Discover practical advice, inspiration, and insights to help you succeed in business and grow both personally and professionally.
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Finding your first job after college can be difficult. You’ve spent a great deal of time working towards your desired career, and you want to get it under way. The problem is that while you have the skills you need, you may not have the real world experience that employers are looking for. That’s why it’s important to weigh all of your options when you are searching for that first job. You may not have considered taking an entry level sales job before, but it is definitely worth investigating. Starting you career in sales can set you up for success in a number of different ways.
Communication
It’s hard to overstate just how important quality communication is. Virtually nothing can be accomplished in business or in life without clear, concise, and considerate communication. You may have the most brilliant idea in the world, one that will help your company out-pace the competition two-to-one. But if you can’t communicate it effectively, it won’t do anyone any good. Landing a first job in sales is an opportunity to hone those vital communication skills. In order to be successful in sales, you need to learn both how to listen to your potential customer and how to vocalize your point of view in a way that the customer can appreciate. Unless you know what the customer needs, and unless they are convinced that you have the solution to their problem, you aren’t going to close the sale.
Time Management
Most entry level sales jobs give you a great deal of flexibility as to how you make the most of your time. And as you get out into the field, it will become evident very quickly that time is a limited and valuable resource. This means that you alone are largely responsible for how you structure and manage your time to achieve maximum results. This is a skill that is critical for success in any professional field, and it will surely serve you well in the future.
Making Your Case
Your potential client isn’t going to seal the deal if they aren’t convinced that you have the right solution. You need to be able to summarize all of the important information and communicate how your service will solve the customer’s problem. You need to be flexible and adaptable in your approach. You need to be able to read your audience and be able to adjust as needed. These skills will come in handy later on, whether you’re selling your next big idea to the board or nailing that opening interview.
Networking
They say it’s not what you know, but rather who you know. The networking that is inherent in an entry level sales job is of great value. By learning how, when, and where to network, you’re both exercising vital business skills and creating the framework from which you’re future network will grow. You will be in contact with seasoned professionals that you may be able to enlist as mentors or supporters as you pursue your goals. You’ll connect with peers who will help to keep you informed about changes in the business. The networking that in inherent to the sales field will help you master the critical art of relationship building, which is foundational to almost any business transaction.
Negotiating
With a first job in sales, you will learn quickly that everything is a negotiation. In business and in life, moving forward often comes down to resolving the differences between conflicting parties and opinions, and that is the essence of negotiation. Since achieving success as a salesperson demands that you learn to become adept at negotiating, that skill will become an advantage you can use to get ahead in any number of future pursuits.
Goal Setting
Because your success with an entry level sales job is determined by how much effort you put in, goal setting and follow-through become vital. It puts you in a decision making position that requires your self-discipline and focus be consistently outstanding. With that skill set readily at your fingertips, you’ll be far ahead of your competition in any field. You will learn how to drive your own success and hold yourself accountable.
Grit
Setbacks and obstacles are unavoidable. Everyone encounters them from time to time. The important part is how you deal with the situation. It’s easy to get discouraged and get off track if you allow yourself to be overly affected. Salespeople know, however, how to get right back up and keep going. That doggedness and determination will be a valuable asset no matter where your career takes you. In situations where others may falter, you will thrive.
Leadership
If your first job is in sales, there is a very good chance that it will be the first opportunity you have to exercise your leadership skills in a professional setting. By taking the lead on a team or taskforce, you will have the opportunity to discover what your personal leadership style looks like. You will learn first-hand what motivates you and your team. You will understand how to empower your team to achieve their goals. Every profession needs leaders, and you’ll be ready to step up to the challenge.
Clearly, there are a number of benefits to working in sales, especially when you take an entry level sales job right out of school. When a potential employer sees that your first job was in sales, and that you excelled, they know exactly who they are hiring. There will be no doubt that you are a resilient, capable asset who will undoubtedly see any task through to completion.
Congratulations! Your college career is coming to a close and the future is exciting, but it can also be a little intimidating. Everyone’s either looking for a job or has one lined up, and the college-to-career transition might feel like a race. But the truth is, everyone’s path and pace are different, and finding success after college is about exploring opportunities and discovering where you’d like your journey to lead.
Nobody is ever fully prepared for life after college, but what it takes to succeed remains the same: focus, determination, and confidence. Below are Cydcor’s quintessential tips for success after college.
