Heart & Mind of a Leader: Creating Your Own Path in Life Through Continuous Learning, Self-Discovery, and Genuine Leadership

Copyright © 2015 – 2019 by Alex E Kheyson. All Rights Reserved

Published by Alex E Kheyson at Smashwords

Smashwords edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

About the Author

My name is Alex E Kheyson. Personal and Professional Development is my life’s passion, and my goal is to share this passion with others through verbal and written authentic communication that comes from my heart and mind. Every day I strive to motivate and inspire other people to become better and stronger leaders, overcome their fear of change and of the unknown, in order to keep moving forward every single day, week, month, and year in pursuit of their personal and professional goals and lifetime dreams. My work is based on many years of trial and error personal experiences in the field of personal and professional development, overcoming many obstacles, dealing with challenges, failures and, of course, celebrating wins and accomplishments along the way. If you ask me what do I know about experiencing and overcoming challenges in life, I will tell you that immigrating to the United States at the age of 14, without speaking or understanding a single word of English language when rest of your family depends on you, while attending school with requirement to learn the language and to graduate in 3 years without knowing where to begin or whom to ask for help, that’s what my life was like about 20 years ago.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Facing Fears and Learning from Failures

Chapter 2 – Finding Happiness – Tips & Techniques to deal with life’s challenges

Chapter 3 – Get Up and Grind – Hard Work & Persistence as a Way to Achieve Desired Results in Life

Chapter 4 – Designing and Living the Life that You Want - Challenging the Status Quo

Chapter 5 – Self-Reflection and Discovery – Stop Worrying and Start Doing

Chapter 6 – Life-Long Student Never Stops Learning – How To’s of Personal Development and Leadership

Chapter 7 – Creating Strong Foundation and Inviting Opportunities into Our Lives

Chapter 8 – Starting and Running a Part-Time Online Business While Working Full Time

Chapter 9 – Leadership, Empowerment, and People Development

Chapter 10 – Team Development and Leadership

Chapter 11 - Interview Tips & Resources for Beginners and Experts Alike

Chapter 12 - Useful Tips for Business Professionals

Chapter 1 – Facing Fears and Learning from Failures

Overcoming Fear of Failure

What is fear of failure and why we are so often being controlled by it?

We all have fears and that is completely normal, however, how we choose to react in face of fear can determine if the outcome of a particular situation will be positive and successful or negative and result in failure. The choice that you are going to make is always yours. We often miss great opportunities in life simply because we are afraid to fail, but how do you know if you are going to fail or succeed if you never try? You don’t know the answer to such question until you give it a try and see the type of outcome it would result in. Sometimes you will fail and sometimes you will succeed, however, if you never take the next step and try you will continue to wonder what would’ve happened and remain in the same place that you were. I am not referring to any specific situation or business decision here, yet simply referring to a daily situations and decisions that we face in our business and at home. We often allow fear rule how we act, what we say and what decisions we make. Is that how we suppose to act, or is that how we choose to act?

I’ve had many situations in the past where my decisions or lack thereof, were controlled by my fear of failure. Many opportunities were missed as a result of my inactivity. The questions I had in my mind were: what if this does not work? or what if I fail? and because of those questions I was afraid to take a chance on various ideas that I had at that time. Well, guess what, I still do not know if those ideas were successful or not, because, my fear of failure prevented me from testing them.

One day, approximately 1 year ago, I was reflecting on my goals that I’ve set for myself, I realized that I will never reach my goals and my lifetime dreams if I continue to allow fear of failure to dictate my actions. Therefore, I’ve made a decision to not only listen to what my mind and what it was telling me, but also listen to my heart – my gut feel. As a result of my decision, I’ve opened my first online business without having any experience of running a business online. I’ve decided to follow my true passion in life, and that is leadership and personal development. I wanted to share my passion for leadership with other people and, in turn, help them to become better leaders, as well as develop personally and professionally. The outcome of my decision was a launch of www.heartandmindofaleader.com. I did not have any technical knowledge about website building and hosting, didn’t know how I will be sharing my knowledge and experiences with other people online, I did not have the money to launch my business either. However, what I did have was strong desire to follow my passion in life and help others who share the same passion.

Today I know more about running an online business, marketing, podcasting, blogging, and many other online platforms and services than I ever did before. Since I’ve made a decision not allowing fear of failure to determine my actions, I am able to share my passion about leadership and personal development with others through www.heartandmindofaleader.com today.

What are takeaways from my story?

Do not allow fear of failure to run your life. Listen to your heart, your gut feel, and your mind when you are faced with a decision to make. Of course, whenever you are making any important financial or investment decisions, you should consult your financial adviser or consultant. Don’t let your goals and lifetime dreams slip away and remember that your actions determine your future. Fear of failure begins and ends in your mind. Now, let’s review some mind-re-conditioning questions that you can ask yourself, followed by 10-step Failure Analysis method that I use to help me refocus and reset.

