Coaching Tip #810

The thoughts you have about yourself, and the words you utter to yourself have creative power. Entertaining negative thoughts and speaking condemning words to yourself will only damage your self-worth and take you down. Lift yourself up instead! Be honest in yourself appraisal, but use the power of your mind to encourage yourself onward. When you see the best in you, even in the face of your missteps, you give yourself what you need to be your best. Love yourself into the person you strive to be.

Article: Are You Paying Attention To The Loyalty Factor?

If you have been a business owner for any length of time, you know the tremendous benefits loyal team members bring to you and your customers. You also understand the detrimental effects the lack of loyalty can have on the success of your business. As the leader of your company, team member loyalty begins and ends with you.

Loyalty and trust go hand-in-hand. Anytime trust between you and a team member is broken, the loyalty that existed is damaged to some degree. Once damaged, it can be a lengthy process to rebuild it, if it’s even possible. The wisest choice is to build trust and loyalty from the outset, and continually work to grow them over time.

Anytime a person is mistreated, their trust for the other person is weakened. Examples of this are: speaking in a derogatory or condescending manner, demeaning or humiliating a team member, blaming another for something they did not do and not recognizing solid effort and quality work. If these actions go on repeatedly, trust and loyalty will be destroyed all together. Just think of the ways you have been mistreated, the way you felt, how it damaged your trust of and loyalty to that person and you will see what I mean.

Lying to a team member and breaking your promises to them is another way to negatively impact their loyalty to you. Obviously, lying to someone does not foster trust. Doing so demonstrates that they cannot trust you, which leads to them resenting you. If you make promises that you do not intend to keep, string someone along to get more out of them and never deliver on your word, they will create a mindset against you.

Taking advantage of your people is yet another way to damage and even destroy the professional relationship you share. Repeatedly asking or demanding that a team member put in more and more time, perform additional tasks and go above and beyond without meaningful recognition, verbal appreciation or even financial rewards will create mistrust and disloyalty.

When you treat people with dignity and respect - as the human being they are and not merely a cog in the wheel of your business - trust and loyalty is nurtured, grown and developed. Your team members want to be treated just as fairly as you do, and when they are, they will give this same respect back to you, often ten-fold.

Impeccability of your word - saying what you mean and meaning what you say - goes a long way in building the trust and loyalty that your company needs to always be its best. The most effective course of action toward this is to never lie to your team members, and when you make a promise, do everything in your power to keep it. If you can’t, make sure to let them know why so they will understand and see that you did your best.

Providing your team members with opportunity to learn new skills, take on more vital tasks and to advance within your business instills trust and loyalty. It demonstrates that you believe in them, recognize and appreciate their time and effort and, perhaps most importantly, it confirms to them that you care. When they know that, they will also care about you and the loyalty between you will be strong.

Creating a friendly and supportive work environment will strengthen trust and loyalty. When people go to a safe and supported work environment, they become appreciative. They want to be there, give more of themselves willingly and work to preserve that which they value. When you value them, they will value you and your business.

Without a doubt, trust and loyalty goes both ways. Sometimes you can be the most integrity based, supportive, fair and opportunity-giving business owner, and team members will still take actions that break your trust and loyalty in them. However, this is rarely the case when you instill these things in them first. Hiring effectively and letting those team members go who do not lend themselves to trust and loyalty is a wise decision.

In the end, there is a great benefit to you, your customers and your team members when mutual trust is a priority. When you lead from a place that fosters this in your people, your top talent will return the favor to you, usually at an even higher level. Great things happen within companies where the loyalty factor is a team effort.

Coaching Tip #809

Do you ever feel blown about like a leaf in the wind by the circumstances of your life - feeling as if you have no control? When you put yourself at the mercy of your life situations, you are relinquishing your control, dis-empowering yourself and taking you down into the depths of despair. However, as you face your circumstances from the mindset that you will make the best of your reality, and take actions that contribute to your well-being and happiness, you lift yourself up and become empowered - you gain control. Remember, you have the power of choice. You get to choose, and when you choose that which is best for you, the circumstances in your life will no longer hold sway over you.

Coaching Tip #808

It feels great when things go your way and you get what you want. Given how happy this makes you, can you imagine how good it feels to others when this happens for them? Have a positive impact; do what you can to help those in your life get what they want. Assist them in fulfilling their dreams, accomplishing a task, overcoming a challenge or just show them some love and appreciation. In the end, two people will be positively affected by your empowered choice to foster happiness.

Coaching Tip #807

Things get tough, the road becomes rocky and obstacles do appear in life. The opposite is also true - your path clears, the clouds dissipate, the sun comes out again and living is easy. Overwhelm, despair and hopelessness are common reactions to life becoming more difficult. However, this mindset is not the best choice. When things get rocky, find every reason to be grateful. With a more positive outlook, focus all of your attention on what you want - as opposed to what you don't - believe in you, and go about the task of bringing your life back to a pleasant state. You are strong enough!

