This is how I've felt lately!

So lately I’ve had a series of rough days. It just seems like most the areas of my life are conspiring to kick my butt.

My car basically died so we got rid of it b/c it’d cost more to fix it than it’s worth, so now Skye and I have only one car. I just received a $479 power bill, and my house is 80+ degrees for that. It’s official our air conditioner is on it’s last leg, barely working, not repairable, needs to be replaced. My day job is challenging lately (this is a gross understatement). I’ve got a sinus infection that just won’t go away, even after two rounds of antibiotics. Alexander is cutting his two year molars, which apparently are kicking his butt. And Skye’s suffering from some recurring ENT issues.

And this isn’t an exhaustive list, but you get the picture. I’ve recently experienced a string of what I’d consider rough luck.

And I’ll be honest. All this CRAP has made me mad. I’ll go so far as to say I’ve been REALLY PISSED OFF lately. Frequently.

And I think it’s ok to get mad for a time when life knocks you down. And then keeps kicking you in the ribs while you’re down.

It’s just no fun.

But I started thinking today.

This is “normal”.

Not that bad crap has to happen ALL THE TIME.

Not that EVERYDAY has to suck b/c of life throwing its uglier side at you.

But that we ALL experience bad days. We all have things happen to us that we’d prefer didn’t. We all have a string of bad days.

And I’d say this is especially true when you’re just starting out on the path to owning your own business.

If you’re anything like me, you’re coming from the world of employee-dom and now your marching down the path of self employed-dom. This is a SIGNIFICANT change. Not only are you making a huge career change, from being bossed to being the boss, but you’re also going against what is considered “normal” by most folks. Which is the secure job, with the large employer, a 401k plan, and some health insurance.

Now, you’re saying you’ve recognized you have something of greater value to give to the world and you’re marching to your own tune.

And when you start down that path, you’re going to have some bad days. You’re going to worry about cash flow. You’re going to be concerned about where you’re going to find your next client. You’re going to have to DEAL with the upset customer, instead of handing them off to someone else.

You’re going to have some bad days.

But what hit me today is that how you handle yourself while experiencing these bad days is going to have a SIGNIFICANT impact on whether or not you succeed in business, or simply become another statistic adding to the number of small businesses that have closed their doors too soon.

It’s ok to get knocked down when life throws an uppercut your way. It’s ok to admit that last punch in the stomach REALLY HURT.

But what’s going to set YOU apart is whether or not you GET BACK UP or whether you stay down.

For me, I’ve realized that God hasn’t given me this desire to serve small businesses for only a week or month, but for the long haul. So that means that no matter how many times I get knocked down right now, I’m going to get back up. It may not be pretty, I may not want to, but for ME I have to stay in the fight.

What are YOU going to do when like knocks you down?

Look at how good looking he is!

… to ALEXANDER!

That’s right. Today is his second birthday! The picture to the right is of him from just a couple weeks ago.

Anyone that knows me well knows there are three driving forces in my life right now.

1) Growing closer to Christ.

2) Being the best husband I can to Skye.

3) Being the best father I can to Alexander.

Today is the day we celebrate having Alexander with us for two years. As anyone who has kids knows, these two years have gone by in a blink of an eye.

It seems like only yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital. I have honestly been SHOCKED at how quickly and how significantly Alexander has been able to get me to shift my priorities. Prior to his arrival I was primarily focused on my career. The day of his arrival my priorities had changed.

Alexander, about 4 months, and his dad.

Not only did I realize I wanted to spend every available moment with this awesome little man, but I also realized just how GREAT Skye is. Having Alexander actually helped me to realize just how deeply I love Skye and how much she means to me.

Alexander also helped me to realize I can’t do this on my own. I’ve been a Christian since November 6, 1997. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t lived like a Christ follower most of that time. But having Alexander helped me to realize I’d just begun an adventure that I needed divine assistance with.

I thought being a father was going to be good, but what I’ve found out is I had NO IDEA just how GREAT it was going to be.

Thanks, God, for providing us with such a wonderful little boy. Thanks, Skye, for being part of this wonderful journey. And thank you, Alexander, for teaching me what it means to be a father.

