Winners!

Posted on November 1, 2012 by John M. Hawkins

Now that I’ve heard back from all the winners, I can announce them!

The Grand Prize winner is Gregory Roberts, who wins a Kindle and a Kindle copy of Building a Strategic Plan for Your Life and Business. Congratulations, Gregory!

Blake Kaplan and Red Dwyer are the two runner-up winners, who each receive a hardback copy of the book. I hope you both enjoy it!

I very much appreciate everyone who entered. I hope you’ll benefit from my posts and continue to leave me comments with your thoughts on topics such as

choosing a presidential candidate.
plotting out your actions.
reaching your goals.

Thanks again!

Think Strategically and Act Tactically, 3 Points

Posted on October 22, 2012 by John M. Hawkins

You may have heard the expression that to get ahead you should “Think Strategically and Act Tactically”. I have heard many people say it, but their activities and actions all show me otherwise.

Let’s do some reflection on what the saying means, then take ownership of the expression and really start applying the three points to your actions.

Point #1 – Think Strategically and Act Tactically are not mutually exclusive, and by no means serial. It’s easy for us to get wrapped up in activities that won’t benefit us. If you do this you already started the act tactical – it’s okay to use your strategic brain to halt the activity and align your activities.

Point #2 – When doing activities the thinking & acting should be involuntary and iterative. This means that during an activity you might think a little then act some, then think some more. This process should be involuntary.

Point #3 – When thinking about activities you are involved with ask yourself if the activity aligns to your core. If not, who cares? If you are thinking strategically you’re going to realize a vision that might not be your own. I will caveat that by saying there are always problems that are means to an end & must be solved regardless of the alignment.

If you are going to become a strategic thinker you need to embody strategy and be able to act on it. It isn’t something that you just do when things aren’t going your way or when you really want something. Embodiment means that strategic & tactical thinking is involuntary and a part of you. The next time you evaluate an activity you should have already considered the key points. If you do so, you are a strategic thinker.

“Think Strategically & Act Tactically”: it will take practice but is doable and can help you get ahead.

Obama vs. Romney

Posted on October 17, 2012 by John M. Hawkins

What Good Is a Dream When You Can’t Remember the Details?

On November 6th the Nation will go into the polling booths and cast their votes for the highest leadership position in the United States. Voters will find that it’s easy to get caught up in the emotion. Smart voters will not cast votes based solely on emotion, rather they will cast their votes for a leader who has a solid plan for America.

5 Key Principles for picking a strategic presidential candidate:

Key Principle #1 – During the Presidential & Vice-President debates you may have heard candidates mention their vision for America. A vision is synonymous with a dream. A vision is the future state and should have goals and objectives to support it. What are the candidate’s goals and objectives?

Key Principle #2 – Both candidates are eloquent speakers. Speaking about a dream and accomplishing a dream are two different things. There are many ways to accomplish goals that make up a dream. How you accomplish the goals are the strategies. What are the strategies the candidate is proposing to meet the goals?

Key Principle #3 – A vision is future state; it’s not possible to realize the future state in one fell swoop. Without a step-by-step plan, a candidate – even with a vision, goals & strategy for America – is useless. There is a logical order in which goals need to be accomplished. What are the steps the candidate is proposing to solve first, second, third and so on?

Key Principle #4 – The presidential candidate might have a great vision for the country & a solid plan, but getting to that future vision takes more than just plans. It’s going to take a team, including perhaps the whole country, aligning to the vision & working toward the vision. Who are the candidate’s key team members, and do they align to the vision?

Key Principle #5 – Wars, natural disasters and other unplanned events will happen. Even the best plans need some attention from time to time. Strategies can stop working, goals can change, and the vision might need altering. The presidential candidate must be able to adapt to change & be ready to alter the plan. Are the candidate & his team able to adapt to change?

Before entering the polling booth or sending in your absentee ballot, take a deep breath – put the emotions aside and assess the candidates’ plans based on the 5 key principles. Make an educated decision, keep a level head, and think logically through each candidate’s whole plan and his ability to execute it.

You may do the assessment & still vote for your emotional candidate, but wouldn’t you feel better about your decision if you could logically stand behind your choice?

Guestpost: JCC Indy Banter blog

Posted on October 12, 2012 by John M. Hawkins

3 Tips to Help You Achieve Your Goals

Who in life do you know without goals that they would like to achieve?

Probably no one.

