The Eight Golden Rules for a Lifestyle-centric Business Owner

Your lifestyle is ultimately your life’s work. We are all artists, whether we acknowledge that or not. And every day we are gifted with a canvas upon which to create our design. We are now operating in the Information Age, at a time of great wealth and great possibility. Yet seemingly intelligent people continue to operate under old assumptions. Too many people I know “work hard” for no other reason than they thought that’s what they were expected to do. There has never been a greater time than now to design a life the way you want it.
In this article we will look at the 7 Golden Rules for Lifestyle-centric Business Owners. Over the next couple of weeks we’ll go into each of them in more detail. But for today it’s the overview. My greatest wish for the world is that everyone lives a life of self-expression. By that I mean that one’s life is an expression of that unique identity within them. It honestly breaks my heart when I speak to business owners who describe their lifestyle as anything less than awesome. As business owners we are in pole position to craft our lives the way we want to. For heaven’s sake, if the guy or girl running the show can’t have it they way they want it, what hope is there for anyone else? I think it’s just that we get lazy. We get lazy because the truth is questioning our assumptions and making changes in the way we operate is actually harder to do than work 70 hours a week.
So let’s take a moment to break it all down into manageable pieces and digest each of them like small slices of the best brie.
1. Lifestyle First: Define Your Rules

First things first. Go back to basics. Why did you start a business in the first place? What did you want to achieve from it? Some people would say “to make a million dollars a year” or “to be my own boss”. But I would put forward that those are simply means to an end. The “end” would be what having those things gets for you. So for instance what does making a million dollars a year get for you?
Well your answer might be freedom to travel, to spend time with my kids, to build a secure future. Now the grand irony is, if you work your guts out 70 hours a week in a business in the hope that one day you’ll have “freedom to travel and spend time with the kids”, what happens to the kids and travel in the mean time?
So Greg and I decided to do it a different way around. We started by imagining our ideal lifestyle. For us that involved travel, a certain level of luxury, spending time with our children as they grew (no we don’t have any yet and we’re not pregnant for those rumour-millers out there!) and so on. We were really clear we wanted to create a lifestyle with ultimate freedom. From this vision we then created our “Non-negotiable Lifestyle Criteria”. I have written about these before. These are criteria that we created that set up a filter through which all business opportunities were run. If the opportunity didn’t fit the criteria it got trashed. It made life very simple.
So when starting out in business, or even just reviewing why you’re where you are, start by defining your rules. What will you NOT do for money!!?
2. Passion and Authenticity

Once you have defined your rules of the game, your criteria that are non-negotiable in terms of selecting your business vehicle, then you come back to your centre and find out what your passionate about. I have seen too many people follow their passion first and burn out doing it, until their passion is something they loathe, because they didn’t do step one first!
That said you’ll never stick with something long enough to be truly successful unless you are passionate about it. I have a million ways (well, maybe thats a little superlative, but many ways) to help people uncover passion, and discover the self that they want to express in the world… keep your eyes peeled for the Passion Post in the next couple of weeks!

3. The Bigger Pie Principle

Ah… how many times have I seen people (and I include myself in this), decide that 100% of something small is better that 20% of something big. Listen, it’s not that either stand is more right than the other, but be aware of it. Most entrepreneurs I know who have at least a modicum of success started out with a minimum of three people on the team. It just seems to be the number that works. It’s a good sturdy number. There are very few solo-preneurs that I speak to who honestly enjoy doing everything themselves. (I am open to comment and being proven wrong!)
So in a nutshell the Bigger Pie Principle is the old adage of “rather than squabbling over pieces of the pie, how can you create a much larger pie that we can all share in”? In fact at the moment when Greg and I appear to have found ourselves once more being inundated with opportunities (can you believe we have had 2 multimillion dollar business offers in the last 5 days. Far out, I can’t!).. any way the question I keep asking in my mind is “what’s the bigger pie here?”
4. You have to spend money to make money

OOOOh! I can hear the shudder among personal development seminar attendees thinking “No! They told me that I just had to have a good idea”. Look at some level it’s true, but I have to say you get a whole lot done a good deal quicker if you’ll just pay the right person to do the job. I’m not saying anything here about who’s money you have to spend. I’m all for Other People’s Money. But get used to creating flow… money in…. money out!
A friend of mine Daniel Priestley put it this way: “If you’re a boxer you’re gonna get hit in the face.” Greg likes to say “If you’re gonna make an omelette you have to scramble some eggs”. Basically if you’re in business, you’re going to have to spend some money! For us that’s why we are paying our writers to write, our techies to design software, our event managers to plan events and on and on. Could we have done it all ourselves? Yeah. But I have better things to do with my life (see point 1); which brings me to …
5. Stick to what you’re good at.

