Helmsley Media

I read my horoscope today and got a little pumped, ridiculous I know, nevertheless it was pretty cool.

According to the planets you are very close to the tipping point, where one small adjustment or alteration somehow changes everything.

I know it’s silly, completely coincidental, but I still love that kinda stuff.  We’re all looking for some sort of external validation of what we believe our purpose is, to feel like we are on some kind of pre-destined mission of some kind.  I like to believe that all of the suffering and hard lessons I have learned in business were to bring me to a point where I am finally prepared for success.  I’m hoping that I am heading towards some sort of tipping point that were it not for my previous trials and tribulations, would not be possible.  That would validate all of the crap I dealt with, all of the wedding videos I had to shoot on what would have otherwise been a perfectly good summer weekend, all of the debt I built up, all of the time I spent working a job I hated to pay off that debt and get restarted in business, ALL OF THAT STUFF!

To quote a movie, nerdy as it may be, during The Matrix Reloaded, the old dude in the room with all the TVs wearing the white suit said to Neo

Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.

So true.  There have been so many moments, I still have them in fact, where I think about all of the stuff I need to do, all of the massive challenges I need to overcome to create the business I envision, and the lifestyle I envision, and I worry that there is no way that I can pull it off.  It’s like suddenly my delusions of being able to achieve this seemingly impossible success, suddenly disappear and I realize a sobering truth that I have wasted the last 5 years of my life.  I could have been working at some real estate firm like everyone else I know.  I could have been a Chartered Accountant two times over by now, made manager, well on my way to partner.  I could have a house, maybe a sweet car too.  Then I get back to work, reminding myself that I don’t need to live in that reality.  I can create my own where those dreams are achievable.  I don’t need to buy into that 9 to 5 crap.

I was on course to earn somewhere between $70-80K this year.  Instead I quit my job, with no assurances that the projects I am working on will make any money.  I am flying across the world, spending thousands of dollars to develop a business model I’ve never executed before, not that that would matter, because all of the business models I have executed before never really made me any money.  I have HOPE, and that’s it.  I have bought into the delusion that I can create my own path.  So many people are leading a life where they think they have no options, where they have to work a job they hate because there just isn’t any other way.  I refuse to buy into that mindset.  There were a few times this year where I would get a pay cheque for over $3,000 after taxes, and I’d think to myself, maybe I’ll just do this until my projects are successful, and then I’ll quit.  That just wouldn’t happen though.  I’d get comfortable, I’d get weak and buy a nice car, and have the payments to follow it, I’d get a nice condo, a hot girlfriend with expensive tastes, and suddenly I’d be trapped.  I’d rather be poor, but free to do whatever I want, whereever and whenever I wanted to do it.

Money is overrated, time is underrated.  I feel like I should be ordained in the church of the Four Hour Work Week considering how much I preach about it’s sermons.  There is so much stuff I want to do with my life, and working some 9 to 5 job “building a career” is not something I am passionate about.  In my last post I listed the things that I wanted to do, would it be possible to do that building a career at someone else’s company? Not likely.

So I’m just HOPING that my horoscope was right today, that I am reaching a tipping point, and that shortly things will be taking a much more accelerated trajectory.

I booked a flight to Copenhagen, Denmark for June 30th.  I also gave notice to my employer that June 29th will be my last day.  This may not seem like that big a deal, but frankly I spent the last 15 months or so working at a job that had absolutely no purpose other than to pay off debt, save money, and position me to get back into business again.  I haven’t really spent much time writing on here about my business plans or aspirations, although I’m sure you may have gotten that sense based on the way I talk about business within a lot of (all) of the posts I write on here.  The last 15 months I have felt like I was in prison, serving time for poor business decisions, and inexperience.  I have less than two weeks left to serve and I am getting antsy.

