Michal Stawicki's Blog, page 8
April 30, 2021
Decide Book Review – Solid and Free Business Book
This book is a golden nugget. Hidden in the mud.
I remember that, while reading it, I didn’t have big a-ha moments. I didn’t think much of the book. It was short, sweet and to the point.
Yet, when I checked out the highlights, I was amazed how many I took and how apt they were.
So, the no-WOW factor was the only CON of DECIDE I can think of.
And it has plenty of PROs…
1. Personal Narration.Palmer very skillfully draws from his experience and shares it in a story format. After reading a few of his books, I’d say this is a hallmark of his writing.
Thus, DECIDE makes a perfect self-published book — instead of being bland and dry, it’s relatable, and you feel like you’re talking with the author.
2. Personal Experience.Palmer is a fast-moving entrepreneur. He is also a seasoned business owner who started multiple businesses. He is unemployable in the good sense of this word.
He is a great fit to teach about deciding and what influence it has on your business, and your life.
In his own words:
Not to decide is a decision. And perhaps it is, but it’s a very bad one.”
Nothing, or at least very few things, “just” fall into place in your life. When you delay a decision, nothing gets done in the meantime, and you land in Squishyville. Oh, you don’t know what it is? That’s another PRO!
3. Squishyville.Squishyville — the awful place where nothing happens.”
I found it hilarious. In Palmer’s book (literally and metaphorically) everything, but a swift decision and even swifter action, leads to Squishyville. And it’s an awful place, NOTHING happens there. Here are a few quotes to give you a gist of it:
Worry leads to Squishyville.
There is one place that may be perfect, and that’s Squishyville.
Failure to plan leads to… you guessed it: Squishyville.
Lol!
4. Excellent Business Advice.I hope I won’t spoil the whole book, but I’ll share a few quotes and why I think they are significant for every entrepreneur.
There’s only one opinion in the world that counts when it comes to running your business — your customer’s… your paying customer’s.”
Well, I think your own opinion counts a bit as well. But if we are talking about the outside perspective — certainly, you should pay no attention to folks who give you the negative feedback, who discourage you, who judge you — if they are NOT your paying customers. Their opinion should be indifferent for you like the sound of the sea. It is just a background noise, which means nothing.
You customers’ opinions, though, that’s a different story. They can tell you priceless information — for free! Thanks to their feedback, you can improve your services and products, you can create new services and products, you can increase your revenue.
Gross is for vanity; net is for sanity.”
This is a great quote! The whole book is worth reading just for that quote. Especially the first part. You should never, ever pay attention to gross figures nonchalantly tossed around on social media. They are empty. They mean nothing. It’s just a vanity metric.
It has nothing to do with sanity. In fact, it’s often a trap for newbie entrepreneurs. They are so focused on revenue that they forget about profits. And they are quickly out of business. And surprised how it even happened.
Entrepreneurs are one of the largest groups to wrestle with feelings of worth, achievement, and self-esteem.”
I don’t know what other groups wrestle more with those feelings. Maybe authors and rock stars? Anyway, entrepreneurs don’t just wrestle with those feelings, but also with mental health issues.
Because of those feelings? Probably. Anyway, just be warned it goes with the whole entrepreneurship package.
Without a doubt, honesty is always the best policy!”
If you build a business, of course. If you are a robber disguised as an entrepreneur, you may choose different policies.
DECIDE to be your authentic self — all the time. There should not be a personal brand and a separate ‘small business owner’ brand.”
That’s one of the best pieces of advice you can ever apply in the online world. Pretending might’ve been doable before the era of social media. It still is possible, but it requires tons of focus and tracking what you said and how. Seriously, it’s not worth your energy. You will better utilize it by being your authentic self and show this version — the only true version of you — with the world.
Save your mental energy for more important issues, like running your business.
SummaryDECIDE is a quick read with surprisingly rich business advice. Of course, it’s thin on the how-to and technical aspects of running a business. It is focused on the art of deciding wisely, and most importantly — deciding fast, so you can quickly move forward. It’s a mental game, and Jim Palmer helps you to play it.
I recommend it for entrepreneurs, wannapreneurs, and everyone else.
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April 20, 2021
Three Effective Ways to Kick a Bad Habit
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Image by Mohamed Nuzrath from Pixabay
The difficulty level depends on the habit very much. I’ll give you a few examples.
1. Gaming HabitI played computer games since I was exposed to the computer at the age of 12. I played my whole adult life till I was 33 years old. It was my escape mechanism. I loved strategy games. I could engage my whole brain into the gameplay and feel a pang of dopamine when I won, of course.
It was a bad habit, no doubt about that. I didn’t play a lot by modern standards, just 24–48 hours a month. But I stole those hours from my life — my sleep, my family, my job. I even played during work hours sometimes.
How hard it was to kick my gaming habit? Pretty easy. I decided to change my life. I already knew this habit doesn’t contribute any good to my life.
I had been tracking my time for two weeks, every single minute. I played only for 4.5 hours during those two weeks. Just the awareness that I would’ve needed to put my gaming into my time log made me back off.
After that experiment, I deleted games from my computer and never played again.
Success in Kicking Bad HabitsThat was a success story. I can vivisect it for you, so you understand where the success came from.
The trigger for my gaming was a pang of escapism. Whenever I felt bored, tired, and most importantly — purposeless, with no meaning in my life — I played. Getting new levels and killing artificial opponents was a substitute for achieving something in my life.
When I got rid of the trigger, I got rid of the habit. When there was no pang of escapism, the habit couldn’t arise.
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(Hacking the habit loop — created by author)
To make it even harder for me to indulge, I installed some environmental firewalls between me and the habit. I deleted my computer games, so even if I’ve felt the pang, I needed to reinstall them first.
However, the nature of the trigger (and my escapism pangs) is very short-lived. When you pull the trigger and there is no shot, you just toss the gun. When you have a pang of escapism and cannot immediately soothe your mind with your escape mechanism, you stop escaping.
So, I created some space between me and the habit, but the thing that helped me most was that I eliminated the trigger for this bad habit from my life. I had seen little sense in my life and that’s why I wanted to escape from it.
When I created my personal mission statement and started pursuing it for real, I had plenty of meaning and purpose in my life. I didn’t need to escape from it.
We are habit sponges. We go through life and pick habits on autopilot, many of them bad. I’m sure you can think of one or two behaviors you repeat while knowing they aren’t beneficial for you.
I still have quite a bunch of bad habits I cannot quench for good. My sweet tooth is a prime example. I can eat sugar in any form and quantity. I can consume a whole cake in one sitting, no problem.
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(… or a giant pancake)
To add insult to the injury, my metabolism seems to magically convert sugar into fat tissue. I can eat meat or carbs and gain little to nothing. But it seems every ounce of sugar I eat turns into an ounce of fat.
