The Lyons Den

Savvy entrepreneurs like Bill Lyons have taken small ideas and even smaller companies and turned them into huge successes, thanks to big dreams and hard work. But these successful people have also had to make some mistakes along the way to understand what works and what doesn’t. Bill Lyons, San Diego software start-up company founder and former CEO of one of the fastest-growing companies in San Diego, managed to turn a company with no revenue into a company that was bringing in $20 million annually. Those kinds of successes are why it’s such a good idea to take a few tips from such experts.

Of course, you need to have talent, skills and smarts to be successful, but there are a lot of other competitors out there who have all of those attributes, as well. Here are a few business tips that will help you beat the competition:

Do Something You’re Passionate About

This should go without saying, but it might shock you to learn just how many people are in businesses that they don’t care about – and that includes the business owners! If you aren’t passionate about what you are doing for a living, your lack of passion will come across in the way people perceive your business and the effort you put into your own success. Having passion will also help you stick with the business, even when times get tough. This isn’t something you can learn – you are either passionate about your business or not. So if you’re not, it may be time to consider doing something else. Passion creates excitement, enthusiasm, belief and the necessary momentum for explosive growth.

Forget About Fear

Fear will only hold you back from any goals you want to achieve in life, especially when it comes to your business. While a little bit of prudence and caution is good, you will never see the huge successes you’re dreaming of if you don’t take risks. You might make a few mistakes along the way, but it isn’t a failure unless you don’t learn anything from it. Dance with the fear or feel the fear and do it anyways. Fear and doubt go away when you “act as if” you are already there and it has already happened. Focus in on your vision with razor sharp precision, imagine it in color, make it become real in your mind and then in will come to life in this dimension.

Never Budge From Your Core Values – But be Open to Change Elsewhere

You never want to lose sight of the mission and values that led you to start your business in the first place, but you have to expect that other plans and goals will change over time. So remember to be flexible when it comes to your plans and strategies. This freedom to be flexible is one of the nice things about being a small business owner, after all. Just don’t give up on your values. Don’t allow others values to become your own or a distraction but make sure they aren’t incongruent. Values that are out of order or incongruent can cause problems when you get big so make sure they are aligned now.

For successful people like Bill Lyons, San Diego CEO and entrepreneur, there are few things more powerful than positive thought. Whether one is going to be successful as a business person, entrepreneur, artist, performer, teacher, parent, or at any other worthwhile endeavor, it’s important to retain a high level of positive thought, even when facing discouragement and crises. This is exactly the kind of attitude that has allowed Bill Lyons to become the flourishing entrepreneur and contributor that he is today.

Bill Lyons grew his former company from the ground up, starting from scratch and turning it into a booming enterprise bringing in $20 million per year and more than $3 billion in transactions within three years. As president and CEO of this firm, which quickly became one of the fastest-growing companies in San Diego, he managed more than 250 employees and a $6 million annual online marketing budget. Now he is involved with an exciting software start-up and eager to see what kind of opportunities he can build with this budding new company.

This kind of self-motivated attitude is exactly what Neil Strauss has written about in books such as the recently published “Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead” and other works, including “The Game” and “Emergency.” Although his most recent book chronicles two decades of touring and conducting intimate interviews with rock and rap stars as a journalist for magazines such as Rolling Stone, it is also quite relevant to the success of a businessperson or entrepreneur. After being put into very intimate situations with some of the most successful stars in the world, he has seen what it takes for someone to reach this level of success.

“Success comes from acting out of confidence, conviction, commitment and deservedness,” says Strauss, “no matter what critics, haters, and competitors are saying and thinking – with no fear of failure (and with no problem bouncing back undiscouraged if one doesn’t succeed at first).” He asserts a positive attitude and belief in oneself is what brought the most successful stars to where they are today – they believe they are destined for greatness, and so they are.

For entrepreneurs like Bill Lyons, San Diego is a great city to start up a new business, but for those with a negative attitude it doesn’t matter what city you’re in. Without a positive attitude and belief in oneself, success is never going to be long-lived.