Project: The Root Word

Few are the days we discard the alarm clock, trusting the international anticipation of tomorrow and euphoria of life to keep us awake.

But as December 31^st blends into January 1^st, as one day ends and another begins marking not just another month but a new year, we recognize a season of hope. Renewal. The season of resolutions.

We all have succumbed to thinking them. Since childhood we’ve been conditioned to bettering our lives and it all starts on the first day of each year. To break a bad habit. Start a good one. Lost five pounds. Try five new things. Floss every day. Quit smoking. End a relationship. We resolve to bridge the gap between where we are and where the happiness resides outside of our reach.

Personal or professional, resolutions don’t just have to take place in January. The most important factor is that they solve an issue.

If we slow down and enunciate the word that trips us up emotionally, we’d recognize that resolution sounds a lot like solution. That’s because the word is a derivative of solution.

Too often when we think of resolutions we set before us new hurdles, thus new problems to solve.

This year, we challenge you to follow this five step plan to fulfill your 2016 dream, to successfully SOLVING your resolutions:

1) Identify: Realize what the problem is – what it is you want to change.

2) Analyze: Create a custom, tangible plan with bite size manageable steps

3) Pace: Pace yourself. One of the reasons people often give up on their resolutions is because they forget it should be more than a marathon. It’s a lifestyle, it’s long-run. If your goal was to floss every day but you kicked off by flossing five times in one day – overkill will kill your momentum.

4) Forgive: If you skip a day, two or three, pick yourself back up and keep going. The worse thing you can do after inadvertently missing day five of mark, is purposely miss day six because you think you’ve lost too much momentum or failed the system.

5) Reward: Incentivize yourself. Don’t wait until the end of the year to determine if you achieved your maximum potential. Highlight your calendar with several future dated celebratory milestones to benchmark your success. Everyone needs a little sticks and carrots to keep them going. Figure out what your carrot is and keep it forefront wherever you are.

- The Green Couch

Project: Failing Forward

Whenever we interview one of the Risk-Takers on The Green Couch and their story unfolds, their definition of success slowly comes to the surface. Many of which have boldly stated, there is no such thing as an overnight success.

If anyone would tell you otherwise, they either have not found success or they have encountered one long, treacherous night. A night more extensive than the average 8 hours; perhaps one of 8 years?

From the concept to the creation, to the failed experiments and finally the product or service, more than a blink of an eye has passed. Moreover, while some of your experimental components may have fallen into place unintentionally to your benefit, none of your hard work was an accident.

The further you pursue your vision, the further chances you have of meeting it face-to-face.

But what happens when those failed experiments turn your trajectory off course? How can we keep the momentum going, so even though we won’t achieve overnight success we can fail forward?

It won’t be easy, but ask any of our Risk-Takers, and they’ll tell you the ongoing rewards are worth the ongoing time they “serve.”

• Find a mentor: It doesn’t have to be someone in your industry; just someone wiser, someone more experienced who is willing to sit down with you over lunch every few weeks to talk shop and life.

• Ease up on yourself: Remember, it’s okay to be wrong. If you’re always right, you’re not doing the right thing in life. Never settle for something that doesn’t challenge you.

• Set up a schedule: Whether it’s every day or every week, set an alert/alarm/reminder for you, dedicated to specific projects that need your time that are lacking and need more focus.

• Embrace change: In the absence of change is the absence of innovation. Use every roadblock, technical upgrade or trend as an opportunity to stretch your imagination. 

• Get street smart: If you can’t afford to travel or time away, invest in a good book to broaden your mind and refresh your senses. A new perspective from an unknown source always helps see life from outside the city limits. 

• Understand what failure is: Failure isn’t the absence of success. It isn’t meeting your expectations, deadlines or the status quo. Failure is not trying.

• Understand what failing forward is: Failing forward is using every “No” as, No way am I going to let this stop me from succeeding and reaching my goal. This failure showed me how not to do it – not that I shouldn’t do it.”

Fail forward, fail onward!