I managed to reduce this habit significantly. I almost never eat sweets, I have specific limits for the sweet things I allow myself to eat (homemade cakes, honey, and a few other products).
But I didn’t kick the habit. Every time I’m around sweets there has to be conscious processing of my consumption decisions or I’ll end up indulging in sweets.
3. Reading Fiction — Avoiding the TriggerMy favorite pastime as a teenager was reading. I could read one to three books a day. I developed a habit of finishing books ASAP. It is a bad habit.
It may work for a teenager with no obligations. If you are an adult with a day job, kids, and family responsibilities, it’s a terrible habit.
I just cannot help myself when I get my hands on a good book. I read. I skip meals or sleep. I delay other responsibilities. I read, and read, and read.
I reduced this habit mostly by not having any books immediately available. I don’t shop for new fiction books. I don’t search for them. I stopped going to libraries.
It’s a great example of apparent success. If I don’t have a book nearby, I create the space between the impulse and the habit. Even if I want to read something, I cannot because I have nothing to read.
But I still cannot let a good book sit on a shelf. When I have one, I wolf it ASAP.
Answering the main question: it’s pretty hard to kick a bad habit. It’s imprinted in your brain and we are so poorly equipped to fight off anything that comes from within.
It’s especially hard when you have no clue about habits and attack down the wrong path: you try to mobilize your willpower and kick the bastard.
You may succeed once, twice, or a dozen times. But this is a tireless opponent and it has a camp right in your brain. The habit will come back again and again. Dozen times, a hundred times. The clash of forces is not the right tactic.
The best tactic is to analyze what triggers the bad habit and put walls and layers between you and this trigger or between the trigger and the habit. Like I with a gaming habit, try to get rid of the trigger itself. It will freeze the habit in your brain. It will never have a chance to activate itself.
“In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon.” ― Stephen R. Covey, “ The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People ”
Or like with my fiction reading habit, put some space between the trigger and the habit. Make it harder to indulge. It will allow you to step between the stimulus and reaction. Most of the time, if you turn on your thinking, you will choose the right thing.
The last option is to painstakingly rebuild your habit, turn it from a bad one into a good one, which is the master option. Why? Because your new “program” will become the default one. Your old trigger will release a new, good behavior.
This is the best way to kick a bad habit for good.
Charles Duhigg explains this in detail:
How Habits Work — Charles Duhigg
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April 10, 2021
Ninety Fourth Income Report – January 2021 ($2,295.76)
Are you curious about a 3-month delay? I explained it in my first income report.
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In January, things were slowly starting to open up after the lockdown. I went back to working at the office. Commuting was a welcomed experience after almost three months of sitting at home all the time. My old routines were back in no time – meditation on a train platform, reading on the subway, and so on.
My day job wasn’t one ounce better than usual, but any change was desirable.
I was only surprised how commuting robbed me of my stamina.
I often napped on trains, especially on a way back home. We had a wave of cold in Poland. One day, I noted in my journal -15 Celsius. Luckily, this lasted only a week or so.
I remember seeing on Facebook a traffic jam photo in San Diego by Brian Buffini. He said it’s nice to see things going back to normal. I had a similar experience with my commute. Polish railroads are awful when it comes to being on time. One day, I arrived at the platform, waited 15 minutes to hear an announcement that a train will be delayed by almost an hour. So, I just picked a birthday gift from a delivery automat for my wife and headed back home. I worked remotely that day.
WalkingI still walked a lot, despite freezing temperatures. Well, I also learned to maximize walking opportunities around the house. I walked while taking my daily accountability call, speed reading exercises and reading a book written by a saint.
There were days – especially when we had freezing temperatures – when I made my whole 10k steps inside the house.
Resurrecting BooksI discovered that search terms on Amazon could be generated on a recurring basis. Since it was one of the steps of the new process I had in mind for processing keywords, I was stoked. It was enough to create the reports once and regularly collect the data. Of course, like everything with Amazon, it wasn’t so easy, but easy enough. Together with my sister, we made some experiments and finally figured out how to create those bloody reports, so they contained the data we wanted.
I also started a process of hiring a VA. The timing wasn’t all that perfect, I was in the middle of the deepest financial dip since we bought our home, but my wife gave her consent. With her reluctance and lack of understanding business, it was like a sign from God for me.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t very diligent about the recruitment process. I got just a couple of referrals and only one of the gals applied. I decided to hire her if she didn’t drop the ball during the process.
The Financial DipTo give you an idea how deep was the financial dip – at the end of the month the VA candidate was close to finishing her recruitment tasks, and I scrambled to pay her $20 I promised for this job. I had to invoice a customer to get the $20 I needed.
The previous quarter was horrible when it comes to revenue. I consistently used up my savings to pay bills, birthday gifts, mortgage, business expenses, and Christmas gifts. I had funds for all of those things, but their levels first decreased and then I needed to do some creative accounting to pay for my mastermind. For example, I ‘stole’ money from a fund for my kids’ school trips since there were no trips to be held in the foreseeable future. I had just about $100 left in my fund for monthly bills in January. Normally, there should be about $700.
The whole situation stung mostly my ego; we still had a peace-of-mind fund (called rainy days fund by most) that could easily sustain us for another half a year. But it was under my wife’s control, so there was no chance I would ‘steal’ from it.
I reached out to my mentor who hosts the mastermind group I’ve been a member of, and told him that January may be my last month in the group, since I no longer could afford it.
AudiobookAlso, the situation humbled me enough to ask my friend, a real estate millionaire from Texas, to invest into creation of a couple of audiobooks. He agreed without much consideration (or any at all). He told me later he did it to prove to me that he believed in me.
I quickly exchanged a few messages with Archangel Ink; we established the costs for two books, and Jerad sent a payment on the 23rd of January. Before we reached that phase, I needed to go over the manuscript of The Art of Persistence and prepared it for the audio version – removed or renamed the links, and the like).
Change Your Life in 10 Minutes a DayIn the first half of January, I also continued to work on the launch of the bundle of Change Your Life in 10 Minutes a Day series. The paperback was out at the very end of December, so we finally started ads. I purposefully used quite high bids, as uncomfortable as spending more on ads than making on them makes me.
I begged out a few more reviews and scheduled a few promotions with promo sites. But the best results, as usual, I got from asking for help from other authors. One of them sent an email broadcast at the end of the discount period and generated approximately 230 sales in two days; which made over 25% of the whole launch period sales.
I felt like at the beginning of my self-publishing career with this launch. I produced the book practically for free – no editing or proofreading involved since I repurposed the old content; my friend made the cover for free; the same friend formatted the book for me; I already had all the know-how needed, so I didn’t need to pay for it. The only thing I spent the money on was promotion and over 80% of it was my ad budget (I spent $410 in the US alone). Amazon charges for clicks at the beginning of the new month or when your spendings reach a certain number (it’s $500 for me), so part of this cost was delayed in time. Considering my poor financial situation it was VERY desirable.
