Month: February 2016

Learn to Love Limitations

learn to love limitations

Part 3- Love What You Do • Do What You Love

“I love not having enough resources to do the things I want to do.” Said no entrepreneur ever.

Unless your uncle is a billionaire, entrepreneurs must endure limitations every single day. Energy, girlpower, manpower, cash, and hard assets, are always in limited supply.

But I wonder if I could convince you that limitations are not a handicap? I wonder if I could convince you that limitations can be an advantage in disguise?(Probably not. We would love the chance, if only for a day, to experience money falling from the sky, yes?) 

But I would love it if I could teach you to see limitations from a different angle, because limitations are the matrix of creativity and innovation. It is rather the abundance of resources that can short circuit adaptation to challenging environments. Have you ever looked at that thorn in your side as the best thing that has happened to you all year? Did you die? No. You are still here and growing stronger every day.

We humans naturally crave sunshine and rainbows, yet this environment is notorious for producing weak root systems. (Just ask your local gardener.) Think about it. Anyone can make anything with endless resources. It takes very little skill. Endless resources mean you can take as long as you want, and be as inefficient and as wasteful as you want on any given project. When has wastefulness and inefficiency been coveted characteristics? Nor has any such project won any awards for good design.

The pressure of limitations becomes the crucible of genius. Creativity hides under the challenges, problems, and surprises. Creativity is the ability to see solutions that others are missing. This wrestling with common things is the matrix of innovation.

Here are a few classic thought patterns of how we commonly think about our limitations, and how we might think about them instead:

I do not have enough cash. Cash flow never works like the accounting textbook say it will. No one ever says hallelujah. Yet poor cash flow will teach you more about your own business and more about money management than the finest schools of business. It helps you to learn the seasons unique to our own business, even as we are forced to learn it. So you have to bootstrap! Far from being a handicap, bootstrapping is the strongest start-up position. It teaches skills right out of the gate that borrowed money will never teach you. When storms hit, as they surely will, the bootstrapper already knows how to batten down the hatches. We applaud you.

I do not have enough education.A university degree does indicate you have the pluck and the follow through to achieve a big goal. But even an Ivy League diploma does not mean you how to dream. It does not mean you know how to make something from nothing. It does not provide the chutzpah to try something that no one has ever tried before. It does not mean you know how to maximize your creativity and skill.  It does not mean you are doing the work that matters. Stop using your lack of letters as an excuse. Engage.

I have so little resources and way too many obstacles! Let’s see. Everything with a beginning started from nothing. Just because you cannot see something does not mean there is nothing there. It may simply mean you cannot see it from where you are standing. Change your perspective. Can’t budge? Out of space? Use the lack of elbow room to become as lean and mean as an entrepreneur can be. Feeling overwhelmed with your lack? Look at everything you do have and imagine life without it. Thankfulness opens our eyes to new possibilities. Too few customers? It seems counter-intuitive, but stop looking for ways to find more customers. Look for ways to help more people. And you will find more customers.

Do you ever get jealous of how easy other entrepreneurs seem to have it? Some have such an easy road, and your road seems so full of mud. But look who is building up the stamina to go the long haul? Stop looking at your feet. Look up! Look ahead, at where you are going! 

Stop looking at your limitations as thorns, and look at them instead as opportunities to improve your business. You will find more meaning packed into each day, and find more joy in your journey.

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection your visual graphics will make with your target customer. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer. 

 

Learn To Make Awesome Mistakes

Learn to make awesome mistakes

Love What You Do, Do What You Love- Part 1

Learn to Make Awesome Mistakes. How I wish this were a real course and how I wish you could sign up today.

If I could teach you how to make glorious mistakes, it would help you keep the spark in your business. It would keep you from stagnation. It would keep your business from becoming moldy. Those who say, “I will only try it if I know I can succeed,” will never succeed. Because making mistakes is the only way to success.

