We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot.
Eleanor Roosevelt

What would we lose as a society if we listened to everything that people told us and accepted their opinions as fact?  Here are a few of the things that we would have missed out on:

Thomas Edison was once told that he was too stupid to learn anything and failed 1,000 times to invent the light bulb.

Oprah Winfrey was fired from a job as a reporter because she wasn’t cut out for TV.

The Beatles were told that they were no good and that guitar music was just a passing fad.

Michael Jordan?  Cut from his high school basketball team.

What greatness would we have missed out on if these people would have listened to “conventional wisdom”?  More importantly what contributions are we missing out on from you?

My belief is that you are better than you think you are.  (This after I recently called people losers.  See I do have a heart.)  Why don’t you think more of yourself?  Your beliefs and your ability to recognize what you are great at.

Your limiting beliefs come from past conversations that we have with our parents, teachers, friends, etc.  They come from experiences that we have that leave a major impression on us and affect how we do things in the future.  These limiting beliefs pop up like Gazoo from the Flinstones, waiting to pounce on our insecurities and call us dumdums.

Add to your limiting beliefs your inability to recognize what you are great or as we call it on this blog, your Soul Purpose and you have a recipe for a lack of confidence.

Where limiting beliefs tend to affect you on a subconscious level.  Recognizing your Soul Purpose is a matter of perspective.  You don’t get to see yourself in action from a 30,000 ft viewpoint so it’s difficult to see and appreciate your greatness.

Your Soul Purpose is something that comes so easy to you, it’s like breathing.  And there’s the rub.  When something comes easy to you, what do you do?  You devalue the activity.  You say, “If it’s easy for me, it must be easy for everyone.”

What you don’t realize is that there are people who are in awe of your talent and appreciate what you do.

People ask me frequently why they should have a coach.  One of the biggest benefits to having a coach  is perspective.  A coach recognizes when there is a limiting belief that you don’t recognize.  A coach also sees the talent that you possess and helps you tap into it and build confidence in that talent.

You have something great to give to this world.  Take a look at your limiting beliefs that you have and ask yourself if these stories are based in fact.  (You will find that they are not.) Take some time and get some perspective on what you are great at if you aren’t sure. (You will find some things that will surprise you.)  You’re better than you think.  Now go out and prove it.

“You can drive a car with your feet, but that doesn’t make it a good idea!”~ Chris Rock (edited version)

You are a capable person.  If you set your mind to it, there is nothing that you can’t accomplish.  Entrepreneurs develop a spirit of freedom and possibility during the course of their lives.  They have a strong belief that they can do it all or at least, that’s what they would like to believe.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that if you are running a business or have aspirations to start one, then you are a pretty smart person.  Having intelligence is certainly an asset.  It can also be a liability.  Smart people think they can do it all and here’s the kicker of it all, they’re right.

Take the accounting functions of your business as an example.  I am pretty confident that anyone reading this blog can learn to be effective with the accounting of their business.  What I am saying is, you can learn it at an above average level.  But you don’t love accounting, do you?  OK maybe some of you do but definitely most don’t.

I worked in a sales position selling products and services that I wasn’t crazy about for nearly 10 years and was able to do that at an above average level.  I got raises, received promotions and carved a decent life for myself.  All because I could something very good.

Jim Collins calls good the enemy of great in his book “Good To Great”.  In the book Unique Ability, the good people at Strategic Coach, call very good an enemy to truly being your best.

Being able to do things at a very good or good level trick us into thinking that we can do it all.  This causes us to wear hats in our business well beyond the time that we should be wearing them.

This is something we address in our coaching with our three dimensional questioning of business owners by asking the question; what do you need to stop doing?

Articulating the answer to the stop doing question is the first step towards walking fully in your Soul Purpose and doing the work you are great at.  Not good, great.  Put together your list of your most high impact activities and start building your work around that and build a team to handle the rest.  Can you do it all?  The right question is, should you? What are the activities that you are doing right now that are keeping you from standing out?

Having kids is just one of the excuses that people use to not follow their passions and thus settle for a good career but not a great one.

Every once in a while I run across a piece of content that is just so relevant to what I teach and what this blog is about, I absolutely have to share it.

Larry Smith did a TEDx talk in late 2011 where he talked about the excuses that we make for not following our passions.

Not following our passions can lead us to a good career but the whole point of Soul Purpose is to create the value that we were born to create.  This is where we truly impact the world from a higher place on consciousness.

Are you playing it safe, even though no job is bulletproof?  Or are you doing the work you were born to create?

Enjoy the talk and let me know your thoughts.

So back to my point about agreeing with every article that has called something overrated. Think about the amount of information that we are exposed to.  The depth and breadth of the information as well as the speed with which we get it almost guarantees that we are going to beat certain stories to death.  An athlete gets a DUI?  We are on it.  A royal wedding?  We are going to bury you with information that you could give a shit about because somewhere some person is soaking it all in while shining their collector’s edition royal wedding plates.

When you think about it, if you are important enough to garner attention in the first place, there is no way that you won’t become overrated due to the fact that we stack layer upon layer of importance on topics and people until you can’t stack it any higher. Then we knock it down by calling it or them overrated.

A recent article in BNET about leadership being overrated got me thinking about this today.  In the article it talked about leading in place of doing real work.  We tend to want to lead the team that does the work rather than do the work itself.  Meanwhile we aren’t actually doing the things that we should be doing and ultimately not achieving the results that we want to achieve.

I have spent a lot of time talking about clarity recently as a means for achieving results.  From mission statements to values and how to structure the creation process, it only makes sense if there is action behind it.  In other words, doing work.  Do work son!  This was a phrase commonly heard from the Rob and Big show on MTV.  Business coaches they are not but the phrase always stuck with me because it is about doing work.

If you are looking for real results in your business or career, the only way you are going to get the results that want is from working your ass off doing the right kind of work.  If you aren’t sure of the difference between real and fake work then check out this book review.

Success is always going to be achieved by those who want to put the time and effort into making it happen.  Other techniques, strategies and lessons come and go but real work never dies.  What are about you? Do you think that work is overrated?  If so, in what ways?

Photo courtesy of nkzs http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=nkzs

To write or not to write.  That’s the question.  Many business owners that I talk to feel like they don’t have time for writing or that it’s not important.  Writing in and of itself won’t make or break your business but it could make you a better business owner.

Writing is a great tool for self discovery and for gaining additional clarity about your business.  It’s also a great way to be social in the social media landscape without being present.  Today I wanted to go over some time where it may make sense to write and times where it may not make sense.

Sales copy: If you are needing sales copy my advice is to get the help of professionals.  You need sales copy that is persuasive and that drives someone to want to pursue a deeper relationship.  While you should get a professional to help I don’t think that means you wash your hands of the process altogether.  I see a lot of business owners have no involvement in the creation of sales materials and web copy.  This is a mistake.  No one knows your business like you do.  No one can speak your customers language like you can (At least I hope that’s the case).  You can’t expect even the best copy writer to nail it on his/her own.

Article writing/Blogging: This is something that you should spend time doing yourself.  Some people are more gifted than others but writing can definitely be learned and is something that you can improve on.  If you need help with article writing, you can certainly get help but make sure that it stays true to your business and the message you want to convey to the public.

Book creation: Lots of people need an experienced writer to help them organize a book and polish it up.  Writing a book is a great tool for building clarity personally and in your business.  Writing a book can help you understand your business offering, who your customer is and where you truly provide the most value.  If you aren’t involved in this process, you are missing out on this discovery process.

Those are just a few of the opportunities you have to get involved in writing for your business.  Will it make you a superior business owner?  It can’t hurt and most likely writing will help you understand your business at a deeper level and show you where you provide the most value in the world.  Get your pen out and start writing today.

Before I get into the mind set, what does the downside to being a people pleaser look like in business?  I worked with one person in particular who had a hard time with being a people pleaser and running an effective business.  They were constantly over-promising on deadlines and under-delivering their finished product.  They always gave people answers that they thought people wanted to hear and it ended up killing their reputation and their business in the process.

So here’s a guide to assist people pleaser’s in being more productive and avoid making the above mistakes in your career or business.

As with any transformation, it’s important to start with your mindset.  The question is, why do you want to tell people certain things regarding when your work will be done? Typically it’s because you want to make people happy. I was introduced to a concept by Steve Chandler that I thought was really powerful when it came to being a people pleaser and how to overcome certain behaviors.

The concept revolved around pleasing people and serving.  Are we trying to just make people happy or are we truly trying to serve?  If we are engaged in the latter, it changes the way that we approach responding to requests that come our way.  When we have a mind set of service, we start to develop how we can best serve the people around us and it steers us away from behavior that becomes destructive with regards to our commitments.

So what happens if your mind set shift doesn’t happen right away?

If you are still tempted to people please despite your desire to serve then try to slow down your impulse to respond to a request right away.  The simplest way to do that is to never respond to a request right away.  If someone asks you for something, make sure you take some time to assess the possibilities.  The same holds true for new projects.  If someone needs a timeline, make sure you take some time to consult your schedule before making a commitment.

