Category: Work Life

New Webcomics series brought to you by #entrepreneurfail and GetEntrepreneurial.com. Enjoy!

Now don’t get me wrong…I really like Tim Ferriss and his books, hacks, and inspirational goals. He seems to polarize with his material though: either you love his material or are secretly cursing him for making you feel like an underachiever.

This post is a public service announcement for those entrepreneurs who, for many years, have been misinterpreting, misusing, or just missing his techniques from The 4-Hour Workweek. Here are some of the benefits of his books, as well as some of the potential #entrepreneurfail moments related to it, so you can proceed with caution.

Useful Nuggests

Simply put, in all of his books, Tim Ferriss stitches together his knowledge, methods, hacks and accomplishments based on the mini experiments he’s conducted and the empirical results he has achieved. For the new entrepreneur there are many little nuggets of wisdom that can be adapted to simplify and succeed as a small business owner.

Caveats and Proceeding with Caution

Here’s the problem: Many entrepreneurs assume FAST RESULTS when they hear ‘4-hour week’. They don’t realize that to get to this point, entrepreneurs may have to put in some 100-hour weeks. Don’t forget that Tim Ferriss probably still doesn’t work a ‘4-hour week,’ since he is probably busy creating the next book for us. Also, if we all just work 4 hours a week, who will be doing the grunt level of work in our society.?

Another issue for us mere mortals, as David Seah admits in his review of the 4-Hour Workweek, that many of Tim Ferriss’ recommendations are a challenge to complete. Entrepreneurs are already under so much pressure, so the added pressure of working many long hours, and not seeing the galactic results is overwhelming.

And finally, in the 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss recommends outsourcing for growing a business. But guess what…you’ll find entrepreneurs outsourcing not only the ancillary functions of their business, but also the business development, the secret sauce, and the core business operations. This is a recipe for disaster, and true entrepreneurs know that the key business functions need to stay in-house to truly differentiate and provide value.

All in all, I’m sure you’ll get some pointers if you haven’t picked up his books yet. Just tread cautiously as you dive into his methods.

?Let us know what you think of the books: Four-Hour Workweek, The Four-Hour Body, or The Four-Hour Chef in the comments below. Are you a fan or a skeptic when it comes to Tim Ferriss? 

This post was originally created by Kriti Vichare for #entrepreneurfail: Startup Success. She is the founder of IdeaKube, providing innovation and creativity workshops for virtual teams.

The time changed for most of the U.S. last weekend. We “fell back.”

How does this change affect you? Pretty much like any change does.

Here are 3 Timely Strategies to Positive Change:

Acknowledge the Change

Like most change, the reversal back to Standard Time came without our permission. Congress extended Daylight Savings Time without so much as a phone call to my office…or yours.

That’s the way change operates. It shows up without so much as a warning for many of us. We find ourselves blindsided by a software change, a systems change, a pricing change, and the list goes on.

Regardless of our lack of involvement or consultation, change is what it is. The faster you acknowledge the change, the more quickly you capitalize on it. To increase your sales with greater productivity requires you to say to yourself and others, “This is the change. It’s here to stay.”

Such change recognition reorganizes your brain for optimal adaptation to the change and learning its consequential behavior as soon as possible.

Avoid Resisting the Change

How often this week will you say something like, “My body is still adjusting to the new time. You know, it’s really x:xx o’clock in the old time”?

Change resistance is predictable. Your brain loves the familiar because mental file folders already exist for sorting and storing information and the accompanying behavior. Your brain resists the unfamiliar due to the requisite creation of new mental file folders and new behaviors.

For example, if your software changes, avoid saying, “I knew what to do in XYZ. I haven’t a clue now.” Instead, program your brain for quickly accepting the change by closely examining the new software, finding functions in the unfamiliar software that are similar to the familiar, make the mental connection, and you have accepted the change.

Avoid resisting the change by building a bridge of similarity between the familiar and unfamiliar.

