Are You Doing It The Easy Way or The Hard Way?

Is there an "Easy Way" to everything?  Is there a "Hard Way" to everything?  The answer is "yes" but maybe not the way you think it is.

Everyday I see people who are working very hard.  Lets see if this sounds familiar.  You go to work everyday, you do a good job and you never quite get that promotion.  You've been there for years, and someone else who just started is now the boss.  Everyday you have been getting there early or staying late.  Your boss calls on Saturday and you take the call.  And you still haven't got the promotion.

Is this you?  Do you feel like you are on a hamster wheel, running as hard as you can or walking all day and still getting no where?  That's the "Hard Way".

The Hard Way is a rut of sorts where you show a certain value to the company and there you stay.  So how do you get out of it?  How do you get off the hamster wheel and actually make forward progress down the road of success?

The first step is to learn that society (including most of your friends) don't want you to learn the easy way.  They want company on that miserable hamster wheel.  The more people that join them the better they feel about themselves.  When you leave, they are afraid you might actually do something and achieve success.  If you do you make them look bad.

Think about this.  How many truly successful people do you know and admire?  How many do you know that you want to be like or that have a life that you would like to have.  Then think about how many people you know that don't live much differently than you do.

I bet the second group is huge compared to the first group.  The reality is, that if you want to hang out with the top 5% of the successful people in the world, you have to first learn to stop hanging out with and listening to the other 95%.

At first you will be lonely and challenged by your old friends to come back and give up your dreams. True friends support your dreams, most "friends" are dream killers.  Instead of helping you figure out the easy way, they just laugh and wait for you in the hamster wheel.

It takes time to make the transition, no matter what you decide to do when you turn right down the easy path.

What do you want to do?

The Easy Guide Books

The Bourquin Group

What Is Your Proposal Writing Plan?

I am taking a break from writing a very long proposal that I really don’t want to write.  I don’t want to write it because 90% of it is fluff and nonsense.  Some time ago when building my business I went through the “Wants-Don’t Wants” process as it relates to my business.  This type of project was on my “Don’t Wants”.

While reading the biography of John Boyd, simply titled “Boyd”, he had a similar complaint about Pentagon work.  He called it “gold plating”.  He and his team would establish the criteria for a great fighter, and someone would add unnecessary equipment or requirements to curry favor somewhere.  “Gold Plating”.  

In the tech world, specifically the online world, these big long proposals are a form of gold plating.  For instance it, an big proposal justifies the legal department, IT and even public relations charging x hours to look over the Request for Proposal (RFP) along with a host of other jobs.

On the vendor side, it means I too must spend money with Lawyers, Accountants, and Project Managers to get every ones buy in.  On both sides a virtual committee is formed.

Committees are by nature – timid. Based on the premise of safety in numbers, content to survive rather than take risks and move independently ahead. - Ferry Porsche

When we are stripped down to our essentials we perform our best.  This is true of any endeavor in life whether it is man or machine.  The success of Apple has been based on this simple truth until recently.  Where they go from here is anyones guess.

Look at a race car.  Everything you don’t need is taken out to save weight allowing the car to perform better.  Why have insulation when earplugs will work for an hour?  

When you know your business, you can write a profitable quote on one page in a few hours.  When you get the job, then you create the plan.  Much less time consuming for both sides, and therefore less expensive for the client, and likely more profitable for you.

The email from my attorney just came in, so I’ll go back to my proposal writing.  I can’t help but here my own advice in my head: “Learn to say no more often.”

So You Want To Start A Business? Get Ready Then!

The spirit of freedom and responsibility that drives many people to start a business, is what drove the founding fathers to break away and start this country.  The battle cry of "Taxation without Representation" was a catch phrase that simply asked for freedom and responsibility.

Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand, you can't have one with out the other and have society progress.  These days too many people are willing to give up both for security.  Security is a myth that can never be achieved completely.  The most secure people in the world are locked up in solitary confinement somewhere.  I bet those guys would trade for freedom any day.  The question is, would that take the responsibility that goes with it?

Benjamin Franklin is attributed to saying that you can't have Liberty and Security at the same time.  He is right.  They are polar opposites.  With responsibility comes a little bit of risk.  The key to success for today is understanding that you must manage risk in order to succeed.

Most people live in fear of the risk and responsibility of owning a business and therefore never enjoy the freedoms you can earn as the reward for managing the risk and accepting the responsibility.

The barriers to entry form many businesses also keep people out.  Lawyers have to go to law school, pass the bar and still there are hundreds if not thousands of out of work lawyers or lawyers that have a different job.  Just because you make it over the barrier doesn't mean you will succeed.

In a previous blog I encouraged you to act like an independent contractor at your job.  Take more responsibility and manage more risk in exchange for a bit more freedom.  If you could look back through time and watch me when I had a job, I learned to do exactly that from my mentors.  I managed to work a 3/36 schedule so I could fly and play more while at one company.  The deal was I had to outperform the 40 hour scheduled workers by 10% as well.

The company got 44 hours worth of work and only paid 36.  It was a win-win. That mentality gave me the confidence to start my own business.

There are many businesses with very low barriers to entry, such as real estate. You can become a Realtor after a few classes and a test.  Your total investment might only be $300 or so.  The problem is that with such a low barrier to entry there are a lot of people doing it.  This means starting out you will need a lot of patience and persistence to succeed.  Or you need a much better way to get the job done by working smarter, not harder.

The best way to prepare yourself for starting a business is to look at all of the places in your life where you have traded liberty for security.  Do you use unemployment regularly because you can't manage money?  Do you "need" health insurance provided by your boss or the government?  Do you work for someone else for the "security" of a paycheck every two weeks?

Can you manage your life if you didn't have any of these things?  Stepping out on your own can be a scary thing, and at the same time getting over that fear is one of the greatest accelerators on the road to success.  Many of the most successful business owners I know have done the "credit card shuffle" trying to pay bills they didn't have money to cover.

The pain and embarrassment of not making your bills is a defining moment for every entrepreneur.  It is at that moment, you push a little harder and make it, or you give up and "go back to work".  Like many successful people, I have done both at least once.  The difference is that the minute I went back to work, the embarrassment didn't go away.  There was no joy or happiness when that first check came in.

The last time I was shuffling money and missing payments, I dug in, and when that next client signed on, and that next check came in, it was a rotating beacon of emotions.  First it was relief that turned to joy that turned to ecstasy, and within weeks, more clients, more books started selling, and more work came in.

If I didn't have to scrape to find quarters for the dollar menu, would I be where I am now?  I can't say for sure.  The biggest mistake you can make is getting locked into a failing method.  I will admit when I dug in, I also changed my approach.

Don't get locked in on one idea, try to listen to the clients and figure out why they aren't buying and adjust accordingly.  More importantly, in the infamous words of Winston Churchill, "Never, Never, Never, Give Up."

Want a Raise - Think Supply and Demand!

The laws of supply and demand can be applied to just about any situation that involves the exchange of money.  Right now the pilot shortage is in the news and the GAO says the cause is simple.  Pilots aren't paid enough to make it worth taking the job.  On that point they are right.

A decade ago it was radiologists and anesthesiologists.  Insurance companies agreed to pay more, hospitals started paying more and in a few years the problem was solved.

So how does this apply to you?

In simple terms you have two choices, you can either find a very high demand job that has low supply and go do it.  Unfortunately it isn't that easy.  Becoming a pilot for instance can cost upwards of $100,000 if you aren't lucky enough to get a military position first, and starting pay is just $20,000 per year.

