Life Unsettled: Recent Episodes
Thomas O'Grady, PhD
The comfort zone sounds so obvious, but personal development is much more involved. If you want to grow, succeed or do anything new, you need to go outside it.
The comfort zone is in a situation where a person is familiar, at ease and in control. Outside of the comfort zone there is increased anxiety and stress. So, the further out a person gets the greater the level of stress. The easiest definition I have found is from Wikipedia
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The most comfortable place in usually not the best for learning or working.
If a person repeatedly leaves the comfort zone and has a successful outcome, they will actually decrease the stress of being outside the zone next time. While that may sound so easy, why do so few really leave the comfort of their familiar surroundings.
The very fact that so few venture out into new paths during their life, is interesting. The very reason this topic seems easy is that everyone thinks they understand it and do know it is crucial. If you ask people, most will say they do venture outside their comfort zone.
So many say they go out of their comfort zone, then why do so many stay in home towns that have no future or jobs they dislike? Why do so many follow the same path as their parents or neighbors? It is the most comfortable of places.
Success, by its very nature, means you have accomplished something. Therefore, success is always outside of the comfort zone. In order to have success, you need to do something new or different. Continual learning means that at least minimally, you constantly feel uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, the further out the greater the stress, anxiety and fear which can hold you back. Repeated success outside the comfort zone will increase confidence. As you increase experience, confidence increases, and these new experiences become part of your larger comfort zone.
Over time, you will grow accustomed to being uncomfortable and continually making progress. It all becomes easier. So, learning begets more learning. Success begets more success. The key is how to get to this point and to recognize the pitfalls and negative pressure from many around you.
Going outside may appear crazy.
On a humorous note, you might say that success is based you intentionally making yourself uncomfortable. You are intentionally outside your comfort zone. So, seemingly this is an almost masochistic behavior subjecting yourself to discomfort. Yet, this is a basic and key ingredient to success. So, if you truly are extremely successful, maybe you have to be a little crazy too.
The concept of the comfort zone is a very useful psychological tool. You can only grow if you step outside your comfort zone. You must be willing to learn new things and skills through new experiences to grow and be successful.
From time to time, you must re-assess and step out to new or revised goals. The process would only stop when you decide you don't want to go any further or want a break on the way your goals.
With greater skills and knowledge opportunities will increase. When your knowledge increases, your ability and opportunities broaden. You will also find it easier to make educated guesses and other ideas that come to mind will also become better. You will be better at evaluation.
It is very common to notice the success of so many immigrants. One of the reasons that many migrants succeed is that they are more willing to make additional trips far outside comfort zone. They already made some of the biggest changes, new country, new language and friends (see Immigrant Mentality).
Moving to a new country is also a reason that many of the educated immigrants assimilate more and are not just be entirely surrounded by people from their previous country. While they do have friends from their country they are more likely to have a broader diversity than people born here.
Why is it hard to leave your comfort zone?
Inside your zone is where you find enjoyment and find expected outcom...
Why you should be looking at your future career as an ongoing process. You will have change, probably many times, a career is either planned or decided by others for you.
Career Change and paths to new jobs or professions are confusing and don't always go where expected.
Why now is one of the best times ever for career change and career development.
It may last 2-4 years, but you’ll need every one of those years to make the most progress.
Largely I am setting a framework for thinking about careers in this episode. It will be followed by more action-oriented episodes and hopefully ideas to motivate thoughts.
You should always be planning on changing careers.
On average people have 10-15 jobs during their lifetime. Some of these jobs are completely new careers.
If you aren’t ready for a career change, it will happen by default. Now, sometimes that may be an unexpected promotion. Most often, if by default, you are in a situation that is less than you wanted.
So, if you want to grow and progress over time, you don’t want to let a change affecting you to be a default change. That is, a new job where you might not have a good choice or at a time of desperation. Start your research and include social media to gain contacts, but be cautious of what you say.
Think about it. You will see many changes, do you want to plan and figure out how to maximize the results, or even just see progress, or do you want to leave it to luck.
Also, if others around you are working toward positive change, it may be like musical chairs and you were not ready when the music stopped.
Yes, the music may stop because companies are not living as long as they did fifty years ago.
Now for some great news.
Record Opportunity for Career Advancement
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are about 7.6 million job openings and only about 6.5 million unemployed. This is a remarkable time in history. There is such a huge shortage that companies are more willing to train career changers and even are hiring felons that seem to have true potential.
This will not last forever. It is a rare job market in history and caused by the strong growth in the economy and in both new and reinvigorated industries. Simultaneously, so many people left the work force by the end of 2016 that while unemployment appeared low, there was discouraged workers that gave up searching for good jobs. Companies that were looking for workers were trying to keep the hours below 30 per week to avoid large health care cost of the Affordable Care Act. Enough of that issue, we only are concerned with how to take advantage of today’s work environment and why we shouldn’t wait.
Over the next few years, many people will be retraining for new jobs and many are already returning into the workforce. You need to look at both what skills you have and what additional ones you may need. You probably have transferable skills that while not exactly requested, enhance your appeal and others you get through part time school or work. In any case, it is not a time that anyone needs to feel stuck in their position or status in the marketplace.
Both those that are returning as well as those are changing careers will make a transformation to target their skills and experience to new careers.
It is truly a time you can breakthrough to completely new career paths. I say paths because as learn and gain experience more opportunities open up and you may shift your focus.
The government will start increasing the H1 and other work visas to accommodate corporations who need employees with certain skills.
It is important at the least to start thinking and researching new career paths now. The increase in work visas granted and others who return to the workforce finding new careers will lessen the opportunities.
Most Interview Problems are Just Social Skills
In spite of all these positive developments,
Goal setting for your personal growth is one of the most rewarding tasks people can do. Do you know what you want to be in five years? Do you know where you want to be in 3 - 5 years?
Your goals should be distant at the start of your journey.
You want to develop your own big picture of your future life. Success is personal. Are you on the correct path to reach your goal? Do you know what you want to accomplish this year, within 6 months and today?
While some might feel they don’t like to set goals, it is important for everything from health and family to wealth. This encompasses all factors for personal growth.
A goal should be thought of as similar to a map and directions to some long destination. The wrong decisions lead to wrong or unfavorable direction and can make the trip much longer or even impossible. You want your GPS to be accurate.
Goal setting process
Your goals are your personal goals. If you have a business or career you may be trying to use it for the wealth and financial freedom you desire or just something that makes you happy. However, all of these are the means to an end in your own personal goals.
They should be measurable goals, but I argue against smart goals. Smart goals are good and important for short term accomplishment. Do not use or set them until you have long term goals and a plan in place. In the longer term, you need to allow flexibility. As you learn and gain experience revision is often useful and sometimes necessary.
Big Goals and Life Change can Take Time
If you are after some big personal goals over the next 5 – 10 years, you are working toward something that you don’t already know well. That is, if as you work towards it, you will find attributes of the new career or business that you may not like or just don’t want to do. That is, just like you had ideas and dreams of a future career in high school, college and later, you changed your mind. Either your likes and dislikes changed, or your understanding of the career changed.
Decide a reasonable time frame for your goals. In some careers, 5 years is more appropriate while other careers may only take 6 - 9 months. Choose according to the career or goals you are setting, either 5, 7 or 10 years. Anything shorter than 5 probably indicates you are aiming too low for a real life change. This complete change might include a new career, getting out of debt, i.e. debt free, owning a home in a location you want to be.
Let's say you use 5 years for your goal endpoint and you have a big picture of what you want your life to look like. Review your likes and dislikes. This should be a list just like a list of pros and cons for something you might decide to do.
Big Goals are the Ultimate Satisfaction
The ultimate objective or long term goal if a true breakthrough, will not be easy. You will almost certainly need to develop new skills and become familiar with new technology. If you didn't need new skills, you could step into the new career almost immediately. I'll get more into that in the episode on comfort zone and how to do it.
The steps for a goal will have many very satisfying parts. You may go through a series of positions or promotions that give you knowledge, experience and credibility. If planned well, your financial position and wealth will greatly improve.
A goal that is broken down in small pieces also will be easier to accomplish. However, if an end or final goal is easy, the competition will probably be extremely high. Competition will also be the highest for the most glamorous goals.
There are some things you do not like to do but will be necessary to achieve your goals. If you are aware of them up front, you can understand the importance and weigh them as part of overcoming obstacles.
Some of the most attractive are the hardest businesses as the competition is much higher. Owning a business, think of a restaurant, people imagine greeting people or being a chef.
Welcome to another episode of Life Unsettled New Path, Better Future. You've all heard things like, "Everybody makes mistakes. Learning from mistakes. Don't worry about your mistakes. It's just part of the process of growing and learning." I'm going to as usual disagree with many of the gurus out there that tell you to just continue to make mistakes as you progress.
This episode is extremely important but maybe a little bit more complex. As I understand the general logic that people have, you learn from your mistakes so you should expect them and you just keep on making them as part of the learning process. The more mistakes you make, the better off you are because you learn from those.
Well that sounds good, but what are some of the keys to making those mistakes and why and what circumstances is that a bad idea? First of course the good. Yes, by not worrying too much about mistakes and realizing you can correct them and learn from them, you have less fear, less hesitation. You move forward and take on new things and do new things. That's really, really important, and that's where most of the stress or emphasis is.
But that's also just in part. It is good in many situations, but when is it bad and how do you learn? Well when do you have to make a mistake? The idea is that first there's two types of learning. One is from actually making mistake, another is actually looking, researching, understanding, thinking through something logically. You have the two differences. I refer to one as wisdom and one as knowledge.
Knowledge is something that you can acquire, somebody can pass it on to you. Wisdom is something for some reason you just can't logically deduce it. It's why over thousands of years we tend to make as human beings some of the same mistakes over and over again.
I have a chapter in my book, "The Mechanics for Breakthrough Success", on that. You can find it on Amazon. Hopefully when they refer to mistakes, they are referring to wisdom, because otherwise you should be able to get it and learn from somebody else, something logically and then make progress a lot faster. That's going to be a key thing and that is the speed and time.
If they're referring to wisdom, what's wrong with learning from other people's mistakes instead of just your own? I have an episode there where we learn from other's mistakes, OPM. That's not other people's money. It's learning from other people's mistakes. That is when you see something else, observe it, think of the why, think of what happened, learn from that. Or if you have somebody who's a mentor or somebody that you truly trust in certain situations, in those situations should you take their idea over your own? One could say they already have the wisdom that you don't.
So if you disagree, should you take your own idea or somebody else's? I've explained that in another place where I actually was in that situation. As I thought it through, here was this some respected person. He was a professor at Hofstra University. He had an idea. He couldn't really convince me or logically explain to me why his idea was better. Nor could I explain to him why my idea was better. So which one should I take?
Well it turns out that almost everybody will take their own idea. What's wrong with that? Well, it makes think like the two of us staking our ideas like a game on it. Now imagine the Las Vegas odds makers are taking the bets and laying down the odds. What do you think is going to be the biggest odds on favorite? He will be of course. So why don't I take his? Either way I'll learn, but I might be on the right path. And it becomes even more important to be on the right path if it is time dependent.
What do I mean by that? What happens if you only get one shot? What if it's going into an interview? What if it's going to present something? Or what if it's for your retirement? You only have one opportunity to live your life for your retirement. So why should I care?
Today I'm talking about sales, sales process and the sales environment and the business environment. Do we all think of it in certain ways as we've always experienced walking into stores, online even, walking into a car dealership? Things are changing very rapidly now and in the near future.
I want to go over a couple of the things that are changing, and have changed, recently. Really to my entire surprise is how fast those changes are about to take place. Now, it's important, of course, that we understand and adapt to the changes that are already taking place. The changes that are in the near future are even more awesome.
The average consumer today researches his information to make a purchase. Over 50% of them do this before they even have any interaction with any sales associate. Now, think of that. That's a whole lot of difference between what it was in the past, but it also means that the sales associate has a very different purpose today than in the past. In a couple of years, it's expected to be over 80%. Are you ready?
The biggest thing this means is that the salespeople really need to be interacting with potential consumers before they ever become the consumer for your product or your company. That is, doing things on social media. In fact, even if it's not the exact same customer, the understanding and what's going on plus the idea that they may be captured within the sales research process, along with that more mobile devices today are used than desktops, and it's expected to be 80% in the very near future.
93% of people doing research on mobile make a purchase. Think of that in terms of how important it is then to be on mobile, given it's the dominant search criteria today, and that 93% of those people are going to make a purchase after doing that research. How do you become aware of their search and use it? First, how do you make sure that everything you have, your web site and everything else, is mobile-friendly? It's a lot different than just making slight changes in the size and positioning of the interface.
Now, one key point to make is what should you do if you have sales associates, particularly if you're in a store? You've got a store or storefront. For your sales associate, one of the best things you can do, make sure they have mobile devices with them. They can facilitate. Help the customer do research. Obviously, if you hand the customer something to do research with and talk to them about it, you have a much better chance of making that sale in your store than a competitor, providing you have a good story or a good store.
Now, with all the information, cloud-based and now we see artificial intelligence being used. Yes, today, artificial intelligence is already being used in many of the apps that you have on your phone. What does that mean? It means they're adapting to your decisions and your process, the way you click and the things you do, such as your location. Yet, with all the data that's being gathered right now, and tons of information and data being gathered, from everything that you visit, everything that you click, the searches you do, et cetera. How far will it go? Today, companies are using approximately 12% of that data so far. This is a huge set of business opportunities.
Now, you might think they are using so little because the data's so overwhelming, but it's not that. Some of the things that basically the technology is catching up with the data, but it's catching up incredibly fast. I went just this past couple of days, to the Digital Summit in Philadelphia, and it was amazing, some of the things that were discussed there. They also had one of the sponsors was IBM's Watson, and it was interesting to see that and how it's related and how it's actually being used by individual companies.
There were a whole bunch of other companies there too, to help and facilitate everything from marketing to social media. Now, sales is going to be very, very personal,
The future marketing like everything else today is impacted by technology. Most people today have no idea how much information on them is changing marketing to them. In the future marketing, companies will use AI. VR and augmented reality to build marketing for them specifically based on what they do and did.
Today, we’re going to continue from a previous episode where we talk more about what was going on with sales and the sales process. Let's talk a little bit more now about the technology and the future that’s coming up as well as what is existing today and what we have to look for.
Now, to carry on a little bit from last week, we talked about social media, sort of the final part, the final cut. With social media, you can, today, build relationships and build relationship with people who are influencers in your area or your field, as well as people who may potentially be influencers within the sales process of your business, of your product, but relationships can’t be abused. There are some approaches that are really weird and they reek of the time when people thought that they could do it with business cards.
There was actually even some car dealer or something or a used car salesman. He used to talk about and teach people how to just buy tons of business cards and leave them all over the place. Throw them places, et cetera, and it’s almost like we have some of those people out there. As you’ll notice in social media whether it be Facebook, LinkedIn, et cetera, you go and make a contact and somebody sends you back an immediate message saying, “Oh, here’s what I do and here’s what I’m selling. Are you interested?” Well, that’s today considered very obnoxious. It's annoying and while it might work once in a while and will cause stories to be told about how I did this. Some will say I generated sales without thinking. It’s the without thinking part that really is troublesome because it’s not going to build a good business.
What will build a business today, and future marketing? Of course, more and more so, it’s customer service. Customer service now is always on. Think of not just like your instant TV but it’s always on. Customers have access today to more information from other customers, as well as ratings, et cetera, some of it false. You have to monitor things for that reason. It’s why you often hear that buyers are right now considered to be 65%, two-thirds of the way through the sales process because of research before they even reach out to the sales person in your company or any of the company for your product or competitive product. That number is expected and will probably grow easily to 85 plus percent. How do you get ready?
That tells us two things. Sales is rapidly removing the salesperson. What is it replaced by? Customer service, information, the things that make your company and your product more attractive and how comfortable that person is. Get back to building that relationship with existing, as well as potential customers. Today, you can already geotarget to such an extent. You are, say, a real estate agent in a particular area, you don’t need to blast in advertisement into the newspaper. A car dealer doesn’t have to blast an advertisement into the newspaper. They can actually target people who are interested in cars and thinking about buying a car based on social media characteristics that already exist within their very targeted market area.
Technology is changing even more and those changes are going to accelerate quite a few things. Before I talk about what they will accelerate, keep in mind why you need to be interested in this tech that’s coming out. Don’t say, “Well, I’m having trouble keeping up,” because quite frankly, this technological change that’s occurring gives you or your competitors the opportunity to substantially increase market share, become closer to the customer, and possibly step in front of you in the line of information that the customer’s seeking.
Now,
Today is the episode on marketing today. Marketing, I'm gonna break it all down into two parts. Originally I thought this was going be one piece, but it turns out that it's just too big. And one of the things, and reason that I want to separate it is, there's not just what's going on today. As I've mentioned many times, technology is moving just so fast that we really have to plan, or at least be aware, of what's happening towards the future. So, we will be taking a look at a second part next week, and this week we're talking about what's going on today, what you can do.
Now, marketing is different than it has been years ago, not in the sense that the customer has changed at all, not at all. However, everybody is able to focus so much better, and refine their marketing to such a degree, because of all the information available today, and the new ways of marketing that are available today. So you have to really know your customer better, and that's where, really, marketing today starts, and begins very much with customer service, customer satisfaction, and learning from those experiences and those customers.
This will all give you the ideas, of course, on how to attract many new customers and expand your market greatly, but the idea is to first understand them well through those means. Now, that means leveraging your community, networking with the customers, whether you have groups or information or whatever, run competitions. That is, if there's any way you can put together some sort of competition, or experience, or something that the customer can have with your product or with you, that can be a great way to both build loyalty and gain information. Starting off today, YouTube, webinars, et cetera, you don't want to waste time, or other people's time, but you see so much about how you can turn around and learn just about anything on YouTube today, or eHow, et cetera.
So one of the ideas is, of course, to put some out on your own. Yes, there may be others out there. Can you do it better? Can you do it well? Can you do it in such a way to demonstrate your product and how to use it; not selling at all, just engaging with the customer so that you become an authority. If you become an authority, or at least thought of as an authority, particularly if you're in a local area, you become more attractive. If you're worldwide, it's the same thing. So the idea is to give it away for free; that is a free class, free seminar related to your product, doing a demo.
You could be a local hardware store. Recently, interestingly, and that's why I mention it, I was asked how could they survive. They were talking about, you know, there's Lowe's and Home Depot, and how are they gonna survive. Well, first of all, keep in mind, they probably can't survive on price. So what do they do? They have to have other dimensions; know and understand your customer well, maybe you can survive or do better, or at least lengthen your lifespan, by turning around and being more informative. That is, teaching, more involvement with the customer, more involvement with the person walking through your store. Now, also look at who's coming in, or who is arriving as a customer, who's been thinking about you.
Learn from other businesses; what are they doing? Competitive analysis, again, is a great way to learn a great deal. What do they do, what do they present, how are they doing? Just because they advertise a certain way it doesn't mean that it's working, but it does give you some ideas. It does not have to be your industry, for some things. For example, when I was doing a lot of work with the automotive industry, what I used to keep, really files and files of, are the top advertisements for major hotels and luxury items. Why? Because what they were selling was style, luxury, et cetera. So that gave me some great insights and ideas also, that you just relate over to another industry.
Today the big thing of course is using videos to market your busin...
The second episode of eight in comprehensive business strategy, target marketing, in the overview of building or expanding a strong business.
This episode addresses the following topics and questions.
Who are your customers and targeting your prospects?
Use the attributes of your product or service and describe well what it will do for them They only care about the benefit to them
Watch and survey with customer satisfaction to either learn possible expansions or to at least find who they are and what they like and don’t like. It is the customers' perspective that is crucial, not yours or your friends.
What do they do? Where do they live? How do they use your product or service? They may id something that you didn’t think was in your marketing.
In an earlier episode, I discussed how to increase the probability of success in business.
Does the picture you had of customers before you started match your real customers Why do they buy your product? Why from you? What excites them? What is valuable to them in your product? If you can answer and reexamine these questions you wil be ready to market you product and will later be ready for expansion and growth!
So now is the first step in looking at business strategy, your product line strategy. What is your product line strategy or business line strategy? How are you going to expand your product line over time? Now this doesn't matter whether you're just starting out, whether you're about to start, or you've been going for a little while. Even at the very beginning as you're planning your business, you say you only have one product or one service. It doesn't matter. You have to think of expansion in the future and start it from the beginning, and I'll explain why right now.
There's an old adage in business; grow or die. I heard that for the first time from my accountant many, many years ago, 25 or so years ago. It really is true. But, let's take a look at how you might grow. If you're going to grow, most likely you're going to have to either expand your products and that could be to related products, or it could be variations of versions of the current product you have.
Now why do I say related products? A lot of products are complimentary in that you buy one, and you will probably have a large percentage of people who buy another. It reminds me of two different scenarios. One was when we studied early about complimentary products if you ever noticed in the ads in supermarket magazines, you'll see things like a sale on bacon or there might be a sale on eggs. Why is there a sale on one and not the other? Because the one draws you in but then you will buy the other more than likely. The same thing with peanut butter and jelly.
A lot of different things go together, i.e. complementary. I saw a commercial oh probably about 10 years ago that really made a point that I had been trying to make so many times and had made, but it was a lengthy thing. Now I could just point to the commercial. You might remember it but if not, I'll replay the idea.
There was a guy who worked in the store. This is a supermarket. He's over in the vegetable area, and he picks up a bag of those little bitty carrots and he says loudly, "Why are we selling these carrots?" Now all of a sudden a voice from overhead comes loudly and says, "Because the same people who buy those carrots are the ones who buy those expensive cheeses that we have in the cheese section."
Now another story was I went to a supermarket and they had ... it was a relatively small supermarket, but it was the one that was close ... nearby to us. They stopped selling whole milk. Now I went up to them and said, "What are you doing this for? How come you seem to have run out?" They said, "No, no we don't sell that anymore. There's not enough people buying it." I had to teach them a little bit of economics. You guessed it. I said, "Well, the problem is if you don't have whole milk and I want it, it is considered a staple, not just in my house but in many other homes. Even those few people who want to buy whole milk, if you don't have it, we have to go to another store. Now, are we going to come here and then go to another store just for milk or are we just going to go there and buy everything?" Needless to say, within two weeks they had reengaged and had started selling whole milk again.
Now this is just a quick lesson in how products are related. Now let's get back to your business. As I said, you have to plan ahead of time right at the beginning to sell more products and services to your existing customers but also to perform market segmentation analysis to understand what your customers want and how you might sell variations of products or other related products to them. Start by focusing on the products that you're about to sell or the product that you're about to sell or service or are doing right now and understand much more about your customer and that will not only decrease the marketing efforts but it will open doors to give you an idea of what other products might be related or relatable.
Now how do you do this? Well of course you target your new customer market or mar...
Business strategy is often overlooked in small businesses. Too often a small business while a way to pick up some extra money or to gain financial freedom, neglects a comprehensive business strategy.
There are over 40 million people in the United States with side gigs. Now, these don’t even include people that have separated from there job and set up their own business. I wonder how many of those 40 million would be able to have a complete business if they looked a more closely at strategy. There are an additional 500,000 people per month starting new businesses.
This episode is meant to touch on the eight points that everyone, regardless of the size of their business, should be familiar.
The detail and motivation of each is contained in the audio of the episode. However, here is a brief overview of what they mean. Listen to the episode to understand why it’s important to anyone and any business. The eight categories are:
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Product line - this not only includes what you’re selling now, but what you might want to sell in the future.
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Targeting your market – while current trends and recommendations say concentrate on one person as you target your product or service, you may have to at least be aware of more segments.
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Marketing - while much has changed because of technology today, much has also stayed the same.
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Sales - there are diverse sales methods today because of online skills and techniques. However, each of these tend to attract different types of people and must be used differently.
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Distribution – whether you have a product or service, distribution channels have expanded and your market potential depends on your distribution method and size of your channel.
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Production - how is your product or service created? With today’s technology, however it is done, will probably be changed within the next couple of years
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Labor - this is not only about the people you have, but how efficiently and how well skilled they are. It concerns the training. If you are one man shop with a limited time, then you need better time management, no matter how good you think you are.
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Finance - probably the most important was saved for last. I’ve been told by my former accountant and read that 70% a business failures are caused by financial mismanagement. So, while it may be boring for some, this is a crucial area for any business.
There are a wealth of opportunities to start businesses today. However, you not only want to own a business you want to increase the probability of a successful entrepreneurial venture with sound ongoing business strategy.
Now, as I said this episode is to help understand the motivation and the reasoning why each of these is important to everyone in business. Over the next several episodes, each of these Will be gone into greater depth.
This episode was motivated by several questions I received and the observation of so many failures for lack of understanding of business strategy and for ignoring one or more of these areas.
You certainly don't have to be an expert in all these business strategy fields. That would be ludicrous as you would never get to do your business. But, you must understand an overview and be able to evaluate what kinds of advice you are getting and from whom.
Startups, whether you’re expanding a business, starting a new business, there’s so many opportunities out there, probably more than there ever.
I keep on hearing people saying that they’re looking or they’re trying to think of something to do as a startup. Don’t think necessarily of just what you’re doing. Instead, think of problems that you, your neighbors, or other people that you see have. Solving a problem is what makes a business. I want to give you a ton of examples here just really to generate thoughts, generate ideas, and start thinking about things. Some of them are very simple, some of them are a little bit harder in the sense that you have to make something or do something with it. If you have an expertise, yes, you can teach it online now. This is just taking advantage of the technology along with your knowledge.
Remember what I’ve said in earlier episodes: Master what you know. Gain your authority by being the expert; not just by being recognized, but by being solidly known that you are an expert.
How many times have you heard: “Oh, there’s no new ideas”? I keep on hearing that from people, I don’t know whether they want to fund things or what they’re doing, or they want to just convince you to have their help to do it, but there are ideas every day. Sometimes when you’re watching TV and looking at the advertisements, look and see: “Wow, I never thought of that. Gee, that’s interesting.” Example, this weird thing that climbs stairs. It’s basically three wheels that rolls and rotates, and it gives you the ability to climb up the stairs more easily with whatever you’re dragging behind you, a package, etc., some heavy weight. It greatly reduces the ability. Somebody thought that up.
Even dash cams. What were they? They were nothing more – we already had cameras, phones, and everything. Somebody took that camera and the recording capability and put it up as a dash cam. Simple things like: Do you like crawling along the floor and wiping the baseboards? Somebody said: “Okay, I’m going to put a funny-looking cloth on a stick,” and it’s actually sort of a sponge, but it’s something that very simply you can walk along the area and clean your baseboards around your house without ever bending down.
You may remember, maybe about a year or so ago, I mentioned that there was somebody with cerebral palsy that interviewed me for her podcast, and she was the first woman or first person that had an exoskeleton, that is that support around the body to help her walk, and she was the first one this is a little over a year ago. Now they are taking AI (artificial intelligence) to modify the way that the brain is thinking that the person will walk or wants to walk because of how we learn to walk in the first place when we’re younger, it basically takes, responds, and helps and adjusts to your behavior.
Somebody came up with a problem, kids don’t like to carry around or they don’t have with them their bike helmet, they leave it behind, they do whatever. So what did they do? They created a folding bike helmet, and therefore it easily fits into someone’s backpack or anything that the kid has. They don’t have to have it under their arm.
Solar panels have been ugly. A lot of people won’t buy them or don’t want anything to do with them because they really make the outside of the house, at least in my opinion and a lot of others that I hear about, ugly. Somebody has modified the solar panels so that they fit much like an ordinary roof and you don’t see them, you don’t notice that they’re there. These are all examples of there was a problem that somebody just solved. Isn’t that what inventions are all about? Some of them can be very simple, and you can get funded by GoFundMe or the Kickstarter campaigns, and find out ways to take your business and your creativity to the business world.
Example: This is the time, and what would you think about it? You think about right now this is the time for allergies; everybody is s...
Let’s talk about branding and positioning your strategy. I truly mean your strategy. This can be your business or yourself. If you’re dating, you must have a brand to position yourself. You must be appealing to someone else. It doesn’t matter what you’re talking about. This is crucial.
I’m going to get to products very quickly and very soon, but first I want to talk a little bit about the positioning, and the scope and breadth of a brand or a strategy. If you have it too narrow a scope, you may have difficulty broadening your appeal. We’re always hearing about find your niche. Find your niche. If you define it so narrow you will not be able to branch out very easily. You’ll have to create a new brand or a different brand, it becomes very, very difficult. However, if you can position it in such a way that it implies something more even though you’re selling. Can it easily adapt to something more, that can be very different? It depends on how you position it, how you sell it. What you do with that brand as you’re marketing it, as you’re selling it. Even Big Brands make Branding Mistakes or Over Reach Look at some of the big brands that really stand out. As soon as you mention them you immediately know what they are and what they stand for. Colgate, Heinz, Harley Davidson, Xerox. All of them have very strong brands, and you know what it means as soon as you hear the name. Wasn’t always that way. Yes, Colgate always was toothpaste, but they decided they had something else and they actually introduced lasagna. Can you imagine Colgate lasagna? Just the thought of it doesn’t seem realistic. Harley Davidson came out with a cologne. Maybe that might work for some limited group of people who like the smell of Harleys, but for most people cologne and Harley Davidson just don’t match very well. Heinz came out with another sauce. They were so good with the Heinz-57, the Heinz Ketchup, they came out with a green sauce. The green sauce for Heinz was at first attractive to a bunch of little kids. The kids thought it cool or fun, but they of course aren’t going to be the ones that are going to stay interested in something like that for a long period of time. It wouldn’t matter what the flavor and other things were. It just was not consistent with their brand image. It’s not appealing. Branding even relates to your own image You may have a very good product, but if the image of your company or your own image is very different… Relating to yourself, think in terms of social media. I’ve helped and guided several people and companies on social media habits, etc. I’ve tried to help others, but they just know better for themselves. What happens? Something like 30% of people are rejected in job interviews because of their social media content. They have branded themselves with social media. I have some people who I know who would like to expand and up-level their careers, but they’re so infatuated with the responses they get from their friends, they think: “Wow, that’s neat, that’s cool,” or whatever they say today. It fits into a narrative that may not mesh with places they’re trying to get into. While you’re branding your product or yourself you have to maintain that capability. You have to be able to have it so that you can transfer and move yourself, make progress. Success necessitates Product Positioning Regardless of the Product Success is usually includes moving from one place to the next with a different group of people. You can’t eliminate or become a distraction. On the other hand, you could have a bad product and there are ways to actually increase and develop good sales strategy even with a bad product. How do you do this? You match it.
I did this with Chrysler. If you remember the Chrysler Advantage campaign, they had horrible cars at the same. As a matter of fact, when I brought this campaign idea to them, they said: “We don’t have any advantages. We don’t have anything.” At that time they were in the depths of depravi...
Best to listen to the 8 minute episode. In the meantime though, how is hiring of employees as well as contractors and advisors influencing customer satisfaction.
Why do some companies have great customer satisfaction and others seem to be never able to attain it? I go through some of the thoughts and observations from wondering about this topic.
Comparison of Companies
I first noticed some of the great attitudes between companies and others where the customer experience is not so good. It raised many questions and I discuss those in the episode and then my conversations both about the hiring and training practices.
Those around you and Others
When you have some bad employees they infect your organization. Training doesn't help that may be attitudes people have carried for years. Remember your income determined by those close to you from the earlier episode (click here for more detail and understanding).
Training or Hiring Correctly
You might not be able to train good attitudes with the wrong people. How do you hire properly to raise customer satisfaction? Hiring employees is more important than trying the wrong employees. I discussed this topic with some good companies and found some interesting information. It seems rather clear that you should hire people with certain attitudes and experiences. In fact, it may be better to hire people without skills that can be taught but the desire.
Let’s talk about short term goals versus long-term goals and the accompanied planning. I know that sounds dry, but: What do you think about it? You see people changing their minds all the time and doing things. It is imperative that you have those long term goals and dreams.
Imagine that you have your life’s goal or your business goals for the longer term, and by the longer term then you’re able to turn around and see what you can do in the short term. That is whatever you’re doing, as long as it’s within those broader, wider, long-term parameters, you can continue on. You might change, technology might change.
Be careful as most systems that use SMART goals (see Smart Goals - Really? Get Real!), almost always forget the long term. It's alright only if your a minor worker and not involved in any strategic planning. Without a Vision on the Long Term, You Miss Opportunity Remember in 1986 and ’87 I said a lot, in both speeches and on radio, that we were about to go through a technological revolution that was going to make the Industrial Revolution look small. People thought that was crazy, absolutely crazy. In ’96 when Microsoft first got into the internet, etc. and I started going around, we were talking about how that was going to disrupt and hurt the bigger companies while everybody was trying to say: “No, no, no. They’ll drown out the small companies.” You have to take a look at how technology is affecting it and looking towards that longer term.
I’ve heard recently people thought about some of the things, and the slowdown in many ways of certain areas of technology: “What are we doing? How much more can we do?” Let me say, we’re just starting. It is incredible what’s happening and what’s about to happen. Some of it is actually quite dangerous, but that’s for another time or for your questions. Watson was a Long Term Goal with Short Term Goals and Projects So often we get bad examples of people really screwing up one way or the other, but here’s a great example of something that IBM did starting out with what you see now on TV: Watson. You see these little ads where Watson is out by an airplane or something, and they’re asking questions or asking Watson what do or what they should do. When that all started, think way back to 1997 when Watson first beat Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion (details at Wikipedia). Sure, that was a demo. They certainly didn’t get any money or weren’t expecting to make any money off of that. Even a few years later when Watson played Jeopardy against two others and won “a lot of money,” really, the money wasn’t there, it really didn’t do anything. It might have even been donated to charity, I don’t know, but that’s not important. They started to realize what they could do with artificial intelligence and decision-making. Keep in mind this started well before ’97. They built it and started to play with it, and started to do things. It wasn’t until 2014 that IBM was actually able to (and did) create a business unit around Watson.
Think of it: 2011, they won Jeopardy. They also started to look at clinical treatment in 2011 because of the massive amount of technical details and data within the cancer oncology area. Actually in 2013, ’16 and ’17 they signed different agreements with different places, including Sloan Kettering, for oncology diagnostics. They created a chatterbot for children’s toys so that the children would have better interactions with their toys, better conversation. As I say, it wasn’t until 2014 that they actually created the business unit, and that’s when it took off. The first real business use was about 2011, and here we are in 2017, only six years.
Keep in mind that I don’t expect you to create a new computer, world’s renowned computer operator or something, but I do say: If you’re looking at something business-wise, six years isn’t very much time, and look at what IBM is doing in the six years since they built it.
“Statistics and Bias - Which one of these are better for you, nutrition?”
This may start out sounding a little bland, but I want to blow your socks off. It is also not about politics except as an example. You need to be aware because biased statistics has you following bad medicine; eating the wrong things and making bad decisions for your business or life. I may be talking about biased statistics, statistical bias, etc., but what are we really talking about?
We’re talking about the information you get and hear about every single day from the media, from teachers, from other people. If you’ve ever seen some of those movies or listen to some of the songs from the 60s, one of the big themes was: Question Authority. Question Authority Question authority is important for lots of different reasons, but what causes bias? Some of it is biased in the sample the way they choose people. Who do they choose to ask about a certain question? Some of it is actually that they don’t know any better, but many times what people are doing is they’re trying to influence you and give you some reason to believe in what they believe. Now, they may be thinking that they’re doing well, but they’re giving you bad information to base your decision on and trying to convince you or tell you what is the case. I’m going to give you a lot of different examples of this, a lot of background, and a lot of things for you to think about, some of which you probably believe – but they’ve been proven wrong or certainly have not been proven that you should listen to them.
