Pitfalls To Avoid For Aspiring New Business Owners

Starting up your own business is tough. There are any number of things I now wish I'd known when I started on my entrepreneurial journey. These 10 quick tips will provide you with a little guidance to make sure you can avoid some of the common pitfalls people make.

Are you thinking about quitting your job their job to either go freelance or start your own business?

23 years ago, I quit my job as a music industry lawyer, so I know it can be a scary thing to do… especially when everyone around you is telling you it’s crazy to leave such a well-paid job.

The first day of my new business career was the first and only time I’ve ever had a full- blown panic attack.

I still remember collapsing on the sofa as I was about to leave for my new office and breathing deeply into a paper bag until I’d calmed down.

I’ve had many ups and downs during my entrepreneurial career.

I’ve built a number of businesses from scratch including several 7 and one 8 figure business but I’ve also made lots of mistakes and been through some pretty tough times.

Despite that, I’ve never regretted leaving the law. Being my own boss and living life on my terms is the only way I would want to live my life.

So, if you have a plan to escape the Rat Race, I applaud you.

It takes courage and conviction to stop following the crowd, relying on someone else for a pay cheque and forge your own path in life.

These 10 quick tips will provide you with a little guidance to make sure you can avoid some of the common pitfalls people make.

But before we go into those let me just say:

If you want to truly escape the Rat Race and live a life you love, you not only need to take practical steps to improve your financial position, you will also need to undo years of conditioning, rebuild your belief system and make a shift from a ‘consumer’ mindset to a ‘producer’ mindset.

To a large extent all these go hand in hand.

From a purely financial perspective, to escape the Rat Race, you need to create enough passive income to cover all essential expenses and enable you to afford the lifestyle you desire.

You do that by cutting out debt, reducing all non-essential expenses so you can live within your means.

If you live frugally, scrimp and save, invest very wisely (and continue to live like that for evermore) then you can escape the Rat Race fairly quickly…

But that never sounded like much fun to me. It sounds like you would spend your whole time obsessing about how much things cost rather than being joyful and carefree.

The saying goes the best things in life are free but the reality is some of the best things in life are NOT free…

Dreams cost money.

The bigger your dreams the more money you’re going to need.

I always say live within your means.

And if you want to enjoy all that life has to offer you, rather than wearing five layers of clothing to reduce winter heat bills and cutting coupons to live within your means, you need to ‘expand your means’.

By that I mean increase your income by creating a business that will, after a few years, run on autopilot, create additional income streams, and allow you to invest in a range of passive-income producing assets that produce monthly cashflow.

That’s what I help people to do via my membership site the Freedom Code but for now let’s dive in.

10 quick tips to steer you in the right direction:

1.Set realistic expectations.

Don’t expect it to happen tomorrow. It is likely to take 3- 5 years of consistent focus and hard work before you can build enough passive income to survive off – longer if you want a luxury lifestyle.

But what’s the alternative – another 30 years working at a job you hate?

2.Build a financial cushion

So you can leave your job without the pressure of needing to earn to pay bills.

Start by reducing debt and cutting back on unnecessary expenses.

You really don’t need subscriptions to five streaming services or membership to that gym you only go to once a month.

Earn some extra income part time and start saving whilst you are searching for your ‘Freedom Business’ idea.

3.Be committed.

There is a huge difference between being interested and being committed.

Make decisions based on the information available and stick with what you have decided until it becomes clear you have made a wrong decision.

That’s fine. Everyone makes mistakes.

The first business idea you try probably won’t be the one that succeeds.

That’s normal.

Learn from it… And use it to find new opportunities.

4.Don’t try and reinvent the wheel.

The fastest way to build success in business is to model the successes of others – either those who have done something similar in your field or take what is successful, perhaps something in a different industry, emulate it and improve upon it.

5.You must believe you are worth it and you deserve it.

If you have low self-esteem you will find ways to sabotage yourself and your success. You must have a positive self image, or you will fail.

