Wish Group

People often ask themselves what is preventing them from success. Commonly asked questions are: “Why aren’t I a millionaire yet?” or “Okay I’m being positive so now what?”

The process to getting from point A to point B might sound like a straight line, but the distance between the two roams from detours to dead ends to yielding signs and more. What I mean by this is; when we involve our mind we tend to find ways for more complicated “detours”.

It’s amazing what the human brain can do. Our mind can slingshot us to our greatest endeavours or it can leave us in a disappointing battle. This is what I like to call, mental blockage.

Here is some of the most common mental battles entrepreneurs face:

The Fear of Failure

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison

Why is it that we always perceive failure to be more public than success? We shun it, we worry about it and we try our best to avoid it. I don’t think we’ve reached the fundamental understanding that no great success was ever achieved without failure. Or a series of failures – such as Edison’s 10,000 attempts to create a light bulb. To be the best and achieve your dreams, you must fail.

Try to look at failure as a stepping-stone.

You’re Not Thinking “The Big Picture”

I like to call these people, little thinkers.

When we say, “think big”, we don’t mean go to greater heights and set outrageous goals for yourself that we know you aren’t capable of achieving – this will only set you up to be less satisfied and lose motivation. It’s important you think big, but think reasonable. Set goals for yourself that are actually attainable, baby-steps if you will.

It’s understood that sometimes at work you’re focused on the little things. This is equally critical to reflect on how things are going and consider alternative strategies for that “Big Picture” mentality.

The Benefit of the Doubt

Perhaps you’ve occasionally asked yourself, “Am I really cut out for this job?” or “Am I on the right track?”

When doubt fills our minds, it’s fear that inevitably dominates us. We must realize that fear is what we like to call a “temporary” thing. Yes, it can conjure the worst possible thoughts and even produce anxiety, but this is all part of your steps toward your goal. Each step you take there will always be this gut-rot feeling called doubt, but remember that there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel.

A Blurry Focus

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” — Mark Twain

If you have a vision your mind muse be clear and clutter-free. Often, our imaginations seem drawn to clutter and often end up overwhelming us. There’s no simpler way then putting this, but just try to be more organized.

Find clarity by segregating your thoughts. Find these mental “buckets” and create a list to sort the various facets of your business. Spend an hour thinking separately about sales, marketing, revenue and expenses.

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If you want success, all you need to do is review this list regularly and adjust your course where necessary. Good luck!

We’re in an age that celebrates furious entrepreneurs who are finding the next big thing. Some frenetic founders include, Marc Benioff who tries to turn hyperactivity into a new model for tech growth and corporate activism, James Dyson who revolutionized products ranging from vacuum cleaners to hair dryers.

To be recognized for five consecutive years as one of Canada’s Fastest–Growing Companies and continuously climbing the charts is a huge success to Wish Group (www.wishgroup.ca). Every entrepreneur knows that in order to be a fast growing company you need to be creating new products and services. But, we didn’t do this by creating better batteries with James Dyson or coming up with the latest OS X with CEO, Tim Cook. There are many companies on that list that don’t rely on sheer innovation to be listed on PROFIT 500.

So, is finding that innovation gap in your company the true secret to fast growth? The answer is not necessarily.

Perhaps I will enlighten you with what we do at Wish to accomplish this five-time fast growth achievement.

Recruiting Top Talent That Suits Your Culture Is Always the Top Factor

In 2001, when I started Enunciate Conferencing we hired people who were incredibly passionate about every aspect of teleconferencing. We stayed away from those whom we could tell were just trying to ‘pass by’ or put some time in while waiting for the right opportunity. Given that the top 20% of your group dictate the pace of the organization, I needed to ensure that this group would eat, sleep and breathe conferencing. From my experience, when people find their passion or calling in life, then work no longer begins to feel like work and skills are always being monetized. It’s important you find people that aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves, who are dedicated to the mission, and the words “that’s not my job” do not exist in your employee’s vocabulary. There are lots of good places to start when recruiting top talent; you could use an agency such as Peoplesource, grab referrals from your top employers or constantly work your network.

