Motivational Tips:

1. Consequences – Never use threats. They’ll turn people against you. But making people aware of the negative consequences of not getting results (for everyone involved) can have a big impact. This one is also big for self motivation. If you don’t get your act together, will you ever get what you want?

2. Pleasure – This is the old carrot on a stick technique. Providing pleasurable rewards creates eager and productive people.

3. Performance incentives – Appeal to people’s selfish nature. Give them the opportunity to earn more for themselves by earning more for you.

4. Detailed instructions – If you want a specific result, give specific instructions. People work better when they know exactly what’s expected.

5. Short and long term goals – Use both short and long term goals to guide the action process and create an overall philosophy.

6. Kindness – Get people on your side and they’ll want to help you. Piss them off and they’ll do everything they can to screw you over.

7. Deadlines – Many people are most productive right before a big deadline. They also have a hard time focusing until that deadline is looming overhead. Use this to your advantage by setting up a series of mini-deadlines building up to an end result.

8. Team Spirit – Create an environment of camaraderie. People work more effectively when they feel like part of team — they don’t want to let others down.

10. Recognize achievement – Make a point to recognize achievements one-on-one and also in group settings. People like to see that their work isn’t being ignored.

11. Personal stake – Think about the personal stake of others. What do they need? By understanding this you’ll be able to keep people happy and productive.

12. Concentrate on outcomes – No one likes to work with someone standing over their shoulder. Focus on outcomes — make it clear what you want and cut people loose to get it done on their own.

13. Trust and Respect – Give people the trust and respect they deserve and they’ll respond to requests much more favorably.

14. Create challenges – People are happy when they’re progressing towards a goal. Give them the opportunity to face new and difficult problems and they’ll be more enthusiastic.

15. Let people be creative – Don’t expect everyone to do things your way. Allowing people to be creative creates a more optimistic environment and can lead to awesome new ideas.

16. Constructive criticism – Often people don’t realize what they’re doing wrong. Let them know. Most people want to improve and will make an effort once they know how to do it.

17. Demand improvement – Don’t let people stagnate. Each time someone advances raise the bar a little higher (especially for yourself).

18. Make it fun – Work is most enjoyable when it doesn’t feel like work at all. Let people have fun and the positive environment will lead to better results.

19. Create opportunities – Give people the opportunity to advance. Let them know that hard work will pay off.

20. Communication – Keep the communication channels open. By being aware of potential problems you can fix them before a serious dispute arises.

21. Make it stimulating – Mix it up. Don’t ask people to do the same boring tasks all the time. A stimulating environment creates enthusiasm and the opportunity for “big picture” thinking.

Master these key points and you’ll increase motivation with a bit of hard work.

In India, if 18 or 21 year old students or graduates tell their parents, relatives, teachers or anyone around them, that they have a great business idea and would like to start working on it, they would be laughed at and their idea will be dismissed as a joke. They will have more chance at convincing their elders that the earth revolves around the moon; than that they can build a successful company. Mark Zuckerberg was barely 20 when he started facebook; had people around him dismissed his idea as a youngster’s stupidity, we would still be sending emails and SMS to our friends. Forget about Facebook, Paul Allen was 22 and Bill Gates 20, when they started Microsoft. Think of all the good things we would have missed if they were stopped. Why are we still producing only employees and not employers?

There are several reasons for this. Our society seems to dawdle with the idea that business is passed on in genes and only a businessman’s offspring would possess the ability to start and run a successful business. Our educational structure is more interested in theory than the practical approach; our middle class and upper middle classes mostly stay away from businesses. Our society thinks that youngsters don’t have enough real life experience, to make the right choice; and above all, we have failed to accept failure. The truth is that, the society itself is restricting the number of innovators and genius business men it could have produced.

It is said that a child is born agnostic. Our society instills all of its traits and characters into them, and along with these traits, is the idea that business is not for us. Parents and elders seem to have pledged to make their child an engineer or a doctor and show zero interest in what their child really cares about, or wants to be. The bollywood movie ’3 Idiots’ brilliantly portrayed this aspect of the Indian society; we seem to have come to the conclusion that the purpose of life, is to take lesser risks and choose a path that offers an assured job and a lot of money. Interest and aptitude seem to have taken a back seat in the society; and in such a society there is no room for a Zuckerberg, or a Gates, or a Jobs.

An education structure, which is crafted according to the attitude of our society, cares little about anything, other than theory. The structure enables the students to get good grades and marks. But most of the students who graduate from Indian universities, have little or no real world practical knowledge. Companies are put in a difficult position when they hire these grads, as they will have to give them extensive training, to make them efficient. Nowadays, the companies also seem to have come into terms with this reality; we are literally manufacturing engineers, when what we could use more are scientists. Like in the U.S. or the UK, we need to weave in entrepreneurship to the very fabric of our society, so that the future generation will have the mentality to try something new and create a difference in this world. This can only be done through a total restructuring of education; our education needs to have more real world projects and assignment that would help students gain a practical perspective of businesses. We should move ahead from providing services and should concentrate more on research; then we will see more and more employers popping up in the country.

