Archive For: Work Life Balance

Small is Big

It’s Upside Down

I’m not sure about you, but we seem to have it backwards sometimes. The BIG things seem to be small and the LITTLE things seem to be big.

I spent the day with my gorgeous wife yesterday visiting family and friends. Just the act of spending time with her means so much to me. I really enjoy her company and the many conversations we have. Some are deep and meaningful and others are ridiculous and nonsensical.

I have some friends that we catch up with every now and again. Nothing spectacular. Just to get together and share what is happening in our lives. How work is, what we are thinking about and what entertainment we may have seen lately.

Don’t get me wrong. It is not that the BIG things don’t count, but the consistent little things truly make my heart sing.

So what little thing will you do today for someone in your life?

No Image Available

img: wikicommons

How was your week? Did you do some amazing things?

I did. I did some cool things with cool people. I went to some amazing places. I even did some simple things as well as some things I didn’t really want to do.

At no stage did I take a photo of any of it.

We seem to have become the more self focussed than ever. It seems that if there is no photo of it, it didn’t happen. But not only a photo of it, but that photo has to be shared on multiple different social media outlets and then we wait and see how many likes we got.

Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, “What other people think of me is none of my business.”

Now more than ever, we seem to give our power to other people and their opinons. We even go looking for their opinions.

It seems that we have discounted quality in favour of quantity. We want many random strangers to give us approval by clicking a button rather than getting personalised feedback from someone who truly counts in our life.

Maybe it is time we put the phone down, enjoyed the moment for what it is and truly enjoy being there, regardless of who knows we are there or not.

Quite simply, for much of what we do, there should be “No Image Available.”

There Has To Be More

Many of us have a job, some of us work for ourselves and others are business caring for others (kids, family and so on).
As some stage, most people have the thought, “There has to be more than this.”

The answer is, of course there is.

The world is full of fun things that you can do just for yourself, just for pleasure, just for the challenge, just for the contribution, just for the feelings you have as you do it.

What is your MORE?

What is the thing that you do just to charge your batteries, the thing that gives you energy?
Long time readers will know that one of my things is to sing with a choir.
This weekend we had our sold out concert. Click here or on the video below to get a sample of the kind of things we sang.

What will you do to meet your need and desire for MORE?

Are You Beside Yourself?

This is my gorgeous wife, beside herself during a dusk walk at Cardinia Reservoir.

Yes, it’s a sneaky little trick you can do when shooting in panorama mode.
Yes, it would be good to be able to clone yourself to get more done.
Yes, it’s not like this in real life … or is it?

Long time readers will know that I am a huge fan of systemising your activities.
Let your processes and systems run the business and your people run the systems.

Now, with some of the newer technologies and apps available, not only do the systems run your business, but you can also automate them so that they run by themselves.

Here are some examples:
Accounting packages – Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, Sassuu and others all now link directly to your bank to download your statements and based on past activity, will partially reconcile these statements saving you a lot of time.
Social media – Hootsuite, Buffer and some social media channels themselves, allow you to post your news across multiple social media streams at once. MeetEdgar will store your social media entries by category and continue to publish them according to the schedule you set, ad infinitum.
Education – Online learning via video, audio and other modalities allows you to present new knowledge at your speed and convenience while the student absorbs it at THEIR speed and convenience (and level or repetitiveness required).
Your relationship – Just so you know, you have to do this yourself. Once you automate or outsource it, you are in big, BIG trouble! I thought it was important to state this!

It is now possible, even preferred, that you be beside yourself and be able to leverage your skills, knowledge and earning capacity.

So how can you be beside yourself today?

PS For those of you who will be in Melbourne on Sunday 18th September, I am beside myself with excitement as the choir I sing in Mood Swing will be performing.
If you love A Cappella music and want a relaxed and family friendly Sunday afternoon of enjoyment, check out the details here. I would love to see you there.

Keep the Fire Burning

It’s winter in Australia and down south we are having a few cold nights. That’s when it is great to huddle around a fire, feel the warmth and connect with those around you.

But the fire doesn’t keep alive by itself.

It needs a bit of a poke every now and again. Sometimes it needs more wood and if it gets too low sometimes you need to get some more kindling or fire starters just to beef it up again.

Life’s like that.

Sometimes you need to give yourself a bit of a poke to get going again. It can be easy to slow down and forget that you are not operating as well as you could.

Other times, you need more fuel, more inspiration, more engagement, more ideas, more conversation, more thought provoking ideas, different perspectives or a fresh start on something.

It’s all about keeping your inner fire going.

