Chris Cooper's Blog, page 137

How To Break The Siege

5 projects on the go.

In your inbox: an email requesting action on each project. Every email contains one of the following:

“Immediate”

“Urgent”

“Emergency”

“Desperate”

“ASAP”

and they all contain: “!!!!”

You know that most of the urgency is exaggerated. The new proposed schedule isn’t literally a matter of life and death. No staff are literally perched atop the Golden Gate bridge, ready to jump if the new staff jackets aren’t approved by 5pm. All of the projects are important. The people leading the projects know you’re busy, so they unconsciously add emotional language so you’ll take theirs seriously.

Even worse, you don’t have all the information required to make a decision on any of them. You could respond to every one with questions–but that will result in ten more emails. You’ll keep jumping back and forth between them, trying to keep the details of each project straight in your mind.

Worst of all, jumping from project to project increases your stress level. As feel your temperature rising, you’re keenly aware that your ability to make objective decisions is impaired. And if it’s 7pm on a Friday, you take that level-9 stress home with you…

…and then your kid asks you to play Legos, and your brain is in fight-or-flight status, and you respond harshly. Your amygdala, your hormones, your heart rate are all still in “take-charge-during-an-emergency” mode. Your kid is in “Daddy’s home!” mode. And you can’t flip the switch.

You’re distracted, you’re overwhelmed, and you’re carrying the burden of guilt. Your work has got you surrounded. You’re under siege. Here’s how to break it.

 

First, tackle only 1-2 projects per quarter.

In his book, “Anything You Want”, Derek Sivers writes: “You can do anything, but you can’t do it all at the same time.”

Use a “bubble list” to prioritize which projects take priority this quarter. Don’t try to do both projects at once: finish the first before starting on the second. Put everything else on hold–you’ll get there.
Use the attached project proposal form to clarify action steps; determine responsibilities; and evaluate what constitutes “done”. This is called a Gantt chart, and you can download a free sample here:Grantt Chart- Tinker

You can use software like Asana to make this even simpler, but you don’t have to get fancier than an Excel spreadsheet.

This is my Gantt chart for starting IgniteGym in 2010. Missing are dates for completion of each step.


Eliminate emotional language from project updates and help requests.

Earlier, I said that team members will often unconsciously add emotional language like “urgent” and “emergency” to their emails. They know you’re busy, and want to make sure you’re giving their project your attention. What they don’t know is that their project is valuable enough to warrant careful thought. They’re also not balancing five other equally important decisions with interdependencies between them. They probably have no idea what’s really on your plate!

Instead of team members writing emails, sending texts, or hoping you’ll notice updates to their Google Sheets, give them a template for pitching their project. This puts all of the information in one place. When you’re ready to make a decision, you won’t have to sort through email threads and documents to find the points you need.

Download a free Project Action Sheet here:PROJECT ACTION SHEET

Note that the spaces for answers are outlined, and the boxes are deliberately kept small. Simplicity is the most important part of tracking and planning.

When the project is approved, the project leader should fill out the Gantt Sheet with timelines and responsibilities.
Turn off your phone. You teach people how to treat you. If you respond to every text message or email immediately, or during family time, or on the weekends…that’s when they’ll text or email you.

No one thinks they’re acting selfishly. But if they know you’re online at 4am, and you’re not getting many texts at that time, and they can get in front of you right away…that’s when they’ll text. It happens to me almost every day.

Prove–to them, and to yourself–that work isn’t actually an emergency. Stay off your phone until Monday.
Put yourself in their shoes, and ask them to put themselves in yours.

They’re pitching one big, exciting idea. They can’t think of anything else! Be grateful to have such an invested, caring team.

They also don’t know about your other big projects. And they don’t need to know the details; they don’t need to hear you complain. Just let them know that their project is important enough to warrant careful consideration instead of a fast action.

 

Working with powerful people means prioritizing HUGE ideas. As your business grows, you’ll hear fewer bad ideas, but you can easily be overwhelmed with great ones. In many ways, that’s even more stressful, because every idea requires more time, thought and energy.