Coaching Tip # 806

Challenges are your opportunity to overcome and prevail. It is empowering to use unexpected or unwanted circumstances to your advantage, rather than, letting them negatively affect you. When you accept the challenges in your life, and use those potentially unsettling moments to develop composure, a solution mindset and self-confidence, you will discover that you are far stronger than you currently believe yourself to be.

Coaching Tip #805

Each of us is a light unto ourselves, and the world. The brighter you shine, the happier you will be, and your impact on others will be more positive as well. When you choose to think your very best thoughts, take constructive actions and speak with impeccability you feel good - you are happy - and your light shines brightest. Keep your awareness high, catch any negativity within you, stop it immediately and redirect yourself in the most positive manner you can. Life improves dramatically when you consciously exercise your power of choice.

Coaching Tip #804

When you live in fear of what others think about you, their assumptions, opinions, judgments, criticisms and gossip hold more power than your own thoughts and beliefs about yourself. In this self-imposed prison that limits you and your life, your choices are largely determined by outside forces in an attempt to gain the favorable opinion of others as you seek worth outside yourself. However, self-worth is an inside job. That's why it's called SELF-worth. Realize that you will never make everyone happy, take back ownership of your life and be a person that you respect and are proud of. Be who you are, and let the chips fall where they may. You get to choose!

Coaching Tip #803

If you think of the different areas of your life on a scale of 0-10, with zero being the worst you can imagine and ten being the best, the distance between your ranking and the highest possible is called the gap. In that gap, lie both your challenges, and the solutions to improving your life. It's not about going from say a 6 to a 10 overnight; it's truly a process that takes time and consistent effort. Work to realize what stands between you and your greatest life, discover the solutions to these obstacles and give your very best effort in overcoming them. As you close the gaps, a more fulfilling and profoundly happier life will be yours.

Coaching Tip #802

We handle most of the change we experience on a daily basis with ease. However, when it threatens what we have grown accustomed to or what we want to have happen, we have the tendency to resist and even fight change. Yet, life is filled with change, and your power lies in how arrange your thoughts about it. Without life, you would not know the experience of change - change is life. Therefore, don’t fear change, embrace life.

Coaching Tip #801

You have four options when it comes to those aspects of your life that you find displeasing. You can ignore them, alter your thinking about them, change them completely or let them go. It is wise to engage that which displeases you and to work for a solution because, hiding from it will only increase your unhappiness. When you choose gratitude, and look for the positives in something, how you perceive it tends to change for the better. At other times, your best choice may be to change that which displeases you - an unfulfilling job for example. Sometimes, letting go is the most empowering thing you can do. Whichever option you choose, always take constructive action to increase your happiness.

Article: Does Your Business Generate Happiness And Revenue?

The average American worker spends 104,000 hours on-the-job over the course of a typical 50 year span in the workforce. This equates to 13,000 eight-hour days, or 16.6 years of their life, that is spent away from their family as they work to make a living. There is no doubt that many more workers and business owners expend significantly more of their lives than this performing their job-related duties.

Given these staggering numbers, isn’t it easy to see just how important it is to make sure that fulfillment and happiness are just as consistent as a paycheck? The workplace is a second home for your team members. If human enjoyment and contentment are not encouraged and supported, no amount of money will inspire workers to give their very best for long. Financial rewards only go so far in bringing out the best in people.

Average companies of all sizes have a lot they can learn from sophisticated business models that understand the incredible power of fostering ongoing job satisfaction. When team members enjoy coming to work, they are more efficient and productive - they produce higher quality products and deliver superior customer service. In addition, business owners experience far less turnover. In other words, satisfied and happy workers contribute their abilities to the business at a much higher and more consistent level which, in turn, leads to increased revenues. Everyone wins!

Without a doubt, businesses are always looking to get the highest possible return on their investments. One well-known Colorado company found that when they provided a place to exercise and access to healthy foods, they realized a whopping 619% return per every dollar invested. This is simple math that leads to an undeniable conclusion: Investing in your people - their fulfillment, well-being and happiness - is good business. Even if your return was only half this good, you would still realize over a 300% return! What business owner wouldn’t like those numbers?

To begin, a positive and healthy work environment starts with effective leadership, and leadership is most effective when it comes from a place of mentoring and empowering team members to personal greatness. Being a “boss” is quite different from being a “mentor”. When leaders embrace the constructive power of mentoring, it is encouraged and supported company wide. A culture of coaching is created and the collaborative spirit thrives. Let’s take a closer look at the qualities embodied by effective leaders:

• Effective leaders understand the necessity of hiring and developing empowered and capable managers. Across the board, poor management is one of the leading causes for costly turnover in companies. Managers who can mentor their team members foster strong working relationships through effective listening, clear communication, support, encouragement and accountability. When people are managed in this way job satisfaction increases.