#1 Have a Focus
Landing your dream job takes time and dedication, but it helps to know where to focus your efforts. To land a job you'll love, research companies whose values align with yours, or where you can learn and grow into that position. When you know your career path, you can focus all your energy on impressing potential employers.
#2 Establish your Personal Brand
Your social media profiles say a lot to recruiters about who you are. Check them for anything you wouldn’t want to come up in an interview, and if you’re not on LinkedIn, make a profile and introduce yourself. LinkedIn allows anyone to self-publish, so seize the opportunity establish your expertise with an informative blog post. Join relevant discussion groups, and instead of asking people where they work, expand the conversation and ask how they got there. You might learn a different approach to landing your dream job and gain a reference who will put in a good word for you when you apply.
#3 Build a Winning Resume
A great resume can be a make-it-or-break-it tool for landing a great post-graduate job. When writing your resume, get plenty of feedback from friends, family, and another professionals in the field, and use language similar to what’s in the job description. Most companies use online resume checkers to filter out job applications based on certain keywords and phrases.
#4 Start Somewhere
When you find a job that interests you and has upward mobility, apply. It might not be your dream job, but landing a job is the first and most important step to getting there. You’ll gain real-world experience and chip away at student debt, but not at the expense of your dreams. It’s also easier to get a job when you have a job.
#5 Keep Learning
Yes, you just spent the last two decades learning and a lot of it wasn’t interesting. But, you also learned how to learn. Take advantage of your student mentality and learn more about what interests you and how to improve your skills. Read blogs about industries that fascinate you and seek out a professional mentor through your alumni network. Did you really enjoy an elective class that was totally outside your major? Look online or at a community college for more specialized classes, sharpen your skills, and turn it into a career. Life after college is all about applying what we know.
The reality is the world probably changed a lot while you were in college: new jobs that you haven’t dreamed of emerged, workplace culture norms evolved, and a job market with different expectations emerged. But don’t let that stop you from diving in. There’s no telling what twists and turns your career might take, but what’s important is to keep growing, keep going, and embrace the journey. Congratulations, and welcome to post-college life! Things may be different now, but if you’re open to them, exciting opportunities are around every corner.
There are only so many hours in a day, and you only have so many resources at your command. Luckily, there are a number of productivity tips you can embrace in order to get more done. Learn how to save time, increase productivity, and take control of your day. Incorporating these five productivity hacks into your routine can make all the difference in achieving your goals.
It’s fairly common knowledge that it is vital to create long term goals for yourself, to give yourself something to strive for. What you may not have considered is that giving yourself a deadline to work against can actually improve productivity! If there is an end date you need to have a project completed by, it’s much harder for you to procrastinate.
To get an early jump on your day, start planning for it the evening before. You should examine your schedule for the upcoming day to start planning out how you are going to organize work hours. Do all of your appointments make sense as they are scheduled? Do you have any materials you need to review ahead of time?
Set aside blocks of time to make phone calls or to complete tasks between meetings. Once you have the general shape of your day mapped out, write out your to-do list for the day. Capture all the important tasks that you want to complete the next day and rank them by level of priority. Choose your outfit and set it aside. You may even want to take 15 minutes and make your lunch ahead of time. That way you can get up and go immediately without any lost time.
It’s easy to get caught up in the mentality of working wherever and whenever you can manage to. Time management and being productive when you're working from home is just as important as workplace productivity. While a stop at the coffee shop to knock out a few items on the to-do list may be helpful, it’s important for you to make your home workspace your own.
Start by decluttering your space. A space free of clutter sets the appropriate mental tone to maintain your focus. This should also help to minimize distractions that may take you off task. Consider using a program to block social media and other websites where you like to spend personal time. It can be really easy to get lost in your friends’ vacation pictures when you should be taking care of business.
The first thing many of us do when we wake up is check our email. Don’t! Break yourself of this time draining habit. Stay on top of your correspondence, yes, but don’t let it dictate your schedule. Part of learning how to increase productivity is to taking control of your time. Set aside a predetermined amount of time early in the day to address emails. Start with the most critical ones, and work downwards by level of importance. If you don’t get to a lower priority email during your allotted time, it can wait until later in the day after you have completed your most crucial tasks.
