Barbara Boser

Take a Look in the Mirror – Identify Strengths and Weakness

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Looking in MirrorIt?s hard sometimes to look at yourself critically with an unbiased opinion to see who you really are; strengths and pitfalls included. However, it?s very important to try to reflect and review who we are and strive to improve ourselves in any way that we can. That is how we grow and how we help others grow.

There are two basic areas you can analyze about yourself: personal and professional. There are a few ways to help with honest and productive self-reflection that will make sure you can not only learn greatly about yourself but also grow as an individual.

Your personal life is the hardest to analyze because a lot of your traits aren?t necessarily even conscious, they are ingrained in you from your childhood, environment and experiences. The best way to analyze your personal life is to open up and talk to your loved ones. Ask people in your life to give you constructive criticism on the good and bad traits that you have so you can take it and work with it. The people in your life that you trust implicitly and you believe can be completely honest with you are the best to help you with this process. Oh yes, I know we all don?t want to hear about the things we can work on but trust me, hearing it from another point of view will help you grow.

How Does This Affect My Business And Leadership?

Finding out what works for you will help you build and balance out your team. For example, if I know I am horrible at time management, I will hire an assistant with a strong time management background to help me stay on track.

Creating a successful team is so important and being able to be honest with yourself will help you create results. It doesn?t stop there considering that you and your team are constantly growing and constantly changing. A great way to assess your development is to pull up old work, not only see how far you have come in developing your skills and also to identify the things that have remained stagnant and could still use improvement.

Look at other successful people in your industry and how they got where they are now. Doing this will help you to put things in perspective. ? As you are watching them, ask yourself, ?How can I learn from their experience while making sure I still set myself apart??? Are you doing or can you do what they are doing to be successful? Push yourself!

Being a leader means you have to act like a leader. You are an example to your team and showing them how you acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses will allow them to feel comfortable enough for them to do the same thing. Teaching them that you reflect and learn will in turn, teach them to do the same thing.

Reflecting often is a very important thing to do in order to move forward. Knowledge is one of the most powerful things in life and the more we know about ourselves and where we want to go, the easier it is to see our path and what we need to do to get there.

7 Things I Look for in a Leader

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LeadershipDo you feel like you have what it takes to be a leader? You are trying to build a business and you want to find the best of the best, your elite group that will help you lead a successful business.

What are the qualities that are most important to you? Leading isn?t always something you are just born with, it is multiple traits that you can package all in one. You are always learning and always evolving as a leader, pushing yourself to be the best version of you, so you can bring out the best version of others.

I want to talk to you about some of the traits you need to be a leader.

Traits Of A Leader

Independent
How important is it to be someone who can motivate yourself? When you?re a leader, you are the one who is delegating tasks. You don?t want someone to tell you what you need to do, so being able to be independent and take initiative with what needs to get done is imperative. You will need to have guts and need to make decisions on your own that are going to benefit your team and sometimes they won?t be popular with everyone.

Optimistic
Nobody, I repeat, nobody wants to be around a Debbie Downer. I have never worked with a negative person that I wanted to be around. When you lead, you need to make sure you are bringing your best foot forward and that means being optimistic, always seeing the bright side and helping others to do the same thing. Sometimes you will have to dig deep to portray an optimistic view point on something, but as leaders that is just what we need to do. Even if we aren?t particularly feeling it.

Self-Starter
As a leader, you know that you need to be a self-starter and that is something you will need to show to others. When you are someone who is in a leadership position, people will look at you and try to mimic you, so showing that you?re a self-starter and someone who takes action is an amazing trait to have.

Reliable
Things come up and that is understandable, but when you are a leader, making sure you are reliable is huge. If you have to do presentations, sign up clients and/or train others, you want to make sure that you are there when you need to be.

You just have to make sure you?re going to do what you say to do. Action is more important than words.

Confident
How can you lead without confidence? When I look for someone who is leading, I look to see how they present themselves. Are you sure of yourself? Do you have confidence in your ability to lead and teach others?

Knowing that you?re good at what you do and showing others how to be good at what they do is true leadership. Confidence is infectious. I know that when I interact with happy and confident people, it makes me want to be a better person.

When you are first taking steps in to leadership, sometimes you have to ?fake it til you make it?. Many leaders go through this and it is totally normal.

Compassionate
Showing that you truly care about others and want what is best for them is important in ANY business. Businesses don?t become successful without people. In life and business, people want to know that they are being heard, so really listening and showing that you care will not only reflect good leadership, it will show that you are a compassionate person.

When you are communicating with your peers or team, be engaged in the conversation. Don?t allow yourself to be distracted.

Fearless
Okay, we?re not talking about skydiving, unless you really want to! But in order to be successful you need to think outside the box. Sometimes you need to be able to think fast and take risks that you wouldn?t normally take, but that comes with leadership. You win some, you lose some but it?s how you play and lead that will determine your success.

These are a few of the most important traits I look for when it comes to leadership. What are the traits that you look for? What traits do you think will help your business grow?

Ways I Keep Myself Motivated

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do not give up As an entrepreneur, I personally have met a lot of other home based business owners who work hard and are really motivated at the start of their business. But along the way, they met tough challenges and lose motivation and their business gets put on the back burner.

There are times that they want to give up and just walk away.? Do you know why? Lack of motivation!? It is one of the most common problems that people experience when running a business.

Lack of motivation will definitely hit at some point or another but you have to decide to push through it.? When this happens, you have to face it head on and make a decision on where you choose to go. Fortunately I have learned and worked through this, time and time again. Let me share some of my tips to help you push through the lack of motivation!

Set Achievable Goals

It is a common problem with most entrepreneurs to set unrealistically high goals at the start of their business and then when they don?t hit a goal, automatically get discouraged and want to quit.? You could always say I want to make $100,000 in my first month of business, but if you are going at a snail?s pace or if you aren?t working it, be honest with yourself and don?t set yourself up for failure.

Creating a goal that works for you by taking in all factors with time, family life, work and what you can give will help you to realize what you can do and what you can achieve.

Remember Your Why

You started your business for a reason. Maybe you wanted to help people, maybe you wanted more freedom, maybe you wanted to teach others but no matter what your reason is, you have one and that is what you need to focus on.

Remembering my why, my reason for wanting to help others be successful and build their own business usually gets me back on track.? You should write your why down and put it on your computer or your fridge, it will help you bring it back to focus when you are thinking about it the least. It could even be beneficial to set an alarm clock in your phone so you can get that alert to remind you of what you want to create for others.

Listen or Read Motivational Books

I could give a list a mile long.? There are so many, but start listening to some and then re-listen to the ones that get your juices flowing.? My favorites include Beach Money and anything John Maxwell or Zig Ziglar.

Organize Your Workspace

If your desk is a mess you are too.? Take some time to organize your work environment so that you can focus on what needs to be done.

Make Lists

Sometimes things can get overwhelming so giving up is easier.? Make lists and priorities things.? Being able to check things off of a list can do wonders for your sense of accomplishment, which can help your level of motivation.

Relax And Unwind

Oh yes, this is opposite of what everyone else will tell you but sometimes you put yourself in overdrive and you are running yourself into the ground.? How effective can you be at motivating yourself and your team if you are drained? Not very effective at all.? Sometimes you just need to take 24 or 48 hours to allow yourself to just be and imagine how refreshed and replenished you will be when you come back from a no work break?? I bet you?ll feel pretty awesome and less stressed!