So you decide that you don’t have time for a request, then what are you going to do?  Say yes anyway?

People pleaser’s are terrified of the word “no”.  It kills them to say it to someone regardless of how unreasonable the request.  The problem for people pleaser’s is that they are worried that they will offend someone by telling them no.  By saying yes, it sometimes over-commits them to a project that they are then late on thus pissing off the very person you are trying to please.  It’s a vicious cycle isn’t it?  Learn to use the word “no” as a tool for your sanity.

Your companies brand is important as is your reputation.  Trying to please people hinders our productivity through committing us to projects we aren’t suited for and over-committing our time as well.  Go through these steps and ask yourself why you are making the commitments that you are making and what you can do to put yourself in a position to be more productive.  People will stop making unreasonable requests when you stop saying say “yes” to them.

Before I get into those questions, first think for a minute about the activities that you do on a day to day basis.  You will have a wide range of things that you do ranging from things that you suck at doing and hate to things that you just knock out of the park because you are so damn good at them.

Finding what those activities are that you are exceptional at can be difficult.  In the book Unique Ability they make the distinction between things that you are very good at and things that you are exceptional at.  The reason they make this distinction is that normally we would think of activities that we are very good at as a good thing.  Unique Ability argues that those activities are deceptive and actually keep is from doing the things that we really should be doing.

Seth Godin talked about that a few years ago in one of my favorite Ted talks.   The talk was on standing out.

In the talk, Seth brought up the fact that there are many things clamoring for attention and that we need to be remarkable now more than ever before.

This means doing things that allow us to create the most impact on society. Doing things that we are very good at is not enough.

So to help you dial this in, here are three initial questions you can ask yourself to help you dial in the activities that are great at and also enable you to spend time on the things that you are exceptional at.

Who can you hire? There are many activities in our lives that we insist on doing even though someone else can do them much better than we can. We see this with business owners who try and set up their own website, do their own bookkeeping, etc. We insist on doing these things even though not only does it take us more time, we are also not nearly as good at it. Hiring people to do things in your business gives you the time to focus on the things that you are exceptional at.

Where can my operation be systematized? Look at your business right now. What activities are you doing that you could eliminate your involvement with technology. Where can you create processes to shorten the amount if time spent on certain activities. Again, the idea here is to get out of the mundane activities or at least shorten the amount of time spent on them. Business owners are notorious for ignoring this aspect of their business.

Where am I spending my time on a daily basis? If you read the book Unique Ability or go through a productivity training, you will likely go through an activity inventory on your day. An activity inventory is a great way to look back and see how you spend your days. You can also use an inventory to start thinking about what activities really give you the most energy and excitement as well.

When it comes to being productive, doing the activities that we are best at gives us the opportunity to have the most impact on society with the least amount of effort.

What has helped you focus on the things that you are exceptional at? What tools have helped you discover these activities?

At the base of productivity is having greater personal clarity.  When you have that clarity about not only what it is that you should be doing but also how you should be doing it, you are able to accomplish things that keep your career/life moving forward.

We ignore ourselves when we look at productivity.  We address the symptoms of our inefficiencies at work without really addressing/curing the root cause.  It’s not a good idea to do this with regards to our health and the same is true for productivity.

If you are struggling with productivity or feel like you are letting the day get away from you more often than not, don’t start implementing strategies to fix productivity without looking at yourself in more depth.

Having greater clarity of your Soul’s Purpose will allow you to then have greater clarity on what you should be doing and how you should be doing it.

Understanding Soul Purpose gives you greater clarity in the following areas of your career:

1. Are you in a career where you are passionate and deliver value to the best of you ability?
2. Are you engaging in your chosen field in a way that plays to your strengths? (Are you the kind of detailed person that will put the correct cover sheet on the TPS reports?)
3. Should you jump on that business opportunity or promotion?
4. Should you travel a lot?
5. Are you suited for leadership?
6. What continuing education should you engage in?  For example, Is a master’s degree going to further my career or am I doing it just say that I did it?
7. What kind of team environment is best for you?  Some people thrive in group settings other are completely drained by it?

These are some questions that you can answer about yourself in a more concise manner when you really understand your Soul Purpose.  Knowing what kind of activities you should be doing and how you should do them is going to put you in a position to maximize productivity.

I always thought of myself as an analyzer, someone who could pore through data.  I would accept these types of projects and then couldn’t figure out why I procrastinated on them so much.  I later realized that I actually hate analyzing and doing detail work but for some reason had created a story about myself that I liked it and it just simply wasn’t true.  It turns out I am somewhere in the middle of obtaining facts.  I like to have just the right amount of info to make a decision.  No more, no less.

In the end, you can see how engaging in this activity slowed my productivity way down because it wasn’t something I was fully engaged in even though overall, I loved my job.  I thought the problem was not enough time when it was really not enough passion.

Sometimes we worry only about time when what we should really be worrying about is how we are spending that time, now and in the future.

If you want to be more productive in your careers, start with Soul Purpose as your base.  Don’t build your career on a shaky platform.  Many have tried this and failed.  Once you gain that personal clarity, you will be able to better assess where, what and how you should be sharing your talents.  Once you get there, greater productivity naturally follows.

Read on and let’s find out.

When something asks me the question of whether they have a purpose or not, I immediately know that they feel this way for 1 of 2 main reasons.

The first reason is that they just haven’t spent enough time on personal reflection to find out specific answers to questions about their ability.   The second is that we also have things happen to us earlier in our lives that create a story about ourselves that we aren’t special or that we can’t do certain things.

I can personally relate to both of these aspects and I shared as much in my own Soul Purpose story.   Recognizing our talent is tough to overcome because we have told ourselves over and over again that we can’t do something and then we manifest that thought with our actions.

The first reason we don’t feel like we have talent is easy to overcome if we start with some simple tools that have I written about in the past for identifying your talent.   These tools include books like Unique Ability and Strengths Finder 2.0 as well as online tools like the Myers Briggs Type Personality test and Kolbe Index.  These tools are cheap and give you exercises that can really tell you a lot about yourself that you may not recognize.

Getting past the stories that we create for ourselves about our talent can be a little harder to overcome.  These stories have been created due to our experiences or exist from our own stories that we tell ourselves.  One example of a story that we create comes from what we do well.  What we do well in our lives comes very natural to us.

We all know people that just have a knack for doing something that always leaves us amazed.  It’s not so much because of the end product but in the way the end product was able to be produced with seemingly very little  effort.  This can be a blessing and a curse.

When things come easy to us, we automatically assume that it comes easy to everyone.  We assume that our talent should be difficult in order to be useful to anyone else.  If it’s not, we discount that ability.

If you are wondering how you can create the most value in the marketplace and you are questioning your own ability, take some time to quietly reflect about you.  I know it may seem a little uncomfortable at first.

Once you create that space of quiet reflection, take the time to do some of the tools I covered above and also take some time to challenge some of the negative stories about yourself that you have created.  In doing this, you will find that many assumptions that you have made about yourself have no actual basis in reality.

What you will also find is that you indeed have purpose and are capable of doing more than you think.

When it came to having ability, I knew that there were some things that I did very well.  Even easier to pinpoint was the list of things that I didn’t do well.  ( Isn’t that always the case?  We are always so good at what we suck at.)  The problem is that I didn’t value a lot of the things that I did well and so I never bothered to explore them at a deeper level.

The reason we do this a lot of the time is because the things we do well come some easy and natural to us that because they are so natural, we think that everyone can do it.  We get stuck in this place of thinking that we have no talent, no ability and nothing that distinguishes us from anyone else.

Because of this thought process, my career path was that of working for a Fortune 100 company and trying to move up the ranks within that company as fast as I could.

When it came to be being an employee at the firm I worked for, I was better than average but certainly not exceptional.  I was being promoted but not always as quickly as I would have liked mainly due to the fact that the operation that I ran was not always delivering consistent results.

This inconsistency drove me crazy.  I couldn’t put my finger on it.  I will tell you this.  I worked at a job for almost 9 years and hated it 75% of the time.  I loved it during the extremely high points of my success but was constantly having to pep talk myself and get myself up to go in and work. Mondays were the worst days of my life.

During my career I had friends who made comments about why I was working where I was working and those comments just pissed me off.  I think they made me mad because I really wasn’t sure why I was doing what I was doing.

It wasn’t really until one my daughters was hospitalized at 3 weeks old with pneumonia that I really got serious about my career and where I was going.  At that point I realized that life is short and I should spend it doing what I love to do and what allows me to create the most value in the world.

So I quit.

I went to work for a smaller firm that allowed me to be more of an intrapreneur and I loved it.  I ran projects with a lot of autonomy.  During this time I decided to start educating myself on what my skills were and decided that I needed a deeper understanding of what I brought to the table and what I truly loved to do.

I took tests like the Kolbe A index and Meyers- Briggs.  I read books like Unique Ability. It all started to slowly come together.  Clarity of purpose started to manifest itself.

