Thanks, Angela Current www.ClassicResumes.com, for today’s topic

PUT AN “X” THROUGH IT!

It’s never easy to balance two large critical chunks of your daily existence –like your work and your exercise– without experiencing some feelings of inadequacy, and wondering if you’re cheating yourself.

Why can’t I make both of these things work? What do I have to do to make both pieces fit my daily timeline? Life is no longer feeling like a series of opportunity windows . . . it’s more like locking and unlocking prison gates. HELP!

There are no magic-trick answers. What there is, is discipline. And self-imposed discipline is the hardest to follow. Grumble though we may, it’s almost always easier to follow someone else’s schedule of discipline.

“Your report is needed for a 3pm meeting,” says the boss. “Two more laps around the track!” yells the coach. “Parade Rest!” orders the CO. 

Ah, but all of those external discipline situations include real or imagined consequences for failure.

So?

You’re saying you can only perform when there’s a perceived threat involved?

Maybe you need a shrink?

You use self-discipline to get through every hour of every day. It’s called living a mature and responsible life. What you make of your self-imposed discipline is what draws the line in the sand between your existence and productivity and achievements, and the existence, productivity, and achievements of others

If you’re an extremist, you might be choosing three hours a day, seven days a week, of pumping iron. This can of course severely cut into any kind of reasonable work schedule, and this is not even to mention the time that must be used to be selecting, preparing, and eating the specialized diet that needs to accompany such a commitment.

But hopefully you’ve figured out how to harness your compulsiveness by combining interests — by running or managing a gym, or functioning as a personal trainer or exercise physiologist or physical therapist, or perhaps by being a professional or Olympic athlete.

Now this may be an even bigger stretch, but let’s assume instead that you are fairly “normal” (HA! and you’re reading this?)

Okay, you’re a typical entrepreneur who’s preoccupied with making your business idea work; you put in longer business hours than most of your friends and family.

And you’re trying to maintain a reasonable exercise schedule, right?

As with anything in life, success doesn’t drop from the sky. You must apply yourself. In this case, you must set up your own disciplined approach to doing the kinds and amounts of exercise that you believe you need (or that a healthcare professional has prescribed), and commit your mind and attitude to working around that!

Put exercise times down on your calendar for every day you decide you need to exercise.

Pick times (usually best kept consistent from day to day) that do not interfere with essential work hours. For most, early mornings fit best; some prefer early evenings (late evenings are not generally recommended by professionals); others use their lunchtimes to exercise, and nibble healthy snacks throughout the day rather than sit-down lunches.

Some set flex schedules.

The point is that once you choose the times, record them on your daily calendar — put an X through the time slots involved.

Then work everything else in your life around those X’s.

Unless it’s an emergency situation, simply elect to not schedule any meetings or conference calls in those X-boxed times.

Make excuses if need be, but protect those Xs because they are indicators of investment you are smartly choosing to make in your SELF. No one but you can do this. And no one but you can make it work. Reinforce your X hours by watching and/or listening to motivational programs. And keep marking your calendar, always  a month in advance.

Oh, by the way, when you’re occasionally forced to miss an Xd-out time block, don’t torture yourself. Make it up as best you can, when you can. It’s not the end of the world. It’s an opportunity to make adjustments.

# # #

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Shop ‘n drive in peace ‘n quiet!

What a wonderful thing, the Superbowl,

for those who don’t care about it. 

You can commandeer the extra TV, take it to the attic or basement and watch anything your little heart desires without interruption.  It’s a great day to go shopping or take a drive because everyone else is not doing either.

You can go to the ocean and walk on the beach or boardwalk and know that every person you see there thinks the same way you do about this brainless, gorilla sport that attracts more heavy drinkers than athletes, and that can’t hold a candle to baseball or tennis or volleyball for genuine instinctive athleticism and mental challenge. 

No, I’m not calling all football players wimps, or all football fans drunkards. 

