Truly acknowledge that you are the CEO of your own life and a better life immediately becomes imminent.

Whether we are entrepreneurial spirited individuals, currently employed and even unemployed, we must operate with the proverbial “The Buck Stops Here” sign on our desks. Everybody wants things from and for their lives. Various forms of abundance, financial wealth, building a great house, starting a successful business or charitable foundation, creating a family are a few of many possibilities. Effective CEOs take the time to identify what they truly want.

Just as in business, determined CEOs in life have very detailed visions of what they desire to occur. They plan and document(in writing) their visions, access them frequently (numerous times daily) and possess an unwavering, 100% genuine belief that all things desired will be brought into being within a determined timeframe. It’s a very specific destination that’s created and good CEOs take any and all necessary actions along the way. Excellent CEOs make vision attainment appear to be almost effortless ventures. This is because the decision has been made that their life and causes are so important to them and their families that effort represents a very minor price to pay. For top CEOs, it’s a relaxed, enjoyable and fun trip with thoughts and eyes always on their targets. It’s a constant Be, Do, Have journey.

As your own CEO, it’s important to recognize that you possess four main resources which exist solely to help you achieve desired results in your life. These four resources are your employees. Their names are:

• Time
• Focus
• Energy
• Money

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“You can only get what you want, if you help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar

One way to help other people is to empower them because by empowering them you could literally change their lives for the better.

Empower means “to give somebody power or authority” and also “to give somebody a sense of confidence or self-esteem”.

People always feel motivated and inspired when they feel empowered. And when they feel motivated and inspired by you, they’d be more than happy to help you achieve whatever you want.

Once you’ve mastered this ability to get people to help you voluntarily, it will make you a more powerful, effective and successful person.

I have listed some of the methods which you can adopt to empower other people.

1. Show More Appreciation

To empower someone, you have to make the person feel good about himself/herself. And the simplest way to achieve that is to express your appreciation for everything that person does for you, large or small.

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Since you’re reading Pick the Brain, I think I can confidently suggest that you might have some perfectionist tendencies – and that you almost certainly have a few areas of your life that you’re working on. (Both are pretty much a given, based on an interest in self-improvement and personal development.)

One big area for a lot of us in the West is our health – and specifically, our weight and fitness levels. Over half of America is overweight, and that figure is rising. I’d guess that a number of Pick the Brain readers are aware that, for better health, they need to lose weight and take more exercise.

Something that stops a lot of us from making progress on our health goals is the feeling that if I can’t be perfect, it’s not worth bothering. If you’ve tried out several super-strict regimes in the past, which you promptly ditch as soon as you’ve eaten something unplanned, or if you think it’s not worth going to the gym for half an hour – you need a whole free afternoon – then this article is for you.

Make Small Changes To What You Eat

One good way to avoid that all-or-nothing approach is to make incremental changes to your diet and daily routine. If you read these and think “it’s not worth bothering”, recognise that it’s your subconscious mind trying to trick you into staying firmly in your cosy comfort zone. Small changes really do add up. Some good places to start are:

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Have you settled for less in your life, when you used to dream that something bigger, something grander, was possible? Not only possible, but you knew for certain it would happen, didn’t you?

Then something happened…

You got responsibilities.

You had to be practical.

But you don’t have to follow the herd anymore. You can make your heart and your mind work together. You simply have to realize that this so-called “collective wisdom” is really a collective assumption.

Any of these old sayings (sleep walking mantras) sound familiar?

• Get a real job.
• Welcome to adulthood!
• Grow up.
• Keep your head down.
• It’s called work for a reason!

These are all fine and dandy. They may have been more applicable in say, your grandfather’s time. Labor was expected for the larger part of sunlight and there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to follow your passions (unless you liked mining coal).

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We all have weaknesses and strengths – no matter who we are. Sometimes the weaknesses seem to outweigh the strengths and sometimes it’s the other way around. Some people get sick easily. Some struggle to manage their finances properly. Some people are hopeless communicators and struggle with relationships.

Many people leave it and that and accept it as just bad luck – but not everyone. Some people facing huge limitations still manage to achieve tremendous things. They rise above their weaknesses and do not allow them to limit their possibilities.

It’s Your Choice

I attended a school prize-giving ceremony not so long ago and the guest speaker was Andrew Becroft, who had a severe stutter as a child. Instead of allowing this to limit him, he chose to  to work hard to overcome it. He is now the Principal Youth Court Judge for New Zealand. Not only did he become successful, but he did so in a profession where he had to speak in front of others regularly — where his weakness is front and center for all to see. If he hadn’t worked on his speaking ability, it would have been very limiting to his life and career prospects.