I also started spending time in the mornings doing what I call a power hour which consisted of physical, spiritual and mental exercises that helped further my clarity.

With this increased clarity I started a business on the side while working at the small firm.  Eventually I went out on my own full time.

I haven’t looked back since.

I never considered myself to be an entrepreneur growing up.  It’s funny how thing’s change.  Soul Purpose starts with questions and possibilities and then creating a process to develop the possibilities and answer the questions.

It’s not an easy process and one that I am still working through but it has certainly been worth it.

What things do you value in your life?  Are you in a position to create the most value for the world?  Do you know what your core strengths and abilities are?

There are things at a job that are tough to deal with at times.  Annoying co-workers, work that doesn’t always satisfy us and a pain in ass boss are just a few of the annoyances that we face on a day-to-day basis.  Despite all that, there are some benefits to having a day job.

The first benefit goes back to the “Sex and Cash Theory” that I talked about in my recent review of Hugh McLeod’s book, Ignore Everybody.  To refresh, the sex and cash theory essentially states that there are some activities that we do that pay the bills and there are some activities that we engage in that keep our creative juices flowing.

Hugh gives examples of actors who will work on a cool indie flick that gets rave reviews and then later that year appear in a forgettable big budget film.  The indie flick gives the actor props but the big budget flick gets the actor paid.  The key is in finding and maintaining that balance.  Having a day job as well as a creative outlet on the side makes sense for a lot of working professionals who feel that they don’t get a chance to stretch their talent while working in a cubicle.  For many aspiring entrepreneurs, this is a great way to build something you care about while not sacrificing everything on a business idea that you are not sure will work.

I previously mentioned annoying co-workers as a reason to have a creative outlet outside of your job.  Ironically enough, these same co-workers (OK maybe not the annoying ones) are the same reason why you may want to keep your day job.  Starting your own business, especially in the first few years is a lonely proposition.

For myself as an extrovert, it has been the toughest thing about leaving corporate America.  I miss the friendships and the camaraderie that go along with working on a project with a team and working hard to ensure that the project is successful and then going out afterwards to have a beer to blow off some steam.  Talking about the stupid thing your boss did or about the annoying co-worker that doesn’t understand why you never invite him for a beer because he doesn’t realize that he is kind of a douche.

These are just a couple of reasons why you may consider keeping your job while you start your business idea.  This is only acceptable provided that you are actually working in a career that is worthwhile financially and utilizes some of your skills.  I would caution against being the starving actor who waits tables their whole lives waiting for their big break.  That seems sexy in the beginning but in the end is just uncool.

Keeping your day job isn’t something you have to do but it’s good to talk about the fact that you do have options.  Some business coaches would have you believe that you must “burn the ship” in order to be successful in business and this is just not always the case.

You may be saying to yourself that integrity is the easy part.   Most of us think that we possess a high amount of integrity and in many cases, we do.  When it comes to running a business, there is a small margin for error when you are dealing with clients that have paid for your product/service.

The fact of the matter is that there are many instances in our personal lives where we act and speak out of integrity.  We may tell a friend that we will be somewhere at 10:00 and we show up at 10:15.  Or we tell our spouse that we will get right on something and we finally get to it after our spouse has nagged us about it a few times.  In your circle, you may be known as a highly unorganized person.  All of these things are OK at times in our personal lives because our loved ones will forgive us.  In business, people aren’t as forgiving.

I am sure you have heard the term, you play how you practice.  This is true in business.  In business you must possess and cultivate the success habits to make it work.  You must do what you say you are going to do and you have to be highly organized.  If you struggle with this personally, make sure this is addressed right up front.  Organization is essential in business and they are critical to running a side business.  If you don’t have a handle organizationally, your reputation and client experience will suffer.

I will step off my soapbox for a minute and share my own experience with this or by experience, I mean failure.  My design firm initially started with a couple of guys who had full time gigs at other places.  (One of those guys being me.)  We specialize in corporate and business branding and was fortunate at that time to have some businesses see our work, like it and decide to hire us.

At our design firm, while the end product always looked great, there were a lot of things that we did terribly.  We missed deadlines, our communication with the client was inadequate by any standards and worst of all we were ignorant to the harm that we were causing the client and our own business.

The sad part is that the clients themselves never complained so we thought all was fine.  This was until we were looking at working with another client and they decided not to work with us based off some information that they received from one of our former clients.  It felt like I got punched in the gut.

It was really a turning point for our business.  We had to focus and get more clear on systems and processes and how we would deal with clients.  We went back to old clients and apologized and actually still work with some of these clients today.

The lesson here is that you can run a business while working for someone else but it takes a high level of discipline and organization to make it work.  Once you start traveling on the bad habit train, it’s hard to get off.  In my own experience we corrected it through a lot of tough conversations as well as let time heal old wounds and our reputation.  I would have rather not had to do that in the first place.

Everyone has heard or seen the romanticized version of the entrepreneur, the rugged individualist who overcomes all of the odds to build a successful business and becomes a millionaire. He/she puts in long hours and years of hard work and has built something that he/she owns. Great story.

Or there is the other story that people like to tell about entrepreneurs. The story of the fortunate entrepreneur who just happens to be at the right place at the right time. His/her success more a product of luck and a series of fortunate circumstances vs actual work. A lot of us for some reason hope this is true and that success will just fall into our lap one day.

The truth is that running a business probably falls somewhere between the two opposing visions that people have about successful entrepreneurs.  It is hard work but that hard work puts you in a position to get some breaks.

Before I get into why you may consider keeping your day job while building or running a business, I do want to say that I am not talking about doing some work from home or some online get rich quick scheme. Those opportunities don’t exist. People who are successful building online businesses work their ass off to make them work just like everyone else. Even if they have a success formula, chances are it’s not going to equate into the kind of success that the individual who is teaching the formula had. This is nothing against that type of business but I think that unless you feel your Soul Purpose revolves around online commerce, you should not waste your time.

I read Hugh Macleod’s book, Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity a few weeks ago and the concept of keeping your day job did resonate with me as I did see the wisdom in this advice.  Like any piece advice, there is not a one size easy fit for every single individual.  I worked in sales for a number of years and I can say that if you are a commission sales person, you practically have a business even though you don’t have any input of the companies’ decisions, you do control your earnings to a certain extent and it requires a lot of work physically, emotionally and mentally.  It would be hard to be a salesperson and be able to run a business on the side.

With that being said, I do think there are a number of industries that would work nicely with running a business on the side.  Any kind of creative business is a no brainer.  If you write, design, build websites, code websites, paint etc all of these types of businesses are easier to run on the side as you can do this on project to project freelance basis.

It’s also easier to run a business on the side if you have the kind of job that when you leave, your done for the day and you don’t have to be responsible for your work outside of your work time.  Also, it may make sense to keep your day job if you really enjoy it and it gives you some freedom to do projects on the side.

These are just a couple of scenarios that I thought that really make sense when it comes to keeping your day job.  Obviously there are financial considerations that come into play here as well.

What are some other scenarios where you think this makes sense?  Does this even make sense to do this?  I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Take a look at these stats on multitasking and interruptions:

When drivers text, their collison risk is 23 times greater than when not texting.
Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, 2009

Organizations lose around $1,250 per user in annual productivity because of time spent dealing with spam, $1,800 unnecessary emails from co-workers, $2,100 – $4,100 due to poorly written communications.
Tom Pisello, ITBusinessEdge.com, 12/2008

In 2007, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, such as writing reports or computer code, after dealing with incoming email. They wandered off to reply to other messages or browse the Web.
New York Times, 3/25/2007

15% of Americans say they are addicted to email.
59% of those using portable devices check email as it arrives.
43% of users sleep near their email unit to hear incoming messages.
40% consider email accessibility when they plan a trip.
83% check their email once a day while on vacation.
43% check their email first thing every morning.
AOL, Opinion Research Corp., study 7/26/07

**The above stats are from Key Organization Systems.

The above stats show that we have a hard time leaving work behind with the increasing availability of e-mail and phones that allow us to browse the internet easier than ever.  Even when we are at work we aren’t as productive as we can be because we allow ourselves to be constantly interrupted.  Take the stat above from Microsoft.  It took on average 15 minutes to get back on track after an interruption.  If you are interrupted just once/hour, that’s 2 hours/day of lost productivity.

Another area that multitasking hurts our productivity is in the area of concentration on long tasks.  CNN had an article on this a couple of months back that stated that heavy multimedia users and multitaskers had a harder time staying focused on longer, intense projects because they are more easily distracted by irrelevant information.  As a business owner, focusing on intense projects is a must if you are going to work on your business and build it the way that you need to.

Work aside, another group that gets affected by multitasking is the family.  Parents have a hard time leaving their work behind especially on vacation.   They are constantly “checking in” to make sure they didn’t miss anything.  Let’s be honest about this.  Nobody’s job is that important.  Yet, we would like to think that it is and we want those around us to think that it is too.  It’s like were a bunch of mini Ron Burgundys running around.  I mean, I don’t know how to tell you this but I’ m kind of a big deal.  Therefore, I will only listen to half of what you tell me, the least important half, while I spend the entire conversation texting someone else. Because look at me, I am the Chief Implementation Associate at Rubber Dog Shit Inc.  People need me.

