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.

The Carrot and Stick For Better Business Success

In earlier posts I discussed going outside of the envelope.  As a pilot we would train by leaving the envelope in a spin, and recovering to the normal realm of flight.  There is a step I didn't mention. In military flying, because the training puts you closer to the edge of the envelope so often, and you spend so much time outside of it to gain understanding of aircraft performance, the jets have ejections seats.

If you go into a spin and you get below an altitude that will allow you to recover, you simply eject and save your life.  You can always get a new airplane.

While not a proud moment in my life, having to walk away from a business I spent 8 years building, it was the right thing to do.  The business went into a spin and did not have the finances to recover.  I ejected, regrouped and went back into business.  Most who eject in business will never go back.

Knowing when to bow out of the game is just as critical to success as pushing forward.  Just like being in an airplane there are some indicators that the spin is getting too low and you need to do something differently and quickly or you are going to need to eject out of the business.  A late ejection is called a bankruptcy.

Running a business is a challenge that very few will ever try.  Fewer yet will be successful at it, and a big part of my life has been spent understanding why.  A few will have failed in one business only to succeed in another as I did.  Without doing this I don't think I could have the understanding I have now.

Within the business all of the people have an effect on the outcome.  If you don't believe it, you are looking at your business all wrong.  Paying someone to do nothing at all still takes money away from the bottom line and therefore effects the outcome of your business.

When everyone is clear on what the mission is of the business and is properly trained in their jobs, the owner is only there to make minor course corrections and keep everyone moving forward.  The owner acts more like an interested investor or a coach when the business is set up right.

During the early days of Apple, Microsoft and Cisco, there were a lot of ups and downs. The people that stuck it out made millions on their stock options.  The success of the company created their individual financial success.

As a leader, your job is to make sure that there is a stick, and it is used only when needed.  Too much discipline, unfair attacks or any kind of discrimination just hurt the business.  Failing to enforce the rules  of the business can be worse.   In my successful businesses my employee turnover was near zero.  In my failed venture, I had 80% quarterly turnover of key employees.  The business had a major problem and I couldn't see it until I ejected and could look at it without having the worry of making payroll.

These days I spend way more time hiring and turn away new business when I don't have the people or capital to service the customer properly.  I know how hard it is to turn away good money, but if you can't earn it, you have to turn down the work until you are ready.

Employees, staff and contractors all need to know what the "sticks" are for not making the goals.  A friend of mine just got a promotion at his company because someone falsified some records.  The stick was a swift termination.  This is exactly the right thing for the company to do.  They don't do it often, but when they do find a salesperson falsifying records, the zero tolerance policy is enforced.

Being "nice" has no place in decision making at this level of the game.  If the person is lying on paper, they will lie to you and your customers.  They need to go.

Of even greater importance are the carrots.  The rewards for doing great work must be there.  Just like you need to give yourself rewards, you need to learn what your employees really want.  When you learn that and give it to them as a reward for exceptional performance.  When you do, they will deliver and keep delivering.

Most owners don't take the time to learn about their employees and find out what they really want.  You can't learn what sticks they'll fear and respect so you won't need to use them if you don't know your staff.  Likewise, you can't learn the rewards if you don't know who they are either.

Know where you want your business to go, know what your people really want and don't want to go and you are off to a great start.  There is more but if you don't get this part right the rest won't matter.

Are You “Slow and Steady” or a “Safety Net and The Big Score” type?

So which are you?  Do you even know?  This month, I had more than one discussion in this area and it got me thinking, that most people don’t even know!  they can’t see the signs that they are suffering in a safety net with the hope of the “big score”.

Since humans are logical, you would think that these two different approaches to life and success would be easy to see, and yet it apparently isn’t to most people, and I’ll use actors as an example.

In acting I have found that there are two basic approaches.  First is the formal school approach where you start young, apply to a conservatory or a well known school, hope to graduate, hope to get an agent and hope to get work.  Mel Gibson, Even then only a small percentage of graduates are the names you would recognize.  My current acting instructor, Harli Ames is probably a name you have never heard of, and yet he made it through of of the toughest schools in Australia.

The next approach is what I call the dive right in approach.  You just start applying to everything and anything you can get, and take some classes along the way.  Brad Pitt left college and moved to LA to start acting, taking classes from an independent coach.  Most will start out as “background” or “extras” and work to move up to featured and then hope to get some better paying commercials and speaking parts.  Others will start in unpaid community theater or non-union work.

