Clinton Skakun

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” – Thomas Alva Edison
There’s an old saying, “Work hard play hard.” (Good to keep in mind)

Take for example, popular statements like “Don’t work hard, work smart” and “work smarter instead of harder.” I don’t totally disagree with these statements and can understand where they’re coming from and from who. Don’t think that hard work isn’t ever going to cross your path again though. Working smart is definitely the way to go, however you need to work hard on what works(working smart) and stop working on what only partially works.

Using the famous GOYA formula

Tom Hopkins says, when you get in a slump, apply the GOYA formula. It seems to work like magic to. What’s the GOYA formula? Simply this: When you’re not getting anywhere … Get Off Your ASS! Often times people don’t slow down because they’re working too hard, it’s because they outperform one week, then slack for while expecting to coast. Eventually they have to work for three weeks to make up for the lost time. Remember a time in your life when you worked really hard at your job or your business or maybe something non-work related: did it take some hustle and some guts? Maybe you had to get up 2-3 hours earlier than you normally would. But whatever it took, you were going to get there. Usually, going ahead isn’t about learning more, or reading more books or taking another breather. The answer is just getting off your ass. “Nobody ever drowned in their own sweat!”

Look back on a time when you were employed at a job other than you’re own business. You had to work the hours on the schedule, take a brief coffee break, a lunch break and then get back to work. Sometimes the managers would bitch and sometimes you were pressured to work twice as hard. You’d go home, go to sleep and wake up the next morning and, whether you felt like it or not, you drove back to work. There was no question, just get to work. If you worked as hard at your current business as you did at your payroll job would your business be flourishing? If so, then get off your ass!

“There’s a time for work, and there’s a time for play, don’t mix the two.” – Jim Rohn

How many hours a day do you REALLY spend actually working and producing results? If you’re self employed this can be a tough one to answer. You could say, “well, I don’t know exactly how many hours I work because I’m self employed and I make my own hours.” But how many hours do you really make? You could use the old manager mentality, “well as long as shit gets done, that’s all that matters.” Or you could ask yourself, am I doing everything I could be or just passing the minimum? Honestly, based on my results would I hire myself? If you’re in business for yourself and your answer is no, I wouldn’t hire myself, than why the hell are you in business for yourself? The problem with us self-employed people is that we can’t tell the difference between fun, relaxing and actual work. Separate them! Relaxing does not equal work. Your work may be fun but don’t get work and fun, as in non-lucrative fun, mixed together. Because what you get is non-lucrative work.

Don’t allow play to take over work time, because work time will end up taking over play time.

When things get worse, you gotta work harder!

What do most people do when there’s a recession? They whine, complain and get depressed. There are always rumors that they are going to laid off. Every day at work is a reminder of how dim the future is for them. The problem is, almost everyone gets by in the good times. The so called bad times or depressions or slumps are golden opportunities to separate the wheat from the shaft. These times bring down the people with poor mentalities and rise up the champions who are up for a challenge. Tom Hopkins, who was a real estate agent in the 60’s and 70’s, made record sales during a down economy–hitting record sales that were almost unsurpassed of until the turn of the century. Mr. Hopkins said, “When we hit a slump, I just worked harder than anyone else.” He didn’t say leverage was responsible for his success. He didn’t tell us that a certain technique was critical to his success. Even though time management, the proper techniques and practice are critically important, he said “I worked harder than anyone else.” Should it come as a surprise? I think not. Take what you know and work hard with it.

• Do you work hard to find ways to work smarter?
• Do you work hard on yourself, building character and self discipline?
• Do you work hard to educate yourself, and work hard blocking out what doesn’t help you in the least?
• Do you work hard to build, work harder to maintain what you’ve built and work even harder to ward off what threatens what you’ve built?
• Do you work hard on simplifying, balancing the time scales and making life more manageable?
• Do you work hard to better yourself, to become better suited and more skilled, higher in effectiveness and a better performer?

