Growing Your Business With New Rules in the New Year

There are two types of rules: rules we set for ourselves, and rules that are set by others.  As children, others set most of our rules for us.  However, as adulthood approaches, we have to become responsible for setting our own rules and holding ourselves accountable.   We set these rules with the purpose of making our lives more fulfilling.  You’ve heard these phrases before:

“No carbs after 9pm!”
“No dessert before dinner!”
“No TV during the day!”
“No beer before liquor!”
“No coffee in the afternoon!”
“No checking email after 6pm!

Typically these rules are unwritten, and typically we are the only ones holding ourselves accountable for following them.  The objective of declaring these rules is simple: we want to give ourselves boundaries that will guide our paths to success.

Just as these personal rules are helpful in enhancing our personal lives, another set of rules is important to entrepreneurs in helping us achieve more satisfying results.  And just like “personal rules” vary from person to person, “entrepreneur rules” vary from entrepreneur to entrepreneur.

Here are three steps for creating some new rules for the new year:

Step 1: Assess the current state of your business and assess your strengths and weaknesses

Are there parts of your business that you are unsatisfied with?  Are you an unbalanced entrepreneur needing some rules to help you manage your time more effectively?  Do you need a rule to help you balance your work life and your personal life?  Are you a disorganized entrepreneur in need of some rules to help clear the clutter?  Are you an overwhelmed entrepreneur in need of some rules to help you simplify and delegate?  Are you an unfocused entrepreneur in need of some rules to help you maintain a sharper focus through the day, week, or month? Are you an entrepreneur, focused on growth, who needs some rules to help you focus on revenue producing activities?

Step 2: Create rules that allow you to minimize your weaknesses and accentuate your strengths

1)    Lacking personal time with family or friends?  Make a rule so that every Tuesday and Wednesday, you turn off your Blackberry and make plans with a friend … no matter what!

2)    Email constantly disorganized?  Create some folders in your inbox, and make a rule that every time you get 10 new messages in your inbox, you will organize those messages and put them in the appropriate folders.

3)    Bringing work home with you?  Make a rule that you cannot discuss work at home on certain days of the week.

4)    Desk a mess?  Create different organizational bins on your desk and make a rule that each new piece of mail will be sorted into its appropriate bin or file folder on the same day you receive it.

5)    Communication issues when you delegate tasks?  Make a rule that you won’t assign a task without having your employee repeat back what he or she is supposed to do.

6)    Spending too much time on the wrong areas of your business?  Create a list of “Key Result Activities” for your business.  Make a rule that you have to do at least one of those activities each day before 10 am.

7)    Not recognizing the progress within your business? Make a rule that you have to reward yourself with a nice dinner, a massage, or even a small bonus after reaching a milestone within your business.

8)    Having trouble explaining your business?  Make a rule to practice your 30-second elevator pitch at least once a week.

9)    Trouble concentrating while working from home? Make a rule that you need to work at a coffee shop or other location at least two days per week.

10)    Slacking on tracking numbers? Make a rule that you will only invest in trackable advertising without committing the time to measure the return on investment.

Step 3: Write down your top 3 rules for 2010, hold yourself accountable, and make adjustments when necessary.

Although our personal rules are usually unwritten, my suggestion is to write down your “entrepreneur rules” for 2010 and put them somewhere you can see them on a daily basis.  The rules I gave are just examples, however, many of the topics I brought up are common areas that entrepreneurs struggle with.

The goal of this exercise is to create new habits that will be beneficial to you and your business in the long run.  Stating these goals as “rules” gives us a language we have been used to since our parents and teachers gave us rules as children.  We know rules are not supposed to be broken.

