Self Improvement Tips

One of the biggest challenges I have seen in my personal business coaching practice and in life over the past year is how to meet the challenge that fear, surrounding COVID represents.  If there were a perfect answer, I would give it to you, and we could all happily move forward.  But there is not. The ultimate goal in business and life is to first survive and then thrive.  Many businesses and individuals have gone from thriving to surviving.  And some have experienced the most feared outcome, death. For myself and my clients, we have fears.  The fears are valid.  Yet how we choose to act on them is our choice.  Once again, if there was the perfect answer on how to react to our fears, I would be happy to provide it.  Unfortunately, there is not. But the philosophy you bring to a fearful situation is critical to putting the odds in your favor of having a more successful outcome.  Notice I said putting the odds in your favor.  I did not sa...

Tugboats and trains perform distinct and separate functions in real life.  Tugboats operate on water.  Their mission is to push, nudge and help direct the barges and large vessels that cannot turn very precisely in the confined areas of a harbor.  Trains are designed to pull and transport heavy loads over steel rails to a specific destination. In business, to be successful, you must have both the tugboat and train.  You need people who are tugboats.  And you need people who are trains.  As a personal business coach in Houston and The Woodlands, I have seen successful businesses. the necessity for both over a forty-year career in business. Let’s look first at the train people.  They set a course, they lay down the processes, tracks and they have a clear destination in mind.  They are usually meticulous and very process-oriented.  They want the most direct and shortest path to achieving their business goals. Tugboat people see the same goal....

Faucets and drains are two things designed to work together.  Water comes out of a faucet and goes into a sink.  Once in the sink, it flows toward the drain and goes away.  Or you can stop up the drain and let the sink collect water.  As a personal business coach in The Woodlands and in Houston, I look for the faucets in a business such as cash flow, marketing, advertising, operational and financial processes, administrative and management style, and most importantly, the people. And I also look for the drains. Interestingly, there are several ways to look at faucets and drains in business.  A company invests a great deal of money in an advertising program.  The money is the faucet.  It pours out into the advertising program.  The advertising program is wildly successful at bringing in new and profitable sales.  The sink, the company’s cash reserves, start to fill up.  The drain, which is the money going out for advertising, is slower ...

There is a song by the musical group, Alabama, “I’m in a Hurry.” All of us appear to be in a hurry. Is that something that benefits us? At times we are in a season of hurriedness. That is understandable. But, if your whole life is that way I suggest that you are missing many things. The first verse of the song states: “I’m in a hurry to get things done Oh I rush and rush until life’s no fun All I really gotta do is live and die But I’m in a hurry and don’t know why.” In today’s world being in a hurry can be equated with being busy. We are busy because we are striving for greater self-esteem, wealth, possessions and property among other things. But, in looking at my own life and those of my personal business coaching clients I see that excessive hurriedness because we are always busy is a distraction. We rush and rush until life’s no fun. And we don’t either recognize or know why our lives are no fun. Being continually busy never gives me, you, or my clients time to rest and recharge. T...

One of the biggest challenges I have seen in my  personal business coaching  practice and in life over the past year is how to meet the challenge that fear, surrounding COVID represents. If there were a perfect answer, I would give it to you, and we could all happily move forward. But there is not. The ultimate goal in business and life is to first survive and then thrive. Many businesses and individuals have gone from thriving to surviving. And some have experienced the most feared outcome, death. For myself and my clients, we have fears. The fears are valid. Yet how we choose to act on them is our choice. Once again, if there was the perfect answer on how to react to our fears, I would be happy to provide it. Unfortunately, there is not.  But the philosophy you bring to a fearful situation is critical to putting the odds in your favor of having a more successful outcome. Notice I said putting the odds in your favor. I di...

  With the advent of COVID 19, almost a year ago in the United States, there has been a transformation in how we look at ourselves, our relationships, work, and as a society in general. Where pre-COVID we trafficked in a currency of confidence and a “can-do” attitude we now use the currency of fear. Fear shuts down connections. Fear shuts down conversations. Fear shuts down moving forward. Fear isolates us. As social human beings this last one, isolation, is the one that has wreaked the most mental and emotional damage. Fear causes us to grieve. We grieve because we have lost our sense of normal. We may have lost loved ones, our jobs, or our homes. Grief is the death of something. And fear triggers grief because we have lost our sense of normal and at the same time, as we move forward day by day, we have no sense of certainty about the future. In a way we are afraid to step out and move forward. Our fears are legitimate. A...

