We are brought up encouraged to say Yes to all sorts of requests for our time and attention. But saying "No" more often can lead to a dramatic increase in happiness and success. Here's why...
The Retirement Fallacy
When you have worked until you are very old, you are allowed to retire. When you retire, you get to stop working and are expected to do very little.
The notion seems to be that you have done your bit, so we don’t expect you to participate or produce anything now.
How dumb is the notion of traditional retirement?
An extract from The Fourth Moon below outlines The Retirement Fallacy.
"Retirement is a fallacy to me because if we control our own destiny, why do we have to stop doing the things we love. We are living longer, medical science keeps us healthier longer into life and technology allows us to be part of a global village no matter where we are in the world."
"Individuals who reach the Fourth Moon develop relationships and interests long before they grow old. The leverage offered on the Fourth Moon provides the time and environment to create other pursuits outside of your core business."
"On the Fourth Moon, there is no such thing as stereotypical retirement. Business owners might sell their business, but engage themselves purposefully in many other activities long into old age. The recognition that retirement is a fallacy, keeps them vital and engaged in life. Fourth Moon thinking contributes to longevity."
Don’t wait for ‘one day’ or ‘when I retire’. Start developing hobbies and interests now.
Leverage your time to free up hours to learn, nurture and harvest knowledge around your passions
Invest in these activities now so that when you choose to slow down or life throws you a curve ball, you have already developed a diverse range of relationships and activities.
Establish these long in advance of old age.
Don’t be the business owner on the ‘life deferral plan’ with plans to take up these interests ‘one day’. Or the business owner intending to nurture key relationships when they’re ‘not so busy’.
Now is the time.
Close your eyes.
Imagine you are 65 years old and have just retired. You have not developed hobbies, interests and relationships over time. You accept traditional retirement and each day plays out exactly the same. You lack a true sense of purpose. In virtual solitude your world shrinks around you. You seem to age five years for every one year. Life is boring, morbid and repetitive.
Now close your eyes again.
You don’t retire. You continue to be engaged in activities. You sit on your company Board. You act for your chosen charity of many years. You play sport still – albeit slower and less-skillfully. You have a rich and diverse group of friends who you see often. You have hobbies which you get lost in. You return to destinations that feel like a second home. You also seek out new destinations as a grey nomad.
Now open your eyes.
Make a choice.
Retirement is a fallacy.
To learn more sustainable success strategies, you can buy The Fourth Moon here or my online coaching program Fourth Moon Mastery here
I really want you to start creating sustainable success in your business and life. Simply check out my FAQs videos HERE on what business owners most commonly ask about sustainable business success. If they help you, simply sign up and get the other 20x videos free.
Claim your Giveaways now, find out what the Fourth Moon is and reach your goals sooner!
Cheers, Darren K Bourke
David versus Goliath: How Small Business Beats the Corporates
Despite their corporate speak, corporates have crippling limitations. A lean and dynamic small business has few, if any, of these debilitating impairments.
David is you and me. Goliath the cumbersome corporate.
Here are 10 reasons why I’d rather be David than Goliath.
BUREAUCRACY
David. Let’s fix this right now.
Goliath. Lots of layers, time decay, complicated procedures and a cast of thousands.
SPEED OF CHANGE
David. Change can be implemented at 9.01am tomorrow.
Goliath. Slow and cumbersome path to change. Like turning around the Queen Mary.
POLITICS
David. ‘Playing the game’ is exhaustive. David is just interested in outcomes.
Goliath. Faceless men and women in large offices playing their own games, far away from their customers and frontline team.
CARE
David. Deeply care about customers and staff recognizing them as the lifeblood of the business.
Goliath. Insurers and banks care more about hiding behind inflexible protocols. Holding their line seems paramount, despite frustrated customers and staff.
AUTHENTICITY
David. Your business reflects your authenticity.
Goliath. You can’t be authentic. Perhaps at the start, but not in the end.
CONTROL
David. Absolute control over the business.
Goliath. The culture of the organization ultimately controls the organization.
ETHICS
David. You decide what you stand for. This is cultivated with your team, customers and suppliers.
Goliath. Share price and profitability is king. Recent employee exploitation through paying below award wages demonstrates greed in all its ugliness.
RELATIONSHIPS
David. Relationships are everything. People deal with people not businesses. Business relationships often develop into lifelong personal relationships.
