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September 1

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The countdown starts. I’ll be going back to school soon while I know others have already started. Although you may not be going to school, changes are you have a lot of things to do during this span (September to June) compared to the summer as well. This is why systematizing your business or at least finding some areas to systematize is essential towards the growth of your business.

Find ways to make things happen automatically. Scheduling tweets isn’t exactly a systematized process because I schedule tweets every day. However, when I’m in school, I don’t have to take out my phone to send out a tweet. HootSuite does that for me.

That’s why I did 52 videos in August for YouTube because I publish 1 video every week. Those videos are scheduled, and now I don’t have to go back to YouTube until next summer. I have the choice of whether or not to use YouTube throughout the entire school year.

I wrote a majority of my books over the summer because I won’t get as much time when school starts. All of the books I mentioned in blog posts were finished in summer. I have from now until June to write an entire book.

I have scheduled blog posts days in advance in the event I got a test that I needed to study for throughout the night. I am scheduling even more blog posts just to make sure nothing happens.

I have only attended business expos in the summer. If I had to attend business expos on a weekly or even a monthly basis, I would be faced with a schedule conflict.

I read books (not given as summer homework) over the summer so I won’t have to worry about them when school starts. I will be reading every night when school starts, and reading 2 books simultaneously never works.

If scheduling pins were free, I would have scheduled pins for a long amount of time. I’ll have enough time to send out 10-30 pins a day despite there not being a free way to schedule pins…yet.

If I didn’t systematize my business at all, having to maintain school, track, and my business would have been difficult. However, I have been able to systematize many aspects of my business. The only things I have to do throughout the school year are tweet, pin, write 1 book, and write blog posts.

Going into summer, I knew some ways of systematizing my business. I knew writing books and scheduling blog posts (only to a certain degree) could be systematized going into the summer.

I didn’t read any books this summer until the middle of July. I didn’t even bother doing YouTube videos until the middle of August (a lot of videos have been done in the process. They’re all done though).

Last year, I had nothing systematized. This blog didn’t even exist last year. I kept on doing the same amount of work day in and day out. I wrote books during the school year, and as a freshman at the time, the school work was the easiest. I got lucky.

When I go back to school, I will know that parts of my business are systematized. Doing a YouTube video doesn’t have to be a part of my schedule until June. I only need to write one book, and if I finish that by the New Year, I won’t have to worry about writing another book for 6 months.

Not all of the parts of my business are systematized, but enough of them are. Next year, I will be able to systematize even more parts of my business. I only started systematizing YouTube less than 15 days ago. Next summer, I’ll have 3 entire months to do that. I may be able to systematize my pins (by then, some kind of Pinterest scheduler will have launched). I may have more days scheduled on this blog. I may read 20 books next summer that weren’t assigned by my teachers (20 books in a summer is setting the bar high, but I would rather set the bar high than set the bar low).

Last year, nothing was systematized. This year, some parts of my business are systematized. Next year, a majority of my business will be systematized. What can you do today, tomorrow, this week, or this month to systematize your business? Start systematizing now!

Not Everyone Gets It

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When you approach people with a new idea, some will be amazed. Others won’t get it. The Wright brothers are credited for creating the first functional airplane, but when people heard of their idea, they weren’t ready to believe.

The French called the Wright brothers bluffers while the European press was turned into a anti-Wright brothers stance. To add on, Ernest Archdeacon, founder of Aero Club de France, was publicly scornful of the Wright brother’s efforts to actually take flight in the airplane.

The Wright brothers could have given up right there. The New York Herald basically said that the Wright brothers either took flight or completely lied. With the European press, the French, and Ernest Archdeacon objecting the idea with plenty of other critics as well, why didn’t the Wright brothers give up? The answer is an easy one to give. They got it.

The European press, the French, Ernest Archdeacon, and all of the other critics didn’t get it. They only actually got it when the Wright brothers took flight in their first airplane in France. Archdeacon publicly admitted later that he had done the Wright brothers injustice.

Now, airplanes are common. I’ve boarded an airplane multiple times, and I’m sure you have boarded an airplane yourself or at least know someone who already has. Now that the airplane has been around for a long time, we all get it. We all know that flight is actually possible because we have the proof. We look up in the sky, and sometimes we see an airplane.

The European press, the French, Ernest Archdeacon, and all of the other critics didn’t have the proof they needed and thus didn’t get it. More people want proof and fewer people are faithful that something will ‘just work.’ If you went back to the beginning of the 20th century and told someone about all of the airplanes that fly in the air today, people would look at you as if you lost your mind.

The whole point isn’t about airplanes, or the European press, or all of those other critics. The point is that right now, if you come up with a new idea, you will have some of those critics. The airplane started out as an idea that people criticized. People probably criticized Facebook and Twitter before they became the powerful social networks they are today (some people still criticize those social networks).

When you think of a new idea, few people will actually get it right away. Most people won’t get it no matter how good the idea is. When people don’t get your idea, that is not the time to give up. That is the time to prove everyone wrong.

 

Want A Giant Pumpkin?