6.You absolutely must have belief in your abilities.

You have to be believe, with great conviction, that you can achieve anything you put your mind to.

Everything is possible.

As Henry Ford said:

‘Whether you believe you can or you believe you can’t you’re probably right’

7.Be focused on one big goal that really inspires you.

Create a burning desire to achieve it. Do this by writing out a description of your ideal life in minute details – read it every day whilst really imagining what you will feel like when you are living your best life.

8.Create a step by step road map.

When you have set your big inspirational goal – something that may take you 5 or even 10 years to achieve, create a road map of how you are going to get there.

Break it down into 5 years, 3 years and 1 year goals.

Decide what you need to accomplish this quarter to keep you on track… and then break it down further into what you need to do this week.

9.Focus on the small actions

The ones you need to take each day to create the right habits.

You will soon start to notice how quickly you are progressing towards your bigger goals without even trying.

As Robert Russell said:

“Habit is God’s way of making good automatic.”

10.No man is an island.

It’s tough starting your own business and sometimes friends and family don’t understand and are not supportive.

If that’s the case, join a group of like-minded people for support and help and find an accountability partner from that group who shares your ambitions.

If you want to do that join my online community The Freedom Code. I’d love to see you there.

You can access a free trial membership by clicking on the image below.

March 28, 2023

Business Success · Direction · Entrepreneur · Escape the Rat Race · Life · Personal Growth · Wealth

How To Win The Game Of Life

If you want to win the game of life, you need to switch your mindset from that of a consumer to a producer - an entrepreneur. And once you start producing, your consumption power will also increase.

If you want to be a professional footballer and win major competitions you’d aspire to play for Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid or another top club.

You wouldn’t be happy playing for your small local club, however fond you are of them, because you know you’re never going to win The Champions League playing for them.

Likewise, if you want to win at the game of life, you need to join a winning team.

And if you want to qualify for that team, you will need the right mindset – the mindset of a creator, an innovator, an entrepreneur… a Producer.

You’ve all heard the expression the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.

Well it’s true.

And, there’s a good reason for that. But it’s not why most people think.

It’s not because rich people were born with a silver spoon in their mouth… it’s because they think differently.

That’s right: the way they think is what really separates rich from poor.

Producers get richer. Consumers get poorer.

In short, if you want to win in life, you need to make the leap from being on Team Consumer to joining Team Producer.

But it may not be easy. Since the day you were born, you’ve been conditioned to play for the losing team.

Action man, Barbie, Scalextric, your BMX bike… you’ve been programmed to want stuff in the belief that these things will make you happy.

But if you want to be on the winning team, your mindset needs to shift to being one of producing not consuming.

Instead of buying products, you make products.
Instead of working for someone, you hire people.
Instead of borrowing money, you lend money.
Instead of buying books, you write a book.

Once you begin to see the world from a producer’s perspective is like re-tuning a crackly radio station and getting crystal clear stereo sound.

You will start to see opportunities everywhere.

And you will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff quickly.

So, if you want to join the top 1% and play for the winning team re-tune your dial to the way Producers think.

And guess what, the great thing is once you succeed as a producer you will have the pleasure of being able to consume whatever you like in much greater quantities than before without worrying about whether you can afford it.

To Be A Producer:

You need to learn how to become a person who finds good ideas, has the ability to make decisions, to take risks and is willing to make short term sacrifices for long-term gain.

You need to understand leverage and implement it in your business to create systems for:

lead generation
sales
hiring
production
distribution
customer service

You must transfer the process of income generation from you as an individual to your business asset.

Your work as a Producer revolves around creating a business asset so it can continue to make money for you for many years after you stop working in the business.

Many moons ago, I was a lawyer working in the music industry and I can tell you as a young man I was astonished at how much money our clients made every year in royalties from songs they had written years ago.

Every time one of their songs gets played on the radio, played live by someone, used in a commercial it adds to their bank balance.

