Successful Women Would Never Say These 7 Things

Reality check: Successful women choose their words wisely because they know words have power. Here, six statements you'll never ever hear them say:
"I don't know how!"

The bottom line is that the brightest women are the most resourceful. They might not know how to do something, especially if it is something new, but they figure it out. They observe others who do it, they ask questions and they research. Then they get it done! We can all figure out how to do something if we make it our business to learn.





"I don't have time."
We all have 24 hours in a day—you, me, and Oprah Winfrey. It's up to us to decide how we prioritize and spend these hours. To say you don't have time for something really means you don't want to do it. A much more productive way of communicating your timing needs is being direct. Try these:

"I can take that project on but I will need [X amount of time] to complete it."

"Right now my focus is on X and X, perhaps Sarah is better placed to take this on at this time?"

"Yes" (to everything)
It may seem contradictory but there is an art to saying no. We can't be all things to all people all the time. We cannot commit and attend every meeting, event, and conference that we are invited to. Saying no, kindly, is a successful woman's best friend. Thank the person for thinking of you but keep your plate manageable.

"I don't get paid enough for this."
Let's be honest, who really believes they get paid "enough" for what they do? That being said, smart women do not project a disgruntled attitude. They know that in the end more money comes as a result of going the extra mile, not the other way around. This is a defeatist and destructive comment that you should never let a manager overhear!

"It's not fair."
You've probably heard time and time again that life's not fair. Successful women do not expect it to be. They use their power to drive change and focus on what they can do, not what a victim they are. You can bet that sometimes people will get promoted over you, your boss will take credit for your work, and male counterparts will have a higher pay. Successful women decide what they will stand for and waste no time complaining.

"I never take vacation."
This is like a badge of honor in New York City. It's nuts! Sorry but the joke's on you, Miss I-work-52-weeks-a-year. Have you ever noticed how company CEOs and executives always take vacation days? Successful women make their personal time a priority and know the importance of recharging. It's crucial to our sanity, stamina, and creativity. A burnt out and fatigued colleague or leader is last on our list when we think about success and what it really means.

How You Can Be Successful At Any Age. Just Take A Look at These 6 Successful Entrepreneurs.

Based on the way startups are covered in the media today, it’s easy to feel like all founders are in their teens or 20s. Stories abound of young millionaires and entrepreneur teenagers, but that’s only part of the picture. There are plenty of entrepreneurs out there who found their “big ideas” later in life, founding companies that, in some instances, last well beyond their years.

Here are six entrepreneurs who got their start later in life and prove that success is a possibility at any age:

1. Leo Goodwin, GEICO

GEICO, or the Government Employee’s Insurance Company, is now a well-known car insurance brand with well-known advertising figures. But before the Gecko, the Caveman or Maxwell, GEICO was the idea of Leo Goodwin. Working as an accountant in San Antonio, Texas, in the 1930’s, Goodwin realized that insurance needed an overhaul. Why weren’t companies just dealing with customers directly, saving all the money that traditionally went to brokers?

In 1936, at the age of 50, Leo founded GEICO in Washington, D.C. In a departure from most businessmen of the day, he worked closely with his wife Lillian in running the company. By the end of the year, GEICO had 12 people on staff and 3,700 policies in force. Today, GEICO employs over 27,000 people and has over 14 million policyholders.

2. Harland David Sanders, Kentucky Fried Chicken

Col. Sanders did not start out as anyone’s idea of a successful businessman. He lost his father at an early age, quarreled extensively with his stepfather, and was fired from multiple jobs, even losing his job as a lawyer after a courtroom brawl with his own client. However, he was determined to never give up, and this trait led to his eventual success.

While working at a service station in Corbin, Ky., Sanders gained local popularity for his delicious chicken recipe. After the Corbin station was destroyed by a fire, Sanders had the location rebuilt as a motel and 140-seat restaurant. In 1952, at the age of 62, Sanders franchised his “Kentucky Fried Chicken” for the first time. Today, KFC has over 18,800 outlets in 118 different countries and territories.

