The first step in a new endeavor can very often be the most difficult.

It can be very easy to be overwhelmed at the prospect of launching onto a new journey – whether it is writing a book from a blank page, starting up a new company from scratch, or learning how to master a brand new skill.

It isn’t important that you are a master or expert (or maybe even all that good) when you are first launching a new endeavor. The important thing is that you simply get going, and take that first step.

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Summary:

An old adage tells us that even a journey of a thousand steps must begin with one first step. So why is it so hard for us to take it? Why do so many of us perpetually dawdle and stall on getting started along the path to our dreams?

The beginning of a new professional journey is always a daunting proposition. If there is ever a time to bail out of a risky new exploit, it is surely right before it even begins. It can be easy to be overwhelmed by all of the new choices and decisions to be made. Truth be told, many of us may find more comfort in not even trying due to how uncomfortable we are with the very notion of trying and failing.

I assure you that you will regret the steps you didn’t take far more than the ones you did. Everyone who ever accomplished anything of substance had to confront an array of uncertainties and challenges when starting out. The key is to just get going, take that first step and begin making progress.

Read on to learn how you can condition yourself to default on the side of taking action – and how you can get started on your new path.

Never confuse strength of pocketbook with moral strength. Money doesn’t give you “character” – It simply provides you the freedom to be who you are with less restrictions.

Think of money as a spotlight that helps illuminate what is already there – just more brightly.

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A common mistake made in our society is to confuse net worth and self-worth. There’s nothing more inherently virtuous or moral about those of us who have attained greater wealth.

That might seem self-evident, but there are plenty of mixed signals sent. More successful people do tend to work harder and strive to get to where they are – this hustle and grit can be conflated with intelligence and character all too often. The truth is that who you are when you’re poor is just about the same as who you are when you’re rich. Money is more of a light that illuminates what is already there – warts and all.

The world may worship money in the here and now, but what we remember in the long run is character – how you lived and how you helped others with the gifts you were given. Scripture and literature is riddled with stories of those who let their riches gain dominance over their lives to the detriment of what they truly cared about.

Read on to learn more on how to maintain your grip on your core values and principles – regardless of the number of zeroes in your bank account.

The correct mindset stems from knowing that money is not the end-all and be-all. It does not guarantee happiness despite a lot of wishful thinking about the wealthy.

Nor for that matter, of course, does money make someone a lesser person or heighten their odds of unhappiness. It is merely a tool that one can use, which often illuminates their true character.

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Lucky numbers. We all think about them – that right combination of digits on a lottery ticket that could change our life overnight and deliver us from a lifetime of uninspiring work.

But have you ever noticed what lottery winners tend to do? Long after the oversized cheque has been handed out and the balloons have fallen, there is often struggle. It is not at all uncommon to read of winners who simply couldn’t handle their sudden influx of cash and struggle to ever return to a life of normalcy. Some even wind up declaring bankruptcy after quickly blowing through the cash.

The problem here lays in seeing a number figure or an amount of money as your goal. Money itself is only a tool that helps you to live out your values and commitments. That’s why experiencing a sudden influx of cash in a windfall can be quite illuminating on what your real mindset is toward money, wealth, and success.

Read on to learn what type of mindset is most conducive to achieving lasting success and contentment, long after the winning ticket is cashed.

Where does that drive to conquer, no matter the obstacles, come from?

In the end, drive and determination will eat talent for breakfast – each and every time. It is not enough to be gifted. What matters is how you choose to use that gift, and to what degree you are disciplined about it.

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Do you have the drive to succeed? Where does that grinding desire to win come from?

Don’t confuse this with the motivation to attain and hold a job. The world’s true success stories aren’t content with that – contentment doesn’t seem to be a word in their vocabulary. This can create a lot of struggle and challenge over the course of their journey, but ultimately a lot of satisfaction is gained when they look back upon all that they have achieved.

The desire to win doesn’t rest or take holidays. It’s a grinding hustle that knows nothing of sick days, holidays or the normal boundaries observed by most of us. Employees rightfully advocate for a healthy work-life balance, but many driven strivers are focused more upon work-life integration – the distinction is that their sense of mission and purpose is so all-consuming that it actually becomes a part of their life wherever they go and no matter what they are doing.