Goliath. Transient and fleeting. Often subject to what someone, or the company, can get from a relationship. Relationships have little or no currency beyond the next restructure.
LOYALTY
David. Loyalty shown to employees, customers and suppliers is reciprocated.
Goliath. Loyalty is talked about a lot. But egos, dollars, politics and ‘new strategy’ ensure its assassination.
LEGACY
David. What do you want to be remembered for? Then go out and do it brilliantly. Others will notice and judge.
Goliath. Will anyone remember a bank or insurance company? Corporates spend silly amounts of time and money broadcasting their greatness and virtues. It doesn’t work. Everyone knows.
Add a comment on what it is that you love about your business over the corporates.
I really want you to start creating sustainable success in your business and life. Simply check out my FAQs videos HERE on what business owners most commonly ask about sustainable business success. If they help you, simply sign up and get the other 20x videos free.
Claim your Giveaways now, find out what the Fourth Moon is and reach your goals sooner!
Cheers, Darren K Bourke
The world ends one hour before the Christmas Party
I still get amazed at how people freak out at the end of the year.
Normally rational people become obsessed with getting everything done before the Christmas break.
In my final blog for the year I take a light-hearted look at the crazy final weeks of the working year.
The Christmas Goldfish. Every year certain individuals think the world will end this Christmas. And then on their return in the New Year they realize it didn’t. But like a goldfish they forget again next Christmas.
The Empty-Inboxer. They must get their inbox empty before the Christmas Party or face Armageddon.
The Festive Networker. Don’t want to see you in July but must see you on the 21st of December to tick off that catch up before Christmas.
The Christmas Card Strangers. You bought stationery from a supplier five years ago so Bob, Susan and Michelle sent you a signed Christmas card.
The E-Card Giver. No-one likes an e-card. Ever. Please just don’t send them.
The Customer with absurd requests. Can you renovate my bathroom before Christmas? There’s four weeks to go. Can you ship the exact leadlight glass we need for our feature window from China before Christmas? What the?
The Nominator of advanced deadlines. Projects not due until June next year with a 90 day lead time are suddenly now subject to “It would be great guys if we could cover this off before Christmas.”
And what happens when everyone comes back to work after Christmas.
The Christmas Goldfish has forgotten their anxious and irrational behavior.
The Empty Inboxer is disappointed when they return to an inbox with exactly 103 emails in it.
The Festive Networker has forgotten you. Again. Until next Christmas.
The Christmas Card Strangers are blissfully unaware of your existence.
The E-Card has been deleted from your Inbox but lives on in your deleted files directory.
The Customer with absurd requests found a cheaper supplier who mucked up their order and dispatched product in March.
The Nominator of advanced deadlines privately accepts this was unrealistic without mention and directs you to meet the original deadline of June.
So the message here people is that these people walk amongst us in December.
I remind you to anticipate this behavior and not get drawn in.
Politely but assertively dismiss it.
And the moral of the story.
The world doesn’t end one hour before the Christmas Party.
And finally, thanks for your support in reading The Fourth Moon Blog.
I wish you a safe and enjoyable break. I encourage you to reinvigorate yourself and come back bigger and better in business next year.
As a tribute, please beat the Christmas rush, and buy you or a friend in business my online coaching program Fourth Moon Mastery here .
I really want you to start creating sustainable success in your business and life. Simply check out my FAQs videos HERE on what business owners most commonly ask about sustainable business success. If they help you, simply sign up and get the other 20x videos free.
Claim your Giveaways now, find out what the Fourth Moon is and reach your goals sooner!
Cheers, Darren K Bourke
The Two Lumberjacks & Sharpening the Saw
With everyone plugged in to the global village of business, we need to keep ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally healthy.
The ability to view business as a series of short sprints rather than one long marathon is paramount.
Taking short pauses or breaks between these sprints is the key to reinvigorating yourself.
In The Fourth Moon, I use the story of the two lumberjacks to illustrate this principle.
“There were two lumberjacks that made a bet on which one of them could cut down the most trees in a day. One of them was a huge brute of a man nearly 130 kilograms, while the other was a smaller lean man weighing just 80 kilograms. At dawn they started their competition having agreed to finish cutting trees at sunset. The larger man went out hard and chopped down trees for five hours straight without stopping for even a brief moment. In contrast, the smaller man went slowly and purposefully about his work. Every hour he stopped to sharpen his saw and take water. As the midday sun shone high in the sky and the mercury hit its peak, the larger man fell down to the ground exhausted, his saw blades worn down to nothing. He looked over at the small man with pity in his eyes. 'I've cut down over 20 trees, you've done half that’ he said laughing. The smaller man looked up calmly and said 'But it’s still six hours until sunset. I have energy and a sharp saw’.”