Make sure to set up appropriate systems to hold yourself accountable.  There are many ways to hold yourself accountable, but the first step is to make a commitment to yourself to prioritize these rules and to realize the value that following them will have in your business.  The second step is to pick an “accountability referee”, a person who will help you to hold yourself accountable. There are many different people in your life who could serve as your “accountability referee”:
·    Will you use friends or family?  For example, will you tell friends and family that you will no longer check your Blackberry on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings?
·    Will you hire a coach in 2010 to hold you accountable?
·    Will you join a mastermind group?
That leads me to the final piece of step 3: make sure you have time for adjustments.  It is extremely important as an entrepreneur to leave some time to work ON your life and business versus IN your life and business.  I call it a weekly life audit.  This is an uninterrupted scheduled meeting each week with yourself to review all your objectives. By spending this time each week ON your life and business, you will naturally discover the areas of your life that could benefit from some adjustments.  Think that’s a great idea but you will never be able to pull it off?  Make a rule.  “Weekly life audit with myself every Tuesday at 11am.”

What are your new rules for the new year?

Embracing Change

It is not a question of IF major changes will occur in our lives, but rather a question of when and how often they will occur.

We will experience change in many areas of our lives – our homes, our beliefs, our careers, our health, our friendships, and our love lives. Change is inevitable and it occurs regardless of whether or not we are prepared for it.

For the most part, people resist anything that may be uncomfortable. This is because there is a part of us that wants to keep us safe. Change often forces us to venture into unknown terrain. The unknown could bring disappointment, rejection, and fear. But no matter how much we may resist it, change happens.

Sometimes change happens against our will, such as the athlete who is struck with a career ending injury or the family who has to relocate because of a job transfer. However, sometimes we initiate change on our own, such as choosing to end a relationship or take on a new job.

Many people feel that it is easier to initiate change if they’re unhappy. If we’re unhappy, we can ask ourselves, what’s the worst that can happen if I make this adjustment in my life? Can things really get any worse? People wait until they are in debt before they make the effort to learn about financial planning. Or they wait until they are constantly arguing with their partner before they enter couples therapy or end the relationship. They wait until work has become unbearable before they look for a new job. In other words, if it’s clear that we are unhappy, we are more willing to expose ourselves to the risk of change.

The challenge in initiating change comes when we are comfortable. If we are comfortable with the status quo, then why should we change? If we are comfortable, then change appears to be something that could bring us more bad than good.

But what if being too comfortable is a sign that we need to make a change? What if complacency means that we aren’t thinking big enough or stepping outside of our comfort zone as often as we should be? What if being comfortable means that we are not challenging ourselves to accomplish all that we could accomplish? What if it means we are selling ourselves short?

When we get too comfortable in a relationship, or at work, or with our daily routine, we may find that our results and happiness in those areas begin to diminish.?

Those who achieve the most in life are those who think the biggest. And thinking big requires initiating change before change is needed. The people who do this successfully are those who are able to recognize when they have become too complacent.

They have the foresight to recognize that stepping outside of their comfort zone in certain areas of life may provide them with a great learning experience. Their attitude leaves no room for regrets, and they are willing to accept the risk of change because of it provides an opportunity for growth and achievement.

They still may worry at times about what will come from the change, but they associate that feeling with excitement and possibility, rather than fear, rejection, and disappointment.

As a coach, I challenge clients to recognize these opportunities for growth and excitement. I also support my clients through the challenging feelings of fear and insecurity that may arise when they decide to initiate change.

In summary, whether change occurs due to internal or external conditions, it is important to consider the benefits that change may bring.

Here are my questions for you:

• What areas of your life have you become too comfortable with?
• What change(s) could you make that could potentially bring more excitement, growth, and opportunity into your life?
• What is the last major change you made in your life? Was it a scary choice to make that change? Looking back on that change, has it been beneficial?

Why You Should Buy a DVR (and 8 other things)

Last newsletter I mentioned that if we invest our time and money in areas that allow us to learn and grow, we will receive consistently strong returns. In this newsletter, I want to discuss several specific investments that we can make to help us become the best versions of ourselves.  Although this concept may seem basic, many people fail to incorporate basic investments into their daily lives. It always seems like other things get in the way: our routines, the pressure we feel to do more things in less time, and our lack of clarity about our goals.
The important thing is to make investing in yourself a part of your routine. The investments that I propose here may seem simple, but if you make them a part of your everyday life, you may be surprised at how rewarding they can be.

