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Let's rethink community management.

1 Think broadly about video

Video has always been a powerful medium, but as its social consumption has skyrocketed, and the pressure to churn out daily updates has decreased, it’s really coming into its own for marketers. Consider that in newsfeed-based systems (notably Facebook and Twitter) video will autoplay silently – it’s therefore much easier to get people to watch some of a video then to really hook them in . Consider using video formats to simply animate imagery and grab attention, or if you do want to tell a longer story, load your brand upfront and grab attention early (as you would on YouTube).

2 Rethink where content comes from

I’ve seen community managers create some really fantastic content over the years and if given the right time and space, they still can, though it is a different set of skills. With huge potential scale it is now justifiable to invest more in production, or to brief it as a key requirement alongside a TV shoot. While traditional agencies have struggled with digital, they will hopefully rise to the social video challenge. It is, however, worth considering social specialists, partnering with influencers, building it into media owner partnerships or even professional crowdsourcing platforms.

3Remain open to consumers

I’m sorry social media revolutionaries, but consumers don’t want conversations with their laundry powder, chocolate bars or their next car. Putting less focus on the niche engagement that social can generate is a wise move, but don’t completely ignore it. While hopefully no longer your core objective, listening to comments can help shape strategies and responding to specific questions avoids building a negative brand perception. There are still genius moments of community management where responding quickly and funnily in line with your brand can create a wider, positive social moment for you – be wary of outsourcing moderation to the point that your brand personality gets lost.

4 Stay true to your brand

It’s crucially important that social content stays true to a brand’s identity and communicates the key messages as any channel would. Don’t be afraid to actually feature the product too, or at the very least distinctive brand identifiers, because marketing only works when consumers can easily attribute it back to something memorable. It might not be right to do a blunt product demonstration, but there’s no need to be ashamed either. Definitely don’t hide behind cheap tricks such as puppy photos or popular memes, which drive throwaway engagement but communicate nothing about the brand.

5 Data informs, but you decide

One of the dangers of social marketing is the overwhelming amount of immediate data on consumer engagement/reactions and our tendency to blindly chase it. Although understanding consumer interests and responsiveness is a useful input, slavishly following that can lead you far away from communicating anything useful about your brand. Similarly, looking at searches and views around your brand can help inform a content strategy, but if responding to those questions won’t help you tell your story don’t feel you have to. 

This sort of big data can help identify broad target audiences for specific pieces of content, helping drive personal connections at scale.

6 Ditch all that reporting

Vast effort goes into producing monthly or even weekly reports, but much of that is wasted. Certainly there are lots of data points out there, but research shows surprisingly little correlation between digital engagement and ultimate sales or brand impact. Optimising to engagement data is misleading and moves us away from true objectives . As in traditional media, we need to get used to running mid- or post-campaign surveys to establish the true impact, or even pursue ways of showing direct sales impacts. This might sound like a step backwards but that’s the reality, although unlike in traditional media you no longer have to wait weeks or months for your post-campaign analysis. A week after launching a YouTube video you can have a clear view of how it is communicating your brand from online surveys and adapt the content or media spend accordingly. On a weekly basis the main thing worth checking is how many people you’re reaching and how often, assuming your content is communicating what it needs to.

Source : http://bit.ly/1GQ7b6u

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10 ways to combine SEO and content marketing

Gone are the days when search engine optimization was enough to land your website onto Google's good graces.

Now you must to add content marketing to your arsenal of digital marketing tool if you want to gain search engines’ approval and ultimately win the heart of online users.

Given the important role content marketing now plays in the success of online business, it's time that SEO ties the knot with content marketing.

The two digital marketing tools that were once viewed as separate entities are now an inseparable couple, promising to inch businesses closer to the proverbial “overnight success. ”The amazing duo can greatly help your online business reach the pinnacle of success and outwit your competitors.

Here are 10 ways you can ensure that the two digital marketing tools work in harmony:

1. Set common goals.

Setting common goals is the first step to make SEO and content marketing work together to bring additional revenues.

Ask yourself what activities overlap between the two digital marketing techniques. Is it increased online traffic, rankings or links? How can you align the activities to achieve common goals?

The answers to these and other similar questions will give you a starting point in creating an integrated SEO and content marketing strategy with clear and focused goals and strong communication.