Any questions why there is a pilot shortage?  At some point the pay will increase or the pilots will be replaced by computers.  Are you willing to make a $100,000 bet on the outcome?  Most aren't, and a few believe the pilotless plane is coming.  Winning as a pilot might be a short term bet.

The second choice is to make yourself so valuable at the job you have now that they can't afford for you not to be there.  This is the easy way to get ahead without having to pay for it.   I know people who never graduated high school and are millionaires from owning McDonalds.  The supply of those people is very very scarce, but they exist.

So how do you do that?  Think like a subcontractor.  Instead of asking for more benefits and pay, start by asking for more responsibility and better work.  Think of what your boss wants now and what he might want tomorrow and deliver it before he asks.

If you aren't ready to break out yet and start your own business or become an independent contractor, you can still use the laws of supply and demand to make sure your skills and work ethic are so far above the crown that you are a scarce commodity in your office.  Soon enough the pay, work schedule and benefits will come your way.

Why? Improve Your Position

Improve your position.  This mantra for success is something people forget every day.  When you get up in the morning and keep doing the same thing, you end up in the same position at the end of every day.

Fear.  When you think about it, the real root cause of doing the same thing every day is the fear of the unknown.  Fear of leaving your comfort zone.  Fear of not making that next car payment.  Fear of missing time with your friends, fear of losing time with your co-workers.

There is always that one person though.  That one person that takes a little time away from the group.  There is always that one person that moves out and up.  That person that you watch and wonder why it wasn't you.

The secret?  Improve your position.

There is more to it though.  In order to improve your position, you need to define "improve".  How do you know what improvement is if you don't have a destination?  The key is to create a vision or destination that is a very clear vision of where you are going.  When you have that vision you can improve your position.

In simple terms, if you want to go to the park at the end of the block, and your neighbor asks you to watch the game, are you getting closer to the park?  If you want that new car, and your friend calls with tickets to the concert that cost $100, does the concert get you closer to the new car.

These are obvious examples.  The most difficult involve an overload of information.  The secret to speed in improving your position is filtering out the chaff or useless information.

Simple decisions can hold you back if you don't pay attention, or pay too much attention to the chaff instead of the important points.

Living life with a purpose means having a "mission" in everything you do.  Even on vacation you can have a "mission" or "purpose".  It might only be to "relax".   Everyone needs to recharge from time to time, and that means different things to different people.  For me it means turning off the office and work in the front of the brain and letting the back 90% do it's job.   For other people it is just to get the family "off their back".

How can you improve your position while on vacation?  The reality is that you can always practice cutting through the chaff, even while traveling.  Always listening will bombard you with a lot of useless information, and it might just get you that great idea or solve the problem you have been having at the office.

Every time you get a call, ask yourself, "Does this improve my position or put me into a position where I can improve my position?"  If it doesn't, learn to say "no" if you want to move ahead.

Quick Tips To Help Your Success

I became an entrepreneur because I did not want to be a dentist like my father, but I wanted some of the parts of his lifestyle. I learned very early on that working on Saturday and taking a weekday off was a lot more fun. I did that throughout my high school and college life, which explains my grades. 

School is just an extension of society designed to help you work within the confines of the ”standard” workweek. Very few schools teach entrepreneurism the way entrepreneurs teach it. If you take a look at most of the very high achieving entrepreneurs, you'll notice they didn't finish college. At some point they broke away from the norm and have stayed away ever since.

If you want to become a real entrepreneur, Remember some basic rules. 

1. Be careful who you listen to. Do they live the life you want to live? Do they do the work you want to do? Only take away the information that is relevant. As a side rule, I generally like to make sure they are making more money than I am if it is an area of business.  Yes the coach has a coach (or three).

2. There is never "good enough".  You can always to better, and should.  This doesn't mean have regret, it just means stay relevant by staying on top of your game.

3. Be accountable somehow. Self starting is a very rare discipline that takes a lot of time to learn. The whole point of vision books, vision boards and goal sheets is to keep you looking towards your destination. The problem is if the destination isn't important enough to have your break away from your comfort zone and your pack, you will never break away. If you make yourself accountable either through a coach, mentor or competitive friend you are much more likely to achieve your goals. 

To lose 30 pounds last year, I made a big painful bet with my business partner.  I didn't lose a single pound on my own, but the minute we made the wager we both started shedding pounds.

What's Next For You?

How has your life been going so far?  Do you wish for more, is it just ok?  Do you wonder why some people make it and others don't?  Have you ever looked at someone and wondered why they have a "great life" and you don't?

If so, what is next for you?  Would you like to know the difference between the people who slug it out at work 9-5 and still can't make ends meet and those who don't ever appear to work and are always having fun?

If you do want to know the difference and change your life, you have found the right place.  I will show you how a lot of people have created great lives and I can show you how to create yours, and it all starts right here.

I didn't know it at the time, but I found one of the great rules of success at a very early age without knowing it.  Was I pursuing a "passion"? Nope.  Was I getting big money from my parents trust fund? Nope.  I just stumbled into something that worked and it was the rush that I have been chasing ever since.  Until a few years ago though I didn't understand it at all.

I tried the passion path, and spent more money than I care to admit building three business that were nothing but a headache.  I was in love with the product, and the process, but the business just didn't work, and I didn't get it.  Other things were so easy for me, and then one day I broke the code.

Looking back I knew it all along, I just didn't understand it.

In the spring of 1984, I was moved to the "continuing education" campus of my high school.  I didn't fit in and didn't like school at all.  I was working at Burger King which oddly was a pretty good job for me at the time.  The owner liked me, and I figured out the work pretty quick.  It still wasn't enough so I joined the Air National Guard, Security Police.

Security Police was not much of a job either, but I was lucky to be surrounded by some very talented people.  After graduating from tech school, and returning to my base with my "badge", I was offered a full time position.  Basically an active duty Air Force job at the Air National Guard Base.  Not having any other way to make money, I took the position.

After three nights of walking circles around airplanes and freezing my tail off, I was beginning to think I had made a huge mistake.  I didn't drink coffee or smoke (and still don't) so I didn't get as many breaks as the other guys.  I didn't fit in and I knew I couldn't do that job forever.

Lucky for me somebody gave me the secret.  I just didn't know it at the time.  Within a few months, I was enjoying my work and wasn't walking around airplanes any more.  One of the side benefits of learning this secret (that I didn't understand back then) is that I have never had to interview for a job since.  The great work that other people want, just seems to fall into my lap.

How would you like someone to walk up to you tomorrow and say "Hi, I would like you to come work for me, doing X."  That is pretty much how it has gone ever since.  Even when I was hired as an airline pilot, my "interview" wasn't anything like what other people were talking about.  It was more like friends talking about a hobby they enjoyed together.

So what is the great secret?  It is a little more than will fit in one post, but if you read my blog regularly you will see it.  It isn't chasing a passion, instead it is doing something that challenges you.

In my Security Police job, the base had a competitive shooting team.  When I tried out the first time, I didn't make the cut, but I had fun and got along with everyone that made the team.  When the first person was transferred out of the base, the team Captain asked me to fill in.  He spent the extra time with me to get me up to the level I needed to be.  It wasn't work, it was fun, five championships later it was rewarding.

That sort of situation has played out over and over throughout my life.  And so has another situation. The other situation is the opposite.  No one asks me to do any work.  I just decide to do it because I am "passionate" about it.  The results, not so good.

After having some success in an area and gaining a bit of freedom, I would get some book or take some class by a "guru" and then try to step out on my own and follow my "passion".  So far my record in this area is 0 for 3.

It would play out like this.  Life would be going great, and I would start to feel guilty about my success and not being like everyone else.  Trying to justify my success, I would go find a book or a class to mask the guilt and frustration of not fitting in and living a "comfortable" life.

