With blogging I learnt (and teach in my Blog Traffic Tips newsletter) that there are a handful of activities that I do every day that produce the most results. Breaking things down further, there are usually a key 20 percent of elements within an individual blog article (think article headline) that have the most dramatic affect on results. The numbers of course are not clean 80/20 ratios but there are definitely dominant factors at play.

In a business sense, finding the 80/20 ratios is crucial for maximizing performance. Find the products or services that generate the most income (the 20 percent) and drop the rest (the 80 percent) that only provide marginal benefits. Spend your time working on the parts of the business that you can improve significantly with your core skills and leave the tasks that are outside your best 20 percent to other people. Work hardest on elements that work hardest for you. Reward the best employees well, cull the worst. Drop the bad clients and focus on upselling and improving service to the best clients.

How You Can Live An 80/20 Lifestyle

When you start to analyze and breakdown your life into elements it’s very easy to see 80/20 ratios all over the place. The trick, once your key happiness determinants have been identified, is to make everything work in harmony and avoid wasting time on those 80 percent activities that produce little satisfaction for you.

The message is simple enough – focus on activities that produce the best outcomes for you. This applies to both your business/working life and your “other” life (I think they are all part of your “life” but people often prefer to distinguish them). The problem for most people is how to make a living from what you really enjoy, so lets focus on that…

I’m sure you have heard the phrase “struggling artist”. The stereotype where a creative person, musicians, actors, writers and artists, struggle to get discovered and work long hours on horrible day jobs, often in retail and hospitality, until hopefully they finally break out, get discovered and become famous. It shouldn’t surprise you that the ratio of struggling artists who actually become famous enough to live off their craft also follows an 80/20 Rule – only a small few of the overall total manage to get that far.

The same can be said for entrepreneurs. How many of you now reading this article are working day jobs, jobs you probably don’t like much, while you work hard after-hours to get your dream business up and running?

In truth, and this is a sad fact, most people in the world work jobs they don’t like and only truly live their passions on weekends and outside of working hours. Only a small sample actually live their passions day in and day out, how they want to and when they want to. If you want to become one of the special few so you can live your passions on your terms there are a few things you can do.

Focus On Your Passions, Not Material Possessions

The simple fact is not everyone can be a famous artist. Not everyone will start a million dollar business. I’m not going to tell you stop striving for those goals, I’m working on them myself, however you can work smarter TODAY to find greater fulfillment, and that is what living an 80/20 lifestyle is all about. Best of all, your likelihood of becoming one of the famous artists or entrepreneurs is enhanced if you tweak your life to follow the 80/20 Rule because you tap into what you do best more often.

The first thing you must decide, and this is often the hardest step, is to determine what it is exactly you have passion for. Some people can answer this question easily – “I want to be a famous pianists/singer/poet/author”, “I’d like to run my own real estate agency/coffee shop/advertising company” etc. Others may have a general idea “I don’t want a day job” or “I want to run a business” but the specifics are not sorted yet. If you are not sure what your passions are all I can suggest is test yourself. It’s usually easy to determine what you DON’T like so keep doing that until you find what it is you DO like.

Outputs Vs Inputs

I’d like to make a point about outputs vs inputs before moving on. Most humans are good consumers – we are good at taking inputs. Chances are you can easily rattle off a bunch of things you do enjoy about your life: eating out at nice restaurants, consuming junk food, reading books and magazines, going to parties and dance clubs, watching movies and DVDs, listening to music, meeting new people, surfing the net, having sex, playing sports and shopping. All of these activities more or less are inputs which means you consume the outputs of other people.

You may consider the activities I just mentioned passions but it’s hard to find a sustainable passion if all you do is consume. To foster an 80/20 lifestyle you need to locate activities that are passions for you because you create output for others to enjoy. Yes you can get paid to have sex, watch movies, eat at restaurants and read books, but chances are you won’t find it fulfilling or sustainable for very long OR you will be required to provide something back as part of your involvement – that’s your output, the value you create.