If you asked someone on the street, what are your goals? They would most likely be able to rattle off some of their goals.

If you asked enough people you probably would get as many varied answers as the types of people you asked. If we took all the responses for goals, laid them out and classified them, we would probably come to one conclusion.

The conclusion would be that there is not one common definition for goals, some may be quantitative others qualitative, some high level & others more tactical.

Visit JCC Indy Banter blog for my three tips for setting & achieving your goals.

Interview between Red at Momma’s Money Matters and Yours Truly

Posted on October 11, 2012 by John M. Hawkins

Red knew when she heard giggling in the M3 Coffee Shoppe, she needed to grab the makings for Cuban espresso macchiato, double, of course. Not that she really thought John Hawkins needed either caffeine or demerara, mind you, she was more interested in what he would say about success.

M3: This all sounds more than vaguely familiar. I am rather persistent with this theme and my publishing company.

JH: It does take persistence, but you can do it. Do that enough days in a row and you will be on your way. If you are completely at a loss then take a bike ride, visit a library, change your location & try writing there. Eventually you will find a medium that is conducive to your goal.

Oh yeah, don’t ever write for the money! Write because you are passionate about something. It doesn’t matter if you sell 1 copy or 100k copies – the accomplishment is the same: you did it!

In an entertaining conversation between Red Dwyer and John Hawkins, find out what foam fingers, the postal service and pepper sauce have in common. In between, you may just find your strategic plan for life.

Enter My Giveaway

Posted on October 8, 2012 by John M. Hawkins

Win a Free Book, a Kindle, or a $5 Starbucks card*!

To thank all my supportive blog subscribers, I’m giving away a Kindle, 3 copies of Building a Strategic Plan for Your Life and Business, and 2 $5 Starbucks gift cards via my blog.

How to enter:

Click on the subscribe button in the right sidebar to receive posts in your email.
Leave a comment on this post.

Prizes packages:

One Grand Prize Package

Kindle**

Kindle copy of Building a Strategic Plan for Your Life and Business

Two Runner Up Prize Packages

Hardcover copy of the book

$5 Starbucks gift card

Must be 13 to enter. Open to U.S. and Canada residents. Drawing will be held Monday, Oct. 15 at 12 pm PST. Winners will be notified via email on at that time and have 72 hours to respond or a replacement winner will be chosen.

*Prizes provided by blogger and author John M. Hawkins. Giveaway is in no way sponsored by Amazon or Starbucks.

**Kindle model decided at blogger’s discretion.

Examine Those Who Have Found Success to Be a Success

Posted on October 2, 2012 by John M. Hawkins

Your whole life you have had big dreams. You’ve imagined what your success will look and feel like. You have been hoping for that big break to come, but it just hasn’t happened. This is the break that will get you to the next level. You’ve got the drive; you’ve prepared; now you need the opportunity to show your stuff.

One of the secrets, of those who are able to achieve success, is to examine those who have found success. Learn how they did what they did. Many times the strategies they used for success are reusable.

I’ll give you an example: writing a book. I know there are many people who wish to add writing a book to their resumes, but it can seem daunting, a lot of work and they don’t know where to start.

My first step to becoming an author was to commit to the goal. Once I had committed to the goal the second step was pretty simple. I sat down and wrote. I wrote a single sentence; then I added to that. At times I would sit down and have no idea what to write about. But guess what: that was OK because I dedicated time to writing. I knew that if I didn’t get anything written that day, I would have more time the next day.

My writing time was one hour before work started. I developed a routine; each morning I took my laptop to a Starbucks. I recall doing this for a good 6 months straight; at times I wondered if I would accomplish my goal. Even though I didn’t fully understand the process, nor was I always confident in my work, I kept at it. I had self-doubt, but I persisted – because in my mind I needed to accomplish the goal of writing a book.

Three years after I started writing my book, it was ready to go to the editor. Having them read what I wrote petrified me, but I was able to overcome that fear. I went through the review process and felt more and more comfortable with my writing.

Based on my experience you can get some ideas on how to start writing a book, if that is your goal. You’ll find that no matter what you are looking to do you will find people who are willing to share how they accomplished their goal.

The trick is to find those people in the first place; it’s not as hard as you might think. Talk to friends, research user groups, network, colleges and many more places. Be persistent. It’s a big sense of relief and a time saver when you find someone who’s accomplished a similar goal.

