What changes is our ambition, and that is underpinned by what we value as important. There’s a lovely book I read years ago called “Rules for Aging” by Roger Rosenblatt. Rule 1 states: it doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t. I think most of us would say that our preoccupations change as we ease into our 50s. My version is “there’s not much that matters, but what matters matters a lot”.
Read MoreThe Breakthrough Company has decided to enter the podcast industry and armed with 700,001st mover advantage we aim to disrupt the industry.
You might well ask why we’re entering this space when it’s going to be so hard to compete with the 7000 that have an average download of 35,000 per episode.
Because we’re not seeking to be in the top 1%. We’re aiming to be in the top 10%, with an average of 1100 downloads.
Read MoreI thought of that the other day when I was talking to a business owner who was describing how she is totally over it with her business. She’s at the stage where her enthusiasm for managing people, never very high anyway, has reached an all time low. I didn’t tell her that her team’s enthusiasm for being managed by her, also never very high, has reached a similar position.
Read MoreI spoke to a group of builders about The Breakthrough's 7 foundation habits for success recently. One guy kept arguing the point, saying it was all easy to say but the reality was different. He complained that clients expected him to take calls and meetings in the evening and on weekends. Sometimes the business had to come before everything else. He couldn’t possibly limit his hours because it all depended on this and that etc etc. It just wasn’t possible for him to adopt these habits.
Read MoreI'm tired.
It's been a big week. Not busy, I don't do busy. If you measure busy-ness by the number of phone calls and emails, I'd be declared clinically dead.
I've had a lot of big stuff to do this week. Not stressful, but pressured, which is good.
Read MoreIn blackjack, doubling down means to double your bet because you like the card in your hand and you’re confident that the next card will make you a winner. In business, it means putting more investment in an area that shows high potential.
Our conversation gave us the gift of clarity about our focus in 2019, and we’ve already used that clarity to make decisions in all sorts of areas
Read MoreHe made absolutely the right decision. You hear people say “Follow your passion and the profits will come, do what you love and the money will follow”. It’s garbage. I’ve advised a few people to leave their passion for outside working hours because not enough people share it sufficiently strongly to make it economically viable.
Read MoreI recorded the final modules for the first year of our Active Manager Programme last week, and one of them was about making better decisions.
One of the mistakes we make is that we can remain locked in the past, using the same old data or the same old processes. Even more important, we have outdated assumptions.
Read MoreYou need to let go of the idea that working harder is going to make your business more successful, along with working harder means working longer hours. Instead, you need to learn that working fewer hours on a small number of important things will take you further and faster. And to do that, you need to get clear about where your efforts will get greatest return.
Read MoreBusiness confidence stays in the news. The latest GDP report shows the economy growing at its normal rate, though in my experience GDP figures are 3 months behind the SME economy.
No one knows whether the loss in confidence will impact growth. Generally, expectations of slower growth are a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Read MoreA couple of weeks ago I ran into a client from my time as a partner in a large business consulting firm. Rieny Marck and I worked together 20 years ago, and he was reminiscing about the Lumley Insurance journey.
I did some work with them over the space of about a year, starting with a vision and strategy session and then working through a detailed opportunity assessment and priority process. He still recalled the methodology I used, and my reference to something I called the “zone of sensible excitement”.
Read MoreMy GP is a fascinating man. He knows all these obscure things and treatments. He always likes to see me because I have exotic symptoms that he regards as a test of his trivia trove (and they are trivial). One of his trivia titbits is that there is a part of the brain called the locus coeruleus which is responsible for filtering out unwanted sounds.
Read MoreAfter 15 years I’ve worked out what we do here and why it works so well.
I’ve always practiced “outside in” – bringing the world to my inbox via subscriptions to bloggers, periodicals, newspapers and book reviews. This has its downside as a couple of them are American magazines (The Atlantic and New Yorker) and I can lose up to 20 minutes a day Trumping.
Read MoreI don’t know if you’ve noticed, but sh*t happens. Often. All the time, to varying degrees. We’re rolling along happily, and then avvompha! We get knocked off our stride.
Last year we were working on a big initiative. Great opportunity, wonderful relationship yadda yadda yadda. The great opportunity got smaller and smaller until it was whatever the opposite of opportunity is.
Read MoreGood intentions, we all have them. We begin the new year full of vim and vigour and a whole lot of resolutions to do things better, differently and with more conviction. But it is normally a matter of weeks (if not days) and we are right back to our habits of 2017.
We’re working too many hours, feeling stressed, eating the wrong things, skipping workouts, missing time with the kids, cancelling date nights, and so the cycle continues.
Read MoreIt’s all very well to set Most Important Goals. They establish what we rationally consider to be our priorities. They represent our beliefs about what’s important – they're our convictions.
But priorities are only meaningful if they involve choice and sacrifice. In those moments when honouring the priority involves inconvenience, disruption, additional effort on the part of yourself or others, then your commitment to priority is tested.
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