Hello friend,

How has your week been? Reply and tell me one nice thing that you experienced.

My week has been good. It’s the second last week of the holidays! I’ve loved creating more content over this time. But I’m worried about going back to work and balancing the goals I’ve set for myself.

1. Ultimate Lessons From Tim Ferris

How I Built This interviewed Tim Ferris, entrepreneur/author of The Four Hour Work Week. Ferris is living proof anyone can achieve greatness and define success. I learnt how hard work pays off. Tim endured struggle after struggle and repeatedly solved problems. Here are snippets from his interview.

  • Don’t convince the world, convince the people who match closely to what you provide. It’s not about the number of people that don’t get it, is about the number of people that do get it.
  • Burn out is real, don’t be a bottleneck and overload yourself. The objective isn’t to have money, the objective is whatever you trade the money for.
  • Change involves hard thinking, but sometimes easy implementation. i.e. fire clients, better policies/processes.
  • Follow curiosity, learn new skills. Learning skills has a blueprint; study, practice, review, repeat.
  • The Four Hour Work Week book was turned down nearly 30 times. Each failure was an opportunity to get better, and the pitch did.
  • Time isn’t a renewable resource, money is.
  • Listen to everyone and share intent when asked, tell half-story to entice, if asked more tell more, if still interested, offer something unique.
  • Practice and train techniques to do what you can’t do now, what’s impossible. Anyone can learn new skills and apply a good system, find the system.

2. Be Personal

Paul Jarvis (took his website down?!) clearly explains the benefits of being personal in your business. Something I often avoid as a lot of personal acts don’t scale and can’t be automated. I learnt that it’s okay. Doing kind acts to show your customer/audience that you care is the best way to get more business. You feel good to help, plus you can increase profit overtime. It’s a win-win.

  • Keeping an existing customer is easier than acquiring a new one. Creates brand evangelist s, treat customers like friends. Exceed expectations from acts that don’t scale and building reciprocity (customers get unexpected help).
  • Helping your customers as individuals requires as much empathy. Listen and understand immediate needs and bigger picture aspirations, companies often DON’T put customers first, this gets noticed. Customer happiness is the new marketing, is easier starting small to provide personal touches.
  • A successful customer has the financial means to continue to support your business. Mutually beneficial and long-term succeeds when its customers succeed. Customer size didn’t matter, they spread the word, they grow over time, they can become more profitable. Adapt to feedback, write new sales pitches, update branding on what customer wants/needs.

Company of One

3. Some Forever-Life Skills

My brother shared a video from Jim Kwik with me. At first, the thumbnail and title put me off. It seemed a bit pretentious and “preachy”. But it was from my bro, so I gave it ago. Wow! I learnt the brain states and ways to take advantage of them. Also, it’s the second time this week I heard someone quote from a book called ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, which is now on my to-read list.

Here are my takeaways from the video:

  • Sit/stand up, don’t slouch or lay down. We do brain fog & fatigue, we don’t have them. Collapsing oxegyn access to brain by slumping over.
  • Win the day, win the first hour. Don’t do: 1) Digital overload: Too much info, not enough time. 2) Digital Dementia: outsourcing our brain activity. 3) Digital distraction: don’t pick up the phone within the first hour of the day.
  • Have a Not-To-Do List. Multitasking is task-switching with a dopamine rush. Remove social media to remove distraction triggers. Be proactive, not reactive.
  • Brain states. 1) Beta: When you’re awake. 2) Delta: When you’re sleeping. 3) Thelta: Just before sleep, when you’re creative. 4) Alpha: Relaxed awareness. Meditate e.g.trance of television. Consciousness is set aside.

Thanks for reading!

Here’s a few other things that have happened throughout the week.

❤ Kindness Diaries is my new found fav show on Netflix. My wife and I are loving it at the moment. It’s regularly making me rethink how I talk to people, how I help and what I can do more of. It’s a moving show which demonstrates the true power of kindness.

🚗 Rocket League has been my goto for instant fun. I’ve been playing a lot over the holidays.

😇 Wonder Woman 1984 was a fun popcorn flick to watch. If you can get out to the movies where you are, it’s worth your time. Pedro Pascale was so much fun to watch as a baddy!

🆕 Now Page is a new addition to my website. I combined the layout of a bio page with an interactive blog post inspired by Derek Sivers.

🆕 Blog Post about finding a job and going out into the workforce for students. It also has early access to my latest podcast episode.

I hope you’ve found value in this newsletter and enjoyed reading it.