If you are a business owner and can’t step away from your business for a few days, it’s time to work on developing your team as well systems and processes that will allow you some freedom from the business.  Many people site work/life balance as being important to them yet few will allow themselves that opportunity when they refuse to be present in the moment.

Just because you are in the same room as your family doesn’t mean that you are actually with them.

Beyond family, research has shown that taking real breaks are good for your health as well.  Trying to work and take a vacation doesn’t make sense does it?  I’m pretty sure it doesn’t qualify as a vacation if you are calling your office every day.  Taking a stand against multitasking may help you live longer and healthier.

Maybe we just think we are more important than we really are.  Maybe it’s just the pressure we put on ourselves to be the best.  Sometimes the best thing to do is to do less.  Americans haven’t quite figured that skill out yet.  Take a look at your work day.  How you can you restructure what you are doing and what behaviors can you change to be more productive?  What effort can you make to ensure that you are creating the appropriate balance for yourself with regards to your work life and your personal life. So as I was writing this, I missed the end of CSI which is a bummer, it looked like a good episode, wait, hold on I have another call coming through. Hold that thought.  I need to take this.

Tell me if this sounds familiar to you.  You have a 9:00am job that you go to Monday-Friday.  Your morning routine starts with your alarm going off at 7:00am  (if you’re a guy move that to 7:30am).  You snooze at least 3x maybe even more depending on if you went out and had cocktails the night before.  You finally get up, stare at yourself in the mirror for a couple of minutes and then decide to get ready for the day which includes picking out your clothes, showering, grabbing any work materials that you need and maybe if you have time, you grab something to eat (half the time you forget this step.)

You don’t have a garage and when you get to your car during the cold months you realize that you have to scrape your windows.  You think to yourself, “damn, why didn’t I give myself some time to scrape my windows.”  The reality is that you don’t have time so you do the ever popular move of scraping a little bar of ice off of the front window so that you have a little slit to see out of.  If you were driving a tank to work this might be acceptable except you are actually driving a 1998 Honda Accord and it’s actually pretty dangerous.  You get in the car and head to work.

During your commute, you pray to God that you don’t hit any bad traffic, a train crossing etc.  Your commute should take 30 minutes but you continue to plan as if it takes 20 minutes and hope that you hit traffic perfectly and hit some spots where you can drive really fast.  By the time you arrive at work, it’s either time to start or it was time to start 5 minutes ago.  You have no plan for your day because you didn’t have time and now you need to start working.  The whole day passes with the day running you vs you running the day.  During the course of the day you forget about meetings, you forget to do things that you reminded yourself needed to be done the day before, projects are late, the boss is on you about a past due project.  In short your personal productivity is terrible.

The funny thing about this story is that it has semi-autobiographical overtones.  This was me at the beginning of my career, except I drove a ’99 Nissan Altima, correction, still drive a ’99 Nissan Altima.  The problem for me was that I couldn’t get my ass out of bed in the morning and it was killing my ability to be as effective at my job as I wanted to be.  My productivity was completely tied to luck most days.  I hoped every day that the stars would align perfectly so that things would work out.

I was notorious for not being a morning person.  Friends would joke about it and tell their favorite, “That one time that I woke Brandon up in the morning”, stories.  Then a funnier thing happened, I decided to grow up a little (just a little) and change the way I approached the mornings.   It has dramatically changed the way my day is executed and has significantly increased my personal productivity in all areas of my life, mentally, spiritually, socially etc.

There are still a lot of people who will read this and relate to this story because they had this same experience just this morning.  These same people will also wonder why they don’t get to places on time and why they always seem to be frantically running around trying to get things accomplished.  In some cases, a reputation may be damaged by this behavior.  I know because I have been there.

If your day is not going the way you want it to, the good news is that you have control over that situation.  One of the best ways to get a good start on your day is to start it at the right time.  In many cases, this means getting up earlier.  It will suck at first and you wont like it but once you get yourself in the routine, it will get easier.  So start tomorrow morning by committing to getting up a half hour earlier than normal and see what it does for your day and who knows maybe over time you can become the morning person that everyone else wants to punch in the face.

Loss of mindfulness is why people engage in useless pursuits, do not care for their own interests, and remain unalarmed in the presence of things which actually menace their welfare.

Buddha

Influence is a critical piece for small business owners.  The sooner they can get some traction with the public and start building some visibility, the better your chance at building a successful business.  Building influence and reach is tough despite all of the tools that are available.  The best way to influence others and expand your reach starts with one simple piece.

The piece that I am referring to is to have personal clarity, or a better way of putting it is to know what you stand for.  When it comes to gaining clarity, unfortunately it’s not a matter of a light switch being turned on and us no longer being in the dark.  Gaining clarity is more like a slow decent out of a dark cave.  Every step gets you closer to being in the light.

To get yourself on the right path towards that clarity light, we must have daily discipline and practice that allows us to discover more about ourselves and get a better understanding of what we stand for.  In the book Siddhartha, it recounts the story of Siddhartha Gotama’s own quest for enlightenment.  His quest for enlightenment took 6 years of immersing himself into the practice of self discovery before he was known as Buddha, The Enlightened One.  The harsh reality for a lot of small business owners is that there is not a lot of time for you to be able to take a sabbatical in order to do this self discovery.  We have to become little Buddhas on the fly doing it while worrying about taking care of our families and paying bills.

This doesn’t mean that discovery is impossible, it just means that we have to be more intentional with our behaviors.   The good news is that a little bit of understanding of what you stand for will put you ahead of most people who just live their lives hoping that this knowledge will fall into their lap one day.  Once you have attained greater knowledge of what you stand for, you will be more influential in the conversations you have with others.

You will gain this influence for two reasons.  The first reason is obviously because you will be able to more confidently articulate what it is that you are looking to do in the world and what you stand for.  Because of the scarcity of confidence in our lives, people tend to be really impressed by the presence of a confident individual.  They will remember you because of it.  The second reason has to do with your own self esteem.  When you have more knowledge of who you are, you stop worrying so much about who you are not.  This translates to confidence as well and also allows you to have meaningful conversations with people without having to prove yourself to them with your words.  Better connections with people equals a more profound impact on those people you connect with.

If you want to expand your reach and be more influential then start by knowing and understand what it is that you stand for.  Don’t stand for many things, stand for just one and relentlessly pursue it.  This is the first and best step to making your mark on the world and creating your position of influence for the masses.

Last year I saw an interview on Charlie Rose with Geoff Colvin, Senior Editor at Large for Fortune magazine, who wrote a book titled, Talent is Overrated.  In the interview and the book, Mr. Colvin talks about the idea that we have of talent and how this concept of talent has never been proven despite all of the research that have on genes and in other areas.   In fact he goes on to discuss how this idea has been proven to be untrue.  In the interview, he goes on to discuss famous people who have achieved at high levels and how it took them a certain amount of time to reach the stage of their careers where they started making a significant difference in their chosen industry.

The myth of talent that currently exists hamper our own personal development.  When we don’t excel at something that is obvious to us, we discount ourselves by saying that we don’t have any talent to offer the world.  It’s hard for us to see the forest from the trees regarding our abilities.  As individuals, we get hung up on talent rather than discovering and expressing our Soul Purpose.  The myth of talent is so powerful that it overpowers our  road to discovery of Soul Purpose.

In America, talent is the easy road.  Talent is sexy and glamorous.  Self discovery, on the other hand, is hard.   Self discovery takes effort on our part to do.  Self discovery is that new agey friend who we like but that we also think is crazy sometimes.  The myth of talent has us believe that talent allows us to just do things effortlessly without any work at all because we are just “born with it”.  This myth has hurt our ability to value ourselves and our gifts properly as well as kept us from working to achieve at the highest level possible.

What is your experience with talent?  How many people have you come accross that swear they have no unique talents and gifts?  If you are like me, you have run accross several people like this.  The exciting thing is that everyone has a Soul Purpose and everyone has abilities that can be used to create value in the world regardless if they believe that they do.  It comes down to getting past old notions that we perceive as truth.  This is the case with regards to talent and why the myth hurts us today.  It’s time to stop selling ourselves short and be the kind of people that we want to be.

Tip #1  Implement the power hour concept into your life and stay focused on it on a daily basis.  Stephen Covey talks about this being his “sharpen the saw” time.

Tip #2 Use your morning routine to work on your business.  This is a great time to do the important things for your business that you put off during the day because other things distract you.  These are items such as: defining your mission, vision and values, putting together your business and marketing plan and creating systems and processes for your business.

Tip #3 Give gratitude.  It’s easy during our lives to focus on what we don’t want to have happen or what we hate in our lives.  Too often, we neglect to recognize what we are truly grateful for.  Giving gratitude allows us to maintain a positive mind state and focus on what’s currently great and what will be great and keeps the negative thoughts from running our lives.

