You Will Have Results Or You Will Have Excuses

Do you want to succeed? You need to become an effective communicator. You need to be able to take an idea in your mind and present it in a way that allows people to understand, pay attention, consider the idea, and have confidence in your ability to execute the idea. Great communicators have the ability to hold the attention of the room, and subtly compel others to think or act in a particular way. They are able to earn trust and showcase credibility. They are able to present proposals effectively and have an engaging argument with someone when required. They are able to persuade. They are influential. People listen when they speak. They are confident. And because people react to them with attention and serious consideration, the confidence level grows further and further. Similarly, if you are not able to hold the attention of the room, you will experience people ignoring you and your ideas. Do people’s reactions to you make you doubt your abilities more and more? Think about what it does to you. What will it do to you long term? If every day you lose a little more confidence in your abilities, what will happen to you…

Don’t Allow People To Suppress Your Ambition

I once read a quote that said that every day you should stand guard at the door of your mind. You alone decide what thoughts and beliefs you let into your mind and your life. For they will shape whether you feel rich or poor, cursed or blessed. How you communicate with others matters. But what matters even more is how you communicate with yourself, and whether or not you allow popular lies and other people’s biases to be accepted as truths by you. One of the popular lies is that upward mobility is a rare occurrence, a lie used by the rich to steal money from the poor. The success stories like yours and mine, and bigger stories, are painted as fairytales inaccessible to greater masses. So what they are saying is a person who was born in the United States, spoke English as their first language, and had access to almost all the knowledge in the world through the public library system, is somehow at a disadvantage to someone such as me? A girl from the former Soviet Union who timidly immigrated 3 times to finally have the privilege of living in the United States, after over a…

Are You Challenging Self-Imposed Limits?

If you ever went through any of our programs, you know we often speak about breaking out of your orbit. When astrophysicists design rockets to travel to other planets or even out of the solar system entirely, they use the rotational velocity of the Earth to speed up the rockets and launch them beyond the reach of Earth's gravity. The speed needed to break free of an orbit is known as escape velocity. This push to achieve such speed has to be given to a spacecraft during launch or when it is already in orbit. One of the reasons I broke out of my orbit multiple times in my life is because I am doing things against norms. If you are going to do what is normal, you will get normal results. At best, you will get incremental improvements. If you read the books everyone reads, watch the shows everyone watches, play sports everyone plays, work as hard as an average person works, and generally do what most people do, it will be nearly impossible for you to break out of your orbit. Doing things against norms was not limited to just specific business or career actions I took. It…

What You Permit Yourself, Accumulates

A lot of people lie to the mirror about things. They look in the mirror and think, “I don’t have time to exercise. My weight is fine.” I know, I stood in front of that mirror. Around the time I entered adolescence, my father started a business of re-selling books, and my family finally had a place to live and money to buy food. I became very plumpy. All that bread … I remember one day, shortly after seeing my class photo where–with a pink face and pink shirt–I looked like an animal which is often depicted as pink and served as breakfast sausages. I decided I would lose the extra weight. I needed results, not excuses. I went on a strict diet and lost weight before entering my teenage years. And kept it off. Now I have a threshold over which I do not allow myself to go. If I see I am edging close to it, I cut calories significantly and brutally. A lot of people lie to the mirror about their goals, about their ambitions, and about how hard they work. When someone claims they have a particular ambition, all I need is to observe how much…

How Are You Programming Yourself?

Today, when I woke up in the morning, I thought to myself, “Today will be a magical day. I will have phenomenally powerful sessions with my clients that will meaningfully and positively impact their lives. I will get crucial writing and editing work done that creates tremendous value. I will move important projects forward more than I thought was possible. And I will get unexpected great news.” I do this on purpose. I am programming myself to have an impactful and enjoyable day… and life. How are you programming yourself? What have you told yourself this morning? The world around us, even the people closest to us, often subtly or not so subtly diminish us, criticize us and guilt us. They have their own agendas. Their feedback to us is often biased by manipulations, jealousies, or self-serving resentment. I think of all the spouses I see diminishing their partners for working too hard and not spending enough time with the family. Have they tried to be the sole or main breadwinners for the family? Do they have any idea what it takes to be exceptional and “move mountains” in the competitive world we are living in today? I even saw…