 

 

 

 

 

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Climbing The Value Ladder

How can you work on Marketing when the dishes need to be washed?

 

Your role as entrepreneur is to invest your time in the highest-value roles. That means removing less-valuable things from your plate. But most entrepreneurs don’t do this well. They say things like:

“No one can do this like me!” or,

“It’s faster to just do this myself!” or,

“I can’t afford any screwups!” or,

“No one cares as much as I do!”.

 

I’ve been there. The tug-of-war between “I know I should delegate!” and “I can’t turn my baby over to my staff!” is an internal battle between logic and emotion. Luckily, that’s why we’re called Two-Brain Business: we work with both.

 

Here are the steps to figuring out how to spend your time BEST, and then actually creating the time to grow your business.

 

Break down your day by the hats you wear.

If you were to duplicate yourself into 12 clones, and each clone could only do one job all day, what would those jobs be?

Cashier?

Maker of the donuts?

Purchaser or supplies?

Decorator?

Cleaner?

Make a list. We call these “ROLES”.
Now, program your clones: make a step-by-step list of everything you do in each role.

For example, the Cashier is responsible for:

Entering client sales correctly

Processing refunds

Collecting money

Closing the batch at the end of the night

Balancing receipts with collected funds at the end of the shift (and end of day)

Depositing funds at the bank

…etc.

Make the checklist as simple as possible. We call these “TASKS”.
Assign an hourly value to each role. What would it cost to replace yourself?

Cashier – $13 per hour?

Baker – $18 per hour?

Purchaser – $20 per hour?

Cleaner – $11 per hour?

We call these costs “replacement value”. You will hire valuable people to replace you in each role eventually. And you will pay them what the role is worth.
Next, do a Time Valuation on yourself. How much time do you spend in each Role? Record your total time spent (in hours) for one week.

For example:

Cashier – 10 hours

Baker – 20 hours

Purchaser – 3 hours

Cleaner – 5 hours…and multiply that Time total by the Replacement Value of each role.

Cashier – 10 hours x $13 per hour = $130 Replacement Value

Baker – 20 hours x $18 per hour = $360 Replacement Value

Cleaner – 5 hours x $11 per hour = $55 Replacement Value
From your list of replacement values, find the lowest. Hire a person to fill that Role.

Give them a 3-month contract that clearly spells out the Role and every Task within.

In other words, give them a checklist.
HERE’S THE CRITICAL PART: You, the Owner, MUST reinvest the time you save by working in a higher-value Role. We call this “Climbing the Value Ladder”.

If you bought yourself 5 hours by hiring a cleaner, you must show a positive return on that purchase.

You can either replace the Baker for 5 hours, saving yourself $90 (5 hours X $18) OR you can jump a few rungs up the ladder and spend time in a new Role, like Marketing.
After a month, evaluate your staff’s performance. Assign a scale from 1 to 10 for each Task.

Review their performance with them. What can they improve?

Now review YOUR performance in your new Role. What can YOU improve? Are you seeing a positive return?
After three months, repeat steps 5, 6 and 7. Buy your self more time. Climb to the next step. Measure your ROI.

 

Most entrepreneurs never build a business: they buy themselves a job instead. But if they want to scale; or be able to sell their business someday; or just take a holiday, they must replace themselves in all roles eventually. This is the directive approach we teach entrepreneurs in the Two-Brain Business Incubator. It’s virtually risk-free, and far less scary than the usually “ready, fire, aim” approach to hiring.

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How To Spend Time Better

Just like money, you spend time.

 

The further you travel on your entrepreneurial journey, the more valuable your time becomes. What are you buying with it? What’s your return?

 

What are you buying with that meeting? How will that book move your company forward? Which email response will pay you?

