The Power of Words
Starting Each Day With A Little Thinking...Traction
When I hear traction I immediately think of tires and slip-sliding around. There’s normally two reasons that I don’t get traction in my car:
- I haven’t properly invested in the tires or they’re too worn to gain traction.
- The tires I’m using aren’t appropriate for the surface on which I’m driving.
The same two things impede our progress in life:
- We haven’t taken the time to invest in the right skills or “sharpen the saw” as Covey says.
- We are relying on the wrong tools to overcome the challenges in front of us.
When we fall prey to either of the above impediments, we struggle to gain traction. We struggle to make forward progress.
With that in mind:
Are you struggling with traction because you don’t have the right tools or because you are not applying them properly?
As always, thanks for the time.
Blog Challenge Day 16
Today Natalie has us looking to the future:
- How will you build a team around your vision and work smart instead of hard?
This one’s not too bad for me given my experiences — I own a Subway franchise that’s over 500 miles from where I live/have a full time manager in place; I’ve had responsibility for an organization of over 600 people, five facilities, and three continents; and, I’ve had to function in multiple situations where there was no real control — is there ever? — but rather simply influence required to get the job done.
There’s a lot of ways you could go about the above task; however, the best way — in my opinion — is to leverage the lessons from a book called “The e-Myth Revisited”. These guys walk through the challenges an entrepreneur faces and a detail a process on how you should go about building your business. They emphasize the importance of process and how to structure things so that you can build a team. For me, I plan on following their template “to a T” as my business grows.
And now I’m going to put all of you on the spot that are reading this. I’m attaching an electronic summary of my review of this great book. I’ve invested the time to read, digest, reflect, and summarize the document. And I’m giving that to all of you!!! I do have one favor to ask, but you’ll only know what that is if you read the book….
http://www.learninggrowingliving.com/e-myth
As always, thanks for the time.
If you want some more information on the challenge, check out the post on day sixteen at:
http://suitcaseentrepreneur.com/blogchallenge/blog-challenge-day16
Naive
Words are interesting things. Each has a connotation and a denotation. Many times the two are closely aligned, sometimes they are different as a result of the social norms influence on the word/concept over time. Naïve is one such word. Mr. Webster offers three definitions:
- Marked by unaffected simplicity
- Deficient in worldly wisdom or informed judgment
- Self-taught, primitive
When many think of naïve, a picture of a “backwood’s bumpkin” or a “lost innocent soul” comes to mind. They don’t “get it” and they are often taken advantage of by others. It is this “taken advantage” of that drives the negative connotation. That’s because too many of us buy in to the “win-lose” mentality; and, under that schema, the naïve person rarely comes out “on top”. After all, winning is everything. Isn’t it? (sarcasm BTW / for the avoidance of any doubt)
I prefer to operate under an “intentionally naïve” model. I’m going to keep things simple, dismiss the conventional wisdom, and approach things new and fresh with an open mind. I’m going to trust those around me to help me better understand things, see new solutions, and work together with me to find the best path. I chose to operate under the “win-win” philosophy. And it works.
With that in mind:
Are you better off knowing everything or being a intentionally naïve?
As always, thanks for the time.
(Thanks to Erin Patti for a conversation yesterday AM that triggered me pulling this post together)
Blog Challenge Day 15
A few weeks ago when I first heard of the blog challenge, I was intrigued but skeptical. I figured that it would be a peer support group where we all did our own thing and encouraged each other. Boy was I wrong! Today’s the half way point in the challenge and I’ve learned a ton. Natalie’s prompts have provided some great “food for thought” and helped to define a bit more clearly where I want to go and how I might go about getting there.
Today Natalie challenges us to think about how we’re going to “formally” connect with our audience. While an e-mail list seems like a little thing, it’s actually HUGE. I’ve read it a ton of places and Natalie repeated it today — “The Money Is In The List”:
- How are you building your email list?
Some of Natalie’s prompt’s challenge you to dig deep, assess your situation, figure out what makes sense, craft a plan, and do it. For others the next steps are “obvious” and just kind of jump out at you. Such is the case with today. There’s three simple steps that I need to take.
- Choose a mail service. Aweber and Mail Chimp seem to be the big players here. From what I’ve read, they’re both solid. Aweber seems to get the nod on robustness while Mail Chimp has the appeal of being free initially. Public proclamation/decision made: I’m going to use Mail Chimp and I’ll have my account set up by the end of the week (23 August).
- Modify my blog to include an “opt in” page. I’ll need to do some research on WordPress plugins. Public proclamation/decision made: I’ll have an opt in page done by the end of the week (23 August).
- Provide a special motivation for folks to opt in. It seems that having a free GREAT product available to folks when they sign up is critical. Public proclamation / decision made: I’ll have my free product created by 30 August. I’ve already got the idea in mind and have about 40% of it written mentally.
Those of you who have been following the blog challenge will hopefully notice that I just listened to the two lessons from day 14: always make forward progress and don’t let any excuses get in your way of making progress.
If you want some more information on the challenge, check out the post on day fifteen at:
http://suitcaseentrepreneur.com/blogchallenge/blog-challenge-day15
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