Before you head out to your New Year’s party or start popping the champagne, make sure you take a little time to contemplate what you hope to accomplish in 2009.  Sure, this year hasn’t ended quite as well as any of us had planned, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t give ourselves every possible advantage moving into this next one.  And, after all, that’s what YSN is here for – to help you find the success you’ve only dreamed of…without waiting a lifetime!

You’ve heard it before – people who set goals for themselves consistently achieve more than those who don’t.  So, let’s be frank, do you have them or don’t you?  Vague thoughts and half-baked answers don’t count.  Writing down our goals is something we all know will make us more successful…but somehow we don’t always get around to it.  Let’s change that right now!

Don’t put it off, start the process now.  If this ends up being all you do — hey, it’s something, which is always better than nothing.  If you want to take this to the next level – consider using our ‘GOOD to MASTER Goal Setting Guide’ below!

GOOD:  List 3-5 Goals
If you could only choose a few things that would make or break your next year, what would they be?  What would you like to accomplish beyond all else?  Make them as detailed as possible.

BETTER:  Now Add Timelines/Deadlines
Attaching deadlines to the things you’d like to accomplish is an even better tactic to achieving what you want in life.  Break your goals into the following increments: 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, and 5 years. Keep going if you feel inspired!  Include no more than 3-5 goals under each category to keep it manageable.

Jedi Masters: 188 Year Plan
Ever consider your 188 year plan?  Our friend Curtis Estes does!  Seriously!  Curtis is the author of Your Life By Design and one of the top financial advisors in the US who counsels some of the most successful people out there on leaving their legacy.  He claims that the average person can’t remember their great grandparents’ names…let alone what they did with their lives.  That means in 188 years, most people won’t remember any of us…unless we do something about it.  Building a 188 year plan sounds insane at first, but Curtis swears this is the key to building a lasting legacy, and we just love the idea of that!  Try it for yourself.  Or check out Curtis’ to see goal setting from a real master.

This week I had an extraordinary experience.  Got to speak at the Entrepreneur Magazine Growth 2.0 Conference on the subject of “Building, Managing & Rocking Your Network”.  The response has been overwhelming…too cool for words.  That said, we realized that we at YSN needed to do more to talk about this sometimes intimidating, but almost always life-changing practice.  Especially in these trying times, as I said at the event, “your ability to survive and succeed in this economy may depend on your network.”

Building Your Contacts
Having a great network of friends and contacts can totally change how happy and successful you are.  When you’re in trouble, are struggling, or experiencing a rough patch, your network will also be the first people there to help you get through it.
For 5 great tips on how to build your network that we filmed on a recent speaking tour with American Express talking about this very subject, click here to see video.

A few ground rules to savvy networking:

• Realize your life will get more interesting as you expand your network.
• Have fun.
• Don’t always have an agenda.
• Make it a point to meet interesting people everywhere you go.
• Be someone people like to be around.
• Most importantly, be someone you can be proud of.
• Make sure you surround yourself with successful people.
• Collect a broad mix of great mentors along the way who can teach you about a variety of areas.
• Keep a list of people you want to meet (or the types of people – ie: entrepreneurs, doctors, MBA grads, non profit leaders) and share it with your more connected friends who may be able to refer you to people in their networks.

Always try to help others whenever you can.  Just do it because it’s good to do it. Wonderful things do sometimes come back to grace you too. Click here to see video.
In the Podcast of our book Secrets of the Young & Successful we spoke about How to Meet Anyone.  Here are the audio links in two sections:  Part I & Part II

Managing Your Network

As you start to meet more and more people, the biggest piece of advice we can offer is make sure you capture all of their critical contact info right away, keep it in one place, and make sure it’s digital.  Then keep it up to date back it all up regularly.

Spend the time and money (if you can) to invest in a simple online database, PDA (personal digital assistant) or mobile device that can hold all of the information you collect on your contacts (from name to birthday, cell, city/state…whatever is most appropriate.)

Then make sure you’re staying in touch, taking good care of your people and treating them well.  Here’s how to Create Your Own Networking Event.  Make sure you take care of your network too and show them ongoing love and attention too.

Meeting Influential & Powerful People

In every business, industry, society, there’s a group of people who are considered the power players, the movers and shakers.  They make the decisions that affect hundreds, thousands, sometimes millions of lives.  Having access to them can get you a voice in their circles.  Building relationships with them and get you in the game and make you a part of the serious action.  Getting to almost anyone you want to meet is possible, you just need to know a few secrets, and a new perspective on the whole thing.  Learn about the House on the Hill.

