3 Keys to W.I.N. In Business
by Christine N. Cibula, M.S.

I'm a Notre Dame University College Football fan. GO IRISH! I was lucky to be a graduate student in business and psychology at Notre Dame the year Lou Holtz rocked the house. Let me tell you, Lou was much more than a Notre Dame University College Football coach. He was and continues to be a master of the winning mindset.

Lou Holtz shared a story that forever changed my world. He shared that at one point, he was river rafting with his son and the boat turned over in whitewater. Son. An overturned raft. Paddles. Lou. Whitewater rapids. Rocks. Moving quickly. If he had looked at it all in a blur, or taken one wrong move, it could have ended up in disaster.

Lou shared his winning analogy wherein W.I.N. stands for WHAT'S IMPORTANT NOW? He grabbed his son, turned over the boat, got his son in the boat, got the oars in the boat, and pulled himself into the boat. A winning formula where you take life one moment at a time and throughout each experience, you stop and ask yourself, what's important now?

This is the same formula he used to WIN game after game after game that season at Notre Dame.

HOW TO W.I.N. IN BUSINESS

If you want to win in business, you must always determine, "WHAT'S IMPORTANT NOW?" This is much easier said than done. Throughout my years working with corporate CEO's and entrepreneurs who are at the top of their WINNING business models, I've learned three keys to winning in business and I'd like to take this opportunity to share them with you.

KEY #1: BUILD A SOLID FOUNDATION

In my graduate school days at Notre Dame University, we would always get the course catalog before the new session, FALL-SPRING-SUMMER. I loved the course catalog. Sure enough, I'd spend hours (yes, I was a bit of a dork who actually really loved school) perusing the catalog to see all of the exciting courses. I'd look in my own field of study. I'd look in the other fields of study where there were cool courses that were interesting to me.

Inevitably, most of the courses I wanted to take would say, "PREREQUISITE" in front of them. Ugh... To get to the courses I really wanted to study and learn about, I had to take all of these lesser, boring courses that seemed like a complete waste of time. I hated playing by the rules, so sometimes I'd find a way to have the prerequisite waived so I could take the course I really wanted to take.

EXCEPT I'd be in the course and find out that the reason I needed the prerequisite to begin with was so that I'd have the foundation necessary to excel in the higher-level courses. Most of the time I could manage through it and learn what I wanted to learn without too many problems.

But, one year it came up and bit me from behind and taught me a lesson I'll never forget, the importance of building a solid foundation. The first year I attended Notre Dame University, I discovered I needed to take graduate psychology statistics. Problem was I never had undergraduate statistics. In all my creative dodging of prerequisites I had managed to graduate with my Bachelor of Arts in Psychology without ever having taken a stats course.

So there I was at Notre Dame University taking graduate statistics without undergraduate statistics as the foundation. And make no mistake about it. I never worked harder at academia than when I attended Notre Dame. It was like learning Russian. There is nothing "intuitive" about statistics.

So it was a painful lesson, because while I "passed" the course, I realized I didn't have a grasp on what I had learned, and so I made a choice to go back and take undergraduate statistics to get that foundation before proceeding further on a shaky foundation. The great thing is that undergraduate statistics seemed like a breeze after that and it was never an issue again. Once the foundation was in place, it was smooth sailing.

This is such an important point, it bears repeating...

We need a solid foundation in order to excel in dynamic, fluid environments. A solid foundation is the key to success.

KEY #2: BE PERSISTENT & STAY THE COURSE

The core of entrepreneurship is BUSINESS PERSISTENCE. This means come hell or high water, you don't give up. You adapt. You revise. You correct course as you go. You follow a plan to fruition. It is essential. Better to mess up than to stop midway, change course completely midway or get most of the way there and then freeze up. Think of the horse that stops dead in its tracks right before the triple bar jump sending its rider over the top - eeeouch!

In "Corporate America" you can find a role in which you can excel in your strengths, but your weaknesses are masked by the position. To become a successful entrepreneur, you really have to dig deep and step out of your comfort zone consistently. You have to go longer than the other guy so it requires staying power. This means you stay in the game despite exhaustion and times and despite uncertainty of the future.

Most of the entrepreneurs I know have rags to riches stories. Some have pinnacle of success to bottom of the barrel to pinnacle of success stories. A few have doing okay in their businesses for a long time and then suddenly taking off stories. One thing is certain, they all chose to stay the course in order to reach the success they now enjoy. And their success often came after some of their biggest seemingly catastrophic failures prior to the time they rose to their success.

Business Persistence includes:

1. Seeing concept to completion in the rough.

2. Making it nice and shiny with feedback from your most valued players.

3. Taking it to market until your method of marketing meets your prospective buyers.

4. Finding your turnkey system and then repeating your results on a larger scale.

KEY #3: BE RESILIENT & GO THE DISTANCE

Along with business persistence comes the personal quality that must be developed and that is PERSONAL RESILIENCE. See, many of the best-made plans will fail miserably. You'll experience financial failures, product failures, marketing failures, internal business infrastructure failures and major miscalculations along the way. You'll learn. You'll get better over time. You'll improve. Be patient. The key is the ability to weather the storm and make it through to the other side.

Personal Resilience includes:

1. Facing the financials on bad days and good days.

2. Dealing with your critics who drain your most precious asset of creative energy.

3. Ignoring bright shiny object syndrome or something I call "The Distracter Factor."

4. Remember that success most often occurs with accumulated base hits and rarely home runs. Keep your end goals in sight and celebrate the current successes as you go the distance.

The good news is that you can live into these qualities over time. If you find it is a challenge, remember that working with good coaches along the way is essential and can help you develop the foundation that will allow your dreams to flourish.

Live Into It!™ :)CC
"Live Into The Life You've Imagined..."
www.LiveIntoIt.com

Christine N. Cibula, M.S.
Business Development Coach
www.LiveIntoIt.com

P.S. To LEARN MORE ABOUT MY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT COACHING PROGRAMS (there is something that will work for every budget and business need), please send a blank email and you will receive my most recent coaching program information WITHIN MINUTES. Looking forward to working together as you live into the life you've imagined...

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