I would take the classes, read the books and then go out and start a new business.  I would put my heart and soul into it along with all of the money I made doing other things.  Two or three years later the stress and lack of money would cause me to throw in the towel.

Each time that happened someone would be there to say "Great, now that you have stopped that nonsense, how about you come do X for me?"  My life would become great and fun again and then guess what?  Go back two paragraphs and read it again.  Do this twice, because I am slow and didn't get this lesson very quickly.  I am writing this hoping you don't repeat this cycle ever.

Passion is for the birds and bees, not for business.  Passion is for your attitude towards life, not financing your life.

After closing up my third "failed" business it hit me like a Wreck It Ralph.  Luckily, I was able to close my companies, and acted in good faith with my clients.  Bankruptcy wasn't an option for me, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  You don't want to spend a lot of time with a bankruptcy attorney, and this is from the experience of someone who was only getting advice.  I can't imagine the stress of actually doing it.

So what is the secret? In simple terms, we all have value that we bring to the table.  In very very rare cases it also might be your passion.  For me I will admit it isn't.  What I like about my work is seeing the changes in my clients. That brings me the happiness and gives me the financial freedom to have passions and pursue dreams without wanting to create income from them.  This is a very different approach.

Being driven isn't being passionate.  You have a value sitting within you that people are asking for and you probably don't even see.  One of the tests that I use is asking the question: What is it that people come to you for that you gladly do for free?

That isn't your passion, but it can be your value.  Even though you don't charge for it, you might be able to.  In my case I can charge a lot for it.  The work itself doesn't actually bring me any happiness. It brings me great financial rewards.  What brings me the happiness is the change that my work makes for my client.

Passion isn't the driving factor, serving my clients is.  I am always taking classes to get better in every area of my life an business.  My passion for life has infected my work, so people mistake my drive for passion.  Trust me when I say, my passions are very very expensive hobbies which only take money out of my bank account.  No one is offering me money to do them.  I have tried, and been paid, but never enough to survive, never mind maintain my lifestyle.

When you aren't sure what that value is, try it all.  One might hit a spark and light a fire inside you.  You might start a few fires.  Maybe people are saying you should be a personal shopper because you have a great sense of style.  Try it and charge for it.  See if the income lights a little fire within you.

The world isn't about money, but every time I see someone get good money for stuff they were doing for free, there is no mistaking or hiding the excitement.  The first time an actor is paid, the first time a lawyer wins a big case, the first time a race car driver wins a big check all change how that person looks and the energy they project to the world.  Guess what happens next, like an addiction, they keep doing it.

In my case I didn't figure it out until I tried the "guru's" way three times.  Thankfully I broke the code before I tried a fourth time.

You might not know your value right now, but come back often or sign up for one of my "break out" classes and find your values.  We all have more than one, and the trick is finding one that pays enough to make life fun.  What are the values that you bring to the world?

What Are The Real Keys To Success?

As you know, I have been trying to fine tune the "formula for success" so that more people can create a lifestyle that they want, not just one they settle for.

I want to help you find a better way to live your life that fits you.  You can't be me and I can't be you, but we are both human and so the rules must be similar.

Recently I found the book was worth adding to my reading list for my clients and sharing with you.

The book is Cal Newport's "Be So Good They Can't Ignore You".  Cal Newton argues that chasing your dreams is a waste of time.  I agree.  You can have all the passion in the world for something but if the world doesn't it want it that way from you, you will go broke.

Like many people there are several things that I am passionate about.  I accept that those passions will not provide me sufficient income to maintain the lifestyle I expect. Instead those passions are my hobbies.

What he says to do is act like Steve Jobs at Apple.  Steve created a bunch of products and saw what worked and what didn't and he kept fine tuning based on the feedback of the market.  Remember the Newton?  Even the original iPhone (or should we call it the "Classic" now?) wasn't really much to speak up.  The bugs weren't worked out until the iPhone 3G.

Do the same thing in life.  Pursue a bunch of things and when you find one you like and that the market keeps asking your for, become great at it.

One of the aspects I really enjoy about blogging is the feedback from the market. It doesn't matter how many people comment on my blog, Facebook page or Twitter feed. When they do, I always appreciate it and try to respond in kind.

The metric that I really like however for blogs are the number of reads, and the number of reposts. It's very easy to see what people want to hear about from me when I look at those metrics. When I write about flying airplanes the scores are dismal. When I write about building a business or real estate empire the graph shoots off the page. There is no question what people want me to write about.

If you are at a crossroads, or stuck on a plateu, keep visiting this blog, or check out our new jumpstart program opening in March.

Is It Possible To Make Too Much Money?

I have had an entrepreneurial drive as far back as I can remember. Like a few of the entrepreneurs of my generation, I started with a paper route. The last of the dinosaurs. At least I don't think kids right around on bicycles delivering papers at 5 o'clock in the morning anymore.  

At a very young age, I learned a lesson that it was possible to make too much out of the deal. My neighbor's father was an attorney who told me something I had done wasn't "fair".  It took me many years to understand how I misinterpreted the lesson.

To begin with, "fair" has nothing to do with a good deal.  Fair is simply someone's perception. When an attorney is involved that perception usually isn't anybody's perception who is involved in the transaction. In this case it was worse because he was the wrong person to listen to and it was an incomplete lesson.  I am a believer in “win-win” negotiations.  This is a very important lesson (and embarrassing) for me to share.

The lesson started when I traded one of my “Hot Wheels” with the kid next-door. About two hours later his attorney father was standing at the door chastising me for taking advantage of his son. His father felt that his son did not get a good deal and was very aggressive about letting me know that it was not okay to trade toys.  He made me trade back.

Now I say that the attorney-father was the wrong person to listen to because he was not a trader, he was an attorney. An attorney writes contracts and charges a fee. While there is some entrepreneurial aspect to the business of law, most attorneys, doctors and dentists are simply professionals. They are self-employed with a job. They aren't dependent on buying right, adding value and selling at a significant profit.  Now this isn't to say that there aren't some very good and entrepreneurial professionals out there.

Since I was only 10 or 11 years old at the time, I took the lesson very wrong. And that lesson was ingrained into my psyche as a business owner in a way that negatively affected my business. Again I am sharing this because I see it on a regular basis.

What I took away at that time was that making too much money or coming out too far ahead on the deal was ripping people off. If you have ever said to yourself or to somebody else, "I can't charge that much" or "That is just too much money for that" then you have the same wrong thinking.

What I overlooked was the fact that his son was crushed because he had to give back the toy he really wanted and take back the toy he had all ready grown tired of.

It wasn't until many years later, that I understood how this was affecting my business. I was underpricing my services and undercutting prices on products for no reason. We worked hard to deliver the best value and still reduced our profit for no reason. Many of my competitors were making more money and I really couldn't figure out how they were doing it. The day I realized it was in my head, And it was okay to make money when you deliver real value my business life changed. 

I bring this little story up because this is an issue that I see over and over working with business owners today. Our society inflicts guilt upon us for being too successful. When you stretch to deliver something great and end up making a lot of money people around you will be offended. They are offended because you effectively have told them they are not doing good enough and there is a new standard to achieve.

When you start out in business most of your friends and associates will be in a similar financial situation. When you break away and leave the group, you are telling them that it can be done and they might be the problem. 

One very said truth of success is that you will need to find new friends. This isn't because you've changed, in fact you haven't. Your drive just helped you to succeed. The issue is your old friends attitude towards you will change. They will not respect what you've earned nor will they respect you any longer. 

