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Overwhelmed with possibilities when plotting your career? Try this approach

Having a gigantic selection of career possibilities is a good thing, right?

Not so much if you have a huge desire to make a change in your life and feel overwhelmed by choices.

It reminds me of my single days, when I didn't have my handsome, warm husband at home.  In any social situation, there would always be that nagging question in the back of my mind:  Will "he" come swaggering in the door today?  Could this guy be "The One?"  How will I know?  What if he is not and I miss out on "The Real One?"

In that kind of context, possibilities are kind of exhausting. 

What should you do?

The same is true for people who feel paralyzed trying to figure out the next step in their career.

• Should you quit your job, make a dramatic exit a la Jerry Maguire, read your manifesto to the entire office, take your fish and figure out next steps later?
• Should you start a small business on the side?
• Should you sign up for the MLM business your brother-in-law has been pestering you about for the last eight months?
• Should you look for another job to tide you over until you figure out what you really want to do?
• Should you move back in with Mom and Dad?

All of these questions leave you stumped if you don't have any context or criteria for your decisions.

In fact, in the middle of writing this post, I got this email from a new newsletter subscriber (referenced with her permission):

"I am pondering self-employment. However, I'm not sure that I would've given it a thought if it had not been for an unceremonious parting of the ways with my previous company. After a year of struggling with a new manager, we both realized that I was leading a program in a different direction than the direction she wanted it to go. I was given a couple of unpalatable options so after 8 years of contribution I moved on.

Only I don't have another job. And I need one. But I don't ever want to get stuck again in such a bad situation. So I've been exploring consultancy or freelance work. However, that takes a lot of effort and energy that is different from the effort and energy that goes into finding a new job. How can I tell which direction is right for me? Are the 2 directions mutually exclusive? If I'm serious about self-employment should I take a bridge job to tide me over until self-employment can be made a reality?"

Define your ideal life

What I suggest to this kind reader is to spend some time fleshing out a picture of her ideal life, which doesn't have to include a specific description of an ideal job, or an ideal business just yet.

It can be something like:

• I live in Boston
• I work about 20 hours a week from home, doing a variety of freelance projects. 
• Virtually all of my business is conducted over the internet.
• I travel to deliver keynote presentations six times a year in major cities like London, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
• I have a small team of great partners who compliment my skill set. We all work for ourselves.
• I have a happy and fulfilling home life.  I am present in my kids' lives and have time to participate in school activities, help with homework and bandage skinned knees.
• I exercise every day.
• I have "x" dollars in retirement accounts and "y" dollars in savings.
• I make "z" dollars per year
• In my spare time I am a backup dancer for Beyoncé

Once you begin to develop this big picture of your ideal life, you can create a list of "must-do's" to accomplish that picture.

The must-do list

This list can contain things like:

• Skills to learn (writing, freelance marketing, sales, accounting, Hip Hop dancing)
• Experience to gain (teaching, blogging, creating websites, presenting)
• Money to accumulate (retirement cushion, launch fund $, savings accounts)
• People to connect with (mentors, partners, friends, Beyoncé)
• Places (to live in, visit, frequent)
• Brand to build (incoming blog links, press mentions, raving fans)

Then, with this list in mind, you can select your next step with the specific purpose of checking off a few things from your list.

• You could choose to take a job in Boston which would get you settled in the place you intend to live
• You could take a less than ideal, but very short-lived and high-paying freelance gig that would allow you to bank up the money needed to start up your business
• You could move back with Mom and Dad with no shame, in order to have time to get your freelance business off the ground without the pressure of paying for rent
• You could start to perform your backup dancer skills at Talent Night every Friday evening in every surrounding city

This chart is a visual example of how each step takes you a bit closer to the ideal vision (click on it to make bigger):

What if your ideal vision changes?

Of course your ideal life vision may change as you start to make concrete progress towards it.  Most likely, you will make a series of tweaks as you get experience and information about what will make you the most happy, healthy, wealthy and wise.  Expect things to change a bit.  Just pay attention to making concrete progress in gaining the specific skills, experience, knowledge, contacts and resources to bring your dreams to life.

By choosing criteria, you can give yourself a break

We tend to get quite melodramatic when we make career decisions.

• If I take a real job again, I will show the world I am a failure as an entrepreneur
• Only losers sleep on Mom and Dad's couch
• If I take on one less-than ideal project, I will be doomed to do them the rest of my freelance life

This is only the case if you choose to see it this way.

When I was pregnant with Josh, I chose to work on one of those "less-than-ideal-but-megabuck" consulting projects.  The travel schedule was grueling -- I traveled every single week from Phoenix to the Bay Area and worked on things that weren't necessarily my core passion.  Because I get terrible morning sickness when pregnant, the travel was really a pain.

But as a result, I was able to bank up a bunch of cash and took a whole year off after Josh was born.  This allowed me time to change directions in my business, start a blog (this one!) and spend lots of time learning about online branding and marketing.  It was definitely worth the momentary discomfort!

I hope this approach to career planning gives you a bit of context and decision criteria for your next step.

Great way to start the new year: set up a personal board of directors

I may have set a new record for the shortest time from concept to production for a podcast:  20 minutes ago, I shared on Twitter that my best friend, Desiree Adaway, set up a personal board of directors last year and just sent me her annual report.

Desiree is the Senior Director of Volunteer Mobilization for Habitat for Humanity, and at the end of 2007 felt the need to get expert advice and insight from people she trusted and admired.  So following Jim Collin's advice, she set up her own board.

