How To Create A Strong Business WHY Statement

Writing a strong and effective mission statement for a business is not a 5-minute job. You need to think carefully about what you want to include in your mission statement as it needs to be congruent with all of the parties in your business including your customers, employees, suppliers and stakeholders (owners etc).

 

We recommend that a strong mission statement needs to include these three important elements as a minimum:

 

1. What does your business do for your customers?
2. What does your business do for your employees?
3. What does your business do for your stakeholders / owners?

 

So good mission statements include a fourth element which is what the company will do for the community. These are certainly the most important factors of a mission statement so make sure that you include them in yours.

 

What does a Strong Mission Statement do for a Business?

 

It is very similar to a personal WHY statement in that it provides clarity of purpose. There is more to a mission statement than a personal WHY statement as a business is more complex. A strong mission statement should be used to:

 

• Set the main business goal(s)

• Determine the company culture

• Define the ethics of the business

• Provide guidance for decision making

 

Unfortunately, most mission statements are poorly written and you wonder why the business owners bothered to write theirs at all. Some of the largest businesses are guilty of this – it is not just the smaller companies. 

 

If you create a vague mission statement this doesn’t help your customers or your employees at all. You are not going to garner commitment if people do not understand what your mission statement really means. So, in this article we will show you how to create a clear mission statement that all parties can commit to.

 

What is the Purpose of your Business?

 

The first important step to writing a strong mission statement is to define clearly what your business is about. Consider the customer here and map out the process of how they find out about you right through to making a decision to purchase your products and services.

 

You need to think about these 3 main aspects:

 

1. Why do your customers want what you have to offer?
2. How will customers find your business?
3. What’s in it for your customers?

 

In your mission statement you need to inform your customers why they need to buy from you. Write a list of what your business does as well as the things that it doesn’t do to help create a clear picture.

 

What does your Company do for your Employees?

 

If a business does not take care of their employees there will be high turnover which is expensive. So, use your mission statement to retain your employees for longer. Think about how you motivate and train your employees. Here are some ideas for this:

 

• You provide the best training

• You are fair with your employees

• You respect the ideas that your employees have

• You empower your employees

 

All of these things really matter to your employees. You need to tell them that you see them as your most precious asset and you want to take care of them. To avoid your mission statement being too long, you can create an external one for your customers and an internal one for your employees and stakeholders.

 

Mission Statements and Owners

 

You need to include what is in it for your owners in your mission statement as well. If you are not the owner of the business then talk to the owners to find out what is important to them. The value of shares and return on investment are almost certainly going to be of interest.

Ways That You Can Get Bitcoins

The only way to obtain Bitcoins when it first launched was to use the peer-to-peer network. You could do this anonymously and you didn’t need permission from anyone to acquire Bitcoins. With the growth in popularity of Bitcoin there are now several ways you can acquire them.

 

Cryptocurrency Exchanges

 

You can register with a cryptocurrency exchange like Coinbase.com and purchase Bitcoins using your native currency. Some countries do not allow the purchase of Bitcoins so you need to check this first. 

 

When you sign up with a reputable exchange like Coinbase.com you will need to provide a number of personal details. This certainly includes your name and address and other financial information. This is to comply with the Know Your Customer (KYC) laws that exist in a lot of countries.

 

This defeats one of the key cornerstones of Bitcoin which is anonymity. The network was set up so that you could perform Bitcoin transactions without anyone knowing who you were or where you were from. 

 

There are some cryptocurrency exchanges that allow you to use fiat currencies to purchase Bitcoins and there are others where you can only make purchases with cryptocurrencies. You need to check that an exchange provides the service that you need.

 

A cryptocurrency exchange charges a transaction fee for every purchase of Bitcoins. The good news is that these fees tend to be a lot lower than those charged by traditional financial institutions.

 

Bitcoin ATM

 

In the last few years Bitcoin ATM’s have emerged in North America and Western Europe. They are now in other countries too. Here you can use funds from your bank account or a credit card to purchase Bitcoins.

 

Most of the ATM’s will allow you to make transactions as well. So if you want to send Bitcoins to another person or receive them then you can do this. The rise in the number of Bitcoin ATM’s proves the growing popularity of the digital currency.

 

Work for Bitcoins

 

A lot of freelancers in different parts of the world like payment in Bitcoins. Employers like it too because sending Bitcoins is a lot cheaper than setting up a bank transfer to another country. It takes a lot less time to receive a Bitcoin payment than it does a bank transfer payment.