How do you keep your flame burning?

When It Rains

There is so much about elections in the news at the moment. From Trump vs Clinton to Brexit to our very own federal election here in Australia. The impact of these elections is unknown, widely speculated upon and loaded with fear and uncertainty.

It is so easy to get caught up in the speculation and start to worry unnecessarily about what may or may not happen. There are a lot of commentators, educated people and highly passionate arguments out there. Some are not very nice.

When it rains negativity and intolerance, I need to change my perspective by surrounding myself with something positive. So let’s focus on something good.

As Shakespeare said, “If music be the food of life, play on.” So here is a great burst of music to give you a decent feed. A speaking friend of mine, Rich Allen, has been working with his daughter Pip for the last two years to create her album When It Rains.

Pip wants to share this burst of positivity and delight with the world and so would love for you to have a copy. I have listened to it and really enjoy her delicate vocals and some of the topic matter. There are also different styles of music as well. If you would like a copy, head over to her website and download it.

At the very least have a listen and see what you think.

What about you? When it rains negativity, indifference or unpleasantness on you, how do you deal with it?
How do you protect yourself from this rain and remain focussed on what is important and what brings you joy?

Every Day Super Power

Each of us has at least one (but usually way more) Every Day Super power. It’s just a simple thing that you do incredibly well.

One of mine is making great coffees. Not barista, high pressure, super duper coffee just your run of the mill instant coffees.

The first to notice this super power was my dad. He would often compliment me on how good my coffees were.

All of my wives have loved the way I make coffee. My latest, favourite and definitely last wife now has it down pat on how to request I make them with minimal effort on her behalf (extra good for those mornings when you want a coffee but aren’t awake yet.)

A couple of days ago I made coffee for some young people (to me that is someone from 20-30) who don’t drink a lot of coffee and they both, independently mentioned how good the coffee was.

Now making a cup of coffee won’t save the world even if it does make the world a better place. But it is the small things you do with your Every Day Super Power that add up to big things. It’s part of recognising that there are no BIG things just a lot of little things all acting together. As we handle the little things better, the BIG things become simple.

So what is your Every Day Super Power? Is it always finding a car park, being remembered by shop assistants, making people laugh, balancing your bank accounts, creating spreadsheets, understanding complicated writing, using a rich vocab? There are so many.

Let me know what your Every Day Super Power is, I’m sure it’s a cracker.

Be Like George

Meet George (and his two adoring fans).

George is the colossal coffee machine at the Eastern Innovation Business Centre.
George dispenses love in the form of coffee.
George has lots of fans and people come from everywhere to spend time with him.
George gives a predictable output every time.
George can vary what he does based on your inputs and requests.
George needs basic inputs as well as regular maintenance to be in good working order.
George gets input from others if there are changes ahead and does what he can to accommodate change.
George is constant and dependable.
George is clean and smells good.
George always looks tidy.

In business, be like George.

Let’s Celebrate!

There are so many reasons to celebrate.

Yesterday was Mothers day, my brother also turned 50, my sister has a recently purchased a new house, I just turned 48, my dog is awesome and I have the best wife in the world.

Sometimes you can celebrate for professional reasons as well. Your project finished, you got a new position, you got a bonus, your boss left or even simply that you turned up to work!

As long time readers will know, I am a huge believer that if you make Celebrating Success a Habit, you will make success a habit.

So I wanted to celebrate my recent 48th birthday by giving you a present.

WARNING – THIS CELEBRATION INCLUDES OFFERING A DEAL TO YOU TO BUY SOMETHING (But it is an AWESOME deal!)

Of late I have been receiving some fantastic feedback on my Get More Inspiration book. One person said, “I thought this might be a fluffy motivational book and I was surprised that I really like the additional structure, reflections sections and tips. Great work”

Another said, “My husband never reads books but he really liked yours”

Ok, so I don’t want to turn this into a huge sales letter but I really want to celebrate, so here is the deal. If you want a burst of inspiration in a book that is specifically designed NOT to be read (you just flick and read a two page story at a time) then I want you to have a copy of the book. The great news is that it is a workbook as well. It has places to write your ideas and actions, but that means you won’t want to lend it to friends. No problem as I have the solution!

For the month of May 2016 if you order the physical Get More Inspiration Book, I will give you a second copy absolutely free so you can give it to a friend. I will also pay the postage to send both copies to you and I will enroll you in my Get More Done in 90 Days ecourse worth almost $300.

So that’s $385 worth for only $34.95

How does that sound?

If you are interested click the order button to make it happen.