I’m just saying that football is not a sport that’s notorious for producing literary, scientific and artistic genius’s (geni?), and that —to me– it’s more amazing to watch what companies will spend more than T H R E E   M I L L I O N   D O L L A R S  on (for less than 60 seconds of sponsorship), than to see the event itself. 

The commercials are, admittedly, always super themselves. 

But that makes me think we should just have a “Super Commercial Bowl” and skip the football stuff all together. 

We could root for one beer or car company over the other, buy all their promotional gear, put giant promotional junk in our yards, hold tailgate picnics outside of neighborhood bars and car showrooms, make cute little cookies and cupcakes in the shape of the manufacturer we’re rooting for, and call central phone numbers at a $1.99 a pop to vote on our favorite commercial. 

The winning company would have TV crews in their locker room after the contest and spray champagne on each other.  Kids could go to school the next day and dis the losers. 

We could all txt msg our teenagers with something more substantial to discuss for a change (besides, “Hey, how’s it goin’?” and “Fine” or “Whadya do at school today?” and “Nuttin” or “Where are you going?” and “Out.”). 

Tomorrow, we could gather round America’s watercoolers and coffee shops and talk about which parts of which commercials we liked best and thought were stupidest . . . Whooooooh!  Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute!  I forgot.  We already do most of that already anyway, right? 

So enlighten me:

We need football because?????? 

P.S. Just heard the news that the most “chicken wings” consumed in the history of the world are consumed on Superbowl Sunday!!! That makes for an awful lot of chickens out walking the streets . . . so be careful!

 I must be missing something.  [;<} But then, what do I know?

I’m just a baseball fan (as if you hadn’t guessed).

Oh well, have a GREAT SUPERBOWL SUNDAY FAMILY DAY!

# # #

YOUR FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS BLOG, CLICK: Posts RSS Feed

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”   [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Do-dah’s practice

the three Dah’s:

“Shouldah”  “Couldah”

and “Wouldah”

When did you last embark on a Dah Mission? First off it’s been said by far better men than I that the Shouldahs run together in the woods with the Couldas and the Wouldas.

All three of those Dah’s pump themselves up with regret over their conscious and unconscious choices they’ve made to reject the Dones. There’s I Shoulda Done, YOU Shoulda Done and WE Shoulda Done (whatever the stuff is that never got done!).

And, yes, there is of course the I/YOU/WE applications to Coulda Done and Wouldah Done as well.

Everyone passes this way at one time or another. Those who get themselves stuck in thinking about past events and situations that they or others mishandled (or never handled) are the ones who traditionally become and create problems for others.

Dwelling on the past is as emotionally and mentally (and frequently physically) unhealthy, as worrying about the future (which hasn’t yet come and maybe never will!).

Focusing on what might have been, on what should have been done or could have been done or would have been done, is as nonproductive a waste of time and energy (and often, money) as the underpinnings of those notions advanced by naive leaders that “HOPE” will solve all problems.

Wishing whets appetites for failure.

ACTION, not hope, is what makes things happen.

When you hear one of the three “Dah’s” worm it’s way into a discussion, treat it like a yellow caution light. Slow things down and bring attention back to the reality of the moment.

Emphasize specific steps or suggestions or directions that can be addressed. You drive through a yellow light at your peril.

And, by the way, it’s pretty hard to get where you want to go by driving in reverse, by leaving no stone unturned in assessing and evaluating and analyzing what happened that shouldn’t have, what didn’t happen, or what went wrong.

If it’s not life or death, get on with it. Take a minute to learn from experience instead of burying it under reasons and excuses, then move on. Who did what to whom doesn’t matter when forward motion is what’s called for.

We are a nation of sportaholics and we have brainwashed ourselves into analyzing things to death. We literally live for instant replays.

And just think about how much more detail we can pull out of a replay that we’ve seen three or four times. Sports talk radio stations regularly hear from callers who want to debate a game play that they’ve replayed 12, 15, even 20 times! Now THAT’s Do-Dah material. 

