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There Is Always Room For Better Results

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Results Sign

We all strive to get better results. When some people get a better result, the joy of getting those results slowly fade away until we want even better results. This is good because it encourages progress and raises the bar higher.

However, some people get too happy with their results. The worst thing that can happen is settling with the results we just got. Getting 1,000 followers is an accomplishment, but settling with 1,000 followers hinders potential growth. There is no limit to how much you and your business can grow.

Many people see reaching a certain result as the end point. However, the results that we desire to reach are not limitations. They are launching pads for further growth.

 

It’s Not About Making Ideas

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It’s about making ideas happen. Thinking about the idea is easy. Making the idea happen is the hard part. Your idea can be a multimillion dollar business, but you only get the multimillion dollar business by putting in the work and effort required.

Thinking about a successful idea does not guarantee success. Implementing the idea, and making that idea grow will allow you to become successful.

Once you come up with the idea, make it happen!

 

The Question You Need To Ask Yourself Before Trying Something New

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Is it worth learning and mastering?

That was the question I asked myself when I decided to give HootSuite Pro a try. At first, HootSuite Pro’s bulk scheduler seemed just as confusing as a Google product. Here was the problem: When I tried to schedule a tweet for 7 pm, it ended up being scheduled for 7 am. I was unsuccessful at scheduling tweets in every pm time except for 12 pm.

This problem took over an hour to figure out. The main problem is that I went too far ahead without anticipating the problem. Regardless, the problem came, and I was presented with the option to quit and the question above. When I thought about the question, I realized that mastering HootSuite Pro would allow me to save a large amount of time. It takes me well over 4 hours to send out a week’s worth of tweets. With HootSuite Pro, I could do the same task in 15 minutes.

I was thinking to myself, “The time I save here would really add up. I could send out more HARO queries, write two 200+ page books every year, write twice as many blog posts every day, read more books, and work out longer.

In the end, I decided that it was worth it. I figured out that HootSuite Pro’s bulk schedule feature requires the use of military time (i.e. In order to get a tweet to be scheduled at 1 pm, you need to schedule the tweet for 13:00). Although it took me a day to rearrange pages and data, the problem was resolved, and now I save a big chunk of time because I gave HootSuite Pro a chance.

HootSuite’s bulk scheduler was something worth learning and mastering. It was an opportunity that I was not going to waste.

 

Your College Application For Life

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Writing a college application is an interesting process. The college application is a place where it is okay to constantly go on about your accomplishments. Whether someone got all A’s, was the best athlete on the team, or does many extracurricular activities, that person is not going to hesitate to mention those things on their college application.

Most people stop going in detail about themselves after the college application process. There are some mentions about your extracurricular activities, grades, or sports once in a while. However, these credentials lose their effect as they get pushed to the back of other people’s minds. By no means am I saying it is bad to get good grades, do sports, or extracurricular activities. Instead, I am saying that you should prevent those things from getting pushed to the back of other people’s minds.

Just take a look at Jeff Bullas’ Twitter account. In less than 160 characters, you will immediately learn that he is on the Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers 2013 List and the Huffington Post Top 100 Business Twitter Accounts. On his blog, you can see the “Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers” picture on the blog’s sidebar with the link to the Forbes article. Let’s not forget that Jeff Bullas has a list of all of his achievements with links in his bio.

Jeff Bullas is by no means the only person who tells people about his accomplishments. Kim Garst is another person who mentions her achievements many times. You will learn about some of her achievements in less than 160 characters, or you can go to her website where she displays two of her big achievements right away.

Jeff Bullas, Kim Garst, and thousands of other constantly show people their achievements through social media profiles, blogs, and bios. If these people decided to mention an accomplishment in 1 blog post, that blog post would be forgotten. However, by seeing the sidebar, looking at the 160 character Twitter bio, and reading the full bios on their blogs, we are unable to forget these people’s achievements. This strategy allows some people to turn a short burst of credibility into something that sticks around forever.

Few people see how the design of a college application is very important even after completing the application and graduating college. The college application is designed to tell people about all of your achievements. By telling people about your achievements in the real world, you will get the college application effect: people remembering you until the next remarkable college application comes along. By telling people and having that picture on the sidebar or something in your bio that mentions your achievements, people will remember you long after you submitted your application.

What are your achievements, and do enough people know about them?

 

There Are No Limits To Success

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The easier road is to make up your own limits. It is easier to say that your boss won’t give you a raise than it is to work more often to eventually get the raise. It is easier to say that you are not qualified to write a blog post every day. The more challenging task is to write the blog post every day and get better results.

It is easier to give ourselves limits and define our boundaries. The problem with setting limitations is that once we start, we get good at it. A 10,000 follower increase becomes the limitation for the year because that’s how much effort will be put into gaining more followers. After a few bad days, the new limitation becomes a 5,000 follower increase for the year. If that goal gets reached, it was a good year for your social network…but it could have been better.

Instead of giving myself limitations, I give myself minimums. Ever since my following count soared, I gave myself a goal to gain over 200,000 followers every year. Although that goal sounds crazy, the rate in which I have been gaining followers will result in 200,000 followers every year (as long as the rate is consistent). I could gain more than 200,000 followers, but that is my minimum.

Limits prevent growth. Setting minimums and striving to exceed those minimums encourages growth.

Fame Comes Second But Not First

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Playing baseball at a professional level is not as easy as it looks. There’s more to it than swinging a bat and catching a baseball. Few people get to make the cut. Many others don’t get as lucky.

There are over 2 million kids who play little league. Then, the numbers get crunched. About 471,025 of those 2 million kids end up playing baseball in high school. That 471,025 gets reduced even further to 31,264 athletes playing at the college level. To top it all off, only 806 people get chosen as draftees out of the 31,264 athletes. Just like that, 2 million becomes 806. Not all of the 806 draftees even get to make it to the big leagues. Some of those people only get to play in the Major Leagues for 1 game and then get sent back down. Other players become back-ups, and there are the every day players that are under average.

Sure, we get a bunch of really good players like Dustin Pedroia and Derek Jeter (I happen to be a Red Sox fan who admires Derek Jeter). However, the process of playing at the professional level is slim to none. So, how does it happen?

The answer is that the fame of being a baseball player is not the focus. There are many kids who dream of being baseball players, basketball players, or play another professional sport. The problem is that many of these people dream of the fame–the ability to make millions of dollars, sign baseballs, and go around the country.

In addition, there are baseball players who play for a few years, then have a bad year or two, and then gets sent down. That’s because some baseball players think about the fame they just got. Fame becomes the centerpiece of attention which results in bad performances.

Who wouldn’t want the fame? The problem is that we focus on fame. We don’t think about doing the things we love. We don’t think about the work that is involved to get the fame. You don’t accidentally end up in the World Series, and you don’t accidentally end up becoming a professional baseball player.

Fame is not a priority. Fame is a by-product.