Create a Winning Culture

Ever notice when watching any kind of sports game that the team who is winning versus the one losing has different behavioural tendencies? The winning team is celebrating success by constantly high fiving one another and cheering each other on whereas the losing team has a negative demeanour so obvious that it’s worn on their sleeves. In your workplace, you need to be the winning team. Celebrate successes on the weekly, ring a bell when somebody closes a deal, send positive companywide emails when there is an accomplishment in the office, walk the floor and breathe high energy by focusing on the good things happening within the company.

Go Wider and Deeper in Your Existing Client Base

At Wish, we focus on established revenue sources. Rather than only trying to acquire new customers, direct your attention to the core customers you already have. You can do this by implementing a referral, creating a customer loyalty program or trying out marketing strategies based on previous purchase behaviours to encourage repeat business. Within the Wish organization, we have several business lines from various telecommunications solutions, staffing and media so we like to cross sell as much as we can. We also put an emphasis on social media through The Mike Agency, which connects us with our customers more directly and intimately, allowing us to engage at a whole new level.

Be Adaptable

One trait that successful start-ups often have in common is the ability to switch directions quickly in response to changes in the market. Often times as a smaller start up or a younger entrepreneurial company, you will be competing against large multibillion-dollar organizations. Don’t try and beat them at their own game, focus on the niches that they don’t service well and use your size to your advantage. Be nimble and take advantage of a trend or switching course and always provide a white glove service that will distinguish you. Everyone always thinks ‘big’ buys from ‘big’; I don’t necessarily always buy this. I believe ‘big’ buys from ‘best’ and often times it’s innovative entrepreneurial companies that were purchased by a larger company.

Focusing on Customer Experience

Customers’ perceptions of your business can really make or break a business. And in the fast-growing digital world we live in, social media plays Queen B. Fast-growth depends on making your current and potential customers happy with their experience. Simple things such as following up with a new customer once they’ve signed, onboarding properly is key, and making sure an invoice is NOT the first communication your new clients have. Being in communication throughout the entire process is important to your customer. One of my biggest pet peeves is when suppliers seduce me in the beginning to get my business and I receive a whole load of wonderful invites to these fantastic events, but then they get aggressive with pricing to earn my business. A few years go by and I hardly hear from them again. This is how you lose business because there is always somebody out there trying to seduce your clients away!

Strategize

As I’ve mentioned in my previous blog, one dominant skill that differentiates highly successful people between average performers is strategic planning. If you want to have fast growth it’s important to plan ahead. Planning your next step, even if that means anticipating all possible scenarios, is the best way to stay grounded and secure as your business evolves.

Please, check out our press release for PROFIT 500 and thanks for reading!

Let’s face it – mornings are hard for lots of people. For those who do it every day of the week and completely despise it, I will speak quietly.

But please, hear me out.

A growing topic in Business Insider involves a scientific philosophy that has entrepreneurs and business people following this ritual. It is those whom have found their successful peak that embrace this philosophy: Devoting their first hours of the day in top-priority projects – these not necessarily meaning business-related activities

In all essence, our motivational drive dampers just as poor as self-control becomes later in the evening. However, early mornings offer a higher vision and a tougher threshold to ‘do’, which enables your mind to take on any challenging task.

Laura Vanderkam, a time management expert and author of “What the Most Succesful People Do Before Breakfast”, wrote:

“If it has to happen, then it has to happen first”

From research conducted, I’ve sorted out some things successful people do in the early rise. Though they may not do all of these things every morning, each has been proven to be an effective way to start the day.

They Rise Early

Those who are successful know how precious time is. As a business man or woman, a lot of their time is taken up with meetings, phone calls and/or events, thus the early wake up call is a top priority to squeeze out as much time as they can to do with as they please.