Many people were interested in hearing her story, so I called her up and recorded a podcast on the spot. It is about 16 minutes - listen here.  I hope you enjoy our conversation in which we cover:

1. What is a personal board of directors
2. How to choose good members
3. How to make sure the relationship is mutually beneficial
4. How to get the most out of the mentoring relationship

Desiree and I learned of the concept from Jim Collins in Good to Great.  Here are a few articles which expand on the topic:

BusinessWeek:  Good to Great Expectations
In Jim's own words from the Fast Company Design Conference in Phoenix, 2000:  Why have a personal board of directors?

Desiree was willing to share the introductory letter she sent to her perspective list of personal board members:

Pam,

I am a fan of Jim Collins. About 5 years ago I read an article he wrote for a magazine. It spoke of  an idea he came up w/ at the Stanford Business school for his students:

Do you have a personal board of directors? I don’t mean a traditional corporate board, nor do I mean an informal board of business advisors. I mean a personal board of directors composed of seven people you deeply respect and would not want to let down. A group like a set of tribal elders that you turn to for guidance at times of ethical dilemma, life transitions, and difficult choices, people who embody the core values and standards you aspire to live up to.

 I have been thinking of this concept more and more over the past few years. Who are the folks that embody the core values that I aspire to live up to?  Used well, a personal board helps one find creative alternatives to life’s challenges and is a terrific place to turn for advice on handling crises and ethical dilemmas.  The best personal boards contain a diverse spectrum of backgrounds and perspectives.  I desire potential board members that meet my standards of thoughtfulness, insight, and experience. Respect for my board counts more than intimacy.  I am looking for board members who, while strong in their views, are nonjudgmental and compassionate. The best board members will dispense wisdom like Socrates—by asking questions, drawing analogies, and making observations.

I would like humbly request that you become a member of my board of directors.  Trust that if you accept this position I will be extremely selective in how I use your time and when and how I will call on you. I will only contact you for critical decisions.  What about “payments” to my personal board members?  The best payment I can think of is  to simply  emulate  you by giving time and guidance to others, especially younger  people who need mentors. Additionally,   I promise to keep you informed of my progress. In fact, in following Jim Collin’s advice I will write a letter once a year or so to my board. My personal “annual report” will help me take stock of my life on a yearly basis.

Please understand if you cannot take this task on, I understand totally. If nothing else, just wanted you to know that I am a fan of yours as well!

Thanks in advance!

Desiree Adaway

Good luck to you if you decide to move forward with your own board!

If you want to reach Desiree, she is at dadaway (at) habitat (dot) org.  She doesn't have a blog yet, but we can all work on her to start one. :)

Learn to tune OUT to tune IN to great progress in 2009

About halfway through writing my book this year, I hit the wall.

 

I looked at the volume of online notes, stacks and stacks of resource books and hundreds of pages of blog posts and I froze.  The task of writing a book felt too enormous to accomplish, and I got completely overwhelmed.

 

So I gathered my wits about me and came up with a stunning, well-researched and strategic productivity plan:

I made a list of the titles of the sixteen chapters, taped it to my computer monitor,  and used a highlighter to cross off each one as I finished.

I know, my tactics are not exactly earth-shattering.

 

But this exceptionally simple tactic totally changed the way I thought about writing the book.  Instead of holding the structure of all of the chapters in my mind at the same time, I gave myself permission to only focus on the chapter right in front of me.  And if that became overwhelming, I only worried about completing one sub-topic.

 

This really reduced a lot of anxiety in the writing process, and allowed me to crank out sixteen chapters  in an agreed-upon time line (more or less - don't ask my editor!).

 

I see a lot of my clients get in a similar state of overwhelm, particularly at the beginning of a new year, when they stack all kinds of goals and tasks and  priorities on top of each other.   

 

The moment of panic increases when you want to start a new business, because there are a lot of steps required to get it off the ground. 

 

So in the spirit of pragmatism from my grandma Alice Stewart, who used to give advice such as:

"Don't bother to dust extensively when guests come over, just put out fresh flowers.  They will think you are a perfect housekeeper."

 

and

"Don't think you have to make everything from scratch - get a high-quality store-bought item (like a pie or a casserole), cook it, set it on fine china, and when people compliment you on your cooking, say "thank you!"

Here are a few tips for allowing yourself to focus on one thing at a time so you really can accomplish your dreams (or at least start them!) this coming year:

 

1. Make The Big List.
   This is your opportunity to empty your head of all the hundreds of things you want to get done next year like:  "lose 10 pounds," "start newsletter," "write book," "clean out the files in my office," "create 10 new information products," "get in 5 news publications," or "start a blog," or "create a beta version of my software product."
   
   
2. Think about your deeper contribution, purpose or mantra for the year.
   My friend Christine Kane wrote a nice article last year about choosing one word to start a new year instead of the dreaded resolutions.  The month of December she included guest posts from readers who talked about their results with their words.
   
   If one word feels too limiting, choose a mantra (described by Guy Kawasaki) like "inspire freedom," or "encourage healthy relationships" or "kick serious creative bootie."
   
   You should feel passionate about your word or purpose or mantra -- lukewarm feelings get nothing done!
   
   
3. Cross off anything from the list that does not directly serve your deeper purpose.
   This can be a tough task for those of you who have been doing things the same way for a long time.  But it is essential!  If you want to serve more people, live bigger, stress less and accomplish more, you must release unproductive tasks and thoughts and, yes, even people from your list.
   
   So if "have lunch every Wednesday with your friend Wendy the Winer" is on your Big List and your mantra for 2009 is "energizing partnerships," guess what?  Lunches with Wendy might have to go.
   
   You may also have a lot of "would be nice someday" things on your list that are not really relevant to either the economic climate this year, your focus or or the timeframe of one year.  Save those things for next year, and see if they still are relevant enough to include for 2010. 
   
   
4. Create a simple 4x4 grid with one square for each quarter.
   Depending on your love of technology, this can be a simple piece of 8 1/2 x11 paper, an Excel spreadsheet, Word table, or, my favorite in the brainstorming phase, a flip chart with post-it notes for individual activities.
   
   Label each square with a quarter.
   
   Square One: January - March
   Square Two:  April - June
   Square Three:  July - September
   Square Four:  October - December
   
   
5. Map your activities into the squares.
   This is where you get to play around with the sequence of certain activities.  You might find a natural order to things, like you have to start your mailing list before you design and launch your new information products.  You might want to design some custom landing pages on your website before doing a major promotion to the press or organizations.  You may want to do lots of exercise before entering an Ironman competition.
   
   Do your best to lay out activities within each quarter.  You don't have to get it perfect, or to worry too much about the order of things in the 2nd to 4th quarters, since plans may change as you finish the first quarter.  But at least you can get started, and prioritize the things you must do early in the year versus later.
   
   
6. Get your massive plan down to a very short list which you can start in January. 
   Here is the real beauty of all this work.  Since you know that you will get to all the items on your list eventually, you can stop worrying about them and just focus on what's ahead. 
   
   Once I did this with my book, my creativity returned, and my writing flowed. 
   
   Pick the most logical, highest impact activity to work on first thing next week, and get working on it.
   
   
7. Celebrate every little accomplishment.
   Martha Beck gave me great advice when I was writing my book -- she told me to never forget to reward myself for getting even the tiniest thing done.  When you promise yourself that if you complete a certain task you will get a pedicure, or go fishing, or get to play 2 hours of uninterrupted Doom on your computer, you must do it!  Otherwise, your finicky inner self will realize that your promises are empty, and will not hustle so hard to complete the next task you ask it to work on.

I am absolutely thrilled with the change coming to our country in the new year, and feel real enthusiasm and excitement for 2009.

 

I wish you, and all those you love, a healthy, joyful and prosperous new year.  We are in this together -- let's get some stuff done!

 

---

Quick notes:

• The photo for this post is a shot I took at Ocean Beach in San Francisco.  Inspired by my Brazilian compadres who have a wonderful new year celebration at the beach, we went out to the ocean to give thanks for 2008 and welcome in 2009.  My Dad gave our older son Jeffery a camera, which he adores, and I caught him taking this shot of our younger son Josh.  It captured everything I want in the new year: love, creativity, strength, abundance and, per the topic of this newsletter, focus.

• I posted my new schedule for free monthly coaching calls for 2009 on my blog - check them out if you want some advice and ideas to help get your business off the ground.

 

Make way for a killer 2009: Release any lingering agony from 2008

Whatever your business, job situation, balance of your 401(k), personal situation or region of the world, you have to admit that 2008 was a doozy.

It certainly was for us here in the Slim household.  We had more exciting and terrifying rides in my husband's business than either of us had ever experienced.  The perfect storm of growing a heavy equipment construction business just before a historic slowdown in local building, coupled with a global financial meltdown made for an <ahem> interesting year.

Throw in some big life challenges for loved family members, writing a book, raising a baby and chasing after a toddler, we were not short on excitement and, sometimes, drama.

If that was what it was like in our household, I can imagine that you had your own challenges.

• Some of you may have lost your job.
• Others saw hard-fought life savings melt away in the economic firestorm.
• Perhaps you ended a marriage.
• Or faced a big health challenge.
• Or, as our dear neighbors recently did, lost a 5-year old child unexpectedly.

Living through such immense personal transitions may have left you feeling quite vulnerable and raw and even bleeding.

That may not feel like a terribly powerful place from which to launch a new and positive year.

I was wallowing a bit myself in these past months, trying really hard to focus on the tremendous opportunities ahead, but at the same time feeling a bit anxious and gun-shy given the nature of 2008.

All of my training as a coach tells me that any external circumstances (like a down cycle in the economy) do not impact my success or failure:  it is only my thoughts about the situation that drive my reality.

This very true perspective can have some unfortunate side-effects, especially for the overzealous Law-of- Attraction-or-Else fans:  you can start to beat yourself up for not being hyper-perky and positive.

Here is the rub:  unless you release some of the emotion that bottled up during your rough and tumble parts of the year, clear thinking and focused intentions might be a bit difficult.

So here is a way to do a bit of excavation to make way for a positive and productive 2009, without having to feel like a Stepford Wife or member of a hyper-cheery cult.

1. Think back over your year and notice emotions you feel.
2. The easiest way to categorize emotions are: mad, sad, glad or scared.
3. Do any emotions stand out?  For those who faced lots of challenges, mad and scared tend to be high on the list.
4. Do whatever you need to do to acknowledge and release the emotion. 
5. Once you feel the emotion has been properly dealt with, it is time to let go of the story you attached to it, such as:  "This year was so hard." "I can't believe my teenager got into so much trouble." "My health situation is terrible.  I gained so much weight from all the stress!" "The economy is in shambles.  All businesses are failing." "Getting new clients will be hard."
6. Then with gratitude in your heart for tremendous lessons and clean, sincere thoughts for the new year, you can say "I am ready to stand up and lead my life in 2009."

The function of emotions:

Rather than unpleasant things to avoid, emotions have very specific purposes.  Martha Beck wrote a great chapter on this in Finding Your Own North Star, where she describes the function of emotions:

Fear:  Protects from danger
Grief:  Heals, strengthens
Anger:  Corrects injustice
Joy:  Nurtures, expands

Ways to attend to lingering emotions:

Fear:  Take a quiet moment and let yourself speak or write down exactly what you were afraid of.  Describe in great detail what it felt like to be threatened, overwhelmed or scared.

"When my business dried up, I felt terror rise in my throat.  I was afraid to look at my dwindling bank accounts, and avoided the phone because I was afraid to talk to creditors. This made me anxious, and I felt like I had no power and was at the mercy of huge, scary forces."

"When my husband left me, I felt like my life was over.  I felt undesirable, unloved and unwanted.  I felt like I would never meet anyone again who would love me like he did.  It scared the hell out of me."

Anger:  Let out all of your emotion in whatever way feels the best.  When I was a wee 10-year old in the 1970's in Marin County California, we beat pillows.  It worked then, and it may work now!  Go to a desolate place and scream your lungs out, write in a "hate and rage" journal (Martha Beck's term) then burn the pages, or hit a martial art heavy bag until you have no force left in your body. Examples of anger thoughts:

"When I lost my job after 20 years of loyal service, I wanted to hurl rocks at all the smug managers who remained.  How dare you not acknowledge my contributions?"

"&^%^%&^(**  and furthermore &^*^%&%&(*)(_))!!!!"

Grief: Make a very safe space where you can absolutely fall apart.  Cry buckets, sob, heave and break in half.  Curl up on the floor.  Do whatever you need to release anguish in your heart.  Watch sad movies, look at photos of a dear departed, or whatever else will really put you in touch with that which you are sad about. Just make sure to put time limits on your grieving sessions, lest they swallow you up.

Running away from these feelings will do nothing but build up a wall between your true, open, positive self and the life you want. 

When I was able to release some of this pent-up emotion from the year, I was surprised to feel a gigantic swell of gratitude for the lessons 2008 taught me.  As a result of all the experiences this year, my eyes are wide open, I understand the life of an entrepreneur much more deeply, I appreciate my clients even more, and I am wholly and specifically committed to my work.  The mantra that really resonates this year is:

Promote liberation.

Liberation from self-destructive thoughts, careers, relationships and businesses.

Time to lead

Seth Godin's book Tribes really influenced me this year.  I was struck by its core premise:  our tribes are out there, waiting for us to lead.  If I wallow, hesitate, pull back or play small, I will not serve the people I am meant to serve.

It is so basic, yet quite profound.

Who is your tribe?  Who is waiting for you to get rid of the emotional residue of 2008 so you can burst on the scene with a genuine smile in 2009?

I can't wait to see where you lead me in the new year.

What's ahead

Thanks for your tremendous support this year as I wrote my book.  Your stories, examples, challenges and requests were a critical part of shaping the story and choosing just what to, and not to, include.  I am really happy with the result, and aim to do everything I can to get it into the hands of every frustrated, dreaming, it-has-to-be-better-than-this cubicle employee who needs it in 2009.  It officially hits the stands in May 2009, but tune in here for early ordering information.

Building on the book, I will develop specific tools and programs for those of you who really want to make things happen in your life and business in 2009.  I am really giddy about this: for the first time, I see a very clear blueprint (the book) from which to build a significant and useful body of work.  I will be getting out from behind my computer screen more in the new year, with dates and cities to come, but definitely to Austin in March (for the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, and a panel on Blog to Book with me, Hugh McLeod, Guy Kawasaki and Kate Lee), New York, Washington D.C, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.

I wish each of you a calm end to your year, good quality time with those you love and some time to reflect on what you desire for 2009.

We head to San Francisco tomorrow for the holiday. It will be the first time in two years that I am back in my City by the Bay, sampling delicious food, smelling the salty air and hanging out with my family. I can't wait to get back to my roots.

From me, Darryl, Jeffery, Joshua and Angela, Happy New Year!

$2,500 scholarship opportunity for enterprising 20-something - spread the word

I hate to sound old and gushy, but what the heck.

I am so PROUD of my young mentor Ramit Sethi, co-founder of PB Wiki and blogger at www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com.  Note I said menTOR, not menTEE.  Ramit has taught me a lot of things in the couple of years I have known him, but his latest post about a $2,500 scholarship for an enterprising 20-something is really motivating.  Here is how he describes the impetus behind the scholarship:

"Earlier this week, I was reading an online discussion about what people would do if they were rich. People talked about traveling, starting a charity, and teaching…all GREAT causes. But why don’t we do it today? We don’t have to quit our jobs to travel — we can do it 4 Hour Workweek style. We can teach little kids by doing one-off seminars or tutoring or help inner-city women manage their finances or find local volunteering opportunities in our neighborhood.

You don’t have to quit your job and become a monk to give back. You don’t have to stop going out every weekend. We can be successful by going 85% of the way there.

My point is, we don’t need to wait for tomorrow.

If you want to give back, you can do it in a thousand ways.

It doesn’t have to be a scholarship. Never before in history have we been able to help so many people with so little. We have tools like Kiva and DonorsChoose and Youtube that allow us to scale our social entrepreneurship to millions of people. And with so many talented people reading this blog, I’m SURE I can find someone who’s the right fit to give back."

Scholarship details

"The I Will Teach You To Be Rich Scholarship for Social Innovation is a $2,500 one-time award for someone with an entrepreneurial background who has a specific plan for a socially innovative project. I’ll fund your idea for $2,500 and provide mentorship and introductions.

The key is that it must scale. Instead of helping one child (which is great by itself), I’m looking for someone who can take that interaction and apply it to 100, 1,000, or 10,000 people. For example, if you were really ambitious, you could fly to another country and donate your time. But if you wanted to make it scale, you could use your video skills videos like this or this. Or your teaching skills. Or your programming skills. How many more people would that affect? How could you measure it?"

The details and application are here.

In my opinion, mentoring from Ramit is worth twelve times the amount of the financial award.  He is truly a gifted teacher, manager, innovator and leader. Not to mention a very positive human being.

