Be Different or be dead

July 22, 2019

8 easy things you can do to make your day better

Bealach na Bà, Applecross, Scotland

8 easy things you can do to make your day better.

Every day we get up — a good thing btw — and our day begins.

Most of us have a plan for the day. It might be a formal schedule of events and appointments with a timetable or it may simply be a vague idea of what we might do depending on circumstances and how we feel as the day progresses.

Regardless of the precision and granularity of our daily outlook, there are ways to make it more gratifying and rewarding so that we can look back over what we’ve done and say “WOW! what a great day! I can’t believe what I got done.”

Here are 8 ideas to harvest everything possible from your vertical 12 hours or so.

1. Focus. Focus. Focus.

Focus on every task; pretend that every single thing you do is the ONLY thing you will do. Laser like attention with no distractions will enable you to achieve the maximum amount possible with the best results.

Beware of multitasking; it’s a great way to avoid getting anything done. Flitting from one task to another may make you feel like you are making progress, but when you look back on your day you’ll find that YES you were busy, but NO you weren’t productive.

2. Squeeze every last morsel

Squeeze every bit of value from each task you perform during the day. This is an issue of superficiality versus thoroughness; shallow versus deep.

The best days ever are when you mine as much benefit from each task as you can. Rather than cut lunch prematurely short with a friend or associate, for example, take that extra 15 minutes to finish your conversation and enjoy the relationship.

And instead of rushing through a project to deliver the minimum expected, take extra time to create something different which might surprise the intended recipient.

3. Break away from your routine

Look for an opportunity to break away from how you normally do things and entertain yourself with an unplanned surprise.

We are all creatures of habit and tend to repeat past behaviour particularly when it has yielded good results. The problem is, you can get bored with yourself when you conform to past thinking and practices — mix it up and get more out of a moment. It will really boost your energy level and make you happier.

I did this constantly in the many presentations I gave on my BE DiFFERENT or be dead work. I would always change something, like the stories I would use to make a point or the language I would use to describe one of my concepts. I did it for myself so I would enjoy what I was doing. And staying fresh myself was an almost certain guarantee that my audience would be entertained.

4. Stop juggling!

Don’t take on too much. A daily plan with 10 things to do will likely fail. I’m a fan of selecting not more than three tasks to take on; having too many balls in the air can be deadly with little being accomplished on any particular task.

When your funnel for the day is too full, you may sweat a lot but your achievement level is low.

And under no circumstance brainstorm on anything, as the result will be an agenda chockablock full that tends to be frustrating with the consequence that your day underwhelms rather than excites you.

5. Have a beer

Your beer could actually be a beer if you have the luxury of having few obligations or it could be a “beer-like” relaxation moment — you should plan them onto your day — where you step back and take a deep breath before moving on.

Charging through your day without having a ‘beer moment’ will not only leave you exhausted and unfulfilled today, it will also leave you completely unprepared emotionally and physically for your next day.

6. Plan for the unexpected

Target to finish an hour early; if you’re an hour late you’ll be right on time. Remember that each day will have it’s fair share of unexpected events; unpredictable things that will require you to deviate from your plan.

To accommodate this daily dynamic you need to build capacity into your day so that you can respond and maintain your momentum.

What you don’t need is to be up against the clock. This stress will be THE deterrent to achieving joy from your day.
My approach is to be done by mid-afternoon. If I am, GREAT! I earned some beer moments; if not, I still have time to finish what I started.

7. Don’t clutter your evenings

Don’t fill your evenings with much; it puts too much stress on your day. It’s noon and you’ve hit a roadblock that will take more time than you’ve expected so panic — and unhappiness — kicks in.

You will never successfully complete the task if you’re stressing about the dinner engagement you have arranged with a client, for example. As a matter of fact you will probably screw that appointment as well.

So balance your day with your evening if you want to get the most out of both.

8. Be crazy

Do something outrageous during your day. Off the wall! This achieves two things: one, it is an amazing source of energy, and two, it surprises people around you and gives them a (hopefully positive) different perspective of who you are.

Doing what is not a normal dimension of your persona is a renaissance for your day; it’s an injection of adrenaline that feeds your creative juices and has an amazing impact on the balance of your day.

Again, this is all about intervening on yourself; finding a way to break the normal trend you assume to surprise yourself. Breaking your norms will definitely enhance how you feel about your day.

Having a good day doesn’t have to be a formidable task. If you try a few of these ways to brighten one of your days, I guarantee you will be able to put together a run of them in no time at all.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 7.22.19 at 04:37 am by Roy Osing
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July 19, 2019

How to stop failure from breaking you

Let’s say you are teaching your baby to walk.

He trips and falls and can’t even seem to stand up.

How many attempts will you give your baby before you say “Nah that’s enough, you are not walking”?

You will let the baby try as many times as it takes.

Because you interpret his falling over (failure) as a learning experience. And why not do this with everything else in your life?

