Yesterday I wrote about how not to travel. To be sure, living stupidly out of balance as I've been is damaging to your health, depressing and unsustainable, but working 9 to 5 doesn't seem to work either. Being careful, never putting in extra effort when required, will almost always cause an enterprise to flounder and it's not the making of good "War Stories". In my office is a bookshelf full of business books and autobiographies, and at home I have shelves full of the same. You never read, "Well we started the business, it all went well and I made it home early every night." Instead the stories start with tension, stress, heartache and personal sacrifice.

Being scared and defying the odds is what makes a good story

How about this advert for explorers to join Shackleton's race to the South Pole, a challenge that saw another group, led by Sir Robert Scott, doomed to an icy grave. Incredibly, 5000 people evidently applied to join the team.

"Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success."

You change the world by expecting the unreasonable

I'm not sure what it's like at Apple now, but stories of the development of the first Mac are flavoured with people sleeping under desks, living on pizza and Coke, day in day out, month in month out ... People not just developing a product, but a team hoping to change the world. - Richard Branson didn't build Virgin by just talking about music, or by just talking about a record company, he did it by living his dream day in day out 24/7, even selling music from the boot of his car. He did what he had to do so that one day he and his people would change the world. Sure it was play hard ... but it was also work hard. - Mother Teresa's story is not one of personal comfort, it's one of self sacrifice. She influenced the world by putting herself last. Putting her needs behind those people she served. - I am completely unreasonable with myself. We don't measure ourselves against our neighbours, or even our competitors, but against people like these that have already changed the world.

Will money make you happy?

I have a friend who, whenever you talk about working hard, says, "Money won't make you happy". What she doesn't understand is, it's never really been about the money. It's about the challenge, the excitement, about making a difference. It's about changing the world ... it's about creating something legendary.

But are these stories just the lies we tell ourselves?

Steve Blank wrote this story about lies entrepreneurs tell themselves which I agree with and have from time to time told myself. The truth is, however, living your dream leads to a passionate life, but pursuing them and working hard is not an excuse for not prioritising family, friends and the people you love. Life is for living and one's mission will end up empty and with regrets if being out of balance remains your way of life. Just be careful, because when you care more about others, or about your mission more than you do about yourself, it can be hard to see that things are "out of balance".

Ok, I have just made myself feel sick on Twitter by un-following most of the 3000 people I was following because I simply found myself in a situation where I was overwhelmed by the tweet traffic generated by that number of people. As much as I carefully considered my reasoning for doing this, pushing that delete key on Twitter Karma, has certainly left my hands shaking. If you find that I am not following you now I am very sorry. If however we've been talking directly I'll re-follow you over the weekend once the the delete process has finished. I just couldn't keep up with the wild stream of updates, direct messages from spam robots and most importantly I kept missing the valuable messages and updates I wanted to see. Drastic action was required.

Overwhelm has become a theme recently, but simplicity and presence are now my focus

You will have noticed in my post about "Being an entrepreneur and how not to travel" that I basically burnt myself out on a recent trip, and while this is true, it would be more accurate to say that I have been doing this more and more over recent years. So much so that last year I had to take a couple of months off due to sickness caused by stress and exhaustion. Fortunately people have been pointing out that I am heading there again and as I don't want to go through that once more need to prioritise.

Fine ... But why so ruthless with twitter?

I joined Twitter for the conversation, to make contact with people with whom to socialise, and keep up to date with information. During that time I have been deeply honoured to have built a pretty big following, and for much of the time I automatically followed people back, I guess to be polite. That was great in the beginning, but as the list grew, it became harder and harder to keep track of the people I was actually interacting with, and by now I can't even see what people say unless they specifically reply to me because the stream of tweets moves to fast. What started to as fun, soon turned into something of a burden as it makes me feel disrespectful if I don't also get to see what these friends are saying, and of course I'm having only half the fun. It was never about talking at people, it needs to be about talking with people. How I used Twitter started to change the day I found myself in trouble as I started to think more consciously about twitter spam, follower ego and how much noise there was. I love the service and love how you can interact so easily with people but felt there had to be a better way.

Simplicity and focus.