2. Establish key performance indicators.

Another way to optimize synergy between SEO and Content Marketing is to establish key KPIs that will track performance, and ensure that it is on track for achieving common goals.

These KPIs include content sharing, links to content, online user engagement, call-to-action conversion rates and several others. 

3. Understand your target audience.

Understanding your audience is the key part of an SEO and content marketing strategy. Create personas of the target audience and develop a unique digital marketing strategy for each group. The personas can be based on age, location, gender, hobbies or interests.

Don’t undertake any digital marketing activity without considering what your audience wants, and also what you want them to do in return of fulfilling their demand.

4. Create SEO-optimized content.

Google places great emphasis on quality content. You can make the content more relevant for the search engine by incorporating high-impression keywords. Optimizing the content in this way will allow your Web pages to become visible to online users by appearing on the search results.

Avoid overstuffing keywords into website content. In order to play it safe, limit the keyword density to 1 percent or less. This will ensure that your site doesn't get penalized by the search engine, decreasing online traffic.

5. Research high-impression and relevant keywords.

Include high impression and relevant keywords in the website. Each keyword that you select should be researched properly using online tools such as Google Planner, Google Trend, Word Stream and other similar tools.

Optimizing your content in this way will ensure that your online content is able to attract maximum number of online users.

6. Attract online consumers through link building.

Another way you can make SEO and content marketing work together is through link building. Link building is a pure SEO strategy that results in distribution of online content to a large number of targeted, qualified audiences. You can greatly increase your content’s effectiveness through these efforts.

The links pointing to the published online content is placed on various high authority and high page ranked sites. These sites attract thousands of online visitors that can be diverted to your site by placing targeted links on the site they first visited.

Enlist SEO professionals to enhance your link building strategy. Here are some reputed SEO companies, based on user reviews:

TIS India

SE Media Online

Anpee Media

7. Focus on internal link building.

Internal link building works wonders in increasing your website’s ranking along with your published content. Moreover, creating internal links will also result in improved user experience due to easy navigation around the site.

Internal link building is simple to implement, and should be part of your digital marketing arsenal. This will help to improve your ranking and guide users with the content that is relevant to them.

8. Optimize your website content’s title and headings.

Your website content’s title and headings should also be optimized using relevant keywords and phrases.

The title is displayed on top bar of the browser, and headings are included inside the content. Your title should be descriptive, persuading users to click. Headings should be catchy enough to make the content readable.

Both must also be SEO-optimized to make your content more visible in the search results page.

9. Measure your results.

Make use of various online tools to measure the outcome of your combined SEO and content marketing efforts. Google Analytics can track changes in search volume over time. You will also know which pages and content attracts the most visitors, and the keywords they type to enter the website. The information gathered can help you fine-tune your content.

10.Keep your efforts going.

Combining SEO and content marketing must be an on going effort that should not stop at any time.

Make the most of the opportunity and watch the extraordinary combination of SEO and content marketing work wonders for your organization or client. It will position you perfectly on the fast track to success.

Source : http://bit.ly/1hIC8xr

How To Get Your Content Amplified By Influencers

Do your content marketing efforts need a boost? Contributor Wojtek Mazur discusses how to identify and court influencers to help amplify your message.

Creating content can be relatively simple and straightforward, but successfully getting it out there in front of the right audience is much more difficult. To get noticed on a scale as large as the internet, you need help with the amplification of your content.

A great way to reach your target audience is through entities that already exist and matter within your sphere. To achieve this effectively, though, you need to find people and platforms that are of great influence already.

Before we delve into how to identify these key players, you should really define what value you are searching for. A large part of this is understanding what “influence” means, then finding someone who embodies these very qualities.

What Is An Influencer?

In the current world of extreme content competition on the Web, influencers are those who control the authority within a particular niche and industry. Influencers are resource persons, and thus, they command a large number of engaged followers.

Most importantly, a true influencer’s words are weighty, and therefore, they drive action. An influencer’s post is certain to inspire a conversation and engage the audience. This simply means they are able amplify your content, help you reach your targeted audience and more.

Don’t Let The Social Follower Numbers Fool You

First off all, a word for the wise: Don’t be fooled by large numbers. An account may have many Twitter followers or Facebook fans, but that can mean next to nothing. How many of those followers are active and committed users? It is better to look for someone with an engaged audience.