So of these two groups, which is the slow and steady, and which is the Safety Net and The Big Score?  The answer is most of neither and many of both.

The slow and steady group who go to the formal acting programs usually make it big or branch out in to the multiple income stream program.  They will write, direct, produce and act, rarely becoming well known for any of them and still generating a nice income when you put them all together.  Some will teach to generate a steady base income and most will realize that the big score may not happen so they start to leverage a host of “little scores”.  

Think of it like a shower head with a bunch of little holes v a hose with one giant hole.  Either one will get you wet, and most people find the shower head more comfortable.

Life is very transitional so people don’t always stay on one side or the other their entire carrear.  Having kids for instance can cause an instant shift in outlook the first time you can’t buy formula.  When the safety net isn’t enough, some people step off and go do something else entirely.  

The second group, of which I am much more familiar is the dive right in group.  They will do anything to keep working.  Some will get the Safety Net disease, others will realize how much work it is an quit, and two small groups will appear.  Those that become “hobby actors” like me who are just having a great time doing it and don’t worry about not having work because we have a very large safety net, and those who keep going trying to do it full time.

So am I a “Safety Net and Big Score” type or “Slow and Steady”?  

The Safety Net group generally feels more “entitled” like they deserve to get the big score and that someone should take care of them until it happens.  I met a girl who was 24, living at home, driving a very nice Mercedes SLK and working background two days a week until her “Big Break”.  It makes her crazy that I get principle work without trying and told me that the classes I am taking are a “waste of time” - Safety Net and Big Score may as well be tattooed on her forehead.

It amazes me how quickly the safety net group finds each other on set and starts trading notes on how to collect unemployment and work for cash until the next job in background.  Sitting and listening in has been an eye opening experience.  Once they find out anything about me I am kicked out of the group.  It has become my challenge of silence to see how long I can sit with them.

Of that group I haven’t seen a single “upgrade” yet.  They are usually too busy talking about how to use the safety net and can’t see the opportunity right in front of them.

Now back to the Slow and Steady types.  Many have good paying day jobs, take night acting classes and are generally looking forward in some way.  The day job isn’t a “minimum” fall back position, and they are always negotiating to get flexible schedules to work as an actor.  Several I know are real estate agents, and have continued to work as real estate agents through the downturn because the schedules are flexible.

Now you would think from this that the trained actors would be in the slow and steady, and the dive right in would mostly fit in the safety net and big score group.  You would be wrong.

I have met professionally trained actors with multiple credits who are broke and living day to day.  They refuse to take “background” or “extra” work because it is beneath them even though it is union work and adds to their pension and health benefits.  Instead they work for cash and collect unemployment.

At the same time I have met several full time “background” actors with no formal training who are in the top 10% of earnings, maintain their pension growth and health benefits every year.  They are at work ready willing and able. If they get an “upgrade” and speak, great, if not, great.  You don’t know any of their names, and they don’t care.

I don’t know about you, but sitting around in a safety net waiting for the “Big Score” sounds boring to me, I would rather go to work, keep my life and investments growing and have fun.

So which one are you?

The Carrot and Stick For Higher Personal Performance and Success

I've been bouncing around the ideas of Activity - Reward and Carrot - Stick for business and personal success.  This will be about personal success, because your business can't succeed if you aren't a success yourself.

To start I want to talk about "being" for a moment.  In the Zen sense of it all "being" is just that.  Basically meditating or doing something without effort or thought.  When you do that you are just "being".

The problem is that most people don't have any ingrained survival skills any more when they are just "being".  When a cat is "being" and it runs across a mouse, it will catch the mouse, and if it is hungry it will eat everything but the head.  It saves the head as a gift for it's master.  The cat is simply "being" a cat.

A buddhist monk can just be walking the monastery, growing food, preparing meals and meditating because they have trained to exist in this mode of being.  Most of the rest of us haven't trained to survive and therefore succeed in any mode of being.

Socialization and industrialization has conditioned our ability to survive out of our "being".  When we are hungry, we don't kill the next bird that fly's by and eat it do we?  Leave a former Navy Seal alone on the street hungry, and he will.  Why?  Because he was conditioned back to a different level of survival and to him, being hungry simply means time to gather food.  The bird is just food.

In order to succeed while you are just "being", you must first have a vision of who you want to be, where that person is going, what it took to get there, and then "become" the person who makes the journey from where you are today to the person you are "being" and therefore become.