Failure can be harsh.

If it’s perceived in a certain way. It can make you give up on yourself.

I failed a lot.

I struggled with weight loss — kept failing on my diets.

In relationships — couldn’t make anything work long-term.

In my business — I made videos for one year and nobody watched.

In my studies — I dropped out of school.

This was me “failing” right? How did I stop failing?

My life changed when I changed my interpretation.

#1 Change your interpretation

I changed my interpretation to this is me trying and experimenting.

I stopped saying; “I am a failure, I just don’t follow through.”

I started saying; “Look at all these things I learned by failing”

In weight loss; I learned that it’s about burning more calories than you consume.

In my business; I learned I have to find ways to generate traffic.

In my relationships; As long as you are vulnerable and honest things will work out.

In my studies: Well, they weren’t for me anyways.

The interpretation has to change to experimenting, experience and growing.

You can’t keep fueling the swaying negative self-talk and expect a different result.

If you label everything as a failure —“Oh I am never good enough” well then you are a failure and will stay one.

Because you are interpreting everything as a failure.. failure ..failure.

#2 Learn the lessons

If you didn’t fail and you won’t have a reference point to learn from.

When a baby falls, it learns; Maybe not lean so far to the left…. don’t take long steps…

It has to fall over and over to get the whole picture.

So will you, if you want to achieve something.

#3 Be patient

Instead of being caught up in; “Oh I don’t have what I want yet, will I ever get it?”

Why not grant yourself some patience?

“We are gonna get it. We just have to stick through. Everybody goes through this. It’s one step at a step.”

Why not talk to yourself like that?

If things in your business aren’t popping out for you, maybe it’s okay to be patient and stick through.

You don’t need that instant result to make you happy. And it’s okay to keep going.

We get so obsessed about getting our goal that we forget it’s one step at a time.

And If you don’t step out of it, you will stay stuck and never get what you want.

The moment I said; okay I am going to stick with this. It’s one step at a time. Things started to change.

#4 The wrong thing

If you are working on something you don’t care about then good luck being positive.

No wonder you would be easily discouraged or would want to quit.

Good luck; if you are trying to get a degree to make your parents happy. It’s not going to make you happy.

If you are going to fail at something, fail at something you love. Because on the other path there is no salvation.

Listen to your heart and work on something that matters to you.

If you are doing what you love then make sure to swap your interpretations and success won’t be hard.

#5 Be different

When you get impatient and you seem to keep failing, remember it’s a learning experience.

This is how you get better.

And if you are not okay with going through this then you don’t deserve success.

The world isn’t a crazy place where you get rewarded for doing nothing.

The things that you want will take effort and sacrifice.

You have to be different than other people. You have to be willing to wait and fail and fail until you get better.

Because if you don’t then you are just like the rest of the masses.

They want things but aren’t willing to go through with this and there dreams wither away and die.

Live a life of unrealized potential or go through this transformative journey of giving your best effort daily to achieve your wildest dreams, the choice is yours.

It seems hard to put effort with no instant results but it’s not if you use the right interpretation.

Live in an upward spiral and the journey will get way easier.

When you put in the effort with the right interpretation and have patience — you will get what you want.

— Rafael Eliassen is Life and Business Coach. He works 1-on-1 with business owners and helps them get astonishing ROI’s by making the most of everything. Want to take your life and business to the next level? Book a 30-min consultation call: Rafael Eliassen

• Posted 7.19.19 at 04:41 am by Roy Osing
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July 18, 2019

Practical ways mom and pop shops can succeed

Business competition is fierce, but even in the face of competition from big box retailers and the rising popularity of eCommerce, there’s still a place for the classic mom-and-pop shop.

Mom-and-pop shops, like the name implies, are typically small, family-owned businesses. They can take any number of forms, such as bookstores, specialty clothing boutiques, restaurants, or other types of physical storefronts.
Even though shopping options have expanded and consumer preferences have changed, in-store purchases still account for the majority of sales, and customers still value in-store experiences.

Mom-and-pop shops stand apart from large, mainstream retailers because they can offer a unique, personalized in-store experience that big retailers can’t quite replicate.
Knowing customers on a personal level and hosting in-store events can level up a mom-and-pop shop’s position in a local community and add character to what makes a city or town special.

Mom-and-pop shop owners, however, must employ strategies to help their businesses continue to stand out as retail continues to change.

Make the most of Independent Retailer’s Month this July by checking out this infographic courtesy of Fundera for actionable tips to help your mom-and-pop shop succeed against competitors.

— Meredith Wood is Editor-in-Chief at Fundera. Specializing in financial advice for small business owners, Meredith is a current and past contributor to Yahoo!, Amex OPEN Forum, Fox Business, SCORE, AllBusiness and more.

• Posted 7.18.19 at 04:04 am by Roy Osing
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July 8, 2019

6 reasons why being broken is better than being beautiful

Source: Unsplash

6 reasons why being broken is better than being beautiful.

