Success Archives - Page 2 of 8 - The Career Success Doctor

You Were Saying You’re Too Old For A Career Change?

Written by Natalia

So… You are thinking about a career change for so long now. You want to escape from a job that’s not making you happy and start your own business joining the team of the successful entrepreneurs around the world.

But you never make the next step because you think you’re too old for that? Well, think again!

These days, the media promote constantly the “Mark Zuckerberg model” and we read, watch and hear about entrepreneurs in their early or mid-twenties every day.

But this doesn’t have to hold you back. Many successful professionals and entrepreneurs didn’t take the big step to a career change, until their thirties, or even fifties!

In the infographic below, by ‘Funders and Founders’, you’ll find great success stories for inspiration.

The best one is Ray Kroc’s story (the founder of McDonald’s). He was selling paper cups and milkshake mixers until the age of 52! And then he built an empire! Still think you’re too old?

Andrea Bocelli and Harrison Ford were both doing different jobs until their 30’s and yet, they became famous! Mary Kay Ash was selling books door-to-door until she was 45.

So what if you’re 35, 45, 55? There is still time to do what you really love and start your own business! Entrepreneurship isn’t for millennials only. Have a look at the infographic below and be inspired. Stop thinking about a career change, and start making actions!

Infographic Source: Funders And Founders.

10 Toxic Habits You Need To Break Now To Be Happy

Written by Natalia

I will begin today’s post with a question: When was the last time you felt like the woman in the picture? And by that I don’t mean running on the fields exactly (it’s not a bad idea though!). But when do you remember yourself feeling so happy? So free? Did you know that our habits have a lot to do with our happiness? That some of our behavioural patterns are holding us back? If not, stay with me to find the 10 most toxic habits you need to break now to be happy.

We have already talked about habits and their importance for our success in previous posts. This time, instead of focusing on the good habits you need to develop, we will talk about the bad ones you need break to be happy.

How often have you felt like a caged animal? You know that something is wrong with your life, but you feel like there isn’t anything you can do about it. You want to break free, but you think that you don’t have a choice. Your environment doesn’t support you, you are worrying about everything, you are trying so hard to be ‘the one to please them all’….

And this feeling is especially common among women. We are raised to obey, to ‘be good’ and not to rebel. So, you just keep feeling miserable, trying to hold on and waiting for a miracle to happen and change your life…

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it won’t happen. You have to do something to change your life. You are responsible for your happiness. And the best place to start is to change your behavioural patterns.

Dame, in his article on Lifehack, has listed the 10 most toxic habits you need to break now to be happy. Read it and see if you recognise any of these on yourself.

“Sometimes in life, you feel like you don’t have the ultimate control. You feel like a puppet on a string that wants to break free, but doesn’t know how. It’s really quite simple.

A serenity prayer sums it up pretty nicely: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

In order to gain control over your life you need to let go of your bad patterns, especially these ten.”

Here is the link: “10 Extremely Useless Things You Need To Let Go of in Your Life”

How To Succeed At Interview – Change The Way You Breathe

Written by The Career Success Doctor

In previous blogs I’ve talked about How To Succeed At Interview using your body language, and using your voice. This latest video is all about building rapport and making that all-important good impression in less than 10 seconds using your breath. This is certainly the subtlest way to build a connection with another person very rapidly, and arguably the relationship you build is deeper than with any other method.

It’s all about noticing how the other person breathes, and matching where they breathe from, the speed of breath, and when they are breathing in and out. It works in interviews, work meetings with relative strangers, bank managers, mortgage brokers, and even blind dates!

Check out the video below for the why, the what and the how of improving your chances of interview success using this method.

Success And Happiness: What Is The Connection? Which Comes First?

Written by Natalia

If you have attended our free webinar “How To Have A Career That Really Works For You”, you already know the truth about success and happiness and how they are connected.

The fact is that it doesn’t apply to career success only, but in every aspect of your life, as well.

So, what’s the connection between success and happiness? Which comes first?

We all have heard phrases like “If only I could get a raise! Then I would be happy”. Chances are we have all made similar thoughts.

We are raised to believe that if we succeed, then we will be happy. And every time we achieve our goal, we make a new one. And we convince ourselves that once we achieve that one too, then happiness is ours! And this goes on and on forever.

But that’s a myth! The truth is exactly the opposite: Happiness leads to success! You will be successful, if you have joy and positivity in your life. You might achieve success when you are unhappy, but it won’t last. Sustainable success comes from happiness.