Some years ago A business owner told me about the first party he had in his new house. He expanded in great detail on the destruction caused by his so-called friends. He was rather depressed when he realized that all of his old friends were no longer friends. 

If you want to see how this applies to the entertainment world take a look at ESPN's BROKE.

Don't be "Broke".

Should You Quit And Follow Your Passion?

Quitting everything and going after your dream is the subject of dozens of books.  As a business owner and industry leader many other business owners wanted to duplicate my success and would ask me how to do it.  

To be truthful, I have told many people that they had to find their own dream and pursue it.  They couldn’t be me, my dreams, mission and goals are mine and mine alone.  Many people have paid me for advice, and until now, I was overlooking two pieces of key information in the formula.

I have to give credit where credit is due, because I have been taking this for granted instead of making sure everyone understood these keys to success. Cal Newport in his book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”, pointed out something that was right there all along and I was glancing over it.  

There is a bit of irony here since I am taking a hosting and interviewing class right now from Marki Costello, and just about everyone in the class will glance right past the “bombshells” and go for the “safe” route.   This is exactly what happens in business.  As entrepreneurs we get caught up in our mission and forget to listen to the market.

Some time ago another entrepreneur friend told me “You have to keep a lot of irons in the fire, and go with the ones that get hot.”   At the time it didn’t make much sense, and it is still not advice I would give everyone, but Cal Newport puts it a better way that makes sense to me, and is worth passing on.

The First Key

The foundation of any endeavor that requires financial success as part of the grade has to first pass the test of the market.  Simply put, you must do something people will pay you for.  It doesn’t matter how good you are, if there isn’t a market need, and you can’t convince people that they have one, you can be the greatest, and still be broke.

Lets face it, money does matter.  In a way it should right?  Society rewards us with money for solving their problems, not ours.  When you solve your problems you relieve a little stress, when you solve societies problems you are rewarded with money and power.  That isn’t selling out, that is being real.

The Second Key

Cal Newport also points out that you might get lucky and find that your dream is also financially rewarding, but that is rarely the case.  When you explore the lives of people we call “successful” in both life and financial rewards, he noted that they did several different things, and went with one that worked and became the best at that "thing".

The two keys together provide and an interesting insight, that was sitting right in front of me.  I had been skipping right over it all along, and yet it is exactly why my residential technology business did well in California, and only average to boring in Texas.  The market wasn’t as willing to pay for the technology in Texas no matter how good I (an my company) was.  In California I had both the market and the skills, in Texas, it was mostly just idle skills.

Instead of looking at it as putting many irons in the fire at once, I think this is more like putting an iron in the fire, branding the cow, and seeing if anyone will buy the brand.  If not, get another iron and try again.  If they do, get really good at making that brand better. 

This is why truly successful people can have many successful ventures.  Richard Branson comes to mind here.  Once one Iron got hot and everyone liked the brand, he built it up and used that to buy the next iron.  While we all know the brands that stuck, records, airlines and cell phones, I am sure there are just as many or more that didn’t take and we never heard of.

Looking back over my successes and not so much successes, it is clear that success is much more a simple formula than I ever gave credit for.  Pilot? I got pretty good at it, and people pay for it. Both keys here.  Business developer and consultant? Yes people pay well for what I have learned and my knowledge in their business. Both keys here  Actor? people are starting to buy it, so I’ll probably do more, have a market that will pay, only have some skills and have a plan to improve them. Athlete?  Clearly a market, but I never got the skills to a salable level.  Musician? Ditto.  

At the end of the day, Cal Newport is right.  Trying to become a Rockstar just ended in misery, I was in love with the dream, not the product and process so I never attained the skill level needed for my brand to sell.   Practicing chords and notes made me nuts.   In business, flying and acting, for whatever reason I don’t have any problem pushing to new limits every time I go to work.  I like building the skills and thus obtained the second key.

If you have been chasing your passion and it feels like you are chasing your tail, Cal’s book might help you get on the right track.  

Are You Doing Your Homework To Succeed?

Doing "homework" is something most people try to stop doing the minute they leave school.  That is exactly why most people don't "make it".  The reality is that "homework" is probably the second most important key to success right after "purpose".

This week I had a great conversation with Alan Pietruszewski about acting, and the level of effort and training required to become even a good actor, let alone great.  Much like flying jets, you just can't walk in and do it well.  Alan is a friend and a mentor of mine.

As an actor, I know I have been very lucky and fallen into some great deals.  That did not mean I was the best I could be or even what the director wanted.  More than once I am sure they felt like they were "stuck" with me because I was the only choice they had.  Alan teaches a class for actors who are vets.  I haven't taken the classes but I am fortunate enough to get some one on one time with him on occasion.

Along the lines of learning how to do your homework, a book I recommend to everyone is "Boyd".  It is the story of the man that changed how we fight wars, and yet few even knew he existed.  Boyd's signature statement was, "I am ready, I did my homework".  If you don't do your homework, you aren't ready for any job.  Even McDonalds' has training to make sure the right number of pickle slices end up on the bun every time.  

Doing your "homework" was the focus of AlanPietruszewski's last class.

Doing your homework is the first step in a commitment to excellence.  I am very fortunate to live in an area of very successful people.  I can do homework in business just by talking to my neighbors and friends.  I can do this because I made a conscious decision to be a little "house poor".  I buy the least expensive house in the most expensive area I can afford.  I do this because I find that being low man on the financial totem pole, affords me many more opportunities to learn and grow.  

Being the big fish in a small pond is garbage thinking.  You can't grow if the pond won't support you.  I remember once hearing that a certain fish can only grow so that it is 1" for each gallon in the tank.  The bigger the tank the bigger the fish could get.  I want to be that fish and so should you.  

Starting out as the smallest fish in a big pond gives you many more opportunities to learn and grow.  It also makes it easier to do your homework.  Your potential is unlimited, so why limit it by living in a small pond?  Yes a big fish might eat you, but you will only get eaten when you give up the fight.  Lets face it, big fish are lazy and will just go after the next fish, they really don't want to fight.

Living where I am now, there are dozens of business owners, lawyers, doctors, accountants, and even a musician or two.  All of them are successful because they did their homework and keep doing their homework.  One guitar player has a studio in his house. I haven't met him yet, but I met his guitar coach while out running.  Several platinum albums and he still has a guitar coach every week.

His coach told me that he plays four or five hours every day.  That is doing your homework.  You owe it to yourself to live the best life you can, and that means doing a little homework today and every day, so that tomorrow is a little better than yesterday.  

If you make the most money and have the biggest house in your area, who would you learn from, who would you be inspired by? More importantly,  who is inspiring your children, people on MTV or real people they know?  Live among the people you want to be like, not among the people that will hold you back.  

When you do a little homework every day, you get a little better at being you every day.  That "you" will quickly rise to the top of any field.  Don't you owe it to yourself?

Do You Use "Purpose" In Your Decision Making?

Having "purpose" in decision making is easier said that done.  Do you let emotions effect your decisions?  If you do, why?  Do you even know when you do it?  The truth is that we can see it in others more easily than we can see it in ourselves. 

Every day I bet you see people that can't make a decision.  Ask them where to eat, and nobody will step up with a decision.  Ask them what they want after they get there and I'll bet you hear "You go then I'll decide".  Are you that person who always "lets" others go first?  Don't be.

Eating out is a simple example of how people let fear and emotion get in the way.  Nobody wants to offend anyone else by picking the wrong place to eat.  If everyone else is eating salads, the indecisive will go along instead of getting the steak and lobster they really want.  Why?  Fear.

Fear of offending someone.

Fear of not belonging.

Fear of being ridiculed or embarrassed by the choice.