 

Michael Flynn, author of “Master the Key: A Story to Free Your Potential, Find Meaning and Live Life on Purpose,” shared some statistics with me on my podcast this week:

 

Mike: (05:43)

Gallup, the big research organization, recently released a study that revealed that 85% of employees are actively disengaged at work. Actively disengaged is the key phrase. They’re cognizant of the fact that they’re checked out. That’s costing businesses $7 trillion a year globally. Here in the U.S. the number is 70% of actively disengaged workers costing companies $500 billion. I want to stay in the U.S. for a second because also in the U.S. there’s 150 million give or take worker bees out there, right? 40% of that 150 million are pursuing a side hustle that they’re quote unquote “more passionate” about than their day job.

 

Most people go to work. They fill time. They punch out. They go home. And they never accomplish much. Unfortunately, the same is true for most entrepreneurs, even though there’s far more on the line.

 

In “Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief”, I wrote about the importance of measuring your Return On Time (ROT). Here’s how to set up your day to maximize your time investment, and how to avoid the time bandits that usually stop us from taking action:

 

Set up two “work windows” in your daily calendar. Call one window “Focus time” and one window “Ship time”. Block an hour for each.

 

The specific hour isn’t important at first, because it will take some practice to master this technique anyway. But “Focus time” will usually happen in the morning, before the distractions show up. And “Ship time” will usually happen later, when you can get “in the zone”. I’ll give you a tool to help with that in a moment.

 

Focus Time

During your Focus time, your job is to create: write new blog posts, plan video scripts, chart out marketing campaigns, build new spreadsheets. These are primarily creative tasks, but that doesn’t mean you have to create art. Get things out of your head. Clear the logjam. Create.

 

My focus time is 4am. I write, because writing forces my brain to slow down. I type slower than I think, so I have to slow my thinking down to one word at a time. I have to pay careful attention to my language. It’s Tai Chi for my head. I’m able to keep the Focus window open for two hours when I’m at my best.

 

Ship Time

 

During your Ship time, your job is to complete the tasks that will move your business forward. Use the Eisenhower Matrix to identify your priorities. Then ACT: complete one thing at a time.

 

My Ship time occurs immediately after exercise. To maximize your productivity during the Ship window, you should take the time to get into Flow State first. Here’s my free guide on achieving and maintaining Flow State, which some people would describe as “in the zone”. Taking the hour before your Ship window to get into Flow State will multiply the results you get from the Ship window. As Abraham Lincoln wrote:

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

 

Start ticking the items off your “Urgent and Important” list first, and then move to your “Important” list next.

 

At the end of the day, record what you completed, and how well you performed in your Focus and Ship windows. Like a professional athlete, entrepreneurs must review the game tape if they want to improve.

 

The Time Bandits, And How To Stop Them

Small Talk – get a door that closes. We think it’s our duty to be available to our staff at all times. But really, it’s our duty to train them not to need us. And if you’re not doing your work as CEO, they’ll be the first to suffer. Do everyone a favor and close your door.

If you really need to, make a little sign that says “Can’t talk – Text Me” and hang it from the knob.

Email – Todd Herman told me “There’s nothing in your inbox that will move your business forward. The only thing in there are people asking you to do something for them.”

I set up my laptop to block notifications by default; to start without the Mail, Slack or iMessage icons in the Dock. There are no little red circles demanding attention in the morning. I turn those on later, when Focus time is over.

You don’t need to set up an auto-reminder that you check email twice per day. Those are annoying. Everyone is busy. No one expects an immediate reply to an email. Answer them between your productivity windows.

Calls and Texts – Someone else should be answering your phone. Forward your phone to someone else during your productivity windows.

Don’t give out your cell phone number to anyone except family. And don’t open message apps like Slack before your Focus window in the morning.

Social Media – hire someone else to manage it for you. Yes, your company needs to be on social media. But no, it shouldn’t be you. Here’s who manages all social channels for Two-Brain.

Fatigue – If you’re tired, or burned out, or distracted, you won’t get anything done.

Making many decisions creates fatigue. Stress creates fatigue. Lack of fitness creates fatigue. Eating sugar, being dehydrated, losing sleep – these create fatigue.