~Ivan

No, this is not turning into a financial blog and I have NO IDEA how to get rich investing in the stock market (I hear dollar cost averaging and diversity are important, though).

I want to know where you are investing in your LIFE!

I’m about to describe to you a way of looking at life that has COMPLETELY revitalized and revolutionized (I hope that’s a word) how Skye and I view life and live it.

On page 55, of the revised edition, of 48 Days to the Work You Love, Dan Miller lays out “The Wheel of My Life”. This diagram consists of a seven piece pie in the center, surrounded by two concentric rings surrounding the pie.

The outside ring has: How will I be remembered? LEGACY: A Life well-lived

The inside ring has: Fulfillment of Purpose, Mission, Destiny, Calling.

The seven pieces of the pie are: Career, Financial, Social, Family, Physical, Personal Development, and Spiritual.

Over the last 2 years Skye and I have faced MAJOR challenges in our careers, with our finances, with our social-ability, in our families, and in our spiritual walk. Personal development is the one area we’ve been pretty consistent in.

And for the majority of that time we have both said, “If I can only get the ‘right’ job for me, everything will be better.” “If we can only save XXX number of dollars, everything will be ok.” “If we can only do ______ at church, everything will be ok.”

We have believed that if we were somehow able to make one area of our life PERFECT, we would then have ALL areas of our life PERFECT.

But this is not how life works.

Dan Miller explains “The Wheel of My Life” in a way that makes so much sense that neither Skye nor I can figure out how we didn’t understand this ourselves.

As I said, the center of “The Wheel of My Life” is a pie with seven pieces: Career, Financial, Social, Family, Physical, Personal Development, and Spiritual. These seven pieces make up the seven key areas that comprise each of our lives.

“The Wheel of My Life” is vital for having a well rounded life that will roll down life’s highway smoothly. But for a wheel to properly roll it needs to be shaped like a wheel. And the shape of “The Wheel of My Life” is determined by the health or deposits that have been made in seven distinct areas.

So as we all know, if a wheel is uneven, it will not roll properly. Our life is the same way. If there are parts of the seven areas of your life that are out of balance compared to the other areas your life won’t roll smoothly.

As an example, if your 5′s in all areas, but a 10 when it comes to your career, you’re life’s going to be out of balanced and you’re going to have issues. Maybe your family feels cheated b/c to reach a 10 in your career you’ve spent more time at work. Maybe your spiritual life is suffering b/c you stopped going to church so you could work more. The imbalance WILL affect your life.

Skye and I sat down and analyzed our lives at the end of 2010 and were shocked to see that we had a bunch of 2′s and 3′s. Some area’s we agreed were closer to a zero. And our thought pattern had been, “If we could only find a perfect job, making our career piece of the pie a 10, then EVERYTHING in our lives would be better.” But that’s just not true. We would have been even more imbalanced.

After coming across 48 Days to the Work You Love we decided to figure out how we could make improvements in ALL areas, to the best of our abilities. Our goal wasn’t to make any one area a 10 over night, but to bring ALL areas up by at least 1 point as soon as possible. So we took Dan’s advice and started making little deposits as frequently as possible to all the areas of our life.

And it’s worked. We still don’t have any 10′s in our lives, but we also don’t have any more 2′s and 3′s (or anything close to zero). We’ve realized that Dan Miller is a genius and if we want our lives to roll smoothly down the future’s highway they need to be balanced and we need to make deposits into all areas of our lives on a regular basis.

So I ask you, what areas of your life are imbalanced? What can you do to bring balance to your life? What small steps can you take TODAY to start putting deposits into the neglected areas of your life so you can live your life to the fullest?

And how can I help you succeed at this?

————-

48 Days to the Work You Love

Dan Miller

I really hope the title of this post got your attention, b/c it DEFINITELY got mine once I saw the stats. Please check out the screen shot of my page visits for the last several weeks (click picture to enlarge to see detail):

A Better Way of Business Page Views

So the big question I foresee is “How did you do that?” A lot of you already know. Some of you don’t. So I’ll tell you.

It’s simple.

I started posting five days a week.