Failure Analysis Method – Mind Re-Conditioning Questions & 10-Step Failure Analysis Method

What to do if you had failed at something that you had attempted to start?

We all at some point in our lives had failed at something that we had attempted to start. This does not have to be a major project or business idea, but even something as small making a paper airplane. I know that I’ve attempted many projects in the past, big and small, in which I had failed shortly after starting them. Was that a disappointing experience? Of course, it was, however, that did not stop me from continuing and trying again.

What often happens when someone fails at a particular task or project, they stop trying, because they are afraid to fail again and experience the same dissatisfactory feeling. Additionally, after experiencing failure, some people will tend to blame either the situation, day, time, another person, or anything else they can find to blame for their own failure, versus analyzing their own mistakes and learning from them.

People that tend to point blame on situation, product, service, or someone else, tend to have a fixed mindset. They usually are not looking for ways to learn from their own mistakes or failures and improve, instead they strongly believe that it wasn’t them who made a mistake, but another person or that a specific situation was the cause of failure. As a result, people with fixed mindset tent to give up on trying again after failing the first time. Therefore, they may leave many great opportunities behind and shift their attention and focus on something else instead.

And then, there are people who learn from their mistakes, have open and growth-focused mindset, and seek every possible opportunity in learning how to re-create previously failed attempts with focus on improvement and ultimate success. In order to learn from and overcome mistakes and failures, one needs to have an open and growth-focused mind. If you give up on something that initially you were very passionate about but failed in, you may be leaving something very special to you behind, something that you did not have a chance to see or experience, simply because you decided to stop trying.

Whether you are someone who tend to have a fixed mindset or someone with growth-focused mindset, you can always recondition yourself to focus on continuous improvement and growth by simply asking yourself the following questions:

Why is this important to me (whether it is a particular project, task, new book, or your own business)?

What will I gain from stopping now?

What could be the best outcome if I keep trying and succeed? What does success look like?

What can I learn from my original mistake, attempt, or failure, to ensure that it does not happen again?

How will I feel when I finally succeed?

How will I feel knowing that I have stopped, being potentially a step away from succeeding?

What do I need to change or adjust to ensure that I am successful next time?

These are the questions that I ask myself when I face a failure. By doing so I re-condition my mind to focus on finding an opportunity in every failure, learn from my mistakes and try harder, until I finally reach success. Last thing that I want is to look back 5-10 years and regret that I could have done something to reach my goal or dream, but because I had stopped trying, the life-time dream was placed on pause or even worse forgotten.

If your dream is to start your own business and pursue your passion in life, don’t stop trying simply because you may be facing some small or even large obstacles or limitations, regardless what they may be. You may be working an 8-5 job and putting in 40-50+ hours weekly and don’t see a way of starting something of your own, something that you love, while continuing working your day job. You may be thinking that I only have 2-4 hours every evening or less that I can spend at home with my family and children before it is time to eat dinner and go to sleep. You may also be facing financial challenges right this moment in your life and not seeing any way possible in finding resources to start your business after paying all of your bills and putting food your family’s table.

Well, guess what, I’ve been there and had faced every single obstacle mentioned earlier. If I had stopped trying and gave up, I would never start my own business online in order to pursue my passion in life, which is helping other people to become better, stronger, and more confident leaders, as well as helping them to develop personally and professionally by sharing my personal leadership experiences and knowledge.

So, please, do not stop trying of reaching your lifetime dream simply because you had failed once or several times before. Just know that you may be one step or one attempt away from success of reaching your life-time dream. Keep going, keep making mistakes, learning from them, and trying again and again until you succeed

10 – Step Failure Analysis:

1.Failure acceptance – understand and accept the failure

2.On paper list all potential reasons which could have contributed to the failed outcome

3.Review each reason separately and begin brainstorming potential solutions or alternative steps to try

4.Ask for feedback from the people whom you know and trust

5.If you are facing a financial roadblock and simply do not have required financial capital to start, look for alternative free ways to get going. It may not be exactly how you envisioned at the beginning stages, but at least it is a start. You can always revisit non-free options once you are in the position to do so

6.If you are facing motivational roadblock, find and watch or listen several great motivational videos on YouTube or podcasts. There are many great motivational and inspirational videos available online. If you need some suggestions, just let me know.

7.Don’t procrastinate. Don’t put your dream on backburner, act quickly. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to start again.

8.Find a good mentor to encourage and support you along the way. If you think that this was your last roadblock, you are wrong. That is why a mentor, someone who will keep you accountable and support you is a good idea.