Instead of fighting through three hours of distraction and half-assed effort, you’ll actually get more done if you take a 15-minute nap or exercise for half an hour. You’ll come back sharp and actually accomplish something that moves your business forward.

Guilt – As a CEO, your primary role is to think. And the larger your business grows, the more time you have to spend thinking.

That can mean more time behind closed doors; more time hiking or cycling or meditating to get into Flow State. And since these things appear to be recreational, it’s easy for your family or staff to think you’re “off”.

It’s important to explain these principles (and your responsibilities) to the staff around you. Remember: they have no context on leadership. They probably think you’re a millionaire who leaves at 3pm to ride a bike for fun, leaving them to do the work. Tell them what you’re doing, and how it benefits them. But don’t let the feeling that “they need to see me working hard!” distract you from doing the work that actually helps the team.

 

Remember: you’re not judged by how many hours you put in. Your success will not be determined by your martyrdom. You have to produce.

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Simplicity Endures

A 1954 John Deere hay rake has 3 grease fittings.

 

I know because we still use one.

 

A hay rake isn’t a complicated machine: you pull it behind a tractor. Attached to its axle are long barbs that turn with the wheels. The barbs roll the cut hay into windrows for baling.

 

I know hundreds of farmers, and none of them has a new hay rake. They don’t need one, because hay rakes don’t wear out. It’s possible to inherit a working hay rake from your grandfather.

 

Hay rakes are usually longer than 20 feet; pretty noisy; and they last forever, because they’re a simple system. Lots of moving parts, but few that are easy to break or hard to repair.

 

Over the last two decades, I’ve watched the microgym community grow up. Profit is no longer a dirty word; the pricing race to the bottom seems to have slowed, if not stopped; and most owners seem to understand the value of a systemized business that runs itself. Systems are good. But some systems are better. And a few are great.

 

The path to making great systems was spelled out in my conversation with Ari Meisel: first, you record. Then you optimize. Then you automate.

 

Yesterday, I wrote about making systems. Today, I’m going to tell you how to make great ones. The key is simplicity.

 

Simple systems endure.

 

One of the many cries for help we received last week was this: “My CRM broke, and my auto-emails haven’t been sending? How do I know which leads received which email, and should I add them to my list to re-trigger the automations?”

 

This is a good example of a system that’s too complex. In a service business with around 150 clients, someone from your gym should be making personal contact with people who want to talk about your gym. They fill out a form, and you call them.

 

Software is a good backup, but it’s not a replacement.

 

In the Incubator, we teach a simple system for retention: when a client hits a PR in anything, you write it on a whiteboard. Then, on Friday, one of your staff calls each client and says, “We’re so proud of you! What are you going to do next?!?”

 

No Confusionsoft required. Better connection made. You can do this forever.

 

Simple systems are easy to fix.

 

The technical solution to the above problem was that a Zap was broken. The gym owner had forgotten to reconfigure something in Zapier when they altered their marketing funnel. But the coach who set up the funnel was away on vacation. Luckily, one of our marketing mentors jumped in and saved the day. But if a process is important to your business, it shouldn’t rely on knowledge held in the head of one person–even if that person is the owner. Hell, especially if that person is the owner!

 

The system should be reduced to its fewest moving parts. Then those parts should be spelled out in an Operations Manual: where they are, how they work, and how to fix them when they break. Because eventually everything breaks. Hay rakes are easy to figure out: a prong is bent, or a tire is flat, or a bearing needs grease. Removing complexity from systems will make your business anti fragile. Removing complexity makes a system better.

 

Simple systems are learned quickly.

 

Many Two-Brain gyms are experiencing explosive growth, and actually turn their marketing campaigns off while they hire more staff. Scot showed me a great text on his phone yesterday: “70 leads and 8 NSIs booked in the last 24 hours. I think we should turn the ads off.” These aren’t one-and-done six-week challenge clients; these are new people signing up for high-value hybrid packages.