The criteria for a great investment is simple – it helps us with at least one of the following:

·       Teaches us something new and exciting
·        Helps us grow as a person by assisting us in overcoming fears, doubts, and uncertainties
·        Creates more time and/or energy in our lives so that we can do more activities that help us learn and grow

Here are nine investments that we can make which will give us a great return:

1) Seminars and /Workshops – Many people stop going to class when they finish high school, college, or graduate school.  However, there are many areas of life that we don’t cover in school.  I never took a class in school on how to determine my financial blueprint and how that affects my money management habits, or on how to invest successfully in real estate or the stock market, or on how to have a great marriage.

Every week, seminars are conducted across the country on every topic imaginable.  Some seminars are free introductory seminars and some of them are weeklong retreats that cost thousands of dollars.  These seminars are great ways to break the routines of everyday life.  In addition to the knowledge and growth that the information at the seminars can provide, they are also refreshing and offer us valuable time to reflect.

2) Business/Social and Professionals Groups – Whether you are looking for more referrals for your business, hoping to overcome your fear of public speaking, or interested in finding other people with some of your common interests, there are groups out there that you can join.  I am a member of a business group.  One morning a week about fifteen business people get together to share referrals and discuss business strategies.  I am also a member of Toastmasters (www.toastmasters.org) which is an international organization designed to help you improve your public speaking skills.  The website www.meetup.com is a great source for finding or starting your own social groups in your area.

3) Gym Membership/Personal Trainer/Fitness Classes – Gym memberships, personal trainers, and fitness classes/boot camps should all be looked at as investments rather than expenses.  If you treat them as investments these purchases will energize you and help you grow.  If you are not exercising, invest in a personal trainer or some other fitness related investment that will hold you accountable.  Having energy, both mental and physical, to pursue your goals is one key to creating success in your personal and professional lives.  If you are tired of going to the gym or running outside and doing the same routine, switch it up and invest in a boot camp or fitness class.

4) Non-Fiction Books – I am a big advocate of reading.  It’s funny because I used to dislike it.  So if you don’t like reading there is hope!  I prefer non-fiction to fiction, however, I think there is value in both types of reading.  Fictional novels are a great way to escape, relax, and immerse yourself in a compelling story.  Non-fiction is a great way to learn about new topics or people or master topics that you are already familiar with.  I strongly suggest picking a topic that you’ve wanted to learn more about and reading three books on that topic.  You’ll find that there are books on every topic possible. By reading three different books on a topic you are on your way to becoming an expert in that area.  Learning from other people’s experience and viewpoints is very valuable in your growth and learning process.  Spend an afternoon or a weekend day in a bookstore exploring the possibilities.

5) Audio Books – The rising popularity of audio books makes it harder to claim that you’re too busy or too lazy to read. If you think you are too busy or too lazy to read then stop making excuses.  There are many books available on audio.  You can listen while you are in the car or you can put the audio track on your ipod and listen to it while working out or cleaning your house.

6) Volunteering for a good cause – Volunteering for something you believe is a great way to energize yourself.  Sometimes people get so consumed in their everyday lives that they forget the positive feelings they can create by giving some of their time to a worthy cause.  What organization can you donate a small amount of your time to in the next month? The website www.volunteermatch.com can offer you some volunteering options.  Most non-profits are usually looking for volunteers for various services that they provide.  I am volunteering at the PMC for Kids bike ride (http://kids.pmc.org/) in late May.  Let me know if you are interested.

7) Personal Coach – Getting a personal coach is a great investment.  Just like a personal trainer, a coach should be viewed as an investment and not as an expense. Working with a coach will help you find clarity on what you want and how you are going to get it.  Your coach will hold you accountable and will help you become more productive in your personal and professional life.  There are many coaches out there who specialize in specific areas.  Think about how coaching can provide you with the most value and find a coach that you connect with.  Some people coach for just a few months as they work through a certain period in their lives and some people use a coach for years at a time.

