To have success in any business, and real success in life you must be a leader. Being a leader does not mean you have to be outgoing, does not mean you have to change who you are, it just means being a better more confident you.

Leaders lead with absolute vision. They are followed because others can see that they are on a path. If you are trying to convince people to follow you, you are not a leader.

As Eisenhower said, “You do not lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.”

Leadership is not something that you can take on and learn. It’s an organic process as people come to see you as a leader they want to follow. But here’s the trick. As soon as you see yourself as a leader, other people will to. So how do you do that? Well, it’s a very simple 5 step process, and all you have to do is keep applying it until your view of yourself and others’ perception of you begins to shift.

1. Create a Vision
Every great leader in anything has a vision. It’s a strong vision that they would not give up for anything. As I’ve heard one great leader say many times, making a decision is closing yourself off to all other possibilities. A leader knows exactly where they are going and go after it with determination and a knowing that it is their only possible outcome. It’s very obvious from the outside when someone is truly on a path and that is magnetic. A vision is more than just a goal, it is a whole picture for your future. It focuses on who you are going to become and the results you are going to achieve, where you are going to be and who you will be surrounded by. As each part of your vision becomes stronger and more specific you will become more confident in it and have more attachment to it. This is paramount to your leadership. Without this, you can never lead because you will not be going anywhere.

2. Find and Learn a Good System
People do not attain major changes in their lives without applying a good system effectively and consistently. People can only follow you if you have an effective path. If your goal is to become very fit and healthy you follow a diet plan or an exercise plan. If your goal is to improve your mindset, you apply proven exercises and practices on a consistent basis. These are just systems to get you to a specific outcome. The shortest distance between two points is a line. If you have a clear system that will take you from A to B you will get there a lot quicker than if you are constantly shifting your direction. So take the time to pick your system, learn it inside and out, and then follow it!

3. Add Value
Many people try to be leaders without adding value to themselves, and this is a huge error. If you don’t add value you have nothing to offer someone. If you don’t have more knowledge about or more capabilities for getting from A to B than the next person, they have no reason to join you. They would simply go find someone who can give them extra information. Adding value is simple: education. Get educated as much as you can, and never stop. To be an effective leader you must always be learning, keeping up to date, and understanding that you never have all the answers. If you are sitting back thinking you know everything there is to know about your business just wait one day and look again, there’s something new to learn, I promise.

4. Give Your Value Away
Again, you don’t need to tell people why they should follow you, that would just put them off. The real secret to leadership is that giving value away adds to your own value instead of decreasing it. Many people think they have to safeguard their secrets to keep ahead of everyone else, but then no one can really follow your path, and they wont see you as valuable. This also prevents your followers from ever getting anywhere, which in the end will be detrimental to how you view your own leadership. Every time you give away good quality information without looking for something in return you become more of a leader in the eyes of those around you. You have the confidence to know that there is an abundance of wealth, information, prospects, etc out there and that helping others will only help you.

5. Expect Your Followers To Be Leaders
Don’t handhold your followers along the path, just help them when they need it. This is further discussed in Creating Ongoing Success With Facilitative Leadership. Your followers will not achieve success themselves until they too become leaders. So point them in the right direction, help them get educated themselves, give them the resources and tools that helped you, then let them find their own path. Teach them how to create their own vision, and expect them to stop following you.

When your followers begin to become leaders, you have achieved true leadership.

The most important thing is seeing yourself as a leader. As you follow these 5 steps to become a leader your confidence in yourself and in your leadership will grow. And remember as Adlai Stevenson said,

“It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.”

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Popular belief would tell you that a job secures your future, but the truth is holding a job is the absolute worst thing you can do for your future.

We have two currencies in life our time and our money (or our possessions which have a monetary value). If you are in a job you are selling your time for money. Now on the surface this seems like a good idea; it gives you security knowing that you will have a roof over your head, food on the table, and some quality of life. However, the time you have to give up in exchange for this “security” you can never get back. It is gone for good. This is much like money spent on something that you can’t keep, such as paying rent.

