 If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I can do better,” you may have the heart of a top performer. A top performer, regardless of the industry/activity, perform at the top level. At the center of the heart of a top performer is a desire to beat yesterday’s self. To simplify the process of becoming a top performer, we're taking a look at the common thread between top performers in different “industries.” Professional athletes and bodybuilders plan and schedule time to workout and prep meals. Without a calendar, none of that can be done properly. It's probably safe to believe that people setting such goals for their bodies invest in their diet and exercise. An example of a diet investment might be quality ingredients that result in a higher grocery bill. An example of investing in exercise might be committing to deliberately exercising regularly. The reason why a professional athlete or bodybuilder might use a calendar to achieve success is to add consistency to the recipe for success. Law firms rely on calendars and calendaring systems to achieve success. To better understand the role of a calendaring system in the lives of top performers, we asked Ada K. Wong about the role of a calendar in the success of her law firm, AKW Law, P.C. Wong has been named "Women in the Law - Top Peer-Nominated Lawyers," "Top 40 Under 40" by The National Trial Lawyers, and "Rising Star" by Super Lawyers. Wong was also named AVVO Top Personal Injury Attorney, Top Employment Law Attorney, Top Civil Rights Attorney, and awarded the Client's Choice Award in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. When asked what attributed to her success, she answered, "It is an understatement that all successful people, including lawyers, are highly organized; and the key to organization is having an effective and efficient calendaring system. Law firms operate on deadlines imposed by the court, statue of limitations, and our clients' needs and expectations. Missing deadlines or forgetting to complete tasks can negatively impact one's reputation -- quickly. We are simply not able to remember everything that we must do and all deadlines. Having a calendaring system for a law firm is a must, there is simply no shortcut." Moms are the project managers of their households and the underrated heroes of the world. In households where children are in multiple extracurricular activities and the adults manage to make progress towards individual ambitions, there is usually a “project momager” managing and juggling the individual schedules that come with each individual ambition, so that they can all coexist in harmony. Without a phone calendar, a mom with the purest intentions, can still forget her first grader’s jog-a-thon. Calendars make the world of success go round. When we power use calendars by creating our own calendaring systems, we design an automated lifestyle for success. Napolean Hill said it best in Think and Grow Rich when he said, “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” Do your dreams have a deadline? Trish PerezTrish Perez is the senior editor, content curator, intern, web designer, chef, custodian, and proof reader at Storm Praise Publishing. She also serves as lead in the creation of the children's series, The Adventures of Josie and Bud, which makes its debut in December 2017.  How many of us have ambitiously set out to achieve a big goal, only to find ourselves derailed, on the couch, phone in hand, scrolling our lives away? Or maybe it is more like, in bed, remote in hand, binge-watching our lives away? If that hits close to home for you, know that you’re in good company. Staying on track to reach our goals is challenging and that is the truth. That truth lead us to wonder what it takes to stay on track. What does it take to stay on track? Staying on track requires us to manage a machine with a lot of moving parts. Like any mechanical machine, often times if one part of the machine is not working properly, all parts will not work at full potential. To help ourselves and our readers stay on track, we have highlighted three important actions we take that assist us in staying on the track to self-defined success. Have goals to review quarterly or monthly. To have goals to review, one must set goals. Setting goals is preparation. That preparation dictates what actions need to be taken to accomplish a goal. The deadline tied to the goal dictates the pace at which the actions are to be taken. This information is the core ingredient to staying on track, because without it, there’s no plumb line to compare our progress to. Assess current progress. Once goals are set, assessment must be scheduled. Assessing progress tells us if we have strayed from the set plan for success. Think of how a GPS reroutes drivers when they make a wrong turn. Prior to navigation systems, we knew we were lost when we didn’t see the next turn for an uncomfortable amount of time. Now, thanks to navigation systems, we can know when we have strayed from the planned route right away, saving us time, money, and frustration. Setting out to accomplish goals without scheduling assessments is like driving with the reroute feature turned off. Adjust plans and/or actions as necessary. We are the doctors to our own success. We have the power to treat and medicate our state of success any way we find necessary. When we stray from our planned route to success, we will need to either adjust our plan or our actions to make our likelihood of success stronger. Our goals are the vehicles to a life full of big picture days. Are your goals in good health? Trish PerezTrish Perez is the senior editor, content curator, intern, web designer, chef, custodian, and proof reader at Storm Praise Publishing. She also serves as lead in the creation of the children's series, The Adventures of Josie and Bud, which makes its debut in December 2017.  