Whether you're an entrepreneur or a professional trying to find success in your field, you've probably already faced a failure or an obstacle that's weakened your resolve. If you haven't yet, you're going to.
Finding the motivation to continue and work past these setbacks can be difficult, especially if you lack confidence in your ideas or abilities. Some would argue that overcoming these challenges is a simple matter of gaining more confidence, or gritting your teeth and powering through them. While this level of tenacity can help you move past your core challenges, it won't help you feel more fulfilled in your work, and it won't motivate you for the future. Instead, it's likely to fatigue you, making you more vulnerable to the negative effects of future obstacles. Everyone wants to achieve success, but what does that mean? The truth is, everyone has a different definition of success, and in order to achieve, you first need to understand exactly what success means for you.
If you want to truly overcome the mental and emotional burdens of micro-failures, and position yourself with a sense of purpose and motivation, you have to stabilize your mentality with a solid foundation--and that means defining what constitutes success in your world.
Traditional Concepts of Success When asked to define success, most people cite conventional ideas of success, such as achieving independence, attaining a position of power, or amassing wealth. While these definitions of success are popular, they don't apply to everyone, and achieving these goals often leaves people without the feeling of success they thought they'd have. Pop culture is filled with characters who have achieved one of these traditional goals for success, but who are unsatisfied with it, from Scrooge to Charles Kane: valuable lessons about the illogical appeal of wealth and power. They're alluring goals, but they are often not actually what make people feel happy and fulfilled. It's impossible to set good goals unless you know which ones are going to truly make you happy. Figuring out what's truly important to you, and filtering out the influence of traditional concepts of success, is the first step to creating a goal structure and ultimately forging a path to that success.
Unconventional Definitions of Success
To many entrepreneurs and mavericks, any level of respect (or fame, in some cases) doesn't matter because they've found satisfaction in the work they do on a regular basis. For example, take the story of Andrew Warner--when he was in his 20s, he created a business that ended up earning more than $30 million of revenue per year, setting him up with enough money to do whatever he wanted for the rest of his life. However, that money wasn't satisfying. Instead, Warner founded Mixergy, an organization dedicated to helping entrepreneurs get their startups off the ground. His definition of success was being able to help other visionaries achieve their goals--and while the money helped him accomplish that mission, it was only a means to an end. Founder of Virgin and serial entrepreneur Richard Branson is one of the wealthiest men in the world. His definition of success is, "The more you're actively and practically engaged, the more successful you will feel." It has nothing to do with wealth, or power, or even leadership. To him, the notion of success is about being involved in something you care about--it may seem a bit vague, but finding and working on passion projects is a definition of success just as valuable as any conventional definition.
Finding Your Definition of Success
You may find it difficult to define your version of success, and if you do, you aren't alone. Some of the most conventionally "successful" people in the world are still struggling to figure out what's really important to them. Figuring out what your definition of success is early on is the best way to create goals that will result in true satisfaction--not just money or power. Picture yourself with all the money and time you could ever want. What would you do? Would you help promote a specific cause? Would you pursue a certain hobby or try to solve a major problem in the world? How would you find satisfaction? If you can answer these questions, you may have just found your definition of success. If not, look outward for inspiration. Look at the stories of entrepreneurs who have found personal success, or speak with your colleagues and mentors to get their insights on what success is, and what's most important in their lives. Your definition of success isn't necessarily tied to your work life, though it may be dependent on achieving other, smaller goals. For example, if your definition of success is solving a problem in the world and you need a large sum of money to do it, earning that money becomes a primary goal in your life. You just have to remember that earning the money is only a goal on the road to success--it isn't the definition of success. Accepting that perspective can help you better understand and appreciate each step of your journey to true success. A Foundation for All Your Goals Once you've figured out what success means to you, you can build the rest of your goals from there. Usually, you'll have two or three primary goals that allow you to achieve your definition of success, such as achieving a certain amount of wealth or stabilizing your business. Each of those goals will have several smaller goals it depends on, and so on. The key to staying motivated in the face of adversity or unanticipated challenges is contextualizing those shortcomings. Your definition of success also dictates your definition of failure--you've only failed if you've given up on achieving success. For example, if your definition of success is stabilizing your own business, and your first business files for bankruptcy, you can't call that a true failure; you still have a chance to build a new business that leads you to your definition of success. In Summary Taking charge of your own professional destiny with a unique definition of success will put you on the true path to satisfaction. For some, success means earning a specific amount of money or achieving a certain level of power, but for most people, those achievements won't result in satisfaction. Understanding what really satisfies you is the key to building and pursuing goals that truly matter, and grounding your temporary setbacks with context and understanding.
