Tag Archives: success

The one sentence that will make you more productive immediately

By Aaron Hoos on May 22, 2013 in From the desk of Aaron Hoos

When I tell people that I’m a writer by profession, one of the things people commonly reply with is “I’m going to write a book someday.” Although I grin and nod enthusiastically as if to say “wow, that’s amazing!” I secretly think in my mind: “Sure. Whatever.” Many people say they will write a book but never do. They say they want to write a book but, in reality, they are content to watch So You Think You Can Dance every week. What’s important to them? I can tell you that the book is not as important to them as relaxing in front of the TV.

Of course, this is not the only time this happens. Here are a couple of other scenarios that might be familiar to you:

One of my clients works with aspiring entrepreneurs to educate them about how to start a business. He offered a webinar recently and I sat in as a silent observer to do some background research on his target market. I was fascinated to see the interactions of the many attendees who aspired to start their businesses but, when pressed by the host about why they hadn’t, provided a series of excuses about being too busy with work or trying to find a job. They say they want to start a business (and certainly some people from that webinar will) but most of them are content with the security of a regular paycheck.

Another entrepreneur I know is working on her business plan and asked me about how she can get unstuck on a particular section of it. Since the information was very specific to the municipality she was lives in, I gave her the website, phone number, and address of the government agency she needs to visit to get her answer. Months later, she is still stuck and hasn’t visited because she feels she can’t take a day off of work to do it. She says she wants to finish her business plan to start her business but she really just likes the predictable daily routine of her current job.

I’m not just picking on other people here. I’m equally guilty of this same “disease”: Although I’ve ghostwritten books for others, my first and second books took a LOOOOOOONG time to write because I was busy with other things. And although I did a lot of work in the real estate investing industry and desired to invest in real estate myself, I took a LOOOOOOONG time to pull the trigger. I said I wanted to write a book and invest in real estate but I loved the cash flow of serving clients instead of giving up that time to focus on these other goals.

We all have goals and dreams and aspirations but only some people will achieve some of those goals/dreams/aspirations.

Why?

Why do people desire to write a book or start a business but never cross those things off of their bucket list? Why do people set the goal of working out daily but fail to do so? Why do people commit to dieting but gain weight? Why do people set resolutions and dream dreams but never see those things come to fruition?

Because of this one sentence.


“You invest in the things that are important to you”

You invest your time, money, attention, focus, and effort on the things that are truly important to you. Forget what you say you want to do or what you dream of achieving. That investment of time, money, attention, focus, and effort is where your real desires are.

This sentence encapsulates everything about productivity, goal setting and achievement, time management, and success. It optimizes every single time management system or process ever devised.

This is a grim wake-up call to… well… every single one of us. We all HATE hearing this sentence, especially when we realize that our words and our actions do not always line up. We might say we want to get out of debt but we’re buying grande mochachinos at Starbucks everyday. We might say that we wan to write a book but the TV is on every evening. We might say that we want to start a business but we’re not willing to get out of our comfort zone or risk our regular paycheck.

(The critiques will read this and say: “But my family is important to me so I can’t give up my paycheck, which means I have to pursue my goals in my spare time”. This is true. In this case, family is important to you — more important than your other dreams, apparently. There’s nothing wrong with that. But now it’s time to take a very clinical look at how you spend your spare time and how you can get more of that time to help you pursue the other goals you claim are important).

The people who we hail as successes — whether in business or in life or as someone who has achieved a goal or dream that we share — they gave up something and invested in the thing that was truly important to them.

Remind yourself daily that you invest in the things that are important to you. If your investments of time, money, attention, focus, and effort are not on the things you desire then they aren’t as important to you as you claim they are.

Ask yourself these questions hourly: What did I invest in last hour? What do I want in life and how can I invest the next hour in those things?

The 10 most important questions you need to ask yourself every single day

By Aaron Hoos on April 17, 2013 in From the desk of Aaron Hoos

These 10 questions will transform your day. Ask them. Answer them. Do them.

  1. What do I dream about and what actions can I take today to achieve it?
  2. What do I fear most and how do I overcome it today?
  3. What is the most challenging thing I need to do today?
  4. What have I been procrastinating on (and how soon can I start it)?
  5. What is the most productive thing I can do right now?
  6. What commitments/relationships/projects can I add value to?
  7. Who else can I help?
  8. What do other people detest or find impossible and how can I solve their problem?
  9. How can I make today better than yesterday for myself and for those I love?
  10. How can I take action immediately on the above ideas and use my experience, knowledge, skills, and network to excel at them?