Prior to last week, I regularly posted twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But if you go back to my first Friday Free Form you’ll see that by posting only two days a week I had more than a month’s worth of blog posts already written and waiting to be posted. Plus, I have 50+ blog topics I had yet to even write on. So in light of that I decided I had enough to say to increase the weekly number of posts from two to five.

Another source of encouragement to begin posting five days a week can be found in two shows over at CoachRadio.tv. Show 077 – Your Story: Greg Ng and Show 079 – Your Story: Gregg Pechmann. Both Greg and Gregg emphasize that part of what has led to their current level of success was blogging five days a week when they started. Both go on to explain that by blogging consistently and by putting out a large volume of content early, they later reaped the benefits of 1) being known due to a large volume of quality content and 2) the volume of early work helped them gain a secure foot hold in their desired niches.

So en-light of having a decent number of posts already written and hearing two men who are already successful both say that blogging five days a week when they started helped lead to their current success, I decided I would attempt to follow in their foot steps.

And even though my numbers may be relatively small, I still find the increase SIGNIFICANT. And I’m looking for even more visitors in the future!

So that’s it. If you want to increase your sites traffic significantly, BLOG MORE OFTEN!

~Ivan

So I’ll be the first to admit I don’t have a lot of money to invest in starting this business. But I AM going to get A Better Way of Business up and running, regardless.

So how do I plan on starting a business without having much money to invest? I’m getting creative. I’m looking for ways to gain knowledge without having to pay for it.

Please check out this blog about one of the key methods I’m using to learn what I need to in order to get this business off the ground.

Ivan is Getting Free Coaching and You can too

The blog is by Justin Lukasavige, a man whom I greatly respect and look up to. Not only that, but through NUMEROUS online interactions Justin has become more than that, he’s become a friend. Justin runs NUMEROUS websites and businesses, but he blogged about what I’m doing over at CoachRadio.tv. Please take a moment and check out what he has to say. Then be sure to DEVOUR his site b/c it’s PACKED FULL OF HIGH QUALITY INFORMATION!

Thanks.

~Ivan

I have learned through the years that who you surround yourself with matters. Are you surrounding yourself with people that have similar hopes, goals, and dreams or are you surrounding yourself with people who attempt to squash your dreams for the future?

There have been a few different times in my life where I realized that the people I had been surrounding myself with did not have the same plans for the future. And by this, I don’t mean that we both wanted EXACTLY the same thing, but that our goals in life seemed to be polar opposites.

For instance I have had friends who wanted to spend all of their free time drinking, doing drugs, and chasing women, while I was not drinking at that time, doing drugs, and I wanted to chase the RIGHT woman.

At other times I have had friends who wanted nothing more than to obtain a “secure” job where their chances of being fired or laid off were “zero”, while I wanted to find a way to start my own business and make my own future so my working life would not be determined by the mindset of some highly stressed boss.

I’ve also had a group of friends that if at any time someone had a dream, a goal, or a plan to improve themselves this group would do its best to tear them apart in the guise of “helping them see how things really were”.

I have come to realize that it is best to surround yourself with people that are generally aiming in the same direction as you. So if you’re trying to start a business, look for others with the same goal. If you’re trying to grow closer to God, find a small group in your church with the same purpose. If you’re doing your best to have a loving and supportive family life at home, find other families that you believe are setting a good example and get involved with them.

On any of our adventures in life there will be plenty of speed bumps, pot holes, and breakdowns. However, we can help make sure we reach our final destination by surrounding ourselves with friends who have the same goals as ours.

ALL!

I just had to stop what I’m doing and go a head and address this SUPER AWESOME MILESTONE!

The first blog post on A Better Way of Business was July 20, 2011. Today marks the 29th day of blogging. As of this morning it also marks an accomplishment I was not expecting to happen for a few more months, honestly.

As of writing this at 831AM on Aug 17th I have 251 page views in less than a month!!! I’M SO EXCITED! I realistically expected 50 to 100 views during my first month simply because this is so new and I’m just getting the word out.

However, THANKS TO YOUR AWESOMENESS, I have already gotten more than 250 views in my FIRST MONTH OF BLOGGING!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

I hope you all have been liking what you’ve seen, b/c this is just encouraging me to DO IT MORE!

