The Investment Capital Growth Blog

Every one of us knows the importance of being attentive with colleagues, clients, and family members. We must be attentive if we must learn new ideas, listening is also a sign of politeness. However, it can be so difficult to keep quiet, we want to make our opinions known, and we seem to have the answer.

You can learn to be a better listener by talking and paying attention. Listening could come in the form of showing interest such as ‘explain your idea more, any other suggestion or what makes you think in that manner?

Whenever you exhibit interest while talking, you will not only gain new knowledge. Also, you will seen as a highly esteemed as a cooperative leader at your place of work.

I recommend you consider reading How to Win Friends & Influence People: Dale Carnegie – Amazon.com or listening to the audiobook How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age (Unabridged)

Could you use an expert in your corner? Please keep me in mind as your life coach, openings for senior executive engagements, and board openings. If you hear of anything within your network that you think might be a positive fit, I’d so appreciate if you could send a heads up my way. [email protected]

What is really a word? Clearly, a word means a whole lot. Just one word can be so potent that it can either make or mar your day.

Let’s explore together the right words we can make use of with our teams and clients and those we should refrain from using in our working place. Let’s begin by giving you an instance of just how potent or effective our words could become. A basic word such as “hopefully” or ‘try” tends to really disturb the receivers thinking system. Consequently, if you tell me ‘I hope we will see’ or hopefully, I’m going to be present, or I’ll try to be available, the truth is, I don’t have the slightest idea if you will or won’t be available, and this brings about anxiety.

There are specific words we must completely avoid making use of at our workplace. When a colleague didn’t finish a task assigned to them they probably tell you ‘I was really busy I’m sorry’ well that is not a really tenable excuse, because you know that they are not the only one busy, in fact, the whole office is. At times you may hear, ‘I never realized that it was part of my duty’. As a senior executive you’re probably thinking, when I assign it to you it is part of your responsibility.  The team member may say “oh I’m really sorry, but I forget, how many times as one of the company’s leaders you’re thinking, maybe I should forget to pay you as well. You can see this needs a positive and solid resolution, to avoid losing faith in a team member.

Are there any particular words that bosses appreciate hearing?

Yes, you should always remember these two words, ‘no problem’. Your boss might be really stressed when he request you to carry out a task; it could be something achievable or something unrealistic, just say no problem at that moment and then find a way to negotiate later, saying no problem lessens the anxiety and stress of the moment.

Here are some additional amazing words we can use:

Other words which can serve as a backup to ‘no problem,’ they include: ‘I’ll handle it,’ ‘I know just how you feel’ ‘of course’ these are great words you can use to interact with your senior team members and teach your subordinates.

Many thanks for viewing this blog. Please share with your friends and colleagues. I look forward to being your professional Advisor and Board Member and would enjoy working with you to enhance your leadership skills. Please click on the chat app on the lower right or use this link to schedule a call www.calendly.com/clifflocks together to help you fulfill your vision of success and opportunities for you and your company to achieve its goals.

While you are reading this blog, what other thing are you thinking about or working on? Probably you are busy with some documents or maybe checking your message. Possibly you have numerous streams of digital information staring right at you. Please pay attention multi-taskers! That is if I can get you to concentrate; based on the most recent neuroscience study from Stanford, the further you multitask, the more your brain is suffers. The further you multitask, the more difficult it is to prevent disturbances. The further you multitask, the tougher it is to concentrate on a specific thing and the further you multitask, the more challenging it is to get anything accomplished. You will discover a couple of simple strategies to assist you achieved the optimum function for your brain at the workplace.

In order to make your brain concentrate, the first thing you need to do is to have a task list of what you intend to accomplish for the day and organized these tasks in a manner you will find sensible. After that, stop yourself from that obsessive habit of email checking. Rather than looking at your messages always, check them on a predetermined schedule and disable that minute beep which signals that a new message has arrived.

Last but not the least, any time you have to multi task, ensure that you do match those activities properly. This means that if you are making a rather long and tiresome conference call, certainly it’s alright to look at your message; but when you’re speaking with your superior, never check your phone. Furthermore, do not combine critically essential activities, any time have to multi-task.

Something I can guarantee you is that by doing fewer task at any specific time, you will achieve more.

Many thanks for viewing this blog. Please share with your friends and colleagues. I look forward to being your professional Advisor and Board Member and would enjoy working with you to enhance your leadership skills. Please click on the chat app on the lower right or use this link to schedule a call www.calendly.com/clifflocks, so we can together to enhance your leadership skills.

