How do you stand out from the competition and still matter to your customer. Don't worry so much about the competition. How are you different to your customer? Do you care about their issues, and do they know you care by your actions on their behalf?

You may work on an hourly wage or you may be salaried, but the question is how much value are you putting in each hour? It's not enough to know how much you get paid per hour, but what is the value of every hour that you work? Are you at your best and most productive or are you being inefficient with your time?

Many try to be great at their tasks, but are not being effective in reaching their destination. Are you bringing solutions that effectively address your customer's issues? Or are you trying to be the most efficient but never reaching success?

The first quarter of the year is about to be over. If you're not reassessing the plan with respect to your destination, you'll soon get lost and miss out on the destination and everything that comes with it. If you don't reassess where you are and how you plan to move forward you'll move with any current. Reassess the plan!

If you don't deal with the important stuff, you'll end up dealing with everything from the back-burner that is now urgent. Don't wait for the urgent to rear its ugly head. Prioritize and deal with the big picture. Have a plan and move on it now so you're not responding to things that are urgent but not so important after all.

It's not about the competition. Before you worry about the competition, know what matters to your customer. You must get in your customer's shoes and understand their issues. Yes, at some point it will be about the competition, but first you must understand their concern.

It is said that the violent take it by force. So what are you waiting for to take on your destiny. You will need passion and more than that courage. Will you make a run for it? Will you embrace what is laid out in front of you? The choice is yours.

This week we covered your gift vs. character, and understood that talent is never enough. In the end it's really about developing the character to hone your skills consistently. Your gift will make room for you, but those who develop their gift by adding skills to them are the ones who will stand in the presence of greatness. They will eventually become the great ones if they don't quit developing their character.

Have a sense of urgency, and prioritize your time so you can quickly deal with emergencies by nipping them in the bud. Don't let everything become an emergency. Get the monkeys off your back, and prioritize, prioritize!

Without passion you can't move the world. Where is your passion? Passion will cause others to follow you. You can't keep living a hum-drum life without passion. If you're lacking passion it also means you're lacking energy to drive the causes you truly care for. Find your passion for there your energy source lies. What touches you at the core? There is your passion!