Entrepreneurship

January 23, 2015 by Christine

Want To Be a Rockstar Entrepreneur? Do The Work!

How’s January coming together for you so far?

I must admit that I’ve sometimes struggled after almost a month long break to turn up and do the work.

I got a kick in the pants the other day, however, from reading a great post on Medium from Gary Vaynerchuk.

(Actually ended up having a fabulous conversation online with Ben Lumley as a result of sharing it. We riffed off of the content for a while and I think were both a little star struck when Gary actually joined in!

But I digress!)

Anyway, the post calls out the get famous quick brigade who imagine it should somehow be easy to walk into one kind of business success or another. It caught my attention because I come across this kind of thing in my practice from time to time. People turn up and expect that, because they’ve decided they’re going to start a new gig, the business will start rolling in immediately.

Hell, I can myself see shiny new ventures and get frustrated when they turn out to be more difficult to get results from than I imagined.

I think our culture has, with all its social media and X Factor mentality, given us the illusion that overnight success is possible. It’s easy enough to get some glamorous Internet-worthy photos of yourself done, and to hire a copywriter to put some smart spin on what you do. It’s much, much more difficult to have deep content behind the image.

And it’s the deep content that does the heavy lifting.

Sustainable success has three key ingredients:

Turn up

Take a blue collar approach to whatever you’ve chosen to do and graft a little. Think of yourself as an apprentice. You’re no master at anything until you’ve put some hours, weeks, months – years even – into whatever it is you’re trying to get under your belt.

Put in the time.

Fail

That’s right. Fuck up big time.

Make epic mistakes.

You may lose a lot of money, and piss people off. You may make yourself very uncomfortable. But you’ll be right there on your learning edge.

Every psychological rip and tear is how, when things settle, your muscle for whatever venture you’re intent on cracking strengthens your muscle for it.

Repeat

Take whatever you learn and put it back into whatever you’re doing.

How does it inform things? What will you do next? And next again after that?

The folks in my practice who see the biggest gains are those who totally commit to doing the work. They obsess about whatever it is they want to achieve. They read everything they can about it and more besides.

They treat their business like they were athletes. They know they won’t get the Gold unless they’re in great form.

They risk looking like fools a lot of the time but they know that the more they go out of their comfort zones and the more conversation we have around it, the further they take themselves in their personal development, which of course has a direct impact on their business results.

Does that mean it’s easy? Hell, no.

Is it worth it? Hell, yeah.

October 22, 2014 by Christine

What I Got From Creating My Blog (and Why I’m Closing It Anyway)

It was a blast.

While, five years ago, I still had a traditional site here supporting a traditional consulting business, it felt like a liberation to go off and create a somewhat more contrarian offering called A Different Kind of Work.

But today, as I unveil the fundamental recreation of my core business here, I’m pulling the curtain down on it.

Look, it was a lot of fun and I got a heck of a lot from it:

I got some clients from it which, after all, was a core reason for creating it.

I made some great connections – either through the blog itself, or from its social media outposts.

It totally forced me to upskill myself in the geek technical skills department.

And the writing I did there, not only allowed me to produce some great pillar posts, it also enabled me to learn a whole lot about myself. As a coach. As a writer. As a person.

Kill your darlings

But here’s the thing…

I think there comes a point for many creations when they’re done.

I could plow on with it. I’ve tried to. ADKoW has been a darling of mine. But as Stephen King and others have said about writing, you have to know when to kill your darlings.

And I’m pretty through with it.

Plus, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about things at a deep level this year. And while so much of what I wrote on ADKoW was rule-breaking in it’s own way, it was all delivered in a kind of “tips and techniques” kind of way. And I no longer believe that the kind of approach cuts it any more.

That’s because I am starting to see that people and their businesses don’t need more tips. They are swamped with tips. Just look at the blog posts on any of the big business or personal development sites. There’s no end of suggestions on how to hack just about anything.

Consider too the way that most coaches and consulting companies work with their clients. There’s just an overwhelming mass of advice, information, tools and solutions out there.

What I’m starting more and more to get is that people come with the ability to solve their own problems. And that my job is increasingly is to help people see beyond the superficial. To dig deep. To understand their own fundamental psychology and indeed how everything actually works.

To take stuff OFF of people’s minds not add to it.

So that they can be more effortlessly themselves in whatever it is they’re doing.