Phil Mora is a business consultant, speaker, executive coach and CMO at Bold. I specialize in marketing and branding, online marketing, business development and entrepreneurship. A creative problem solver with a talent for strategic thinking and communication, I combine lessons learned from more than 15 years as a high-tech industry executive with my roots as a software technologist, product developer and startup marketeer. When I am not working on client projects, I am obsessed with with sports, fitness, wellness, nutrition and anything holistic: you’ll find me at the gym or outdoors training hard. Contact me here: I look forward to connecting with you!
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It’s time you know the burning truths about your metabolism.
Most of us know the basic formula for weight loss: If calories out exceed calories in, the pounds will fall off. But what sounds so simple can actually be a bit complicated when you consider the “calories out” half of the equation. Obviously, physical activity — whether a workout at the gym or simply walking up stairs — requires energy. But our bodies also use calories to keep the lights on — our heart needs energy to pump, and our lungs need energy to enable us to breathe. This is called our “resting metabolic rate,” and along with the calories we burn through exercise and digesting food, it makes up what most of us refer to simply as our “metabolism.” Your resting metabolic rate is responsible for about 60 percent of the calories you burn. As a result, “it’s really the main target of both substantiated and unsubstantiated weight loss [strategies],” says Jonathan Mike, PhD, an exercise scientist and strength coach. Yet most of us don’t really know how our metabolism even works — we simply characterize our internal engine as “fast” or “slow,” and if it’s slow, we want to speed it up. The result? We eagerly buy into mainstream myths about metabolism that may do more harm than good. Myth #1: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it wakes up your metabolism. We’ve all heard it before: A substantial breakfast is the key to waking up a sluggish metabolism after a night of sleep. But a giant plate of eggs and bacon may not be all it’s cracked up to be: In a 2014 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, dieters who ate breakfast lost no more weight than breakfast-skippers did. In fact, downing a big breakfast may actually be a bad thing: It may delay your body’s shift from parasympathetic mode — the rest-and-restore half of your nervous system — to the more metabolically active sympathetic mode, says Roy Martina, MD, author of Sleep Your Fat Away. “During the night, the nervous system is in parasympathetic mode,” he explains. “That’s where we digest food and restore our body.” If you start your day with a big breakfast, you divert your body’s attention back to digestion and rest — and as a result, the calories you consume are more likely to be directed to your fat reserves, he says. His advice? Don’t eat first thing after waking up if you’re not hungry. “Postpone breakfast as long as you can, the reason for that is this: We can store unlimited amounts of fat, but we can only store a certain amount of sugar in our body.” So if you delay consuming carbs, your body will burn through its sugar reserves — then move on to torching fat. Of course, if you’re famished come 7 a.m., you should eat, but try to keep it light. “Just eat enough that you feel OK,” advises Martina.
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Myth #2: You need to eat every three hours to boost your metabolism.