“Calm seas do not make skillful sailors”

By Aaron Hoos on February 5, 2013 in Business

I’ve been really inspired by that quote lately.

For several years, my business has been running comfortably on autopilot and although I would push a bit to get it to grow, I frankly wasn’t pushing a lot. I was knocking out projects, enjoying the improved balance between work and play, and doing other things. I was enjoying the calm seas of what some might call business success. (Maybe not “success” at the same level as others but certainly a nice happy, easy path).

But I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a risk-taker. I’m a scrappy capitalist. As I look back on my business experience, the times I had the most fun was when it was an edge-of-my-seat thrill ride through the unknown. Sure, things were far from perfect during those times but they were fun.

So recently I’ve been thinking about making a couple of changes in my business — a refinement of part of my offering, probably raising my prices, a tweak of my brand, etc. — and the thoughts actually kind of scare me me a bit. They scare me because I’ve grown used to the calm seas. I find myself resistant to some changes and even held back by some of the unknowns that I would have once embraced. That needs to change.

We SHOULDN’T grow used to the calm seas. Calm seas are a nice season to catch our breath but they lull us into a sense of safety that makes unprepared for the next storm. We become lazy. Our skills lose their edge. Our hunger for success is sated.

I want the storms. I want the messy chaos of a business that is bursting at the seams and straining and twisting with the waves of the market. I want the struggles and the challenges because overcoming them is so rewarding and it makes me sharper.

For that reason, I’m doing a bunch of really cool stuff to steer my business into rougher waters:

  • I’ve invested in some real estate in the US. I already own real estate here in Canada (where I live) but I want to experience and overcome the challenges of cross-border real estate investing.
  • I’ve started up a new offering — direct response copywriting for real estate investors — and I’m marketing through some exciting new methods that are totally new to me.
  • I’ve invested pretty heavily in some education to help ramp up my skills in copywriting and finance — two essential areas that I have some experience in but I want to hit “expert” status in.
  • I’m going to publish my Sales Funnel Bible book online. I’m sick of fumbling around with it and I want to drive it forward and a little external pressure won’t hurt.

Those are a couple of my initial projects to stir things up a bit. There are others (but I’m not ready to unveil them just yet!). One of the inspirations to push harder is a book I highly recommend: Grant Cardone‘s The 10X Rule, in which Cardone explains that our goals are achieved only through a preponderance of effort. Pick up the book and read it. It’s a good read.

Calm seas are nice now and then. But we need to guard against allowing them to become our default operating plane. Instead, calm seas should be an opportunity to catch our breath, clean up the ship a bit, plug the leaks, so we can be ready for when the storms come again.

Lessons from Buffett about success. (Not Warren Buffett… Jimmy Buffett).

By Aaron Hoos on January 3, 2013 in Business

I’m a Jimmy Buffett fan. The dude is a showman. He’s a brand. He knows what his message is and he is relentless about sharing it. He offers a glimpse into a life that many of us wish we could live 24/7. I’ve seen him a few times in concert and he always delivered.

(Here’s a video of his most famous song — and one of my favorite songs — Margaritaville)….

But Buffett is not just booze and sandals and pirates and pencil-thin mustaches and cheeseburgers in Paradise.

Jimmy Buffett is also a business genius. When I saw this article about Buffett the other day, I read it avidly and thought I’d share it with you. Read the article for yourself but I’ll summarize some of the key points here…

Buffett has a big following and although he hasn’t had a lot of radio play in the past 30 years, his net worth is estimated at about $400 million. Sure, some of that is going to come from album sales. But only a fraction.

Most of it, it seems, comes from income generated by some of his organizations — restaurants, stores, nightclubs, hotels, casinos, food products, clothes, and books. Buffett has enough of a “lock” on his brand, and a big enough following, that struggling companies are switching their names to his brand while his novels achieve Best Seller status even though they aren’t up there with Ernest Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Here’s his secret: He first built a brand that focused on a particular lifestyle/feeling/attitude. Once he had that brand established, he leveraged it into other things. BIG things! What’s more, this is all passive income (because it’s scalable without Buffett having to spend more time in the office and less time on the beach). With every concert Buffett gives, he promotes his brand and thus, he promotes all of the various income-generating channels he has.

Buffett’s beach bum facade is compelling but he’s secretly hiding a very a very smart business brain in that sunburnt, margarita-addled head. And the lesson for us business owners is to focus first on a strong, clear, simple, compelling brand and then turn that brand into bigger things.