Accelerate through the Change

You determine how quickly you adjust to the time change this week. Your mental attitude sets the pace.

Here’s the key to accelerating through change: repetition.

When your operational software changes, after you bridge the familiar and unfamiliar, invest time in repeating the functions. Just keep after it.

Persevere. Persist. Perform repetitive tasks.

This week you’ll get up every morning by the alarm clock set to Standard Time rather than switching back to DST. You repeat waking up to the new time daily until it’s no longer unfamiliar, but becomes familiar.

As you do, you similarly accelerate through the change at work, you adapt more quickly and capitalize on the opportunities. Such rapid adaptation means you increase sales with greater productivity which gets you out of the office earlier to do what you love with those you love. You Work Positive!

About the Author

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), coach, and speaker who helps professionals increase sales with greater productivity and get out of the office earlier. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.

Most business professionals today that we coach are overwhelmed. They get to the end of the day with an ever expanding to-do list and fall exhausted into the evening commute. They return the next morning after reversing the commute and fall exhausted into their desk chair, thinking, “Here we go again…”

And yet there are those who do more in a day than most do in a month. Who increase their sales with greater productivity and get out of the office earlier. Who make a life and a living.

You wonder, “What is their secret?”

One of their secrets is this: they finish their day strong.

They understand that the concluding actions of yesterday ring loudly as you greet tomorrow-becoming-today.

Want to join them? Here are 3 Positive Strategies to Finish Your Day Strong:

Complete a Task

Daily, you face unanticipated interruptions. You put out unexpected fires.

These chronic productivity hiccups prompt you to experience incompleteness. Some days, you rarely complete a task and that’s an emotional drain.

Find a task, even a small one, to complete before you leave for home. Arrange your desk. File papers or documents. Make tomorrow’s to-do list. Anything.

Completing one task at the end of your day creates a positive sense of satisfaction that greets you the next morning. It’s refreshing to walk in and re-experience yesterday’s success. It launches your confidence for completion in a new day.

Commit to fun with family and friends

You read a lot about work/life balance which looks great from 30,000 feet. Yet from where your feet hit the ground, it’s a tough act to balance.

Commit to fun with your family and friends for this evening as a starter. Define fun with them. Playing “Pretty, Pretty Princess” with your daughter. Tossing football with your son. A romantic meal you cook at home for your Honey. Shooting hoops with the guys. A spa trip with the sisterhood.

Commit to fun. Schedule it. Budget it. Do it.

Increase your productivity with it.

Cut off the TV

If you go to sleep immediately following the evening news or an episode of The Walking Dead, guess what your subconscious works on overnight? Fixing the national deficit. Catching a murderer. Running from zombies.

Instead, cut the TV off at least 10 minutes before you go to sleep. Write in your Work Positive Gratitude Diary and name 3 positive experiences from the day. Give your mind something positive to process. Wake up more refreshed.

Finish your day strong. Do more in an hour than most business professionals do in a month so you can leave the office earlier to do what you love with those you love as you Work Positive in a negative world.

About the Author

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), coach, and speaker who helps professionals increase sales with greater productivity and get out of the office earlier. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.

Late one night, in a hotel somewhere in Europe, I was watching the only channel that has programming in English.  I only watch television when I’m travelling, away from chores, clients on the other side of the world and wonderful warm family distractions; I put on the television, for company!

Usually I end up hearing the news repeated again and again.  Occasionally a gem shows up.  This was one of those nights.  It was a rare interview with JK Rowling and one story made a huge impression on me.

She told the story of a reading where a little girl asked her the question, “do you only write when you are inspired?”  JK Rowling replied that if she were to wait for inspiration, she would have only written about 9 pages by now.

This was such a huge revelation for me.  As someone who more often than not, writes by deadline, it gave me some consolation.  I’m not the only person putting pen to paper, or at least fingers to keyboard, without some angelic muse influencing my every thought.

