A Personal Insight
Congratulations!
You have chosen a really rewarding option into how your business and
life will coexist happily ever after." That was a little note to myself
when I chose the lifestyle business option, quite a far cry from a
traditional start-up that I was running in the entertainment and events
industry after quitting my 9-5 job. The latter required me to be in a
specific physical location of course so as to reach and serve my
clients.
Today, I run a digital business model and all I need is a
laptop handy and an Internet connection. I then choose when I want to
do some work and where I want to get that work done. And that my friend
is what I call a perfect match! My life meets my business everywhere I
go, anywhere I am. The general business rules remain pretty similar and
herein I will share my own golden rules that new entrepreneurs will
particularly find informative... But first... if you are about to quit
your job, you are probably wondering
Can Starting A Lifestyle Business Change Your Life?
No
more dreadful Monday morning train commutes to work and staring into a
stranger's face seated across from me wearing sunnies on a cold morning,
perhaps a subtle attempt to numb the pain of the lifeless surrounding.
They are having the same thoughts as me. "Friday cannot come quick
enough". Then I start thinking about my email box and that Monday
morning meeting that I have not prepared for. I have to fill in my boss
on the current project status before he can go into another meeting with
more important people than me to tell them what I just told him!
I
remember having those thoughts and it just makes me queasy as I write
this. I know you get the drift. I remember suffering temporary amnesia
as I walked out of the house, holding car keys and looking for them all
over the kitchen and lounge. I had spent a whole hour pre-occupied in
thought on how I will handle the stress that was about to unfold for the
next 5 days of my life.
The Road Ahead
As
exciting as this new journey is about to be you want to get a few things
in order straight away in your new 'house' to make this transition
process as smooth as you possibly can. That business idea is looking
great, you have done lots of research, consulted a few souls preferably
smarter than you. You have also been making some new friends. I really
hope none of them is still working where you just quit! I soon found out
that these friendships only flourished over the years because of shared
interests such as office politics that tended to specially thrive on
Friday night at the bar when we didn't have to whisper about
overwhelming love for senior management.
The reality now is, you
are in an elevated consciousness phase of your life, one that these
friendships cannot exist. Your mindset needs to be fed with new insights
and nurtured with refreshing thoughts about living a fulfilled life.
You have some money saved up in the bank and probably have an actionable
step-by-step business plan. There is something of value that you have
to share and a strategy to get customers lined up ready to give your
'something' a warm welcome into this new world order.
But that is
the easy part. I shall be completely honest here; apart from some money
that I had saved up at the point of quitting, I really didn't have much
more than a rough idea of what I was going to do. I was risking it all.
When I left my day job some years ago, I was at a point where it was
either that or I lose my mind.
7 Golden Rules
A New MIND-set:
As
with all things new, your mind is the first guy you want to put in
check. Let him know there is a new sheriff in town. If you are like me,
you have been spending the better part of the last 6 - 12 months buried
deep in business books and ripping them apart in your spare time. At
some point, you found personal development material captivating.
Eventually, you started finding out why that constant nagging feeling of
life and lack of fulfilment was. As an example, I had read books like
Richdad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and listened to the audio version of
the same in case something was lost in translation! I had also read
Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie's How To Win
Friends and Influence People among others.
This is an activity
that you will not want to let slip into the overflowing 'good habits to
continue when I get time bucket'. I had one like that and needed no
motivation adding more stock completely in autopilot. Mind food is
paramount in this journey. You want to stay inspired a good chunk of the
time because this is where the sowing is happening. The thing is as
abstract as some of the ideas in this material may seem at this point; I
found that with time, it all starts to fall into place as the journey
progresses. So do not sweat any concepts that are not clear yet. Keeping
the reading habit going is all you need. These books are not really
designed for reading cover to cover. Think of them like the SAT NAV
system your car or as you own version of a personal SIRI.
It is a
known fact that our minds don't like disruption. Whether that disruption
is good for us or not, it is not very welcome without some whip
cracking. The mind has got everything figured out. It is a very well
trained machine with thoughts and habits that shape your life and works
even when you are sleeping, doing the 'regular chores around the house'.
The
9-5 routine mindset is still at this point deeply wired into your
system. It's advisable to start setting up ground rules so that YOU and
the MIND are both on the same page. This takes a while and certainly
took me the better part of 2 years. Don't stress just know there are
changes you will need to work on consistently in this area. Oh, remember
when I mentioned who your new friends cannot be a little earlier?
Breaking The Bad:
I
made the mistake of trying to keep a regular 9-5-like routine when I
first started my entrepreneurial journey. Big mistake. What tends to
happen as a result is, the mind in these early days of business life, is
still largely unaware of the 'new life in construction progress'. It
actively runs the old familiar version of 'code' from its 9-5 days in
the background in stealth mode. You might know what happens when you try
to run a new version of Microsoft Windows on old PC hardware? Yes,
exactly right!
All sorts of weird compatibility issues are not unheard of.
