By definition, a franchise is a well-defined, fixed system. Does your habit of innovation, your "personal brilliance," matter in a franchise environment?

While you need to follow a system and there is a manual of operations, at the same time you have to be brilliant enough to run a business successfully, solving problems quickly. When you're faced with a situation which you have to come up with and implement great ideas, and you can, that's personal brilliance.

After all, franchising is popular because of the natural desire to own your own business and grow and prosper. Personal brilliance is key to achieving our desire for success.

The franchise market will continue to be strong only if close attention is paid to the changing needs of the marketplace. Offerings of a variety of pet businesses, do-it-yourself meal preparation, and specialty services for kids, are examples of being attentive to the needs of the marketplace and, to a certain extent, leading the marketplace.

In your situation is the environment an innovative one? Are new offerings provided regularly? Is the franchisor paying attention to the future of the market?

Within your franchise system, you can benefit by increased participation in group business building and advertising initiatives, and by working closely with other local franchisees. Use your personal brilliance to increase the possibility of innovation in your environment.

Personal brilliance is the result of mastering the everyday habits that create a lifetime of success. A meaningful track record is one of the first things a franchisor looks for in a prospective franchisee.

Think of personal brilliance as the sum of what you've learned, experienced and practiced. Awareness, curiosity, focus and initiative are the catalysts that spark innovative thinking and light the way to brilliant thinking and brilliant action. These four catalysts are innate abilities - natural gifts - possessed by each of us, and they can be just as useful at home as they are at work.

Personal brilliance and your habit of innovation is the most significant differentiator you can possess in our global community. To sustain a successful position, you have to out-innovate the competition.

This is true for Coke competing with Pepsi for market dominance, for the shop owner competing with the latest fad for traffic in a plaza, or for moms competing with Madison Ave. marketers for the attention of their children.

The secret to personal brilliance is mastering the everyday habits of the four catalysts: awareness, curiosity, focus and initiative. To find out where you rate on the Personal Brilliance scale, take the 10-minute Personal Brilliance Quotient Assessment at www.MyPersonalBrilliance.com. Your results will let you know which catalysts are strongest and which ones you can enhance with practice.

Awareness involves self-awareness first (the hardest part), then being conscious of your environment. As your awareness of a particular issue or situation grows, so does its influence in everything you do Ð reading a book or article, watching a pertinent program, or having a conversation.

You begin to think about it subconsciously all the time. For the franchisee, you want to be aware of your skills - constantly growing and developing, the market environment, and the problems of your customers that your product or service solves. You also want to create an awareness in your customer of the need for both you and your service.

Here is a tip to help you increase the acuity and usefulness of your own awareness: Look closely at processes, considering how and why things are done. Notice how obstacles are part of the process, not a negative to avoid.

You develop a curiosity as you think, looking in many different arenas for insights. You pay attention to all aspects of your life with this filter, seeking to solve the problem. You look at the obvious things, but your curiosity helps you go deeper.

Ask the next question. Curiosity breeds excitement. Go through life with a sense of both wonder and doubt. You must ask questions when evaluating franchise opportunities, but also after your investment is finalized. Others likely have the solution to your problem. Ask them for it.

One thing you can do to make your curiosity catalyst more effective is to fire your inner judge. Give ideas time to percolate before assessing them.

While going about your day-to-day life, you are extremely focused on the problem. I'm not talking about a laser-beam focus. I'm referring to a 360-degree focus, more like a spotlight with a beam that widens out.

Can you tie together seemingly disconnected facts to make your argument even more logically sound? Our customers are distracted these days, more than ever. The key is to get into their focus sphere to gently guide their attention to your offerings. Of course, this is to their benefit.

The best way to take advantage of this catalyst is by making a conscious effort to put it into action. Develop the habit of listening-really listening-to others with focus. This is not something you should do once in awhile or when the spirit moves you; it is something you should do all the time.

Awareness, curiosity, and focus lead to many new ideas and options. However, without initiative, ideas never get put into action. It's all about action. Action breeds results. There are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities available to you every single day. Are you seizing these opportunities?

The way to cultivate your initiative catalyst is to take risks. Taking risks will bring increased confidence over time, and you will learn from all your risk-taking experiences-both those that turn out the way you hoped they would and those that do not.

Individually, the four catalysts - awareness, curiosity, focus and initiative - are invaluable. Combine their forces and you will astound yourself.

It's important to mention that for some reason, coming up with a new idea or solving a problem hardly ever happens by applying these catalysts in a linear order. These catalysts tend to work together so seamlessly that it's often impossible to determine the order in which they occurred.

When these four catalysts become daily habits, the wheel of innovation spins. By harnessing the power of each of these habits, your level of sales, personal success and fulfillment will soar.

Following are 10 tips to help you increase your personal brilliance:

1. Keep a personal brilliance notebook. Write down observations, questions, insights and action plans.

2. Practice being mentally active. Rather than being a passive observer of events, question what you are seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling and experiencing.

3. Slow down. It's nearly impossible to see what's right in front of you when you're moving too fast. Try riding a bike or walking down a road you've driven down many times. You'll be amazed by what you've missed "in plain view."

4. Make a habit of pausing to let the present moment sink in so you can be conscious of all its aspects.

5. Give yourself time to wonder, ponder and doubt. Make it a practice of asking how, why and why not.

6. Frequently remind yourself that you are not absolutely sure of anything. This allows productive doubt to flourish.

7. Focus like a spotlight by going beneath the surface and giving full attention to what you're doing, without excluding ideas that are on the periphery of your awareness.

8. With each task you face, move from a state of "have to" to a state of "want to" by linking the task with the rewards/payoffs of accomplishing it.

9. Align your goals with your personal and professional values.

10. Plan and schedule your action steps.