Welcome to Millionaire Upgrade
Well now you can... with the best-selling business book: Millionaire Upgrade.
Inspired by a true story with Sir Richard Branson, and based on interviews with over 50 self-made millionaire entrepreneurs, Millionaire Upgrade is a master class in entrepreneurial thinking - and is your fast-track ticket to business success.
Now the spoken-word audio-version of Millionaire Upgrade is available on your Android device.
In this app/audio book you'll be introduced to the entrepreneurial success principles of IBELIEVE, and in the 'quick read' summaries you can learn exactly how to use IBELIEVE to achieve extraordinary results in your own company.
Join tens of thousands of other entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs around the world who have already experienced Millionaire Upgrade.
Enjoy your journey...
(C) Enterprise Leaders Worldwide Ltd
I - I BELIEVE (in myself)
The first trait of the IBELIEVE mnemonic is 'I', which stands for 'I believe in myself'.
This level of belief doesn't just stop at self-belief, but extends to believing in the products and services you offer... believing in the value you offer your customers... believing in your team... in your company... in the business opportunity you are pursuing.
Self-belief is at the heart of any entrepreneur. This is not arrogance, but an unswerving inner-confidence in yourself that you will achieve the goals you set.
Self Belief Can Be Developed
Confidence and self-belief can be developed, by stepping outside your comfort zone and stretching yourself.
This is no different from learning to ride a bike, swim or drive a car.
When you start anything new, you are stepping into the unknown, but little by little, with practice, experience, guidance, mentorship, and even a little failure thrown in, you soon develop total confidence and belief.
Very quickly, riding a bike, swimming or driving a car becomes second nature, and you have total inner-confidence in your own abilities.
The Enemy of Self-belief is Self-doubt.
Self-doubt is the death of an entrepreneur. Once doubt and negative thoughts set in, you rapidly loose the inner mental strength to push forward. If you are not careful, your business can quickly become 'game over'.
Difficult times will come and go, but as an entrepreneur, you need a steely determination and inner conviction to push forward through the challenges and know for certain that you will achieve your goals.
Summary:
- You must develop an unshakable belief in yourself as a leader– not arrogance but self belief
- You must believe in your company
- You must believe in your product or service
- You can develop self belief and confidence by stepping outside your comfort zone
- Self doubt is the death of an entrepreneur
Questions:
- What are you outstanding at?
- When do you have a feeling of total self belief?
- Do you have an unshakable belief in yourself and your ability to reach your goals?
- What steps are you taking each day to develop your inner confidence?
B - Be Passionate & Want It
The second element of IBELIEVE is 'B' and stands for 'Be passionate and want it'.
Passion is at the heart of all entrepreneurs and self-made millionaires.
Entrepreneurs are in love with their business, in the same way a parent is in love with their child.
It was Napoleon Hill, the author of the 1937 classic 'Think and Grow Rich' who wrote about having a magnificent obsession.
It is this level of passion, belief, drive and determination you need as an entrepreneur to achieve your goals.
Do You Lack This Passion?
If for any reason you lack this total passion and desire then it will be difficult to push through the inevitable hard times which you will face as an entrepreneur.
If you lack passion or motivation for your business or business idea... if your business isn't a magnificent obsession for you... or you're doing it just for the money, then you should search around for a new business idea.
Seldom do entrepreneurs succeed without a total love and belief for their business, because when the tough times come, it is only your inner confidence, fuelled by your passion and desire which will allow you to overcome the daily challenges and get you through to the other side.
Summary:
- You must have passion and love for your company, product or service
- You must connect your heart and your head around your goal
- You should do something you're motivated about, passionate for and believe in - only then will untold magic happen!
- Money is not a strong enough motivator, pursuit of passion is.
Questions:
- What are you passionate about – what is your magnificant obsession?
- Do you love your work / job / business?
- What is your motivation for working?
E - Extend Your Comfort Zone
The third element of IBELIEVE is 'E' and stands for 'Extend your comfort zone'.
A good way to imagine a comfort zone is to stand up and draw a large imaginary circle around yourself.
