Month: December 2017

As we head into 2018 we all know that these last few days of the year present a special opportunity – it’s a natural trigger to take a look at your life and work and assess what areas are ripe for improvement. I’ve heard it from numerous influencers each year that we must grab this opportunity with two hands and invest some of your time away from the office into your personal growth.

I just read an article that prompted the reader to take a hard look at the last year by asking yourself a few very important questions, as follows:
What was your biggest breakthrough and how can you build on it?
What did you learn from your biggest failure or mistake?
Who helped you the most, and how can you be a greater resource to them?
What have you been wanting to do, but haven’t done yet? Why?

Your answers to those questions may create a lightbulb moment that sets the tone for a great 2018.

I’m particularly excited for the days following the new year celebrations where we’ll be removing ourselves from the ‘noise’ to invest some meaningful hours in reflection and planning for the year ahead.

At the beginning of the year I committed to a goal of publishing a weekly post in 2017 and I’m chuffed to say that here I am sharing the final post of the year not having missed a week. I hope that it has served to be of interest, inspire, teach something new or remind you of something you knew but would then go on to use.

Here’s wishing you a very happy, health, growth- and purpose-filled New Year.

Best wishes from sunny Sydney (was a very proud Dad to see my older boys both surfing today).

In these final few days leading up to Christmas, and for the days that follow, I wanted to remind (and stretch) folks by asking the question – ‘What’s most important this Christmas, giving and receiving presents, or your genuine PRESENCE to really be in the room (devices switched off) with family and friends?

Our family Christmas this year is very much experience based, hence it will be light on the presents yet full out on the presence with each other. Don’t get me wrong, I love to give and receive presents but this year we have an opportunity show our kids that there is a lot more to Christmas than tearing open presents. Travelling fairly light to the other side of the world to be with relatives and experience new places and activities along the way provides a wonderful opportunity to show them just that. I hope that it makes for not only great fun times in the moment, but also for super rich memories that the boys will cherish for the rest of their lives.

Our first week in Australia with our 3 boys has been just awesome- taking in Dreamworld, swimming in freshwater falls in the Tamborine mountains, Brisbane’s open air beach cinema, Australia Zoo, Noosa beach and exploring the wonders of Fraser Island.  Other than a few online conversations with the team back home I’ve been able to be fully PRESENT with my family throughout all these rich experiences and I’m so grateful for it. Today we fly back into Sydney for the big Christmas celebrations with siblings, grandparents, cousins aunts and uncles.

None of this would be possible without our thriving serviced accommodation business that Chris and I have worked so hard to build over the last 18 months. This is a great opportunity to say a big thanks to all those who have supported us in making this happen, from our brilliant mentors Paul and Aniko, our suppliers, team members, our supportive wives Emma and Hazel, and of course all the guests who have stayed in our properties in 2017.

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas.

This message is coming to you from sunny Brisbane where we’ve been acclimatising to jet lag for the last couple of days having arrived on Friday morning instead of Wednesday.

For those who read last week’s post we were due to depart for Australia on Monday….the freezing conditions and multiple cancelled flights into Heathrow put an end to that. The start to the week threw a number of challenges at us but in those challenges came great opportunities to teach life lessons to our sons.

On Monday morning our kids woke to a freezing house (our boiler broke down the night before) and to find their parents on the phone and internet to airlines, airports, train lines etc. The kids were being prepared for news that our actual departure date was now uncertain and a day back at school was on the cards rather than beginning their trip of a lifetime. In amongst the stress and pressure of that Monday morning my wife and I saw an opportunity and asked ourselves, “what can teach our kids by how we react to the situation, by being solution oriented, and how we conduct ourselves with customer service people?”

To cut a long story short, we used our extra 2 days at home to fix our boiler and finish off more jobs that were on the list before leaving. Ultimately we got to our destination after several delays, dipping into the pocket and a new connecting flight. We hope our example has been absorbed by our eldest boys, and since then we’ve been making memories at the theme park here.

This time of year also brings an opportunity for intelligent reflection- a process I learned a few years ago from one of my mentors Andy Drish. I’ll summarise the process for you here and but if you’re interested to explore further I think you may be able to catch a replay of Andy’s 2018 Vision Day Workshop, link below:

https://visionday.andydrish.com/webinar-registration-11118672

Quite simply, go through the entire calendar or diary for 2017 and for each month identify your highs, lows and lessons.

I was completing this exercise this week at home and on the plane. To give you an idea here is what one of my months looked like earlier in the year:

APR

HIGHS
● Completed on our Development Discovery site – a pub to convert to 11 apartments
● Secured and set up 2 new R2R for SA properties
● The breakthrough in our understanding of planning for SA by going in and making a real time application
● Hard grind paying off and making a contact that would generate to a new flow of R2R property
● Winning new contractor bookings for our SA units

LOWS
● Never felt more stressed with the pressure of running SA for contractors, wasn’t sleeping so well
● Letting work and stress creep into family time

LESSONS
● The GTD 5 steps 1) Collect the info 2) Process the info 3) Organise the info 4) Review what done 5) Do it
● How the rich get richer- 1) access the best coaches 2) connect to a ref group 3) know and use the strategies & systems of the wealthy and wise
● Must connect importance of getting admin done to my life’s why of life mastery
● JV concepts- 10% of net wealth, rate table and re-invest 0.5%
● The reason we grow is to have something to give
● Intrinsic drivers of motivation (helpful to apply to staff) – autonomy, mastery, purpose
● A reminder to grow income without growing outgoings and to pay ourselves 1st

There is a bit more to the exercise but I hope the condensed version is helpful for you. Have a great week.

