Fears come in many different shapes and sizes.  There are extreme fears (or phobias), fears about your future (worry), and fears from stepping out of your comfort zone.  Fear is a natural part of life.  Success comes when you move beyond fear. It is not that you won’t feel the fear, but you will feel the fear and do it anyway.

What are you afraid of?  You may have fears in each of the categories above.  This article will focus on the fear of trying something new or doing something that might cause rejection.  This might be the fear of starting a new business, of making a sales call, or of making a speech.  This is the fear you fear when you ask someone out on a date or when you need to make a presentation in front of an unfamiliar group of people. We all carry many fears in this category.

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
- Rosa Parks

You may have heard that FEAR can be considered an acronym for False Expectations Appearing Real.  It is not that the fear is false, but that the expectations that are false.  One result is that fear can cause a paralysis of procrastination.  As we are afraid of something we are procrastinate and find other things to do.  This is the wrong approach.  Instead of being paralyzed by fear we should run towards the fear.  Feel the fear of something and do it anyway.

This summer, I had the privilege of attending the Olympic Games in Beijing.  I went with an organization that works with athletes, and had the goal of networking and meeting lots of athletes.  Doing this meant overcoming significant fear. It is easy to think that successful athletes won’t want to talk to you, or that they are too busy.  You can build up a lot of reasons in your mind why you should not approach an athlete.  Of course these are generally all false expectations.  Athletes are normal people and generally are excited to meet people.  This is especially true at the Olympics where the international camaraderie is extremely high.  Approaching an athlete didn’t happen without fear.  I would feel the fear and do it anyways. Of course my fears (false expectations) never did happen, and moving past the fear was very rewarding.

“Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.”
- H. Jackson Brown

One of the first opportunities to connect with an athlete this year happened on my flight to Beijing.  After getting on the flight I noticed an athlete come on.  Normally, I can identify athletes by the team clothing and credentials, but I didn’t need any of that for this particular athlete; I recognized her immediately.  She is a multiple medal winner from previous Olympics.  Naturally the fear of approaching someone so successful was high.  The false expectations appeared very real to me. In that situation I chose to act in spite of fear.  I used the time before take off to walk up to her seat and have a conversation.  It was a great conversation where I made a valuable contact; feel the fear and do it anyways.

Another place that people experience this sort of fear is in business prospecting.  Perhaps you are looking for a new customer or client, or searching for a business partner.  There can be significant fear in making the next contact.  This is a major reason why so many people fail in the sales related businesses.  They have fear of making the next call and that fear paralyzes them into procrastinating.

As mentioned earlier one of the main reasons that we face fear in our lives is because we all live in a comfort zone.  Your comfort zone includes those activities and events that you are comfortable with. It includes the friends you hang out with, the types of activities you do at your job and how you spend your free time. You become comfortable with what you do now.

“Every time we choose safety, we reinforce fear.”
- Cheri Huber

Unfortunately, if you stay in your comfort zone you will not grow and achieve anything more than you have now. Growth requires moving out of your comfort zone. The good news is when you move past fear and move out of your comfort zone your comfort zone will expand. Think about your first day on a new job.  You are likely nervous because you are not sure you can do everything required of you.  Perhaps you felt like the new job was above you.  Now, over time you likely became comfortable with the activities on your job.  Your comfort zone has expanded by doing the things you feared.

Chances are the things that you fear because they are outside of your comfort zone are the very things that you need to do to become more successful. Making the sales call to that potential customer that you are afraid of may be the very call that will grow your business.  Asking the girl you like out on a date might help you start a wonderful relationship.  Run towards the fear and you will move into a higher level of success.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Those people who most quickly move towards their fears and move past them will be the first to succeed.  What are you afraid of?  What are the false expectations in your life?  Identify them so that you know what to run towards.  Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the ability to move towards the fear instead of away from it.