One of those clients was Elton John… and if you’ve seen the film Rocketman, you know how quickly he could write a song. Imagine – a few minutes work and decades later you still earn hundreds of thousands of dollars every year from those few minutes of creative output, without having to raise a finger.

That’s per song.

Imagine having a portfolio of those songs and you can understand how Elton John has manages to live such a lavish lifestyle.

You may not have the ability to write great songs or write bestselling novels but there are plenty of other ways to do similar.

The Difference Between Consumer And Producer Mindsets

Consumption is easy.

We’ve been conditioned to believe it brings us happiness. We don’t have to make sacrifices to be a consumer.

Producing is difficult and time-consuming.

It involves sacrificing short term pleasure in the expectation of long-term benefits. It’s difficult and it makes us uncomfortable.

It’s the reason only a small number of people are producers. They create the stuff that the rest of the world consumes.

Take a look at the people around you and consider how many of them are producers or consumers. And you’ll see there are very few producers, but they are the ones that create the wealth.

To give a simple example, a blog post like this may take you 10 minutes to read but it took several hours of work to research and write and many more hours to repurpose it and turn it into a YouTube video.

I get paid nothing for those hours – in fact it will cost me money as I will hire people to do some of those tasks like filming and editing.

Why do it?

Because it will be available to read/watch for years… and each week it will attract some new viewers and some of them will decide to join The Freedom Code, my online membership site.

It is like a little soldier working for me 24/7 without any more work from me, and could help produce thousands of dollars in revenue over the next few years.

Or maybe it won’t do that.

Maybe nobody will like it.

That’s a risk you have to be prepared to take as a Producer.

Making The Switch

So, you want to get conscripted to Team Producer?

Here are 5 things you can do to step up and join the winning team:

1. Stop procrastinating and start doing

People often spend too much time studying for the sake of studying. It’s a form of procrastination and it can kill productivity.

We hide behind books videos and online-courses and put off engaging with potential customers.

Because we have been conditioned by the school system that we must have as much knowledge as possible before doing anything.

We think we will have the confidence when we have just a bit more knowledge.

But you don’t need more knowledge in order to be a producer.

You already know what you need to get started and you can acquire more as and when you need it.

You only need to learn what you need to solve the immediate roadblock on your journey.

Then when you have solved that problem, progress until you hit the next one and repeat.

Think of your entrepreneurial journey in the same way as a long car journey.

When you start a car journey you don’t wait for every traffic light to be green. If you did you would never get going.

2. Start small

If you look at all the gurus and marketing on the internet today, you could be forgiven for thinking that everyone (except you) has it all sorted – everyone else is crushing social media, they have mastered multiple complex marketing funnels, they have a 7 figure business and investors falling over themselves to invest.

It can create a huge sense of overwhelm and put you off getting started.

Here’s the thing: most of it is absolute crap.

There are less than 5% of businesses that generate over $1M in annual revenue and that includes all the big household names – so the people who are genuinely making that much are few and far between.

Just start somewhere.

Produce something of value to a single person, no matter how small it is. It’s your first step, not your final destination.

Just take that first small step and keep on walking.

3. Focus on the process not the outcome.

Consumers constantly think about the end goal they are trying to reach and what it will mean for them if they achieve that goal.

Producers, on the other hand, Focus on the steps needed to get there.

Instead of saying: “I want 10,000 subscribers”, they say: “I will publish a piece of quality content every day”.

Instead of saying: “I want to make a million dollars in sales this year”, they say: “I will speak with 20 prospects every day.”

Instead of saying: “I want to be a best-selling author”, they say: “I will write 3000 words every day”.

Focusing on the process forces you to produce results continuously. It helps you to hold yourself accountable for what you do every day.

Having a big inspirational goal, you are working towards will keep you motivated through the tough times, but focusing on process-related goals is what will get you there.

