Month: November 2011

When I used to figure skate,
my coach would tell me to visualize
over and over again
the jump being completed.
She was certain it helped her students
learn a new jump quicker.

Turns out,
she was right.

In a study by Harvard University,
students who visualized
learning to play new piano music
had the same expansion
in their motor cortex
as those who had practiced the music.

“When we repeat a skill
that we are trying to master,
we strengthen the neural networks
that represent that action.
The same happens physically
in the brain
whether we perform the action,
or simply visualize it—
Your brain cannot tell the difference
between an action you performed
and an action you visualized.”

Visualize new skills
when you aren’t able
to practice them.

Leading Blog has a great summary
of the ideas
presented in
Jim Collins and Morten Hansen’s
book
Great By Choice.

This book asks…
“When the moment comes
—when we’re afraid, exhausted, or tempted
—what choice do we make?
Do we abandon our values?
Do we give in?
Do we accept average performance
because that’s what most everyone else accepts?
Do we capitulate to
the pressure of the moment?
Do we give up on our dreams
when we’ve been slammed by brutal facts?

In the end,
we can control
only a tiny sliver
of what happens to us.
But even so,
we are free to choose,
free to become great by choice.”

There’s an element of luck
in every success,
but good and bad luck happens to all of us.
It is the choices that define us,
that separate the great from the good.

All entrepreneurs hear about
the stress of starting up a business.
We expect it.
We plan for it.

What we don’t hear about
is the very real stress of
growing a business.
The stress of having too many orders
to successfully handle
within the existing structure
yet having too few orders
to justify expanding the business.

I’m at that place right now
with my writing.
I’m selling everything I write.
Publishers are asking
for more, more, more,
yet I don’t have the writing cash flow
to pay for assistants, etc.

Fiona Cairns,
baker to Royalty,
talked about the stress
of growing her business
to The Costco Connection.

“I’m still not sure how we managed it.
By then we had two young children,
Kishore was still working in London
and I was working long, long hours
in the bakery,
seven days a week.
There’d be vans delivering supplies
at 6 a.m.,
or Harrods would be on the phone
to discuss an order
and I’d have a crying child
in the background.
It all felt very unprofessional,
very stressful and
there was a lot of guilt as a mother.”

If your business does well,
there WILL be growing pains.
The hard work and long hours
aren’t isolated to start ups.

The timing varies with every business
but these pains WILL happen.
Expect them.

In November/December’s
The Costco Connection,
crooner Michael Buble was asked
the ‘secret’ behind
his first record’s great success.

“I think it was a good record.
It was something people liked.
The truth is
I worked my ass off.
My manager had a plan.
I went around the world
three times in the first two years.
Not concerts,
doing showcases
— showing up at a lounge in Paris
with eight people
and trying to move them
and to entertain them.
If there’s some talent there
and people believe in what you’re doing
and you work really hard,
it happens.”

Michael Buble spent an entire evening
wooing 8 audience members
into becoming his fans.

What time are WE spending
to grow our customer base?

Yesterday, one of my buddies
wrote 6,500 words in one day.
That is her personal best.

Today, I wrote 4,000 words.
That’s my personal best.

Another buddy in our writing group
also achieved
her word count personal best.

This isn’t a coincidence.
Being competitive
(and yes, many writers ARE
extremely competitive),
our buddy’s achievement
pushed us
to achieve.

THAT is one of the many reasons
why success is easier
to achieve
in teams.

Are you being a Lone Ranger?
If that is working for you,
fine.
If that isn’t working for you
or you feel you could achieve more,
consider forming a support group
of people with similar goals.

Then post your daily goals
and support each other
in achieving them.

November is National Novel Writing Month
and the good folks at
NaNoWriMo
have once again organized
their 50,000 words written in a month
challenge.

It is interesting to hear
the responses to NaNoWriMo.

Some writers are excited.
This is an opportunity
to be accountable for their words written,
to band together with other writers,
and to have some fun.

Then there are the grumblers.

My favorite grumble
is that words written quickly
are trash.

Yeah, that’s not true.
Actually, I find the stories I write quickly
are often my favorite stories
and the stories that sell easily.

It is often the same
with other product development.
The products that are
quick to develop
(quick does not always equal easy)
are often the products that sell well.
(because there’s often a clear reason
for the product
which team members can quickly rally around
and understand).

Quick CAN mean quality.
A process doesn’t have to be difficult
to be worthwhile.