8) Classes, Lessons, and Leagues – Did you ever want to be a chef?  Maybe a ballroom dancer or a salsa dancer?  Maybe an actor? An artist? A pianist or guitarist? A softball or basketball player? There are classes, lessons, and leagues available that allow you to participate in these hobbies, sports, and careers.  Switch it up.  Take some salsa or guitar lessons or a join a softball team for the summer.  Learn something new.  Pick up a new hobby or reinvigorate one that has faded from your life.

9) DVR – If you spend time watching TV then what better way to create more time in your life than investing in a DVR?  No more commercials!  Just make sure to use it appropriately.  Don’t tape too many shows and start watching TV that you normally wouldn’t care about.  Tape only the shows and sporting events you MUST watch to survive.   You can watch most shows in 2/3 the time because you can fast forward through commercials.  You can also fast forward through all the negative parts of the news – although that might not leave much of the news left to watch.  The Celtics games only take me one hour to watch.  This small monetary investment will cut down on your TV time and will allow you to spend time and money on all your other investments.

These are only a few of the investments you can make with your time and money.  Continue to reflect on your life and ask yourself if the way you are spending your time and money is helping you learn and grow and to ultimately become the best version of yourself.

Until the next newsletter – always be learning and always be growing.

If you missed any of the previous Education4Life newsletters check out www.education4lifeinc.com

A Consistently Great Investment

No matter what the economy looks like there are always investments that will yield you great returns.

Wayne Dyer, a famous personal development guru, says, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

I want to share with you my thoughts on how this concept applies to investing. An investment is not just financial; it’s anything to which you devote the precious resources you have.

The two major resources we have to invest are our time and our money.

We typically invest time and money into areas with the hope of gaining something beneficial in return. These returns include things that are tangible, like money and real estate. But they also include intangible things that we value most in life: love, friendship, the feeling of helping others, and experience that will help us later in our careers.

If you were to begin to look at every action you took as an investment in yourself, then what would you discover? If you changed the way you looked at how you spent your resources, then how would the way you invest these resources change?

Here are some areas where we spend our resources. What returns are you getting from:

The time you spend working?
The money you spend on food?
The time you spend with friends and family?
The time you spend in the gym?
The time you spend watching TV or reading?
The time you spend driving?
The money you spend on monthly bills?
The money you spend on recreational activities?

Of course, you expect a return on the time and money you invest in these areas. If you did not expect some sort of return, then you would not invest your valuable resources.

So, when you look at your own life, are you getting a substantial return on your investments?

To answer that question, we must first decide how we measure a return. In the financial world, opinions vary on how to measure returns and on what qualifies as a “good” return. The same holds true for investments outside the financial market. Just like in the financial market, how you evaluate the return you received depends on what you value.

Some of the common returns that people value and expect from investing their time and money are:

Money, Relaxation, Security, Stability, Fun, Personal Growth, Freedom, Self-confidence, Daily structure, Risk.

The investment goals that people have may vary from person to person. However, no matter how much these goals vary, one ultimate goal should remain constant: we should invest in order to become the best versions of ourselves.

There is no right way in financial investing to get the greatest returns consistently. If there were, everyone would do it. However, I would argue that there is one right way to get the greatest returns on our non-financial investments. In other words, there is one right way to become the best version of yourself.

The answer is the tagline to my company. The answer is to “Always Be Learning. Always Be Growing.” Beneficial returns will follow if you invest your time and money in areas that allow you to learn and grow. These returns will energize you and you will be able to reinvest those returns to create even greater returns.

If there is any area of your life that you do not feel at your best, the answer can usually be found in these questions:

What new things are you learning?
Are you growing and being challenged?

If you are not learning or growing, you are usually not getting the greatest return on your investment. Take a few weeks to observe how you are spending your resources and evaluate the returns you are getting. If you are unsatisfied with the returns, then make changes. A simple question you can start with is, “is this the best use of my time and/or money?”

Taking time to evaluate your returns illustrates the broader point I’m trying to make: if you take the time to invest in yourself and learn and grow, you will always be on the path to becoming the best version of yourself. No matter what the economy is like, this philosophy will continue to provide great returns in your life.