Tip #4 Use the your daily morning routine to set up your day.  This is a great time to ask yourself what you want to accomplish and then go out and plan your day around that one important goal.  How successful do you think you would be if you just did that one thing alone.

Tip #5 Nothing motivates me more than learning something new that I can use to make my business successful.  This can be reading someone else’s blog or reading a book.  Where ever you can find the resource just make sure you spend some time educating yourself on a daily basis.

These are a few of my daily morning tips for staying motivated. It’s not easy to make habit changes in our lives but if we can muster some discipline and make some changes you will see positive results in your business, career and life.

What tips work for you?

A common belief is that these growth opportunities must be met with hard work and a self-reliant attitude. You must struggle, sacrifice and generally pay a price for the happiness you seek. You must instinctively have all the answers you will ever need and that looking beyond yourself for support is a weakness. These “limiting beliefs” are a trap that keep you working harder than you need to and often take you further away from your real intentions.

However, what if there was another paradigm you could consider? One that allowed you to benefit from an age-old secret that key performers, professional athletes, successful executives and joyful prospering individuals are practicing.  These individuals have learned the value of seeking support from someone trained to accelerate success—a  Life Coach.

How does working with a Life Coach actually benefit you more than doing it on your own?

A life coach – one trained and certified, is able to ask questions in such a way that you will be guided through a unique process of identifying your interests, concerns and limiting barriers. This will help you achieve your goals with more clarity and greater results than you could attain on your own. A coach can challenge you to really identify what is important to you and what you want your journey toward success to look like.

The coaching relationship is a partnership unlike you will ever experience. The coach comes from a place of honoring your agenda, not theirs.  By providing a safe environment, free of judgment, you are able to explore, get in touch and work from your higher place of self-awareness which allows you to tap into your core driving energy. This is key, because this is where your personal truth and power to change your life comes from. I refer to this as your “Power Zone” and teach my clients the Six Power Zone Principles™ necessary to lead their life from this viewpoint.

Working with a coach will expand your viewpoint – what you believe you can attain, do, be or become. Not only will it create a different expectation for you, it will challenge you to take risks to grow, change your thinking or behaviors and provide support to do so. Working with you to design a plan, your coach will facilitate you as you begin to implement measurable action steps, have support to be accountable and motivation to keep focused to produce your desired results. As an added benefit, the results will come more quickly and usually produce dramatic ones in your life. Not only is coaching a different and exciting approach, it is powerful and life changing.

Who wouldn’t want to improve their capacity to obtain more, solve problems faster or enhance their ability to stay focused and follow through? Think about it, we are not afraid to seek expert advice or support outside of ourselves for issues such as home repairs, getting our computer fixed or learning a new job skill. So why is it that we have a tendency to resist allowing support for our most important asset –you?

I challenge you to check in with yourself and see if you have any limiting beliefs present which hold you back from tapping into a powerful resource – life coaching. A coach can be a powerful partner in living the life you know you can accomplish, personally and professionally.

René Johnson, is the author of “Leaving Your Comfort Zone: How to Lead Your Life From the Power Zone!” and is know as the Power Zone Coach. René supports professionals who are ready to take bold steps, show up as their powerful self and play bigger in their life! You can check out her blog at www.powerzonecoach.com.

I started thinking about this when I heard that Chris Chelios (NHL superstar, future hall-of-famer) was going to play minor league hockey for the AHL’s Chicago Wolves at the tender age of 47.  Chris played 28 games last year in the NHL with the Detroit Red Wings.  I do understand that part of Chris’ reason for still playing is that he loves the game.  The other reason is that I think that Chris (like a lot of athletes) let the sport that they compete in define them as individuals.  Hi, I’m Chris, the hockey player.  In reality Chris is much more than that.

I define Soul Purpose as being similar to a companies mission statement except that as souls, we answer to a higher power than a board room.  It is similar in that it is the overall mission with which we can live our life.  A company has several different roles that people play to carry out the mission of the company.  The same is true for us as individuals, we can play many different roles to express our purpose as well.

When we look at people we know,we make the mistake of defining them and ourselves for the role that is played.  We look at someone who is good at being a mom or good at being an accountant and then say that they were “born to do that”.  Being a mom/dad or an accountant is not a Soul Purpose.  These activities are just roles that allow us to express our gifts and talents to the world.

Look at other athletes outside of sports.

Magic Johnson-  Successful business leader.  See any similarities between his leadership today and leadership with the Lakers?

Troy Aikman-  Great quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys and now a successful football analyst for Fox.  Any similarities?  A quarterback needs great awareness and vision.  These are some of the same skills that Troy uses to be a great analyst.

Let’s look at Michael Jordan.  Here’s an example of someone who has really struggled (in my opinion) to make a significant impact outside of basketball.  I believe it’s because Michael can’t get past seeing himself as a basketball player.  His recent hall of fame induction speech is proof of that. It’s the most painful speech to listen by anyone who has achieved at a high level.

Take some time and think about what your purpose is and the different ways that your purpose can be expressed.  I have a ton of respect for Chris Chelios and how he played hockey but when you can no longer compete at the highest level, it’s time to move forward and discover some things about yourself that may surprise you.  The same goes for the individuals who stay at a job just to collect a pay check or limit what they can do in life based on their perceived limitations.  Move beyond that thinking and understand that discovering and living your Soul Purpose opens up your life to many different opportunities and roles to achieve success.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the topic.

Kolbe A Report

If you haven’t done a Kolbe report, now is the time to get it done.  It costs around $50 and tells you a lot about how you approach tasks.  For instance if you are someone who doesn’t like to attain a lot of facts to make decision, being an analyst is probably not a good job for you.  In any event the report will help you identify how you see things, how much information you need and how hands on you like to be in working on projects.

Unique Ability

Unique Ability is a book that looks to help you identify what abilities that you have that are unique.  The reality is that any one ability is not unique but when you put all of the different abilities together, you get a unique group of abilities. The exercise that I really like in this book is the exercise where you send an e-mail out to 8-12 people that you know through work, family, friendships etc and get their feedback on what they see as your talents.  This exercise is a great tool to get a feel for how you have created value for others and to start identifying specific patterns in the answers that you receive.

Strengths Finder 2.0

This is another book about identifying your strengths.  The people at the Gallup Organization have identified 37 core strengths.  After you read the intro chapters of the book, you then take an online assessment that they give you to help you identify your top 5 strengths.  One thing that I really like about how they present the information is that they give real world examples of what your gift looks like through other’s experiences in a wide range of different industries.

Myers Briggs Type Personality Test

This is another online assessment that you can take that helps you identify specific information about your personality.  The methodology is proven and gives you 16 distinct personality traits to fall into.  Why is this important?  I will give you an example using my own experience.  My personality type is ENTJ.  For me I don’t typically use a lot of feelings to make decisions and have very little patience for those that do.  Because of my personality type, I would make a terrible nurse.  I would also be terrible at social work as well.  Using this resource to understand our personality helps us identify what environments we would thrive in.

Those are 4 simple tasks that can get you well on your way to better self knowledge and help you along the path to utilizing your gifts for a greater purpose.  The above methods don’t solve everything but they definitely are a quick way to get you going on the path.

Maybe this just happened to me but I have a feeling that it has happened to most of us at some point.  I also still hear a disturbingly high number of people who suggest to me that they don’t have any kind of special and unique talent.

The reason why I think that so few people recognize their abilities is because we haven’t designed a system for this discovery.  The system that is currently used is called school.  But school falls short due to the fact that there is no outside analysis on a student’s gifts.  It’s up to the student to figure out his/her passions and strengths.

The problem with leaving this up to the individual to discover is that our gifts and abilities come so easy and natural to us that we fail to identify them as special because we think anyone can do what we do.  Therefore we think there must be some other type of complex gift that we possess that have not yet discovered.

The reason I bring this up is that knowledge of self is a vital component to starting and running a successful business operation.  Too many business owner don’t understand themselves well enough and trap themselves in an operation that is better suited to someone else.

Understanding your gifts and abilities as an individual allows you to create your operation with your specific skills in mind.  This is the first step to long term business success.

I am personally fascinated and passionate about understanding what makes me, and other people, tick. Strengths Finder is another great tool to help you understand how you operate and what that may look like in your life.

One of the things that trip us up in life is that we think we are born to do a certain role. We aren’t born to be an accountant, we aren’t born to be athletes and we aren’t born to be doctors. These are roles that allow us to express ourselves at the core of our being. The thing that we miss in all this? Understanding what’s at the core of our being.

Strengths Finder 2.0 is another of many great tools to help you in self discovery. This book, like others, wont completely solve the puzzle for you, but it will get you that much closer to identifying who you are at the core.

The books looks to assist you in identifying your top 5 themes that you operate by. There are 34 possible themes that you can fit into. This is done through a code that you get in the book to take an online assessment once you have read some background info on why the test exists.

