I have been privileged to attend a conference over the last two days focused on forward planning towards 2020 and business building and to say I have come away refreshed and full of positivity for the coming months and years would be an understatement.

Here are some of the key themes to come from the conference, which I thought I would share because they certainly will shape how I plan for the future and also work on a day to day basis and I thought they were worth recording all in the one place. They are in no particular order:

• Design a plan of action that suits what you have not what you want to have.
• Focus on areas where you consider that you are going to have the most impact and exercise the most control.  There is no use focusing on an area that is already flooded.
• Live up to the hype: it is no use not meeting expectations or exceeding them.  Performance at below expectations is crippling for ones personal brand and the development of ones business.
• Be proud of what you achieve and be optimistic.
• Be consistent in everything you do and seek excellence in even the smallest of matters.
• Seek to use positive reciprocity as a tool for building relationships: why shouldn’t what we do be personal to the person we are seeking to build a relationship with?
• Be disciplined and set the example for your team whilst giving the team the chance and the tools to succeed and receive acclimation.
• One hundred plan: set achievable goals … doing too much only sets one up for failure.

These messages all resonated with me and will now travel with me every time I consider strategy and actions focused on improvement.

I will finish this post with a quote that impresses just how important it is to think proactively and out of the box when it comes to strategy and performance (from Theodore Levitt):

The future belongs to those who see the opportunities before they become obvious.