You are probably thinking it sounds funny that we have "fear" about where to eat and what to eat, but people do.  When I embarked on a very strict no carb diet to lose 30 pounds last year, I realized how often people put off their decisions to go along with what other people were doing.  

I never asked anyone else to eat "low carb" or "no carb" but amazingly I didn't see bread or pasta on the table for over five months.  I lost the weight and changed my eating habits for good, and it has made ordering that much easier. 

In this case I had a genuine purpose that was important to me.  I needed to lose weight because of a knee problem that was developing.

New Years resolutions fail for this exact reason.  The resolution isn't that important, it is missing a very solid "what's in it for me".  Let take a smoker, who decides to quit and look at it from the "what's in it for me" perspective.  

1. If I quit, I won't smell like cigarettes.  Is this really important to them? probably not, they haven't been bothered enough by it so far.  

2. If I quit, I won't need smoke breaks.  Is this important?  In fact quite the opposite, the smoke breaks may be an escape that they lose.  They might feel like they are offending the other smokers by not joining them.

3. If I quit, I'll save money.  This is a good one, but if there isn't something to save for, it won't matter.  

4. If I quit, I'll be healthier.  This is the one that might work.  If they have a genuine purpose to live healthier, they might quit smoking.  If they just like the idea of living healthier, it isn't a purpose and it won't help.

The real point here is that we all have "ideas" and things that sound good to other people that we agree with.  Those things are not your purpose or my purpose, they are just ideas.  Like my electric car, being petroleum free is a very interesting academic discussion.  The reality is, most people don't care, so it won't happen.   In my case my purpose was advancing my economic flexibility by reducing my monthly costs.  That was very important to me so I did get the electric car.

If you can map out your purpose clearly, decisions come easy because all you need to do is ask, does that fit my purpose.  When it does, you do it, when it doesn't you don't.  Life is that simple, we just complicate it trying to please others and fit in, instead of being who we really are. 

If you can answer a few simple questions for you, your life and your work, the rest gets easy.  The hard part is deciding exactly what you want from this journey we call life.

And before we get there, here is the great irony, we all respect and admire people that make decisions.  We might not agree with them, but they are the people we look to.  Why not become that person?

These questions should help, if you can answer them you are on your way to making better decisions.

Where are you going?  Not today, but what does your future look like?  This is the "vision" of your perfect life, a dream you will actually live and achieve.  Most people I talk to can't tell me what their dream is anymore.  Life has sucked it out of them.

What are you doing to get there? Are you making progress every day,  Are you training to be the best you that you can be so you can get where you are going?

How do you contribute?  What do you do that adds value to the rest of the world so they will help you get there.  What is it that lets you make the decisions and lead the way?

What's in it for you, I mean really?  This can be anything and is the toughest and most important question to ask.  When you really sit down with most smokers, they can't find a reason that matters to them.  It is normally about "they say I should quit".  When you ask dieters why they fail, it is similarly about comfort.  When I lost 30 pounds, I was in a new zone.  My comfort level changed, my wardrobe changed, and change can be tough.  This is the most important question.  If there isn't anything in it for you that you really want, you aren't likely to achieve much more than the norm.

When you define your purpose, you gladly take the road less traveled without fear or worry.  Where will you road take you?

Is Your Tech Guy Overselling IT?

#OfficeNetwork

How much technology do you really need in the office?  I am not talking about the stuff you see like your desktop computer, the tablet or your phone.  What I am talking about are web servers, mail servers, routers and hubs, and things you never see unless you are the IT guy.

Recently I spent some time with two different clients this month and was amazed at how much in house technology they had.  Both of these businesses have less than 15 employees full time in the office, and 10 employees out on the road.  Here are their setups starting from the wall to the desk:

Business 1 10 Users, 6 client interactions per day:
ATT UVerse Modem 15 Static IP Addresses
Juniper Router
-Microsoft Small Business Server - Required for software used in house
-Microsoft Exchange Server - Used for basic email functions
-Digital Tape Backup Drive - Used to Back Up Bothe Servers
10 Desktop PC's with 18" LCD Screens
All users have iPhones


Monthly IT average $3000

Business 2, 12 Users, 45 Client Interactions per day:
Time Warner Cable Modem - 50 Static IP addresses
Cisco Router
2 x Apple Airport
-Microsoft Exchange Server - Basic Email Functions
-Microsoft Small Business Server - Financial and Data Storage
-Specialty Server for software package
8 Desktop PC's with 20" screens
2 Desktop Macs
2 MacBooks
12 iPhones

Monthly IT average $2100

In both cases, I couldn't see any reason to have an in house server for email or basic functionality.  A network drive, sometimes called "Network Addressable Storage" or NAS drives, would have worked just fine.  The difference? About $3000 up front plus $500 a month in support.  Additionally neither needs the MS exchange server now that they have gone to the iPhone as the mobile platform.  Yes Exchange does a lot more, but they aren't using it.

The last monthly cost is the static IP addresses.  Business one needs it for a subscription service they have to purchase for each computer.  I am suspicious though that the vendor doesn't have an option for dynamic IP addresses.   The second business was hosting their website data on their server but not the website. It was a crazy system to support.  Additionally of the 50 static IP addresses only 5 were in use.

How would I set up businesses that size?  In fact just about any business can use this model if you have less than 20 desktop systems.  In fact now I see iPads with keyboards and proprietary apps and that whole setup is less than what I listed above.

Here is exactly what my two offices look like:

Verizon FiOS Router - WiFi off, set to Modem only Mode.
Apple Airport Extreme Router(s)
Netgear ReadyNAS Network Drive
Virtual Web Hosting with Email Service, 1and1 and GoDaddy are two good ones we support in our office.
Desktop PC or MAC as required.

This is exactly our setup, I don't use the Verizon FiOS Router for simplicity reasons, and in an all MAC business, you could use the Apple Time Capsule instead of the Netgear Ready NAS.  All of our email is stored on the servers at 1and1, as is our website.  We back them up to a DVD each month.  The NAS Drive is backed up weekly since that is where our customer records and financials are stored.

Western Digital even calls one option "mycloud", meaning you own it.  While I like virtual email and web hosting to save money, you should own your data in a physical sense.  That is why we use the NAS drive.  Our setup has all of the capability needed for both businesses and would have cost over $10,000 less.

Do you want to see your IT guy more often or do you want $10,000 or more in your bank account?

Is Failure The Road To Success?

Several people throughout my life have said something like "Failure is the road to success".  I even noticed a little ad in the Wall Street Journal this week that used that quote.  So do we really need to lead a life of failure to succeed?  Does that make any sense to you?  How could you possibly want success if you knew that your life was going to be littered with failure.

Is this why so many people just accept where they are in life?  Doesn't everyone want to know how to be successful?  If not, why wouldn't they want to be successful?  Don't you want to be more successful than you are now?

Since a big part of my work now is helping other people become more successful, I started thinking about failure and its role in life after reading an article in the recent issue of INC magazine. A few of you will know my success principle of "Be careful who you listen too".  For those of you that don't know it, one of the principles I live by, one that I consider one of the keys to my success, is that I don't take advice from anyone who isn't doing better than I am at the thing they are advising me on.

Real Estate Agents are a great example.  A big chunk of them don't own a home, and a larger percentage don't own investment property.  So how can they give me advice on something I am pretty good at, and they aren't really doing?  My opinion is simply they can't.  I got my own license about two years ago to do better for myself and help anyone who is serious about buying or selling.  Don't call me if you are a "looky lou".

The recent INC magazine article was focused on Jim Collins of Good to Great fame and his work at The United States Military Academy.