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” – Russell C. Taylor:

Photo credited to nickgatens

This photo is courtesy of Red Stick Republican’s Rantings
Goal setting is not a one time activity, it’s a skill that, with much practice, can be mastered. Some people set better, on target, goals than others. It can be a very simplistic process, if done right. If you do it wrong you can confuse the hell out of yourself. It pays to learn how to set goals. Thousands of books, audio tapes, CDs, seminars have been made on the topic of goal setting. Avoid reading and listening to ALL of the material out there, obviously you won’t live long enough. Instead get advice from the best selling business and personal best practices authors out there like Brian Tracy, Stephan Covey, Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins just to name a few.

There is really no right amount of goals, some people set 500 a year and other set 2-3, most people set none. Some people like to set small goals so they can check something off every day so they can build up momentum to larger goals. There are also those people who think 20 years down the road before they achieve any of their goals.

I use a system for tracking my progress and just started using it recently. In order for this system to work your goals NEED to follow these guidelines:

Smart Goal Setting Guidelines:

1. They need to be written in the present tense and personal(I–or we if you’re an organization–am/have/own(present tense) …)
2. They need to be measurable(e.g. I have grossed $120,000(specific amount) this year)
3. They need a deadline(e.g. Jan 1st 2011)
4. They need to be specific(WRONG: I have gone on vacation…RIGHT: I have taken a vacation with X in X resort as of June 12th 2010)
5. It needs to be meaningful
6. You need to be clear on how to get there(at least have an idea on the first step or know someone who you can model)

Quick Note: The Best Things Come in Three’s

One is not enough, four is too much to focus on. You should not focus on more than tree goals a month. The fewer goals you have per month, the sharper your focus. There’s only 30 days in a month, don’t plan on changing the world within that time. Three goals is just right. Like I said above, there are no “right” amount of goals. However the less number of goals you have and the more meaningful they are, the surer you can be that you will accomplish them.

The Monthly Review–Be Accountable

What happened if you set goals and never checked the progress? You might not get there. Why? Because it’s easy to stray. It’s easy to set a goal and forget about it in three weeks. This is important: KEEP YOUR GOALS IN FRONT OF YOU DAILY!

SideNote: There is a common opinion in psychology that says that the brain can’t differentiate between internal references(like constructed and remembered images) and external references(things that, in the life out side of you, actually happen and you pick up on through your senses). There’s a major difference between merely reading the words, of the goals you’ve written down, and the seeing and feeling them in your mind before they happen; we know that from many reliable sources, as well as the new discoveries in quantum physics, that say that the subconscious mind is always working to live up to the self concept you choose. When you write down goals on paper your subconscious mind comes up with ways to achieve them, I believe that this is where intuition and bursts of creativity come from. We all know though, that what you focus on expands. When you talk about, think about, and dwell on your ideal future, you begin to find your self working towards it.

Five to ten days before the end of the month do a monthly review on how far you are from your monthly goals. If you set a goal for the 31st and it’s currently the 22nd, review your progress:

CASE 1. Didn’t achieve goal but made progress:

1. How far am I from X goal? (Use some math if there are numbers involved to get a percentage)
2. How much did I do vs. Averages? (e.g. Averages say I need to sell 20 cars to reach my income goal, I sold 16 thus a shortfall of 4)
3. How much harder will I have to work/What will I do differently next time to accomplish this goal in the comming month? (e.g. if I continue to work the same way I’ll continue to get 16, if I follow up more often and take a sales course I might be able to get those extra 4—or just stay later and start earlier)
4. What will I do next week to prepare to acheive this goal in the next month?(Add this to next weeks list of things to do…e.g. Contact more prospective car buyers in the last week of this month that may generate some sales next month.)
5. What is a major constraint(or constraints), that I can leverage, that if eliminated would make all the difference? (You will now focus on eliminating this constraint, brainstorm how to do it and then take action … e.g. get out behind the desk and actually go talk to people who are look at vehicles in the lot.)
6. Due to the Lead* measures, are the Lag* measures leading me to think I’m closer/future than I really am to achieving this goal? e.g. Am I too busy checking the score sheet(Lag) when I should be perfecting my skills(Lead)?
7. What did I do right(what’s the winning strategy), that allowed me to get as far as I have? (focus on what you did right and either do more of it or continue it at least … e.g. Gave out a lot of cards which resulted in multiple calls from certain people interested in buying Hondas)
8. What assumptions did I make this month that may have acted as a constraint to this goal? (e.g. I assumed that it was going to be a good month for vehicle sales, ended up I didn’t work hard enough to find prospects and sat back)
9. Is there a lack of emotional desire to this goal, or mabye mixed feelings? Can I adjust this goal to appeal to my emotions better so as to increase motivation? If not, is this a goal that really matters to me? (If you’ve lost interest in this goal, strike it off the list and save your energy for what you really want.)