Written by:

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
If you liked this article, leave a comment below, or subscribe by RSS!
If you are looking for a way to earn extra money, click here!

Hi everyone,

On Sunday’s I share links from around the web.  These will be articles that I found valuable and hopefully will be useful to you as well.

1. Alex Shalman has a guest article on John Chow called “How Planning Can Make Your Broke” where he shares his story of writing an publishing an e-book in 3 days!

2. Gaping Void shares a wonderful post on How to be Creative. This is a long post, but really worth reading.

3. Presentation Zen believes that Obama’s Victory Speech will become a classic historical speech.

4. The Colorado Springs Gazette does a Case Study on the 4 Hour Work Week.

5. Seth Godin shares about The Sad Lie of Mediocrity.

Enjoy the links!  Take some time today and set some goals for the upcoming week, and let’s get to it!

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

Welcome to another Sunday Browsing! Here are some great articles from around the web.

1. Financing Your Freedom asks, “What is the Meaning of Money?”

2. Pick the Brain shares about “How to Find and Develop Your Own Internal Motivation”.

3. Financial Expert Dave Ramsey has an article in the Bay Area Business Magazine sharing “8 Action Steps to High Performance Achivement”.

4. Seth Godin asks, “Is Effort a Myth?”

5. Read about “How New Rules of Work are Changing the Game” at Zen Habits.

Finally,  I had a guest post on Alex Shalman’s blog entitled:

How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis of Your Life.

Have a great week!

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

As a follow up to my recent post sharing my Favorite TED talks, I wanted to share another great lecture I came across.

Tim Ferriss, author of the Four Hour Work Week, one of my Top 10 Book Choices, spoke at The Do Lectures (a conference designed to inspire people to DO exceptional things).

Here is the video, followed by my 10 observations from the lecture.

1. When perceived difficulty of a task is high; fewer people will try it, thus making it easier -  This is why Tim challenges people to set big goals that everyone else things is impossible.  If everyone thinks things are impossible or unattainable, that very perception will make the task easier.

2. Set big, world changing, goals – Because of point #1, you should set big goals that will allow you in some way to change the world.

3. Design clear actionable steps – Whatever goals you have, you need to create clear actionable steps around that goal.  This fits very closely with the Getting Things Done plan of defining the next action step for each project you are working on.  Break down your world changing goals into clear actionable steps.

4. Don’t believe people who say you can’t do it – If you are doing something that is perceived to be impossible, you will have lots of people who will say it is impossible.  Realize that they are wrong, and don’t listen to them.  Instead, surround your people who have already done it, or who will encourage you.

5. Only listen to people who have done it, who have accomplished the impossible – The people you should listen to are the ones who have already accomplished something impossible.  If someone has done the impossible thing that you want to do, then that person is first.  If no one has done the thing you want to do, look for people who have done similar impossible things.  Tim calls these people the “Dark Horse Role Models”.

6. You need to be able to recruit people to help you – If you set a big enough goal you will need to be able to recruit people to get your message out.  Interestingly, small goals will draw very few supporters, but big world-changing goals will be easier to recruit people to help you.

7. Think exponentially and not linearly – As you work towards achieving your big goals think about exponentially.  Think about big gains, not small gains.  Think about big growth that people can get excited about joining in on.

8. Convert lack of resources into strengths –  Tim suggests “writing down the positives about whatever you view as your negatives.”  Once you start to look at those areas as strengths you can capitalize on those areas.  Whatever your weaknesses are, there are strengths corresponding strengths in the marketplace.

9. Make your message really clear – This is an important principle in any type of communication. Tim says, “people can hate you or dislike you but they shouldn’t be confused by your message.”  The crux of a clear message is giving the audience a clear actionable next step.

10. Create fun competition – One way to encourage activity amongst the people you have recruited is to create fun competitions.  People like competition, and some people – particularly people who already get things done – will do far more simply because of a competition.

Here is Tim’s Post about the lecture.