You may be tempted to go full force without stopping to achieve your daily goals. However, in order to be more productive overall, MIT Senior Lecturer Bob Pozen suggests that a bit of a break allows your brain the opportunity to take advantage of one of our body’s built-in productivity hacks. That time lets your brain switch modes so it can actually process and organize all the information that has been flowing through it.
Try setting aside a period of time once a week for to conduct a review of all of your activity from the previous week. This can give you the opportunity to clean up any lingering action items, get up to date on your progress towards your goals, and gives you some time to think creatively about how you want to invest your energy going forward. Giving yourself space to breathe and collect yourself is an important step in learning how to increase productivity in a sustainable manner.
In order to truly master your life and your time, it’s important to stay focused on what you need to do and how you need to do it. These productivity hacks will help you master your own potential and stay in the present moment. Practice them every day, and soon you will be unstoppable!
Everyone knows that “Coffee’s for closers,” but sales and marketing professionals take extra special pride in knowing all the best movie and TV sales quotes inside and out. Test your quote IQ with this quiz, featuring quotes from all your favorite movies and TV shows about business, sales, and marketing, and find out how you rate against the competition.
As businesses develop their strategies for growth, more and more management teams are recognizing that outsourced sales and marketing can be their secret weapon to achieve their company’s revenue goals. Outsourcing marketing activities can provide significant benefits including fewer costs, faster growth, and greater efficiency. By enlisting the help of a sales and marketing company like Cydcor, businesses can edge out their competitors and achieve their sales goals while focusing their internal resources on key projects to drive business forward.
An expert, full-service outsourced sales company can effectively drive sales growth while also reducing the need to devote as much of your marketing budget and resources to recruiting, training, managing, and retaining competent sales staff. Cydcor can rapidly launch and grow sales programs staffed with teams who are fully prepared to represent your brand, serve your customers, and deliver sales results.
By outsourcing your sales function to a company that specializes in driving sales revenue growth, your company can benefit from having a focused, full-time sales team whose only objective is to sell and help drive revenue. Cydcor’s sales teams understand how to quickly and efficiently make an impact on customers. While your internal team works to develop your business, a dedicated outsourced sales and marketing team will be calling on decades of expertise, experience, and sales cycle knowledge to acquire new customers to fuel that growth.
While it’s certainly important to partner with the right outsourced sales solution provider, entrusting companies like Cydcor, a leader in outsourced sales and marketing services, offers the benefits of reduced financial risk: Your organization will only pay for the results it gets.
Working with an outsourced sales and marketing leader gives your company the opportunity to take advantage of years of experience in direct customer acquisition. Outsourced sales and marketing has been one of the best-kept secrets of some of the best-known brands and Fortune 500 companies in the United States and Canada for more than 20 years. With well-honed, face-to-face and multi-channel customer acquisition techniques, outsourcing can deliver faster, better results through a tested sales approach to help your company achieve its revenue goals.
Outsourcing provides a level of flexibility that might be too costly and demanding of resources to attempt internally. Outsourced sales specialists are built to handle rapidly changing sales needs and can quickly grow programs or shift resources where they are needed most to keep costs down and maximize productivity and results.
Building effective sales programs can take months—if not years—of testing, adjusting, and applying learnings before coming across a winning formula. But by outsourcing to an expert sales company like Cydcor, companies can take advantage of years of experience developing programs that swiftly deliver results. We understand how to quickly gather and apply data, adjust pricing, and create impactful offers and incentives to acquire more customers and increase revenue. Our sales processes have been honed and developed based on thousands of customer interactions, and our clients have been reaping the benefits.
Onboarding new clients and launching new programs can be challenging for internal marketing departments who may not have the infrastructure and resources in place to handle the additional workload. Cydcor, however, has a tested pilot program through which we’ve launched dozens of new campaigns. We can quickly and easily mobilize teams to introduce new products and establish territory. In addition, our experienced, in-house marketing team works in partnership with our internal sales campaign management team to develop a marketing plan including specialized brand materials and sales collateral catered toward our unique customer acquisition approach.
By outsourcing your organization’s sales and marketing functions to a leader in outsourced sales like Cydcor, your company can empower your internal team, while ensuring consistent sales results. Enlisting Cydcor’s help to build a world-class sales and marketing program gives organizations a competitive edge allowing them to save money, acquire customers faster, rapidly boost revenue, and quickly and efficiently growth their business.
