For years, I read the books, but didn’t act on what they told me to do.

I’m not sure why.

Part of the reason was because I didn’t really believe it was that simple.  There must be something far more complicated I hadn’t yet discovered.

Part of it was mental junk about “Why should I be rich and successful while others around me were struggling?”  And “I’m too young.  I’m still a kid.”  That was in my 20s – when I already had a few kids of my own.

Part of it was because I couldn’t see the HOW.  Yeah, you need to set goals.  I get that.  But  I couldn’t see how I’d reach them.  So it always felt like a fantasy and never affected what I did.

Part of it was because the few things I thought I was doing right were misguided. In retrospect, I was building castles on quicksand.

Part of it was too much worrying about what other people think.

Part of it was that on many days I felt like a fraud.  I didn’t have all my ducks in a row, so who am I to be telling others what to do?  (As if any of us will ever get all our ducks in a row.)

Part of it was that I thought there was a right way to do things.  I thought that the people on TV and in the news must know something I don’t.  So I kept studying and learning.  Then one day I realized that in many cases I knew more than them.  And often they were wrong.

Part of it was our natural tendency to overcomplicate things.

And I can go on and on…

But one day I saw a video from a ‘guru’ whose work I admired.  He talked about how he’d followed the advice in a certain book.  I’d read that book 15 years earlier.  I’d thought it was nice advice.  He’d acted on it.

He was getting hundreds of thousands of views on his videos.  I was just another viewer.

It was a turning point for me. Something finally clicked.

I realized that there really is no secret other than this:  

• You need to know what you want.  This requires some thought.

• You need a plan, or system to get to where you want.  Or you get overwhelmed and you never know what to do first.  A simple, proven plan that makes sense to you, gives you the confidence and motivation to implement.

• And you need feedback.  From someone who has already done what you want to do.  Because the steps are simple, but there are a thousand little nuances you only learn by doing.

We each have a choice:  To spend the years reinventing the wheel.  Or to find a mentor who, in a five minute conversation, can save you 5 days, weeks, months or even years of figuring it out for yourself.

Each month I give away five free “Consistent Flow of Customers” Strategy Sessions to small business entrepreneurs who know they should be able to add $100,000 or more in income in the coming year.  They just don’t know how.

If that’s you, keep your eye open for when I make the February slots available.

Please share your reactions in the comments section below.

Dov Gordon

When you expect yourself to do more in a day than is humanly possible, you expect more of yourself than even God expects of you.  When you are upset by your poor performance in an area where you haven’t done the hard foundation work, you’re expecting yourself to do miracles.

Doing the impossible is God’s work.  Naturally, when you take a stab at it you’re setting yourself up for failure, frustration and overwhelm.  And then you don’t have time to do YOUR work.

So what is your work?

A.   Know what you want.  This is more difficult that it first seems. Most people need some help  clarifying what they really, really want.  We’re too often disoriented by what others say we should want, by fears and worries about what’s actually possible, and other mental fog.

B.   Design a business model that enables you to have what you want. A business model is essentially a flow of activities, each designed to achieve a specific result.  When those results are achieved, you have what you want.

The problem most people run into here is overcomplicating what really is simple.  That, and  trying to do too much too quickly.  As a result you get so caught up in the day-to-day pressures that you forget what you really want.  (See A above.)

C.   Make your top priorities clear.  The problem here is that most people flit from one activity to another because their priorities are not clear.  And the reason they’re not clear is because A above isn’t clear and B is too complicated.  So they flit.

D.   If you manage to get to D, now you need to flout Life’s obsessive efforts to derail you. That’s Life’s job:  to gently and persistently nudge you off track.  Some days it’s like walking a narrow mountain path, just over a cliff with mighty winds all around you.

This usually boils down to people and events.  But it’s really about how you “explain” those people and events.  The “story” you tell yourself.  You need a mentor or coach who has mastered the ways of thinking and being that you want to master.

E.   Finally, build system as you go. Otherwise you’re always reinventing the wheel.  And what’s more frustrating than building towers on quicksand.

All this, it appears to me, is your work.  And my work.  And if you’re struggling to stop doing God’s work and stick to your own, do make sure you get some help.

If my style and and way of thinking appeals to you, then you may want to take advantage of one of the 5  free  Consistent Flow of Customers Strategy Sessions I give away each month.

Either way, I invite you share your opinion below.  And if reading this gave you an insight or two, please share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

He threw down the phone.  Leaned back in his office chair and put his feet up on the desk. Seeing his scruffy shoes and stretched socks he threw his feet back to the floor in disgust.