 

Either way, the gym needs more staff. And fast.

 

Simple systems are easy to teach: “Do this, then do this.” The simplest systems are binary: they’re just checklists. The next most complex systems are X: “If this happens, take this action.” This is why the Two-Brain Coaching First Degree program works: a new coach can be operational in a limited scope within two weeks. They can’t replace a career coach–that takes time–but they can apply a simple system to an uncomplicated client case file. In other words, they can follow your OnRamp program with most new clients. They don’t need a college degree in anatomy to introduce people to the joy of movement. They might not even need a Level 1 right away.

 

Simpler systems are better. Building optimal systems means asking, “What can I take away?”

 

What trips owners up most? A lack of systems. Any system that gives the owner a bit of freedom to think is better than no system and constant fire-fighting. But great systems evolve to be more simple, not more complex.

 

 

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The Power of Black And White

What if every decision was simple?

What if your staff didn’t have to bring every single question to you for an answer?

What if you didn’t have to justify and apologize to your clients all the time?

What if your headspace was more available for big projects–or undistracted when you’re playing with your kids?

 

One of the first things we teach entrepreneurs is to write their decisions down. Every operational procedure; every policy; every best practice starts as a simple decision. And the secret to entrepreneurial traction is to make decisions ONCE, instead of several times.

 

Steve Jobs famously wore the same turtleneck and ate the same breakfast every day. Jobs was avoiding “decision fatigue”: the exhausting toll that little decisions take on our brains, weakening our clarity and resolve. Jobs knew that our capacity for making decisions is finite. We have a daily limit. And even little decisions, like what to wear to the office, eat away at that capacity. So when big, important decisions have to be made, we’re not playing with a full deck.

 

Here’s an example: a client says, “I didn’t show up last month. Can I get a refund?”

 

If you have a written refund policy, your answer is simple: Yes or No. No agonizing, no apologizing, no deliberating, no stressing about it later.

 

Another example: a staff person says, “Can I get a raise?”

 

If you have a written policy on staff wages, your answer is simple: “Yes, when these conditions are met” or “Not until you achieve these conditions.” No late nights worrying, no hard conversations, no loss of authority, no apologizing.

 

Consistency is greater than everything else.

 

We want entrepreneurs to make decisions ONCE; to get these decisions out of their HEAD; and to free up focus to solve bigger problems.

 

Here’s how to do it:

 

Record your standard operating procedures in a business Operations Manual. This is a long process, and we break it down into steps in the Incubator. Your goal is to write a book that could replace you: your staff should be able to refer to the Ops Manual instead of asking you questions about how to do things. A great Ops manual would make your business turnkey: if you were hit by a bus, someone else could read the Ops Manual and run your business exactly the way you do.
Make your procedures as simple as possible. Reduce every rule to black and white. Remove exceptions and shades of gray.
Train your staff to refer to the Ops Manual to find answers first. This requires discipline on your part: it’s easy, in the short term, to just answer their questions. But this trains everyone around you to ask questions instead of finding the answer in your Ops Manual, which makes the whole process redundant.
Make yourself unavailable. Close your door. Go away on vacation. This is the only way to find the holes in your Ops Manual. When you return, you’ll be asked questions that will make you think, “Doesn’t EVERYONE know that?!?” But of course, they don’t. So write them down and add them to the Ops Manual.
When you’re faced with a new situation, make your decision, and record it in the Ops Manual. Having new decisions to make is part of being successful. But making the same decision twice is bad leadership.
As you grow from Farmer Phase to Tinker Phase, hire someone to manage the day-to-day operations of your business. This could be a General Manager or a COO. They should wear the Ops Manual on their belt: their job is to ensure compliance, not to make decisions for you. They don’t need to figure anything out: they just need to keep things black and white. They just need to follow your Manual.
Every quarter, review changes to the Ops Manual with your entire staff.

