7 PRINCIPLES FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS IN THE 2020'S: KNOw your Purpose

Operating a successful business is no easy challenge. Whether you have a business that sells tangible products or whether you provide a service backed by a service of your own development or that of another, you must fact the same issues. That is why it takes several steps when you start a business to understand some basic things.

1. Identify the most important ingredient for your success as well as that of your business. While the answer is very simple, it is all too often hidden in plain sight. The most important element in any business of any kind is YOU! Yes, YOU. Once that realization comes to life, there are several characteristics of highly successful people that you must develop.
   1. Responsibility: Where you are today is the composite of all the decisions you have made in your life. You may or may not be happy about where you are, but you must own it. You cannot move forward to success without owning your past, present and future actions. The most successful people in the world understand this principle.
   2. Desire: To succeed in anything you must have a burning desire. Your desire is the difference in succeeding or giving up. Desire moves you right out of bed in the morning into the thick of where you want to go.
   3. Faith: Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. You can see what your future looks like when you know where you want to go without it already existing. The best example I can think of the power of faith comes from a Bible story. Jesus was walking to Jericho when a blind man, despite being told to keep his mouth shut called out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” When the blind man was brought to Jesus, he was asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.”
   4. Perseverance: Perseverance is that characteristic that keeps you moving forward when obstacles begin to mount up before you. It is the knowledge that success does not come immediately but is the result of doing simple things over and over, day after day without fail. The habit of performance is the strongest form of perseverance. Good habits repeated over time build you up; while bad habits repeated over time tear you down.
   5. Action: Action is that which enables you to bring all you have learned, desired, envisioned, and believed to fruition through perseverance. Action is the power to the knowledge you have been amassing. Without action you go nowhere. Action will (notice I didn’t say might) cause discomfort as you leave your comfort zone. The good news is that you will find new comfort at a higher level.
2. Identify your WHY – In his best-selling book, START WITH WHY: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Simon Sinek identifies a phenomenon that has been with us for all time that actually predicts human behavior. He encourages us to understand our why in order to know how much more we can achieve. He refers to it as The Golden Circle
3. Define your vision and your mission – Once you have defined your why for doing what you will be doing, write out your vision to know where you are going. Once you have your vision you will be able to define your mission, or the manner in which your vision will be manifest,
   1. Vision: The vision statement should
      1. Inspire and
      2. Energize you, your team, your colleagues, and your stakeholders.
   2. Mission: The mission statement should identify
      1. The mission of the company,
      2. The core values that shape your acts and those of your team, and 
      3. The goals and objectives that fulfill the mission.
4. Determine the level you want to be known for. You can be average, good, great, or elite. Then, determine what it will take to be the level you choose. BTW, champions are elite.

 
Now it is time for you to do something.

1. Invest a few minutes to hear how Penn State Football Coach James Franklin describes the journey from average to elite.
2. Write out your vision and mission statements. Be sure to achieve the key elements of both.
3. Let me know how you are doing.