According to Business Insider, Apple CEO Tim Cook wakes up at 3:45 a.m. and gets a head start on email. Michelle Obama is working out by 4:30 a.m. and Xerox CEO Ursula Burns rises at 5:15 a.m. to email and work out.

They Enjoy Breakfast

Successful people do not forget about their breakfast as it’s found to be the most important meal of the day. It’s super important you find the time to spend a few minutes enjoying that first meal.

Every morning, Branson eats a fruit salad and muesli, a granola-like dish most popular in Germany and Switzerland. Al Roker makes a protein smoothie that consists of protein powder, fibre powder, eight ounces of almond milk, frozen berries, ginger, and a little agave nectar!

They Spend Quality Time with Family

As mentioned previously, time is precious to those who are successful and sometimes they don’t have all the time in the world to spend with their loved ones. Many successful people use the mornings to invest in family time or connect with their spouse.

In the morning, I help my daughter and son get dressed, make the bed, and occasionally work on arts and crafts projects together. I call this time “the most precious time I have in a day.”

They Plan & Strategize

One dominant skill that differentiates highly successful people between average performers is strategic planning. Successful people spend more time thinking about their goals and ideas from a 100,000-foot view to get that ‘Big Picture’.

According to Business Insider, Steve Jobs started each day by looking in the mirror and asking, ”If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do with my day?” If he answered “no” too often, that was a sign that something needed to change. His morning ritual speaks to the importance of having a strategy and making each day matter.

They Practice Gratitude

Gratitude is simplified as the “quality of being thankful”. It is sworn by many successful people that expressing gratitude has changed their life and ultimately made them more successful. Expressing gratitude is a wonderful way to gain a higher perspective before heading to the office. Each morning, take a moment to write a list of people, places, and opportunities that you’re thankful for. Trust me, it will change your outlook.

There are successful people like Oprah Winfrey who takes the time to appreciate the birds chirping and the sun rising.

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All of these things that successful people do can be done when you want them to be. And what better time to start than this week?

If you’re anything like me you live for long weekends! Especially when the weather is as beautiful as it was this past Labour Day weekend in southern Ontario. Similar to what I wrote in my last blog – the importance of reflection, recharging and finding your special place – long weekends just like Labour Day should be treated the same. During this time, a lot of businesses are preparing for their busiest quarter and getting their kids back to school, thus it’s necessary to soak up what you can from the weekend and get geared up for the tasks that lie ahead.

However, no matter how much you love your job, getting back into the groove of things after a vacation or long weekend can be quite challenging. From the endless amount of emails, back-to-back meetings and events that occur, sometimes your body is in one place while your mind is in another – still enjoying the breeze from the beach or your backyard oasis.

In modern business, 25% of employees return to the office after a long, relaxing weekend feeling fatigued and “out of it”. So, what’s the trick to get back on the daily grind? Here are a couple of steps to follow:

If it’s your last day of your vacation or long weekend – make it a relaxful one. A vital thing to do on your last day is to relax and have some quiet time to yourself. It’s important you also get a good night’s rest, but if your long weekend doesn’t allow for that, at least plan ahead to get an hour’s early sleep so you can prep for the next day of work.

Another step that’s helped me in the long run is: try to get in a work mindset the day before. We know you won’t be able to catch up on everything in one day or even one week- but this doesn’t mean you can’t get a head start. Pace yourself appropriately so you won’t feel totally swamped the day you get back. For some projects, may need an extension and others, you may have to burn the midnight oil – but if you took that last day of the weekend to look things over, you’ll thank yourself later.

Third step you need to do is prioritize what’s important – build a list! You’re not always going to get everything done and there is always going to be more and more to complete. The elements of prioritization are simple: Know what tasks need to be done and rank them in order of priority. According to Stephen Covey of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People suggested ranking tasks across four metrics: important/not important and urgent/not urgent. Common sense, tasks both urgent and important go first, issues not important or not urgent go last, and the rest fall somewhere in between. There’s your list.