The Green Couch

Project: Aha! Moment

The end of the year is here and like those that have put holiday shopping off are freaking out, those that have put off their dreams are freaking out as well. Just two weeks until the new year, a few short days, and so many people are saying they haven’t achieved anything. It’s the final countdown and:

They’ve not lost any weight.
They’ve not yet graduated.
They’ve not scored the pot of gold.
They’ve not landed the perfect relationship.
They’ve not made partner.
They’ve surely not acquired the diamond.
They’ve not __________.

What have you not? I’m sure you can fill in the blank above with your own not.

But the aha! moment has no time restrictions. It has no respect for locations.

It comes when and where it pleases. In the middle of your dreams, during the shower. It hits you subtly; it hits you like a grand piano from the skyscraper above in a Looney tunes cartoon. Your feet affixed to the ground, your eyes transfixed to the behemoth coming closer and closer until suddenly what was just a thought, something you were flirting with in the back of your mind becomes a very real decision.

We’ve all failed this year. We all have had an idea. We’ve all had an idea we wanted to pursue, but other problems arose, and we’ve persuaded ourselves these were more prevalent.

Sometimes that decision is taken away from you. Because now you are stuck under a grand piano, under your grand idea.

Maybe 2014 has been a series of delays but writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry reminds us A GOAL WITHOUT A PLAN IS JUST A WISH. Without his plans, his success would not have been discovered.

Our Decembers are not our last chance to fulfill the end of quarter potential. They should, like every other day, be viewed as a first chance. Every day we can reevaluate our goal and put into effect a plan. So no matter what didn’t happen the three-hundred some days behind us, we have still have December 16th, and we still have an Ah ha! moment that needs to be implemented.

This December 16th reinvent the definition of your 2014. Forget about all the “Nots” that took place and start planning for a “Nothing Held Back Attitude.”

Give it all you got. Because you’ve got a lot to gain.

Project: Burger Queen And Dairy King

Dear Entrepreneurs and Esteemed Employees,

No matter how vast or how specific your talents and skill sets may be, hone them and own them. Don’t compare your blooper reel to the highlight and credit role of those around you. Don’t quantify bullet points or question the number of blazing balls others can juggle, or the fact that others can even juggle.

And just because they can do notable, Pulitzer and peace-prize-winning acts all while changing the “M” in front of their illionaire status to a “B” does not mean you aren’t great at what you do or have a personal greater calling.

No matter how many miles you can walk in someone else’s shoes, when it comes to comparing your talents, your skills and your success rate, do not feel pressured to trade in your penny loafers for steeled toes, or your sandals for stilettos. Do not feel pressured to trade in your Queenly status for the King’s. Whether you flip burgers or serve ice cream, go with it; hone it and own it.

It is not about being better; it’s about believing in your dreams and your capabilities.

It’s about believing in your burger flipping capabilities and being a King at it.

-The Green Couch

Project: Chutes and Ladders On the Road to Success

Growing up many friends, family and children played a gamed called chutes and ladders. You may be familiar with it if not let me surmise the goal: The one to reach the top of the ladder first wins. In other words, the object of the game is to win.

As with most games reliant upon dice, this game of chance depends upon which number you roll. If your pawn lands on a square with a ladder – up you go with a higher success rate of winning. Land on a square with a chute? It is bye-bye baby.

As an entrepreneur, we battle daily trying to decipher the difference between it is all in the wrist (a roll of the dice) and balance that with one of our favored words – it is all in the risk. (Another game – another time.)

However, more importantly, we have to align our priorities and follow the procedure to climb that ladder. We are not talking about the corporate ladder; we are talking about the ladder of success.  The way you spell success we leave to you, however while success is subjective it is always an elevation of where we are, to where we are going.

So here’s the steps we need to follow to free ourselves from the chute and follow the ladder.

Who cares the number you roll. Shoot for the innumerable stars – that is a risk we like talking about:

-Believe in Your Idea

-Dream About It

-Set a Goal: 

A goal is a dream with a deadline. – Napolean Hill

-Be Disciplined: 

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. – Jim Rohn

-Track Your Achievements & Take Time to Celebrate

As always believe in your dream, believe in it and always have a goal in mind. Because if you are reaching for the stars, there are many rings to your ladders and equal many amounts of chutes. Are you up to playing the game?

It is your turn! Ready, set, roll.

-The Green Couch