FREE blog subscription Posts RSS Feed

# # #

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”   [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

Tense situations with

unpredictable outcomes

not just in sports and politics!

“Coming down to the wire” (an expression that originated, with apologies to Neil Young’s song, in horse-racing) in the completion of a major event or decision to be made, is clearly a hate/love situation.

It can often be so stressful that we tend to become consumed with the impending results and implications, to the point of ignoring the present moment… in business, as well as sports and politics.

It’s understandable if you’ve run a marathon –mental or physical– that thoughts of the finish line might flood your consciousness in the last mile or two. A winning run, goal, set, knockout punch, or touchdown being within reach can likewise dominate one’s mind to the exclusion of other awareness’s… in business, as well as sports and politics. 

Yet, it is in these final days, hours, minutes, and ticks of the clock, that most victories are lost to the shifting sands of one’s mind . . .

The doctor’s report. A sales closing? Membership acceptance. The monthly cash flow analysis? The stock market bell. The punchline of your presentation? Test results. A loan application? The required signature. News coverage? The merger. Union demands? Graduation. An industry award? Tough new customer specs. Add your own here _____. You get the idea.  

HOW to avoid last-minute meltdowns, and rise above the temptations to think too far ahead (which may be less than one minute’s worth of time!) at the exact point when we need most to pay close attention?

# # #

BREATHE IN THE PRESENT. You’ve heard this from me incessantly–because it works! I’ll spare you the details if you’re an elite athlete or are taking yoga. But, for everyone else, please follow this link and please take some deep breaths. 

Many hundreds of former college and university students and management training program participants have reported (voluntarily) that this was the single most valuable skill they ever learned in their lives!

It’s free and it will take only one minute of your time to put it to work. It will soothe your neurological system, enhance your performance, increase your self-control, and make you feel better. You could ask for anything more?

# # #

FOCUS ON THE PRESENT. Pinch yourself! Quietly reach for your heart or check your pulse as a reminder of the most immediate thing happening in your life right this very minute (in addition to breathing, of course).

Have you a watch or mobile device you can set to chime at appropriate reminder times when you might ordinarily drift off? If you turn your wristwatch inward, you’ll need to make more of a conscious effort to check the time. Devise your own ways to trick yourself. A miniature reminder sticker on your watch or mobile device can be a mental face slap.

# # #

SELF-TALK THE PRESENT. Send messages from your brain to your body to keep your hands flat on the table and your feet from jittering. Remind yourself to stop playing with hair, moustache, paperclips, pens, pencils, cellphone, rubber bands …remind yourself to smile and be attentive, to listen more and talk less, to take notes even though you don’t think you need them. The act alone of taking notes will keep you tuned in.

             ~~~~~~~~~~~~               

HELP SAVE THE ECONOMY. . . Support those who endorse free market competition healthcare and REAL job creation tax incentives for America’s entrepreneurs! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEM ECHOES…

“LAY-D-DEES AND

GENTLEMEN-MEN:

WELCOME TO THE

TWO-THOUSAND

AND-TEN-EN-N

WORLD-D-D SERIES

OF

BIZZZZ-NESS-ESS-ES-S!”

Imagine your staff and coaches (lawyer, accountant, banker, etc) lined up along the first base foul line as you’re introduced to a stadium filled with business professionals.

You salute to the crowd’s cheers as you jog out to homeplate, shake hands with the big-name muckity-mucks, then high-five each of your employees as you work your way along the line.

The Star-Spangled Banner. Back to the dugouts to get ready for the action. Then, it’s “PLAY BALL!” and off you go. 

So maybe you don’t think like that, and maybe you scowl and snigger, or shrug your shoulders in dismay or indifference at such fantasy. http://bit.ly/cX77gB

Because…you know in your heart that even if there was a Business World Series, your little company or home-based business wouldn’t get any closer to it than the ticket scalpers out front.