Parents in the country have to realize that they are training their child to be a part of someone else’s workforce, rather than becoming someone who employees the workforce. This idea of not thinking beyond working for someone else might have its root in our long history of being ruled by foreign powers, but that time has passed and we need to move ahead. A good majority of the people who made it big in this world, started trotting on that path early on; your motto should be, ‘let them be all they can be.’

“It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward,” a famous quote from Sylvester Stallone’s 2006 movie ‘Rocky Balboa’, captures the essence of winning completely. It is always about accepting failure, recovering from it and moving forward. Winston Churchill once said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Recently in NASSCOM Product Conclave, Vinod Khosla said that “I don’t mind failing, but when I succeed it better be worth succeeding.” It is attitude like this that needed to be instilled in the youngsters and not a fear of failure. We need to learn to accept failure and move forward.

Courtesy : www.siliconindia.com

Of the mistakes made by investors, seven of them are repeat offenses. In fact, investors have been making these same mistakes since the dawn of modern markets, and will likely be repeating them for years to come.

You can significantly boost your chances of investment success by becoming aware of these typical errors and taking steps to avoid them. (To read about market histories, see The Stock Market: A Look Back, The Bond Market: A Look Back and The Money Market: A Look Back.) TUTORIAL: Investing 101 For Beginner Investors

1.No Plan : As the old saying goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. Solution? Have a personal investment plan or policy that addresses the following: •Goals and objectives – Find out what you’re trying to accomplish. Accumulating $100,000 for a child’s college education or $2 million for retirement at age 60 are appropriate goals. Beating the market is not a goal. •Risks – What risks are relevant to you or your portfolio? If you are a 30-year-old saving for retirement, volatility isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a meaningful risk. On the other hand, inflation – which erodes any long-term portfolio – is a significant risk. (To see more on risk, read Determining Risk And The Risk Pyramid and Personalizing Risk Tolerance.) •

Appropriate benchmarks – How will you measure the success of your portfolio, its asset classes and individual funds or managers? (Keep reading about benchmarks in Benchmark Your Returns With Indexes.) •Asset allocation – What percentage of your total portfolio will you allocate to U.S. equities, international stocks, U.S. bonds, high-yield bonds, etc. Your asset allocation should accomplish your goals while addressing relevant risks. •Diversification – Allocating to different asset classes is the initial layer of diversification. You then need to diversify within each asset class. In U.S. stocks, for example, this means exposure to large-, mid- and small-cap stocks. (Find out more about allocation and diversification in Five Things To Know About Asset Allocation, Choose Your Own Asset Allocation Adventure and A Guide To Portfolio Construction.) Your written plan’s guidelines will help you adhere to a sound long-term policy, even when current market conditions are unsettling. Having a good plan and sticking to it is not nearly as exciting or as much fun as trying to time the markets, but it will likely be more profitable in the long term. (To find out how to make your investment plan, see Having A Plan: The Basis Of Success, Ten Steps to Building A Winning Trading Plan and Tailoring Your Investment Plan.)

2. Too Short of a Time Horizon : If you are saving for retirement 30 years hence, what the stock market does this year or next shouldn’t be the biggest concern. Even if you are just entering retirement at age 70, your life expectancy is likely 15 to 20 years. If you expect to leave some assets to your heirs, then your time horizon is even longer. Of course, if you are saving for your daughter’s college education and she’s a junior in high school, then your time horizon is appropriately short and your asset allocation should reflect that fact. Most investors are too focused on the short term.

3. Too Much Attention Given to Financial Media : There is almost nothing on financial news shows that can help you achieve your goals. Turn them off. There are few newsletters that can provide you with anything of value. Even if there were, how do you identify them in advance? Think about it – if anyone really had profitable stock tips, trading advice or a secret formula to make big bucks, would they blab it on TV or sell it to you for $49 per month? No – they’d keep their mouth shut, make their millions and not have to sell a newsletter to make a living. (To learn more, see Mad Money … Mad Market? and The Madness Of Crowds.) Solution? Spend less time watching financial shows on TV and reading newsletters. Spend more time creating – and sticking to – your investment plan.

4. Not Rebalancing : Rebalancing is the process of returning your portfolio to its target asset allocation as outlined in your investment plan. Rebalancing is difficult because it forces you to sell the asset class that is performing well and buy more of your worst performing asset classes. This contrarian action is very difficult for many investors. In addition, rebalancing is unprofitable right up to that point where it pays off spectacularly (think U.S. equities in the late 1990s), and the underperforming assets start to take off. (Keep reading about this subject in Equity Premiums: Looking Back And Looking Ahead.) However, a portfolio allowed to drift with market returns guarantees that asset classes will be overweighted at market peaks and underweighted at market lows – a formula for poor performance. The solution? Rebalance religiously and reap the long-term rewards. (Find out how to put this tip to use in Rebalance Your Portfolio To Stay On Track, When Fear And Greed Take Over and Master Your Trading Mindtraps.)