Here’s the great news: you’ll always need to make decisions. You’ll always face challenges. Business will always be tough. But it won’t be impossible. You’ll make forward progress if you record your decisions.

 

Every decision you make is a little bit of grit under your tires. But only if they’re written down and rigidly applied. If everything’s in your head, you can spin your wheels really fast without going anywhere.

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Defining Real Wealth

Defining Real Wealth 

The following is adapted from Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief.

 

There’s a classic story about a businessman and a fisherman in which the vacationing businessman hires the fisherman to take him out on the water for the day. They have a lot of fun, catch a few fish, share some stories, and at the end of the day, the businessman hands the fisherman some money and asks, “So what are you going to do next?”

 

The fisherman says, “I’ll go and take a nap. Then I’ll meet my friends at a little bar. We’ll drink wine, and I’ll play the guitar, and we’ll all sing songs. I’ll go home, make love to my wife, and sleep in tomorrow. Then I might get a late breakfast and go fishing awhile.”

 

“You know, you could charge a lot more than you do,” the businessman replies. “Guys like me could pay twice as much.”

 

The fisherman shrugs and asks, “What would I do with the money?”

 

The businessman says, “Well, you could buy a nicer, bigger boat.”

 

“And then what?”

 

The businessman thinks for a moment and answers, “Well, you could take twice as many people at a time. You could make even more money and hire someone to help you.”

 

The fisherman nods and says, “That sounds pretty good. Then what?”

 

“Well, eventually, you could own two boats—maybe a whole fleet! You’d hire captains to run the boats for you and make a killing!”

 

“That sounds great! Then what?”

 

“Well, you’d try to sell off the big company or open franchises in other destinations. You’d be rich!”

 

“Wow,” says the fisherman. “What would I do then?”

 

To which the businessman acknowledges, “Well, you could retire to a little beach somewhere, drink wine and play your guitar all night, sleep late, and maybe do a little fishing.”

Wealth Takes Many Forms

It’s a quaint story, and I think of it every time I catch myself putting the pursuit of money ahead of something more important, like my family or my perfect day. This tale of the businessman and the fisherman reminds me that wealth takes different shapes. Material ownership is a part of it, of course, but real wealth is freedom:

 

Freedom of time: The ability to choose how you invest your day.

Freedom of experience: The opportunity to immerse yourself in new places, new cultures, and new adventures.

Freedom of finances: Self-reliance, security, and the knowledge that you’ll sleep in a warm bed with a full belly—and the confidence that your position won’t change tomorrow.

Freedom of choice: Independence, agency, and the power to decide your own path.

Freedom of pursuit: The opportunity to dedicate yourself to fulfilling your real potential.

Freedom of generosity: The chance to share and lift others up.

Freedom of mindset: Abundance, patience, peace. Escape from a mentality of competition, jealousy, and comparison.

Freedom of commitment: The ability to commit time and resources for as long as necessary.

Freedom of legacy: The opportunity to leave a multigenerational platform of service or support, to write your own story, and to impact the minds of future generations.

Freedom of health: Controlling your own mobility. Freedom from the bonds of medication, weakness, or mental decline.

 

The fisherman in our story had elements of wealth. Though cash poor, he had the freedom of time and chose where to allocate his hours every day. He could spend time with his wife and community every evening, which allowed him to feel important as a husband and friend. He had his health, access to clean air, and lots of sunlight. And he spent his days doing what most of us would consider a vacation. In fact, money might be the only element of wealth he lacked. So why didn’t the businessman consider him wealthy?

 

The answer, of course, is capital. Money is the great enabler, and most of the other facets of wealth require it. Money creates time, funds a business’s growth and expansion, and money serves…but money alone isn’t wealth. It’s just one shape wealth takes. 

 

For more advice on business ownership, you can find Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief on Amazon.

 

When his first business almost went bankrupt in 2008, Chris Cooper sought a mentor and began chronicling his turnaround on a blog called DontBuyAds.com. After 400 blog posts, Chris self-published his first book, Two-Brain Business, which has now sold more than 20,000 copies worldwide. Chris now shares his lessons learned from the trenches of mentoring over 2,000 business owners worldwide in Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief.