The most important advice about starting and growing a profitable business

By Aaron Hoos on January 2, 2013 in Business

When I was a kid, I desperately wanted to start a business. I thought a lot about what I wanted to do and what I would call my business but one thing I struggled with was to figure out what exactly to sell.

It wasn’t until much later that I was told the one truth that changed everything:

Find a market and solve a problem they have with the skills and knowledge you have.

This transformed my thinking and put me on a course that fulfilled those early dreams of entrepreneurship.

And you know what happened? As soon as I adjusted my thinking, the opportunities exploded. The possibilities seemed to be everywhere. The challenge was no longer what should I do? but which option should I act on first?. What a difference!

I talk to a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs who are thinking about starting a business but are asking similar things. They’re unsure about what to do and whether or not they should do it now or wait until a better time. They’re scared to quit their jobs and take a chance on something. I get that. I’ve been there. But the opportunities are out there if you first find a market and solve a problem they have with the skills and knowledge you have.

I also talk to a lot of struggling entrepreneurs who are looking to push forward in their business. They’re not sure if they should enter this market or sell that product or how to make more money. The opportunities are out there if you first find a market and solve a problem they have with the skills and knowledge you have.

This principle holds true for successful businesses that want to grow. If you are already making money and want to make more money (with new products or in new markets) then go back to this one fundamental: First find a market and solve a problem they have with the skills and knowledge you have.

My business is in a very cool spot right now where I have the time to start new brands that extend and support the work that I’m doing now. And this is exactly where I’m starting: I’m finding a market and then identifying a problem they have, then I’m seeing how my skills and knowledge can solve that problem.

The opportunities are endless because there are no end to problems. You’ll never struggle to find clients or earn money from them if you follow this simple, fundamental advice:

Find a market and solve a problem they have with the skills and knowledge you have.

30 days of focus: Introduction

By Aaron Hoos on September 1, 2012 in From the desk of Aaron Hoos

I’ve been thinking a lot about focus lately. And if you’ve been reading my blog over the past few months, you may have noticed the thread of focus/determination/self-discipline weaving through a lot of my posts.

Part of the reason stems from the new level that I’ve reached in my business. I’m at the point where I don’t need to do any marketing to get new clients for the next few years. I just show up and write and all is good. And although I recognize that this is an enviable place to be in business, and it’s taken some focus to get here, I’ve also come to realize that I miss the hungry drive of my early business efforts.

Waaaay back when I started my business, I HAD to focus to write so I could make enough money to eat and pay the bills. And there is still SOME focus in my day-to-day business today (I’m not eating bonbons in bed) but I don’t have as much riding on the results as when I was first starting out and it’s had a noticeable impact in what I do.

I’ve found it too easy to show up and do the minimum of what is required. I’ve found it too easy to make excuses for not doing things or for letting things drop. Not only is client work being affected but so are joint ventures and personal projects like my book, home renovations, and my fitness. Even habits like what I eat or when I get out of bed in the morning — all of which are tied to focus — are impacted. There are times when I’m very busy (sometimes to the point of burnout) but I realize that I’m not necessarily busy with the right things at the right time. And my business is shifting (away from freelance writing for financial and real estate clients and toward work that is published under my own name), so some of this focusing problem is from my changing goals. And I’m wired to get excited about new things for a while until the project shifts from “new” to that middle, slogging dip, and then I lose interest.

So there are a lot of things that are keeping me from focusing to achieve my goals. I’m often unfocused or I’m focused on the wrong things or I quickly lose focus.

I want the focus of my early business and the success of today. (Yes, I want my cake and I want to eat it, too).

These thoughts about focus had been simmering on low for a while, not fully formed, until I started following the Olympics this year. I realized (possibly for the first time) that the athletes competing were just regular people who happened to have A LOT of focus. That focus inspired them to make sacrifices and overcome setbacks so they could compete.

It shone a mirror on me as I wondered what I could achieve if I not only regained the focus I lost but also achieved the level of focus that helped people get to the Olympics.

I’ve tried to regain my focus lately in a few different ways. For example, you might have noticed that I’ve started trying to write 10,000 words at least one day each week. Some success on that front reminded me of how good it felt to focus on something, work hard, and achieve what I was focused on.

And now I’m ready to take it to the next level. I need to get educated about focus, break some bad habits, adopt some good habits, and figure out what the right things are to focus on. I need to rewire my brain to focus sharply on the right things at the right time and to stay with it until completion. I need to sharpen my focus so that setbacks and obstacles and distractions don’t stop me in my tracks.

