Which Twelve
When I was a boy, I noticed my Father worked hard, long hours at his day job, and then he would come home and stay up til midnight working on his side business. He was a machine, he would work for hours and think nothing of it. Due to his working so much, we never got to have much Dad time, but when we did, it was great fun. For years I took my Father’s advice, and for years I struggled, until I realized he was stuck in the Industrial Age Program, he lived to work.
I never believed that we were to work so hard we would forget to live our lives, that we would trade that life money, like we just sold our souls to the devil. I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with a good hard days work, but why are you doing it. Many would stand up and say, “I’m doing this to support my family, so they can have a good life”. While that may be true, I have a hunch, most of us didn’t really believe it when we said it.
If helping people is important, how can you help anyone if you’re working 60 -70 hours a week, your time is eaten by your day job. Maybe your day job helps people, it’s possible that you have traded your life for that day job that helps people. It’s not all bad though, we do however have to step back and ask ourselves why we have traded our time for dollars.
In the end, my Father worked his entire life believing everything would be OK when retirement knocked on his door. It was a lie, and was angry, because he truly thought he was doing was for his family, trading his life so we could have a better life when his working years were finished. He used to tell me, “son, you have a choice, you have to decide which 12 your were going to work. You can work the first 12 hours of a day, or the second twelve, it’s your choice”. I hated it when he said it, because he had already proved his theory, his belief didn’t work.
My Father retired at age 55, he lived to be 70, so he struggled far more in those retirement years than he did when he worked the day job. Because what he was told wasn’t true, he believed what he was told by his employer and by the government. Do this, and do that, and you’ll be just fine come retirement time. So now what do we do with that knowledge?
If you haven’t noticed, most so-called careers have a shelf life, they don’t care how long you’ve devoted your life to it, it doesn’t care how old you are, it flat-out doesn’t care, it will spit you out regardless of the life you traded to make sure it survived. The bottom-line, protectionism, and control is what big business is mostly about, the music industry, newspapers, politicians, they are all doing everything they can to keeps under their thumb. They want you to make that decision of which twelve you’re going to trade you life for a pay cheque.
Some how life has gotten so complicated we’re not sure who to believe, how to undo, and how to unlearn much of what we believe to be true. As I said before, YOU are the secret weapon, only YOU can make a difference, only YOU can decide what, and for how long. Surround yourself with smarter people than yourself, because if you think you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.
The Most Asked Question
We are a curious lot, we’re hungry for information & knowledge, we want to know what to do next, always looking for that nugget, that one thing to put us on the right track. We spend hours searching the Internet for a shortcut, are we join groups or businesses thinking it will shortcut success. The shortcut, should you find one, usually doesn’t have staying power, it has a short life span. It’s not because the deal, or whatever it is you decided to join is bad, the common denominator follows you every where you go, it’s why you either quit or hop aboard the next best thing.
I spent years trying to get that shortcut, thinking I could get rich, I could do something where I really didn’t have to work that hard, and make piles of money. Most of us are lazy, we want it all without having to pay the price to get it. There are two things required to succeed in business, one is to hard work, and the other is persistence. The combination of those two brings about life abundantly, growth, excitement, reward, enjoyment, and feeling of doing something special with your time, or your life.
I meet regularly with young people wanting to start their own business, they already know they don’t want to work for the man, they want to do work on their terms. The energy is overwhelming at times, but fun to be around. The conversation always starts with, I want to start a business, or I want a job, but I don’t know what I want to do. Every time, I’m dumb-founded by this, the answer to me is simple and as plain as the nose on our faces. I always say, if you don’t know, don’t worry about it, just go do something. I tell them to go and do something, anything, and they’ll find out what they like, love or hate. The problem is they haven’t done anything, so they have nothing to measure, nothing to compare. The old guard call it experience, I don’t look at that way, I want you to get used to the idea that you will have to do hard work before you discover your passion, the thing you really want to do.