If you are a eBook kind of person, sorry but I can’t do a magic deal for you. What I can do is direct you to the Amazon store where you can get it for only $11.99!

For my US Based buddies, you can hit your Amazon store here.

Maybe you will choose to celebrate some other way and that’s ok. What is important is that you always look to celebrate success.

So how will you celebrate success?

It’s a Wrap

Whew! After 4 and a bit weeks of touring around the USA and Canada and meeting interesting people, places and things, we are home.

While it was a great time, there were a few challenges (part of the reason there was no newsletter last week). So what I wanted to do is give you a few quick thoughts and some other bits from the trip.

1) Travel. Nothing makes you appreciate your life more than going to visit other countries (or other parts of your own country) and see how they live. It also expands your mind in a way that you can no longer go back to old thinking.

2) Stretch yourself. We drove over 6,500 km which meant 6 or 7 hours driving some days. This lead to a lot of conversation time in the car which enabled my gorgeous wife and I to connect strongly, share ideas and thoughts and make plans for the future.

3) Have fun. Many of those hours driving we spent singing, telling stupid stories and being creative in some way. We rarely played the radio or music and we had a stack of fun.

4) Talk to people. We had some great conversations with complete strangers, some were challenging due to a difference in values and beliefs and others were intriguing to discover their perspective. The picture above shows us sharing my birthday dinner with over 2,000 people at the Colorado Springs Air Force Academy. They had a very different perspective on things.

5) Plan for things to go wrong. We had a few interesting experiences. When we landed home in Melbourne, our car had a completely flat battery. At the conference we had unexpected snow (See the 90 second video here). Having a few “What if …” ideas up the sleeve helped.

6) Enjoy the really good things. We were staying in some very cheap accommodation and also some very nice accommodation (that latter had indoor fountains!) Who were we not to enjoy it? You can see a video of it as well as a quick comparison of the Aussie and USA meetings industry here

7) Share it. I have put many photos and stories on Facebook as we have travelled. So many people have commented on how much they enjoyed them and felt like they were having a holiday too (except we paid for it!) We also have catch ups with friends planned who want to hear all the detail about the trip.

8) Repeat it. The value from this travel is so significant that we have more trips planned, the next one is likely to be Vietnam. Why would you stop your own personal growth?

So have you got anything planned?

PS While I was away, two more episodes of the almost award winning show, Get More Success have been released. You can see/hear them here.

PPS May is a special month for a couple of reasons but you have to wait to next week to find out why (and what the special deal is!)

Open Your Mind

In two sleeps, my gorgeous wife and I are off to the other side of the world. As you can see, Google Maps optimistically says it will take 14 hours and 10 minutes to get there. You and I know it will take a lot longer.

But the first world problem of sitting in a steel tube that flys through the air in the same way that bricks don’t (credit to Douglas Adams for that) is nothing compared to the pay off.

Travelling brings perspective.

It enables you to appreciate all the small things you take for granted that you can’t get, do or have while overseas.
It reminds you how good your own quality of life is when you see the quality of life of others.
It shows you the truth about a place not just the romanticised version you may have or the photoshopped pieces on FarceBook.
It gives you an appreciation of other cultures and sub-cultures regardless of how similar or different they are to your own
It is humbling as it allows you to see your own problems for what they really are and to acknowledge how blessed your life really is.
It opens your mind to new ideas, new opinions, new perspectives, new ways of being and thinking.

So how open is your mind and do you need to go travelling to open it a bit further?

Huge Thanks!

Oh My Lawks A Lordy!!

Thank you so much for your support with the Get More Success show launch.

It went off with a huge bang. At one stage it was number 2 on the business podcast list (ahead of Seth Godin!!)

As my way of saying thanks I have put out a bonus episode on Small Business Social Media Solutions that I would love for you to listen to.

OK – now on to non-Get More Success related business.

Is the Customer Right?

I am a huge believer that the customer is NOT always right, but they are always the customer. Sometimes they get confused, things go wrong or it is just a combination of smaller issues that combine to make a bigger one. There is NO excuse for not treating the customer well.

My gorgeous wife and I went away with our B&B crew of 8 people last weekend. We got a message on the Thursday saying the previous tenant had broken the thermostat so there would be no heating. The owner said that they never needed heating so we should be ok. An email dialogue ensued.

The outcome was, we had no heating in a house with massively high ceilings on a very cold weekend in a cold part of the state. The house owner didn’t seem to care.

Naturally I am following up because I believe we deserve some kind of compensation. I am confident that the home owner doesn’t care as his approach to customer service was appalling. Even the responses to feedback on AirBnB were poor. Someone left a positive comment and he let fly at them for not cleaning the BBQ and leaving cigarette buts in the garden.