I
did not understand this myself. The mindset driving my routine was
still stuck in the old version. The correct term for this is the
subconscious mind. So your poor conscious mind, which is pretty much
what we operate on until new ways are 'learned' runs into a constant
battle. It really wants to change the world for you, it's ready to work
hard, promising to cut the Friday night binge that serves no purpose
other than a regular headache which eats away the Saturday morning and
pinky swears to cut down on addictive TV shows.
Someone, please explain why my favourite big screen stars are also hanging out in these TV shows... like really?
The Deal With Time Management:
As
a new entrepreneur what quickly comes into awareness I would say is the
time management beast and what seems to be like an endless stream of
unmanageable distractions. In a lifestyle business that is run from
home, the park, at the beach, the airport lounge or while on safari at
The Mara, this can be a constant battle. Don't get too hang up on being
perfect day one with this one. The more I tried to fight it the more I
stressed about it. Stress did not improve my time management skills and
only added to unfinished tasks that needed more worrying about... I
thought! The time drama continued until I put measures to progressively
learn how to improve time management.
Keep educating yourself on
what works for your schedule and what sorts of distractions are
overpowering you. I can tell you now it's going to be technology
related!
It didn't matter that I was an early riser who wouldn't
go to bed until my eyeballs were literally unlocking themselves from my
sockets in protest. Occasionally I got the odd finger in this scuffle!
And sometimes I still wouldn't give up. Now, this does not necessarily
equate to being productive. The actual real result was a constant
feeling of exhaustion, elevated stress levels, and anxiety.
Why You Need To Design A Routine That Works Around Your Lifestyle Business
I
hadn't changed my routine so my mind would expect the usual treatment, 9
am we are active at work and then at 5 pm it expects that we are on the
'winding up for the day phase'. I, on the other hand, had with all good
intent, added extra hours in front of the 9 and after the 5. Now you
can see where the problem was once I kept this up for a while. Insane!!!
Create a new routine and optimise around what works for you.
Decide When You Want To Work... Create A Routine... Then Follow It With Military Discipline
Perfecting
this phase when you start a lifestyle business, which means your
physical surroundings change constantly, it can feel daunting. However,
with a well mapped out daily, and weekly routine that you have the
discipline to stick with, you will start to see results. In no time,
this will end up running on autopilot.
There's going to be a lot
of 10 to 12 hour days, maybe longer but they don't and shouldn't be in
your constant daily routine. After all, it's business around your
lifestyle. I have 3-hour blocks and generally leave my 'heavy lifting
work' for when I get into a state of flow, usually after midnight.
Understanding Your Personal Power and Peak Performance State:
This
state starts becoming more regular with practice and awareness.
Understand your highs (i.e. peak energy state), lows (this is no time to
do the books and usually a good time to choose pizza toppings and make
big decisions like thin or thick crust?) and my personal favourite flow
state (this is creation mode and a good time to change the World). Pick a
block of hours that works for you. Once new habits in your routine
become solid you will have an easier time telling these states apart.
It's
not unusual for me to get into flow while at the shops looking at
apples and kiwi fruit fresh deals of the day. This state for me comes
through an insightful thought or sometimes as a series of thoughts back
to back, so please keep a hardcover notebook at all times for these
moments. You might just stumble on your best business idea yet!
Time
management and productivity is a continuous optimisation process. All
you have to do is decide how many hours you want to work. Pay attention
to your body clock and maximise for times when you are at peak energy
states. Then learn to induce these states through rewarding practices
like meditation.
Schedule Fun Times on Tuesdays:
Although
it's not how I started off, I am lucky thus far to be working on
businesses that allow me lots of flexibility as to when and where I
actually work. If this tickles your fancy you are on the right track
here. In my case, all I need is my mac book pro and decent wifi. Tip:
When I am in a location where the menu has an under $10 dollar price tag
frenzy going on, I move on swiftly.
About Tuesdays
Move all
the things you used to do for fun on Saturday to this day. The Keyword
here is FUN guys so if mowing the lawn is fun! Okay, you get my point.
It doesn't matter what the activity is but I recommend you do it in the
early days of your journey. The feeling is absolutely incredible. For
me, it was reading the paper and a coffee down the road.
Do you guys wonder why we still print newspapers today?
So,
usually, one or two local Moms will swing by the coffee shop and that
is all the action there is. The rest of the 'real' world folks are at
work. This is my opinion but what I found with being Mr Tuesday is that
it gives me a boost of confidence and that sense of freedom where I
feel, "yeah that's right, I can do what I want when I want".
I
will point out here that this has nothing to do with money. I have done
this even when the reality at that time was 'cash-flow challenges!'. I
am not advocating that you should smile and be happy when you are broke,
no no no. When you think about it, this is when you need your mind at a
100% and if all it takes is a series of 3-dollar coffees down the road,
so be it. While on this topic, my ideal Tuesday day is on a yacht
surrounded by endless views of blue seas at exactly 11 am and a safety
vest in close proximity! Unwanted swimming lessons are not part of this
plan.
