Lifetime Learning

Only a minority of people have discovered and embrace a life of continuous learning.  You know who they are when you start talking to them.  

It’s reading, listening to audiobooks, subscribing and attending. It’s first thing in the morning for some, and while driving, and in the evening.  It’s taking notes and revisiting them.  It’s learning and thinking about it and writing.  It’s from a wide variety of sources, not just what you’re already predisposed to know or believe. It’s finding out what you need to know to grow to your potential and develop your talents and make the biggest contribution.

No habit will contribute to your forward motion and success more that the habit of lifetime learning.

Legacy Projects

We all fill up our days doing “stuff”.  But people that add more value do work that will impact tomorrow and the days after that.  I call this work “Legacy Projects” because it has an impact far into the future.  

Often this work does not fix or smooth over problems – it prevents them in the future.  It could be a training program written or implemented, getting the right people in the right seats, redesigning how your people do things to operate, or overhauling this department or that process.

Legacy projects are what makes tomorrow better.  What legacy project are you working on?

Planting seeds of future growth

Assuming you want greater results next year, what will drive those results?  A new employee or key position filled?  A new piece of equipment?  New software or training program for your staff?  Some diversification?

You’ll need to get started now, because these things don’t produce results on day one.

What do you need to begin today?

Get mad

I’ve often talked about not speaking or acting when we are mad.  And for the most part that’s true.

But for some of us who (are “nice guys” and) have been delaying things we need to do – hard conversations, personnel changes, resisting change ourselves – we need to get mad – and act when we are in the state of mind to do so.

Have you had enough?  

Don't defeat yourself

You are the leader of a group of people trying to deliver a product or service with certain goals.  There is no Constitution, or legislative and judicial branches in your business – it’s all you.  

As the leader of a relatively small group, your emotions, fears, beliefs, habits and weaknesses weigh heavily on the business and show up in the team’s progress.

Don’t defeat yourself.  Change.  Be the winner; the leader you need to be to accomplish the goals you have set.

Attack the problem, not the person

Being a business owner is solving a long (never-ending) series of problems.  When we get shy or afraid of dealing with a problem, often it’s because we don’t want to attack a person.

Learn to attack the problem, and not the person.  Lay out the problem for them clearly, discuss solutions, and make a decision.  Separate the person or people from the problem.

Good leaders can solve problems in this way without others leaving bitter or feeling they were treated unfairly.

October Road

So you set some goals for your business and yourself for 2015.  You have three months left.

How are you doing?  What are your numbers compared to what you wanted them to be?

Setting goals is easy.  Making them come true is work.

What do you have to do now to finish 2015 strong?

Beware of False Information

You need to make a decision.  So you get the information you need, weigh it and consider the right path, and make what you obviously believe is the right call.

But what if the information you were basing your decision on is wrong?  Twisted?  Incomplete?  

Beware of false information.  Sources will often skew/hide/or falsify information.  Sometimes they believe it’s the truth, but only from their perspective or in front of their beliefs.  Spend the time to get the right information, and verify it, and you will make less costly mistakes. 

Top 10 countries for economic freedom

As Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and Freidrich Hayek have stressed, freedom of exchange and market coordination provide fuel for economic progress.  Without exchange and entrepreneurial activity coordinated through markets, modern living standards would be impossible.  

But advantageous exchanges do not always occur.  Their realization depends on the presence of sound money, the rule of law, secure property rights, reasonable tax rates and other factors.

Here are the top ten most economically free countries in the world now – 

1) Hong Kong  2) Singapore  3) Switzerland  4) New Zealand  5) United Arab Emirates  6) Mauritius  7) Jordan  8) Ireland   9) Canada  10) United Kingdom.

The United States, once known as the bastion of economic freedom, has fallen dramatically since the year 2000 when it was number two on the list.  The US is now at #16 is due to a weakening rule of law, increasing regulation, and the ramifications of wars on terrorism and drugs.

The lowest on the list?  Iran at number 157.

Talents

(Here is a question that is hypothetical for most, which makes it an even better question)  Let’s say, you have enough money to never have to work again.  Now what?  Do you quit?

Was it about having enough money for you and your family? (Maybe you thought it was when you started.) Or is it about something else?  I say it’s about using your talents, the inherent ones and ones you acquired along the way, to make a contribution to others, regardless of the money.

You were given these talents for a reason.  Use them fully – to the end.