 

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The Secret to “Bright Spots Friday”

Yesterday, I wrote that the secret to having a Perfect Day was to define your own perfect day. I said that “if you don’t record what your Perfect Day would be, you’ll never have one.”

 

The things that make us happy are actually happening all the time. We just don’t notice them, because we’re distracted by things that seem more urgent.

 

I want to make 1,000,000 entrepreneurs wealthy. Wealth is the freedom to be happy. To be happy, an entrepreneur has to be free from debt; free from time limitations; and also free from distractions.

 

Happiness isn’t something that just happens to you. Happiness doesn’t mean the absence of work or worry. Happiness is a practice. And the first exercise in that practice is to know what makes you happy.

 

The second exercise is Bright Spots: the ability to notice when good things are happening. Because most people don’t.

 

Most of us don’t have a single positive thought all day.

Most of us are pessimistic.

Most of us are plagued by self-doubt, self-comparison and sarcasm.

Most of us will never be happy, because we’re not trained to be. We’ve been feeding the wrong dog.

 

We do the “Bright Spots” exercise with entrepreneurs every Friday, because we want them to notice what’s going right. Since they’re entrepreneurs, most usually write about what’s going right in their business. And that’s great, because unhappy entrepreneurs fail: their clients won’t want to be around them; their staff will leave; and the entrepreneur will burn out.

 

We also want entrepreneurs to notice their success and avoid the trap of “more”. The Perfect Day exercise makes success achievable. The Bright Spots exercise keeps their compass pointing in the right direction.

 

Without noticing little wins, no entrepreneur will keep moving forward long enough to become wealthy. Because “wealth”, when undefined, will always be out of reach.

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The Surprising Secret Behind “Perfect Day”

“After reading your new book, I asked my ten-year-old what her Perfect Day would be. She thought about it, and then made a list: beach, time with Mom, and ice cream.

The next night, after a day on the beach, she told me it was her “Perfect Day” because she did everything on her list. But here’s the thing: we had done the same things the day before I asked her the question. She just appreciated it more after doing the exercise!”

 

If you don’t write down your Perfect Day, you’ll never have a perfect day.

 

We start every entrepreneur in the Incubator with the Perfect Day exercise, because we want them to have a clear vision of success. Asking them, “How many clients do you want?” or “How much money do you want to make?” are bad questions, because the answer is always “More.” And “more” is an unreachable goal.

 

We can define “wealth” in a broad sense. But we can’t say “you’re successful” to each individual entrepreneur until we know their Perfect Day.

 

Our mission is to make 1,000,000 entrepreneurs wealthy. That means helping 1,000,000 entrepreneurs reach the Tinker Phase. But success is impossible to reach until it’s defined. Writing down your “perfect day” makes success a real object: you can picture it, you can stub your toe on it. You’ll know it when you have it.

 

The real secret to the Perfect Day exercise isn’t simply having a clear goal. It’s knowing when you’ve achieved it.

 

Everyone actually has Perfect Days. But if you’re not watching for them, you’ll miss them. You’ll focus on the tiny little disappointments; the setbacks; the distractions. And that’s what you’ll remember. But when you record your personal Perfect Day, you’ll look at each day differently. You’ll think of your list and ask, “What can I do to make this day perfect?” instead of waiting for perfection to spontaneously occur.

 

If your perfect day includes “Time with my dog / a workout / breakfast with my husband / reading a book / swimming”, then you’ll set up your day to include those things. But only if you’ve written them down first. And at the end of the day, if you realize you’ve had an almost-Perfect Day, you can spend a few minutes making it perfect. Or you can set yourself up for a Perfect Day tomorrow.

 

There are really two keys to happiness:

Knowing what makes you happy
Recognizing it when it happens.

 

Happiness is a practice. You cultivate happiness through service and through mindfulness. I want entrepreneurs to find happiness. The Perfect Day exercise is the first step.