A Study on HANGRY Judges An experiment done in Israel proves the power in mental fatigue to change a person’s fate. The article was first published on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America website on April 11, 2011. Researchers analyzed data from criminal cases to “test the effect of the ordinal position of a case on the judge’s decision and the effect of the judge having taken a break to eat.” From data collected from 1,112 judicial rulings, the study found “that when judges make repeated rulings, they show an increased tendency to rule in favor of the status quo.” In simpler words, making rulings repeatedly can increase the likelihood of judges simplifying their decision-making process. The judges are becoming tired of making decisions and as a result, simplifying their mental processes. You can find the study here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Extraneous+factors+in+judicial+decisions This study displays the power of a single decision and our responsibility to prepare for the long game in terms of decision-making. To portray this idea, consider a hypothetical judge that has a reputation of deciding justly 80 percent of the time and unjustly 20 percent of the time. Our society has built a reputation of commonly focusing on that imperfect 20 percent. This reason is good enough to respect and value decision-making and the energy we must exert to make one. How do we combat decision fatigue? Simply put, we prepare what we can, when we can, and as often as we can. Sufficient preparation might not always be an option in our everyday lives, but when it is, it is wise for us to choose it. Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg is known for wearing the same outfit every, single day. Many people ask him about his fashion choices and everyone comes back with the same answer, to give more energy to Facebook. It seems that Mark Zuckerberg embraces a preparatory lifestyle to achieve greatness. If I am to judge a tree be it’s fruit, the fruit being Facebook, I might say he may know a little something about greatness. Barack Obama Barack Obama wore the same tuxedo for his two-terms as president. This might not be as extreme as Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to wear the same outfit every day, but it is a perfect display of someone that values the power of a decision and the amount of energy we must exert to make one. Bodybuilders Successful bodybuilders often times prepare their meals a week in advance. Planning meals entails choosing meals for the week that fit a set budget, making a grocery list, buying all of the ingredients, cooking the meals, and then storing each meal. Respecting the power of a decision about a meal is clearly a key to success in bodybuilding. Bodybuilders put in work in the gym and in the kitchen, while maintaining a professional and personal life. Success is a lifestyle, not an act. A prep lifestyle is a foundation put in place to keep us on the path to self-defined success. By living a preparatory lifestyle we preventatively combat decision fatigue, increasing our likelihood of success. What are you doing to create a prep lifestyle? Trish PerezTrish Perez is the senior editor, content curator, intern, web designer, chef, custodian, and proof reader at Storm Praise Publishing. Trish also serves as lead in the creation of the children's series, The Adventures of Josie and Bud, which makes its debut in December 2017.  When I think of planning for success I imagine a map of Self-defined Success-landia. Self-defined Success-landia is the land of self-defined success and all we need to get there is a map. The key to creating your own map to Self-defined Success-landia is your answer to the following question: Point B: What is your big picture of self-defined success? Success can mean a multitude of different things to different people and that truth does not affect the validity of each individual’s definition of success. So whether success to you is freedom of time, freedom of money, or achieving a desired career, the existence of one does not affect the existence of another. They are all real successes. What does self-defined success look like to you? To answer the question, we found it helpful to imagine in detail what our perfect day would be. Some people will answer lavish answers like never having to work again while others might respond with a simple seat in front of a beach sunset. We will call your big picture of your perfect day, Point B. Point A: Where are you right now? In order to create a map to Self-defined Success-landia, we need to first locate Point A and Point B. We’ve already defined Point B, where we would like to be in our big picture. Now we need to determine Point A, our current location. Where are you right now in respect to where you want to be? If your big picture is of you sitting on a bench as the sun sets on the beach, you might ask yourself where you currently live. Are you driving distance from a beach where you can watch the sun set? If your big picture is of you in a courtroom defending a high profile client, you might want to ask yourself if you are in law school? Where you are right now will give you insight on what the best route to success might be for you. Most people set their goals with only Point A in mind. Planning to reach a goal with the big picture in mind allows you to customize a plan that efficiently serves your exact needs. Everything in Between: What does it take to get there? Designing your route to Self-defined Success-landia is so much easier when you can pinpoint Point A and Point B on your map. Now you can create the perfect plan to achieve your big picture day. If all you need to live out your big picture day is a bench and a beach, what is stopping you from enjoying that type of life everyday? If your big picture includes you in a courtroom defending a client, ask yourself, what does it take to get there? Usually, a simple online search will serve as a strong start to planning your route to success. "All" that’s left is to fine-tune the route to serve your non-negotiables! “Easy” peasy! So, next time you sit down to set your goals, try starting with the big picture in mind. Trish perez Trish Perez is the senior editor, content curator, intern, web designer, chef, custodian, and proof reader at Storm Praise Publishing. She also serves as lead in the creation of the children's series, The Adventures of Josie and Bud, which makes its debut in December 2017.  