It’s okay to love eating out at restaurants and claiming your passion is food, if your intention is to also create output by starting your own restaurant, or a restaurant reviews website or a newsletter or magazine or becoming a chef. If you enjoy listening to music you might also enjoy producing your own music or covering the music industry as a journalist on your own blog.

Only by producing output for other people to enjoy or make practical use of can you expect to convert a passion into a sustainable income. You should understand this already as I suspect the times in your life that you have created something for others or worked on something that benefited other people you experienced the most fulfillment. If you suffer from a lack of direction now, if you are depressed because you don’t even know what your passions are to start applying the 80/20 Rule to, you need to do one thing – start being creative and giving back – produce output! You won’t find fulfillment only by consuming.

An 80/20 Lifestyle Blueprint

To start living 80/20 today you have only to do one thing – focus your energies on what you enjoy.

Part time work – Part time passion

Many people work a full time job and work after hours on a business or hobby or creative talent. If this is you I suspect your ratio is not 80/20 and probably closer to 20/80. You spend way too much time at a job you don’t like, you are probably not very motivated to do it well so you don’t fall into the vital 80/20 employees for that company, and by the time you get home you are too exhausted to spend time on your passion. You feel like you are getting nowhere fast. This lifestyle is not good for anyone since all the relationships fall into the 80 percent that produce 20 percent of the value. You get very little from it and the people you work for get very little from you.

If this currently describes your situation what you need to do is start changing those ratios. Reduce the amount of time you spend at a job you don’t like and increase the amount of time you spend on your passion. You may say you can’t do that because you need the money but I suspect you don’t really need as much as you think you do. Most people can live off part time work but choose to work more because they want more things. You may see your peers enjoying material goods which creates desires in you. Your wants start to outweigh your needs, which is probably the biggest pitfall in our modern, advertising driven, materialistic society.

I’m not saying you have to live like a pauper but I know that your real happiness comes from spending time doing things you enjoy the most, not from earning more money. Chasing the dollar for the sake of the dollar does not work. Chasing passion often leads to a greater income because the quality of your output is so much higher. Focus your energy on increasing investment in your core strengths and you will reap rewards.

Drop your working hours to three days per week and spend more time attracting more clients, booking more singing gigs, finding more time to write your novel or to develop your invention or code your software or find investors or whatever it is you really want to do.

For those of you who have no intention of turning your passions into money generating enterprises this is still a good option. If money isn’t your primary concern but your music is, why do you spend so much time working to earn more money than you need? Yes you need to plan for the future and build assets, but clearly for your musical soul it’s not something that needs to take the majority of your time and energy. You can be happy without that mansion by the sea and you never know, if you spent more time on your music the eventual album sales may one day lead to that mansion by the sea. If not, at least you will be a lot happier for following your enthusiasm rather than the dollar.

If financial freedom is important to you and a big part of your plans look at this step as phase one and work to convert your passions into income generating propositions. Grow your business client-by-client, gig-by-gig or sale-by-sale. keep adjusting your work vs passion time ratio as your business grows to support you and you no longer need your job income. Look for 80/20 activities in everything you do and drop any inefficiencies as soon as you can.

Don’t Let Fear Stop You

The biggest factor that stops most people from chasing their dreams and working towards their real goals is fear. Fear of the lack of security, the reduced paycheck and of the unknown future keeps people locked into routines that are not satisfying. That path leads to sadness, depression, poor health, low income and ultimately an early death. Who wants that!

Don’t let fear be the reason for not achieving your goals. Stop, reassess your real passions, remove the money equation long enough so you can think without worrying about finances, and make plans to move towards your 80/20 lifestyle activities. Maximize what you are good at. Find the activities that produce the most results for you and your business and put your energy where the big rewards are.

Yaro Starak
80/20 Optimizer