If you fit the target demographic and have a great idea, apply!  And if you know a young person anywhere in your life that might be eligible, please pass on the word.

As for the rest of us, let's take Ramit's example as a healthy kick in the pants to not wait for the mythical moment to make our goals come true. 

Time to get serious about strengthening your systems

When I was about ten years old, our roof got in some serious disrepair.  We lived in a house built in 1906, and the creaky beams and bones of wood were showing their age.  The wooden shingles had been damaged by years of rain and wind, and water started to leak through the ceiling.

 

My hard-working single Mom did her very best to cover all of our needs, but a $3,000 roof was not going to happen.  So we made due, placing pans under the various dripping spots of the ceiling.

 

I was lying in bed one night, listening to the rain pound outside.  Then, without warning, a big chunk of plasterboard fell on my chest. It didn't cause any major damage, it just scared the heck out of me.  Our system of staying dry had reached a breaking point.

 

The same may be true in your business, your health or your home.

 

I have been reading an interesting book by Sam Carpenter which is called Work the System:  The Simple Mechanics of Working Less and Making More.  He is a telecommunications business owner in Bend, Oregon, who spent the first fifteen years of his business operating in crisis mode.

 

His "plaster on the chest" moment came when he was one week away from closing his doors.  His health was terrible from working 100-hour weeks, his finances were depleted, his staff was unhappy and customers were angry.  He couldn't hold on any longer, and faced certain failure.

 

Then he had an out-of-body experience (surely fueled by lack of sleep!) when he rose up from his situation, looked down on it, and for the first time realized that his entire life and business was built on sloppy systems.  Nothing was documented or planned.  Stuff just "happened," which was why crisis after crisis continued. 

 

At that moment, he got clear on what he had to do:  take each underlying system in his business one at a time and clean it up.  With flawless systems, clearly defined roles and excellent communication, the business would survive, improve and eventually thrive.

 

So that is what he did, with the help from his staff.  The process took a long time, but by rigorously examining and documenting every step of every key process in their business, they were able to make leaps and bounds in efficiency.  Providing better service, they raised their rates.  Retention improved, and training new employees was much easier.

 

On the personal side, Sam did the same thing.  He made health and sleep a priority.  He respected the system of his body, and only ate healthy foods.  He started to exercise.

 

His former 100-hour workweeks are now 2 hours.  His company is successful and his life is flourishing.

 

How can you translate this systems thinking into your own life?

 

If you are in business for yourself,  you can see that every part of your operation is based on processes and systems.  They may be a home-grown jury-rigged, inefficient systems, but they are systems nonetheless.  To start:

1. Define the strategic objective of your business.  Carpenter gives very specific examples of this in the book.  You can also use a much higher-level description like Guy Kawasaki's example of "mantras" in his book The Art of the Start.  His personal mantra is "empower entrepreneurs."  I am not totally decided on mine yet, but a key objective is definitely "promote liberation."
   
   
2. Define the general operating principles of your businesss. Operating principles guide your decisions, and allow you to choose which systems and processes are truly necessary to run your business.  Some examples from Carpenter's business are:
   
   -We focus on just a few manageable services.  Although we watch for new opportunities, in the end we provide "just a few services implemented in superb fashion, rather than a complex array of average-quality offerings.
   
   -The money we save or waste is not Monopoly money.  We are careful not to devalue the worth of a dollar just because it has to do with the business.
   
   -We study to increase our skills.  A steady diet of reading and contemplation is vital to personal development.  It is a matter of self-discipline.
   
   
3. List the key processes and systems that underlie your business.  For my coaching practice, there are processes like client acquisition, blogging, bill paying, teleclass delivery and forum moderation.
   
   
4. Work on cleaning up and documenting one process at a time.  You may want to choose the most high-impact system to document first.  Write down all the steps involved in clear, simple, step-by-step language. 
   
   
5. Automate as much as you can of the mechanical processes.  Outsource things you don't need to do yourself.  Tools like autoresponder email systems can work great for this.  (Aweber.com is what I use for this newsletter and signups for all my classes)
   

If you haven't started a business, it would be great to keep this framework in mind as you design your business model.

 

What jumped out at me so clearly as I read Carpenter's book is that by rigorously cleaning up the systems that underpin my business, automating as much as I can and outsourcing any tasks that I don't need to do personally, I will have much more time to focus on providing more services, contributing more free content (blog posts!) and serving more people.

 

And if you are not a business owner, not to worry -- you can apply this systems thinking to your everyday life.

 

Some process improvement areas that spring to mind:

• Email management (set up filters and rules for taming the email beast!)
• Grocery shopping (I hand write my list every week, trying to remember the basics -- how about if I created a pre-printed list that I could hang on the refrigerator?)
• Laundry (I used to have four different laundry baskets in everyone's rooms, then I switched to a central basket in the laundry room and it is much easier.  Talk about a task I would love to outsource!)
• Remembering birthdays (this is one area I have been terrible at in the last few years since I relied on my memory instead of calendaring everyone's birthdays.  Maybe next year I will remember to call my best friend on her birthday (January 14) for the first time in three years)
• Rotating food in the refrigerator.  (We have gotten in the habit of cleaning out the refrigerator every Tuesday night, since the trash goes out on Wednesdays.  It really helps cut down on "mystery scientific experiments" growing in the back of the shelf.)

You can see your systems don't have to be glamorous.  They just have to work well, and allow you to spend your time doing what you really want to do.

Other good resource books:

 

Beyond Booked Solid, Michael Port

The 4-Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss

Getting Things Done, David Allen

Upgrade Your Life, Gina Trapani

Connect:  A Guide to a New Way of Working, Anne Zelenka

 

Good blogs:

 

Zenhabits.net

Matthew Cornell

 

December and January are going to be my systems scrubbing months, what about you?  