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Ever since I was 15 I’ve been coming up with ways to make money. For some reason, I’ve always had the internal belief that I’m going to be very successful when it comes to finances. At 19, having a lot of money isn’t as important to me now as it was to my old egotistical self, but I still want to be comfortable.

There are definitely areas of personal finance that I could improve upon, but I think some of the fundamentals I’ve stuck to have kept me in a relatively good position compared to others my age. Hopefully, despite my youth, I’ll be able to share something here that you can apply to your own situation.

6 Things I’ve Learned

Before we start, I want to say the obligatory: I am by no means a financial advisor so my words shouldn’t be taken as fact. However, hopefully you’ll see these, often common sense, ideas as beneficial to your own wealth generation and apply them where relevant.

1) Keep Doing What You’ve Done, Keep Getting the Same Results

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I previously wrote about how to take criticism, a very important life skill. In the comments, someone asked for a post about how to criticize. Good idea! It only makes sense to look at the flip side of the coin.

Some people get a kick out of insulting others. It’s really easy to find some friends, neighbors, politicians, actors, comedians, athletes, or other people who aren’t doing everything exactly to your liking. And when someone is making mistakes, some people feel the need to make sure they know it.

This kind of destructive criticism really doesn’t help anyone. People who partake in destructive criticism often seem to think there’s a limited amount of success to go around, so putting others down makes them feel better about themselves.

That’s crazy. Criticizing someone just for the sake of putting them down makes both of you miserable. Criticism should always be done with the goal of helping the other person improve. So then, how do you deliver constructive criticism?

1. Decide on your objective up front, and remember it.

Are you trying to help the other person improve, or are you trying to win an argument? These are very different goals. What you set out to do sets the tone of the whole conversation, so be clear on your objective.

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You’ve got a lot of different things on the go. Some of them are New Years’ resolutions that you’re determined to stick with, this time. Some are projects that have dragged on for years – an unfinished novel in your bottom drawer, or the refurbishment of your basement. Others are things you’ve started and given up almost straight away: these have left their legacy in the form of unread textbooks, boxes of craft materials, dusty computer gadgetry, never-played language CDs and more…

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The secret to surviving a recession is opportunity recognition.  The first step in opportunity recognition is to know and believe that there will always be opportunity for those who seek and pursue it.  Regardless of how bad the economy may seem, people still buy and sell.  People still have needs to fill and businesses have products and services that meet those needs.  When the economy goes south, however, there is mass fear and concern and the perception is that the entire world may completely cease to function.  This is patently untrue.  Even in the Great Depression of the 1930’s the world continued to function and 75% of Americans had work and jobs.  Some people actually became wealthy during the Great Depression because they were able to identify opportunity and capture it.

One of the great examples of success during the Great Depression is the motion picture industry.  People were so distressed and fearful about their economic condition they needed emotional relief and a means to escape.  The movies provided that relief, no matter how brief and temporary.  The movie industry identified need and opportunity and filled it at a price people were able to pay.  Opportunity always exists, even though it may be harder to recognize in tough times because it takes a different form.

In good times, opportunity comes in the form of just doing more of what already works.  Opportunity in good times assumes the continuation of the normal and capitalizes on things remaining normal.  In bad times, opportunity comes by abandoning things that no longer work and finding new things that will work, based on new needs.  Recession itself is a great opportunity for those who choose to see it that way.  It’s just that the opportunities may look different and they might require us to leave our comfort zones.  Now we are down to the real stress that a bad economy produces; the stress of change and the need to leave our comfort zones!  Sometimes that means taking a new road.

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There are lots of people on this planet, and they all have their opinions. That means that all of us should expect to receive lots of criticism in our lifetime. Friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, random strangers…they all have something to say (just as we often do ourselves). And if you have any kind of online presence, you can expect to receive much more criticism, as everyone comes out under the veil of anonymity.

There’s no avoiding this, so we need to be prepared to take criticism in a way that’s going to be best for everyone. Here are some tips for doing just that.

1. Check the critic’s motives

Some critics are not honestly trying to help, but just want to provoke a reaction. If someone attacks you with a nonsensical anonymous comment online, they’re not seriously interested in having a real discussion. You wouldn’t take the bait if a loud drunk wanted to tell you what’s wrong with you, because there’s nothing to be gained by arguing.

With that in mind, whenever you sense that someone is criticizing you without having the intention of helping, don’t lose your temper. Ignore them if you can, or just give a quick response to indicate that you’re not going to bother trying. Then get on with your life.

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