In my next newsletter I will explore some ways that you can increase the returns on the investments you make.

Discovering a Niche

I want to share with you a small piece of my entrepreneurial journey and how I believe it pertains to you.

From the moment I began thinking about starting Education4Life, I knew that I had the ability to be a great coach, the desire to continuously improve my craft, and the passion to continue this project for a very long time.

I also knew that as time developed I could become an even more successful coach if I found my niche.  If I were to try to become an expert in every type of coaching, I would not be as effective as if I targeted one specific area at a time.

So here is what I did.  I asked myself what type of coach could I be?  Did I want to be a life coach, a health and wellness coach, a business coach, a career coach, a relationship coach, or an executive coach…? There were so many options.

I began by considering all the possibilities. I embraced the opportunities I had to coach people in all different situations.  Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to coach grad students, couples, small business owners, salespeople, hopeful retirees, network marketers, employees looking to transition to entrepreneurship, people needing help with financial organization and several other people in different situations.  At the same time, I thought carefully about my strengths and weaknesses as a coach.  Did I coach grad students as well as I coached couples?  Did I coach my older clients as well as I coached my younger ones?

Although I am still open to coaching people in all situations, my niche has become very clear: I have decided that I am a personal coach for small business owners. I realized that my business experience and my coaching style enable me to provide a tremendous amount of value to this clientele.  In serving this niche market, I help small business owners overcome personal and professional barriers and focus on the key result areas of their businesses.  Through coaching, I work with them to create systems within their businesses so that they can think bigger, get more consistent results, and spend their time on the parts of the business they truly enjoy.  Through coaching they discover the freedom they dreamed of when they initially opened their business.

So why does my defining my niche matter to you?

It matters because during the process of defining a niche I was reminded of three ideas I have previously written about that correlate to increased success in anything you do: clarity, focus, and efficiency.

1)    Clarity – The clearer you are, the more you will see those results show up in your life. My answer to “what do you do?” is becoming clearer and more concise everyday.  This clarity enhances my ability to act quickly and confidently while at the same time allowing others to have a clearer picture about whom I can help and how I can help them.  As a business owner, that is very important to be able to communicate.  In what areas of your life could you gain some clarity?

2)    Focus on Strengths to Create Value – I chose my niche by focusing on my strengths. Sometimes to be successful, you need to specialize on your best skill. I could get by as a generalist, but by targeting my work to focus on what I do best, I’ll improve my capacity to make a real contribution.

If you want to make changes in your life, it is best to make sure that your natural strengths are being utilized to their full capacity before you begin to pour energy into improving your weaker areas.  When I tutor students in the SAT, I stress this point.  I tell students to make sure they get all the questions correct in the sections that they are strongest in.  Then we can start to work on improving their weaknesses.  What natural strengths could you better utilize to create value for yourself and others?

3)    Efficiency – Efficiency leads to more time, money, and freedom.  I am spending more time and energy on productive activities that will create results within the niche I coach. I am minimizing the amount of resources – time and money – I devote to pursuing markets outside of my niche.  Therefore, I have more of these resources to pursue my prime target audience. And finally, I am enhancing my skills at a faster rate because I am able to spend my time studying success in a more specific area.  In what areas of your life could you spend your time and money more effectively?

WifeSwap

The TV shows I watch typically consist of various sporting events, movies, and The Office.  However, several days ago I found myself watching two episodes of a show called WifeSwap.

The concept is pretty straightforward. Two families with different styles of living trade the wife/mother of their family for a two-week period.  For the first week, the women live by the rules and customs of their new families and each of them assumes the household role of the wife they are replacing.  For the second week, the women subject their new families to the rules they use in their own households, and their new husbands and children are forced to follow along.  At the end of the two weeks, the couples reunite and together talk about what they observed, experienced, and learned.

Although I couldn’t help but think that some of the show might have been staged, I found the episodes very entertaining and informative.  It was great to see different styles of parenting and different philosophies on life.

Each show taught many lessons.  Here are three that stuck out to me:

1)    Be thankful for what you have – We recently celebrated Thanksgiving.  This show is a great reminder for us to be thankful for what we have.  After their experiences on the show, all family members were more appreciative of what they have.  Certain families were taught by their new wife/mother the importance of appreciating what they have and other families realized how special their wife/mother was because they were not fans of their new “wife”.  Either way, all participants in the show ended their experience more appreciative of their lifestyle and the people who are involved in it.  Sometimes in life it takes a specific event like Thanksgiving or participation in WifeSwap for us to start appreciating all the great things in our life. You don’t wait for that event to occur – be thankful for what you have.

2)    What We Resist Persists – I have heard many times that what we resist persists.  Nothing changes until it is fully accepted. That is why an alcoholic cannot begin to fully solve his problem until he admits that he is an alcoholic.  The more he resists alcoholism, the more it will persist in his life.  In this show, all family members, at first, resisted the new rules that they were to live by.  After realizing that this resistance was only making things more difficult and magnifying the problems, they decided to embrace the change and learn what they could from it.  It was this attitude that helped each person on the show learn valuable lessons.  If something is holding you back in life, embracing it and learning from it, rather than resisting it, will help you break through it.

3)    Sometimes there is more than one way to achieve a desired outcome – On the two shows that I watched it was clear that all four families felt that their way of life was the right way.  They had chosen specific strategies for raising children because they thought those strategies were most reflective of their values and would be most likely to produce a “successful” family. What every family learned from participating in the show is that people define “success” differently and that there are many different strategies to creating a “successful” household.  It is important to be confident in your vision of success, to be willing to make adjustments along the way, and to remember that you don’t need to do things exactly like other people in order to be successful.

As a side note, I also learned that what appeared to be trashy television show actually had something to offer.  I guess we shouldn’t “judge a book by its cover.”

The Most Important Appointment of Your Week

There are two ways to approach life. You can be proactive or reactive. Which one are you?

At certain points in my life I have definitely been proactive. I have felt as though everything was in slow motion. I had a solution for any potential obstacle that came my way. When feeling this way, I hardly even saw obstacles. I was prepared for anything and everything because I had a mission, I had goals, I had a plan, and I had a back-up plan. I was trying to get as much out of life as I could.

At other times in my life I have been reactive. I have felt overwhelmed and out of control. Every day seemed to be filled with obstacles. Life never seemed easy. I never had enough time to do the things I wanted to do. I didn’t have a clear plan on how I would achieve my goals. And sometimes I didn’t even have goals. When I woke up in the morning, I didn’t feel empowered to take on life’s challenges.

Over the last few years I have felt myself gaining more and more control over my life. I feel more like the proactive person and less like the reactive person. It is as if my life is in slow motion and I can move the pieces around in whatever way I choose. I am very clear about what I want and how I am going to achieve it. I am being proactive: I have goals, energy, and a clear vision of how I want to live my life.

So the question is…how can you achieve more clarity? How can you begin to live a more proactive life than the one you live right now?

I would start by scheduling the most important appointment of your week. This should be a meeting with yourself. No cell phone, no email, no TV, no distractions. Just you, your goals, and your to-do list. This meeting provides three essential parts of your week: time to think, time to evaluate how you have been doing, and time to plan.

After analyzing what was different during the times I have been proactive versus reactive, I have concluded that when I am proactive I am spending more time with myself thinking about what I want and making a plan. My mission is so strong that nothing will get in my way. Any obstacles become opportunities. I enjoy watching how things will unfold. I am ready to go after what I want.

Conversely, when I am reactive, I am not spending enough time with myself. I am not giving myself the time I need to think and plan. All of life’s many millions of activities, events, worries, appointments get in the way. I make time for the things I don’t value, while the things that are most important to me never get the time they deserve.

Do one thing each week: spend time with yourself. Schedule it your weekly planner. Think about your life, evaluate how you did the previous week in achieving your goals and to-dos, and make a plan for the following week. Make improvements in the areas in which you fell short and stay consistent in the areas in which you succeeded.