During this cold winter, where I have spent the better part of my time staying glue to my desk, I observed some stiffness in my back. Sitting down for a long period of time is not good for anyone of us. Sitting down has long been associated with high cholesterol levels, hypertension, diabetes as well as spinal disc injury. In a study of 220,000 people which was published in the annals of internal medicine, individuals that sat down for up to 8 hours daily had a 15% higher possibility of dying within 3 years compare to those people who sat down for just 4 hours. Sitting down is really harming us. I am a trained certified EMT; prior to resigning from your job or before subjecting yourself to this appalling reality, allow me to provide you with 3 suggestions that will assist you to protect your health at work.

Let’s begin with the most apparent remedy to sitting down, be active. Hourly, have a little stretch out or take a stroll for a couple of minutes. You might consider going along with a colleague or friend for your stroll, you can even have a business discussion while strolling.

Next thing you can do is to always sit down on a wobbly object. Sitting down on a training ball or chair without a back compels your important muscles to be active; this ensures your sitting down is less docile and much more proactive.

Finally, try an alternate table. Standing tables are very much trendy now majority of the standing tables are adjustable, and you can elevate them if you wish to stand up or decrease them if you wish to sit down.

If you observed that sitting down is causing you more harm than good, then, it is time for you to get up walk.

Many thanks for viewing this blog. Please share with your friends and colleagues. I look forward to being your professional Advisor and Board Member and would enjoy working with you to enhance your leadership skills. Please click on the chat app on the lower right or use this link to schedule a call www.calendly.com/clifflocks together to help you fulfill your vision of success and opportunities for you and your company to achieve its goals.

When it gets to certain stage in your career, it is not uncommon for you to hear about the kinds of habits displayed by successful people. Generally, these kinds of habits are many and comprise the newest ranging from the best attitudes in networking to focus. The best ten are generally clever in all honesty, and they are really lot more difficult than they seemed and many people have not been able to gain a mastery of them. Today I will be revealing just one and the best habit of the extremely successful leaders. As a matter of fact, it could well be something you have been doing and stopped along the line because you have so many other tasks taking your time.  It’s pretty easy and it what we all can achieve.

The topmost habit is known as lunchtime. Extremely successful individual don’t work round the clock. It is not in their habit to munched their sandwiches when they are on a conference call, what they do is go for real vacation to rejuvenate and revitalize. They apply wisdom while spending their vacation. You can apply the following strategies to put your lunch hour to wise use.

To start with, move around. Being stationary for the whole day will cause harm to your body, therefore, move away from your table and if there is no time for you to go to the gym just take a stroll instead.

The next habit you must inculcate is eating together with other people. Make use of the lunch hour to network with fresh colleagues or to develop current relationships.

Have you been making use of your lunch hour wastefully, turn your lunch hour to a great habit and pretty soon you will realize just how really efficient you can become.

An additional resource: Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

The Importance of Selling Yourself

If I mention the word “self-promotion or probably “marketing yourself” what exactly crops up in your mind? Several people believe that self- promotion is not a good term; selling yourself has some negative meaning. Though this channel of selling can be utilized for bad purposes, it can as well be utilized for good. Moreover, when there is no selling, we won’t have the opportunity to have several amazing things since virtually everything we have and uses were sold to us. The clothes we are putting on, our mobile phones, jewelry, etc. if you really have something tangible to offer in your place of work, then it is about time to conquer your hatred for selling. I will reveal 3 strategies to overcome your hatred for selling today, in order to be able to offer your wonderful service and talents to a whole lot more people.

Listed below are three strategies to take out the not so good that is associated with selling and include the good.

To start with, repackage selling; begin to see selling in a different light. Have a change of orientation. Begin to realize that selling involves giving or offering service, when other people realize the different ways through which you can be of service, they would like to patronize your services

Next to that is the need to concentrate on making a difference. Whenever you talk about the services you render, concentrate on the influence you can make, the results you can achieve, the advantages you offer. People love to purchase things that are useful to them. In conclusion, be enthusiastic; people love to make their purchases from those that are genuinely passionate about the service they render. If you talk with passion, vigor and enthusiastically about your services, many people will easily buy into your ideas and invest in your passion.

If you render your services with the right attitude, for the right purpose and to the right folks, selling won’t have any inkling of evil. As a matter of fact, selling your special abilities and priceless contributions can really make a big difference in the world.

Many thanks for taking time to read this blog post, if you enjoyed it, I consider sharing it with your loved ones and colleagues, by kindly posting it on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, and tweeting it.  I’m Cliff Locks, a professional executive advisor and Board of Director.  As I say, be passionate in everything you do, model great leadership for others, understand your strengths and use them, set positive goals, make definitive plans based on them – and execute, it’s ok to admit when you fail and move on, and always motivate others. Let’s work together to enhance your leadership skills potential, visit Investment Capital Growth.com and click on the chat app on the lower right, so we can schedule time together to help you fulfill your vision of success and opportunities help your company achieve its goals.

