Helping people to find and release the passion and drive to really succeed

In successful people one common factor is personal passion and drive but where does it come from? How can we help people to unleash it themselves? Our research with successful entrepreneurs provides some clues:

- Moving away from failure at school. Many entrepreneurs want to prove themselves to themselves and others having left school with no qualifications.

- Discovering strengths through processes like proper career guidance. What skills have I got that I was unaware of but can exploit?

- Seeing the future and not liking it. My father told me he hated work when he retired and I was determined that would not be me.

- Finding a mentor or friend who really believes in you and gives you the confidence to become the best you can be.

- Finding a passion for a cause or something you want to put right which you pursue relentlessly.

- Breaking the effect of a peer group with low expectations. All my friends at school were going to work on a building site and I was until I discovered on an Outward Bound programme there were people with much bigger aspirations and I could be one of them!

So there it is, the challenge for parents and educators. How can you help people become the best they can be and to live their lives to the full?

How to stay in touch with what's happening in the business world

If you want to stay ahead of the game in the business world then you need to read 3 things:

1. Financial Times (daily)
Read from cover to cover. If you don't understand the numbers I suggest you read 'How to read the Financial Pages' by Michael Brett.

2. The Economist (monthly)
Keeps you in touch with what is really happening in the world from a neutral not British bias perspective.

3. Harvard Business Review (monthly)
All the latest thinking in best business practice and new innovation in business and management.

Does it help reading these publications? My friend Gerard Egan reads them and predicted the 2007 financial crash and moved his money into a safe haven as a result! Not even the bankers could do that!

So yes it works!

Entrepreneurial Advice from Ajaz Ahmed

Ajaz Ahmed, founder of Freeserve, gave a magnificent presentation about his experiences of being a successful entrepreneur at Hull University recently. Here are some of his insights for entrepreneurs:

- A quote from Ted Turner 'Do the obvious before the obvious becomes obvious' inspired him to persist with Freeserve when the going got tough.

- Keep control, don't just be an investor.

- Systems give you control of quality and consistency.

- A Hovis advert which shows a retiring man with a clock motivated him to do his own thing and not wait to get a clock in a corporate business.

- Think like a retailer - all industries can be made much more efficient and that's a major opportunity.

- Be your own PR manager. Send e-mails which contain some controversy direct to editors - it just works!

Thanks Ajaz!

Goal Directed Energy

One of the many myths about being an entrepreneur is all you need is passion, energy and obsessive commitment and you will succeed........ but this is only half of the equation.

Successful entrepreneurs direct their passion, energy and commitment like a laser beam focused on moving towards their vision. The vision is always the entrepreneurial process:

1. Find a customer problem
2. Create a solution
3. Sell it to the world

Passion and energy unfocused is like a man without reason..... a busy fool. So here is the entrepreneurial recipe for success:

1. Find a customer problem, create a solution and sell it to the world.
2. Create a vision for what this looks like as a successful business.
3. Focus all you energies and resources onto delivering your vision.
4. Stay goal directed, don't get detracted by energy vampires.

That's it. Job done!