Clinton Skakun

Why do so many Americans spend hours complaining about the weather, traffic, gas prices, the economy, work etc etc but never have time to fix things they have control of?

Why do some people hate it when they see someone light a cigarette, yet they eat at McDonalds and buy craft dinner? And will non-smoking zones also block out smog, which is also bad or even worse for your health?

Why do a lot people pride themselves in knowing a whole lot about nothing, talking about it all the time, and think they can tell you anything about it?

Why do we live in a society where time is so undervalued, money so under-managed and people so busy doing a whole lot of nothing that’s getting them nowhere?

I cant make up my mind if every teen on the planet is either striving to be cool, trying to be cool by going against the crowed, or if there’s any difference.

Why are people who make choices so looked down upon as the lucky, rich who can do whatever they want? Maybe because they chose to be?

I think that for every negative aspect in our society there is a somewhat positive one, we can find and create opportunities and take advantage of one of the best countries in the the world, despite it’s defects and faults. Quit focusing on things that are out of our circle of influence, things that you cant control, and life will just make much more sense. Entrepreneurs don’t spend time bathing in negative crap, they either make an opportunity out of it or ignore it altogether.

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“Whatever business you’re in, however big you are, success boils down to creativity, imagination, and sincerity.” @thinkBIG_blog Saving Private Ryan move Death Race ipod

“Leaders have the rare ability to regenerate themselves thru imagination when a dream dies. Imagination must be cultivated.” – Orrin_Woodward

“I take risks every day and fail. Does that make me a failure?” – @Lotay

“Love people and use things, not love things and use people.” – Orrin_Woodward

“Procrastination is the assassination of motivation. After planning your work, work your plan.” – Orrin_Woodward

“Worry not what the world is doing, but rather focus on the one thing you control, your life experience” – @HawaiianLife

“Everyone has action potential, the hard part it turning it into kinetic energy…” – @ClintonSkakun

“Things that aren’t meant to be will never happen, and unless you MAKE it happen, they never WILL be.” – @ClintonSkakun

“Living from a state of mind that embraces scarcity is fueling greed and fear, move to the house of abundance to free your soul” – @HawaiianLife buy The Quick and the Dead Knock Off film The Upside of Anger rip Young, Single & Angry move

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In Book Yourself Solid, Micheal Port talks about attracting the right clients to your business and “firing” the clients that you don’t enjoy working with. Reading this book was an eye opener for me because it clears up a few things about the relationship you have with clients.

Lucky for me I’ve never had to fire any clients, but I only work with the people that I CAN work best with.

You are the people you work with!

The people and the environment you choose to be apart of, or tolerate, effects your business, the way you work, how you feel about your work and how successful you become and in turn, how much money you make. Micheal Port explains how destructive working with unloyal clients can be. He also explains how removing those clients from your business can have a profound and positive effect on your business and your overall well being. Are you willing to give your best to clients who don’t really like you? If you work for clients that don’t fit you and drag you down, it will show in your work, they’ll complain and they’ll have the absolute right to. Ghost Game ipod

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Find them a better fit

You don’t have to shove your unloyal clients off board and forget about them. Use them as an opportunity. You know other businesses within your line of work! Refer these clients to them. Find them a better fit! Dumping your negative clients doesn’t have to be ugly. In fact, they’ll respect you for it. Instead of continuing a bad relationship that’s draining both you and your client of money and energy, show that you have integrity and cut that relationship. Tell them that you have their best interest at heart, it’s nothing personal, and that you may know a few other great people who would be willing to work with them. It’ll buy you respect, and maybe your less then ideal clients will refer some people to your business, just because you were on the level with them and also because a bad relationship was put to an end or prevented.

Red velvet carpet policy

You don’t want just anyone to come through your doors. This of course depends on what kind of business you run. McDonalds basically allows anyone to buy their burgers. However if you’re self employed, or are a recruiter, or do business with people long-term than the red velvet policy may work for you. The red velvet policy is basically your policy on what kind of people you allow to do business with you.

What attributes are your clients required to have in order for you to provide them with your best work?

Your red velvet policy is different then your target market, though they do have things in common. Your target market is more about demographic. Your red velvet policy allow people in that you WANT to work with, that you cant believe you get paid to work with.

Isn’t that being a little too picky?