Making deals in the place of work is every task. We all wish that our suggestion to be accepted, we fight for scarce resources, we wish to have access to those who call the shots, therefore we naturally have to make deals. Making negotiation at the place of work is worlds apart from negotiating the cost of a condo or car. At our place of work, we make negotiations with our colleagues and supervisors and at times our buddies- we have a long-term relationship with these folks. Today I will be revealing 3 strategies for making negotiation with your colleagues in the workplace and thereby maintaining your relationship as well.

You can apply the 3 strategies discussed here to maintain your relationship while making negotiations. The first one is that you need to concentrate on a collective future. Generally, people are more inclined to be a bit fairer if they are aware that you are together with them for the long haul. Always reiterate collective interest that will be beneficial to both of you down the road. You could say something such as I’m quite aware that both of us are devoted to effecting changes that will enhance our performance in the long-term.

The second strategy is that you must steer clear of anything that will make them angry. It is totally unreasonable to say something that will make them angry when you are to develop a long-term relationship. Keep away from those topics that will get them worked up. Never say something such as all you are interested in is your final profit.

The third strategy is that you must always maintain your calmness. Behavior is infectious; hence if you speak quietly and with calmness, the person you are making negotiation with will be more inclined to accept. If your partner becomes a bit angry or tempers start flaring, slow the conversation down and speak in a reduce tone. This will go a long way in calming the flaring nerves. Allow everywhere to become quiet and then tell your partner that you love to resolve the problem with them.

We are all aware that careers thrive on relationships, there when making deals with your colleagues, always to maintain and even enhance your relationship with them. In future, you might have forgotten what the negotiation is all about, but how you treated the feelings of the partner you negotiated with will never be forgotten.

Many thanks for taking time to read this blog post, if you enjoyed it, I consider sharing it with your loved ones and colleagues, by kindly posting it on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, and tweeting it. I’m Cliff Locks, a professional executive advisor and Board of Director. As I say, be passionate in everything you do, model great leadership for others, understand your strengths and use them, set positive goals, make definitive plans based on them – and execute, it’s ok to admit when you fail and move on, and always motivate others. Let’s work together to enhance your leadership skills potential, visit Investment Capital Growth.com and click on the chat app on the lower right, so we can schedule time together to help you fulfill your vision of success and opportunities help your company achieve its goals.

Achieving Your Goals

As a society, we are often obsessed with setting goals. It is not even impossible that you are not happy with yourself because you haven’t made sufficient progress on your list of goals for the year, or in your case, maybe you have too many goals that you don’t even have the faintest idea of where to take off and what you should be concentrating on. From one year to another, we are constantly falling short because of the goal trapped we set for ourselves. Rather than following this pattern, let’s have something different this year; let’s replace our vast goals with just one or two goals that can really make a real difference in our choices.

Start by relaxing and two-part exercise to work through during the fourth quarter and the upcoming end of year holiday period.

Exercise one: select two words to define this last year. As an individual, 2017 was exciting and a little disconcerting.

Exercise two: select two words to explain how the New Year will be for you. As an individual, 2018 will be amazing and impactful.

How many goals do you currently work on? Is it working for you?

If you need help in accomplishing your goals, let’s talk. schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks

There’s Just One Key To Happiness

You’ve possibly heard may be on too many occasions on how you can achieve happiness. As a matter of fact, it seems to be the latest Holy Grail. You already know that the quest for fame or wealth does not lead to happiness. But it is not impossible that you are pondering if it is really necessary to have deep reflections and keep a thankfulness diary in order to attain that much desired happy state. Well, due to a Harvard research that has been closely monitoring the lifestyles of over 700 for almost ten decades, we currently understand that there actually exists just one big key to happiness, do you have an idea of what that is?

There is no other big key to happiness other than interpersonal relationships. In the research, it was discovered that the individuals who have the most robust working relationships were not just happier, they were also healthier. Now these kinds of relationships were not just with spouses and family members but also with best friends and colleagues. Do you ever spend quality time with your friends?  23% percent of Americans admitted to not having anyone to discuss with; how terrible. We   all can do something about this ugly situation.

Let’s spend lesser time with television and spend more qualitative time with people. Obviously, internet relationships have not done to make us happier.

Let’s become more familiar with our neighbors. One of the most important achievements to my personal life this year has been a book society as well as spending time with my neighbors down in the hallway.

Let’s welcome our co-workers to have coffee breaks with us. Relationships in the workplace bring a lot of considerable transformation to our happiness and this is awesome. Study shows that having a high five, fist bump or handshake with friends in the workplace will make the friendship bonds even stronger.

Attaining happiness is actually not too complex. It’s about one basic thing, opening ourselves to others and equally allowing others to open themselves to us.

Thanks for taking time to read this blog post, if you enjoyed it, I highly recommend you share with your loved ones. I’m a professional mentor; enhance up your leadership potential by making an appointment to talk. I look forward to helping you define your vision of success and achieving it. Schedule a Call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks