Solopreneur Life Newsletter: Traps to Avoid Edition - June 16th

Have you heard the phrase "I took the arrows in the back so you don't have to"?

This edition explores my experiences, pitfalls to avoid, and how to get unstuck when you feel that way.

The most valuable thing we can show each other is what works and what did not for us. No platitudes, general statements, or fake fronts. That's my promise.

I'll break it down into 2 areas, that when not managed well create the biggest problems.

1) Money

2) Clarity

Here's what happened, what worked, and what didn't.

MONEY

I've tracked $17M in revenue over a 22-year period, over $750K on average annually.

The real story includes a number of years where I did not have a company, worked for commission only, or was struggling to start something new without any income.

I gave away a big chunk of my income to pay others to do things that I could do but didn't enjoy. This is an investment that allows me to follow my dream but puts my wealth strategy and income at risk. I would not take back this decision, but it is still a risky one.

Self-employment does not provide stable income, as measured by consistent profit year after year. Corporate employees with skills that are in high demand enjoy regular checks.

I'd love to know the real stories of many high-revenue social media performers. I could create a front like them. Would it work better?

Here's my real experience without all the polish. It's messy but impressive to me, although the truth includes a lot of decisions that when pondered still trigger tinges of shame.

?? Bank a ton of the profit when it's there and don't spend it. I put a lot into an individual 401K plan. I've had that money for years now, as well as tons of equity in my home

?? Careful about expanding your lifestyle to match your performance. After a few years of high profits, I upgraded my lifestyle. This hurt me financially, but we really enjoy the house

?? Invest in outside services but be very careful what problems you solve and when. Know what problems matter. I've wasted hundreds of thousands making poor decisions in this area.

?? Consider all the dimensions of life. Vision realized, personal life, and loving what you do each day is as important as building wealth and making money now unless you aren't.

?? Build a management team you can barely afford when you have a big vision. This was my best decision, but it's been dicey at times due to my lifestyle upgrade. It's a huge risk.

?? Money matters.

?? Wealth matters.

?? Personal life matters.

?? Vision realized matters.

?? Loving work matters.

Think about all the life dimensions, and you will make smarter financial decisions.

CLARITY

The most important business skill is knowing what's happening, why, and what action moves the needle the fastest.

This has been my weakest area. It's now my strongest. The change to reality-based thinking made a bigger difference in my life than anything that I've ever done, except daily Tai Chi.

Hope is not a strategy. I always felt like success was right around the corner. It's normally not unless we are doing the right things day to day.

Here's an example of a conflict resolution roadmap that we used to decide on whether to hire a marketer or do the work ourselves. This is now a part of the clarity phase of our core one-to-one offering for highly motivated visionary solopreneurs, who want advanced expertise.

The first step is to identify the conflict, assumptions, and desired outcome.

Then we question the validity of our assumptions, and finally, validate them or lower the risk of getting things wrong. The map is too small to read but you can see how it works.

I don't know anybody in the solopreneur market who operates like this. It's like having a secret weapon, that is now part of a much larger set of tools we can offer as our product.

This is what clarity looks like. Getting to clear is harder than it looks. With our system, you will get clarity easier than you can imagine. It's only the first step. But it's the critical one.

Now we need to predict what will happen when we make the decision, and what negative outcomes may result before we pull the trigger.

It led to a really easy decision, that in the past had been poorly made, led to bad results, and a huge waste of money. Here's what came out of seeing all this.

?? Hire an expert in positioning and conversion who will take over the marketing from us

?? Postpone launch of a group program, and deliver massive value with one-to-one work

?? Focus on attracting advanced highly capable people who really want success

?? Spend our time on social media and product delivery not positioning and messaging

?? Think in annual time blocks not projects and avoid tactical project relationships

I've never made decisions like this before. This is called reality-based thinking and living your life in perfect clarity, not confusion. The feeling from this process is freedom.

This is one part of a comprehensive suite of solutions designed to quickly gain forward momentum and find financial opportunities with less confusion, cost, and effort.

Here are a few quotes that inspired me this week.

"When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is" Oscar Wilde

At the weekly Solopreneur Inc. Wednesday Summit Club meeting the question was about money.

I asked the group, "what is your relationship to money".

Nobody quite got to what Oscar Wilde said but we did talk about what happens toward the end of life to people who don't have any left.

In business, cash doesn't matter until you don't have any. Same with life.

“I smile and start to count on my fingers: One, people are good. Two, every conflict can be removed. Three, every situation, no matter how complex it initially looks, is exceedingly simple. Four, every situation can be substantially improved; even the sky is not the limit. Five, every person can reach a full life. Six, there is always a win-win solution. Shall I continue to count?” Eliyahu M. Goldratt

The thinking process designed by Dr. Goldratt inspires much of what we are doing, even though it's designed for complex manufacturing industries. It's magical what it can do.

My vision is to combine this clarity and focus system, adapted for solopreneurs, with the best ideas from the disciplines below as I prove what works for motivated professionals.

1) Peak performance habit industry designed for high-performance individuals

2) Law of attraction and related positive mindset success manifestation systems

3) Purpose gurus who teach people to go inside themselves to build meaningful companies

4) New business development approaches using personal branding and social media

5) Principle-anchored practices from ancient traditions like Buddhism and Stoicism

It's like play to do this for me. It comes naturally. I could spend all my time figuring out these books, systems, and approaches.

Talk with the writers, practitioners, and designers across all the domains. Then test out everything, see what really works, and then synthesize them into a workable program.

What I can't do is turn all this into a workable product. That's what my partner Dave can do. He's as creative and innovative at that as I am at my part of the equation.

Even solopreneurs like us have access to the best people, ideas, and resources on the planet at a very low cost and even lower barrier to entry. Have you noticed what we see too?

Here's my offer to you for the week.

Register here for the recurring weekly Solopreneur Thursday Forum. This week it's Dr. Kevin Gazzara as we talk about how to use positive intelligence to be a better leader.

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