What do you do with the critics?

You will never amount to anything great, your business idea is not good, your grades in school are not good enough, you better find a job with security, you’re not graduate school material, etc, etc.

The words of the critic!  As entrepreneurs we are faced with a common reality in this world, that reality is the voice of the critic.  They come in many forms, a co-worker, a boss, a banker, a government official, a brother, a sister, an uncle, a mom, a dad, a spouse, a teacher, a professor, a friend and the list goes on.

As men and women with passion for the free enterprise system, a love for the game and a quest for greatness we will all face our critics.  The question is not are you facing a critic it is what are you doing with the critic?  Personally, I think there are many men and women out there who fell victim to the harsh words of the critic.  They allowed the critic to get into their head and worse they believed them!

Ignore or be inspired by critics!

Talk to any successful entrepreneur and they will tell you stories of the critics in their lives.  Many of entrepreneurs will take the words of the critic and ignore them or they will take them and become inspired.  Inspired to prove them wrong and reach new heights of greatness.  Successful entrepreneurs have extraordinary drive and resolve.

I personally have had my fair share of naysayers and critics.  We face a danger in our culture and that danger is taking advice from so called authorities.  The guidance counselor at school who tells  a kid he is not good enough to get into a great school, the banker who says your business idea isn’t good enough and the dozens of others we allow into our lives to shape our beliefs.

As an entrepreneur you must be careful who you listen to.  Take advice from those who have the right to give it and be inspired by those who criticize and proclaim why you can’t.

So as you take your journey towards your path of greatness and success draw the line in the sand today and make a choice as to what you will do with your critics.

Keep on Charging

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Are You Effecient or Effective? Evaluating Your Actions

More than likely if you are an employee your are focusing on efficiency making sure to impress your superiors with multi-tasking and busyness, hoping to be recognized as a productive worker who “gets the job done”.  If you are a business owner you continue to cram your day with more stuff to do by figuring out ways to be more efficient, thus in return have more time to add more stuff.  Do yourself a favor . . .

STOP!!

I was browsing through “The 4 Hour Work Week” by Timothy Ferriss, pondering some of the principles he speaks about within his book.  (A book I highly recommend) Personally, I focus on a self analysis from time to time and my current focus is elimination.  In the book he speaks a good amount about Pareto’s Principle, AKA 80/20 rule.  For those who are not familiar with this principle, it has it’s roots in the lat 1800’s during which a controversial economist brought to light the principle that 80% of a countries economy is really generated by 20% of the people.

This rule applies to almost any area of production, at times even more skewed with 5% producing the 95% results.  So with that theory and principle in mind, I focus my energy on elimination.  Rather than being efficient to do more let’s step back and see what can we eliminate that is not part of the 20%?  As a business owner, evaluate your customers, evaluate your actions, evaluate your employees and measure what action, which customer and which employees are really responsible for the 80-99%.

Trust me, this exercise will be liberating, revealing and at times humbling as you realize 90% of your problems are coming from the customer who brings nothing to your bottom line, the employee who isn’t worth a penny to the company and actions that do nothing for your business growth.  As a business owner, help eliminate your actions from your day that are efficient, eliminate “busyness” from your employee base and help steer the ship towards the port of effectiveness.

Employees, this may be a tough one to tackle!  There is a good chance your boss is clueless when it comes to this principle and for them all the “old school” ways of a hustling, paper moving, cell phone talking and a busy looking employees is all they know.  You can’t blame them for this, your job is to help educate them.  Then, take steps towards elimination and liberation as you slowly move towards effective action which is the only action that equates measurable results.

Think about this.  If you remove 50% of your “efficient actions” and replace it with another 20% of effective action, you will, in theory, double your production while reducing the time you spend by 35%”

With that I say eliminate, liberate and fill your time with moments and actions that fulfill you, not with more “work”.

Keep on charging, make some comments show me you’re ALIVE

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Depressed Entrepreneur?

So today I had an email come over from another internet marketer and it spoke about a topic that got me thinking.  Have you ever seen, known or heard about a depressed entrepreneur?  I thought long and hard about this, I know and have known countless entrepreneurs, some at that TOP of their game, others facing business defeat, others stuck in a rut and the common thread amongst them, not ONE was depressed.  So it gets you thinking, what is it about the entrepreneur that allows for him or her, no matter what the situation to remain unaffected by “depression”.