5 Steps to Plan for Success

Posted on September 18, 2012 by John M. Hawkins

You don’t just ‘become’ successful. Here are five steps to help you plan for success:
How many people do you hear about going to bed one night, who are unsuccessful in life, and wake up an overnight success? With the exception of picking a winning lottery ticket, that kind of success just doesn’t happen to most of us. If you ask those who appear to be overnight successes how they did it? Well to you they are over night success, in reality they spent a huge portion of their life planning for the moment of success!

1) Develop Your Vision: Create a vision for the success you are dreaming of. The vision is the high-level 30-second description of your success. Keep it abstract, simple & to the point.

2) Develop your Goals: To accomplish your vision you will need to have precise qualitative & quantitative goals. These goals as they are accomplished should lead you closer and closer to the vision defined above.

3) Develop the Strategies: Many worthwhile goals are difficult to accomplish, that’s were we can use strategies to accomplish those goals. These strategies should drive the activities you should be focusing on a daily, weekly monthly basis to help you reach your goals.

4) Measure Your Progress: Setting goals is easy to do, to be successful we need to take the goals setting one step farther. You need to be accountable for achieving your goals. Set and create milestones that you can use to measure your performance against the desired goals.

5) Adapt to Change: Life Happens, your values and priorities will evolve over time. Your success plan does not have to be static. Re-visit the plan often and don’t be afraid to adjust it based on life.

By using these five simple steps you can create a plan to help you focus on the activities that are going to give you the greatest chance of planning your way to success.

Proper Decision Making is a Skill that Can Be Learned

Posted on September 10, 2012 by John M. Hawkins

On a daily basis you make a number of decisions. Some decisions are good, some bad – regardless of the merit of the decision, decisions you make can have a lasting impact on your life. Given the decisions can have an impact on your life, it is fair to say that proper decision-making is a skill that must be mastered to be successful.

To become the person you want to be you need to make key decisions. No one else can make them for you; it’s all up to you. Choose the wrong decisions and you will make no progress or worse yet – go backwards.

So, if you can’t make good decisions are you doomed to a life of limited success? No. The good news is that making good decisions is a skill that can be learned. Most people can learn to make good decisions in life.

Decision-making becomes simpler when you know the desired outcome.

For a student the desired outcome is good grades. Students are conditioned that good grades lead to good jobs – so when you need to make a decision to study or not study for an upcoming test, the answer is pretty clear. However, when you move from the structure of school and parents, you will find that the number of possible decisions increases.

To overcome this you must find your focus. This is accomplished by creating a clear vision of who you want to become. With a vision defined, the next step is to start thinking about the qualitative and quantitative goals that make up the vision. Now that you know what the desired outcome is the next time you are faced with a decision you can determine if the activities will support your goals or take you further away from them.

Developing a plan with your goals and dreams clearly documented can help create focus in your life. With a plan it’s easy to compare your decision points with the vision: decisions that align with your vision are good visions, those that do not are bad.

Building a plan, a strategic plan, can help you with your decision-making.

Life is full of Limitations

Posted on September 5, 2012 by John M. Hawkins

You can control the mental ones

Lets face it: life is full of limitations. This is most evident in all the laws restricting what you can and cannot do.

Societies do a great job documenting and enforcing all these nuances.This socialization starts from a very early age. Children are born without fear; they are curious and have a can-do attitude, even though we know they can’t. Children are notorious for getting into trouble, taking too many risks, risks that could get them hurt. Over time the child learns all the things they can’t do, they get to a point where they need to ask permission for everything. At that point we consider them socialized and good citizens.

Consider that many of our limitations were put on us as children; the limitations are the result of mental conditioning, and the early conditioning affects decisions you make in your lives. These limitations we have carried with us into our adult lives. In situations such as ethics and morality it can be a benefit – I do not want to imagine an uncivilized society. But you should not apply the same reasoning to everything you do. If you do, you will miss out on key opportunities in life. If you don’t take risks you will never take the appropriate risks that are required to help you realize the vision you have for yourself.

In life and business you will find limitations are mostly mental. You have the ability to control those limitations. You can control them by creating a strategic plan based on your strengths and the vision of what you want to accomplish. A plan that details the strategy and calculated risks you must take to realize the vision. If you had all the steps you needed to realize the vision and help you accomplish your dreams, would that not give you the confidence to execute on that plan?

Assuming your limitations are mental you can control them with a strategic plan, and when you control the mental limitations anything is possible.