Well, first of all, don’t be so sure! Perhaps you and your staff are no match for the Texas Rangers or the San Francisco Giants, but the fact that you’ve even read this blog post this far speaks to more than your fortitude. It says things about you. It proclaims your commitment to your business. (Why else would you be here, now, dreaming about your business “team” playing it’s heart out on FOX, worldwide?) http://bit.ly/cCSo0V

Whether your business has already made it to “The Bigs” or is still on the way — or has lost its way — there is little difference in the amount of pride you must have for having accomplished what you’ve accomplished so far (yes, even if you’ve lost your way, which simply means you need a new map!).

Consider that you’ve taken your business through turbulent times, a string of humiliating losses perhaps, to arch rivals. The inability to make clutch hits and get those RISPs across the plate. Turmoil in the locker-room? Public scandal? Yet you’ve somehow survived it all, including cash crunch issues that devastated other teams.

You are still, even if barely, in one piece, doing business. By itself, that’s cause to celebrate. (Ginger ale instead of champagne?)

More important, though, is where you go from here, the paths you take, and how you work your way around stadium traffic-snarled detours to get to the next set of division and league playoffs en route to the next world series. Will you recruit from within your own farm system or go out and pay top dollar to get that hot-shot superstar you’ve always wanted on your team?

Will this be the year for new uniforms? Will you hold the line on ticket sales or offer more discounts to keep your customer-fan base? How much more charity can you afford? What to do with vendor union efforts to drive prices higher and unreasonable demands by player agents?

The more you think of your business as a serious championship contender, the more likely it is that it will be. 

What are some of the slogans? “Ya Gotta Believe!” and “We’ve Got No Place To Go But Up!” and “See You At The Top!” 

But the bottom line in sports and life and business is always the same:

SUCCESS IS THE JOURNEY

     . . . NOT THE DESTINATION!      

             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~               

HELP SAVE THE ECONOMY November 2nd. Vote  

to move small business forward . . . Support those

who endorse free market competition healthcare 

and job creation tax incentives for entrepreneurs! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

A business wallowing

in its own culture is 

rapidly irrelevant, and  

moving toward extinction.

(Yet corporate giants need it to survive!) 

I just read somewhere (Twitter?) that “Company culture is the priority” for some business organization whose name I’ll withhold to spare them embarrassment. I never heard of the company, but no doubt it is either part of some corporate giant sprawl or, sadly, some idealistic young tech business that is tripping over its own inexperience.

Any company that devotes its priorities to promoting, maintaining, nurturing, and protecting its own culture is totally out of touch with the realities of doing business in 2010. Admittedly, “never forgetting where you came from” is a healthy, driving energy force for every business owner, but dwelling on it is exactly what is wrong with the ways corporate giants conduct business today.

If your business is not customer-centric in every application possible, it is headed toward the great business burial grounds up in the clouds. Developing pie-in-the-sky programs to attract and keep top industry performers is a waste of time and money unless you totally lack the leadership it takes to foster and cultivate top performance from within.

The short solution:

Stop wasting so much energy on trying to inbreed specific employee characteristics and allegiances at a time when the only ROI you’ll realize will be major deficits (you remember him?).

If you’re not running some incompetent government agency, heavily subsidized corporate entity, or dreamy-eyed inexperienced new venture, don’t think of a culture focus as your bailout.

Here’s the bottom line: You cannot focus on your company’s culture AND on serving your customers exceptionally enough to earn ongoing profits AT THE SAME TIME. There’s simply not enough hours in the day to devote your concerted efforts in both directions simultaneously. If you haven’t a treasure chest in the closet, stick to pleasing your customers.

What was it Abe Lincoln said about not being able to please all of the people all of the time? Yes, some self-absorbed employees will jump ship who are not catered to, but do employees who come to work with a daily “what’s in it for me” attitude do your business any good to start with?