And I spent just $36.09 on ads in December.
The results justified the effort. I sold 254 copies in December (all but 1 were discounted Kindle copies) and made about $80. In January, I sold 527 copies till the end of the launch period and another 58 copies after the launch.
I was encouraged by the results. The whole idea with this bundle was to create another revenue stream from something I already had. Definitely, this bundle proved the concept successful.
So, I already started to work on the bundle for the Six Simple Steps to Success series.
If I can make money by repackaging what I already had, why not?
AccountabilityI write this report with some delay, at the beginning of May. It struck me when I saw in my journal in the middle of January first mentions about my daily accountability calls. Soren, one of my mastermind buddies, proposed that we call each other every morning and go over our priorities for the day. He did that after I complained I cannot find anyone who could keep me accountable as good as I do it for myself.
It was a game changer, and not just for me. Like me, Soren is reasonably productive. But thanks to our calls, I was able to recover from my mad scramble after the COVID brain fog, and he became more consistent. In one of the first calls, we decided to go after “the one thing” in our calls. If you are familiar with the book The One Thing, you know that ultimate question:
What’s the one thing I can do today that will make all other things easier or unnecessary?
We don’t approach this question ad verbum, we don’t ponder if today’s priority will make everything easier or unnecessary. However, thanks to having this question asked every day, I was able to focus more on the long range. I always have multiple tasks to perform. As an authorpreneur and solopreneur, I always have the never-ending to-do list. I need to do them anyway. If I don’t reply to prospects or don’t invoice customers, I will eventually starve. So, whenever Soren asks me for the “one thing,” I pick one of my longer projects (publishing a book, creating a business process, and so on) and move the needle forward.
The January 2021 Income Report BreakdownIncome:
Amazon royalties: €1,237.63 ($1,497.53)
Coach.me fees: $155.26
Audiobooks royalties: $26.89
D2D royalties: $40.95
PWIW personal coaching: $383
AMS service remuneration: $2,923.58
Publisher Rocket affiliation: $91.62
Total: $5,118.83
Costs:
$23.37, BirdSend fee
$1,631.23 Amazon ads
$500, ISI mastermind
$300.92, RAs’ remuneration (RAs = Real Assistants; my team)
$30, SiteLock fee
$96.55, royalties split with co-author
$102.55, Advanced Amazon ads
$57.84, proofreading
$77.28, book promotions
$100, an obligatory monthly fee for LLC
$92, my accountant’s monthly fee
Total: $2,823.07
Net Result: $2,295.76
Previous Income Report: December 2020
The post Ninety Fourth Income Report – January 2021 ($2,295.76) appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.
March 31, 2021
A Driven Life Book Review
[image error] Midas Touch – This is how this book should be titled. My head spins when I try to recall how many successful businesses this guy started, and how many struggling businesses he helped. Granted, he had a quite few decades to accomplish this feat, but still… That was incredible.
The whole read was very enjoyable and inspiring. However, there still were some
1. This is an authorized biography.
You cannot really say anything bad in a book about a man who must approve its publication.
I’m not saying that Anton is an evil monster who hired a couple of mercenary pens to whiten his story. I’m almost certain, that he is quite a nice fellow. But this is not a 360-degree, full story. Maybe 280-degrees, maybe 333-degrees, but not the whole story, despite the authors’ best effort to paint it that way.
2. Family.Anton is hardly a role model. His first marriage fell apart because it was never his priority. He chased money. He was active in charitable endeavors. He simply didn’t have time for his family.
But in my world, “I don’t have time” spells “It is not a priority for me.”
There are people who have both happy families and successful businesses. It can be done, but not by making your business a priority.
Testimonials from his daughter from the first marriage, saying how great of a dad he was, seemed a bit strained for me, but maybe I’m just cynical (see Con #1).
He managed better with his second family, but I mostly credit his wife for this success. Jan has been a gal who always relentlessly supported Anton, no matter what. She was ready to sit home alone and raise kids. She followed him wherever he went. Anton needed such unconditional love to make his family work.
Having said all the above, I don’t think he was an especially bad father and husband. He divorced his first wife without drama. He helped her and supported his kids after the divorce.
He made a second family a lasting one. He helped kids from the first marriage to get a head start in life. He trained almost all of his children in the art of business.
Anton did what was expected of a man in his generation: he supported his families and supervised his children as they stepped into the world of adults.
The presence of those cons doesn’t mean the book is awful; not at all! I simply wanted you to know it’s not all roses. But, there are plenty of “roses”, so let’s talk about
PROS1. The Main Character.I’m utterly impressed by this man. Anton started multiple successful businesses. That’s a feat in itself. But he also sold most of them, which means he built relevant systems and processes, so someone else could run the shop without him. It wasn’t his pure charisma (however undeniable) that allowed him to build those businesses. It was also business acumen and leadership skills.
But his Midas touch is just the tip of the iceberg. His ability to reinvent himself was nothing short of spectacular.
I was impressed by his ability to work hard.
Anton had already been highly successful before immigrating to the USA. He owned many businesses and the sports club (well, a few of them!). In the US, he became a janitor. He hustled in that position for six long months before his situation improved.
Also, it wasn’t like those previous businesses were handed to him on a golden plate. He started his career in his parents’ butcher shop. Cleaning floors were nothing compared to cleaning the leftovers in a butcher shop.
When he began in management, in one of the family’s shops, there was some resentment from his coworkers who treated him as the “boss’s son”. When Anton had enough, he resolved this conflict with his fists.
When he was a teenager, he became a professional rabbit-hunter in the New Zealand wilderness. He had to learn horseback riding on his very first day on the job. In a few short weeks, he learned everything and could replace the man who hired him.
2. Adventures.Anton has certainly had a more colorful life than most of us. From his reckless youth to life as a serial entrepreneur, he has had plenty of adventures and meets some pretty famous people. He had tea with Margaret Thatcher!
I didn’t recognize 90% of names he dropped in the book – names from sport, music, and the movie industry (oh, by the way, Anton also played in a movie!), but I know Johnny Depp. Anton hosted Johnny in his Caribbean restaurant (yes, Anton had a restaurant on a Caribbean island).
Reading this book was like watching a colorful kaleidoscope, always in motion, always showing something new and fresh. One thing is sure, you will not get bored by “A Driven Life!”
3. Humor.I laughed out loud more than a few times reading the book. Not only has Anton had an adventurous life, but the authors were also able to recount some situations in just the right words. I laughed like a drain when reading about Anton’s encounter with a bull. That was beyond hilarious!
And it wasn’t just a single event. I laughed regularly.
Americans, whenever you see “football” in the book, read “soccer.” Anton was an owner of an English soccer club.
I believe every single allegation and allusion the authors threw at his enemies. I’m from Poland, and we have had our unfair share of corruption in soccer.