Fourth step is the most challenging. Do the hardest thing first – this is often referred to as “Eating the Frog”. This could be done either the first day you get back to work or the day before. I like to put the term procrastination in the term of avoiding something – naturally, we avoid things we don’t want to do. I have researched that Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, once said that the first thing he does in the office each day is the task he dreads the most. With this step you eliminate the dread that will sap energy away from other tasks as you postpone the inevitable.

I hope these steps have helped you as much as they’ve helped me. Welcome back!

This past weekend, all Wish Group associates and myself got together for our annual Summer Reunion Retreat. At Wish, we choose to get together every quarter from all of our offices across Canada. This includes the executive team: Ezio D’Onofrio – Wish Group president & COO, Teri Scott – Peoplesource president, Matt Ley – Streaming Network president, Mike Soragnese – Mike Agency president, Marie-Claude (MC) Hebert – Evolve Collaborations president, Wishtel team, as well as our corporate trainer and other suppliers.

In January, we hold a Winter Kick-Off meeting for a couple of days where we review Q4 results and communicate our top objectives and goals for the year. Following April, we meet to cover Q1 results, at Reunion we cover Q2 and lastly at Fall Enterprise in October, we review Q3 and get ready to close off the year strong – as Q4 is generally our strongest quarter in most of the business lines.

This August and last, we traveled to Kempenfelt Conference Centre http://www.georgiancollege.ca/community-alumni/kempenfelt-conference-centre/ located in Kempenfelt Bay, Lake Simcoe. The 20-acre property is embedded in an abundance of natural woodlands with over 1,400 feet of private shoreline, which creates the ideal cottage-like natural setting we desire!

A retreat can be a great technique to explore new perspectives, learn from experts and other entrepreneurs, simply refresh your thoughts and most obvious – get away from the daily grind. Based on this, I had to evaluate what I truly wanted my team to take in from this corporate gathering. A common factor is that a ‘retreat’ is to either emphasize motivation, create a more social breeze between others or its one long infomercial.

I narrowed it down to two things that made it a successful retreat: the right people and the right agenda.

To begin, it was both an inspiring and emotional event for all of us, as we were celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Wish Group. I am a firm believer that it’s important to have each and every member present at a company retreat if you are striving to get a strong message across, sharing company success stories and acknowledging past accomplishments.

With all this said, having the right people goes hand in hand with having the right agenda. Our agenda looked something like this:

• 9:00 AM – Arrival & Reception
• 9:30 AM – Welcome Address – Frank Cianciulli
• 10:00 AM – Company Break Outs
• 12:00 PM – Lunch
• 1:00 PM – Undercover Boss – Evolve Collaboration
• 1:45 PM – The Apprentice – Sweet Success PT 2 “The Pitch”
• 2:30 PM – Undercover Boss – The Wish Group
• 2:45 PM – The State of the Union – Ezio D’Onofrio
• 3:15 PM – Undercover Boss – Peoplesource
• 3:45 PM – Marketing Update
• 4:15 PM – The Big Picture – Frank Cianciulli
• 5:00 PM – Awards and Recognition
• 7:00 PM – Dinner
• 9:00 PM – Managers Reception & Party

As you read the list above, you may be concerned what the whole ‘Undercover Boss’ and ‘Apprentice’ spiel is all about. Being the primary leader and agenda-maker for over 30 retreats in the past years given, it’s been brought to my attention that to keep your audience engaged in an interactive and informative way – we must create videos!

Matt Ley and his video production team put together these videos that show our company culture, provide an informational background of the company and ultimately, to have a good laugh at ourselves.

After the videos, we dive right into the marketing update. The focus of the update is to give recognition to past projects, update us on current projects and plans for future projects.

45 minutes later, the spotlight’s on me and I present “The Big Picture”.

Every retreat, it’s important for me to remind my employees about our company culture and values, who we are, what we’ve become today and what I expect from all of them. Sometimes, you need other people to help you see things differently – and that’s what I was trying to get at with this speech.