Core business

But there was something about the essence of ADKoW that I don’t want to lose. I loved the freedom I felt it gave me to say what I wanted, without having to imagine that I needed to be careful of offending any corporate clients or bill payers.

I loved its ability to put stuff out there that was a little unorthodox.

There was – is – an audience for what’s different, edgy and contrarian in business. People often gave me the feedback about ADKoW that, in a world of noise and bollocks, it was refreshingly different.

So that’s not going to disappear. But what I have decided to do is channel that whole vibe through everything we do here.

Day to day

What that means is that, day to day we’re helping business people get clear about what they want to achieve and why they want to achieve it.

Then, helping them – basically – get out of their own way as they set about trying to deliver on their goals. With a clear mindset, and a good understanding about the real source of things like creativity, innovation, resourcefulness, and resilience, great performance becomes a lot less like hard work. And the results speak for themselves.

Feel free to read more about the specific service offerings that the business delivers by browsing through some of the pages on the site.

Honestly? It’s kind of what we’ve always done had we not been – for whatever reason – so apologetic about it.

Bigger picture

Underpinning all that we do we have a piece of emergent thinking which we’re calling Keeping It Real. It’s brand new and we imagine that we’ll use this philosophy as the foundation for a variety of forthcoming programs and workshops. You can see more about Keeping It Real here.

Emerging clarity

So, there’s a big creative shift going on here and, frankly, who knows what that will mean for websites or web presence in the future.

For now, however, what I’m clear about is that ADKoW has served its purpose and that we’ve reinvented things back here “mothership”.

And we’d love it if you’d come along with us for the ride as stuff develops.

So, be sure to give us your email address here and we’ll share content and news with you as we go along.

November 12, 2013 by Christine

5 Warning Signs Your Self-Employed Dream Will Never See The Light Of Day

Look, I know.

I’ve been there.

Telling myself that I want to quit. Do my own thing. Get more balance.

While still sitting in a job that feels like family, no matter how dysfunctional, and that puts money in my bank account every month.

It can be tough to believe that not only does the grass look greener on the other side, but also that you can create it that way.

The number of people going self-employed is rising, both in the US and in the UK.

Here are 5 signs that you’re not going to be one of them any time soon:

1. You’re all talk, no action

Go on holiday, have a night out with mates, drink yourself to the bottom of another bottle of wine and you’ll tell anyone away from the office who will listen how you really want to pack in your job and do something else.

You may well have an idea.

Maybe some fabulous new product offering. Or a way to sell your services on a more freelance basis. Or to work in more of a helping space.

You talk of how you’d love it if only you could do something with your life that was more satisfying and fulfilling. And you mean it. It lights you up. Sets you aflame.

But you never do anything about it. You just talk.

And, since at the end of the day, it’s only ever action that gets results, chances are, if this is you, you’re not going to be realizing your dream any time soon.

2. Action equals moving jobs

Okay, so maybe you are doing something, imagining it’s furthering your self-employed dream, but that “something” means doing another job.

Either within your firm, or beyond it.

How you’re justifying it to yourself is to say that THIS one will give you the skills or resources or contacts that are going to be critical for when you make the leap.

Things that may indeed be long term beneficial.

The real warning sign is when you allow yourself to get just as embroiled in a different kind of overwhelm as you were in your old gig, and are pretty much back to square one.

3. Your key motivation is escape

Another danger sign is that, when anyone asks you about your business dream and what it entails, it doesn’t take you too long before you come back to bitching about what it is you’re doing just now. Why it’s so awful. Why all you want to do is escape it.

Your dream is just that. A dream.

It’s the white to your current black. But it’s undefined and very idealized.

And so long as you keep thinking only of escaping, and rarely in a concrete way of the challenge of creating your own thing, your dream will never be firmed up enough, or grounded in enough reality, for you to bring it ever to life.

4. You’re doing nothing to free yourself up

There are two ways I see this playing out, and both are big warning signs.

First, there’s the overwhelm monster.

Most of the people I work with these days have full schedules. And that’s a polite way of describing it. Many talk of being completely overworked.

So much so that burn out is never very far away.

Meaning that, if you ever want to line up some kind of self-employment while you’re still working, you’ve first of all got to get to grips, not just with the amount of work coming in your direction, but the time and headspace you give to it.

