Without Goals One Can Never Succeed

A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. ~James Allen

If you want to make something of yourself, if you want to accomplish anything in life, you must establish goals and work toward them. We are at our best when we are working toward our goals.

When you were a child, did you ever daydream? Some kids grow up daydreaming about becoming a pilot, or maybe an archaeologist. Sometimes the daydream was triggered by watching a movie or television show. At other times, daydreams might have come as the result of reading a book or participating in a really cool discussion in school.

People scoff at dreamers and tell them that they will never amount to anything, yet all evidence is to the contrary. Daydreamers have become the greatest inventors, the greatest explorers, and the wealthiest industrialists. Why?

Success Goes Where Passion Flows...

Daydreamers make successes of themselves when their daydreams actually turn into life goals. It's all about passion.

When James Allen wrote about "legitimate purpose" in his book, As A Man Thinketh, it had a two-fold meaning. The first was that of moral and legal activity. The second was making that purpose a genuine goal. It would be one's mission in life-- a calling, if you will.

If you want to succeed in anything, you must begin with establishing a purpose for yourself, a goal. If that goal is rather large or will take a long time, perhaps even a lifetime, then you will need to set interim goals to complete on the way to that ultimate goal. In doing so, you will see real progress toward that final goal and the fulfillment of your life dreams (yes, you can have multiple dreams).

If you have no direction in life, you will wander, your accomplishments were occur by accident if they occur at all. With that in mind, think of goals as a road map to success.

And one more thing. Don't measure success by the acquisition of wealth. Measure success by accomplishment. If money, alone, is your ultimate goal, you might become wealthy, but, money cannot buy happiness-- accomplishment will --and that's money in the bank. 
 

Life Is Not the Destination, It's the Journey

Life is not the destination, it's the journey.

In our lives, opportunities come and go. People come and go. Things sometimes work out exactly the way we imagined they would. At other times, things get in the way and we have to navigate around those obstacles.

Imagine a little brook coursing down the side of a mountain. Its water trickling and swelling as it flows downhill. Rocks and rubble don't stop the flow of water, they just divert it. Water is fluid. It flows over or around those rocks and obstructions when it meets them, but, it just keeps going. And so it is with life.

I had a job that I quit one time because I was ripped off by a person who stole two $5000 sales from me. I lost a lot of commission on those sales. I handed in my keys and drove home. In ninety minutes I had a new job (inventory analyst in a 500 million dollar corporation). A decade later, I was laid off from that job.  A brilliant leader in the company died of cancer and through a series of blunders by other management I watched the place continually struggle and never recover. That one man kept the company profitable. With his passing, the decline began and one fateful day all but a handful of people were laid off.

I found work in about two weeks. I took a job with an e-commerce company-- really, it was just for the health insurance because my wife and I were planning a move across the country to Idaho. Well, that deal evaporated, so, I took the gig locally in order to have health insurance. 

In recent days, that e-commerce company closed its doors.

I started my job hunt Monday morning. I had a job lined up before I took time out for lunch. My new job starts today. It's another inventory analyst position with a major corporation that shall, for now, remain nameless.

Life Really Is All About the Journey

My recent history has had its blessings, to be sure. I have met a lot of nice people who worked hard and put a lot into what they were doing. There were a lot of young, talented people with great potential. There were also people who really didn't care to work.

What many people never figure out is that THEY are the captain of their own destiny. THEY build opportunities and open doors for themselves.

If I can give that whole group of people advice, I would tell them to never stop dreaming.

Dreams Are the Seedlings of Realities

Your journey will be smoother and you will have direction in your life when you dream about the good things to come. But you have to believe that you can have them. They are not FREE, but they are meant for you. They are waiting for you to reach for them.

What you need to reach the richness of life that you really deserve is to believe in yourself. You need to be confident. Then, set your goals. What do you really want from life? Write those goals on paper and read them first thing every morning.

I'd love to live long enough to watch every one of you reach the pinnacle in life-- to see your journeys all take you to the highest peak where you can watch the sun rise over this beautiful planet upon which we life. Welcome the dawn with a smile on your face and take a moment to gaze at it in wonder. 

Your destiny still lies before you, but it's the journey that really makes you who you are. I am happy to have traveled with you as our paths came together.

May you all be blessed.

 

Well, You Know What They Say...

"You know what they say..."

'It's like they say..."

