3 Questions to ask Yourself:
Do you…
- concern yourself with things beyond your control? If you think about what has pre-occupied you over the last week, have you wasted energy and time on what you can’t influence, change or control?
- do you consciously build up a positive company culture? It starts, and ends, at the top. If you take the easy way out, cut corners, gossip, sew negativity – you can’t expect much from your team. Where would you rate yourself out of 10? And… where would you team rate you?
- keep your business reliant on you in order to operate? What processes have you put in place within the last 6 months that make it easier for your team to do their job without your direct involvement?
Do yourself some favours…
Stop blaming others or circumstances.
- INSIDE THE BUSINESS: As a leader nothing is more sobering than bringing to mind a quote attributed to Napoleon, “There are no bad soldiers, only bad captains.” When it concerns people in your business, consider them un-blameable. You hired them, right? You trained them? You clearly conveyed what was required and followed up, right? If it’s ‘yes’ to all of those, and you still think they need the blame, then perhaps you should have replaced them already. Is there someone in the past month whom you blamed but if you think about it, you could have done more to help them succeed?
- OUTSIDE THE BUSINESS: Blaming the government, market or competitors, or well… anything… won’t help one bit. And if you are not careful it soon becomes your excuse for not innovating. If it’s so bad and you believe there is no room for growth, find a new territory to grow your business.
Work ON your business not IN the business.
Proactively free yourself from being part of every process so you can focus on taking business forward.
- What can you give over (properly delegate) within the next two weeks to someone else to do for you? Sure, you’ve needed to do it for a start, but do you need to continue with it?
- Identify a task that consumes your time each week which you wish you could spend in another way, and you can’t give it to someone else to do. Have you considered looking for an app to reduce your time spent on it? Approving payments perhaps?
Get uncomfortable.
Where you would usually say no because it will bring some discomfort, try ‘Ok, let’s try’ instead. Deliberately entering new and often uncomfortable territory in order to learn and grow. It has been said that comfort is the enemy of progress. What do you avoid due to discomfort, but would it have a positive impact on those around you if you did it?
Give up on luck..
Stop hoping for that ‘lucky break’. Give up daydreaming about that ‘big thing’ that might happen and banking on it as an excuse for why you are not taking things forward today. If your ‘vision’ doesn’t have steps towards it mapped out – it’s only a nice thought and will remain that. Sit down and think about where you want things to go, and write done a few milestones you think are needed to reach on the way. In reality things seldom go to plan, yet working out the steps needed to fulfil a vision help you break it down into achievable bite-size chunks. This can always be adapted as you go and unforeseen obstacles arise.
As for luck, things happen for those who make things happen.
Look, and see it.
Take time to generate new ideas, even if you think everything is working fine. Look to create in spaces taken for granted or where norms are formed. By challenging and reverse engineering accepted methods, products and services to find a gap or do something in a totally different way.
Is there something your business does which can be done differently? Take any part of the business and ask what if we did this the other way around? Now envision the result playing out in reality, what the positives would be and see if something sparks a new idea.
Focus less on the competition.
Seek to rise above competition. Competition literally means ‘struggling together’. What if you create and run your own race (explore the concept of ‘Sur-petition’) – creating a value monopoly whilst others are engaged in price wars and copying? Think about delivering maximum value in ways that resonate with your audience (actually care), not merely how to better the competition’s prices. What if you had a proper “What if…?” session with your team?
“Nomad-minded means being mentally set free to embrace change and adapt in order to progress, never settling or getting too comfortable in one place.”
It’s a Journey.
A vision is crucial to help your work through the daily detail knowing you are working towards a greater goal. But vision should not be confused with destination. One can continue to fulfil a vision, but at a destination one stops. If you don’t love the journey, you will constantly be frustrated and disappointed.
Here’s 5 tips to help embrace business as a journey:
- Adopt the mindset of a nomad. Never settle for too long and get comfortable. Seek to adapt, change and move forward – before you have to.
- Stop wanting to ‘be there’ already. Appreciate where you are now, remind yourself from time to time how far you have come, and who you have on your side. Be present and engage with what’s in front of you to get them most out of it, personally and for the business.