It’s one of my favorite topics anyway, but it came up because I was sitting there watching some things on TV, and they were talking about the popularity of Trump. I don’t really care whether you like him or dislike him. I’m trying to talk about the statistics. Both sides might do it, all kinds of people, I don’t really care about that. What I care about is you getting good information. Politics only as a Statistics Bias Example The reason I’m talking about it is not because of Trump or politics, but because if you’re doing a business, starting up a business, or trying to grow your business. You have to be able to discern and listen to true authority (how to establish authority), and understand a little bit about what may happen in statistics. People might be doing to convince you, convince you of their product, their company, or whatever. For example, what should you be investing in? What should you be joining or starting up?
There are different reasons that people have. Some of it is just bad information; they don’t know any better, they’ve just never really understood statistics enough to know what’s good or bad. I’ll give you an example of that, too, when I go into some of this.
First of all, what about that political example? Just recently Rasmussen and John McLaughlin of the McLaughlin Group came out, and they both have Trump’s favorability ratings at about 50%, and John McLaughlin was being interviewed because it differs so much from some of the results that you’re hearing about from the others. They are the Quinnipiac, Gallup, and Pew polls, which all had Trump down in the 30s someplace, low 30s to low 40. What was the difference?
This has got to be not ignorance but actually deliberate because it is so bad—in the Quinnipiac poll only 23% of the sample were Republicans, Gallup – 26%, and then in the Pew poll they sampled 51% Democrat. Now, in the last election only a few months ago the people that identified and voted as Republicans were 33%. They should have been polling something that was a reasonable sample of people who had voted or likely voters. You can only wonder whether this was deliberate in order to tell a story, and to sell their samples and to sell their polling. Again, forget about Trump and all that other stuff. First thing, though, this was pointed out and then in the case of Fox News they continued to talk about the polls as if they were legitima...
Age for an entrepreneur, how old are startup entrepreneurs? Are you too old or too young? A constant question always seems to be: “How old should I be? Am I too old?” I have a few surprises for you, both with examples, and some survey material. Many Famous Startup Entrepreneurs began Later in Life First, let me give you a few examples. Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald’s franchise, you may have heard, he didn’t start. Actually, he met the McDonald’s brothers when he was 52 years of age and that’s when he literally started with the idea. Wally Blume. You may not have heard of Moose Tracks Ice Cream, but age 57 was his starting time. Even though you may not know it, they are making 80 million dollars a year. The co-founder of LinkedIn was 35, that’s sort of on the young side actually. The founder of Curves was 40 years of age. It goes on and on.
Remember from Episode 01, an introduction to entrepreneurship and lifestyle success, the economic and technological change is a major reason to get a side gig or your own business.
Do you know that Martha Stewart was nearly 50 before she moved from the catering business into Martha Stewart Living and became that big magnet? There are even some people. If you remember the old TV show that had Justin Bateman on it, you’d think she wasn’t very bright. At age 48 she realized that some of the things that she wanted to do, she had to go back and she had to learn programming. She went back and learned how to program at 48. Vera Wang, she didn’t do her first dress design or any design until she was 39 years of age. It goes on and on. Surprising Facts about the Age of Startup Entrepreneurs Let me give you a few facts that you probably haven’t even thought of and that are really crucial for you to feel a little more confidence if you’re older and thinking: “Gee, what am I going to do now?” Remember the whole concept behind Life Unsettled is that if you’re a 50-year-old person then you have more years ahead of you than your entire adult life. Yes, living past 90 is greater than the 32 years you’ve been an adult, so plan on your next journey, plan on your next adventure.
A couple of little facts to help you out, too. What is the average age of an entrepreneur? It depends on where you are a little bit. It turns out in the United Kingdom it’s 47. For US, there was some research done by the Kauffman Foundation finding that the average age of a successful startup in the high-tech industry was actually 40. Yes, not 19, 20, 25, and all those years you heard, but the average age was 40. Gee, I thought they were supposed to be over the hill already for tech.
It turns out that high-growth startups are twice as likely to be launched by people over 55 than by people 20 to 34. Wasn’t it just a few years ago we were constantly hearing that it was the young people who were starting up all these neat, new companies? Yes, they may have started up Facebook and a few others, but a lot of the high-tech companies of today need a lot more breadth and a lot more in some other industry than a Facebook or something like that. Twice as likely to be over 55 than 20 to 34. I bet you didn’t know that. Why Older Folks are Good Startup Entrepreneurs Part of the reason I’m doing this is for you to think in terms of all the things that you have as your own experience, and in many cases how to meld technology. It doesn’t have to be technology. Vera Wing, that was designer. It can be technology melded with what you already know. The internet and technology have changed the world and they’re changing it very rapidly and continuing to change. Henry Kaiser of Kaiser Permanente, he linked together with a physician to form Kaiser Permanente when he was 63. Colonel Sanders was Driven to Success at 'Retirement' Harland David Sanders, yes, Colonel Sanders, you’ve probably heard that over and over again, he was 65 years old when he started his first little business. Actually, not a store.
We’ve discussed many different topics. Here is a great real life example of overcoming adversity, which bring many topics together. This particular episode and its example brings in many different pieces that we’ve had in the past and shows a great example of goals, ensuring the drive to succeed; hitting a plateau, striving and obtaining super success – all of the things that most of us want to do. This also is why and where we stop. Aaron Curry, one of the top linebackers entering NFL ever. You need to know why he failed and how he rebounded for your life lessons Let me get on with it by first saying and introducing a football player, Aaron Curry. He was a tremendous athlete, one of the top prospects as linebacker for a long, long time. As an example, linebackers in general are not taken early on in the draft; there’s just so many of them. I think there’s only been four times, that somebody has been drafted as a linebacker in the top 10. He was taken number four overall. Let’s look at a little bit of history. It has nothing to do with football, except for the story which is really tremendous. His goal was to get an NFL contract and take care of his family. He defined well his major life goal. (click here about setting goals) His Start - Overcoming Adversity Here was somebody, started out, he grew up extremely poor. In order to reach the NFL, he would need to overcome adversity. His family basically didn’t even have quite enough to feed themselves. He got his breakfast and lunch at school, he was very underweight, etc. but he trained hard and he played football very hard. But he was very underweight. What happened was East Carolina was the only school looking at him. At the last minute, Wake Forest came in, liked him. Wake Forest came in, offered him a scholarship, and he was able to go. At Wake Forest he was able to gain the weight that he never had before. Why? Because of the training and the meal programs that they had.
Finally he was able to eat like a football player in training. He was able to put on the pounds, gain the weight, etc. What drove him so hard to do all of this? That dream of being able to get an NFL contract and of supporting his family, of overcoming adversity for his entire family. He had a “why” that was extremely strong and extremely driven. If you think back to one of the earlier episodes, that’s developing that overarching “why,” but you need more than that. How do you ensure goal success (this episode explains how to build your own drive to succeed)? He knew that if he did not succeed, he and his family would end up back in that situation. That image, that motivation is what kept on driving him to get into that contract where he’d be able to absorb and bring home the money to support his family. Reaching His Big Goal With the goals and with that drive, he exceeded and excelled. He was well-regarded across the nation, and was drafted number four by the Seattle Seahawks. That was in 2009. By 2013, he dropped out of football, he couldn’t succeed in the NFL. What happened? He got his great, large contract. He got the contract that took care of his family. His goals were reached, so he really did change the financial position of his family. They were now in a much different situation and well-situated with a huge contract. He was also far from home. Seattle from Carolina is a huge difference. Plateauing Remember I’ve talked before about hitting a plateau? What has happened, and what really is a plateau? Did that mean when he hit the NFL he reached his limit and was beyond his ability? No, not at all. What happened was he had realized his goals, he slowed down. He satisfied his goals that had driven him so far. The biggest enemy of success is success and losing motivation. The NFL, which changes the dynamics tremendously has more demands and nobody can just step in and do well. You may be a rookie, you may be slotted to be a superstar because of potential,
Leadership comes in styles for varied groups and purposes!
I want to talk about leadership. Often you hear and you see a lot of things for leadership training or how to be a leader, etc. Just like everything else, just like in business you have many alternatives. There are many different types of leaders that have been incredibly successful in life. What I want to do is go over some of the differences. I’m going to point you in the direction of a particular blog post that was done that really does a nice job of showing the differences with some examples. Now, I haven't done research and analyzed all the other research in this area. This episode is just to point out interesting leadership styles, done very well. For you, it is an opportunity to understand that there really can't be only one type of training and there are different styles that will appeal to different personalities. I was particularly impressed by research done by one individual.
This all started because I was getting a lot of information and hearing a lot of statements that I really had trouble believing. Remember, I’m always asking: “Why? How? What causes this?” questions of that sort. When it doesn’t make sense, I keep asking questions. I ran across this article as I was researching ideas on leadership. It’s by Suzanne Vickberg, PhD, so Dr. Vickberg. She’s a Social Personality Psychologist with very good training. She also has done a great deal of research, statistical and otherwise that gives her a very nice measurement and characteristics that are attributed to four different types of personalities that are leaders.
I’m not saying that there are exactly four types of leaders. What I’m saying is this is what she’s done is good and should be motivational. I’ve also seen examples in other studies and other research of seven, or five, or something, and people make up different categories. What I like is as an example, something to show you that yes, you can become a leader. You don’t necessarily have to be an outgoing, dynamic personality. You may be somebody who has a completely different set of characteristics. You may be that mathematician/engineer that could still be a leader.
Let me first go through an overview of some of these and what they are, and some of the examples that she gives. As I say, keep in mind there are many different types of leaders, so some of these would in a sense turn me off or may turn you off, others are people that you would follow. Just like we have different personalities, we have different products that go to different people. The idea of how to be a leader is a really loose concept because there are different types. Think of it very much like niche marketing or marketing across the internet. You can pick your industry, you can pick your market, and you will have people follow or buy your products. That’s what you have, in a sense, in a leader. It doesn’t mean that everybody in the world is going to follow you. It means that people that fit into certain norms or certain personality groups will follow you.
Forgetting training for a minute, let’s just talk about what compromises a leader. First of all, the four types that she mentions are a pioneer, a driver, a guardian, and an integrator. What does she mean by each of these? As a pioneer, it’s somebody who’s outgoing, somewhat adverse to detail. You know that person who stands up and is the life of the party? Think of it in that way. Spontaneous, willing to take risks, etc. Jump outside their comfort zone (see Comfort Zone). They don’t really seem to have fear. That may be good or bad in many situations. The driver style, what is the driver? Quantitative, logical, focused, competitive, scientist-oriented, so things that really are much more detailed. There will be many, many people that will follow that direction or leadership style. You can see immediately if you think of the different people who have been around you.
I want to talk about getting business advice. Actually it could even be considered getting advice for life, life advice. Before I get into the episode I want to remind everybody that I’ve always said over and over again how you can learn from anybody and everything.
Be ready for Business Advice that questions and challenges!
I’ve given examples of how birds and other animals sometimes know how to raise their young better than we do. Why? Because they raise them to survive.
Taken that little intro in light, ignore the person, but I want to talk about how I am always asking: “Why?” I’m always wondering why something exists. “Why does it happen? Why did somebody do that?” Of course I saw everybody’s criticism in the comments when Trump’s cabinet went up and said they disagree with some of the things he says. A lot of people seem to be surprised. I don’t care whether you like him or not, this episode is not about politics, nor about anything Trump says or does. As a matter of fact that is the last time I need to mention him.
The idea was being surrounded by people that are going to tell you what they think and will be very happy to disagree with you, but you trust, like them, and have a good, strong feeling that they know what they’re talking about. It reminds me how important this is. Do you find yourself around people that agree with you? Stop for a minute. How are you ever going to learn? Add people to your circle that disagree, people with whom you can have reason discussions to better understand the cause and effect, the why something works or happens, why it should be done a different way than you thought. Then you can run your company better, perform better at work, or create a better company.
Just recently I explained to somebody what underlies the unemployment number. That understanding is in part crucial to your confidence in the future for your own investments and how the economy is going. The note I got back was a ridiculous rant telling me something political. I’m not interested in discussing politics, so if I recognize it as political, I stay away. Why? It’s a waste of my time.
Don’t get confused with what you do day to day. For example, Facebook posts, no matter what is said almost everybody seems to agree. Somebody can say the most outlandish things and everybody tells them how wonderful it is and they’re given compliments. If a friend is suffering, okay, maybe say all those lofty, nice, wonderful things. You’re going to visit somebody in the hospital, tell them how wonderful they look. But if somebody is about to open a crochet store in a major mall, do them a favor: Get them to evaluate the feasibility of that. Inside a company this is probably in general not a safe thing to do, so you may have to do the political thing and all the other things, but I’m going to relay a couple of stories that show you how important it is.
When I was at General Motors we’re all at a coffee machine one day and my executive director a couple levels above me asked a question by giving an opinion. One of those: “What do you think? Where I believe such and such.” Everybody there was agreeing, shaking their head: “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I disagreed. Everyone looked at me like I was about to be executed. He said: “Wow. I’ve been here 32 years at General Motors before somebody would tell me what they really thought.” From that moment on we had a great relationship and almost daily he had me in his office discussing or asking for opinions, ideas. He became a great mentor for me in business as well as analysis. I will certainly never forget Gene Steininger. He was a strong individual seeking the best business advice he could obtain rather than ego satisfying agreement. After all, he would be either taking action or recommending to superiors based on the business advice he received.
When I was leaving GM, Gene asked me, he said: “You’re already targeted and slated to be very high up in the company.
This episode is about feeling as the customer or to 'be the customer'. This is apparently very difficult for people, but we all know and have wonderful experiences as a customer. How come we can’t reverse it and feel so well by being the customer that’s in front of us or around us to have them have the feeling that they want to do business with us? At the end, I’m going to give a few examples of some good companies and one person as well. You can't understand customer perception without actually thinking as if you are the customer, i.e. be the customer.
First, what do we do and how do we learn the technique, or better than a technique, the ability and the inner feeling to know what a customer feels like when they’re in our business or we’re talking to them? Yes, you can learn how to 'be the customer' and understand customer perception (listen to Customer Perception, not Yours ). First, practice. Listen intently to what every person you are with says, whether it be a customer, a businessperson, or even your family. Try to go beyond understanding what the person says. You don’t want to just understand them. You imagine that that person is using your product or service. Imagine what they’re feeling like when you’re talking to them or one of your salespeople, or one of your technicians, support people, whoever is talking to them. How do they feel? Can you do it so well that it can be the culture in even a large company, let alone a small one? Most people even as an individual can’t attain this, but there are companies that do it overall and make most everybody feel good. You feel good just belonging or participating at that establishment.
It is important to “Pick up on buying signals.” is a phrase frequently told to people. Forget the buying signals, unless you’re strictly in sales. Even then you don’t need buying signals if you can imagine or picture the customer with the product. How you’re making their experience so that even you would feel good inside if you were on that other side of that transaction. Just focus on over-satisfying your customer, helping them internalize the feelings of the product. At the same time, this has to last so you have to truly maintain absolute integrity. Then you are building true trust. When you attain true trust, you will not lose them either as a customer or referral. Now, this doesn’t come easy. I’m sure of that, I know that. But at the same time, you can do it, if you can practice it. Practice it just by how you interact with other people in the supermarket, in line someplace, whatever you’re doing. Are the people around you positively influenced by how you act and what you do? That actually is great practice for how you treat your own customers and how you build your own company. Any Size Company Can Develop the Culture to 'Be the Customer' Starbucks hire people who believe in the atmosphere to create a satisfying experience
Companies often have cultures that are taught, and they hire based on that culture so that the culture is trainable and they hire the people who are trainable. That is right, trainable people with the right heart. One of the examples is Starbucks. Take a look at the way Starbucks’ employees act and their training. They only hire people that have that very strong sense of belonging and that want to make the person on the other side of the counter smile. What do they do? They also treat their employees that way. Every one of their employees has all kinds of benefits, etc.
Alaska Airlines. This is a great example, and I’ve used it before but it’s a great example in this case because you can use the comparison. How and why do the employees at Alaska Airlines, the flight attendants, the pilot, co-pilot, everybody, the ticket agents – why are they so nice? I have to say I’ve only had one person ever that I’ve ever run into that was less than wonderful connected with Alaska Airlines.
At the same time, other airlines you go in there,
Today business opportunities are growing, and they will explode over the next year. Let me explain this a little bit. First, I did postpone, I apologize for that. I postponed a few days for this episode to come out because I wanted to wait until the dust settled after the election. At the end of this episode I want to wrap everything up together so you understand why this opportunity is so big, literally for everybody who wants to start and build a business. It doesn’t mean business is easy, but at the end I’ll wrap it up and put it into a tight package. At the end I will go and explain a little bit more about how growth really happens, and why you can count on it and why you should feed into it.
Business is expected to boom for 2017. Get ready!
First, this is a great opportunity to start a business or to look at expanding your current business. Why? Because the economy in 2017 at some point should start growing fairly well and fairly rapidly. There’s going to be a lot of changes, and the changes are all towards the growth of economy and growth of business. I’ll discuss that a little bit more and I’ll discuss some of the things that are happening in specific industries, but more importantly, it doesn’t matter where you are because whatever you’re doing there could be opportunities that are expanding now and you could be one of the ones to fulfill that demand. (see episode 67, 'Developing Business Ideas')
Back to the episode. Whenever there’s great change, there’s always opportunity, and that’s what gets into business ideas and business opportunity. It is a unique opportunity today in America because of the change. Whether you like or don’t like the candidates, who cares? Let me remind you of something that happened to me a long time ago. I want to give you an opportunity, get off the Xanax or whatever anti-depressants you might be taking, and just move forward. Remember that all of this is done and then it’s over.
Focus on your Future Business Opportunities, Leave Past Behind
What happened to me in high school was during my last year, my senior year. We were had Shakespeare in English class, so the whole year was devoted to Shakespeare. During that time, I was always wondering, because I would take an exam and of course, like most people, after the exam you start thinking: “Oh, gee, I wish I had thought of this, or if I did that, or had wrote that. Or I should have done this a little better,” or something like this. You end up literally wasting a lot of time after the fact when you should really be studying for your next exam. You don’t dwell on what’s already done. What I ran across in one of Shakespeare’s plays was: “What is without remedy should be without regard. What’s done is done." So whatever is done is done, it’s without remedy, there’s nothing you can do about it. Move on, get going. I wrote that exact quote on an index card, posted it on the wall right in front of my desk. Whenever I started to think about what had happened, rather than focus on what I was doing for the next event, the next exam, or the next career goal – I just looked at that and immediately refocused myself. Do it, take that as a little bit of advice for yourself. Put it down on something so that you can use it the same way.
As I mentioned, and I’ll repeat: Change brings opportunity. Why? Because everybody is acting a certain way, and as the tide shifts, and the seas ebb or flow, you have new opportunities that come up, particularly with this particular change. It is very different. We’re embarking on a grand opportunity, particularly for small business. Small businesses potentially have a great deal more opportunity. There'll be a lessening of regulation, there’s no question about that. That includes on banks. How does that help an individual? Well, the intent of some regulations were to rein in banks. But what happened without realizing what some of the effects would be is it put a lot of pressure on the small banks and the ...
We’ve all heard people talking about work-life balance, and: How are you supposed to have it? It’s a choice. Let’s talk a little bit about work-life balance versus the hustle, that is you hear people saying: “Work smart, hustle, keep going,” etc. and then you have these other people trying to tell you about work-life balance. Let’s take a look at the two, because there’s really a lot to each story.
Some gurus preach Work-Life Balance while others lecture the importance to hustle. Balancing work and life is a personal preference with consequences
First, work-life balance, as defined by Wikipedia, it’s listed as a concept including the proper prioritizing between work, which they include as career and ambition, and balancing with lifestyle, meaning health, pleasure, leisure, family, spiritual development/meditation. So what does that all mean? I’m not going to say that one is better than the other, but I am going to say that whatever you make as a choice, it is your choice. Don’t be jealous of the person that hustles and doesn’t have a proper work-life balance, but has a lot of success in whatever they’re doing. That was their choice, you choose something else. That’s okay. But it’s just we each have our own priorities.
Now, if you want to have a little bit of both, that is you really want to have that work-life balance as well as be very, very successful, the only way you’re going to carve out that bit of extra time is through better time management. Go to www.LifeUnsettled.com/time and get some of my suggestions there so that you can get more time out of life. But I’m not saying you have to do that either. These are two really important topics to think about.
One of the reasons that life-work balance comes into play a lot, some it has to do with the fact that you should have fun, and that’s good, but a lot of it has to do with pressure. Just like you have the pressure to hustle, you have the pressure in a sense to devote more time to your family, more time to other things/activities that you’re supposed to be involved in. In either way, there’s stress going both ways. Where does it all stem from? Many years ago, not too many, but many years ago there was that one person in the household, usually the guy, (almost always the guy) who was working and he was supporting the family. That meant that whatever school, house they bought, place they went, whether they had a vacation or not, what things they were able to get, how they were able to live was all determined entirely on how he performed, and everything that he did at the job he was captive at in order to get the most income he could to provide for the family the best he could. The pressure was all on him.
Then what happens is, and sometimes it’s featured in movies and you see the movie shows some guy that: “He’s not putting in his time with his family. His kids are less involved with him, they don’t appreciate him because he’s never around.” Part of that is the job of the female in this case (right now it can be switched around; it can be the guy staying home and the woman working), but in either case, the one who is staying home, it’s part of their responsibility to make sure that the kids understand what’s going in, why dad has to work late, etc. and that yes, he would like to be home, yes, he would like to go to some game or something else. I hope he would anyway. But there are those kinds of pressures that if he doesn’t he’s not going to get the next promotion, he’s not going to get the bonus, he’s not going to get whatever.
So what you really have is a situation which society has turned upside down in essence because the pressure was all on the man many years ago that would determine everything about their family’s lifestyle, etc. Now there’s much more of dual income or in some cases, in many cases the woman making more money. That doesn’t matter. Actually, when I was in college I used to say: “Quite frankly,
Hustle versus the Four Hour Work Week shows two competing paths to your success. This episode was motivated by a conference I went to where Ryan Deiss, one of the Co-Founders of Digital Marketer, and Gary Vaynerchuk both spoke. It was the Digital Marketer Conference. Don't believe the myth of the 4 hour work week. Hustle to the extent you want, not someone else's opinion What happened and the idea is: Hustle versus the four-hour workweek. We hear, and so many people are following the four-hour workweek, and we also hear about how important it is to hustle. So, what should you choose and what do you want in life?
You’ve heard me many times talk about the importance of investing your time and effort, and really working a lot harder than just the average person, that is you put in the extra time, the extra effort in order to invest in your own future. I just laughed when Ryan Deiss got up on stage and he was introducing something, and he put up a picture of Tim Ferriss and the beach scene, sitting in the chaise lounge under an umbrella as if that’s his life. First of all, if you’ve seen and followed it, he is a hustler, he does work hard. But the key was people have this image of Tim Ferriss basically working four hours a week, and that everything else is running through VAs, through people in India, etc. doing a lot of the work for him.
There is a lot of outsourcing and stuff, but Ryan turned around, looked at it, pointed to the picture and said: “If that’s the way that guy works, I will eat his lunch.” It’s true. You can’t compete in the world today in a growing, thriving, aggressive business working a very small amount of time. Gary Vaynerchuk got up a little later, he said some of the same things about the importance and how somebody doing something like that, and believing in the four-hour workweek was not going to be able to keep up.
Let me put that a little bit in perspective. First of all, The 4-Hour Workweek was a title chosen by sampling and testing things in Google, looking for what the searches were and what was going to generate the most traffic, and what was going to be picked up the most. That’s really where it came from. Originally, I’ve heard all kinds of stories about what it was. Actually I think the stories changed a little bit, because originally I heard and I thought it was from something that Tim had done, said that he had some title and actually the publisher changed the title, but whatever it was, it was tested. The original title had no relevance, in a sense, to the concept of just a four-hour workweek, but the content was still there.
People need to know that that investment in energy and effort that you have, that’s what’s going to drive your success. That doesn’t meant that you can’t have a leisurely style, but you might be trading off a little bit of the present for the future, so that what you might be doing is you might be pushing more effort now in order to have and build an income stream, which by the way is not easy. Too many people are buying into the concept that they can find income streams all over the place or residual income everywhere.
Keep in mind, as I’ve mentioned before, MLM turns around very often and talks about their residual income. Very few of them are going to really generate ongoing residual income for you. It’s actually very rare. It may generate income for you, you may even make a very good amount of income, but in the product-based world, generally it’s described as 80% of customers will leave within three months, so that auto shipping that’s going and taking place isn’t going to keep up, so there goes your… Imagine your income is going to drop by not just 80%, but by more than 80%. Why? Because not only 80% of your customers, but then your rank goes down so you would leave even more. That’s not necessarily the thing for an income stream, but as I say, there are some. I’m not condemning them. There are some, but just be careful.
To stand out in the world, master a skill. Yes, become the master in a niche! In this episode I want to talk and follow up from last time. Last time I talked about becoming an authority. I mentioned that to become an authority you’re going to have to have some special skill, trade, whatever it is. Not only a niche, but you’re going to have to become a master. That is, you’re going to have to be that person that somebody admires and other people want to gain your information. That also puts you in an excellent competitive situation when it comes to other people around you trying to do the same things.
Set yourself apart by becoming a Master in your niche
Why do you want to do this? Sometimes it might be self-esteem, it might be a feeling of adequacy, a feeling of need that other people have for you or towards you. It may be that you want to escape from the humdrum of your daily life, you want to be something special. One of the least important ones actually is probably money. Yes, you want it, you desire it, you would like to make more, and you’d like to be more secure (and that last one, secure, is the key). But all those get satisfied by what you do, how you do it, and how well other people think you are doing it, and that you have the confidence because you know you do it well. It’s not something easy, and it can be overwhelming.
So, what do you do? First of all, whatever it is, deconstruct it. That is: Break it down into pieces so that you can learn parts of it at a time, and commit yourself to realize that it’s going to take many, many hours, days, weeks, months, whatever, to get to the level you want to be at. That’s the overwhelming part. You break it down, you put in your time, and you slowly get it into pieces and chunks. The multi-year project of doing a dissertation when I was at Berkeley, it is overwhelming. As you’re doing it, what you’re trying to do is trying to break down: How can I get this monstrous thing done? And you have the pressure because you also want to graduate, get your degree, and all that other neat stuff. So, what do you do? You break it down into the parts and the research, and you break that into different pieces. Then even when you get to the writing you do the same thing. When I got to the writing it was little bits and pieces, little chapters or sections that were going to be written, and I would commit to just drive it right down inside two hours, get that one section written no matter how it was, just quickly brain dump it from my notes. Then take a 10-15 minute break, do something else, go back to that section the next day when it’s gone through my mind, I’ve refined it, and get it better and better.
What happens is you’re breaking these things up, and you’re looking back on them, saying: “Gee, I had a success. I did that chapter, that one, and that one,” so that you’re having repeated successes, and that gets you down to the point that you can master the topic. Why? Because you’ve had 17, 1700, whatever it is, successes along the path of developing that skill. Visualize yourself actually doing it, that is gain yourself some confidence. As you gain that confidence, make sure that you have that confidence with humility. The reason I say with humility is because realize that things are changing, they’re always getting better, bigger, faster, whatever, and that humility gets you to learn more and keep on refining your skill. You’re going to have to weather classes, courses, and all kinds of other things that you’re going to have to go through in order to feel very comfortable.
Best of all, of course, is to find a mentor, somebody that is already truly a master. Because what’s the key that I tell people open and have said many times? Master what the master has already done. If you can do that, then you’re well on your way. Questions are really good, and you should feel free to ask questions. Actually a good example, I was a little cautious of this at first and figured: “Oh no...
How do you establish authority in your field? I don’t care whether that’s internet authority, or workplace authority, or as a business expert.
Learn to become a recognized authority
One quick note just before I get into the episode. As soon as I finished the episode, within two hours I ran into two different situations, two different people (not related) both claiming authority, talking about it as if they have it, and I know they don’t. They couldn’t answer some of the very basic questions. So, be careful, make sure that whatever you’re doing, whoever you’re listening to is not somebody who’s just selling it and their career is based on selling you that product, but that they’ve actually done it. If it’s a coach, somebody who is successful in business over and over again in companies, etc., not somebody who just decided that they don’t have a job, or somebody who’s selling something that’s supposed to be performing. Make sure you see things that they’ve done. Now to the episode.
How to Establish Authority
Today I want to discuss how to establish authority. Clearly, the more you’re approached or have the presence of authority, the better your position, the better your following, the more money you’re going to make, the more satisfaction you’re going to have, and the family you have will have in you.
OK, now, how do you establish authority in your field? I don’t care whether that’s internet authority, or workplace authority, or as a business expert. The idea is that you are regarded as the go-to person or highly regarded, the key is: Without saying it. First of all, you’ve got to get to the point where you can develop the confidence, that is you stand tall and you don’t categorize yourself, you’re driven. You don’t say that you’re an expert. You have to have it reach out from you, from what you’re doing, what you’re saying, and how you’re acting to be recognized and thought of as that expert. That is you demonstrate it and you let other people say it. Don’t say it yourself.
Some of the things you do is make sure that when there are topics or things that are being done, you make the topic of conversation, that is that you have and develop the innovative ideas that are the discussion. You don’t want to just be part of the group or in the discussion. That’s not going to do enough. Just being that is just being one of the masses, one of the people, which can be a wonderful thing if that’s what you want. But if you want to be recognized as an authority, how do you get it and how do you separate yourself so that you’re appreciated and recognized?
First, while I say don’t say it, do acknowledge your accomplishments, whatever they are. You don’t state them, but you do acknowledge them. Thank the other person for stating it or something. Join with an associate, with other leaders in your field, you both learn from them as mentors. Think back to the chapter in the book, but also that episode where I discussed your five friends, the people closest to you, and how your family, friends, and acquaintances can actually be harmful to you. Why? You want to establish that broader reach of people who really are recognized, that you start to be recognized with them and then even amongst them. In order to do this, you’re going to have to do whatever it takes to get the knowledge that you need. In the next episode I’m going to be talking about mastering a topic, mastering a skill. It’s a little different than you’ve established, you know it, you’re very good, but you haven’t established an authority, that is that you’re not recognized. This assumes that you already really know the stuff, whatever the field, whatever the business is, but you want to be recognized for it.
Just think about it. If you’re recognized in your field or in your expertise, that means you’re more in demand, everything from your pay to your happiness is going to be increased. It also means, though, in order to do this, because it’s not static,
This topic is about women in the workplace. When I say women employees, there are all kinds of things that pop into people’s minds, and probably everybody’s thinking something different. What I’m going to get into is (and there’ll be a bunch of recommendations at the bottom, both for women and for men) are women cheap and inexpensive employees? Are they worth the risk? Are they an opportunity?
What happened was I was talking about something with a woman, I’m talking about the topic in planning of an episode, and all of a sudden she started talking to me about incidents that happened. How other women set a really bad example and hurt other women’s chances.How opportunities are ruined or restricted because of the way some women behave in the workplace. I’m not talking about how they go after each other. That’s well-noted, well-documented. It’s happened over and over again where it seems like the woman boss doesn’t really help out a woman who’s coming up. Those things may be changing over time. Hopefully they are. I’m talking about something a little different.
What she was talking about was the fact that here are a lot of women who are trying to show and demonstrate that they are really good employees, workers; that they’re creative, innovative, productive, etc.; all of the things that you would expect from a great man or woman regardless of what category, what sex they are. She started citing, and then another woman chimed in with other examples of women who, for example, come out of school, they go into a job, and they start out by saying and demanding on day one: “I graduated such and such, I am this. I need to have this much time off. I need to be allowed to have such and such for my kids. I’m going to be having kids in the near future. I’m going to need so many months or so much time off,” etc. They’re making these demands, because popular opinion in the media has said this is what is expected, that this is what everybody should have.
Let’s go to the other side. From the woman’s perspective, here she’s trying to establish that she is independent, just as good as a man, and then there’s a woman who’s saying: “I’m just good, and I’m so good in such a limited period of time that I can have things where I don’t show up because something happens in my family or I need time off,” etc. There’s a real conflict there.
Let me explain it by going through what happens in hiring a person or a woman. In some cases there are certain positions that people are going to be reluctant to hire a woman in certain situations. Why would that be? Take a look at it. Yes, there is bias, there’s prejudice. Is it in some cases an appropriate business decision? Nobody wants to say it. Let’s say for an example that you have (a key employee need), and I’ve had this discussion with many women, and quite frankly they understand it very well and can see the problem with it.
When a business hires somebody that would be a key employee, think in terms of how long they go out there, strive, and search for the right candidate. They don’t hire the candidate just to fill a spot, but they might spend months looking. We’re not talking about an employee that you put an ad in Craigslist or in the newspaper, or go to the local agency and say: “I need a new person to do XYZ,” or that you’re just going through the recent graduates in college. I’m talking about people that will end up being in key positions or going to be hired right into a key position. If it takes a long time to hire that person and choose them, then it’s also going to be hard to replace them, even for four weeks, three months, whatever the period is. It’s going to be very hard for somebody else to substitute during an absence. If it was easy for somebody to substitute, they wouldn’t have spent four, six or nine months searching for somebody for that key position. They spent a long time because they thought somebody else wasn’t appropriate or wasn’t sufficiently skilled.
The Game of Life, a real challenge for everybody, the idea of the topic is game. What is a game? We often hear and think in terms of a game. I looked up all kinds of definitions of it. I want to refer to and bring in the idea of The Game of Life. Make projects a game yields a positive Attitude A game, something that is structured, has rules or whatever, you use it for play or enjoyment, but it can also be educational. Gee, if a game can be educational, that brings up other topics and other ideas. There are some definitions that say the difference between game and work is that a game you’re not paid for, whereas work you’re paid. But wait a minute, there’s golf, tennis, baseball, football, and lots of games that people are paid for once they learn how to do it well. Even the video games, there are things out there that people make money competing in a video game. The difference between game and work is really blurred, so what I want to do is get back down into it really deep and talk about how YOU can make life a game.
First let me start by telling you what I used to do when I would train some of the programmers, developers, database administrators, etc. across the country. Very often I would go in there and they were at their computers already, etc. or I was standing up front as they entered. After we got everybody there and we got started, I would usually say something on this topic because I already noticed many of them playing things like Solitaire.
Most of them were playing Solitaire. I would say: “I can’t understand why people play games on the computer.” I’d get a lot of odd looks as I’m probably getting right now, but fortunately this is audio, so I can’t see what you’re saying or what you’re thinking, but think about it for a minute. I would say: “Think of it this way, you’ve got Solitaire. Okay, you played Solitaire yesterday. How many games did you win or lose?” They have no idea. “How many games did you play?” They have no idea. It was a mindless exercise of some random occurrence of cards and trying to put them in the right place. What happened? Nothing. You got nothing out of it.
Instead, these are people that are there on the computer to learn. By the way, this involves everybody today. There are things on the computer that you need or should know. That could be anything as simple as learning Excel or Word better. For them it was every single object on the computer.
You notice when you right click something, you see all these things, all these choices and actions, etc. You can set things. As a programmer, you actually develop those and write the code for those items. You write the code to decide that when you click on “Open,” it opens it and maybe opens up a new thing with certain colors, certain properties, what size it is, etc. All of those things are done. Even the idea of clicking on the icon or double clicking on the icon has different events, and those events cause different actions. Those are all things they need to learn.
So, what the hell are they doing playing Solitaire?
What if instead of sitting there, waiting, playing Solitaire, they went to figure one of those things out or two of those things out? I asked them: “What happens if you figure it out? You’ve won. What happens if you don’t figure it out? You get to play the game again tomorrow. No big deal, and you’ve learned something along the way which is what you were supposed to do in the first place, but by making it a game, a challenge.”
By the way, that’s the definition or part of the idea of a game. A game, basically you have some sort of goal, you have rules, you have challenges, and you have interaction. I just described what they’re supposed to be doing. The same thing.