What is it that pushes them on well past the breaking point, when many of us will stop? It is often about legacy. We want to know that in our time here we made the very best and fullest use of the talents we have been afforded.

How can you best harness that desire to meet your own ambitions? Read on to learn some techniques for ensuring that you are maximizing everything you have in your tool kit.

If you take a look at the most successful people and brands in the world, you will often find that the common thread connecting them all is that they are compelling story tellers. They don’t just tell customers what they do – they take them on a journey that is designed to help build an emotional bond.

Read on to see how exploring and communicating your unique personal narrative can help you connect with your core values and discover a niche that you can build your business around. 

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What is it about stories?

After thousands of years, we all still love nothing more than to hear a good yarn. What countless marketers and business leaders have learned is that nothing seems to stick in the mind of customers and audiences like a good narrative.

Facts and statistics definitely have their place in supporting arguments. But there is nothing like putting a human face to strike a direct connection. The same should go for your brand. What stories are you telling about what you hope to achieve? Have you effectively put real time into thinking about how you can best present the narrative of what your mission is?

It is most definitely a skill, distinct from just being able to give a good presentation or make a good slide deck. Story telling means finding the human component of your work and finding a way to relate it to the struggles of those you hope to reach.

Read on to learn more on how you can more effectively tell your story – maybe all the way to the bank.

The only way to gain control over your life is to assert it. You cannot wait for anyone’s permission or dutifully pass the time until it’s your turn. There will always be an abundance of people in your life more than willing to make decisions about how you should best be spending your time. Drowning out those voices and following your heart is a necessary step to launching your way on the correct path.

Listen to learn ways that you can asset control over your life and carve out your path to success on your own terms.

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Who’s in control of your life? Who calls the shot?

Can you honestly answer that it’s you? Or is it another person in your life? Your boss perhaps? A significant other? It may not even be a person at all – it could be alcohol or television or envy itself.

Many of us sleepwalk through our lives because we don’t feel like we are truly in control. We have plans and goals, but still find ourselves somehow carrying out someone else’s agenda for what our priorities should be.

Ironically, we may even prefer to think of ourselves as answering to someone else or an authority figure. Deferring to another person or force effectively lets us off of the hook and gives us someone to blame for not following our dreams.

The day to begin assuming control of your life is today. There are steps we can all take today to begin to assert control over our daily decisions and the path we will travel. Read on to learn more about how you can gain control of the steering wheel again.

It’s tempting to perennially subscribe to the notion that “tomorrow is another day”; that our choices in the here and now have little impact since we can always get a mulligan on the next round. But the truth is that the choices and decisions you make – on matters large and small alike – directly impact the quality of your career, relationships, and legacy on this planet.

While none of us have access to perfect knowledge or can operate in complete confidence that we are taking the right path, we can strive to make our decisions with the very best spirit in mind. There are numerous examples of choices you can make that will help to better the odds that you will ultimately find yourself on the path to success. 

Read on for insight into how you can start making better choices and maximize your success.

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What we do each and everyday, even in those in-between moments, affects the quality of our lives directly. If the choices we make each and everyday send ripples that ultimately can shape the long-term course of our lives, it makes sense to put as much thought into those choices as possible.

It can be an overwhelming process  - especially today in an age in which we are all deluged with an overabundance of information. Even deciding where to go for dinner can be an exercise in endlessly researching countless options. So how can we even begin to develop a framework for making better, more constructive decisions?

Regardless of the decision that awaits you, there are some standard best practices we can all follow to ensure that we are setting ourselves up for success with the choices that we make. Read on to learn more about how you can best optimize the choices you make to ensure a better tomorrow.

Take a page from the thought processes of the geniuses who have gone before us, to elevate your game and mind power!

Prepare to be bold and think outside of the box, even if it means straying into some areas of thought that scare you a little bit or can ruffle feathers. We remember geniuses precisely because they were iconoclasts and ran against the grain of what was considered to be the bounds of acceptable discourse in others’ eyes.