Two Reasons You Get Paid in the Marketplace

There are two reasons why you get paid what you get paid in the marketplace. I know many of you will be interested in this topic. Whether you are working for someone else, or you are working for yourself. How can you grow as a professional, how can you grow your business, and how can you get promoted, if you are NOT clear on the reason you are paid what you are paid? So, here are the two reasons why we get paid in the marketplace: The reason #1 we get paid in the marketplace: The value we bring to the people we serve. If you deliver a lot of value to people, and you treat people well in the process, your clients will want to continue working with you. We have a lot of clients who have been with us throughout the entire FIRMSconsulting journey. FIRMSconsulting has been around for over 12 years, and we have clients who have been with us for over 12 years. We have seen clients blossom from students with no work experience to consulting partners, top tech executives, and successful business owners. If you deliver value and treat people well in the process, people usually stay. And if they leave, they…

The Ultimate Guide To Consulting Skills For Advancement From Manager and Above

Consulting Skills as a Competitive Advantage Developing strong consulting skills such as the ability to communicate in a way that holds the attention of the room, the ability to solve complex problems in a structured and effective way, and the ability to build a peer-level relationship with the most senior executives of major companies. Developing strong consulting skills can be the competitive advantage that will allow you rise above the average and gain the momentum, respect, and opportunities you want. Not everyone working for major consulting firms have strong consulting skills. Similarly, you can develop strong consulting skills without ever working for a major consulting firm. In this post we are going to explore how to achieve career advancement from manager and above, and how to use consulting skills to help you achieve career growth. What is Career Advancement? Career advancement refers to the upward trajectory of someone’s career. Top professionals know the importance of professional and personal development. For anyone in the corporate world having a secure job to go to each week is important, but it is not enough. Humans crave progress. If we do not grow, we degrade. We do not stay still. Our skills deteriorate. So…

Start Here: Reaching Your Potential

Reaching Your Potential Approximately 6.7% of the world’s population has a university degree. Less than 1% of this select group has the intent and the will to make a difference. Because you reading this, I know you are likely a part of that small group. Thank you for being the kind of person who wants to make a positive contribution. Whether you are new to the FC community or have been a client for many years, I would like to personally thank you for being a part of our community. A community of driven and talented people around the world who understand that leadership is about implementing complex ideas and banking the benefits, which includes influencing their colleagues to act without alienating them. The challenges facing the world are too big to be fixed unless people are willing to lead. This requires teams, and often these teams must undertake innovative solutions for which there is little precedent. Whether it is poverty, climate change, a pandemic or other global health issues, inequality, income, or productivity growth—many of these problems can only be solved by this 1%. I know leadership can be a lonely and frustrating path of seeking effective, innovative solutions—and overcoming obstacles—while marshaling the resources to implement them. I stand alongside you by curating…

Procrastination: Why You Procrastinate and How to Overcome It

We started our Executive Presence, Gravitas & Structured Thinking challenge by keeping your need for being important and superior to others in check. If you missed that post, please read the previous post first. It is foundational. Today I want to focus on the importance of recovering from perpetual procrastination. We will look at why you procrastinate and how to overcome it. Is Perpetual Procrastination Holding You Back? To build an executive presence, gravitas, and the strong communication skills required for advancement - beyond junior levels where technical skills are enough to get promoted - one big obstacle on your way would likely be perpetual procrastination. Humans tend to stick with the status quo. You can speak to people, isn't it enough? You worked hard in the past to develop your technical skills. Shouldn’t it be enough for you to keep rising up? Common Procrastinating Example I see clients procrastinating working on their executive presence and communication skills because they think their current skillset is good enough to get them where they want to go, only to see their careers stall. Whether you are working for a large consulting firm, major tech company, global bank, prominent government organization, or building your own…