You Have To Believe To Succeed
By Cheval John
For many sport teams, it would be difficult for them to succeed if they are facing an opponent that seems better than them.
The opponent would have the bigger budget to have the quality players for their team like the New York Yankees.
Or in the case of college football, teams from the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) having more scholarships than teams from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).
When the teams from the FBS compete against teams from the FCS, it should be an easy conclusion that the teams from the FBS should always win.
It should be a warm up matchup for the FBS teams to get that easy win.
However, that is not always the case.
Like the time when Appalachian State, who were in the FCS at the time, defeated Michigan 34-32 televised in the inauguration of the Big Ten Network, that brought shock waves to the college football world.
Everyone including the ESPN analyst were “upset” mentioned that Michigan should have won that matchup because they had all of the talent and the bigger budget.
What they should have understand is that Appalachian State were a team that should not have been taken lightly because they were at that time a two-time FCS champion.
Plus, they had the mindset that they could beat Michigan when they faced them.
And Sam Houston State had the same mindset that they could have beaten Texas Tech when they faced them last Saturday in Lubbock.
Even though they lost by the score of 59-45, the Bearkats kept Texas Tech on their toes.
The Bearkats had 671 yards, which is the most yards they have ever produced against a team from the FBS.
Sam Houston did not go into that matchup thinking that they would not win because they were from the FCS.
Instead, the Bearkats believed that they could beat Texas Tech and almost won.
The important lesson that everyone can learn is that even if you are not the most talented person in your industry like public relations, etc, if you have the mindset to believe that you can succeed, then success will come to you.
And even if you don’t win at your industry like public relations, etc. at least you gave it your all to be successful and did not allow doubt to stop you from achieving success.
Who knows, competing against a company that is larger than your company can allow you to eventually win in your specific market like writing, etc.
Video courtesy of Our Honor Defend
What Are You Blabbing About?
By Cheval John
Photo courtesy of V3+Broadsuite
Blab is one of the best live video streaming platforms in the world of social media.
The company is very innovative and raw in how they do business.
Normally businesses would test out their product before launching it out to the world.
Not blab.
They basically took the risk and launch their product in beta form to get feedback from their users.
And that risk is truly paying off.
The user base for blab has increased since launching in April
And probably the biggest reason for the growth of Blab is because of Founder and CEO, Shaan Puri.
Mr. Puri is willing to get feedback from the users in order to make the platform better.
It is rare when a CEO wants to get feedback from their customers as the majority of CEOs would not want to get feedback from their users because they are afraid that their comments would hurt their egos.
They believe that if the customers don’t like their product, then it is their problem.
That is why most of the businesses are losing their customers because of their elitist attitude.
Mr. Puri is one of the great examples of how CEOs should be if they are running a business.
That is probably another reason of why blab is popular because it brings the humanity behind the brands and builds a strong community.
A huge example of this would be the Blab chat that was hosted by Tyler J. Anderson, founder/CEO of Casual Fridays, with guests Jon Loomer, Facebook Ads expert, Brian Fanzo, Chief Digital Strategist and Partner at BroadSuite Media, and Carlos Gil, Social Media Manager at BMC Software.
At one point during the chat, Mr. Loomer showed his vulnerability and humanity when he shared with the audience on why he is an entrepreneur and his journey towards becoming a Facebook ads expert.
That to me is the best part of Blab.
Anyone can be real and also build a loyal tribe.
Maybe that is the reason why Blab will trump Periscope and Meerkat because it allows anyone to truly participate in the conversation and not just be a viewer.
Hopefully many companies will follow the example of Mr. Puri and the team at Blab.
Tune In:
As a change of pace, tune in to this What’s The Word? episode featuring Patrick and Courtney Hennessy, host of Be Less Typical podcast.
Both work in the car sales industry and have started the podcast to break the bad reputation of the car sales industry.
You can listen to the interview below and leave your comments below about the show and article.
To Succeed, Stay Away From Negative People
By Cheval John
As college football is set to begin tonight, everyone will be focused on if Ohio State will be able to repeat as national champions in the second year of the College Football Playoff.
The pressure to win a national championship for their respective institutions can affect their health as well.
Take Ohio State’s current head coach Urban Meyer.
Mr. Meyer had a tremendous run during his time as the head coach at the University of Florida.
Under his leadership, Florida won two national championships.
Along the way, Mr. Meyer’s health suffered because he was so stressed with the pressures of winning that he had to step down from the coaching position.
Mr. Meyer’s family life had some challenges as well because he would at times bring his work to his home especially if his teams had a loss.
However some football coaches have managed to succeed in their careers and in their family lives.
Like Georgia Southern’s head coach Willie Fritz.
Mr. Fritz has succeeded as the head coach at all levels in collegiate football.
He led Blinn College to two National Junior Collegiate Championships, became the winniest coach at Central Missouri with a Division II playoff appearance, led Sam Houston State (SHSU) to two consecutive Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) national championship appearance and won the Sun Belt Championship in Georgia Southern’s first year at the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) level.
And to focus more closely on SHSU, they have been considered a contender for the FCS national championship during the time that Mr. Fritz was there and after he left.
And because of the unprecedented success under Mr. Fritz, they were able to hire K.C. Keller, who had won an FCS national championship and have kept the Bearkats in contention to win the national championship.