So what am I doing in Denmark?  I’m starting production on a badminton instructional program with Peter Rasmussen.  Some of you may know him, most probably won’t.  The point is I’m going all out for my dream.  Two years ago I read Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week, and I decided that I wanted to join him in the ranks of the New Rich.  I wanted to have the freedom to do what I wanted, when I wanted to, wherever I wanted to do it.  I’m going to do a terrible job defining for you what the hell I’m talking about here, but maybe if you read this post over at David Risley’s blog about Lifestyle Design, you might understand a little bit better.

I am scheduled to return to Canada on July 17th, but I am considering just staying there indefinitely.  Not really sure at this point, but the idea of just doing something major like that on a whim really excites me.  I have never really bought into the whole, get a job, build a career, retire at 65 thing.  I refuse to spend my life doing something because I need the money.  I don’t want to spend my days working so that I can have some freedom in the evenings.  I don’t want to work so that I can live, I want to live for my work.  I want to be passionate about what I spend my time doing.

Everyone I know is either in real estate, or oil and gas it seems.  That’s the case in Edmonton more or less.  The other alternative is a dentist, doctor, lawyer etc etc.  Not for me.  If you want to help people then by all means go be a doctor, but if you’re doing that because you want the money and prestige, I pity you.  Maybe you get off on the money and prestige, but there are easier ways to get money and prestige than going to school for that long.  There are so many things that I want to do with my life, and the idea of working for someone else forever just isn’t going to happen.

In no particular order here are some things I AM GOING TO DO:

• Play on the professional badminton tour – I used to dream of being world #1 when I was a kid
• Help to make badminton a REAL pro sport – I want it to be like tennis
• Learn chinese fluently – took it at school for a while, but never reached fluency
• Live in Barcelona for a while – loved it there for 4 days, maybe that’s all I need, but I want to go back
• Direct/Produce/Act in feature films – I went to film school, then dropped out because the school sucked, or maybe I was just scared??  And yes, I do want to act, in spite of my shy nature.  I want to make movies that shape the way people see the world.  I’m unlikely to be some activist, so this could be my way of making a difference

I know a lot of these may seem selfish and you don’t see “save the whales” or anything like that on here, but is that so horrible?  I’m only 26 years old, I hope I have another 74 or so years left, and perhaps when I get older I’ll have more of an interest in social issues, but for now being a pro badminton player and Hollywood film director seem like pretty cool aspirations.

Anyway, I’m going to Denmark to produce this badminton thing.  Thinking that I might just stay there til Christmas time.  Play some badminton, develop the badminton project, and have fun.  Check back here and you’ll find out what happens next, cause right now I don’t even know.

This is one of my favourite credos for business. When I started my first business we made this an art form. We were exceptionally good at making people believe that we knew what we were talking about, and that we could get pretty much anything done. Of course I can’t go into too much detail about some of the specific things we did as some of our very first clients might be appalled at how inexperienced we really were, but we always made sure that we delivered what we said we would (this is very important).

The key with faking it til you make it is to exude confidence. If you pretend you are experienced and confident, people will generally believe you, and hopefully you will start to believe that yourself as well, and that is the key to this technique. It’s all about selling yourself to people. When given the choice between two vendors, one who seems like they know what they’re talking about, but also seems very nervous, or one who you’re convinced knows their stuff and is confident, you are going to choose the latter. When starting out in business, this is in my opinion the only way you can really move up in the world, because you will almost certainly have self-doubt, and until you prove to yourself through results, you have to pretend.

This ties in very well with another of my favourite credos for business, and that is to jump right in. You have to have faith in yourself enough to commit to your business. If you are still shy about telling people about your business, and still refer to your business as though it’s just this little thing you’re sort of kind of doing, you don’t sound very committed to it, and don’t sound very confident. It’s very common for people just starting their business to feel like they want to protect their idea from confidence crippling criticism. When we first started out I felt like a leper for starting a business. A lot of my friends thought I was a dork, and I felt like one. I’m sure people like Brad Pitt and Tom Hanks felt a very similar feeling when they told their friends and family that they wanted to become professional actors, and I doubt anyone thinks their dorks now.