 

Bounce back from failure

Who doesn't love the film Rocky or hearing about how J.K. Rowling lived near destitute while her Harry Potter manuscript got rejected by scores of publishers right before hitting it richer than the Queen of England?

A lot of our view of failure in popular American culture is romanticized.  The fact is, while you are failing, it feels really awful and does not become the enlightened lesson that you share until you have ten years perspective between you and the excruciating experience.

Author and speaker Barry Moltz addresses this topic in his most recent book called Bounce:  Failure, Resiliency, and Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success.

I interviewed him for a podcast where he shares a lot of great insight into things like:

• How to view failure not as a deep lesson from above, but as an integral part of starting a business
• How to not stay stuck in emotional wallowing right after blowing it big
• How to make sure you are connected with why you are trying new things that sometimes lead to failure
• How to bounce quickly from failures so that you maintain positive forward momentum and are able to accomplish your goals

In the podcast, I referenced the tremendous new e-book by my friend Jonathan Fields called The Firefly Manifesto.  This gives some great insight and tools for those of you who may have just been laid off, or who are working in unstable industries (which would be just about everyone these days!). 

Take a listen to this 30-minute interview here and let me know your thoughts on failure!

How to strike a balance between giving content away for free and earning a living

I am the first person to tell you that blogging and podcasting can completely change your business.  It has done gigantic wonders for mine:  brought clients, partners, a book deal, friends, press coverage and intense joy since I love to write so much.

This is not to say that it is not hard sometimes to balance "giving information away for free," like writing long blog posts or producing podcasts or twittering or writing ezines, with "real money making activities" like coaching or teaching or writing for pay.

So here is a simple structure to help you balance your "be a mensch and help people" instinct with "pay your mortgage and car note" instinct.

Start with "The Thing"

When you talk about writing content for business purposes, you need to have a focus.  I find the best possible place to look for this focus is right in the center of your gut, for the kinds of things that you find totally compelling, fascinating, important, infuriating or exciting.

Your "Thing" may be:

• Teaching personal finance skills to college students and recent college grads or
• Improving the grammar skills of average writers or
• Helping software engineers launch small businesses or
• Distributing free paper toys to encourage parents and kids to spend time making things together or
• Helping Baby Boomers use social media networking tools to ensure they stay employable

The key here is that you must find something that you care enough about to devote a substantial amount of time thinking and writing about it, and you must have a hunch that there are real, live humans somewhere on the planet who have enough dollars or euros or rupees or pesos to pay for it.

This is where some people can get tripped up, when their "Thing" has no real chance at "monetizing" which is the hip word both marketers and parents like to say when they really mean "Nice hobby, slacker. When are you going to get a real job?"

Define "The People"

Finding your area of passion and interest in is a huge step.  But it will be irrelevant unless you can define the specific characteristics of the people you want to talk with about The Thing. There are a million ways to describe your people:

• Demographics:  Age, race, geography
• Common Interests:  Religion, Politics, Red Bull, Social Media
• Professions or Education:  Engineers, Stanford grads, Life coaches
• Psychographics:  glass half-full, optimistic, heretics, humorists
• Life Situation: Empty nesters, parents of ADD children, single moms, recent college grads
• Hobbies:  Jets fans, knitters, martial artists

When you create a really clear picture of the kinds of people that you would love to work with, it makes it much easier to decide what kind of content to develop for them.

For example, if you were a career counselor, wouldn't it be easier to reach 25-30 year old finance majors who graduated Summa Cum Laude from a top 10 school who live in the greater New York area, rather than "Generation Y?" 

Many people wiggle when asked to choose a particular group of people to work with since it feels restrictive.  My thought is if you don't stand for something, you will go for anything.  Consequently you will grab no one and earn nothing.

If you gain traction with one group, you can always expand to a broader audience.  The opposite is much more difficult.

 

Define "The Content"

Once you know The Thing to talk about and The People to talk about it with, now comes the fun part:  Deciding what to talk about.

In my own experience, this is not something that needs a whole lot of guidelines or planning.  When you care about what you are talking about and enjoy the people you are talking with, ideas flow, many times more than you can actually capture in a blog post or ezine article or podcast.

If you do get stuck, I always lean more towards the needs of The People vs. my passion for The Thing.  What do they care about?  What do they want to know?   I use the following content guidelines for people who read this blog (that's YOU!):

• What problems do they face?
• What really scares them?
• What is not being said on this subject on other news sources or blogs?
• What can I share that will make their life easier?
• How can I make them feel more supported and confident?
• Who can I put them in contact with (via links or references) that will give them good information and advice?
• What will be fun and interesting to write about?

While we are talking about written and recorded content here, realize that this information is the source of every product or service in your business.  You should never spend lots of time developing content that is not directly related to work you want to do with The People.  Good content can be re-purposed, repackaged, enhanced, digitized and/or turned into a book or workshop or presentation.  When you share great information freely with the right people, it becomes your research, marketing copy, sales collateral and branding material.

When people complain about how long it takes to write a blog post or record a podcast, I always ask them where else they would rather spend their time.  Usually it is something very professional sounding, like "generating leads for my business" or "marketing."

To which I usually encourage them to stop writing the time-consuming posts (which demonstrate competence and expertise in their area of specialty) which are sent to annoying people (like those that have been naturally drawn to their content and blog or ezine and have willingly signed up to receive more information) since it is so burdensome (hitting "publish" and instantly reaching thousands of subscribers is so tiring) and focus on something really effective like making cold calls to people on a list you purchased for $5,000 who have never heard of you.

