How many times have you heard about a business being started out of someone’s garage? When I first graduated from college I worked for Russ Berrie, the stuffed animal company. Russ Berrie, the founder, started the company out of his garage in the 1960′s, using a wagon to take samples of his products to potential customers. Today Russ is a publically traded company and occupy’s much nicer office space than a garage. In Bloomington, Kip May has a thriving photography business. Kip is well known as one of the top photographers in Indiana and regularly offers classes to other photographers helping them develop their skills. Kip started in his garage and worked out of it for eleven years! Sometimes we see some of the great success stories and compare ourselves to those companies. We beat ourselves up when strategies fail and our business struggles. . What we need to realize is that most businesses struggle early on. Many have moments when they are not sure they are going to survive and just when they thought they made it the biggest recession in 70 years hits. Sometimes business owners have to take part time jobs just to pay the bills in order to keep their businesses running. Most of us have to make big sacrifices just to keep the dream going.
If you are in this phase my advice is to enjoy it. This is your garage moment! It’s part of your story and if you hang in there it may be part of a great story. Realize that you are not alone and just because you are struggling now doesn’t mean that can’t and wont’ change in the future.
This is your garage; make sure you enjoy the moment.
Do you know why most people don’t achieve what they really want? It’s not because they are not disciplined enough. I believe the main reason they don’t achieve their goals is that they are not focused on their why. What’s your why? Your why is the reason you do what you do. It’s what gets you out of bed in the morning. It gives you energy and brings meaning to your life. We all have a why. Unfortunately many of us lose our why in the day to day struggles. People who are successful do one thing better than the rest of us. They never lose their why. Your why will keep you motivated and pushing through the challenges and roadblocks that you will face. If you want to do one thing in 2010 that will help you achieve more; get clear on your why. Write it down. Read it every morning when you wake up. Make sure it is so powerful that it brings you to tears.( or at least close).
I am currently working with a person who wants desperately to quit his job and own his own business. He has his business up and running but at this point it is not bringing in the revenue he needs to quit his job. However, I wouldn’t bet against this guy. It’s not because he’s smarter or more disciplined than everyone else. It’s because his why is so strong that it motivates him to do the things he needs to do every day. He is driven to get where he wants to go and he won’t let anything get in his way. That is what a powerful why can do for you.
There is a great video titled ” The last lecture”, which features a professor, Randy Pausch, who is dying from a brain tumor and is giving his last lecture. It is a highly inspiring video. In the video Randy Pausch talks about obstacles he has faced and makes the comment that obstacles are put in our way to show us how much we care about something. In my work as a coach I think this may be the biggest difference I have noticed between high performance and mediocrity. When we are at our best we see obstacles for what they are; nothing more than challenges. In addition, we become motivated BECAUSE of the challenge. We actually get energy from the problem. However, when we are not at our best we have a tendency to see obstacles as mountains; unmovable and forever lasting. The obstacle takes energy from us and makes it almost impossible to get past. What is interesting is that the size or complexity of the problem seems to have nothing to do with how we view it. I have seen an entrepreneur on the brink of bankruptcy view the situation as nothing more than a short term challenge. I have also seen the same person paralyzed by having too many “to do’s on his task list.
The question then becomes how do you make the shift from seeing obstacles as mountains to seeing them as what they really are; nothing more than short term obstacles. The answer is actually quite simple; practice seeing them as obstacles and not mountains and the rest is easy. If you are able to recognize in yourself how you are perceiving a challenge and can make a shift in your thinking than the solution may come much faster and easier than you thought possible.
I am addicted to email. I check it constantly. If I’m not at my computer I check it on my phone while I’m driving, coaching my sons soccer game, talking to my wife or kids, and even doing yard work. About the only time I don’t check it is when I’m in a meeting with someone or sleeping. Recently I read a great book called “The Power of Full Engagement.” It is written by two sports psychologists who teach executives how to perform at a higher level. They focus on helping people improve their performance by managing their energy. If you often feel tired during the day, or are exhausted at the end of the day, you are most likely doing a poor job of managing your energy.
One of their key concepts is that you should focus on tasks for a period of 90 minutes and then move onto something else. You should limit your multitasking, That means not checking emails every time you hear a beep. Checking email constantly will drain your energy, make you less productive, and more irritable. Their advice is to check email twice a day! What I noticed was that my email had taken control of my life. It even made me slightly anxious, always waiting for that next email. While it wasn’t easy to check email twice a day, after a few days I found myself feeling and thinking a little bit differently. I felt less controlled by email, and realized that I had gotten away from doing some of the things that I really enjoyed doing because I was always reacting to my emails. I also realized that rarely do I get an email that is urgent and needs immediate attention.
In the book the authors interview many top executives and find that the most productive don’t check email on a regular basis. The top executives have strict routines that they follow and many check email in the morning or the evening.
Are you ready to give up your email addiction? Here is a challenge. For one day try checking your email only once in the morning and once in the afternoon. You might be surprised by how much control email has on you. I can guarantee only one thing. You will survive.
