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- Feb 28 2008
- 32 Comments
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Today you get to see one of our favorite clients... the sometimes outrageous New Beginnings guest Andrea Yeager...
...with her top highlights of this week's Main Event at Disney World.
You'll see an attendee's perspective of our event... from someone that came all the way from Israel to be here.
Enjoy...
Continue reading The Famous “Andrea” Shares Her Top Event Highlights
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- Aug 17 2007
- 24 Comments
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Most online entrepreneurs just like you either suffer from too little or way too much information: There simply is no in-between.Where do you stand? How do you figure out which amount of information is “just right?”
Today, we’ll continue the conversation on information overload that we started in an earlier blog post. And, boy, is there a lot of material to cover …
Let’s begin with one of the biggest issues.
I’m often asked by nervous entrepreneurs:
When is “enough” information really enough?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this question from clients – “newbie” business owners and veteran business leaders alike.
So many smart people are convincing themselves that they are just not smart enough. Stop doing this to yourself and your business.
As we mentioned in an Aug. 15 posting on this blog about information overload, you can’t possibly know everything, so don’t even try. You just need to recognize what you don’t know and fill in the gaps along the way.
One of our blog readers, Dan Scott, put this urgency in perspective: “Often we keep acquiring more information so we can put off pulling the trigger … at some point, you’ve got sufficient information and should just act.”
Excellent point, Dan.
Think about it:
It’s great to have an impressive vocabulary, but you don’t need to memorize an entire dictionary in order to enjoy a good book. If you don’t understand a new word, simply look it up. It’s that easy to do.
You just have to trust yourself – and your brain. After all, even Albert Einstein couldn’t remember his own telephone number. He reasoned, quite accurately, that he didn’t need to memorize his phone number because he knew where to find it in the phone book.
Einstein didn’t question his knowledge of the unknown, even for little things like remembering a phone number. You shouldn’t either.
Sometimes knowing how to access information is more important than the information itself. Remember that – I’m sure it will become more and more important to you as your business grows.
There’s another puzzling question I hear a lot, and this one is funny when you say it out loud:
How do I know that I’ll know what I need to know when I need to know it?
Questions like these reveal a disturbing unease about strategic business process – and a lack of confidence among business owners. The questions don’t lead to business solutions; they just heighten our anxieties and pick at the scab of uncertainty that irritates us all.
“What if I can’t keep up with my competitors?” …
“What if I don’t buy every business book, read every e-mail, and scan every RSS feed?” …
“What if I miss the one bit of information that could truly set my business on fire?”
“What if …”
This kind of paranoia freezes growth opportunity.
It discourages risk-taking and leads to indecision, inefficiency, and ultimately, paralysis.
This is no way to run a successful business.
Information anxiety plagues many good business people. But the great ones are able to sort through the clutter of information and inaction and get to the part that really matters – the information that leads you to take action.
Again, knowing how to access and interpret information is sometimes more important than the information itself.
Think about this example. What turns the lights on in your house? Simple answer: A light switch.
You don’t need to know about volts, ohms and amperes in order to turn on the lights. You just need the lights to work so you can see what is in front of you.
The ability to see what is in front of you: This is what so many of us seem to have lost.
Instead, we block our own view, and distort our business vision, with needless stacks of irrelevant information. The “stacks” don’t have to be physical. Even a virtual impediment is a blockade to creativity and productive thought.
Oh yeah, one more thing …
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. You’ll still make them, no matter how much information you have in your memory and at your fingertips.
Let me share a secret with you.
If you’ve done anything at all – not just business – then you have valuable experiences locked inside you that are just waiting to be rediscovered
You know what has worked and what hasn’t in certain situations. This will ALWAYS provide the best information you need to succeed. It is personal to you and it is timely: Two strong reasons why it’s more valuable to you than most information you’ll come across.
Most likely, no other business guru has ever shared this secret with you – because, if they did, it would be bad for business.
But I’m willing to do this for you because I believe you really must understand this. I’ve had some of the best mentors in the world – Jay Abraham, Michael Masterson, etc. – but even with that star-quality guidance, I needed something more.
The most important, impactful and relevant information I ever received that has helped me be successful has come directly from my own experiences – good and bad.
You are the best source of information for your business.