Leadership is a popular topic in business, which means leadership myths abound. After all, a company cannot survive for very long without strong, consistent, visionary leadership providing direction to the team. Good leaders affect everything from big-picture growth to the daily details of operations. So, what constitutes good leadership? You may be surprised to learn that conventional thinking has shifted in the office environment. The following outmoded leadership mantras are counterproductive to building an effective, cohesive team. Being aware of these team-leading myths—and correcting them—can have considerable impact on your bottom line over time. How many of these leadership myths are still accepted as fact at your company?
Leadership Myth #1: A Leader Directs
While this statement is true to a certain degree, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. This team-leading myth evokes the distant, hands-off approach that is increasingly seen as out of touch by the workforce of today. To define effective, well-rounded leadership, the sentence should read: A leader directs by encouraging active communication and engaging employees in coming up with solutions.
Leadership Myth #2: Strong Leaders Must Always Be Right
Being able to admit when you’re wrong shows those around you that you are not unreasonably rigid and are able to adjust your views when new information becomes available. Mistakes are part of the journey, and good leaders grow into great leaders by acknowledging mistakes and improving because of them. Infallibility is not a quality that defines effective leadership.
Leadership Myth #3: Winning Leaders Motivate Through Fear
Using intimidation as a means for obtaining results is one of the fastest ways to lose the engagement of your staff. While you may have their full attention while you’re wildly gesticulating, issuing ultimatums, or otherwise creating emotional mayhem in the office, what you’re really doing is undermining your own authority by losing your employees’ respect. Instead, lead by example, with empathy.
Leadership Myth #4: Natural Leaders Command Attention
This leadership myth presupposes that leaders must be in the spotlight—getting or seeking attention—to operate effectively. In fact, effective leadership recognizes that the spotlight is best and most valuable when shared. Attention should naturally shift to various members of a well-balanced team as circumstances dictate to give each team member their moment to shine and have a unique impact on results.
Leadership Myth #5: True Leaders Are Extroverts
This fallacy incorrectly assumes that only extroverts can be natural leaders. Some of the top names in tech, such as Bill Gates, Marissa Mayer, and Elon Musk (admitted introverts all), shoot that team-leading myth right out of orbit.
Leadership Myth #6: Legitimate Leaders Have a Certain Position or Job Title
Leadership is an attitude, not a specific position. Employees at any level within an organization can demonstrate leadership, and their efforts to provide guidance to their teams should be valued. The best, most effective companies help employees hone and grow those skills to turn budding leaders into the results-driving executives of tomorrow.
Want to be a more effective leader? Start by rejecting false assumptions about the true meaning of leadership. Everyone wins when leaders encourage, challenge, and acknowledge their team in the effort to motivate them to be the best they can be. Effective leaders seek balance, learning from and admitting their mistakes. They work hard while also delegating wisely, and they lead by example. So, what are you waiting for? The most important trait of an effective leader is the willingness to step up and try.
By Dwight Coates, Chief Information Officer | Cydcor
Building a department’s strategy, holding meetings, and orchestrating the delivery of technology to our business are not the only ways people can build leadership skills. In fact, one of the most effective ways for team members to learn critical leadership skills is by helping others. There is a myriad of benefits to volunteering. Volunteering takes team members out of their everyday routines and out of the office environment. It shakes up typical work groups, team structure, and processes and it challenges team members to think differently, look to each other for input and guidance, and unite behind a shared purpose. While volunteering, team members aren’t focused on getting ahead; they are focused on completing tasks, overcoming obstacles, and accomplishing goals—which is exactly why community service projects are such powerful teaching experiences.
1.Volunteers Connect with the Whys of Life: While serving others or working on behalf of the environment, volunteering can remind team members of their own values and help them reflect on the things that are most important to them. This process helps build more empathetic future leaders, and encourages team members to engage their hearts, not just their minds, in their work. It also helps team members see the bigger picture, to realize that thier work can have an impact far beyond any single project.
2. Enables Networking: Volunteering can have an equalizing effect, mixing high-level executives with employees fresh out of college. These volunteer activities give employees the opportunity to break out of their typical work circles and meet people from whom they may be able to learn valuable leadership skills or who may be able to offer support to help them grow their careers. While volunteering, team members often form lasting friendships and partnerships.