3. Robert Noyce, Intel

After earning his doctorate in physics from MIT, Robert Noyce found work as a research engineer, eventually ending up at Beckman Instruments. In 1957, he and seven others left Beckman and founded the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation. While he enjoyed some success there, he eventually left with Gordon Moore. Together, they founded Intel when Noyce was 41.

Noyce was considered the visionary of the company and treated staff like family. He declined the lavish benefits that most CEOs received, and kept the company less structured and more relaxed. While at Intel, he oversaw the invention of the microprocessor, an innovation that revolutionized computer technology and forms the foundation of the machines we still use today.

4. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn

Surely a company like LinkedIn, a major social network, was founded by a youngster, right? Not at all! Reid Hoffman struggled with what to do after he graduated from Stanford. He decided to work, but to do so strategically, mapping out a plan of what he would need to learn before he started his own company.

When he first started on his own, he founded a networking site called Socialnet, believing that having a great matching algorithm would guarantee success. He tried advertising his new site through magazines and newspapers, but never found traction with the idea. In the end, he left and joined PayPal before leaving his position with the company in 2002 to co-found LinkedIn. Hoffman was 35 when he founded the company and 43 when it went public.

5. Wally Blume, Denali Flavors

If the thought of tomato-flavored ice cream turns your stomach, you’re not alone. Wally Blume had a successful 20-year career, but knew he had to move on when his boss decided to move forward with that crazy idea. In 1995, in his mid-50s, he started his own ice cream company, Denali Flavors, where he created the famous Moose Tracks flavor.

Today, this dairy treat brings in $80 million a year alone through licensing agreements. Denali now has over 40 flavors, and Blume is still going strong at the age of 70.

6. Carol Gardner, Zelda Wisdom

When you’re 52, newly divorced, broke and depressed, you’d think that the last thing on your mind would be starting a company. Then again, it might be just what the doctor ordered.

After getting a dog at her therapist’s recommendation, Carol Gardner won a local Christmas card contest with a picture of the dog and a funny quip. The win inspired Gardner to start a greeting card company, which she named after her dog, Zelda. In 2010, Zelda Wisdom was valued at roughly $50 million, showing that you truly never know where your next great idea might come from.

Running a business isn’t easy -- it takes hard work and discipline to reach success. As a result, it should be unsurprising that, many times, it’s the older and wiser among us who are better at navigating that road. So don’t count yourself out, no matter what your age. Success can come to anyone at any time.

How Writing Down Your Goals Can Power-Up Your Life

Everyone wants to be great and reach achievement milestones, but not everyone is willing to commit to the grueling process that being great requires. Many people give up after one try, one failure. They settle for being average instead of striving and working to be great.

With the New Year right around the corner, and most people starting to think about their resolutions and the goals they want to accomplish in 2017 -- and that includes me -- I want to share a process I go through at the end of each year, in late December. Some people don’t know how to set goals, and they certainly don’t know how to go about achieving them.

But, for me, nothing has changed my life more than learning how to set goals and then working hard to attain them.

What's important here is the difference between goal-setting and goal achievement. Both are important, but setting goals alone isn’t enough. If you write them down on a piece of paper, then put that paper away and never do anything more, you’ve wasted your time. Instead, you have to take massive action to achieve your goals.

Everywhere I go to speak in the world, I share the following exact same goal-setting process that has shaped my life year after year. This process has helped me achieve almost every major goal that I ever set.

The process

Start by setting a stopwatch or the timer on your phone, for three minutes. This will force you to write your goals down quickly and not dawdle. The point is to eliminate the tendency to start worrying. When we consider the goals we want to achieve, we immediately start thinking about reasons we can’t reach those goals.

There will be roadblocks to consider, a lack of money and a million-and-one other obstacles. But don't worry about those things; if you set a stopwatch for three minutes, that short time span will force you to focus and write down what’s really in your heart instead of to waste time on the challenges down the road.

