A dear (seriously driven) woman entrepreneur just messaged me and said she first read my blog back in 2007 or 2008. I’d never heard from her, never knew she was reading… until now. 2017. Cool, of course.
But also… GULP….
I shudder to think of the business advice I was giving back then. While I know AT LEAST that I never acquiesced to the “business coach as usual” BS, I also know that I’ve learned and shifted and grown in SO MANY WAYS in the past decade.
I know that my beliefs have shifted.
I know that some of what I believed “back then,” I think is EITHER total BS now… or was only a sliver of the truth.
So, today… I want to come clean, regroup, and publicly recount a FEW — an incomplete list — of the ways (if you’ve been following me for ten + years online) that I was SO DEAD WRONG.
I WAS WRONG ABOUT TIME MANAGEMENT. It is true that I have taught about time management. I’ve done full live events on the topic, sold info-products on the topic, dedicated newsletters and articles and more to this topic. And…. it is true that I get more done by 9 AM than many entrepreneurs get done in a day. It is ALSO true that I built this business while raising (and even homeschooling) three kids without the help of a nanny or au pair or assistant or even a regular babysitter. I know a THING OR TWO about getting stuff done.
But I was teaching the wrong stuff.
I talked about using print calendars, and time blocking and all of that. I talked about strategies and hacks that will — yes, of course — help you BEND time to your will…. when you need to.
BUT all of this… everything I taught…. was more like a diet. Something you don’t want to wake up and think about… something unnatural that you “put on” every morning. And all of it is insufficient. Because truly… to MASTER and HACK Time “like a Lady Boss” all you need are three things:
1) Priorities. Clear priorities about what is most important. (HINT: These things are done daily.)
2) PRACTICE. Want to get faster and more efficient in your work? Practice. (HINT: do it daily.)
3) Habits & Routines. The most important things in my day aren’t even scheduled in anymore. WHY? I habitually wake up and do them… without thinking, without wondering, without delay or procrastination. They’ve become habits and not only part of my day… but part of who I AM as a person.
I don’t think about hacking time that much anymore. I don’t race against time anymore. Because time works FOR me now… expanding when I need it to… always supporting me… simply because I live by my own priorities, practice what’s important and make HABITS of the critical stuff.
I WAS ALSO (partly) WRONG ABOUT ROLE MODELS.
I have always encouraged people to seek “behavioral congruency,” meaning… if you want what they have, do what they do. Make your BEHAVIOR line up with theirs and your OUTCOME will also line up with theirs.
Still, I believe that this is a GREAT principle. I DO (still) live by it. However, I’ve also found a deeper principle that equally matters.
By all means, look at what your role models are DOING. Identify the behaviors that those you respect have in common. Infuse your own day with behaviors that OTHERS have proven lead to an outcome you want. DO THIS.
But also — and here’s where I really fell short in my earlier years of blogging — look for their REASONING behind what they do. This will help you ascertain WHY they’re doing it and allow “it” — whatever behavior or activity you’re seeing — to be applied MOST authentically to your life or business.
Because you don’t want to simply copy cat.
You want to always customize your actions… and do it your way.
I WAS WRONG ABOUT THE HOW. I THOUGHT “HOW” MATTERED.
I was so wrong about the HOW. I always planned stuff out. I planned out email campaigns. If they click this, they get this. If they don’t click this, they receive this. Predicting human behavior and then programming a robot to respond to it in real time. I’d plan out everything in advance.
As if I had ANY CLUE what would happen tomorrow…
Now, I have fully let go of the HOW.
Each week, each day I come into my business and SERVE… in real time… based on what I have to give that day… based on what I hear from my tribe is NEEDED… based on tuning in and asking myself, “what do they need to hear today? what do I need to say?”
Today, I bob and weave with the market.
Today, I have my GOALS,
I know where I’m going and — of course — I have my HABITS….
But the HOW evolves DAILY.
As an aside, this saves me TONS of time. No more planning into the totally uncertain future. I just show up DAILY — bright eyed and bushy-tailed — ready to dance with the marketplace.
So, there are (only ) three (of the many) ways I feel I’d previously done you a disservice. I hope– because I am continually growing and evolving — there are many MORE things I’m wrong about. I hope to keep discovering secrets, habits, daily routines that make the GRIND OF BUSINESS even more unnecessary.
And when I do, you can count on me to call myself out and say, “I WAS SO WRONG.”
Over to you, though… what did you used to believe about business that you now know is total BS?????
Over on my Facebook page this week, you can read my post about being called too masculine.