The goal was to figure it out, the goal was to maybe how to set the properties, or figure out how to cause it to do something.
The same thing goes for most of everything you’re doing. You’re sitting there in front of your computer.
Dress for Success, that is, appearance and perception is extremely important. This is a time for taking a look at what we’re doing in public or online, which is basically public. You’ve all probably heard about a book a long time ago called Dress for Success. If you haven’t, you’ve heard references to it or something. What it’s about is what kind of impression you make or have to the general public, to other people. They’re really talking about job interviews and while you’re at work, trying to move up or be exposed to a better audience.
The same thing goes if you’re in business for yourself. Remember and keep in mind that first impressions are crucial. You’ve all heard how important first impressions are. I’m actually kind of surprised that people sometimes can’t relate A to B, or B to D, or whatever. They know this, they hear it, but then I hear people turning around and saying: “Oh, just go ahead and do it, and learn on the way.” You learn on the way, and what do you do? People hear your first attempts, and those are their first impressions. I hear so often people recommending to people who are going into podcasting: “Oh, don’t worry about it. Just do it for a while and you’ll fix it up. You’ll learn, then get better skills, and you’ll start doing better and you’ll sound better.”
I heard that, but I also remembered and related the idea of first impressions and success. Make sure your sound is good. Low and behold, now more and more you hear that the most important thing is the sound. It’s even true in video. The video is not as important as the audio that’s in the video. People can put up with a little bit of static or a little bit of interference that just affects the video so it’s not quite right, but they really want to be able to hear the sound. So, you must make sure that it sounds well.
What I’m getting to with first impressions is also some of the things that we see out there today that are going kind of crazy. I’ll use an example. Colin Kaepernick. Everybody’s heard, it’s been all over the news, guy makes a dumb statement, turns around, and he decides to sit during the national anthem. So, what happens there? First of all, let me clear up one thing. Everybody’s turning around, running around, saying: “Oh, he’s got freedom of speech and there’s free speech.” First of all, let me share a big surprise to everyone: No, he doesn’t. That’s right, he doesn’t. Why? He’s at work and he’s representing the company, which is his football team. You try to do something like that in your job, and you can find yourself kicked out if it’s something that the company thinks doesn’t represent them well or doesn’t perform properly.
Let’s push that aside. The other part is: What’s he doing? First of all, he was sat down for the last five games of last year. Why? Because he wasn’t performing, he lost his starting job. So here he is trying for a starting job, fighting for it, and he becomes controversial to a brand new coach who happened be at Philadelphia the last few years and got fired from the team. Everybody on that team who was controversial or not toeing the line and not being part of the team, they were kicked off. So maybe it’s not such a good idea. It may not be bright, unless he’s taking a look at the 11 million dollar guarantee he has and saying: “I don’t really care. Maybe they’ll kick me out and I’ll just go home with my 11 million dollars.” I have no idea, but it doesn’t make sense if he’s looking at a future.
Then there’s a guy at Philadelphia, Myke Tavarres, he turns around and says: “I’m sticking with Colin Kaepernick. I’m not going to stand for the national anthem either.” What a dummy! This is an undrafted rookie who’s hoping to get on the roster. Keep in mind it starts out with like 90 players at the beginning of training camp, it’s going down to 53. Probably 40 to 45, someplace in there are already set in stone to be rehired. You’re not going to bump them off.
How often do you get sales calls or marketing calls, and how do they go? Damn. Some of these salespeople, actually an awful lot of them are lazy sacks of excrement. It’s often somebody calls me, partially from personal connection, and they basically know a bit about me. We had a lot of conversations, we’ve been on things together, etc. and all of a sudden they call and it sounds like they think I’m from outer space and have just landed. It’s like they don’t remember or don’t know anything. How hard is it to find out about somebody? Do your prep!
This episode was actually originally motivated by somebody who was talking with me about being on my podcast. I’ll explain that a little bit later. What happened was I stopped because somebody else that I had an appointment with, a salesperson, called and this is the scenario. Some just do this and are supposed to be in sales and marketing. Think of it. They’re going to webinars and seminars, and talking to others about how to do sales well. What to do. How you’re supposed to do it. What you’re supposed to say. They’re teaching people how to use X, Y, Z software so that you have a real personal connection with the person, and to develop that personal connection.
What happens? This person called from a major software company. Actually they were hired away from another company where they were supposedly a cracker-jack salesman, and they approach me in an absolutely inept way, annoying the heck at me. They start up with things, like asking me about myself. Heck, he already had the links in the email that we exchanged. I had already been talked to by somebody else that supposedly gathered some information so that he’d have it in front of him. So I just leaned back, took a nice deep breath, tried to hint to him as to what he should do while I’m on the phone. He couldn’t even take the hints. He still didn’t get it. He said things like: “What do you do?” Really? I just freaking gave you my information, my link, and told you what I was. I even said: “Didn’t you see my bio on…?” and I gave him the link for that. No. I had sent him things and he had the links to my bio in there. You would think, if nothing else, he would be pulling it up as he talks to me.
Folks, if you’re in sales, do a little bit of prep ahead of time. Make sure that you’re able to get on the phone and as best as possible seem like you’re interested in the person, know a little bit about them, and make sure you’ve thought of things that relate to you and them and your company, and what your company can do for them. Don’t brag about your company. They don’t give a dang about your company. What can the company do for them? Then you can get into all the testimonials and the support material.
I think from now on and I recommend you do the same, when I get a call from one of these folks I’m going to refer them to this episode. This will be episode number 81. I’m going to say: “Go to www.LifeUnsettled.com/81,” tell them to listen to it and call back. If they don’t have my information together then, I’m just hanging up. I suggest you do the same thing. I wasted like 40 minutes on the phone. I needed some things from this particular person, so I did. Otherwise, I would have hung up right at the beginning. But I and I imagine you may, too, get calls from these lazy salespeople on a regular basis. I’ll just ask them to call back after they’ve listened.
The process of some of the sales call was really crazy, too. He was asking me things as if he was talking to a person who had just started out doing certain things, someone who had never been in business. There are all kinds of things that he could have just said, like: “Are you familiar with X, Y? Should I go on to this?” There was lots of ways he could have skipped on it or been complementary in the way that he asked, instead of trying to tell me how to tie my shoes. That’s basically what it was. “How to turn on a light switch.
What happens at the Olympics and what we get out of it(what do we learn for our own success)? You may or may not get the same things I get out of it, but I really was taken by some comments during interviews by a couple of the gymnasts that really sung home.
It’s frequently thought that a person who has done as well as Simone Biles or Aly Raisman are somehow destined, that they’re just built that way and it works. They may have some special abilities beyond somebody else, but you have to know and acknowledge what it really takes. Simone Biles was asked that question and she said: “Yes, most people have no understanding how much it really took.” The fact that she was not able to go to homecomings, prom dances, all of the football games, all of the parties. She missed all of them. She was always in the gym all day long. A lot of hard work. It was definitely not easy and it was definitely not always fun.
I partly want to refer to some of the other episodes where I talked about passion. You could say: “Well, she must have had this tremendous passion.” When she didn’t like it, probably hated the hard work at times, at that point did she have passion? Probably not. She was able to work her way through it. Why? Because she had committed to her goal of being the best she could be in her sport in the gymnasium. Aly Raisman made the same kind of comments, a lot of sacrifices, personal things that she’d love to do that she basically had to give up in order to spend all that time and energy in the gym. When she came back from 2012 and said she wanted to compete again for 2016, at first her coach just pushed her off to the side until he saw that she really wanted it badly. Of course, she says: “All of the hard work and dedication is worth it,” but that’s not the way you necessarily feel during the process. Most people lose the fact or the idea as to how much hard work and effort goes into getting to be like them.
Okay, you’re not going to be competing in the Olympics, winning gold medals or silver medals even, but whatever you’re doing, are you working hard enough, are you making the sacrifices? I have a sacrifice episode you can go look at. Are you involved? Do you understand passion is not just something like: “Gee, I’d love to be a dancer so I’d love to be an actor”? It has to be available, it has to be a big enough market you can fit into, and you have to compete so heavily for it. Most of all, you have to know how to do it.
For example, I never was able to gain any muscle, any weight at all, and I was having trouble with my knees. My best friend at the time in the military was a champion powerlifter. He won the Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico Tristate Heavyweight Division, so he truly was a champ. He took me aside and he coached me. I exercised and I followed him. He coached me through three months and one week, and I just did everything he told me to do, exactly as he told me to do it (see episode #7). If I started to look to the side, he’d say: “Hey, back down here.” I ate with him. I did everything with him. People at the end of that time or actually a little bit before that time were walking up to me. There was so much progress, such a tremendous difference that people were walking up to me, saying: “Gee, what’d you do? Would you mind showing me?” Of course I’d say: “Sure, I’d be glad to,” but of course they weren’t willing to put in the effort.
When I went to graduate school at Berkeley, there was a lot of stress involved by the time I got into the end of my second year, beginning of my third year, and I realized: “Gee, maybe I better get back into exercising.” I did nothing new, nothing different. I followed exactly what Joe taught me to do, and I got to be the second biggest at a big California gym all by just following exactly what it was, and putting in the effort and the hard work (but never more than 3x/week and less than 45 min/day), which then of course aided my graduate studies as well because I had more energy and...
Cognitive dissonance and how it affects business. In this episode, the psycho-babble is reduced to much of the root cause and why there is an easy fix, although most will not ever do it.
A definition is that cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time. It occurs when someone is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values. Isn't that something that quickly resembles making decisions too early. That is, a person arrives at a conclusion and then as new information or ideas come to be known, they are weighing the decision already made versus one new data point.
This all quickly sounds like much of the election this year in 2016. I'm not talking politics nor any side. What I am referring to is the large number of people that long ago made up their mind on either side. When new information arrives and asked about it, they don't care. It may conflict with their preconceived ideas, which they will not re-evaluate. Rather, they will defend them to the end.
What concerns me, however, is not politics but your decisions in life an business. Someone who has an inconsistency, dissonance, is uncomfortable, but briefly, as they tend to avoid situations and information that will conflict with their decisions. Yes, even with new information, because it arrives one drop at a time, they push it away!
I point out here that decisions should not be made until it is necessary for exactly the reasons discussed. Why? Let's say you have a list of 37 pros and 25 cons on some topic and assume they are all of equal weight to make it easy. So, right now, you make the decision or belief it should be done or is positive. Well, over time with new information arriving, but one drip at a time, the tally is really 49 pros to 57 cons. You are on the wrong side of the issue. The key is to make decisions when necessary, not to hold opinions for the sake of arriving at conclusions! This goes a long way to avoiding cognitive dissonance.
Everybody is always wondering how to get a competitive advantage. In this episode, I discuss how to use honesty and integrity as a competitive edge.
An interesting dilemma it’s actually pointed out that almost everyone thinks of themselves as honest. But when I ask how many people do you know that are honest, I usually get an answer like very few. So while everybody thinks of themselves as honest, they generally don’t think other people are. This means that people have differing opinions of what honesty is.
Well, this just means it’s a lot harder to be perceived as honest then you might think. You will not only have to achieve honesty based on your own criteria, but I’m more global criteria as well.
In the episode, I gave several examples of how the perception of honesty can lead to much stronger and bigger and better relationships.
While this seems like a difficult maybe even very hard process be perceived as honest and with high integrity, by its very nature that makes it a huge competitive advantage.
Now, confidence in your honesty can also lead to problems. It is important to combine it with humility.
What this means if you are building trust with customers, workers and other colleagues. This gives you the ability to become a true confidant to others. I give some examples how this helps me tremendously. I also give a couple of examples of people who said things of me or to me including Lee Iacocca.
Just think of how you feel went somebody makes unrealistic statements of promises to you. I’m always very disappointed when I hear people promising that they can help people get to 6 to 7 figures very quickly. Most of those people, I happen to know are not making very much money themselves. Now, there are some that are doing quite well. But something like seven figures is an extreme rarity.
So, set your own competitive advantage by not making unrealistic promises and building trust that leads to long-term relationships. I will make you one promise. With most people trying to reach a goal with the quick fix, you may take a little longer but will have a tremendous competitive advantage and longer-term relationships. Check out my new website ThomasOGradyPhD.com and my new book “The Mechanics for Breakthrough Success.” Let me know what you think. Thank you!
Teamwork, team building and how ego can adversely affect your efforts. The biggest mistake I see consistently across companies is that every individual wants to own everything, that is, every idea.
Every person wants to take each idea and show that it’s at least in part theirs or it is theirs. What is more important success or your ego? Unfortunately, most can’t seem to determine or differentiate between the two.
Now, teamwork or Team building is all about buy-in. The idea of course, is to get everybody joining forces together to accomplish something. Take yourself out of the picture In this episode, I give you a couple of examples of things I did to include everyone except me. That is, I actually intentionally left out myself in order to get tremendous acceptance.
I also give you a very detailed explanation of how the very same system the Japanese use is completely compatible and inside an American company.
So you decide, what do you want profitability or success or the credit for an idea? You follow these examples and ideas you’ll be pleased with the results. By the way, almost everything I have ever seen trying to explain Japanese systems was wrong. They just don’t really understand the Japanese culture.
If someone says they just bought a new car, do you ever hear somebody say, ‘I got a new (mentions the car)’. Consensus Kills Results The very concept of consensus is extremely annoying to me! Why? You’ll hear in this episode,” Consensus is the Minimization of Maximum Solutions.” I am just going to let you think on that one. But the idea is that consensus is a compromise on every facet of a solution amongst all members in the group.
The key to the solution is that you have not let your ego get in the way of progress, success and team building. You have teamwork.
In here, I explain how the head of one company, where I worked, went ballistic because I reached profitability when he said wasn't possible. He actually felt embarrassed rather than coming out and joining me in a celebration. Now I didn’t even celebrate nor did I even say anything because being quiet was more important to survival. I’m sorry, that is crazy.
I hope you can take some of these ideas and use humility. Create teamwork through good team building whether it’s in your company or amongst your cohorts.
Pick up my just released book, "The Mechanics for Breakthrough Success" at Amazon, https://LifeUnsettled.com/bts Just implement a few of the ideas and you will be very pleased.
Success in business requires a true comprehensive look at the business both internally and externally. Most businesses fail. The numbers most commonly stated are 80 to 90 percent of businesses fail. So, in this episode, the topic is how to reduce the probability that yours is one of those failures.
By understanding and knowing what might cause failure, you are also aiding both the success and the growth of your company.
When starting a business, you should always have at least the basics of the business plan. This serves several purposes. The most apparent is keeping you on target and focused. However, it also drastically increases your probability of success in business. With limited time, I will cover the various topics that should at least be monitored.
You should have a thorough industry analysis that is continuously look at and updated. An industry analysis includes an understanding of the size of the industry, the technology being used and its future as well as the changes affecting it.
Customer understanding an analysis are of course key to developing the right product and positioning that product to be attractive to the customer. This includes more than just an avatar person, but the comprehensive demographics.
A thorough understanding of competitors as well as potential competitors. Potential competitors really means the ease of entry into the business. Yes, if it’s easy for you to get into the business, it is easy for others to enter as well. That means even if you found a profitable business it may soon be crowded with competition.
Also, there is only so much in a person’s budget. For example, if you are trying to sell the latest antioxidant juice, it is not only other juices that our competitors. You have competitors from other products that reduce people’s antioxidant levels as well as the limits on a person’s willingness to spend on their health. That is, everyone has a budget constraint even if it is a little flexible.
Customer satisfaction, while often quoted, is usually not well understood. It can be so much more comprehensive than just keeping somebody happy that is buying your product. While it is very difficult and much more expensive to get new customers, many businesses forget how important it is to keep existing customers happy and returning.
Probably the most important factor in success in business is good financial planning. Rapid growth can actually kill a business. Yes, one company that I know, grew too fast.Now almost everybody reading this, will gloss over this part as it is and can be one of the most boring. However, 70% of business failures our caused by business financial mismanagement. One example I discuss is a $10 million company that almost went out of business because it was growing rapidly and their success was actually killing them.
Taking a comprehensive look at your business helps you to see the alternatives. You are constantly having in mind the overall long-run goals of the company and the pieces needed for long term success. Too many people focus on the short run and dying in the long run.
This episode was partly motivated at the request of a listener along with the constant drum beat of bad advisors telling people to do things at most times don’t make sense. Please, only take advice from people who have done it. There’s enough information in social media and other websites to differentiate whether somebody really has the background and experience to justify the advice they’re giving. I continuously see people who just want to start a business and the business they start is either business advice or business coaching or life coaching. Starting your business is not hard, but being a success in business is.(See Episode 11)
How do you achieve success and how do you or can you know your limits? This episode was the result of not being able to answer easily a question on a radio interview. That question was,” what was the key trigger or breakthrough in your life?”
My problem with the question really goes back to the title of my book,” The Mechanics for Breakthrough Success.”
Let me explain why this question is absolutely so important. If you have a goal in life, when you are successful you can look back and see what triggered that success. It is important to note that if you are repeatedly succeed to new levels, you will have breakthroughs along each one. It requires motivation, an open mind to new opportunities, a willingness to move outside your comfort zone and to engage in and with new audiences, i.e. new contacts and friends.
Another way to explain this is that most people as they approach their goal they start to slow down as they fill in their success. However, as you’re on your journey to your goal, you going to learn new things and see new opportunities. The difference is explained more fully in the audio episode. When you see these new opportunities, do you set new goals or do you get off the success train at the stop and enjoy the success you’ve already had.
So, when asked the question, I have several things to list.
When I was in the military and went Russian language school, completing something that I never thought was possible for me. The breakthrough was when a professor sat down with a friend and myself and put it all in perspective. Another breakthrough came when I was put in charge of Russian analysis. Another came when I was offered the nominations for three fellowships at Hofstra University. Another breakthrough came when I learned Japanese better than I ever learned Russian by applying what I learned in the language school. I was certainly shocked upon being admitted to UC Berkeley for the graduate program in mathematical and statistical economics. It was an even further surprise and breakthrough when a Nobel prize winner, Gerard Debreu, asked and urged me to do a dissertation under him. There are several others mentioned in the episode and the book, but that is not important. Only what you can glean from the experience and how I learned from it is important.
Now, each of these breakthroughs were very significant and got me to achieve success in new, different and better things. Each one was created by the success of earlier ones. It doesn't matter whether this is personal success or business success as you are building your skill set and opportunities.
As I approached the goal I was pursuing in each case new opportunities I arose. Additionally, not only did each goal give me more confidence but they were many mini goals along the path. So part of the process of achieving success is that success compounds opportunities. The problem largely for most people is that they do not recognize nor desire to work towards new opportunities after achieving what they thought they were going to do. There is more detail in the episode and a Great deal more in my just-released book, ”The Mechanics for Breakthrough Success.”
The decision making process and having a basic understanding is useful for understanding customers and employees but probably most important ourselves. In order to influence customers to buy our product or services, it's useful to better understand why sometimes it is so difficult to get people to change their mind. Given that it is difficult to change someone's mind, customer retention is that much more crucial to business success.
The easiest way to understand some of this is to look at politics today. Now, I don't really care whether you like Hillary or Trump. This is only an example and is not taking any side. Everyone seems to agree that there are some people who support one or the other no matter what they hear, will not change their mind. The same thing can happen with the opinions of companies or products.
The difference with a company is that usually the stubborn opinion is usually in the negative. That is also much worse. In the political case in this example, the timing is what is most important. Nobody has to make a decision on which lever they will press until November. However, by making a decision months ago, they are left defending it when they hear one bit of new information. That is, they are not weighing the entire database information but rather the new piece versus their complete decision.
Similarly, I have seen when somebody explains or when I show or tell somebody what an expert does. I get an interesting response. I often hear," well, this is the way I do it." Have you heard that yourself?
Do you defend your idea what method no matter who is trying to help? Probably one of the biggest secrets to my successes is to keep an open mind as long as possible.
One practice surprised me immensely and greatly aided customer satisfaction, I saw used several times. That practice or method was allowing an angry customer to vent their anger. Afterwards it was apparent because of the process followed. Now, usually you may hear a person cut off the complaining or screaming customer in order to answer their questions. So what is missing? First, as we've already mentioned, you may not yet know the entire story nor the real clause of complaint. You may have made your decision too early.
What he did with the angry customer was wait until the person was finished. Anything before that might have appeared to be arguing. When the customer was finished, he was able to acknowledge the customers concerns; address the issues and in some cases remedy parts of the problem. As it was only after venting, the customer might listen.
In understanding the decision making process, whether it's someone else's or our own, we have a better chance of achieving success.
Just about everybody will say: “I have no time.” I’m sure you’ve heard that. Just about everybody utters it at some point. What in the world does it mean? First of all, very successful people look at you kind of funny or at least in their minds think of you kind of funny when you keep on saying you don’t have any time. Everybody has the same amount of time.
Time is the great equalizer. So much is wasted, that wise use can increase your relative success
First of all, you need to find time if you want to be successful, if you want to do something new, if you want to make changes in your life. More important: Change the expression. Don’t say: “I don’t have time.” Find another one. It sounds good, but: “I don’t have any time” is really just a great excuse. Why is it a great excuse? Everybody uses it, so it’s verified. It’s too easy and it’s not a positive outlook on your life or your future.
Before I go on, let me tell you for this episode I’m giving you a lot of summary and some details, but I will have a handout that you can get at www.LifeUnsettled.com/time. It’s a very detailed PDF that will give you a lot of suggestions you can work through and get more time in your life.
First of all, procrastination. Another thing that people don’t realize is many of the things they do that they think is accomplishing things. It’s all the little things that they do during the day, running the errands, basically busy work. Yes, it needs to be done, but it’s not the most important. It is a form of procrastination. It’s just disguised procrastination.
Some important things to keep in mind: Move on, that is don’t dwell on whatever you’re doing. Whatever you’re doing, if you can, set a timer for it. If you have an iPhone, an Android, or something, there’s a clock feature there that has a timer on it. If you think it’s going to take an hour and 50 minutes, two hours, an hour…set the time! Don’t go more than two hours on anything. Even serious, concentrated work, time it and push yourself to get it done to the best of your ability within that timeframe. You might go back and do some other work on it, summarize it, fix it up, etc. That’s almost like another task, so you’ve completed one and you’re going to do another one. You’re going to edit it or you’re going to fix it up, whatever it is.
Another is keep energy up. One of the problems with not having enough time sometimes is that your energy is not good enough, not strong enough, and that very often is that you really do have to take out and dedicate some time for regular exercise. That will keep your energy level up throughout the day. If you turn around, go to exercise or do something say at 3:30-4:00 in the afternoon, you will have that energy. You’ll get rid of the stress and you’ll have that energy into the evening.
Time is the most limiting factor, but also the great equalizer. There is income inequality, but no time inequality. We all get the same amount, every day!
Separate your high productive time. When are you most productive during your day? Is it in the morning? That’s what it is for me. Is it in the evening? Whenever it is possible, set that time aside and that’s when you get that harder work done. One of the things that I really concentrate well in the morning. A lot of people think that mornings are not good for them, but it may be better than they realize. One of the reasons is, in the morning you have no things that have interfered with anything yet, there’s no email that you’ve read and other things that you might’ve done that causes you to be thinking a dozen different directions. You just start out, take your shower, take your walk, whatever it is to wake up, water on the face, get your work done before you do your email or before your mind starts drifting off into other places.
On top of that, if the night before you were thinking about the topic or the project you were going to do that morning,
I’m going to talk about the kind of women I like and motivation hustle. No, no, no – this is not an eHarmony or Match.com episode, not at all. By the way, kudos and thank you very much to Trishia and Julie for urging me to do this episode. I had these discussions, saying this was going to be a future episode, and they said they were really anxious to hear it, so here goes.
The business women that is has motivation hustle develops drive like an immigrant. What I’m talking about is women, as we’re talking about women going into business, being entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial, success-oriented, driven, etc. There’s a lot of things that happen in a woman’s life that’s a little different than a guy’s. In particular, first, many, many women will start out, and as they enter college, you’ll notice a difference. Go to any college, if somebody wants to argue with me over this, just go to any university, and you’ll see the engineering courses, the ECS electrical engineering computer science, computer science, mathematics, etc. – the statistics are filled with guys. Generally, the women have a much larger majority in the things, whether it be arts, sociology, social work, etc., that feel-good. The key difference they found it in colleges, is that guys tend to pick things that are going to earn them more money later on. Women tend to pick things that feel better or feel good. By the way, before you send me anything, I know this is not universal, it’s not everybody, but it is very largely biased towards those two categories.
What happens? Many of the factors—and this is actually kind of crazy—many of the factors are because women are thinking more in terms of both marriage, even though they may not admit it. They realize marriage, family, etc. is going to lead to somebody else, the husband, etc. taking the major role for income. They’re more geared towards other things. I thought this changed about 40 years ago, but apparently it hasn’t a great deal.
Actually, when you think about this, this is absolutely crazy, because here, if 50% of marriages fail and the mother usually—I should say almost always—has custody of the kids – Hell! It’s much more important for the women to pick those higher-paying careers with a greater return on the college degree. They should be concerned about that when they’re younger.
Here’s what happens when eventually the families are formed and that case, which I would like to say is unlikely, but where somebody is divorced. This ends up, in some cases, leading to superstar women. But first let me explain that. When there’s a divorce… I’m going to break down what happens to women into three categories. One of which is, and you’ve all seen these women who are absolutely decimated. They spend their time whining and complaining, etc. Unfortunately, there’s too many people that help enable that.
A middle category is a category of women who are trying to constantly balance having some income or as much income as they can, taking care of their kids, and being at all of the events, and everything else. Unfortunately, those also have a lot holding them back, because of taking care of the kids and all of the other things that are involved, but they’re doing as much as they can.
There’s a third category of women who comes into a whole different drive, and in here is what I really have as the purpose for this episode. There are really two purposes. One for business owners anywhere to help identify the women who are really just absolutely wonderful to have to work with, etc., those are the women I like. The second purpose is a signal to the women to realize and reflect a little bit on some of the choices that are around you. Now, I’m not here to paint any pretty pictures. I just want to help and see people succeed.
This third category of women is what I would refer to as a new immigrant class. That is: She stands there, usually setting up her own business of some kind, and she will not let that fail.
I want to talk about one of the problems that I see in the area of self-motivation or hustle. In the first part, I just want to talk little bit about the quandary of motivation; the difficulties people have who have much more opportunity than what you might have. If it is difficult for them, how much more difficult it might be for you. In the end, I am going to give you four points tell keep yourself relatively motivated.
To be successful you must hustle. For long term business success, hustle needs to be sustained.
I often look, study, and see: How do people motivate themselves, how do you learn, how do you succeed, how do you make progress?
Recently with a whole bunch of events that I’ve seen on TV, etc., related to the sports world, as well as other people, comes with an interesting question. If people who already have great promise for success, that it’s even guaranteed, they already have the success, they already have the millions – if they can’t motivate themselves to just follow the rules or be good to collect the money, how are you going to get somebody who’s not guaranteed, who’s starting out and saying: “Gee, I wonder if I can become a millionaire, a multimillionaire and make all that money. How will I have whatever I decide as success”? How do you motivate those people if you can’t motivate the people who already have the guarantee? They are different people. They are different situations, different people. You have to have, already built into your DNA, those motivational factors, those factors of life that say: “This is what I should do, this is what’s right, this is what’s wrong.”
Recently, take a look, the most prominent example, of course, is Johnny Manziel. He had a life that was guaranteed to be wonderful for him. Now, maybe because his parents are well off or something, he doesn’t think he’ll ever have to worry about that. Whatever it is that’s going on, whatever that constant decision to make himself look bad on everything from TV, to selfies, the constant ongoing mistakes that he seems to make. But he’s not the only one; there’s lots of them. There’s been lots of people in the football world or other sports world, where they have done things that are just ruining their career.
Just the other day we had the NFL draft, a few days ago, and during that draft, here was this video that pops up, and this guy lost somewhere between 7 and 12 million dollars because that video showed him smoking from a bong with a gasmask on. It’s not just those in those situations. There was somebody who was guaranteed a ton of money, and he knew it, even though that was a couple years old, he knew it well back then because he was that much of a star player; expected to be the top draft pick, other than a quarterback.
Let me go a little bit adrift, then, from just football players or other sports figures. I use those as an example, because these people are guaranteed a great income that’s going to be provided for them, or they’re already under contract and they screw up. What happens to the person who’s trying to work their way up, going to college or other things? Take a look at some things. It turns out 30% of people being interviewed lose the interview not because of what goes on in the interview, but because then when the research is done on Facebook or some other social media, they don’t want that person or that person of character coming into the office. In discussion with some younger people, I’ve had them say things like: “Well, that’s not anybody else’s business, or that’s self-expression,” etc. Fine, it’s self-expression, but somebody who was going to give you a job just found out things about you that they feel uncomfortable with, bringing you in, having you go out, and be “their employee.” How do you stop that kind of behavior besides just giving knowledge and information? How does somebody motivate themselves, or just to follow certain guidelines of their own as when they represent or put th...
This topic is probably my favorite on many, many dimensions, and that is causality. Causality, what do I mean? Causality means something that causes something else, or is a partial cause for something else. The study, the watching, the asking of questions to delve into the depths of causality are critical for everything, from anything you’re going to do in business because it’s going to have an effect on the customer, or: What do you do that has an effect that’s negative or positive for the customer now? If you don’t understand that, what are you going to do in the future, all the way to your kids. Just take a look at what your kids do and how they do.
I’m not saying there’s right or wrong answers, but what I am saying is: Always look underneath the covers. Some of the examples are really kind of interesting. You take a look at kids, for example: What do you do if your kid does something wrong? What happens if your kid doesn’t study? If you repeatedly don’t do anything, are they going to study? What happens?
Watch any time—you may have done this, or caught yourself in this, or one of your spouses or whatever—what happens when a baby cries? You’ll see very often that the mother picks up the baby, and then the baby stops. There is sometimes that that’s necessary or appropriate, and other times you shouldn’t pick up the baby. Now, I don’t know the answers to that, not at all. I don’t have the foggiest idea, but watch how sometimes babies train their mothers because they want to be picked up, they want to be held. Heck, I do, too. (But I’m a little too big for the pick up part.)
Anyway, also take a look at education, everything that’s happening in education today. Here, again, ask questions. I see all the time, and it really, really gets to me when I see these flyers outside or the thing in the mail that says: “It’s time to vote for a new bond issue,” or this, or that, or the other thing, and it’s usually about something like: We need lower classroom size, or new classrooms, or more classrooms, or more teachers. First of all, there’s an over-supply of potential teachers out there. There’s all kinds of women, in general, (some men but mostly women), go through the education departments at our universities and then can’t find jobs. Why? Because the unions close them off because of the tenure, etc., role.
Then you think of: What’s the cause in there? The tenure causes not only the good, but also the bad teachers to be retained. The idea is supposed to protect the teachers. Why are we protecting them? They’re not supposed to be giving political speeches in class, either. They’re supposed to be teaching our kids. It’s also not a popularity place. They’re not supposed to be winning over the students, not in the sense to be popular, but in the sense to be respected, well thought of, and to be teaching.
Back to classroom size, much smaller than when I went to school, so the problem isn’t the classroom size, it’s that they can’t have discipline. The problem is other things that they have to figure out, but they have to go back to the root cause.
Take a look at government programs, how many programs there are for poverty, etc. None of them ever get deleted. What are they doing, what do they do? What is the purpose behind them? Okay, yes, to make somebody so that they’re not destitute or unhealthy, or something like that. But if it doesn’t work, why doesn’t it work? What happens when we supply or provide something, and make it easy to get? How easy should it be to get? I mean, these are difficult questions without easy answers, but they should be discussed and they should be thought about. The idea that when you have a program that makes it so that somebody has the ability to get income, and food, etc., and if they start making money, they’re going to lose that – they’ll be afraid to go out and make money. There’s a disincentive.
I’ve met, over time, a lot of women who were single moms, and they would talk to me,
Many of you out there want to be an entrepreneur, or you want to earn extra money, or find an easy path to the money that you need for new things, new stuff, and your future. One question. Many people right now and are also tempted or drawn into the idea of an MLM or network marketing. Is an MLM the answer, or your answer? I’m not going to give you an answer or the answer, because I want you to think about whether that particular opportunity or situation is good for you.
But wait a minute, this explanation is not just about MLM or network marketing, because I want you to think about any business in a similar vein. I want to give you the thoughts and questions that come to my mind, so that you can ask yourself whether it’s network marketing or whether it’s some business you want to do it on the side, whether it makes sense, whether it makes sense to you or whether it makes sense at all. If you’re going to be spending your evenings and weekends starting a business, in any case, be careful on how you do it.
First of all: Can you make money? I don’t mean success in the sense that you’re bringing in income, but are you actually making money? Net revenue, that is, after expenses, are you actually bringing in money? If you’re talking about other people or other people’s examples, for example in network marketing you’ll hear the top earners and all the wonderful things they’re making. The first rule would be to ignore the income of the top earners, particularly if they come in early or they’re given a position. Many of them have sweetheart deals to help start the company up. You don’t have that deal. If you do, congratulations. I’ve been offered that a couple of times, but have turned it down for various reasons. Some of those you will specifically hear in a little while.
You need to find out, ask, and get the actually income that’s being generated by people. Not the people that you’re talking to there at some meeting, or that knocks on your door, or that you know is a friend or family member or something else, but rather, verifiable income printed and put out by the company. Why do I say the company? Because they have a legal liability to tell the truth. Those other people that tell you all kinds of things, generally, frequently lie. If you have to rely on somebody else’s income, get their annual income for a couple years, and I mean get it by either them showing it to you on the company website or the 1099s for a couple of years to show you that they really truly earned that money. Your income must come from the company in one way or the other, or some verifiable government document.
Then, what about the income? How does the income come into the company? You’ll hear things like: “Oh, you’re going to earn income five ways, or seven ways, or eight ways,” you’ll find all, but probably one or two, are all things that are only geared if you attain some supersonic level, which there is only a couple of people up there, and those are usually the people that started at the beginning of the company. Yes, there is always an exception someplace, but very rare, and those exceptions are people who come in with a lot of contacts from major players that have been in other companies.
Ignore that, and then take a look at what you’re really doing. This is a business? Okay, then, does it make sense? What is the product or service that is being sold? If the video intro that you see focuses on the money… I’ve actually seen where some friends of mine, and I looked at them only because they were long-term friends, and they never said what the thing was. They basically talked about: “Oh, you’re going to make this, you’re going to make that,” etc., but they never made a case for whatever the product or the service was. Make sure it makes a case. It’s got to make an economic case to make this a “viable business,” not just a promise of a lottery ticket to you.
As I say this, what I also want to caution you about is the other side. Yes,
Today I want to get a little further into some of the ideas of the customer perspective. I talked earlier (last episode) about finding a problem, and that solving it could be your next new business.
Another area is: Take a look that problems that are sort of solved. I say, “sort of solved,” in the sense of something else has had an unintended purpose. Whenever that happens, that was a market opportunity that was missed. Do notice over and over again that I say, “customer perspective,” that’s because it’s what the customer sees; not you. Very different. Most people, and very often as an economist, we talk about customer demand, but demand is a function of all the attributes of the products, the characteristics of the person that’s buying it, etc. That’s where it all comes in, but: What is it about that person and what is it about that product that make it a nice fit? I’ve always wondered why most people can’t really see that, and I think I have a theory on it, anyway, and I’ll get to it at the end.