Written by:
The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
If you liked this article, leave a comment below, or subscribe by RSS!
If you are looking for a way to earn extra money, click here!

Each Sunday, I share some of my favorite articles from the past week. This week’s list has some excellent ones.

Seth Godin has a great little post about being Irrationally Committed to your goal.

In one of my favorite posts ever, Zen Habits shares why Success Isn’t a Competition. This article comes with a powerful offer of support for other bloggers.

Pick The Brain has a fantastic creative article using characters from The Matrix to teach about How to Survive in Troubled Times.

The financial blog No Credit Needed shares great ideas about Savings Account Allocation.

Finally, the blog LifeDev shares some thoughts on Generating Ideas and Inspiration from Social Media

Speaking of social media, you can find me on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?src=fftb#/profile.php?id=826085649&ref=profile

From the Archives:

How a fishing contest showed me lessons about how to act When Others are Absent

How a trip to the musical Wicked showed a powerful example of customer service (both good and bad)

Have a great week!

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

If you liked this article, leave a comment below, or subscribe by RSS!

If you are looking for a way to earn extra money, click here!

Technorati Profile

Photo by Emdot

Do you have a budget?  Perhaps you’ve tried setting a budget only to find that you are not really following it.  Having a budget is the first step towards improving your financial situation and moving towards financial freedom.  By establishing a budget, you are able to have a clear understanding of how much money you have coming in, how much you have going out, and where that money is going.  A budget allows you to follow the primary rule of a debt free life – spend less than you make.

Unfortunately most budget systems are very complex. They require you to itemize every category of spending and keep track of where every item you spend goes.  While this system make work for people with strong organizational skills or those who have the time to track every cent, most people just end up frustrated.

Traditional budget systems are also very restrictive. Having every category scheduled to the precise amount you will spend doesn’t allow for the fluctuations that naturally occur in life.  Life doesn’t always flow on an exact monthly basis.  Perhaps during one month you purchase more groceries; the next month you may need less.  One month you may not have time or desire to spend much on entertainment, but the next month your favorite band may be in concert in your area.  When this sort of situations come up you may feel handcuffed by your budget.  It is often when this happens that people will start making exceptions and eventually abandon their budget.

Another reason that many budget systems do not work is because they are not prepared for the unexpected.    Let’s face it, life brings many unexpected events our way, and they often cost money.  An emergency fund is the ideal way to protect you from most of these; however what do you do while you are working to establish your emergency fund?  Also, many unexpected expenditures are small and hardly worth breaking into an emergency fund.  It may be an unexpected $30 because your good pair of pants developed a rip in them, or an unexpected tank of gas you need because you had to pick up your son or daughter from a friend across town.  These expenses may not be planned and in fact they may occur after you’ve already spent your budget for these areas.  It is hardly worth breaking into the emergency fund, but you also don’t have any budgeted space for them.

The end result of traditional budget systems is that most people don’t follow them for long.  Because the budget is so complex, feels restrictive, and does not allow for the unexpected, it is very easy for people to get off budget.  Once someone is off budget it is often easier for them to stay off than to start over.  And so people quit.  People start with good intentions but then end up leaving their budget behind and get back into the same financial traps they were in before.

That is why people need a simple budget system.  You need a system that will be easy to use, give you some freedom in your monthly spending, and has an allowance for the unexpected.

Steps in Developing a Simple Budget

1. Start a spreadsheet – at the top, write down your forms of income.

Write down all of your family’s forms of income (net take home pay).  For example, on our budget we have my paycheck, my wife’s paycheck, and our expected business income.  If you get paid monthly you will have one column in your spreadsheet.  If you get paid twice monthly you will have two columns.