Strengths Finder not only helps you identify your top 5 themes but also gives you a guide with an action plan to help you cultivate and understand your themes more clearly. The thing that I like most about the assessment is that they also give you examples of what that theme looks like using real life explanations of people in various fields. “What it looks like” is a powerful exercise to help you visualize your strengths in action and make them more concrete.

I recommend this book to anyone who needs additional clarity of their purpose and talents. I know I personally sacrificed 9 years in a job I hated because I really had no comprehension of what my true gifts were. Our gifts and talents come so natural to us that we devalue them as a result. In reality someone is looking at you right now with amazement with regards to your talents. Now it’s time for you to recognize the talent that everyone else already sees.

Part of the reason we haven’t achieved at a higher level collectively, which we are now as a society starting to look, has to do with an archaic look at achievement and where are focus should be.  The other reason has to do with the fact that it’s difficult to execute nothing.  When you don’t set goals and commit them to writing, that’s exactly what you are doing.  Working hard to execute on nothing.

You may have certain work tasks that you need to accomplish that are written down but don’t mistake those for personal goals.  Those tasks will do a great deal for your employer but they wont do much for you beyond a 3% raise and an “atta boy or girl”.

Business owners run into this same problem as many of them at the onset fail to set personal goals as well as put together a business plan.  Lack of business planning makes almost every list of reasons why small businesses fail.   The reason why business owners don’t put together business plans is because generally speaking we fail to set goals as a society.

When you consider that roughly 3-5% of Americans actually put goals down on paper, it’s not as surprising that business owners don’t do the same for their business.

The point is that if you want to do a better job of executing a plan, we need to have a plan in the first place.  It’s much easier to execute and achieve our goals when they are fully articulated on paper.

The premise of the article is that employees create much of the stress that they encounter in their work day. The 7 signs or issues that employees face are:

1. Not making enough money?
2. Underappreciated, nobody loves you?
3. Your group gets no respect.
4. You have a psycho boss?
5. Too much work, too little time.
6. Peer problems.
7. Executive management doesn’t listen or care.

Looking at 1-3, I will say one thing until I die about working for someone else.  If you are a great employee, you will never be compensated, appreciated and respected like you should be.  It’s almost impossible for an employer to fully meet your needs here.  As an employees, you need to accept this or don’t work for someone else.

Number 4 is where the real problems appear.  Your boss is an abusive jerk and you should deal with it by getting over it.  Why should you accept this?  Because unemployment is at 9.5%.  That’s the country that we live in today.  If someone is abusive to you no money, possessions or status are worth putting up with someone like that period.  If your boss causes you stress through abuse, you should leave.  Can we be too sensitive about this?  Sure but either way you are unhappy.

Looking at points 5-7 and this points speak to all the things that people hate about their jobs.  A high workload.  Office politics. An indifferent executive team.  If you think that executive level management doesn’t care about you or your ideas, guess what, they probably don’t.

My point is if you are so unhappy find out what the root of the issue is.  Is it you?  or is it the job?  I believe that most of us who are unahppy in our careers are unhappy because we are not working in an area that plays fully to our abilities.  For the rest, it’s a matter of having a serious attitude adjustment as unfortunately there are those of us who can’t be happy regardless of the circumstance.

If you have stress in the workplace.  Identify the root.  What can you change and what can’t be changed?  From there analyze if it’s you or is it the job.   Good luck.

PS…By the way here’s Part 1.

Soul Purpose

The use of a coach is recognizing someone’s unique set of talents and abilities and how they can work for you.  Too many times we try to go the route of the “rugged individualist” and try to achieve maximum results on our own.   The question to think about with getting help for your business, coaching or otherwise, is what would it mean if I were able to achieve the results that I wanted in business in a much quicker time frame?  Is it work a few thousand dollars for the possibility of building a long term profitable business that I own and control?

Utilizing others for your business fosters that sense of team work that is so important to achieving high level results.  It’s why successful entrepreneurs participate in mastermind groups so that they can be around people who can inspire them and keep them moving forward.  Teamwork is a key component.  It allows you to stay within yourself more often and opens up the floor for you to do what you do best within your business.  When you use others to help in your business you are also allowing them to do what they do best and get maximum value out of their services as well.

How have you been able to achieve better results utilizing others to help you build your business?  What are your hang ups for utilizing outside service?  Money? Trust?

Not too long ago, I ran across a statistic that said that only 5% of people actually have written goals.  I was surprised by how low the number was.  When I thought about this more, however, I realized that I didn’t know anyone who wrote their goals down consistently including myself.  I got especially bad about this after I left corporate America and went out on my own because now I was only accountable to myself.  The reason that we don’t write goals down is that we think it’s good enough if the goals are in our head and we don’t worry about committing them to paper.

Goal setting is one of the foundations for effective time management.  By effective time management, I mean a system that centers around productivity in your day versus just busy work.  Goal setting allows you to better structure your day and understand what activities need to be managed in the time that you have.  Doing this will allow you to ultimately achieve the goals that you have set.  When used in conjunction with a solid time management system, you will also review your goals more often which is an important piece to goal achievement.

Time management is especially important in this day and age.  I have seen numerous articles on how much “busier” we are as Americans.  I laugh at that because while there can be more demands on our time, we are also master wasters of time as well.  You know right now you are reading this blog when you should be working and you got to this blog while you were surfing Twitter or Facebook.  Don’t get me wrong, I am glad you are here, but it’s easier to get distracted than every before.  Every time I hear someone complain about spending too much time on social media tells me right away that that person doesn’t have a plan.

Consider this your own personal recovery plan.  Are you unsatisfied with how your life looks currently?  Don’t worry about it when it happens because we all visit that place from time-to-time.  The question is what behaviors are you going to change to create a different outcome for yourself.  A great way to change your outcomes is to create a productivity system that includes personal clarity, goals/planning and time management to get the things done that are most important to your personal success.  Time management in and of itself is useless without the clarity and planning piece behind it.

How has your life been affected by having goals or a lack thereof?  If you don’t set goals, why not?  Do you agree with me?  Disagree?  I would love to hear your perspective.

A couple of months ago I shared the spiritual side of utilizing your talents by sharing the “Parable of Talents” from the Gospel according to Matthew in the New Testament.  When we use our talents, we aren’t just doing it for us.  We are doing for mankind and for your creator.   That’s a lot of responsibility.  It’s certainly one that we shouldn’t ignore.

When we use our talents in business.  It allows us more freedom and flexibility to run our business in a way that maximizes our abilities and expertise.  We can set the context for how we will interact with clients, how they will be marketed to and what products we will offer.  All of the creation is up to you.  This is much easier in some respects than what we do at a regular job which typically entails trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Are there talents that you have that you don’t share like the story in  Matthew?  Are you unsure what your talents are?  Do you know your talents but aren’t sure how to utilize them?  What holds you back in this area?  I would love to hear your story.

In the “5 Tips for Living a Fulfilled, Complete Life”, it breaks down the process of fulfillment by moving your desires to goals and you goals into habits.  It also talks about how to stay flexible in your journey and to not pay too much attention to your detractors along the way.  Most of all, it states the importance of making sure you are tracking your progress on your journey.

This is sound advice for all business owners and wage earners alike.  Fulfillment comes from making not only our lives better but the lives of others better around us.  There is a process and a journey for reaching towards this end.  During this process it’s important to ask questions like, what do I want out of my life?  Is what I am doing giving me energy?  Am I utilizing my talents productively to help others?  What are the answers for you in your journey?

Let’s look at 3 in particular that are particularly relevant in today’s market.  They are hard work being rewarded, money and freedom.

Imagine busting your tail for a company for years, sacrificing family time, increased stress, innovation of new products and ideas for that company that you aren’t directly paid for and then in one 30 minute meeting on a Friday evening you are told that your time with the company is over.  Maybe the company is having financial issues and needs to cut back, maybe there was a merger that took place and there is no longer a spot for you or perhaps they just weren’t satisfied with your performance.  Regardless of the reason, you are left with nothing at that point but a story for your resume and a declining 401k that no one is managing.  Entrepreneurship is a lot of hard work, in many cases much more time consuming than your W2 wage job.  If you spent 5+ years running your own business, chances are if it has lasted that long you are starting to realize real success and have a wealth vehicle built that you own and control.  This is much better than the alternative of the 9 to 5 where when it ends all you get is the crappy severance package and an uncomfortable conversation with your wife and kids.

Money is another benefit.  No matter how great you are at a W2 job, you will never get paid what you are truly worth.  In your own business, you are more likely to control this and get compensated for the value that you are creating in the marketplace.  More money gets you closer to the last benefit that will talk about with regards to business ownerships.

That benefit is freedom.  When you own your own business, you have to be disciplined.  With the proper discipline comes the benefit of never having to apologize again for taking a day off and going on vacation.  No more missing important functions with your kids etc.  It’s just important that you don’t abuse use and run your business into the ground as a result of neglect.