February is a month filled with passion. If a face can launch a thousand ships, then surely entrepreneurial passion has launched several thousand ventures. Entrepreneurs fuel their fires with the stuff. It is discussed in myriads of blog posts, and for good reason. Because if you have a business fueled with passion, that means that you are doing what you love for a living. Anyone can fall in love with that idea.

But if you are doing the same thing day after day, how do you keep it fresh? Things can get, well–so daily. For both lovers and entrepreneurs, it is the daily grind that wears the passion into the ground. And then there is all the other stuff. Running a small business is so much harder than anyone dreams it would ever be.

All this month we will be discussing ways to find joy the journey, even while you are working your tail off. Which brings us to Part 1 of this month’s series. Please open your Successful Entrepreneur Kit. You will notice that Mistakes come awkwardly juxtapositioned inside your Kit.

You will also notice that the first manual is called, “The Plan”. Table stakes. Every entrepreneur knows the value of planning. And every entrepreneur understands the peril. We secretly know the actual performance of the best and brightest minds rarely line up with the planned performance. So why do we plan? Because it provides a trajectory. It provides a destination. The margin of error means that most of us are exploring new territory every day. And that means that most of us are going to be making mistakes. Big ones.

We are here to encourage you to embrace the big ones. Big bear hug. Come on! Group hug! Prior to launch, you must plan to ditch the fear. You must plan to jump in even if you are shaking. You must plan to make glorious mistakes. Courage and flexibility must be part of your Plan. We are not aiming to do it wrong. Quite the opposite. Courage accepts the odds and jump in anyway.

Glorious mistakes are the only stepping stones to real success. We are not talking the safe kind of mistake where you have one foot on the shore. We are talking the glorious kind; the kind where the boat starts to drift away from the dock, where you have one foot on the boat and the other on the dock sort of mistake. If there is a constant in small business, it is that the riskiest move is not to move. Nothing worthwhile has ever been achieved by remaining unduly loyal to The Plan.

Years ago, one of my kids had a hard time making mistakes. We had to practice. We started to play a particular game on family night which would be the equivalent to high stakes gambling for an 8-year-old: Pass the Pigs. It was the right combination of chance, strategy, and guts. It provided many opportunities to lose all your pigs in a safe environment. The practice helped. She learned she would not die if she lost all her pigs. She learned that she would never have more points if she never risked losing at least some of them.

What do you believe about making mistakes? If you are risk averse, it is good to find out why. It is also good to find an environment where you can practice Risk Light. Try dance lessons or a new sport–something you do not know how to do–and something where you can be at least a little bit vulnerable. Surely falling on your rear will help you lighten up. (Imagine how boring life would be without the blooper reel.)

Plus there are many other benefits to making mistakes. One of which is, of course, laughing at yourself. (A big hindrance to success is taking yourself far too seriously.) Mistakes can also be gloriously productive. Mistakes can be art. Mistakes can teach things that the classroom never could, and in such a way that you will never forget the lesson. Mistakes provide us with the knowledge of what does not work–which knowledge is just as vital as knowing what does work. Mistakes improve our character, and at the least, supplies us with a good dose of humility.

The next time you see a blog post entitled, “The 20 Mistakes You Do Not Know You Are Making”? I recommend you skip it. Why focus on not doing? Focus on doing. Do not waste a minute focusing on all the rules you should not be breaking. Go ahead and break a few.

Learn how to make glorious mistakes. 

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection your visual graphics will make with your target customer. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer. 

Taming Your Inner Beast

lion tamer

Becoming the Real Deal – Part IV

Never before has there been a time so ripe with potential for those of entrepreneurial spirit. We have educational resources–more than we can use in a lifetime–only a click away. We can find and connect with like-minded individuals around the globe in seconds, using 140 characters or less. Fertile ideas are lying around everywhere, any of which can grow at any moment, given the right nurture and the right conditions.

It is the first time in history that we do not have to ask permission to create.