How are your customers? Do they sometimes get a little confused, ask the super obvious question or ignore the instructions you have previously given them? They may be wrong or even appear a little foolish but they are always the customer and deserve to be treated positively. How do you treat them and does that need to improve?

Grand Opening

WOO HOO!!

I am so excited that after some serious procrastinating, some hard work, bursts of inspiration, serious doubts, more procrastinating, more work, home made design, a lot of interviewing, a stack of support, the kindness of friends and some techo gurus the Get More Success show is now live!

Over the coming years I will be interviewing people from all walks of life and find out how they define success and what are their success tips that you may be able to apply to get success in your life.

As an added bonus, the show will also include excerpts from the Get More Speaker Success monthly blab. This is a group conversation with a more lighthearted approach that covers issues in the speaking, meetings and events industries. It has some great ideas if you are looking to run events.

Because of the increased demand in the visual media, a lot of my interviews are also on video as well as audio. So if you like to look at what is happening, feel free to watch as well as listen.

You can see/hear the show at The Get More Success website.

BUT I NEED YOUR HELP

The first couple of weeks of a podcast’s launch are important to help get traction. So this is where I need your help.

If you like the idea of the show as well as the first couple of editions that are out there, I need you to subscribe to the show in iTunes if you are an iTunes user.

This will trigger some of iTunes magic goodness and increase its profile and shoot it up the charts which then makes others want to look at it.

So I would love it if you could give me a boost.

It’s really easy. Just click this link to see the show listing.

Click on the “See in iTunes” button on the left of the screen

When iTunes opens, click on the subscribe button.

At the very least, head over and listen to Wayne Thompson from the Australian Type Foundry talk about how he creates fonts and some of the icon advertising pieces you have seen in advertising all over Australia (including the Optus “Yes” speech bubble).

So what is new in your life? What have you achieved after grinding away for what seems like years? How can I help you achieve success?

What’s On Your Mind?

It was a big weekend after an even bigger week.

Friday I was hosting a client “talk show” to profile their new and upcoming software releases for their top 70 clients. There was a teenage birthday. Saturday had meetings reviewing the annual residential and future direction on similar events as well as catching up with other training and video production colleagues. Sunday was hang out with my gorgeous wife in the morning, big dog walk and then a few hours of finances and a BAS statement.

Phew!

What better way to chill out than to take the beast for a fang up to Drouin only 75 km away. (If you are not sure, click here to see where it is on Google Maps.)

At our recent residential retreat, Therese Sheedy was instrumental in guiding us through what it mean to be mindful and how that benefits you, your energy levels and your overall health. Motrobike riding is a great way to be mindful.

The secret of mindfulness is to be only thinking about what is happening here and now. If you don’t do that on a bike, you crash!

For me it was great to smell the countryside, be fully aware of the traffic around me (including the dude who was speeding and cut me off), and think of nothing but what I needed to do to keep safe. I didn’t even know where I was going. It took me awhile to decide and only then did I realised I had missed the turn off. No problems – I set a new destination of Drouin and just kept going.

So What?

Ok, so I get you don’t really care that I have gone off on a motorbike ride.

Here is the point: I took time out to forget the rest of the world, the rest what was happening in my life and become a Human Being and not a Human Doing. Not only does that charge my batteries it also makes me easier to be around, more grateful for what I am already experiencing in life and better able to manage the issues that I am facing.

So how do you get present?

How do you let go of everything around you and just “be”?

It is incredibly important to empty your mind at times, so what mechanism will you use to do that?

Feel The Love?

It was Valentines Day yesterday. The day that cynical people agree card companies and florists created to increase sales.

The less cynical among us would say it is a great day to celebrate our love in the world.

My Mum would agree it is about love. She is celebrating 7 years since she started “going out” with Dudley. (She initially changed her Facebook status to “in open relationship” then too but that is a different story!)

For my dog Winston (who looks very similar to the poodle above) it is just another day to love everything equally. Whether it is going for a walk, having a drink, meeting you at the door, being served dinner or joining you on the couch, there is always the unconditional love that he has.

What an excellent way to be in the world. What an amazing way to treat others. What a joyous force for good that would make us if we could do the same.

I love the concept that I should try and be the person my dog thinks I am. What an amazing person I would be then.

So Winston and my wish for you is that EVERY day is Valentines Day. That you look for things you love. Get excited about the small things and live each day to it’s fullest.

So are you up for the challenge?

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