Whilst you stand in this comfort zone, everything feels safe and secure. Most people live within their comfort zone most of the time.
However, success does not come from standing in your comfort zone! Success comes from challenging yourself, from stretching yourself and from feeling uncomfortable.
Fears & Limiting Beliefs
Success comes from facing your fears of the future, and limiting beliefs about your past head-on.
Success comes from doing the things you do not want to do.
As an entrepreneur, you must do the very thing which scares you.
This may be making a phone call to a high profile prospect, making a speech to an audience of 500 people or closing the door on one chapter of your life to pursue a new future.
Whatever it is, you know when you are stepping outside your comfort zone as you get a feeling in your stomach.
This is a good feeling, is it means you are doing something that other people (who live within their comfort zone) are not prepared to do. It also means that you are getting closer to reaching your goals.
It was Elenor Rosevelt who famously said that you should do one thing each day that scares you. What do you do each day that scares you?
Summary:
- You must face your fears head on to conquer them
- You must overcome your limiting beliefs about your past
- You must sow a seed of opportunity every day
- Do one thing every day that makes you feel uncomfortable
Questions:
- What do you put off due to fear?
- What limiting beliefs do you have about your past that stop you from achieving success in the future?
L - Lies and Luck Don’t Work
The fourth element of IBELIEVE is 'L' and stands for 'Lies and luck don't work'.
'Lies and luck don't work' is really two principles in one.
Lies.
There is no room for anything other than total honesty, integrity, respect and trust as an entrepreneur.
That is both honesty with yourself, and with others.
Firstly, let's look at honesty with others (i.e, customers, partners, investors).
Business is all about belief, and making other people believe in you. Only when other people believe in you will they buy from you or invest in you.
If for any reason you fall short of the 'total honesty, integrity, respect and trust' standard, then it is all too easy for your partners, customers and investors to walk away and never do business with you again.
You need to apply the same level of total honesty to yourself, as you do with your partners and customers.
You need to be able to look yourself in the mirror and say for certain that you are doing everything you can to make your business successful.
Only you know 100% if you are or not. You need to be brutally honest with yourself. Are you putting in the necessary effort, supported by passion, desire, belief, courage and action to reach your goals, or are you suffering from a common entrepreneurial flaw (which is just a few degrees apart from belief) - delusion!
Luck
The second part of the 'lies and luck don't work' element is 'luck'.
Many people think that entrepreneurs are lucky. The fact is that there is no room for relying on luck as an entrepreneur, but it is true that entrepreneurs create their own luck.
It was the golfer Gary Player who once said, 'the harder I work, the luckier I become'. Hard work and luck go hand in hand.
Luck is often acknowledged as the crossroads of preparation and opportunity and it's for you to be prepared when opportunity comes along.
Just as you won't find your future partner if you sit at home watching TV, you won't achieve success as an entrepreneur sitting at home watching TV either! You need to get out, network, sow seeds of opportunity, have an insatiable curiosity and interest in things, and seek out connections and opportunities which other people cannot see.
In life there is such a thing as cause and effect, and only by sowing seeds of opportunity and creating your own luck will you ever become lucky.
Summary:
LIES
- Be brutally honest with yourself as an entrepreneur and a leader
- The only excuses are the ones you tell yourself
- Hope is not good enough – action is what matters
- Have personal honesty, integrity, respect and trust – you cannot build lasting success without them
LUCK
- Successful leaders create their own luck
- Luck is the crossroads of preparation and opportunity - the harder you work, the luckier you will become
- Read, ask questions, watch trends and network to create luck
- New opportunities will not come to you, get out and create lucky breaks
- Cause and effect - you must sow seeds of opportunity every day to reap the benefit in the future
Questions:
- What excuses do you make to yourself?
- What lies do you tell yourself?
The fifth element of IBELIEVE is 'I' and stands for 'Install goals'.
As an entrepreneur, goals give you focus, they give you direction, they give you a reference point to make decisions by, and a target to work towards.
The power of goals can be seen first hand in the words of President Kennedy when he stated on 25th May 1961, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth."
On 21 July 1969 Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the Moon. He and his fellow astronaughts returned safely to earth days later.
