Getting Back Up After Being Knocked Down Can Open More Doors Later On

Going through tough times is never easy but giving up and not trying won't help your situation. No matter what level you are at, we have all gone through periods professionally and personally that have been tough and difficult to deal with. Getting knocked down is hard but getting back on your feet will open the door for more opportunities later on.

One of the best examples of reaching the benefits to getting back up after being knocked down comes from looking at the history of Walt Disney.

Early on in his entertainment career, Walt Disney's mistakes with his first company, Laugh-O-Grams, taught him valuable lessons of moving forward despite being knocked down. Laugh-O-Grams was Disney's first attempt to start a company and while he was able to find animators to work with him, he made the mistake of not managing the money properly. As a result the company went bankrupt and the business was a failure.

At this point, Disney could have given up but decided to move on with another venture. With the help of his brother, Disney set up a studio in Hollywood and produced a series called The Alice Companies. This success of the series helped give the two brothers a terrific head start to a company that has since evolved into one of the leading entertainment companies in the world. Instead of giving up, Disney got back up on his feet and pushed forward by forming a more successful company.

Not too long after the success of The Alice Comedies, Disney found himself knocked down again after he learned he lost the rights to the character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald was a successful character for Disney, however, Universal Pictures owned the rights to the character. As a result, Universal could make Oswald productions with or without Disney and many of Disney's animators left the company not too long after this news broke.

Instead of giving up, Disney created a new star, Mickey Mouse. This time, Disney held onto the rights and the character became more successful then Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Disney created the first cartoons featuring Mickey that had sound and other characters were created along the way. These characters led to other successes for the Disney company and proved that Disney's determination to keep moving forward paid off.

Not every situation is easy to get through but perseverance can pay off in the end. Disney was knocked down twice when his first studio failed and when he lost the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. In both instances, Disney continued to press forward and created both a company and characters that are leaders in entertainment worldwide. Disney isn't the only person who has gotten back up after being knocked down and you can get back on your feet after tough times too.

Getting Settled in at College

Summer is nearing an end and for a lot of you college freshmen out there, it is time to start a new chapter in your academic life. For many, it will be the first time away from home, being away from what's familiar and experiencing another community other then the one your grew up in. Being a college freshmen can be intimidating at first but finding ways to get settled in and involved will help relieve that anxiety and fear.

In reality, starting college can be a bit scary. You are making the transition from your own home to a dorm room and you are starting over in your life. You may not know everyone that is living in your dorm or the people in your freshmen class. It can be intimidating but remember that you are not the only one who is making this transition and there are many others you are going through the same experience.

Below are some tips for getting settled into college and starting off on the right foot:

1) After you move in, take time to walk the halls of your dorm and introduce yourself to others who are living there - on paper, this might seem like an odd idea but you never know who you will come across and it's a great way to meet the people you will be living in the dorms with over the next several months. This will help you meet people you might want to hang out with, may have a class or two with and help relieve some of the anxiety you are feeling of being away from home. Take some time to introduce yourself to others and learn names.

2) Find different activities and clubs to join - being apart of extracurricular activities will help you make new friends, give you something else to look forward to and mix in with other people. Stay true to your hobbies and find different groups you can be apart of on campus. This will help you settle in a bit, get involved and meet other people and provide a diversion for you. Getting involved will enhance your college experience and create some good memories.

3) Say hello to your RAs, Hall Directors, cafeteria staff, book store staff, etc. - saying a hello and asking how someone else's day is going can really mean a lot to someone. Taking the time to do this with your RA, Hall Director, the people who serve the cafeteria food (you will be surprised how just saying thank you means a lot to the people who work to serve you your breakfast lunch and dinner) and the book store staff. This will help these people provide a friendly name with your face and give you an opportunity to know these individuals as people.

4) Don't Get Behind in Your Schoolwork and Set Specific Times to Study or Do Homework- Take the time to work out a study and homework schedule so you are not getting behind. This will help you create a schedule that is a bit more balanced, disciplined and get good grades. Procrastinating and waiting until the last minute to do projects or assignments will cause more stress and you will get more out of your assignments if you take your time and not rushing it.

Good luck!

Believing in Yourself is a Key Part of Success

"Yes I can!"

How difficult is it to say those three words?

"Yes I can!"