It’s a matter of the heart

The heart, going to the dictionary is defined of course as an internal organ, but that’s not what we are talking about.  When you look further into the definitions of the heart, the ones that I want to talk about are:

The vital center and source of one’s being, emotions

The repository of one’s deepest and sincerest feelings and beliefs

Courage; resolution; fortitude

So the heart of the entrepreneur is what it is all about.  They know and have always known they were meant to conquer, to press on, to create, to innovate, to overcome obstacles, to never look back and ultimately they were designed and created with an amazing ability to no matter what the situation, to live in a state of mind and heart that will not allow for them to be depressed.  The heart of the entrepreneur can never be changed, it can never be satisfied with anything other than being an entrepreneur.

It is this fortitude, this passion, that even in the hardest moments, the entrepreneur assesses the situation, analyzes and looks for the solution.  Think about any great entrepreneur of modern time or times past, they have all faced, perceived defeat, perceived failure and perceived challenges.  Yet, each and everyone has done what the entrepreneur does best, they OVERCOME and move forward learning from the past and using each trial as a building block towards the success that is inevitable in the life of the entrepreneur.

Looking at the successes and perceived failures that have been a part of my life I can say with full confidence, in all, not once did I enter a state of depression, it was almost as I was unable to go there, that my very being was created without this mechanism.  I can remember shutting down a business that we had high hopes and dreams for, one that we believed we could franchise across the country, I remember the last night of operations.

“The store was quiet, there was a sense of peace, a sense of finality and we were closing up shop.  Sitting at that place alone after intense hard work of development and operations, I remember shutting off the lights, turning on the alarm and saying to myself, It was a good run let’s move on, what’s next?  Literally, several HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars lost and in it all not once was there a moment of depression.  Confusion, disappointment of course, but it only lasted a brief  moment, at the end of the day what mattered was not the perceived failure, what mattered was, the game is still ON, what’s next!”

See at the very heart of the entrepreneur is something amazing.  It is something that we ALL have access to, yet only very few people ever tap into the resources given to us by God.  If you don’t believe me, take a child for example, a child has passion, enthusiasm, imagination, creativity, fortitude (just tell them no, they will ask seven different ways to get the yes) and above all BELIEF.  Somewhere, down the line we get stomped on, we get isolated, we go to school and listen to teachers who tell those of us with those attributes above, that we have ADD or ADHD or lack of focus, many of our parents repeat the cycle, they don’t know any better, you hear things like, don’t set your goals to high, you can’t do that, stop dreaming, no, no, no, no and eventually the HEART and the passions within are buried deep behind fear and lack of belief.

See the entrepreneur is someone who looked at the teacher and thought, like I did, huh?  Don’t tell me I can’t, don’t tell me that idea is unrealistic, don’t tell me what your ‘test” says I am good at, don’t talk to me about business (you have no clue, business is not BOOKS) and ultimately the entrepreneur tuned out those who were a part of their lives who had nothing of real value to add. The entrepreneur either looked at their parents and said, I am not going to follow the thought pattern of my parents it has held them back.

or

They were blessed, like I was, to have parents or a role model(s) that said you can do what you want.  There are no limits to what can be achieved, God has designed us for greatness and we can follow that plan for our lives.  When they hit an obstacle, they stopped, the analyzed, they made the decision, do I wait, do I go over, do I go around or do I change direction.  When they had perceived failure in life, they didn’t stop and say whoa is me with their head hung low, they said, ‘The past does not equal the future, I will learn, I will implement and I will move forward.”

Check The Heart

See the medical community will focus on our heart as a vital organ.   Which of course is very important, equally important is your heart as defined above.  Check your heart, do you posses the attributes we talked about, the attributes of the child?  If so, stop and appreciate what you have as you are one of a very select few.  If not, look deep within the chambers of your heart, you will find them buried deep, covered under the garbage that was allowed in, covered under the years of people of authority telling you that you cannot, telling you that you are unrealistic and ultimately crushing the inspiration that you are made of.

So, look long and hard at the lives of the entrepreneur.  It is in the moments of challenge the true entrepreneur emerges and the heart prevails.

Live life with passion, keep charging and I’ll see you at the top.

Josh

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