There are certainly risks associated with starting a business.  There are also ways to mitigate those risks with planning and starting your business for the right reasons.  No of the above benefits is a reason to start your business but they are fruits to be enjoyed from business well done.  Ask yourself this question, are you a top notch performer at your current job?  If so, would it make sense to go out on your own and maximize your talents?  If you are in a job where your talents are not allowed to grow, is it time to leave?  What has been your experience as a wage earner or business owner with regards to the above benefits?

I forwarded an article that I ran accross called “5 Signs That You Have a Crummy Job”,  http://www.bnet.com/2403-13059_23-208897.html.  What got my attention, besides the fact that I didn’t know people still used the word “crummy” was that it was almost exactly how my friend described his job.  Comraderie was dead, bureaucracy was the norm, innovation and motivation was at a stand still and people were scared because of lay offs and cuts.

This spurned a move from my friend to get out on his own.  The thought was, that he was doing more work for the same pay and very little respect.  He did leave recently under the premise that company would still use his services on a contract basis.  Unfortunately they reneged on that offer and now he is a little worried about the future.

We often get angry at certain situations like lay offs and the by products of lay offs.  Even if you weren’t the one laid off, who do you think needs to pick up the pieces?  This causes discontent in the organization and spurs people to act hastily when it comes to their career.

The lesson is be careful what you wish for.  If you haven’t been working on your business on the side while you are working, it may not be the smartest thing to quit your job cold turkey and then start from scratch.  If your job sucks maybe you just need a different job, not necessarily a new business.  Don’t make decisions for your business based on emotion.  Nothing good can come from that.  Start your business for the right reasons under the right context and the Money, Power and Respect will follow.

Why Do I Exist?  This is a great question personally as we well as for your business.  I ask this question to small businesses in our initial discovery process.  I often get answers that have nothing to do with their business.  Answers regrading why they exist revolving around money and things for them.  Recognition, time off , respect etc etc.  The problem with these answers is that they don’t get your through the tough times and doubt that come along with running your own business.  Your existence can’t be superficial.

Who do I serve? Simpy, who are my customers?  I common answer is that you customer base is everyone.  I have also heard it said that if your customer base is everyone then your customer base is no one.  This is an important follow up to the question of your existence in business.  If you haven’t spent much time hashing the question of who your customers are, you aren’t thinking enough about your customer.

Understanding the intrinsics of your business will help you to ensure that you are clear on why you are in business and what the value proposition is for other people to engage in business with you.  It will ensure that when people doubt your business that you are not discouraged (at least not completely) from the negative feedback.  How do you keep yourself engaged in your work?

Incorrect reason #1 is the  most  common of our reasons or excuses for everything that we do with regards to work.  Money.  We stay at our current jobs that we hate and get stuck running a business that we don’t enjoy oftentimes because of the money that it brings in.  In the case of the job, security is key.  We like our guaranteed (maybe not so much in this economy, yet we still hang on) money, benefits, 401ks etc.  With a business, we started it to make more money and now work more than ever on it and have built it to the point that other people count on our businesses for their livelihood, shutting down or getting out is not as easy.  It’s like a marriage where you have kids, you will be more likely to try and work it out when it’s not just about you.  Regardless of how miserable you are.

Another incorrect reason I hear often is to have more free time.  Spending more time with kids, time for your hobbies etc.  In this case the opposite holds true for business owners.  They end up spending less time then they anticipated because of the intensive nature of starting a business.  This reason doesn’t resonate with the W2 earner as much because they are bound by the almighty time clock and need to put in their hours.  They know that if they want time off, they need to justify it, schedule ahead of time and sometimes cross your fingers that you get your request.

Last incorrect reason is that it’s a hot market currently.  If you start a business or a new job in a hot field, in short term it will most likely work out fine.  A couple of examples I can think of are in nursing currently and in mortgages a few years ago.  Many people jumped at the chance to get into the mortgage business because there was a huge demand for originating mortgages.  People made good money.  Fast forward to today, most of those people are broke with nothing to show for it and have closed their doors.  Only the truly engaged remain.  What has happened to the housing market as a result of individuals just trying to make a buck?  The results can be as we have already seen disastrous.

In the case of nursing their is a huge shortage.  This has created a buyers market for nurses.  They get sign on bonuses, competitive pay, travel nursing is more popular because of the need.  What happens if you don’t love it?  Well, there is a shortage which means that the people who are working are working their ass off.  Extra hours, dealing with doctors who treat nurses poorly, increasing demand from patients, because of the increased workload there is  fear of litigation if a mistake is made.  If you don’t love nursing, are you really going to stick it out?

So what’s the right answer?  Read my post from a couple of months ago http://buildyoursoulpurpose.com/save-yourself-from-mediocrity.  What to do if you have started your business/job for the wrong reason?  Discover and live your Soul Purpose, use your Soul Purpose to create value for other people and solve big problems.  It’s the cure for what ails our economy.

I read something today in the NY Times which caught my eye in the business section regarding the Chicago Tribune.  The company that owns The Chicago Tribune and The LA Times filed for bankruptcy this past Monday.  That in and of itself was not a shock.  Many newspapers are struggling all over the country as they figure out how to leverage the emergence of online channels in their business plan.

You can read the article here:

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/12/tribune-files-for-bankruptcy.html

What was shocking was that the $13 billion in debt that owner Sam Zell obtained in acquiring and running the company was leveraged against part of future of the employee’s pension plan.  In return for Mr Zell doing this, employees were given equity in the company which will now be worth very little.

Here are 4 things that you can do in your career to make sure that you are not exposed in this type of ordeal.

1. Stop putting your hopes and dreams in the hands of your employers.  There is no logical reason for doing this yet we do it every day because we are told throughout our working life to keep our heads down, move up the ranks and retire in 30 years.
2. Build your own business platform.  The first step here is in getting clear on who you are as a person and who you want to be.  There are several different platforms for doing this.   Myers Briggs test www.myersbriggs.org, Soul Purpose Intensive www.soulpurposeblueprint.com, Strengthbuilder 2.0 and a great book to read is Unique Ability by Dan Sullivan from The Strategic Coach.
3. If you insist in working in your current wage earner job, stop relying on the golden hand cuff tools that companies offer.  Particularly a 401k or other qualified plan.  As you can see, what good is having a qualified plan with a match if your employer goes out of business or files for bankruptcy.  Look for investments and opportunities outside of your company that can assist you in your wealth plan.  I would suggest working with a professional in this area to help you.
4. Ask yourself this question about your personal wealth: Is it possible that I could be more wealthy doing my own thing vs working in someone else’s?  When I say wealth I mean more personal wealth in terms of financial, great purpose for your life by working in your passion to make other people’s lives better, more time with your family and people you care about, better health as you reduce stress and finally more energy to work out physically as your not stressed out about your job that you hate.
5. Look at the current model of how we work currently to make a living and then ask yourself if what we have been taught about our careers has really worked out for the majority.

Ask yourself these questions and look at where you are out of alignment and work on how you can build a better platfrom professionally and financially.

Why am I such a fan?  Everyone on this planet no doubt has God-given gifts and talents that when given the proper space and attention to flourish will be more successful than every would be working within someone else’s vision.  Your ability to create value for others is the #1 reason why being an entreprenuer is the best move.

Because you are able to creat value there are a lot of other great by-products wokring for you.  The freedom of creating your own schedule is one, the ability to create your product and platform is extremely rewarding.   There is also a much greater chance of creating a substantial income.  When you work for yourself, the sky is the limit when it come to your income potential.

Why don’t we pursue the business for self/production model more?  The biggest reason is that we are sold a lifestyle and plan from a very young age that tells us the way to go is to work at a company for 30 years, move up the chain of command and retire.  In this model, if you work in something that you are passionate about you are seen as lucky but we are told that we should just be grateful to have a job.  When we are told a story enough times we start to believe it.

In this economy and day and age, it’s more prevalent than ever that most important person to count on for our livelihood is not our boss or the owner of the company that we work for, it’s us. 33% of individuals during “The Great Depression” actually came out more wealthy in that time.  There are big problems being created in the world today with what is going on in society.  The big question is what are you doing to do to solve these big problems and leave your mark in the world.

http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-1724-Career-Growth-and-Change-Bulletproof-Your-Job-4-Ways-to-Stay-Employed/?sc_extcmp=JS_1724_hotmail1&SiteId=cbmsnhm41724&ArticleID=1724&GT1=23000&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=a6ec8f370ef54343b4b5350aefb766b5-281792667-VN-4&pf=true

There are a few items that I had issue with in this article.  The first is when they talk about being visible.  This is the first way the article talks about keeping your job.  It’s not bad advice but if you are “invisible” at your current job my first question would be, why?  Is your performance not up to standard?  Do you not participate in any work conversations?  It may be that you are invisible because you aren’t engaged in what you are doing.  If that’s the case no amount of sucking up or hard work will change that.  It will just make you hate it more.  How about their suggestion to work more hours as a means for standing out?  This can be a double edged sword.  Are you effective or are you busy?