Compare two blogs, for instance — one with a huge number of followers with no user engagement or one with a moderate number of followers with a lot of comments and shares. The one with more comments and shares may very well be better, as their audience is not only reading the content but also having more active discussions on the matter in question. Do you want to share with 1,000 readers who might simply glance over your work or 100 who will readily share, discuss and relate to it?

Twitter is another great example. Retweets, favorites and replies are all huge indicators of an engaged following. The number of followers doesn’t matter if the content doesn’t resonate.

An account with tons of followers but few retweets, favorites or replies simply has followers who aren’t engaged. If there’s a high volume of content being re-shared, however, it shows an audience that’s paying attention and diving into the content already on offer.

Identifying Real Influencers

Simply following the trends in your niche or industry is a starter for identifying influencers who matter. A manual search also can help determine those whose opinions carry the most weight in the industry, influencing a large base of active and engaged users. However, there are also tools that have made the task of identifying and initiating contact with influencers a breeze.

Use The Right Tools To Research

The right tools will not only help you identify and create a list of influencers who matter within your niche, but they also can help you determine the behavioral pattern of each influencer based on historical data. This includes the kinds of posts they like or are most likely to share, the blogs they are most likely to visit, authors they follow and so on.

Knowing this type of information will put you at an advantage when trying to establish contact with such an influencer.

Klout

Klout grabbed a lot of attention when it launched back in 2008, as it was one of the first networks to score its users based on social influence. The service analyzes your content on multiple major social media platforms and how it resonates with users to calculate your score within a range of 1–100.

Klout is usually used for measuring your own social media impact. However, its score can be valuable if you want to get a quick overview of a given user’s social influence within your network. It also allows you to add topics of interest to your profile and to discover the top scoring experts within these particular topics.

Impactana

The Impactana app is a very complex tool that provides you with a bunch of interesting features for influencer discovery. For starters, through researching any keyword and topic, you can see top influencer profiles, along with their scores in terms of audience reach, social buzz around them and the impact of their content.

You can also view full profiles containing detailed data about each of your influencers. This information includes email addresses, a list of all existing social profiles, websites a particular influencer is associated with and a list of content he or she has authored.

Another way of benefitting from the Impactana tool is by using a keyword or platform search to discover the most influential pieces of content on the Web. Aside from the basic metrics of social buzz, such as likes and shares, the tool provides other important user engagement metrics, such as the number of views, comments and incoming links generated by a particular piece of content.

The icing on the cake is the feature that allows you to view those who shared these pieces of content. Thanks to this, you can find those who have read and actually care about the content around your area of interest.

What Can An Influencer Do For You?

Connecting with real influencers can bring you many benefits. More than just sending traffic your way thanks to amplifying social reach to your audience, a well-respected and known voice in your industry adds quality and a stamp of authority to your brand. It works like a personal recommendation, exceptionally improving your credibility.

Additionally, by linking to your platform, making mentions of your brand or referring to your posts, an influencer can help increase your rankings in organic search results. Since this signal is one of the ranking factors search engines take into consideration, you are likely to benefit from a quality backlink from an influencer in more ways than simply reaching your target audience alone.

In his presentation, “8 Things Influencers Can Do For You,” Jay Baer named eight types of influencers, along with the functions and positive actions they take on for you and your brand.

• The Megaphone: Amplifying your brand or content to their audience.
• The Reporter: Covering, reviewing and reporting your brand like a journalist would.
• The Face: Giving an identity to your brand and pieces of content.
• The Connector: Linking your brand and content with new platforms that matter.
• The Creative: Creatively setting your brand and content apart from competitors with unique strategies.
• The Designer: Giving your brand innovations in terms of ideas, contents, products and services.
• The Neighbor: Setting you up as a voice and authority within your niche through meaningful conversations.
• The Defender: Protecting your brand during the bad times.

Once you know and understand these types of influence and benefits, it helps you set your needs and determine what exactly you want to achieve. Whether your goal is content amplification alone or something else, you should adjust your research to target influencers whose qualities and behavior are the best fit for your goals.

What Can YOU Do For An Influencer?

Relationships with influencers are not a one-way partnership that benefits you alone. In fact, such partnerships work only when they benefit from you first. Asking yourself what they may need and what can you do to help out should be the first thing you do, rather than what the influencer is able to do for you right away.