First, let’s talk about some of the unintended purposes of products. Someplace somewhere along the line, baking soda, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda was basically for baking; use it in dough for rising, etc. What happened? Somebody someplace along the line must have stored it in their refrigerator, and noticed all of a sudden their refrigerator didn’t stink as it usually did, so now not only did people get encouraged to use it, Arm & Hammer came up with a version itself that is directly related to the refrigerators. Its purpose is to help reduce odors in refrigerators. They sell that for that purpose that way. They say it is not to be used for baking. So, it is not as pure, my guess is that it’s probably then either cheaper to make or it might have been runoffs or something where impurities have creeped into the process, so rather than throwing that batch away, they make it into the non-edible baking soda, and you stick it in your refrigerator.
People noticed that for grating, people used some of the microplane wood rasps. So, people using microplane rasps for hardwood, literally for grating of things, cheeses, etc. So, what does that do? People then realize there’s a marketplace there, and they start selling graters, somewhat looking like a rasp (long, thin graters) that work great for the kitchen, exclusively for the kitchen. New product, same idea, same concept.
Here’s one that I find very interesting: Q-tips, those cotton swabs that you have. First, what do you use Q-tips for? Most people don’t use them for the purpose that they were made. Most people use them for the purpose that they’re warned against not to use them for, that’s right, Q-tips does advertise and say it has a multitude of uses. Of course they want to say that because there’s sort of an implication, there, of some of the things, like your ear. They even have, let me read this to you, this warning: “If used to clean ears, stroke swab gently around the outer surface of the ear,” then in bold print: “without entering the ear canal.” I think everybody uses Q-tips for cleaning the ear canal; maybe they try to not push it in too far. That’s what they use it for. It’s probably the major use for Q-tips, so of course, they advertise it as: “There is no softer or safer swab than Q-tips cotton swabs, ideal for a multitude of uses.”
Minoxidil was actually for high blood pressure. It was a treatment for high blood pressure. Somebody found out—how this happened, I have no idea—that it would grow hair, and they started selling it as Rogaine. Probably it was just a person taking it regularly, and started to get the fuzz on the top of their head.
What about pie plates? Until I was reminded this, I had forgotten about it. Yeah, when there was a pie plate, the pie was done, we cleaned off the plate, we’d use it as what’s today called a Frisbee. So, somebody took something that everybody else was getting for free, made it out of plastic, made it look a little neater,
Today I want to talk about your business, the business you may have, may want to start, and what opportunities are out there today. Really, more the purpose of how exploding the capabilities and the opportunities are. Really, how to find your business success or your next business idea. Can you find a problem and turn it into a business? That’s really what it’s all about.
Success in business starts with the idea. While you have much to do, it must be something that is solid.
Think of nothing more than you go into Starbucks, and you get the little spill sticks. How many times before they had spill sticks to stick into a coffee cup, or if you forget them, you’re in your car or something else, and there’s a little bit that spills off, or it spills on to your hand when you’re walking around? That’s all a tremendous business that somebody found, and saw: “I can have this little thing called a spill stick, stick it into a cup, and each and every cup,” and every Starbucks around has a little package of those to give out to anybody.
Of course, I always want to put a little bit of caution, there, because: Because something is a problem for you doesn’t mean it’s a problem for somebody else. When you take a look at something, and think of an issue, you also want to look at: “Who is affected? Who does the problem really harm/hurt, or would like the solution? And how big is the marketplace for that solution?”
You can’t have a solution somebody can’t pay for, not unless you can reinvent how it’s done in such a way that it lowers the cost to make it marketable. Then define and decide who’s the market. We’ve always discussed the demographics of the market. Today, most people talk of an avatar coming out from the internet days, and the emoticons, etc. Same thing, same concept. The only thing that’s sometimes is done incorrectly is they talk of an avatar, as if you’re going to have one person. It sounds good, but most products are differentiated across some demographic groups.
Start out with one. Find out, though, what others might be affected, because there most likely is more than one marketplace that really your product suits very, very well. It may be just multiple age groups, maybe mostly 35- to 44-year-olds, but it turns out that 25- to 34-year-olds are very heavily invested into the same thing, maybe because they want to mimic the people who are slightly older than them. Notice it’s not just notifying and noticing that they want that product, but they want it because they’re mimicking something of a slightly older age. That affects how you position the product.
So, you identify what problems people are having. It’s obvious in the one I just mentioned, spill sticks with Starbucks coffee. There’s also other things. Take the GPS. The GPS now, and this is more modern obviously, because we’re talking about not only GPS, but getting into mapping, and then linking it into your reminders. So all of a sudden, when you’re pulling up to the grocery store and your list of groceries that you want to buy pops up. Why? Because it was in your reminders, the GPS found it. Just you’ve created something where the applications are talking to one another.
Keep in mind you don’t necessarily have to know how to do all that programming. That’s where you have, as I mentioned in a previous episode, your virtual team, your virtual company. There’s a town nearby that you go to for a variety of different things, and as you pass over the bridge, or under the bridge, or over the river, whatever it is – all of a sudden, the list of errands pops up for all the different things that you need to go see in that town or take care of in that town. So your lists are right there on your phones.
Things are constantly being created, invented that are new that are taking advantage of the new and different technologies. Of course, we’ve seen Facebook and Twitter have been around for a while, and now we have Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat,
I’ve got a really interesting topic that so many people make mistakes. It’s absolutely crucial if you’re in a business, in a company, starting your business, building your business. I’ll refer to it as listening to the customer.
Everybody talks about listening to the customer, but why do so many companies and people get it wrong? Many companies, even very large ones, have no idea where their markets are, or who is in the market, or who might be leaving the market; who might be entering the market. Sometimes it’s just utter ignorance, sometimes the market has changed and they’re not keeping up with it.
Think in terms of the auto industry. Back in the, say, 70s and before, there were really three companies here, and while there were those three companies, they were sort not really even competing very heavily; it was more what advertisements they had on TV, and traditions and loyalty to the different companies. Something happened, something changed, the Japanese came in with quality products, they were different in many different ways – it changed the market, and they weren’t ready for it. Sometimes it’s an accident, and sometimes they just don’t have a complete picture.
Something that I had given in speeches in a couple of companies (the last time was at Microsoft, another time was all the way back when I worked at General Motors), and that was early on (well, in Microsoft it was much later), I was asked to talk to the people that were what they call the evangelists all over the world, and they had come in. What I started out with was letting them know: People and businesses don’t give a damn about your products! There were a few open mouths in the audience and there was not a peep in the room. What they care about is what your products can do for them. Can it solve the problem? That’s what you focus on. It sounds obvious, but when we have a product and we have engineers who are developers in whatever industry it is, that have developed and built new features. They’re more interested in showing people their features than what the features can do for the business.
A few different examples on this. First of all, we can go all the way back – there was a period of time with Chrysler, when it was in its financial difficulties, etc., it had terrible cars. I was inside Chrysler at the time, very often talking to key executives, and they basically just kept on saying: “We don’t have any good products.” They knew it themselves. I asked them: “Why are your customers buying them?” They said: “We don’t know. They’re terrible.” They literally admitted that. I picked their weakest, most horrible car, and I said: “If you’ve got over 100,000 people buying that car, why are they buying it? Find out why those people are buying it, and that’s what you advertise. You advertise what the people are buying it as their preference. That is your advantage.” “Advantage Chrysler,” that was the campaign. Many of you who are older probably remember it well. When I first brought it to Chrysler, they just said to me: “We don’t have any advantages.” It was because they didn’t know why their own customers were buying their products.
Keep in mind: You find a niche in something or you find a hole in somebody else’s product. That is they don’t understand why somebody is buying their product – you can position yourself and advertise through marketing to position yourself as the advantage. Also, inappropriate or ineffective customer focus affects loyalty.
When I was at Microsoft, one of the early things that I did. The training & certification areas were focusing on helping the developers from the different product groups, such as the database server, the operating system, Windows, or the mail server, etc. They wanted to help them showcase the new features. Again, remember what I said: Nobody cares about the features of your product; what they care about is what it can do for them. It’s the same thing when you get into training.
Today I want to discuss the idea of being an entrepreneur or entrepreneurial and entrepreneur risk. Part of the reason for this is as we’re talking throughout all of these episodes, we’re hinting or talking about the idea of having additional income, extra income, starting your own business, etc., and there are several different avenues for that, and I want to get clear on some of them and some of the methodologies of getting there, and what you really need to have inside of you.
But first, what I’ll consider the three general categories of an entrepreneur. This is: You’re not working for a company, but you are doing something else. Now, some people (and this is a different classification by different people), some or many people would classify entrepreneur as somebody who starts their own business, but I don’t mean working independently, getting contracts or getting customers, but rather having employees, building a company which has complete financial responsibility, all the risk, and all the management and responsibility it entailed. That’s the real, true broadest definition of “entrepreneur”.
Now, there’s two other things you could do, one of which is you could work completely independently, and be making things based on contracts. This could be something where somebody is working for another company, and they do it part time; they do it on evenings and weekends. Maybe they’re an electrician and they take side jobs, an electrician at a major company. Or they’re a painter, and then they take side jobs as well. Or they’re a systems person, and they help other people advertise on the internet or whatever, or by word of mouth, and they loan themselves out on nights and weekends to solve people’s problems. Or to build things that other people can use.
The last is probably… Well, I’ll call it the newest because it’s risen into a new stage that didn’t exist before, and that’s really because of the internet, and that is this sort of quasi-company that you build that’s a virtual company, whereby you don’t really have employees, but you have lots of people that you’re relying on working with virtually. Now, they don’t have to be virtual; it could be down the street, some of them, but the idea is that you’re not really having that complete financial responsibility with them. That is, you don’t have to file all the papers and all the other things for employees, etc., but also, if something happens, you don’t need them anymore, there’s not the process of laying them off. Also, you go and you find somebody and they don’t work out, then you move on to the next person until you find that very special person, that is your special virtual assistant, or your special web development person that’s building your website and giving you ongoing support, or that social media person that you’re trying out different people and you find the right one that you just mesh. It may not be the best one; it may be the one that is best for you. So you’re building a company that’s a virtual company. This is much lower risk, and there’s an essential part to see the different here between that and what I referred to initially as an entrepreneur.
So, depending on your age, you may want to go into some entrepreneurial activity, but it’s got to be something that’s inside of you. Now, what do I mean by that? It was interesting, you may not even know it yourself, but when I was younger, of course, I always thought that the idea was you were supposed to go work for a company, but I had done a lot of entrepreneurial activities when I was younger. So here it was that when I graduated and went to General Motors Research Labs, then General Motors, and Chase, and I got the opportunity, I built my own company. I built a consulting company, it became very large, extremely well-respected, covered around the world.
As I transitioned out of that, I got another opportunity, and that opportunity was having a training center offered to me by Microsoft,
Today I’m going to talk about one of the biggest expenses a family ever has, and that is college, and the money it costs to send somebody to college. One of the big questions is, first of all: Is it worth it? Should it be done? Should somebody go? I want to discuss all of these.
Colleges are forcing graduates into major debt. Is is worthwhile or are there better paths in life?
Just an aside, colleges and universities are really in trouble right now. They’re bloated, and they’ve had rising tuition for many years, decades actually, and now they’re trying to figure out how to make things match for the students, because quite frankly, it’s becoming more and more difficult for people to go to school.
The solutions that are being proposed are usually: “How do we subsidize the kids, or something else?” The real problem is the colleges themselves have bloated administrations, and bloated faculty in many cases, with incomes that are really unrealistic for what they should be getting. I say “should be getting,” because really, they’ve been negotiating from the standpoint that they always get this money from just raising tuition or alumni donations, pleading and begging for additional donations. Those two sources are not like you’re really negotiating directly with the person that pays the money. Somewhat similar, in essence, to the government. That’s just a little backdrop to give you where the problem really starts and started; not your solution to it.
You have to make the decision. First, college costs $40,000 to $50,000 a year. I hear several that are over 50, a few that a slightly under 40, but that’s an awful lot of money. Think of it in these terms: What is the ROI? What is the return on that investment? Let me give you some comparisons. If you took that $40,000 to $50,000, let’s say you took $40,000, and that 20-year-old child (not an adult yet), that was put away in some sort of trust for them that could not be opened until they were 65 – they would have a retirement that would take care of them the rest of their lives. The second one could have been put aside for a house when they’re 30 or 32. All of these things, because of the compounding of interest, would be great investments.
Let’s get back to college. If a parent, you have to say: Why? Everyone says that you have to get to college, it’s the ticket to a good or better job. Some say that it’s just what the kid wants. Ask the question: Is it worth it? Second: Does Jack or Jill deserve it? Three: Am I doing it because of peer pressure? Remember the peer pressure episode. Peer pressure, even indirectly. Somebody might not be saying to you: “What school is your kid going to?” but you see everybody else preparing their kids, and everybody else is talking about where their kids are going to go, and when they’re going to go to college, etc., and that indirect peer pressure. “Is it really worth it?” first of all.
Is there a strong reason for a potential career that requires or should have college? The reason I say this is because I see so many people that finish college, and I meet them every day, and what are they doing? They’re working retail in Best Buy or someplace else, or they’re doing something else that doesn’t require or shouldn’t have ever required college. If they’re working as a waiter, waitress, or bartender, they don’t need to have gone to college. Many other things don’t require it.
It used to be that college was a ticket to show future employers. It didn’t really prepare you by teaching you, necessarily, the skills; although, it did the skill of logical thinking, etc., but also perseverance and determination. It used to be 30-40 years ago, three quarters of people were failed out of college. Then they started more and more needing students to stay in to pay the bills, and they started with student evaluations of faculty, which when I was in college, they were just starting that, and I thought that was absolutely ridiculous.
I want to talk about the rich. Not in the way you usually hear it, particularly during this politically hot climate. What I’m talking about is we should be, instead of condemning them or worrying about them, encouraging them and using them. That’s right, use them for our benefit.
Why do we need to use and have the rich there? I want to explain that a little bit, but let me first tell you a little analogy. Think in terms of the lottery now. Separately from everything else. We have the lottery. Every once in a while, we hear somebody won a hundred or more million dollars, etc. Why do people buy the tickets? The odds of winning are incredibly small. Why do they buy the tickets? They feel there’s some chance, some odds of them winning the jackpot. The jackpot used to be—now I’m talking about the Mega Millions, here, you can use different ones for different statistics, etc. but that’s the biggie—1 chance in 176 million, until I believe it was this past October, the odds changed, and they made it so that it would also bump up, because there would be fewer winners, it would bump up the prizes. Now the chances of winning are 1 in 259 million. It’s clearly a waste of money. When you hear somebody buying a ticket: Okay, I won’t condemn somebody who buys a ticket, figuring: “Okay, what the heck? It’s $2 or $1, whatever it is,” but when they say: “Oh, no, I buy a lot of tickets because it’ll increase my chances,” that is plumb idiotic, but they get there and they do that because they think there might be a chance of them winning.
Let’s first look at—back to the rich—the distribution of income. Wouldn’t most people like to be in the position that basically 90-95% of the people are below them, that means they’re in the top 10%, 5%? What about that enormous number, the top 1%? Well, there are different ways of measuring it; by individuals, male, female, personal income, family income, household income, etc. Just to give you an idea just for individuals, because that’s usually what we talk about: The top 1% is $235,000 a year. This is 2014 data. The top 1% for families, everybody that’s related in that household as a family (not relatives) is $365,000 a year. Certainly not the outlandish numbers we hear, but yes, it is a lot of money.
They are usually made out to be villains, or these people that somehow, nefariously, got their money from some “source” or something. Actually, 80% of the people who are considered rich came from poverty. This is why in so much that I talk about these things on the podcast of what you can do. Yes, you can at least do well. Keep in mind, the numbers are not that high, and these people didn’t have some special dispensation. 80% came from poverty. It also means a lot of them move in and out of poverty, up to being rich, and maybe lose it. They probably don’t fall all the way to the bottom, although some come close to it, and they get that way by what they do.
In the case of what we’re talking about is starting a business. Why do people start a business? Because they feel they might or can be one of those that make those high incomes, but the numbers show that most people fail within five years. I hear the number 80%, according to Forbes. Most of those that start small businesses; stores, franchises, etc., work ridiculous hours and may only make 50,000 to 60,000 per year. It is only when they finally get in the case of franchises, say, three locations, that they start seeing those six-figure incomes. Yes, there are exceptions, there are always exceptions; but then, yes, so many of them die off.
So, is it worth it? Well, it’s what drives people, just like the lottery. According to Houston Chronicle, there was a survey that had been done of franchises in the restaurant owners’ industry, and the average income was $47,000 as of 2013, but they still do it, and people still drive into these things doing small businesses. The small businesses, they hope to become medium businesses, etc.
Today I want to talk about peer pressure. Peer pressure – yes, it can be positive, but most of the time it is not. Most of the time it stands in the way of success and wealth. First I want to discuss a little bit about kids, because it’s really kids as an analogous discussion will lead into parents. First of all, what happens with kids? You’ll see peer pressure causing them to take on risky behavior, but it also affects everything from the fashion that they wear, to alcohol and drug abuse. Friends are constantly recommending, or pushing, or pursuing them to do certain things. It affects who they hang out with. Do they hang out with the right or the wrong people?
You’ll see the recommendations. I went and searched around for recommendations. I don’t think I saw a decent recommendation anywhere on the web. They would say things like: “Just say ‘No,’” and some of the dumb ads on TV that sit there, and the father says: “You’ll tell me, won’t you, if people want you to drink?” Oh, come on. Come on, folks. What you have to do is you have to have them address the underlying pressures that exist. They’ve got a whole bunch of people, saying: “Are you afraid? What are you going to do? Come on. Let’s do it.” How do they resist that?
I’ll tell you a little bit of a story of how I got one person to do this. I don’t want to mention too much detail, because they might be a listener, but it was somebody that was just finishing up grammar school, headed into middle school, and at that time there was concern, both by the parents and family members around because this particular child always followed everybody else; whatever they wanted to do, she would just go along.
One of the discussions I had was: What do you do and say when everybody’s telling you to do that? Do you ever have that situation, where somebody says: “Come on, come on. What are you, afraid? What are you, afraid?” Of course, the person starts to shake their head, and of course they do, and they hear that all the time. We all did.
What I did was say: “What you do is you just turn around, look that person straight in the face, because there’s a whole bunch of other people with them. If they weren’t with them, they wouldn’t be saying that to you. Turn around and say: ‘I’m not the one that’s afraid. Those others, they’re afraid. They’re afraid to say ‘No’ to you.’” This person did that, this child did that, and completely changed directions. Why? Because other people, then, started to feel that confidence. The person became popular, very popular. The child was pretty popular before, but then became very popular, was very independent, and had some of the tools.
There are other things you can do and say, but the idea is you have to give them something to say in response, not just: “Say ‘No.’” That doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked for a hundred years. People have been pushing it. You think the kids are much stronger or can be stronger. When they have that pressure, they’re usually facing a group of people, and some that they look up to. Most assume the characteristics that they must have – they don’t. They’re vulnerable, and they don’t have the strength. They need something to make them feel strong. The interesting thing, though, is it would be best if the adults were able to display those characteristics themselves; that they weren’t, in a sense, pushed into situations where they were influenced heavily by peer pressure, too. How do you expect kids to fight peer pressure if the adults don’t? Take a look at all the debt that exist, in many cases, because of peer pressure. Purchases that don’t even make sense to people, but they have to keep up with the Joneses, they have to keep up with other people.
I saw that amongst executives at different companies that I was at. There’d be a release of the new Apple iPhone or the new Xbox, and key executives would be talking about the fact that they got it on the first day. “Look at this one,” or “Look at that one,
This episode is actually out of the request from a couple of people, having to do with debt and finances. It turns out that in the United States, very few people really are prepared for retirement or getting themselves prepared for retirement. How important is that?
Let me go backwards a little bit, because most people are well before the age of retirement, and they live paycheck to paycheck. Actually, 61% of the American public live paycheck to paycheck. 63% don’t have $500 for an emergency. Given that, what happens if the paycheck stops? This could be retirement; it could be some other emergency, or you were just laid off. You’re working paycheck to paycheck, and all of a sudden it stops.
Some people living paycheck to paycheck are actually doing that because they’re thinking through and thoroughly on a real budget, and they are allocating some money into different pockets. That’s fine, because they are saving. Those are not the people I’m talking about.
The problem is almost always on the spending side; not on the income side. It’s not that you don’t have enough income, it’s that you spend too much. What do I mean by that? Think in terms of the last time you got a pay raise, or the last time you got a promotion, or the last time you got a new job with a higher pay. What happened to that increase? Think in terms of what will happen. Over the next two years, almost everybody will have some sort of an emergency, whether it be a car repair that they didn’t count on, or an appliance breakdown, or roof that starts leaking. Something will happen, and it will be an emergency. What has been set aside, and what will people do in preparation or at that time? Too many people are worrying and hoping that they’ll somehow, someday hit that lottery, which is a ridiculous thing to be investing your money into, putting your money into, wasting your money into.
I’ve often heard and I see people that are always out, and there’s actually peer pressure to go out to do things to get the latest car, to get the latest little toy. People will say, and I’m sure you’ve heard this expression: “Live for today.” Or as a couple of people have asked me over time: “Why are you saving? You might die tomorrow.” My reaction and response to that is: “Yes, but what happens if I live?”
Remember that if you don’t retire until 65 or 66 years of age, you’ll have 25+ years in all probability that you’ll be living beyond that. There’s no chance to play catchup when you get close to retirement. There’s actually very little chance when you start hitting your 60s. You have to have and save from as early as you possibly can, and to be putting money aside both for your emergencies and for your future.
This is partially motivated at this time because somebody had sent me a note, a very nice note, about how the episode on reverse compound interest (see LifeUnsettled.com episode 56) rung home to them, that they had just received a bonus and where they had ordinarily been thinking of they would get something with it, they went and paid off the credit card, and how the elimination of that debt will actually be a large increase over time of their actual income. That’s all explained in that episode, so I won’t go back to it here.
It’s the same thing right now, because we’re on the verge of a lot of people getting their tax refunds. What are you getting with those tax refunds? Are you getting out of debt, or are you getting the new latest toy? What would happen if instead of getting a new car, you took that car payment and just put it away? Assuming you already have a car that’s maybe a few years old and it’s just at the end of its loan or you own it free and clear – what happens if you held on to that car for the next three or four years, and instead put money aside every month and just put it into a savings account or a fund so that in your future you would have that much more money? You might have an extra $20,000 or $30,000.
As we’re talking in a lot of these episodes about things that you might plan on doing, whether it be for business or changing your career, starting a business, etc. Most of that will depend a great deal on how you are greeted, or how you impress or not, other people. That is, first impressions, and that’s what I want to talk a little bit about.
This came up because in a couple of recent events I’ve been to, the speakers were telling people and urging people more to take action, and you better be prepared before you do take action. I’ll give you a couple of examples of that. When you’re starting up, you’re going to immediately have and make first impressions on other people. You want to make sure that you are prepared. That doesn’t mean to procrastinate for a long period of time, but it does mean to find the best way to introduce yourself to the public, other businesspeople, customers, etc.
As an example, I very frequently have heard people and they’ve asked me about podcasting, and they would say: “Gee, I’ve been told that I just get started, and I’ll learn on the way.” The problem with that is the person first time they listen to you, they might listen to one or two episodes. If you’ve made a bad impression, they’ll never come back. It’s not like going to the corner grocery store and just because you saw a bad apple there doesn’t mean you’re never coming back, because that store is the one that’s locally convenient to you. You want to make sure that that impression that you make on someone is very strong and very good.
There’s a divergence, here. While other people will have a very quick first impression of you, you should be very slow on defining an impression of somebody else. I’ll explain that in a moment. First of all, it’s said, whether it’s 30 seconds, a few seconds, a minute or something longer, that a mental image is brought into people’s minds of you when they first meet, and it happens fairly quickly. We know that. Therefore, that first impression is extremely important.
Imagine that you’re a company and you have a product out there, and people have a bad first impression of you. During the late ’80s, early ’90s, Audi was the luxury car in demand for most popular. What happened? There was a series of articles and things about something called “unintended acceleration,” which today I still do not believe there was ever such a thing. A lot of the other luxury makers went and researched it, tried testing, etc., and nobody could ever find it. But that impression literally destroyed Audi at the time. They’ve come back now, and they’re now another very well-accepted car, but for so long they had suffered from that impression. It took many years, decades literally to overcome that impression that was made.
When somebody has an impression that you’re not open or that you’re not appropriate for something, you know it’s going to be very difficult to change their mind. That’s the importance of first impressions that you would want to put on others. On the other hand, when you hear something, slow down a bit and try not to cast judgment with such little information. Think of it this way: You hear about something, you think of it, and there’s seven things in favor of it and three things against it – if you absolutely determine: “Okay, this is good because seven in favor, three against, that’s a winner,” over time you may see other bits of information that make it look bad, but each time that information comes to you, you’re going to weigh that bad information against the entire decision you already made. It’s going to be very difficult to overcome it.
You want to be slow to arrive at a first impression, but very quick to realize that you have to make a very good first impression on others because they do arrive at them very fast. You’ll have an advantage if you slow your own decision down, but realize that others will have that very quick impression of you. This becomes very important,
Today I want to discuss something that really burns me when I hear about it. It’s such a labelling of a boatload of misinformation and bad information, and that is this expression: “Perception equals reality.” Come on. Get a life.
I’d like to say it stems from some of the newer things that happened today where people are basically having some bad teaching, schooling, etc., but this stems way back. It goes back into probably the ’70s or ’80s even, where this was breeding, this kind of information from—yes—MBA programs.
Why is it even important? Because in order to market well and also to interpret well what’s going on in the world around you and when you’re seeing products, you need to know this and you need to know the fine differences between perception, bias, reality, and personal preference. Let me explain each of those.
It probably doesn’t surprise me, particularly today. I just heard today, something about 10% of college graduates who were interviewed, these were recently graduating seniors from college, thought that Judge Judy was on the Supreme Court. You’ve heard things about them being surveyed, they didn’t know who George Washington was, they didn’t know who the first president was, (which is George Washington, in case you haven’t heard), and a whole bunch of other things.
Part of it happens from the idea, the assumption that you do research, you get facts, and that means you’re right. No, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re right, because if I do some research and I think of something, and you do some research on the same topic, you have something else – that doesn’t make either one of us necessarily right or wrong. When we start talking, we may find a better solution, but it doesn’t mean: I’m right, you’re wrong.
What I’ll be discussing here is that there are really two parts. One is actually born in the idea of bias, and the other part is personal preference. Those two are very critical and very important if you have any product or service that you want to supply or sell, as well as if you’re a consumer. But people think that somehow they’re better perceiving or judging than somebody else, that’s why everybody thinks that their way is the right way; they are in the right and somebody else is in the wrong.
What really happens, there? It actually reminds me a little bit of something a little bit off on a tangent as an analogy. I saw this in a book one time, and it talked about how almost everybody, if they think they’re honest, if they’re honest, almost everybody will say: “Yes, I am.” Then ask them the question: “How many people do you know that you believe are truly honest?” And they’ll say: “Very few.” So, what has happened, there? Yes, it’s a difference between what they think and what their rules are, but it’s an abstract idea. Reality is a combination of perception (what you see) and the error, that is what mistakes, bias, or other things that you’re making as a mistake.
For example, you go and measure something, they say: “Measure twice, cut once.” Why do they do that? Because you’re liable to make an error. If you’re doing anything, you want to eliminate the error or the lack of information. Some error is just because you don’t have as much information so far. The missing information doesn’t mean that what you’re perceiving is reality. It just means you don’t have all your questions answered and all the perceptions proper. The error is a combination of missing information, bias, and just absolute mistakes.
To consider that your perception is reality and ignore those three things means that you’re not going to seek a better solution. I’ll get to why this is important for your customer shortly if you have any product or service. Your perception is based or focused on your past experience, your understanding, and the interpretation you have of everything around you. But be careful of mistakes or misinterpretations.
For example, and I’m actually taking some stuff out of some very h...
Today I want to start a Breakthrough Success journey with you. (See special aid at the bottom). You can do this at any time of the year, not just New Year's; it really doesn’t matter. Why? Because normally people start off the year with a fresh outlook, and looking forward to what they’re going to do, what they’re going to accomplish. Very often these come in the form of New Year’s resolutions. Well, quite frankly, New Year’s resolutions don’t even make it through the third week. 95% of them fail before the third week is over, and those are little, bitty things. “I want to reduce weight.”, “I want to go on a diet.”, “I want to exercise three times a week.” Those are small things. But really, what you want to do is have a new outlook on life of where you’re going and what you’re planning to do.
In order to achieve breakthrough success, a person needs to be motivated to surpass their highest goals. They must drive through the glass ceiling that is their environment. How are you going to make 2016 something really special? How are you going to breakthrough? What I mean is not just to success, but what I look for is breakthrough success. Now, what do I mean by breakthrough success? It’s actually success that you can’t really even see for yourself.
Think of success as reaching your goal. When most people reach their goal they are satisfied. When satisfied people tend to lose much of their drive and motivation.
Just think of the person or yourself struggling and working hard for some major accomplishment. At this time, most people tend to enjoy their success and lose much of the reason to push themselves to a new level. In fact, they have reached a plateau. (see "How to Ensure Goal Success", to revisit how to drive yourself to your next level or goal.) In exercise, sports or weightlifting, you may have heard of people reaching a plateau, they often think their body needs to adjust. Fortunately for me, I was trained by a champion, Joe won the tri-state, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, heavy weight division. He pushed me right through these plateaus or expected levels I would reach. Those were true breakthroughs, beyond what I expected.
In other words, something that you see as a goal is usually within your reach and you have a normal path to get there. It’s what you think you can do. What I’m talking about is breaking through to the next level or the level after that. Something that you can’t see, but other people can see that you might have that potential, or that if you are to attain your goal, all of a sudden you could possible see: “Wait a minute, I could really shoot much further.” Most people never do that. It has to do with their comfort zone, their family, friends, all kinds of influences around them. It’s what they know, and they’re restricted by what they know, not what they don’t know yet. I’ll explain that in a little more detail. A breakthrough is not just the goal, but it’s also the journey. You’re going to learn, and you’re going to learn about yourself.
For example, I realized and I wanted to go to college, I knew that that was supposed to be an important thing to do and that was supposed to be my ticket to get some good job, etc., when I was younger. I didn’t really even know what economics was about when I started college. I was lucky that because I was in the service, when I came back, the Dean had sat down and set up my whole schedule for me so that when I walked in I could start college and start going. It just so happened that actually I wanted to go into finance at the time. He signed me in to two finance classes, and of course, one of my electives he put was an economics class. I realized what I really like was economics, and that finance was kind of simple. It was really easy, it was fairly straightforward, and didn’t cause me to think a whole lot. To me, that just didn’t seem that interesting.
What does this mean? You end up, as you go through your journey towards any success,
Today, I have something very, very different. As you know, I usually don’t do interviews, but when I find something that’s this true gem that I feel that people can really truly benefit from, I think this is something really special that people need to hear. Particularly in this case, because most people looking to either augment, increase, or change their career want to know how they can enter.
Amy Schmittauer discusses how to develop your authority in the world of social media.
A person I have today, Amy Schmittauer, is the curator and developer of Savvy Sexy Social, which is video blogging, also Social Authority. Social Authority gets beyond the blogging, beyond the video, into the rest of the social media world, and how that fits in.
Amy, welcome.
Amy: Hello, Thomas. How are you?
Thomas: I’m doing great. Thanks a lot.
Amy: Of course.
Thomas: Thank you for sharing your info with us today.
Amy: I am so thrilled to be an exception for your show; it just means so much to me.
Thomas: I’m glad you’re able to contribute, because I’m sure they can benefit. Give us a little bit of a background. Let’s say somebody all of a sudden hits 48 years of age, they’re taking a look, and they’re saying: “Gee, I don’t know whether I’m going to be around in this job or this career. What might I do to start getting out into another business or career?” How might they use social media?
Amy: First and foremost, it’s like the step before social, digital, and the internet. When you’re already going through this mindset shift and you’re not quite sure how to approach it, there’s a lot of barriers in your mind already. The first thing I would recommend is just really think about what you know very, very well, and what your time so far has offered you to become really, really, really smart on.
What I find is a lot of people that even want help from me, they could have a very, very clear path or a goal set, but then a lot of other times, there are people that just come and say: “Oh, I hear this social media thing is hot. Can I start a business there? How am I going to monetize my blog?” These sort of questions are frustrating for me, because I would rather hear: What do you have to offer the world that you do better than anyone else? Because that is going to be very important. The product has to be awesome. Then let’s talk about how we’re going to show off your amazing personality so that people will even care about that awesome product.
I think first and foremost, you have to understand what value you bring to the world. You need to think about that first, because before you go and get distracted by all of this ADD society of social media, like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter – you really need to be very clear about that value proposition, and: Who’s even going to care about it? Who is that perfect follower, end user, customer, potential advocate for you? These are the really important questions before you can start tweeting.
Thomas: That’s interesting. One of the things I find there, and for a lot of people, I’m always hearing: “Passion. Follow your passion. Go in this…” That, well as you may remember, I have an episode, “Passion Sucks …. the Life Out of You.” You have to pick something that really is, as you just said, marketable, something that people really want. It can be there. In many cases, it can be a hobby or something you do.
Amy: Sure.
Thomas: At the same time, what you’re saying, you have to really have value. While you have it as a hobby, you then also have to make sure that you master it or become an expert at it.
Amy: Absolutely, because I think a hobby that is just to please you is one thing, and I know that that could be totally satisfactory, but I think when you go to a place like social media, which is essentially these built-in cocktail parties where you’re going and you’re meeting people who are already talking, already having conversations,
Today I’d like to talk about a different topic that I’ve actually never heard before. Everybody has heard, of course, about compound interest. You know how you put aside so much money at a certain age, say 25, $100 a month, and you’d have 1.5 to 2 million dollars by the time you’re older. I want to talk about compound interest in reverse.
Think, instead, of the bank. When you have debt, the bank has loaned you money or put it into an account to gain interest, just like you’re supposed to put money into an account to gain interest for your retirement. You’re really an agent of their expansion, at extremely high rates. They’re going to get rates that are maybe 20… Actually, I heard from an executive in basically the largest credit card company, that people on average, between the interest, fines, and late payments, pay just over 31% on average. You would only get about 12% maybe if you invested your money. You can see what this means: You are really funding the bank’s retirement, instead of your own.
Now, let’s see what this means. The issue is you’ve got to find a way to put money aside and see how you can build up your own savings. What I wanted to talk a little bit here about is debt and what happens. I’ll tell you a little bit about my Mother’s story. My Mother, when I went back from the military into college, I started one of my first courses, which was an accounting course. I knew my parents were not really good at maintaining. They were great at taking care of us, but they weren’t great financially, as far as financial astuteness. I talked my Mother and Father into: “Let me use the house account to practice keeping accounting books.” It’s kind of silly it’s only a house, but the major part of it was really to help them out and help them manage their money.
Shortly after that, about a year after that, my Mother went into the hospital and she was there for quite a while. While she was there, I took a look at things, did it, and all of a sudden there was some money that came in and it was substantial enough to literally pay off their debt. They owed a lot. They had a lot on credit cards, car loan, etc. All of a sudden, when they came back and started doing things, I was able to start putting aside into a savings account, substantial sums of money. They, all of a sudden, had much more money than they had ever realized before.
Of course, what I did for a long time because my Father in particular would always say: “Oh, I want to get such and such!” I would say: “Oh, gee, the car insurance is just coming in. The car insurance is coming in.” Then some other month: “Oh…” and there would be some other expense. I would never lie, but I would emphasize… I wouldn’t say: “Oh, we have plenty extra besides that,” I would just do that.
How did this happen? How did they have so much? They key was while they were in debt, they were paying off large interest. You’ve heard people caution about it, but let me draw a better picture for you. You’ve heard how you can put aside $100 a month from the time you’re 24-25, and you’ll have 1.5 million to 2 million dollars at 65. That’s because of compound interest. That interest is usually relatively small by comparison. Dave Ramsey puts it at 12% for the long-term growth in the stock market.