You know what works best and what doesn’t. You’ve thrown yourself into the fire and perhaps you’ve been burned by a few failed business decisions.
So what? That’s nothing to be ashamed of. On the contrary, it may be just what you need to assure success in the future.
Your experiences, your passions, your successes and failures, all come into play as you move forward in any business venture. Each bit of experience you have gained along the way becomes a pebble on the path toward future growth.
Don’t turn that pebble into a boulder by blocking your ability to move forward with confidence.
Often, clients tell me that watching me make a mistake, rebound and leverage it for future growth has inspired them to really change their way of thinking. They are no longer timid with fear of failure. Instead, they are ready to pounce on opportunity, even if it is born of error.
While you may be tempted to ingest all sorts of information from outside sources, and many of these sources may prove remarkably helpful, the ultimate business decisions are made by you.
It is essential that you take control of that decision-making function.
And no matter what, do not discount what you know already or make your own knowledge any less important than anyone else’s. It is your wisdom that has value because you are living with it.
Last year, in a Sept. 8 blog posting, I offered tips on how to attack information overload and the resulting anxiety it causes.
In it, I asked my readers to overcome “the single biggest obstacle to achieving lasting success online and offline.” That obstacle, for many, is their own personal craving for more and more information.
You may be an information junkie, but don’t let information anxiety turn your business into junk.
What’s causing you to delay action in favor of more research? What impulses are preventing you from “pulling the trigger” on action-oriented solutions?
Your responses on information overload have been illuminating, and I’m learning from all that I receive and read.
Share your secrets to “getting going” on new tasks. Do you have a certain ritual you follow? A certain method you use to kick-start your productivity? How do you know when enough is enough?
Let me know how you do it … There are a lot of people hungry for your ideas.
To Higher Profits,
Rich Schefren
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- May 16 2007
- 208 Comments
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My last blog post was about the myth of retirement, and how it robs most people of the happiness they hope for. It really struck a nerve with many of my readers.
If you’ve been patiently waiting for my solution… your wait is over, the cavalry is charging ahead. And if your current situation seems hopeless, you’re in luck, because when we’re done you’ll have an answer that will definitely work for you.
How can I be so sure? Because what I am about to layout for you are the very same strategies guiding me and many of my famous clients.
But before we blitz down the trail together I need to point out a few of the more obvious signs along the way. You see, right now most people have a false sense of certainty about what they believe will be their likely future. Truth be told, most entrepreneurs’ envisioned future isn’t much different from an infant’s security blanket – they both don’t serve any real purpose other than providing a false sense of safety.
I know what I just wrote sounds cold, but think about it. Could you have predicted you current situation (good or bad) 5 years ago? How about 10 years ago? For anyone with even an ounce of ambition cycling through their veins the answer has to be “no.”
From what I gather, the single biggest reason for the gap between what we want and where we end up is perspective. Most people seem to be sleepwalking through life, with little awareness of where they are really heading and even less recognition for what’s going on around them.
So, before you can predict anything, you need to have a clue about the overall context - meaning the environment you currently operate in. You see, one of the biggest factors influencing your future will be how you interact with everything that’s going on around you. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
Of course it does. So, let me ask you a question…
“Have you noticed how everything around us is changing so fast these days?”
Think about it. Just compare where the world is today to where it was just a few years ago.
Today, the best selling rap artist is white (Eminem), the most successful golfer is black (Tiger Woods), the tallest basketball player in the NBA is Chinese (Yao Ming), the French have been accusing Americans of being condescending and not caring about the views of foreigners, we now pay for water (bottled water is $9 a gallon) while music is free (sort of), and you need 9 different phone numbers to reach any two of your friends. I could go on and on…
Don’t make the mistake that the business world is somehow immune from the snowball of rapid change. I first noticed how uncertain the future is in the business world after reading Tom Peters’ and Robert Waterman’s book In Search Of Excellence. Peters and Waterman celebrated “excellence in companies that broke the mold”... Years later, these same companies were no longer excellent and the only thing that these excellent companies broke was their ability to survive and thrive.
Celebrated business guru Jim Collins author of bestselling books Built To Last, and Good To Great hasn’t been immune from the hyper-speed of business change either. The companies he profiled in Built To Last, did indeed last, although they weren’t exactly built to emulate.
