Do you do ‘dry runs’ before delivering an important new product or service?

I call it doing the prep.

The famous rock band Queen stole the show for Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in 1985. The story of how Queen achieved this has become one of legend.

In this blog, I explore how Queen prepared for this outcome well before they went on stage.

I always get amazed at how many business owners are unwilling to pay the price for success.

In this blog, I outline a key strategy of successful people. They figure out the price of success and pay for it.

Everyone thinks they have a great idea.

But ideas are worthless without refinement. Ideas are easy to generate and almost always over-valued by their creator.

In this blog, I outline the six things you can do to take your idea from worthless to valuable.

As individuals surrender more control to employers, digital corporations, governments and external parties through technology and coercion - I increase gratitude daily for my independence as a business owner.

As a business owner I get to decide who I work with and how much I get paid for my product or service.

I decide on what I do today, this week, this month and this year.

I decide how many hours I will work, what I work on and where I work.

Within the virtual world - the 24-hour news media cycles, streaming services, email, social media and endless notifications constantly bombard us with toxic noise.

Within the physical world - family, friends, business partners, employees, customers, suppliers and community members can also bombard us with toxic noise.

One of the positives of last year’s lockdown was the opportunity to quiet ourselves and reflect on who and what we value.

By hopping off life’s merry- go-round for a while there was an opportunity to block out much of the toxic noise that invades us. This noise often prevents us from being the version of ourselves we wish to be.

Let’s do a stocktake of toxic noise and what we can do to tune in to our ideal frequency.

Author Steve Pressfield’s excellent book The Artist’s Journey presents one of life’s most incredible choices to us.

Pressfield outlines the typical path of our first journey, The Hero’s Journey. This journey is our initial career which is typically a planned and unspectacular progression down a ‘proven’ path.

Pressfield then presents us with the paradox of a second journey, The Artist’s Journey. Here the individual feels a pull or yearning towards another path – one quite different and challenging – requiring the individual to step away from the comfort or familiarity of life’s current position.

Let’s challenge ourselves to understand Pressfield’s proposition.