If it’s always easier to roll with what comes, you’ll never be free enough, or clear enough to hatch plans your alternative ideas.

Then, of course, there’s money.

If you really want to do your own thing, you have to have thought through what that means financially. How you’re going to fund your new venture. Where the money is going to come from in self-employed land.

It’s also critical that you have a grip on your personal finances. That you’re paying down any debt that you have and spending within your means.

Keeping your finances in a state of disorder is one of the surest ways to never allow your self-employed dream to come true.

5. You’re still caring too much about what other people think

People will have their opinions about you.

One of the things that’s holding you back is always needing to be seen to be perfect in the eyes of the people you’re around. That’s one of the biggest challenges as you actively disengage in order to create your own thing.

If it’s still important to you to get the top performance rating in your existing firm, and for everyone to rave about you, you’re focus is off, and you’ll find it very tough to have the kind of discernment you need to go solo.

The Real Issue?

The obvious advice for me to give you is to beef up your confidence, make a plan, get into action, sort your money, kill the overwhelm and give less of a shit.

All of these will go a long way to help.

But, I also want to leave you with an off-the-wall question, and a thought:

What if these things weren’t the real issue? And…

If they weren’t the real issue, what would be?

What if they were symptoms masquerading as the real problem? The real one being of your inner happiness?

How happy do you think you deserve to be?

Where do you think happiness comes from?

What would you do; what would you choose if your happiness was never in any doubt?

October 8, 2013 by Christine

10 Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Quit My Job

How do self-employed people actually do it?

The successful ones? The ones that have good lives and make money without a corporation at their back?

That was a question I pondered for quite some time as I weighed up the decision to go it alone. In the end it took me at least a year to get up the courage to quit.

By that point I had complete clarity that it was the right way to go and had some immediate concrete steps that helped me transition from being on a payroll to managing my own payroll.

And things have taken their own path since then.

But from time to time it occurs to me to think that I wish I’d had a “me” alongside me then, sharing her experience. Here are some key things I’d tell her:

1. People May Doubt Your Sanity

In all my “should I/shouldn’t I?” deliberations, it did cross my mind to consider that some people might think I’d lost the plot to walk away from what was on the face of it a great job. But I wasn’t ready for how they’d share that or how it would impact me.

For example, my boss at the time thought I was having a nervous breakdown, and suggested I take a sabbatical and not do anything until I’d returned. That did cause me to wonder for a moment if he might be right.

Then, a headhunter I’d known called me up with some fantastic opportunity. He was shocked when I said no to it and told him why. In fact, he got a bit shitty with me, like I’d deliberately set out to upset him. That too made wonder whether people might be seeing things I wasn’t.

I guess till then everyone in my circle had seen me as a corporate ladder sort of person who would live out her career in bigger and bigger roles, and that when I chose not to see myself like that, it came as a bit of a surprise.

Looking back I can see that I was upsetting the status quo at the time and that people’s reactions just reflected that.

2. Disconnecting from office politics was easy

One of the things I found most difficult about working for a big company was the politics. No matter what anyone says, underneath all the rational stuff that gets attended to, there’s a ton of emotional stuff and outright power play.

I used to find myself in mind-numbing conversations about how to position this or that in order that someone in power would say yes to it. And endlessly reworking things, just because the guy at the top wanted it so.

I didn’t miss this for a second. But…

3. Disconnecting from the people was tough

On the other hand, it was much more difficult to disengage from my colleagues.

One of the great, positive things about corporations is that they are communities. They’re places where you can turn up day to day and feel part of something bigger than yourself.

I’d been part of a fabulous team and even though I still keep in touch with some of them socially, it was strange not to have them so present in my life.

For a while it was odd not to dial in automatically for voice messages, or jump online to get the latest stream of email.

But then a kind of peace decended and it was okay.

4. Sometimes you will feel lonely. But you’re not

I guess it depends on what you do after you quit. I spend, by choice, a large part of my week at home and coach mainly by Skype or phone these days.

There are days, especially if my other half is away and the children aren’t around, when I feel alone.

But I’m not.

Thanks to the internet and social media, I can connect with folks online when I want. I’m a member of several online communities and have virtual friends I rarely see in person but with whom I chat online.

I also make sure to do at least one in-person social thing a week, and to head off to my local coffee shop of a morning in the knowledge that some other *alternative* sorts are sure to be hanging out there too.

