How to grow your business by taking 3 months off

This book by Louise Woodbury and William De Ora is a worthwhile edition to any small business managers library. It is based very much along the lines of the E-Myth by Michael Gerber but has a number of improvements in my opinion. Firstly, unlike Gerber, it starts out with a single goal in mind. Gerber’s book is great, telling you to get everything systemized and so on but what for ? Just to make more money ? I think that this book’s objective is far more relevant to Australian small business owners.

The second thing is that the book is written by Australian’s. Many good ideas and books come from the US but there are still significant differences in the culture between Australian and US small businesses, so coming from an Australian perspective is a bonus. The book also goes beyond what Gerber covers, extending into areas such as financial management and marketing. In some cases this may make the book too long for small business owners pressed for time and in some places I found the book to drag a bit but generally they were few and far between. If there was a flat spot it wasn’t long until something “peppier” came along.

The follows the struggles of a business owning couple who have been in business over ten years and who have lost their “spark” and are simply trudging through their day feeling trapped by the business they started all those years ago to free them from the cages of being employees. The ability to take three months off from your business to enjoy a break has two fold benefits. Firstly, it lets those owners who are burning out a chance to unwind and recharge their batteries. Even more importantly, it makes the business owners put in place systems and people ( al la Gerber ) so that the business will continue to run in their absence.

I feel this book is more relevant to businesses here in Australia than Gerber’s because it actually focuses on a goal the business owners can aim for as well as providing definative steps as to what needs to be put in place for this to happen. As I said previously , the book is written very much in the Gerber style as a story between all the major players. This I admit can get a little tedious at times but then you do have to remember that not everyone has read Gerber and this writing style will probably appeal to a lot of small business owners who don’t really read for relaxation.

All in all a very worthwhile read and I would recommend it to any small business owner, whether or not they have read Gerber. There were plenty of points that made me sit up and pay attention as well as challenging my thinking on a number of issues. Any book that does this is certainly worth the investment of reading.

Rating = 7 out of 10

What I think all the self help stuff misses

So you’ve read all the business self help books you can find. You got all these really great ideas about how to improve your business and your life but you still feel something is missing. I couldn’t agree with you more. What is that something? I believe that it is simply – Personal Health.

Scientific studies show that the fitter you are the better your body is able to cope, the better your stamina and that you generally lead a much better life. Unfortunately, the trend in today’s Western society is definitely the opposite. We spend more and more time sitting in front of computer screens during the day and TV screens at night. It is well documented that today’s society is getting fatter and fatter with demands for ‘fast food’ growing.

Personal health and fitness is not just a passing fad that you do for a while it must become part of your life. Why do most diets fail? Because they are only for a very short period of time. Once you come off a diet what happens? Usually you stack on the pounds plus a few more for good measure. Why? Well if your body is cruising along for a number of years on a certain intake and style of food then it gets used to it ( you call this conditioning ). Then all of a sudden your make a radical change and don’t eat as much what happens? Well, the body is smart, it starts converting more food into stored energy ( ie fat ) until the previous eating pattern returns. When you end the diet the body doesn’t know that and keeps storing more enegy until it recognizes the diet is finally over.

It takes about 6 months for you body to actually realize “Oh, I see, you are doing things differently, I’ll have to adjust”. so any change you want to make is going to take about 6 months before it starts showing any results. The problem is that the most effort required for change is always required up front. Unfortunately, we can’t say “Hey, can I pay for this change with set payments over a few years?”. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. This is reason most people fail to make change, they aren’t committed to the significant up front charge.

If you want to improve your business, I think the first thing is to take a look at yourself. Am I eating right? Am I getting enough rest? Am I exercising enough? Do I spend time away from the business releaxing and recharging? Most business owners would probably just laugh at these ideas and say that to be successful you can’t afford any of these. Well I hate to tell you that if you get sick you probably won’t have a business because the whole thing depends on you. Generally, no work, no money is the tune for most small businesses.

Improving your personal health will allow you to do more, work harder when required and bounce back but best of all it will lead to an improved life. Isn’t that what we are all striving for? What the hell are you doing if you aren’t about improving your life?

Now don’t get me wrong you don’t have to go out and start running a marathon tomorrow morning at 6am. The secret to achieveing anything is small incremental improvements. As I have said before if you are going to climb a ladder you take it one rung at a time, you don’t try and jump seven or eight at a time. The challenge is to develop the discipline to not only make these changes in your life but to stick at them. Remember – anything worthwhile requires sacrifice.