If you did achieve your the goal this month ask: What is the winning strategy that I can extract from accomplishment and duplicate over the next few months, years, decades, etc?

*A Lead measure is what Kaplan and Norton call a “Performance Driver”, a Lag measure is a “Performance Indicator”. Lead measures can often be referred to as preventative measures or measures(e.g. changing tires on a car). The speedometer can tell you how fast the car is traveling but can’t predict a flat tire, tending to the tires are Lead measures. The Lag measure will tell you your weight(on the scale) but can’t tell you the driving forces of your weight loss.

1. Build a completely reliable system of trust and clarity that promotes your ability to relax. Create an empty mind to the whirlwind and a open mind to creative and higher thinking.

A large distractor and productivity killer is having open loops in your short term memory(think of it as your RAM). Another thing that will happen is, when ideas come to you you’ll have a potentially large chance of forgetting them, if you just rely on memory. Ever get that where you had one good idea after another, assumed that you’d remember it, and when the time came to use that idea you couldn’t remember it? We can assume everyone has at one time or another. When you constantly try to store your task list in your RAM(short term memory), it drains the resources you need in order to focus on hard tasks and to stay focused for a long period of time. It also depresses your ability to think on your feet, think creatively and feel relaxed while you work. The ultimate goal for your system should be to store everything in an external storage(note pad, PDA, your computer), one that you can trust will alert you and keep you updated on what you need to be doing, thus freeing your mind of the massive task of trying to remember a simple list and allowing you to focus entirely on the task at hand AND giving you room to clear your mind and relax(with out the “gotta remember this, gotta remember that, but what was it again?”).

The word “system” doesn’t refer to any particular technology. It basically has to be a convenient, easily assessable(and even enjoyable) system that you can update and review on a day to day, hour by hour, minute by minute basis(or however often you need). This can be on your computer, hand held device or just on plain old pen and paper. If you don’t have 24/7 access to your system use something simpler. I use a pen and paper, basically because I can use it anywhere and any time of the day. Use all the resources you need: Filers, calenders, simple sticky notes, what ever works best for YOU.

Now here’s the important part! As said above, the system must be completely reliable and your conscious and subconscious mind must trust it, or else it wont work. YOU CAN’T TRICK YOUR OWN BRAIN. If you end up thinking, “oopps, forgot to add next weeks’ supper with the family, ohh well I’ll remember.” Suddenly you’ll mistrust your system, your brain will be working constantly to remind yourself that you have a supper to attend on this certain date. And since this part of your brain often doesn’t have a concept of time I’ll will constantly remind you. (ironically you might end up forgetting when that reminder is needed.) So what’s wrong with this? It ruins your ability to handle large amounts of tasks and, at the same time, complete those tasks. In short, it screws your ability to get things done. This is a must. It doesn’t matter what your system really is, as long as it works very well for you. Make sure you write down everything you want to get done, projects, next actions, someday/maybe lists, urgent little things, priorities.

How will you know when your system is reliable? When you don’t feel you need to think about anything other than what you’re currently doing. If you’re still rolling something over in your head, put it in your system(unless it should be done right a way) and trust your system to remind you of it later. You will continue this until you’ve achieved clarity. You won’t believe how much of a difference it will make. Ever feel you need to be right-here-right-now but cant stop thinking about everything going on in your day/week/month? That’s because you feel you will lose it OR you aren’t clear on IF what you’re thinking about is even important.