Just as in everyday life, you will likely not ask for a favor from a stranger or somebody you just met a while ago. The chances you will get help are much higher when you ask someone who has benefited from your help in the past and may want to reciprocate the gesture.

As Rand Fishkin stated on an episode of Whiteboard Friday, “The interesting thing about influencers is they need new, unique content to share all the time.” Therefore, you should work to provide them with valuable content which will make them look good and help them grow their own brand and audience.

Establish And Nurture Valuable Relationships

Influencers will give preference to members of their community who engage in their conversations, follow them on social media platforms, comment on their articles, share their posts and so on. It might be worth spending some time breeding this familiarity with the influencer even before sending the first pitch.

When initiating the first contact, offer something that provides value to the influencer. For example, you might just want to appreciate his/her last article, provide constructive feedback on the post and creatively throw in an interesting angle. You might also want to mention how you shared it with your friends and colleagues and how they, too, found it very valuable.

That’s just a first step, of course. You will need to work to build genuine relationships with influencers so that in the future, should you have a piece of content you need to amplify, it will be much easier to reach out to them. This is the stage where you can explain your content or content idea to the influencer and explain why sharing such content would provide value to his/her followers and inspire a conversation.

When this works, be sure to follow up with a note of gratitude, and even maybe a shout-out on social media. This will most certainly be valuable again later down the road.

Conclusion

Real influencers have an active passion and interest for what they do, so the content you offer needs to be worth sharing.

Furthermore, it’s often better to build valuable relationships — such as by sharing their content and opening channels of communication — even before trying to get any of your own work shared. Building relationships is by far the most important aspect when aiming to employ the influencer strategy to get your content amplified.

Influencers in every niche are those who have a lot of clout, so it is imperative that you employ a strategy that grabs their attention. Remember that influencers have needs, too, and only by helping them reach their goals can you hope to benefit from them.

Source : http://mklnd.com/1hDXsnV

9 daily habits for personal leadership and top performance

All leadership starts from within. You can only truly lead others when you can truly lead yourself.

Running a creative business is tough. The constant roller-coaster of emotional ups-and-downs presenting anything from, anthemic highs when your team out perform your wildest expectations, to crushing lows when you realise that the root cause of every problem you face, may, just be your fault. 

Dramatic? Maybe, but agency owner/operators invest themselves fully, unquestionably and unreservedly in pursuit of their vision. We wake up each morning committed to progress and growth adopting ever changing roles to support ourselves and our team to get there. Motivating, leading, inspiring, advising, mentoring, supporting, teaching, coaching, learning…. 

Actually, the truth is, we also wake up each morning with doubt, questions, reservations and terrified of the unknown. In short it’s not only personally challenging but exhausting.

However, this is not an article on the challenges of leadership and the running of a successful business, this is an article on successfully running oneself.

All leadership starts within. You can only truly lead others when you can truly lead yourself.

Whatever your vision, when you choose to become a leader you also need to make a conscious choice to focus on your own personal development and wellbeing. Perhaps even more so than you already do. You may feel your first priority is to focus on squeezing more work into your already hectic schedule, finding ways to work harder or longer. However this approach creates a personal false economy as you drive your own wellbeing and consequently your effectiveness into the ground. 

The best leaders are more tactical, they prepare for ongoing challenges through their daily habits, they know when to work hard but always leave fuel in the tank for unforeseen challenges and to support others. 

Simply put, an increased focus on your own wellbeing and personal development will not only prepare you for greater success but to better overcome problems and thrive in challenging times.

Below are introductions to 9 core daily habits focused on personal leadership and growth. It’s by no means an exhaustive list but whatever stage you are at in your life or career I hope you find something here that helps you stay strong and work to your full potential. 

1. Choose a minimal lifestyle 

We live in a world constantly fighting for your attention, presenting you with an ever evolving set of choices to consider throughout the day.

Constantly considering options depletes your mental capacity, creates decision fatigue and costs attention that then can’t be spent on action. Resulting in less or no productivity, less or no appreciation and can add to a growing sense of overwhelm and stress. By deliberately limiting your options you can streamline daily activities you may currently over thinking, minimise distractions, reduce stress and create more space for creative problem solving and output. Things become much simpler and your days far more enjoyable. 