With modern day success, I wanted to remind everyone of the ‘work-hard, play-hard’ emphasis. I like to share with my team the story of how it all started and the hard-times I’ve experienced before becoming a successful entrepreneur. During my reunion speech, I said something that really drove home, “life is happening for you, not to you”. What I mean by this is: if something negative approaches you, let it happen to you and let it benefit you.

You have probably heard of the phrase, it’s important to find ‘grace’ in everything you do- this brings me to my next point: thinking positive and what’s possible.

Although, we all struggle with this because positive things don’t happen to us all the time – I myself will admit that it’s not always easy to see the positive. But, as Tony Robbins famously said, “when you realize that problems happen for you as opposed to you, then you won’t ever have another problem in your life.”

Turn one negative into one positive.

See you at our next retreat!

I recently got the chance to visit my favourite place in the world for two weeks, Bowen Island in Vancouver, B.C. The natural temperate rainforest of Bowen Island is only a short ferry ride away from Downtown, Vancouver.

Surrounded by stunning ocean views, colossal mountains and breath-taking natural landscape, Bowen Island is a cozy cottage community full of artists and entrepreneurs where they call this aspiring get-away, home. Dubbed as “Canada’s Best Kept Secrets” by The Globe and Mail and other travel publication, it’s a place I’ve been spending on average, 6 weeks a year there, for the past 25 years. What I’ve observed since my first venture start-up, Enunciate Conferencing, is that the island has evolved as a place to reconnect with myself through relaxation and reflection specifically towards my business.

It’s at a traditional understanding that, in order to be successful in your career, you need to have a prime focus on your business goals. To put things in a perspective that only a handful of people may understand, that’s about 60 hours per week with the sacrifice of sleep, time with family and friends, and time for you.

I’m sure you’ve often heard the phrase that, as a business owner, it’s important to work on your business as opposed to in it. Like artists that like to work in environments that inspire them, I think the same is true for entrepreneurs.

Devoting your time to recharging and thinking allows you to tap into your highest potential revealing best results in the following: productivity, break-through ideas, excellent decision-making, and an overall better performance.

Oddly enough, when I first met Brian Scudamore from, 1-800-Got-Junk, he talked about the importance of having a painted picture and getting away to think. Brian also has a family cottage on Bowen Island and he’s often spoken how his most enlightened thought about his business come on his dock. He’s been in business for over 25 years and for the last 20 years he’s taken Friday’s completely off from work and technology – translated to over $250 million in revenue with a staggering 24% annual growth rate. Similarly, Wish Group has grown to over $60 million since we started in 2007 with an average five-year growth at over 300%.

It seems that the less time I spent “in” the business, the quicker it grows!

Time spent away, some people clear their mind by engaging in relaxation activities such as yoga, working out or complete meditation. I enjoy all of the above, but for me, being out in the wilderness amongst the 1,000 year old Douglas Fir’s and cedars, listening to the birds chirping and simply being captivated in the calling of Mother Nature – that was enough to clear my mind.

When you create that “clearing in your mind” you will be surprised what inspiration and thoughts begin to unfold. For me, it provided some clarity on my life’s purpose; where I should invest my time the rest of the year to achieve our year-end targets and what future projects I want to tackle. You don’t have to get away to a secluded Island to find your thinking place, but you should explore where that place can be for you and what activities make you feel at ease.

I would love to hear from you! Please share what your special place is and what activities help you “clear your mind”.

Have you ever heard of The Secret? The Secret is a best-selling “self-help” book, written by Rhonda Byrne, who spiffs up the theory that, in short form, “you think it, you do it, and it will happen’ – The Law of Attraction, if you will.

In all essence, the Law of Attraction is the mothership to positive thinking. If you exert enough positivity and belief in yourself, you can and will accomplish anything. And with such forces like the law of attraction, it will work its “magic”. As much as I like saying the word, magic, it’s not what gets you from point A to B.