I'm hardly the first person to do this for example Loic Le Meur, a high profile geek and founder of Seesmic, did the same and deleted 23,000 followers, and although Tsudohnimh proposed a great solution for dealing with a large number of Twitter followers, I didn't want another system. In a post on needing to have fun, if you want to be creative I introduced a book and time management system called Zen To Done. This is now becoming a way of life for me at work. You will see it even in the fact that my blog looks different, it's simpler, cleaner and by changing it's focus slightly, it lowers the expectation of me by allowing me to be myself.

I'm sorry

I am again sorry that I can't follow everyone, but I believe strongly in being present with the people I am with and therefore if you interact with me on my blog or twitter, I will with you. Say hello, let me know how life is treating you and what makes you get up in the morning and if you're interested I'll do the same. Alternatively if you prefer just to listen, that's cool too. Until we meet, have an awesome weekend and all the best.

Why is it that people spend so much time asking how, and so little time asking why? Did we as kids run out of some predetermined number of "Whys" we had been granted? I know my kids ask me constantly, why dad?, but why? ... Why after why, after why? Nothing unusual, I am sure you did it to your parents, I know I did it to mine ... The question is why did we stop? I am often asked for advice about starting a business, and in the early days would jump in and try to help. I'd give support, and maybe some direction, until I noticed how few people actually did something. I still helped, but only if the person was genuinely committed, as I had become frustrated with this inaction. But then I realised what the reason was.

I started asking questions

"Excellent, why?" ... A blank look is returned ... "Why, do you want to start a business?" ... "To make money ... and get rich" ... "Why?" ... "Why what? ... "Why do you want to be rich" ... "So I can give my family a great life, so that we can have stuff" ... "Why do you want that?" ... "So that we can be happy."

But that's failed logic

At this point I understand their desire, but I also know I am talking to someone that is not going to be an entrepreneur ... In fact they are probably never going to be truly happy until they find a better answer to "Why", and until they learn to ask why for themselves. You see, it's a failed logic, money won't make you happy. In fact maybe all this person needs to do to be happy is to lower their expectations about money, to build a story around why they don't need money, why money is wrong and why working that hard would take them away from what's important ... like family. The truth is however, that won't make them happy, that will just make them numb. Happiness will only come through connection to a higher purpose ... if you, like "one's destiny" ... it comes from contribution.

At the end of this post I have linked to an interview with entrepreneur Michael Hill (Jeweller) from a National Radio show this morning. He made an awesome comment that I believe supports this:"When you are in harmony, you don't want to take, you want to give."

Observation #1

Have you ever noticed how many successful blogs are about how to be a successful blogger?. And if they are not about blogging then they are often a "how to" site, maybe with tech tips etc. What about these for example? How to become a popular blogger or How to become wealthy right now and 5 ways to 'systemize' your blogging. Before I start a fire storm, I'm not criticising these sites. I think they are awesome and have great stuff to share, but what about the question ... Why? ... Why do you want to be a successful blogger? Why is this information right for you? Written goals a good, but they are exponentially more powerful when you add a 'WHY?' to each item. A deeply considered and deeply felt why ... a deeply considered connection to that higher purpose. These blogs will give you a strategy once you are moving, but this connection to purpose will be the fuel for your fire.

Observation #2

I was at a course last week, and sat for most of the week at the back of the room. I noticed that a large proportion of the room were hurriedly writing notes, trying to take down every detail – they needed to make sure they captured the strategy perfectly ... A smaller group didn't take many notes, what they seemed to record was not the strategy verbatim, but ideas that connected with what they already knew ... they recorded the inspiration. What I found interesting was: the group that took the notes hadn't started a business yet or were struggling. In fact many of these people, without wanting to be unkind, will probably never start. They are trying to educate themselves a safety net and of course without an empowering "Why", no safety net will ever be good enough. The second group however, didn't need a safety net as they were so well connected. They had turned their 'why?', into a 'why the hell not?' as if to say, 'what else is there?'