The important thing is that you have to work at creating your *colleagues* in a very different way.

5. You have to relearn how to spend your time

If you work for a corporation, the chances are that you are on some kind of contract that sets the context for how you spend your days. And you create habits and rituals around that. Get up. Travel (or not). Start work … All at certain times.

Even the content of what you do will be largely guided by the job you’re doing.

Working for yourself, it’s a whole new ball game. You yourself get to create it all: context, what and when.

Ah, the freedom!

But in the beginning, there were days when I felt a little adrift and disoriented. I guess I’d been so used to being in the system.

As time has gone by I’ve found my own rhythm. It has kind of emerged. I wished I’d knew from the outset that’s how it would be.

6. You have to rethink money

You know what it’s like. You have a salary and performance or bonus elements of one form or another, and maybe some benefits too. I know I did. There’s a kind of security around all of that.

This all goes when you work for yourself. You have to go back to basics in figuring out for yourself what you’re going to pay yourself and how.

And of course all of that assumes that your business venture makes money.

When I quit my consulting job at first, I started off freelancing, which was great. But it took a full three months of being self-employed and doing anything before any money started arriving in my bank account.

And a good year or so after that before I could get my head round managing the financial ebbs and flows and being okay with them.

There was anxiety for me in all of that then. Now, I’d tell myself that’s just the way it is.

7. You will impact other people

So, there are the doubters. But there will also be people who say “wow” and notice your move more than you’d imagine.

When I quit, a couple of my friends were soon after inspired to do the same. Not all of them have stayed the course – it’s not everyone’s bag and everyone has their own way of being at their best in work. But that’s not the point.

The point is: prepare to become a role model, and don’t play it down. In the beginning, I did. In fact, until a coach pointed out to me a few months ago that I was one of the best examples he knew of someone who had created work and life exactly on their terms, I had under-estimated the significance of my achievement.

8. It’s a huge change

The repercussions of you quitting may go on for years. Often good. But sometimes in challenging ways.

Sometimes more than others you have to work at being emotionally bouyant. If, on a down day, you catch wind of a former colleague landing a huge job, you might expect to feel a pang of jealousy.

Or to wish you’d stayed in a job and could collect a regular salary when the markets get quieter and your earnings are down.

You may have moments of insecurity that give rise to these feelings.

Now I remind myself of my decision and what I continue to love about it: the freedom of choice, and the excellent lifestyle, the ability to make money doing what I love.

9. The need for courage goes on and on

I suspect I imagined that the most bold thing I’d ever do was step off the corporate ladder and then it would be a breeze.

I could not have been more wrong. That bold step was just the first of many.

As a self-employed person, you have to find a certain courage almost daily to put yourself and your offerings out there and have people respond to them. For sure there are often more Hell No’s than Hell Yes’s.

I used to see that as rejection and feel wounded. Now I see that a yes or no – or even stoney silence – is just a piece of information.

10. You don’t have to get into self development. But you will

Given that I majored in Psychology at university, it’s amazing for me now to consider that, until I began thinking about working for myself, I had done very little personal development. Sure, the occasional leadership course. But no real depth work.

But I found myself drawn to the coaches and self-help writers when I began to get my head round just how I was going to quit.

And I’ve never stopped. Over the last years, I have spent tens of thousands of pounds on my own development in the form of coaching support, or training programmes I’ve attended.

I don’t regret a penny. Top class athletes wouldn’t compete without their support team. Why should you?

So…

Quitting your job is one of life’s biggies. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The internet is full of false optimism masquerading as advice.

Which is not to say that it’s not rewarding. It is.

But if you quit, do it with your eyes open.

Over to you…

So, tell me, if you’re currently thinking of quitting, what does this raise for you? Or if you have already quit and are doing your own thing, what experiences of yours does this talk to? Do you have any personal “lessons learned” of your own? Jump onto the comments below and share!

July 8, 2013 by Christine

What Andy Murray Can Teach Start-Ups About Success

What Brit wasn’t proud of Andy Murray yesterday?

He’d come back from being the runner-up against Federer in the same tie last year and, not only did he beat the world’s number one, Novak Djokovic, he did it in 3 sets and put an estimated £1.6m in his bank account as a result.

Not too shabby, eh?

