Think of the things that you fear. Not the things that you are afraid of like spiders and clowns, but the things that you fear – the intangible, abstract concepts that rock you to your very core, and keep you awake at night. Fear is the feeling that you are about to have a major problem- that something is about to go horribly wrong, or horribly right. It is the stress that you feel just before you head into a big presentation, or the sweat that pours down your face at night when you think you are not going to make quota. Fear can be huge motivator as well as a very loud critic to contend with.

For business people of every level, one major fear trigger is the fear of success. Most people assume that that means the fear of not having success, but surprisingly, many people are just as afraid of actually succeeding as they are of failing. They may allow this fear to control them and make stupid decisions that could jeopardize their business and success. They know that they need to provide excellent customer service for instance, but allow themselves to hire inept, rude agents that drive off far more customers than they ever serve. Regardless of the how and the why, the fear of success triggers them to behave in a way that is counterproductive to business success.

Once you can recognize the trigger for you own personal fear, you can start controlling it. If you know that you fear being poor, for instance, you will be more motivated to do well in business and to succeed financially. In this case, the fear is a valuable tool, one that is likely to keep you moving forward as you work toward a level of success that will allay those fears once and for all. Never allow this to happen! Never allow yourself to say “I have conquered fear.” The fear will keep you moving, always.

Of course, if you allow the fear to get too big, if you allow it to have more power, it will engulf you. You will not be able to function properly because the fear keeps you awake at night, stops you from eating healthfully or from exercising. Your health and fitness starts to become affected. The fear moves from a rational, real feeling to an irrational monster that is ready to attack and destroy everything in its path. Fear then moves from “fear” to Fear and you are powerless to act against it.

Confronting your fears head on begins with knowing what they are, by recognizing them for what they are. Give your fear a name, a title and you start to gain control of it. Think of this analogy: A dog, a giant, slobbering beast of a dog greets you as you walk down the sidewalk in your neighborhood. You have not seen this creature before and you immediately feel the heart pounding fear send waves of adrenaline coursing through you. Frozen, you helplessly look around for assistance or at least a stick to defend yourself with. You are at the mercy of not only the large dog, but the fear that you feel as well.

Take the same scenario, but you know the dog this time. Still a large and slobbering beast, this dog is more undisciplined than vicious but a danger all the same. The dog takes a stiff-legged step toward you, growling low in his throat as a warning. The same heart pounding fear sends the same flood of adrenaline through your body, but this time you pull yourself up straight and tall and shout, “ Bone-Crusher, you go home now.” The dog recognizes his name and assumes that you are in some control of him. Shrugging his beefy shoulders, he goes on home. You did not conquer the fear, although you did send it home. You did identify it, you spoke its name and you control it.

Never think that you can be or should be free from fear in all its forms. You need some fear to keep you motivated. Identify and name the fear and its triggers and then you can do something even better than killing it off- you can control it.

After you get the idea for the business fully formulated, you will need to start reaching out to others who may be able to get your company’s plans off the ground. You will seek investors if you do not have enough money to pay for your venture and not enough experience to qualify for a loan of any kind. When you come to the investors or the loan agency if that is the case, you will establish a working relationship that will hopefully be in place for many years. No one comes to the business world thinking they only want to work a year or two and then fold. They want to be successful for a very long time, until they chose to retire or sell the company and live out the rest of their lives. This is relationship capital. Anyone you will have contact with more than a few times will have a working relationship with you- and you must nurture and grow it just like you would any other relationship in the world.

Human capital is established every time that you speak to or deal with someone that you may never have called to deal with again. A customer who is calling to complain about a product wants more than to just vent; they want to know that they have valid concerns and that these concerns matter to the company from the ground up. They want to know that someone is listening to them and that their disappointments are not going to be overlooked. They want to know that someone is going to be looking out for them, and that someone is going to make it right.

Of the three, human capital may take the slight edge of importance. After all, it does not matter how great your business idea is if you cannot get anyone to listen to your thoughts because they cannot deal with your personality. You cannot build a relationship if you do not have good human contact skills. All of the mental capital in the world will not do anything to increase your business capital if you do not have the basic human skills to back it up.

