Larkland Morley’s Professional Blog

One of those quick blog but this can be a serious topic. There are many seminar providers out there including big names that keep saying you need to get rid of your job to be totally free to do what you want. I find this approach to be non-sensical. In fact to the point where I am seeing people who were once business people refusing to get a job to provide for basic living expenses. what’s the point if you have no money?

On the other hand, you may not be doing the right thing of approaching work blindly either. You can definitely make a good living from work once you plan your course accordingly. Remember making $300K or more a year in a job would come without the issues of managing or worry about a business. That’s one side to it.

If your goal is to stop working at some point before the typical retirement years, then maybe you would approach it in terms of how you could invest your savings or time in a way to realize that outcome. Basically, people would call this approach passive income generation. This could be done in many ways which could take several blog posts.

You only need to change what you are doing if you feel dissatisfied with the current situation. Don’t tell people they are stupid for not wanting to pursue some weird business building venture which most time is just an extension of those Gurus Ego.

The bottom line is that setting goals in life is important regardless of how you want to achieve them. Now in terms of performing at your peak, its important to find out what you really like to do and then work would not be a burden as it can be. This could mean trying different positions or changing companies etc.. Try not to get into a situation where you are only working because you have to pay the bills. This can be a lose-lose situation as you are not really into what you are doing but wanting to make sure you have an income.

You need to have some burning desires in life and that should drive what you decide to do.

Look out for an updated blog post on Peak performance coming soon..

Here is a great presentation by Jim Rohn of development

Another bonus video on the same topic by Brian Tracy

How you enjoy this video. More coming soon

This may sound like some big words and very sophisticated and the likes but we all do have a strategic vision. Whether we planned this out or not, that is the case.

To put my view on this in simple terms, whatever you are focused on, forms the core of your strategic vision. This means that if you are stuck in life and unhappy about your career, it means the strategic vision that you have now is leading you to that point.

On the flip side, when you have a specific plan to achieve some goals, then either you were wrong to set those goals in the first place  and thats making you happy or you really are focused on the long term achievement and taking all the steps to doing so. Of course it will not be smooth sailing all the time but there is a difference to having setbacks and just stuck without real direction.

Take an audit of your actions and see if its getting you anywhere and that would be a good start to moving where you want to go.

What I find is that if you are really convicted about something, you will not just achieve it, you will get this done much faster depending on the energy you focus on it.

Posted via email from lmorley’s posterous

Checking out the many free Webinars and Seminars offered by wealth making gurus, it sometimes seem that they always present having a normal job is a major sin. I disagree with that view 100%. Bottom line, it depends on what you want. You could work hard and smart then get promoted and make good money as an employee anyway. The real approach again, is to know what you want then work towards it. Now I agree with them that if you approach this in a naive way, you will not achieve that ultimate goal. Here are some pointers I have in mind for the average or any person.

1. The Employee – This means you don’t have a problem working for someone since you probably like the job of executing in specific field such as Art, Engineering, Software, accounting etc. The basic motto in this role is to focus on saving and investment. Notice I used the word investment. This will be the key to giving you some security long term. Saving is not enough as inflation and other factors will wipe it out. The other issue with employment is that you could seek out ventures or employers that provides reasonable equity in the business. This would allow you to see the fruits of your labor over time.

2. The Investor – This person is someone that focuses on funding projects by whatever means. This could be indirect as in using the stock market or directly into a known venture. Typically with this approach, you would need cash or access to cash from other people. It may not be wise to depend too much on bank money to achieve this. A way get money for this would be investing in Shelf Corporations with funding then use that funding to participate in high returns programs (won’t say much on that here yet).  The proceeds could then fund your venture of choice. Bear in mind that investing could just mean you own a couple properties with good income generation and stability. Especially with an interest in leisure traveling, you may not want something that constantly need your attention.

3.  The Business Person- This person is literally a combination of the Employee and Investor. In other words, they are using their skills and investment interest to create one or more businesses. Most times a business person need to be fully involved upfront to get things going then as time passes they can move into more of an investor role in that venture. The key to being a good business person is to test your ideas at all times and focus on the big picture. Where do you want to go with this? Always get help in as many aspects as you can early. This means having a successful business person as a mentor is very good idea. One simple way to start is to look into acquiring a franchise as this has some leg work already done. All you need in that case is the capital and proper location for the business. The same approach would be recommended as those of the investor. Use Shelf Corporation credit to generate cash then you would have more leverage to accelerate your business.

In all of this, there is one thing I agree with the seminar producers and wealth coaches, you want to achieve your freedom day. Now this freedom could be different for everyone. One option is to have less liability while having a job where you can get some good vacation.  If you look at this in terms of freedom day, then you will not be too greedy while confident enough to achieve your goals.