- Where you are a bottleneck or are tied down and unable to get to what you should as a leader, work ruthlessly at empowering others and automating processes. When you start getting to what you should, you’ll find that you are more energised and keen to accept the challenges that arise along the way.
- To journey means progress needs to be made. Aim to gain and maintain momentum. Don’t make perfection the goal (it’s relative anyway), but strive to make progress – even off the back of a mistake or fail.
- Don’t ride on previous success and believe you are now entitled to anything because of it. Never get too big to listen, ask and thank.
You are at the helm. Get a grip.
A nomad-minded business owner believes it is possible to find a way forward and create business regardless of the environment around them, even if it means moving to an entirely new space. No one else can prevent progress, even if it means finding an alternative route or a totally new direction.
Control the controllable.
Reduce the amount of things you are concerned about or preoccupied with in life (from politics to the weather) and focus your energy on what you can control and influence. Ask yourself, “Can I do anything about this?”
TASK: List 3 things that you have influence and control over, regardless of how small. Where can you effect change in your business that would potentially be a step closer to positive results? Company culture might be one of the
See failure differently.
This doesn’t mean you don’t care and just let things fail. NO, it means being mature about taking risks and not expecting them to work out as hoped or planned.
FAIL = First Action In Learning.
What a wonderfully freeing concept! You LEARN while you FAIL. Progress towards success cannot be without failure, whether big or small. The ability to learn from this is what contributes towards your ultimate success. The journey you undertake will most probably humble you to the point of no return, at which stage the strong and persistent will stand up and continue to reach above the rest.
Persistence is a commodity worth trading in, and nobody can take it from you. Failing forward using perceived failures to improve and bounce back stronger, the success stories of big brands are littered with failures until they succeed.
Money
Cash continues to be one of the worst-performing asset classes in the world.
Annually your purchasing power is reducing as the value of your cash does not keep up with inflation and potential returns from other assets classes. The opportunity cost associated with cash is huge.
So, how should we view cash?
See cash as an ENABLER. Let go of your affinity to cash. Start playing the game of business. The sooner you realise that the only reason you have cash is because you are playing the game of business better than the other person the sooner you will focus on keeping your head in the game, the cash will follow.
TIP: Use cash as an enabler to generate wealth to diversify your asset base.
Destroy Mentor-Dependency
Looking for certainty? Rather aim for clarity. As things become clearer for you, you are less reliant on someone else for sense of certainty. Getting advice and guidance from people who’ve ‘been there’ at different points along the way to gain insight, wisdom and clarity is vital. Being open to good advice, and seeking the right counsel is humility, but depending on someone else constantly is laziness. To hope for a perfect mentor who will walk you through all the dark valleys along the way to ultimate success might be asking a bit much.
- Stop seeking approval from someone else before you do anything. No one was born wise, and everyone starts not knowing anything. Put one foot in front of the other, as best you know how, and learn as you go – drawing guidance from people and places you learn to trust, as you need it.
- Never be left wondering about something. Google it. Never before have we had such access to information.
- Want to dig deeper? Invest time into reading. Eat the meat and spit out the bones. No single book is the total answer, find solid principles you can make your own and implement. Books allow you to have various mentors from which you can take the best bits and make them your own.
People.
Your people are your biggest asset (yes it’s still true despite all the bots, robots and AI) and yet you spend the least amount of time on hiring and training.
Ensuring a perfect fit and above average returns on your investment requires of you to choose well. Start with their
- values
- ability
- skill
Make sure that these line up with your business.
Creating a well-oiled machine resulting in your staff being extra-ordinary requires attention to matters affecting them;
- externally such as their work conditions
- internally such as their personal well-being
- aspirations such as what they are working for, the “why?”
Get Your Head in The Cloud.
The inflection point was reached. The way in which we conduct our business has dramatically changed. Scaling your business requires scalable platforms being readily available as and when needed.
Not adapting is similar to coal vs. solar. We all know that coal is dead, we just don’t know when it will be buried. Living in denial and holding on to this old way of doing will result in you being buried along with it. Change should be uncomfortable otherwise what is the point. Get out of your comfort zone and explore the world of cloud-based solutions.