A simple example of this would be your morning routine. I’m a morning person so personally I like to wake up and hit the ground running. To automate my mornings I typically stick to the same routine and limit my options. I choose to not watch tv, read the newspaper, listen to the radio or scan social media and ideally leave checking my email till at least 9am (I wake at 6). I maintain a limited wardrobe so I don’t trip myself up into an endless loop of decision making about what to wear and I typically eat one of 3 breakfasts which I can make without too much thought. All of this allows me to protect my morning focus. 

Considering your attention and focus a precious resource the choice minimal lifestyle is a useful tool to create boundaries to protect it throughout your day. You have a choice to take control of what influences you and commands your attention. 

Less choice = space for greater attention and focus = higher quality output = greater satisfaction. 

2. Unplug

Neatly following on from considering a choice minimal lifestyle is the need to unplug from the endless distraction of digital fixes, be it social media, email or app notifications. It’s widely accepted now that our constant digital connection is fostering addictive behaviour with our devices. Constantly searching for that little hit of adrenaline, that positive reinforcement that comes with our virtual connections, likes, comments, favourites, mentions, replies... 

We all have limited cognitive capacity. That is to say our attention is not a renewable resource. You can not simply keep feeding your mind and expect it to perform well when you choose. Constant connection leads to constant context switching and digital overload distracting you from important daily tasks and effectively eliminating all focus and productivity. This has a cost not only to your focus and energy but also your business and your life. 

FOMO (fear of missing out) will crush you every time. When you’re constantly checking in or responding not only are you not present in that moment, you are not focusing on your own life’s purpose or work.

Take control by setting boundaries and choose when to interact online based on your personal agenda, not the agenda of others. Simply turning off all notifications is a big help, or better still remove social media apps from your mobile altogether (scary)! I’ve recently been building habits to distance myself from my phone as much as possible, meetings, meals, bed time, weekends and importantly anytime I spend with my children. The sense of freedom and space is a wonderful thing. 

3. Results driven - no complaining

Negative behaviour, complaining, moaning and past-tense deliberation are all traps that only sever to suck up your precious attention, emotional reserves and kill progress. Negativity can spread quickly, has a lingering effect on your mental state and will quickly transfer to those around you. 

As a leader your number one priority should be to spearhead the support effort of every member of your team in pursuit of your shared vision and ambitions. You have a responsibility to stand tall in the face of challenges and lead by example with a positive, objective, results driven outlook. 

Don’t take this lightly, it will make or break your efforts and that of your team.

Condition your present state awareness to notice negative behaviour in yourself and others and work hard eliminate it. Re-enforce positive behaviour and problem solving focused on actions that drives results. 

Nobody likes spending time with a killjoy, least of all yourself, it’s exhausting, unprofessional, ineffective and a complete waste of time.

4. Focus on your wellbeing

This is one of the most basic and fundamental habits you should nurture daily. A serious and dedicated focus on your general wellbeing and health is essential to, well... life! If you don’t care about your health, every other aspect of your life will suffer and the damage will compound over time. Here are few fundamentals to consider. 

Regular exercise.

The benefits or regular exercise reach far beyond the physical. With every completed workout you will feel a sense of satisfaction and personal achievement that will boost your self confidence which in turn will push you to achieve more. You will not only be healthier but more optimistic, confident, satisfied - happier! 

Another benefit is the mental space and clarity of absolute focus on the task in hand. Exercise can be a means of escape from daily pressures, or, to think of it a better way, a means to find some mental peace through forced focus. While your conscious mind is focused on the workout your unconscious mind will have space, space that can be filled with insight or problem solving so valuable to progression ultimately making you more productive. 

There is a staggering amount of bad advice out there regarding exercise which can be overwhelming. So to keep it simple, if you’re moving, it’s good, aim for 30 mins per day. Variety is key and find something that covers the basics, focusing on core functional movement and mobility first, followed by strength, endurance and speed.

Eat clean, eat well.

Many people eat badly, very badly. We’ve become lazy in our food choices at the cost of convenience, allowing others to make food and nutritional choices for us. Consequently it’s sometimes hard to distinguish food from product in our modern society as cheap to produce, highly processed, high profit foods are pushed to the fore in stores. 