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When farmers plants giant pumpkins, they dream of having the biggest pumpkin around. I’m not talking about the average pumpkin that you can find in you grocery store. I’m talking about the pumpkins that weigh well over a thousand pounds.

There is a magic seed that always results in a giant pumpkin, but only if you nurture it right. Giant pumpkin farmers know how to nurture those seeds well. For those farmers, and of the seeds is guaranteed to turn into a giant pumpkin.

You might be wondering how much one of those seeds is worth. Seeds from one of the best pumpkins (those pumpkins that grow over 1,000 pounds) are worth more than gold, literally. Each seed is over $1,000.

If you want a giant pumpkin, you have to make the investment in your business. You don’t have to put over $1,000 on the table for a small seed that eventually becomes a giant pumpkin. The best way to invest in your business is to invest with time. If you want a giant pumpkin, you have to find time in your day to work on your business.

That’s how you invest in your business, and that’s how the seed grows. When your seed grows enough, that’s when you put some money on the table for business expenses. As you continue nurturing your seed, your seed will grow into a giant 1,000 pound pumpkin.

When a giant pumpkin grows, it doesn’t stop growing for a long time. A 1,000 pound pumpkin can easily become a 1,500 pounder within a week. If you want a giant pumpkin, you start off by investing in the seed. There is no way around it. You need the seed in order to have the giant pumpkin. After you invest some time, you invest more time so you can nurture the seed. You continue this cycle and watch the seed grow.

When you finished growing one giant pumpkin, it’s time for you to grow another one.

Pros And Cons Are Just A Con

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Controversy is inevitable. When controversy comes up, we must choose a side. This is when we weigh the pros and cons. However, when we weigh the pros and cons, that takes up a lot of time.

Imagine writing a list of pros and cons for 30 minutes. Writing that list of pros and cons took up time you could have used doing something else. You could have been scheduling social media updates or taking a break from your business.

Writing down and even thinking about the pros and cons takes up time. Time is a valuable resource, and when you write down or think of the pros and cons, you’re wasting more time.

The pros and cons will be necessary for some controversial topics. Pros and cons are necessary when deciding between being a Republican or Democrat. However, if you’re weighing the pros and cons for something related to your niche or business that you can do yourself, weighing the pros and cons is just a con.

The blog post before this was about blogging frequency. You can either blog daily or weekly. You can weigh the pros and cons all you want. However, you won’t know much about blogging frequency unless you give something a try.

Writing a list of your goals is a great idea. Writing a list of pros and cons is not a great idea. That takes up time. The time you lose from writing your pros and cons could have been spent actually testing out the idea. Instead of writing a list of the pros and cons of blogging daily and weekly, you can actually write blog posts and see what you ideal frequency is. Do you write really long blog posts that take days to complete or can you publish a blog post every day?

You already asked the question. Writing a list of pros and cons isn’t the answer. You’re still stuck with the question. You didn’t question the question either. The only way to answer the question is to actually take action. You can ask yourself if you’re good enough to upload videos to YouTube. The only way you will know if you are good enough is by recording videos of yourself.

Don’t list the pros and cons. Make a quick decision and implement it. If it doesn’t work, or you feel like you can do more, make the change. Don’t overwhelm yourself with giant lists. Instead, just focus on starting and doing.

Showing Up Consistently Is Half The Battle

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You can show up. People will show up to the gym while other people will show up at the nearby business expo. People show up, but do they do it consistently.

The person who showed up at the gym feels honored. They actually showed up. Then, that person goes home. That person still feels honored and says, “I deserve a day off.”

After the day off, all of the excuses start to surface. “I have to meet up with someone. I’m having friends over. My favorite TV show is on. The gym is too far away,” and other excuses similar to those start to surface.

A new blogger may send out 5 blog posts but forget to send out another blog post for the entire week. That new blogger showed up, but that new blogger didn’t show up consistently.

All of the people we know who are successful didn’t only show up. They showed up consistently. If Huffington Post didn’t come out with a new blog post, everyone would know about it. If Techcrunch decided to take the day off, we would notice. If Google didn’t work all of a sudden after consistently working for so long, we would know about it. In fact, that happened recently.

It’s time for us to reevaluate what it means to show up. Showing up doesn’t mean showing up, leaving, and never coming back. Showing up does not mean half of the battle is done. Showing up consistently on a daily or weekly basis is half of the battle. I won’t know the potential of my blog if I decided to stop blogging.

Showing up consistently is half of the battle. After months or even years of consistently showing up, you will see the results and reap the benefits.

Starting Soon

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The question isn’t whether we want to start or not. The question is when you will start. It’s not that people don’t want to start. It’s that people don’t want to stay committed. Starting soon is another way of saying it won’t happen.

If you want to achieve new heights for your business, you won’t get them by implementing your ideas soon, later, or eventually. You implement your ideas by saying now.

Be a now person. It’s very important. If you’re a now person, you will be able to achieve greatness for your business. People who start soon only start when they have no other option. People who start now force themselves to do the work that will allow them to achieve greatness.