You can blame bodybuilders for the six-meals-a-day gospel. “Bodybuilders eat 5,000 calories a day — and most aren’t going to have three meals of 1,500 calories each,” says Mike. “They’ll typically break it up.” For serious weightlifters — and the rare people who have naturally revved-up metabolisms, who Martina calls “fast burners” — grazing all day makes sense. But for the rest of us — who eat, say, 2,000 calories a day — there’s no metabolic motivation for spreading our calories out over six meals. Need proof? In a British Journal of Nutrition study, when overweight dieters ate either three or six meals a day, with the same total number of calories, they lost the same amount of weight. “Smaller, more frequent meals do not speed metabolism, compared to the same total calories and macronutrients consumed in larger, less-frequent meals,” Mike says. Plus, if you’re eating multiple times a day, you may end up overeating, allowing your mini meals to turn into full-size ones, says Michael Jensen, MD, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic. Myth #3: Skipping meals reduces your metabolism. If you don’t eat dinner, will your metabolism take a nosedive? Probably not. In order for your body’s burn to plummet, you need to restrict your calories to the point that you feel deprived, says Martina. And one missed meal isn’t enough to create a serious energy deficit — it’s only when you follow a low-calorie diet for a long time that your body goes into starvation mode, forcing it to use energy more efficiently (i.e. to burn fewer calories), he says. “Skipping one meal will never do that.” Of course, if you skip a meal, your body won’t experience the small metabolic boost that occurs after eating — but any drop in your burn rate will be so small that it’d be “difficult to detect,” says Jensen. So why are chronic meal-skippers often overweight? “Skipping a meal might make you overly hungry, so you overeat at your next meal,” Jensen says. In other words, it’s a matter of subsequent meal size — not metabolism. Myth #4: Overweight people have a slow metabolism, and skinny people have a fast one. It seems obvious: The fatter you are, the more sluggish your metabolism, right? “As a rule, that’s actually not true,” says Jensen. In fact, he adds, “there are as many skinny people as overweight people with low metabolisms.” Sure, there are slim people with lightning-fast metabolisms. “They cannot sit down for a long time — they’re kind of hyperactive,” Martina says. “They burn so much energy that they can eat much more and get away with it.” But more often, slim folks are simply in tune with their bodies — they eat only what they need, and nothing more. If they do overeat at one meal, they tend to naturally compensate at the next one, preventing them from gaining weight. And, the truth is, body weight is actually a pretty poor predictor of metabolism — body composition (i.e. how much muscle you have, versus fat) is much more important. “If you have two people, both 180 pounds, and one has 20 pounds of fat and one has 50 pounds of fat, the person with less fat, i.e. more muscle, is going to burn more calories,” says Jensen. As a general rule, however, overweight people — especially those with some amount of muscle — torch more calories per day than skinny folks, since bigger bodies require more calories for everyday functioning. So why are heavy people still carrying extra baggage if they burn so much energy? Simple: Overweight people may unknowingly consume way more calories than they torch. “Your typical normal-weight person underestimates how much they’ve taken in that day by 20 to 30 percent. Obese people will typically underestimate by as much as 50 percent,” says Jensen. “Someone with a serious weight problem may truly believe they’re taking in a very limited amount of food.”
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Myth #5: Some people must eat fewer than 1,000 calories a day to lose weight.
Unless you have a sluggish thyroid, you probably don’t need to drop down to the 1,000-calorie mark in order to lose weight, says Martina. In fact, “the only people I’ve seen who burn that little are people with long-standing anorexia, who weigh about 70 or 80 pounds,” Jensen says. So why do some dieters insist severe calorie-cutting is the only way to move the scale? Because they expect rapid results. “You’d probably lose weight if you cut back to 1,200 or 1,400 calories, but it wouldn’t be quick and it wouldn’t be consistent,” he says. Read: Your weight will drop even if don’t crash diet — but the number on the scale may stay the same for days at a time, leading you to believe the diet isn’t working. Myth #6: Yo-yo dieting will destroy your metabolism. Constantly gaining and losing has been linked to a number of health problems (including some serious ones, like endometrial cancer). But ruining your body’s ability to burn calories isn’t one of them. Although it may create temporary metabolic drops, “yo-yo dieting won’t permanently wreck your metabolism,” says Mike. Case in point: In a 2013 study in the journal Metabolism, researchers found that