Author: vibeckemarkhus

Five Thinking Habits of the ‘Mega Successful’

by vibeckemarkhus, posted in My way to financial independence

Being successful starts with your thoughts. Thinking habits drive behaviors. Good or bad, productive or useless thought precedes action. Self-defeating thoughts can derail a career whether it’s leadership, selling, entrepreneurship… you name it.

Clear, rational and optimistic thinking leads to eventual success. To reach your career goals, adopt the mindset of the top 5%. Develop these five thinking habits to advance your career:

1. Initiative
The super successful are self-starters. They wait for no one and they have no need for a cattle prod. Their minds crystallize their vision and they are emotionally connected to it. They are self-motivated to initiate each activity. They intuitively adapt to difficult situations and navigate around unforeseen obstacles without waiting for supervisory instruction.

How well have you developed your vision for your career?
Are you excited about your goals?
What drives you to achieve?

2. Personal Accountability
This thinking habit prevents making excuses for a bad decision. The superstar’s brain enables them to be transparent with themselves. They make every effort to try and identify the cause of that bad decision. Their focus is more on correcting the problem to ensure future success than on protecting themselves from other people’s opinions. The focus is on learning from their mistake. Saving face is not relevant. Not making the sales mistake and doing better the next time rules the day.

Do you shy away from transparency?
Who in your life will tell you the truth about yourself?
Can you handle the truth about your areas of development?

3. Integrative Processing
They have the cognitive ability to break down each problem into manageable pieces and discern which are the critical components. They can assimilate all the variables of a situation into a single homogenous image and then use this understanding to make decisions regarding planning, resource allocation, and solving problems.

What is your process for breaking down a problem?
Do you struggle with being overwhelmed by problems?
Who do you trust to help walk you through problem-solving?

4. Emotional Distance
Mega successful people can remain emotionally neutral (unaffected) by positive or negative experiences with others. Their mind does not internalize flattery or rejection. They are largely indifferent to surface level emotions directed at them. Instead, they focus their attention on the mission, following their plan, listening, learning and problem solving.

Are you easily derailed when hearing criticism from others?
Do you seek validation or affirmation from others?
How is this affecting your ability to stay focused on your goals?

5. Self-Belief
Their mind communicates success. They visualize succeeding at each step of plan. For example, a superstar salesperson believes in their ability to execute the sales process – prospecting, building trust, qualifying, analyzing needs, presenting solutions, negotiation, closing sales, etc.

They believe in their abilities with accuracy. Their mind is absolutely convinced they will succeed – regardless if the prospect buys or not.

Does your belief system reinforce achievement or defeat?
What skills do you need to develop to achieve your goals?
What do you believe about yourself that is not true… and is holding you back?

Take time to think through your thinking.

What you feed your mind feeds you … and will reveal itself in the person you become.

____

This article was written by Barrett Riddleberger who is a founder and CEO of xPotential Selling, and the author of Blueprint of a Sales Champion: How to Recruit, Refine, and Retain Top Sales Performers.

The Hiroshima Prefectual Industrial Promotional Hall

by vibeckemarkhus, posted in Travel

American Survey Team Member pauses in front of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall 1945. The 4 square miles of densely built-up area in the heart of the city — residential, commercial, and military — contained three-fifths of the total population.

If there were about 245,000 people in the city at the time of the attack, the density in the congested area must have been about 35,000 per square mile. Five completed evacuation programs and a sixth then in progress had reduced the population from its wartime peak of 380,000. In Hiroshima the dwellings were of wood construction; very few were more than two stories. There were no masonry division walls.

Large groups of dwellings clustered together. The type of construction, coupled with antiquated fire-fighting equipment and inadequately trained personnel, made even in peacetime a high possibility of conflagration. Nearly seven percent of the residential units had been torn down to make firebreaks, but the firestorm jumped the human-made breaks and the rivers as well. Many buildings were of poor construction by American standards.

The principal points of weakness were the extremely small tenons, the inadequate tension joints, and the inadequate or poorly designed lateral bracings. Reinforced concrete framed buildings were not uniform in design and in quality of materials. Some of the construction details (reinforcing rod splices, for example) were often poor, and much of the concrete was definitely weak; thus some reinforced concrete buildings collapsed and suffered structural damage when within 2,000 feet of the hypocenter, and some internal wall paneling was demolished even up to 3,800 feet. Other buildings, however, were constructed far more strongly than is required by normal building codes in America, to resist earthquakes.

Since the 1923 earthquake, construction regulations in Japan have specified that the roof must safely carry a minimum load of 70 pounds per square foot (708 kilograms per square centimeter) whereas American 1945 requirements did not normally exceed 40 pounds per square foot (405 kilograms per square centimeter) for similar types. Though the regulation was not always followed, this extra strong construction was encountered in some of the buildings near ground zero at Hiroshima, and undoubtedly accounts for their ability to withstand atomic bomb pressures without structural failures.