3. Teaches the Importance of Having a Vision: When teams volunteer, they unite behind a shared vision and commit, as a team, to shared goals. Because the stakes are often so high, it is easy to create alignment within the team, and team members can see how that level of alignment can pay off in the form of rapid results. When people band together behind ideas and trust in a single vision, it is astounding how much they can accomplish, and this experience can translate back to how a team works together on behalf of company goals as well.
4.Volunteer Work Energizes: When employees are stressed, doing work that benefits others, the community, or the planet releases endorphins and lifts spirits better than any sports game or team wine night. Volunteering reinvigorates overworked employees, reignites their passion for their work, repairs bonds between team members, and makes them more efficient and productive by challenging them to solve new kinds of problems and follow different processes.
5.Trains Great Mentors: As volunteers, team members benefit by offering guidance and support to each other in different ways than they might as part of their everyday role.Volunteer work gives team members a voice who may not always have one, and allows them to step up and show leadership skills and benefits they can offer the team that may not be as easy to recognize while at the office.
6.Exposes Employees to Other Cultures and Other Ways of Working: While volunteering, teams may have to follow new systems or processes than they do as part of their daily work, and this helps to challenge their thinking and adaptability. Team members are sometimes also asked to work with people who come from different countries, cultures, and backgrounds, and this helps team members learn new skills and improve their abilities to bridge communication gaps and relate to others regardless of differences.
7. Fosters Collaboration: Volunteering encourages partnerships between those who may not normally work together. While participating in philanthropy projects with my teams, I often intentionally assign employees to tasks that force them to work alongside team members they’re not used to working with to help bridge those communication gaps and force employees to break through barriers to find solutions together.
Besides the leadership skills volunteering imparts, spending time helping others can change the way team members feel about their work. Employees want to work for organizations that stand for something, and showing a dedication to service may help to improve employees’ outlook on the company as a whole, which may support team member retention. An additional benefit of volunteering includes strengthened bonds between team members, helping them to function better as a team and produce better results. Community service and philanthropy, beyond their clear benefit to the community, are invaluable team member development experiences that no department head should overlook as you strive to help your people be their best.
Dwight Coates, Chief Information Officer, Cydcor
Dwight Coates is the technology driver for Cydcor’s customer relationship management solutions. With more than two decades of leadership experience, Dwight has had the opportunity to see, first-hand the impact community service activities can have on IT and other professional teams as they work together to achieve outstanding results.
What do you call an accomplishment that isn’t preceded by a set of goals?
A lucky break!
Setting goals is an essential stepping stone leading to any achievement. Goals set direction, allow you to maintain focus, and reflect a reachable destination. But be careful: If you make those stepping stones too slippery with misdirected purpose or too far apart with unrealistic expectations, you won’t get any closer to your dream. In fact, you may fall off the path completely. Here’s a list of common goal setting mistakes—and how to avoid them.
Don't be Unrealistic
While goals should certainly be challenging and effortful to achieve, they should not be completely out of the realm of possibility. For instance, you might set the goal to complete a marathon. On the way to pursuing that goal, however, you need to ramp up your endurance in increments. Attempting to run 26.2 miles without properly training is just setting yourself up for failure. Rather, plan a training schedule that will get you in optimum shape for the race. As motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said, “A goal properly set is halfway reached.”
Don't Overlook the Details
Have a bigger plan. If you’re setting goals to get promoted to manager by next year, there are probably many things you need to accomplish to make that happen, not just one. Think of your goals as part of a larger plan, not just arbitrary numbers. Seeking to become an author? Start by writing shorter pieces, investigating the publishing process, joining a writer’s group, and taking the steps for bigger success.
Don't Give Up After a Few Setbacks
Remember that failures are essential to growth and success. Anything worth accomplishing will probably come with its fair share of hurdles. The key to avoiding this goal setting mistake is how you handle those setbacks and the lessons you take from them.
Don't Stifle Your Passion
Set goals that you truly care to reach. Setting goals is personal, and you shouldn’t set goals solely based on what other people want or expect of you. Accept advice from well-meaning people, but avoid adopting their views as your own without doing some real soul searching. To achieve a significant goal, you’ll need ample passion and commitment, and that comes from setting goals you care about.
Don't Ignore the Journey While Focusing on the End Result
Remember that goals aren’t just about where you end up—they are also about the growth you experience along the way. If you are not paying attention to the progress you’re making against your goal, you could be left scrambling at the last minute—another recipe for failure.