Well, soccer is a small potato next to the fact that after the collapse of communism, when the dust settled, half of the country was owned by foreign capital. In Poland, we have grim jokes about a “serial suicide.” When people asked too many questions about this massive ownership transfer, they suddenly “committed suicide.”
Thus, reading how Anton had been attacked was no shock to me. If you ask me, he was lucky! The serial suicide didn’t visit him and he went away with his health intact and even the leftovers of his fortune. Lucky guy!
Big money is merciless and greedy people don’t mind the collateral damage. Destroying a reputation and the life of one guy? They didn’t even notice the bump in the road.
I honestly hope this book will be a wake-up call to the football (read: soccer) community in the UK. Nobody should be treated like Anton had been. Nobody should use media and public services (police) as their thugs in their quest for more dirty money.
5. Resilience.Anton’s business acumen is at the prodigy level. But I admire him most for his very human trait – resilience.
This guy lost everything more than once and always bounced back.
He lost a fortune, and his soccer club and his reputation were besmeared. He immigrated to America and in less than a year he was an owner of a 7-figure business.
He lost his business in the US due to their moronic immigration laws. He went back to the UK and started some more businesses.
He lost his shares of his last soccer club in a legal battle that consumed almost all he had. He took over a Caribbean restaurant and turned it into a booming business.
“You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.” – Babe Ruth
Hats off. Anton survived more blows than an average Joe could take. The man got up after each blow, like a boxing champion, with vigor and renewed energy to tackle the next project.
6. Helplessness of an Individual Against Big Money.Anton is not, nor ever has been, an average Joe. His parents owned a successful business. As a teenager, he traveled around the world. It was hard, practically impossible for me to relate to him. When I was a teenager my parents struggled to come up with $100 a month so I could study in a high school out of town.
However, I could relate to Anton in his helplessness, when big predators took him for a target. Despite all of his famous connections, despite his money, which 99% of this planet’s inhabitants of this planet would never see in their lifetime, he was still as helpless as any average Joe against thugs with money who knew how to manipulate the legal system.
BTW, isn’t it frightening that you can be sued out of your property in a civilized country, even an extravagant property like a soccer club?!? Anton paid money and bought shares. How the heck could anybody even imagine suing him out of those shares?! It’s like stealing in the courthouse your groceries, just on a bigger scale.
When media were chasing after him day and night, when police dragged him out of his business in bright daylight, when Anton could do nothing else but waste his money on lawyers – he was exactly like you and me. Helpless, when the system we live in turns into a grinder.
Thanks to this, I can admire his very human and all too rare quality – resilience.
SummarySo, I was impressed by the guy. Who wouldn’t be? His adventures were wild, to say the least.
But I was even more impressed by his extraordinary resilience.
I recommend “A Driven Life” very much. You can find her business lessons, life lessons, adventures, hilarious events, heartbreaking failures, big names, crooks, and everything between. What a ride!
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March 20, 2021
How Will Good Habits Give Me Benefits in the Future?
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First of all, thanks to my good habits I will have a future worth looking forward to.
Habits compound. Bad habits lead you into a worse future. Good habits led you into a better one. This is the reality:
(The Slight Edge chart)
By the way, this is how I discern between good and bad habits:
Good habits are the ones that provide good results after ten years of practicing them.
Bad habits are the ones that provide bad results after ten years of practicing them. My Story
In 2012 I read The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. The book’s message is based on those two principles:
“Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.” — Jim Rohn
“Failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.” — Jim Rohn
I doubted very much if it can be so simple, but I had nothing to lose. My life was going nowhere, so I tried this approach.
I never looked back. I’ve been over 8.5 years in this journey and I confidently say from my experience that it is true.
I completely transformed my life in the last several years. I developed dozens of daily habits. I bought a home, started a writing career, a coaching career, downsized my day job to 10 hours a week, liberated my wife from her day job, lost weight, started a business, published 18 books, more than doubled our household income, beat over 200 personal fitness records…
The list goes on, and on. I credit all those achievements to my habits.
A Few ExamplesExercisesI started exercising in 2006. For the last 15 years, I missed a day here and there, mostly when I was sick. For the first five years, this habit wasn’t providing many benefits. I coupled my morning prayer with a workout and both habits became instantly solidified. And, obviously, my body got stronger.
However, a few months before reading The Slight Edge, my exercise habit triggered me to change my diet. I lost several pounds.
This habit was also the main reason I had decided to adopt The Slight Edge Philosophy. I already knew the benefits of persistence. I could internalize the book’s message through the lenses of my experience.
The rest is history.
[image error]2013 vs 2010I shed excess weight. My look improved. My self-confidence improved. My health greatly improved. My chronic allergy almost disappeared and I was getting sick once in two years, not twice a year.WritingI started writing regularly in 2013. In September 2013, I finally switched to writing daily. I missed only two days since then.
I wrote over 2,500,000 words. My Quora answers were viewed over 10 million times. I published 18 books and sold tens of thousands of copies. I built new sources of income. My income doubled. I moved away from my corporate career. I started a book advertising business.[image error]
Some of my books
I draw more fun from living my life. I feel purposeful. My stories and books are actually helping people to improve their lives. This is amazing! This is what makes me feel more alive.
I had none of the above in 2012.
Habits Are Not a Silver BulletBut they are close to it. Despite all the successes I enjoyed in the last years, my family life has been troublesome. My kids have problems with depression. My marriage too often reminds me of balancing on a rope over an active volcano.
But maybe I simply haven’t created relevant relationship habits and that’s why I suffer in this area?
Habits Are Holistic in NatureWhen you build a good habit you don’t improve just one area of your life. You improve yourself.
Before my transformation, I was terribly shy. I recognized it cripples me, so I developed some habits to overcome my shyness. It took a lot of effort and a lot of failing. I practiced small simple things – making eye contact, smiling at strangers, striking a conversation.
However, thanks to those seemingly irrelevant practices, I became a more open person. It affected multiple areas of my life.
I acted confidently during a job interview and I got a new job with a 30% salary raise.
I became a better presenter. Whenever I speak publicly, I get plenty of positive comments about my message AND my demeanor.
Being not shy is a huge help in interacting with customers and employees.
I love myself more. A lot of my increased ability to self-love came from the deep internal work I needed to do to overcome my shyness.
I got all the above benefits in addition to my main goal of being able to talk to strangers without feeling physically sick at the same moment.
Good habits will provide good results in my life in the future.
Your good habits will do the same for you. That’s their natural consequence.
The post How Will Good Habits Give Me Benefits in the Future? appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.
March 10, 2021
Ninety Third Income Report – December 2020 ($1,125.29)
Are you curious about a 3-month delay? I explained it in my first income report.
[image error]December 2020 was a month of pushing through. Physically, I already recovered from COVID. Mentally, I was knee-deep in brain fog.
I had to force myself to follow my routines. So, I did. I was sticking to my habits and tracking.