• Effective leaders acknowledge the overwhelmingly positive impact properly selected team members have on company culture and performance. Hiring team members through a well-defined and proven strategy, such as Job Benchmarking, brings aboard those individuals who are best suited to perform and enjoy their particular job at the highest level.

• Effective leaders realize that learning, growth and development are a process that requires consistent training over an extended period of time. High quality, ongoing training and development programs performed by an outside professional, that are designed to closely evaluate and remedy any gaps in the talents, skills, motivators and behaviors needed to maximize on-the-job performance and satisfaction are best. The illuminating power of these coaching and consulting programs assist companies in creating a supportive and encouraging environment that contributes to the happiness of its team members.

• Effective leaders know that rewarding staff with sincere praise and recognition is often more powerful than merely giving them a raise. All people need money to live, but even more important than that, everyone needs to feel accepted, valued and appreciated; to know that their work and their lives are meaningful.

You don’t have to make huge investments in a fitness facility and a cafeteria to create a positive, supportive and encouraging work environment. There are many other options available to assist you in building a company culture that believes in and endeavors to empower your team members to personal greatness. Start today by seeking out the help you need to discover where you can add to the fulfillment and happiness of your team, and yourself, and take the action steps needed to make necessary improvements. In return, you will be rewarded with a company that rises to new heights.

Coaching Tip #800

Most of us are taught to forgive others for their transgressions. However, we often find it difficult, if not impossible, to forgive ourselves for the missteps we make in life. Does being your own worst critic and holding the past against yourself really work? I suggest that there is a better way. Hold yourself accountable for your missteps - own them - learn and grow from your experiences and forgive yourself, or at least cut yourself some slack for not being “perfect”. Your self-worth will thank you, and your life will improve.

Coaching Tip #799

Have you noticed that when you are laughing you feel good, and that when you feel good you are happier than when you don't feel good? Every day provides you with many opportunities to laugh, whether at yourself, a joke, a child's silliness, a funny movie or just because you are experiencing the joy of living. Make the conscious choice to laugh as often as you can, even in the face of your challenges (it will help to make them more manageable), and by doing so, you will be making the conscious choice to be happier.

Coaching Tip #798

When aspects of your life, such as your career, a relationship, your business, kids’ going off to college or any other time comes to a close, it can be the case that you look back, rather than looking forward. The end of something is always the beginning of something new. Rather than trying to hold onto what was, reflect on your past with fondness while embracing the changes in your life. Come to see the opportunities they bring, and move forward into your new and exciting future.

Coaching Tip #797

You are most powerful in creating the life of your dreams, when your focus is placed squarely on what you desire. If you give the majority of your attention to those things that you do not want, valuable mental resources are diverted away from creating what you DO WANT. Therefore, be aware of those things that displease you, but always turn your attention and focus toward the creation of the meaningful and fulfilling life you desire.

Coaching Tip #796

The pursuit of knowledge is certainly a worthwhile endeavor. However, the knowledge you acquire becomes truly valuable, only when you choose to implement it. Every day of your life provides you with a multitude of learning experiences. Use what you learn to improve your life and the lives of others - turn the knowledge you gain, through the living of your life, into the treasure it truly is. Learn, grow and become your greatest possibility.

Coaching Tip #795

Everyone is a mirror unto you - they help you to see yourself more clearly, and to remember who you want to be. Let children remind you to have hope. Watch the elderly, and remember to live now. Observe those you have overcome challenges, and remind yourself to live a courageous life. Use the reflection of those who are grateful, compassionate, loving and happy to inspire these same qualities in you. Come to see, that in truth, everyone is a friend, and a blessing - an ally in your journey through life.

Coaching Tip #794

As you awaken each day, realize that it's not just another day - understand it's a new day in your life. Take a deep breath, look at your loved ones, be grateful for all that you are blessed with and let yourself dream. When you rise in the morning, awaken not only your body and mind, but also your spirit. Life is a wonderful adventure that is fully accessible only to those who embrace the gift and, also choose to make the most of it.

Coaching Tip #793

A simple and highly effective approach to being happier is to stop doing things that make you unhappy, and instead, do the things which bring you happiness. If you find that there are things that limit your happiness, and you don't believe that you can stop doing them, then your best course of action is to change how you perceive them. When you cultivate the belief that your life, and all it contains, is a gift, you become increasingly grateful. As this occurs, you encounter fewer problems, the things that once disturbed you no longer do and happiness flourishes in your life.

Coaching Tip #792

The sun has risen, you have awoken and another glorious day in your life has dawned. Fill yourself with gratitude, take on your day with passion and enthusiasm, let nothing stand in your way and allow your smile to brighten the world. Live fully throughout this one precious day so that come sunset your heart will be full, and the world will be a better place because of the person you were within it.