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Why Stoicism Works

The Stoics were philosophers, mostly Greek, who sought a practical path to happiness.

 

Most philosophers–especially the modern ones–fail to give actionable advice. They discuss reasons and norms. They talk around a subject.

 

For example, if you asked most modern philosophers, “What should I be when I grow up?” they might answer:

“Well, it depends on your definition of “I”.”

Or, “It depends on your definition of ‘Be’.”

Or, “It depends on your definition of “grow up”.”

 

Stoic philosophers gave directives: “You should do this.”

 

Ask a Stoic philosopher “What should I be when I grow up?” and they would have told you the answer.

 

Stoic philosophy has risen in popularity recently; mostly as daily admonition to expect the worst and celebrate the best. That’s useful. But that’s not the core message of Stoicism. The real message is that for advice to have value, it must be directive.

 

I built our mentorship practice–and wrote each of my books–with that principle in mind.

 

Early in my writing career, a reader pointed out that I often said “don’t do this” or “this is wrong” without providing the right answer. I immediately realized that I’d been taking the easy path: any idiot can take shots at a strategy, and that’s what I’d been doing. But a great mentor can take that complex topic; teach it in an understandable way; and then have the courage to say “Do exactly this.”

 

That’s not easy, because giving directives means accepting responsibility for the outcome. But it’s the only thing that has value.

 

Critics get attention on Instagram. Authors fill entire books with arguments about one topic or another. Low politicians attack others’ platforms. Speakers deliver long summaries of research. Some of those things are even true. But none of them have value unless they can say “Do exactly this.”

 

In a world overflowing with ideas, arguments and noise, the principles of Stoic philosophy are clear. They’re not opinion; they’re directives. The value of “Do exactly this” is so big that it’s usually the difference between success and failure.

 

Ryan Holiday wrote “The Daily Stoic” to provide clear daily directives for life.

 

I wrote “Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief” to provide clear directives for business.

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The SmallTown Student

This is the third in a series about Small-town entrepreneurship. Read “SmallTown, Inc” and “The SmallTown Founder” by clicking the appropriate link.

 

Schools don’t teach entrepreneurship. They should, but they can’t.

 

Our education system was built on an agro-industrial model. Students are still prepared to work in factory-like settings; and they still take summers off to work in the fields. The primary lessons in school aren’t logic, management or creativity, but instead focus on fulfilling specific tasks. They’re trained to show up every day, sit in one spot without disturbing others, and to complete assigned tasks. Seth Godin is my favorite author on the subject.

 

Our schools can’t teach entrepreneurship because the teachers they employ are products of the same agro-industrial system. They’re unionized and pensioned. It might be hard to get a teaching job now, but it’s even harder to lose one. Teachers have chosen the safe, predictable path. It’s not reasonable to expect them to teach entrepreneurship, even if that’s the path our economy is taking. And entrepreneurs aren’t going to teach high school courses, either.

 

I took my first business class in the tenth grade. Our teacher was a former business owner. His furniture store went out of business, so he took the “safe route” and became a teacher. I thought his failure disqualified his opinions. Maybe I expected successful entrepreneurs to teach unappreciative, hormonal 14-year-olds for dozens of dollars an hour.

 

Most of our parents had one career. For them, school worked. But most of our kids will have 4-6 “careers” over their working life. They need different abilities than our parents did, and a more generalized education than we have.

 

Our kids will need the ability to learn really quickly; to make connections; and to forge new paths. Unfortunately, school still teaches the opposite of these skills.

 

To be successful ten years from now, students will probably need to understand technology that we don’t currently fathom. But they’ll also need some skills that we CAN teach now, like:

Public speaking

Confidence

Leadership

Physical self-care

Mental plasticity; and

Resilience.

 

If schools can’t teach entrepreneurship, they CAN teach these skills. And parents can supplement them by encouraging entrepreneurship. Read: “Why Your Kid Should Open A Business” here.

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