If you need to think something through, write down in your system: “think Calgary Tower re-design through, solve [this] problem and decide next action.” (WARNING: you can confuse the crap out of you with vague, ambiguous phrases. Do yourself a major favor, ALWAYS be concise and clear, specify an “action” you must take and “why” and for “who” and “what” and “where” and “when” it needs to be done.)

There are a few key points to your system:

• It NEEDS to allow you to relax, it needs to put your mind at ease. (“How much you can relax is dereclty related to how much you get done.” – Unknowen)
• It NEEDS to be updated whenever needed to continue to be reliable and trustworthy.
• It must alert YOU.(the word “alert” means your review as well, not just a buzzer that goes off.)
• It should be simple, fun, and it should be 24/7 accessible(i.e. you jump up in the middle of the night remembering something you need to do Wednesday, DON’T “remember” it tomorrow, you might not)

2. Work on your own tenancies to be anti-productive.

“90% of everything you do is mental and 10% technical/physical, to have true control over the 90%, your mind, is to have control over destiny”
The best of us procrastinate and put off until the last minute, eventually causing the minor insignificant issue to escalate into an enormous, sometimes dangerous and costly problem that we are “forced” to deal with or else, our heads! Yeah, urgency has its own emergency system of telling us when we’ve put off for too long. Why do we put off when we know how it could kill us tomorrow? Because it wont kill us today. And because today we have our own pile of emergencies to handle and fires to put out. Fires will start and emergencies will happen, although most of the emergencies could be prevented with a bit of smart planning, some thought and some quick small action before hand. We really don’t have time for this crap. When there’s only time to put out fires and no time to run the store, we loose money. And if we don’t put out the fire, we loose money. The best question would be: how do we run the store, make money, and put out fires when they happen without diverting from priorities? The answer is quite obvious, practice prevention! Do the thing today while it’s easy, do it this week instead of next week. You’ll find that when you do today, what you putting off is now history and it feels like it was done and gone last month instead of a few hours or days ago. It’s almost effortless. This one simple practice can make you rich and free up lots of time.

The funny thing is, people who spend ALL their time on short term pleasure also spend lots of time getting rid of following, succeeded short term pain. The future comes faster than you think, thinking one week into the future is like preparing for tomorrow … or the next minute.

A few keys for killing procrastination and making your mind work for you:

• Do harder things impulsively, over calculating often brings hesitation and uses more energy.
• Ask yourself in the morning, what are the hardest 3 things I could do this morning? As the day goes on, you’ll thank yourself.
• Create a 1 day rule, do urgent things within the day they occur(or 1 week rule for harder or more time consuming tasks)
• Improve communication with your self, “The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your communication, with yourself and others” – Tony Robbins

“If you believe you can or can’t, you’re right on both accounts.” – Henry Ford

3. Separate the truly important from the *sarcasm* merely urgent

Ever wonder why people say, “I don’t have any time”? Any time for what? What’s your purpose for your time and how do you find value from time? We can talk about time management, actions, tasks etc etc but unless we truly know why we’re taking that action, the action lacks purpose. We might as well sit on the couch and watch TV. It’s stupid to put so much effort into DOing without knowing what it’s leading up to or what caused the decision to take the action.

Motivation basically comes from emotion. If you have the right emotion you will take action to either avoid pain or gain pleasure. It only makes sense, right? Have you ever done something for no good reason that didn’t cause you pain or pleasure? Probably not. Link anything in human motives to an emotion. Whether it’s fighting in a war, driving to work, having sex, or running a mile a day. There’s either a long term, short term gain or both involved.

Why do you need more time? Maybe, to spend more time doing things that feel meaningful to you. And you’re emotional about what you want to accomplish either short term or long term. (e.g. you go to ‘John’s Booze Mart’ to buy a 26 or Bacardi, drinking may mean pleasure to you or else you wouldn’t bother going there in the first place.)