But it’s actually quite simple - Naturally we all know the basics of what good nutritional food is, you just need to take deliberate steps towards building good daily eating habits. Here are some basics: 

Every meal should contain a balanced amount of high quality protein, carbs and vegetables or fruits. Shop local and stick to seasonal produce where possible always aiming to get your ingredients fresh and unprocessed. Avoid highly processed foods, sweets, sugar, fast food, instant meals. Finally, develop a habit of preparing your own food with high quality, fresh ingredients. This act alone will not only increase the quality of your food intake but teach you about food and your body’s nutritional needs in the process. 

Take responsibility, educate yourself about food and nutrition. You’ll be amazed how much the basics of good nutritional intake can profoundly affect your day-to-day wellbeing and consequently your ability to perform as an effective leader.   

Drink Water, lots of water.

Most people are unknowingly, chronically undersupplied with water resulting in one of the most common reasons for fatigue during the day. Every chemical reaction within the body needs sufficient water, without it your brain, heart, lungs, kidneys, nerves and muscles cannot work properly. Simply put, It is an essential medium for literally all functions of the body. 

We lose at least 2.5 litres of water daily just through respiration, sweat and exertion which is why guidelines exist to drink two to three litres (0.5 to 0.75 US gallons) per day. However if you are exercising regularly, and you should be (see above), you will need to drink more. A good guideline is to drink 50ml (1.7 fl oz) per kilogram body weight. This may produce a daunting number, for example my daily intake is 4 litres, however the benefits both mentally and physically are undeniable. 

And just clarify, this means pure water – no alcoholic, caffeinated or sugary drinks. 

Prioritise sleep, rest well, rise early.

Sleep equals recovery, mentally and physically. It’s essential to your health, daily performance and productivity.

Good quality sleep will keep you happy and upbeat. You’ll increase your ability to think clearly, manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure. During sleep the body also releases growth hormones aiding muscle growth and fat burning essential to physical recovery from regular exercise. Not only that, people who get enough sleep, liver longer and healthier lives. 

Lack of sleep on the other hand has major detrimental affects to your wellbeing. It stresses you out, increases anxiety and makes you emotionally reactive. Seriously impaired brain function slows your ability to process information and problem solve. Any period of sustained focus becomes unbearable resulting in little to no productivity. Sleep deprivation is also terrible for your health and linked to a variety of serious health problems including strokes, heart attacks, type 2 diabetes and obesity.

If you want to perform better you need to sleep better.  

Where possible be consistent in when you go to bed and rise. This will greatly improve your quality of sleep as your body becomes familiar with the routine. Aim to sleep for 7 to 9 hours but take the time to learn how much you personally need and adjust your schedule to fit. Prepare for sleep by relaxing and winding down, this means avoiding late night working as your brain will remain alert making it difficult to sleep, no caffeine (ideally from lunch time) and no devices. Eliminate any interruptions within your control (kids not included) and finally develop a habit of waking up naturally (no alarm), your days will start off so much better for it. 

If sleep is still low on your agenda consider this 'The negative effects of sleep deprivation are so great that people who are drunk outperform those lacking sleep’ - Dr. Travis Bradberry

Finally, enjoy your pleasures with moderation. A healthy mind lives in a healthy body.

5. Practice meditation and mindfulness 

Meditation doesn’t need to be some strange practice reserved for aspiring monks or yogis. It can be the simple act of sitting alone in silence, closing your eyes and observing your thoughts for just 10 minutes a day.  

Research shows that regular meditation practice is an effective treatment for stress and anxiety, promotes emotional stability and a considered, mindful approach to everyday situations. It improves self control and your ability to focus on a single task for longer and is also proven to promote ‘divergent thinking’ essential to idea generation. You’ll also sleep better. 

Meditation is the gentle practice of training and transforming the mind. Observing our relationship to our passing thoughts and feelings, learning to view them with a little more perspective. Through this practice you will naturally find a place of calm, become less critical and judgemental about yourself and others developing more harmonious relationships. You will be more accepting of the world around you, feel more content, happy and satisfied. 

Even the basics of mediation can have a transformative effect rewarding you with a new understanding of yourself and life. It becomes a state of being that can be profoundly peaceful and energising that you will naturally want to maintain throughout your day. 