It’s very much an accepted belief that paying rent for any kind of long term is a very poor investment of your money. If you are paying money every month as soon as you stop paying that money you have no accommodation. If you own a house and are paying off a mortgage every month you are owning a little bit more of the house every month. The money is invested in your future as well as your present.

Does it not follow then that how you invest your time now matters too? The time you are giving away to a boss is just like the money you give to the landlord, you have nothing to show for it. As soon as you stop giving your time you stop getting the money. Rent is finite, so much money equals so many months. The value of your time is also finite, you get a salary or an hourly rate. These days even if you stay in a job until retirement the money you can put aside is hardly enough to live comfortably on, and usually not enough to pursue any kind of dream.

How secure is your job anyway? If someone else is choosing how much money you should get for your time, they can decide one day that they no longer want to buy what you’re selling. That your time is no longer worth your salary.

What if you invested your time in yourself? You can use it to build a business that will not only provide you with money down the line, but can free your time as well in the future. Time invested now can mean an early retirement so that you can have more money coming in AFTER you stop putting in the time. That’s what is available to anyone willing to become an entrepreneur.

True, business is risky. Just like buying a house, you could end up with a house that doesn’t suit or that falls in value. In business you could fail, and what would happen if you did? Really think about it. You would have to start over at a different business, or if you wanted to you could start at a new job. Now if failure equals getting a job. How is that different from what you are doing now??? Isn’t it riskier not to do it?

Unlike money, we only get so much time. We can do things to make it last a bit longer, but in the end we only have a finite amount here. This makes it the most precious thing that we have. Knowing that, isn’t it worth more to you than what you are selling it for? I know mine is worth more than any job can ever pay me. So invest your time in yourself, use it to set up and build a business, so that you can call your time your own, so that the business can make money for you and you can claim back your most valuable asset: your time.

Leadership is another one of those words that is thrown around with much abandon…but it is absolutely key to success in business. If you run a traditional business you must lead your employees with vision, integrity, and motivation. If you run a home based business in network marketing you must lead your team members with, well, vision, integrity and motivation.

There are many types of leadership, servant leadership, transformational leadership, passive leadership, etc. But for me the most useful and least used comes straight from the corporate world: Facilitative leadership.

Facilitative leaders have a vision, and a basic idea of how to get there, but facilitate the growth of the others in their group in the process. They help their followers to create connections and come up with new ideas. They point their followers in the right direction and then support them in their tasks.

The one difference when applying facilitative leadership to your home business instead of in an office is that your ultimate goal is to help your followers become leaders themselves. In an office the manager is always going to be at a higher rank than their employees, they will always call the shots. This means that the employee is never empowered to make their own decisions, never empowered to see themselves as a real leader. Even if told to make a decision on their own they know in the back of their mind that the manager can either veto it, or that they could get into trouble for making the wrong choice.

In a home based business if you are coaching a team and assisting them in their own business goals, you want your team to take on the leadership role themselves. You want to empower them make decisions for themselves because it is for THEIR business. If you ever find your team members coming to you looking for your approval on something before taking action, you are not facilitating their success. You should be in the role of pointing them in the right direction then letting them learn for themselves and make their own choices.

One of the biggest mistakes I see in home based business owners is once they view themselves as a leader, they view their team as followers. They try to shoehorn their team into the processes, marketing, and even ways of talking that have worked for them. This is incredibly dangerous for your team because you can never achieve lasting success by pretending to be someone else.

So how can you rein it in? It’s so tempting to tell people to simply do exactly what worked for you. But the key component you are missing here is that it’s not what you do that matters, but how you do it. If you are coming from a place of confidence, of excitement, of feeling that you are a leader people see and feel that from you, they want to work with you and follow your lead. If you are trying to copy someone else you are not building your own confidence, you are rarely really excited about how you are doing business and you are constantly in follower mode.

When someone gets started on your team they need the most assistance. This is where they can fall easily into follower mode and never really transition to leadership. A feeling and responsibility for their own leadership must be fostered right from the start for them to create success.

