For much of my 50 years I’ve tried to be a student of life, and I’ve collated a number of principles I think have helped me live a better life. I thought I’d share them with you, hopefully you can find some value in them.
They are listed below:
- Become a master at Selling – get to know what turns people on, their passions, think of the seven deadly sins for this (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride). Alternative consider what keeps people awake at night (fears/anxiety). Use well known sales structures to hang your sales message on such as A.I.D.A. or S.U.C.C.E.S.
- Be a business owner – don’t work in a business, work on it, there’s a world of difference. If you find your not suited to the running of business, but you’re interested in it, be an investor in businesses.
- Become an investor – Learn to spot undervalued assets and sell for a profit or derive income from them.
- Identify where things are headed. Pattern recognition. Map to the future.
- Stay ahead of the trend not behind it. Look for expanding markets, otherwise you’ll have to work harder each year for same profit.
- Disrupt your own business model. Don’t focus on how it’s always been done. Find the perfect solution and get as close to that as possible. Don’t just try to do it the best you can, do it the best it can be done. Seek the perfect solution and work back to what is currently possible, and work to fill the gap going forwards. Consider convenience, affordability, increase of SOS.
- Under promise and over deliver. Manage expectations and try to exceed them.
- Go the extra mile.
- Pay attention to detail.
- Add value in all exchanges – even if it’s just a smile, or a kind word.
- Customers are not interested in your story, only how you can help them increase their sense of self. Align your needs to theirs and you’ll win. Provide a solution to help them.
- Be memorable – people won’t remember what you did, they will remember how you made them feel. Use mnemonics, like velcro with lots of sensory hooks, for example baker versus Baker.
- Be a problem solver – not just a problem spotter. See what people are moaning and complaining about. Providing workable solutions is where the value is created . Stop moaning and do something about it. Be a solution provider.
- Don’t let your resume hold you back. Be open to opportunities and say YES, then figure out the HOW after.
- Leverage is key to wealth success. It magnifies effort exponentially (to the power of..). Leverage of debt, compound interest, leverage of resources. For example; multiple shops, multiple assets all bringing income. Leverage your contacts. You don’t need money, you need a better strategy. If you can’t make money without money, you probably can’t make money with money. Leverage other people resources. Who benefits from what you are trying to do? If you need £50k to buy a new business, If supplier going to get £100k more business ask them for £25k investment, offer seller £10k more if they accept the remainder in instalments. Ask “who will benefit” and work out a way to leverage other people’s resources.
- Focus – concentrates energy through a narrow conduit, reducing drag and increasing speed and effectiveness, like a magnifying glass intensifying the sun’s rays so that it is powerful enough to start a fire. Do the one thing such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary.
- Adaptable – ability to shift perspective and flexibility of thought. Open minded to new and better ways of thinking /behaving. Look for the best way it can be done rather than the best way you can do it. Try to disprove what you think you know and challenge assumptions/inferences. What worked yesterday may not tomorrow. Don’t resist chance. Be a predator of chance rather than s victim of circumstance. There are winners and losers in every situation. Try to put yourself out of business (be a disrupter).
- Be a lifelong learner – Seek out the best way it can be done, not the best you can do it. Master of what you know, apprentice of what you don’t. Question everything test everything.
- Don’t just believe everything you hear, even from authority figures or so called experts. Ask “how do you know? Point me to the research/evidence !” Look to have hypotheses that you try to disprove (like science does) rather than beliefs you try to confirm. It is the most effect way to uncover the truth.
- There are lessons all around you all the time, with lessons of what to do, what not to do, everyone has something to teach you, whether they know it or not – watch and listen more than talking.
- Learn from your mistakes, don’t be fearful of making them. They are the best teacher.
- Find accurate information from reliable sources, curiosity, disprove rather than prove – prevents confirmation bias and self reinforcement, scientific approach.
- Allow reflective time to absorb and assimilate information. Talk to others out loud (real or imaginary) as if you were teaching them about what you have learned, or blog about what you’ve learned, this will help you organise your learning into a coherent form.
- Beware the Curse of knowledge. Use what you have/know to help others who want to know what you know, in layman’ terms. Break things down. If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it enough.
- Choose love over fear – Fearfulness is self defeating, and Ego-centric. Be in the moment, observe thought, don’t react or be controlled by it.
- Think abundance rather than scarcity – When one door closes another opens, if you miss a door opening, don’t worry another will. They are always opening.
- Givers gain – Of your time, experience attention, support, experience, money.
- Get results – Know and do what’s needed, whilst not doing anything counter. Knowledge, motivation, productivity.
- Stop using Coping strategies to excuse failure – Justifying is a method to alleviate cognitive stress, and allows us to settle/make do with the current status quo.
- Goal setting – Make sure the method you choose to achieve your goal is congruent/ aligned with you, otherwise you won’t act. Ideally do something you like which leads to your goal. If you like business but don’t like the day to day responsibilities of running a business, be an investor instead.
- E to P (Entrepreneur to purposeful) – don’t keep bouncing off outer wall of ability, you have to figure out a way to expand your boundary, because life will keep testing you until you do. Even if you give up and do something else, the time will come again when you need to push past.
- Know that beliefs, values and consequently, principles, rules, conditions, judgements, views, opinions, conjecture, predictions are built largely on assumptions and inferences and testimony (of perceived experts/authority figures via social conditioning), rather than truths, formed by repetition, revision, practice. Yet they play a huge role in shaping our perceptions/perspective and consequently behaviour/actions. Our Senses take incoming stimuli and our mind then runs a storytelling narrative over them, as we attempt to interpret and make sense of what we see, hear, taste, touch and smell. Our senses can be fooled, our thoughts and consequently our perceptions/perspective misguided.
Question thoughts, beliefs, assumptions /inferences – start researching to find if they’re accurate/true - Be wary of having fixed/rigid beliefs and values. When someone tells you something, ask “How do you know?”
- Expectations worth having;
- Expect that if it can go wrong it will and at the worst possible time – prepare for it!
- Expect nothing – drop any sense of entitlement – life and people don’t owe you anything, whether politeness, favours, forgiveness, a place in society, the right to make a living, good health, relationships, friends, family. Each day is a gift, appreciate everything you have, while you have it. Replace Expectation with Appreciation.
- Expect change – Nothing stays the same, everything changes, change is a natural part of life, you can’t get stuck (in a situation)forever because things are constantly shifting. There are winners and losers in every situation, position yourself to win, be a predator of chance, rather than a victim of circumstance.
- Expect things/situations to be more complex than initially meets the eye. i.e. political issues, skills etc. If something doesn’t seem to make sense, look into further to find out the complexities, rather than just giving an uninformed opinion.