Most of you know the United States Military Academy as "Westpoint".  Many who know about it consider Westpoint the college for the elite army officers.  The list of high achieving alumni supports this view.

According to INC magazine, Jim Collins learned a little about leadership while working with the cadets.  As the article points out, Jim Collins has spent his life researching organization success, not personal success.  Westpoint should have realized, that Mr. Collins isn't an expert at Military Leadership either, and as he learned these are very different things.

Another question I had to ask about the articles perspective; Is there a difference between organizational success and individual success?  Can you have highly effective organizations that we call successful without having highly effective or "successful" people running it?  I believe that one is required to have the other.  An organization can hold back great people, and a great organization can be destroyed by lesser people being at the top.  What I have read in Mr. Collins books lead me to believe that he agrees with my premise even though he doesn't directly say it.

My thoughts are that at the core of all great companies is great people.  Do you think you can build a great company with idiots?  This should be common sense right?

Some companies are better at collecting a higher percentage of successful people to create a more successful company.  Others do a great job creating successful people who in turn create successful businesses.  This was really the legacy of Jack Welch during his reign at GE isn't it?  He created a great management and leadership funnel, the people that made it through the funnel made great companies.

Tommy Caldwell, considered one of the worlds best rock climbers, is attempting to be the first person ever to climb the face of El Cap in Yosemite park un assisted.   This means he is going to do it with no ropes, no nails in the rocks, no hexectric nuts or link cams, just a man climbing a rock.  I am sure he gets to wear the shoes though.

So far he has "failed" four times, and according to INC, when Jim Collins asked him why he goes back after failing, Tommy Caldwell replied that he was getting better each time.  Tommy Caldwell didn't fail, he tried and improved. Just as the Japanese use Kaizen in business, Tommy Caldwell uses it in rock climbing.

Right there was the secret to crossing a long section of the road to success.  Failure is not the road to success.  Failure is failure.  Moving forward on the road is how you get you to success.  There is no other way.

Some of this may appear to be semantics, some of this is in "The Mind", and the reality is still that failure is failure and progress is progress no matter how you define it.  Success does not come from failure.  Success comes from moving forward no matter how difficult.

This point of view was a frustration I have had with many business improvement and self help books.  They would use the word failure when referencing attempts to move forward.  I really didn't address this issue correctly in the book So Now What?

As a competitive marksman, there were two competitions at every event, a team competition and an individual competition.  The best victories where when the team won, even though I wanted to win also.  In 1989, both happened, and it is the best victory in my career.  I won the overall event, and the team won the team event.  When that happened our margin was so big, I could have been third on my team and we would have still won.  Nobody carried the team and nobody held the team back, the entire team kept pushing that year.  There was never a failure, only opportunities to improve.

Thomas Edison had it correct when he was asked how it felt to fail at creating the electric light bulb 10,000 times.  He replied, "I didn't fail 10,000 times, the lightbulb was an invention with 10,000 steps."  It was an invention worth the journey.  The bigger the prize at the end, or the bigger the contribution, the more difficult the journey will be.  There are no short cuts.

Those who don't really want success will see the steps as too difficult and therefore a failure.  Failure becomes an excuse to quit rather than a step forward.  When you say to yourself that you have failed, you give yourself permission to quit and seek a new road.  You change your definition of success to fit your failures.  Failure is failure only if you don't learn from it and let it choose your direction.

This may seem like a very subtle difference in language and it really is.  How you view the steps will determine if you make it to your destination or not.  When you look at high achievers, they are still real people just like you and me.  The difference starts with how they view failure, and how big their goals are.  When things don't work and people laugh and ridicule, high achievers keep moving.  They don't quit.

So why do people accept failure as failure?  Simply put it is comfortable.  Since none of their peers have done it, they don't feel the need to do it, and not doing it keep them at a level they are comfortable with.  This can happen to anyone at any level in life.

The times in my life I wanted to quit are few but they happened.  I have lived through and proven both sides of this process of the mind as it relates to failure and success.  The most memorable for me was in 1990.   I was ready to quit Air Force Pilot training because of a letter stating that I did "not have the attitude conducive to fly a fighter".  It didn't say I wasn't qualified or I had failed, but I read it that way and I accepted the letter as failure.

Ready to walk away and return to my "comfortable" life, a friend, classmate and Air Force Academy Graduate, Mike Leonas, convinced me it was simply an opportunity to improve.  Thanks to Mike I ended up having a great time flying in the military for the next 14 years.

If you really want to get where you are going, get better with each attempt.  Get stronger at the core skill so you can push a little harder each time until you get "there" and can come up with a new place to go.  More importantly, as Mike Leonas showed me, surround yourself with friends who don't understand failure, and truly understand opportunities to improve.

The journey really is the thing.  Why do you think Richard Branson keeps building companies?  When he gets to one destination, he keeps moving to another one.  When Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, he continued to move towards his destination.  When he came back, he brought Apple with him.  Life is about the opportunities to improve.

Think about Elon Musk starting a new technically advanced car company that only offers 100% electric cars.  He already had a successful business and was a billionaire, why risk it all to get into the car business and build a car that no one else builds?  Didn't anyone tell him about the Tucker Car Company? Clearly at that level, Constant Improvement works.

Failure is not the road to success, failure isn't even on the road to success.  The road to success is paved with little cobblestones of success and then taking one step to place the next stone.  Always pushing a little more each time than you did the time before and getting closer to the goal each time is the key.  Failure is when you quit, nothing more.  This is why a coach can be such a big help.

Making each step better than the last is the key to success.  Failure is how some people will define a step that doesn't end at success.  The problem, like Edison found, is that you don't know how many steps that will be.

As the proverb goes, You are closest to success, just before you quit.

Get better at what ever you do every day and you will be called a success before you know it.

What Is The Value Of An Idea? How Do You Sell It?

Just about every conference I go to where there are serial entrepreneurs and business owner the question about the "Value of an Idea" pops up in one form or another.  It usually isn't that direct.

Normally it starts out with someone approaching me and telling me their great idea.  They will spend several minutes elaborating on how this idea can be monetized and how they are going to get rich.  At some point the conversation turns and they say something like this, "So what do you think?  Do you want to take this and run with it?"

To begin with my answer is always a resounding "No".  The funny ones are the people who come back year after year.  Sometimes they are worried I will "steal" their idea.  One guy wanted me to sign an NDA before telling me anything.  Obviously I have no idea what his great idea was.

When this happened last week it occurred to me that all these people are really asking is "What is the value of my idea?"  They are also indirectly asking if it is good enough for me.

I have a couple of simple rules that I live by, mostly because I figured out doing otherwise meant I ended up working for free for someone else.  The first rule of course is "follow the money".  Anytime I see something crazy on the news or in politics, it is easy to follow the money to find the real issue.  Most people won't do the homework though.

The second rule is that I don't take financial or business advice from anyone making less than I do.  In fact, I use 5x as a rule.  All of my coaches make at least five times the money I make.  Yes the coach has a coach.  In one area the coach makes less than I do overall, but makes several times what I make in that specific area, which passes the litmus test.

So how does this relate to the value of an idea?  Basically if your track record is that of Sam Ginn, then I'll listen, and maybe want to get involved.  The first time I met Mr. Ginn, I wasn't following that rule and it cost me.  Instead I listened to me. The same was true when I met Sandy Lerner.  Two strikes is all I needed.

For everyone else, until you have proven that YOU can add value to an idea, it is just that, an idea.  Nothing more than electrons in your brain moving around in a way that only you can truly understand it.  Even if you have a working product, it may not have any more value yet.