What does your ideal Tuesday day look like?
Your Inner Circle... Your Players CLUB:
This
is an interesting one because if you think about your ideal Tuesday
above, how many people do you know today can do that? Initially, you
will probably be alone or maybe with someone close to you like a
partner, wife, girlfriend or somebody else who probably does what you
do, or benefits directly from what you do. I found out that the friends I
used to hang out with on Saturdays and Sundays in my previous life no
longer fitted in the new life I was creating. It's a delicate balance
but I had to make some changes. For the same reason, of course, the
folks at your old job will probably not take Tuesday off to hang out at
your newly found happy place to share happy coffee with you.
I
could go on and on about this inner circle area of the new life but what
I realised and accepted was, I needed to decide as part of the journey,
to be alone for a little while as more new quality friendships
developed. This is still an ongoing process. As an example, a couple of
months ago I was in HongKong for a week just by myself. I had a blast
but would it have been nicer to share that escapade with someone
familiar?
I met new people on that trip and did things I had never
done before. I love travelling and it is one of the reasons why
starting a lifestyle business was a brilliant model. The thing is, if I
can make friends who also have time to be lazy on Tuesdays for happy
coffee and random sun baking escapades, that is probably a good 'new
friend barometer' check right there! Oh and hopefully of course what
they do for money is generally not frowned upon by law!
On the
real, though, I personally don't have many of these friends but I found
that this is a good time for me to reflect inwards and to focus on my
personal growth. If you are new into this game, this could be a good
time to spend with a business mentor, perhaps meet other like-minded
people in your local community, go deep into nature or maybe just hang
out on social media platforms and engage and find out the latest buzz
like who got a cat! Seriously the point here is, have a lot of choices
in your back pocket that you can go crazy with and if you have bucket
list ideas all figured out, check them off weekly without fail.
Family:
Family
is very dear to me and I would imagine it's the same for you too.
Perhaps, much so that you are making this decision to escape the 9-5 and
really start learning new ways to make money outside the voluntary
solitary confinement space (also known as office cubicle). One of my
reasons for choosing this journey was my family. To be more available to
them and to enhance my own life experiences. To fill those experiences
with what I really want anytime I wanted it. The one thing I encountered
and you probably might as well, those we love and care for dearly may
not understand the new you. These moments may not be as dramatic such as
waving placards in protest but you will see it vividly.
Remember how our minds don't like change?
It's
not their fault and they are probably coming from a place of love for
you. Embrace the response you get with love and remember your bigger
mission. I had lots of strange conversations with people I love and
would have like to be speaking a foreign language at the time. That way
being misunderstood would have been spot on. Then one day I realised,
they weren't really saying they disliked my new outlook on life and
crazy ideas like giving up a six-figure income.
They were just
saying, "We don't understand how to process this new information".
Please show us how. You might also take consolation in the fact that how
well you manage this close relationship is a reflection of how you will
do 'out there' where the World is short of people like you and me,
people who are lost in self-indulgence and totally unconscious of their
daily actions will not understand you either!
Remember, training
takes time. That's what it took for me until they somewhat understood.
If you are lucky enough to get the all in response from them, great, if
not, give them time and if need be, add the space element to it as well.
Be kind to yourself.
At the time, I was on a roller coaster going
through a myriad of changes both personal and business that required me
to be very present. My first business was in an industry I did not know
at all, the physical surroundings were not very familiar (I will
discuss this in a later post) and a pending divorce as a result of a
strained long-distance relationship. Now, this was a lot of action in
one headspace!
In Summary
Your
circumstances may be a little different from mine for wanting to come
this way and choosing this journey. As you go along, it's reasonable to
expect moments where you will be tried and tested by fate. Things will
happen that will be out of your comfort zone or out of your control and
sometimes both.
In the end, I find that clarity on my why I do
what I do sails me through choppy waters. I embrace whatever comes my
way with love. Answers to what I don't know come in the right time. I
keep the bigger mission clear in my mind. Creating a life where I can
live on my own terms is not free, there's a price to be paid.
Another
really important thing to have a solid business system. I found my
answer with the six-figure mentors. They have a step-by-step business
system that shows you how to leverage the Internet and start your very
own online business. What's, even more, is that if your goal is to start
your own business say around your passion, the business skills you will
learn are second to none. From experience with my first 2 ventures as a
newbie without a mentor, I would recommend every new entrepreneur make
getting a mentor, their number one priority. Looking at how I started my
entrepreneurial journey, this was my single most expensive mistake up
until today as I write this.
Final Thought
Along
the way somewhere, I realised that I needed to give up the idea of
perfection and get cosy with uncertainty about what will be tomorrow and
experience some discomfort today because of the things that I don't
know yet. I experience more growth as I continue to operate in that
mental space. All I have to do TODAY is take to take the next best
action. This post is unusually long so if you are still reading, I
sincerely thank you. I hope you found some value in there. Feel free to
share this post with someone else who will enjoy reading through the
ideas and insights I have shared.
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