Stir in a positive work ethic, put in the productivity, add in persistence and you’re well on your way to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

As James Clear mentions in his article titled, “The Science of Positive Thinking: How Positive Thoughts Build Your Skills, Boost Your Health, and Improve Your Work”:

“Research is beginning to reveal that positive thinking is about much more than just being happy or displaying an upbeat attitude. Positive thoughts can actually create real value in your life and help you build skills that last much longer than a smile.”

Agreeing with James, having a positive outlook helped develop my skillset substantially. Communication and creativity were two of many skills I improved on by being positive. The Broaden & Build Theory, founded by Barbara L Fredrickson describes that:

“A key proposition is that these positive emotions broaden an individual’s momentary thought-action repertoire: joy sparks the urge to play, interest sparks the urge to explore, contentment sparks the urge to savor and integrate, and love sparks a recurring cycle of each of these urges within safe, close relationships.”

That being said, you not only broaden your skills but open doors to endless possibilities.

To conclude all of this: be positive, embrace challenges, believe in yourself and good things will happen.

Like any other marketing campaign, there comes a strategy. Essentially, a team that consists of a manager, creative director and a butt-load of art-directors, copywriters, strategists and interns put their heads together in hopes of creating a brand image that will differentiate themselves from competitors. Behind the scenes of a marketing strategy and everything that goes into it, the main goal is: increase profit for the organization.

Bear with me.

Read here, a famous quote by one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, Warren Buffet:

“Investing in yourself is the best thing you can do. Anything that improves your own talents; nobody can tax it or take it away from you.”

With this quote and me babbling on about strategy and marketing BS, you’re probably wondering, “What’s the real meat to this story?” In hopes that I’ve furthered some understanding with my story-telling etiquette, my point is:

What if you could profit yourself?

An Introduction of The 5-Hour Rule

Simply put, the 5-hour rule is a core concept involved around improving yourself intellectually in three buckets: reading, reflection and experimentation.

Michael Simmons, a columnist from Forbes, co-founder of Empact and best-selling author mentions in his article found in INC. titled “Why Constant Learners All Embrace the 5-Hour Rule”:

“Throughout Ben Franklin’s adult life, he consistently invested roughly an hour a day in deliberate learning. I call this Franklin’s five-hour rule: one hour a day on every weekday.

Franklin’s learning time consisted of:

• Waking up early to read and write
• Setting personal-growth goals (i.e., virtues list) and tracking the results
• Creating a club for “like-minded aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hoped to improve themselves while they improved their community”
• Turning his ideas into experiments
• Having morning and evening reflection questions

Franklin’s five-hour rule reflects the very simple idea that, over time, the smartest and most successful people are the ones who are constant and deliberate learners.”

Agreeing with Franklin and Simmons’ observation, it comes clear to me that there is a repetitive pattern where the utmost successful people in the world are constant and deliberate learners.

Follow these three buckets and you’re already steps closer to being a Warren Buffet:

Read, Read and Read
There are entrepreneurs like, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey who surround themselves with rich literature and at least one hour of reading per day.

Read here on why reading benefits your mental health:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/10-benefits-reading-why-you-should-read-everyday.html

Reflecting and Self-Meditation
Thinking time is very important in the 5-hour rule. As I do with my free time, I reflect on decisions, both small and big, and everything that has happened within that day. With this, I learn more about myself and take on the challenge of how to create a better “me” in the future.

Experiment
Most important of the 5-hour rule; take what you’ve learned and experiment! Do anything you can to test your knowledge. This is a great learning experience and a great way to experiment with some of your ideas! What’s there to lose? It could pay off.

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So, are you up for it?

It’s been said that the last thing you want to do, as an entrepreneur, is to take time off. The cultural motive of being a successful business leader is believed that rest and ‘free-time’ is the anthem of losing. What if I told you that the secret to winning is to sit back and do absolutely nothing?

To clarify any misguided interpretations – being a couch potato is not what I mean. The ultimate secret that will reboot your mind and lead you to achievement and all the wonders of success is doing what you were told not to do: take time off!

