Adaero Property

Hello again. After some amazing time off in Australia with my family I’m back in the saddle, and although battling the jet lag, I’m eager to start executing on 2018 goals.

You’ve no doubt heard the wise quote from Brian Tracy that. “Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution”, right?

Similarly, I’ve heard it said from one of my mentors that even if much of the first week of a quarter is taken up with planning, it frees your headspace to then execute fully on the plan for the next 11 weeks.

There is a pretty rigorous reflecting and planning process that I learned from mentor Peter Shallard and have been using for a few years now. As I become more practised in it I’m recognising some of the crucial keys to high performance goal setting which many out there may appreciate a heads up on. Whilst I can’t go into the entirety of the process with all it’s juicy details (we’re talking 7hrs+), I can at least share some key takeaways that could level up your ability to set and execute on your BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals).

Ever noticed how gyms are packed for the first 2 weeks of Jan but come the end of Jan the ‘new year new you’ hype has sort of fizzled out? Same goes for big financial goals plucked out of the air. These wishes that one might set and hope that they are magically manifested are typically lacking in some key building blocks of goal setting.

Now I’m not saying that I’m in anyway perfect but the goal setting process I referred to earlier that I do has been a key component to the results in our business over the last year. At the beginning of 2017 Chris and I set out to add 100 bed spaces to our SA portfolio. Although we fell a little short come 31st Dec, we will be within 7 beds of that target in Q1 thanks to the units secured in the pipeline.

So, without writing war and peace about goal setting, here are a handful of key learns that will no doubt be of value to others out there.

#1 BEGIN WITH INTELLIGENT REFLECTION because it forms a powerful foundation for planning, here’s why:

• Being a business owner makes you very tough on yourself, but intelligent reflection offers a way out of that.
• It gives you energy and inspiration to continue marching towards your goal, even in the face of feeling you’ll never be done.
• Most entrepreneurs have a lack of awareness of how much they’ve actually done and achieved in a year (in other words we get caught in the trap of looking at the out of reach summit of the mountain rather than congratulating ourselves on looking back and seeing how far we’ve come).
• It acts as a powerful post mortem analysis on mistakes that you can take valuable learning from
• It’s a way out of the ‘insanity cycle” i.e. doing the same thing and expecting different results
• You can surprise yourself with some easy wins i.e. getting clarity on something that got you great results and can be replicated going forwards.

Here are a few of the intelligent reflection questions (thinking about your 2017) to get you started:

1. How did your beliefs or values really steer you right?
2. What belief of yours got seriously challenged or tested?
3. What behaviour(s) really caused you to win?
4. What capability was lacking or let you down?
5. What environment did you find or create that contributed your success?

#2 ECOLOGICAL GOAL SETTING

This is the real gold dust. This is the stuff that’s been taking me a while to embed but I’m really starting to see the power in it. You may wonder what is meant by ‘ecological’ in relation to goal setting.

Meaning of ecology from dictionary.com

‘the branch of biology dealing with the relations and interactions between organisms and their environment, including other organisms.’

In the context of goal setting, the purpose of ecology is all about alignment between the conscious and unconscious mind. Here’s why it’s so important – the unconscious mind has one sole job, to move you toward pleasure and away from pain. A lack of alignment is when your unconscious mind has a different opinion to your conscious mind.

In other words, self sabotage arises from setting certain goals when the unconscious mind doesn’t get the same excitement as the conscious mind, because it’s worried about pain.

Having also learned about highest values from Dr John Demartini, I liken this alignment concept to that ie knowing your highest values and either working in your areas of highest values or at least linking what you do to your highest values.

When alignment is in place motivation isn’t something that you need to hope and will into existence. With alignment, motivation shows up to help you execute on your vision. This is the BIGGEST SECRET of setting ecological goals.

So, here are some questions for layering in ecology to your goal setting:

1. What specifically do you want? Write it out in positive terms, with specificity and in the present tense ie ‘It is 1st Jan 2019 and I’m sitting in (x location)….reviewing …numbers/financials.’ It’s super important to have your conscious mind aligned with your unconscious in all of this.
2. Where are you now? It’s essential to document your present situation in relation to your outcome. What are your resources and numbers relative to what you want?
3. What will you see, hear, feel when you have it? (This is super important for your unconscious motivation). Specify your outcome – how will the external world tell you it’s happened? What is it internally you will feel/tell yourself when you have it?
4. What will this outcome get for you or allow you to do? Again, make sure this is aligned.
5. Is it initiated and maintained by you? The goal must be entirely in your control. A well formed outcome must be entirely your responsibility and under your complete control.
6. Is it appropriately contextualised? In other words, where, when, how and with whom do you want to experience achieving this goal? How do you bring your family, business partner, your health etc into this outcome?

