Tag Archives: new ideas

Ways to be nice to yourself

Go sit in a church. Not for the religion unless that’s your thing. Meditate. Enjoy the silence. Feel safe.

Listen to an album. Listen to it, stop everything else. See where it takes you. Make some notes on the feelings you feel, plus anything else that pops up in your head.

A smell in the place you work. Coffee maybe, a candle, incense sticks. It gives you a sense that you’re in your space.

Buy something for yourself. A piece of clothing you like (rather than need). A t-shirt, maybe. A pen or a notebook. Don’t go crazy on price; it’s just a small token.

Watch a favourite movie. Spend the couple of hours totally into it. No other distractions.

Exercise. Even a dozen squats while you make a coffee is something. The more you can do, the better. Do whatever you can.

Treating yourself like someone special, someone who deserves to be treated well, will make you stronger.

You have a lot to give.

You’re valuable.

You deserve it.

The case for making notes

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I started writing in early 2020 in simple lined notebooks as a way of straightening out my thinking. By June of that year I had started my fifth book.

There was a lot coming out. I was 48 years old. Life was a struggle. I couldn’t seem to make anything stick.

I had been working on my own small business for about 4 years. It was making money and a small team was supporting me but there was little satisfaction coming from the work I was putting in.

The writing stopped me in my tracks.

From my writing, I could see that things had to change. I could map out ideas for the future, make sense of the lack of fun, the lack of progress, and the breakdown in my self-belief.

It did a couple of important things that I needed at the time – it put it all there in front of me, and it set me on a new path.

One of the by-products of continually writing these notes has been the ability to revisit them. The progress I’ve made since those dark days is clear.

I took time to listen to what was going on inside myself, and being real about my attitude to life. I hadn’t done this before, and I’m glad I began to. It’s unlocked much more than I thought it would.

The words I wrote are hard to look back on but they needed to be said. I had to have this kind of talk to myself, being honest about where my life was at.

It all came out on the page once I committed to the process, the practice, of writing things out.

When I think back on how powerful a tool it has been (and still is), it’s up there with the best things that I’ve ever done for myself.

Choose your friends with care

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Was at a cafe this morning with my wife and the dog. A guy who works in the same industry as my wife showed up, and he began talking about their ‘shared’ challenges.

He complained of a lack of time, about having too many things to do, and that he doesn’t see an end to this in his business. He was complaining about how busy he is while also mentioning his upcoming three week vacation (how fabulous?!) that was stressing him out…

I asked if he has a target to aim for, an end point for his business, and he shrugged his shoulders to express that he doesn’t, while looking at my wife to join him in agreeing this is always the way in their world.

It was a sixty second encounter but it spoke volumes.

Unless he begins to think differently, it will never end. His first world problems were not uncommon to ‘busy professionals’, but his level of relative misery was crying out for company. I’m sure he finds it often.

Surround yourself with people who hold you to a plan. Who lift you rather than drain you. Who you aspire to learn from and spend time with. Who help you get the best out of your life each day and cheerlead for you constantly.

The rest? Move on from them. Don’t get dragged down to their level.

They’re looking for people who agree with their outlook on life. People who validate their way of operating and share the same perceived challenges as they do.

If you’re on a down day, maybe you’ll feel like agreeing with them. Assume this isn’t going to work out well for you over the long term.

You’ll be keeping misery company soon enough, like two alcoholics propping up a bar, and it’ll become harder and harder to show it the door.

Chop wood, carry water.

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Nice quote from Phil Jackson’s book, ‘Eleven Rings’ (beginning of chapter 19):

“Forget mistakes, forget failures, forget everything, except what you’re going to do now and do it.

Today is your lucky day.”

The mess our brains can make of getting through each day is real.

Competing interests, pressure from all sides, the desire to be perfect, all that nonsense.

If you can get into the ‘chop wood, carry water’ mindset, the noise in our brains quietens.

Find the focus in the next task you want to do and go do it. Then the next, over and over.

Sports books and metaphors from sport, or Buddhist philosophies for quieting a noisy mind, don’t sit well with everyone, but they can help you put the pieces together that work for you.

It’s about what you need to get through the day.

Digging deeper: why an easy career is not always the best choice

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Just because something’s easy doesn’t make it right. A career you find easy might not be the ideal path over the long term.

One of my big mistakes from the last 35 years is not getting stuck into a career I enjoyed. I didn’t have a trade, a skill I could develop over time. I could get by without certifications and additional study. I made good money but the ceiling was low. Once I hit it, all I could see was 30 more years of the same. No thanks.

When the pressure is off, motivation is hard to come by. Skills get stale. Money flows but the drive to improve disappears (or at least it did for me).

I’ve now gone deep rather than wide in the area I work in – cyber security. It involves study to improve and the bar keeps getting higher. I wanted a career where some study effort would pay off. There are endless study paths, and it can take a while to find the right path for your own interests, but I’ve found it now. Doors are starting to open.

My purpose for this effort is to grow skills and rise through the ranks. As always, studying on your own time is a pain, but if the purpose is clear and you’ve got that motivation, good things happen.

When you’re making plans for the long term, keep this in mind. Economic security and a skill you’ve developed over the years will keep you on the up.

What would I do if I was a retailer today

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The post-coronavirus world is starting to take shape. Here in Australia, shops are reopening and cafes and bars are now allowing 50 people inside. There is still the danger of a resurgence of the virus but we have no incoming travellers without a quarantine period and this seems to be doing its job well.

Retailers have been hit hard these last ten weeks. Here are a few of my ideas for them to boost their businesses and use free online platforms and tools to get it done.