Trust me.

With my experience in working those long, dedicated hours, I came across a few ground rules that helped me, which I hope you can benefit from, as well.

Think of work like a game of basketball. Take Stephan Curry, for example, an exceptional pro basketball player and one of the highest paid players in the NBA. Though Curry has a demeanor of being the best, he too “takes breaks” and gets the rest he needs before booting up again.

I understand that I’m referencing a game that requires little to no body percentage fat and a high-tolerance in cardio, but speaking in relevancy to the workplace, it’s our cognitive minds that are doing the cardio – creating mental fatigue.

But, having a lower body percentage fat would be nice too.

Take extra long breaks

Studies show that 1 in 3 Canadian workers take a lunch break – leaving the other 65% of employees either eating at their desk or not eating at all. It’s important to take any break possible to get AWAY from your desk. By doing this, it relieves stress and revamps your creative brain from being in a “writers block.”

Vacation or Stay-cation

Here is something I found crucial in my lifestyle of being an entrepreneur. In my early years, I was on-call, working 12-hour shifts and always traveling. I soon realized I was missing out on numerous plans with my family and friends. I’m not telling you to grab some sunscreen, throw on your swim shorts and buy your plane ticket to the Bahamas. But, have a stay-cation and spend the time needed with your loved ones.

Don’t burn yourself out

Work hard, but play hard too. Moving from task-to-task gets your brain mentally fatigued very quickly so you can see its importance in taking a “mental break.” Burning yourself out leads to a poor performance and poor decision-making. When working on a project for more then an hour, you should be taking a mental break or going on a walk to get away from your desk.

These are a few of the guidelines I have set for myself that have benefited me substantially based on my own experiences. Follow these simple rules and I promise you a life of success and achievement.

You might be a new business owner a long time business owner, someone’s boss or a young professional but you must have encountered stress. That pressure we feel when a lot is going on, when multiple deadlines approach, when we’re thinking about to how to make extraordinary progress. We all have experienced it. No one likes to be stressed (at least not me).
From experience, stress has a way of distracting us, causing us to lose focus, worry and produce less than optimum results. The resulting question you’d have for me, is how do we conquer stress?
The trick to defeating stress is preparing. I know you’re wondering, how can we be prepared for stress? We don’t know when we’ll be stressed. Stress can show up at any time. We have to have our arsenal ready to fight it when it arrives. We don’t always know when we’d be tensed or anxious. In order to keep producing great results and growing your business, you must remember that you cannot let stress stop your progress. Stress affects both your productivity at work and relations at home.

Here are a few simple tools I learned on my own journey:

Sleep: Sleep is important yet it’s one of the things a lot of us ignore and do not pay enough attention to. In order to be relaxed and refreshed, ready to the next day’s activities, you have to schedule regular sleep times. When you are not well relaxed, you are more likely to be stressed out, tired and unable to think clearly and produce your best. Get enough sleep. Without it, you’d feel more pressure. Make sure you get time to remove all distractions and sleep. Maybe even add a regularly scheduled nap if you can.

Organize, Organize, Organize: Imagine the days when you have a set schedule and follow it, do you feel as stressed? Most likely not. Create a calendar that contains deadlines for your tasks and make sure this calendar is in a spot you can always see. Tick them off as you complete them. Just seeing yourself tick them off would motivate you to keep going forward.

Schedule Downtime: All work and no play makes Jack a stressed man indeed! Work work work, work as hard as you can but set some downtime to relax. Take a weekend vacation, visit a beach, run along the shores, travel. Take a considerable time from grinding to rejuvenate. You’d return to work with a clear mind and with great energy.

Apart from these, we all have personal activities that take the tension off. For some of us, it could be meditation, exercise, hanging out with friends, taking a jog, walking our dogs or dancing. Figure out what your personal de-stressor is because it would work best for you and use it as much as you can. As long as you can escape the little stress points, they’d never be able to add up and smack you unexpected.