photo credit: Roby Ferrari

Today’s guest post comes from Success Magazine, which offers up 44 ways to improve both your personal and professional life.

Check it out here.

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photo credit: * Honest *

Not world peace mind you (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but peace between your ears.

Do you find yourself somehow mindlessly wasting an hour, 2 hours or more a day? Maybe not even every day?

You arent alone. Rarely does a day go by when I don’t hear it from someone.

In today’s guest post, Peter Bregman has a solution you might find useful. It only takes 18 minutes a day.

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photo credit: miyukiutada

Silly question – cuz I’m sure you do.

Dave takes a different cut at personal standards. A cut you might find challenging, but I hope not.

Just the same, today’s guest post from Dave Navarro (no, not the famous guitarist) is worth reading and looking in the mirror about.

Check it out here.

A big part of what others do (you know, like your family, your staff…) is a based in large part reflection of you as a family leader, a business leader, a community leader and so on.

What do they see?

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photo credit: geoftheref

Today’s guest post is from @BradRourke, who posts on a litany of topics revolving around self, community organizations, business and things in-between.

The Mark Sanford meltdown was just one of his topics recently, but not so much about the paparazzi angle.

Instead, he writes about what it might take to get a fine upstanding citizen like yourself to go over the edge like Sanford did.

Hopefully you aren’t there and no one you know is there, but just in case, give it a read and see if his story (which isn’t about Sanford) sounds familiar.

You just might save someone – and it might even be yourself.

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photo credit: striatic

Yes, me.  I am a slacker. I admit it.

A year ago, I was planning to release my first book, “Business is Personal”.

You probably don’t remember me doing a launch promotion on it. That’s cuz I didn’t launch it.

As you might suspect, stuff happened and pushed it out of my immediate view and soon enough, a year went by.

Bet that never happened to you.

It’s still sitting in my authoring software, laughing at me: “You can’t finish me today, bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa” (yeah, that’s supposed to sound like an insane creepy laugh).

Enterrrrrr theeee excuuuuuuuuusee zoooooooonnnnnne (you can figure out how that is supposed to sound).

The Excuse Zone

See if any of this sounds familiar, even if you have to adjust the facts.

• Before first light today, I headed out to Melita Island to help teach the 2nd part of Boy Scout Wood Badge. WB is an adult leadership course for Scout leaders and I am part of the instructor team.
• The morning after I get back from Melita, I leave for Scout camp for a week.
• The next week is 4th of July week and I have to go to a swim meet that will be a lot about remembering a dear friend who in her last 18 months of life literally willed a small town into getting a new swimming pool suitable for swim meets – all while battling pancreatic cancer.
• Meanwhile I have client work, coaching sessions, blogging, writing my newspaper column, working on my own product development work, doing family stuff, visiting with that awfully cute granddaughter you see in that photo on the blog, a week in Missouri with the in-laws and such right after the 4th, out of town swim meets every weekend till August, then (not 100% sure on this one) 10 days in the backcountry on a wilderness pack trip.
• That gets me to August 16 and doesn’t count other troop activities, Rotary (yes, I’m still club president), a few other volunteer gigs here in town and again, more of that client work stuff.

All the while… it sits there and taunts me. The book, I mean. You can probably hear it giggling.

Choice

You probably think “Heck, no wonder you didn’t get it done, with all THAT stuff going on.”

And you would be completely missing the point.

It has nothing to do with how much other stuff I have to do. It has to do with making a choice about the stuff I AM doing.

Each day since the Spring of 2008 when I started “Business is Personal” (the book), I’ve made a choice – several times a day.

These choices were made to do something else other than chip away at the book, even if I chose to do something that might have seemed important at the time.

No one else made these choices. Just me.

A few of my favorite Jim Rohn quotes come to mind:

• “When you say ‘No’, you say ‘Yes’ to something more important.”
• “Learn to say ‘No’. Don’t let your mouth overload your back.”
• “We can no more afford to spend major time on minor things than we can to spend minor time on major things.”

What did you not get done today that you should have gotten done, if only it wasn’t for that “really important” thing you did instead?