Facilitative leadership is the only way to help your followers become leaders from the get go. Here is a few ways to gently guide them in the right direction:
-Show them the possibilities and let them learn for themselves. Don’t just tell them what you did, but also what other options are out there for them.
-Ask them questions about what they are interested in, what appeals to them. LISTEN and let them talk it through themselves. When you start hearing limiting talk and excuses, stop it right away and get them back to looking for solutions.
-Hold team trainings and let the team do the talking! Of course again you want to introduce a topic of discussion and give your feelings on the topic, but also encourage your team to discuss themselves.

Teach your team how to be a leader themselves right from the start, and then hold them to that standard. Show them what facilitative leadership is so that they can apply it to their own team. When people are coming out of a job they are still in an employee mindset. They may look at you as a boss. They have to understand what it means to be an entrepreneur and that it requires them to think in a different way.

Don’t expect them to be you! Encourage them to use their own strengths and preferences, and become a leader in their own right. You will see incredible results and with each person that you assist in becoming a successful leader your belief in yourself, in your business, and in the rest of your team will become stronger and stronger. As with just about everything in this world, by truly assisting others, you will really be assisting yourself.

There is a commonly sited rule in entrepreneurism that is the 10% rule. You should always make it your commitment to donate at least 10% of anything you make to the charity of your choice. This percentage changes depending on who you are talking to. Some people say 20 or even 30%, but 10% is absolutely the minimum.

Think about how this makes you feel. Are you uncomfortable with the idea giving away 10% of your paycheck? Does it feel like a loss to you? This rule is a great insight into how you feel about money. If it feels like a loss and makes you uncomfortable this obviously does not make you a bad person, it just means you are focusing on lack. You feel that if you give to someone else it is taking away from you. This is a great opportunity, because once you can identify a belief is holding you back you can actually do something about it.

We do truly live in an abundant world. Money and abundance flows freely and easily, and when you become comfortable with this process it is much easier to allow the opportunities for money to flow to you instead of away from you. When you are holding tightly onto your money watching every penny slip through your fingers you become more and more focused on the lack in your life. You become so focused on keeping what you have left that you cannot see any opportunities that come your way.

To change this belief you need to open up to the possibility that you can create the money that you want or need. A great way to do this is the 10% rule. The act of donating to something you believe in will not only make you feel better about who you are, but it will also make you feel better about your financial situation. Charity reminds you of others who are in far worse situations than you and gives you a better perspective on your own abundance. Often something as simple as this can really allow you to tweak your thinking and feel appreciative of your situation. This tweak changes your thinking from lack thinking to abundance thinking.

This will not only make you feel more abundant and make you see the positives in your situation, it will also make you view yourself differently. You will see yourself as a benefactor. You will see yourself as a leader, as someone important, someone who is a force for good in the world. This is what an entrepreneur is. They offer opportunities to help people solve problems or live better in some way. They create and contribute to the betterment of everyone (at least the ones who are successful long term do!) Again this shift in thinking will help you to see other opportunities around you and have the courage and self belief to go after them

Finally, what you give comes back to you. As I said abundance is a flow, you have to allow it to flow from you freely in a positive way for it to return.

Now you may look at all this and think, yes I would like to contribute, but I can’t afford it. These words are like poison. Do whatever you can to eradicate them from your vocabulary. Here’s how you can afford it:

You have a basic level of income that you need to just get by. You need to pay rent or mortgage, you need to pay the house bills, you need food on the table. Everything beyond that is really extra. You would not let your income drop below this basic level because you need a roof over your head and food on the table. Calculate your basic level of income, and add 10%.

It’s this simple: this is your new basic level of income. This is a new non-negotiable in your life. If your income currently does not cover this, than you need to make it your priority to raise your income to this new level at least. If you make charity and donation an absolute must in your life you will find a way, and before you know it more and more ways will come to you as you become more open to new opportunities.

If you don’t know what organization to start with, you can use my personal favourite: Kiva. Kiva connects people with entrepreneurs in developing countries that are looking for microloans to help build or expand their business. You can loan very small amounts and choose which entrepreneur to support. When your loan is returned take that money and loan it to someone else. It’s great to help not just individuals, but developing economies. I love that I’m helping to keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive all around the globe…and not just online

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Many people who are interested in pursuing personal growth and spiritualism find that though they would like to change their circumstances, the idea of wanting money and personal belongings is distasteful. And certainly on the surface the pursuit of money and pursuit of personal expansion do seem to clash. Some of the people I train in business when asked what they would like to make aim very, very low. Even when pushed to think bigger they say “I’m not materialistic, I don’t need much.”