Did you go into business to cater to employees or to cater to customers? Sure, employee recognition and motivational performance incentives are nice, warm, fuzzy actions. But don’t let them get in the way. If you do a good enough job of pleasing customers, you will automatically please employees as well…at least those who matter to your business.

Those employees who are intrinsically challenged to be outstanding performers, who want to build their careers on achievement will rise to the opportunities you provide when you set the example.

Teach them how to embrace your customer base, instead of constantly pandering to their requests for more social activities.  

Is that a thin line? Perhaps. Yet, business owners who understand communications, and who practice leadership by example, and management by wandering around, can substantially reduce the need for many employee recruitment and reward devices because they create an environment all by themselves that make others gravitate to serve their pursuits. Voila! “Counter Culture”!

Put the spotlight on the customer and teach employees how to focus it, how to keep it shining and how to change the bulb when necessary, then reward them for how well they do what they do instead of for the promises of their smiles behind their resumes.

We need only look briefly at the complete financial losses attached to professional sports team owners who buy into promises of greatness vs. those who make the long term investments of cultivating from within. A great team culture doesn’t matter if you can’t perform in the clutch.

www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Seeing Yourself Win

At Business,

Makes It Happen!

(And when you can make it happen, you can make a difference!)

Yes, business is a game.And let’s face it, there’s probably never been a more exasperating, more struggling time in American history than right now to try and launch or rocket-boost a business. The economy is in shambles and continues to sink daily.

It is unfortunately only going to continue to get worse until something more substantial than lip-service is paid to the stimulation of small business job creation. This will take real and significant tax incentives extended to entrepreneurs. Small businesses that have been laying around for years are the economy’s engines, but new entrepreneurial enterprises are the fuel!

New businesses create jobs. Job creation is (for the zillionth time on this blog site) the ONLY solution to our ever-sinking economy.

The Administration lacks business experience and knowhow to the point of patheticness (even if there’s no such word, that’s what it is). 

To have even thought that “stimulus” (tax dollar) money for corporate giants was the answer, is both naive and dumb.

To think that the nonstop reckless spending patterns being flaunted by government, and that politically-motivated tax increase and ill-conceived healthcare proposals represent an answer, is pure lunacy. They simply serve to compound the financial collapse of those very businesses that hold the key to revitalization.

How does an entrepreneur with a new venture face employee healthcare requirements and increased taxes with every innovation that has the potential to create jobs?

Competitive businesses (are there any other kind?) are beating each other’s brains in. Strategic alliances and collaborative efforts have made valiant efforts to rise above the fray — trying to cooperate, lock arms, hold hands, and march shoulder-to-shoulder was a nice diversion as times got tighter, but those are just new game applications. They don’t change the basic free-market-enterprise-doing-business-to-make-a-profit game!

And what else is business for but to innovate, create jobs, and make a profit?

Social reform? Sure, that’s great when it’s affordable.

History has proven at every turn that social causes underwritten by businesses that stand solidly on strong financial foundations are more successful than those causes underwritten from a position of weakness.

How can you truly help less fortunate people and causes when you are struggling to pay your own bills? Charity must come from the heart, but effective large-scale charity must also come from financial strength.

The bottom line remains that it takes sales to produce revenues and it takes revenues to pay overhead and open the door to profits. The problem with all this is that government controls strangle business sales initiatives. And corporate bailouts were a failure-ready-to-happen before they ever happened. Their sole accomplishment was to increase the deficit by adding more debt.

What options are left? If you own or run a new business (since 2001), your best option is to make a winner of your business by seeing it be a winner every day and every night, every waking hour possible (after personal, family, spiritual and community time).

That means closing your eyes and “seeing” the customers you want coming in your door or to your site. It means imagining each growth step taking place, including employee loyalty and leadership development, bank deposits being made, bill payments becoming a minor event, investments in operations and job creation zooming. Then, fully supporting the charity of your choice.