The second issue I have is the suggestion to become a utility player at your firm.  While I do agree that being someone who is willing to step outside of their role and help when needed is necessary and helpful, but it can also be a means to an early exit.  Utility players don’t have staying power anywhere because they never become great at any one thing.  They are just pretty good at a lot of things.  I guarantee that you are more likely to lose out to the specialist in a scenario of who to keep because more often than not their performance will exceed yours.  Being a utility player also lends you to doing a ton of things that you hate doing.  Do you really want to be the person that everyone dumps unwanted work items on?

Last is the suggestion that your job is your greatest asset.  Are you kidding me?  YOU, are your greatest asset hands down.  You are the one who nails the interview, who has built the skills, who has educated themself.  A job is only a means to express that.  It is not the end all, be all.

The most ironic part of this article was the ending that talked about staying ready just in case you need to find another job.  I agree with that, but isn’t the article about being bulletproof?  Maybe the article should be called “A Kevlar vest works great unless you get shot in the head….In that case Good Luck to You”.

Nowhere in this article do they suggest value creation.  You know, actually contributing to a companies’ bottom line.  My suggestion to you if you are worried about losing your job is to ask yourself a couple of questions.  Do I love what I do?  Can I specifically measure my success as it pertains to my companies goals?  If the answer is no, do yourself a favor and find out why and if it can’t be fixed in your current situation then do something else and do it quick.

So what are the good points to each?

To be an entrepreneur, the top benefit that I see is when done right, you are maximizing your talents and abilities to the fullest and creating maximum value for the people that you come in contact with.  There are other good benefits to being your own boss.  You are not necessarily locked into a specific schedule, you have full control over how you do business and the products that you offer (the market will have some say in this but you get my point), you can choose the relationships that you want in your working life.  From a financial standpoint you have more control over your earnings and can increase them more substantially in a shorter period of time than you would at wage earner job.  These are all good things.

For the wage earner, some things that may appeal to you are the sense of security of knowing when your pay checks are coming, the ability to work within a structure that is already created, accountability and a team environment.  I realize that when done wrong some of these things could just as well be liabilities but for the purposes of this discussion we will assume that things are just great

Another often overlooked aspect is in starting a non profit organization as well.  It doesn’t have to be a company that makes billions.  You may get joy in offering a service that you don’t necessarily want to profit from but you want to make sure that you can live doing.  That’s great too.

We have talked about building the platform and that this really begins with yourself.  http://buildyoursoulpurpose.com/bring-the-right-tools-to-build-your-platform

The great things is that building your personal platform can be extremely useful in either scenario.  It can push you to new heights in your business or help you stand out more in the crowd at your job because you are more clear on who you want to be.

What needs to be done now is for you to sit down and decide which fits best for you or look at the opportunities that are available to you and decide which route offers the most satisfaction and enjoyment.

What are some pros out there for you in the entreprenuer vs. wage earner scenario?

I will admit that even when you are pretty sure you are doing the right thing, it’s always nice to hear something that drive it home.

When it comes to the challenge of discovering and living Soul Purpose, a little verification here and there doesn’t hurt.  For the fearless individuals out there that are already on their Soul Purpose path the idea of living your life to the fullest is not a new one.  You are already out there on the front lines trying to get things done and living with an entrepreneurial spirit.

For the individuals I described above, living your Soul Purpose is the path that leads to the utmost success.  And by success I mean, success in your family, success in business, success in your physical appearance etc.  Not just being rich.  Soul Purpose is the winning strategy to take all the powerful ingredients that you already possess (talents, gifts, passions) and channel that into a world of new possibilities.  For most this is a leap of faith and a risky proposition but in the end well worth it.

If you don’t know your Soul Purpose and haven’t thought about it.  My challenge to you is to take some time each morning and work on developing.  A mentor in this area is usually the fastest and best way to speed up your journey on this path.  If you do know your Soul Purpose are you living in it?  If you are, you are probably already living the life that you want.  If not, it’s time to think about what’s holding us back.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics out of 100 people that start working at the age of 25, by age 65…

• 1% are wealthy – Only one out of every hundred!

• 4% have enough money to retire – with government assistance.

• 3% are still working and will need to continue to work until they die.

• 29% are already dead.

• 95% of all Americans retire in poverty. This is the typical level of financial reward a person can expect after at least forty years of full-time hard work.

• US government figures showed that the average person reaching retirement age in North America has savings of less than $500.
  

That sounds great doesn’t it?  This is what happens when we accept what we perceive as reality and don’t pursue our passions.  Living our Soul Purpose and using it to create is the best way for us to achieve long lasting security.  This is how we can take charge of our lives and control what we can control which is our personal contribution.  I was asked yesterday how I don’t get scared about what is going on in today’s economy and the answer is that I focus on my personal economy and control what I can control.

Below is a statistic about putting a plan behind your purpose and where we are missing the boat when it comes to success.  Not only are we not living our Purpose but we aren’t putting together a plan either.

“Committing goals to paper and reviewing them regularly gives you a 95% higher chance of achieving your desired outcomes. Studies have shown that only three to five percent of people in the world have written goals – the same three to five percent who have achieve success in business and earn considerable wealth.”http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200810/1223433131.html

The best process that we use on a daily basis to prevent the above from happening and make sure that we are discovering, cultivating and putting a plan behind our Soul Purpose is called a “Power Hour”.  This is a daily regimen of taking 1 hour daily before we do anything else to focus on our mind, body and spirit.  Some activities to do during your “power hour” include goal setting, mediation, prayer, exercise, reading etc etc.  This is a great way to keep yourself on track on a daily basis.

2 scenarios come to mind.  The first is living a life where you are doing the things that you are passionate about and you do very well.  In creating this kind of value, this makes life more fulfilling and more than likely allows you to experience life to the fullest.  Less time at work, more time with family and friends doing fun things like hanging out and traveling.  Sounds nice right?

Now let’s look at scenario 2.  This is a life where you just try and do what’s expected.  Work at the job you hate because it provides security.  Don’t ever spend time with people you care about because your busy beating your head against the wall working at your secure job.  All the while wondering what you are doing and why you are doing it.  I just got the chills for a second because I just described my life 5 years ago.  Brutal.

This is a concept that we call hard/easy.  This concept discusses things that we can do now that are hard but later in life make things much easier on ourselves.  A great example of this is working out and taking care of your body.  Hard to go the gym today but makes life much easier later.  The opposite of this is a situation that I have experienced as a father when you let your child slide on doing something that really you wished they wouldn’t.  The problem is once you set the behavior, it is much harder to get your child to stop after you have given them the impression that the behavior was OK.

“When you identify your authentic desires and intentions, your soul purpose will be revealed. Dormant qualities will come to light, creativity will flourish, inspiration will illuminate your path, and a deep sense of well being will permeate your life.”  http://turnupside.com/blog/?p=90

Loved the above quote.  Who doesn’t get excited about bringing their best qualities out in the light?  This is both scary and exciting.  But isn’t the joy of touching lives worth it.  What are you waiting for?

I ran accross a comparison last night between mission and purpose.

“Purpose is the intuition of your spiritual goal; mission is what you live as you move towards this goal.” www.mudrashram.com/transformationaluses.html I wanted to make sure that it is understood that Soul Purpose and terms like “Life Mission” are not the same thing as sometimes I hear them used interchangably.

Now that I have covered Soul Purpose in its’ essence a little more, I wanted to talk about why we strive to fully express our Soul Purpose. The conversation comes around to discovering our Purpose so that we can create value for other.  Before we can create value for others we must create value for ourselves.  This entails changing the conversation that we have about ourselves.  Things like, “I’m not good enough”, “No one values that” as just a couple of examples that we have all told ourselves.  Some people I know get a little nervous when I talk about self interest and it’s role in serving others.  It’s natural for people to think that doing for themselves is selfish when there are other people relying on them.  This is a common struggle that I hear from mothers especially.  Just remember that to do be the best at anything you have to be the best person you can be for yourself first.  One of the tools to help change our mindset is taking time in the morning to workout, pray, meditate and read.  (Not necessarily in that order.)  Doing these activities every morning puts you in the fast track to self discovery.

Soul Purpose when fully expressed is living God’s plan for you at your highest level.  This creates the ability for us to create the maximum amount of value in the world in service to others.  There is nothing more rewarding or satisfying than that.  This conversation is not about making a lot of money or owning a big house or driving an expensive car.

Although living your Soul Purpose is a long journey and exercise in self discovery,  once we are able to stand more fully in our light the possibilities for living our ideal life are endless.  Ask yourself what you are doing to cultivate your gift.

I recently have been given the opportunity to more fully express my Soul Purpose and I can say that my life has more clarity and meaning than it did a few weeks ago.

For those of you reading this going forward I wanted to share with you my Soul Purpose mission statement:

“The be the shepherd for mankind to stand fully in their own light and bring Soul Purpose effectively to the marketplace.”

I look forward to serving you with what will be ideas and action items to continue on your Soul Purpose in a more powerful manner.