9.Stay focused on your goal every day, regardless how difficult it may be at times

10.Ask yourself mind-refocusing questions, mentioned earlier in this e-book, in order to re-condition and re-focus your mind.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes

There are so many people in this world who have so much potential to be successful, but what’s holding them back is fear, fear of making mistakes.

We have been conditioned that failure or making a mistake is bad and looked at as a negative. Many of us grow up hearing that we should always be the best, make only the highest grades in school, be the best in any extracurricular activities we participate in, and so on. Even as adults we are conditioned to be the best employees in the companies we work in and have no room to make any mistakes, because we are expected to be perfect.

Such conditioning is so engrained in us that we view a mistake, regardless of its size, as a failure, and usually hesitant to keep trying because we do not want to be in the same position again, the position of failure. Instead of trying again and learn from our failures, many people choose simpler and easier to attain tasks and goals. So, how do we expect to accomplish something great when all we settle for is simplicity and goals that can be accomplished by almost anyone? The expectation of achieving something great should be aligned to the appropriate level of effort required to achieve greatness. The question we should ask ourselves is when were great victories ever achieved without mistakes and failures? As far as I know, the answer is never. We usually would never know if something is working as designed until we test our ideas in real life.

Origins of safety or mistake-free zone and expectation of greatness

So, what are the origins or sources of our mistake-free conditioning, and where does expectation of perfection come from?

In most cases, it originates with our parents who, of course, want only the best for their children, and therefore, expect for us to be the best wherever we may be and regardless of our age. Our parents expect us to do very well in school, be at the top of our class, receive full ride scholarships, and go to the best and most prestigious universities to receive education necessary to pursue our dream career. I say our dream career, but is this really the case, or are we often pursuing our parents’ dreams that they expect for us to pursue? In many situations, our parents had to work very hard and overcome many obstacles to give us the life that they want for us to have – safe, and rewarding life-style, where we encounter only minor risks, and usually our parents are there to resolve them for us.

This is definitely very comfortable and safe environment, but how much are we actually growing and developing personally and professionally in such protected environment? We are afraid to make mistakes; therefore, we are not trying to start something new that may have a chance of failure or risk. We do not want to disappoint ourselves and, of course, our parents who only expect the best from us. When we make mistakes or try something new and different, something that we want, and then fail, we beat ourselves up for trying, risking, wishing to change something, and potentially disappoint our parents as a result. We want and expect to be perfect because that’s all we know and what is expected of us. Our lack of persistence, bravery, and belief in ourselves, despite the popular belief, limits our opportunities that we would otherwise pursue and eventually succeed, finding what we really want for ourselves.

Other origins or sources of mistake-free conditioning

The other sources or origins where mistakes may be discouraged and only perfection expected are our own peer groups with whom we interact and environment in which we grew up in.

Peer-Group Effect

If people with whom we interact everyday view failure, risk, and mistakes as negative and something to avoid, vs. as an opportunity to learn from, we begin to think and act as people around us, even though somewhere deep inside we may feel differently. However, because we want to fit in, we tend to keep our ideas to ourselves, potentially missing great opportunities to keep moving forward in pursuit of our own goals.

Environment Effect

Environment in which we grew up in plays a big role in what we do as adults. Generally, if risk taking or mistake making were viewed unfavorable in the environment that we were/are in, we would follow the same point of view as we grew older. For example, if all you see growing up is your parents and other people around you working regular 9-5 jobs every day, staying at their jobs for many years, usually in the same or similar position, and then eventually retire, your understanding of what’s expected in your situation may be very similar, whether that’s the case or not. Expectation of securing a steady job, which requires you to put in 80+ hours per week and remain at that job for many years until retirement, whether you enjoy what you do or not. Therefore, if this is not what you want yourself, and you want to pursue our own dreams and do what you truly love, you have ability to change where you are, explore new opportunities and new experiences.

Points to takeaway:

Every person has an ability to seek what they want in life, what they want themselves, not necessarily what other people want or expect from them. You need to ask yourself what is important to you at this point in your life and whether you are willing to make necessary changes, make mistakes, face failures and hard work, to achieve what you want. If the answer is yes, then you have necessary foundation to change your present and begin to follow your dreams. Also, as you are conducting self-analysis determining what may be stopping you from taking action today, please review next section of this chapter on Fear of Change.

Fear of change – Inhibitor of Growth and Success

Mislabeling of Change

Change, even the word by itself sounds scary and gives a sense of discomfort. Change typically involves stepping away from the norm and business as usual way of doing things, and step into something new, unexplored territory, change in lifestyle, habits, business practices, way of thinking. When we think about change, fear of the unknown overwhelms us with wave of negative thoughts and concerns. But why do we immediately focus on the negative when we think about change? Is change something that we should fear or is it an opportunity to start new, start fresh, and re-create your life for a better?