Being different

The older we get the more set in our ways we become. The more unlikely we are to try something outside the box, so to speak. This can prove to be a very limiting factor. How many times have you thought – “Geeze, I wish I’d thought of that”. Chances are, you probably could of if only you’d been able to think outside the square.

How can you avoid getting into a rut? Well, unfortunately you have to do things that aren’t comfortable and most likely you also don’t really like doing. For example, if you like reading spy novels then maybe reading something like a western. You probably feel that you wouldn’t like it but how do you know until you try? My grandfather used to to tell me that unless I tried some of the things that were put on my plate at dinner time I’d never know whether I liked them. Now, probably most of the things I didn’t like but I will admit that were things that I did like. Limiting yourself to what “you think” is good can become very constraining and resticts you ability to grow.

Working outside your comfort zone and trying something new can also greatly increase your flexability as well as you knowledge. The hard thing is making this fun and challenging ourselves to do it on a regular basis. It is far to difficult to fall back into our usual comfortable habits when we are not paying attention. I heard someone once say that the different between someone who is good at something and someone who is great at something is that someone who is great at something practices what they are bad at. Anybody can practice what they are good.

The real challenge is to have the discipline to push ourselves outside our comfort zone and try something new. Too many times fear of failure or other people’s opinions hold us back. As anyone can tell you, you don’t know what you can achieve until you put your mind to it.

Confidence

Probably one of the most powerful tools that you can develop to help you anywhere is confidence. We all know those people who are able to remain confident even when things aren’t going their way. As the proverb says, “As you think, so it will be”. Confidence goes beyond just thinking positively in my book it is about really believing, rather than merely thinking.

It is still strange how such a simple thing like confidence can be so hard to achieve. So many aspects of our lives today abound in their ability to destroy our confidence. Typically, we take these things on board ourselves and use them against others ( albeit unknowingly most of the time ) in an effort to break their confidence. “Why should they be confident if I can’t?” would be the catch cry. Basically, you’re saying that it is too hard for your to change yourself but much easier to throw stones at someone else.

Confidence, like most things worth attaining, is not something that can’t be gained over night. It needs to be worked on, nurtured and as I have said previously – you have to keep training. Changing a human being’s mindset is probably one of the hardest challenges we face. Why? Look at the state of our World. It is still filled with violence, wars and injustice to name but a few examples. We all have the power to change these yet in many cases we let them continue. We lack the confidence to stand up and let other know that something should be done to help others, unselfishly. Why? Because we are too afraid of what others might say. Confidence is being able to stand by your principles and yet be ready to admit, when the time comes ( and it will ), that you were wrong. It takes confidence to gracefully acknowledge that youhave learned something and that rather than weakening you it has actually made your stronger.

We hear it so many times but largely ignore the statement “life is too short” until it is almost too late to do anything about it. A great statement I heard recently was – “imagine what you could achieve if you weren’t afraid”. The ability to overcome the fear that constrains our lives is confidence but like any muscle (physical or psychological) in the body we need to exercise it.

What it takes to be great

Have just finished reading a very interesting article in Fortune Magazine titled “What it takes to be great”. It basically says that being great has nothing to do with natural talent, it has to do with a steely determine to improve and continue to improve. Interestingly, the article says that most people don’t achieve greatness for at least 10 years! This means at least 10 years of hard work but not simply going out and practicing but by setting distinct goals and measuring the improve at every opportunity.

The reality of being “great” come down to one simple thing – practice. The more you practice the more you improve. The reason that there are so few people who area “great” come down to the fact that most people give up way too early. It is that special individual that sets and goal and keeps working towards it no matter what. It is interesting to find that people who are considered great come all different fields and walks of life but when it comes down to it they all say the same thing – there is no substitute for hard work.

A wise man once told me “there is no end to training” and likewise the answer to every question is “train more”. Try it and see what I mean.

Question – “I’m overweight, how can I lose weigh?” Answer – “Train more”
Question – “How can I get a better job?” Answer – “Train more”
Question – “My partner left me, what can I d?” Answer – “Train more”

You’d be surprised at how such a simple answer can prove to be the solution for every question. The problem is putting it into action.

But now you know the answer! Being great isn’t about have a special gift it is about continuing to work damm hard from this point on to achieve what you want. There is nothing stopping you but yourself. But as the Fortune article shows, although the answer is simple not many chose to take it up. What will you decide to do?