his is the single greatest key to effectiveness EVER! I know my time is best spent in front of people inspiring them to take action. Perhaps even in front of my computer writing to them to take action! But it sure as heck ain’t in reconciling the bank accounts or managing the team. It’s simply not my forte. I affectionately refer to my role in the team as “the Performing Monkey”. A little derogatory? Perhaps, but it keeps my ego in check and means I keep my focus in the right place. By allowing the other team members to do what they are good at our effectiveness goes through the roof. And its more fun actually. Can’t imagine doing it any other way any more!
So what are your strengths? And how quickly can you get someone to do the other stuff… and how quickly can you stop being a control freak and allow them to do it?
6. Ask better questions of new trends

OK: Facebook case in point. How many people did (or are still doing) the “Oh that stupid thing, what a waste of time”. Or “it’ll never last”. Instead of trying to find reasons why something won’t work in your business so you get to win the “I was right award”: get over yourself. Ask a better question. Ask how could this work to grow my business? Chances are many things will assist you if only you get out of your own way long enough. This is not to say take up every opportunity… always assess in terms of impact and ease, but don’t dismiss it before you’ve assessed it.
7. The Land of Missed Opportunities

My partner Greg lives in this land. Well… not that’s not the right way of putting it! Its more like his glasses are especially treated to see the missed opportunity in everything. He’s incredible at it. And according to him most businesses are huge great fountains of missed opportunity. More money to be made from existing customers, less money to be spent on telecoms, joint ventures to be tapped into left, right and centre. You name it. Get yourself a Greg in your business!
8. The Biggest and Best Golden Rule Ever: QUESTION YOUR ASSUMPTIONS

Whenever you hit a problem the best question you can ask yourself is “what are my assumptions here”. Just last night I was getting all in a tizz about the best course of action on a particular business opportunity we’re considering. Greg asked at that point why are we on this path?” And that started a whole barrage of assumption questioning that ultimately gained us some clarity. My favourite question is “when did we decide that…?”
So if you’re faced with a problem at any time in your lifestyle-centric business creation always question your assumption. Just because it doesn’t work in an Australian market doesn’t mean that Malaysia isn’t crying out for it. When did you decide you had to travel 3 days a week when you’d rather be at home? Who said you couldn’t afford a PA when you can hire someone for $4 an hour in India? Question your assumptions… and keep coming back to your rules.
In summary

I hope you’ve found something useful in this little article. Over the next few weeks we’ll be going into each of the steps in more detail, as well as bringing along guests who have created “Ultimate Lifestyle Businesses” and finding out what their secrets were.
Make sure you subscribe to the RSS (that means you get instant updates on your computer every time there’s a new post) or subscribe by email… or come back and visit every coupla days. There’s lots of good fun stuff coming you way!!
Love Joey.

A great idea of a friend of mine

Hi guys,

Check out this video (its not the most visually spectacular, but the message is a good one!) Worth having a look at their website and seeing how creative some entrepreneurs are ou there!

Cheers,

j xx

who is keeping joey awake?

Just a 5 minute audio from me at 11:43pm when I can’t sleep!

Listen here:

I can’t sleep

How to put your business on steroids without doing a single thing you don’t want to do.

I am sick to death of it!!

I have just got out of the car where I was listening to yet another CD designed to help me in my life as an entrepreneur.Don’t get me wrong, the information is valuable information and it has made me some money, and saved me lots of heartache in the past. But there is one fundamental flaw with the majority of “self-help” or “business-help” stuff out there.

On this CD one marketing guru was interviewing another marketing guru, and many of their tips were great. However, something struck me when one guru said “every successful person I have ever met is a great negotiator”, and the second guru huffed and puffed in agreement, that negotiation is vital for any successful entrepreneur.

Now you’ll have to excuse me, because it was only 6 months ago that I was teaching a class in London bullying my students (nicely of course!) into believing exactly that same thing… that they must master negotiation to be a business success.

I now WHOLEHEARTEDLY DISAGREE WITH MYSELF. Ladies and gentleman, I have discovered:I was wrong!! Please take note, this has only happened once before, it was when I thought I made a mistake. (haha! That joke courtesy of the one and only Greg Elliott) But the point is I disagree with Joey-6-months-ago. And with these gurus. And by saying this I am probably disagreeing with about 98% of the authors, speakers, gurus and business experts out there. But here I go… loudly and obnoxiously flouting convention!!