Over half of Jim’s “visionary companies” have slipped dramatically in performance and reputation since the book’s release. These companies’ visions could now be better categorized as blurry rather than guiding. And chances are good that if he were to rewrite the book today companies like Ford, Sony, Boeing, Nordstrom, Merck, Motorola, and Disney wouldn’t even make his runner’s up list.
Just in case you mistakenly believe I am taking a shot at either Collins or Peters, I’m not. I wouldn’t even dare. These two men rank among my top five business heroes. But the point is obvious nonetheless. With everything changing so fast these days our futures are lot less predictable then ever before.
That’s why it’s no longer safe to assume that your tomorrow will be like today or yesterday, no matter how excellent you’ve been or how long you’ve been around. Moreover, the further you go out into the future the more your vision resembles a fairy tale.
Now before you go any further please read the prior paragraph again. Because when you face up to the hard cold reality that you really cannot be too certain about your future, you realize sacrificing everything for it (the whole retirement idea) doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Of course you and I both realize the future is going to come. And we all believe certain actions taken today will improve our future.
So how do we balance the two?
If we live completely for today we might find our future somewhat unforgiving and very unpleasant, yet if we live completely for the future we might find we sacrificed our best years for nothing more than a mirage. Either way you end up with a heap of regrets.
Let me remind you that what got us on this conversation in the first place was the scary fact that my masseuse “GP” had not taken a day off in over 180 days. But I never told you why...
When GP first told me about her grueling schedule I asked her when she made time for fun. Initially she tried to feed me some line about making time “here and there”. I would have challenged her on her answer but I could tell by her tone she honestly believed what she was telling me.
My experience coaching so many successful marketing gurus taught me not to challenge closely held beliefs head on. If you do all you meet up with is a lot of resistance, because one of the reasons these people are successful is they’re not easily swayed from their own positive self-affirming beliefs.
I used to come across this all the time when I was coaching. GP like many of my clients had already convinced herself that she actually did have fun. If I challenged her belief she would have gotten defensive and more committed to the belief.
Instead, I asked for the details (which by the way is always the best way to covertly challenge any belief). “Well, tell me, what do you like to do for fun?” I asked. “Lots of things” she replied. “Tell me some of them” I challenged. She thought for a minute or two, and then told me she “used” to have fun by going rollerblading, playing with her dogs, or going to the beach.
Sure, she had things that she “used to do” for fun – but when I pressed further by asking her to tell me some of the things she’s done recently for fun, within the past 4 months, she didn’t have any answers.
GP then admitted to me (and more importantly to herself) she really didn’t make time for fun. It’s sad yet I see it all the time. I got the feeling that GP was hiding. Life was passing her by so fast and she just kept her head down clinging to the certainty of work over the uncertainty of her achieving happiness.
And while this won’t be popular to write I’ll write it anyway because the more I live the more I am convinced of its truth.
And here it is…
Most People Consistently Choose Unhappiness Over Uncertainty.
I know you want to disagree with that statement, don’t you? I know I did. Because if you can prove it’s not true then you’ll never have to inspect your life under that standard.
Let it stew for a few minutes… "Most People Consistently Choose Unhappiness Over Uncertainty".
If you’re up for being real honest with yourself - couldn’t you identify areas of your life where you are currently making that choice. If you ever answered a dream with “Sure, I’d love to, BUT WHAT IF...” What follows next is usually an uncertainty that is dominating your life decisions.
But I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves here. I’ve got a lot more to share with you about this, but let me tell you what I asked GP to do, because I want you to do the same. I asked GP to put together a list of 20 things she really enjoys before my appointment the next week.
What about you? Can you do it?
Sadly, many of you will not be able to come up with 20 fun things you enjoy. But if you can come up with even three it’s a start. No matter how many you come up with I want to invite you to post your answers here.
This way we can learn from each other’s lists. My hope is if there are enough people posting we can help the GPs of this world put together a great list for themselves. And like I said, it doesn’t matter how many you have now, just go ahead and share them here.
In my next post I’ll tell you what’s on my list, and how to use this list to dramatically boost your productivity and be a lot more successful a lot sooner.
But first, you’ve got to make the list… So have at it by commenting here.
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