Choose "The Vehicle(s)"

There are a lot of ways you can distribute content freely and effectively these days.  In broad categories, using things like:

• Blogs (these days I am an overwhelming Wordpress admirer even though this blog is currently on Typepad - I will be moving soon)
• Podcasts (you can record using a paid service like Audioacrobat or a free one like Skype, hosted by a whole range of companies, my favorite being Libsyn)
• Video or Vlogs (from the popular YouTube to Viddler, there are many other options which smart, technical people can tell you about)
• Ezines (basically, an electronic newsletter which can be sent to your list anywhere from once a week to once a month. I use AWeber to manage my list)
• Webcasts (using things like UStream, where you can simultaneously share and record video, audio and chat)
• Good old fashioned mail (someone, somewhere, must still appreciate getting a hard copy of news from you).

The way to choose your best vehicle(s) is to think about the consuming habits of your People.  Do they spend a lot of time on the internet?  If so, a blog may be the answer.  Do they own iPods and commute long distances on public transportation?  Podcasts may do the trick.  Are they more old-school email users, who get wigged out with too much technology?  Ezines may be a good solution.  Are they more versed in video than Chris Pirillo?  Do a webcast.

Depending on the needs and interests of your audience, you may choose a variety of these communication vehicles to regularly broadcast your juicy, useful and interesting content.

Position "The Sticky"

Unless you are Kevin Costner, "Build it and they will come" is not necessarily a common occurrence on the internet.  "Build good stuff for the right people and make yourself easy to find" is a bit of a better strategy, but not without a good, well-placed equivalent of fly paper, to forge an ongoing connection with people who stumble upon your site.

You certainly don't want to jump in someone's face like an over-eager door-to-door vacuum salesperson, but at the same time, you want to make it crystal clear how to subscribe to your blog or join your ezine list.  Some nice examples of clearly placed and obvious "sticky spots" include:

• Social media wizard Chris Brogan.  Notice how clearly his subscription button stands out on the right-hand side of the page.
• Finance expert Ramit Sethi, who I talked about earlier, has a super-clear newsletter box right at the top of his blog
• I am going to tease my friend John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing a bit, since I don't think his subscribe button necessarily jumps off his blog page.  But check your eyes when you visit:  he has 225,000 subscribers!  Holy smokes, Batman, something about this is working.

The key is to not make new waves of visitors have to scratch their heads and figure out how to stay connected with you.  Create a clear, compelling sticky part of your website or blog, so that you can start to communicate with Your People on a regular basis.

Once you build a list of subscribers, feed them with good stuff, nurture them, ask their opinions and be of service.  Just don't become the internet version of a jewelry salesperson on the beaches of Acapulco. I totally understand everyone needs to earn a living and rich, fat tourists are good prey.  But it can be exquisitely annoying to be approached every five minutes when you are trying to lay on a beach, get sunburned and read a John Clancy novel. The same is true for your list.  An occasional "would you be interested in this" message is fine, but constant vending will make people either get really rude or run screaming. I only send a maximum of two messages a month to my list, and I still get people unsubscribing due to email fatigue.

Execute The Commerce

If you have set up all of your Thing, People, Content, Vehicle and Sticky elements the right way, your business should flow like a silk nightgown skimming a beautiful woman on a Saturday night.

Hopefully, you haven't hid the fact that you write about web design and usability because you are a web designer.  Or that you write about social media and Hawaii because you are a Hawaiian social media powerhouse. Or that you write about location independent living because you run a guesthouse in Culebra or travel the world teaching people how to live and work anywhere. Or that you write about productivity and organization because you are a productivity consultant. 

Don't be embarrassed to tell people what you sell!  If you have been delivering good content over an extended period of time, most people will be more than happy to support and promote your business as thanks for all the great stuff that you provide for free.

As for those who will call you a sellout the first time you sell an ebook for $5.95 after spending years helping them for free, that is why God created comment moderation and the delete key.  Haters thrive everywhere, and you cannot let their selfishness get you down. You have every right to make a living and should not be ashamed to sell your products or services.

As for a (there isn't any but why not throw out a number anyway) magic formula between sharing content freely and charging for it, I like the percentages Robert Middleton told me many years ago when describing the philosophy he termed being an Infoguru:  Give 80% of your information away for free and change a premium for the remaining 20%.

This seems to have a nice "good karma vs. pragmatism" ratio and will allow you to live with yourself while you make a living.

---

This post developed out of a talk I did at PodcampAZ in November, 2008.  My 22-year old son Jeffery Slim hand-drew the illustrations which I scanned and used as backdrops for the talk.  I think you can see that his "Thing" is hand-drawn art.  Thanks for sharing your work so generously Jeffery!  You can see how the image translated to the screen courtesy of Chris Lee:

Isn't it about time for a little Reality Check?

Seems like just about everyone has an opinion these days about what to do in our current state of dismal affairs.  Buy low, sell high.  Run back to the safety of your job.  Do like The Great Depression and build The Next Great Thing .  Market like hell.  Live on Top Ramen and Dollar Store sodas.

Rather than this fleeting, news-driven advice, I prefer down-to-earth, market-agnostic advice.  Which is the kind of stuff you can find in Guy Kawasaki's new book Reality Check.

Guy has been on my High Council of Jedi Knights for a long time.  And not just because he has been a link sugar daddy (my affectionate nickname), driving good traffic to my blog.  But because I admire his writing, business sense, heart, drive, and willingness to experiment and take criticism.

In this book, he has culled the best posts from his popular blog How to Change the World.  As someone who has just done a blog-to-book project, I know this is not an easy task.