Like I have said before, it is as simple as compund interest, small amounts invested over long periods od time yield major returns. Nothing could be simplier right? So why is it no-one does it?

New Year’s resolutions

So it is that time of year, when though move from the holidays to resolutions for the year ahead. Are you a person who makes New Year’s resolutions or not? More importantly, are you someone who keeps the resolutions or who by the second of January is already regretting promises made in haste?

Know what? It doesn’t matter. Why? Because, every day should be like New Year. We need a complete range of goals, short, medium and long term but importantly we must set goals that belong to US. We also probably need to realise that we are also likley to experience a complete range of outcomes of oru goals from total success to total failure. We need to confidence to live with the results and the fortitude to keep working on those goals that haven’t achieved the results we desire.

The only limiting factor that we place on our outsome are those imposed by our own minds. Nothing can be truer than the saying that “we are limited only by ourlseves” and “if we believe in something strongly enough it will materialize”. Sure, this isn’t always easy to do. If it was then everyone would be achieving everything they desired and we would live in a prefect world. Of course we all know that this is far from the case don’t we?

The secret about New Year’s resolutions in not actually making them or even keeping them but having the courage to make decisions that will truely improve our lives and then to continue to work on them until they come to fruition. As I have said before here, anything worthwhile require sacrifice. The only question that you need to answer is whether the result is truely worth the price, if it is down the torpedos and go for it. Life is too short.

The circle of life

As I have conjectured about previously here, life is a constant balancing act where success is found via control. Clearly, life isn’t about being “up” all the time, there are “down” moments. It is so easy to stay within these “down” moments as a way of feeling sorry for yourself and seeking sympathy from others. If you, however, look at these situations you will probably find they are nothing more than selfishness.

Sometimes it is easier to stay in a low state claiming depression and a life full of woe but it is merely a stage. The speed at which you are able to move through this low state says alot about your character and self confidence. Dwelling in at the bottom of the cycle can be a selfish act for attention, pushing oneself out of these period is hard work, don’t get me wrong, but it needs to be done. In many cases you can’t progress to the next level until you have gone through a “cycle” but you don’t need top spend an equal amount of time at each level in my book.

In this day and age it is too easy to slip into a mindset that lays blame at the feet of everything external. A great book on this subject is “As a man thinketh” by James Allen. Like all great books it is only short but contains a wealth of information. One of my favourite saying from the books is that a man’s ( or woman’s ) mind is like a garden. If it isn’t look after weeds and rubbish will soon overrun it. A health state of mind takes hard work and constant dedication. Sure the occasional weed is going to appear, however continued hard work will ensure that the weed is removed and the garden continues to prosper. Much like that are we, too often mired in the depression and angst of this World to truely look around and thank our lucky stars that it certainly could be far worse that it probably is.

Believing you are better

Business is competitive. Running your own business is more competitive. The only way to survive is to believe in your core that you are better at what you do than anyone else in the World. Sure, that may sound arrogant but I strongly believe that you must have this deep seeded conviction or otherwise you just aren’t going to succeed when things get tough. I would think that people who start and run their own business are, by nature, more competitive than average. They like to win and that is what drives then to achieve.

Now, there is probably a pretty good chance that whatever business you choose to operate there will always be another business that is better. The difference here is that you believe that you can be better than your competition. There aren’t many people that start out in front of their competition and keep winning. Even gifted athletes and teams get beaten sometimes. The secret is the drive, the enthusiasm to keep going, to keep improving, striving to be better and beat the competition.

A smart competitor learns not only from their opposition but also from any aspect which could help them, could give that little advantage that could be all the difference between winning and losing. Part of having drive is the belief to keep striving towards you goals, even through set backs. Where does this drive come from? Personally, I believe you either have it or you don’t Whether you are born with it or whether you foster it through your growing years I still as yet haven’t decided but in my experience if you haven’t got it then you just aren’t going to cut it in your own business. Truth is you are better off working for a boss and focusing your energies in other areas. Harsh, maybe but this is what I generally find. You only hear about the successful athletes and teams, but what about all those who don’t or can’t make it? A belief that you can be better than you opposition is what drives achievers to achieve.

It maybe worthwhile to stop and determine whether you really believe, I mean deep down in your gut, that you can be better than anyone else at what you do. If you can’t honestly say this about what you are doing then maybe it is time to consider a chance to something where doubt will no longer hold you back.