The stereotype of success these days is based on the notion of perfection; a flawlessness that people believe is somehow responsible for yielding consistent brilliant results.

Successful business strategies are described as ones that get it right the first time. They have amazing insight at the outset to predict with uncanny accuracy what people will desire in products and services.
And their creativity unleashes the imagination of the crowd who flock in ridiculously long line ups to buy the latest and the greatest.

Successful people are portrayed in elegant attire, sporting a body image devoid of any unsightly signs of the ordinary.
Their body image exudes the winner attitude and destiny.

Does anybody buy this? Does anyone really believe that incredible business performance is a function of getting it right the first time, or that physical perfection is the necessary precondition to personal success?

There are no silver bullets to success in my experience. Rather, success is normally achieved (notwithstanding the odd blistering single magic act that rarely happens) by a series of actions taken in relentless painstaking fashion aided by unmatched sweat, passion and emotion — by being broken in one way or another.

Here are 6 reasons why being broken will get you where you want to go and why being beautiful, while a fashionable notion, is a non-starter for capturing the prize.

1. If you’re broken you’re prepared when you fail

You know your first attempt at anything rarely succeeds and that the future “never unfolds as it should” (i.e. the way you hoped it would).

Broken prepares you for the journey of change that every new idea is destined to endure. Broken implies imperfection at the outset, and this is the reality of virtually 99.99% of the solutions we create to the challenges we face.

There are very few immaculately conceived plans and strategies that produce the exact results expected; every plan is flawed in some way with degrees of imperfection that are realized only when the real world does not conform to the assumptions made about it — actual product sales, for example, rarely mirror their original forecast.

So if you enter the race to win knowing full well that your plan is flawed in some way (which you will discover only after you are in the middle of full-on execution), you will be well positioned to spot irregularities and take corrective action.

People who assume their plan will work are not prepared to shift when it doesn’t; their feet are stuck in mud, unable to recover from unexpected body blows.

2. If you’re broken you know action speaks louder than words

Broken demands action. Broken can’t be productive by pontificating or exercising the intellect; by merely thinking about what has to be done to create a higher level of performance and better results — the brain can’t DO anything.

The only way better outcomes are produced is by taking decisive action in the face of uncertainty; without knowing if what you do will produce the result you want.

Broken promotes the strategy of trying; making as many attempts as you can to accommodate the impact of real world events on your plan, because if you don’t try, little happens in terms of returning to winning ways. You get stuck believing that eventually your original plan will see that light of day.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein

Broken demands that you act first and think second and that you TRY incessantly.

3. If you’re broken you know you have to work harder than others

Broken requires hard, excruciating and often painful work. Broken can’t be fixed by slight-of-hand or by finesse; the appropriate solution often cannot be found neatly or elegantly.

Successful broken strategies are not produced by sophisticated algorithms that cleverly manipulate the independent variables at play, rather they are created by hard work put in by individuals who are unafraid to get dirty.

4. If you’re broken you know that you’ve got to constantly keep moving

Broken requires competence in juggling. Broken solutions are rarely singular; they’re not produced by a single cause. For example, an underperforming product rarely happens because of one breakdown in the go-to-market chain. It’s not just a price, customer communications, supply or value proposition issue but is most likely a mixture of all of them to varying degrees.

Fixing broken, therefore requires a balancing touch to skillfully mix a bit of this with a bit of that — revise the value proposition to communicate uniqueness among the competition, adjust the price accordingly and modify customer communication tactics.

Broken generally requires synthesis and integration; a TWEAK mentality that applies many potential solutions simultaneously rather than rely on the traditional sequential approach of try this >> study the results >> try something else.

5. If you’re broken you know that you will make mistakes and you must learn how to turn them to your advantage

Broken creates insane loyalty.

The popular notion is that getting things right the first time is the ultimate goal; avoiding mistakes and errors is the way to achieve high levels of performance. In business avoiding mistakes eliminates the need for rework which in turn mitigates against margin dilution. In one’s career, when you don’t make mistakes your veneer as an unblemished professional is maintained.

Well, I’m afraid to say that mistakes are here to stay — humans and technology don’t always perform the way we expect — so we need to find a way to leverage them for success.

Being broken forces us to do just that. It prepares us for the fact that events will not always go the way we intended, and it drives us to salvage something from the screw-up that will place is in a better position than if the mistake never happened.

Being broken makes us recovery experts. It teaches us that there IS a way to turn a soured event into an amazingly successful experience. It teaches about the power of surprise and the unexpected.

6. If you’re broken you know you must depend on relationships with others

Broken results in a deep respect for relationships because if you don’t have a circle of trusted friends you’re disadvantaged. Broken people understand they can’t achieve anything substantial as an “only child” but rather through the collective efforts of their tribe.

Broken is real; beauty is superficial. Real delivers results; beauty is a distraction.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 7.8.19 at 03:13 am by Roy Osing
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