Imagine a woman, broke, lonely and working at a dead end job barely able to make her rent.  After going to a big self help conference she decides to set some huge goals and shoot for the stars.  She decides that she is going to make $5 Million dollars this year.  She goes home reads the books, thinks about making $5 Million a year, maybe even prays to make $5 Million a year.  At the end of the day she keeps her same job, and at the end of the year, she gives up feeling that she failed because she wasn't making $5 Million for the year.

What went wrong?  Aren't we supposed to "Think and Grow Rich"?  The answer is a little more than just thinking about making $5 Million a year.  Before you can be someone who makes $5 Million per year, you have to be that person who made $24,000 per year who then made $5 Million per year.  "Being" a lottery winner or trust fund baby only works if you get lucky, and this isn't about luck or are born into a wealthy family, and this isn't about that either.

You can't pick your parents and you can't fix the lotto.

What I mean is this.  If you want to make $5 Million per year, you have to find out about people who make $5 Million per year.  They all did something to get where our woman wants to go.  One of those people made the money in a way that she would find tolerable.  Now she must "be" that person until it becomes part of her "being".

Before you can make the decision of who you will be, you need to know the sacrifices they made to get there.  You have to be ready to make similar sacrifices.  There are stories of many famous actors who finished great colleges or theater programs only to end up sleeping in their cars before their big break.  If you want to be the next Brad Pitt, are you willing to sleep in your car?  I know that "being" Brad Pitt isn't for me, and likewise this is where most people just walk away from big goals.  They aren't willing to take the sticks and thorns of the path less traveled.

You will need to know what sacrifices they endured, what sticks they were hit with, which ones they respected and avoided.   You should also know the little rewards they gave themselves on their own journey to the goal to keep moving when the journey appeared hopeless.

When you accept the sticks and carrots of the journey as your own life, then you can become someone on the journey.  Only then are you "being" the person who WILL make $5 Million per year instead of the failure who didn't make $5 Million per year.

Setting goals that you don't reach is a downward spin you need to stay out of.  You can only do that by understanding and accepting the real costs of your goals and "being" the person that pays the price to make the journey and achieve the goals.

"Being" is easier when you know what the carrots and sticks are and are willing to take them both anytime they happen.

Do You Need An Acting Class To Advance Your Career?

Some time ago I was given the opportunity to work on The Newsroom, and in rare form, I showed up without doing my homework.  I was so glad to get the opportunity, I focused on the wrong thing.  I spent more time looking at how to get there, what time I needed to leave and didn't look at what the show was about or how I would fit in or who my character was, his backstory, nothing.

I also didn't read anything about the show other than Jeff Daniels was the lead character Will McAvoy.  Imagine that, the Dumb and Dumber guy as the lead in a drama.  I figured it would be a great deal, and I would get to work with some cool people.  I was right about that and nothing else.  I just showed up, with no idea what I was doing or going to do.

Everything went very smooth after I arrived.  Wardrobe, hair, makeup were all quick and easy.  I had a few minutes to meet the other person who would be on set with me, Andray Johnson.   Andray is a working actor, and has since helped me to become involved with the Veterans in Film and Television group.

As we got on set, they placed me next to Sloan played by Olivia Munn, the co-anchor on the show, and we start.  After three quick camera checks, we are rolling and about three beats in, Jeff Daniels looks right at me and says "What do you think?".  My brain just went to freeze-fright-flight mode and froze.  All I could think was "That isn't on the script!" but what came out was "Uh Well You know uh".  I didn't do my homework, and as John Boyd would say, I got hosed for it.

The director yelled cut, I was out, and the next guy was in.  Ouch.  Everyone was very nice and professional but I knew what had just happened.

Have you ever seen this happen in a sales presentation, company briefing or speech?

I bring this up because I have seen this happen in more business and sales presentations than I care to mention.  Just like being on set, it is normally preparation and homework. I didn't do my homework and let the crew down and the casting director who trusted me to do a great job.  Lesson learned, I won't let it happen again.

Being the true professional she is, Olivia tried to save me and slid some notes over in case I got another take.  It didn't happen, and I was politely escorted off the set.  Showing the level he was at, Jeff Daniels later took a moment and offered some advice.  He let me know not to sweat it, and that I should get some improv training, he mentioned "The Groundlings" in Hollywood might help.

The timing hasn't worked out for The Groundlings yet, although I do intend to go if they will let me in sometime soon.