Every great athlete and sports psychologist will tell you that seeing yourself in your mind as a winner, doing winning things in winning ways, produces victory. It’s no different for business owners, except there may be more diversions to deal with. But when all is said and done, you become what you think about, and so does your business!

Try it. Be Tenacious. You’ll like it. It works. 

# # #

931.854.0474     Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

“Keep your eye on the ball!”

It’s what good coaches tell 

every batter and entrepreneur!

Concentrating hard on everything that’s right in front of you as much of the time as possible is a tall order for every ballplayer and every business owner.

It is a physically, mentally, and emotionally draining pursuit, yet focus has proven time and again to be the single most important quality to possess (beyond having a burning desire), in achieving big-time success.

Of course, having a burning desire is the motivational fuel that usually accounts for having a sharp focus to begin with.

In other words, if you truly want to win the game more than anything else in the world, you will undoubtedly make outstanding plays and you will get hits no matter how great the pitcher is. Whether or not others on your team are as committed — and if those commitments outweigh the opposing team commitments — will determine if your team wins.

When you have your own business, your “team” is your staff of employees. If you lead they will follow. Hmm, heard that before, huh? But it’s true. The hitch is in the words, “if you lead” because saying one thing and doing another doesn’t cut it for leadership. And we all know how far the screaming Little League coach gets with impressionable young players.

Then there’s the other team you’re up against — the competition. And herein lies the one-way, downward chute into oblivion for too many high-spirited entrepreneurs: gearing themselves and their energy and their businesses to the competition. They need instead to gear themselves, their energy and their businesses to the market they target and the marketplaces they’re in. 

Everything else is an ego-based, self-aggrandizing waste of time, money and energy.

Even one-one-one competitors — boxers, tennis players, swimmers cannot enter the arena focused on the competitor and expect to win. Yes, they need to review competitive strengths and weaknesses, and they certainly need to have a fix on the ring, court, pool they’ll be competing in. There’s no discounting the importance of these awareness’s.

But FOCUS has to be on what’s INside, on gathering personal strength and drive, on desire, on gumption, spunk and determination. When business owners and entrepreneurial leaders can bring that spark into work every day and nurture the spark they see in others, they will find it very difficult to fail.

We’ve all read and heard that stuff on calendars and posters and Tweets and the bottoms of emails . . . all the warnings and words of encouragement and lectures and reassurances, and what does it all mean? 

The bottom line seems to be that if you can’t feel the courage for focusing on success somewhere deep down in your gut, and if you can’t know in your heart that you can and will make a difference in this life, maybe you should reassess what you’re doing and not be absorbing all that stress. Because halfway efforts produce halfway results and halfway results produce stress. And stress kills.

Winning in sports and winning in business is never easy because — in the end — keeping focused means that you are really only competing against your SELF!                                                    

 Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

 What Sport

Is Your Business?

    Does your on-the-job behavior match the thinking of a baseball player?  Are you always anticipating the next pitch, and what you’ll do if the ball goes here, and what you’ll do if the ball goes there, and what you’ll do if the signals change . . . or the winds change . . . or your superstitious teammates don’t change the shirts they’ve worn for the last three games? 

     Nothing wrong with thinking like a baseball player unless the company or industry you’re in is Armenian or Finnish . . . or simply doesn’t leave you time to think.  Maybe the company or industry that you’re trying to represent as the star left fielder, is busy playing hockey or fast-break basketball? 

     Circumstances like these make for tough going, when trying to get your glove to get in the game!  

     Worse, you could be a serious golfer in the middle of a football game (keep the first aid squad phone numbers handy!).  Let’s face it, you can’t play soccer on a tennis court or water polo on a ski slope (Yikes!  Now that would be cold, and you’d never want to miss the ball and have to chase after it, especially in a bathing suit!). 