severe weight cyclers — people who’d lost 20-plus pounds on three or more occasions — were able to lose weight, shed body fat, and gain lean muscle just as easily as people with fewer fluctuations. So why do yo-yo’ers find losing weight to be such a struggle? “They’ve lost and gained, lost and gained, and each time, they give up sooner,” says Jensen. “Since they always regain, it seems harder each time, and they give up easier each time.” Read: Each time they try to diet, they feel frustrated faster — and assume their lack of weight loss is because their metabolism has stalled out. Myth #7: You have no control over your metabolism. Yes, there’s a genetic component to your body’s burning power. “Even if you match up people with the same amount of lean tissue, you have some who burn 400, 500 calories less,” says Jensen. “And that seems to be heritable.” But that doesn’t mean you’re locked into your metabolic rate for life, says Martina. “You can change your metabolism — for example, by packing more muscle onto your frame.” In fact, gaining muscle through resistance training is one of the best ways to offset the small decline in metabolism that naturally occurs with age, says Mike. “Typically, from age 30 to about age 80, you lose about 15 percent of your muscle mass,” he says. “You can offset that if you start lifting. The earlier you start, the better off you’re going to be as you get older.” Myth #8: The right diet — lots of green tea and chili peppers! — will boost your metabolism. As much as we’d all like to believe the right foods can work a metabolic miracle, the calorie-burning jolt some foods provide isn’t enough to affect your weight, says Jensen. “If I was eating nothing but chili peppers, I might not eat that much — because my mouth would be hot all the time,” he jokes. “But you’re not going to lose weight because of the metabolism effect.” As Mike explains, metabolism-revving foods really only boost your burn by 4 to 5 percent — and for a very brief time. “You might see a slight increase [in metabolism], but it’s mainly due to a slight elevation in body temperature and sympathetic nervous system activity,” he says.
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Phil Mora is a business consultant, speaker, executive coach and CMO at Bold. I specialize in marketing and branding, online marketing, business development and entrepreneurship. A creative problem solver with a talent for strategic thinking and communication, I combine lessons learned from more than 15 years as a high-tech industry executive with my roots as a software technologist, product developer and startup marketeer. When I am not working on client projects, I am obsessed with with sports, fitness, wellness, nutrition and anything holistic: you’ll find me at the gym or outdoors training hard. Contact me here: I look forward to connecting with you!
Google announced earlier this year that it was making a change to its search algorithms which would begin to factor in a website’s “mobile-friendliness” as a ranking signal – meaning that those sites which weren’t optimized for smartphones’ smaller screens would see their ranks downgraded as a result. A few weeks after the rollout of its mobile-friendly update, it appears that it could potentially affect over 40 percent of all business websites according to recent tests.
As Google explains, in order for a site to be considered mobile-friendly, its text has to be readable without tapping and zooming, its tap targets need to be spaced out appropriately, and the page avoids unplayable content or horizontal scrolling. In other words, the site simply needs to be easily usable from a mobile device. The company also clarifies that the changes will only affect a site’s search ranking on mobile devices – and it only applies to individual pages, not entire websites. It also only impacts searches done on smartphones, not tablets. It’s surprising how common it still is to come across websites from top brands and small businesses alike which haven’t been properly optimized for the smartphone or other smaller screens. Apparently, they do need the threat of a downgrade from Google in order to make any changes. The shift to mobile cannot be ignored any longer by anyone. According to eMarketer, the number of smartphone users worldwide will surpass 2 billion in 2016, and will come close to hitting that mark this year. In 2015, the firm said there will be over 1.91 billion smartphone users across the globe. And by 2018, over one-third of consumers worldwide will use smartphones.
That rapid shift to mobile has impacted all businesses, Google included. The company’s bottom line is affected by how many mobile users turn to its search engine to explore the web, allowing it to serve ads against searchers’ intent. But on mobile, users have often found better ways of interacting with the content and online properties they frequent – by way of native mobile applications built especially with a mobile device’s small form factor in mind and able to take advantage of mobile OS features like push notifications, for example, to retain users’ engagement.