You can see this is a whole different level to approach goal setting. Thoroughly thinking through the goal like this is designed to set your unconscious mind building a map, a reference place and foundation for what’s involved in achieving these goals.

I appreciate this is a lot to take in so if you got this far, well done. Even better, if you choose to act on this and implement it with your own goal setting you will be doing the work to set yourself up for a great year ahead.

As a closing note/tip, be sure to specify your very first step towards the big goal, and make it achievable. One of the fundamental requisites for change is to take action, and that’s easy when you know the first step!

Wishing you all a 2018 of good health, growth and fun.

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.

In progressing the latter stages of our newest three SA units this week, I had several car trips to pick up small items, sort TVs and wifi etc. My car buddy was Mark Manson on audible as I listened to his book “The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life.

For anyone who’s read it you’ll know that Manson provides a fresh, and different perspective on personal development. The summary on goodreads sums it up nicely saying that he, ‘makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better.’

Listening to the book as I drove to and fro and build TV stands, the main theme from the first half of the book jumped out and made clear sense so I wanted to share it. And it’s this, that ‘pain serves a purpose’.

What does this mean exactly?

To quote Mark, “Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence — but not everyone is willing to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork, to navigate arbitrary corporate hierarchies and the blasé confines of an infinite cubicle hell. People want to be rich without the risk, with the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.”

It reminded me of the overarching lesson of balance between support and challenge that we learned from Dr John Demartini at the Glasgow Breakthrough Event last summer.

What determines your success is “What pain do you want to sustain?”

Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives end up.

“People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don’t end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to love the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not. Some people are wired for that sort of pain, and those are the ones who succeed.”

Years ago I invested in my education to learn how to trade on the stock market – to conduct in depth fundamental analysis on companies and technical chart analysis for optimal trade entry and exit. I was enamoured with the lure of financial freedom through stock market trading in just a few hours each day. Yet, I never made the consistent effort to embed and execute these learnings. The truth is, I don’t enjoy the pain that comes with doing the in depth trade research and management daily, it’s not for me. And that’s OK, I’m fine with it. Instead I pay for help to invest in the stock market now.

On the other hand, Chris and I are both very much on the same page that we are willing to invest in our property education, apply what we learn and take the small, consistent steps, over time, towards growing a successful property business. Because that’s the sort of pain and stress we enjoy sustaining. It’s directly linked to our highest values, not just in the pleasures, but in the stress and pain because they serve as a vehicle to becoming our best selves.

Manson reminds us that there’s a lot of self development advice out there that says, “You’ve just got to want it enough!”

That’s only partly true. Everybody wants something. And everybody wants something badly enough. They just aren’t being honest with themselves about what they actually want that bad. In other words people are in love with the end result but are they in love with the process? If they’re not in love with the process then will likely never get to reaching the really big results.

So, What pain do you want to sustain? Mark Manson calls it the, “the question that can change your life.”

Because that answer will actually get you somewhere.

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062457714/the-subtle-art-of-not-giving-a-fck

Who’s your hero?

“A hero is an individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles” – Christopher Reeve AKA the original Superman.

Thanks to my weekly dose of Darren Hardy, my mind was stretched as it relates to this concept of hero- he relayed the story of Matthew Mcconaughey (Hollywood actor) who, when asked by a family friend at age 14 who’s your hero? the thoughtful reply was, “Me, in 10 years time”. In other words, “My hero is me, the future version of me”. Darren explained that the greatest leader and hero you could ever know is the one you are capable of becoming. I don’t know about you but this thought challenged me at first, and then I loved the idea of it. For anyone  else who connects with the never-ending best self journey, this is bound to resonate.

I’m going to share the 4 steps to awakening your inner hero that I learned from Hardy in a moment. First, how was your week? Where did your inner hero show up?

It feels like Chris and I put in a bit of a hero shift this week moving the ball forward in our SA portfolio. Here’s a few highlights:

• Ironing out the snagging list for handover of 3 out of 5 flats in a block on commercial lease 
• Thanks to James at Fusion and the delivery team these flats are well on their way from zero to hero, soft furnishings in next week.
• 2 recruitment interviews.
• Reactive and proactive maintenance across 3 properties in our portfolio.
• Resolving boiler issues and maintaining guest relations .
• Prepping for annual accounts submission

So, you might be wondering, what are those 4 steps I mentioned earlier? Well, have you ever been stuck trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between the vision you have for yourself or the attributes you admire in others, and where you are currently?

