5 Things successful business people do

Everyone wants to be successful, but success won't come to you. You have to make strides towards success otherwise the two of you remain parallel, one dreaming about the other.

Success is not only money or cars, it is a mindset that evolves into a behaviour which in turn generates possessions.

Here are five essential things that successful business people do to guarantee continuous growth of their success stories.

1. See value in cents

Success is a collage of decisions made that amount to a desired outcome. It is about building a vision, one block at a time. Each and every step taken draws you closer and closer to the ultimate goal up until the final outcome of success is within your reach.

It is quite rare to have instantaneous success just pop up out of nowhere, unless of course you win a million dollar lottery jack pot. ….but still, come to think of it, it may have taken years of playing and missing the lottery numbers until you finally hit the jackpot. So again, that process of acquiring experience through small wins and defeats paves the way towards winning the ultimate jackpot.

Even though instantaneous success is a passenger that is hard to come by, the phrase ‘instant success’ has become almost a cliché because it seems a different individual everyday is hitting the jackpot. 

However, once you take a closer look at the success stories you begin to appreciate the work ethic, determination and patience invested on each case of so called 'instantaneous success.'

It makes you realize that success seems all too instantaneous to those that were NOT around whilst the foundation trenches were being dug and the structures being raised. To the person who achieves success, it never seems instantaneous. Actually most times than not, it would be long overdue!

The mind is programmed for success the moment one realizes that every success mansion is a collection of bricks. There cannot be a mansion if you are not willing to forge a hundred thousand bricks and arrange them systematically into the shape of your vision.

Brick work is not a pleasure to the eyeballs. Actually, many times that not, no one gives you attention during brick molding. However, the final painted masterpiece always looks like one big carved brick that people all the sudden notice and so they misinformedly call it “an instantaneous success.”

In a like manner, every dollar note is built from a collection of a hundred cents.

Once you begin to appreciate each and every cent acquired you are more likely to make informed decisions about how you will either invest or spend that money.

Every multi-million dollar firm grows by the cents. It is built one cent over another into the successful company that it is. It is unfortunate many people will only notice the painted coating and do not get to appreciate each and every brick laid beneath the colours.

Your journey towards success starts the moment you start appreciating each and every cent and seeing it as a victory; a step in the positive direction.

2. Realize the value of Time management

It takes discipline to be diligent with your time.

Time, like a cent, is one entity that is overlooked many times because it always seems ‘insignificant.’ But if you make sense of your cents, you get a dollar. The same way, once you appreciate every minute you increase your level of productivity.

Salaries are a monetary representation of the amount of time someone would have invested in the company with either their labour or ideas.

The notion of paying someone for their service over a certain time frame actually helps successful business people to appreciate time and efficiency.

To be honest, no one would want to pay someone who would leave a task at the same level it was before. Every business person wants each passing minute to produce results, ideas and progress. And as justification, they reward salaries not as a hand out but as a token of appreciation for the time each employee has invested in the production and advancement of the firm.

At such a level of thinking, time seizes to be a mere ticking of seconds but becomes invested potential that can be cashed out at the end of the day.

The target in every business is to earn profit whilst addressing people’s needs. But this is easier said than done because you still have to ward off the competition yet producing the best affordable product. Worse still in this day and age where globalization has created a centralized market for the entire world, the competition becomes stiffer.

All competitors have the exact same time. A minute that passes by in Taiwan is the exact same minute that will also be experienced in Zurich, Cairo and New York. The major difference will be the level of productivity invested in each passing minute.

No wonder the phrase, “time is money.”                     

…but time is money only when your mindset is aware and set in the right place.
The solution to implement a simple one: Account For Your Time

Give yourself time everyday to reflect on how you have spent your time during the entire day. It is on such reflection moments that you become aware of some of the time wasting activities that may have seeped silently into your schedule.

3. Speak once, listen twice

You gain more when you listen than you do when you speak. Knowledge is an instrument one can use to gain. Seemingly so, successful business people aim to acquire knowledge about everything they are involved in.

You are always at an advantage over that which you know and you pay for that which you do not know. You literally pay for that which you do not know. For every engine you cannot fix, you pay a mechanic who has the technical knowledge. For every burst pipe you cannot fix, you pay to have a plumber visit your house.

Once you begin to understand it, you will realize the phrase “knowledge is power” is more than the cliché it has been turned into.

The reason everyone goes to school is to acquire knowledge. You pay for the knowledge you are getting at every academic institution and lecturers get paid to deliver knowledge. Academic certificates are a mere representation of the knowledge one possesses in a particular field.

Even when it comes to employment, the highest posts at companies always require bulkier academic qualifications and more times than not, these top positions possess an equally handsome salary. In lay man’s terms, the more knowledgeable you are, the more likely you are to sit at the top of the food chain.

4. See opportunity

Not only does knowledge give you the sweet spots on the food chain, it reveals gaps in the market and people’s needs.

A gap is a problem and every problem is an opportunity for growth and expansion.

Every need that is being satisfied today was once a problem and it took a success oriented person to tackle that problem.

For the need to travel, someone developed a car. For the need to have better lighting, a light bulb was invented. For warmth, someone came up with the idea of a blanket and for the problems caused by malnutrition, supplement tablets were introduced.

Today, we seem entitled to the luxury of air conditioned houses but tend to forget that at one point the temperature was actually a problem people were facing and it took an eye that could see opportunity in the freezing or sweltering temperatures to design an air conditioning system.

When some people see problems, a success oriented person sees an opportunity. This is because for every problem that is solved, there is always a reward.

5. Learn

There is a difference between acquiring knowledge and learning. It can be likened to the difference between hearing and listening. If the acquired knowledge does not promote change then the knowledge would have been gained in ignorance.

And ignorance is never an excuse for failure. That is the reason successful people seek information first before any investment. A misinformed decision can be the most expensive choice one can make.

Learning is the ability to act on acquired knowledge. It is the implementation of knowledge backed by strategy for the advancement of an endeavour.

6. Sacrifice

It takes sacrifice to move from the ordinary into the extraordinary. Sacrifice means going the extra mile as compared to how far any other ordinary individual would go. 

Doing your best is diligence, but going beyond your best is sacrifice 

There are many forms of sacrifice; some monetary, others sacrifice their time, some their leisure and others sacrifice materialistic possessions among other things for the advancement of their business or project.

There is more to sacrifice than what meets the eye. It is not simply investing beyond your ability. Sacrifice takes courage because a sacrifice is not always a guarantee of success. It is possible for things to remain stagnant even after sacrificing your time or money into them. 

However, the ability to open up to sacrificing subtly builds a courageous attitude within the individual as well. And in business, you can never make it big without a fair dose of courage. Sacrifice and courage go hand in hand.

Not only does sacrifice build courage, it also builds a tenacious attitude. You are bound to put an extra fight for whatever you have sacrificed for than you would for something you approached lackadaisically.

Last but definitely not least, sacrifice is bound to produce a bigger output. It’s simple math really…the more you invest, the more justified is your expectation to harvest more.

In conclusion

Success is a way of thinking. Materialistic possession and fat bank accounts are just evidence of the presence of a mind that has been tuned for success.

In a like manner, it can be observed from all the five points that the mind has the most work to do if ever one is going to be successful.

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