One of the reasons why successful people are successful is the follow-through factor, they have an idea or dream and work on it till it is completion. It sounds easy, yet for millions of people have ideas, they may even start on it and life and nagging questions begin to slow it down and grind it to a halt. If you look around you, it is easy to see. It is even easier to do. If you really want to jump the barrier, how do you do it? One of the answers is with a coach and Gene Hayden is a coach who has written a book to help. The book is called The Follow-Through Factor by Gene Hayden published by McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, 2010.

To understand follow-through, if one of your goals is to write a book – the commitment is to writing it. You have done well. The follow-through is to have it published (need to find someone or do it yourself and then sell the book). In many ways writing is easier than selling, because publishers have a good idea of what sells and what does not. Your book may or not fit into their picture, for trying to ensure your book gets into the hands of people who actually will buy it is the challenge for the publisher.

Follow-through does not require luck as Tennessee Williams said luck is believing you are lucky When you think you have chance on your side, you allow yourselves to take risks. And eventually one risk or another pays off. There is a wonderful movie called Field of Dreams and the classic line “if you build it, they will come”. The line in the real world is after you build it, work it so they will come. The follow-through is make things happen for you.

When you have faith in yourself, you do not require absolute proof of what will be, and you no need the buy-in of others. Those with follow-through say what keeps them going is simply an unshakeable feeling that they are doing the right thing and in some way they will like themselves more for doing it. They feel better about themselves as they try to skirt around the obstacles rather than give up.

How do you start with a question of why? Why do you like the things you do is a powerful way to get to the straight to the heart of whether its meaningful for you to pursue an ambition. It is the surest path to understanding the root of the your faith in the project. Never ask the question am I good enough, rather ask do I have a foundation of knowledge to build on? if I do not am I interested in developing one?

Linking to dividend paying stocks, much of investing is thinking about what is important to you. Whether it is the project or to invest in a stock you are do not know the outcome because the only perfect information in the stock market is what has happened, no one knows what will happen. There are ways to understand but we do not know 100%, what we do know is investing in profitable companies has been a low risk, high reward for generations; we also know because index funds drop the losers every quarter or every half year and puts in companies that are performing better the index funds over the years will up in value. The issue is we do not know exactly when it happens except for over the course of a year, profitable stocks will trade higher than non profitable stocks. Start with a solid foundation and add dividends to take advantage of compound interest.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.