Say “No” to the not-so-important so that you can say “Yes” to the really important.

PS: Stay tuned for the book. If you’d like to help with it, take one minute to slide on over to http://www.businessispersonalbook.com and enter a question (someone will win a pair of free consultations, may as well be you).

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photo credit: rich115

Today’s guest post is more of a news story, but with a big message.

Bonnie Richardson has achieved a lot of success in her life. Great grades, a scholarship at Texas A&M and 2 state track and field championships.

But she does have a regret: “I regret that I didnt branch out more”.

From Rivals.com, check out the story of Bonnie Richardson, 2 time track and field state champion – as the entire team.

Are you branching out enough? Even while staying within your little niche, it’s possible.

If one high school girl can win 2 state *team* championships all by herself, maybe you can try a little harder too.

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photo credit: h.koppdelaney

I was over at ZenHabits.com earlier in the week and stumbled across a link to this ZH-inspired poster at GoddessGuidebook.com.

It’s a little quirky for the serious business type, but the message is all business.

Check it out, it’s today’s guest post.

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photo credit: eliazar

Over at The Online Photographer, there’s an ongoing discussion about a photographer who is experimenting (good for him) with a mechanism to do what some artists never manage to do – trade their art for someone else’s cash and have both people happy with the exchange.

Because his experiment is a little unusual for the art world, it has generated a substantial discussion.

I was pleased to see that the experimenter had taken the time to do some research, consult with pricing experts and find out what impact minute changes in pricing might have on his results.

Many people wouldn’t likely have bothered with that level of effort.

What I didn’t find the least bit interesting or surprising about the ensuing discussion was the number of people with a litany of excuses (they called them ‘reasons’) why this experiment wouldn’t work.

If you are “leaning into the fear” (thanks to Perry Marshall for that gem) and trying something new, you can bet your bottom dollar that someone – probably someone who has NEVER leaned into their own fear – will find a page full of ‘reasons’ why your effort won’t work and why you should just go back to that job at Wally World and keep on doing that thing (whatever it is) as a hobby in your spare time.

You know, “Be realistic”.

Don’t roll your eyes

A little advice: Don’t roll your eyes. Don’t argue with them. Don’t try to justify your efforts to them.

Just say “Yeah, you’re probably right, I dunno what I was thinking” (or similar).

It’ll shut them up (since you appear to have acknowledged they’re right) or allow them to move on to their next topic, and you can move on with your project (and perhaps with the process of proving them dead wrong).

Feedback is valuable.

Unless it’s toxic (you should be able to tell the difference), it’s easy to discard. Sometimes you might even hear feedback that helps you toward your goal. A dime’s worth of serious value out of $5 worth of advice is still a dime you can spend to move a project forward, so long as you give them change with that “you might be right” comment.

Smoke em if you got em

Some time ago, it was suggested that my move to Montana would last no more than 6 months and that I’d soon be back in my old location with my tail between my legs.

That was 10 years ago. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Artist or otherwise, you can do that big, supposedly audacious thing too, whatever it might be.

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Years back, Woody Allen supposedly said “80% of success in life is just showing up”. 

I wonder how many people truly understood what he meant.

I suspect there are some who assume that simply by falling out of bed in the morning, they are 80% of the way to success.

I don’t think that’s what Woody meant – unless your idea of success is to live to another day and prove to yourself that gravity is still present. 

To get a better idea of what Woody really meant, take his comment and filter it through the lens of Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED speech (below) and I think you’ll have a better idea of the real meaning behind the quote.

In 20 minutes, there’s a little bit of rabbit chasing, but the first 5 and the last 5 really make it worthwhile. 

It isn’t just about “showing up”.

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Download audio file (CompetingWithBullwinkle.mp3)

photo credit: FlyNutAA

The other day, one of our dogs chased a huge moose out of the yard.

Who cares, right? Maybe. Read on.

If you haven’t ever seen a moose, they aren’t quite as friendly as Bullwinkle. In fact, they have a reputation for being pretty mean once provoked.

Readers of the Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet series will remember a scene where the moose attacks Brian in a high mountain lake, almost drowning him.

