In life and business, we get bogged down by stuff that isn’t relevant, profitable, worthwhile, worth your time or your money, but comes nevertheless. Whether it distracts us from what’s really important, from what generates us the most business or takes time away from what we should be doing daily to succeed.
I want you to take a moment to think about your own business – what you’re selling, promoting, who your customers are, your goals, the time you spend building someone else’s business, tearing down someone else’s business, complaining, moaning or working on your dream.
Over the last 10 years, I have come to the conclusion that regardless of what everybody else is saying or doing, I should ‘Mind my OWN Business’ – in fact, these are my mother’s words to me for my business and my life. This is what she says to me ‘Regardless of what is happening around you, to you, against you or because of you, Mind Your Own Business.’
I want to cover 5 steps on exactly what you need to do to Mind Your Own Business and succeed regardless.
1. Have a Concentrated Effort Towards a Single Goal at a Time.
In Think & Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill studied Andrew Carnegie’s success principles along with the millionaires and billionaires of the day and he found one simple similarity among them all – they all had a concentrated effort towards a single goal.
Andrew Carnegie arrived in the USA in 1848 from Scotland with very little money, but by 1901 he was the richest man in the world. Reading his example of minding your own business, Mr Carnegie had a concentrated effort to becoming the biggest steel manufacturer in the world – he worked at the goal day and night, he concentrated his efforts on finding the right talent to partner with him and he asked the right questions. His goal was on the singleness of mind with becoming the richest man in the world. What Napoleon Hill wrote in Think and Grow Rich was from Andrew Carnegie’s Rules of Success – being concentrated towards a single goal.
What are you working on right now? What is your big goal for the balance of the year? Or are you doing ten different things without a concentrated effort in one? You can either give 100% to one thing or 50% to two different things. You may have BIG ideas and splendid plans to revolutionize the world or your life but unless it’s concentrated, you’ll be running a mile wide and an inch deep.
What constitutes concentrated effort?
- Daily working on income generating activity
- Daily personal development and empowerment towards keeping that big goal firmly in your mind
- Daily be accountable to someone – a mentor or partner
- Daily reviewing, focusing on your own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and relationships. Focus on what makes you better, not focused on what others are saying and doing.
Art Williams from AL Williams – the largest finance company in the world – he says don’t let the negatives, losers, complainers or whiners change you or make you give up. If they say bad things about you don’t worry about it, it will come out in the end. Your job, is to focus on what makes you different in the world – what’s your purpose, the lives you are meant to touch and who is depending on you?
Concentrate – focused effort – daily!
2. Develop a UIW concept for everything.
So, what do I mean by UIW?
In your daily life, business or career ask yourself about each task, topic or business transaction, any phone call, email, Facebook message, tweet or appointment, whatever it is, evaluate everything you do from now on under these three headings:
- Is it Urgent?
- Is it Important?
- Can it Wait?
Treat everything like this from now on because if you don’t your life will run away with you, you’ll feel overwhelmed and want to give up when you’re so close to your breakthrough or freedom.
So, what’s urgent, what’s important and what can wait? On a daily basis, most things are important if you’re running a business, especially when it comes to sales or getting that new client. However, half of the things that consume our time daily can actually wait. You know the things that are urgent, normally they can cause some form of loss or damage, whether that’s money, time or reputation – this is urgent.
In his book ‘Eat that Frog’, Brian Tracy says – eat the biggest task first, the one that generates the most outcome for profitability or to grow your life, that should be done first thing in the morning – others later in the day or possibly the next day.
How do you treat your life and business? Is everything urgent or do you allow everything to wait that should be done now? In sales, the biggest mistake is to put off sales calls – the one thing that can generate us more money or better clients. In your own sales process what are you putting off? Are you treating it as important or urgent? If your business right now is lacking in revenue and new sales I think that is pretty urgent to keep you in business. To attend one of my upcoming seminars to learn now, click here.
3. Seek council from people who have done it.
The fastest and most cost-effective way to learn something is to find someone who has done it and spend time with them, learn from them and always be in a state of learning.
When I look at my own life over the last 12 years, I’ve had a lot of mentors, from near and far, both male and female. When I first got into the Network Marketing Industry I found the top income earner in the company, phoned him and went to visit him in Hawaii – all I knew was he had what I wanted in terms of what to do to build my business. After £5,000, a 23 hour flight and time in a hotel, those 7 days changed my life and my business. As a result of the time we spent with him and his mentorship we became the top recruiter and business builder for a publically traded US company in all of Europe for 7 consecutive years!
In your life and business, do you have a mentor, are you seeking wise council, who is imparting what they have learnt to you? You can either go from the top down or the bottom up. Want to learn about my coaching program, click here.
4. Exploit what works for you!
I’ve meet so many people during my travels who are so occupied doing so many different things and very few of these things actually work for them. Do you know anybody like this? Perhaps it’s you. Are you in any businesses, careers or situations you know aren’t working and the thing you are really good at, you’re not doing it – why?
Maybe fear, you tried it before and it didn’t really take off, you were criticised by others because you were better than them. Let me tell you something, some people can be the biggest dream killers in your life! Especially the ones you admire, trust or never expected it from in a million years!
The hardest thing you will ever have to do is keep going when you don’t feel like you’re making progress! Am I right? When you have tried everything that you have and it just isn’t making the money yet.
I teach my clients to do it until! How long is ‘until’? As long as it takes. That does not mean you go blindly year after year not being profitable but if you discover you are obviously good at something and it’s making you money, keep going! Don’t waste time doing what other people want you to do or searching for something new, as you have something that already works! It’s better that you explore how to do it better or more efficiently by exploiting what works for you.
Getting up early does not always work for me so sometimes I will pay someone to catch the bird worm early! Speaking works for me, I love it more than most things!
What works for you? What do people say you’re good at? It took Walt Disney hundreds of tries to get it right.
5. Don’t be all things to all people. Create the life you deserve by making YOU a priority!
In your current situation, life, business or career where are you? Where are you? I asked myself that question some years ago because I didn’t like what I had become – I was not a priority.
Are you feeling right now that you are doing too much, working too hard, your life is out of control? Are you behind on your dreams? Behind on your goals and don’t know what to do this year to make a stand? Decide as you have one chance at this life, this is not a dress rehearsal, this is it! Time to live the life you dreamed of and do it with style. Want to know how I can help you do just that? Take my FREE Entrepreneurs Assessment here.