4. Build the right habits

If your process-related goals (e.g. “I will produce 3 Blog Posts every week”) are what you will do, then the habits you form are how you will accomplish those goals.

‘Habits are God’s way of making good automatic’ – Robert Russell.

Habits will help streamline your processes and establish automatic behaviour that leads to continuous consistent output.

Once you have established the right habits, you no longer consciously think about what you are doing.

Your actions become automatic just like brushing your teeth or driving a car.

5. Don’t worry about failing. Just produce consistently.

I’m not saying that you must produce a perfect piece of work every day. But produce something. Consistency is critical to success.

It’s what Darren Hardy calls ‘The Compound Effect.’

Of course you will have good days and you will have bad days. But you can’t let your bad days stop you from moving forward.

Jimmy Carr is one of the most successful comedians in the world.

But he has admitted in interviews he writes lots of bad jokes every day. But his process is to just to keep writing and then he weeds out the bad ones so that he is left with the good.

As a producer, the most important thing is to keep the momentum going and show up every day.

If you don’t things are likely to stall. So, keep on producing.

When you’re ready to make the switch to Team Producer, I can help.

Just sign up to a free trial of my membership site The Freedom Code and check out how. You’ll find courses, videos, articles, programs, expert interviews, masterclasses and Ask me Anything Group Coaching sessions,

You can access a free trial membership by clicking on the image below.

March 20, 2023

Direction · Escape the Rat Race · Health · Life · Personal Growth · Wealth

Use Your Imagination To Create A Better Life

Create a vision for your best life. There is always much uncertainty and trouble in the world as a whole. But don’t let all the chaos get you down. You can choose to look at the world and your life from a different perspective than most people do. One of the best ways I know to do this is to write your own life script that lifts you up, gives you power, and makes you happy.

And listen… You don’t need to be sad, worried, or sick to do this.

Even if you’re happy with how your life is going right now, you should still write a life script.

I’ve used this technique to lift me up when I was down and keep me motivated and on track when things were good.

Don’t let the dramas of the outside world, your past failures, or even your past successes define or limit you.

Think instead about what you want your future to be like.

How do you want to spend your days? Who would you like to hang out with? Where do you want to live? How much will you get paid? How healthy are you going to be?

In reality, you are always writing the script for the movie of your life.

So, consider this… What kind of movie do you want yours to be? A comedy? a new experience? A heart-warming inspirational story? A hero’s journey where you triumph over adversity?

Most people don’t know they can make their own decisions.

So, they let other people pick the story, the characters, and the setting of the movie.

In other words, they are supporting actors in their own film!

Well, starting today, write, direct, and be the star of your own movie.

Don’t forget that this is your life.

Write it into the script if you want a life with more passion, amazing relationships, and a great business.

You are a unique way that Universal Consciousness shows itself, and you have your own purpose and gifts.

And you have the power to make your life fit the way you want it to be.

But to get the most out of this process, you need to write a script that lets you dream big and still believe it’s possible for you.

Because if you don’t believe it, you won’t expect it, and you won’t get what you want.

So, let me show you how to do both of these…

How to write a script that will catch your attention and get you excited!

How To Write An Effective Life Script

Here’s how to write a script of your life that will help you make the movie of your dreams:

1. Write your story by hand as if you were living it RIGHT NOW. Putting your vision into words is vital. It will help make it more concrete and easier to remember. Write it down in as much detail as you can. Have fun doing it.

2. Make it big: Let your imagination run wild. Don’t be afraid to dream big when creating your vision. You want it to be inspiring and exciting enough to motivate you to take action.

3. Make it a vision of your future that is very upbeat and positive. Talk about what you want most in each part of your life: your body, your business or career, your finances, your relationships, your mind, and your spiritual connections.

