Following a path or blazing a trail

A discussion the other day got me thinking this week. I was chatting to somebody who had been reading a lot of books on people that had succeeded in business to try and get some pointers for what he should do to be successful. This got me thinking, to achieve success should we be looking to copy others or should we be going out blazing a trail of our own.

I think it is wise to learn from the successes and failures of others but to succeed we need to be ourselves and we need to be unique. Sometimes it is very easy to lose yourself and to become somebody else when you spend your day emerged in research on successful people. People see success and they are attracted towards but just because something worked for someone it doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Even when you do find some info on someone who has been successful and how they have done this still not be the best path to follow as there may be an even better route than that person took which could lead you on to even greater success. An idea might have worked for somebody as they were the right person at the right time to use it but if you tried to recreate it now it may not have the same success. People always want something different or something new not just an old idea reinvented.

People need to be sure in themselves and not always be looking for advice and guidance, to be successful you can’t always refer to a book or somebody else for advice. I heard a great quote the other day which was “Chase the dream not the competition.” Which I think is bang on as it is so easy to be come consumed with your competition and to just follow them when if you had just been concentrating on your dream then you would have spent more time trying to achieve that dream.

I think it is wise to be knowledgeable on the dream you are chasing and to learn where others have failed and succeeded but it is important not to get bogged down with it all and use the information not to follow in others footsteps but to blaze your own trail with. Don’t lose yourself and be the one that people are writing about in years to come as someone who shook things up, somebody that innovated and somebody who blazed a trail as not many people are going to write about you if they have already written the same story about somebody else.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Career Advice!

The BBC news website reported two news stories on the subject of career advice and chosen careers which got me thinking:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7323033.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7318919.stm

Now I can’t say I am shocked by these findings as I have thought this for some time and it’s quite funny how these stories which are so related came out in the same week. I believe that career advice has been inadequate for some time and big changes need to be made if we are going to get young people in to the right careers and get unemployment levels down.

The education system seems to have a one size fits all approach with students forced to become jack of all trades and master of none in a race to look good in the school league tables. The only thing schools get graded on are exam grades and not what careers their students go in to so the only thing they are interested in is there results. Until schools get graded or rewarded based on what careers their students go in to they aren’t going to invest time in proper career advice and nor should they have to if they aren’t getting the right reward for it.

Employers are looking for young people who are highly skilled and educated in specific areas not people who are moderately skilled in many areas. Young people aren’t informed about this at school though or told enough about what qualifications you need for certain jobs. This is the information young people need to be equipped with to get ahead in the market place but the school system keeps them in the dark with the blinkers on in order to make sure they try their best at all subjects so they can get highest league table place possible. If young people were armed with this information they probably wouldn’t try as hard at the subjects they didn’t need but improve vastly in the areas that were linked to their career choice.

Yes young people need to be able to be flexible and adapt in this ever changing world so need as many skills as possible but they also need to have strong skills in the areas they want to work in. The other information young people need is to be told how much certain jobs pay and how accessible these jobs are in the local area as it may be a young person is investing time getting ready for an occupation which may not pay enough to support them or may not be available locally. Young people need to be made more aware of the work place and schools need to devote time to career studies on a regular basis. Every pupil at school should have to go to career advice mandatory and career advice shouldn’t be something that is optional and hidden away.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

“Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!”

The most common question I get asked is how did I come up with my phrase “Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!” well first thing is for me it’s not just a phrase it’s a way of life.

The phrase originated from 2003 when I got to go on a business trip with my Dad to Texas in America. At the time my dad was a successful network marketer and we were attending this big conference. So I went with my dad and listened in on some of the talks and presentations and now if you want to see and hear some motivated people those events are the place to be. Come on lets face it to knock on a 1000 doors a day or make a 1000 telephone calls a day trying to sell a product nobody wants you have to be to survive.

Well it was during my time at the conference I really started thinking what if we could take the motivation and positive energy that was in the conference centre and use it for the power of good and helping young people. So I took my pen and paper out and the first thing I wrote was “Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!” This is a three step plan which if followed will lead to some amazing results.

Envisage It: Your vision is what you want to achieve in your life so you need to start thinking about what it is you truly want. When I first did this I got a huge sheet of paper from the local shop and some markers and started drawing my vision, my vision was to make Talented Young People a worldwide force which makes a huge impact in the lives of young people. I’m a very visual person so I like to draw and write things down. So once you have searched in your soul and found what it is you want to achieve start thinking about why you want to achieve that. This is when I started adding pictures to my huge piece of paper with my motivators for why I wanted to do this so for me that was pictures of my family and pictures of people I knew I could help. Then down the side I started to write down all the little details of what it was going to be like when I achieved my vision. When speaking to a lot of successful people I found that one of the reasons behind their success was the clear visions they had it wasn’t I want to win this or I want to do this it was in this year I’m going to win the title at this event, they all had very specific and clear dreams which came true. A half hearted approach will only bring you half hearted results. If you feel half hearted or stop half way through this process it means that whatever you picked as your vision is not the dream that means the most to you.

Believe It: Belief is the most powerful tool a person has without it no matter how talented we are we aren’t going to get anywhere. If you don’t believe in yourself or what you are doing then you are never going to know what you are truly capable of. Belief is putting in the hours of dedication knowing that it is going to pay off. Belief is strength which will get yourself and your talent to the next level. Belief is getting back up after all knock backs and dusting yourself off and going again. Having a clear vision can really help your belief these two things go hand in hand. I am a big fan of my motivational quotes which help give me belief so I have them all scrolled on my walls of my bedroom alongside my huge piece of paper with my vision on. Every morning it’s the first thing I see and it is the last thing I see before I go to bed.

Achieve it: If you have committed yourself 100% to steps one and two then achieving it is just a formality if you feel yourself incapable of achieving then go back to step one and two and see how you can make them stronger or if you truly have chosen the vision which is closest to your heart as it may be the case that what you thought was your dream is not your greatest passion and there may be something else you missed.

I believe if everyone applied this three step plan to their lives then we would have am much happier, much stronger and a much more inspirational world. So many people haven’t taken the time to work out what it is they really want to do with their lives some people just aren’t sure what their dream is and this is who this plan is for. I have seen first hand the difference this simple three step plan can make to peoples lives. So why not now, stop what you’re doing disconnect the phone, move away from the computer and get a pen and paper out. This could change your life forever. Find me someone who doesn’t want to have a dream, find me someone that doesn’t want to live their dreams because I don’t think you can.

Just remember this three step plan isn’t instead of putting in the hard work because believe you me to achieve your dreams you have to be prepared to work harder than you have ever worked before. This three step plan is a way of channelling that hard work and giving you the vision and belief to turn your hard work in to your dream.

“Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!” + Hard work = Results

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com/