 

There are freelancing websites where you can receive payments in Bitcoin. One of the biggest freelancer websites, Fiverr.com, will pay you in Bitcoins if you want and so will other big sites such as Upwork.com, Freelancer.com, Guru.com and PeoplePerHour.com.

 

Complete Tasks for Bitcoins

 

These days you can join websites that require you to perform small tasks and receive Bitcoins as a reward. Some of these tasks include:

 

• Watching videos

• Completing surveys

• Online shopping

• Signing up to free trial offers

• Playing online games

 

These tasks will take you a few minutes to complete and you will receive fractions of Bitcoins called Satoshi’s for doing this.

 

Sell Products and Services for Bitcoins

 

If you own a conventional brick and mortar store or an online store you can receive Bitcoins as a form of payment. In a brick-and-mortar store all you need to do is to print out the QR code for your wallet and then customers can use their smartphones to scan the code and pay you using Bitcoin.

 

With an online store there are a number of scripts and plugins available that create a Bitcoin payment gateway.

 

How To Write A Good WHY Statement

Once you have discovered your true calling in life you want to create a WHY statement around it. Your WHY statement needs to be compelling because you want to use it to motivate you every day to do the right things to attain fulfillment in your life.

 

There are a number of formats that you can use to write your WHY statement but at the end of the day it is up to you. There are no hard and fast rules here. The most important thing is that your WHY statement really resonates with you and that it is effective.

 

Four Elements of an Ideal WHY Statement

 

Although you don’t need to conform to any set rules there are four elements to a good WHY statement that we strongly recommend that you follow. Your WHY statement need to be very clear and as concise as possible for you and any people that you choose to share it with. So we strongly recommend that you include these 4 elements in your WHY statement:

 

1. Make your WHY statement clear and simple

 

It is really important that your WHY statement provides you with clarity about your life’s purpose. It needs to be simple to understand and as concise as you can make it. At the end of the day it needs to make sense and resonate with you.

 

2. Your WHY statement needs to promote action

 

Your WHY statement must inspire action. There is no point just writing a WHY statement and then do nothing with you. It needs to inspire you to work towards your true calling in life and motivate you to work on this every day.

 

3. Include your Contribution to others in your WHY statement

 

If you can help others then you will help yourself. Every good WHY statement needs a contribution element to it so make sure that yours does as well. Having a contribution element will inspire you to move forward each day.

 

4. Make your WHY statement positive and ensure it resonates with you

 

It will actually be pretty difficult for you to create a WHY statement that is negative but ensure that it is really positive. When you read your WHY statement it needs to resonate with you and motivate you to take action towards your life’s purpose.

 

How long should your WHY Statement be?

 

Again, there are no strict rules to follow here. Your WHY statement needs to be as long as you need it to be. Having said that we recommend that you keep your WHY statement as short as you can. 

 

The most important thing is that your WHY statement contains the 4 important elements that we discussed above. While others may be able to write their WHY statement in one sentence this may not be enough for you. This doesn’t matter at all so please do not concern yourself with this.

 

Aim for an Evergreen WHY Statement

 

An evergreen WHY statement is one that you will not have to change very often, if at all. You want to use your WHY statement in all aspects of your life both in your work and personal life. 

 

When you are writing your WHY statement, think about it as a way to express the value that you provide to others at work and in your personal life. There is no need for you to write two WHY statements to cover this.

How To Live By Your WHY Statement

Having invested a lot of time and energy finding your true purpose in life and writing your powerful WHY statement it is essential that you live by it going forward. You need to make the right choices in life that fully support your WHY statement and avoid those choices which move you away from it.

 

If you have made a statement of contribution to help others in your WHY statement then it is not a good idea to go to the bar every night and get drunk. You are not going to be able to help a lot of people in this condition, are you? 

 

OK this is a pretty extreme example, but it is a real one and if this is something that you currently do then you are going to have to change this behavior right now. In fact, anything that you currently do that doesn’t fit with your WHY statement is going to have to stop.

 

Take Stock of your current Lifestyle

 

A lot of people that find their true calling and write personal WHY statements find that their current way of life is far away from where they really want to be. We recommend that you examine all of your current habits to see if they align with your WHY statement.

 

If your habits are not in alignment then that is OK. You will need to commit to making adjustments so that you can align with it. Give yourself time to do this as it may take longer than you think to break certain habits.

 

Persistence will Win the Day

 

You will need a good deal of persistence to change your life to align with your WHY statement if there is a significant gap. By making small changes on a regular basis, you will get there in the end. 