And, if you’re either just starting a new business or are aspiring to do so, here are some lessons I think his example offers:

Own your ambition

Murray was playing tennis from about the age of three. Ten years ago he won the US Boys’ Title. After which he said: “I think I have got a chance of going all the way in tennis and that’s what I want to do.”

So, he’s had ambition from the get go, and if you’re starting out in business, or have already, learn from his example.

What would you love to achieve? What would it mean to you to achieve it?

Get a great team around you

Murray was doing okay. By 2006 he’d succeeded Tim Henman as the most successful British player, and he’d won some tournaments, including the San Jose title.

But in truth he was neither Mr Muscles, Mr Calm or even Mr Likeable. Nor was he winning the big name titles he was hungry for.

Late December 2011, ending his fifth year in a row as world number 4, he hired Ivan Lendl as his coach. Alongside Lendl, he has Jez Green, his fitness coach, and Dani Vallverdu, his hitting partner. Working with them, he has made adjustments to his fitness regime and his game. Adjustments that have allowed him over time to develop his strength and his composure. And his results.

Meanwhile his PR people, Louise Irving and Matt Gentry, have been helping him get the word out on who he is in a different way.

And his mother Judy, who in the beginning taught Murray how to play, and girlfriend Kim are also never far away.

As the leader of a start-up, it’s often tempting to bootstrap and invest as little as possible in its support and development. But is that the right move?

Sure, it might be if you just want to do okay. But if you don’t want to leave success to chance, think about who else you need to surround yourself with.

Who is going to teach you things beyond what you can do right now in a way you can leverage for results? What other talent do you need to invest in?

Understand and embrace your competition

To win Wimbledon, Murray had to take on a number of other excellent players, including the world’s number one. In fact over the years he’ll have been watching how they play in order that he can match and indeed beat them.

There’s sometimes a concern in business that competition is bad. But it’s not. It’s good. It shows you there’s a market for what you’re doing. Imagine Murray was as good as he is and yet no-one else was playing?!

So, don’t be afraid or your competition. In fact, go find who and what it is, and what’s great about it. What are they doing that’s making people buy them? Then figure their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Things you can exploit and develop. Then, go do it.

Don’t let disadvantage or hard times psyche you out

Murray was a child at school at the time of the Dunblane massacre, managing to hide as sixteen other kids were killed. And if that’s not big enough shit to deal with, his parents divorced when he was young. When he hit his glass ceiling in 2011, he could have – and may have – blamed it on any number of things. But he didn’t. He lived in the present, took a day at a time, and built himself and his strength.

I sometimes hear from small business owners who aren’t doing so well or are having a bit of a wobble that “it’s alright for others” whom they imagine to have had privileged backgrounds or cushy upbringings. But Murray proves that bad things can happen to you and that you can still win through.

So, if you’re talking yourself down because life has been cruel, change your tack.

The past is the past. You can do nothing with it. But you do have today. Use it.

Slow down to speed up

It was wonderful to watch Andy play yesterday. There were times when Murray was ahead and yet Djokovic looked like he could get back in the game, and where Murray needed to be sure to win. He could have, on serving and returning, acted quickly and tried to close the game down. Instead he slowed things down.

He took time to gather himself around his service. Played long volleys.

Being patient, he won the game.

There’s a temptation too in business to do things quickly. To close the sale. Agree the deal. But sometimes moving too quickly means we end up with sub-optimal results. The design that would have been just that bit better had we given it another few days. The client who doesn’t really match our brand values and who sucks our time or erodes our profits.

Quieten your mind

This has got to be the single biggest improvement I’ve seen Murray make over the last year. A year ago, Federer had him rattled, and didn’t we know it. He was grumpy out there on Centre Court. You could almost see him beating himself up as he made one unforced error after another.

Yesterday, he was so much more composed.

Sure, he was losing points. But I had the sense that he wasn’t making anything of that. So, he was just losing points. He was not – at least viewed from the outside – interpreting from that that he was a loser. And, then, turning himself into a loser.

He lost points, yet kept going. His mind seemed more quiet and he stayed in the flow of the game.

In business, it’s easy to get rattled if things go wrong. Especially if we’ve spent a lot of time learning the skills, or developing the competence to be able to do whatever. But skills and competence are only part of the picture. The ultimate business success game is won or lost in your mind.

What does Andy Murray teach you?

So, those are the things that occurred to me.

But how about you? What does Murray teach you about running your own firm? And how will you implement it?