  Leading change is one of the top core leadership competencies that is honored in successful businesses large and small. There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things. When we are leading change, we are leading reform. There is always a large group who profits from keeping the old order. They are quite certain in their stance. Then there are those who see the need for change and who could profit by the new order. Yet they are only lukewarm to it. How come? Most individuals do not believe in anything new until they have had actual experience with it. We are wired to resist random change for we fear the possible random consequence of being declared irrelevant and let go. We are wired, first and foremost to survive, so we hang on to what has worked in the past. The challenge in  leading change  is to get those who are resistant open to it. And to get those who are lukewarm, ent...

  One of the biggest aspects of the COVID 19 experience is the loss of connection with others. As a business coach, I have witnessed first-hand the challenges and some of the benefits that have come to the various businesses I collaborate with. Obviously, COVID 19 has disrupted the way we do business and as a result, we now look at how we do business differently. One of the biggest changes is the increased number of people working remotely from home. In some cases, this has increased productivity which is good. Is it sustainable? It all depends on the position, the business, and the industry. I believe it is safe to say that in the future many companies are going to reduce their office footprint and have more people working remotely. Long-term it will be interesting to see the effects. We are social animals. There are people I talk to who wish they could be back at work with their fellow employees. The team building and comaraderie are gone. Communication is more challenging. You c...

  Things are different than they were a year ago. This is a huge understatement! The arrival of COVID 19 and the effect on our lives worldwide has been immense. My business coaching practice in the Woodlands and in Houston has given me an observation point to see many businesses and how they have responded to the new world that COVID 19 has wrought. The great news is that creativity, when it comes to survival is alive and well. The bad news is that in many instances it is not enough to survive. Each business, so to speak, is its own individual boat. When COVID 19 first arrived, some boats were already in a safe harbor. A safe harbor is a place where their business is not going to be severely affected. They are going to be profitable and survive. They will change because of safety concerns as to how they do business but overall, they are in good shape. The next business boat is the one who was out at sea and experienced some stormy turbulence, but they were able to make it ...

  As of today, November 17, 2020 the political climate is very unsettled in the United States.  The business owners I collaborate with in my business coaching practice in The Woodlands and Houston are moving forward.  But for each it is different.  Some are striding forward with confidence and a “we shall overcome” attitude.  Others are moving forward with less certainty.  In Texas, where I live and work, the economic situation because of the pandemic has been hurtful but overall, we are doing well. The question is, depending on who wins the election, what are the policies regarding COVID 19 and the economy moving forward.   In Texas, with a great emphasis on oil and gas there is a great deal of uncertainty.  Millions of lives and livelihoods could be affected over the next few years.  Employers and employees feel unsettled. And the business owners who are not in oil and gas feel unsettled, too.  One thing has become clear during th...

  As a personal business coach, I have observed that your level of self-improvement will not exceed the strength of your personal foundation. What is your personal foundation? An individual’s personal foundation is his or her structural basis that supports him or her in living an exceptional life. Just as a house must be built on a strong personal foundation to avoid collapsing under stress, so must your life. A house’s foundation is made up of earth, cement, and steel. Your personal foundation is also made up of three major elements. The are the What, the Who and the How. Let’s look at the “What.” The “What” is self-improvement business coaching is the package that person presents to the world. It is “What” the world sees when it looks at us. This element is also composed of several sub parts as well. We can include such things as behavior, the public self, what we show others. The “What” can be related to the “body” part of the body, mind and spirit. The ”Who” part of you is easi...

  Do you feel stuck? Do you have a sense of being overwhelmed? Sometimes the solution to getting jump started and to accelerate the process of your successful performance is right in front of you. Here’s the challenge. Are you going to take the step to grab what is right in front of you? If this is where you are at now then start the process of taking control of your destiny and go to  www.SelfImprovement-Tips.com. Steve Scott, Personal Business Coach, Author and Public Speaker has put together several offerings from his work over the last ten years that are foundational to self improvement and creating the business, the life, or both that you desire. There are self study guides on Character, Personal Development, The 8 Pieces of the Business and Life Puzzle and Business Keys to Success. There are also self coaching videos on self improvement and fear as well as a 10 part audio mini course, Imprisoned by Progress and the Treadmill Philosophy. Besides these offerings there is a...

 In a previous post, I talked about whether or not you are a candidate to work with a personal development business coach.  If you are ready to be held accountable, to collaborate and to co-create with another person, your personal development business coach, then you are quite possibly a good candidate for personal development, or as some call it, self-improvement coaching. So, you are ready in all these areas.  You have started to look for a personal business coach.  How do you find a good self-improvement coaching?  Quite simply, find someone who understands that they are not the best coach for everyone.  This is critical.  Let me state that as for myself, I am definitely not the coach for everyone.  A good personal development business coach understands the value he can bring when he collaborates with others. And he is specific, not general in his approach. For example, in my practice, I collaborate with only those people who are already succe...