In order to understand the most important elements in personal growth in terms of achieving success, one must first determine the most important element in learning, because, to learn is to grow. Sam Walton explains the key to learning best in his autobiography, Made in America, “You can learn from everybody.” To prove this statement to be true, we’ve collected some classic children’s books and searched them for tips on achieving a self-defined success. So, whether you’re an aspiring attorney or an aspiring chef, the following tips for success will be relevant to you. Set Goals: Scrambled Eggs Super!, Dr. Seuss In Dr. Seuss’ classic children’s book, Scrambled Eggs Super!, Peter T. Hooper explains to his younger sister the strategy he had to set in place to become the best chef there is. Peter goes on to share his idea of cooking scrambled eggs with eggs from birds other than hens. He searches far and wide to find different eggs that will serve as the key ingredient to his unique scrambled eggs. The majority of the book, Peter is sharing with his younger sister what it took for him to obtain and prepare the ingredients to cook his omelette skillfully. To reach success, we must know where we are and where we want to be so that we can map out how to get there. Peter had to know what he wanted so that he could prepare the proper ingredients to achieve his own self-defined success. Peter set goals in order to become the best chef that ever lived. Prepare: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle The Very Hungry Caterpillar is about a caterpillar that becomes a butterfly. The story is filled with pages and pages of colorful food that the caterpillar eats. After eating very much, the caterpillar builds a cocoon around himself, sleeps for two weeks, and wakes up a beautiful butterfly. Whether the caterpillar realized it or not, he was destined to become a butterfly. In order for him to fulfill his destiny, the caterpillar had to prepare for the transformation by eating enough to sustain himself for two-weeks while he slept in the cocoon. In order to become a butterfly, the caterpillar had to prepare for the process. Stay on the Track: Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Mo Willems Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! is about a pigeon that really wants to drive a vehicle. The book starts out with a bus driver stepping away from a bus. The bus driver requests that the reader make sure the pigeon does not drive the bus. Throughout the entire book, the pigeon desperately pesters the reader to allow him to drive the bus. The pigeon is like the obstacles in our lives that have the power to distract us. Binge-watching a television series or scrolling through our social media accounts can be pigeons to our success. Like the readers of Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, we must stand up to our distractions and stay on the track to self-defined success. Whatever it is that you aspire to be, never count out a resource to learn from, because like the great Sam Walton said, “You can learn from everybody.” trish perez Trish Perez is the senior editor, content curator, intern, web designer, chef, custodian, and proof reader at Storm Praise Publishing. She also serves as lead in the creation of the children's series, The Adventures of Josie and Bud, which makes its debut in December 2017.  Why was the jack-o-lantern afraid to follow his dreams? BECAUSE HE HAD NO GUTS! Aren’t you glad we’re people and not jack-o-lanterns? Happy October friends! It’s a new month and we’re so excited to SMASH on our goals! We love helping people achieve their dreams and we have set some pretty hefty goals in place to help set us on a path to accomplish those goals. There is something about the start of a new month that makes setting out to accomplish goals feel great. Although we can set out to accomplish goals on any day of the month, there is something undeniably special about a fresh start. So to honor both ideas, this month we will be focusing on the beauty of a fresh start in the last quarter of the year. Join us while we plan for success in October! In a world of jack-o-lanterns, let's be pumpkins that have the guts to follow our dreams! Trish Perez Trish Perez is the senior editor, content curator, intern, web designer, chef, custodian, and proof reader at Storm Praise Publishing. She also serves as lead in the creation of the children's series, The Adventures of Josie and Bud, which makes its debut in December 2017.  Storm Praise Publishing's Soft Grand Opening Celebrate with us by taking 10% off!At Storm Praise Publishing, our mission is to equip people with tools and resources to achieve a self-defined success. Launching our online store is a step towards more opportunities for us to help people and we are so excited about that! Although this is only our soft grand opening, it is still so exciting for us to be able to reach and help more people across the country. To celebrate our new beginnings, we've decided to offer our friends and family a discount for their ongoing support, on their next order! Check out our newest products, More Method Planners for Professionals and Students! Use Promo Code: OPEN10 from now until Monday, 09/25/17 for 10% off your next order! |
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