Going over my journal entries from December, I noticed how often I was walking. My shoulders were aching again; the weather was too cold for biking, so walking was my main exercise. I did 357,862 steps. Oftentimes, I phoned my relatives and friends while walking. Among others, I reached out to my good friend who lost her husband to COVID.
Oh, walking was my only exercise because we were locked down in Poland. Grocery shopping and walking were my only excursions from home. I didn’t even go to work, which in hindsight was a wise decision. When I got back to the office in January, I was shocked how the daily commute weakened me.
So, I had been semi-imprisoned at my home since the middle of October, and it didn’t help my mood one bit. Even my church community suspended its meetings.
BooksOn the 8th of December, I noted down in my journal: “I finished the new book.” I wrote the last words of the outro.
In the first half of the month, scratch that, for the whole month I was busy with my bundle’s book launch. I bundled all five books from my How to Change Your Life in 10 Minutes a Day series and published it in one volume. On the 4th of December, I released the Kindle version. I notified my author friends and sent an email to my list. In a few short days I had a couple of reviews, so I started the ads.
I took almost three weeks off in my day job. I didn’t have much work there, but showing up for a few hours three days a week was distracting. In my shaky mental state, I preferred to forget about my day job altogether.
In the following days, I lined up a few more broadcasts to my friends’ followers and a few promotions on promo sites.
My friend, Anthony Smits, who edited a few of my books in the past, this time helped me with formatting and made a cover for me. Due to my low energy levels, I had been working in small chunks in the previous month or two, so we published the book in phases. The paperback version was out on the 30th of December 2020.
FinancesI didn’t know in the midst of it, but December 2020 was my worst financial month since… ever?
Alright, I checked – since April 2014. I forgot how crappy you feel when you don’t know where the next payment can come from. It affected my mood despite all the affirmations and intellectual awareness. I knew very well that my life or my worth doesn’t depend on how much I made this month. But my guts were telling a different story of starvation, disasters and desperation. 
In fact, I made less in December than I had been making in my day job 10 years ago (well, on good months, at least). It gave me a sour taste.
Book sales were a bit better, but that was no wonder. They were at their lowest point in November! And they weren’t much better. If not for the launch of my 10-Minute bundle, I might have sold even less than in November.
The Turnaround PointIn fact, as soon as I took the time off in my day job, things started to get in line. I got a few prospects. The launch for How to Change Your Life in 10 Minutes a Day went very well, especially considering how little attention and preparation I gave to this project.
Also, the whole situation forced me to rethink my business. Clearly, my system didn’t work so well as in the past. I desperately needed some changes. Hmm, this system needed some changes since 2018, but as long as it worked so-so, I was fine with the so-so results. The financial situation pushed me over this laziness. I dabbled with some improvements for months, but it was December financial misery that activated me for good.
Together with my sister, we started to collect search terms reports from our customers’ campaigns. I also showed her how to do a keyword research with Publisher Rocket. Ha! I had no money to spare, so she purchased the software out of her pocket.
Millionaire Friends
On 28th of December, I had a call with one millionaire from my mastermind tribe. He wanted help with publishing a second edition of his book on Amazon. He agreed for a fee of $50 per hour. And he quickly paid in advance for 5 hours.
A couple weeks earlier, I reached out to another millionaire friend, Dave Chesson. I was desperate to get any business at all and I asked him for advice.
He replied within minutes and asked if I want to have a call right now. I immediately said “yes.” We spent almost half an hour on the call, and Dave gave me a few insider secrets about Amazon ads. He also showered me with advice about my business.
I didn’t implement much of what he said, but you have no idea how his response elevated my mood. He made himself available for me, and he told me that 99.99% of people on the planet would have waited for weeks for his 30 minutes.
This short call repaired my damaged self-worth. For me, it was more of a self-worth therapy than a business consultation. *facepalm*
Strangely enough, all the side projects I had were put on hold in December. It was another reason for poor financial results, and it added to the desperation levels of mine.
The best thing that happened in December was my book launch. Being in a low mood, I did a very half-assed job with the launch. I wasn’t overly excited about it – they were just my old books repackaged. I went through the motions and published the bugger.
But I knew the motions to go through. I already had contacts in place. I reached out to some folks I hadn’t been in touch with for a year and, to my surprise, they responded very favorably. I created the ads on the 30th of December, and they generated 18 sales in two days.
I launched the book in the middle of the month, felt like I didn’t do much, and the bundle sold 253 copies till the end of December.
The launch was a real cure for my foul mood.
The December 2020 Income Report BreakdownIncome:
Amazon royalties: €1,237.63 ($1,446.79)
Coach.me fees: $117.6
Audiobooks royalties: $25
D2D royalties: $20.87
PWIW personal coaching: $335.45
AMS service remuneration: $2,009.15
Total: $4,202.54
Costs:
$23.37, BirdSend fee
$1,675.47 Amazon ads
$500, ISI mastermind
$287.28, RAs’ remuneration (RAs = Real Assistants; my team)
$30, SiteLock fee
$66.6, royalties split with co-author
$202.6, Advanced Amazon ads
$57.84, proofreading
$47, book promotions
$95.09, an obligatory monthly fee for LLC
$92, my accountant’s monthly fee
Total: $3,077.25
Net Result: $1,125.29
Previous Income Report: November 2020
The post Ninety Third Income Report – December 2020 ($1,125.29) appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.
February 20, 2021
Six Atomic Habits to Have a Brighter Future Personally, Professionally, and Financially
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The specific habits you should start are entirely up to you. No one can dictate to you what to do. You are unique, your life story is unique, and your set of circumstances is unique.
When I decided to change my life, I sat down and in less than 15 minutes brainstormed about 15 habits, which should’ve helped me to get what I wanted. I had neglected any self-analysis for 16 years, yet I was right in more than 50% of cases. Now, eight years later, I still practice five out of those original habits.
Listen to advice, but decide on your own. This is the best route.
My best piece of advice, since you are speaking about atomic habits, is to start small. Don’t try to have a new set of habits by tomorrow. Don’t try to create new disciplines that will take hours of your days.
Having said that, I have some habit “samples” that are very universal. They will help everybody and they will impact all three areas you mentioned.
“Income seldom exceeds personal development.” — Jim Rohn
“Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.” — Jim Rohn
However, keep in mind that your personal development should be way ahead of your professional and financial goals. This is what Jim Rohn meant by his sayings.
Take care of yourself. Keep growing, and your career and finances will grow along with you. Neglect your personal development and you will hit a wall sooner or later.
Physical activity is one of the very few keystone habits recognized by science. Keystone habits allow you to develop almost effortlessly more good habits.
[image error](me, doing pushups…)
And exercising in itself has a zillion of benefits.
2. Meditate.Meditations grow your self-awareness. Self-awareness is probably the most universal skill/ trait ever because it helps you with everything in your life, from relationships to making business decisions.
And, like exercises, it has a zillion of additional benefits.