The next part of the process is to write down eight to ten goals you want to achieve this time next year. It’s good to include some balance on that list with health, fitness, family, leisure and financial and business goals, to name some important considerations. Then circle the one goal that has the potential to completely change the course of your life and serve as a domino effect for every other goal on the list.

The "game-changer" goal

Next, identify what I call the game-changer goal. When I first adopted this same process into my life, I was 16 years old and a recovering drug addict. My major goal at the time was to get a Division I college scholarship for football. I knew that achieving that major goal would help me reach every other goal on my list and drastically change my entire life.

After you circle your own game-changer goal, you'll find that the next part of the process is what separates the best of the best from everyone else. Write down 20 to 50 things you need to do to achieve that major goal of yours.

Most people never even think about what they need to do in order to achieve their goals. So, if you are thinking about this, you'll be putting yourself in the small percentage of high achievers and be significantly increasing your odds of success.  

After you have completed your action plan of all the things that must happen in order to achieve your game-changer, you should start transfering one to two tasks a day onto your daily task list. Once you have your game plan ready to go, your overall task is all about taking massive action and being relentless each and every day until you get to where you want to go.

8 Excellent Habits That Most Successful People Possess

Many people wonder how they can become highly successful, not realizing that they hold within them everything they need to achieve all of the success they desire.

Successful people are where they are today because of their habits.  Habits determine 95% of a person’s behavior.

Everything that you are today, and everything that you will ever accomplish, is determined by the quality of the habits that you form.

By creating good habits and adopting a positive behavior, you too can become successful and live a prosperous life.

Successful People Maintain 7 Good Habits

For thousands of years, success in human life has been studied by great thinkers and philosophers.  I have personally studied the subject for more than 30 years.  What I have found is that the very best people have developed good habits.

I have identified seven valuable habits that you need to develop if you want to perform at your very maximum in everything you do.

1. They Are Goal Oriented

The first habit is to become goal oriented.

You need to be a habitual goal setter, and dedicate yourself to working from clear, written goals every day of your life.  All highly successful people are intensely goal oriented. They know exactly what they want, they have it written down, they have written plans to accomplish it, and they both review and work on their plans every single day.

2. They Are Results Driven

The second habit of highly successful people is being results driven.

This is made up of two practices.

1. The first is the practice of continuously learning so that you become better at what you do.
2. The second practice is that of time management. This means setting very clear priorities on what you do and then concentrating single-mindedly on the most valuable use of your time.

All really successful people are intensely result-oriented.

3. They Are Action Oriented

The third major habit you need to develop is that of continually taking action.

This is really the most important habit for material success.  It is the ability to get on with the job and get it done fast.  It is your ability to develop and maintain a sense of urgency, and a bias for action.  Fast tempo in whatever you do is essential to your success.

You need to overcome procrastination, push aside your fears and launch 100% toward the achievement of your most important goals.  The combination of goal orientation, result orientation and action orientation, in themselves, will virtually assure great success.

4. They Are People Oriented

The fourth habit you need is people orientation.

This is where you put relationships in the center of your life.  This is your decision to cultivate within yourself the habits of patience, kindness, compassion, and understanding.  Virtually all of your happiness in life will come from your ability to get along well with other people.

The good news is that you can become a wonderful human being in your relationships with others when you decide to.

As Aristotle said, the only way that you can learn any habit is by practicing it on a regular basis.  The more you practice being a truly excellent person in your relationships with others, the more you will internalize those qualities and actually become that person.

5. They Are Health Conscious

The fifth habit that highly successful people develop is health consciousness.

This means that you must fastidiously watch your diet, and always eat the right foods in the right portions.  You must exercise on a regular basis, continually using every muscle and joint of your body to keep it limber and fit.  And finally, you must have good habits of rest and recreation that will enable you, in combination with diet and exercise, to live out your years in a healthy state.

Remember, your health is the most important single thing you have, and it is completely subject to the habits that you develop with regard to the way you live.