If you remember past posts, you might assume that Blondie, our 85lb+ Golden Retriever/Alaskan Husky mix might be the one who chased the would-be Bullwinkle out of the yard. Even though Blondie can fill the back seat of a Suburban, you’d be wrong if you assumed she was the moose chaser.

It’s an understandable assumption. After all, a full-grown moose typically weighs between 800 and 1300 pounds and stands 6-7 feet high at the shoulder. You’d assume it would take a big noisy dog to scare off something that big and that mean, right?

The trouble with that theory is that Blondie is really of the species doggus fireplacus-snoozus, meaning she’d rather lay in front of the fireplace and snooze.

The dog that chased off the moose? Our Bichon Frise, Gigi (no, I didn’t name her<g>). That isn’t her in the photo above, but the dog in that photo looks just like her.

Gigi weighs all of 8-9 lbs and stands maybe 6″ tall at the shoulder. So I’m looking out the bathroom window into the back 40 and I see this little white wanna-be tasmanian devil yapping her brains out and this moose trotting off while looking over its shoulder looking like it wishes it were in another county.

Here it comes

Yeah, there’s a lesson there. You knew it was coming.

The assumption is that the big competitor can’t be made to blink – or in the case of the moose, can’t be made to take their marbles and go somewhere else.

Many times, that assumption is made because the competitor is “too big to fail”. Bet you’ve heard that a lot lately.

In the case of the moose, that would be my assumption as well. The likely reality is that the moose realized that this little yappy white critter coming after it with fangs bared and a maniacal yap (is that even possible?<g>) not only wasn’t scared of it, but wasn’t going to back off.

Suddenly, whatever brought the moose into the yard simply wasn’t worth it anymore. Trust me, I have those days with Gigi from time to time myself:)

The dirty little secret is that if the moose got close enough to Gigi, she probably would have run for the hills, but coming to that one particular spot just wasn’t attractive enough for the moose to chance it.

The moose doesn’t know what Gigi is capable of, much less willing to do in order to win the battle. Because it really doesn’t need this little corner of Montana in order to survive, it leaves.

Like Gigi, your ability to compete against a large, entrenched competitor is largely up to what’s inside of you.

Do I mean that you can sell more insulin or diabetic socks than Wal-Mart? Probably not.

On the other hand, in your market, you might be able to create a great success selling diabetic supplies to the right market by selling better than they do – simply because of delivery, service, insurance handling, convenience and so on.

Even Wal-Mart has weaknesses – some by design

Ever seen a drive-up window at a Wal-Mart? Ever seen a Wal-Mart delivery vehicle in a neighbor’s driveway?

Even in a market with a large, entrenched competitor, you’ll find things that your competitor is unable or unwilling to do. Things that the customer would be happy to have you do for them as part and parcel of delivering your product or service. There are *some* customers that will gravitate to you because of that.

Others wont care about delivery, drive-up, or whatever you use to differentiate. Let them go. Assuming that everyone is your ideal customer is a great way to bore the market to death (the death being that of your business).

Focus on the clientele who revels in or depends on the differences you offer.

What would your competitor simply hate to find you doing in “their” market? What could they do if they wanted to that would really please their customer – but they wont because of their compliance department, laziness or their business model?

Be the Gigi of your market. Defend your corner of the yard like a maniacal, fluffy little dog that is convinced it cannot lose.

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photo credit: kennymatic

Today’s guest post comes from of all places – ReadersDigest.com, by way of Hildy Gottlieb.

This post is mostly about human foibles and while I don’t agree with all of the advice at the end of the column, it’s a good article to get you thinking about how you can make small slices of improvement in your life and business.

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photo credit: Sarah606

If I only had a dollar for every time I heard someone say “I wish I could clone myself” (or every time they wrote it).

Maybe even a dime:)

It’s a pretty common thing for people to say. There are over 2200 google hits on that exact quote (ie: search google with ” on each end of the sentence).

Everyone is busy, but are they getting anything done? Probably lots of stuff. Stuff that lands in front of them like a TV commercial. “Oh, I’ll just deal with this because it’s in front of me”.

