No Shut Down For You
October 16th, 2013 // 12:29 pm @ Scott Manning
I’m really not a bandwagon kind of a guy, so I hate to even mention this, to bring up the government shutdown as it is only relevant to the extent you make it. I mean certainly there can be impacts as with any decision made in a society such as ours, a country this complex, things do affect others.
However – your impact can always be mitigated by YOU exerting control. Taking your own responsibility.
I often say in meetings and events that the successful people want the ball. Like all sports athletes who are the best, they want to be the one to win the game at the end. And you should want to have that same opportunity, and you do, whether you like it or not, every single day.
There is no shut down as an entrepreneur. Even when you take “vacations” your mind probably isn’t and no question about it, everything depends a lot on how well things are going, bills to pay, deadlines to meet, opportunities or risks hanging over your head.
The philosophy that serves you best is one of daily disciplined and focused action.
Lately I have been trying something new with a select few of my private clients by requiring daily end of day updates and 1st thing in the morning action plans. This has tremendously accelerated their progress and productivity. Mainly because it focuses them to execute on the highest level and top priority actions, tasks, ideas every single day and have me as the ultimate accountability partner.
Now, why do you suppose this makes so much difference.
Of course it is obvious, however let me say to you the ultimate secret is –
DAILY ACTION because you have to stay sharp and you have to have momentum.
Imagine, all the energy it takes to get going somewhere and then you stop, pause, take a break, and then start all over again – among the distractions the negative forces that are working against you and everything else you have to consider…
If you are not taking daily action and making sure your machine is well oiled and moving in the right direction then you can go weeks, months, even years and end up no where or certainly no place you want to be.
Back to our athletes example, if they took days off, weeks off, or even the months off during the off season they would be starting from the beginning again every year. That is why the greatest players also have the greatest work ethics, taking nothing for granted.
When I see someone who should be successful and isn’t, it is almost always a daily discipline problem. So, here’s the thing, unlike the government, you can’t shut down, turn off, pretend problems don’t exist. You must act and operate every day towards your goals.
Okay, so here’s the good news, I do mean doing something literally everyday, what I don’t mean is that you can’t afford or earn yourself vacations, actually, the more vacations you take the more money you will make as long as you are following what I laid out above. It is necessary and essential to regroup, refocus, regenerate, and recuperate, the key is doing it at the conclusion of something, or as reward for something, or built in to your schedule and working aggressively up to that point as a self-structure deadline.
Whenever I go on trips which I do basically every single month people ask me is it business or pleasure and I always say it’s both. Two reasons, one, I work from anywhere and everyday, two, my business is pleasure. In part it is my attitude, at the same time my business provides me the ability to do whatever I want whenever I want and that is something I have created and designed there for I had better appreciate it and find it something pleasing to me.
Back to my point, there are no days off for the successful entrepreneur, rather you design a lifestyle and daily structure that empowers you to be your best, to work your best, and to perpetuate the achievement of your goals and objectives.
It’s sounds silly but if you aren’t looking forward to waking up everyday and putting on your superman suit and playing the role of the person you have become inside the business you’ve built then you are either unappreciative of the success and opportunity you have designed for yourself or you need to make some dramatic changes fast.
You are the center of your universe. There is no government delaying decisions, clusterf’king up your plans, it is only you. You and you alone and your daily actions that you take that determine your outcomes. Perhaps you have taken too much time off from your purpose and business and you have sat idly buy, shutdown instead of tank full; well try throttle thrown open, foot on the gas, full speed ahead –
Movement, Motion, Action, Decision, always trump doing nothing, waiting, or shutting down to ponder the same shit you’ll be faced with when you decide to come back to work.
Hey, you’re the commander in chief of your business and life and you got no congress to blame or excuses to make; step up, step out, do some-thing – TODAY! Get back to work, ain’t nothing gonna happen or change until you do.
Category : Blog