YIPPY!

You guys rock!

Thanks for stopping by. I can’t wait until I can look back and go, “I got excited at that? I get a bazillion hits a day now!”

But it’s like the saying goes, each journey of a thousand miles start with one step. I see this as a HUGE step in the right direction!

~Ivan

Today I was listening to a great podcast by my friend Justin Lukasavige. Justin’s podcast is titled CoachRadio.tv. At least once a week Justin puts out a podcast where he explains to people how they can do business better. He also has a weekly series titled Your Story where he interviews entrepreneurs in various stages (from just getting started to successfully doing it).

Earlier today I listened to show 049 Your Story – Joel Boggess (GREAT SHOW! Please go listen to, link at bottom). Near the end of the interview Joel talks about getting distracted form what should have been his main purpose because he was being bombarded by excellent ideas from fellow members at Free Agent Academy, an online community dedicated to helping people start successful businesses.

With each new idea Joel would get excited and run off in another direction. Then another idea would be presented and Joel would chase that idea down. While each idea was valid in and of itself, it was not necessarily consistent with Joel’s main business idea. So his main idea started suffering while her pursued the various new ideas coming his way.

Joel finally received a piece of excellent advice. Focus on your main goal, which for him was getting his coaching business up and running. Once Joel focused he started seeing significant improvements in his business.

Listening to Joel, I instantly thought, “Shiny Object Syndrome”. By this I mean Joel kept getting distracted from his main idea by all the other ideas (shiny objects) that kept coming his way. With each new shiny object Joel would head off in a new direction, taking him away from his original goal of starting a successful business.

Joel is not unique here. I believe all of us, to a greater or lesser degree, fall victim to Shiny Object Syndrome. We know we should be looking up contact information for possible new customers online but we get distracted by the shiny object of our friends on Facebook or Twitter.

We should be determining which accounting software is right for our business but we get distracted by by the latest AV equipment on sale at Best Buy.

We want to start a car wash business and start marching down that road and get side tracked by what it will take to start an auto parts business or a pressure washing service.

As my brief examples suggest, shiny objects don’t have to be completely negative. They can be completely valid ideas, they just lead us away from our main idea. Our core purpose.

I have found that the best way for me to deal with my Shiny Object Syndrome is to make a quick note about what grabbed my attention and email it to myself so I can look at it later. That way I don’t forget what excited me earlier in the day, but yet I also don’t forget to spend time on my main goal.

What have you found to be the best way to deal with your Shiny Object Syndrome?

Here are links referenced above:

Coachradio.tv

049 – Your Story – Joel Boggess

Free Agent Academy

I do not profess to be a master of blogs or commenting on blogs. I don’t even profess to know what I’m doing for the most part. But even with my limited knowledge I would like to make a suggestion that I think could help you and your business out.

If you are interviewed for either a podcast or a blog I believe you should make certain to go back and comment on the podcast or blog you were interviewed in. If the blog or podcast is not setup to automatically subscribe you to that series of comments then you should click the subscribe button. By clicking the subscribe button you’ll then be notified when someone else comes along and comments on that particular blog or podcast. Whether it’s the same day, next week, or next year.

I suggest this because I’ve been listening to a lot of interviews with entrepreneurs lately. And I’m also prone to comment on those interviews. Typically with my comments I’m expanding upon a point made during the interview, asking a question, or making a suggestion. I would say that the majority of my comments could provide some benefit to the person being interviewed. But ONLY if that person knows I made the comment.

What I have found is that the MAJORITY of people that are interviewed DO NOT comment on the blog or podcast in which they are interviewed. Therefore the chances of them knowing that someone else has commented on their interview is not likely.

I realize that my comments may or may not have any impact on the person being interviewed. But can the same be said for all the other people that might leave a comment? I believe business is carried out between two PEOPLE. And by commenting on blogs or podcasts that interview you, as a business owner, you can increase your opportunities for getting in touch with more and more potential clients.

Commenting on your own interviews is just a suggestion, but one I hope you and I will both follow going forward.