 

The best results will come your way when you are persistent. Each day make a list of the things that you need to do to align your life with your WHY statement. Review your progress at the end of each day and plan for the next day. By taking small and regular actions you will develop your persistence and get the results that you want.

 

Focus on Providing Value to Others

 

In your WHY statement you made a contribution to help others. Make this your focus going forward. Most people tend to focus on money and are always looking for ways to make more. When you change your focus to helping other improve their lives then you can do it in such a way that the money will follow.

 

Don’t get hung up on small things. Too many people focus on the minutia of life and never achieve anything. Your WHY statement will provide you with the “big picture” so use it to focus on the important things that will get you where you want to be.

 

Living by a WHY Statement is not easy

 

The reason that so many people just drift along in life is because it is an easy option. It doesn’t take much effort to sit in front of the TV for hours eating snacks. When you are committed to a WHY statement then there will be no easy options for you. It is all or nothing.

 

Accountability will help you here. Share your WHY statement with people that you know. Try to find a WHY statement buddy who will hold you to your mission in life and quickly point out to you if you are going off track.

 

The Benefits Of Bitcoin For Businesses Explained

Since Bitcoin was launched in 2009 over 80,000 businesses have adopted it. The reason that these businesses and many more, like dealing in Bitcoin is because it offers them some incredible benefits. In this article we will examine all of the major benefits that including Bitcoin as part of a payment system works so well.

 

The Risk of Fraud is much lower

 

When a business allows their customers to use Bitcoins to make payments it is an advantage to the buyer because they do not have to share any of their confidential financial details such as debit or credit card numbers.

 

With conventional payment methods a business usually stores the customer’s financial data for future transactions. This is fine if their systems are secure and they do not suffer from any data breaches where cyber criminals can steal their information.

 

Trading in Bitcoins is really a form of digital cash and hackers cannot intercept a Bitcoin transaction. Also, this protects your identity and in the event of a data breach your financial details are not at risk.

 

There is no Inflation or Deflation with Bitcoin

 

With traditional currency the government of a country can manipulate the money supply by increasing or decreasing it. There are no governments involved with Bitcoin and therefore it doesn’t suffer from any inflation or deflation.

 

There are a finite number of Bitcoin tokens so creating more of them is not possible. When there is no possibility of inflation an investor can choose Bitcoin as a more stable investment than fiat currency.

 

The Transaction Fees are lower

 

The transaction fees associate with credit card payments and wire transfers are pretty high from banks and other financial institutions. In comparison, Bitcoin transaction fees are very low. 

 

Most businesses accept credit cards and end up passing on the cost of the transactions to their customers. With the low fees associated with Bitcoin payments they can reduce the sale prices of their products and services.

 

Payments can be Faster

 

Although credit card payments are usually fairly fast, there can be problems where a business will not receive their money for a number of days especially if customers initiate chargeback’s. 

 

Once a Bitcoin transaction goes through then it is irreversible. It normally takes less time to receive a Bitcoin payment than it does a credit card payment. It is common to receive a Bitcoin payment in around 2 business days.

 

Bitcoins are Safer

 

There are no third parties involved in Bitcoin. No government can seize your Bitcoins or freeze your account. It is very difficult to steal Bitcoins as well if you secure them in the right way. 

 

Faster and less expensive International Payments

 

These days a lot of businesses look to outsourcing specific tasks for their business to freelancers who are located in different countries. This is fine but usually there are high transaction fees associated with making international payments.

 

Also the freelancers have to wait several days to receive their money. International bank transfers are notoriously slow. You can make a payment in Bitcoins anywhere in the world for a very small transaction charge. The recipient also receives the Bitcoins a lot faster than an international bank transfer.

 

The Best Way To Find Your WHY

There are a small percentage of the population that spend a great deal of time trying to identify their true purpose in life. This is agonizing for them and some will find their true WHY and others will not. 

 

The reality is that some people just don’t care about their WHY. They are happy for life to control them and drift along day by day. But you need to find your WHY because it is very important. Once you know your true reason for being then you can pursue this with passion and vigor to attain complete fulfillment.

 

Ways you can Find your WHY

 

Most people try to find their WHY using trial and error. They jump on every opportunity that they can to see if it leads to the Promised Land. This may work in a very small number of cases but will fail most of the time.

 

Another thing that you can do to try and find your WHY is to follow others. Maybe you have a friend or someone else that you are close to that you believe is a lot happier than you are and want to do the things that they do.