Don't Overfill Your Plate
Setting an abundance of goals can sap your energy. While you want to make sure you’re focusing on all the right things, trying to achieve too many different things within the same period of time can feel scattershot and unfocused. Instead of making this goal setting mistake, and taking on seven or eight goals and then struggling to juggle them, hone in on three or four big goals and crush them.
As best-selling author Seth Godin says, “Everybody has their own Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.” So while you aim high, keep this list of DON’Ts close to keep you grounded. Soon, you will find yourself reaching new heights. If you set challenging goals that are right-sized, you will be well on your way to achieving your dreams.
By Gary Polson, Chairman and CEO | Cydcor
1. Take Control
Whenever I have struggled, made excuses, wanted something, or quit something, my Mom would tell me, “God helps them who help themselves.” Benjamin Franklin’s famous words teach us that we all control our destiny. A related Franklin quote is, “He that is good at making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”
2. Be Prepared
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” This is truly a lesson to live by from Benjamin Franklin. In every endeavor, the more I prepare, the better I do. I even use the Franklin Covey planning system.
3. Maintain a Student Mentality
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Franklin’s focus on self-development is a major theme in his autobiography. It inspired me when I read it in college. It taught me the leadership lesson that you can learn anything in business if you have the right student mentality.
4. Be a Doer
“Well done is better than well said.” As a great businessman, statesman, scientist, and philanthropist, Franklin did a lot.
5. Work Hard and Stay the Course
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” Without either of these qualities, there is no success.
Gary Polson is Chief Executive Officer and Chairman at Cydcor, the market leader in outsourced sales. With more than 25 years of business operations experience in accounting, legal and senior management, Gary has propelled Cydcor to unprecedented achievement with clients, culture and philanthropy since 2001. Under his leadership, Cydcor has increased its revenue more than six-fold since 2001 and has been recognized as “…the most respected sales outsourcing company in the world” by Datamonitor and The Black Book of Outsourcing, and one of the “Best Places to Work” by the Los Angeles Business Journal for eight consecutive years. Gary’s passion for excellence and never-satisfied approach has led Cydcor to earn both industry and employer recognition. With Gary at its helm, Cydcor has built its reputation on maintaining long term relationships with clients by consistently delivering results and by going above and beyond to help Cydcor’s clients gain market share and grow.
Excelling in the world of professional sports requires a robust combination of talent, discipline, and determination. It takes talent to channel formidable skill into performance. However, talent alone won’t get the job done. Discipline is required to put in the time to harness that talent to its highest level, and determination is what drives top athletes through the most challenging times, keeping them focused on the prize.
The attributes that allow elite athletes to excel and perform at near super-human levels are just as useful in the boardroom as on the playing field. Step up your game by adding these life lessons from sports to your professional playbook.
Have Clear Goals.
Whether it’s winning a gold medal or taking their team to the championships, athletes are always striving toward very specific goals. They dream big and lean on their drive to keep pushing their objectives forward, even when things get tough. Whatever success looks like for you, having a clear vision of your goals gives you a tangible reason to fight through setbacks and overcome obstacles. Whether you want to upgrade your infrastructure, grow your business by 200% in three years, or create a sea of change in your industry, write down your goals. Set and prioritize your objectives, define your benchmarks for success, then go for it.
Be Willing to Fail.
Some of the world’s biggest success stories started out as unremarkable failures. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school varsity basketball team. That didn’t stop him from becoming one of the greatest players the NBA has ever seen. Shrinking away from challenges or trying to avoid failure is the surest way to fail. There are bound to be difficulties on the road to success, and not everything will work out as you plan. But as Wayne Gretzky once said, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, so don’t fear failure; embrace it! Setbacks are a natural part of any challenging journey and they bring valuable lessons that help you grow as you move closer to your goals.
Practice Discipline.
Reaching the pinnacle in your field requires getting up every day, having a game plan, following it diligently, and resisting distractions that do not further your goals. Athletes stick to their training regimens, no matter what, because they understand the importance of being prepared and sharpening their skills. Driven entrepreneurs concentrate on a vision and do not waver in their resolve.
Believe in Yourself.
Having a winning mentality is a life lesson from sports to be used in all aspects of life, regardless of the career you pursue. You have to be able to visualize your success and believe you will achieve it. Vision is an essential trait in business, and self-confidence is the necessary fuel that drives that vision forward. If you aren’t “all in” with your mission, you’re going to have a difficult time inspiring anyone else.
