“I wanna be a (insert your own wanna here) so much”. This is a phrase I hear quite a lot in my line of work. My reply to that is always “So what is stopping you?” At this point there usually comes a stream of excuses..ahem..reasons as to why they are not being what they want to be.

I was listening to the song So You Wanna Be A Boxer from the movie Bugsy Malone earlier and it pretty much sums it all up wonderfully:

Whatever it is you want to be in life, especially in business have you got what it takes?

In business, as in life there are always going to be people who are naturally good at what they do with very little effort and others who have to work really, really hard to make it look easy.

Both parties have IT – what it takes to be good at what they do.

Do you quit when the going gets tough because it is harder work than you anticipated, really proving that you don’t have IT?

Or even worse start to cut corners on the standards you used to provide instead and hope that nobody really notices and blame the economic circumstances?

Do you dread the competition taking your market share and spend unnecessary time devising ways to keep them at bay instead of ways to keep your client base loyal?

Is your business one of those that doesn’t think they really need to do a lot because you’ve pretty much been there, done that and know most of it already?

Do you do the necessary training to be the best that you can, despite the hard work that is involved in getting there?

Do you keep up-skilling to stay at the top of your game, to ensure that you maintain your postion?

Do you go that extra mile and provide more than what your clients expect because you want to be the best there is?

Do you put in the extra hours when times are tough because that is what it takes to maintain the position you are in?

Do you seek out the help and advice of your mentors or coach when you come across a problem that you can’t solve on your own?

How do you know that your business has IT? What do you do to maintain your position in your market? Who do you do your sparring with to keep your skills, your mental attitude and your business practices honed so that the next time you enter your particular boxing ring you are the one throwing the knock out punch, not the one with the glass jaw?