As Darren H enlightened me this week, ‘Inside you is that admirable, powerful, awe-inspiring person you have always wanted to become and have always been capable of becoming.’ Interestingly, what he shared was very close to what the wise Dr John Demartini taught us during the course Chris and I attended last summer. I know some reading this will be familiar with Demartini’s ‘traits of the great’ exercise. Here are the 4 steps to help you bridge that gap we identified earlier:

#1: Think of your heroes and list them out, all those who you admire most, see as enviable, admirable and heroic.

#2: Brainstorm a list of the single words you would use to describe each of these people

#3: Narrow all the lists down to the top 12 most important attributes to YOU from all of these – you now have a clear picture of your heroic you i.e. you’ve just described the hero in you, the one you are capable of becoming.

#4: Evaluate yourself on a scale of 1-10 for each of these attributes (if you’re not sure, ask your spouse, business partner, colleague). Anywhere that is less than a 10 highlights your personalised ‘Hero Plan’. Now your personal development plan can be focused on developing those specific attributes.

Here’s the curious thing – you wouldn’t have recognised those attributes if you didn’t already see them in yourself.

Now the rest is over to you. “The difference between knowing and and becoming is doing”- Darren Hardy.

Since I reported on this 4 step process I had to do the exercise myself. I set a timer for 20mins and went for it in a flow of consciousness.  Here’s an abridged version just to highlight the 12 words that make up my personal “Hero Plan”

1. Massive action taker 8
2. Values led – 9
3. Immense conviction – 7
4. Bloody hard worker – 9
5. Bold – 6
6. Confident in self – 6
7. Dedicated to his profession and to learning – 7
8. Habitual – 8
9. Abundant – 7
10. Generous – 7
11. Consistant – 7
12. Authentic – 8

What a packed week! Tuesday saw me back in Sheffield for a fantastic monthly meet up with the Development Discovery crew. A few days back in East Lothian working on recruitment and our SA business, followed by 3 days at Progressive Towers for Chris and I learning about Business Systems with Jason and Ray.

With such a busy week of content there’s too much to share in one post but here’s a few highlights from our Development Discovery Day which may well be of value to all the budding developers out there.

We started the day with a mini round table mastermind where each member updated what they’ve been working on the last month, any challenges faced and their learning objectives for the day. Common learning points to cover were:

• how to go from outline to full planning
• how to deal with lapsed planning
• targeted commercial
• optimising existing owned land
• how to do vendor finance
• Cohort updates

Each project group updated the room on the progress of their development site. In our case we are going through  a pre-application process to optimise our site from 11 to 14 apartments. This is a snapshot of our discussion on the progress of planning and the new design:

– Our mentor Alan felt the revised design will sell much better. 

– In regards to previous challenges of massing and scale- this has been addressed with the following adjustments from our Architect:

•  Upper floors have been set back so its less imposing
• The roof line has been lowered with a flat roof so there is not any mass above the original height of the first planning design (*annoyingly there are not any ratios or anything to determine massing, it’s very subjective.
• A vennel between the front 2 blocks has been created to open up a coastal view for the apartments at the rear of the development which will add to the value
• The ground level where the footprint of the building will sit will be lowered by half a metre helping to reduce the scale and massing. The ground level will then be feathered away to level it out and we will install French drains (essentially soak away drains that prevent ground water from flowing towards a building) around the perimeter of the building.
• The overall design palette of the building now looks really sharp using grey Trespa panels  https://www.trespa.com/
• The balconies have been redesigned so will be easier to construct and drain rain water

Overall a super insightful exercise to go through these planning issues and work towards something that should ultimately be granted planning because the design has been informed by feedback from the planner.

When, rather than if, planning is granted it will raise the valuation of our site as it is and of course dramatically increase our projected GDV. Very exciting and fingers are firmly crossed.

Alan later walked us through some key principles of vendor finance which has worked extremely well for him to create win win outcomes on several sites.  As a little insight, one of the key things is to do your homework and go to meet the vendor equipped with a project folder containing details of how a potential site scheme could work, good comparables, a site valuation and any helpful insights informed by the local plan affecting the area.