Basically the meaning we put on actions, and how we determine how much time they’re work, the priority level, stems from this:

Your mission in life … then
Your goals and dreams, filtered by your mission … then
Your planned actions, filtered by your goals and dreams, filtered by your mission … then
What you do right NOW, determined by your planned actions, filtered by your goals and dreams, filtered by your mission … then

The value of what you put on NOW is decided by what is deeper down. It’s hard to know what an action is worth unless you know how it relates to the truly important.

This is the truly important. Don’t confuse the important with the urgent, things like paying bills, washing the floors or updating your facebook status(unless, of course, these things lead up to your actual goals). When you learn how to measure actions between importance and urgency you will understand what deserves more attention.

4. Rest your mind, Review your lead and lag measures, sharpen the saw and see the big picture.

There are those who like to spend every waking moment on doing something and getting a little more work done. It’s great to push the limits and to strive to a little harder. It’s also harder to stop once you get into the addicting groove of work. People who tend to overwork tend to burn out every so often. Try not to do this to yourself, there’s more to life than work. If you neglect the big picture, how will you know when you get there? Will you just continue to fill your void of boredom with more work?

“If you don’t know why you’re doing something, you can never do enough of it.” – Unknown

“Work for the sake of work is a form of laziness, how many lazy people try to become more productive?”

“Dedication is often just meaningless work in disguise” – Tim Ferris, Author of 4-Hour Workweek

Some things that are completely crucial to your focus and mental health:

• Review the big picture Friday or Saturday morning, plan the next week, organize, get everything off your chest. The only thing you should think about is how awesome the coming week’s going to be. Don’t stress about things you have to do and make sure they’re in your system.
• Enjoy the entire weekend, or one day if you have demanding work. Don’t think about anything business unless you absolutely need to.
• Talk to people you haven’t talked to in a long time, hang out, splurge a little at the mall, do something different.
• Since you have nothing on your mind, a flood of creative ideas will probably hit you. Make sure they are kept down on paper, otherwise just forget about them all together.

Have you ever spent the entire weekend catching up on work, just to find yourself on Monday morning wishing you could just take a day off and have some free time already? There’s an old saying, “Too much work and not enough play, makes Jack a …” yeah you know… life’s too short to not have fun. Your brain needs to understand that there’s a bigger world out there than that little problem you’ve been bashing your head out over for the past month.

“Life could be more enjoyable if we stopped taking so many un-serious aspects of life too seriously too often and just sat back … and to live and let live now and then! The variety offered to us in this short time on earth gives us opportunity to explore and to grasp a deeper sense of what life is, to explore, experience and continually be inspired and to eventually act in abundance and give back” – Westly Hartell

5. The Art of Elimination!

Some of the best thins in life, leave. Use the art of elimination to create a more productive life:

• The enemy of the GREAT is the GOOD! Get rid of the GOOD, make room for the GREAT!
• Use Pareto’s 80/20 principle to eliminate the 80% that only yield only 20% results and focus on the 20% that yield 80% results.
• Use the Parkinson’s Law: work expands to fill the alloted time. Give work less time to fill: “The demand upon a resource tends to expand to match the supply of the resource. The reverse is not true.” – cited from Wikipedia 3 hours can be more than 12 hours.

“One does not accumulate, but eliminate. It is not the increase but the daily decrease. The height of cultivation runs to simplicity.” – Bruce Lee

Photo Credit: Button Shop

“… than you do one your job.”Jim Rohn told a story about how his mentor gave him this peace of advice many years ago, “…he said, ‘this is all you have to do: Work harder … on yourself than you do on your job.’”