3. Gratitude journal.Gratitude rewires the brain into positivity. Why it’s important?
“When the brain is positive every possible outcome we know how to test for rises dramatically.” — Shawn Achor
Every possible outcome- health, fitness, education, finances… Every morning write three new things you are grateful for and everything in your life will get better.
4. Journaling/tracking.It increases self-awareness. See meditation.
And it also leaves a track record.
5. Healthy eating.Unfortunately, there is no clear definition of what it is. But healthy eating is another keystone habit recognized by science.
My advice? It doesn’t matter much what you eat as long as you eat as many non-processed foods as possible. There are healthy people on the Keto diet and healthy people on the Vegan diet. But there are precious few healthy people on the “Coke plus hamburger” diet.
6. Read books.There are very few successful entrepreneurs/ senior management people who don’t read regularly. And there is a huge percentage of readers among the very top of top performers.
Plus, reading books naturally increases your attention span and focus – two very rare and precious traits these days.
Originally published at Quora
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February 10, 2021
Ninety Second Income Report – November 2020 ($1,918.19)
Are you curious about a 3-month delay? I explained it in my first income report.
[image error]In November, especially at the beginning of the month, I was affected by Covid. Physically, I felt OK. Emotionally and mentally, I was a mess. This was the famous Covid brain-fog. I tell you; it was a real thing.
In the hindsight, reading my journal entries from November, I see I was overly tough on myself. I did a lot that month. But in the midst of it, I felt like moving in slow motion. I was frustrated, moody, and apathetic. All the time.
I remember a call with Marc Reklau in the middle of the month when he did some coaching on me. I needed that badly. As I wrote in the previous report, my social connections took me through this recovery experience. My accountability partners, my mastermind, my brothers and sister from the church community – all of them helped me to keep going while I was ready to give up.
I started the month strong, not that I had any choice. I needed money, so I had to calculate the results of my customers quickly and invoice them. Next week, I crashed. I could work only about 5 hours a day for the next two weeks. I was self-beating myself and lashing out, mainly on myself.
I needed time and I didn’t give myself the time to properly recover. In my mind, it was ridiculous. I went out of bed on the 24th of October and almost a month later I still couldn’t put myself together. I still had days when after just 90-minute work, I needed to crawl back into a bed and take a nap!
Oh, and observing my terrible book sales gave me no peace of mind. In fact, it made everything worse.
In early November, I got my first Polish customer. I’m not sure how he found me- through my blog, Quora, or one of the couple podcast interviews I gave. He subscribed to my list and after some time asked if I would like to help him publish his wife’s books on Amazon.
I said my hourly price (and I gave him the price for “things I don’t want to do”). He accepted. We had the first call and I forwarded the first manuscript to my formatter.
Speaking of Poland, the Quora community manager contacted me and invited me to the beta program of Quora circles in Poland.
I accepted and I created a personal development circle with the intent to own this space on Quora in Polish. It went well. For the first month, my circle was the biggest one in Poland (which doesn’t mean it was big, a few months later I have below 400 subscribers; other circles simply did even worse). It was easy-peasy for me. I already had had well over 100 posts on Polish Quora. I was familiar with the interface. Managing the circle took me no more than 10 minutes a day, usually much less. I could queue the content for 3-4 days within 10 minutes.
Projects I Tackled in NovemberRemember I said I underestimated myself? I did a LOT in November.
Book GiveawayI participated in a book giveaway organized by Jonathan Green. I got about 960 new subscribers. This number ebbed down to about 360 in the next months. I’m contented with that number. I made sure that only the people interested in my content stayed on the list. The giveaway didn’t require much of me- just sending the files over to Jonathan and sending a couple of emails to my list.
Conflict Management TrainingI participated in conflict management training via my day job. It took 1.5 days of my schedule but was well worth it. In the end, conflict management is at least 80% emotion management and emotional intelligence is one of the things I wrote down in my 2023 vision to work on. Speaking of which…
2023 VisionI crystalized and wrote down my 2023 vision. I edited it and shared it with my mastermind and accountability partners. I consider it the most important work I did in November.
I felt terrible and this project lifted my spirit. I had something to look forward to. I also had something to do right here, right now, both in terms of crafting the vision and narrowing it down to daily disciplines which should make the vision a reality in three years.
I researched the current categories for all of my books and the potential categories for them on Amazon. I requested from KDP Support to change categories for several of my books.
I won’t bet my life on this, but I think it helped my sales down the road. For a couple of books, I saw small sales spikes immediately; for others, it wasn’t so obvious at all.
I finally updated the manuscript for Draft2Digital, and the book had been accepted by Apple in their store. It’s available for free outside of Amazon.
Unfortunately, Amazon didn’t match the price in their store. I didn’t have enough energy to ping them about this. It is still on my to-do list.
I did a whole bunch of housekeeping tasks for this blog: I upgraded the WordPress theme, updated plugins, removed spam comments, added a search bar to the main page, and scheduled posts for the future.
The next time I needed to log in there was in a month.
I was hopelessly behind my publishing schedule for Expand Beyond Yourself. In November, I managed to add two-income reports to that blog.
Mum’s VisitMy mother-in-law visited us and stayed with us for the first 10 days of November. She wasn’t a burden, but I needed to be more social than my usual nerdy self. We spent some time together, especially on the weekends.
Back to the RoutineThere were some things in November I went back to after about a 2-month hiatus caused by Covid.
I visited a church in the afternoons for the Holy Sacrament adoration.
My church community started to meet again on Wednesday evenings.
I attended a Business on Purpose bi-weekly call.
The weather was still relatively warm, so I got back on a bike a few times at the end of the month.
It felt good to be back in the saddle even if those activities crowded my schedule. I missed those meetings, interactions, and activities a lot. I felt like I got a part of myself back.
Brain fog was one thing, but there were some measurable aftereffects of the sickness. I suffered from unexplainable hunger pangs. I gained several pounds in November despite keeping my workout routine. It was frustrating to no end. I managed to shave off six pounds from January to September and I got almost all of them back.
Also, brain fog made me susceptible to stupid time management decisions. Or rather to turn off my conscious brain. I found in my journal at least two instances of binge-watching Netflix for several hours in a row.
Only two Canada-only customers hang on with me, but I had no illusions they will remain my customers in the long term.
And in the middle of the month, my onboarding specialist quit. There wasn’t anybody to onboard. Covid killed even my feeble marketing attempts. So, she moved forward. I couldn’t blame her; I didn’t deliver even half of the workload I promised her.
Despite the swirl of activity, November felt bleak. Covid-induced brain fog kept me in its merciless clutch.
My book sales sucked a big time. Well, they actually increase by over 120 copies month to month, but they were still well below 1,000 copies a month. And profitability of those sales sucked. I made about $200 net in royalties. The last time I earned so little from my books was in August 2016!