That sort of thing.

But what exactly are they getting done?

Maybe a more accurate question is “Are they getting anything done that actually moves them toward the goals of the business?”

“Anything” is probably a bad choice of words. How about “lots of things” or “as much as you expected”?

We could talk about distractions all day – but wouldn’t that be a distraction? :)

The point about today is cloning.

What work are you doing?

Think about what you did today or yesterday, or some randomly selected “average day”.

How much of that pushed you and made you think?

How much of it was something you considered real work, ie: stuff that required to you focus and that was something hard?

How much of it require your strongest capabilities as a business person – those things that you wouldn’t DARE let anyone else do?

Was that half of your day? One third of your day? Or maybe 20 minutes of your day?

I’ll cut you some slack and assume it was half of your day. I think the number is far smaller, but we can argue about that later.

If you worked for 8 hours on this so-called average day, then you spent 4 hours of that day doing stuff that presumably could be done by an administrative assistant, a freelance local web person, the local print shop, or an independent accountant.

Paying the bill

Yes, these outside vendors cost money. So let’s find a way to pay for it.

If you could increase (say by 50%) the amount of the work that you get done, would you make any more money? In the case of your average day, I’m talking about 2 hours.

Specifically, if you could get 50% more of that “real work, requires absolute focus, needs your strongest capabilities, really makes you think” kind of work, wouldn’t your business be doing a LOT better?

We’ll assume you get 50% more because nothing is perfect and even 50% is such a big number that you might even do better once you get a taste of it:)

Doing the math to find money

Using your average day, you just got an extra 2 hours of serious work per day.

Multiply that times 3 days a week. I picked 3 days because I’m assuming you’ll get this right perhaps 60% of the time.

Now multiple that times 40 weeks per year. I picked 40 weeks, figuring that you’ll not do this for 12 weeks per year given travel, vacations, sick time, conventions, chamber of commerce events, trade shows and other distractions that you’ll manage to come up with.

So, how much time did you just find?

Two times 3 times forty is 240. Two hundred and forty hours. 6 work weeks. A month and a half. 30 full days of work.

How much is that worth to your bottom line?

If you have employees, many of them fall into the same trap. What’s that worth?

Yes, it’ll cost something to outsource that other work or hire someone as an employee to do it – but look at the cost of NOT doing so.

Don’t assume that I’m suggesting that you outsource this work to someone in East Bananastan and pay them $0.12 an hour. This will pay off in spades even if you pay a local $50-75 an hour to get the right work done.

Will it make you more competitive? Will it improve the quality of the really important work your business does?

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photo credit: kevindooley

Today’s guest post comes from St. Louis photographer Jeane Vogel, who shares her observations about the reactions of “ambitious” visitors to an art fair, and the “la-la-la-la, I can’t hear you” reactions she got from far too many of them when sharing some of the most valuable info she could share with a young artist. 

Whether you’re an artist or not, this generally applies to you, so get your spoonful right here.

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You don’t have to look far to find people who will find 100 reasons why you shouldn’t do what you’re doing in your business (or what you plan to do).

They’ll throw every possible thing at you that can go wrong. Thank them under your breath if they mention something that you hadn’t considered in your plan, but don’t let them get you down.

Remember that some of them probably haven’t built anything of their own. What extends beyond their comfort zone will color their remarks, and will often be irrelevant to you. Those who have built something of their own look at life and business differently.

Allowing folks with that outlook to project their attitude onto you isn’t going to help you succeed. If it’s a consistently negative stream of BS, just leave. If you can’t leave (eg, they might be family), change the subject and don’t talk about business with them.

Jim Rohn once said you’re the product of the 5 people you spend the most time with. OK, Jim really says that every time he speaks, but whatever:)

Are those 5 people being supportive? Asking good questions? Sharing things that have been successful for them, in hopes that you might be able to get some use out of it?

Or are they constantly picking away at you, your ideas and your business as if they were some sort of karmic woodpecker?