“We were very impressed with your proposal,” they had said, “but we decided to go with the others.”

We were very impressed with your proposal, but we decided to go with the others. He mimicked.  We were very impressed with your proposal, but we decided to go with the others.  We were very impressed with your proposal, but we decided to go with the others.

Gaaaaad.  He was tired of hearing that.

He left his office.  Down the stairs.  Out the door.  Took a left turn to the park and soon he was lying on the grass looking up at the thick foliage of an enormous tree.  He wondered just what kind of tree it was.

His fiftieth birthday was coming up in three weeks. Oh how the years had flown by.  During many of them, he made excuses for himself.  “You’re young.  You’re still learning.  You’ll yet make your impact.”

But that wouldn’t cut it anymore.  FIFTY!  My Gaaaaaaaaaaad.  And what have I accomplished?!

Not that he’d been a complete failure. He’d had his weeks or months of impressive success.  But it never felt planned.  It never felt like he had really made anything happen.  No.  It was always a struggle.  It’s one thing to wrestle when you’re confident that you know what you’re doing.  It’s quite another thing to wrestle when you can see neither your opponent, nor the edge of the ring.  You’re groping, pushing and pulling, you end the day exhausted from long hours of doing.  But what did you actually do?

After an hour he got up.  Brushed off the dead grass.  He had decided. He would stop.  He would not continue doing what he had always done.

He was frightened by the prospect of stopping.  It’s not like he had cash saved up or anything. But for the first time he felt more frightened by the thought of continuing as he had.  Of suffering one more day  living in fear and kowtowing to worries.  He didn’t yet know the right way, but he had made up his mind.  He was going to give himself the time he needed to figure it out once and for all.

That was the day he walked off the carrousel.

And he never looked back.

——-

Over the past weeks I’ve been talking with more and more people reaching their fiftieth – but not their potential.

Each month I give away a handful of free “Build A Steady Stream of Customers” strategy sessions.  If you’re hitting the big number and you’re ready to step off the carrousel, you get priority this month.

So if you’re a small business entrepreneur and you need to figure out how to create a steady, predictable flow of ideal customers and clients, click here to schedule your session.

Dov

This is the second of “The Alchemist Papers”, written by The Alchemist Entrepreneur.  His identity must be kept silent, so we just call him “Al.”

I remind you that even though Al is alive and well in the age when millions share nonsense daily through Facebook and Twitter, he likes to write as if he were a member of Ben Franklin’s Junto.  And you know, had he lived then, he probably would have been.

Al’s essays penetrate to the very core of what matters. While everyone is hacking at the leaves, Al strikes at the root.  I’m a grateful student.  I urge you to read through to the very end.

-          Dov Gordon

The Alchemist Papers

2. Dragooned by your own perfidious mind

___

OK – I’ve got a challenge for you.  How can you square Al’s advice in Paper # 2 with the observations in Happy kids, miserable adults and a timeless, secret truth?

Share your thoughts below.   The person with the best answer wins a moment of silent calm and confidence.  ;-)

And if you agree that more people need to hear Al’s message, please share this with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.  You’re part of the signal, not the noise.

Dov Gordon

In The King’s Speech, the stammering Prince Albert, soon to become King George VI, finds himself in the cozy office of speech therapist Lionel Logue. He expects Logue to begin treating him.  Instead, Logue insists on small talk.

Losing patience, the prince takes out a cigarette.

“Please don’t do that,” Lionel says.

“I’m sorry?” replies the prince.

“I believe sucking smoke into your lungs will kill you,” Lionel says.

“My physicians say it relaxes the throat,” says the prince.

“They’re idiots.”

The prince is taken aback.  “They’ve all been knighted!” he says.

“Makes it official then,” says Lionel.

I love this little repartee. Just because someone is well known, highly regarded and has many who agree with him, doesn’t mean he’s worth listening to.

Is there wisdom in crowds?  No.  If everyone is doing it, that’s reason enough to question it.

If you’re a regular at The Alchemist Entrepreneur(TM), I’m going to make a guess about you.  Tell me if I’m right.

You have a deep inner belief that you are on this earth for a reason.  That you have an important contribution to make.  That you are capable of much more than your record reveals.

You also look around at what others have achieved.  What others say.  What others do.  Sometimes you wonder. It doesn’t seem to make sense.  Something seems to be missing.  And yet, look where they are.  They must be smarter, more charismatic, more talented…  They’re certainly richer and more famous.  They must know something you don’t…

And you wonder to yourself, “Will I ever know, have and be what they know, have and are?”