Meanwhile, popular mobile properties like Facebook have been cutting into Google’s ad business. eMarketer noted that Google owned half of the mobile ad market in 2013, but that would decline to 46.8 percent in 2014. Meanwhile, Facebook’s share of the market grew from 5.4 percent of global ad spending in 2012 to 21.7 percent in 2014, the firm said. Google’s decision to force website owners to make their sites work better on mobile devices, then, isn’t just about making web searchers happier; it’s about making sure that Google can retain its position as a useful service in the age of mobile. 
The advantages to making a site mobile-friendly aren’t just good for Google and consumers – they’re good for site owners, too. For sites that are mobile-optimized, search sends a number of visitors to smartphone sites and contributes to a significant portion of a website’s revenue. According to a study of 100 top mobile properties by Branding Brand, search accounted for nearly half of all smartphone traffic (43 percent) in Q1 2015, up 5 percent from the prior quarter. In addition, organic search produced 25 percent of all revenue on smartphone-optimized sites.
And mobile traffic continues to grow – smartphone visits grew 35 percent year-over-year as of Q1, the study noted. Apple devices accounted for 59 percent of all smartphone visits in the quarter, during which time 28 percent of all online revenue was generated by mobile devices. You can test your website at Google's Mobile-Friendly Test page. 
Phil Mora is a business consultant, speaker, executive coach and CMO at Bold. I specialize in marketing and branding, online marketing, business development and entrepreneurship. A creative problem solver with a talent for strategic thinking and communication, I combine lessons learned from more than 15 years as a high-tech industry executive with my roots as a software technologist, product developer and startup marketeer. When I am not working on client projects, I am obsessed with with sports, fitness, wellness, nutrition and anything holistic: you’ll find me at the gym or outdoors training hard. Contact me here: I look forward to connecting with you!
Yes, Emotional Intelligence or EQ is the buzz word du jour, so understanding the basics is important in order to be in sync with the corporate gatekeepers. No seriously it’s important to pay attention. When EQ first appeared to the masses, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into the broadly held assumption that IQ was the sole source of success.
We now know that emotional intelligence is an important factor in setting star performers apart from the rest of the pack. The connection is so strong that 90% of top performers have high emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions to achieve positive results. Here’s a few things to be mindful of as you interact with others to gauge your levels of EQ and (eventually) what you could improve should you decide this is of importance to you. You Have a Robust Emotional Vocabulary All people experience emotions, but it is a select few who can accurately identify them as they occur. About 36% of people can do this, which is problematic because unlabeled emotions often go misunderstood, which leads to irrational choices and counterproductive actions. People with high EQs master their emotions because they understand them, and they use an extensive vocabulary of feelings to do so. While many people might describe themselves as simply feeling “bad,” emotionally intelligent people can pinpoint whether they feel “irritable,” “frustrated,” “downtrodden,” or “anxious.” The more specific your word choice, the better insight you have into exactly how you are feeling, what caused it, and what you should do about it.