When a customer expresses interest in your product or service, they are expressing interest in your company and by default, in you. In the world of internet marketing there may be times where a million transactions can be carried out without a single human connection being made. On the other hand, there may be days where the technology itself is faulty and you will field hundreds, thousands or millions of calls from bewildered consumers. By providing excellent service at this point, you are adding value to the product that the customers are interested in, an inherent quality that perhaps no one else offers as well. How many times have you been forced to choose between two similar products with comparable prices: what is the deciding factor in your final choice? The human quality may be what edges out the others- even if it means spending an extra few bucks. Remember: most people are willing to spend a little more to be treated specially.

The bottom line to selling is creating a need for consumers. You need them to need your products and services. You need them to want to come back time and time again. Just having a great product at a reasonable price is not enough in the super competitive market places today. The edge is going to come down to the old-fashioned personal touch, even in the global, computerized world of today.

Once you have created a driving need for the products, you start to add value to your customers by treating them with a little extra care- what does it cost you to say Good Morning to a caller, even if you know the caller is going to complain? It does not cost a dime, but what does it give you in return? Perhaps a customer who was calling to complain because they were unhappy about a small detail walks away with their complaint resolved, product and discount in hand and still a loyal customer. You have saved a sale, practically ensured another sale as well and you invested nothing more than a bit of time, a cheerful greeting and a discounted amount on a product. (Your marketing budgeting should be flexible enough to take these types of transactions into account anyway). In essence, you have spent nothing at all.

The human quality in business is often lacking, especially when all marketing, sales and other transactions are handled online. Even a cheery email to say thank you for a past sale that invites the customer to a future sales event is more than just a good idea, it is imperative.

Regardless of what product you are selling, what service you are marketing, you are going to be selling to relationships. You may never see a single customer’s face and you may never even hear their voices. You may only do your business online over the computer. Who exactly do you think is placing the order at the other end? You don’t think that the computer has developed independent thinking and needs, do you?

Building relationship capital should be the easiest aspect of your business venture. It should be far easier to treat everyone with dignity and respect than it would be to get venture capital from reluctant investors, but still somehow this is the sticking point. Imagine for a moment, a business person; Susan. Susan has given a really stellar presentation on what she predicts will be a million dollar seller in its first year. The investors are impressed by the presentation and give her the venture capital to go forth with the idea. It is a good product after all, the need is there and the market is wide open for exploring. But, each of the investors has a reservation, not about the product, but about Susan herself. She seems cold, unemotional and disconnected somehow. After the presentation was over, the others all agreed to go out for a meal to celebrate. Susan simply packed her charts and graphs and left.

A month goes by and the numbers for this new product are lousy. The investors are concerned so they do some investigating. What they find is that Susan cannot keep employees because she is robotic at best- and impossible to deal with when she is frustrated. Because Susan’s employees have such a high turnover rate in nearly every department, there are poorly trained and working positions that are not right for them. Desperate for help, Susan has taken to just hiring whoever shows up without an interview.  No one who is worth having will stay in this horribly mismanaged company.

Customers are frustrated because the untrained staff lose calls, or worse do not answer them. Orders are being cancelled, products are being returned. The company that Susan is running is losing money hand over fist. The investors call an emergency meeting and discuss their options. Susan is brought in and given the facts. Reluctantly, she agrees to step down and give the day to day operations over to her second in command, Lisa. Lisa does not have a high degree from a fancy college like Susan does. What she does have is relationship capital. She is likeable and funny, but hardworking and dedicated. Within a month, most of the open positions are filled with qualified, competent workers. In two months, the flow of orders and sales is at the level of its estimated potential. The workers are well trained and happy. They are more than willing to give good customer service. Lisa keeps things running with good business sense and the intangible business assets that they do not teach in any MBA program in the world. Sometimes in business, just as in life, either you’ve got it, or you don’t. Nurture and cultivate your relationships and your business will flourish.