The value of an idea has two main variables.  First is the number of people it solves a problem for.  The bigger that number, the bigger the potential value.  Second is a factor on which you are able to execute.  If your ability to execute on your idea is zero, and you know how to deliver clean water to everyone, guess what?  The value of your idea is zero.

Last year a friend of mine presented a nice little office product.  It was something he wanted and felt the world needed.  I looked at it for several days, talked about it with other potential users and asked if they would buy it.  The answer was no across the board.  The problem it solved wasn't a pain point with any of us, so the idea, while nice, needed to compete on price alone with existing products.  How fun is that?

Occasionally someone gets lucky and sees the value of an idea and buys it or rents it from the person who had the idea.  Bill Gates saw the value of PC-DOS and bought it, making himself among the richest in the world.   Ever hear of Seattle Computer Products?  Didn't think so, they created QDOS and later PC-DOS which is what Bill Gates bought to create MS-DOS.

To Seattle Computer Products, PC-DOS was a necessity for them.  They didn't see the real value.  What they did though was have a working product that someone could buy, and Bill Gates did.  Even PC-DOS was more than an idea when Microsoft took it over.

The genius of Microsoft was asking IBM for a very small cut of the PC sales at IBM in exchange for MS-DOS.  I am amazed at how many times people ask me to take over their idea and give them 50%.   50% of an idea that has no value is still $0.  The value isn't the idea, it is the execution.  The idea is simply the starting point.

That is why Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Sam Ginn and Sandy Lerner can all give me advice anytime.  They know how to execute.  The value is 99.995% in the execution.

So what is the value of an idea? Nothing.  Absolutely nothing until you build it to prove it works to solve a problem or convince someone else of its ability to solve a problem.  Even then the value is still very close to .005% until you execute.

While it is true you can't execute without an idea, the idea doesn't solve a problem for one person without exection.  Solving problems is where the money is hiding.

Would You Like To Know Something I Wish I Knew Then?

This has been an interesting year for some people, me included.  The company that was my primary income declared bankruptcy, and became my secondary job in the same 12 month period.  How you do you stay on the road to success when this happens?

Some of my friends have pinned their lives on various other events this year over which they have no control.  Overall, my closest group of friends are all doing quite well when compared to last year and the year before.  Sadly a few have become emotionally invested in events that they have no way to control or benefit from.

Why is that?  The economic data says that people aren't doing better.  They might be back at work but relative to inflation, average incomes are down, the cost of housing is on the rise and most people are struggling to make ends meet.  So what is the difference between my friends who are doing better and everyone else?  Do you want to know?  I mean, do you REALLY want to know what success keys they have?

My question is for those of us that are a little farther along in life, what would you have liked to have really known 20 years ago?  What knowledge would have changed your life?  What would you do differently?  I will tell you there are two main things that I would have done differently had I been given the right information.  I have enough that I wish I knew to write a book.  If I do, will you want to read it?

My next question for the younger people.  Do you want to know?  I am not sure that I would have at the time.  My niece is more worried about her friends.  My nephew though, his is paying attention.

In my 20's, I was on a mission to do something, the problem was that I didn't know what that something was.  Even if I was given the right information, would I have done anything different?  I almost think I was given the information, and ignored it because it didn't fit my world.  What I needed was a real mentor, and I didn't have one.  I had some great coaches though.

This week I took a class with Marki Costello.  The Costello name comes directly from the "Abbot and Costello" comedy franchise.  In the world of Hollywood, she is part of the royal circle.  During the class I talked to a woman for two and a half minutes.

Marki said to "interview" this woman and only listen to what she was saying.  All of my questions were supposed to be related to what she said.   Sadly, I couldn't.  The coach in me was fighting to get out, and yet while I did what I was supposed to do, she just said the same thing over and over.  I listened and she never asked me for advice.  She just told me how she was doing it.  It was like looking in a time warped mirror.  I could hear myself 20 years ago and wanted to reach over and tell her to shut up and listen.  I wanted to set her straight, and show her why her life wasn't going where she wanted it too.  I didn't.

This leads to the first lesson and the first thing I wish I had known.  I don't mean known like I could tell my friends, but known like truly understood.  There are some people who really know what they want early on in life.  Jon Bon Jovi nailed it early on in life.  Me?  I was just goofing off with no direction.  This woman had four jobs, and hasn't made real success at any of them.  I have had four jobs and by most accounts I am now "successful" at all of them.   She hasn't truly hit success in any of them and can't focus on any one of them.  Sadly she is the only one in the way of her success.

It is funny that it worked out for me the way it did.  As a kid I used to watch Family Ties with Michael J. Fox because I was the entrepreneur in the household of "safe" people.  I used to read about interest rates, and how to make money in real estate all the way back to the 5th grade.  Before that I was on TV as a kid on "Romper Room" and early reality TV on ABC's Junior All Star program.

Safe people can be like my in-laws and work for the government and get a check on the 1st and 15th, or like my parents and become doctors.  My mom got a Ph.D. from Stanford and my Father was a Dentist who graduated from USC.  It is just a different version of "safe" income.  Their degrees were as reliable at getting jobs as the government was for my in-laws.  So what did I do?  I left home without finishing High School.

So would I listen?  I don't know. Do you want to listen?  I hope so.

The one thing I would change is the four job thing.  While I am having a good time now, the individual struggles with each job delayed growth in others.  Being in the top 10% of four jobs isn't nearly as rewarding as being in the top 1% of just one job.

My hindsight tells me that I focused on the wrong job first.  John Travolta became an actor first, pilot second.  I did it the other way around.  I spent many more years to become a professional pilot before I could start in real estate as an investor and Realtor while working to build my knowledge of business and marketing.  Finally I returned to acting part time a year ago.  So who makes more money?  John Travolta without a doubt.  Who works less?  I am guessing John Travolta.

I am not complaining about my life, rather I am pointing out that if I had known then what I know now, I would hope that I would approach things differently.   I could do all of the same things and by simply changing the order, I could have been more successful at any one of them or all of them.  If I knew then what I know now.

So my question to you is this.  If I sat down with my high roller friends who are pilots, actors, real estate investors and business owners, living in million dollar homes, would you be interested in knowing what they wished they had known then?  Would you change what  you are doing now if they shared that knowledge?

That is what I want to know.

What Is An Autopilot Business - Can It Be Done?

Lately I have been involved in several discussions about creating a business and setting it on autopilot.  I find autopilots to be a great analogy.  More so since I am a former military instructor pilot and a commercial airline pilot.

What business isn't is a "fire and forget missile".  That is the mistake many owners make.

So What's the difference?

Simply put, a fire and forget missile is exactly that.  You get it all set up, chase down your target and as soon as you fire the missile, you go chase another target.  The missile will go get the target all by itself.  They are quite scary toys when you get on the wrong end of them.  Just like sending a salesman out on his own, and customers getting away, jets have several tricks to protect themselves from a fire and forget missile.  If you don't make sure the missile shot down the target you just might find yourself the target.

Autopilots are much more like an investment grade or "seventh level" business.  If you don't know what a seventh level business is, Gary Kellers Red Book explains it pretty well.  He teaches independent real estate agents how to build a business and put it on autopilot.  The methods work for any business.

What most people don't realize is that an Autopilot is nothing more than a three dimensional cruise control.  Ironically, most autopilots have very limited ability to control the engines of the airplane, so using the autopilot at the wrong time can make things worse.

In a car when you set the cruise you still have to steer right?  Before the autopilot, all we had in the airplane is trim.  Trim keeps the airplane at the same altitude and in the same direction if all other things are equal.  If the wind changes, you need to change trim.  Temperature changes, you need to change trim.

