Are you looking for success?

"The accomplishment of an aim or purpose", that is the definition of "success".
The fact is that defining success in the case of a person is very difficult. And it is even a bit confusing because many times it is misunderstood and related to economical prosperity.
There are many known painters that lived poor lives and achieved fame and worldwide recognition years after their death. Where they successful? I think they were successful in some things and unsuccessful in others; maybe they had really bad relationships with their family members and even with the community.
Of course there are persons that live without economical problems but live in deep depression and personal distress. Many of them with the feeling of not really making something meaningful.
In other cases I see persons that just live the day and are not complicating their lives thinking about success; in richness or poorness they find the time to enjoy and feel success. But they can have also deep problems like all the rest.
So, after that long introduction I think I need to make some kind of conclusion.Following are my ideas:

1. A successful person is the one that reaches during a life time many of his or her aims. The person that is able to find that all the mistakes and hard times shaped his or her life and helped to find solutions according to his or her values.
2. Small successes can make a person to recover trust, therefore find bigger moments of success. Failure should be considered, like may persons know, a component of what we call experience. Replace "I failed" with "Now I know how to avoid that problem".
3. Constant effort, creativity and perseverance are definitively a good way to reach success. Sometimes life is too short but if the efforts are focused on the right direction, it is possible that later your effort could mean success for people that believed in your leadership.

The good news: there is no "quantity" related to your success. What I try to say is that it is not important starting with big aims. Starting with simple things, like getting a nice smile from a friend, coworker or just any person on the street could become your first step in the long way to a meaningful life. Don't worry so much on the result, focus on each step, might happen that on the way you will find that your aims are changing. Enjoy the process. Success will come in the right moment, for you or for a future generation.

"Feedback is the breakfast of champions" - Ken Blanchard
"Success is a journey, not a destination." - Ben Sweetland
There is a quotation that I can't find... but says something like that: "you should not play tennis focused on the score, you should play tennis focused on the ball" (If some of you finds the real one please drop a comment)

Good news for "idea makers"

I have to admit that B4Contact, the company where I work, is very creative. We have some times more great ideas that what we can achieve. Of course a good business model for each idea could help a lot to find investors and that is what we are thinking to do.
So if you would like to find investors I would like to help you in your research. Here you have some web sites of interesting companies looking for people like you!

• http://www.discoverybeach.co.uk/ http://i5invest.com/
• http://www.catt.at/i2.html
• http://www.guykawasaki.com/
• http://www.atlasventure.com/
• http://www.gamma-capital.com/
• http://www.ariadnecapital.com/

Some of the sites listed above are also sharing information about how to make business plans and other requirements.

"It's not what you know or who you know, but who knows you" -Susan RoAne

I'm processing all the information from the Microsoft WPC and I found something very interesting that could help you to manage contacts and build partnerships. It is called the "The art of schmoozing" made by Guy Kawasaki: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/02/the_art_of_schm.html

I'm sure you will enjoy reading it!

Some good news on my side

Some days ago I had the chance to know the city of Denver. It was an amazing experience and in the following lines I will try to explain the reason why.

Some weeks before the trip I received a new denomination from Microsoft and it means some responsibilities I must fulfill. That denomination is named : PAL or Partner Area Lead. Thanks to it I received the opportunity to go to the Worldwide Partner Conference and the Small Business Symposium, both of them took place in Denver.

So now I am officially a PAL and that is the first good new because it means that I should help Microsoft partners that are certified like small business specialists to get more success. Part of my role is to improve communication between them and Microsoft and of course to generate a community that will be able to improve our knowledge, increase our opportunities and for instance make better business.

I am not the only PAL in the World, there are something like 20 or 30 (PALs please confirm me the number). Each one leads one special area or region. And I'm for the moment the only one in Slovenia. Here you can read a press release in Slovenian language about it.

I'm very proud because it means that B4Contact is doing a good job for the small business sector and that makes stronger my wish to be even better and achieve better results.

Other good news come from the experience itself of being in the symposium and the conference. I never saw so many people from each different part of the planet so motivated to know people and make business. But... good people! great professionals some of them with long experience and successful careers. That means that to get in touch with great people and open great possibilities is not so hard. What could be hard is to be consistent between what we wish to offer and what we can offer to them.

I have a really good feeling about some of the persons I have met from South Africa, Canada, Uk, Australia, Germany, Serbia, US, New Zealand, Colombia and Chile. And it happens the same with some of the Slovenian persons that I had the chance to meet because of the conference. Microsoft's guys were also great! and I'm specially thankful for the Slovenian team involved in the event.

My enthusiasm became bigger on my first day of "work" after the trip when B4Contact's team showed me the progress in their tasks and the results from their activities. Now we are ready to make our best in this second half of the year.

This world is becoming smaller and smaller. The possibilities are increasing and the chances for our children are improving. We need to empower the small company like the engine for creativity and progress, no matter where. If you think that small companies will change the world please write me some message and lets talk more about the topic.