"Well, they say..."

Who are "they"?

Sayings come and go, but one of the most puzzling, to me, is "You know what they say..."

As of this moment, my new goal in life is to become one of they. Think of it. What would it be like to be part of that mysterious thought governing body, they? Why, they have all the answers. They know everything. They have infinite wit and wisdom. They are, well, THEY.

So, just exactly who are THEY? Did they ever really exist? All that I can find on the subject is that it is an old English expression. If Ben Franklin were still alive I'd ask for the opinion of his Junto Society and see if Ben and friends could figure this out.

It's One of the Great Imponderables

Revisionists will tell you that "They really don't exist." Then, there are the doubters. Like RUSes (rodents of unusual size), "I don't think they exist." Well, I don't care-- I want to be one of they.

If you get the RUS reference, you just might be a prime candidate to be one of THEY. If, however, that reference eludes you, well, it's like they say... one can always hope.

I have to go now... they are waiting.

The Sun Goes Down on Shoes.com

Late yesterday the sun went down on Shoes.com. Two years ago it was an internet darling and tomorrow, it will be a memory.

There are lots of lessons to be learned from the Shoes.com saga.

First, the company had three entities: Shoes.com, OnlineShoes.com, and Shoeme.ca (the Canadian arm of the business-- which also included brick and mortar stores). They set up their primary warehouse in Columbus, Ohio. They had smaller warehouses in Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. Most of the product shipped from Columbus, Ohio. In my opinion, this three-entity situation created a lot of problems with cost controls. Consolidation would have been a much wiser way to go.

Second, the company managed the warehouse in Columbus by enlisting the aid of temp services. They used three different temporary work agencies, not one. That created confusion. In my opinion, every wave of new temps in a situation like this increases theft loss, increases a lack of productivity as people get up to speed, and if the temps are not given a full-time, permanent position quickly enough, it leads to a lack of dedication. This latter point can also result in more theft loss as people often think that their job is constantly in jeopardy and they have no vested interest in the profitability and health of the company.

Third, when a company started by a tech-industry entrepreneur grows quickly and does not seek retail professionals to help run the place, choosing, instead, to recruit Millennials who know all about social justice but nothing about running a business, it's a recipe for disaster. Break rooms adorned with pingpong tables, foosball tables, big-screen televisions and X-Box game consoles don't build excitement when you don't turn on the heat in winter until the warehouse temperature dips below forty-five degrees-- that was the policy. The company had lots of customer service complaints, too.

On Friday, January 27th, Shoes.com officially went dark. It's three online entities went offline. Employees in Seattle and Vancouver were shown the door and told that they'd receive pay through the end of the month (gee, four days pay, how generous). Shoes.com employees in the Columbus, Ohio warehouse were told at 9:00 AM that their job was over. The fulfillment side of the warehouse was run by Geodis-- a third-party operator and the second largest logistics company on the planet. Employees of Geodis who shipped material for Shoes.com were not told that they were laid off until after hours-- they were called at home.

Geodis is not to blame. In fact Shoes.com may even owe them money along with all the other companies that Shoes.com cannot pay. Shoes.com will be filing for bankruptcy protection and making plans for liquidation.

One can only speculate whether or not Geodis had any advanced warning about the situation with Shoes.com. I suspect that they did not have much notice. Information I have on the event is that Geodis was asking questions about the health of Shoes.com when they started seeing a huge reduction in freight coming to Columbus, but they weren't getting clear answers. It put Geodis in a real bind considering the time of year and the current business climate.

Geodis employees of the Columbus, Ohio Shoes.com facility will be looking for jobs. Some of them have lots of experience, an array of talents and diverse background. Others have limited skill sets and less experience, but they are young and energetic. If you know any companies looking for talent, spread the word. Post it on Facebook.

Good Luck to All.

Today's Lesson: CYA and Get Paid

Today's lesson is for all of you freelancers out there working for a living. CYA - cover your a$$.

Everyone knows that times are tough. Full-time jobs are hard to find in a lot of places and the competition in creative fields is fierce. Take copywriting, for example. Everybody wants to be a copywriter these days. Even displaced journalists have jumped on the copywriting bandwagon.

They're EVERYWHERE, they're everywhere.

The way that the average freelance writer, graphic artist, web designer, or copywriter works these days is this: He or She jumps online, checks out the job boards (like Upwork, Craig's List, or Online-Writing-Jobs.com), and submits a bid. The person who posted a job might be in your home town or located on the opposite side of the globe.