To reach your goals in business and in life, you have to believe that what you are striving for can be attainable. Not all goals are easy to attain but not believing you can reach for what you want can hinder your progress. In order to earn what you want to achieve, you have to believe in yourself and know you can tackle any obstacle that stands in the way.

In many different professions, the people working to provide safety to others, entertainment and play sports have to believe in themselves in order to do their jobs well. Doctors have to believe they can treat patients to the best of their ability in order to provide the best care and firefighters and police officers have to believe in themselves when going to save and protect others. From an entertainment and sports standpoint, theater directors have to believe they have the ability to take a script and make the best show possible for audiences to see, filmmakers have to believe they can make a great film with the tools and actors they have to work with and professional athletes have to believe in themselves to perform at the best of their abilities. Believing in yourself spreads across many different professions and success will come if you know you can reach your goals.

Another popular example of believing in oneself is looking at the life of Chris Gardner, a stockbroker whose rags to riches story was turned into the film The Pursuit of Happyness. In the early 80s, Gardner was determined to succeed as a stockbroker and believed he could make it in that industry. Gardner was working as an intern at the Dean Witter Reynolds brokerage firm and often stayed late and arrived early to make outgoing phone calls to prospective clients. Gardner's belief he could succeed helped provide him the strength he needed to show up early and stay late and he eventually earned his license and was hired as a full time employee.

If Gardner had never believed he could make it, he never would have been able to push himself to reach his goal. Gardner knew he could succeed in the business and his positive and hard working attitude towards his work helped him reach his goal. Gardner's ability to believe he could reach his goal helped provide him the strength he needed to get there.

Believe your dreams can happen and the road to reaching your goals might be tough but can be walked upon despite the obstacles. There will be times in which the path to reach your goal will not be easy but believing you can still reach your dream will help you complete the journey.

If You Are Overloaded, Don't Be Afraid To Ask For Help

Having lots of commitments and opportunities can help a business strive but taking on too much can have the opposite effect. The ability to take on multiple projects is a plus, however, taking on too many without delegating or asking for help can be detrimental. It will force you to remember quite a bit and put a lot of weight on your shoulders.

In business and outside of your job, delegating is a skill to learn and does take practice. Being able to assign tasks to others can help improve your efficiency and help get a larger project done. Delegating and assigning tasks to everyone can help get the project done in a shorter amount of time and put less stress on yourself.

As a way to practice, start utilizing this concept in some of your social groups you are apart of. If you are planning an event, help form a committee to get the project off the ground and assign tasks to those helping to volunteer. This will take up some of your free time outside of work but you will be surprised how some of the skills and concepts can be applied to business projects.

Take this for an example, say you are working as the Director of Admissions for a small college and want to plan an open house. Right off the bat, you will need the following:

- volunteers to help
- invitations sent out to prospective students
- refreshments
- phone calls to prospective students or their parents (depending on the situation)
- current students to speak with prospective students
- professors to speak to prospective students

Right off the bat, it's easy to tell that is a lot for one person to take care of! Taking on this and handling other duties is not only time consuming but can be exhausting as well!

An efficient way to delegate this situation would be to do the following:

- assign people to find students and professors willing to volunteer time to talk to prospective students
- talk with someone in the school's marketing department about designing an invitation and getting that sent out
- assigning someone to talk to the food services company on campus to provide refreshments
- assign someone to find volunteers to run the event
- create a call list and divide up amongst the other admission directors

Utilizing this strategy can help you cover more ground in a shorter amount of time and get everything you need get done completed efficiently and effectively. This will help relieve stress off your back and help gets that list of activities done and completed.

Taking on projects can be helpful to your business but don't get too overloaded. Getting overloaded and doing too much can decrease your efficiency and make it more difficult to complete the project. Delegating and using the help of others helps alleviate the stress on your shoulders and can get the project done in a more efficient and effective manner.

Encouragement From Pro Football Hall of Famer Floyd Little

Even if you have never watched a game of professional football in your life, anyone looking to achieve and be the best can take the advice newly enshrined Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Floyd Little said in his induction speech. Little played several seasons with the Denver Broncos in the NFL but his induction speech where he encouraged people to believe in themselves can be useful to everyone looking to achieve more in their lives.

While taking the podium on August 7, 2010 to talk about his career in professional football, Floyd Little talked how there were "naysayers" who believed he could never make it. As a way to get through, Little mentioned that taking a "Yes I can" attitude is what helped him push to becoming a better student in school (he mentioned he got thrown out at one point and struggled with his grades). Little's belief that he could do better in school helped pave the way for him to attend Syracuse University and after that, the Denver Broncos.