To that end, I’m starting a 30 days of focus challenge. It’s a personal challenge in which I’m “focusing on focus” (and the determination, self-discipline, drive, productivity, etc. that are all related to focus). I’ll be blogging exclusively about focus for the entire month, including tips and skills and ideas about focus, along with updates of what I’m working on and how it’s going.

I’m going to list the work I want to do in the month and post daily updates about my progress. (Warning: It won’t be very exciting to read). If you feel like participating, I’d love to have some company on this journey toward greater productivity. Here’s a list of what I want to achieve this month. Feel free to post your own list in the comments section below.

30 DAYS OF FOCUS TASK LIST

The following list is the list of professional and personal goals I’d like to achieve this month.

  1. Restart a client’s ebook about neighborhood-specific real estate investing
  2. Complete the above ebook
  3. Restart a client’s ebook about virtual wholesaling
  4. Complete the above ebook
  5. Restart a client’s ebook about a specific technology for real estate investing
  6. Complete the above ebook
  7. Restart a client’s direct marketing copy
  8. Finish the first draft of my book
  9. Complete a business plan for a client
  10. Complete a joint venture project for GraphiteInvesting.com
  11. Publish 25 articles on an internet magazine that I contribute to
  12. Catch up on overdue content to be published on a joint venture real estate blog
  13. Complete all of the September content for the above joint venture real estate blog
  14. Complete an email sequence and free report for one of my joint ventures — FreeVideoSqueezePage.com
  15. Restart regular emails at FreeVideoSqueezePage
  16. Complete all of the September content for my mortgage loan client (approx. 2000 words)
  17. Complete all of the September content for my credit repair client (approx. 5000 words)
  18. Complete all of the September content for my real estate investing client (approx. 12000 words)
  19. Schedule daily episodes through the end of the year at HowToInvest.TV
  20. Complete all of the September content for an investing website that I contribute to
  21. Fix a broken website (which used to earn some money but broke down at the beginning of summer) so it starts to earn money again.
  22. Finish bathroom renovation
  23. Restart my workout routine (3 sets of circuit training with 20 lb weights, 3 times per week)

That’s everything right now… but there might be more added as the month goes on.

So my goal is: Learn to focus better and focus on completing these tasks.

My 30 days of focus starts NOW!

Confessions of an ineffectve executioner: Qualities of a great finisher (part 3)

By Aaron Hoos on June 1, 2012 in Business

I always have ideas bubbling in my head. I get them down on paper. I sort through them. I start a bunch. I finish much less than I start.

I’m okay with that to some degree because I believe everything in business is a test. You need to get something out into the world and see what happens. Maybe people run with it. Maybe they don’t. You need to try. The stuff that gets a lot of attention can give you enough juice to finish it. And the stuff that doesn’t get a lot of attention should be wrapped up (or shelved and looked at later if conditions change).

But then there’s a whooooole bunch of stuff in the middle. Maybe the market liked it (but didn’t love it) and you need to tweak it a bit to really get some traction. Or maybe it was a big project that was put aside because something else appeared on the horizon that needed to be dealt with… and then you just never picked up the first project.

In my opinion, it’s okay to start a bunch of stuff and see what sticks. But I also want to finish a lot more than I do. If you’re reading this, maybe you do too.

I’m an entrepreneur. I think that makes me a great starter by default. That’s my natural state. What I want to do is ALSO become a great finisher. Here are the qualities that a great finisher has, plus notes on how to implement them (or how I’ve implemented them). This list isn’t definitive and some of the qualities overlap or are subordinate.

But the best part? I believe they’re all LEARNED skills. And I want to learn them. (By the way, if I’m missing any qualities you think I should add, please include them in the comments section below.

QUALITIES OF A GREAT FINISHER

An effective finisher fights through procrastination: I think procrastination comes from two things — a desire to avoid the hard work that lies ahead and a “Shiny New Object” syndrome where something newer and more exciting seems more interesting. Each one is very powerful on its own, but together they are an almost unstoppable force. The biggest challenge for me is that I don’t procrastinate by doing some hobby or leisure activity. I procrastinate by doing different work. So I end up fooling myself into thinking I’m productive when I’m really just being productive on the wrong things. To correct this, I need to constantly go back and revisit the things I’ve committed to and prioritize them, and assign some projects as “must-do-now” and other projects as rewards for completion.