A smart freelancer never does any work without a contract. In addition, a smart freelancer asks for at least 50 percent of the job bid up front and waits for payment before starting to work on any project no matter how big or small. If the project is under $500, many freelancers want the entire fee up front. The balance is to be paid in exchange for the finished product, whatever that may be.

Here's where covering your ass becomes really important.

I know countless numbers of freelancers who have been stiffed after sending the client their finished project. They will have received the 50 percent up front (or whatever percentage that was agreed upon when they took the assignment); but, when it came time for final payment, the voice on the other end of the line goes dark.

That sound you are hearing right about then is crickets... yeah, loud and clear. You've been hosed.

Most of the copywriting and freelancing I used to do was in my own city. I had plenty of work to do and I received a lot of work by referral. It's a good idea to explore the potential for that in your home town. Seriously. People often get caught up in the whole Internet hype thing --there's money in them there ones and zeros. Yeah, cyber-space can be a gold mine, or a complete waste of time. That all depends on you.

The number of Internet scumbags has grown exponentially in recent years. It seems that people think nothing of robbing you of the hard-earned cash that you were promised when they have your work in their grubby little mitts. So, be warned. Don't turn over the final product until you have been given payment.

If there is something that someone can learn from the scenario above, it is this: A TON OF MONEY can be made for the SMART individual who develops a business that will allow the freelancer to deposit the finished product that will only be released when the buyer (the one who listed the job in the first place) deposits the payment. IS ANYONE LISTENING?

Some bright individual can contact me on this idea and, perhaps, we can put something together. But, trust me, if someone develops this it will forever change the way we do business and the days of people getting stiffed by someone they trusted will be over.

It's Monday - Start of A New Week

It's Monday, start of a new week and that means new opportunities.

Lots of people get into a funk from time-to-time. They get demoralized. They occasionally get depressed. Well, don't fret. Life is full of ups and downs, just  like the thermometer. So, don't stress, just roll with it.

Yesterday is gone. Like the painting on the right, the sun goes down and the moon lights up the night sky. It's time to inhale slowly and just let it all out and think about what tomorrow may bring. I painted this image from a reference photograph I took on the deck of a three-masted schooner in the bay at St. Augustine. The ship was "Freedom" and to me, it symbolizes a bright future is coming and things of the past are behind us. The future awaits us.

People tend to be cynical. They tend to expect the worst. If that is you, it's time to reprogram yourself. Rather than fear the unknown, embrace tomorrow for the coming of a new day. Embrace MONDAY as the start of a new week-- new opportunities are on the horizon. So, chin up there, kiddo.

Rather than seeing all of those visions of doom and gloom you've had running through your head, imagine yourself being happy, laughing, having a full wallet, a nice car, a beautiful home, and the love of your life. Tell yourself, you are good at what you do and if you work in a place where people don't recognize that, that's okay. You can look for a place that will give you the opportunities you want and the chance to reach for the stars.

It's Monday. The future is yours if you will only reach out and grab it!

When the Going Gets Tough

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

I am a big believer in the idea that you cannot accomplish anything if you never set any goals in life. It's like the old saying: Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

January is the slowest month of the year for business. The holidays have come and gone and seasonal lay-offs have just hit-- or soon will. Lots of retail and warehouse-type jobs reduce hours and the result is less money in peoples' pockets.

The trend in recent years has been hiring more people than you need and sending them home when the work is done. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, even people working reduced hours still receive full-time benefits, but, after medical insurance is withheld, people are taking home less money. So how do you survive in this sort of business climate? That's a good question, and here is your answer:

Multiple Income Streams

Setting up multiple income streams is one of the best ways to keep the money flowing. There are several ways that you can do it.

The first thing you need to do is make an inventory of your marketable skills. What services can you provide for which people are willing to pay? Do you have more than one service that you can provide?

Do you have a blog? If so, you can set up an account with Google AdSense to monetize it. You can do the same with YouTube.

If you can do some freelance work on the side you might be able to make more money than your day job as you build a reputation in your field. I know several graphic artists, web developers, and copywriters who have made good money as freelancers.

The future of work in America will most likely be a combination.of freelance and part-time jobs that together provide the equivalent of full-time income. To ensure income stability, the more individual streams the better.