Photo by Thebrasspotato

2. Record all of your bills payments and anything you need to pay on a monthly basis.

In this step you should simply list everything that is a MUST pay each month.  These would primarily be your bills and debt payments, not variable expenses like groceries.  Call these your fixed expenditures. On this list you should include:

• mortgage or rent
• all utility bills
• phone bill and cell phone bill
• cable or satellite bill
• car payments
• student loan payments
• minimum credit card payments
• house and car insurance
• monthly giving
• any other debt payments

This list should include everything you are committed to.  If there is something on this list that you don’t want to be committed to cancel that service, or pay off that debt.  If you have two columns after step 1 because you get paid twice monthly, you should place these bills and payments in the proper column based on when they become due.  Assuming you are paid an equal during each part of the month you should try to balance out the payments.

You should also look to automate as many of these payments as possible.  Use your bank account to set up automatic bill payments so that the fixed expenses are paid without any conscious effort on your part.

3.  Total your fixed expenditures and calculate your income minus your fixed expenditures so you have your amount remaining.

After step 3, your budget should look something like this:

4.  Set a budget for your variable expenses.

Your variable expenses will be all of the other types of expenditures that you may make in a budget period (ie. a month if you are paid monthly, or ½ month if you are paid twice monthly).  This will include your groceries, clothing, gas, entertainment and any unexpected surprises that may come up.  Your goal is to estimate a reasonable amount for these variable expenses, but to keep it as low as possible.

The process of finalizing your variable expense section of the budget will take time.  You will have to play with it over the first few months of using the simple budget system.  But once it’s complete it will give you flexibility and freedom in your spending.

5. Withdraw cash each budget period equal to your variable expenses.

Studies have shown that people who spend cash instead of debit or credit cards on average spend 18-28% less.  That is true of every category of spending, even clothes and groceries.  By spending cash you have to think about making each purchase, and have the emotional response of giving up cash.
Because of this fact, you should withdraw your variable expense budget at the start of each period.  This is what you will use for every variable expense.  The important thing to remember is that once the cash is gone – it’s gone.  You need to make it last for the entire budget period.

Because the variable budget is grouped together, you have a new found sense of flexibility.  You can spend more on groceries if there is a fantastic sale.  You can spend less on entertainment if there is nothing of interest to you this month.  You can easily flex between one type of variable expense and another.  It also gives you some leeway for unexpected events.  Certainly you have to keep within your overall variable budget but you can easily flex from one area of spending to another.

6. Use the remainder to accelerate debt payments and/or to save for the future.

The money you have left by this point in your process should be used to payoff debts or save for the future.  For most people, the best first step is to pay off debts as quickly as possible.

To do this, pick one of your debts and put all of the remaining money directly on to that debt.  This is known as a debt snowball and is recommended by financial experts such as Dave Ramsey.  Some experts suggest that you start with the debt with the lowest balance (in order to create some quick success), while others argue to attack the debt with the highest interest rate (in order to save more money in the long-term).  Either option can be successful, just make sure you start paying down debts right away.

The snowball effect occurs because once you pay off the first debt you add the original payment of that first debt to your extra debt payments and start attacking the second debt.

Now your completed simple budget should look something like this:

This budget system will simplify your financial life.  It sets all of your fixed payments on some form of automatic payment schedule so that you don’t worry about them.  It groups your variable expenses together to give you flexibility in how you spend them.  It can lower the stress that comes from trying to fit make every budget category equal and trying to keep track of every purchase.  By using cash you will spend less, and by following the debt snowball you will pay off your debt more quickly.

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

Go Sunday Browsing instead of Sunday Driving

Hi everyone,

This has been another wonderful and busy week. It was highlighted by our Welcome BBQ and Monopoly Tournament for the students I teach, plus a wonderful Saturday building my home business. Here are some of the best articles and stories I came across during the past week.

1. One of my favorite blogs, The Art of Non-Conformity, warns that we should Beware of Potential and push through rejection.