Income:
Amazon royalties: €1,215.79 ($1,446.79)
Coach.me fees: $122.33
Audiobooks royalties: $39.2
D2D royalties: $20.87
PWIW personal coaching: $335.45
AMS service remuneration: $1,931.45
Total: $3,896.09
Costs:
$23.37, BirdSend fee
$781.24 Amazon ads
$500, ISI mastermind
$493.15, RAs’ remuneration (RAs = Real Assistants; my team)
$30, SiteLock fee
$76.52, royalties split with co-author
$202.51, Advanced Amazon ads
$95.09, an obligatory monthly fee for LLC
$92, my accountant’s monthly fee
Total: $1,977.9
Net Result: $1,918.19
Previous Income Report: October 2020
The post Ninety Second Income Report – November 2020 ($1,918.19) appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.
January 31, 2021
SYSTEMology Book Review
[image error]I’m super pumped to tell everybody about this book. I’ve already caused a few people to buy it. And they will earn thousands, if not millions, of dollars because they read SYSTEMology.
It’s the ultimate book about creating, and using!!!, systems in your business.
However, it is not without the…
CONS1. Page 66 – Not for Solopreneurs.This book is not thick; it’s below 180 pages of pure content (which, by the way, is a PRO for me). However, only in the first third of it, exactly at page 66, I discovered it is not for me.
The first paragraph on page 66 said that if I am the owner of most processes in my business, I’m not quite ready to systematize. In other words, if you are a one-man army, SYSTEMology won’t help you much.
I was disappointed. SO disappointed!
There is a section, “Is this the right book for you?” on page 20. I couldn’t find myself disqualified by that section. That section spoke about some prerequisites (like vision, target audience, and so on), which I already had and didn’t need to find them in SYSTEMology. Checked.
It talked about having some traction, good cash flow and referrals. Checked.
It talked about being overwhelmed and not being able to step away from the business even for a few days. Checked.
Hence, I thought I’d hit a jackpot with this book. I read eagerly up to page 66 to discover it is not for me. 
So, I need to pause and make it clear for whom this book is… And for whom it is not.
If you fall into any of the below categories, this book is definitely for you:
You have a small team (1-9 people) and:
-zero or only rudimentary systems and processes implemented
-your lack of systems is due to zero to only rudimentary knowledge about documenting business processes
-you tried to document or implement business processes in the past, but you failed miserably (especially because your team didn’t use the processes you documented)
If those characteristics pertain to you, in my modest opinion you should pay about $1,000 for SYSTEMology. It will be worth many times more than that.
If your team is more robust than 1-9 people, if you have any management personnel, and any of the above characteristics apply to your business, you should pay $10,000. Seriously. This book is a gold mine.
SYSTEMology is not for:
SolopreneursBusiness owners, even with a small team, who are responsible for all the decisions.I’m somewhere between those two points. I work with several people on a regular basis, but they always wait for my orders – when to contact a customer, when to create the ads, what bids to use in those ads, when to mine the search terms from existing ads, and so on.
It doesn’t mean this book will be worthless for you. It is well worth the price. I think you will always get some benefits from implementing systems into your business, no matter the size of it and the phase you are in.
Which brings me to the second CON…
David suggested on the same fateful page that you won’t get leverage from your systems in the early stage of your business:
“To make impact on your business, you need to have at least a few team members or contractors (…) This ensures (…) you will get some leverage from the systems you create.”
Bollocks!
You will always get some leverage, even if currently you are your whole business. Yes, it takes your precious time away from making sales or doing the work for your customers. Still, it is WELL worth it.
You see, the trouble 99.99999% of entrepreneurs have is not that they don’t get leverage from the systems they have built. It’s the fact that they have no systems at all!
So, ‘no leverage from systems’ is a very wrong thing to hint at in a book about building business processes. It’s like Dave Ramsey hinting that debt can be good. 
You will always get some leverage from your systems. Let me demonstrate it on my business. My business resembles a Frankenstein… which has been hit by a truck and patched together once again.
I’m an employee turned author turned entrepreneur. I knew nothing and made most of the mistakes in the book.
a) clarityThe first leverage I got from creating systems -and it is available for everyone, especially solopreneurs – was clarity. Writing things down forces you to activate your conscious brain. You turn everything you thought you knew, and many intangible pieces of the process – into a single, coherent whole. You gain a lot of benefits from that – from finding holes and cracks in your business to getting a customer’s perspective on things.
b) delegate-abilityThe second huge benefit for an overwhelmed solopreneur is that you can delegate out bits and pieces of your business. My agency creates thousands of ads, sometimes tens of thousands of ads, on Amazon every month. It was the first thing I delegated. I created a manual for ad creation and taught my son and my wife how to build an ad campaign in the Amazon system.
Suddenly, I could onboard a new customer, create a template ad and let my “team” create another 100 or 200 ads for the customer.
I repeated this with many bits of my business many times over. Documenting your systems gives you a chance to delegate tasks in very small batches. You don’t need to hire and train a full-time employee. You can give a 30-minute monthly task to your son.
I showed my son how to download invoices from PayPal. It freed up about half an hour a month of my time.
c) momentumWhen you delegate one piece of the process, it often forces you to systematize even more. I taught my son how to create ads, and it immediately forced me to systematize the way I was giving him tasks. When another person joined the team, I had a process ready. Soon, I had to figure out how to replicate ads orders when I had a batch of helpers available.
When we started to create thousands of ads a month, I figured out how to delegate even creating the orders for ads to my sister. Because I had a system, she could replace me with this task after only a rudimentary training.
So, skip page 66! Don’t listen to David. You will ALWAYS get some leverage from creating your business systems.
OK, let’s switch to many awesome…
Actually, you can’t skip page 66. It contains a sentence I consider the most impactful in this book:
SYSTEMology will replicate what’s already working but you must get some traction first.
You don’t systematize your business when it’s not working. If you just have the idea, but not a single paying customer yet, of course you have nothing to systematize. If you are in the early stages and you don’t even know what you are doing, you should keep experimenting, not systematize your experiments.
And if you have a faulty business that doesn’t really work, don’t create the systems. Build a healthy foundation first.
But if you have anything working at all, by all means – create your systems (see the Leverage section in #2 CON above). Meaning, you can apply SYSTEMology.
SYSTEMology is so cool because it is built on David’s experience. He was the proverbial overwhelmed business owner and he figured out how to create business processes when you feel like you have not even a second to spare.
So, it is not like an ISO system invented by a bunch of eggheads and serving mostly to assure shareholders that you have everything under control. The ISO’s red tape overhead is simply a killer for small businesses.
SYSTEMology is more like the ITIL methodology. It’s a quality and process assurance system in IT support. It has been created by documenting the good practices already existing in the IT industry. They looked at the successful projects and asked: why were they working so well? Then, they put their discoveries in the form of the ITIL methodology.
But SYSTEMology is even cooler.