Goodness, I hope not!  They’re idiots!  They’re loud today, and they’ll be gone tomorrow.

Shut out the experts.  Quiet your mind. Allow your own native common sense to shine through the smoke and mirrors.

There were many speech therapists in London.  But there was only one Lionel Logue.  At first the prince assumed Lionel would be like the others he had already seen and dismissed.  Eventually he realized that Lionel’s difference was also his genius.

You, too, my friend have your own genius. Don’t stifle it by trying to be like the others out there. The world doesn’t need more of them.  They need more of you.

Dov Gordon

Your comments and stories are welcome below.

In 1756 Benjamin Franklin, early American statesman, led five hundred and sixty troops to the North-western frontier to build a line of forts.

Franklin shares the following humorous anecdote:

“We had for our chaplain a zealous Presbyterian minister, Mr. Beatty, who complained to me that the men did not generally attend his prayers and exhortations.

“When they enlisted, they were promised, besides pay and provisions, a gill of rum a day, which was punctually served out to them, half in the morning, and the other half in the evening; and I observed they were as punctual in attending to receive it, upon which I said to Mr. Beatty, ‘It is, perhaps, below the dignity of your profession to act as steward of the rum, but if you were to deal it out and only just after prayers, you would have them all about you.’

“He liked the thought, undertook the office, and, with the help of a few hands to measure out the liquor, executed it to satisfaction, and never were prayers more generally and more punctually attended; so that I thought this method preferable to the punishment inflicted by some military laws for non-attendance on divine service.”

Your ideal customers also go where the “rum” is.

But it’s one thing to distribute rum in a frontier wilderness:  One person hands out rum.  There’s no confusion about whose rum is better. Or cheaper.  There are no competing messages to distract the customers.

But the “frontier” where your customers hang out is no wilderness.  Dozens or hundreds compete for the same customers.

In your noisy marketplace, you try some of this and then some of that.  You get enough business to stay in the game.  But it leaves you drained.  There has got to be a better way than this haphazard, frenetic trial and error where you do a lot, but little adds up.

How can you be like the preacher Mr. Beatty?  How can you build a simple system that brings you a consistent, predictable flow of your ideal customers?  How can you do it in a way that leaves you feeling relaxed and confident instead of overwhelmed and frustrated?

There are three things you need.  And I put them together in a package for you.  If you’re at the right place in your business, you’ll find this offer irresistible.

1.       “How to Systematically and Consistently Attract First-Rate Customers” (Usually $97)  This easy to follow manual walks you step by step through everything you need to build a system that brings you a consistent, predictable flow of new customers.  It has dozens of simple worksheets, scripts and clear next steps.  You get this Manual via immediate download so it starts working for you from Day 1 when you answer the very first questions.

2.       Training Video: How to Win Your Customers’ Hearts – by Reading Their Minds. (Usually $147) Few people ever feel really understood, respected and appreciated.  When you deeply understand your customers, you are able to present your products in a way that they find irresistible.  In this training video, recorded live at the Technion’s E-Club, you learn how to uncover precisely what your ideal customers want.

3.       Personal Hand-Holding:  The Oasis Forums. (Usually $47 per month.  6 months access = $283) The last thing I would want is for you to invest or the Manual and Training Video – and then not use it because you had a question but no one to ask.  As a free bonus, you also receive SIX months free access to me via my private online forums.  Post your questions and get clear, comprehensive answers within hours.

Purchased separately, you’d pay $528.  But if you’ve been uncomfortable with your current approach and you’ve been looking for something and you feel this might just be that something, you can have them all for a one time payment of only $197.

Think about it: When you consider the six months of free help you get from me via The Oasis Forums, it amounts to less $32.83 per month.  If I save you one hour per month it will be a great investment.  Not to mention all the new customers.  How many extra sales do you need to make to earn 10x your investment this month?  Not many.

All this comes with an unconditional 45 day guarantee.

Go for it.  The full overview is here.

Scroll to the bottom to choose your option.  Within minutes you’ll have the Manual and Training Video.  Within hours, I’ll be helping you on the forums.  And within days, you’ll feel a new calm and confidence about your business.

If you have any questions about if this Ultimate Selling System Package is right thing for you, ask me.  I’m available via email, Skype or phone.  Like you, I’m a small business, here to help.  And my business is helping you attract more first-rate customers in less time.