If you’re charging things, I happen to have a friend who is high up in a credit card company in the treasury department, and told us that actually the interest, when you include all of the late payments and fees that go along will be, on average, over 31%. Even if it’s 20%, think of what that compounding interest does for the bank. You’re paying it. They’re accumulating that money instead of you, at a much higher rate than at 12%. In a sense, you’ve got compound debt that you’re accumulating. What you’re doing is you’re paying it, so it seems like just a little bit at a time, but you’re compounding the debt that they have.
Let me get back to what this really did for my parents.
Today I want to talk about the consequences of your decisions, and the fact that you have to own them, and that by only by facing the fact that you own the decisions that you make, can you really lead to success in anything.
When you start on a path and make choices, you are affecting your future, both personal success and family.
I had a headhunter give me a call, and she was talking a little bit. I decided: “Wait a minute,” there were a couple of things that she was saying, and I just decided to switch the subject a little bit and talk about Life Unsettled, what we’re talking about, and how the 45- to 64-year-old age group has so much to worry about today, and many people aren’t really facing it. Some are, some aren’t, whatever. It made me decide to change the episode that I was about to do.
We talked about the lack of savings that people have, and also what they were facing: the layoffs, the low income because they were in the baby boom, and they’ve entered a period where they should be in the net savings group, and they really have to have a lot more to save for a much longer lifetime. Part of Life Unsettled. Yet, the 65-year-olds, 97% of them can’t write a cash check for $600. Yes, they can put their credit card and put it on credit of some sort – that’s borrowing it; that’s not what I’m talking about. They don’t have $600 in cash to pay off an emergency.
I was thinking about: How do you motivate people, and how can that be passed on? The last few days, I was watching football. I’m looking at the news and stuff, and seeing people that really have a substantial income coming in. How do they get motivated, and why aren’t they motivated by the fact that when they make a bad decision, they lose a lot of money? We can take a look, for example: Johnny Manziel of the Cleveland Browns, his story. Realize that he signed an 8.3 million dollar deal. 4.3 million signing bonus, but 8.3 million dollars. He’s on the verge of killing his career, or possibly getting kicked out. He’s not the only example; there are many of them. He can’t go and make a decision and prevent himself that might cost him a million or more dollars, not to go out and party some night? If he can’t do that, how do you motivate somebody that doesn’t have a promising income to motivate themselves to pick up and earn more? That’s a very perplexing thing.
Even on the low end, you’re going to have people making $450,000 to $500,000 in a year, as I looked at it because I just looked over the salaries as they’re published of a few different teams, and they have at least a million dollars coming in this year, plus next year. That’s a lot of money. To think that if they’re going to risk that… I started relating that and said: “If they’re going to risk that income and not do what they need to or are supposed to do…” I’m not talking about performing well. I’m talking about just showing up, not going out and partying and getting drunk, or taking drugs, or something else. If they can’t do it, how’s the ordinary person going to do it?
One thing, I will give the person who’s in sports a little bit more slack than I will give you or I when it comes to things like drugs, because some of them get caught up because happens is they’re in pain from day two of training camp and they are being given different kinds of painkillers, and that could be another kind of problem. For that, I can sort of understand how that could affect somebody, but they still have to somehow get out of it. That can happen. That’s not you and I. How do you motivate the individual person, and what do we have to do?
Back in college, one of the things I noticed was the way people did things for tests, reports, and other things they had to do. Let me ask you, before I give you any more info: When did you study for your tests? When did you study for your final exams? When did you do your reports? Most people, whether it be high school or college,
Today I want to talk about these buy local programs. It’s a chance to talk about the difference between good and bad economics, and feel good in reality.
While everyone screams 'Buy Local', businesses fail. Business needs a path not a rhyme.
What do I mean by that? First of all: Yes, there are some things that can be good about buy local programs, but they mostly feel good. They’re not sustainable. I’ll get to all of these, but there are some good things and some bad things, and there are some ways to make some of it work, but not if it’s done the wrong way. I
First of all, let’s start out with a basic premise. Let’s say the program is out there saying you should buy locally. Well, somebody’s telling you to buy locally because it is good, as compared to say, buy it on Amazon, have it delivered to your home, etc., and save $10 or save x%. When is it good, and when is it bad? First of all, just the idea of buying locally, while it sounds good, can you imagine walking down the street and you’re passing by a shop, and you really like the guy and you like his shop, so you walk in and say: “Here’s a $5 bill. I just really like your shop.” You walk out again, and go on. Isn’t that the same as buying local for the wrong reason?
Before I go on to some of the other parts: Yes, there can be some very good reasons, and one of them happens to be in the food area. Some things with locally-grown food… Forget the idea of just supporting the farmers for the sake of supporting the farmers, but think of the idea of what you’re really getting, because it’s the value, the perceived value of what you receive; fresh, locally-grown goods. Those tomatoes that are either locally grown or hydroponically grown. Yes, they can be grown all winter; they are in northwest and southern British Columbia. They’re grown in large green houses, hydroponically, so you’re getting something that is just about ripe as it pulled from the vine. I grow tomatoes and have grown tomatoes in my dinette, hydroponically. They grow like crazy and they taste great, so that makes sense. It might not make sense the way I do it, but it makes sense that it can be done commercially, and it is. Getting fresh things like that, what is the difference? They have more value because they taste better, they’re fresher. There is a true and perceived value difference.
On the other side of it, where I live right now, the Redmond farmers market has things, but the prices are actually higher by the “locally-grown farmers” than they are in a grocery store, and in many cases, the local farmers, because of where we are in Washington, are supplying the grocery store, too. In essence, you’re just paying more for the idea of supporting the farmer. That not only doesn’t make good sense when that happens, but it doesn’t really feel like the farmer is reciprocating in that buy local program of treating you right. At the same time, those same farmers, I can go down to Kent, Washington, and they’re selling them for about a quarter of the price that they sell them at the Redmond farmers market. Now, they’re not worth driving that far, but it’s just kind of interesting. The local farmer, which is just a few miles away is selling them based on the price as much as he can get out of whichever group he gets them, and depending on what neighborhood you live.
What about the local stores and shops? If you’re walking into a local store or shop, there should be some perceived or added value for you to go there. Keep in mind that if there isn’t something there, what are you doing? You’re really just contributing. That sounds good and sounds nice, and they have lots of different reasons that they say you should do it. Some of it is that if you’re buying locally, there’s more likelihood that they’re going to turn around (than a big chain store), that they’re going to spend their money that they receive, locally, so in a sense it does stimulate the economy.
Today let’s talk about success. Success in the form of getting what you want, and I’m not talking about the children and stuff like this, but having the money, the investment, the resources that can take care of you and your family. That is: Do you really want to succeed?
I know that sounds like a funny question, but how many people are really willing to put in the effort to get that house on the hill or on the waterfront? Every day I see something on TV or in the news that talks about the rich and how lucky somebody is. Let’s get back to the truths, and where we really are. Want to see what can be done, and who can do it?
First, it’s been widely studied and reported that 80% of those who are wealthy actually started poor. Even Warren Buffett, 90% of his money was made after the age of 50. Additionally, I’ve often heard stories about how people came up from nothing, etc., and we’ve all heard those. Why did these people do it? What did they do? Do they work so hard for so many years to get what they finally have gotten?
Two different times when somebody saw that I was saving my money for college, I was asked the following question: “Why are you saving? You might die tomorrow.” The first time I heard this, my response was immediate, and I said: “What if I live?” During the last couple of weeks, I talked to some people and asked them some questions about saving for the future. It was interesting. Many times I got the reply: “But we just wanted such-and-such now.”, “We just wanted a new car.” You have to make those choices.
Back to my question: Do you really want to succeed? We’ve all heard the stories about people saving, and the effect of compound interest after 30 or 40 years. That will make you a millionaire, a multimillionaire, but very few people are actually willing to do it. It’s actually kind of interesting. If somebody else is willing to give up some of their current income for savings and investment, some of their time in their future, why shouldn’t they be amongst at least the very well off? Are you willing to give up a little for your future? There are a couple of key things: Time and money, for savings.
A little bit of reality: Many years ago, I read a book called The Millionaire Next Door it was by two professors in I believe it was Dartmouth University. There were a couple of key items that the book pointed out that really were surprising to me, and very, very interesting. First of all, many of the wealthy, that is “millionaires” were from non-high-profile jobs. By “high-profile,” I would mean ones where you get the visibility; people notice you, the way you dress, the car you drive, etc. I’ll explain why in a moment. The authors pointed out how one of the rich was actually the owner of a junkyard, and many others were plumbers or other independent business owners in trade’s professions. When I heard that, it was kind of funny to me because the guy at the top of the hill in my neighborhood, which is a new neighborhood, also owned a junkyard. Had a beautiful home with columns in the front, etc., and it made me think.
The second thing is: What happened to the executives, or the up and coming management personnel? What happens to them, and you I bet see this amongst your friends, like to breed jealousy, and: “Look what I’ve got,” sort of scenario. They always spend more than they’re currently making in order to appear they were already at the next level. The middle management wanted to make it look like and be accepted by the directors, the directors wanted to be accepted by the next level executive, so they always had more than they really had in order to look like they fit into that next category. But, they’ve got these homes that they couldn’t quite afford yet, so they were overspending their income in order to look like they were already at the next level.
The interesting thing, and I’ve mentioned this before, the remarkable thing is that everybody who moves into one of these houses that th...
Today we’re going to discuss: How are, or did you raise your kids? It sounds like I’m actually talking about raising kids. Wait, it’s really going to be about you and success, but it’s a great way to do it analogically (if that’s the right word).
At times it is useful to reflect on how you educate your kids if you want to see how to have business success
Remember a couple of episodes ago when I talked about immigrant mentality, and the strong desire to be better and succeed, and how they did this? But there was a generational problem. One of the things that is a problem is that passing on to the sons of the sons, or the daughters of the daughters, etc., that’s lost over time. “I want to make sure my kids have all the things I never had,” has that ever approached your lips, or how many people have you heard say it? If you really want the kids to have the things that you want; you have to let them build upon what you built; build beyond what you did; take what you teach and bring it on further. This is tough, particularly with peer pressure both on you and your kids.
It’s interesting, you go and take a look, forget the kids for a second, but just think of what happens when somebody buys a new house. Every neighborhood I’ve moved into, I’ve noticed that right away… Now, there were new homes in the neighborhood so that may be part of it, but anytime somebody does that, what do they do? They stretch themselves far beyond their means, something that really can’t quite afford yet, but they’re figuring they can afford it in a year or two after their increases in salary. Within six months, all of those people buy a car that they can’t afford on top of the house that they couldn’t afford, and they still haven’t received their pay raise, and it’s all peer pressure.
Do you teach your kids how to fight peer pressure? You’re facing it, too. You teach them, you also are teaching yourself. For example, there was one situation, there was a young girl who was halfway through middle school, who was a little bit concerned because she was a follower. She followed all of her friends. One of the things we told her was we talked about peer pressure. Did anybody every tell you: “You’re scared”, “You’re scared to do this”, “You’re scared to do that,” or: “Come on, come on, what are you afraid of?” What I did was say: “Turn around to them and say: ‘I’m not afraid. I’m telling you no,’” and then point to the rest of people that are standing around calling her “chicken,” or whatever, or “afraid,” and say: “They’re the ones that are afraid. They’re the ones that are afraid to stand up to you.” That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.
You have to do the same thing in your own environment, that is, not cave nor try to keep up with the Joneses. Part of it happens with the way people talk to each other and address each other. In a little more sophisticated way as they are with adults, such as the thing with the car. I’ve had people say to me in that same situation: “You going to get a new car?” I’d say: “No way. No. It works great. Bought it for cash. Bring it in and get it fixed up regularly. Heck, I hope the thing gets to 200,000 miles.” I’m probably never going to go that far, but the idea is that you have to push it off, and you have to show your kids and other people around you that you’re just pushing it off. Then I follow up with: “I don’t know anything on any of my cars, on anything, actually, except small mortgage that feels great.” You’re setting and making a statement. The idea is that you have to fight it right away, and show your family, show your kids that you’re doing it. It’s not just your kids success, but yours as well depends on strong independent decisions.
What happens with this generational loss of this crucial motivation? One example was my Great-Grandfather was extremely wealthy. I didn’t know this until I was a little bit older, and I verified it with other relatives.
Today I want to talk about something that really can pull everybody down, and that is jealousy in business as well as personal life. Now, by jealousy, there are two types I’m talking about: You can be jealous of others, and others can be jealous of you. In either case, it can be debilitating. I want to go through how you can prevent either one of them negatively affecting you. In actuality, I want to explain how to use jealousy in a positive way.
First, and most important is that they really do something to you both physically and mentally. They can make you angry, aggressive, depressed, etc., a whole bunch of things. As jealousy increases, your potential for success declines. Sometimes jealousy is a mental safety mechanism, in a sense, because you’re feeling a little jealous, you act as a way of realizing or accepting the fact that you’re not going to succeed in something, but let’s get that aside because we’re going for personal and business success.
First, one of the things that happens is others get desirable things that you don’t, somebody else gets something you don’t, whether it be a job, or a position, or whatever they got. First of all, life’s not fair. You’ve heard it over and over again. Get over it. But we have to go beyond that. You want to increase the odds that you’re going to get the things that you really desire. How do you increase those odds?
First of all, what is jealousy? By its very nature, if you’re jealous, it is a comparison to somebody else. Remember what I’ve said in previous episodes: The best way to succeed is you already know what you don’t know about a particular subject, you know what your weaknesses are within a certain area or expertise, so competing with yourself is far more productive and better than to be looking at somebody else. The only way you look at somebody else is to learn from others. If you have the slightest feeling of envy or jealousy, you should be identifying what it is and how you can learn. Why even compare yourself to others, except to learn and understand how to do something?
Also, a jealous person emits negative emotions that makes them both undesirable and undesirable to be around. A person will rarely receive help and any support if they’re extremely jealous or they emit these feelings that other people don’t like. What we want talk about is how to convert jealousy.
First eliminate the idea of the lottery. If somebody goes and wins the lottery and you’re jealous of them, that’s kind of silly, because when you think about it, what’s the chances of winning the lottery anyway? Something like 1 in 200 million? So really you’re going to be jealous about something…? If you’re actually putting your money into the lottery, you’ve got to go back to episode one and start over on the whole series, because if you’re putting any money at all in the lottery, you really have to go back and get yourself together, because that’s the way to actually just waste money. If you put that same money aside, you would get someplace.
Holding onto jealousy does no good either. We know that, so we need to expel it quickly, get rid of it quickly. Not just get rid of it, but get rid of it quickly. This isn’t something that’s over weeks; this is something that’s over seconds. First, change the perception. Yes, if you end up being jealous of something that somebody else earned, you really should be admiring what they are doing, or what happened, or how they got there, and/or how you can learn from it. The person who had success: What skills did they have? What did they do? How did they do it? How did they learn to do it? Yes, there are some places where you could say: “Well, the person was just in the right place at the right time.” Just make options available to yourself. How do you do that? If you’re focusing on success and expanding yourself and expanding what you know and you have, options open up all over the place. They open up because people see you as a growing,
This is a very special episode, it is episode number 50. It’s hard to imagine that there are 50 episodes already. Also, I really appreciate all the great, kind comments and reviews that I’ve seen in iTunes. I read every single one of them. If you haven’t done that, please do it. It helps a lot with the exposure of the podcast, and I appreciate it. Now for the episode. What we’re talking about today is Breakthrough Success. It actually came about as I was talking to a person who I’m using as a coach, an excellent person, and what she was doing was explaining to me as I was talking about what she saw in what I’m doing, both in the book Mechanics for Breakthrough Success, as well as in the podcast. That is, first of all, what is breakthrough? As she put it: “It’s something that somebody themselves can’t even see for themselves.” That is, their goal is something beyond what they normally would look at and see. Maybe you would see for them or somebody else would see for them. I’ll explain in a little bit about that, because it has a lot to do with how we set our goals and how we really reach out to goals that may not even seem quite realistic; they’re almost dreams, etc., or things that we want and we’d like to see about ourselves and around us, but are outside what seem to be reasonable right at the moment. Let’s see how we go about doing that. First, let me repeat a story that I used a long time ago, and that is to the moon shot. When most people are talking about it, and John F. Kennedy as President said that he wanted to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. They didn’t know how they were going to do it. In essence, there were several things that had to be discovered, invented, or created before that original shot to the moon, that is before the rocket took off. Everybody else talks about how you’re making those adjustments or course corrections and how that is success. That’s not the significant part. The significant part was having to overcome or break through different things that they didn’t even know we could do. At the end of this episode, I’m going to announce something that I’m giving away to help you in not only setting those goals for yourself, but also get you along the way. First, one of my most disliked expressions that you hear all the time, and maybe it’s because it’s overused, is “to the next level.”, “Get to the next level.”, “We’re going to get you to the next level.”, “You’re going to get to the next level.” All of the times that I hear that, it implies some things that I don’t like. One of which is that you’re going to go to some place and stop, that is that’s where you are. Then you go maybe to someplace else and stop. It is a very, very interrupted path to take. One quick example was in weightlifting. When I was taught weightlifting by a champion, he explained to me as I would start to seem to be slowing down at a particular level, that is I’m putting more weight on, then all of a sudden two or three times in a row, I’m using the same weight. He would just say: “Wait a minute. Slap on some extra weight.” It was actually easier with that extra weight. Why? Because in my mind, I had expectations of where I was and what I was able to do. Instead of driving through and continuing on progress, I had my vision of getting to start bench-pressing at 285 or 315, or something, whatever the number was, and when I hit that, I sort of adjusted my expectations to be where I was, rather than where I was going which is higher. Another situation is in direct marketing. This is interesting, and it was pointed out to me actually by the person who was on episode number two, Steve Thompson. He pointed out how an awful lot of people target to get to a particular position; they want to be promoted to a certain position. The reason they want to get there is because at that point they can make a lot more money. But they get to that new position, and immediately stop and don’t do anything. Which is kind of crazy,
Today I want to discuss something that’s sort of a popular topic with me for both personal and business success, and that is data. Similarly, you may think of never-ending information flow. Often I hear people saying that you can have things like: “Too much data,” or: “I don’t need any more info.” If you don’t need any more info, that’s kind of like saying: “I don’t need to learn anything new. I already know it all.” Remember the episodes on not making decisions early, that is a similar idea. You don’t make decisions early. Why? Because there always may be more and more information that’s going to come in that we need to hear and we need to listen to; it may tip the scales. I’ll explain this a little bit more again in a little while.
Data and Information flows into your mind throughout life. That becomes the feeling in your gut.
One of the things I used to hear a lot from some CEOs or very high-ups in any corporation is they say: “I don’t need any market research data,” or: “I don’t need any more research. I know it in my gut.” If you’ve seen the quotes, actually, there was a quote from Warren Brown, formerly the Washington Post; and Don Hilty, formerly Chief Economist for Chrysler Corporation both have said things to the fact that I’m blunt, straightforward, honest, and thorough. They liked what I said, but they didn’t always take it down easily. What does that mean? That’s exactly what I’m going to say, here, and what I have said in some things to those CEOs or general managers of major corporations.
What I would usually do, after they said they know it in their gut, I’d say: “Gee, where’d you get that gut? How did that come about? What happened?” I’d only hesitate for a moment, because I knew they didn’t know the answer and they didn’t have any real answer to it,” and I said: “We know you certainly weren’t born that way. You weren’t born as an expert in this area, so you must have acquired it over time. I wonder where you acquired it from. I guess it was from different things and experiences, right? Basically, what has happened is a lifetime of data and information has flown into you in order to form that feeling that you call your gut.” You can imagine the kind of looks I got at the time, but I tried to tip the conversation in another direction then, usually successfully. The idea was: Yes, you can always learn more.
What do you do with all of that data? Even when you have data, you have an opinion, and you have a thought, you always need to test. Test. You’ve heard of A/B testing, for you test one logo versus the other, or you test a headline versus another, an ad versus another, and you can get more extensive when you get into some higher statistical techniques. As you’re pulling in all this information and data, some people will say you have too much.
What does that really mean, “too much”? I used to get this all the time when I was first starting out in a lot of research, where somebody would say to me: “Well, you don’t want it all. How about we send it to you in groups?” By groups, they meant, for example, age groups, they might want to have 19 to 34 and 35 to 64 and 65+ or something like that. I would always say: -“Whatever you have it in, I want to see the raw stuff.” -“Well, you don’t want it by years.” I said: “If you have it by years, that’s the way I want it.”
Why would I say that? Because different things I’m looking at may have different influences. For example, the 25- to 34-year-old is really very different when you think of a 34-year-old versus a 25-year-old. These basically were the standard breakdowns that the census would break them down to, because they did aggregate them, they would have 19 to 24, 25 to 29, 30 to 34, then they would go into 10-year age groups; 35-44, etc.
What’s the significance of that? Let’s take a look at car models. A very different kind of car is bought in a person’s late 20s and early 30s than as they turn 40. When everybody was saying: “Wow,
Today I want to talk about immigrant mentality. We often hear it referred to, but what is it, what is it derived from? While it’s so critical and so beneficial to people who are immigrants, can you have it or can you develop it? They are a great example of success, both personal and business success. That’s the topic for today.
Immigrants have their first Breakthrough Success when they enter the US. They see opportunity and continue to be drawn by business success.
Think in terms of immigrant mentality as they come to this country, the incredible speed that they rise in education, income, wealth, prestige, etc., whether it be in their community or in the general area. These advancements that they have: Do you have it? Do you have those ingredients? Can you get it? I want to describe a little bit at the end about how I got mine, in essence, even though I wasn’t an immigrant. What changed me, and how did it do it? How it might, and how you might recognize it for yourself.
Yes, the success of immigrants as they move from some other country. In most cases, they speak another language. They have to learn English or get better at it; they build themselves through their own businesses; their children excel. You hear some of these stories of these children that come from environments and backgrounds that they basically have little to no education – they come here and excel in our education system without even starting out with the language.
What did they do and how did they do it? Yes, they worked hard, but let’s get a little bit deeper than that. Anyone born in this country with all the advantages that you already have—you already have the languages, you’re already in the school, you know where everything is—it’s almost a shame for anybody at all to complain. If you can see around yourself, people who come here with a foreign language and excel, and you don’t. If you see any of this, then inquire to yourself: What is the mindset of the immigrant, and can you get it?
First, where do they come from and why? Look at the comparison of opportunities. What they’re looking at is the mobility in this country that they see that we don’t necessarily see. They have the chance that they see to move just not from 9 to 5 jobs or to excel in it. In a sense, they’re hungry. They move from another country, they’re hungry for success, they also live generally debt-free so they don’t have those stresses, etc., and they make ends meet, but that’s part of the discipline that they build into their system.
They’re enterprising, and they’re determined to build it for themselves. They’re not relying on anything else or anybody else. The idea, in general, is to build it for yourself. I know there are exceptions. I don’t want to bother with those, because we’re not looking at a political debate. We’re looking at how to succeed, how you can succeed, and how you can build your business newer, better, stronger.
Interestingly, the immigrants find opportunities anywhere. They work at opportunities that are often built and they build them to last. It could be that they’re plumbers, or electricians, or they go into the computer fields. Almost anything, the sciences, etc. They find out what needs to be done in order for them to prepare themselves to accomplish something, and they get it done.
How do they push themselves to this extent? Their determination and drive for success is enviable. Not just to get enough, but to be far superior to where they had come from and where they had first thought. One of my propositions is they’re seeing things that we don’t tend to look at. That is, they come here and they’re completely in a new environment, so they’re not constrained by the neighborhood that they’re living in. When we’re born in this country, we tend to be in a neighborhood and our environment has a very strong influence on what we think we can do or what we have aspirations for.
They’re from a completely different environment,
Today I want to talk about ideas of the opportunities for you. People all talk about starting their own business, going at it. Let’s take a look at three different aspects. You can go and literally compete against the big boys (I’ll explain that it actually can be possible), you can also find a new way to compete (and I’ll go over that, in particular Gary Vaynerchuk and VaynerMedia), and then last I want to talk about just the individual businesses itself, and: Where do you find some of your advantages?
Too often it is thought that a company must be big to succeed. As technology moves rapidly, the speed of change is creating change and new opportunities.
First let me talk about competing against the big companies. What happened, actually, was quite accidental. I did this, I did it very successfully, but how did it happen and what happened? Because it wasn’t really planned out that way. What happened was I was working at Chase, head of automotive, and they were selling off all their industry research divisions for assets only. The deal was all closed, etc., they asked us to go around and talk to all the customers to make sure they were still happy with the bank. In that process, four companies said to me: “We really want you to start your own business. We’ll be clients.” It was still scary because there were some big names out there that were still going to be in the business, and the company that was buying them was another competitor.
But I was urged, did some research at the library, and decided to do it. Got my non-compete signed off, and then all of a sudden, one week before they were closing down, the deal fell through so my competitors were Chase Manhattan, Merrill Lynch, McGraw-Hill, and Thompson Publishing. My company became the dominant company shortly thereafter, but how did it happen, what happened? Certainly, I didn’t have the deep pockets that they had, but what I did do is I realized that I could compete on quality, so I raised the status and stature of what I was doing in that way. In a sense, I’m finding a niche based on quality. Very different, a high-end product.
There is the advertising industry, VaynerMedia, Gary Vaynerchuk. A wonderful story. Actually, sometime I actually told Gary I was going to do an episode that was actually going to dissect a lot of what he does and how he does it, etc. because really, I have tremendous respect for what the guy does, tremendous. He’s very perceptive. I’m not sure exactly whether he knows some of his good qualities, because he’s certainly not shy. Gary always was the entrepreneurial type, that was fine, and he had done Wine Library. What he saw was the opportunity in social media to go into a different direction, and to supply businesses with something that was new technological change. In essence, here he is competing against big name advertising agencies that supposedly nobody would be able to start a new company and compete against, but he used the new technology as the springboard and became probably one of the dominant, if not, the dominant company out there, starting from a new technology point. I don’t want to make this episode too much about going into that detail, because I’ll save that for another time. I want to get into the three, and then I want to talk a little bit about what you can do and what you should be doing.
The third is you, yourself as one person, looking in and identifying that little niche someplace. It might be that you already own a store. Keep in mind what happened to travel agencies. They were little stores around. Now, what do you have? You have them online and they’re international. Back in 1996 when I was first brought into Microsoft training for the Microsoft University. At that time, in order to learn about their newest and latest developments in the internet/web development, I really found it very fascinating. When I went out to meet with companies, I was trying to tell and explain to them… Really, at that time,
Today I want to talk about one of the most important topics in business, but also in everything else. I often relate things to dating, but literally, if you’re going to meet somebody, in a sense, you can consider the woman or male you’re talking to like a customer. You’re trying to sell them on the fact… I know it sounds funny, but you’re basically trying to make sure that they think well of you. It’s the same thing with customers. We hear about the voice of the customer, listening to customers – sort of.
Understanding the customer and looking through the eyes of the customer rather than telling the customer your idea.
Let me explain. Listening absolutely gives you info. You want that information to define what you need to do to improve your product, to improve your service, to make your choice of products. You’ve heard also, though, that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. That means the person shouting the loudest is going to get attention paid to them. Is that the person you should be listening to? Who you’re listening to and who is speaking up. In other words, listen intelligently. I know that somebody is going to get ticked off at that, because that implies that some people don’t listen intelligently. Let’s say listen with an educated perspective. I don’t want people to feel badly if they don’t know good research methodology, but you really want to make sure that you’re following good form, good research methodology, and you’re carefully studying the customer.
There are important research principles when targeting or trying to understand things, such as customer satisfaction, customer demand, or customer preference. Make sure your survey or the group you’re talking to is well represented by all parts of your market. You want to be talking to the correct people, and the correct distribution of people. You’ve often heard, particularly now in politics, one survey group decides to overweight this survey by one group or another to show so-and-so their favorite person is in the lead. That’s not good research, and that should not be well represented or well respected.
Are you taking a look at the proper proportion, the right number of women, the right number of rural versus urban, etc.? There’s a lot to it. Also, there’s other parts to it. The questions asked also can imply or slant your answer. Do you ever notice that a survey, at the beginning of the survey, they usually ask: “Do you work for any of the following: an advertising agency, market research firm, etc.?” Why do they ask that? You’ll find out if you check you do. Even if you don’t, just check you do just one time just to see what happens. You’re going to be thanked on the next page, and tell you that they’ve already fulfilled their obligation or something else to basically get rid of you. Why? Because you understand and have a perspective on what the research is trying to do, based on the questions, and you know enough to answer them a certain way to bias the results in the way that you would like to see the results come out.
Some of the things that can happen: you may be listening to customer complaints, that can cost you money and you could be fixing the wrong things, you could also be putting your actual product in the wrong light. An example was Mercedes Benz came out in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, someplace around there, with some odd-looking colors for Mercedes; the browns, the yellowish, certainly non-Mercedes looking colors. What do I mean by that? I went there, spoke to the person in charge of all their research and product choices, and asked him if he ever saw the book, Molloy’s book Dress for Success. He said to me: “Customers are really asking for these colors.” I said: “Yes, and I’ve seen them out there. Should you be producing them? You’re listening to people who are not normally your customers, but people who wanted to see that color, but that color represents your product out there. Do you want that to be the picture,
This is a particularly tough episode because it’s about economics, the economy. I’ve been asked over and over again to do this. What’s hard about it is it’s very difficult to really show how you can benefit, which is a little strange compared to the rest of the episodes. Maybe you can benefit by being better informed and protecting yourself from some of the things that you hear out there.
The economy is often looked approached without understanding causality. Microeconomics shows what affects and is effected.
One of the key things I want to stress and make important here is that the economy is completely different than it has been in the past. Most of everything that you’re hearing today is not very good. I don’t mean not very good about the economy; it’s not well-founded. There are a lot of people who are saying things about the economy and about how things are going that seem to indicate that it’s either good, or improving, or something else. I not only want to show you that it is wrong, but also why it’s wrong, and how you can see underneath it a little bit.
First of all, how do these people get these ideas that I’m considering or saying to you are wrong? One is that, over time, macroeconomics, what it does is it looks at trends, it looks at how the interest rate has occurred in different times through history, and how the economy was when the interest rate was down or up. It shows unemployment, and employment, and labor participation, and growth, all based on historical trends. The problem is that if the underlying assumptions change, then their results and their analysis are a fallacy.
A little bit into the numbers. Take a look at it. The assumption is that all the trends analysis and things haven’t changed that affect the relationship between those trends, but we know they have. How do we know that? Take a look around, what’s going on. Take a look at how the interest rate is right now. The idea was, historically, as the interest rate goes down, home sales will go up, and people will purchase more cars, the economy will boost. It’s not happening. The interest rate is just about zero.
I had an economics professor many, many years ago that used to say: “The lowering of the interest rate was kind of like pushing on a string.” If the demand is there for somebody to do something, they’re more likely to take that action because it saves them money because the interest rate is lower. But to stimulate by lowing the interest rate, when the underlying desire and demand is not there, then there’s no reason to invest, no matter how supposedly free it seems to be.
What about unemployment rates? They’re saying the unemployment rate is down to 5.3/5.4, etc. last month or this month, but at the same time, what is that really going? What is unemployment? It used to have a different definition. Yes, they’ve changed the definition. They changed the definition about 15-20 years ago, but it doesn’t matter when they did it. The idea was that they no longer call for long-term unemployment as part of the unemployment rate. If you’re out for a long time, over a year, it doesn’t count. As you’ve probably seen, a lot of people have been unemployed for a long period of time. On top of that, the number of people that are out of the workforce. What that means is they’re no longer trying to find a job. If they’re no longer trying to find a job, they’re not counted; they’re not considered part of the labor force.
On top of all of these, you have part-time workers. What happens with part-time workers? It turns out that the way they count it (part-time statistics are really bad) is by total hours. You’ve heard me say it over and over again, life unsettled, people who are older, etc. are being laid off or replaced by younger workers, people’s hours are being cut back, etc. In this case, people are having to get jobs that may be part-time jobs. They may have to get two part-time jobs,
Today I want to talk a little bit about networking and building your customer relationship, your customer base, and it doesn’t really matter whether you’re just building friendships or whatever, or whether you want to just really expand your business network.
Business success and personal success depends on contacts. Networking leverages your resources and opportunities. What motivated this episode is actually kind of funny. I was at an event about three weeks ago, and I saw somebody that was kind of interesting, but I didn’t get a chance to meet him. Two weeks later, last weekend, I saw him again, so I introduced myself and exchanged cards. I figured it might be an interesting person to talk to and find out a little bit more about. Yesterday he calls me up, and the first words out of his mouth is his 30-second elevator speech. I don’t know about you, and I know these things are preached all over the place, but: They tick me off. Let me explain that a little bit. Basically, 99% of elevator speeches all come out the same way: “I either help create or increase some type of person with something to help them get, receive, attain, reach,”—whatever—“something else.” They all sound alike. It’s just like when the person comes up to your door, knocks on the door at dinnertime, and says: “Do you want to buy magazines?” You know right away the first thing they are: They’re trying to sell you something.
I thought everybody in sales knew the golden rule of making sure before you introduce your business, make sure the person knows, likes, and trusts you. I’ve known this guy for 90 seconds, so I wouldn’t say I know him. I certainly don’t have trust yet, and after that speech, it dropped through the floor. And I’m not so sure about the liking much anymore. For example, say somebody is a dentist. Rather than saying: “I’m a dentist. I help children with keeping their teeth in the best of care and to help them get that pain-free.” You can say that way, which really sounds contrived, or you can just say: “I’m a dentist, specializing in pain-free children’s dentistry.” Then immediately turn around and ask the person about them. Show your interest in them. That’s where you’re going to find like.
Thinking back in the times of dating, when you were dating, you would be liked more by asking questions about the other person and being interested in what they say. That’s what networking is about, it’s almost like dating. You’re building relationships, you’re hopefully building friendships. If it doesn’t lead to business, so what? They might make you a referral, they might like you, and if somebody says something, they’ll say: “Oh, go see John Doe. He’s a good dentist. From what I heard, he does really well with children.”
Another part of it is be careful what you’re bragging about and what you’re telling the person. If you’ve had some time (keep in mind this was 10 years later the guy gives me a call), he’s got my card, my website is on there, he could look at the bio, see what I do. To be turning around and talking to me, (and he’s really trying to impress me) and bragging to me about how he’s a numbers person… Wait a minute. What I usually do is I turn around and say: “Oh, great. Have you looked at my bio?” Because what’s running through my mind right now is: “You obviously haven’t read it or looked at it.” Keep in mind in my bio right upfront it says: “I have a PhD in mathematical and statistical economics,” and this guy is trying to impress me that he’s a numbers person. By the way, this isn’t the first one; I’ve had dozens, if not, hundreds of people that try to impress me that they’re a numbers person. Fine. That’s great. I’m glad to meet somebody that’s also, but show that you have understood a little bit about me if there’s been some time passed.
If there’s something that you just met me and you’re expressing, that’s fine. But if you’re calling me back a week or two later, or you’re meeting me a second time and you’ve had th...
Thank you, first of all, for all the input and everything I’ve gotten from folks, the support, the rankings and reviews that I’m getting on iTunes and Stitcher, particularly iTunes where I can see the rankings. We’re number seven. To me, that’s absolutely awesome to be ranked at number seven in “What’s Hot” on iTunes. Again, I just thank you all, to all my supporters; I really appreciate it. Those rankings help us get more coverage.
Today what I want to discuss is just the opposite of what we did last time. Last time, we were talking about branding and how to position our brand, your company, product, or service. Today, wherever you are, whatever you have, how not to lose or how you might lose your advantage. That is, lose your image and lose your status with those customers. To put it a certain other way, think in terms of all the companies you’ve seen that have made a change and they almost destroy themselves in the market.