There’s nothing like the positive pressure of a holiday deadline is there? This week was my last full week IN the business for 2017 because we depart for a family trip to Australia tomorrow. This looming deadline has lit a fire under my proverbial behind to crunch through a massively productive and rewarding week across both business and personal areas of life. Here’s a few of the highlights:

• Chris and I have put our all into getting our serviced accommodation business into a strong position to close the year and tee up more growth next year.
• We’ve been busy training our new team member across key operational parts of our business
• We’ve welcomed both new and repeat guests to our properties
• We viewed a possible property to purchase for SA
• We’ve researched and brainstormed strategic growth areas to pick up on in early 2018
• We hosted an awesome Christmas dinner and night out for our team and key strategic partners
• As a family we celebrated my youngest son’s 3rd birthday with a meal out and the new Paddington movie – just brilliant.

Helping me have such a productive week were 4 key concepts (or ingredients) that I’ve been employing for several years now. I wanted to take a moment to share them with you because they will prove crucial to your productivity and goal achieving going into 2018. I am eternally grateful to one of my business coach/mentors and entrepreneur psychologist Peter Shallard, for teaching me these “4 Pillars of Productivity” as follows:

1. Specificity:
This relates to the ideal implementation granularity required to break a goal down into perfect bite sized chunks. For example a giant goal like climbing Everest can be broken down into taking 58,070 steps. Without specificity you would be hoping to achieve a goal without any actionable steps within your control. On the other hand, ask yourself, is it clear what I and I alone (i.e. what’s within my control) need to do in order to move closer to the goal?

2. Measurement:
Measurement assigns positive meaning and accomplishment to completing an activity. Without delving too deeply into the science behind this, suffice to say that building a streak in completed activity delivers a positive chemical reaction in your brain, this helps you feel good about incremental progress on the way to achieving a bigger goal.

A simple analogy is going to the gym to lose weight or build muscle. In the first 2-3 weeks we will likely see little or no change but by measuring and checking off our attendance 4 times a week we make a game of following through. This progress measurement helps us get to weeks 4-6 and beyond where we start to see the results of our work.

3. Deadlines:
We’ve all experienced the power of deadlines early on in our academic careers. The looming deadline of a test has the power to make us study hard at the 11th hour (or in my case this week to compress more in before a holiday). Without deadlines, things can sit on your to do list for months. When all else fails, a real cut off point with consequences gets everyone moving. If you are up for achieving more next year then don’t shy away from deadlines, but instead look for opportunities to commit to things.

4. Accountability:
Have you heard the saying that goes, “The easiest person to let down is yourself”? On the flipside, you can’t kid yourself on the goals you’ve made if someone holds you accountable to them. Accountability taps into powerful social behaviours because we want to look good in front of others. Accountability is like a secret weapon and serves to remind us of the commitments we have made. Successful business people build boards of directors and advisors to hold them accountable to goals and milestones. Where is accountability missing in your life right now?

“Accountability is critical to anyone leading a group of people, because, after all, every business is a people business. Accountability is how people get things done—or don’t get things done. “
-Greg Bustin, author of ‘Accountability: The Key To Driving A High-Performance Culture’

I use these 4 Pillars to help set and achieve goals for each week, and if this resonates, you can too.

Have a great week ahead.

And here we are, transitioning into December, and with it the final big push for 2017. What a week of activity, how was yours? Here’s a quick few highlights from Chris and I:

• Soft furnishing and finishing touches to our latest 3 SA units
• Several training/onboarding sessions with our new team member
• A group breakfast presentation listening to a business coach talk through ‘Realising Growth in Uncertain Times’ – fascinating and I’ll perhaps share more on that another time
• A mastermind breakfast meeting with 2 other business owners
• Securing new contractor bookings across some of our SA portfolio
• Meeting with the Scottish VIP group one last time (fantastic group shares and brainstorming were had in our mini mastermind session).

Whilst I was raking up leaves in the garden this weekend I tuned into a podcast – it was one of those episodes that just cut right through the noise and resonated with what’s front of mind for me right now. It was a very timely and common sense message that instantly struck me as one to share. This episode from Young Entrepreneur Lifestyle touched on things that many of you may have heard/read before in different guises, and I’m going to summarise the key take-aways so it may help those who read the post and in doing so embed the steps for myself.

These summary points are all about how to make the most of the last 4-5 weeks of the year and build massive momentum going into 2018.