When you finally get the chance to meet someone really great, make sure you don’t blow it either! Here are our top 5 tips (from TONS of experience!) on how NOT to miss another opportunity.

And whatever you do, don’t forget the gatekeepers!

Have you ever had someone say “tell me about yourself”, and not know what to say?  You could be the most interesting, accomplished person in the world, but if you can’t describe who you are and what makes you tick to an interested party, they’ll be forced to assume you’re a dud.

Being able to sell yourself effectively to others all starts with knowing yourself.  You know your vital stats (name, age, hometown, job or student status, interests), but can you tell a quick story about yourself that’s compelling?  How about if you need to go beyond the small talk and really get at the substance of who you are?  Can you talk about your strengths, weaknesses, priorities, goals and preferences if put on the spot?  People who can, get rewarded all the time with exciting opportunities both socially and professionally.  Are you one of them?

Quick!  Tell yourself about yourself! Ok, how’d you do? If you need a little help, take the next 20 minutes and let YSN show you (or confirm) what makes you special, what you need to work on, and how you appear to others.  You’ll be so happy you did.

Take the Self Assessment Now!

We’ve crunched the best of 25 years of research, exclusive insights from behavioral scientists, career counselors, statisticians, corporate recruiters, and two NY Times bestselling authors together into the new YSN Self Assessment.  Let YSN’s Special Report help you answer that tough question “tell me about yourself?”

In this economy, you need every possible advantage to survive—let alone find success—in your job or career.   So what can you do to build your competitive edge?

1. Beef up your bio or resume. Challenge yourself to keep adding notable experiences to your repertoire.  Take advantage of weekends, vacations, or evenings to get active in industry associations, volunteer, intern, work part time, or pick up some consulting work.

2. Become invaluable. Whatever you may be doing for work, be someone your bosses or partners can’t live without.

3. Be someone people want to have around. Particularly in rough times, a great attitude can make all the difference between people wanting to work with you, go out of their way to help, or cut you loose.

4. Help as many people as you can. Go out of your way to be a good person and make lots of friends…especially with people who can help you with your career.  Be a resource to them.  Offer to help, even work for free.

5. Network like crazy. Stay well connected to your existing network and keep those relationships strong.  At the same time, expand your contact base and make an effort to surround yourself with new, interesting and successful people. Your exposure and your access to opportunity will increase dramatically.

*Don’t worry if you missed one our emails covering our 10 FAVORITE SUCCESS TIPS … we’re adding them to the blog so that you can get caught up in minutes.

Don’t worry if you missed one our emails covering our 10 FAVORITE SUCCESS TIPS … we’re adding them to the blog so that you can get caught up in minutes.

How many times have you found yourself walking through a store, scanning hundreds of items a minute, disregarding most of them but occasionally stopping to touch something or pick it up to get a closer look? Now picture that same store – a supermarket, department store, warehouse or club store – and replace the sea of products with people. You heard me. Imagine every box, can, pair of pants, video, book, and bag of candy replaced with a person just like you. Visualize thousands of them…maybe more…maybe a million in any given store. Now, do that visual walk through again. Would you notice you?

With a billion young people entering the world of work in the next 10 years, let’s be honest, most of us look a heck of a lot alike. While we’re all certainly different and special in our own ways, at first glance we blend into the sea of hundreds, sometimes thousands of others. When you’re looking for a job, a promotion, a great new client, or to be considered for a special opportunity, standing out (in a positive way) is essential. But what do most people see if they come in to take a closer look? How often are you putting your best foot forward in person, or online?

Now that the economy has taken a downturn and great opportunities are getting harder and harder to find, this is the perfect time to build (or refine) your professional brand. Odds are, when someone goes to look for you online or learn more about you, they come up with little if nothing, but all too often they discover juicy little photos, online posts or fun facts that you certainly never intended them to see!

Do yourself a favor and conduct a personal and professional brand audit of yourself. Analyze everything that the outside world can see or find out about you with a simple search online. Consider, from a totally objective perspective, what kind of impression you’re portraying, then clean it up. Then do the same with your physical appearance. Start to be more intentional, purposeful, and proactive about what kind of image you’re projecting. Don’t assume others are going to take the time to “get to know you”. Make it your responsibility to grab and hold their attention. Because just like being one in a sea of products on shelves, you too often have a matter of seconds to impress upon others that you’re worth a closer look.