 

So, you decide to set the same goals that they do in the hope that you will find the same fulfillment. The problem is that you are not going to be as committed to these goals as your friend is. When your heart isn’t really in something then there is not much chance of you achieving your goals.

 

Maybe you have seen something on TV or on the Internet. You see people are really happy with this so you decide to pursue it as well. But you need to bear in mind that most of this is marketing and that the people looking happy in the ads are being paid to do this. Please don’t believe everything that you see on TV or the Internet.

 

Finally, you can decide to really find your true purpose in life. It is not going to be the easiest path for you to take but you know it is the right one. Trying to follow the passions of others is rarely the best thing to do. You need to know what your true passions are and then do everything possible to follow them.

 

We are all different and all have different passions. Only when you identify what yours really are will you find fulfillment. So don’t waste your time with trial and error or following someone else because it is not going to work.

 

Ask yourself Questions to find your WHY

 

If you want to find your true purpose in life then you need to take the time out and ask yourself some soul-searching questions. This is not going to be an easy task and it will take you time to do this. But the rewards are certainly worth it because discovering your WHY is one of the best things that you can do in life.

 

So, find yourself somewhere quiet where you can spend some quality time asking and answering the right questions to find your WHY. You don’t want any distractions while you are doing this. Bring your journal with you or a pen and paper as you will need to write down your answers. Here are the questions to ask yourself:

 

• How can I improve the life of others?

• What are the things that I do where time seems to pass by quickly?

• What did I really enjoying doing as a child?

• When people ask me for help what help do they want?

• What would I do if I didn’t have to worry about money?  

 

Use your answers to these questions to determine your WHY and create a WHY statement.

The 3 Pillars Of The Bitcoin Blockchain

Blockchain technology supports the Bitcoin network. It is extremely secure and now many organizations across the world are seriously looking at it for not just financial transactions but for their supply chain processes as well. In this article we will discuss the 3 pillars of the blockchain technology behind Bitcoin.

 

The Decentralization Pillar

 

Before the invention of blockchain most transactions over the Internet involved a central server. This server stored all of the essential data that supported the service that it provided. A good example of this is the banking system. Your bank stores your money and when you need to pay someone you have to use them and they charge you for this.

 

Client server technology is everywhere online. When you use a search engine to find something your query ends up on a central server which dispatches the information that you asked for. The problem with client server is that there are a number of vulnerabilities:

 

• The biggest and most obvious of these is that everything is stored in one place. This makes a central server a real target for hackers. 

• If there's any operational issues with a central server, the whole system grinds to a halt.

• The data held on a central server can be compromised which shuts down the whole operation.

 

The solution to these centralized vulnerabilities is decentralization. With a decentralized network all computers have the same information stored. If you want to interact with someone else on a decentralized network you can do this without any third-party intervention. You can send and receive Bitcoins without the use of a bank and a centralized server.

 

The Transparency Pillar

 

A lot of people do not fully understand the concept of transparency when it comes to blockchain technology. Isn’t the Bitcoin network supposed to be private? Yes, it is but it is also public for verification purposes.

 

You need to understand the concept of public and private keys here. A public key is used on the blockchain to show that you have made a transaction. Your private key is never shared. It is linked to your public key to make the transaction valid.

 

With the Bitcoin blockchain you can see the public keys associated with all transactions. No other financial system has ever had this kind of transparency. There is a much-needed level of accountability with blockchain that financial institutions certainly want.

When you have a blockchain public address you can view all of the transactions made using that key. A lot of financial institutions are looking at blockchain because of this but some are concerned that it will force their hand to reveal all of their transactions!

 

The Immutability Pillar

 

Blockchain technology creates immutable records. This means that after verifying a transaction you cannot change it. Once your transaction is added to the blockchain there is no turning back. You cannot reverse the transaction.

 

The immutability in blockchain comes from the cryptographic hash functionality. The blockchain system takes input strings of any length and converts these to an output string of a fixed length. The Bitcoin blockchain uses the highly secure SHA 256 algorithm.

 

Blockchain is basically a linked list of transactions. Each block has a hash pointer connecting it to the previous block. If a hacker tries to change the details of a block it will affect the entire blockchain which is impossible to do.

 

The Three Different People In Life And Why You Need To Choose The WHY Path

All human beings do the things that they do for a reason. They also avoid doing certain things for a reason as well. The reasons behind some of the things that we do are obvious. We eat because we are hungry and want to survive. We bathe because we don’t want to be dirty and smell bad.