     So, what’s the message?  If your work situation is unhappy, or giving you headaches, knots in your stomach, or other stress-provoked ailments like lower back pain (or, really, just about anything you can think of . . . uh huh, including those two merciless extremes: diarrhea and constipation), step back from the action (no pun intended), and take some deep breaths [See Archives post: “Are you breathing?”  take some deep breaths]

     Then, ask yourself if you’re “playing the same game” as everyone else, and especially of course, the boss!  Entrepreneurs (and male, female, black, white, purple, orange, MBA or otherwise, makes no difference) rarely survive corporate life because they march to a different drummer.  Regardless of money earned, most would prefer to be an individual performer than to be any team player. 

     Conversely, not many corporate types succeed with business startups.  Often, because they fail to realize that they must now pay the expense account submissions, turn out the lights, take out the trash, skip lunch and work far past the luxurious 9-5 weekdays they’re used to.  [See Archives post: “TO ENTREPRENEUR OR NOT TO ENTREPRENEUR?”  

     Maybe you need to examine the environment you work in more carefully and consider if it’s really the match for your skills and interests and personality that it once appeared to be.  We do change, you know.  And, yes indeed, old dogs can learn new tricks. 

     But before you decide to toss your corporate cookies out the window to become a deep sea fisherman or fisherwoman , think again! The grass . . . yes, it does look greener over there. Where? Maybe anywhere. In fact, these days, EVERYthing is greener!  It’s getting hard to tell which came first —  environmentalists or St. Patrick?!

 931.854.0474       Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Are you driven,

or just driving?

     Next time you slide in behind the wheel, think about how many similarities there are between operating a motor vehicle and running your business. Why? Because it will give you a new or renewed perspective on many if not most of the things you do every day, and shed some new light on old issues that may be clogging up your business works.

     Most of us tend most of the time to ignore business clog-ups, thinking they’ll just go away (or not thinking about them at all), but — like any plumbing problem — things unfortunately have a way of coming to the surface at the least inopportune moments.

     This is not to suggest that your business should be preventive maintenance-driven (unless you’re a doctor, lawyer, accountant or mechanic) because giving that kind of mindset your priority wouldn’t leave much room for fueling up on innovative thinking. But, much like a periodic tune-up for your car, you may want to do a little service work on your business. So, try this . . .

     What does your car have in common with your business when it comes to you exercising control? How much do you really have? What’s controlled by others? Who? What? When? Where? How? Why? Does that work for you? Does it work for your business?

     What is and isn’t safe about operating your car as opposed to operating your business? What is and isn’t productive? Economical? What is and isn’t a good direction for you to take? What laws and circumstances confound, delay and punish you? How often do you need to fuel up? Do you use economy or high-performance ingredients? Attitudes?

     How much baggage and how many passengers can you comfortably carry over what distances? How frequently do you need to detour from the routes you planned? In getting your driving and business missions accomplished, how dependent are you on mechanical and computerized functions? How adept are you at handling inevitable glitches? Are you dependent on others for this? How so?

     How dependent are you — driving your car and driving your business — on your instincts, intuition, experience, training, knowledge, observations, communication skills? How easily distracted are you –driving your car and driving your business — by outside influences (everything from sirens, cell phones, traffic patterns, B to B services, social media, industry trade and community activities, to weather reports, headline news, sports scores and issues, and tire rotations)?

     How much are you willing to pay to be able to pursue certain directions in the driver’s seat of both your business and your car?

     If you just scan these questions and answer only a couple, odds are pretty good that prompting some quick assessment thinking on your part will pay back your periodic time investments for giving yourself check-ups and arranging occasional servicing.

     Bottom line: Your car? Change the oil every couple of thousand miles; drop it off for regular servicing and keep aware of performance and tire pressure issues. Your business? Change the routine every couple of months; hold regular weekly “how goes it?” status meetings (Mondays better than Fridays); hire occasional consultants to bring fresh perspectives to your doorstep a few times a year. Keep aware of performance and pressure issues.    

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless:  You, America, and Our Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!