Image by: Ben Grey
By John Cace

I hope you are reading this somewhere quiet because I want you to be focused on what I’m about to tell you. And really, that idea of being focused is what will help you achieve the things you want in life.

• You’ll learn how inspiration is conceived and apply it.
• Never again will self-doubt be your biggest obstacle
• Use war stories from a seasoned entrepreneur as your guide
• Discover the life fulfilling benefits of being calmer
• Retool your weaknesses to become your strengths

I know, I know, it sounds like a lofty set of goals to achieve in a small amount of space. But that is exactly the kind of thinking you have to change if you want to finish that book you’ve been writing, or that product you’ve been conceptualizing, or any other endeavor of yours.

It Starts Now

Time is not your enemy my friend. In fact, it is really more like a record keeper or personal assistant. If it helps, just imagine that time is a beautiful woman, like Erika Aurora, and her job is to make sure you complete your daily agenda. We’ll call her Ms. Time

You wouldn’t want to disappoint a beautiful woman, now would you?

So don’t keep her waiting or she will start to get lazy and forget to tell you what you need to do. That means you should create a schedule that documents all the available hours, minutes, and seconds you have in each day in order to reserve them for yourself.

Then check out this article about where ideas actually come from. It will give you some great insight about being more constructive with your precious mistress, I mean Ms. Time. You’ll find out what a real brainstorming session should be like and why you need more like 100 ideas to get to the one that is your golden ticket.

The most important thing you will learn from Martin Källström’s advice is that,

“…if you’re sitting around waiting for a thunderclap of inspiration, you could do worse than to lock yourself in a room and start lobbing ideas at the wall.”

The only thing to fear, is….

The next thing on Ms. Time’s agenda for you is to go Chuck Norris on your fears and hang-ups.

It reminds me about this guy I met in Home Depot one day. I was looking for pipe stuff to fix a leak in my home and he just started a conversation with me. The next thing I know he’s following me to my house and for $50 he helped me sweat a pipe, solder in a new one, and patch the wall.

Did I ask him for a license to complete all the work or insurance? Maybe I should have, but the point is that he was so professional, he got my business, regardless of not possessing all the paperwork to show certifications.

This story from entrepreneur and blogger Yaro Starak expounds further on the idea that you cannot limit yourself due to fear of failure in any form. He talks about a man he helped overcome his worries of not possessing “official qualifications” in order to share his abilities with the world.

“All he needed to do was share. Share his stories, teach through his experiences, and open doors to ideas that other people didn’t know about…For me, one of the biggest ‘wins’ I enjoy is seeing someone finally break through their own limitations. Once they realize their ideas are good and they experience real feedback from their audience telling them so (not to mention making sales of their products), I feel my biggest job is done.”

The Finer Things In Life

Now that you have some uplifting vibes running through your body, you should take a look at what kind of long term benefits such feelings can offer you. By calibrating your attitudes about different aspects of life, stress will be something you rarely experience. Think calmer and you’ll see why the following are some ways you can start to feel more fulfilled.

• Living in the moment and for it
• Adjusting your expectations so you aren’t let down
• Avoiding the feeling of being rushed and improve the quality of your experiences

…And after you smell the roses

Then you can get back down to brass tacks and hear from experienced entrepreneur Ted Leonhardt about what it is that makes owning your own business so rewarding and satisfying. He relays some important concepts of being the boss like:

• How adversity can make you stronger
• The importance of differentiating your business from the competition
• And how you must ALWAYS treat your business like a business, not a hobby

Lemons Into Lemonade

Now the last piece of business that should be Ms. Time’s agenda is turning your weaknesses into strengths. There could be a million reasons you have for not doing something. Just simply turn them into reasons for doing something.   Writer Antoine Ribordy explains the guts of this concept and others that he learned while researching hundreds of books for the recipe to success.

One of the points he discusses is like a rabbit hole of reasoning that starts with the question: Why?

Instead of just settling for one answer, Ribordy suggests you keep asking yourself why to each one. It will help you delve into your true motivations that will ultimately lead to a deeper connection with them.

Alright, quiet time is now over. You are well equipped with the right mixture of ideas to start growing your own. And really the growing starts with you and your ability to make the changes in your life that will set in motion your habits for success.