2. Whakate, talks describes how a Closed List can help you regain control over your day.

3. The Urban Monk, asks if Your “Projections” are Limiting Your Success?

4. Scott H. Young teaches us to not Forget the Sunk Costs.

5. Finally, Seth Godin discusses How Often Should You Publish? A great post for artists, authors, bloggers etc.

Enjoy the links!  Set some great goals, and go have a great week!
Danny

Personal development is a key to success. By reading this blog, you are demonstrating that you are committed to personal growth. Often people realize the importance of personal growth, but don’t do anything deliberate on a daily basis to provide for opportunities to grow. It is important that you commit to doing some form of personal development daily. This will ensure that you are always improving and moving towards your goals. Unfortunately, personal development is often one of the first areas that people let slip when they get busy. That is because it is never urgent, and it appears that it can always wait. While it may not be urgent, it is certainly important and in fact can be one of the most important activities you can pursue.

One way to ensure that you continue to pursue growth is to commit to a daily time of personal development. Many find that 20 minutes a day is an ideal number. It is not a long commitment. You can squeeze in 20 minutes even on a busy day. But 20 minutes is long enough to make a difference; to charge you up, and help you learn something important for your life.

So what do you do with 20 minutes to ensure growth? Here are six ways you can grow each day, and all of them can be valuable in just 20 minutes each day.

1. Read A Book – You should always be reading. Reading opens your mind to new ways of thinking and to new ideas. As you read you’ll be inspired, encouraged, and challenged. Chances are that no matter what goal you are pursuing, or what problem you are facing, that someone has faced a similar issue before and has written about it. By reading from them, you are able to avoid making mistakes that others have already made. If you don’t like to read, then make sure you get audio books. Audio books not only are valuable if you don’t like to read, but allow you to listen while you drive or exercise.

2. Pick a Few Blogs to Follow – There are many wonderful personal development blogs. By picking a few blogs and keeping up with them daily, you can continue to pursue growth with the blog’s author serving as your mentor or coach. Certainly, it is easy to get overwhelmed by trying to follow too many blogs. Eventually your list of unread posts grows and the list just overwhelms you; when that occurs you end up not reading any. By sticking with a few favorites, and subscribing by RSS, you can focus on picking up a few ideas each day.

3. Listen to Audio Trainings or Podcast – Listening to audio presentations can be another inspiring method of personal growth. You can listen to traditional training material from experts such as Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, or Tony Robbins. There are also dozens of other motivational speakers, trainers, and experts who offer free podcasts for you to download. Another example of the audio presentations available by podcast are sermons. You can listen to top preachers from around the world on a weekly basis.

4. Learn a Language – Learning a new language is a powerful form of personal growth. It helps to increase your creativity as you learn to thinking in a different language. It also prepares you to be more competitive in today’s workforce and business world. Further, it gives you greater flexibility in your ability to travel. You can learn a language at home through programs like the Rosetta Stone, through many other audio training programs or taking a local course.

5. Take a College Course – Another powerful form of personal growth is to take a course at your local college or university. Pick a topic that you would like to learn, whether that is just for your personal pleasure or to learn a new practical skill. After graduating, I have continued to take extra courses including a course in Racket Sports (to improve my tennis and learn a few other sports), a course in preaching, and a history course. All of these were valuable in my personal growth.

6. Hire a personal coach – A final way to ensure consistent personal growth is to hire a personal coach. Personal coaches are equipped to help you set and achieve goals in many areas of life. A good personal coach will help you to set goals, develop a plan, and become more effective as you move towards their achievement. A coach can help you in multiple areas of your life, by becoming a source of accountability as you live out your plan.

You certainly don’t need to do all of these things. Pick the one or two that you are most interested in and that fit best into your lifestyle. Commit to twenty minutes each day and start putting these activities into action.

Now readers it’s your turn. What are your favorite ways of personal development?

The Success Professor – Danny Gamache

If you liked this article, leave a comment below, or subscribe by RSS!

If you are looking for a way to earn extra money, click here!