It was the power of this goal which brought not just a whole team, but a whole nation, (and arguably the whole world) together to achieve this seemingly impossible goal.
Written, Stretch Goals
The power of goals can work for you just as they did in the space race.
However, your goals should be both written down, and they should be stretch goals.
Writing goals down programmes them deeply into your subconscious mind, so that every minute of the day your subconscious can make decisions on whether your actions are taking you closer to your goals, or further away.
By making your goals stretch goals, or BHAGS (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) as Jim Collins, the management writer talks about (such as landing a man on the moon), you challenge yourself to achieve the seeming impossible.
Jim Rohn the late godfather of personal development said that you should set a goal to make a million pounds, not for the money, but for what it makes of you.
This is a goal which is worthy for any entrepreneur, aspiring entrepreneur, or even non-entrepreneur to set, as it brings out the best in you.
One action you can take right now is to write ten goals down on a piece of paper, put the letter in an envelope with a stamp on it and mail it to yourself.
This very act of writing your goals down, and putting some distance between you and the letter will help crystallise your ambitions and programme your goals deep into your subconscious mind.
Summary:
- Have clearly defined written personal goals that you are constantly working towards
- Review your goals daily – and make sure you still have the passion, belief and motivation to achieve them
- Break larger goals down into smaller steps – and create a plan of action to achieve them
- Goals should be a stretch and almost unachievable – think big, think of a landing a man on the moon
- Written goals programme your subconscious mind like no other tool
- A goal is a dream with a deadline
Questions:
- What written goals do you have?
- How often do you revisit your goals?
- Who else knows about your goals?
- Who keeps you accountable to your goals?
E - Enjoy Hard Work
The sixth element of IBELIEVE is 'E' which stands for 'Enjoy hard work'.
Just like there is debt to pay on interest, there is a price to pay for success. That price is hard-work, self-discipline and sacrifice.
It's often said that entrepreneurs work half-days, but these are 12 hour days. Success lies somewhere between 40 and 100 hours a week.
Seldom does success come without total dedication, and focus.
But if you follow your passion, do something you enjoy and are motivated to work on, then in the words of Noel Coward, 'work is more fun than fun'.
And it is true you will never feel you are working, as the divide between work and life becomes blurred.
That said, you can never escape from the price you must pay for success.
Self-Discipline
As an entrepreneur you should have the self-discipline to do the things you don't want to do, at the times you don't want to do them. You must have the self-discipline to eliminate procrastination.
Sacrifice
You must make sacrifices, or perhaps a better way to explain the sacrifice you need to make is to talk about choices... choices which take you closer to your goals.
Hustle
You must hustle as an entrepreneur, and have urgency and energy.
It's often said that 'good things come to those who wait', but there is more to that sentence which goes on to say, 'good things come to those who wait, but only what's left after those who hustle'.
Success as an entrepreneur requires hard-work, self-discipline, sacrifices, urgency, energy, hustle and most of all - RELENTLESS ACTION!
This is the price to pay for success.
Summary:
- Success is simple – but not easy
- Enjoy hard work – do something you love, believe in and are motivated by and the necessary hard work will become easier
- Have the self discipline to do the things you do not want to do
- Make sacrifices (or choices) which take you closer to your goal
- Time is a precious resource – procrastination is the thief of time
- Have an urgency about what you do – good things don’t come to those who wait
Questions:
- What must you do (sacrifices, self-discipline, hard work) to get a 5% improvement in your results (or to reach your goals)?
- How many hours a week do you work?
V - Very, Very Persistent
The seventh element of IBELIEVE is 'V' and stands for 'Very very persistent'.
You may have heard the saying that 'failure is incompatible with persistence'.
If you believe in your business (or new business idea), have the necessary confidence, desire, drive and passion, and clear written goals that you are working towards, and somebody said no to you, would you give up?
The answer is you wouldn't - you would persist - but only if you believed 100% that you could reach your goals.
It was Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President of the United States who said:
"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race"
Persistence & Creativity
Persistence is not about consistently doing the same thing which isn't working. It's about being creative, innovative and flexible to find new ways to achieve your goals, overcoming your obstacles, and turning a 'no' into a 'yes'.