You’re Curious about People
It doesn’t matter if they’re introverted or extroverted, emotionally intelligent people are curious about everyone around them. This curiosity is the product of empathy, one of the most significant gateways to a high EQ. The more you care about other people and what they’re going through, the more curiosity you’re going to have about them. You Embrace Change Emotionally intelligent people are flexible and are constantly adapting. They know that fear of change is paralyzing and a major threat to their success and happiness. They look for change that is lurking just around the corner, and they form a plan of action should these changes occur. You Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses Emotionally intelligent people don’t just understand emotions; they know what they’re good at and what they’re terrible at. They also know who pushes their buttons and the environments (both situations and people) that enable them to succeed. Having a high EQ means you know your strengths and you know how to lean into them and use them to your full advantage while keeping your weaknesses from holding you back. You’re a Good Judge of Character Much of emotional intelligence comes down to social awareness; the ability to read other people, know what they’re about, and understand what they're going through. Over time, this skill makes you an exceptional judge of character. People are no mystery to you. You know what they’re all about and understand their motivations, even those that lie hidden beneath the surface. You Are Difficult to Offend If you have a firm grasp of whom you are, it’s difficult for someone to say or do something that gets your goat. Emotionally intelligent people are self-confident and open-minded, which creates a pretty thick skin. You may even poke fun at yourself or let other people make jokes about you because you are able to mentally draw the line between humor and degradation. You Know How to Say No (to Yourself and Others) Emotional intelligence means knowing how to exert self-control. You delay gratification, and you avoid impulsive action. Research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, shows that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression. Saying no is indeed a major self-control challenge for many people. “No” is a powerful word that you should not be afraid to wield. When it’s time to say no, emotionally intelligent people avoid phrases such as “I don’t think I can” or “I’m not certain.” Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill them. You Let Go of Mistakes Emotionally intelligent people distance themselves from their mistakes, but do so without forgetting them. By keeping their mistakes at a safe distance, yet still handy enough to refer to, they are able to adapt and adjust for future success. It takes refined self-awareness to walk this tightrope between dwelling and remembering. Dwelling too long on your mistakes makes you anxious and gun shy, while forgetting about them completely makes you bound to repeat them. The key to balance lies in your ability to transform failures into nuggets of improvement. This creates the tendency to get right back up every time you fall down. You Give and Expect Nothing in Return When someone gives you something spontaneously, without expecting anything in return, this leaves a powerful impression. For example, you might have an interesting conversation with someone about a book, and when you see them again a month later, you show up with the book in hand. Emotionally intelligent people build strong relationships because they are constantly thinking about others.
You Don’t Hold Grudges
The negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a stress response. Just thinking about the event sends your body into fight-or-flight mode, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. When the threat is imminent, this reaction is essential to your survival, but when the threat is ancient history, holding onto that stress wreaks havoc on your body and can have devastating health consequences over time. You Neutralize Toxic People Dealing with difficult people is frustrating and exhausting for most. High EQ individuals control their interactions with toxic people by keeping their feelings in check. When they need to confront a toxic person, they approach the situation rationally. They identify their own emotions and don’t allow anger or frustration to fuel the chaos. They also consider the difficult person’s standpoint and are able to find solutions and common ground. Even when things completely derail, emotionally intelligent people are able to take the toxic person with a grain of salt to avoid letting him or her bring them down. You Don’t Seek Perfection Emotionally intelligent people won’t set perfection as their target because they know that it doesn’t exist. Human beings, by our very nature, are fallible. When perfection is your goal, you’re always left with a nagging sense of failure that makes you want to give up or reduce your effort. You end up spending your time lamenting what you failed to accomplish and what you should have done differently instead of moving forward, excited about what you've achieved and what you will accomplish in the future. You Appreciate What You Have Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for is the right thing to do. It also improves your mood because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Research conducted at the University of California, Davis, found that people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy, and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol played a major role in this. You Get Enough Sleep It’s difficult to overstate the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams) so that you wake up alert and clearheaded. High-EQ individuals know that their self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when they don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. So, they make sleep a top priority. You Stop Negative Self-Talk in Its Tracks The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. When it feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain’s natural tendency to perceive threats (inflating the frequency or severity of an event). Emotionally intelligent people separate their thoughts from the facts in order to escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive, new outlook. You Won’t Let Anyone Limit Your Joy When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from the opinions of other people, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something that they’ve done, they won’t let anyone’s opinions or snide remarks take that away from them. While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you don’t have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what other people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within. 
Phil Mora is a business consultant, speaker, executive coach and CMO at Bold. I specialize in marketing and branding, online marketing, business development and entrepreneurship. A creative problem solver with a talent for strategic thinking and communication, I combine lessons learned from more than 15 years as a high-tech industry executive with my roots as a software technologist, product developer and startup marketeer. When I am not working on client projects, I am obsessed with with sports, fitness, wellness, nutrition and anything holistic: you’ll find me at the gym or outdoors training hard. Contact me here: I look forward to connecting with you!
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Product Builder in Colorado. travel 🚀 work 🌵 weights 🍔 music 💪🏻 rocky mountains, tech and dogs 🐾
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