The point I’m trying to make here is that you need to commit at some point, and that is when you start referring to yourself as an entrepreneur, or a businessperson, or whatever title you want to give yourself so you start to feel like an entrepreneur. People might laugh at you, or maybe you’re just being paranoid, but it doesn’t matter because unless you put yourself through that initial awkward phase you are never going to be able to get to the point where you are a very successful entrepreneur. So, fake it til you make it.

Enter Action With Boldness

If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.

The above is an excerpt from the table of contents of Robert Greene’s “The 48 Laws of Power“, one of my all time favourite books.  The book is full of valuable lessons that can apply to numerous areas of one’s life, not just to business.  This particular law is one of my favourites, not because I am very adept at following it, rather because it is the one law which I most likely break most repeatedly.

I am a very analytical person by nature.  I enjoy breaking things down, and visualizing how all the pieces of something should work to achieve a desired result.  In building my business I have spent countless hours brainstorming, researching, and studying how best to achieve my goals.  It’s likely that I spend over 90% of my time planning, less than 10% of my time executing  my plans, and probably no time at all on monitoring my results.  A shame to say the least.  At the risk of sounding egotistical, I think that my plans are quite good, and that were I too execute them as I envision them, I would achieve some great things.  Sadly this has not been the case.

In writing this I’m not attempting to elicit sympathy, rather I’m hoping to provide a venue through which to hold myself accountable, and to provide you some insight into something that perhaps you yourself could use some work on.  The one thing that I need to become better at more than anything else, is to begin allocating more of my time and attention to the executing of my plans.  This goes into the 80/20 law, or Pareto Principle.  If you’re not familiar with this, it basically says that 80% of your results come from 20% of your actions, and therefore by isolating what those most productive actions are, and doing more of that, you will achieve greater results with less overall effort.  I won’t go too much further into that, but you can find a more in depth explanation of the Pareto Principle on Yaro Starak’s blog Entrepreneur’s Journey.  Another great place to read about similar concepts is in Timothy Ferris’ book “The Four Hour Work Week“.

If you spend too much time analyzing the variables that go into your situation, you have too little time to execute whatever strategy you develop.  Accoutants have a catch phrase for this too, “Relevance vs Reliabilty”.  This basically states that as you spend more and more time analyzing a company’s financial situation, the less relevant the information you find will be to that business.

So what is the point of this article?  Well hopefully you gain something from it, but primarily I wrote it as a reminder to myself that the fastest way to get to where you want to go, is to stop thinking about it, and start walking.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Mahatma Gandhi

No, this post is not about how to be a revolutionary and change the world for the better, but certainly you could apply this concept to making a difference in the world. This post is about how you can be a leader in your life, and lead yourself in the direction you want to go.

If you want to have a certain kind of life, or to make change in something you are a part of, you need to be that change. You can’t be a hypocrite, or else any change will not be long lasting. In a business environment this means that you need to act as someone who has already achieved what you want. Being successful won’t make you become the person you want to be, rather becoming the person you want to be will bring you the success.

I have some pretty lofty goals/dreams in my life. I want business success, I want to be successful in the film industry, I’d love to be a world champion badminton player (yes, badminton), and more. Will I achieve these things? Possibly, but I’ll need to make some major changes in myself first. This blog is part of that in fact. It’s a means to keep myself accountable to my dreams. I need to work consistently towards my goals, just envisioning them won’t make them happen, whereas constant and incremental actions will.

If you were to outline a list of actions to take that would make the achievement of your goals an inevitability, would you be disciplined enough to stay on course? Or would you make compromises along the way? Perhaps you could write some compromises into that plan along the way to make it more realistic. You don’t need to be the world’s most hardest working person to achieve great things, but you also can’t just sit on your butt. Like I said before, all you need to do is to make constant and incremental improvements towards a desired outcome.

Lead yourself towards your dreams, and that means doing what you know you need to do. Do it now!