If you have recently found yourself out of work you are most likely feeling somewhat overwhelmed, a little lost, and afraid that you will never find work. I know this because I coach people who are looking for a job. I also know this because that is how I feel every day. In some ways I’ve been out of work for almost nine years. That’s when I decided to start my own business as a business coach. In the past few years I have worked with quite a few people who lost their job and needed support and help in finding a new one. That’s when I noticed that being unemployed and being self employed have quite a few similarities. I wanted to offer three few words of advice that have helped me succeed and I believe applies to those who are in transition.
GET OUT THERE!
Those were the words I heard from my coach about five years ago during a particularly tough period for my business. I was in my comfort zone in my office on my computer looking for clients. It wasn’t working. Here is what my coach had to say; “Get yourself out there and get exposure. You don’t have to have the perfect elevator speech, brochure, etc.” He was right. There is a strong link in my business between getting out there and getting business. (What a surprise) This is true with those looking for a job. You will not find a job from your computer. About 80% of jobs are never advertised. The only way you will find them is to network and tell everyone you know that you are looking for a job. Don’t worry if your resume is not perfect, your elevator speech is the pits, or you don’t even know what you want to do. If you wait until you figure it out you may never find a job. I am an imperfect coach and yet people hire me all of the time. You are an imperfect job candidate but you will find someone will want you. Just get yourself out there!
Make relationships your priority for 2009
What is your focus for 2009? What do you want to accomplish? How much money do you want to make? What are the best goals to set for 2009?
Here is a thought, it is my experience that one of the most important goals you can set for yourself is to improve the quality of relationships you have with those close with you.
In my work in organizations I can tell you that in almost 100% of the cases, when the company was struggling or stagnant it was because of struggling relationships at the top of the organization. In one case the relationship with the GM and owner was so strained that it threatened to put the company out of business. It was one of my first clients and in the beginning I tried to ignore some of the relationship issues and focused on strategy and operational issues. I quickly learned that until the two improved their relationship with each other the company was going to continue to struggle. Over the next year we worked on improving how the two worked together. I am happy to say that years later the company is not only surviving but has tripled in size and the owner and GM are clearly responsible for the company’s growth. The company, which is in the construction industry, had it’s best year ever in 2008 and is poised to surpass this in 2009. Yes, this is happening in a down economy where most of his competitors are struggling. If you ask the owner what was the key to the company growing he will tell you it was the work that was done to improve how he and his GM worked together.
I will cover how we got there in future blog posts but for now I want to make it clear that in all the companies I have worked with the strength of relationships at the top was the number one reason for the company’s success or struggles.
In my recent newsletter I wrote about the importance of being focused on what you are trying to accomplish in your work. As the new year is coming upon us quickly it is a great time to revisit that subject. I believe there is nothing more important to you having an impactful year in 2009 then becoming clear on what it is you want to accomplish. I’ll be posting daily messages to help you begin the work of getting focused for 2009. If you are skeptical about doing this work I’d like to make a few points.
1. Nothing important ever happens by chance. If you want to make a big impact in 2009 you’ve got to prepare for it.
2. Being focused also means letting go of ideas and plans that have been floating around in your head but you never take action on. These clutter your mind and keep you from doing what needs to be done
3. Most of the time we don’t spend enough time trying to figure out what we want. I have found that most of us( including myself) don’t give the proper effort towards figuring out what we really want to accomplish. By doing this we tend to grab onto any opportunity that is placed in front of us.
Over the next month I’ll be adding articles and exercises to help you begin the planning that you will need to do to create the focus and energy to make a huge impact on your business in 2009
If you are a football fan you obviously are aware that NY Giants star wide receiver Plaxico Burress is in trouble with the law for accidentally shooting himself in the leg while in at a NY nightclub. Most people are saying enough is enough with Plaxico and his issues. Earlier this year he was suspended by the Giants for missing practice and he has often been fined for being late for meetings. They want the Giants to release him and claim he should be banned from football. My thoughts are that Plaxico does not appear to be a bad guy and that he suffers only from what many of us suffer from and that is what I call “authorityitiss”. That is he doesn’t like to have to listen to those in power tell him what to do. That is why he misses practices and meetings and that is most likely why he got himself into this latest mess. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. The only thing he is guilty of is playing by his own rules by carrying an unregistered gun. Whether it is missing meetings or not registering a gun it all points to the same issue; he doesn’t like to follow rules,
Most of us can probably relate to Plaxico in some way. If you work for a company you have to follow rules and do things that you don’t agree with or like to do. Most reasonable people make a choice to “put up” with things that they don’t want to do for the greater good of being successful. I have a friend who is much like Plaxico in that he hates to follow “the rules” He’s a highly successful business man in a fortune 500 company because as he says it; “sometimes you have to put up with stuff to be able to succeed.”
Plaxico has himself in big trouble and may end up in jail for it. However, lets not think that he is so different from the rest of us. Many who are like Plaxico end up starting their own businesses so they don’t have to take orders from others. ( I would bet that a few of my old bosses would put me in this catagory) Maybe Plaxico could start his own one man football team.
