Tag Archives: winners

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Acknowledging Achievement

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There are many motivating factors for those that consistently attain exceptional results.  The focus and effort required to reach your goals often derive from individual needs.

While the specific drivers of our actions and behaviours vary for each of us based on our personality, environment and general life philosophy, ultimately it is underpinned by a desire to increase our happiness and joy

Common Motivators

Compensation and recognition underly the majority of motivational techniques.   Compensation encompasses direct financial to any type of reward (e.g., a new TV).  Recognition ranges from a simple thank-you to a top award (e.g., Olympic Gold Medal).

While the reasons for anyone specific behaviours or actions can be far ranging from a wide variety of needs and wants almost all can be linked back to compensation and recognition.

Recognition, Only five minutes of fame?

A quick thank-you or acknowledgement of success seems brief and fleeting.  In reality, the effect is much more durable and longer lasting.

The impact of praise or even just acknowledgement continues to the next task or goal.  It has been shown by many studies into the nature of winning/success that achievement increases the probability of future outcomes being positive.

This is not an absolute, winning can be followed by loosing, but on a statistical basis winning is more likely to become consistent when coupled with recognition.

Simply put, the statement “Success breeds success” is intuitively true for most people.

Unrecognized success is far less powerful a motivator than that which is acknowledged and commended.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Ideas, Innovation and Entrepreneurs

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What are the qualities of a good entrepreneur?   Is it the entrepreneur or the idea that leads to success?

Just to be sure we are thinking of the same definition, here’s a standard one  from dictionary.com:

“A person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk”

There are many well known and broadly communicated success stories of people who started a business with minimal resources and became huge successes. ( Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry, etc.)

What is not as widely publicized are the  details of the failures – that is to say what was tried and how it failed.  Of course from a big picture perspective  the failure rate for entrepreneurial start-ups is pegged around 90% ish (depending on whose study you read)  so the likelihood of succeeding is known to be low and readily available in public media.  However, the stories of what did people try and why did it not work are usually not the topic of books, articles, talk shows, etc.  (I guess general in our culture failure is not celebrated).

Stories about lack of success are the opposite of the success stories, however, both examples can help understand what kind of skills, values and approaches form the underpinning of successfully building a business.  It would also help put some perspective on how much of success was attributed to good ideas and how much to the entrepreneur themselves.

The athlete model

While I don’t have a bunch of data or reference points proving my own view, I still believe the majority of the success lies with the entrepreneur themselves.

Consider successful athletes at the top of their sports.   Those in the top ten are probably equally skilled and capable but the athlete that rises to the very top succeeds through motivation and drive.  They vision the win and then they win.  Of course this is not an absolute philosophy but I wager that on the whole it the most critical success factor – believe in yourself, don’t doubt, don’t question – just proceed.

My favorite summary of this attitude is the simple quote from the Yoda character in the Star Wars film series – “There is no try, just do or do not. ”

Is there a point to this post?

Today’s message is short, brief and pointed – trust in yourself, if you think you can, then you can!