Nicholas Bate

No Waiting 7

1. For permission to be your best.
2. To develop mastery at your calling.
3. For a reply from a potential publisher of your manuscript; try another and another and another.
4. To express your gratitude and/or love.
5. For the course when you have no money; buy the book.
6. To appreciate Planet Earth be it sun or rain, mountain or coast.
7. For perfection.

Brave New World 63

Look after yourself.

Solving That Problem in a SARS-Coronovirus 19 World, 7

Stop trying. Stop struggling. Instead:

1. Read a novel. Thriller, classic, whatever. Somewhere an author has a character solving your very problem.
2. Write extensively in  your (paper) notebook. Deep in your brain the synaptic pathways can knit to solve it. Simply give them a chance.
3. Cook. Smells of herbs and textures of bread dough will kick-start the solution machine.
4. Walk.The rhythm, the heart rate extended, the mind distracted. The solution manifests.
5. In the mirror, look deep into your eyes. The soul can hide very little. 
6. Draw the problem, even though you cannot draw.
7. Re-listen to the lyrics of the greatest songs. Sinatra, The Beatles and Petrovich Mussorgsky have the very way forward you seek.

 

Handy Acronyms for a Covid World, 7

1. ABR, Always be Reading.
2. MEDS, Wellness=Meditation x Exercise x Diet x Sleep.
3. TTA, Think, then Act.
4. RtN, Read, then Netflix.
5. BtDtH, You need to be, before you can do before you can have.
6. StS, save then spend.
7. 1DT, one day at a time.

Personal Wealth 12 in a World of SARS-Covid 19

1. Save, then spend.
2. Allocate budgets: food, netflix, car..... Stick to or adjust the budgets but never overspend them. Absolutely vital in a world of Covid uncertainty is the Emergency Budget. Strip back other budgets to augment this one. 
3. Personal wealth is not salary. Salary distracts and often seduces us to spend more so our cost base increases disproportionally.
4. Personal Wealth is your personal balance sheet i.e. the sum of your assets less the sum of your liabilities. A bit of work on a spreadsheet should get a rapid approximation, then pay a qualified book-keeper to check it for you. Once set up, update twice a year. 
5. Your balance sheet only measures hard wealth: nice bicycles, dollar bills and  Personal property. 
6. There is a soft wealth which is magical, a little elusive at times, So often free and often only appreciated when it disappears. 
7. Soft wealth:  look up from your phone and grab it.
8. Standard of Living and Quality of Life are not the same. They start out the same, but if we chase the former (broadly stuff) we can damage the latter (broadly freedom).
9. Check out the True Secrets of Success, free PDF.
10. Take these drugs to put things in perspective.
11. Read You Only Better for this (and much, much more) in more detail.
12. Regularly ask: how much fun can we have without spending money?

Handy Free Stuff 7

1. How to Write & Publish Your Business Book
2. Selling without Tears
3. The Secrets of Success
4. Zen & The Art of Cubicle Freedom
5. The Rules of Life
6. JFDI the full book (see LHS of blog and choose your format)
7. Unplugged the full book (ditto)

When planning your start-up...

1. Cash: stuff you can happily and reassuringly spend. Ultimately you'll need some.
2. Revenue: excellent. But doesn't mean you are (necessarily) making money: see 3.
3. Profit: the money you make less the money you spend. Don't mess about for too long: it needs to be positive.
4. Cost: usually forgets the hidden costs. Find all of them.
5. Price: not simply cost + desired profit. The definitive marketing tool for positioning the product.
6. Profit and Loss: how it's looking in any one period? What's the trend?
7. Balance Sheet: how it's looking since the start of time? How's the war chest?

Brave New World 62

The Only Rule You Need

take it day by day

Reading in A World of Covid-19

1. Read for enjoyment and to escape. 
2. Read to learn. Take notes.
3. Read aloud to your children. To a reading group be it by Zoom.  To your partner by firelight.
4. Read on the train and in the park.  Listen to an audio book in the car.
5. Join the library. Support the library. Don a mask and wander those shelves and discover hidden gems.
6. Give your children from age 3 a book allowance. And teach them how the library works.
7. Always have a book on the go. Along with music it's a brilliant mood manager and enhancer.

Start your Own Thing in a Covid World, 22

1. Get an idea for a solution or product or service.
2. By noticing what's missing out there.
3. Is anyone else doing it?
   
4. If they are, how are you different?
5. Go back to 1 if you said 'cheaper' to question 4.
6. Somebody once said: get big, get niche or get out.
7. How much will you charge for your solution/service/product?
8. From 7, how much profit will you make?
9. Will this profit sustain a business which can pay decent salaries, re-invest in future product and every so often make a mistake and/or weather a pandemic?
10. How will you tell the world about your idea?
11. If you answered 'twitter' to 10, that is your Plan C not A nor B.
12. You need a Plan A and a Plan B.
13. If you have spent any time on the logo, fancy by-lines or pantone colours or choice of coffee machines you are getting distracted by trivia.
14. Go take a walk and start again at 4.
15. Write everything up:
16. What your new company does.
17. How it is different from any competition.
18. How it will make money.
19. And not just money but profit.
20. Sleep on it.
21. OK: now you can work on a name, a logo, a by-line and a pantone colour.
22. Start and get aboard the roller-coaster of running your own enterprise and having a lot of fun, learning a lot about yourself and making the world a better place.

Bonus: How to Be Brilliant.