Think in terms of Coke when they came out with New Coke. Think in terms of what McDonald’s did, where it changed things quite a bit. Although they’re so big and prevalent, and they have such a long-term reputation, it does make them a little bit more vulnerable. Because remember years ago they had Ronald McDonald, and they had all kinds of things oriented around kids, and somebody would drive by with the kids in the car and the kids would be screaming: “I want to go to McDonald’s! I want to go to McDonald’s!” That’s not going to happen as much anymore, because they don’t have some of that same association. They gave up something, and it certainly does and is going to have an impact.
As we said with branding before, when a company gets itself, stands out, and owns a territory or owns a concept or an idea, it’s very difficult to penetrate it once they’re in a dominant position. Right now, for example, Verizon is well-known for having excellent coverage all over the country. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed it, but if you go to different places and you go to someplace where there are other representatives, you go into Best Buy or you go into Costco and you might see a T-Mobile person standing at the booth – that person will start telling you things like (it could be another company), and I’ve heard this from T-Mobile, I’ve heard it from AT&T, etc.: “We’ve all of a sudden invested a lot of money in towers around, so now we really have good coverage, too.” It doesn’t ring with the credibility of something that you already know. It’s somebody that’s claiming to have something “as good” as something that you’re sure of. It doesn’t work as well.
What you have to do is you have to come up with something a little bit different in order to have that credibility. What if T-Mobile or somebody, and actually there are a couple of companies out there, that target more certain cities or certain locales? Keep in mind that there are a lot of people, a tremendous number of people that never leave their own city. If they never leave their own city, they don’t need Verizon’s coverage all over the place. Verizon has a position to it that you can get it wherever you are. They don’t have to worry about that, and they could have a discount for something. How does that change Verizon’s position? If they’re selling it a little bit cheaper for a particular city because of the locality, of course, Verizon would probably not match that price because that would be subject to having to give that price to everybody in that area that would be the travelers, etc., and they’re more nationwide. There’s lots of different things, and that’s an example of a niche that can occur, and what you might not want to do to counteract that.
What you’re doing is you’re looking for an opening whereby possibly the power player can’t match you. This works in small companies, large companies, all over. As an example, when I was making a presentation at a large international automotive conference put on by the University of Michigan,
Entrepreneurial Journey with Thomas O'Grady
Most of you listening to this podcast, you’re thinking in terms of wanting to have more money, save more money, start a business, have something on the side, or work on something for additional income just to put things on the side; you’re saving for your future or saving for new things.
This episode is one of my favorite topics, and this the positioning of your business or yourself. When I say “the positioning,” you’ll often hear people talk about “branding.” Branding, precisely, is the name, term, symbol, or feature used to distinguish. However, think of in terms of positioning, like in sports.
Where do you position yourself if you’re playing on the tennis court? Where do you position yourself if you’re a basketball player, playing a certain position? A soccer player? A football player? Positioning is not just where you’re standing, but knowing what’s around you; knowing and owning your space. That’s it. Owning your space – that’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about positioning a product or business, how to own that space so that you maximize your customers and your profitability.
Did you ever feel, in a sense, that an ad that you see on TV or hear on the radio was just like it’s talking to you or talking to friends of yours? Why are friends of yours important? Because if you notice that ad, that means when you’re in need of whatever they’re selling, that will be in the back of your mind so they will still relate. Another part of it, and this is part of the positioning of the product, is if a friend goes to go by something and you’ve got a favorable opinion on it because you have seen an ad – you have a positive influence on them.
Think in terms of luxury cars. You build a luxury car that nobody’s friends know about… By the way, Ford did this in the late 80s, early 90s. They built a car, and they targeted it so well. They targeted so well, and only informed and sent lots of literatures and brochures to those people who would be buying it. The problem is that a lot of what that person is buying at that time is the image that that vehicle projects, and nobody even knew what it was.
Let’s look at some of the success stories, and some of the other stories as well. First of all, take a look at Volvo. How has it niched its way into the market and owned a space? It is known synonymous with safety. That doesn’t mean that you’re never going to have an accident, but it means that it’s built this protective shield around you, you have a certain image. It even projects it by the amount of space that is usually inside a Volvo. Usually, because a couple of times, they have designed a car that has less headroom, which would seem to fly in a direct competition with the concept of safety.
Look at how well Starbucks has done. What has it tried to create as an image? And it has done it very well. The third place that somebody would go: You go to work, you go to home, and you can go to Starbucks to relax. It plays a little bit of light music, has comfortable places for you to sit, has some Wi-Fi for you to interact with or to get on to the internet if you want to, chat with friends, meet people, etc. That has given Starbucks the ability to have this massive network of stores all over the place.
Does that mean that they have the best coffee? I don’t think so. I don’t know whether they believe it or not, but they probably don’t have the best coffee. There’s actually ones that I prefer, and maybe you prefer, but it is reliable also everywhere you go. Every Starbucks you go to, you’ll get the same preparation, the same coffee done the same way. It’s reliable, and that place to relax. Often, in Starbucks when I’m someplace, in a strange city or something, I’ll strike up a conversation with somebody, usually with a start with something like: “Isn’t it nice that Starbucks provides all these offices all over the country just so we can go and get our work done in a nice...
I want to talk a little bit about predictability, planning, and being prepared for uncertainty, but it’s all about planning for the future, forecasting.
This was partially motivated by the fact that I read something about you can’t predict or you can’t plan for the future, particularly in the long run. Quite frankly, not only is that wrong, it is really, really bad advice. Yes, the world is uncertain, and there are certain times you have to be cautious. I’ll explain and break this down.
First of all, in the economic world, you have the macroeconomist, that’s the one that’s following unemployment, GDP, and all those sorts of things; and the Micro-economist, the one that’s following business, customers, consumers, production, manufacturing, etc. In the macro world, very often and most likely, the person who at the end of the year who is most accurate is very often actually wrong.
How can the person be right and wrong at the same time? Their number may be right, but why was it right? If there was some significant change or what we call an outside force that was not taken into account This could be anything from a treaty, to a major event, terrorist attack, plane down, could be oil shortage, excess oil. We’re talking about now the dumping of a lot of oil in market. The person that started and made the predictions in January, if they’re accurate in December, and this massive amount of oil from Iran is dropped on to the market, are they really right? No. They got the right number, but for the wrong reasons. It is usually the reasoning that’s crucial in business.
When I say the future must be planned for, but yet it’s usually wrong, what do you do? It seems to be a dilemma. Here, the problem is not that you’re wrong, but keep in mind the difference on the microeconomic scale, you’re looking and understanding and wanting to develop and understand the underlying causal relationships as to why your market should turn out a certain way. You’re going into depth about the long-term perspective, but you’re constantly monitoring it every month so that you’re ready for any quick change, anything that happens. All of a sudden, if prices of oil go down, you’re able to adjust to it. Why? Because you’ve already considered what its current price is and other things, and you’re not just following a trend; you’ve actually done some detail analysis so you’re able to adjust to that one change because you’ve already considered all of your known variables, all the contingencies. You’re better off having all of those factors thought of in your prediction for the future.
Sometimes you’re going to be absolutely 100% accurate, but in any case, you have to have gone through the exercise and thoroughly planned it. Basically what you’re doing is you’re taking a look at the demand for your product given the consideration of a dozen other variables. Now, all of a sudden, something you haven’t considered possibly, a 13th or 14th variable, all of a sudden becomes a major factor. This could be when you’re taking a look at analyzing your competitors. Is there all of a sudden a new competitor? A new invention? A new product? The discontinuation of somebody else’s product that actually helps you, or gives you an advantage? Or somebody who introduces a product that complements yours?
By understanding and planning thoroughly, yes, you can plan, adjust, and pivot very quickly. Keep in mind, because everybody’s talking about looking at your niche and following your niche down, etc., your competitors in your niche are very, very key and important. Always keep in mind that no matter what you think, there’s always substitution between whatever you’re doing and what somebody else has.
As an example, a friend of mine was talking about some drink that was for health. There may not be any exact product, but there can be a substitution between that and other health products. The person, within their budget, who was interested in health will spend so much o...
The Why Strategy Can Be Used In Any Area of Life
Today’s topic is an important concept that came about as a result of things I noticed concerning WHAT people did and HOW they did it. It’s basically the WHY; you may have heard about the “Five Why’s” that originated from Toyota Motor Company. The WHY is a tool used to drill down to the root cause of a potential problem. There is some criticism of the process, mainly because people don’t execute it very well. The idea is to ask why, then why that, and keep on until there is an ultimate solution. For illustration, here is an example.
Example 1---Problem: A robot malfunctioned on an assembly line at Toyota.
Why did it stop working? The arm broke.
Why did the arm break? A piece inside broke.
Why did the piece break? It was stressed and not maintained properly.
Why wasn’t it maintained properly? It didn’t receive enough oil.
Why didn’t it receive enough oil? Oiling the part isn’t part of the regular maintenance schedule.
Solution: Lubricating that piece is now part of regular maintenance.
Do you see how it works? You go on and on to the source as you simplify the problem down to an easy fix. The whole process relates to the business world in the area of problem-solving. I’ll share more examples to further illustrate the concept.
Surprisingly, I've had calls where someone says, 'my lights in my house just went our.' I really want to say, well, so what are you going to do about it as I'm surprised by the question.
I ask them a series of questions. Is it the neighborhood or just your house? Is it the whole house or a part? Ok, it's just part of the house. Is the circuit overloaded? Ok, you can reset the circuit breaker. But, why did it occur? What can be changed to prevent its recurrence? It turns out that it was a microwave, TV and an iron all being used at the same time. How to fix this and why did it occur? It happens that in the construction phase after the design and electric was installed, they decided to move the microwave. The builder now knows that it can't do that again unless it changes the circuits.
People often look at what’s happening around them from a landscape view, or as if they were watching a movie. They enjoy what is happening around them, but they don’t understand the underlying causal relationships. In business, this process can be used to prevent/reduce recurring problems and to increase efficiency/productivity.
Even when we look at how kids are raised, we can apply the idea of why we do certain things to raise them. If it’s done too much on emotion, then you can overindulge them or pacify them. If your attitude is, as I is often said, ‘to give them all the things I never had.’ Will you achieve the desired end result of preparing kids to survive in the world? Do your methods pass the ‘Why’ test? Will your methods achieve the desired result of preparing them to succeed in life?
One problem we face is that we are apt to “fall in love” with a method we have used or are using to the point that we become biased and prejudiced toward our own ideas. By asking the WHY, we can train our minds in causality and learn to question our own thoughts and ideas.
I faced these problems many times in research, in particular, one at GM Research Labs, was dealer service and customer satisfaction.
A typical example was the customer returns to pick up his car and the car is not ready. Why? The part is not in stock? Why? Are not enough ordered? Are the parts failing too quickly? Is there a problem with the ordering process? Now, here is where people sometimes think this ideas of asking why doesn’t work. They quickly concluded only one of those 3 choices and start drilling down further and ‘fix’ the wrong issue. So, it isn’t the system that failed, it is that they didn’t first look at all alternatives before proceeding.
Sometimes, the temptation is to jump down to the basic WHY without investigating each leve...
Networking is Important in Business
Today I want to talk a little bit about networking. Networking is absolutely crucial not only to expand your contacts to your sales, etc…but also to grow, grow in your skills and grow in your life. It’s a key essential ingredient to meet people that you can learn from and grow with. You can also grow just from the association. Growth may be in different areas:
Like the business you’re trying to transact Growth of you as a person. You may want to learn new skills, develop better habits or you’d want to do new things. The third one, may be just for fun. Whatever extracurricular activities you may be interested it. To get to know more people and enjoy it more.
Remember the episode about the 5 people closest to you. About the fact that you’re the average of them. Jim Rohn talked about your income being the average of their income. It’s also your environment, your attitude, your opportunities, the way you talk or the way you speak, you’re the average of your friends.
Let’s talk about going beyond that. Who do you know and how do you know them? When it comes to networking start out with the people that you know, you can then expand from there. Think about what you need or do or grow in life. You can reach out to someone who may be a “warm contact”, someone that you’ve met a couple of times. Ask for advice in certain situations. You’ll need to realize that it’s not just about you. The person may be very busy but you can find ways to get to know them or introduce yourself or get introduced. You can reach out to them through Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Follow them and connect with them. Ask insightful questions. One of the key things, whether you’re networking or want to go on a date, asking questions and listening more than talking is essential. In successful interviews, the person who is successful is the one, 90% of the time, asking insightful questions. Not just talking about themselves.
Look at somebody’s bio, don’t take that as absolute, but look to see if their bio has something that you might be interested in. You may look to see if they’ve done something that’s interesting or they may know someone who can meet your interest.
These could also be things that you don’t want to do, things you want to avoid. It’s okay, but learn from people’s bios to get to know them and then approach them with a positive proper attitude. Approach them with those positive insightful questions but truly be interested in them. If you’re not interested in them and just looking to make your next contact that’s not good for them and they will perceive that difference. Most people that get jobs don’t really ask for a job, they may just go for an informational interview. The same attitude goes for making contacts.
Not all people are great talkers. Some are introverted and some are very shy. How do you get over that? I used to be very shy. That was one of my major weaknesses. Questions about that go back to that episode on weaknesses. Don’t accept these weaknesses. When you’re at the shopping mall, at the counter, when you see someone looking at something you’re interested in ask them about that. Just practice. You might be a Barnes and Noble, you may be going for the same magazine that someone else is looking at, and do you have a question that you might need an answer for?
How does this magazine get into this topic? What would you suggest?
You can pick a variety of safe places to start talking to strangers – a shopping mall or even in church. At http://www.meetup.com/ or classes at school, whatever you’re interested in. If you go into something like this, you might want to learn more about speaking. Go to Toastmasters as one place. A good suggestion, go somewhere to a class or where you interact but don’t go with a friend. Why? If you do, you might end up just sitting there and talking with your friend the whole time. Other people might feel left out or that you’re un...
One of the key components of what we talk about is how do you secure a better life and better future. So, of course, the thing is how do you decided to have a business and how do you plan for it? That is the business plan. Part of the motivation for this particular episode is that I was actually, on a call last night and somebody asked the question. The person who was moderating the call said, “Oh no you don’t need a business plan.” Part of the conversation was about the fact that that was “old school” or “old hat”. Let’s talk a little bit about why you should have and why you need it. And what it does for you.
Business Leaders Make Sound Business Decisions
You have an idea, you want to put it together as a business. What the business plan does is:
It gives you and outline. First an outline and then something more thorough. To monitor your progress, hold yourself to what you plan to do and then give you more control of milestones. It forces you to take a look at everything you’re doing at once. Think in terms of if you were writing a book. When you’re writing, you write the chapter, you forgot one detail, you go back and write it in or re-write the chapter. Have you ever thought, “I should have said…” or “I wish had mentioned…”? If you had it outlined prior to your presentation or in speaking to others it would have been so much better. The business plan is the focus for your entire business. It will show you how it affects your life, your family, etc…
What is it, what does it do and how do you do it?
It gives you the chance to decide what your value is to other people. When you’re either selling a product or service, what’s the value proposition (what it’s usually referred to). How can a person use it and why is it a value to them? How will they perceive it? Marketing: How will you present it? How are people going to feel? How will they use it? Why would they need it? How will you develop a want and desire for your product? Producing the plan: How will you put it together? If you have products, how will you escalate all the different products, at different times? All that needs to be set out so that you have an idea of all that you’re planning. Also as you’re going along what happens if you get off target? We all have biases on our own things. Over time, it’s okay to change your mind but having that business plan narrated out or outlined, it gives you the opportunity to say, “Wait a minute, this is why I thought this in the first place. Do I have a real reason to make a change? Or is this a better alternative?” It holds you accountable not just for timing or finances and staffing but also for your reasoning.
One of the most important thing in a business plan is actually the end. You should treat every business as if it has a life that will end at some point and time. You may want to start a business and think of passing it down to your children or grandchildren, etc… it’s a lofty idea but treat it that has 7- 10 year lifespan – something reasonable. The reason for this is you don’t keep on investing without taking money out and putting it into funds for retirement, children’s education, or whatever you’re going to do. It keeps you more honest to run it as a true business.
On elevator speeches (I’m not a big fan of this) but you do need to be to talk easily to bankers, accountants or attorneys that you might have to deal with. Even more important, you need to be able to talk to people who might be interested on coming on board one way or another. That is really good talent to help you with your business. Whether it’s an actual employee or someone you can partner with. If you’re just saying things off the cuff, that does not sound solid enough for people to have the confidence in joining you. If you had a business plan, you have all that thought out. When an investor or client asks you a question you would have thought out all potential questions. That’s part of developing a business plan.
Business Leaders Make Sound Business Decisions
Thanks for joining me today. My topic is EARLY DECISIONS AND BIAS. We’ll discuss what happens when we get too ingrained in what we thought or believed. The bottom line is this: DON’T MAKE DECISIONS EARLY! Make decisions and form opinions when they are necessary, but only after all relevant information has been gathered.
To illustrate my point, look at it this way--- we acquire information all the time related to various decisions. It could be about a marketing decision, which direction to go, which school to attend, which course of study or major to pursue, or which path to take inside a company. As we gather information and learn, we are pointed to a simple “yes” or “no” decision. We may “count” the votes and have 34 for yes and 26 for no. That sounds simple, right? We may follow the votes because we KNOW which way to go and what we believe. But, what happens over time? Additional information comes in one piece at a time, and it may point in the OPPOSITE direction from what we’ve already decided and the opinion we’ve already formulated. What now? Most likely we will push THAT one piece of information aside which doesn't agree with the conclusion or decision already made. In six months or a year down the road, we may find if we were accurately keeping score that it may have been 47 for no and 38 for yes. A different decision would have been made in the end, but we decided too early and pushed the subsequent piece meal information aside.
Think of friends you meet and people you know. Have you ever met someone who CAN’T or WON’T change their mind, no matter what arguments or information you present? What happens is that they have made decisions too early, and then have to become defensive about their decisions.
Aside from business and other things about success in life, look at this principle regarding politics:
No matter what happens, a certain group of people will ALWAYS vote for one party or the other—regardless. Most people are on one side or the other, with a very small number in the “middle.” Therefore, a small number of people actually influence the election. Even though dramatic changes have occurred in BOTH parties over the last 30-40 years, some people made a decision long ago, became defensive about it, and refused to change—NO MATTER WHAT! These people may or may not like the candidate from their own party, but they would NEVER vote for a person in the other party, simply based on a decision made long ago.
If you aren’t careful, you can develop the same bias in business and become inflexible in your decisions. If your decision and opinion are “cast in stone” then you are less likely to consider any new information. Have you ever encountered a boss who is stubborn? Most of us probably have at some point.
The solution to Not become that biased person is based on the following:
Don’t make decisions until you absolutely have to make them. Don’t make and develop opinions until necessary for the direction you want to go.
I can give a person example from a situation that I encountered back in college. I wasn’t sure whether to go to law school or graduate school. I investigated and gathered information. A quick decision would have been for law school, mainly because of the lawyers I saw on TV shows. I knew I needed to attend the best school possible, so I decided to await the results of the LSAT and GRE tests, to see which was better. I performed well on both tests, so I took a closer look at what lawyers actually did—and not just the nice stuff you see on TV. I figured out I didn’t really like doing what lawyers did with most of their time, so this helped me make my decision. I’ve had to employ this technique over and over in my career.
As an example from my life today, I’m often called upon to make recommendations to firms or give advice to people. Rather than formulate an opinion ahead of time based on w...
Entrepreneurial Journey with Thomas O'Grady
My topic today is SELF-MOTIVATION: How do you GET it, BUILD it, and REPEAT it over and over again?
Think about people you know who are filled with energy and zest for life. These are the people who seem to be up and going at dawn. Then think about those who are on the other end of that spectrum. We all know people who fit both descriptions, but, the truth is that most people are probably somewhere in between.
Self-motivation is not some outside force that motivates you, nor is it “passion.” Remember from Episode 25 what I said about passion. “Passion sucks! And it can pull the life right out of you!” You CAN develop a passion for what you do, and I’ve seen it happen in many different occupations. However, even people who are THE MOST PASSIONATE have some tasks that they DON’T love or feel passionate about or even like.
If you are in business or are going into business, you need to find that motivation to get PAST all those things that you don’t like to do.
Let me illustrate it this way: A guy may decide to open a restaurant because he pictures himself welcoming in his friends, and he loves to cook. He may quickly find out that he can’t do what he WANTS to do because of all the other things he MUST do. These tasks can’t—or won’t-- be done by anyone else and they take up most of his time.
What else can we say about SELF-MOTIVATION?
You build self-motivation through self-confidence. Over time, you gain self-motivation to get each task done and then the next one. You have to learn skills to motivate others and motivate yourself.
Self-motivation changes with age. When people are young, they are TOLD what to do, what is needed, and what is expected. Parents and teachers give permission, rewards, punishments, and guidelines. Most people don’t develop much self-motivation until 18-20 years of age when they learn responsibility at entry-level jobs. These experiences are important to help us learn what we should and shouldn’t do. Later on, people have to define their own goals, passion, and steps to take.
Do you want to develop more confidence and self-motivation? You have to have successes. The best way to do this is to break down what you do into multiple small bits and pieces. Over time, you build more successes, more confidence, and more self-motivation.
My analogy to explain this concept involves my neighbors, my lawn, and my yard work habits. My neighbors are constantly amazed at how wonderful my lawn looks, but I spend almost no time maintaining it! I break the “big job” down into small pieces, none of which takes more than 15-30 minutes at a time. I have a bunch of small, satisfying tasks that keep my lawn looking great: mow the front yard, mow the back yard, do spot-weeding, trim, put down lime/fertilizer, etc. If I don’t have much time, then I meet my expectations by accomplishing small tasks. Some of my neighbors have terrible lawns, simply because they look at it as a HUGE job, and they never get around to it. On the other hand, my method gives me a great lawn with all tasks accomplished, and I have a great reward for each small task along the way.
I used the same SELF-MOTIVATING strategy in college: breaking large tasks into small pieces of study, breaks, etc. Each task is a small goal that helps build self-confidence. For example, writing a book or a dissertation is a HUGE task. It is impossible to accomplish unless you break the job into little pieces, and each piece is a success! Think of each task as a confidence-booster, a pat on the back, and motivation to move on to the next task!
“The process becomes a tool for increasing our own ability to truly self-motivate, not by pushing ourselves as much as being attracted to what we can do next and what we are going to do next.”
“As we overcome mild challenges, our satisfaction develops, and we recognize our own achievements.”
Thomas O'Grady
No matter what you want to do to be successful, everything you do to be successful requires you to either satisfy needs and wants of others or create demand in which case you’re still satisfying others’ demands or needs and wants.
What is “Demand”? The idea is, you’re appealing to others. Sometimes these are very subtle and sometimes the most subtle things can have the most positive or negative effect. Sometimes these could be very difficult to do. Some classic examples would be: Through ads, through customer satisfaction and Dating or Marriage.
What are Needs & Wants? “Needs” = food, clothing or shelter and “wants” = something that someone desires.
We will focus on “Demands” because it’s very precise in the economics and attributes of the product, the characteristics of the individual and what brings on the desire or that demand to have that product at that price. Most companies will teach their people to sell on emotion, the “want”. If you want to immune yourself from that try this practice that’s worked well for most people, if you see something that you like, always walk out and think about it the next day. By walking out, at least 95% of the time you’ll realize that you really didn’t want that product. You were being sold on emotion. By the way, almost nobody goes back and returns things that’s why they’re always guaranteeing the return policy.
Let’s look at subtle effects of the classic examples mentioned above:
Ads: The success or lack thereof preventing people from smoking. They focus on health problems – that has nothing to do with why young people demand cigarettes. They never think that this will ever happen to them. Interestingly enough Phillip Morris was successful in that they targeted the image, comradery – they made it undesirable. “Demand is an individual process.” If you have a product out there, you have to think about the group or the person that wants to buy your product. You want to make sure that you focus on their needs & demands not what you think is important. What people care about is what that product can do for them. Customer Satisfaction: The customer’s perception of quality. Using Dan McFadden’s measurement techniques, I extended it and applied it to a new area, how the service writer made you feel blew away a lot of the negative things that may have been done to your vehicle. The way the service writer treated you was actually more important than getting your car fixed. Since they showed compassion to you and made you feel listened to, you may feel that they tried their best and can just about forgive any errors. Dating or Marriage: In a small area of the store were men’s and women’s magazines. Most men were leafing through the men’s magazines, I was browsing through the women’s magazines. Why? I was doing market research! Most women’s magazines teach women to never meet a guy at the bar. Same goes true for a marriage – think about it as customer satisfaction – listen, build trustworthiness, honesty and make them feel that there’s no one more special than they are. That’s what it’s all about.
When you look at this from an economic perspective, it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about dating, marriage, customer service or creating demand for your product they all have the same concepts that all wrap into demand.
Entrepreneurial Journey with Thomas O'Grady
We are talking about technology and its impact on your future. Remember, “Today is the first day of your future.” There are factors about attitude, perspective, and phases we go through that are affected by the growth of technology. Always be aware of game-changing events; technology is just one of those areas that have changed and accelerated drastically over the last 30 years.
Think about how people view events from the past and events in the future. Have you seen the commercial where people categorize “good” events and “bad” events in their lives with color-coded sticky notes? The point is that most people view the past as mostly bad and the future as mostly good. The point of the commercial is to stimulate people to plan for their future. Younger people tend NOT to plan. I invite you to take a look back at my podcast episodes #23 and #24 about goals and HOW TO MAKE THEM WORK! Most people assume that their choices, dreams, and goals dim as they go forward into the future. YOUR DREAMS AND GOALS SHOULDN’T NARROW!
I have several examples to emphasize my point about technology, change, and the future:
There was a young woman in my coaching classes who worked in the beauty industry. I urged her to look at her future, and the fact that she will have to change. The fact is that most women don’t look at older women in their 60+ years to advise them about beauty. In the late-90’s, the consensus was that big retailers would drive small businesses out. It didn’t happen because the onset of technology and the web allowed small companies to market themselves around the globe just as any large company would. Think about how technology allows people to market themselves on social media in a way that’s not them. They can mask how old they really are.
Most people assume that younger people are better at technology, apps, and programming—and that older people are not. The advance of internet technology has put blinders on age. The truth is that even for someone who is 50+, there are plenty of things to do and enjoy. It all comes down to attitude. Consider the following examples:
When I was a young man, I worked as a waiter. I developed a good attitude about the job because I looked at the job as my opportunity to make a couple’s evening very special. That made it a great job. I recently saw some workers outside an office building pouring asphalt and curbs. I observed that some seemed happy, and some seemed overwhelmed with the hard work. Of course, the work was hard for them all, but the difference was in those who took pride in their work, accomplishment, and the finished product.
You can develop a passion and attitude for life at whatever age you are. There are numerous hobbies and activities for people over 50. If you choose not to plan or invest in your future, then that’s your choice, but you have no right to complain or be jealous of those who do.
If you want to increase your luck, then DO more things and be more aggressive. Have a better attitude and plan for your future. Some opportunities will come your way, and you just have to grab them.
I had an interesting just a few weeks ago, met somebody, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, and it was interesting in what he was doing and how he was planning his future. I thought: “Wow, this would be a great example of what other people, as they’re thinking of another career, another job, or expanding their income some other way – they might have some ideas that they could do, too, from it, as well as they might even copy a little bit of what he did.” Let me get to that right away.
We are on with Greg Motes. Greg, welcome.
Greg: Hi. Thank you.
Thomas: Tell me a little bit about what your life was like before you went in the military. I’m not thinking just in economic terms; I’m thinking in terms of you, your personality, etc.
Greg: I grew up as a Military Brat. My dad was in the Army. We moved just a few times when I was growing up. I was lucky to be settled throughout most of my grade school and high school, which was fortunate, in the Midwest. From there, I had a typical Military Brat family lifestyle. I have two brothers, and we played sports, and we made our way through schooling.
Thomas: Okay, that’s a little different because we don’t have many people who have been in that situation, a Military Brat, but I guess you couldn’t be so much of a brat, but when you get into the military and started out on your own. Did you find the military changed you at all? I ask that because the beginning of the military literally changed my life for the future tremendously. I could not even expound on how much. What about you?
Greg: I very much enjoyed coming into the military. I was fortunate that when I came in, I went into the Armor Branch, and from Armor, I was out at Fort Irwin, California. Fort Irwin is a place where, every month, units from around the army would come to train against the opposing forces, and I was on the side of the opposing forces. It was a great environment to be in, because every month we got to go play on tanks and essentially play laser tag at 30 miles an hour across a playing field the size of Rhode Island. We would play four to six games a month. I say games, and obviously they were training, and it was very serious training, but at the same time, there was a mentality and an attitude about going out there and fighting to win and playing to win. I found a comradery that was very similar to what I had in high school, playing football and playing for state championship football teams, and then going into college and playing in intramural sports and things like that.
The army, to me, I think at the onset was very much as an extension of that teamwork to be able to go there. Of course, coming in as a Lieutenant, I was put into a leadership role, and I very much enjoyed doing that. I think it was a lot of fun.
Thomas: It’s interesting. Today, kids are playing video games; you guys play the real thing, which is really exciting. For all those kids, including myself, when we were younger and played army or cops and robbers, whatever you played, you didn’t have sticks or little plastic guns; you really had some good things to play with.
One thing I find very interesting and it’s sometimes hard for people to know, realize, and understand is that word “teamwork.” One thing that really struck me in the military was that my friends came from some wide array of places. It turns out there was one guy whose father was the General Manager of IBM in the West Coast branch, so he had a tremendous life, all kinds of different things. Closer friends to me later on were actually one guy who was from Watts in L.A., another guy who was from the ghetto in Houston, and lots of places like that. What happened is you didn’t realize and know that until later on when you wanted to stay in touch or something, and you would get their information. The reason you didn’t know and understand that is because everybody’s dressed alike. There are no outfits, there are no funny costumes or anything else.
Today we have a special guest, Michael Santos. You’re used to usually hearing from somebody who’s some corporate executive, or outstanding entrepreneur, and that is one nice story that we hear a lot. But this is somebody who has come over what I would like to say insurmountable, but he overcame the odds, and has really been an inspiration and works to be an inspiration for others. He had been in prison for I believe it was 26 years, Michael?
Michael: That is correct, 26 calendar years.
Thomas: Wow. The way you say that, I’m sure it made a striking impression. He’s taken that, what he learned, and what he did during that time, and is using that to try to help other people who are in similar situations. You’ve heard me talk often about overcoming or breaking through the odds, etc. This is probably one of the most unique circumstances. One, when listening to this, should be thinking: “Dang, I know I can do what I plan on doing.”
Michael, tell us a little bit more about that story.
Michael: I was a young man who was misdirected. Made a lot of bad decisions, following a really reckless transition from adolescence into adulthood. I think it was around 1985, I saw this movie Scarface and was influenced in the worst possible way, thinking it would be a really exciting way to live. I moved from my home in North Seattle to South Florida in Miami, and began trafficking and cocaine. Really a lack of understanding of the criminal justice system resulted in me deluding myself into believing that if I didn’t actually handle the cocaine, I wouldn’t be breaking the law, so I coopted a group of friends from high school. We were all in our early 20s. I think we were 20. I coopted them into the scheme, and they began transporting the cocaine back to Seattle; from Miami to Seattle.
That lasted for about 18 months until my friends started getting caught, and rather than wanting to face the lengthy sentences that were awaiting them during that dawn on the war on drugs, they began cooperating with authorities. And, as a consequence, I was arrested. Although there wasn’t any weapons involved or violence in our particular case, the charge that I face exposed me to a very long sentence because I was considered a leader. I was a leader, but at that time in my life, I wasn’t quite ready to accept responsibility and was just willing to accept the advice of counsel that I could beat this at trial.
I went to trial, and subsequently, I was convicted on every count. My judge sentenced me to 45 years in federal prison. That is the short version of the story.
Thomas: That is quite a story. What is interesting also about it is that you say—I’ve detected almost tongue-in-cheek—you were a leader, which of course the thing that hurt you a lot, but it’s so easily to be led. You were led by things that you saw, etc., Scarface, and other things, and how it romanticized life. It makes me wonder about a lot of the TV and stuff that goes on today. Then also, how friendships influence one another, that is your environment. Your environment, to some extent, my environment—I’m not talking about the sunshine and stuff like this—but the people around you, the social, the collective ideas and thoughts that you had as a bunch of kids talking to each other, and each confirming each other’s great idea.
Michael: Yeah, we were just young and eager to have a good time, and not really appreciating the role we had in society by engaging in the type of behavior that we were doing. We were just 20 years old, thinking that we were having fun. The reality was the law… When I said “leader,” I meant it in a legal term. What that means is the particular crime for which I was convicted was called the “Continuing Criminal Enterprise,” and there were some really strict elements that the prosecutors had to prove, and that was that the individual had to have led, or manage, or oversaw five or more people, the individual would have had to have engaged in three or more overt acts like ren...
In this episode I want to talk about limits. What I mean by limits are the self-imposed limits that we have. It’s a very important episode. I go through a lot of examples, etc. because I want people to realize and understand—and hopefully the stories I have in here help bring it home—the idea of: how do you break through? This is part of the concept behind my forthcoming book. The idea is that you need to break through those limits that you have, either whether they’re imposed by others, self-imposed, or just lack of knowledge or understanding. Let’s get on to the episode.
Welcome to another episode of Life Unsettled – New Path, Better Future. Today we’re going to talk about limits, that is the limits that are frequently self-imposed. Most people have far more abilities than they actually realize, but I think that sometimes our head is more of a problem than the real physical and mental limitations that we have, that is our own mind tells us there’s something we can’t do or we can only do it at a certain level. That’s what I want to address.
I don’t care where the limits are originated. Yes, all the untapped human potential out there, etc. but we’re only talking about your potential. They may have been put there based on frustrations, poor teaching, biases from others that people imposed on you; you’re constantly hearing that you’re not good enough or something like that, or: “That’s beyond your wildest expectations,” or they’re just perceptions we ourselves fell for whatever reason. The important thing is that we recognize that they are there, and we all have them. Every one of us has things that we think are our limits.
I am not talking about the person who is aware of their potential, but doesn’t have the desire to move on, upward, or whatever else it is in life. That is a choice. Let me use an example. I used to go skiing a lot. I would go in the morning once in a while. The guy next to me was 20ish or so years of age, and he was on the ski patrol or a ski instructor, and taking advantage of that. He loved that. He did it in the winter, and he did something else in the summer; either scuba or he went to the South America area and taught skiing there. The key is that that was his choice.
I just hope that he understands that that is his choice and that’s what he’s doing, as compared to myself when I was younger or somebody else like yourself, that’s investing in your own future. I’m not saying one is better than the other, or one is right or wrong. As a matter of fact, what I would often say is that they’re doing some things… That young guy was doing things that I’ll never be able to do. Why? Because when I have the time that I would be able to do it, I would no longer be physical capable of doing it the way he does it. In a sense, what he’ll have in the future is memories. What I’ll have is other things that he won’t be able to get. The difference is personal choice. Just hoping that that guy really cherishes those memories, enjoys them, shares them, and doesn’t have envy or jealousy because of other things that other people took. Those were choices, and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s the economist in me speaking.
However, it is a shame to see people, particularly children, who unjustifiably just don’t believe in themselves. Example. Think about it. I was in the military, got a chance to be around a lot of different places and a lot of different people from all over the country. My roommate in the military for quite a while was a black guy who became a really good friend. We were good friends, hung around together a lot. He was from Watts. I don’t know if there’s some good area of Watts, but from what I understand, it’s just a ghetto. Actually, at the time, it was being burned down; there were riots and everything else just before he was there in the service. So he certainly didn’t have the background or the education, but he was incredibly smart. He was really, really good. Fortunately,
In this episode, we’re going to be talking about being an expert, or that is the people that we run into all the time that claim to be experts – what you need to know and even why it’s important. I want to go through that, the self-proclaimed experts. Why is it useful to know about that? Why is it useful to find an expert, not just somebody that’s a friend or an acquaintance, or somebody that knows a little bit more, but to locate experts? And why there is a difficulty in becoming one, but that’s good. I’ll explain that.
