Being truly successful in business requires a mental set of skills. Sure, you need a talent. Having a natural ability to excel at something is a great advantage when it comes to success. You also need to be unique. The product or service that you offer to the world has to stand apart from the rest of the products or services available in the marketplace.

However, real success in business comes from something that overshadows even talent or a great niche. Real success is a result of an ingrained outlook. It comes from a certain way of approaching the world. This approach dictates how one reacts to events and it is the sum total of these reactions that spells ultimate success.

This mental approach can be called a “business mindset”. It is comprised of a series of skills or processes, each of which is interlocked with the others to produce, by combination, the ability to reach and achieve goals, time and time again. In the end, what sets successful people apart is not talent or product. True success comes from the ability to use innate talent to produce great product. This ability, in turn, comes from the adoption of a business mindset.

So what makes up a successful business mindset? Well, there are a number of elements. The thing is that no single one of any of these elements is more important or takes precedence over the others. In other words, there is no secret to a successful business mindset, no trick that can be applied to quickly turn lead into gold. Instead, a good business mindset operates constantly in business situations and in non-business situations to produce the mental wellbeing that is essential to achieving success. Continue reading →

It comes as no surprise that as a species, we have evolved to be very visual beings. Our sight could arguably be considered our strongest and most important sense, and is largely responsible for our having survived and thrived for this long on our planet. The ability to detect movement, recognize patterns and colors, and perceive shadows with our eyes it what has allowed us to ultimately succeed as a species.

But there is a different kind of vision – and this is one that helps us survive and succeed in business. This vision describes not our actual ability to physically see with our eyes, but our innate ability to visualize the positive outcome of our actions. Our vision, in this sense, is the ability to consciously choose which direction we go, and how far forward we’ll go, in our business.

Vision is only one piece of the puzzle though. Anyone can have vision – and lots and lots of people from all walks of life do – but seeing that vision blossom into a solid reality is another task entirely. This is a task that requires organization and serious action taking. And the most important skill that you absolutely must have in order to begin turning the vision into reality is focus. Continue reading →