Thomas Edison said,

“If we all did the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”

Many are still waiting for permission to become the Real Deal. Some are waiting for the foolproof formula, some waiting to complete the next perfect webinar, some for an experienced mentor to tell them exactly how to do it. They want someone to hand them magic pixie dust that makes stuff happen.

I hate to tell you. There is no magic pixie dust. No one has it. No one sells it. Even if you had a magic formula, you would only know it after the magic happened. Going forward? It is always crap shoot.

The real potential–the real magic that will make things happen? Is found right between your ears. It lies in how you think. Our businesses become a reflection of what goes on inside our heads. Truly the largest obstacle in entrepreneurship is not found in our circumstances, not the economy, not in perfect cash flow, but in our self-talk.

When you wake up in the morning, what do you say to yourself about the day? What voices crowd your thinking? What voices might be hindering you? Who or what is forming your path? Remember many of the voices in our heads are coming from outside our heads.

Your worldview is how you think–how you view reality. Your worldview informs your behavior and determines whether you feel confident, whether you feel the world is a safe place, and how well you connect with other people. It does not fashion our experience but interprets the experience for us. The voices in our heads are a formidable force. We behave according to what we believe. It is important to test the veracity of these messages and know where they come from.

It has been said a gazillion times that if you want to become the Real Deal, you need to change how you think. Think and grow rich, right? Visualization is and old technique and not without merit. But even if you can imagine your perfect skinny self, your bathroom scale does not lie. Even if we can imagine ourselves wealthy, our bank statement does not lie.

There has to be a better way to create our desired reality, and tame our inner beast. Here are three good ways to train those scary creatures:

Get some perspective. If you talked to your best friend the way you talk to yourself, would you have a best friend? Would your best friend say you were dumb? Would your best friend say that you are a loser because you did not win the contract? Of course not. You could be sabotaging your own success. Step out of your head for a moment and get some perspective. Be kind to yourself. Talk to yourself as you would talk to your best friend.

Know that action precedes feeling. So you do not feel brave. Welcome to the Club. (I am Weanie Club President. If you only knew how far I have come, you would be compelled to send fan mail and donations to my address here.) In 1880, William James was one of the first psychologists to discover that our emotions follow our behavior and not the other way around. (Lest you think he is old school, know that his two-volume tome The Principles of Psychology is still required reading for students in behavioral science.) His favorite way of putting this phenomenon was,

“You do not run from a bear because you are afraid of it, but rather become afraid of the bear because you run from it.”

In other words, if you want to be brave, do the things that brave people do. You will find more courage. If you want to be more loving toward that certain person that irritates your socks off, do the things that loving people do. You will find that you at least like them a little more than you did before.

Change your focus. Stop setting yourself up for failure. Setting realistic goals is tough enough. Sometimes we are overwhelmed by the immensity of the mountain we must climb, and we get stuck at base camp. James Clear has written a marvelous article teaching us to focus not on the end goal, but on the daily habits that make the end goal possible. Not only can you be successful in this approach, but it is sustainable even after you reach your goal. Inch by inch, everything is a cinch. 

You, the entrepreneur, are the biggest asset in your business. Don’t wait for the alchemy of success. Don’t wait for someone to give you permission to be all you can be. Success is not found in wishful thinking, but in taking action, even if it is only small steps each day.

Pay attention to your inner beasts. Take care of them, harness them, and train them into action. They will empower you to be ready for every opportunity, and in turn, help you become the Real Deal.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

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Why do we at etc!graphics inc, a graphic design company, care about your business strategies?  Because no matter how beautiful we make your visuals, your graphics will never make more sense than the clarity of your own vision. The clearer your target, the more lucid your marketing will be, and the better connection your visual graphics will make with your target customer. We want to help you become the best you can be. Join us all this month as we share ways to help your small business sustain and grow in a crowded marketplace. Etc!Graphics is devoted to helping you, the small business owner, think like a marketer.