Kids don’t need umbrellas.  Or boots.  Getting drenched by rain and mud is a small price to pay for the thrill of exploration and learning something new.

We adults prefer umbrellas, cars or just staying home.  Rain and mud is uncomfortable.

But at the end of the day, you need to figure this business thing out for yourself. You can read all the books, take all the courses, hire all the consultants and coaches.  But until you get wet and dirty, you’re not going anywhere.

This wisdom finally settled permanently on me after my first product launch.

I went through the process of setting it up over several months.  There were delays.  Unforeseen expenses.  Some made promises they didn’t keep.  There was embarrassment.  And ultimately, launch sales were a very small fraction of what I had hoped for.

But AFTER the launch, I was able to look back.  For the first time I could see the full picture of what’s involved in building a product and selling it online.

Suddenly I could see the wisdom in advice others had given me. Before the launch I was not mature enough to appreciate their suggestion.  Or I didn’t see how it applied.

People say, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

That’s not really how it works.

The teacher is there all along.  But the student isn’t listening.

The most important, timeless secret of business success is DO SOMETHING. Everything you do, every step you take, even when it feels like an embarrassing punch in the gut, is a step forward.  Because everything you do gives you perspective and wisdom.

At the end of the day, you are the tightest bottleneck.  Your business grows when you do.

So stop wavering.  Don’t worry about getting it right.  Care only to take the very next step.

Walk through that muddy puddle and see what it feels like.

You’ll clean up later.

—-

If you liked this, your friends on Facebook and Twitter will like it too.  Share it.

And then leave your thoughts below.

Fear keeps you small.

It occurred to me one day that it’s not the big, obvious fears that keep you small.  When you’re afraid of a second heart attack, you know exactly what to do and you do it.

But when you have a nagging, undefined fear, it’s like an unseen monster in the dark.  You lay low, hold your breath and hope it goes away.

Say you postpone calling a potential customer because you feel you’re not prepared.  Or you don’t confront an employee because you’re worried about his reaction.  You allow yourself to be distracted by busywork and other less important, more comfortable matters.

But “not sure you’re prepared” and “worried about his reaction” are vague.  Until you clarify exactly what you’re concerned might happen, you’re stuck.  You can’t do anything but avoid dealing with it because “it” is just a shadow.

Make your fears clear and they’ll largely disappear.

Ask “What am I unsure about regarding this prospect?”  “How specifically might this employee react?  And why does that concern me?”  Your brain will give you answers.

Maybe you’re not sure that you’ll have a product that meets his needs.  And you’re worried about losing his interest forever.  Maybe you’re concerned that your employee will take your feedback personally instead of the way you intend it.

OK, now, like that heart attack, you can do something about it.

Why we allow ourselves to be controlled by shadow fears.

If the fears that really shackle us are just phantoms, why do we allow them to control us?  Two reasons.

First, what we worry about makes sense to us at the time.  If you see what looks like a monster in the dark, you’re going to hide.

Second, we’re too stressed to think clearly.

How to turn on the light so your fears go away.

The hardest part about clarifying our fears is to relax long enough to look at them objectively.  It’s difficult to catch yourself in the moment.

So schedule this for several times a week:

1.   Sit down with a pen and paper and write the answer to this question:  What am I worried and stressed about right now?

2.   Look at your list and pick the three biggest monsters and clarify them:  “What’s really the worst that can happen here?”

3.   Then:  “What can I do to prevent that worst case scenario?”  Usually you’ll realize that there’s a simple, small next step you can take that will move you in the right direction.  Schedule the next small step.

Immediately, you’ll feel clear and confident because you’ve turned the light on.  The monster went away. Now you’re free to grow and achieve.

The “Alchemist Entrepreneur” relentlessly pursues simple leverage; simple ways to extend his reach, to achieve more with less. Often, this leverage is in his own head.

Here’s a bit of mental toughening that helps me.

Before you start your next task, ask the following three questions:

1. WHAT will I be doing? Meaning, what will be DIFFERENT after I do this task?  What will have changed? What will be the results?

2. WHY is that important? What is the direct connection between achieving this result and achieving my big picture strategic goals?

3. HOW LONG will I spend on this task? Personally, I find that some tasks can end up taking a full day if I let them. But if I determine to get them done in a set amount of time, I get them done much faster.

If something will need a long time, break it down into chunks so you can step back, pick your nose up off the grindstone and survey your work.

What do you do to keep improving your own personal productivity?  What gets in your way?  Will you use these three questions?

Please share your comments below.

Dov