Remember to roam widely beyond your comfort zone and area of expertise, as this may well give you some very valuable insights into your primary area of interest. A common link among geniuses in wildly disparate fields is that they draw connections and see synergies that others miss. If creativity can be defined as the fusion of two existing ideas, geniuses are those who are adept at combining what other people have already done to create something new.

Listen to more about how to think like a pure genius and take your game to the next level...

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Our society reveres the notion of geniuses – those individuals who are able to push back against seemingly permanent forces and change the course of history through the strength of their ideas. We talk a lot about innovation, but when it is actually presented to us, history shows that we often react to change with fear 

Change can be scary. This is why so many geniuses are only regarded as such later on, often not until they have passed on. One is far more likely to be perceived as a lunatic or fool when presenting ideas that completely deviate from what has come before.

So what can we learn from those intrepid souls who have been capable of staring down convention with the sheer force of their ideas? What traits and sensibilities do they have in common that we can learn from?

Surely all of us know of ways that our businesses and communities can stand to be improved. Perhaps we can all take a lesson from the story of geniuses who have come before us and learn how to think more like them. Read on to learn more on how you can train yourself to brainstorm and solve problems like some of the great figures of history.

The beauty of the internet is the freedom that it offers you. 

The web essentially acts as a great equalizer for knowledge. We all now have the sum of most human information at our fingertips.

You don’t need special credentials or the permission of a gatekeeper. That’s the beauty of it. The ubiquity and availability of information online has essentially thrown the doors wide open to allow anyone to get cracking on their own online ventures.

Online entrepreneurship affords you the freedom to work from anywhere you want, as long as it comes with a suitable WiFi connection. No longer is it an absolute to be tethered to an office and suffer an arduous commute to make a living.

Read on to learn tips on how you can obtain the freedom and financial success you want conducting your business on the Internet.

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Don’t listen to the pessimists out there. There has simply never been a better time than now to forge your own way in business. The wide-open freedom of the Internet has provided unprecedented opportunities for entrepreneurs to do work they care about – in the circumstances and locations that they choose.

In today’s hyper-connected world, it is no longer necessary to be chained to a cubicle and suffer a grueling daily commute. Investigate the plethora of options for quickly getting started with your own online venture. It is possible to do it with little of the paperwork and hassle that was traditionally required in the past to open a business.

Whether you elect to build a website from scratch or take advantage of the numerous ready-to-go templates that are available in the online market for those who are less tech savvy, there is no excuse to delay in launching your own venture.

No matter what type of product or service you launch, there are a number of time-tested strategies and methods for business success you should keep in mind. Read on to learn more about what others have learned in kicking off their online ventures – and how you can follow their example and start to blaze your own path.

There’s surely nothing wrong with making a commitment around the New Year to get into better shape or to eat healthier or to make a positive life change. It is a natural reflection point to stop at the beginning of a new year to consider what you hope to get out of the next one. But the problem lies in only having a self-improvement mentality on one holiday a year, followed by a few weeks of rapidly decreasing follow through.

Setting a real and meaningful vision for action requires taking and planning action long before New Years Eve happens to roll around on the calendar again. It requires having a fleshed out vision in mind of the change you seek, as well as a clearly articulated list of tasks that are oriented toward helping you reach your destination.

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New Year’s Eve. It’s a time for champagne, confetti, and, of course, making wild promises to yourself that are often forgotten by the time February rolls around. 

Just why is it so hard to maintain commitment to those promises we make to ourselves at midnight? Why is it that we keep going through the same routine year in and year out? We pledge to hit the gym, to drink more water, to save more, to wake up earlier – and yet we quickly hit the wall and get discouraged.

The answer may lie in our approach to making big changes. If we are serious about enacting change in our lives, it’s not enough to make a promise – we must make a plan. And it surely can’t just be an annual event if we hope to reach real progress.

Listen to learn how you can maintain a commitment to self-improvement and growth throughout the year – even if you aren’t watching the ball drop at a party.