Welcome to another episode of Life Unsettled – New Path, Better Future. This is an interesting different swing on things in this particular episode, because here we are talking about a new path, better future, but what I’m going to do is warn you about some of the path and how you develop that path. What I want to talk about is this recent thing where people are pushing the idea of being an expert. Supposedly, and this is actually what gurus out there are doing, they’re telling people: “If you know a little bit more than the next person, you’re an expert to them.”
There’s really a disservice and a problem with that, and that’s what I want to get to. Let’s think about that for a little bit, and look at it as an interesting topic for what you would like to do with yourself and how you would build your own expertise in business. We’ll talk about how to do that in another episode coming up.
First I want to talk about the idea of being an expert. It’s interesting, because really the way an expert is defined by many of the researchers out there, psychologists, as well as operations, research, etc.… There’s one noteworthy thing back in the past, 1980 at Berkeley, there was a Professor Dreyfus, and they had a model of skill acquisition. They looked at it as you would go through this period going from novice, to competence, proficiency, expertise, and mastery. Why is that important and why is that necessary?
The interesting thing was there were another few things that were done where researchers made some very good points. David A. Dunning for one, Psychologist at Cornell, talked about the fact that incompetent people don’t even know they’re incompetent. At first I read that and I thought: “That’s kind of weird.” Really, how could this be? They’re supremely confident of their abilities. It’s kind of like: you don’t know what you don’t know. They don’t know the landscape, they don’t know how to evaluate. The BBC came out and said: “The more inept you are, the smarter you think you are.” If you are incompetent, you can’t necessarily know your level of incompetence. Why is this a danger if you know more than the next person and you’re helping them out? Then you’re a novice, that’s fine, but let’s think about it and revisit some of the fields existing out there where this may be a danger. Actually, I can think of just about every one of them.
I had somebody a few years ago, actually I went through three different people, for trying to get something for me to do for SEO for one of my websites. I believe that you have to know enough or find somebody else that knows enough to evaluate. You have to be able to evaluate. I knew enough to be able to evaluate, plus I had looked at some of the things having to do with problems and changes that Google had made, and what to be careful of, what not to do. It turns out that all three of these that I went through were all about to do things that were either already considered bad, or were going to be in the near future. These “experts” were going to harm me, yet they knew more than me. What do you do? You have to go out and find somebody, obviously, that has a great deal more expertise or evaluate it yourself.
What I did was I read Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, Crush It!—this was two years ago—and I also went through Amazon, and looked at all the latest books because it had to be a recent book, on SEO, found the one that seemed to have the absolute best ratings regardless...
Today we have a remarkable guest on, and this is special in that this is an answer to a lot of people’s problems. This guest is Chris Ducker, a successful entrepreneur that moved to the Philippines back in about 2000/2001, and at that time he set up a company that actually does some unique services, virtual employees, that is virtual assistants of various kinds. This gives the ability for somebody who has a company or to doing something, to hire virtually; therefore, that’s just like an independent contractor except at a lot less money, as opposed to hiring employees. Extremely successful. He’s appeared in everything from Entrepreneur, to Inc., to Forbes, a few others. You might want to help me with that, Chris. I’ve lost track of all the things you’ve been put in. Anyway, welcome to Life Unsettled, Chris. Chris: Thanks. It’s a pleasure to be here. I really appreciate the invite. You did pretty good. Entrepreneur, Inc., Business Insight, Huffington Post – that was a surprise. Other than that, you’ve got everything covered. Thomas: Okay, good. One of the things that an awful lot of people are facing, and I gave a very brief look at it, and solving people’s problems, because people today more and more so are worried about jobs and other things. Right now we have Obama Care Healthcare in the United States, etc. to add on to everything else. The increases in jobs in the United States have not been real jobs. They just generally have been jobs that are under 30 hours a week, so that the companies don’t have to worry about giving health insurance, etc. When you have part-time jobs, people are finding that two part-time jobs of 20+ hours doesn’t add up to a full-time job, because companies don’t pay you as much. People are looking for alternatives. Could you describe a little bit better for us how a virtual person, virtual assistant works? I’ll start off by saying I actually have three virtual assistants that I’m working with now. Chris: Yeah. I think the key element or the key discussion point here is not necessarily how VAs work, although I can go into that, but it’s more importantly on how people that are in that situation right now can utilize virtual assistants to go out, and either create their own what I call a side hustle, so something on the side away from their full or part-time job, where they can earn additional income. Or maybe it’s: “I’ve had enough of working for other people. I’m going to go out and do my own thing. I have 20 years in this industry, or this niche, or this space. I’ve got a lot to teach. I’m going to go out and become a blogger, or an author, or a speaker, or a coach, or a consultant.” What can I do? How can I launch that side of my life as a new full-fledged entrepreneur, and not work for a j-o-b anymore by utilizing virtual stuff? I think that’s the important way to look at it, Thomas, because I think there’s a lot of people out there that have a hell of a lot to offer society in a number of different industries and spaces, but they’re being pulled back because of the exact things that you just mentioned. Wouldn’t you agree? Thomas: Absolutely. Yes. Everybody is so concerned about the risks involved in starting their own company, but to have something on the side. That’s not to follow the mantra that’s running around all over the world, “Go follow your passion.” That’s where people become dancers, actors, actresses, singers, etc. and end up working in the Cheesecake Factory or the deli in New York on Times Square. You have other things to offer. Whatever you’ve done and however you have built that, your experiences, etc. and sometimes even hobbies. The hobby doesn’t have to be that you like to go ballroom dancing or something. It might be something else that you’re doing, but that you can become well-qualified, become an expert, learn it a little bit more, and then supplement it. Chris: Agreed. Absolutely. I don’t like that phrase, and I’m very loud and quite obnoxious when I talk about i...
Today we have a very special guest, John Lee Dumas, entrepreneur and military veteran.
John, I’m going to get right to it, you’ve had an interesting background and career. It appears to be extremely smooth with EntrepreneurOnFire and the stuff you’ve done over the last two years, but I’d like to go back a little ways into your earlier life. What were you like, for example, as I see you very, very motivated and highly functional, highly detail oriented, etc. is this something you always had or were there any changes that were the result of the military?
John: I led a very sheltered life for the first 18 years, and because of that, I wasn’t that entrepreneur from day one. You hear Gary Vaynerchuk who is making $2,000 a weekend trading baseball cards. I was really doing as little possible to just enjoy life to the max; playing sports, having fun in high school, doing those type of things. It truly wasn’t until my time in the military where I encountered many life and death situations, being a deployed officer to Iraq for a 13-month tour of duty in 2003/2004 that I really realized: “Man, I am the person that’s responsible for my success or demise.” When I had that shift, Thomas, that’s when things started to change.
Pretty quickly after the Military, I saw that that was also able to be the case in the civilian world. As an entrepreneur, I also realized that I had responsibility for my success or demise. Not necessarily on a life and death format anymore, but on a success and failure format. I decided that that was going to be my goal, to take the reins, to be really in control of everything that I could control and make the most of the situations.
Thomas: Did you have a lot of success before the military?
John: Before the military, no. I was a very average high school student. I was a very average college student. I didn’t excel in anything. I really didn’t pile a lot of responsibilities on my plate at all. I wanted to be free, I wanted to be lacking any real responsibilities, which I think is one thing that really pulled me into entrepreneurship – the ability to be free and to really control my own destiny.
Before I jumped into the U.S. Army, that was more on a: “How can I put as little on my plate as possible so I can do what I consider fun?” That was really my mentality and attitude. Because of that, I was just pretty average at just about everything.
Thomas: What’s interesting there is here you’ve been hyper-successful, if I can use that term (if it is one), but you had to at some point learn that you could. You had to be the little train that could. What happened in the military that made you realize: “Wait a second. I can do this”? Because you really didn’t have those successes. You went jumping from one thing, to the military, and then shortly thereafter you became super successful.
John: The military was the first time that I had no choice but to accept responsibility, and it wasn’t just a little bit of responsibility; it was massive responsibility. That massive responsibility encountered the lives of 14 soldiers that were under my command in the four tanks I was in control of. That was a responsibility that I couldn’t just walk away with or take lightly. It was a very heavy burden that I took at a very young age, especially for someone that had kind of been avoiding those burdens and those responsibilities for most of his life.
I just came to that realization when I stood in front of my soldiers as we were about to go into a fire fight, or that next mission, or whatever it might be that their lives could very well be dependent on how prepared I was for this mission. Their lives could be dependent on how I react when it comes to becoming under fire, and all of these decisions that I had to make.
That’s when I just made this mental shift in my mind that said: “You know what? I am going to no longer adopt this attitude of lackadaisicalness,
Drew Bledsoe, the top draft pick in the NFL, knew football doesn't last forever. How he transitioned to an entirely new occupation.
Career change is a key to life today and must be planned ahead. Today, we have a very special guest and an exemplary position in life to give you a perspective that’s very different and something that we’ve talked about in other episodes, but here we have a real life example. Today we have Drew Bledsoe. If there’s anybody on the planet who doesn’t know or remember, he was drafted number one in the NFL, and then became a starting quarterback, etc. Extremely successful. We know that.
I want to talk a little bit both about how he got there, what he went through, what he did, and then the new business he’s in, which is wine; how he did that, how he made the transition, because that’s what so many people have to do so many times in life. Almost nobody ends up in the same place, or the same job, or the same career that they started with.
Welcome, Drew.
Drew Bledsoe: Thanks for having me on. I’m really excited to visit with you, Thomas, and I welcome the opportunity.
Thomas: Thank you. Thank you for coming on. You’re such a good example . Could you tell us a little bit about what it takes to attain the level in sports that you did?
Drew: There are a lot of things at work, there. First, you’ve got to program your mind. If somebody saw me in the seventh or eighth grade, I was not the guy that anybody was going to pick out as the guy who was going to go on to be a professional athlete. I was tall and skinny, and not very fast. I had really big feet; I just didn’t move very well.
That didn’t change how I viewed myself in my mind. I really felt like I could be a great football player, and really programmed my mind so that I could never accept anything less than my very best effort, whether it came to training, practice, school – you name it. Because I had those high expectations and that view of myself as somebody that was going to be excellent, I wouldn’t accept less than my very best in anything that I did. That was really where it started.
Thomas: It’s interesting, because so often so many people think that somebody has just got this natural ability, natural talent, and that’s why they are where they are. I know in college, etc., when I went to graduate school at Berkeley, my impression was: “Oh, gosh. I’m going to meet these professors, and they’re just these superhuman people.” Then, low and behold, I get in there and I find out they’re there early, they’re there late, they’re working on weekends. These are Nobel Prize winners. It wasn’t just a gift. It was also a dedication, effort, and fortitude. I am hearing you saying something of the same thing. Is that true?
Drew: You’re 100% right. One of the advantages that I had, as I was growing up, my father and his good friend ran a football camp and I got a chance to be around very successful professional football players when I was growing up. I got a chance to see these guys and meet these guys, and I discovered that they’re not superheroes. They are regular guys that have athletic ability that obviously is outside the norm, but that’s not really what allowed them to be successful. What allowed them to be successful was the work they put in, and the continued work that they put in.
Fred Biletnikoff, who was one of the great wide receivers ever to play professional football, and still, the best receiver in college football every year receives the Biletnikoff Award. I got to meet and be around Fred Biletnikoff when I was growing up, and the guy, I think he was probably 5’10-5’11, probably 180 pounds, and by the time I met him, slightly balding. He was not the guy that you looked at and said: “Man, that guy is an NFL wide receiver.”
When I was around him, every time he was on the practice field just coaching kids up, he was always practicing running routes, and he was always practicing proper catching technique,
Too Many folks are pushing the idea of SMART Goals. Here we want to emphasize that they are fine for short term goals for employee performance issues. But they are not smart for your creative or your long term visionaries. If you want breakthrough success or excellence, you need something more.
Thomas: Welcome to another episode of Life Unsettled – New Path, Better Future. Today we’re going to follow up on something that we talked a little bit about before, and that is goals. What got me started on this was, as we talked about setting goals and motivating yourself for goals, etc., we have out there hanging out in the wind how to set up your own goals.
A key thing that you hear in a lot of corporations are smart goals. Quite frankly, to me, smart goals are kind of dumb. That is: they’re useful, but they’re really not great goals for you to have. Let’s look at what they are. They are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant or realistic, and time-bound (that means that there’s some set time that you will get them done by.)
Specific and measurable, those are nice things to have, specific, but what are they that are far-reaching? When you say specific, measurable, achievable, they’re really something that you’re sure you can do. No qualifier on it. It’s actually almost like a milestone; it’s not life-changing.
Generally, these are things that you would think of as that you can definitely get this done. For example, they’re small. I can lose 10 pounds by the end of February or the end of March. I can reduce my costs or increase my productivity by a specific amount, say 10%. They’re nice, they’re uplifting, etc., but they’re milestones. They are, in a sense, little things that you would have on a performance chart to say: “Okay, I got these accomplished during this year or these six months.”
What I want to do is talk about, instead, set goals that are life changing. Set goals that you really want to achieve something. For example, some of the things that I’ve done that I couldn’t have put in this kind of term. I could maybe generally. One was learning Japanese. Going back to college, to Hofstra. I wanted to get and do well enough to be able to get into a top school. What that school would be, I had no idea, but I knew that it was a stepping stone, in a sense, a milestone to getting into the best graduate school that I could.
Lo and behold, then I get admitted to Berkeley. With the PhD in mathematical and statistical economics, there was still another goal there actually to get through and complete that. When I went to the research labs at General Motors, I had goals to do certain things, but they were again milestones.
In each of these things that I had as goals, I had specific paths that I didn’t know exactly what the path was, but I had a general path on what I would need to do to get through to that. When I was in Hofstra, what was it? Taking certain courses. It was important to take certain courses, and it was also important to get A’s. What percent of what course, what to do, those things were not as clearly defined as was the length of time it might take. As it turns out, it doesn’t take much.
Going into Berkeley, when I got there, you expect a graduate degree to take four years. Find out that the actual student is actually completing the PhD in 6.4 years, and that in order to really do well, I needed to go over and also take a lot of math and statistical courses, and go through the master’s program and statistics. At least the course where that is.
Goals, in essence, true, life-changing goals are going to be things that you’re going to adjust the path on the way. Think in terms of when they decided they were going to put a man on the moon. They didn’t know exactly what they were going to do or how they were going to get it done. They had to literally invent certain things to complete that goal, that monumental goal. Yes, they said: “We’re going to put a man on the moon by the end of the dec...
Today is a hot topic. You’re hearing everybody, especially entrepreneurs, talking about passion. Follow your passion and success will follow. Well, is shouldn't be a surprise to hear that it's not that easy. You are supposed to be a new entrepreneur by just following the things you love to do. A little more is shared on this episode and where you can get that passion. I’ve got a clue for you: passion sucks the life out of you. What do I mean by that? Yes, it’s wonderful to have a like and a love for what you’re doing (and we’ll get to how you can develop that), but following your passion and putting your money on your passion, success will follow is the mantra. Where does it come from? How does it get there? It’s not just some magical, magical law of attraction. The idea that customers will just flock to your doors because you have this passion, well, there’s a little bit of truth in that, in the idea that if you have the right enthusiasm, and emit a wonderful positive attitude – yes, people will feel more comfortable around you and you’re more likely to get customers. That is something that you should have. The idea that you can do almost anything and just have that passion for it. Does it pay well? Are there economies of scale, or are you just going to be trading your hours for money? That’s just another job. Is there a room for increased productivity? Your passion or love of a hobby may be very different when all of a sudden you think you love doing this, let’s say it’s scrapbooking or let’s say it’s stamp collecting, what happens when you have to do marketing, sales, bookkeeping, when you have employees, when you have to satisfy vendors, suppliers, when you have government regulations all entering into this hobby, the thing that you loved before? It is no longer just a passion. It’s something that’s much more complex and much more difficult. People and marketers love to pedal the idea of following your passion. It sounds like a nice quick fix to happiness, but it doesn’t help if you can’t sell your passion to a consumer. You have to fill some need or demand that someone is willing to pay for. Can you completely fill that need? Take a look at all the people who have passions. One way to do this is next time you’re at a shopping center, or shopping mall, or driving by strip malls, take a look at all of the empty stores. Not only did those people have a passion and truly believed in what they were doing, but failed, but most likely in almost all cases, they had to guarantee with the bank or others with everything they had, their home, their savings, everything, and you can be sure that they stretched out and went into debt, trying to make that work right up until the end. Their passion didn’t work. You have to make sure that you have a combination of the right skills that will fill sufficient demand, to actually earn sufficient income, and that the market isn’t over-supplied. It also doesn’t mean you have to go necessarily to the thing with the highest income. What are your goals, what are the desires that you have? If you’re interested in just earning a few hundred dollars extra a month or something, and you’re going to use that money to put aside and set aside for your retirement, that’s fine. But have realistic expectations. The idea that you’re going to make six figures or seven figures… I’m going to get to an episode of what the distribution of income really is, and you’ll find out that getting even six figures is not as easy as it sounds. It will be more about how you use your money, not necessarily just how much you earn. Let’s get back to passion. One of the most coveted businesses that there is out there is actually restaurants. To open your own restaurant. Actually very, very few survive. It is the worst of all businesses, actually, to get into for the idea of making money and surviving. Even if you do survive, there’s ridiculously arduous hours. You have to be in there early maybe to get the produce or g...
How do you ensure goal success? While goals rarely even make it past week 3, you can use your current state to carry through and motivate you to goal success. Entrepreneurs that succeed, almost always possess some of this. Why are immigrants so successful even though English may be new to them? Today I want to discuss a topic that is very, very dear to me. It first came about because I was asked one time when I was at an event, somebody that was one of the speakers asked me if I would come up and speak. I said: “What do you want me to speak on?” He said: “Whatever. Maybe the why, or something like that.” Which is similar to what we had in the last episode, that is: why you do something, what your purpose is, what your goals are. I got up, and it was somewhat extemporaneous at the moment. I got up and I said: “What I’m going to talk about is the opposite, that is the why not.” Explaining that a little bit, what I mean by the “why not” is: what happens if you don’t make it? That is: how do you get above and beyond what you wanted to do? How do you make it so that failure on your goals or your purpose is not an option? That’s what I’m going to share today. Actually, what I did which I’ll share is actually what got me not only through college, but through graduate school and it helped me build an internationally well-respected consulting firm. When you look towards your goal and you set up your goals… Lots of people do that. As a matter of fact, right now this is December, so this time of year people are starting to think or maybe they’ll wait until New Years’ Eve, but they start thinking about: how are they going to start of the New Year right? What are going to be their New Years’ resolutions? Why do New Years’ resolutions fail? Yes, 20 to 25% never make it through the first week. Close to 90%. I hear numbers of 90%, I hear 95%. Whatever it is, never make it to week three. What’s even more damning is that these goals that people never make it to week three are usually just one specific item. They’re usually just: “I want to lose weight,” or: “I want to lose so many pounds,” or: “I want to exercise regularly,” or: “I want to schedule myself to work out on a regular basis,” or: “I want to schedule more time to spend with my family,” whatever it is, it’s just one little goal and they can’t make it for a month; they can’t even make it to week three. What happens and what’s wrong with these goals? Some people want to be the best they can be, but they spend most of their time complaining about why they couldn’t get to where they wanted to be. As we discussed in the last episode where we were talking about taking your dreams and goals, and not just having a vision board which you walk by, but to make them more alive and make them real-life. Go back to the last episode and you can see that, you can see what we’re talking about there. That can certainly help. You need something else to make your goal, besides the current vision you have. It is not just the dreams that drive people. You need something else to drive people and make you succeed. We often hear of the immigrant mentality. A lot of people move into this country, maybe they have a little education or they have some education, but they don’t speak the language, they have to adapt to the culture, the language, they have to find out what it’s like here, and they do things with wish, hope, promise, and they work and overcome in order to either get the education or get the skills necessary to succeed. What is it about that, and how do we do it, and how do we make ourselves do it? Imagine instead of just one simple goal that we’ve defined, like losing weight, instead your goal is to have a different life, to be successful in whatever situation you have envisioned, to have a great job, to have developed a set of skills. How do you get there? How do you get there if you can’t even get through one goal? Let’s look at what happens with most people,
Today’s episode is a little different. It’s a very popular topic, but it’s also one that very often doesn’t work for people. It is the area of looking for your goals, defining your goals, and reaching your goals. Sometimes these are called your purpose, your goals, or in some businesses they call it “your why,” that is why are you doing it; what’s going to make you or motivate you to attain something? That is, what is the purpose for you to drive to success, and whatever you call success?
We’re not talking about something small, like your next house or completing something, but rather something that really is your dream and your future that brings you to a new or different life. We’re talking about not just buying a car. We want to talk about defining your future and dreams that you really want to consider, without any restrictions on your dreams or your thoughts.
This is not something that you are forced, or coerced, or motivated by some other outside force. It’s not your parents, it’s not your wife or husband, it’s not your family. It’s something deep down inside you. You know that you want to drive and you know you want to go for it. It must be what you want for yourself.
Sometimes I say this is talked about and thought of as: why? Why is the very existence of purpose that you want to go forth, and it has to drive you. Why I say that it has to be something that you want to do for yourself? It has to be something that when all odds are against you, when things are going down and things are going wrong, you’re still going to make it happen and make it work. That can be defined in terms of a combination of family, financial, location, your reputation, many other things, but it is something you have inside of you, not that somebody’s pushing you into.
Your dream also may change over time. Actually, it probably will. That doesn’t mean you don’t strive for it and shoot for it. For example, when you’re younger, you’re going to have certain dreams as a teen or early 20’s while you’re in college. You still don’t even know what’s out there. As you have those dreams and aspirations, and you start shooting for them as you acquire more information, you may adapt/adopt new ones, change them. There’s nothing wrong with that, because as you learn, you will make changes. There’s nothing that is not only wrong with it, but it’s part of the process of growing up older, etc.
An example: when I was younger I always wanted a huge house, and all sorts of things. Then as I got a little older, I started thinking: “Wait a minute. I really don’t want all those people that I would have to have in that house. I want privacy.” So obviously that dream didn’t fit as I learned more about what was nice for me.
I also used to think about having that house that was way out in the boonies, etc. and trees around and everything else. Then later on, I thought: “Gee, that’s a little too far from all the things I really want.”
You may change them, but that’s okay because in the process you’re learning new things and you might adapt plans. I still may have that big house or nice house, but it’s not the same kind of house that I dreamt of when I was younger. With the skills and things I learned along my path, while I may have changed my dream, I was able to still move very comfortably into the next stage of life.
One way of thinking about this is what is very often talked about as creating a vision board or an idea of a concept as to what you want. You take pictures, and phrases, and other things. There’s different degrees of how wonderful this could be. By “wonderful,” I mean the picture is right and everything is symmetric or whatever. I’m not a designer. At the same time, what is going to have that for you? That will give you something to look at as a reminder of the goals on what you want. At the same time, how many people attain it with that concept or that idea? It is a reminder, it is a motivator,
In this episode, we travel through the events and thoughts that lead up to Annette James becoming an entrepreneur. She started as an office girl, her words, in a flooring construction company. While the company was relatively a small family owned business, she soon moved out of the office, traveling all over Florida. She made arrangements for the company wherever the business had work. This trip outside of her comfort zone (see Episode 15. "-Comfort Zone, You thought you knew?" for depth) gave her a new perspective on what she liked and what she didn't.
Being outside of the office with an irregular schedule, Annette found she could not have the same friends as she did before she left the office and home town. This change was not so much as a choice, but based on company need, but she enjoyed it. If we go back to Episode 20- "Income Determined by Your Five Closest Friends", (click here), we remember how your friends influence or restrict your growth and therefore your success.
We discuss the importance of using your current job to learn as much about business as you can before taking any leap into your own. I go over how important it is not to view the business for what you like as an employee, but to look from the perspective of why things are done. That is, what are the causal relationships and what influences decisions.
We discuss the criteria people should consider for themselves to see if they are suited to be entrepreneurs.
Annette discusses how she made the decision to drop out of the workforce for five years to raise her two children. We discuss some of the thoughts going through her mind and then the thoughts and process she had as she returned to work, but this time with her own business, starting with network marketing and then eCommerce. The tussles she had sorting out her obligations, both family and financial.
I found it interesting when discussing children and thought how lawyers and doctors have the decision dilemma as parents. It all gets back to keeping your mind opening and listening.
There was a clear financial component to returning to work, but Annette's eCommerce work was not the answer for her. We discussed the importance of social media marketing, but the importance of the non-marketing part of social media. A key part of marketing is addressed by avoiding that you look like a 19 year old boy starving for a date.
This is a surprising interview with my long term CPA, Gina Magel.
We hit on a major list of topics and I'm willing to bet there are some you never realized. Just a few include:
Why the legal structure is better not in your own name. What might be the proper or choice of business structure. How does it affect your net income How health insurance is handled. Why you might want a multi-structure business. How structure affects your ability to maximize the tax code. How your C corp may hire your S corp or vice versa We discuss some of the popular dangers of the 'New Entrepreneur'.
The need to do some things before you start your business. YES, before that popular mantra, Take Action.
Why would planning for monthly and yearly revenue by product for a couple of years is important before you even know what your businesses first sale is. 2 Reasons why you must constantly market. How a 19 year old boy trying to get a date is like a marketer looking for their next sale. When/how to fire a client. When can outside home maintenance be deductible. How many personal decisions need to be know to your CPA.
How to get in touch with Gina Magel, my CPA:
Web Site: http://www.commoncentsaccountant.com/
Email: info@commoncentsaccountant.com
Phone: (480) 529-5001
You have heard the famous quote or statement that 'your income is the average of your five closest friends.' It could be within the range someplace, but nevertheless it is constrained, that's right, constrained by the performance of your five closest friends. This quote is credited to Jim Rohn as I've been told. How is this idea derived?
Your five closest friends and associates are friends because you have similar interests; go to similar places and live in similar surroundings. That is, they are within your comfort zone, (see episode 15). Additionally, you are comfortably within their comfort zones, which is the danger.
If you try to drift out of the comfort zones of your friends, they will discourage you. After all, most people never will leave their comfort zone.
There is a causal relationship between where a person lives and their friends, future lifestyle, business and income. In this episode we discuss how it affects everything from your education to where you live and what vacations you have. It is your future.
So, how do you make progress with all these limits on you? I discuss what I did and what you might consider yourself.
Thomas: Welcome to another episode of Life Unsettled – New Path, Better Future. Today I’m going to talk a little bit differently on a topic that most people feel that they know something about, and they probably do to some extent – the comfort zone. (see Episode 15) We have lots of opinions, ideas, and thoughts on it, but I want to try to think about it in a little bit more expansive and different way.
Of course, the comfort zone is where you go in where you’re needing to learn new stuff or you’re going to learn new stuff. That is you go outside the area you’re comfortable with to get into something that is different.
It’s not just about learning that makes you uncomfortable, but it’s also social situations, whether in person or online, meeting new people in uncomfortable situations, networking, etc., you at first are going to have some level of discomfort, some level of uncertainty of the outcome. It’s part of learning. We’ll figure part of that out in a little bit. Also, in social situations, meeting new people, will you be accepted? Will you be embarrassed? All those situations are outside the comfort zone.
A little bit of a warning, in a sense, because thinking about this, we get back to the concept mentioned in the first episode on causality; cause and effect of being in a situation or on the edge or outside of your comfort zone, you are going to have certain other things take effect. That is: when you’re uncomfortable, why is that? Your judgment is going to be a little off, you’re going to be in a risky, stressful, uncertain situation.
Think of the comfort zone as you get out of it, you’re pushing the envelope. Let’s think of in terms of a circle with a dot in the middle. Actually, when I was at one company, my boss brought me in for something and said: “Gee, I’m very concerned.” I was actually brought into that company to make changes. My boss said: “I want to make sure that people are not uncomfortable.” I said: -“May I borrow your whiteboard?” -“Yeah, sure.”
So I scratched off some of the junk that was on there, put a dot and a circle, with a dot right in the center of the circle. I said: “Think of this as a comfort zone. You don’t want me to just push slightly on the edge of it. You really want to make change, here.” He said: “Yes, absolutely.” I said: “Change that’s going to be new and different, that is going to make people uncomfortable.”
Needless to say, we soon realized what those implications were. This guy is really bright, and even somebody like that, people that don’t understand or talk about the comfort zone don’t really have a good feeling of what it is and what it means to step outside and get outside of it.
Going outside the comfort zone, that is part of learning, is going to be subject to the stress on you going outside into so...
Kate Erickson, successful in an ad agency, moved to partner with John Lee Dumas in Entrepreneur on Fire. While designated as 'Content Queen,' I've gotten to know how much more she offers. Yes, she even influenced this podcast's tagline.
We discuss a lot about her journey. She was not only a great success at an ad agency, but her account was the largest for the agency. Needless to say, she had and developed further a great understanding of the branding and networking involved. Like most who have a great position, she loved it and the industry. We discuss how it all became less enjoyable and more.
Here is where we got into some interesting thoughts and the inner concerns that Kate had about leaving the well paid successful job and moving into the entrepreneurial world. This is not just about the decision, but also some very personal issues. John Lee Dumas of "Entrepreneur on Fire" (EOF) and Kate Erickson were boyfriend and girlfriend. Most people might think that you would be worried about how a working relationship would affect the personal one. Kate knew that EOF was John's baby and wondered where she would fit, which really means, how will she meaningfully contribute. Also, when John first brought up the idea, he was only into the business for 5 months and had not started to make any money. She had confidence in him, but I want properly set the stages. Two months later when she did join, it was clear to here that it would be successful. Now, I have to interject here to mention that it seems so clear how well they fit in business, but it's different when you're too close to be unbiased. We discussed the thoughts that ran through her mind leading up to and through the decisions she made.
Kate brings us through a lot thoughts and issues that most people moving out into the business world will go through.
We discussed what she found as the biggest mistakes people seem to make when starting a business and also those starting podcasts.
We discussed the tactics to learn from others (listen to episode #7 "The Easiest Path to Success"), but define your own target market.
Kate answered many questions that entrepreneurs face and we discussed them in detail. We went through topics on the risks of going out on your own and what you should do to prepare. We discussed how to lesson the risk before quitting your job. We also discussed some of the difficulties as well as some of the misunderstanding of being an entrepreneur. We even hit on topics in what you need for success and that some people should not become entrepreneurs, and what to consider. There is nothing wrong with being an employee. It's a personal decision. From me, in non-technical economic terms, , you can't compare people's preferences to say one is better, they are their own for their own reasons.
How to get in touch with Kate:
www.EntrepreneurOnFire.com
More Importantly the podcast and blog from Kate is "Kate's Take." It is great to get ideas on Kate's journey and the various issues that come up, starting and after you're up and running your business.
We have a slightly different type of episode today. I want to talk about weaknesses and strengths. Yes, we often hear things like: “Strengths make you special”, “Work on your strengths; don’t worry about your weaknesses”, “Do what you’re good at”, etc.
First of all, if you want to stick with the easy stuff, you’re basically listening to the wrong person right now. I want to help you excel; not just win some lottery because you think you have a special chance or a special number.
Weaknesses are what pull you down. Strengths are something special, and you want to certainly go with your strengths, but what about your weaknesses? Life is just not simple. While we concentrate on our strengths, that’s okay; weaknesses are going to hold you back.
A lot of life requires you to be much broader than a specific special skill. For example, you may be wanting to be an engineer, you may be wanting to do something else, you need to make presentations. What are the skills for those presentations? You’ve got to speak well, you’ve got to learn to speak in front of people, you’ve got to be able to use logic, and you’ve got to understand what motivates people. When you get into that, you’re also talking in other areas as well. In sales, you also have to understand people and what motivates them, and you also have to stand in front of them.
Many occupations, probably just about all, require you to do networking. You have to meet people, and you have to get over the shyness, etc. that you normally might have. I bring up shyness because that was one of my biggest problems when I was young. I couldn’t talk to anybody. I couldn’t stand in front of a class when I was in junior high school and high school. I had to, but I was nervous and shaking, and everything. I had to learn it.
I noticed that when I was in the security agency, I was asked to brief colonels, and that was a very, very nerve-racking experience. I wasn’t even standing up. I was sitting down across a desk from them, but it was still very nerve-racking.
When I got my PhD at Berkeley, I went around on the interview circuit. One of the universities where it was a foregone conclusion I’d be accepted asked me a question that was so simple, we’re talking about as basic and as simple as you could be – I couldn’t believe it. I tried to start thinking of all the things, got nervous, and I froze.
I realized I couldn’t go on in that situation. How would I do this? I tried all kinds of tricks. You hear them, you imagine different things. You imagine the people in their underwear or some other stupid thing. That wasn’t enough. What I did is when I got my job working in research labs, talking to different people and trying to look up ideas, I ran across a Dale Carnegie course. It doesn’t matter whether it was my situation going to the Dale Carnegie course, or your situation in some other capacity. We have tons of things where we have weaknesses and we have to learn. I’ll give you a few more examples.
To give you an example let me explain what I did to step out of my comfort, because this is a big one for a lot of people. They say the biggest fear that anybody has is being in fire, second is speaking in front of people. So I went to the course and all these people were gathered around in the classroom, they’re all talking to each other. They’re really good outgoing people. I sat in the front row, and I sat there before the class and I was just sort of by myself. Sort of chatted a little bit with the person next to me, but these people were really having a good time.
One thing was: why was I in the first row? That’s a very uncomfortable position, generally, to be there. But why? Because I had read when I wanted to learn how to study—I didn’t know how to do it best—I read a book on studying and learning, found something and it said: “Sit in the first row. Why? Because you won’t be distracted by other people.” So I just copied it—remember that episode (see copying mentors)—I j...
Amazing episode reviews the PBS show 'A Craftsman's Legacy' with Eric Gorges. Eric goes over the craftsmen that he has on his show and we review how these entrepreneurs all relate to you. These are masters who engage in pure historical methods and industries. They are all earning their living based on their crafts.
On this episode, Eric and I explore the parallels between these masters of their craft and entrepreneurial journeys. Contrary to what you may think, some started later in life. The show itself will be an extraordinary element to explain not only a craft, but what does it take to excel.
There is a different specialty craft on each show and will make you realize why these crafts are still very important today and what makes them special. Eric apprentices under each one of them and you can get a bit of a feel for the learning process and for the entrepreneur, you can understand what true passion is. Keep in mind that passion can be developed and is an attitude, not just a love of something. We discuss all of these and more.
The show includes 13 crafts just to name a few are the Stone Carver, Saddlemaker, Guitar Maker, Goldsmith, Woodworker and Boatmaker.
These journeys that Eric takes really set a great example to set your own path for a career you love or how to make side or secondary income with a hobby or skill. Eric and the Craftsman's Legacy can be found at:
Website:
A Craftsman's Legacy
More importantly, you can find the where and when the show will appear on PBS in your area on the website at the bottom of the page or:
by clicking here - TV episodes on American Public Television
Michael Anderson discusses a wide range of topics that influence your life and success, now and in the future. We cover importance of outside influences, self perception, finding what you like, emotion in decisions and the intuition, both using it and building into a very happy entrepreneur.
Michael Anderson became a professional basketball player. We talk about the difficulty attaining that level in sports. He later transformed himself into a successful entrepreneur. While he attained something fills many dreamso for so many young people, he wasn't happy. Michael explains his transformation and stepping out of the comfort zone (see Episode 15). He explains how he cleared all the impediments in his life.
