Building your empire is a simple three-step process. And one that, if you follow through to the final step, will get you there every time.

First

Recognize what you see. If most of the time you notice things that are wrong, ugly, difficult, depressing, and not what you want, it’s time to change what you see.

Success builders see opportunities. They see what is right, beautiful, good, simple, joyful, noble, and positive. In fact, they purposefully and deliberately look for those things and seek them out every moment of their day.

Being positive doesn’t always come naturally. Given any circumstance, it’s easy to see the negative. You have to deliberately choose to see the positive. 

Second

Examine your perspective on what you see. Two people can see the exact same opportunity but interpret it differently. Or you may choose to see the positive, and actually do see something positive, but interpret it in an unproductive way.

Let’s say you’ve developed your own line of lipstick. You might see a professional woman sitting on a park bench eating lunch and interpret her body language as wanting to be left alone (how convenient for the non-doer!) Or you could interpret the scene as the perfect opportunity to start a conversation about how your lipstick stays on while eating a sandwich.

Lastly

This is the vital step because otherwise, it’s all just in your head – you must do something with what you see. This is the step that trips up a lot of people.

Maybe you’re an information junkie – you keep getting smarter but don’t do anything with that knowledge. Success builders take some sort of action. Any action.

They move the ball down the field, even if it’s only a yard at a time.

It doesn’t have to be the perfect action, and very often they make mistakes, but they do take action. If you wait around ’til you get “good enough” or for the perfect circumstance, you’ve lost that opportunity to do something.

Back to our example, when you see an opportunity, you may hold yourself back because you’re not dressed just right or haven’t worked out the right thing to say, or don’t have a business card or brochure with you (seeing a pattern here? it’s all non-action).

Take action.

It may not work out just right….but on the other hand, it just might. If you do nothing, you’ll get nothing.

To summarize:

– look for income-producing opportunities (not all the circumstances that look too hard)

– interpret those opportunities optimistically

– take any forward-moving action.

That’s what success builders do – shouldn’t you?

Take charge!
– Ann

Ann Vertel, Ph.D.
Founder, American Women in Business