  For your self-improvement to benefit you for the long term you must be regularly evaluating your performance. Here are some   tips on self improvement . One Down, Three to Go! The first quarter of 2018 is gone. In today’s world, danger awaits those who wait for the once-a-year performance review. Before the second quarter gets too far away from you, I strongly recommend that you evaluate your current performance and associated results. Right now, yes, right this second: ask yourself these very important questions to set up your  personal development goals : 1. Concerning my year to date performance, how am I doing? 2. If I continue along with my current strategies and performance, how will I be doing at the end of the second quarter? 3. What am I going to do starting today to get myself back on target? 4. What new strategies and habits must I implement in order to improve my performance? The reality is that at this very moment, you are in one of these  three positi...

To move forward in business, you or your organization must be good at execution. It sounds so simple, yet time and again the execution of a strategy or change fails. How come? Any time you seek to execute a change in strategy you are asking yourself and other to change your human behavior. It may be the behavior of a few, a team or an entire organization. The answer to good execution of strategy is to change the behavior of the people, to change the human element. You can have written goals, tactics and deadlines. These are good but they are only “on paper” change. Without commitment and proven practices to follow to execute the strategy or change “on paper” you will fail to change the one component necessary to success. That element is human behavior. Behavioral change strategies are very challenging. You can’t just put them down “on paper” and order, let alone expect them to happen. Behavioral change has a better chance of success when the system is changed and people are held accoun...

When looking for self-improvement companies in Houston, the area I live and work in, you will find many options.  Many of them focus strictly on the individual.  And, that is an excellent place to start.  Some are focused more on the business side of things with the result being that you will experience self-improvement as your business grows. Others focus more on self-improvement business coaching .  They look at what the individual has to become in order to achieve the desired results.  In some shape or form, all of them offer the opportunity for self-improvement. The first type of self-improvement company or coach I described will focus almost strictly on the individual.  Very often you will find people who are life coaches.  A life coach is someone who can support you in overcoming situations in your life that could definitely be impeding your progress in other areas. When looking at self-improvement companies in Houston, the second type will initi...

  If you are looking for the magical concept, the short course that will turn your life around or, to create in a few short days or weeks your escalator to success then this is not the place for you. Self improvement takes the creation of a vision. And, it takes time. With your vision you how have a map for your journey of self improvement. The journey of self improvement demands that you develop new skills and disciplines. If we keep the same skills and disciplines, nothing changes. Self improvement takes time. Thankfully, all of us have 24 hours in a day. Rich, poor, happy or unhappy all of us have 24 hours in our day. The choices we make will either move us forward in our self improvement or hold us back. Self improvement takes effort. There is a story of a man sitting in a small cabin on a cold night. He has a wood stove that is not giving him any heat. He looks at the stove and finally shouts at it, “Give me the heat. Then I’ll give you the wood.” Like the wood stove, in orde...

Commandism and Tailism are boundaries that are on purpose poorly defined. Let’s say you are part of a political movement, or you are working for a company. The leader of the political movement or a leader in your company asks you to do a special task or project. You approach it with enthusiasm and get it done on time and better than expected. Everything should be good. You should be recognized for your extraordinary efforts.  Yet, you are chastised for being too enthusiastic. You did your project too well. The leader feels threatened because he feels that other will look at you as the leader. He puts you in your place by telling you that he appreciates what you did for him but that you showed too much enthusiasm and care in completing the project. As a result, you are no longer asked to work on any significant projects or tasks. This is because you violated the law of Commandism. You were impetuous. You took too muc...

There is something I do know. The two most important concepts for a civil, peaceful society to function are to have a clear definition of “what is okay” and “what is not okay. In your own life you determine “what is okay” and “what is not okay.” For society, “What is okay” has laws, customs and guidelines. “What is not okay” creates its own law, which in truth is the rule of men and their decisions at the moment as to “what is okay,” not law, along with their own special customs and guidelines. When “what is okay,” is not enforced, then “what is not okay” takes over. This is when lawlessness becomes the law. Fear sets in. And people when people see and feel this, they become scared. They are not themselves. They will pander to the fear in hopes of pacifying it and that the threat that is causing the fear will go away. In reality, nothing is being done to curb the source of the fear. There is no pushback. Without pushback, what is unreasonable becomes reasonable. And this...