Nicholas Bate

Mmmm

To Spot

the gap.

To Gain

wisdom.

To Get Your Stuff Noticed

watch and listen...

To Be Happy

You Have To

To Live A Creative Life

We Must

March Redux 20

1. 22 Routes To Your Non-Fiction Book
2. Billions of Light Years Away...
3. The Very Best Drugs...
4. You Know It Makes Sense
   
5. 100 Word Story
6. Mmmm...face book
7. Mmmm...PowerPoint
8. NO! They are not free
9. How To Escape: The Rules of life
10. Fifty Ways To Boost Your Productivity
11. He Was Now Thinking Outside of So Many Boxes...
12. Strategies For Success: The Director's Crib Sheet
13. Today at Totally, Totally Global Inc.
14. How To Create A Career You Will Love
15. Let Go Of 7
16. Re-discover 7
17. Free & Budget 7
18. However 7
19. More and Less Likely To Succeed.
20. 50 Greatest Mistakes

Bonus 1: January Redux

Bonus 2: February Redux

TheFiftyGreatestEveryDayBusinessMistakesWeAllSoEasilyMake

1. Taking notes but not listening. Then not reading the notes.
2. Failing to qualify (is there budget? who decides?) new business.
3. Craving certainty.
4. Believing we are limited by conclusions from Belbin, MBTI, StrengthFinder or any other handy diagnostic.
5. Thinking a varied diet is altering the pizza toppings and choice of soda.
6. Not being your own customer and finding out what it is really like to try and order something, complain or even say thank you.
7. Creating slides which are great notes for us, the presenter but paralysingly boring visuals for the audience.
8. Thinking Steve McQueen had a leadership style. He was cool. He drove nice cars, fast. But he didn’t have a leadership style.
9. Forgetting to do marketing strategy not just marketing communication.
10. Cancelling training and development when times are tough.
11. Upping the sales forecast based solely upon a spreadsheet growth function.
12. Not giving feedback to a member of staff immediately, good or bad.
13. Forgetting that money alone is not a motivator. But people feeling really, truly deeply valued is.
14. Thinking caffeine releases energy.
15. Driving (instead of walking) everywhere.
16. Thinking we are too busy. Actually we lack focus.
17. Not asking for 360 degree feedback and seeking it 360 days of the year.
18. Stopping exercising. When it will give us exactly the life we seek. Energetic, impassioned, focused.
19. That time is measured by a timepiece. Time is measured by value delivered.
20. Failing to write. Anything.
21. Using the wrong kinds of drugs. The right kind?
22. Believing a job title means anything.
23. Trying to please all customers. That long-tail of bizarre customers will bring down your business.
24. Thinking sleep is an option.
25. Not putting e-mail replies though a 4h incubator. Receive/draft reply/incubate/edit/send.
26. Hoping everybody will love you for your thinking. If your thinking is useful some will hate you for it. C'est La Vie.
27. Thinking a headache is a call for paracetamol. It’s a call to change something.
28. Failing to respond to e-mail promptly. But see 25 above.
29. Not understanding decision vs. action.  Decisions are stagnant: I have given up smoking. Actions have momentum: crushing the current packet.
30. Certainly not understanding explicit (let’s reduce debtor days by 25%) vs. implicit (let’s improve).
31. Diluting reach and/or brand by trying to do everything.
32. Not being different. Different is company x solution x you.
33. Thinking an MBA is the end. Actually it is just the start of realising there is a science to business. And it does work. And social media is just 2.3% of that science.
34. Thinking meetings and e-mail are free. They are not.
35. Not reading to simply be better than you were last week.
36. Using lifts/elevators when by taking the stairs you raise your heart rate which helps you cope with the next meeting.
37. Using it’s when we mean its. And vice versa.
38. Allowing the business to become a country club with lounges, Italian coffee machines and lunch-time yoga when it needs to be a base camp with a planning room, check-lists and focused, passionate individuals poised for the assault.
39. Staying sort of OK. Yeah, sort of. Right. When excellent is just a decision away.
40. Not using the early hours for thinking.
41. Selling using discount.
42. Failing to realise there is a differences between selling and negotiation (free on kindle).
43. Chasing work life/balance. Chase a job you love. Talk to your family. The issue disappears.
44. Getting annoyed at airports. Airports are a free anger management workshop without the PPT slide deck. Yes sir, you do have to take your shoes off one more time.
45. Deferring the enjoyment of life to holidays and/or retirement.
46. Melodrama or dramatising trivia.
47. Failing to chase money when the due date on the invoice has passed.
48. Not growing up and realising we write the novel called Life.
49. Staying late when your kids want, need and love your bed-time stories.
50. Thinking that vibrating phone needs to be answered now, right this minute.

Bonus The Brilliant in Business 100, amazon

Mmmm

How To Escape? Understand, Really Understand The Rules of Life. Rule 7

The back-story: the stuff from which many of us would like to escape...

Rule 1: You Can Do Anything, But You Can't Do Everything.

Rule 2: You Need To Be Before You Can Do Before You Can Have

Rule 3: If You Want Things To Be Better, You Need To Be Better

Rule 4: Do Less To Achieve More

Rule 5: WYSIWYG: what you see is what you get

Rule 6: For true, sustainable happiness: (1) Grow (2) Nurture your nature (3) Act with passion (4) Balance your compass

Rule 7: So much of what you want, including happiness, love, affluence, wisdom, authenticity, good health and longevity is available to you now. Seize it.

So you want:
Happiness: decide to be happy. Remind yourself of Rule 6. Remind yourself that although all stuff and acquisitions from fresh-pasta makers to cool job-titles can cause temporary blips of joy, they are not cumulative. Only your own growth and full realisation of your personal talents will make you fully happy and joyful.
Love: invest in relationships. No relationship will work without attention, time and energy. Give it those and it will blossom; remember that love is a verb.
Affluence: break the connections between happiness = money and your worth = money. Ask yourself, what is really important? And how much fun can you have without money? When you begin to shift your mindset (re-read Rule 5; WYSIWYG) you’ll notice how much you really do have.
Wisdom: start reading again and not just reading, studying. Start asking questions again. As a child we are given the dots. Life is about connecting them. That’s Wisdom.
Authenticity: stop the bulls**t. Stop playing games with yourself and with others. Deep down inside if you listen to your heart, if you listen to your gut you know what is going on. You know what needs to be done. Start tuning in again to that intuition.
Good health and longevity: they are a simple decision away. You know exactly what to do, to boost your health, to increase your longevity. Don’t fool yourself any longer. Do it. And do
it now.

The Rules Of Life, free PDF download ; the amazon book.