After considering this idea you might get the gut feeling that by choosing ideal clients and clients that you are comfortable with is a little picky and narrow minded. However, this is quite the contrary! The reason you’re in business is because you wanted something better. Maybe you quit your job, or plan on quiting your job to instead spend time on your business. You where picky enough to decide that you didn’t want to work for so ‘n so at your job. Why not decide who you want to work with in your business, it is after all YOUR business, YOU are your own boss, YOU decide how things operate. How are your suppose to fully manifest your passion in your work unless you love to be around the people you work with and feel passionate about what you’re doing to for them? How are you suppose to do your absolute best, enjoy what your work, and feel good about what you’re doing if you’re in a contradicting environment?

Simply put, successful people choose the people they want to be around–success minded people, people like them, who share common interests, common visions, etc. The result you’re looking for is, waking up in the morning and going to work with a bunch of the best people in the world. It’s like being in your very own elite club, without all the talk about ruling the world.

Photo By Boaz

If you’re self-employed or own a business and find that you work more for people that drag you down and drain your energy, maybe you need to better define your target market. Some people call it your niche, however a target market and a “niche” are not the same thing. Your target market, is a group of people you market TO, and your niche is the specific thing you offer to your target market. If your target market is not properly defined than your niche wont be either. One thing that’s very important for new businesses and startups to take care of is this, because once one target market is dominated in the company other new markets are ready to follow. I don’t believe that a small company or an individual who’s self-employed should try to serve multiple markets when one hasn’t yet been mastered. For a larger company is can cause a loss of focus. For a self-employed business owner it can mean a loss of focus, burn out and loss of interest from spreading energy across so many fields. A company that does everything, doesn’t do well in any one field.

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I’m a firm believer in being passionate about what you do. You hear it all the time “follow your intuition, do something you like, or that you’re passionate about and you’ll go far”, it’s been repeated so many times that it seems too obvious to mention. Though following your intuition also applies to choosing your target market. This still seems obvious … but lets take a closer look. People who are in business for themselves often pick a specific field, they decide what their target market is and open their business. I think starting a business and experiencing how it is for the first little while is a good way to understand what you really like and also what you’re not so passionate about. After a while you start hating one aspect of being in business while loving another. You start to discover a few things about yourself and about the market you’re in. You start to discover what you were really passionate about when you first got in business. Maybe you didn’t know it at the time, maybe it took a mistake or two before your fully understand what in your business was baggage and what you really wanted to do, and could boost your enterprise doing it.

Too many business owners take the left-brain/logical approach to choosing the a target market. They decide to do what pays the most. They ask, what’s the best market in terms of how lucrative it is? Of course you need to choose a market that will allow you to create income. However what many don’t know, and find out soon enough, is that you can choose to serve the hottest market out there, but if your heart isn’t in it your business will bring nothing but pain and hardship. A business prone to failure, not because of the market, but because of the people’s efforts to please a market that they didn’t feel passionate about. The right brain approach says, “do what you love and money will tag along.” This goes back to why we started our own business in the first place: to do something we liked, to make more money doing it and to call the shots(be our own boss). But than again this doesn’t work out too well either. Lots of times we are our own boss and end up working ourselves to death. We can’t unlock our chains because the key is so rusted that it would crumble if we tried to use it. In other words, the dream of owning a business turns into something that looks like your old job, but now you have to wear a dozen or more hats.

“Often when I’m working with clients, I discover they’ve chosen a target market based on what they think is logical or most lucrative. The end result is that they’re board, frustrated, and struggling to book themselves solid. Don’t make that mistake.” – From Book Yourself Solid by Micheal Port.

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Broken Co/Old Co and New Co

(like in E-myth)
When you wear out and burn out, it’s not time to quit but to try a new approach. To transform Broken Co. into your dream enterprise, New Co. To take the core(dreams, vision, values, etc) out of the rotten apple(current business situation) and put it into the coreless apple(future enterprise). To do this don’t entirely focus on how you’re going to make more money but rather on what your passions REALLY are. Which parts of Broken Co are you going to keep? What do you shave off of Broken Co so it can fit in perfectly with New Co? So when the two puzzle peaces fit together you have the core values that you started with(the good parts of Broken Co), peaced together with something that actually works, New Co(what Broken Co was suppose to look like).

Micheal Port, author of Book Yourself Solid says, (on finding your target market) “Turning in to your intuition, allowing yourself to open up on new ways of thinking and to the infinite possibilities available to you, may seem like illogical, but if you can approach the process … you may find it makes perfect sense.”

The question is which market are you best suited to serve? Which talents, skills and abilities do you posses that makes you “right” for serving a specific market?