Change in Our Lives

Change is a driver of growth and progress in any environment or phase of our life. Therefore, it should not be viewed or regarded as something negative or fearful. Change should be something that we look forward to versus trying to avoid. When we attempt to avoid change, we are telling ourselves and everyone around us that we are comfortable where we are now and do now want anything more, we are happy with the way life goes and prefer to keep everything the way it is. But, is that really the truth or are we simply telling ourselves and others that we are afraid of the unknown. Now we know exactly where we are, what we have, how it is going to be in the next 5-15 years, but when change comes to play, we refuse to think about it or accept it as an opportunity to explore something new and different, perhaps something more fulfilling and exciting.

Readiness for change

When we choose to accept change, we tell everyone and the universe that we are ready for more, for something greater and not satisfied to continue sitting in the same place for the rest of our life. When we are open and willing to embrace change, we would begin to notice changes in our life, new opportunities, new challenges, and new ways to invest into personal and professional growth. I am not saying that change is always simple and comes easy. Often, we are faced with challenges and obstacles along the way, especially at the beginning of a new journey. However, during these times of change that’s when we learn and acquire new skills and enhance our existing strengths to prepare us for a new journey.

Exploring the world around us

When we change where we live from geographical perspective and move somewhere else, somewhere new, we meet new people, new cultures, new way of life, which helps us to expand our knowledge and introduce new and different perspectives into our character development while continuing growing as a person. Staying in one place all of our life will never get us there, unless we are in a position to travel around the world and explore multicultural and vibrant world around us on the regular basis.

Change in the mindset – ‘Minimum Wage Mindset or ‘Success and Growth Mindset’

The other way of experiencing change is by changing our mindset and go from ‘minimum wage mindset’ to ‘success and growth mindset’. We often talk about how much we want to change where we are today - living paycheck to paycheck, never seeing world around us due to lack of resources or time, because, we try to save few dollars to be able to buy basic necessities and for gifts for birthdays and holidays. However, someone with a ‘minimum wage mindset’ is not taking any steps to change where they are today and actually start doing something that sets them on a path of progress and change. By ‘minimum wage mindset’ I am not referring to someone who is broke, but to someone who’s mindset is set on unwillingness to act or trying something new and different to change their life for a better, whatever that may be for them – more time with family and kids, more money, bigger house, better or newer car, etc. We all have different goals in life, therefore, what’s important to me, may not be as important to someone else. Therefore, we have to choose and go after what we want to achieve in life.

Change in Business

Change works the same way in business. The businesses that are unwilling or afraid to change their processes, policies, ways of conducting business, would eventually disappear and be replaced by the ones that welcome change, innovation, and respond quickly to changes in consumer wants, needs, and expectations. Business environment is always changing and evolving, new technology is introduced every day, consumer behaviors change, therefore, it is essential to keep moving and adapt to world and expectations around us, if our goal is to grow and deliver value to our customers for many years to come.

Don’t be afraid of change

Change is not something that we should fear, instead, we should be open to and welcome change into our lives. Change is always present around us, all we need to do is recognize it and act on opportunities that it presents with determination and optimism. We are always in control what happens to us, that includes whether we are standing still or moving forward, the choice is yours. Stop being afraid of change and what other people may think, say, or do, you are in control. So, be in control.

Stop being afraid to try. People will judge you anyways

Setting limits to growth and development

Often, we are so afraid to try something new, something we are interested in, because, we are afraid what other people may think or say about us, when we don’t even know who they are. We don’t want to learn a new skill just because we don’t want to be viewed as unknowledgeable or unconfident. We don’t want to be placed in an uncomfortable state of being. However, by doing this, by being constantly afraid to try, we are limiting our personal and professional growth and development.

Our desire to fit in

We grow up wanting to fit in, be accepted, liked and appreciated by every person we meet, whether it is in school, work, or at the local store purchasing groceries. That is what we want and expect, because, that is what makes us feel good about ourselves and gives us a sense of value, whether it is real or perceived. But who really cares if it’s real as long as we feel good about ourselves and feel the sense of acceptance? That is what we come to expect. When something goes against our expectations, we feel bad, get upset, and discouraged, we do not want to put ourselves in the similar situation again, and, therefore, we choose to avoid it at all costs. We know that avoiding the uncomfortable, new, unexplored, we set limits on our own personal development and growth, because, we miss the opportunities to learn and create new skills that can only be obtained by trying something new, something that we want, but choose to intentionally ignore just to fit in.

We create our own fears

The fears of trying something new, taking a risk, trusting our gut feel, exploring challenging unknown, are all fears that we choose to create and hold on to in our mind. First it starts with desire to fit in and be liked by others, then it is fitting into the company’s culture and relationship building expectations, and then it is lack of desire to change and create new habits, because, we’ve lived with the old habits