More to Come, next time

Posted via web from lmorley’s posterous

This is probably just going to be a ramble on something that came to mind about success recently. The thrust of this article will be short.

Here are the pointers

1. Strive to have clarity about what you want in life or for a specific area. When you really don’t have a specific goal in mind you will waste a lot of time in general. Strategic clarity is powerful to really achieving long term success.

2. Put yourself in the situation that you want to be mentally as often as you can. Imagine yourself reaching the goal before you even started but make it as real as you can. Spend some time daily to think about it. If your goal is spiritual, think about what it would be like to be in that ultimate spiritual state of mind.

3. Break things down in steps. As I always say, you take a GAP analysis of where you are and want to be. Then look at the little steps you need to achieve the ultimate goal. This is an important discipline to achieving that end game.

4. Let go of negative emotions. Try to be a good person and be honest with yourself and others. In fact you would be surprise how this can help to channel energy towards your ultimate goal or aspiration.

5. Adding a bonus. You need to focus. To break it down, focus is based on you really wanting that end game. If you find yourself not focusing then maybe you are not really convicted of your goal in the first place or maybe you don’t believe its possible. Remember that once you remove negative emotions , you will have sharper interest in that goal.

6. Another Bonus – This one is Leverage – This is the operative word to move forward once you have a clear goal. This leverage could be skills, money or people. An important one is people. Don’t be afraid to approach people and ask them how they did it. Don’t be afraid to ask for help but this is critical to moving fast in your journey forward.

7. Seven must be a magical number since I have one more pointer. This one is simple, as of now the word failure does not exist in your vocabulary. What I mean is that when you are locked into your goals, the steps may have setbacks along the way. The key here is to consider these setbacks as learning opportunities not failure as in time to give up.

That’s basically it, lots more than I had in mind to write today.  While we tend to use money as targets for success this to me is wrong. Anything can be seen as success. I hate when people go to some developing country and loosely use the word proverty because people don’t have 2 cars in a garage or maybe living in a hut or something. Most times people with less material possessions have better spiritual outlook than those with the bank account flowing over.  Our current economic situation speaks  to that clearly.  It was bankers who already had lots of money that created this crisis as we know it. So take note on that.

This inspiration for this blog post came out of seeing so many good talent getting stifled at the mid-senior technical levels and such bad experience with poor management.

What I can say for myself, is that I have been very attracted to technology to the point where I have made lateral moves in my career which leaves my at level thats less than what my experience could justify. Today, I will use the framework SFIA (Skills For the Information Age) guidelines on general levels of responsibilities in any organization to explain my points.

In SFIA, you have 7 basic levels and each level has its own attribute. For example each would have: Autonomy, Influence, Complexity and Business skills for that level.

The general levels are as follows:

1. Follow

2. Assist

3. Apply

4. Enable

5. Ensure, Advise

6. Initiate, Influence

7.  Set Strategy, Envision

Notice this approach is not about specific knowledge at each level, even thought that is a critical part of the overall competency framework. It does focus on how the knowledge is applied in each case regardless of your job family whether its software development or pure project management.

In respect to accelerating your career to the next level . Here is the challenge, you may very well, have great skills for level 7 but maybe stuck at level 4-5 in your career. how do you break the deadlock?

Here are some general ideas you could explore.

1. Research the level you are after and gain as much knowledge as you can.

2. Confront your Manager to set clear deliverables and rewards to match your effort going forward. Asking for tasks that would allow you to demonstrate certain skills.  Ask for feedback.

3. Find people at the level desired and develop relationship with them in order to learn how they go about work. This could turn into a full time mentor.

4. If your current job does not have any good prospects,  start looking for another company or department.

On the personal skill side there many things you can do help your credibility on the relevant subject. Some of those I have are.

1. Start a blog to provide your opinion on the relevant topic. Link this your social networking profiles such as linkedin.com, facebook.com and many others. Also visit other blog in that market and comment on relevant postings.

2. Look for respectable training and/or certification in the relevant field. Some fields may not have certification per se, but a post-graduate course in the area could help.

3. Get proactive and talk to people on the topic in forums (online or in person). Maybe you could setup a mastermind group around the topic with like minded individuals.

4. Join online groups on the topic, then read and provide comments as appropriate on topics that is of interest to you.  This is also a great way to publicize your blog or website.

In summary, the whole idea of this post is to first find out what you want, second develop a plan to get it and third,  execute on that plan. There are lots of ways to acquire knowledge for free nowadays, but I think what you always need is guidance. In closing, the best way ever is to have a mentor in the specific area of interest.

Now, a word of caution is that some mentors will teach you short cut ways that can be good in some ways, but what you want is to really contribute value not just have a position. There are lots of people in high level positions whom do not have the qualities we discussed earlier, however wearing your moral hat, you will succeed long term even if  it takes longer to get what you really wanted.

Again, not to lose this point, get a mentor or advisor.