Summary:
- Persistence is the most hidden trait of all successful entrepreneurs – and is grounded in belief, passion and desire
- Most people give up before they reach their goals – successful entrepreneurs do not
- Successful entreprenuers never accept no for an answer but are flexible and creative in their pursuit of turning a no into a yes
- Successful entreprenuers are prepared to break rules, think differently, do whatever it takes to achieve their goals – this requires them to step outside of their comfort zone
Questions:
- When did you last give up when you should have persisted?
- What did you learn from giving up?
E - Expect Failure
The final letter of the IBELIEVE sequence is another 'E' - which stands for 'Expect Failure'.
It's important to know that failure is an integral part of success. You cannot become successful as an entrepreneur without experiencing failure along the way.
Take a look at any successful entrepreneur, sports person, or business leader and you're actually looking at a 'successful failure', as they will have experienced more failures, setbacks and disappointments on their journey to success than most people can ever imagine.
Everything we do, from learning to walk, talk, ride a bike or drive a car is all learnt behaviour, and in our initial attempts at all of these we experienced failure to some degree.
On the road to success failure is inevitable, especially when you are trying new things, stretching yourself and stepping into the unknown.
It was Winston Churchill who said that 'Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm'. It is only when your goals are supported by passion, desire, belief and persistence that you will have the resolve to overcome your failures.
In his book 'Think and Grow Rich', Napoleon Hill states that 'out of every failure, comes a seed of equal or greater opportunity'. This is true but you must look for that seed and be open to receiving it and acting upon it.
The Positive Impact of Failure
Failure must be seen a a good thing; it should be seen as a positive.
Failure gives us judgement and wisdom, and it's from judgement and wisdom that that we can take greater risks.
A wise man once said : 'if you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough'... and 'those who fail to start are actually the real failures'.
This is something to bear in mind during challenging times!
Summary:
- Expect failure as part of your journey to success
- Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm
- Wisdom and judgement come from failure... you learn more from failure than from success – failure is a great teacher
- With wisdom and judgement you can take larger calculated risks – which are essential to great success
- Be prepared to fail. Those who fail to start are the real failures
- Failure can always be turned into a positive - make sure you look for new seeds of opportunity that come from it
- Failure is a strong word with negative connections – in reality you will make a series of mistakes.
- Learn from your mistakes and do not make them again.
- If you are not failing, you are not trying hard enough!
Questions:
- What has been your biggest failure (in life or business)?
- What did you learn from it?
The ‘Magic Ingredient’
There is one extra element which every entrepreneur needs in order to achieve exceptional results in business, which is the 'magic ingredient 'of people - the people entrepreneurs surround themselves with, and the teams they build.
No entrepreneur can achieve high levels of success by themselves. An entrepreneur is only as good as the team they assemble or the partners they bring on board.
A Shared Passion & Belief
But just as entrepreneurs need to have passion, desire, belief and tenacity and work towards clear goals, every member of the team needs to share the same passion and buy into the goals and the business values at an emotional level.
Unless the team shares your entrepreneurial passion and belief, work remains just a job (and nothing more), and as a company you will forever struggle to deliver a remarkable experience for your customers.
Team Synergy
But the power which comes from having a passionate, driven and talented team is extraordinary.
When your team believes and is clear in the goals it is setting out to achieve, then synergy sets in and 2+2 equals not just five, but 10, 15 or even 20.
The synergy which comes from a talented team working together in harmony is exponential (just think of America landing a man on the moon).
Your success as an entrepreneur will be in proportion to the quality of your team and your ability as an entrepreneur to stand up and provide direction as a leader.
Summary:
- Never think you can do it alone, you must build a great team to surround you
- Your team must share your passion, belief and desire.
- Your team must share a common purpose and demonstrate all the other attributes of IBELIEVE
- No one person is bigger than the team. Only when everybody is working together towards a common goal, will you achieve sustained and lasting success.
Questions:
- Do you have the right people on your team who believe in your company's purpose and vision?
- Does your team share your passion, belief and determination?
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