"We can’t control the sea, but we can learn how to surf the waves”. — Headspace

6. Wake up grateful & show appreciation

Gratitude is simply being aware of the gifts in our lives and consciously experiencing appreciation. It’s the opposite of depression and anxiety and the positive results are tangible. Gratitude can lead to an increased sense of wellbeing, better sleep, increased energy, willingness to accept change, strength in the face of challenges and even lower symptoms of physical pain.

We can be so wrapped up in our current work-flow, project goal or our next professional challenge that we forget everything that’s happened to get us where we are. A daily focus on gratitude and appreciation reminds me of all the gifts in my life and to celebrate my life’s journey to date in balance with all those mundane moments that can be amazing sources of joy. 

You can experience gratitude in many simple ways, for example by keeping a journal or by simply focusing on appreciation for a couple of minutes. Personally, weather I write anything down or not, the important thing for me is the strength of present state awareness I feel when I focus on what I am personally grateful for. I feel positive, elated, warm and fuzzy, it makes me smile and the feeling stays with me through out the day.

It’s an essential tool for a balanced life. 

7. Adopt a growth mindset 

The way we think defines us. It defines our behaviour, actions and our relationship to learning, success and failure. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck identifies two basic mindsets we carry about ourselves, fixed and growth. 

A fixed mindset assumes our character, intelligence and creative ability are static givens we can’t change in any meaningful way. Success then, is a result of inherent qualities and striving for success becomes a way of maintaining a sense of being smart or skilled. Threatened by the success of others failure is feared and avoided at all costs as it presents evidence of unintelligence and poor skill.    A growth mindset believes qualities like character, intelligence and creativity can be cultivated through daily effort and deliberate practice. Success then, is the result of this daily effort and striving for success is a journey of leaning and personal development. The success of others presents lessons and inspiration and failure is embraced and viewed objectively, not as evidence unintelligence but as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Every day presents us with new opportunities. A growth mindset gives you an objective lens through which to view your day and encourages a passion for learning and personal development versus an hunger for approval and credibility. You will see opportunities instead of barriers, embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, learn from criticism and recognise effort as the path to success.

Believe in your ability to learn and improve. 

8. Shut out your critics.

As a leader you are an easy target for criticism and those who want to vent their frustrations. It is important to be humble and open to feedback, the trick however is to seek out feedback which is constructive and ultimately makes you a better person and leader. For all the rest, if it isn’t potentially damaging, and it very rarely is, simply ignore it. Focusing on the negative chatter and destructive opinions of others is a waste of your time and energy.  

For the criticism that you really feel can’t be ignored, resist the urge for a knee jerk counterattack and practice remaining calm, cool and considered in your response.

 It's unbelievable how easily some smart and successful leaders fall into the trap of mindless criticism and mud slinging prompted by very little. This is a mistake and reflects badly on you as a leader. A few careless words or actions could haunt you for years to come.

It's take discipline to stay objective and centred. Don't let others negatively influence your thinking or focus.

Finally, don’t fall into the trap of seeking out your critics with the intention of staying informed. It will only serve to frustrate or anger you and your preoccupation with that information will effectively derail your productivity and what should be your current focus.

We are a people that love to observe, judge and critique, weather we are qualified to do so or not is irrelevant. It happens and it always will. It's how you handle it that matters.

9. Practice self discipline 

Developing new habits requires self discipline. It takes focus, practice and patience. Fortunately this is a learned behaviour and like a muscle, with regular practice it will become stronger over time and what felt like a struggle at first will soon be very easy to maintain. 

However, let things slip and they will keep slipping. Worse still, as a leader, others look to you for guidance and inspiration and they will naturally follow your lead subconsciously accepting it’s ok to let things slip. Practice self discipline and lead yourself and others by example. 

A quote from the 6th century Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu sums this up very well. 

"Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny."
- Lao Tzu

People are naturally attracted to like minded people, those they admire or simply wish to emulate. Consider yourself the foundations of your organisation on which all things stand. That foundation needs to be a strong, clear and visible representation of the qualities you expect to see in others. If you want to attract and nurture a team of highly skilled, high performing professionals, that’s exactly what you need to be to attract that group in the first place. 

Successfully running a business is tough, be deliberate about preparing yourself for ongoing challenges through a daily focus on your own wellbeing and personal growth. Your impact on the world will only be as strong or effective as the individual you ultimately are.

Source : http://bit.ly/1Pdj2NC