I’m certified in ITIL. I passed the exam easily exactly because I was a practitioner. But I also needed a 3-day training to get familiar with their naming convention. Whatever they meant by “incident,” “problem” and so on.
SYSTEMology is stripped to bare essentials. It’s all common sense. Zero red tape. You just read the book and implement the method.
3. The Method.The whole SYSTEMology magic lies in leveraging your team. Instead of you doing the main bulk of the job, you delegate it to your team. You involve the team from the very beginning, from the moment of process creation.
They own the processes, so they are more likely to use them later. But the brilliance of this system is that you, the brain and heart of the organization, are not burdened with more obligations. Of course, there will be some tasks for you to perform, but it will be nowhere near the effort of being the main force behind the systemization.
Also, the whole framework is described in the book in enough details to get you and your team moving. You don’t need to get an additional course or practice for months. Read the book and you can start the process the next day.
The last awesome aspect of the SYSTEMology approach is that it is so flexible. David shows you the framework, but it’s up to you and your team to fill the gaps. Obviously, the process will be vastly different for a brick and mortar company (construction) than for a virtual company (online advertising). In the crazy world of small business, flexibility is not a feature; it’s a requirement to get something done.
4. The Documentation Process.This is the core of SYSTEMology, and this is where it is superior to all other systems I’ve been familiar with. I read most of the popular books in this field and some obscure ones. David’s book is the strongest when it comes to actual documentation process.
You see, business owners usually get the importance of systems and processes. They just have no clue how to start or they get quickly overwhelmed and quit on their attempts of installing some business systems.
The business owner who cannot leave his business for two days because everything is on him is just too busy to:
Or they are just thinking they are too busy. I know quite a few stories, including mine, of owners who experienced such a pain from the chaos in their business that they systematized their business despite the busy-ness.
Anyway, SYSTEMology provides a way to overcome those obstacles, mainly by the hands of the business owner’s team.
5. Use the System.The documentation process explained in the book is just brilliant. But even more brilliant are tips on how to actually implement the processes in your business.
It speaks to my experience as a habit coach; a great plan on paper is worthless. Tracking your habit gives you nothing, if you don’t actually perform the habit.
The same goes for time management systems – they are worthless if you don’t use them regularly.
And so are your business processes if your team shies away from using them. While the process of hammering out the systems and documentation is enlightening in their own right, the real value is in using them in your business on a daily basis.
It’s great that I invented a process of providing orders for ad campaigns for my team, but it would not have been worth a dime, if I had gone upstairs and just told my son which ads to create.
Creating systems is a necessary prerequisite to extract the value from your procedures and processes. Using them is the actual value-extraction process.
So, everything in the SYSTEMology approach is subjected to using your business systems. From creation process, to organizing your documentation, everything serves the purpose of making the whole process as frictionless as possible.
6. Writing Style and the Layout.I simply like this book. The stories are to the point and not diluting the message. Graphics, tables and charts are very useful and helpful. Yes, David prods you to go to his website to get the templates, but you can replicate all which is presented in the book on your own.
From time to time, there is a golden nugget like this one:
If you document for morons, you will have only morons willing to work for you.
The whole framework is so clear, clean, simple and easy to follow. I fell in love with SYSTEMology.
When I read, I like to underline the points that hit me. Here is a sample of my highlights:
If you can never master the simple, you will never master the complex.
I don’t hate email; it’s an amazing tool, it’s just horrible for project management.
Fix your team communication and you’ll solve 80% of your problems.
The first time a team member takes a leave, it’s normal for at least a few things to go wrong. Don’t worry, this is all part of the process.
Always look for a method that creates the least friction or anxiety for the team members.
SummaryIt doesn’t look like one, but this book is revolutionary. Its impact on the small business world will be comparable to Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. Every single small business owner who implements SYSTEMology will enjoy new levels of freedom, peace of mind, and profitability. And every single one of those owners will become a champion for SYSTEMology.
No wonder. This book’s framework fills the gap between the dreamlike vision entrepreneurs had been longing for since E-myth was published – and their miserable reality: full of fires to put out right now, chaos of doing zillions of business tasks at the same time and managing the whole team.
SYSTEMology can help you to build the bridge between an overwhelming current situation and this beautiful vision.
Thus, I recommend it with full confidence.
The post SYSTEMology Book Review appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.
January 20, 2021
Four Self-Improvement Habits which Had the Biggest Impact on My Life
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It’s hard to say which of my self-improvement habits has had the biggest impact on my life. I have too many of them and introduced them into my life in a very rapid fashion. So, it is really hard to measure and recognize which habits have been the most impactful.
Maybe gratitude journaling?Quite possible this habit won this small contest.
For years, I hadn’t even considered it very impactful. But in hindsight, it was powerful. And when I described this discovery in my Quora answer, it became my most popular answer ever (over 400k views and 3.5 upvotes):
https://www.quora.com/What-habit-makes-the-biggest-difference-in-your-life-with-the-least-effort
Six days a week, I journal for 10–20 minutes. I’ve been doing it for eight years.
[image error](my journals)
You see, when you write things down, you need to process them through the prefrontal cortex — the part of your brain responsible for the higher thinking functions (like abstract thinking, language, logical thinking, and the like). In effect, you process a bigger portion of your life through logic and a smaller portion through emotions.
Nine years ago, I was a total mess. Nobody ever taught me how to process my own emotions. Well, not purposefully. Like most of us, I learned how to deal with my emotions by observing and mimicking people around me. However, most of them were as clueless about emotion management, as was I in the first place.
Years of writing about my plans, dreams, aspirations, obstacles, hardships, heartaches, failures, relationships, faith, and everything else that makes a full life, allowed me to get SO much better. at emotion management.
I also get some “me time” every day, introduce silence into my life, have space to actually plan long term, analyze myself, and reflect on the big picture.
This is invaluable.
Maybe exercising?I’ve been exercising every day since 2006. I missed maybe 50 days in 15 years, mainly when I was bedridden with a fever.
[image error](me, doing pushups…)
Thanks to this discipline, I internalized the value of persistence. When I read The Slight Edge in August 2012, its message clicked in. I had relevant points of reference already instilled in my life. I was able to embrace the Slight Edge philosophy because of my own experience. And when I embraced it, my whole life, hmm, not just “changed” — it exploded.
However, physical exercises are hardly a self-improvement technique. In fact, it’s a universal human activity. Surely, I consider exercises as such. Everybody should move their body on regular basis.
The last candidate: smiling.I had been extremely shy toward strangers at the age of 33.
As a part of my self-improvement quest, I tried to develop a habit of talking to strangers. I flatly fell on my face. I just couldn’t do it. It was beyond me. Cold sweat on my forehead, butterflies in my stomach, collywobbles, a lump in my throat. I could not open my mouth and utter a word.
So, I retreated and regrouped. What I could do? I could smile at people.
And I did.
I built up my self-confidence, and soon I was talking with strangers on an everyday basis.
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