Though those are huge accomplishments, Mr. Fritz has found the time to make his family life as successful too.
He mentioned in a presentation he shared to a student organization at SHSU that he always make sure that his staff always take the time to spend with their families because he understands that they are the backbone to their success.
In addition, he turned three programs into national contenders for football championships very quickly (Georgia Southern were transitioning to FBS level when he arrived as the head coach and were successful already).
In the same presentation, he shared that the way how he turned those football programs around was to get rid of the “bad people.”
What this means is that he got rid of the people who always had a negative attitude and did not believe that they were going to compete for a national championship.
Mr. Fritz said that he want to be around people who have that positive energy because that makes him feel good and also it makes the work environment as a football coach much easier.
The entrepreneur or CEO of a company can learn from Mr. Fritz on how to create that positive energy when they are running their business.
The CEO must make sure that they hire the right people in high executive positions and make sure that they are on board with the positive company culture that you created.
If they treat their employees right, then their employees will give 110% percent to make sure that the customers feel valued.
However, if they treat their employees bad, then they will in turn give crappy customer service because they don’t want to work for a person who does not give a crap about them.
And when that toxic environment happens, that will bring down the business.
In conclusion, if you are an entrepreneur or a writer and you want to succeed, then you must get rid of the negative people that will hold you back from achieving your goals.
When that happens, you can achieve your goals as an entrepreneur, writer, etc. and bring positive energy to the world.
What are your thoughts on cutting negative people from your life? You can leave a comment below.
Transitioning From Engineer To Career Coach
By Cheval John
Angela Copeland is an awesome lady who has made a difference in the lives of those who are looking to be better job seekers.
She had the oppportunity to share her story of how she transitioned from an engineer to a career coach on What’s The Word? last night.
Here is the episode below:
The Power of Being Vulnerable
By Cheval John
We see stories of how high profile A-listers are living the dream that everyone aspires to.
Whether it is Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and Shark Tank star, Sir Richard Branson, of the Virgin Group or Barbara Cochran of the Corcoran Group, we think that that we can’t achieve the dream life.
We don’t see the journey of how the people achieved their success.
We think that there is a silver bullet to achieving success in your business, life, etc.
What we fail to understand is that the most successful have faced failure in their lives and business.
We also believe that if we share our failures with the world, then we will lose the respect that we have earned.
We don’t want our vulnerability to “tarnish” our brand that we built.
We want the masses to see our strong side.
If businesses want to succeed in this social media world, then they must be vulnerable because people deal with people.
They have to be more vulnerable because millennials only will deal with brands who are authentic.
Millennials don’t want to feel like they are being sold to.
Who can blame them.
Most were about to enter the workforce during the Great Recession of 2008.
They saw their parents suffer because of the wreckless decisions that people on Wall Street made.
That is why they are so sensitive and wary of the broadcasting that brands are doing to sell to them.
And if they see that you are not being transparent with them, they will showcase their frustration on social media.
That can hurt your business and your brand in the long run.
For businesses that are waking up to the reality of being more vulnerable, here are two people who shared their journey to achieving success and in the process have built a strong following.
Pat Flynn
Many might have heard of Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income.
If you have not, then here is a summary.
Mr. Flynn had got laid off from his architecture firm in 2008.
He was figuring what he was going to do next.
Earlier in the year, he passed the exam to earn the LEED Accredited Professional credential.
This credential is huge if a person is an architect.
After participating in forums, he saw a way to help architects pass the LEED exam and also create income.
So create a course on how to pass the LEED exam and was able to generate money.
As a person who wanted to stay as transparent as possible, he started the Smart Passive Income blog to show everyone how he makes money and also share valuable information about the struggles of running an online business.
In addition to his blog, the Smart Passive Income podcast has brought more traffic to his website.
As a result of his success, he has spoken at conferences across the world and has been featured in media outlets like the New York Times.
For most people, the success would go to their minds because they feel that they arrived.
However, Mr. Flynn is not most people.
He has remained true to himself and has showed his failures along the way.
In his keynote address at Podcast Movement 15, he shared with us the first episode that he did in 2008.
Though it was entertaining for us, which the episode was bad, he was willing to be vulnerable with everyone to share that we should not allow fear to stop us from pursuing our goals of podcasting.
Nancy Duarte
Nancy Duarte has written four books and runs her successful business, Duarte.com, and is a LinkedIn influencer.
You would say that she has everything together.
However, she shared her vulnerability with everyone when she nearly lost trust with her employees.
In her LinkedIn article, “It Took Me 20 Years To Fail Fast,” she chatted about her presentation on how to prepare for an economic downturn during a staff meeting.
As she was finished with the presentation, most of the staff told her that they had lost respect for her because of the way she shared the presentation.
In her words, it took a long time before she earned back her credibility with her staff.
Her willingness to share her vulnerability allowed her to gain more respect with potential customers and clients.
So if you are still on the fence of whether to share your vulnerability, here are two simple steps to get over that fear:
1. Be Yourself: No one else can replicate your unique personality
2. Drop Your Pride: Remember that people are probably going through the same thing that you overcame.
Have you felt scared to share your vulnerability and if so, how did you overcome your fear?