The steps for retailers in the post-Corona world

Firstly, their Social Media profiles need to be put to work. Posts should be daily with offers for new customers and special offers for existing customers. All profiles should be checked over to make sure contact details and ‘about’ sections are up to date and on point.

Facebook Messenger is the ideal way to deliver offers online with high engagement levels – 80% open and 40% click-through rates – and I would be working to build my own chatbot to automate customer service as a minimum.

I would hire a comedic writer to create funny blog posts with a true sense of humour to increase the attention on my posts. Two funny posts on top of the offers content would work well. The funny writing should also be used to email my existing customers once a week to keep them engaged and updated.

I would use Instagram/Facebook Stories and TikTok to create video content every day. All of the attention is on video right now and I would use it to attract new followers and highlight the daily offer.

Every Saturday and Sunday would be ‘bring a friend’ day and there would be a voucher for everyone who turns up for them to use on another visit based on liking the Facebook page and subscribing to the chatbot.

And finally, I would say my prayers every night and be thankful that I’m still in business while many have already gone.

Become an ideas machine

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Credit for this post goes to James Altucher. I’ve been tuning into his daily Instagram Lives with his wife during lockdown in NYC (they’ve been a rich source of ideas in themselves) and his number one tip that has worked so well for him through the years is this one.

Become an ideas machine

Take a notebook and aim every day to come up with 10 new ideas. Make them specific and put the brain muscle to work.

Choose a business you’re connected to and work out 10 ways they could improve, for example. It’s a great way to start a conversation. I did this last week for a client of ours – I sent the list over to them and it was a real success.

Or you could make a list of 10 ideas for a friend of yours who’s struggling with something in their life. It could be a simple playlist to brighten their mood or a list of courses online they could do for free to learn a new skill.

Whatever you choose to do, do it every day and your brain will adapt and start spewing out so many ideas you’ll need a pile of notepads. Give it a try and see where it can take you.

Why do many charities struggle?

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A quick conversation with a good friend last night (thanks N as always) triggered some thoughts on this question. There are a huge pile of charities out there doing amazing things in our communities every day but they struggle to grow and thrive.

Why do many charities struggle?

I’ve worked with a few charities and third sector organisations over the years and the problems they face seem to be very similar.

Leadership – those in positions of authority can lack the basic commercial skills necessary to run a successful business. They get their job because they impressed the board with their passion or have some form of political clout but their skills for the job can be lacking.

Investing to grow – budgets are managed in such a way that everything is done on a shoestring. My friend gave a fabulous example where a charity was able to raise millions of dollars from an event but they had to spend a million to make multiples on each dollar. If an event for a charity costs 50,000 and makes 200,000, people tend to see that as a success. Why not spend more and set bigger goals?

Ego – this one can get in the way of change and really slow things down. A leader in an organisation who’s been there a while and runs the show ‘their way’ can be extremely slow to consider change, even when the organisation desperately needs new thinking. I’ve seen examples where they have so much power that they’ve created a culture of ‘agree with me and do as I say or leave’ in a charity. Nothing stifles growth more than this.

The best charities bring in the brightest minds from the private sector and put them to work. It can be purely pro bono and cost-neutral, but it has to be supported by leadership who want their organisations to survive and thrive.

I’m always on the lookout for these kinds of organisations and know others who feel the same way. Please let me know if any come to mind.

Solve your own problems

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I’ve spent a lot of time over the years wracking my brain for ideas. Money has been short and I’ve had to find something new to sell, or I’ve hit a brick wall on a particular project and it’s time to refresh, and so on.

The answer has normally come from within. As I’ve solved my own problems, it’s the answers that I’ve found along the way that have eventually become new services.

This hasn’t always been a steady linear sequence from idea to cash. It has taken years in a couple of cases for the idea to finally bear fruit. But the answers to my own questions have been helpful to a lot of other people, too.

The resources we have at our disposal today (the internet), it should never be a problem to find a new direction or solution, or so you might think. I disagree.

There is so much already out there and there is nothing new. Everything has been done before. The internet is full of the same solutions, styled to suit a different market or customer. So looking inside ourselves and solving our own problems is a good place to start.

Get inspired

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Time on the internet can be seen by many people as a real negative. Many hours can be frittered away watching youtube clips or shopping for your next pair of shoes. I spend a lot of my day online and I do like to get away from it for a while but I also like to use it in my own time to get inspired.

I read a lot of content and I also watch a lot of video, especially interviews and discussions on subjects that I am interested in. I subscribe to a few podcasts and listen to them weekly. I take in as much as I can as I want to fill my brain with inspirational content and encourage myself to develop new ideas and think about the things I already do in a different way – and listening to how other people achieve their own success is a great starting point.

One thing that I do often is favourite things that catch my eye on Twitter to read later on or save into other readers such as Pocket. 30 minutes spent looking back at this list of favourites will always spring a few pleasant surprises.

It also makes a lot of sense to learn from people who have found success using their own methods. It may not mean that the same methods will work for you but why not take the tried and tested route and see what results you get? You can adapt things along the way and find fixes that fit but it can be a great way to kick start a new routine or break a bad habit, for instance.

As long as the content is truly inspirational and you are able to take away at least one method or tip from it, it will definitely be time well spent.

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Ian Mountford is a Strategy Coach providing motivation and guidance to entrepreneurs, wannabe or fully-fledged. He draws from his own experience of building businesses from the ground up and spending many years helping clients to consistently achieve their goals and aspirations. Ian works with clients face-to-face and internationally.