He explains the focus of the book in the jacket cover:

"I wanted to provide hardcore information to hardcore people who want to kick ass, and I wanted it in something you can hold in your hands - a book.  Why?  Because a book boots up faster than a blog and is not dependent on internet connectivity, battery life or the ineptness of HTML printing."

My top ten favorites from the 94 chapters:

1. The 10/20/30 Rule of Pitching (specific, useful advice for constructing a presentation, even if you aren't pitching for money)
2. The Top Eleven Lies of Entrepreneurs (pragmatic advice for not embarrassing yourself in front of investors or partners)
3. The Art of Bootstrapping (how not to kill your credit score and alienate your spouse)
4. The Myths of Innovation (an interview with author Scott Berkun)
5. The Art of Branding (close to my heart - I like Guy's take on it)
6. DIY PR (do it yourself public relations for the acronym-challenged)
7. How to Get a Standing Ovation (presentation advice from one of the business world's best presenters)
8. The Art of Firing (real, human advice for the unpleasant but necessary task of any manager or entrepreneur)
9. The Art of Evangelism (practical advice from someone who has done a lot of thinking and acting on the subject)
10. My Hindsights in Life (original written over a decade ago, with a great new update - gives insight into not just Guy's mind and ethics but heart)

This book really is a great read for not just aspiring entrepreneurs but entrepreneurial employees. Think of it as the much heavier business cousin of "The Elements of Style," a critical resource to have at arm's length to steer you on a good path and keep you out of trouble.

Tomorrow, November 18 at 5pm EST, I will be on a teleseminar discussing the book with Guy, Rich Sloan of StartupNation and Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing:  How Smart Companies Get People Talking.  It should be a fun and useful conversation.

To sign up, go here.  If you can't listen live, sign up anyway and you will get the recording.

If you want me to ask or comment on anything in particular, let me know in the comments here. 

I will be on Twitter during the call -- if you don't follow me already, please do!  www.twitter.com/pamslim

Who says following your dreams shouldn't be hard?

I was on a coaching call with a client.  We were reviewing his target market, business model and strategy.  At about halfway through the call, his voice got choked with emotion.

"I have just put so much effort and energy into this and am not seeing the results I expected.  I know I am meant to do this work.  I love it.  Why does it have to be so hard?"

My first reaction was to comfort him, and to search for a quick solution that would start the flow of clients his way in just the manner he desired.

 

Then I thought, who said anything is wrong with things being hard?

 

I have come to the realization that we cause ourselves a lot of stress by believing that if we just choose the right business, or quit our loathsome job, or find the perfect internet marketing system, or get that book deal that things will become easy.

 

Why is easy desirable?

 

Anything I have done that I consider worthwhile in my life: building a martial arts organization, finding the man I truly love, mentoring youth, writing a book, creating a remote coaching business and having children have all been extremely difficult at times.

 

I think it is the difficulty that makes the success juicy sweet.

 

In technology-fueled modern business, we are addicted to immediate results.  We jump at anything that will take something complex and make it appear simple.  We believe the hype when internet marketers promise instant six figures a year when you sign up for their limited-time 4-figure program (at least you know they will hit six figures this year!).

 

There are some tricks to setting up an efficient business with minimal effort.  And there are some really great people out there who have good information to share that will be worth the investment.

 

But you will only get the return on your investment when you really work the process.   In my own experience, I have invested in classes that had a very poor return not because the information wasn't valuable, but because I didn't take the time to do the homework.  And I have absolutely killed results when I applied myself and took the content in other classes seriously.

 

The process of hard work vs. quick tricks makes me think of my initial reaction to a few stories in Four Hour Workweek.  I really like and admire Tim Ferriss, and think he has fantastic advice in his book.  But as a former serious martial artist, what bothered me about his story of technically winning a martial art championship by interpreting rules instead of studying for years is that I felt he missed the discipline, stamina and growth that comes from doing thousands of push ups and sit ups, training when you would rather stay home on the couch, and getting your face smashed on the floor hundreds of times.  This, in my own experience,  is what deepened my understanding of and love for the art.   

 

I don't think that Tim meant to say that scrapping together a victory on the dance floor or martial art ring was his end game.  He has demonstrated with his incredibly detailed blog posts and rigorous speaking schedule that he believes at working hard at the right things.

 

And the right things are different for each of us.

 

Here is my take on "bad hard" vs. "good hard":

 

Bad hard

• Trying as hard as you can to appear smart, professional and accomplished in a field you secretly loathe
• Trying to force someone to love you, who doesn't
• Spending twelve hours on an administrative task that is complex, boring and not your strength when someone smart could do it in 30 minutes for fifty bucks
• Doing lots of standard processes manually (like sending 6 emails back and forth to set up a meeting instead of using an online scheduling tool)
• Working with people over an extended period of time who are not your ideal clients
• Scattering your efforts over multiple projects so that you don't have the proper time and attention any one of them deserves

Good hard

• Trying as hard as you can to get a business you love off the ground, running into unforeseen snags and getting different results than you expected
• Spending days, weeks and months and sometimes years figuring out your ideal customer and working like a dog to serve them great stuff
  
• Taking on big challenges that push against emotional, mental and physical boundaries
• Sharing your project, or idea or product with people you admire when you don't feel it is quite ready for prime time in order to get feedback that will make it useful and effective
• Meeting unexpected life challenges with both pragmatism and optimism.  As Jim Collins shared so eloquently in Good to Great, illustrating what he calls the Stockdale Paradox: "You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulty, AND at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be."

What I am going to tell my client next time if he says "This is hard!" is "EXCELLENT!  When you are doing the right things, leading your tribe, tackling tough problems and creating truly useful products and services, it shouldn't be easy."

 

But it sure will be good.