Find people who will help you by asking good, tough questions, not those who will chip away at you and your ideas just because it’s what they do. When the chippers chip away, the best thing you’ll get out of it is motivation.

When I announced our move to Montana, someone told me we’d be back in 6 months. I remember it like it was yesterday.

They said it in 1999.

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Wouldn’t surprise me if some of you regularly encounter folks who just don’t think they need to keep learning.

Ask them to get used to saying “Do you want fries with that?” because their industry will quickly leave them behind.

Daniel over at Idea Sellers hits the nail on the head with today’s guest post about continuous education.

Don’t assume you can discard this thought if you aren’t in sales, as his point is valid regardless of what line of work you’re in.

One of the things I admired most about EDS (my first real job four score and twenty years ago, or something like that) was that they never stood in the way of improving yourself. If you wanted to take a class, the door was open. They realized that the more educated their people were, the more they were likely to gain.

I strongly advise you to do the same. Offer as many educational opportunities as you can to your staff.

I know, I know. Someone out there is thinking “But what if they leave?”, yet they should be thinking “What if they don’t leave?”

Set the example yourself and place the opportunity in front of them so they’ll follow suit.

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Taking Labor Day off, blog wise. So…today’s guest post comes from Wendy Piersall over at sparkplugging.com, where she talks about the 15 qualities/things you have to be/have/etc to get out of the rat race, which also translates to being successful entrepreneur or small business owner.

Check it out over at Sparkplugging.com/sparkplug-ceo

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Today’s guest post comes from Clay Collins over at The Growing Life. He talks about the 7 reasons (I suspect there might be more if we pushed him on it) that 20somethings are (apparently?) more productive than us old guys.

Well, except for me. *I’m not that old*<g>

Check it out before Clay turns 30, will ya?

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Good thing I got off the 50+ mile canoe trip today. Turns out this morning’s guest post was missing the link to Yanik’s book list.

The original post has been updated, or you can go here now.

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Today’s guest post comes from Ayn Rand. Yep, the author of Atlas Shrugged.

As the 2008 Presidential Election looms closer, people like you and I will be discussed more and more by the candidates and the press.

We’ll be called rich, evil, greedy and any number of other things. “We” meaning entrepreneurs and business owners.

Don’t let yourself get stuck in the mud, believing what they say.

Instead, listen to Francisco and think about what you do. Then get out there and do it better.

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I was listening to Sam Clark this morning and he was talking about a group he surveyed about their business habits and noted that 86% of the people surveyed had no plan.

We talked about this when I first heard this comment from Sam a few months ago, but didn’t really press the issue.

Dan Kennedy calls it the “Monday morning reinvention” – where people show up at work Monday morning and start all over again. They sit down, they get coffee, and then they start figuring out what they need to do that week, at least until they’re distracted by a few joke emails or a link to someplace that takes them somewhere else until it’s “suddenly” lunchtime, or mid-afternoon.

Would it shock you to look across the room at 100 people at today’s Rotary Club meeting or Chamber of Commerce lunch and find that only 14 of them are working a plan to get where they want to be.

The other 86 have:

• No plan for today.
• No plan for tomorrow.
• No plan for next week.
• No plan for next month.
• No plan for getting their business, or their part of the business, from where it is today to where it will be tomorrow. A

We all know that you have to plan in order to achieve what you want, so why do so few people do it?

Start today. Don’t give me that “one of these days” comments, or “I’ll start on it next week, it’s too late for this week”.

Do it now. As soon as you finish reading this post.

Why now? I already know you aren’t working – because you’re reading this:)

If you aren’t working a daily or work week plan, take 15-30 minutes or however long it takes and figure out what your most important achievements for this week will be.

Now take a few minutes and figure out what the first few steps are to work toward each one, and start on them. NOW.

As you finish those first few steps, figure out the next few, and then knock them off.

At the end of the day, spend a few minutes planning tomorrow. Repeat it the rest of the week at the end of each day.

If you *are* one of the 14% who are working a plan, don’t forget to re-assess where you are at the end of the day, adjust as necessary and stick to it.

Do what most people aren’t doing. Get what most people arent getting.

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