An effective finisher breaks big projects into smaller ones: This has been really helpful for me. By breaking big projects into smaller ones, I get the joy of “starting” several new projects that call contribute to the big, overall one. So a big, daunting book becomes 16 smaller, easier-to-start chapter-projects (for example).

An effective finisher seeks accountability: Early in my days as a writer, one of the best ways that I got client work done was to offer a guarantee: The work was free if I didn’t deliver it on time. I’ve stopped offering that (mostly because my business has changed and I do far less client work now, and it’s a lot more collaborative). So I’ve had to find other outlets for accountability. This blog series is one of them.

An effective finisher acts: Action is the opposite of procrastination. So a finisher overcomes procrastination (see my earlier point) with focused action that moves toward the goal. (Anything else is just a new kind of procrastination). A finisher who acts is an action figure!

An effective finisher is not distracted: I tend to think of procrastination as intentional and distraction as unintentional. With procrastination, I choose not to work on something because I want to work on something else instead. With distraction, some other matter needs my attention first. I might be splitting hairs on this but I find that I, personally, need to fight both. The solution to both is focus.

An effective finisher is focused on the goal: This is key. Because anything less than moving toward the finished product or end goal is either intentional procrastination or unintentional distraction. I should also point out that the goal here should be the ultimate completion of the project. Any lesser goal is not sufficient. I’ll give you an example that frequently appears in my life: In writing a book, my goal is to finish the book. But after the grind starts to grind me down, my goal becomes “finish the first draft”. And when that’s done, I’m worn out to complete the rest of the project — the second, third, fourth, (etc.) drafts required to complete the book.

An effective finisher does the hardest things first: I don’t know if this is an actual quality that great finishers have but it’s a quality that I *think* they have. It’s a quality that I aspire to possess and I try to model it. I am at my most productive and focused early in the day so it makes sense to do it. What I really need to guard against (and perhaps you do, too, if you struggling with finishing) is dealing with the urgent issues in the morning and letting that define how you spend the rest of your day.

An effective finisher is consistent: Good finishers are consistent. They show up and hammer out the work day-in and day-out until the project is done. Starters tend to spike. Finishers plod through. Both are good but I trend towards the first and need to have more of the second.

An effective finisher sweats the details: I think one of the reasons that starters struggle is that they get excited about the big, positive, undefined stuff but once the details start coming up, it becomes a challenge. I’m learning to embrace details. A few years ago, I worked on a huge project with a guy who was great in the details and although he doesn’t know it, I learned so much from him about managing the details. I still use elements in my work today that I learned from him years ago.

An effective finisher is rewarded by the process and by a sense of completion: This was a big “aha!” moment for me. I feel rewarded when I start something and I feel rewarded when I complete something. But where I really need to do some work is in feeling rewarded by the process. The process CAN be fun. But it’s all up to you to make it enjoyable for yourself. Many of the projects I’ve had to stop working on were not fun. In retrospect, could I have made them fun? I don’t know. Lesson learned.

Can you list any other qualities that finishers have, which starters could do a better job adopting? Put them in the comments!

THE FINISH-WHAT-YOU-START CHALLENGE

In a previous blog post, I introduced a finish-what-you-start challenge. I listed 14 projects I have to complete in the next 10 days and I’m sharing them here with you. I’ve crossed them off as I go through them.

The projects I’m working on are…

  1. Finish an ebook for a real estate investor about investing in empty land
  2. Finish an ebook for a real estate investor about wholesale investing
  3. Finish an ebook for a real estate investor about marketing system
  4. Finish an ebook for a real estate investor about a real estate investing method he pioneered
  5. Finish a book for a debt repair expert
  6. Finish a sales letter for an internet marketing company
  7. Finish a sales letter for a health and fitness company
  8. Finish a sales letter for a social media marketing firm
  9. Finish 100 articles for an income trust client
  10. ((Rescheduled by client: Finish a report and autoresponders for video marketing site))

So I’ve finished 3 (indicated by the crossed off projects) and one of them was rescheduled by a client (indicated by the parentheses). I put some work in on a couple of the others… and I hate to admit it but some of them weren’t touched.

It’s easy for me to make excuses — I have other projects to complete in order to run my business, I’m renovating my house, my wife is starting a business. But what can I learn about what I finished and what I didn’t finish? Well, it reveals one key that I need to remember: I say yes to a lot of work and I tend to work until I burn out. That’s a problem I need to address. I also did procrastinate and I was distracted. That’s a problem I need to address.

Now it’s time for me to stop blogging and finish these projects!!!

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