The second thing I tell these young eager minds, go home and write, write down what you love doing. It could be a hobby, it could be music, it could be painting art, it doesn’t matter, just write it down. Once they figure it out, once they see something they are willing to invest their time and no money into, they always get to the most asked question. How do I do it?
This question comes from two things in my humble opinion. One, they haven’t worked for anyone else before, and they don’t learn how business might work. Two, they haven’t learned that building a business is hard work, and they don’t have that long old age thing called experience, they haven’t failed.
The younger generations have two choices to make when they decide to start a business, they can plan with a tradition business plan and funding, or they could just start. The later brings with it failure, and that is uncomfortable, and painful. Failure tends to squash that drive, that passion, that energy to build a business. The other failure is, the business isn’t profitable the first day they start telling the world about their new venture.
There are over 100 questions a business consultant would ask new business owners, and if they answered to many questions wrong, they would tell the young entrepreneur they shouldn’t start the business. I say, don’t listen to them, just go and do something and measure what’s happening as you go. I’m not saying you should ignore certain indicators, the business should be viable, not just a pipe dream.
First young entrepreneurs aren’t sure what kind of business to start, and secondly, they always ask, how do I do it. The most asked question in my business of helping business owners.
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Nobody Notices
At first when you put you and your work out there for the world to see, you hope someone will like it, but be prepared for those who don’t, it’s the nature of starting something new. This blog is one of those things I put out there, to see if someone was interested in what I’m sharing, it was a risk and it still is. I believe we are headed for a complete reset in the world of business, I believe we will give away more than we actually sell, I believe the younger generations will drive these changes. I set out to help you figure out how to take part in the new world order of business, how to use the open & free business model, how to Create, Differentiate, and Deliver.
Nobody notices at first, sometimes it takes longer than it should, but eventually….somebody notices. The like-minded do come, they’ll spread your work, they may even talk about, they may even follow you, waiting for the next thing you have to say. If you’re fortunate and you’ve built enough trust, you have true fans, and those are priceless, cherish them, even if you don’t know them personally.
Nobody Notices immediately, you do have to make it easy for people to see your work, if you’ve created good work, many will notice. If your work isn’t good, some will come, but many will go somewhere else to find the information you’re sharing. If at first your work isn’t good enough, don’t quit, keep creating it until you come to master your creation. This isn’t a new message, it’s tried true message, but for some reason we keep hoping it will change and everyone will become fans of what we do.
Consistency is a secret ingredient to success, giving up is not. Write, create, make if different, and deliver…it’s the only way you’ll know if anyone notices.
Your Secret Weapon To Success
Spending countless hours reading business blogs, books, going to seminars, and hearing a TED Talks of one of the brightest minds in the world, they might bring you closer to finding the secret weapon, or what it is. But you’re looking in the wrong place, like looking for love in all the wrong places. The secret weapon has one characteristic that most over look, and that’s the problem, we’re over thinking, over analyzing,. The book Think & Grow Rich is telling you what that characteristic is, the first time you read it, you miss it, you think the secret is still in the book. You read the book again thinking it’s still in there, it just hasn’t shown itself just yet.
The secret weapon is a scarcity, are you ready to learn what it is? It’s something no one in the world has:
IT’S YOU!
Now go show the world your secret weapon.
If You Could Teach The World One Thing
What would you like to teach the world today? The old song that used the line, “If I could teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony”. The idea had the right motive, we would love to collectively get along with everyone, and using the universal language of music seemed like the perfect way to start that movement.
If you ask yourself this question today, what would it be? Is about your work, what you do? Would you try to use this opportunity to talk about your business, and why everyone should do business with you. Does everyone need to do business with you, is it realistic, no they don’t, and you couldn’t handle the work load.
Setting an unrealistic goal doesn’t really move you closer to your objectives and desires, it does generate anxiety. If you could teach the world one thing, what would that be?
For me, it would be, to help you understand how special you are, and that you should dare to believe in yourself. So we could have the privilege of experiencing your passion.