5. Overconfidence in the Ability of Managers : From numerous studies, including Burton Malkiel’s 1995 study entitled, “Returns From Investing In Equity Mutual Funds”, we know that most managers will underperform their benchmarks. We also know that there’s no consistent way to select – in advance – those managers that will outperform. We also know that very, very few individuals can profitably time the market over the long term. So why are so many investors confident of their abilities to time the market and select outperforming managers? Fidelity guru Peter Lynch once observed, “There are no market timers in the ‘Forbes’ 400′.” Investors’ misplaced overconfidence in their ability to market-time and select outperforming managers leads directly to our next common investment mistake. (For more insight, see Pick Stocks Like Peter Lynch.)

6. Not Enough Indexing : There is not enough time to recite many of the studies that prove that most managers and mutual funds underperform their benchmarks. Over the long-term, low-cost index funds are typically upper second-quartile performers, or better than 65-75% of actively managed funds. Despite all the evidence in favor of indexing, the desire to invest with active managers remains strong. John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, says it’s because, “Hope springs eternal. Indexing is sort of dull. It flies in the face of the American way [that] ‘I can do better.’” Index all or a large portion (70-80%) of all your traditional asset classes. If you can’t resist the excitement of pursuing the next great performer, set aside a portion (20-30%) of each asset class to allocate to active managers. This may satisfy your desire to pursue outperformance without devastating your portfolio.

7. Chasing Performance : Many investors select asset classes, strategies, managers and funds based on recent strong performance. The feeling that “I’m missing out on great returns” has probably led to more bad investment decisions than any other single factor. If a particular asset class, strategy or fund has done extremely well for three or four years, we know one thing with certainty: We should have invested three or four years ago. Now, however, the particular cycle that led to this great performance may be nearing its end. The smart money is moving out, and the dumb money is pouring in. Stick with your investment plan and rebalance, which is the polar opposite of chasing performance. Conclusion Investors who recognize and avoid these seven common mistakes give themselves a great advantage in meeting their investment goals. Most of the solutions above are not exciting, and they don’t make great cocktail party conversation. However, they are likely to be profitable. And isn’t that why we really invest?

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/07/mistakes.asp#ixzz1cMA2T1yH

It is a well known fact that our workforce layoffs from traditional job markets are entertaining working at home rather than fight the prospects of getting another job in the same or similar employment sector. As unemployment skyrockets, it is likely that people who have spent their entire lives in traditional, brick and mortar jobs, will transition to the Work at Home, on line opportunity. The good news is that the Work at Home populace will grow quickly, and the overall skill set in this line of work, will increase dramatically. The bad news is that these new entries will fall prey to the “get rich quick” marketers, and become quickly soured on the prospects of making any money online.

What these newbies forget is….it took them months and years to learn their prior professions. Somehow, entry into the Work at Home arena is perceived to be instantly rewarding, probably triggered by the outrageous claims of incredible daily and weekly incomes.

So how do you avoid this disappointment and get a meaningful home business career?

1. Set your expectations at the correct level. It will likely take 6 months to make a little money and a year or better before you can appreciate some relative success, and possibly consider this a job replacement. So be patient.

2. Learn, learn and learn. This profession has at least the same, if not more, requirements for learning. As with a regular job, a basic understanding and knowledge level will get you the minimum wage standard.

3. Expect to make some investments in tools and knowledge. Despite claims to the contrary, the riches story is never reached without investing a dime.

4. Expect that some of your investments will not have great value. The plethora of How To books in any profession runs the gamut on delivering value. Working at Home is no different, except that, there are more pretenders than actual experts in this fledgling sector. And when we change from traditional work venues, we simply have a tremendous challenge picking the best methods and programs and people, because we don’t have the experience to make good value judgments. If a program doesn’t pan out, cancel and move on.

5. When you are evaluating a possible program to join, check to see if there is a Contact Us link. If not, stay away from the program. If the page has a link, click on it to see what and how you might contact the management.

6. Read articles, watch videos, listen to audios and use your interpersonal skills and filters to pick the right people to listen to, and to trust. Even thou many programs are marketed in a similar fashion, the audio and video clips help make a determination about the person and the associated program.

7. Don’t forget your prior business experiences. Use many of the same yardsticks in evaluating your options on line that you did in prior business decisions. If it doesn’t pass a reasonableness test, then it’s probably baloney.

8. Focus on knowledge based programs and time saving tools, in that order. Only invest in tools after you understand their value thru the expertise gained in knowledge based programs.

9. Make investments in pure MLM ONLY when you are a very experienced online entrepreneur, or have a truly inside position. Knowledge and tools are far better investments than pure MLM.

10. Don’t give up. Stay the course and invest your time and dollars consistently.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2070777