Somewhere along the way the idea has spread that the pursuit of money and material belongings is shallow.  This belief holds so many people back from really fulfilling their potential.  They don’t reach for everything they want because they feel they shouldn’t want it, they shouldn’t be greedy.  They should be content with their fair share.

For most of us this belief is so ingrained that we don’t know it’s there.  But we find ourselves saying things like, ” I’m not greedy”, “I only want to have enough to not have to worry”.

Even if you know you have this belief, it can be very difficult to shake.  You may find yourself holding yourself back in your career, you may find that you enjoy what you do but feel uncomfortable asking for money for your services. You may find the discussion of money completely distasteful and uncomfortable.  Yet you do dream of more: travel, freedom, a new car, etc.  How do you reconcile material wants with your spiritual development?

It’s all in the way you value yourself and your influence in your own life.  The truth is:

It’s selfish to be poor.

How much more could you do for your family if you were wealthy?  How much more could you contribute to the world?  How much time could you contribute to the development of your children if you didn’t have to work a job? How much more could you expand and grow if you could travel and have more experiences?

When we do the same thing day in and day out we stop using our brains.  How many times have you gone on “autopilot” in work, in the car, even at home? How many full days of work have you gone through that you couldn’t remember at the end.  This is the opposite of expansion.  We can only grow and expand through new experiences. The truth is money is nothing.  Money is just a piece of paper until you do something with it.  But what it can provide is choice, the choice to have new experiences. The freedom to choose what experiences will bring you the most joy and fulfillment.

When we grow we benefit more than just ourselves.  We become an example to others. We can help other people to grow by showing them what’s possible. We can set our children up to fulfill their potential by providing them with our time and new experiences.  How many times have you heard people complain of the limiting beliefs that they had been handed down by their parents? Like, “You have to work hard to deserve money.”  What if you could give your children beliefs that helped them thrive?  Your children will pick up your beliefs, your way of talking.  They look to you for their ultimate example of how to live life.  What if you were giving them an example of abundant living instead of one of struggle?  You can have the same affect on other people in your circle of influence as well.  You can show more people what’s possible.  That it really is possible to live an abundant and spiritually fulfilling life. How many times has someone else’s story inspired you to do something better yourself? To aim for more? What if you were that story?

The other aspect is what money will allow you to do for others.  If you remain poor you are a drain on the people who care about you, either financially or emotionally.  But if you have money you can help and support the other people in your life.  You can also be more of a cause for good in the world.  You can reach more people and have a wider influence.

Now while these are all powerful reasons to pursue personal wealth it’s still personal.  So how do you internalize this reasoning and really change a belief you may have held for a long time?

The answer is in visualization.

First, visualize your future if you continue to have remain in your current financial situation.  Think of the people it affects.  If it continues for long will you need financial help from those who care about you?  Will you contribute to other people believing life is difficult? What will your life look like in five years time? And your loved ones?  As with any visualization make this as real as possible.  What conversations are you having? Where are you having them?

Now once you have that picture firmly in your mind move on to the opposite picture:

What if you were financially abundant enough to do or have anything you wanted?  How would this affect the other people in your life?  Imagine speaking to them and the powerful conversations you will have.  Imagine the places you can visit and the new people you can reach out to.  Imagine your personal development or spiritual studies, how much further can you take it?  Again, make this real. If you were financially free what would you be doing in five years time.  What would you be creating and contributing?

I know if I was working a job I would not be writing this blog right now.  I had a dream several years ago to reach and help people all over the world.  I remember expressing this dream to a friend and mentor who is a self-made millionaire.  I told him I had a voice and I wanted to be heard and to help others.  He asked me one question: What results are you having?  Because results are what make people pay attention.

If you were abundant, how could you change the world?

