The Rhino: Five Tips for Success

A number of years ago, I was part of another marketing team. Some circumstances in my life changed and I needed to leave. Yet, I brought with me a lot of good advice. One I remember was when they gave out an award once a month called the “Rhino.” The purpose of this symbol was to apply the traits and inspiration from a rhinoceros and apply it to our business.

“Think rhinoceros and act rhinoceros!…Positive thinking will get you nothing, unless you combine with charging. Writing out your goals is useless, unless you charge them down… Dreams are only dreams, unless you become a rhinoceros and charge at them!”

Here are five of the traits they had us focus on of the rhino, and no it was not their quick temper or bad eye sight:

• Run fast in short spurts – set intermediate goals, power towards them, celebrate, and repeat
• Focus on a single direction – it’s easy to be distracted or to try to be all things to all people, but a single horn that points you in a single direction will help you stay focused
• Grow a thick skin – it’s important to block out bad energy, and having a thick skin will ensure that naysayers and Negative can’t get you down
• It’s ok to get a little muddy – your path might not be perfect, and there may be some puddles, but pay the mud no mind and just keep charging ahead
• Be bigger than life – even if you aren’t big yet, your personality can make up for size, so start acting like a big success and soon you could be one

The hardest for me at the time was to focus on a single direction.  I had to many goals to set, to run just for one.  I was so focus on success that I was looking in every direction and didn’t realize that while I might have been achieve one goal it was pulling from another.  So, I finally told myself, to focus on fewer goals and one’s that matter. Even today, wanting to multi-task is challenge. I need to use a buzzer to focus on one task at a time.

I have always had tough skin.  Though-out my life do to my epilepsy, people have told me that I have not been able to achieve didn’t goals.  Yet, this was a fuel that fired me up.  Inside, I would say, “Watch Me.” I wanted to achieve different goals, not to succeed, yet to prove someone wrong, and that I could.  Overtime, I build a tough skin and I no longer care what people say. This is my life, my family, and my Dream.

Which of these Traits do you already have?

“Whatever causes you to drop your plan forward and open to your vision, your own, deeply personal vision of what your life could be at its very best, that’s what I call meeting your rhinoceros.”
– Martha Beck