We discuss how to clear your head of all the distractions and past that may be affecting your current attitude and progress.
Why must you learn to love yourself before you can love others. How can you exude the right attitude.
Ideas make you an inventor or an engineer, not an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is not for most people, why?
Most entrepreneurs are not really very successful, but they entice people into business. How do you measure up?
We discuss how more than all employment growth is from small and medium sized businesses. Yes, how is growth greater than 100% of the total. We explain.
How taking the easier path is associated with love of parents, success and love of parents.
Michael's comments gets me to share what I learned from quotes from George Bernard Shaw and from stories of Bob Hope.
What we can learn from examples of Michael Jordan's experience.
Why did Jerry Rice practice as he did? Michael explains how our expectations of successful people are missing the point of success. I explain how I came to that realization at U.C. Berkeley in the PhD program.
How to follow your mentor? We delve deeply into not only the importance but how to be successful in your relationship with your mentor.
After Michael explains a great story and lesson on intuition, I explain how intuition is nothing more than a large database and how you can grow your intuition and improve it.
Decisions and Judgment in Business or Success are enhanced with Clear Mind, Building Intuitive Database and effort.
Quote from Michael:
"We don't see the world as it is, we see the world as we are." - author unknown
To contact Michael Anderson: Book Website: www.experimenttoday.com Executive Joy website: www.executivejoy.com His book may be purchased at amazon: The Experiment: Discover a Revolutionary Way to Manage Stress and Achieve Work-Life Balance by Michael Anderson
The Comfort Zone is something that everyone thinks they know and understand. If you can't jump outside your comfort zone, you can not truly succeed in business or in most of personal life. Most people think they move out of it on a regular basis. After listening, you may have a very different view. Dare to enter! Comfort Zone for Social Skills, Networking, Business is so important and yet so scary that few dare to truly roam.
The Comfort Zone is hugely misunderstood as people only look at themselves. Far more important to breakthrough success is the zone of others. The Comfort Zone is hugely misunderstood as people only look at themselves. Far more important to breakthrough success is the zone of others. This episode is meant to supply comfort zone examples.
Most people talk about the comfort zone, but few every truly go outside it. Why? Why can pushing the envelope be a bad thing?
Your comfort zone in not the only comfort zone that holds you back. Everyone around you has a comfort zone, too, and those will affect yours and stepping out of your comfort zone. How do you overcome this (go to Episode 20)?
Today I’m going to talk a little bit differently on a topic that most people feel that they know fairly well, and they probably do to some extent – the comfort zone. We have lots of opinions, ideas, and thoughts on it, but I want to try to think about it in a little bit more expansive and different way.
Of course, the comfort zone is where you go in where you’re needing to learn new stuff or you’re going to learn new stuff. That is you go outside the area you’re comfortable with to get into something that is different.
It is learning what makes you uncomfortable. It is also social situations, whether in person, online, meeting new people in uncomfortable situations, networking, etc., at first you're going to have some level of discomfort. There is some level of uncertainty of the outcome. It’s part of learning. We’ll figure part of that out in a little bit. Also, in social situations, meeting new people, will you be accepted? Will you be embarrassed? All those situations are outside the comfort zone.
A little bit of a warning, in a sense, because thinking about this, we get back to the concept mentioned in the first episode on causality; cause and effect of being in a situation or on the edge or outside of your comfort zone, you are going to have certain other things take effect. That is: when you’re uncomfortable, why is that? Your judgment is going to be a little off, you’re going to be in a risky, stressful, uncertain situation.
Many people think of the comfort zone as pushing the envelope. Let’s think of a diagram of a circle with a dot in the middle.
When I was at one company, my boss brought me in for something and said: “Gee, I’m very concerned.” I was actually brought into this company to make changes. My boss said: “I want to make sure that people are not uncomfortable.” I said: -“May I borrow your whiteboard?” -“Yeah, sure.”
So I scratched off some of the junk that was on there, put a dot and a circle, with a dot right in the center of the circle.
I said: “Think of this as a comfort zone. You don’t want me to just push slightly on the edge of it. You really want to make change, here.” He said: “Yes, absolutely.” I said: “Change that’s going to be new and different, that is going to make people uncomfortable.”
Needless to say, we soon realized what those implications were. This guy is really bright, and even somebody like that, people that don’t understand or talk about the comfort zone don’t really have a good feeling of what it is and what it means to step outside and get outside of it and therefore expand your comfort zone.
Going outside the comfort zone, that is part of learning, is going to be subject to the stress on you going outside into something new, the uncertainty about the outcome, and the risks you’re taking by going out there. The risk can be monetary or it could be embarrassment.
1p-image-262 size-full" src="https://www.lifeunsettled.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Simon-Granner.png" alt="Simon Granner Entrepreneur" width="258" height="300" />In a Great Episode, Simon Granner and I touch on Financial Security, the Comfort Zone (see Episode 15 click here) dilemma, what not to do to build confidence and a wealth of topics that every success driven entrepreneur needs to contemplate to achieve their goals. At one time Simon did financial planning and you will see our discussion on what people need to do for their future.
Remember in episode 2 where Steve Thompson (click here to go to it) talked about investing in your past, your present and your future. Simon delves into the difficulties people have over time. Are you willing to work toward your future.
We discuss the 3 components of retirement. Simon says, you can't pull out what you don't put in.
Listen for the information that you need to calculate your future. It's easy to get your status.
We discuss what you can do if you are off target in your retirement. Along with this, what do you do if your skills are getting antiquated. Most people's skills are becoming outdated.
How and when do you need passive income?
No matter where you are, age and income, must you jump outside your comfort zone?
How can you jump outside your comfort zone and still not get embarrassed nor lose confidence, but actually gain confidence.
We discussed finding a mentor and listening and mimicking your mentor (Easiest Path to Success, we go deep in Episode 7).
Simon likes and uses the following quote - (and see why this advice helped at a younger age, dating)
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." - Wayne Gretzky
How to Contact Simon:
http://www.simongranner.com
Recommended Book:
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
Dave Austin took years of learning and excelling in athletics and reflections on his success to helping others through his coaching. He discusses how, while on vacation, a life changing decision with his wife changed his whole attitude and outlook as he works with others. Dave continues a lifelong mission from athletics to coaching.
He uses animals as examples of behaviors that are important for success. Then he takes those same examples and they become triggers so that when someone is in a stressful situation if learned well, they come to mind for you to act well under pressure. Dave points out that we have 60,000 thoughts per day. These can be a huge number of distractions and he focuses on extreme focus.
Just before he made the decision to go on this journey, Dave and his wife lost everything as they were hit in a major real estate crash and leveraged out. It was his re-evaluation which makes an incredible story and fortunately for many a new career. He explains how much he learned from his different coaches and noted how athletes performed based on their coach.
Dave urges people not to do something you don't like, change your direction. In that light, he mentions the famous quote, 'you are the average of the five people closest to you.' You need to make changes and find people that will have a positive influence on your future.
To contact Dave Austin:
http://www.extremefocus.com
Book Recommendations:
Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success - Napolean Hill Your Invisible Power - Genevieve Behrend
Chris Cerrone gives an incredible review of his growth over his life and his insights into success and business as a successful entrepreneur.
Chris made a logical calculation to start his path in life. Interestingly for him and me, we both were very successful in real estate. He made one choice while I made the other. Both were successful decisions. We explain how that can be.
We talk about the ideas and needs for research before starting a business. Yes, action is important, but when do you pull the switch?
We discuss when a decision is made and whether or when to pull the plug, i.e. not to fall in love with an idea.
Chris beautifully describes the importance of looking into all the 'little things' when you are looking into or running a business. This topic brought us into an important discussion as to one major reason why so many businesses fail
We discuss everything from the importance of location and why people don't delve into the detail before starting a business.
Chris took a 5 year hiatus into corporate America and solidly learned why corporate America wasn't a good place for someone who drives for excellence. We discuss briefly my first move out of corporate America, finding myself starting a company that competed against, Merrill Lynch, Chase Manhattan, McGraw Hill and Thompson Publishing. A quick hint, it went very well for me, and we discuss why and how.
Almost everyone has a story and Chris brought out an amazing point. Many people don't know really how significant part of their story is. People are surrounded by purpose.
To contact Chris Cerrone and find more about him and his interests:
Websit: http://www.cerroneshow.com
Book Recommendations:
Think and Grow Rich – By Napolean Hill The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles – By Steven Pressfield The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
If anyone wants success, whether in business as an entrepreneur or in sports, you must be willing to sacrifice. Time is at least part of that investment to be used effectively for success.
I discuss the Importance of Sacrifice for your Future.
At midnight, your day starts. You are given 86,400 seconds. They expire at the end of the day. How will you use them?
Extremely Good Results require sacrifice, but we can discuss the idea and need for a balanced life. So, what does that balanced life mean?
Success is brought by a combination of factors and you can do better than someone who is truly better skilled! I explain how.
Thomas: Welcome to episode 11 of Life Unsettled – New Path, Better Future. This episode is about sacrifice, and the importance of sacrifice to your future. No, sacrifice doesn’t have to be a lifelong thing; it can be very, very temporary and yield extremely good results.
Let me explain. Looking to my background, I didn’t really have any optimistic vision of a great future or a professional future of any kind. I realized, though, a few things while in the military. While in the military, my eyes were opened considerably. I realized, of course, that college was going to be important, but not just college as an end to itself, but something that went probably a little bit beyond college, whether it be a professional school, a law school, whatever the case may be, it had to be something beyond that.
Now, how was I going to get there? I didn’t think a whole lot of myself at the time, but I did realize one thing, that even if I may be not as good as many other people, if I put more effort in that they did, that is: if I put in 20% more effort than everybody else, then I would probably have much better results than them. Then I started thinking about college and what that would mean. I had about three years left of college.
As a backdrop, I’ll point out some of the things I’ve done in the past or point you in a direction so you can look them up, but I looked at what I had done in college, what I could do in college, and I said: “Gee, there’s about three years left, the last semester doesn’t matter because you’re already approved or accepted to whatever you’re going into, so it’s really about another two and a half years. Gee, if I could turn around and push myself for two and a half years, that could be the ticket to the rest of my life.” That’s the way I looked at it.
I did some things. Like, I said: “Okay, I’m going to give up TV.” What I did instead is I put on classical music or something, just backgrounds that filled the air. I said classical music, because I didn’t want to have some music that might have meaning or cause other thoughts to be in my mind, other than being able to concentrate. When I say eliminate everything like TV, I mean everything except NCIS, except whatever other great show you have out there, Person of Interest, etc. because even if you’re looking at those, the person that’s not doing it is moving ahead of you.
It sounds like a lot, but consider: it’s two and a half years for the next 40, 50, or more years. So really, it is a small investment. It’s just like saving a little bit of time. If you haven’t, go take a listen to what Steve Thompson did in episode two, starting out with only putting aside $50 a month.
I went into Hofstra University, worked like that, worked really hard seven days a week, and was well rewarded; got a lot of accolades, positions, and everything else. I was actually one of the two faculty representatives to the Board of Trustees. I also was offered the Danforth, Rhodes, and Rotary Fellowship nominations for Hofstra.
When you take a look at my bio on the Life Unsettled website, you see some of the things I’ve done over time. Where did these come from? The ticket for all of them were in that set up for that two and a half years. Little bit of sacrifice, little bit of investment. It may seem like a lot when you think two and a half...
Tony Bodoh's background seems satisfying with steady growth.
Tony Bodoh’s background is in customer satisfaction and, in particular, in the hospitality industry in guest satisfaction. The real and interesting story is the path to where he is today and the lights that went off as he learned what makes him so much happier now. Tony started as a high school teacher and then quickly moved into the corporate world. As a person who was good with numbers, he was quickly into the analytical area of guest satisfaction. He moved to another company with an opportunity to head guest satisfaction. That company was soon acquired by Marriott.
Tony's story and transition from the corporate world registers strongly His story of ‘inside the corporate world’ is fascinating and will register with anyone who is either there now or was in the past. He reveals the stress of that world and compares it to his current situation. We have a great discussion about the different kinds of stress and the means of managing or coping. He had a significant health scare and moved out to start his own consulting company. Now, first thoughts have to be, isn’t the stress of owning your own business much worse and higher? Well, his explanation and our discussion reveals some amazing insights.
Trauma or Tragedy is a Blessing in Disguise About half way through the interview, we discuss how the trauma of a flood that destroyed most of everything he had, caused him to reset his perspectives. It served as a wakeup call. In the midst of this tragedy, he woke up to realize what he needed to do; how to redirect his efforts and become a successful entrepreneur.
Recommendations: A motivating thought and quote that spurs him on is from the book, which he recommends: Your Invisible Power by Genvieve Behrend The thought is that – in order to bring about the life we want, we must realize there is nothing to fear. Tony Bodoh explains this as the fear is our enemy not the course of action. He quotes Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” (you’ll understand this better than ever after listening to Tony in this episode.)
Michael O'Neal went from a unique creative career of branding and web design into an entrepreneurial pursuit assisting solopreneurs, quickly becoming successful, building a business that took him into directions he didn't foresee. We go over his journey and his motivations.
We discuss why a successful person, Michael O’Neal, gave up a good position as a branding guy and web designer and set out on his own into an entirely new venture?
What were the motivations that made him jump? You will hear in a casual conversation some of the things that made him feel unsatisfied and why he became a solo entrepreneur helping other 'solopreneurs'.
Now, he is helping people and companies grow their brands within a grand scheme. You will hear how he morphed into this new career.
We discuss some of the common mistakes and mis-perceptions that people have about becoming an entrepreneur. Sometimes people have to understand and realize skills that they may not have known they have.
We discussed how you might not need all the skills for business but rather can find others to do some of that stuff. During these times, where Internet search, Google and Facebook are so prevalent, possibilities are exploding. People just need to know a little bit on how to find them. Unfortunately, people need to realize that there is a lower tolerance towards each other on many different topics, such as politics and religion. More than ever people have to be more conscious of their views. People take offense to easily.
Michael discusses how his show, the Solopreneur Hour, headed into some directions he did not expect, including his coaching program.
If you start something and then you monetize it, they’re going to be people who want to know how you did it and how to do it right. He didn’t expect that, but he discusses how the growing community let them in that direction.
Thomas mentions and reviews how he was urged to write a book and that led in a similar vein to his new ventures.
Michael gives an overview of what he believes is the future of podcasting demand both the positive and the cautious negative, the impending competition. We discuss the importance of quality in business and perceptions today.
In a casual manner, we discussed the importance of market positioning and your own basic analysis understanding and research of your market.
Michael discloses the things inside him that motivates them and how he pulls and jettisons himself out of that. He explains how he compares downward. We discussed how we both pull people out of down times. How to have a positive influence on others and how both to be a solopreneur as well as help solopreneurs.
Michael O’Neal’s Book Recommendations - His ‘Sexy Six’
Rich Dad Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki
Rich Dad's CASHFLOW Quadrant - Robert Kiyosaki
The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferris
The E-Myth Revisited - Michael Gerber
Strengths Finder 2.0 - Tom Rath
It is not every day, but maybe it should be that we hear of someone turning a ongoing love into a business passion, the enthusiast entrepreneur. That is true success! Mark Greene is turning a life long love of fine cars into an entrepreneurial pursuit. He is the enthusiast entrepreneur. He explains how he made the transformation. Now, visiting shows from around the world, armed with thousands of pictures and connections he has made, this passion becomes a potential from multiple streams of income.
Today, Mark travels the world and visits specialty automotive events living his dream. He built a huge group of contacts among the most prominent in the automotive world. However, he started working in the LA area in automotive supply. After getting an opportunity to have part of a new company in the Seattle area, Mark eventually became the president of the company, supplying the automotive industry. While that was nice, the contacts he made over time, were the real benefit. With some life changing events, he had to decide on a new path.
In this episode he discusses the differences between building a business plan and overbuilding it.
Everyone needs to step out of their comfort zone (listen to Episode 15 click here) to make progress and Mark talked about what helped push him out of the comfort zone.
With any business, there is a great deal of stress, particularly early. Mark and I discuss how his nest egg helped him focus and keep his head on straight. However, the other side is that you must feel some pressure or concern to act.
We discussed how few people actually like their jobs, about 21%. Mark reminded us of a quote, "If you work in a field you love, you'll never work a day in your life." by Confucius . So, Mark has found his, but we also discussed well that passion can also be a perilous path.
Let the story of Mark Greene peak your interests into you being an enthusiast entrepreneur.
To contact Mark and find more about him and his interests:
Website - http://carsyeah.com/ If you are any kind of car enthusiast, check out Mark's free book: Fill 'R Up Book:
Motivational quotes:
“The past is just data. I only see the future.” – Ayrton Senna
“To achieve anything of value in this game you must be prepared to dabble in the boundary of disaster.” - Sir Stirling Moss
Book Recommendations:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim The Undertaking: Life Studies from at the Dismal Trade - Thomas Lynch
Today, I am going to talk about one of the most critical topics I feel for success, copying mentors. One of the concepts that can accelerate your success the most, and probably one of the easiest. All that said, it is one that almost nobody does well or completely.
Let me explain this a little bit. Everybody agrees that it’s good and important to find a mentor. When you find a mentor, there’s really three possibilities when they make a recommendation or that you have something, that you have a question for them. Either it’s going to be very clear, and their advice is great, and you hadn’t thought about it, and it sounds reasonable to you, and you accept it. The other one in the opposite end is that it’s something that the mentor didn’t really know anything about it, but it is something that you know and understand, and it’s something that the mentor basically would just agree with you to go and follow your own path.
The middle one is the most critical area. That’s the area where I refer to as having a dichotomy between knowledge and wisdom. There’s nothing you can say to convince the mentor that your idea is correct or right, and there’s not a logical conclusion or a logical path that can get you to receive that mentor’s advice. That is: what is that critical area?
What I do in that situation is if I picked my mentor well and it’s in his area, I will pick and take their path, no matter how convinced I am that mine would be better but I can’t explain it, I can’t prove it. This really is a precept to getting into what I call copying mentors, and copying well.
Bear with me a moment as I explain how critical this topic is, and how well it’s been used by some people or countries or industries. Let me follow the Japanese. The Japanese have been very good at copying or mimicking other people’s products. Everybody knows about the car industry, but let’s think way back maybe 30-40 years, something like that. Originally, what the Japanese did is they started copying electronics, radios, etc. The Germans were the masters in that; they had all the great receivers, etc. but the Japanese decided to copy them.
What they did was they copied exactly to start out. They didn’t add their own flare to it at all until they had mastered the copy first. How else did they do that? They did it with watches. The Swiss had the watches, the Rolex, etc. Only after many, many years, the Japanese copying those very precisely, then they went on to make innovations or adaptations of them. It was only after they mastered that which already existed. Then they went on, of course, to do that in cameras and cars. In each case, they first copied very much so.
Actually, in Japanese, there’s a compliment that you can pay somebody by actually saying: “You copy well.” Where if you said that to an American engineer, he’d get very insulted and excited, etc. I actually have some stories in my forthcoming book about a General Manager in Chevrolet who actually tried to get some engineer just to do it the way it was already done, and how he had to fight with him for a month to get him to just copy something that already existed.
I’ve copied that exact same philosophy, those exact same ideas in things where I basically have tried to find the particular mentors, and it could have been in computer programming or it could have been in language, etc., I copied what I was told was the right way to do it by somebody who is knowledgeable. It worked very, very well for me.
Why do people seem to resist to it? They seem to resist because they always feel like: “I have a mind, too, and I thought…” Forget thinking for a moment. Save your thinking. Put it all down. First master what the master has already done. If you were to learn Karate or Taekwondo, a form of Karate or something like that – what would you do? You would go to the master, and you would mimic and do exactly what he said all the time. You wouldn’t say: “I thought I would do it a slightly diffe...
Background and a major transformational moment Anita Marler - Her transformation into success was faced with desperation. From a small farming community in Alberta, Canada, at the age of 25 I moved out to Vancouver on the West Coast. Shock Her Life Turns Upside Down. In 2006, Anita Marler had a Brain Aneurysms, and as many of you know the statistics for brain aneurysms are people statistically either die or their life is altered. They end up of some type of disability and very few walk away from it unscathed. She was one of those few that walked away from it unscathed. It was a big reality check. Re-assessment I started to examine my life and realize that I really wasn't happy, and all these things that I've wanted to do were somewhere in the distance. I really wasn't happy with that. So, I decided that I would make some changes. I changed everything in my life. In the beginning it wasn’t so easy because I really didn’t know what I wanted and you know you are all talking about those ideas, but when you sit down and you start to actually figure out if you could have and do and be anything you wanted what would that look like. So, it’s a bit of a process and a big learning process for that matter. In the first few years, I didn’t have any idea where I would end up but I knew that it was going to be better that where I was. So, I started on the journey and my background was in Psyche Nursing. I studied lots of books on self-help and how to be the best you can be and motivational and all that sort of things. But a lot of it I really hadn’t taken and put it into practice. What I’ve done is, you read the information and you get all this wonderful head knowledge, but you don’t actually take the actions steps required for you to actually live that kind of life. So when I got sick, I said you know what, no more, I’m going to actually do what I need to do to be the person I want to be and have the life that I want to have. I’ll tell you it’s been the most amazing journey full of blessings and coincidences and miracles and people that I could have ever imagine. A lot of twist and turns, it’s been very exciting.
Lights go off to a new adventure
A couple of years ago, people started to come and ask me what I was doing because they knew me when I was kind of down and… so to speak. My husband and I had split up, I didn’t have a lot of money, I’d started a new career, bought a house, had no furniture in it, you name it, it was a pretty rough go. But, they saw me living this life and you know driving a beautiful car, I’m in an amazing relationship. I’m doing okay financially and they’re all starting to come in to me and ask me what are you doing. So at that point in time, I started to help other people to find their path and their dream and goals and work with them and help them and help them to make that a reality.
Thomas: That’s a beautiful story. I’d like to back track it to a couple of things. One of which was, you said you were searching out to find a little bit of yourself and the things, as you called them weaknesses or problems and things that you had to overcome in order to build this dream. How did you identify what things you needed to do or learn?
The Dreams and Visions Started Anita : Well, the first thing I realized is, all the things that I wanted. I mean I took a little notebook and I started to play a game. I would just sit down and would say if time and money were have no consequence, where would I be living? What would I be doing? What would I…. All the details in my life, I would kind brainstorm a little bit. What I found was the 2 big obstacles that always got in the way, was the time factor because you know, how am I going to do all this in a day and how I’m going to climb this big mountain, as well as financially. I mean obviously I wanted a great life but I didn’t have the financial resources to do it. So, I took those things out of the formula and started to just give myself permission to...
Social Media? Twitter can be scary to many, but is this relevant or useful?
It really is daunting to many people, particularly those a little older. We’ll see that it opens up markets, avenues and relationships efficiently. AJ Amyx, grew up and still lives in a small town, but his views and horizons are far and wide.
He was in a band that really started to do very well, but his life changed. He went through an unsettled period and a complete transformation. Here is a snippet of the episode.
From a Life Crashing Down to Complete Transformation. How? Why?
Thomas: You said that you completely crashed. That everything fell apart and then what happened, how did you feel and how did your transformation pull you back up out of that.
AJ: Awesome, good question. What happened is you know, in a band you’re with, you know for us we’re 5 piece, I mean you know there’s 2 guitar players, one who’s a lead player, I was the rhythm guitar player. I give my boy Travis White, he’s a guy I went to the high school with and we played soccer together and then we are college roommate for 4 years together and he happened to write a lot of the songs and so he was doing keyboards and then my buddy Aaron Reeves was playing base and we had this drummer. So we are literally a 5 piece band and it’s crazy like when you have 5 people trying to get them to practices all at the same time to get them to the same shows at the time to have the same vision, the same drive, the same work ethic. It’s like being married to 5 people, I have no clue how a polygamous could have 5 wives. It would be like being in a band every single day. And so, it would be and it’s kind of how it was and it kind of fell apart because some people were getting married and they don’t want to travel. Other people wanted to not be so business driven and plaster our faces everywhere. Then you had me who’s ridiculously driven who wanted to make a career out of it and wanted everyone to work together. The visions were different and so it all came crashing down. And so on August of 09’ everybody finally set up tension where everybody is like you know, this is not working and this is not fun anymore and it’s more like a business and it’s just, it’s not fun. So let’s pull the plug on it. This is like where you climb to like being on top of the mountain and everything is starting to you know you work your butt off and everything is starting to snowball downhill. It’s not easy but it’s a lot easier. I mean people are approaching you for shows; people are after your record deals; you have radio play; you’ve already invested in a tour bus; I mean like you’ve already bled so to speak and now it’s time to kind of ride the wave. And so we really had to make a hard decision and say okay, this is not fun then let’s pull the plug on this. But let’s honor our contract since we are over contract with the people we had gigs with all the way through October because that was our last contracted date and then after October for me it was just tough.
Realization of change sets in
You had to figure out man this is been my identity for 10 years. It’s interesting when you do something for so long. I am talking about you know you’re working on your (stuff), you’re reading the books in that industry, you are submersed in that industry, you have given up everything to do it and then for it to be gone. You know you could go do it with somebody else, but I had to really assess and say, is this what I really want. And I remember coming home that summer after Cornerstone Festival and this is when everything was starting to fall apart and I’m sitting down and having dinner with my mom and dad and my brother and sister and when we’re coming home. They are sharing these stories from like July 4th and a few family vacations of summers before and I was like you know I don’t remember that. I remember them saying well brother, it’s because you weren’t there. Yeah, I was on tour.
Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Ron Fugle, Military Veteran and host of the podcast “Fire and Adjust.”
More about Ron: Ron spent several years in the Military. Upon leaving 14 years ago, he struggled to find a new purpose in life. As is often the case for Veterans, lack of finances prevented the option for college. He decided to return to the automotive industry, however, it did not fill the void of helping others and the need to serve his community.
It was a long process trying to figure out what kind of business he was passionate about. Ron tried his hand at e-Bay and several other projects, but allowed life events to derail his focus. He witnessed people working their whole lives for retirement that didn’t make it to 65, didn’t get to enjoy their lives. Ron decided he didn’t want that for his future. Ron wanted to be involved in a part of something bigger than himself. He felt a passion to assist those leaving the military with their career endeavors. (aside from me – isn’t it amazing the many niches that can become business ventures. Remember, the world is now at your doorstep, thanks to the internet and social media!)
Fire and Adjust is a podcast in which Ron interviews other successful veterans – actors, authors, models – and supports them in their new calling. He feels that highlighting the amazing things Military personnel and Veterans are doing is his way of continuing to serve. Ron hopes to spark an interest in other Veterans who have that entrepreneurial fire.
In order to forge ahead, Ron began to soak in information from every medium; books, magazines, and podcasts became his life. In fact, podcasts took over his life so much so that he listened to them while he slept. He became involved in Mastermind groups to reconcile grief from the past with what his heart wants for his future. Fire and Adjust is currently a work in progress. Ken feels that sponsors who align with his target audience, such as Veteran owned businesses, would be perfect to bring on. He has a vision of a group of action takers with a Military background being on board with him, and that the podcast project will always be something that is supporting the Military community in one way or another.
Ron explains: • How stepping out of his comfort zone (click here for Episode 15) was key for growth. He has learned that the things that scare you the most generally have the greatest rewards • That we need to learn to like being uncomfortable, as that is when we learn • How numerous life altering events - including the suicides and murders of several family members – made him realize the need to drive ahead as we are not promised tomorrow • How the “American Dream” seems a bit backward as happiness should trump wealth
Inpirational Quotes “Drive on.” Ron Fugle has always felt that you have to just drive forward and trust that others have your back. Surround yourself with good people, likeminded people and you will have that safety net. “To be old and wise you must first be young and stupid.” You only learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of those around you.
Ron Fugle’s book suggestions:
The War of Art – Steven Pressfield
Crush It – Gary Vaynerchuk
Start With Why – Simon Sinek
Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki
Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
Ron’s contact information: www.fireandadjust.com/contact
The Life Unsettled podcast with Thomas O’Grady, provides candid insights with both solo and interview episodes into breaking through income and financial concerns for a satisfying life and your future as an entrepreneur. The interviews break out successful entrepreneurial journeys and contain content to keep you motivated and raise your visions and dreams to higher levels than you currently might think. Those higher levels that you don't even know is true breakthrough success.
This initial episode provides direction and an overview of the Life Unsettled podcast. It will focus on business, entrepreneurs, finance, how to achieve success and how to redirect or re-position your future in a tumultuous world. The world has changed and it is or is going to affect all of us. This podcast's purpose is to help people with these issues as they age.
Those born before 1964 are in the crowded baby boom generation, which already had lower relative income because of their sheer size. People over 45 - 50 years of age are being layed off and replaced by younger, less expensive workers. The years from 45 to 64 considered by economists as the net savings years of a person's life, when children are gone and financial obligations are less, are severely hampered. Meanwhile, life expectancy, which was closer to 70 - 72 years of age, now must be planned out to 90 - 92 years of age. So, less resources and less potential must support a much longer retirement.
As a PhD economist, I was looking at and researching these issues for myself. After seeing some of the capabilities today to disseminate my own ideas and gather the ideas of others, I decided that I would share this information and make it a much broader topic. So, this podcast will include many topics and ideas as well as motivation to assist everyone. At the start, I know that we will all need a lot more for any retirement. People will need to supplement, replace or enhance their current income and wealth and probably multiple streams of income. I am the demographic that this podcast is targeting. I have a tremendous stake in the information gathered. I want to bring you along on my and probably your journey wading through the underbrush as the enormous issues evolve and are addressed. Some of the topics will include ideas on expanding your opportunities and ideas. There will be topics related to how to succeed or achieve. After all, if you need to consider something new or different to supplement or replace income at age 50, you have more of your adult life ahead of you than since you turned 20 years of age. That's right, there is so much more you can do, whether your own business a home based business or helping someone else. Transcript and Introduction to the Entrepreneur Journey: This first episode is an overview of Life Unsettled. As a backdrop, the world has changed. People in their 50’s today are being laid off and being replaced by less expensive workers, and there’s no reason to think that this is going to change in the future or change back to the system that we had before where people would normally think in terms of retiring from some company at the age of 65.
This leaves us with a little bit of a dilemma, or actually a major dilemma for those above the age of about 45. As an economist, we call the years from 45 to 65 net savings years; those were the years people saved for retirement. That has been pulled out from underneath people’s planning. Very few people truly even have enough money for retirement, and this will only get worse. Simultaneously, people are not dying at 70 to 72. It used to be: people could retire at 65, and they had about 5 to 7 years more where their savings, etc. would carry them over. Now they may be living from 85 to 92. Before, we would have needed a lot more money for retirement to last until 90+ years of age. Instead, we are seeing difficulty even preparing for retirement.
Efrat Avnor lives in Israel and is a very successful entrepreneur and mother of 3 whose overcome adversity to succeed. Efrat shares her amazing story of finding the courage to leave her stable career of 25 years, finding her “legacy” in life, overcoming childhood sadness and even using it to motivate herself and achieving the life to fulfill her dreams. Efrat’s Wakeup call: Efrat was a successful project manager in the corporate world. While on a business trip that was not going smoothly, she asked herself a serious question about priorities and importance of choices in life. Why was she working in something she didn’t like? Was it for a salary? Was she just fulfilling other people’s dreams? She decided against a lengthy road trip that day and her life changed forever.
Having just watched The Secret the day before, she felt overwhelmed by a memory of a frightening experience from childhood during the Yom Kippur War, in which her mother made a statement that Efrat has never forgotten: “There are people who want to kill us.” This would cause Efrat to have nightmares that became dreams of clarity.
Efrat dug deep to determine what her legacy would be; not as a mother, not as an employee, but something that would leave a story of perseverance and success. She decided to enter into the entrepreneurial world using her previous experience, but shifted into a new arena.
Here is where she looked to learn from others:
Efrat's certification in the self help industry started with Bob Proctor known as a world leader in the Personal Development arena. She traveled to his conventions and paid a fortune to get knowledge and get to learn from him and know him in person.
Meanwhile she started to coach Nina Pekerman - Ironman age group champion today. Through the journey with her for 3 years going through training to work to competitions etc. She also got to meet, investigate and work with other champions in different sports. She studied everything, determined to soak in every detail to further her knowledge.
Throughout her journey, she described herself as having to be a “bright light” to keep herself positive and to keep those around her convinced that her choice was the best. She talks about the importance of perseverance and determination to achieve living a life of success through adversity that may try to impede your way. There are so many pieces of her work to success.
Efrat describes her thoughts on motivation:
In this arena of self-help and personal development, many times people say that they need energy and motivation. I don’t believe that to be true. I think that we’re full of energy, full of the energy that can turn into motivational energy. When I hear phrases calling people to be motivated, I think that it’s wrong. “Motivation comes from following your heart’s burning desire.”
Efrat’s suggested reading list:
As A Man Thinketh – James Allen
The Science of Getting Rich – Wallace D. Wattles
Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
Outwitting the Devil – Napoleon Hill
Efrat’s contact Info:
www.efratavnor.com
Steve Thompson with a hugely successful entrepreneur and a pleasure to say is a personal friend of mine. Steve hits many topics that all are crucial to the listeners of this show. He talks about the importance of planning for retirement, financial backbone or plans, side or multiple streams of income, where to put your focus. Steve also discusses how to achieve the mindset for both a satisfying and happy life as well as making additional income including home based business. This is a must listen episode.
More about the Steve:
Steve put himself through college working in an auto parts store and selling motorcycle parts out of his garage. He learned at a very early age that in order to retire comfortably, he would need multiple streams of income. He started to invest in Real Estate, built his Insurance Agency and Network Marketing.
Even though successful by most measures, Steve weighs his options:
He advanced quickly in an insurance career but realized that while he would make significant income, there were definite limits for growth. Steve made the decision to seek additional income and investment opportunities. He strongly believes in multiple streams of income. When his income from other sources become considerable, he made the bold choice to leave the insurance company despite make multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Now, Steve still gets 20% residual from the insurance company, but his time was much better spent, i.e. more profitable, to spend it on his new company. He also reached a financial position that it was time to take more time for himself. So, it was the first of many life lessons that retirement would not be comfortable unless he made additional income. Working until 65 at one company would not provide that comfort.
Steve realized early that jobs were not necessarily secure:
Steve feels that people need to learn to not be “stuck” in a job where people are undervalued with no job stability.
He talks about how several of his former colleagues in their 50’s are finding themselves unable to retire. The information to avoid this is out there for everyone, everyone can have side income, but you have to be willing to make changes along the way.
Steve points out the importance of getting out of your comfort zone (See Episode 15, Comfort Zone, what you thought you knew) and learning and failing:
Steve considers himself one of the biggest failures you’ll ever meet. Failures or mistakes are one of the critical keys to his success. As he puts it, he’s made “Numerous mistakes and failures all the way to the top. You cannot succeed your way to success, you must fail yourself to success. Life lessons make you more successful.”
Also, focus on what you CAN control, never on what you can’t.
Steve explains a clear perspective on life’s goals: How to pay for the 3 critical things in life: your past, your present and your future.
He gave specific numbers on how you should break down your income to benefit your present and future while taking care of your past. Your past is the debt you brought to the present.
Steve stresses the need and benefits for additional streams of income to invest for retirement Importance of stepping out of your comfort zone to find your skillset for earning more money How an extra few dollars not spent will compound annually.
As final, thoughtful pieces of advice, Steve suggests:
you gain mentorship from those who have what you want. Read books by authors who are financially stable the way you want to be; listen to speakers who have done the hard work and have succeeded. Follow the people whose style you are modeling (See Episode 07 The Easiest Path to Success...).
Steve’s favorite motivational thought he uses frequently and emphasizes to others: “Get excited, stay focused and never quit.” - You have to be excited about your life and future; if you’re not, something is not right. All the daily issues are speed bumps.