Podcast host Peter Voogd suggests that how you treat the last leg of 2017 will determine everything for you in 2018. He says, most people think that 2018 starts after the festive season, but it really started a few weeks ago. The more you think things through now the less you regret and the more you give, the more you get. It’s time to think things through to the end result. Intention and strategy rather than hope and ambition

5 STEPS TO MAXIMISE THE END OF THE YEAR:

A smart person learns from their mistakes but a really successful person learns from others mistakes so they cut their learning curve in half and don’t have to make the same mistakes as everyone else. So, by taking on board these learns it can save you a ton of time, frustration and energy as you go into the final stretch.

Step #1 AWARENESS

• Age and experience is irrelevant, it’s all about adapting to the environment you are operating in and being willing to change, being willing to become more valuable. Being willing to do things differently.
• It doesn’t matter how many bad decisions you made in your business during the year, you are always one decision away from making right the decision. Too many people let their past dictate their future, and base their future off their fears and insecurities rather than their potential. That’s why this final stretch determines 2018, but it requires a new YOU!
• Everyone has a next level they are capable of, no matter whether you are earning £1K a month or £100K.
• Peter gave some fitting analogies about the final stretch i.e. in NFL, the most points are scored in the final 2 minutes of each half, in retail 25-40% of sales happen in the final 45 days of the year. In other words, he’s saying the race for the year is won or lost in the final push.
• During the push you have to focus on ‘breaking the tape with massive momentum’.
• Do the opposite of others i.e. at this time of year, most people are starting to eat unhealthy, drink more, take the foot of the work pedal but if we want to differentiate ourselves we have to do the opposite – step up the exercise, keep the diet in check, plan effectively, don’t sell yourself short
• In summary, have full awareness with what you’re doing and how you’re operating in the final stretch of the year.

STEP #2- STACK UP MOTIVATION WITH WHYS

• Reasons come first, results second
• Figure out WHY you want to have an amazing end to the year AND build MASSIVE MOMENTUM going into 2018, and write the reasons down.
• This will serve as the fuel to pull you through the hard times.
• Look at these reasons regularly and use them to push you through while others are easing off.
• Pressure makes or breaks people so you need fuel to get past that

STEP #3- WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING AND PRIORITISE

• Best way to get rid of the overwhelm and fuzzy thinking is to write everything down. Get it out of your head and onto paper.
• 90% of things you stress about won’t be there in a year.
• Whatever you focus on you get more of.
• Write out what’s most important to you, i.e. is it wealth, health, family and plan in when you will be putting time into those priority areas.
• What GETS SCHEDULED GETS DONE i.e. plan in all your workouts for the end of the year and schedule into your diary, write out when you’re going to be with family, your personal growth commitments etc.
• “Your schedule is a reflection of your integrity” – I love that quote.
• Write out clear expectations for your business for end of the year and clear tasks for each person, whether it’s just you or if you have a team – it’s about working more strategically and intentionally rather than doing loads of hours so we can all be more present with our family.
• What are your profit producing activities, what are non negotiables in business to move things forwards? Write them out and schedule them.
• What are 5 potential distractions that might come up in these final few weeks? – if we take care of them before they come up we won’t get the interruptions. Ruthlessly eliminate distractions.
• If you open an email, either respond, delete or delegate in that moment, don’t let it sit there and weigh on your mind.
• De-clutter as much as can – we’ve all heard a tidy house leads to a tidy mind.
• The difference between winning and losing is often ‘just a little bit more’.
• Make a promise to yourself not to be distracted and semi-tuned into work when with your family.
• Have a prevention plan to eliminate distractions.

STEP #4- CELEBRATE WEEKLY PROGRESS

• Celebrate weekly progress rather than focusing on perfection or living in ‘the gap’ i.e. focus on what completed or how far you’ve come in the last year, be grateful what done rather than living in the gap of where you think you should be”.
• This next bit of advice is gold, and my favourite quote of the podcast – “You are exactly where you need to be, to learn exactly what you need to learn, to get the lessons that you need to get to build an amazing future”. Don’t beat yourself up, bet on yourself.
• Celebrate what went well in the week, get strategic about what can make the next week better, and by sticking to that it’s impossible to have a bad month.

STEP #5- WHAT IS YOUR GAME CHANGING HOLIDAY ROUTINE

• The ritual you create to solidify getting back in the zone.
• It’s hard to build momentum when you take breaks, but at this time of year you need to, and when you do you’ll want to be fully present. So to allow yourself to be fully present during down time, maximise what you do leading up to the break. You’ll then feel amazing taking time off with your family.
• Have a result ritual to get you back into flow after down times (love this one and I took a few moments to write one out straight away).
• In advance of taking your time off, think about and write down a ritual to get you back in the zone.
• Some ideas to get back in the zone – changing your work environment, calling a mentor, getting physically active, listening to something that inspires you, look at your most compelling reasons (i.e. your WHYs).
• Think back over the last few years, when have you been in the most productive state and been the most fired up? What helped that happen, how can you re-create it? Words, phrases, songs, videos?

I hope that from reading this you have either learned something know or were reminded of something you knew but will now put into action.

Have a great week ahead.