What you are essentially doing with vendor finance is minimising risk by speaking to the right people to eliminate as much guessing as possible, and ultimately create a fantastic win win scenario whereby the vendor can achieve the price they want (and more), while you minimize risk and create a fully self funding development.  This strategy can work extremely well with commercial sites that might be costing the owner money (i.e. if it has a struggling business).

Here are some key things you can look for:

•      Empty buildings
•      Failing pubs and hotels
•      Sites that have been sitting on websites and not selling for months

The other key ingredients to this are approaching the vendor with a problem solving mindset and being completely honest throughout.

We used the remainder our time in Sheffield for a mini mastermind session focused on helping one of our cohort members brainstorm possible  options for a large country hotel site with land.

It’s now Sunday morning and after a fun night out with the group from our Business Cashflow Masterclass, we have the final session at Progressive Towers with Ray and Jason before we drive back up the road to East Lothian.

Have a great week ahead.

This week I discovered the true story of Pejman Nozad, a ‘rugs to riches’ story of an Iranian immigrant rug dealer who became Silicon Valley’s hottest Venture Capitalist with a net worth of $50million. More on that in a moment.

How has your November kicked off? For Chris and I, we’ve been busy with both strategic and operational things, for example:

• firming up the scope of works and furniture order lists for some new SA units that will be coming online in the next couple of weeks
• progressing our recruitment conversations for an Operations Manager
• reviewing and finalising commercial lease documents
• resolving 2 guest lock out issues
• exploring conversations with some prospective new clients

What about on the learning side this week, what new learns stand out for you? If you don’t know the story I started referring to at the beginning of the post, it’s simply fascinating and I encourage you to read into it, meanwhile here’s the shortened version.

Pejman Nozad moved to California in 1992 with limited grasp of the English language and $700 to his name. He secured a job in a Silicon valley rug shop and began selling rugs in the area. A lot of these customers were venture capitalists and entrepreneurs  and over time he began building a valuable network. He began connecting founding entrepreneurs with local VCs by inviting them to the rug gallery and generally being helpful to founders. He gradually started investing in his client’s companies and eventually convinced his boss to start a “tech venture fund” (with his savings and his boss’ investment).

Their fund became the first investors in Dropbox, Lending Club, SoundHound, Danger, Zoosk and others.  Pejman Nozad is one of Silicon Valley’s greatest connectors, yet he doesn’t have the staple calling card of Silicon Valley. No M.B.A. No Ph.D. No “technical background whatsoever” (his words). Nozad’s path to Silicon Valley power broker — and VC investor with a net worth in the ballpark of $50 million — was a far simpler one: He sold carpets….and became an expert networker!

Here are Pejman Nozad’s six secrets for networking success, that helped him build a net worth of $50million:

#1 GIVE

Always be willing and eager to help others with an introduction or your time, and do not expect anything in return. Give first and don’t keep score.

#2 BE REAL

Be proud of where you came from and share your story with others. Be completely human and authentic. Zig Ziglar wisely said that, “If people like you they will listen to you but if they trust you they will do business from you.”

#3 COMPLIMENT

Compliment the achievements of those around you and do it with a genuine sentiment, and tie it to who they are deep down. People yearn for validation and recognition, and you can build great bonds by looking for those things that people feel proud of and pointing it out.

#4 DO YOUR HOMEWORK AND FIND COMMON GROUND

In conversations search for common ground. Even better, be prepared – take the time and interest to learn about the person you are meeting. When you do this finding common ground and making a connection is easy.

#5 USE YOUR NETWORK SPARINGLY

Use your network wisely and only at the right time, for the right person and for the right cause. Be careful , purposeful and intentional when making withdrawals from your relationship bank account. There is a time for requests and withdrawals but make it count.

#6 BE AUTHENTICALLY YOU, ALWAYS, EVERYWHERE AND WITH EVERYONE

Don’t create walls between your personal and professional lives – it is one big network of people. We don’t need to exhaust ourselves being slightly different personalities between work, social and family. Be just as personally helpful and at ease with a work colleague as you would with a family member.

In closing we have a quote from Robert Kiyosaki – “The richest people in the world look for and build networks, everybody else looks for work.”

I hope this post proves helpful to you. Please share any of your networking success strategies for others to learn from here.

P.S. If you want to find out more about Pejman Nozad, here’s a couple of links:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2012/03/21/silicon-valleys-hottest-vc-is-a-rug-dealer/#766094b231d5

https://medium.com/@pejmannozad/tech-s-most-unlikely-venture-capitalist-bb002488f297