Discipline Your Mind for Your Heart

May 19, 2010 Anthony Random Leave a comment   , ,

What I mean is, discipline your mind so it does what your heart wants. A great example is getting a better body. This is one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions. Your mind is pumped those first couple days and then it’s gone. Little by little your mind takes over and you aren’t doing what your heart really wants. The same thing goes for anything in life. Call it laziness, call it habit, call it lack of motivation or whatever you want to call it. If you want something you have to go for it. This isn’t Aladdin and there are no magic lamps or flying carpets.

Here is a little exercise you can do to test and build your discipline. This is something I do everyday and it works. Every hour I use my perfect pull-up bar to do pull-ups and abs. Three minutes every hour. That’s it. No matter what I have going on, no matter how busy I am, I spend 3 minutes on that bar. If I’m away from my bar for a few hours I make up for it later that night. This might sound stupid to some, but it works for me. If you find yourself pulling away from your new plan, punch yourself. If you’re making excuses why you’ll do it later or why you didn’t do any all day, kick yourself.

If you come around here often you probably know I do not like writing long posts. There’s no need to. Straight to the point is key. If you didn’t get my point above I’ll summarize it again. You have to treat your heart and mind as a relationship. Your mind is very smart and can take control of your habits very easily. That’s why it is important to think of what you REALLY want and go for it. A lot of people stay in relationships because it’s what they are used to. I wonder why the divorce rate is high… Don’t let your mind take control of the relationship and ruin your life. The end.

Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty

April 11, 2010 Anthony Business, Random 6 Comments ,

What a great quote, which also happens to be a book. Most people will get thirsty and THEN dig a well. You should really do the opposite. The quote is referencing networking and how it is important. In today’s world you have to know people. Okay, you might not HAVE to, but it will make life a whole lot easier. For example, if you are pulled over for driving in the left turn lane and the police officer happens to be your friends dad or your neighbor, you are more likely to get a warning than someone who does not know the officer. Also, the more people you know the more opportunities you have. If you’re looking for a job and tell a bunch of friends who know a bunch of friends, you’re more likely to be referred than someone playing on Xbox Live all day everyday with his only friend. What about borrowing money? If you know a lot of people you’ll have better luck borrowing money than someone who only knows the bank. We all know the bank doesn’t graciously loan out money anymore. Another quote that I made up is, “Everyone knows someone and that someone can turn you into a someone.” It’s pretty basic considering I used the same word 10 times in that sentence. It’s true though. Go out and meet people because you never know what they can do for you. It doesn’t even have to be in person all the time. I meet new people every week online. I’ve joined groups on Facebook, looked for people blogging about similar interests and even posted listings on Craigslist. They aren’t the creepy posts on Craigslist if that’s what you are thinking. A simple, “Looking for local business owners to network with” does the job. Basically, try to constantly meet new people because you never know what you’re going to need help with. Referring to the title of the blog again, if a person waited until he was thirsty to dig a well, but knew 100  people, I bet he could get a few to help him. If the other person knew 0 people, he’s out of luck and isn’t going to have fun digging a well by himself.

The E-Myth Revisited Is A Good Book

April 9, 2010 Anthony Business 3 Comments , ,

When I’m not reading a Dr. Seuss book, coloring in between the lines of my coloring book or looking at catalogs for my bounce house rental business, I read books that make me more smarter. Yes, I just said more smarter. In all seriousness, if you own a business or want to some day you should be innovative. Reading is one way that helps you become innovative. That’s my opinion. You don’t have to limit yourself to just books. Blogs are a great way to learn from other people. It also helps you keep a fresh mind and continuously learn. I try to read as much as possible and some books are worth a mention. When I finish a book that I think adds a lot of value to a business owner, I’ll let you know. That is why I am letting you know that a book called The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber is a great read. It’s simple and to the point, which is how I love things.

What I really took from the book was creating a business model that anyone can operate. No matter who you find, they are not going to care about YOUR business as much as you do. It’s just the truth. That is why it is important to create a business model that anyone can run. You the business owner should create an operations manual that covers EVERY aspect of your business so it is easily executed. That’s the basic idea. You should read the book in detail to fully understand the concept. Also, I did this for my bounce house rental business and feel completely comfortable leaving it behind when I’m busy working on something else or traveling.

Another great point the book makes is respecting your employees. I’ve mentioned in a few other posts that respect goes a long ways. If you respect your employees and truly care about them, they will respect you.