…Perhaps you want a close affectionate marriage, or perhaps you want to be single with multiple partners?… What type of house you want to live in?… What’s the garden like?… What area is it in?… What can you see from your window?… What amenities does it have – perhaps you’d like a swimming pool, a home gym, a cinema room?… What’s the view like?… Is it in the mountains?… Can you see the sea?… Perhaps it’s right on the beach?…Who shares the house with you?… What animals do you have?… What can you hear?… Can you smell fresh flowers or maybe the salty sea air?…What car would you drive? Perhaps you want several cars.…How would you spend your days … Playing golf, sailing, doing yoga, meditating, writing, painting, playing your favourite sport, volunteering for a charity, helping animals?…

It’s your life script, you decide. Try and be as specific as possible.

4. Use all of your senses and give as much information as you can about where you are, what you look like, who you are with, what you do, how much money you have, etc.

See and feel yourself living your life according to this script that you wrote yourself. The more you feel it, the more real it becomes and the more it comes to you.

5. Every day, go over your script. You can’t just write your life script once and forget about it. You should read it every day and tweak it if you need to in order to stay motivated.

Use your life script to stay motivated and focused on your goals. Review it regularly to remind yourself of your vision and progress, and make adjustments as needed to stay on track.

When a life script is written in this way, it does five things.

It…

💥 Makes you want to change or figure out what you really think about the future.
💥 Helps you get past beliefs that hold you back.
💥 Keeps you focused on what you want instead of what you don’t want, which makes you more likely to get what you want.
💥 Makes you feel and expect more about what you really want.
💥 Uses the power of the Universe to bring you people, places, and things that are just what you want.

Reinforcement

Once you have a plan that lets you dream big, you may need to work on your belief that it’s possible.

To do this, you should read your script out loud and record it.

Then, listen to it every day more than once.

I think you should listen to it when you wake up and again right before bed. You can also listen in your car, get ready, work out, or cook while listening.

Try using the Voice Loop App which will play it over and over as you drive or go for a walk.

By repeating new ideas and beliefs at regular intervals, you will be able to change your thoughts and beliefs (your paradigm).

When that happens, you will change the way you act.

Creating a vision board to accompany your life script can also massively reinforce its power.

It can also be a fun and creative way to bring your vision to life.

A Vision Board is a visual representation of your goals and vision.

It is a powerful tool for keeping your vision front and centre in your mind and motivating you to take action towards your goals.

Here are the key steps to creating a vision board:

1. Gather materials:

You’ll need a board to attach your images and words to, such as a poster board, corkboard, or foam board.

You’ll also need magazines, newspapers, or printed images from the internet that represent your goals and aspirations that form your Vision.

2. Identify your goals:

Before you start collecting images, it’s important to identify the specific goals and aspirations you want to focus on. This could include things like a house you’d love to live in, cars you want to own, beaches, career goals, personal growth, relationships, health and wellness, or travel.

3. Collect images:

Flip through magazines or search the internet for images that represent your goals and aspirations. Look for images that evoke positive emotions and feelings of inspiration and motivation.

4. Create your vision board:

Print if necessary and cut out the images and words that resonate with you and arrange them on your board in a way that is visually appealing and meaningful to you. You can use glue, tape, or pins to attach the images to the board.

5. Display your vision board:

Once your vision board is complete, display it in a place where you will see it every day, such as your bedroom or office.

6. The feeling is the secret:

Take time to look at it regularly and visualize yourself achieving your goals and aspirations.

And as you look at it and imagine your best life, really feel what it would be like when your life looks like that.

Life scripts work because they make you feel like something good is going to happen.

The flow of plenty always goes to the mind that is open and ready for it.

Expectation is the force that brings your dream closer to you.

Soon, chances and people who can help you will start to “show up,” and they will continue to do so until you become the person you want to be.

Then, your whole life will be what you think it can be.

Don’t just read about this process if you want to take your life to the next level and further.

Don’t wait. You’ll be glad you did it.

If you would like education, help, advice and mentorship within a community of like-minded people to help you build a business and escape the rat race, why not join my online membership site: The Freedom Code.