Throughout his speech, Little encouraged the crowd to take a "Yes I Can" attitude towards their own lives and to believe in themselves despite what the naysayers say.

Even if you have never watched a single play in a professional football game, utilizing Little's advice on taking a "Yes I Can" attitude can help you reach your goals.

Having realistic goals is great to have in your career but reaching them takes a positive attitude and a belief that you can reach them. In order to believe they are achievable, you have to believe that the goals you set can be reached. If you don't believe you can reach the goal, how are you supposed to achieve it?

Little talked about how taking a "Yes I Can" attitude towards his school work helped him achieve more in life and there is room for improvement. No matter where you are in your career, understanding this concept can help you improve your performance and reach for further goals in your career. Everyone has room for improvement and believing you can achieve more and do more can help you find the path to better success later on. Understand that believing you can perform better can help you go farther then not believing in yourself at all.

Even though naysayers can appear along the route to your success, believing you can achieve more will help you reach your goals. Many believed Little would never make it beyond high school but his belief he could achieve more helped pave a path that would lead to the NFL. There were naysayers along the way but Little's attitude that he could do better in the classroom helped me get better grades and reach college and the NFL.

Believing it can be done will help you go farther. Take the time to believe in yourself and realize that dreams can come true.

Plan to Succeed

Ideas for businesses are always plentiful but some of the most creative ideas can end up in failure as a result of failing to take time to do one simple part of the process; creating a plan!

Having a great idea for a business or knowing what you want to achieve in your career is great but you need to carefully build the ladder that will get you to the top. Not taking time to construct how you will go about executing your ideas could hinder your flight to success.

If you are looking to start a business, taking the necessary time to plan is crucial for success. Researching the industry takes time but will allow you to understand your competition, how to create your market niche and develop the types of products you want to sell. This also will help you define who your target audience is and can help you set the stages for creating a successful marketing plan to reach these people.

Though it can be expensive at times, creating a marketing strategy as part of your business plan will be crucial to your success. If people don't know about the product you are selling, how are they supposed to purchase it? How are you going to alert your target audience your product fills their needs? How will you create a brand name that will resonate with potential customers? These are all questions you need to ask when developing your business plan.

Planning for success can often be seen when expansion teams enter professional sports leagues. Owners for these teams have to plan how to build a team that will be competitive in the league they are playing in, how to reach the target audience, and drive fans into their stadiums or arenas. These teams need to plan how to build a team from scratch to winner in a few seasons, develop a brand name through creative marketing strategies and develop a loyal and consistent fan base. The team will need to win on the court, field, ice (if you are playing hockey), create a name that is easily remembered and develop a fan base to be successful.

While starting up a business requires planning, developing your career and where you want to go takes planning as well. Taking the necessary steps to plot where you want to go in your professional career and how to get there takes dedication and time but can pay off. Do you want to eventually reach a management position? What will it take for you to earn a promotion? What can you do to become one of the best workers in your company? These are all questions people ask themselves and the answers can help pave the way for a plan to help them reach their goals.

An example that can used to explain comes from watching one of my heroes, former Orioles third baseman Cal Ripken Jr., during and after his career as a professional baseball player. After being drafted out of high school, Ripken wanted to make the Orioles roster and created a plan to help get him there. He created offseason training plans to help hone his skills, he played winter ball to get him more experience playing professionally and solicited the advice from veteran players who had been in his shoes before. As a result, Ripken was able to hone his skills and had a career in which he broke Lou Gehrig's record for most consecutive games played, made the All-Star team 19 times, won a World Series, and made it into the National Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Ripken's plan for his career worked and paved the way to success.

During his playing days, Ripken knew he wasn't going to play forever but planned for his life beyond baseball. He started to develop Ripken Baseball Inc. which is a program designed to help grow the love of baseball to others and has created other charitable foundations. Ripken listened to others along the way during his playing career and helped set many of these foundations in motion while serving as an active player. By the time he had retired, Ripken's plan started to take shape and he successfully created a life for himself outside of baseball.

Taking the time to plan is crucial and even though it can be exhausting, it can pay off in the end. In order to get to where you want to go, you need to know what you need, what will get you there and the right direction to go in.