For now I am taking an acting class with Harli Ames.  At last nights class we spent most of the time on improv.  It is scary how much you can learn in three hours when you push yourself.  It is no wonder people that do to schools like The Groundlings are so good at it.

The class has about 15 people, and only five have any acting aspirations.  The rest are there to get better at public speaking, business presentations or sales presentations.  Having a business degree and being an experienced public speaker, I would have never considered an acting class.  If I knew then what I know now....

It was amazing to see the transition as we did an exercise called "Space Jump".  If felt like being on stage with Wayne Brady.  Things came out of people you would never expect.  One of the most shy people in class jumped up and jumped right in, becoming a completely different person.  If the class were just this one night, I would already call it money well spent.

So, DO YOU need an acting class?

The Carrot and The Stick Management Theory

After earning my business degree, my desire to learn didn't stop.  I studied Jack Welch of GE and the idea of Six Sigma.  Get rid of the bottom 10%, there is a stick for sure.

A few people out there clearly won't accept my idea that some form of punishment or "stick" is required in business, and with children.  They will quickly point out that I am not a psychologist, nor do I have kids.

As a Co-Pilot on a big jet, there is a lot going on.  You can't see what the guy is doing behind you and are lucky to keep up with the guy to your left when you first start out.   As you move into the left seat and become the "Captain" or "Aircraft Commander", you get a better view.  You can see more of what is going on and make better decisions.  You don't become myopic as easily.

When you become and instructor and sit in the jump seat behind the two or three pilots, you become amazingly visionary.  Since you aren't actually doing anything, you see everything.  This is what coaches do for a business.  They stand back and look at the bigger picture, one owners and managers rarely see because they are "in" the business and get focused on some specific aspect causing them to be myopic.

In flying the "stick" when you do something really wrong is that somebody gets hurt.  Look at all of the aviation accidents, and then consider how safe flying still is.  The respect (not fear) of the "stick" is what keeps 99.9999% of all flights safe.  The next time an airliner stops for fuel, don't get mad at the pilots, thank them for not making you part of the punishment for being too aggressive on fuel.

To the people who say the stick isn't required, my rebut is simple.  Why are so many people incarcerated at such a high expense if the stick isn't required.  Deep down we all know the stick is required, but in our society of political correctness, we have made the stick soft.  Gym's, TV, three squares, baseball fields and movie nights?  While incarceration might sound bad to most of us.  Not enough of us respect or fear that stick, so too many end up getting hit by it.

My guess is the incarceration has more carrots than life on the outside for many of the people who are inside the high concrete walls.  Instead of spending $100,000 per year per inmate, why don't we spend $25,000 per year to help them become productive people?  Why don't we start with our children and get realistic on teaching them how life really works instead of trying to be "fair" to all of them.

As far as my experience with kids goes, my wife is a 20 year veteran of the 2nd grade classroom with an MBA.  I don't ever recall seeing her classes out of control or rambunctious, but I have seen many others.  Her techniques in the classroom are a big part of how we treat our niece and nephew when they stay with us.

My niece and nephew visit for extended periods because they live in other states.  Weekend visits aren't practical.  When they visit,  we don't have any trouble with them at all.  Neither of them have ever done anything to deserve capital punishment while they are with us.  They didn't get "Time Out" either, I think that is a joke.  Getting sent to their room?  In my house that is a multimedia entertainment room any kid would like to get sent to.   Our stick?  Easy, supervised chores with no reward.  When they did chores without being told too or without supervision and did them correctly, the same chores came with rewards.

When my nephew first came to stay for the summer he was an easy bribe.  A trip to the local Sonic on Friday, in the convertible, for an ice cream with just me, was the reward.  He wanted "Guy Time" and I work crazy hours.  So if he did his end of the deal, I would take time away from work to do my end.

The chore?  His room had to be picked up and his bed made every day for two weeks.  Did it work? Yes.  Did it take a little nudge the first couple of nights, yes.  He was just five years old.  He made his bed every day on the last visit with only one reminder.  He is 11.

By the time my nephew returned to my sister, his bed was made every day, and he picked his own reward for bigger and better chores.  The neat room and bed were just what he did after four weeks and two trips to the local Sonic.  He started asking to help me with more work around the property so he could spend more time with me or the other boys on the street.

When was the last time your kids asked for more work?

Am I an expert at raising kids? Nope.  Was I successful with my nephew when I had the chance?  I think so.

So the next two questions of course are:

1. How do I apply this to managing people?

2. How do I apply this to perform better myself?

Come back next week.....