Trust Your Team.
No matter how much talent, discipline, and determination you can summon, you still can’t do it all yourself. Even the most famous sports stars know that they need to trust their fellow team members to throw them the best passes, protect them from tackles, and clear the way for them to score. You need to be able to place the same confidence in your team that you have in yourself. Resist micromanaging and instead, empower your team with tools that emphasize personal accountability. Promoting a company culture that encourages open communication and the sharing of ideas will help motivate others as you lead by example.
The journey athletes make from rookie player to champion paints a perfect image of the long and challenging path to success as an entrepreneur. Often, it is an individual’s competitive spirit that will determine how close they’ll come to achieving their dream. Don’t spend your time fearing those edging up behind you. Use them as inspiration to work harder, do better, and get there first. After all, thinking like a winner is the first step to becoming one. Implement these life lessons from sports to achieve success.
We can all agree that April Fools’ Day is a lot of fun. It’s the one day each year when it’s perfectly appropriate for even the best behaved among us to play pranks on our friends, test our ability to fib with a straight face, and set our inner mischief-makers free. But where did April Fools’ Day come from? How long have people been celebrating? And, how do they celebrate April Fools’ Day in other countries? We’ve done some digging to answer these questions and more. Here is some background on the history of April Fools’ Day that’s sure to surprise you.
How it All Began
The origins of April Fools’ Day are actually the subject of much debate. Experts have long suspected that the holiday might originate from the period when there was a shift from the Julian calendar (when the new year started on April 1st) to the Georgian calendar (with the new year starting on January 1st). This shift happened in the 1500s; those who did not know about the shift to the new system were mocked as fools.
Another theory is that the holiday emerged from the ancient Roman day of jokes called Festival of Hilaria, which was held to commemorate the vernal equinox and honor the Anatolian Earth Goddess.
We may never know the real history of how April Fools’ Day came to be celebrated around the world, so don’t be fooled by those who claim to know the truth.
Around the World
While we love April Fools’ Day here in the states, we certainly aren’t the only ones who celebrate a day of jokes and hijinks. In France, April 1st is referred to as “Poisson d’Avril,” which literally translates to “April Fish.” French children have been known to prank their friends by taping pictures of fish onto their backs.
In Belgium, children lock their parents out of the house or teachers out of the classroom and refuse to let them back in until they offer up a treat for ransom.
In England, instead of being called a fool, you might be referred to as a “noodle,” “noddy,” “gobby,” or a “gob.”
In Portugal, where April Fools’ Day is celebrated on the Sunday and Monday before lent, it's not uncommon to have someone throw a handful of baking flour in your face.
Foolish Fiction
You might be surprised to learn that April Fools’ Day has made an impression on the literary world. In fact, the earliest recorded reference to April Fools’ Day occurred in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in 1392. Later, Mark Twain would famously say about the holiday, “This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.” (Pudd’nhead Wilson, 1894)
Famous April Fools’ Day Jokes Throughout History
Playing pranks on April Fools’ Day is nothing new. In fact, the first documented prank in honor of the holiday dates back to the 18th century, when gullible visitors would be invited to journey to the Tower of London to view the washing of the lions, which would never occur.
In 1957, the BBC broadcasted a spoof documentary about spaghetti crops in Switzerland that featured footage of a Swiss family harvesting strands of spaghetti from a field and laying them out to dry. Millions fell for the gag, calling the network to find out how to grow their own spaghetti plants.
Google has carried out many well-known April Fools’ pranks over the years, including the introduction of the fictional Google Wallet Mobile ATM in 2013. Google claimed this item could attach to your smartphone and dispense money anytime, anywhere, without an ATM. Google has such a history of elaborate April Fools’ Day hoaxes that when Gmail was released on April 1st, 2004, many assumed it was just another joke. The resulting confusion created a flurry of free publicity, which is what the company undoubtedly had in mind all along.
No matter how you choose to celebrate, April Fools’ Day is the perfect opportunity to enjoy some laughter with friends and coworkers. Most of us spend a lot of time taking life pretty seriously, and while that can help you get ahead, allowing yourself a few moments of laughter and fun each day is also important for helping you lead a balanced, happy, and healthy life.