Next came the autopilot.  It could correct for wind and temperature, but it doesn't have eyes or talk to the radar. If you set the autopilot and there is a big storm you still have to make adjustments to the system so you don't fly into the storm.

This is exactly where most business owners get into trouble and why I make good money teaching them how to fix the damage they did to their own systems.  Even the best franchises can have this problem.  The owner gets the business all set up, hires a good manager and as soon as everything is ok,  they feel like the autopilot is on so they step out.  

Pilots NEVER leave the flight deck even with the autopilot on.  Why not?  Things change.  

Weather, traffic, fuel and the systems are all variables the Autopilot can't see or react with.  At least one pilot is always up there monitoring the systems and the autopilot.  I check in on my business all the time.  Truly successful people live between very blurred lines of work and vacation for this reason.  

Notice I said at least one pilot is always up there monitoring the systems.  I didn't say the Captain was always up there.  My first lesson in leaving my business alone for a short period was the first time I went on a cruise.  I didn't have a cell phone or pager for four days.  After nearly having a nervous breakdown, I slept over 18 hours.  When I got back to the port and checked in, my number two did a great job.  There were a few glitches, but nothing catastrophic.

When I got back, I made some minor adjustments, and also decided to do it more often.  The trick is not to totally walk away.  Just like an autopilot, monitoring and adjusting is essential.

Even real estate investors and long term stock investors need to check in once in a while.  I like to see my investment properties at least once every three months.  I also give my cards to the neighbors and let them know that if my tenants are a hassle to please call me anonymously.  

I also have a simple program on my computer that shows green/red for my stock investments on a three month average.  Every three months or when I see red, I look at the stocks.  I don't buy penny stocks or gamble.  That means watching it every day.  That isn't autopilot.  Even the best companies can make mistakes or fall out of favor, and once every three months has turned out to work for me.

As systems and information get better, we can act like drone pilots, and control several drones from one location.  As long as there is a person in charge of each drone, and you just check in once in a while to verify everything is ok, you can actually run several businesses on autopilot at once.  

In the airplane, there is usually a "relief" pilot who joins the co-pilot, so there are still two sets of eyes on everything, and a free person to get the Captain if something goes really awry.  My friend that owns a dozen big name burger joints has a manager at each location and two GM's that float among all the location just like he does.  When he goes on vacation, he still checks the deposits every other day and the two GM's know how to get ahold of him.  Blurred lines between business and vacation.  

So can you put a business on autopilot?  Absolutely, as long as you respect the limits of the autopilot.  The Autopilot doesn't replace the pilot, it just frees him up to do other things from time to time.

Farming One Crop, or Multiple Crops For success which is better?

Have you ever felt that school was a waste of time?  Have you ever been lost in a subject to the point you didn't know the time or even the day?  How can it be that you absorb some things very well, and others topics of education can be so uninteresting that you have to work just to stay awake?

The reality is simple, and the truth isn't easy.  As humans we are hard wired to have an interest in certain things.  Those interests create the desire to learn more.  No interest, no desire.  Great teachers create interest first, lessons second.  Boring lecturers spew out lessons and hope you can force or fake interest.

Technical schools and apprentice programs used to be the way of life, but corporations found these a bit too risky and pushed the responsibility to the government, which by the way gladly accepted.  The problem was instead of allowing people to find an interesting path and become great at it, we were all lined up on boring roads and received somewhat generic educations.  This is why the greatest technical companies like Hewlett-Packard, Bell Telephone (AT&T), Edison Electric and Apple were created by those that stepped out of the system and created their own learning path.  They stayed interested.

So what does this have to do with Farming and Success?  Much like school, life and business offer us a variety of ways to grow and succeed.   The two Steve's of Apple, Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard, along with Mr. Bell and even Mr. Edison all showed us a different way to build success outside of the halls of education.

Ironically, farmers figured this out long before industrialization, and the lesson is one worth looking at.

In my coaching life, focus is a major element of my work.  I spend a lot of hours with clients getting them to simplify and focus on a small number of important tasks and goals instead of giant, endless to do lists that are really just busy work to avoid the hard work that needs to be done.

Lately I have been called a hypocrite more than once.  Besides coaching, I still fly, train our internet marketing staff, and am involved in real estate as an investor, trainer and agent.  So the question I get is "How can you claim focus is so important when you have so many irons in the fire?"

To start with, I don't look at these like irons in the fire.  I look at them like a farm.  You can build one giant farm with one crop.  As long as that crop does good, you will do great.  The better you do the more land you can buy and the better you get at knowing how to get the most money from that crop per acre.  You get the best prices on seeds, pesticides and labor because of the economy of scale and your ability to buy in quantity.

You can also build a farm that has several smaller crops of higher margin.  By learning how to grow crops that help each other in pest prevention, soil conservation and nutrient usage, you can also create a great farm.  You can never compete against the single crop neighbor on a price basis, and when the economy turns south, you might be in a riskier position. However, the single crop master farmer has to worry about a single shift ending his business.  What if he grows sugar cane, and the government decides to tax sugar 100% because it causes health problems.  He could be out of business overnight because you can't just change to tobacco in a day or even a month.

Starting a multi crop farm takes a different kind of focus.  You must have a big picture of what you are trying to do overall, for instance create an organic farm, or a farm store.  You must also focus on each crop one at a time until you learn them so each are a small success.  Your sugar might only yield 80% as much per acre, but your higher quality can yield equal or higher profits per acre.  Think Tiffany's.

When I sit down to write, I am a writer.  When I go to the studio to act, I am an actor.  I don't bring Real Estate to the studio, and I don't practice acting during open houses or when I am flying jets.  When I fly jets, I look and act like a pilot.  When I am in the Real Estate office working, training or attending a meeting, I look like a professional full time Realtor.

As I built my life, I did it in stages.  I worked at flying jets until I was highly proficient and only need a few hours each month to maintain my skills.  Then I could start classes for Real Estate.  I worked at that as an investor for years and know have my methods down to simple checklists.  I can evaluate an investment in less than 15 minutes.

Finally I could start acting classes and work at adding acting to my skill and income sets.  Writing is really just an extension of my experience just like coaching is, but I still take classes to be better at both of them as well.

I would probably make a little more money if I just picked on, and did it all of the time.  I am very fortunate to have started on my first path very early, and having stuck with it, was able to move on to the next with plenty of time on my life clock left.

In Flying will I ever be Bob Hoover?  Nope.
In Real Estate Investing will I be Donald Trump? Nope.
In Acting will I be Tom Cruise or John Travolta or even Scott Baio? Nope.
In Writing will I be Steven King? Nope.

Can I do quite well at all of them individually so that the income and lifestyle add up to something like they live?  Yes, and that is the life I designed for myself.

Because I built my life this way on purpose, I don't work at any one job.  In fact I don't work at any of my jobs.  They are all fun.  I am doing now almost exactly what I want to do when I am "retired".  It doesn't get any better than that.

So it doesn't matter which type of business or life you want to build, a single faceted super sized business/life or a multifaceted business/life.  As long as you pick one, do it with purpose and take the time to develop each facet or perfect the single face of your business, success can be achieved either way.  As long as there is a destination or goal to focus on you can do it.  No destination, no focus, no achieving the goal.

As you head into the weekend, really take a look at what you want.  A single mission business or do you want to do something more?  I like getting small and medium checks daily from all kinds of sources.  Some people need steady checks on the first and fifteenth, and others can do with one or two really big checks a year.  What do you want?

You can start with a single business like real estate investing and turn it into a 100 Million Dollar empire like Dean Graziosi did and then the checks don't matter as much.  Success really is that simple, it just isn't easy.