6. They Are Honest

The sixth habit is that of honesty and integrity.

In the final analysis, the character you develop as you go through life is more important than virtually anything else.

Honesty means that you practice the “reality principle” in everything you do.  You are completely objective with yourself and with the world around you.  You set very clear values for yourself and you organize yourself around your values.  You develop a vision for yourself and then you live your life consistent with your highest ideals.  You never compromise your integrity or peace of mind for anyone or anything.

This attitude of honesty is critical to your enjoying all of the other good habits that you are developing.

7. They Are Self-Disciplined

The seventh habit, and the one habit that guarantees all the others, is that of self-discipline.

Your ability to discipline yourself, to master yourself, to control yourself, is the most important single quality that you can develop as a person.  The habit of self-discipline goes hand in hand with success in every area of life.

Every one of these habits, being goal oriented, results driven, action orientated, people orientated, health conscious, honest and self-disciplined can be developed.  You are where you are and what you are today because of your habits.  Your habits have been developing, mostly accidentally, from the time you were an infant.

Today you can take complete control over the shaping of your character and personality, and everything that happens to you in the future, by making the decision, right now, to define and develop the habits that will lead you to great success.

And when you develop the same good habits possessed by other successful people, you will enjoy their success as well.

Your future will become unlimited.

Why Being A Teen Mom Should Never Make You A Failure

I hate failure. Born and bred as a true Type A, I've always had my eyes on my goals, on checklists, on societal expectations.

I skipped first grade, then I went big and loaded up my classes to graduate with my bachelor's degree in three years, with no "B" ever tainting my GPA. I was 20, had a year of marriage under my belt, and one month after my college graduation, on the second day of my first post-grad job, I had two pink lines on a drugstore pregnancy test.

Little did I know that that was the first day of the rest of my life.





In becoming a young mom, I was already a failure in so many people's eyes. If success is measured in accomplishments, a fine-tuned résumé, post-grad education, and a high-salary job, I was not going to be successful.

Instead of working late hours, I spent evenings and nights holed up in a rocking chair, breast milk stains all over my ragged shirt, hair high in a ponytail, not a touch of makeup on, and knee deep in contentedness and exhaustion. I memorized every wrinkle and baby fat roll, the smell of his hair, the rhythm of his heartbeat, and each tiny breath as he breathed heavy sighs and nestled his face into the crook of my neck.

I read every book. I wore down two copies Little Blue Truck and can still recite it backward and forward. I sang every song. And when exhaustion stole the words from me, I made up our own, and nearly lost my voice over the hundreds of times a day I'd whisper-sing lullabies and pat him to sleep in my arms.

My big dreams of changing the world were still there, and I watched as my best friends went on after college and traveled the world, tasted life, and soaked it in for every experience they could. And you know what? We were all happy. They experienced things I didn't, things I maybe wouldn't, but I had a little boy whose face lit up at the first glimpse of mama, even with coffee breath, yesterday's mascara dusting rims under my eyes, and my greasy hair tied in a topknot every day. With him, I held my heart in my arms. I nurtured him, kissed his boo-boos, and I nearly died the day I heard him mutter his first word, "mama," from his crib.

I have yet to accomplish all my former goals. I have yet to change the world. I have yet to leave a lasting mark like I had dreamed, but I now have a little boy who looks at me like I hung the moon. He falls asleep some nights with his arm curled around my neck, because he just needs me for one more moment, and one more, and one more.

And if I have that? I can never fail. In fact, I've redefined failure. I've learned to let go of my checklists and self-imposed expectations on all the things I should have done or could have done, and I've realized love is enough. Seeing his eyes light up when they catch my gaze, being his safe place, being his whole word— that's enough.

Motherhood met me young. Some may see that as a failure. I don't. I have fully surrendered and succumbed to motherhood, letting it wash over me and smooth out all my jagged edges and shape my unruly parts. It's healed me in ways I never knew I needed healing, and it all started with those two pink lines.