So what do we need to be inspired?

What gives us that energy and focus to get the job done?

This week I read Etgar Keret’s brilliant short story ‘Suddenly a Knock on the Door’ (catch the NYTimes review here.) 

The story is about how three armed men hold a writer named Keret hostage and demand that he tell them a story. Keret (the character) offers them a nervous description of what’s going on at that moment. “That’s not a story,” one of his assailants protests. “That’s an eyewitness report. It’s exactly what’s happening here right now. Exactly what we’re trying to run away from. Don’t you go and dump reality on us like a garbage truck. Use your imagination, man, create, invent, take it all the way.”

So what exactly do we need to ‘take it all the way’?  Where does inspiration live?  Do we need three armed men to keep us hostage?  Or a simple deadline?

I suspect the answer is different for everyone.  I know that for me, nothing works better than a firm commitment to ‘getting it out’ at a specific time or date.  But this alone is not enough.

I need a simple idea.  A hook.  An image or a person.  I need the tiniest inkling of the start of a story.

I also need a message that resonates for me; a message that I connect to because it speaks to the real me, the person that lives my whole life – my work, my love, my family, my challenges.  Now not necessarily to all of them at the same time, but at least one of them for sure!

And you know, I collect these story hints all the time.

No, it’s not a journal or even a notebook (though it probably should be!).  It’s just a noticing, a way of observing the world and my life in it.  At any given moment, I will make note of the hint of a story.

It’s usually in quieter moments, when I’m walking my dog, hanging the laundry or cooking.  But sometimes it just shoots by and I have to grab out and catch it.

Then I store it away like an itch that needs to be scratched.

Later, when the time comes and I need to write, I look for the itches, the story hints and start to write.

So, how about you?

What inspires you?

Announcements of office parties are met with either go-for-it’s or groans.

The go-for-it’s are the ones who enjoyed last year’s party or just look forward to any social experience.

The groans are the persons who remember last year’s with disdain or generally avoid socializing with their work mates.

Whichever you are, here are your 3 Keys to Work Positive at Your Office Party:

Relax

Groaners often sense a need to be more extroverted, or jovial, or ________ than usual. They feel a game of square pegs and round holes coming.

Relax and be yourself. If you prefer to talk with just a few people in a deep conversation, do that.  If you’re a social butterfly, then have at it.

Avoid the extra stress of acting outside of your “normal.” This stress often drives excess alcohol consumption which leads to all kinds of behavior once your inhibitions are released.

Relax. Enjoy being you.

Remind Yourself about What You Can Control

If you’re simply being you, then you have a pretty good sense about what you can and cannot control. Work within what you can control, not without it.

Avoid attempts at “perfect,” i.e., telling the perfect joke or, laughing unduly long at someone else’s. There are some things you can control about the office party, but there are more that you can’t.  Do the best you can at controlling those things you can.

For example, if the party has no ending time established, and your daughter’s dance recital or son’s band concert is the same evening, be present until the appropriate time for the commute to your child’s event. Provide a courteous “thank you” to your leader— teammates if you’re the leader—and planners and excuse yourself with the explanation.

You are the only mom or dad your child has. Control what you can.

Resolve to Enjoy

As with all things Work Positive, focusing on the positive and filtering out the negative sets your mental attitude for an enjoyable evening. Of course you may choose to spend the rest of the year socializing with a different group of people. Of course some of the people present get on your last nerve on a regular basis.

Yet, you can resolve to enjoy yourself before you arrive. Think about previous pleasant office party experiences. See those happening again. Focus on someone you know will be present and what personality qualities you enjoy of theirs.

You really do see what you’re looking for.

Regardless of whether your attitude is “Let’s go for it!” or “Groan,” employ these 3 tips to Work Positive at your office party and enjoy the experience!

About the Author

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), coach, and speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they can leave the office earlier to do what they love with those they love. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.