You can guess who won the bet.
One of the critical tactics to achieving sustainable business success is the discipline of taking short breaks to reinvigorate and reinvent yourself. The legendary author and educator Stephen Covey referred to this as sharpening the saw.
Sharpening the saw keeps you fresh and sharp. It clears your head to allow new things in. New people, skills and opportunities.
Overexerting yourself and working to the same run-sheet every week and month will provide you with spurts of sporadic or fleeting success. But it is unlikely to provide sustainable success. I consider sustainable success to be delivering winning performance with predictable outcomes for 3 years or more.
Not sharpening the saw can lead to relationship, physical or mental breakdowns. Customers and staff leave. Opportunities pass you by.
Everything starts to dissolve around you, with you too exhausted to remedy it.
So schedule those pauses and breaks into your daily, weekly, monthly and annual routine.
Stay fresh and sharp to take on the world.
And remember the little lumberjack, who was still going strong at sunset. Long after his bigger stronger counterpart was flat on his back and beaten.
To learn more of the steps to sustainable business success, secure your copy of The Fourth Moon here.
I really want you to start creating sustainable success in your business and life. Simply check out my FAQs videos HERE on what business owners most commonly ask about sustainable business success. If they help you, simply sign up and get the other 20x videos free.
Claim your Giveaways now, find out what the Fourth Moon is and reach your goals sooner!
Cheers, Darren K Bourke
What Traditions have you started?
When I was a kid, we’d learn of family traditions. Both in our families and others. These family traditions ranged from the family Sunday Roast, to our Italian neighbor’s tomato sauce-making day to the annual family vacation at the same seaside location each year.
It was only when I got older that I reflected on how these traditions started within families. Someone had to think of the idea, initiate it within their family and gain wide support for it to be adopted as an ongoing tradition.
Who were the people in each family that started these traditions and how did they do it?
In recent years I decided to attempt starting a tradition in our family. And I’m proud to say it stuck.
As a singer, I make a good blogger. Unfortunately, I was not blessed with the dulcet tones of Freddie Mercury. However, for some strange reason I can do a half decent version of old Satchmo Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World.
So one Christmas after lunch, I announced to my family that I’d like to sing them a song. I then proceeded to belt out Satchmo to the best of my limited ability. It was fun, everyone laughed and clapped. An invitation for others to sing followed. But no-one took up the offer.
I then extended a future invitation to everyone to prepare a song for next year’s Christmas lunch and perform.
What happened in the years following has been amazing.
Since then, most of the adult children have had a go at banging out a tune. The kids have got involved with some songs and dance routines. Last year, my sister Deb and husband Rod even did I got you babe dressed in full Sonny & Cher outfits!
Each Christmas we all eagerly anticipate what people will sing later in the afternoon.
I feel quite chuffed that I’ve been able to originate and establish a tradition.
Which got me thinking about business.
If family traditions can be established and survive generations, what if you started some traditions in your business?
What tradition could you start that would be really memorable. What tradition could you start that would be anticipated in advance of it happening? Be savoured by recipients or participants.
Think about adopting a tradition around your customers, employees or community. What would it be?
It could be activities or benefits provided for customer recognition. It might be activities or reward for your best employees. It might be adopting a chosen charity and supporting them ‘hands on’ or financially.
What are one or two traditions that would make a significant difference to others while making your tradition truly memorable?
It could be fun and make you, and others, feel great. A tradition could make you stand out.
But do it for the right reasons. It’s funny how when you do something from the heart, the rub-off tends to be positive anyway.
Dare to be different. Do something.
Better to be accused of being different or eccentric, rather than boring. In an often cynical world, people are searching for feel good experiences.
Let me know what tradition you are going to adopt within your business?
I really want you to start creating sustainable success in your business and life. Simply check out my FAQs videos HERE on what business owners most commonly ask about sustainable business success. If they help you, simply sign up and get the other 20x videos free.
Claim your Giveaways now, find out what the Fourth Moon is and reach your goals sooner!
Cheers, Darren K Bourke