The last point I will mention in the book is about dividing your responsibilities in three parts. One being the entrepreneur, the second being the manager and the third being the technician. Basically, you have to balance the idea person, the person managing your ideas and the person doing the work.

That’s as long as I like to make reviews. I like the book and learned a few things. The end.

Support Small Businesses

March 23, 2010 Anthony Blog Info and News, Business 19 Comments ,

I hear a lot of people saying, “I can’t wait until our economy is back to normal.” What is normal now? I personally see a lot of families struggling to live comfortably. I was reading a post on one of my new favorite blogs called growmap and saw a fact that makes you wonder.

“The chasm between America’s haves and have-nots has reached Grand Canyon-esque proportions. Thirty years ago top executives at S&P 500 companies made an average of 30 times what their workers did — now they make 300 times what their workers make.“

What does that mean? If you have the top 10% of Americans controlling 50% of the money, how will the majority of Americans see the wealth? What good does it do to have $5 million sitting in ONE person’s bank account? If you spread that $5 million out to 500 local residents, each family will have $10,000 to spend in the local economy. By SPENDING money at local businesses, more businesses will NEED employees. This is the ripple effect that caused so many job losses. If there is no spending at local businesses, they will lay of employees. The laid off employees will not spend money at local businesses. Those businesses will lay off employees. This continues until nobody is spending money and nobody is hiring.

The solution is to reverse the pattern to positively effect our country. YOU have the power to control where YOUR money goes. Even though a small percentage of our country controls the wealth, the majority controls the power. The majority has the ability to vote where their money goes by spending it at businesses who will help our economy grow.

Do you know any small business owners? If you do, you probably see them doing a lot more work than they should handle. They do this because they can’t afford help. If we support them through our spending, they will support the community right back by hiring employees. Not only will it help our economy, but it will boost morale and happiness. The local business owner has more time to spend with the family, the newly hired employee has money so she can take her boyfriend out on a date, and families will be less stressed about paying the bills this month.

You really do have the power to make a difference. Want to see how you can help? Visit a recent post on growmap to learn how. I couldn’t explain it any better than the author.

The Importance of Innovation

March 21, 2010 Anthony Business 1 ,

To me, innovation is the biggest factor in maintaining a successful business. An old quote I read mentions that the best way to predict the future is to create it. The idea is to vision a problem that people will have and for you to create a solution. Doing so will help you on the road to success. You can look at Apple as a great example. They are one of the most innovative companies, which is the driving force behind the growth of the company. Apple does not invent new products. Instead, they take an idea and make it exceptionally better. There were many digital music players before the iPod, but there is a reason why Apple holds close to a 74% market share for digital players. The answer is innovation. You can do the same thing in your industry. There is ALWAYS a better way of doing things.

In today’s economy, your business has to be innovative. Whether it’s creating a new product, offering a unique service to your customers, cutting costs by creating an innovative process or even finding new ways for customers to use your product. For example, the business I am currently developing provides an extremely easy way for business owners to create a website integrated with their inventory system. The website is also SEO friendly. These features save time for the business owner. The SEO feature also helps the business generate more traffic to their website, which will result in higher revenue. I did not create these features individually on my own. Instead, I saw an opportunity to combine existing technology to make lives simpler and more enjoyable. The result is features that have helped me become more efficient in my own party rental business. You can do the same in your industry. Something that helped me think of the features is to write a complete list of every process that my business goes through. In some cases, an innovative idea will pop right out of the list. Other times I had to go through each process and ask myself, “how can I make this easier?” Every time I went through my business process I found at least one way of making something easier. Go ahead and give it a try. I bet you will find something. Also, do not be discouraged if you fail once in awhile when trying to innovate. You are not going to develop something perfect the first time ever time.

Imagine if you built a business 10 years ago that only sold Polaroid cameras. You would be out of business.
Imagine if you built a business 10 years ago that only sold VCR’s. Dead.
Imagine if you start a grocery store today that does not offer organic food. In another 10 years you will not be as competitive as a store that does. Right now organic food is still in a niche. However, the industry is growing extremely fast.

Basically, if you do not innovate you are slowly killing your business. You are pretty much taking your business to a tanning salon every day while giving it a pack of cigarettes and an extra large combo at McDonald’s for every meal. I honestly don’t know where I came up with that analogy. It might make sense to some and others might think I’m crazy. As an extra bonus, I’m throwing in some innovation quotes.

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
“Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity – not a threat”
“If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.”

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