“working hard on your job you makes a living, working hard on your self makes you a fortune.” – Jim Rohn

See the more you learn how to fine tune, improve and enable yourself the better you’ll perform at your job and in every other area of your life. Because in reality which do you really want more, to perform better at your job or at your life? Focusing on your job will increase the amount of money you make, it will make you a valuable employee/businessperson. Focus on your job will tell you how to work longer hours, focus on yourself will get you wondering how to do more in less time, to make work an art, not a practice. But most people are caught up in the whirlwind, a life of urgency and necessity. And 19/20 people think that the answer to securing a job in today’s economy is going back to school and getting more education, because there’s no demand for the current position they hold. Not that it’s a bad idea to “get educated”, just note that many people who graduate from college or university find themselves jobless as their position either doesn’t exist any more or more experienced employees are being laid off already.

So what does working on yourself have to do with any of all this? Just this, who you are on the core radiates outward. That might sound fluffy and mystic but it’s really true. It really doesn’t matter what job you have(skill set wise) or what formal education you have under your belt. When we get down to the meat, you’re greatest life decisions aren’t best made by how well you did at your job or how valuable you were in the market place(all these things are important) but rather by WHO you’ve become. A large salary will never ensure happiness and it never ensures that you win at life. Let me put it this way: you work on yourself you will learn to make amazing and potentially successful decisions in every area of your life. You work harder on your job you begin to miss everything else life has to offer. And if your job is the center of your life you might even cut off ever getting the chance to get a better job or career in the future.

Working harder on your job skill set wont get you this:

• Enthusiasm
• Honesty
• Integrity
• Optimism
• Ability to work in a team
• Empathy
• Persuasion
• Motivating people

Now don’t get me wrong, these skills can be developed and learned on the job though they are skills(yes they are skills that can be learned) that need to be worked on harder than any other job specific skills. Do you want a doctor who’s completely dishonest in his diagnosis and provides you with the wrong treatment?(he could have 50 years of education and it wouldn’t matter) Do you want a teacher who lacks empathy, who can’t listen to students and who is impatient? And yet, would I want to make sure that doctor and teacher have a sufficient amount of knowledge and formal education specific to their field? OF COURSE! All I’m really trying to get at is this…

COMPETENCE IS A REQUIREMENT! Any field you work in you must be competent to a certain degree(unless you’re in training or apprenticeship). But when your job leaves you and your source of job security is gone, what do you have left? Yourself! So work on yourself and any job will open up to you. Yes you need to get a degree for some or most positions but it’s not your primary source of hope and it’s not your most important skill set. Your most important skill set is the set of skills you use on the job as well as off the job. Yes, your ability to listen to others, to be honest, to work in a team(or to get along with your family), and a various other life skills.

This is what much research has found: A mediocre computer programmer with great people and communication skills is a better programmer than a high-IQ, computer whiz who is poor at listening and understanding the needed requirements for the software s/he is coding. For nearly 80 years or more, it has been said that 15% of a great employee is his or her job skills, the rest, the 85%, is people related skills. Now why may you ask do we spend so much time on our technical skills when we’re probably good enough already. Sure there’s always room for improvement in the technical area AND make sure you’ve spent more time improving that 85% than the 15% because it’s worth more in the long run.

And I’m almost positive that there are majority of people who read this that think it’s a load of crock. “Are you a f**king idiot, how’s working on myself going to make me a living?” Doesn’t it only make sense, work harder/get more education and earn more? Who needs enthusiasm or optimism to pick up a pay check at the end of the month? That’s why most people aren’t wealthy and why most people hate their jobs. If the majority of people disagree with me, it just makes sense. Why? Well, it’s only the way the 95% has been brought up: Get a scholarship, go to collage and get a good job with benefits, then plan for retirement(even though pensions are the saddest things on earth). The best advice someone can give you now days is: learn how to adapt to change, work harder on yourself and your attitude than you do on your job, know what you want and always be open to possibilities, do something you’re passionate about, beware of unquestioned convictions(don’t do something because they’ve always been done a certain way) and work hard(things are never easy, they just seem like that). Most of what is said here biased toward an entrepreneurial mindset though this new advice could be useful to anyone and everyone, whether you’re an employee, a business owner, a consultant or what-not.

“Work harder on yourself than you do on your job” – Jim Rohn