The human race is currently experiencing a planetary shift concerning the ways that leadership is perceived – and that change is created. All levels of humanity are affected. In the past, people were led by moguls with unlimited cash reserves and/or limitless power. Today, effective leadership is based on connecting groups of like-minded individuals – and of course, the Internet is the primary vehicle utilized to do so.

What the Internet Was Supposed to Do:

Very simply, it was originally thought that the Internet would bring people together across the world- to create one homogeneous planetary people. It has failed to do so on a massive scale. Instead, the Internet has allowed specific groups of people to make connections with one another. It has allowed people to find strength in their diversity. It has encouraged the development of segmented groups that support each other.

The Power of Social Media Engagement:

The Internet is shaped and formed every day in the largest ways by entities such as FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and loads of both personal and company-based blogs. Massive groups of people are connecting via these social networking sites and powerful changes are being created all around the planet. These transformations materialize because people are finding connections that they never had before. They’re not being forced or manipulated into thinking in a certain way; they are happy to find others that validate and support what they have always thought and felt.

Down With the Status Quo!

Transformational leaders today fully recognize the importance of bringing diverse groups of people together. They understand that there still really is power in numbers. These bold leaders of the future refuse to accept certain elements of the status quo. Just because something is a certain way doesn’t mean that it should be. And so, they go forth trying to attract other like-minded individuals and educate them about what changes need to be made. It all begins with storytelling. When the story is good, people connect and get behind it. Movements are created in this fashion – and the result is a dramatic change.

You Need No Permission to Become a Transformation Leader!

Every single individual has the power to lead – and simultaneously needs to be led. We all have areas of expertise that we can share with others. Likewise, we can all benefit from the expertise of others. We all have individual thoughts that are unique, valid and inspire curiosity in others. We all have the ability to help others connect and use their conglomerate powers to inspire positive change for the future.

Ask yourself what is unacceptable to you. Ask yourself what is really worth standing for in this life. Decide to spread your story, your thoughts and your opinions. Challenge other like-minded individuals to stand with you. Connect those people. Bring them together and give them a purpose. They are waiting for you. They need you.

If your desire is to develop a strong, unique personal brand, then you simply have to realize the necessity of discovering what you were born to do!

Finding your passion is about more than just asking yourself what you’re good at.  In fact, you can very well be good at many things, but may lack the capacity to ever become great at them.  The fact that you can cook up a mean steak on the grill certainly does not imply that you’re Chef Gordon Ramsey.

In the book Good to Great, author Jim Collins introduces the concept of “The curse of competence”.  In a nutshell, it states that many people, all people in fact, have certain skill sets that they have developed quite well.  However, our genetic programming determines the one or two things that we have the capacity to actually become excellent at.

So you see, it’s not enough to simply be passionate about something; business and passion gel together best when you also have an exceptional aptitude to represent your passion.

Personal branding is all about representing the best of who you are freely – and then backing it up.  It’s about creating long-lasting memories in the minds of others about yourself or your organization.  And no matter how you try, if you’re not passionate about which are representing, it will show through.  People just won’t believe you.  Additionally, even if you truly enjoy what you are representing, but you do not truly have an aptitude to be great at it, again you will fail.

Explore your passions and your abilities simultaneously.  Discover what you are here on this planet to do – and then offer to share that freely with everybody else in order to be effective at personal branding.  When you find what makes you effortlessly comfortable, you will be able to relax – and that is where you will start truly benefiting from a meshing of business and passion.  Your journey into personal branding is a circular one, not linear.  You need to constantly return to the exploration and discovery phase of life.  Be honest with yourself when finding your passion.  Ask yourself if something that your passion about is actually able to be used for revenue generation as well.  If the answer is no, discover more passions.

What is it about yourself that makes you great?  What is it that capacitates you to generate revenue -and that you would like to share with the world?  When you discover where business and passion intersect, you will have found what it is that will make you not only financially rich, but rich in spirit as well.