 

But there are other things that we choose to do, or avoid doing, that have more complex reasons behind them. If you know someone that works a job that they really hate then have you ever wondered why they do this? The obvious answer that most people will come up with is “they need the money” or “they are desperate”.

 

But there are other reasons that can come into play here. Some people just don’t want the extra responsibility that comes from working a higher paid job. Others avoid applying for better jobs because they do not have the confidence and belief in themselves that they can do the job.

 

When you look at the overall population, we believe that there are three different types of people in this world. In this article we will examine these and explain why it is your interest to choose the WHY path. You will understand this more as we go along.

 

1. The Drifter People

 

This accounts for the vast majority of the population. They may have dead end jobs or they might have reasonably good jobs but they have no idea what they really want from life or which direction they are heading in. These people drift along in life and “go with the flow”. They don’t like change and are usually happy to be a drifter.

 

If you were to stop one of these people in the street and ask them what they really wanted in their life then they would not be able to tell you. They may come up with a few material things like a nice house and a car but they do not have any real plans.

 

Ask them where they want to be in the next 5 years and you will get a blank look. Most of them don’t know where they will be in the next 5 days. These people never set any goals for themselves with the exception of setting New Year’s resolutions to lose weight and other things that they never follow through on.

 

2. People that find themselves Stuck

 

These are a much smaller percentage of the population who are not happy with their current situation and want to change it. They want to identify and follow their true purpose in life but they are stuck trying to find it.

 

As a result of being stuck then tend to go off in all different directions searching for that thing that will make them fulfilled. This is better than being a drifter but very frustrating as you are largely relying on luck to find real meaning in your life.

 

3. People that know their real purpose in life

 

This is an even smaller percentage of people that have identified their true calling in life. The know exactly what their WHY is and they are driven to achieve it. They have goals and plans and work on them relentlessly every day.

 

We recommend that you choose the WHY path. When you discover your true WHY in life you can set the right goals and attain total fulfillment. Don’t let life dictate your future – take control right now and identify your true purpose in life and go after it.

 

Why Is Bitcoin So Popular?

When Bitcoin launched in 2009 the promise was that it would allow financial transactions on a peer-to-peer network without the need for any financial institutions or government control. A lot of people that knew about it at the time were very excited about the possibilities while others were somewhat skeptical.

 

The digital currency was actually a secondary consideration. It was the blockchain technology that so excited the creators and those that were part of the peer-to-peer community. But the Bitcoin currency has turned out to be a lot better than was expected. There are several reasons for its significant growth in popularity.

 

Transactions are Private

 

The concept with Bitcoin is that it was totally anonymous. Anyone could make a transaction from anywhere to anywhere in the world and nobody would know who was involved. These days to use Bitcoin exchanges to make transactions you do need to provide some personal details but it is still a lot more anonymous than other financial transactions.

 

A good example of this is when using Bitcoin to make purchases from vendors both in online stores and brick and mortar stores. You can complete the transaction without having to provide any of your personal information to the vendor.

 

More Businesses are accepting Bitcoin

 

The growth of Bitcoin has led to more and more businesses adopting it. They will accept it as a form of payment and also use it to make payments to outsource workers in different countries. 

 

With large brands such as eBay, Intuit and the DISH Network embracing Bitcoin more people are becoming interested in the digital currency. A lot of people have now decided to invest in Bitcoin because of this.

 

The Security of Bitcoin

 

Over the last few years there have been some serious data breaches happening to well-known companies such as target. The cyber criminals who committed these breaches stole personal information about the customers of these companies. They then sell this information on the black market.

 

With Bitcoin and the underlying blockchain technology you can make financial transactions without the need to provide sensitive financial information. The decentralized ledger in Bitcoin is extremely secure and virtually impossible to hack. There is no exposure of Bitcoin wallets when making financial transactions.

 

Transactions are Cheaper

 

To send money to another person using your bank will often cost you quite a bit in transaction fees. These rise considerably if you need to send money to someone in another country. 

 

International payments also take time as well and it is not uncommon to have to wait a few days for a transaction to clear. There are very small fees involved with Bitcoin transactions and it is a lot faster to make a transaction to another country.

 

You can Hide with Bitcoin

 

This is not a good thing but it is another reason for the popularity of Bitcoin. Some people use it to make illegal transactions on the Dark Web. We are not condoning this in any way but it is no surprise that Bitcoin is popular because of this.

 

Bitcoin is reasonably Stable

 

While there is a degree of volatility with Bitcoin it is actually more stable than some fiat currencies. There is a limited number of Bitcoins so you can’t create more to cause inflationary problems.