Lenka Lutonska in her article in ‘Advantage Woman’, discusses the same topic and provides some facts based on scientific studies about how happiness drives success in every part of our lives.

– Journals from a convent of 180 nuns showed that the nuns who shared joyful content lived nearly 10 years longer than the nuns whose entries were negative or neutral
– Unhappy employees take 1.25 sick days per month or 15 extra sick days per year
– Happy people make 37% more sales
– Happiness increases productivity by 31%, and accuracy on tasks by 19%.

When we are happy, our brain becomes more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, healthier, resilient and productive. We attract effortlessly good things, people and circumstances into our lives, and achieve our goals – big or small – with ease.

Read the whole article here: “Success or Happiness – Which Comes First?”

Shawn Achor, the CEO of Good Think Inc. and the author of two best-sellers -“Happiness Advantage” and “Before Happiness”-, spent over a decade researching and lecturing at Harvard University on positive psychology and the connection between success and happiness.

According to Shawn, happiness leads to long-term quantifiable positive change. In his article for CNN, “Is happiness the secret of success?” he states:

“Scientifically, happiness is a choice. It is a choice about where your single processor brain will devote its finite resources as you process the world. If you scan for the negative first, your brain literally has no resources left over to see the things you are grateful for or the meaning embedded in your work. But if you scan the world for the positive, you start to reap an amazing advantage.”

To find out more about this research, I encourage you to watch his popular TED Talk “The happy secret to better work” on the video below.

If 75% of job successes are predicted by our optimism levels and our brain at positive performs significantly better, then the first thing we should do in order to be successful, is to get our state of mind right.

As the psychologist says, “your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise. In fact, what we’ve found is that every single business outcome improves”.

Now that we’ve learnt how happiness and success are connected, and that happiness actually fuels success, the next step is to change our mindset.

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If you need any help on what to do to change your mindset, claim your spot on our free webinar.

Female Leadership: The Most Undervalued Traits

Written by Natalia

It’s not such a long time ago that we wrote about a piece of research on female leadership , where we saw that people have actually started to recognise women as leaders. After our last post on Top Qualities Of Effective Leaders, I wanted to come back on the subject of female leadership. And, believe me, not without reason!

I received an email on Monday night telling me I had to read a great article published some days ago on Forbes. To be completely honest with you, even as I’m writing this, I have already read the article 4 times! And every time I see in it more people I recognise; traits of women I look up to, role models, even relatives. Glenn Llopis, the author, has written the most comprehensive article on women’s psychology and way of thinking I’ve read for a long time. And from my point of view, the most extraordinary thing is that it is written by a man.

“I was surrounded by strong-willed, hardworking and purpose-driven women. It is through their leadership that the traditions, values and legacy of our family have been upheld. My grandmother, mother, wife, and sister-in-law all possess natural leadership skills and they are masters of opportunity management – seamlessly keeping us all in check while running the family household and at the same time supporting our family businesses. They have taught me that a woman’s instincts and emotional intelligence can be off the chart. They seamlessly manage crisis and change and are turnaround experts – sensing and neutralizing any signs of danger well before it invades our path. It is because of the women in our family that we are well-organized, full of love, spiritually aligned and well-balanced. We are by no means a perfect family, but we are a modern family who embraces traditions even as we adapt to changing times.”

I could almost feel you nodding while you were reading that. And even for our male readers I bet it was difficult not to think of their mother, their sister, their wife. Throughout this article, you will see attributes of almost every woman you have ever known.

These attributes are what makes women great leaders. We are born with these characteristics. These traits are in our genes. It’s up to us to make use of these traits and become the leaders we were meant to be.

Although there has been a huge improvement over the last years on rejecting gender stereotypes that want women not to be “leader material”, we have a long road ahead of us. But we can’t expect the world to see things differently, unless we teach them how to see things from another perspective. We have to show them they are wrong. We have to show them that female leadership is not just a ‘trendy’ phrase, nor a joke. If we want to change the world, we have to show them that women can be great leaders!

Read the article here: “The Most Undervalued Leadership Traits Of Women”

I’ll close with the author’s last two sentences with the hope his wish comes true: “Rarely have I read something from a man who has been inspired and influenced by the wisdom of a woman’s leadership. Hopefully this perspective helps awaken more of us to the opportunity of learning about leadership from the women in our lives, whether in the home or at work.”

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