Do this exercise just once or twice and you will realize, being poor is selfish, and the best thing you could do for yourself and the world is to allow yourself to experience as much abundance and personal growth as you can imagine.

If you have been studying personal development at all in the last few years you know that there are a few basics self improvement ideas everyone agrees on.  You have to have goals, they have to be written down, and you have to focus on them wholeheartedly.

Many self-help gurus will also tell you that appreciation is important.  Being appreciative of the wonderful things you already have in your life, and I’ve found this to be absolutely true.  Even if you don’t believe in the Law of Attraction (which I do!) you know that when you are focused on things that are working in your life, successes you are having, and the day to day things that bring you joy, you will be more positively focused and will have more and more successes.

Here’s where it gets challenging for many people.  When faced with some of the circumstances of their day to day life they find it hard to be appreciative, or sometimes even to find anything in their life to be appreciative of.  Or they will do their best to constantly focus on the positives but they don’t REALLY feel that appreciative.  They are simply going through the motions of appreciation as they think it will get them out of their situation, but in this case they are just focused on the desire to get out of their situation.  This kind of thinking is not only not beneficial, but it gets people more and more trapped where they don’t want to be.

So how can you change your IMMEDIATE circumstances enough to help you feel appreciation and see improvement in your situation?

The solution starts as an exercise you can do every day until it is just your way of living.  It’s what I call Activating the Essence of Your Desires.

First you must to the work to find out what IS the essence of your desire. What do you want?  I mean specifically…what is your specific goal.  Think about that goal and the specifics you identified as being important to you.  Now think about why do you want that goal?  Why did you pick that particular aspect to include in your goal?

For example, I have a goal to write and publish a book.  More specifically I want the book to be available on Amazon, I want it to appeal to people who are looking for a fiction novel that is positive and uplifting to read, something inspiring.  I want to sell a million copies.

I want to do this because writing makes me feel Alive, it makes me feel more ME.  Also, I feel that part of my purpose in life is to reach as many people as I can around the world and help them to think, change, and develop themselves further.  Help them achieve success. I personally have always found stories more uplifting and interesting than non-fiction, though nonfiction has helped me to grow and expand.  Reaching these people around the world would make me feel empowered and, again, more me.

When I reach my goal I will feel more alive from the actual writing, and empowered by the amount of people I have been able to reach and inspire (thus available on Amazon to the world…and selling a million copies). The essence of my goal is feeling Alive and Empowered. These are the aspects of myself that I am seeking to grow through the achievement of my goal.

Many people reading this blog will have goals to make a certain amount of money. What are you going to buy with that money? What specific aspects and features are you going to choose? Once you know that think about why you made the choices you made. What will it give you? What aspect of yourself will it help you to grow? Your feeling of freedom, your self confidence, your sense of peace…?

Once you know what you want AND the essence of your desires you can activate them in your life RIGHT NOW! This will help you to find relief from your circumstances and feel appreciative about where you are and where you are going. It will also make the actual desires show up much more quickly in your life.

Activating the essence of your desires is simple. If the essence of your desire is the feeling of freedom, what can you do right now today that will make you feel free? Even just a bit more free than you feel right now? Just a small tip, I guarantee it is NOT switching on the tv and channel surfing. It can be as simple as going for a walk, having an icecream, visiting a friend, building something, drawing something creating something. Now do it. And enjoy it. And appreciate it!

When I realized that the essence of my desires (all my goals) is Aliveness (feeling more vital and ME), Empowerment, and Freedom I began to find ways to feel each of these feelings daily. I put a note next to my bed that says “Today I will feel Alive, Empowered, Free!”, I taped a note on my computer that says, “Will this make me feel Alive, Empowered, or Free?” I began to feel excited and sure of achieving all my goals, even the scary long term ones! I began to spring out of bed, really feeling different every day. I began to make better choices and not waste a day feeling sorry for myself. And get this, within two weeks…

I felt like I was there already! I felt like I already had achieved all my goals, all I had to do was continue taking the actions and following my instincts. That uncertainty was completely gone. And people began to show up with opportunities and resources that would accelerate me towards my goals much faster than I ever thought possible.

So what is it you want? Why? And what can you do to feel that right now, today?