You see… in the last 6 months of introspection and dabbling and gentle business development, I have been trying to identify what I am really good at. What I am really passionate about. And then, anything that does not fall under that category, I find someone else to do it.

I love performance. I love selling. I love business strategy. I am great at moving a crowd and stirring up emotions. I am great at inspiring people to action. I can negotiate… I’m OK at it… but its about as exciting for me as pulling out each toenail one by one. I just don’t enjoy it.

So true to my new commitment to myself, Greg and our business, I teamed up with someone who gets off on negotiation. I mean to her, negotiation is like the Karma Sutra. She’s the Tantric Negotiator I tell ya, and she is good!! She’s good mostly because she likes it!

A small experiment in teamwork, led to a bigger commitment and experiment in team work, has led to a whole new business idea, and an awesome team. We’ve been working together for some time now, and our business is developing so fast I feel like I should call up some authority or other and give myself up because surely we must be doing something criminal for it to be this fun, easy and this successful.

And the greatest tragedy of all… with all this ease, we get to do fun stuff like travel!! Here’s me and Greg at Lakes Entrance after said TEAM breakthroughs!!

Here’s the thing. TEAM is the key. I really do disagree with so much of what is said out there. If you hate sales, you don’t have to get good at sales… just find someone who loves your vision, and loves sales. If you hate technology, you don’t have to master it… just find someone who gets off on it and who loves your vision.

Mind you… perhaps I can only say this because I now have at least an intellectual understanding of all elements of business, and so I can afford to delegate to or partner with people who have different strengths than mine. What do you think? Perhaps it is necessary for us to comprehend something before we can say “that’s not my gig”. Probably.

Anyway… my thought for the day… if you don’t like it, you’ll never be good at it, so find someone who loves your big picture, and loves the things you hate, and partner with them. Or actually better still… discover what you’re good at and contribute to someone else’s dream first, and carve out your skills and your niche… then you will become hugely attractive and your visions will fly. But more about my “first you give, then you receive discoveries” next time.

See ya then,

jx

my life is too good!

Greg and I are in the Hunter Valley. Just tasted some yummy wines… The Tower Barbera comes highly recommended!

The point however is most people are busy working and we’re about to open a bottle of vino, and chill out befor dinner. Boy life’s tough! Today is one of those days to be grateful.

What’s more we just had an awesome couple of days on the central coast staying with friends, and we have another new business plan together and will be launching in March. I love the life of an entrepreneur.

I’ll tell you all about it when i get back. Just wanted you to know i haven’t fallen off the face of the earth.

Remind me to wax on about the joy of teams next time.

Here’s to red and roquefort!

J x

Tuning into the Universe FM in Perth!

Sincerest apologies for my absence the last couple of days. You may remember my video recently “joey’s had an idea”? Well, the last couple of days I have been in Perth meeting some of the most extraordinary people. Well, truly they are ordinary people doing extraordinary things because of extraordinary levels of inspiration and drive.

I have been humbled, and moved by this incredible bunch of people. I had the opportunity to work with Mark (who I refer to in the same earlier post), and to discover just what it means to be in flow.

Have you ever had the experience of having an idea, but it’s more like you are tuning into a broadcast across the universe, and the more you investigate the idea, the more you realise that other people are picking up on the same broadcast? That has been the experience with my trip to Perth.

I came over to team up with Mark and create something that we both feel passionate about, that would inspire entrepreneurs around the world. Unsurprisingly, yet impressively, our excitement and conviction has attracted so much support, and the trip has been a huge success.

I promise you guys will be the first to know when the project is ready for human consumption

Meanwhile, its 11:45pm, I’m in the Qantas lounge in perth, and my li’l fingers are dragging across the keyboard. So excuse me while I catch a few Zs. Hopefully they wake my up to put me on the plane. I get to see greg in 6 hours. Hooray!

Have an awesome day!

Joey x

How 5 young men got me out of bed!

This blog is dedicatd to discussing what makes people get out of bed… especially what makes entrepreneurs and business people get up and take risks. In this video blog today you’ll hear about how 5 young men got me out of bed at 6am (far too early for me under any other circumstance!), and pull out the credit card.

Enjoy!

What’s the big idea?

Hola!

I’ve had an idea, and the universe is helping out… you know when the light bulb goes on, and then one thing happens, and that leads to another, well… the video explains it all! 2 mins of my nutty smiley face for ya!!

Jxx