I guess I am reminded today

If we want to change our destiny, if we want to change our life's direction, if we want to grow beyond where we are now then we must always explore why? NB I came across a blog recently that I am starting to love called mixergy.com. What I love is how Andrew really trys to dig deep in his interviews, sometimes to the point of making the interviewee a little uncomfortable. He passionately explores the 'Why?' behind what the person does, and do they live what they 'say'. Have a look, I particularly enjoyed these two interviews, one with Seth Godin on Why You Need To Lead A Tribe and How Alltop Is Growing By Following Its Founder’s Advice – The Guy Kawasaki Interview

Interview on New Zealand National Radio with Michael Hill Jeweller

I went to a Robert Kiyosaki - Rich Dad, Poor Dad seminar a few weeks ago, which got me thinking about the wealthy men in my life and what I have learnt from them. Six came to mind almost immediately as they had taught me some very deep and fundamental lessons. The seminar itself was fairly disappointing apart from hearing Emi Kiyosaki talk about how to avoid regret, but like all things it did prompt some self-reflection and fortunately reminded me of these lessons.

These men are all different, but in some ways the same

They are by no means the richest people I have known, and might seem on the surface of it completely different. They include a property developer, two Xerox sales people, a Xerox dealer, a wool merchant and the last is my Dad. You'll notice from that list how significantly Xerox features, and that is because although I largely hated my time working there (seven years), it was a wonderful training ground in communication and sales. Two crucial skills that need to be mastered if you wish to have a successful business. My Dad is included, not as some shallow suck-up to one's father, but because as part of a two person tag team, he and Mum have done more to develop my entrepreneurial ability, standards, world outlook and competitive streak than anyone else. They have brilliant insight, some of which I would like to share, but they'll have to wait nervously till post #6 to see what I have to say :-)

So what do these people have in common?

They are all all self made people ... they are all ambitious ... they all have high standards ... they all live outside themselves and add value to others ... and most importantly they all became successful, not by honouring "the rules", but by making them.

Les Harvey property developer - the unlikely rich guy

That's Les in the photo, complete with sailor's hat and jumper. He must have brought a new jumper for the photo shoot as my memory is that the one he normally wore was much older, and his hair always messy. He was the unlikely rich guy because to many people he looked more like he lived on the street rather than as the owner of a significant portion of Auckland's central city. When I read the book The Millionaire Next Door I immediately thought of Les. There were no airs and graces with him, no flaunting his wealth; he was almost cagey as to which buildings were his. I liked that humbleness, and noticed how it sparked more curiosity than if he had been flashy.

Lesson #1 - Set your own rules

When I worked at Xerox, the corporate uniform was strictly imposed, and peer pressure even encouraged you to spend significant money on cars and suits. Looking right, looking successful, keeping up with the Jone's. I know as entrepreneurs, we sometimes have to play the part, wear the suit and behave as expected, but what I love is being able to be like Les. That is, being myself, wearing what I want, getting past the pretence and setting my own rules.

Lesson #2 - Love the company, not the product

Les's "product", at the time we were in there ,was Parnell, as a community of souvenir, craft and speciality shops. Shops like ours (Earthworks) were his bread and butter, the innovators that became one of the first companies in New Zealand to battle for and start Sunday trading. We made Parnell a destination, something for the cafe's to base themselves around. When the opportunity arose to raise rents to a point that was no longer economic for us, he didn't get caught up in the old model, he didn't get confused by his allegiances to people who had supported him for 15 years – he just moved on. I kind of admire and feel bad about that, all at the same time, but truth is, he kept his business strong by adapting and moving with the times. That clarity is supremely important.

Thank you Les

It's not a complicated story, but certainly one that has influenced me since my time watching and learning from you as a child and teenager. Hard work, frustration and lots of responsibility may be a potential downside of being an entrepreneur, but being able to be the sailor and captain of your own ship, setting your own direction and making up your own rules is definitely a bonus.

Yesterday I introduced the fact that going to a Rich Dad Poor Dad seminar had me thinking of the wealthy men in my life. I started by talking about Les Harvey the unlikely property developer and how he taught me to 'set my own rules', 'be humble' and 'love my company more than my product'. One of the most successful salesmen I worked with at Xerox was a guy called John Burke (Burkie). It's been almost 15 years since I last saw him so I have no idea what he does today, but the lessons he taught are still with me. He is a great guy and I really appreciate the time he spent working with me; he was a hard working person and is certainly someone I deeply respect.

Lesson #1 – Information is power

I can remember as if it were yesterday, sitting out in the back of the Xerox offices discussing what was needed to be successful in business and especially at Xerox. The theme was that Information Is Power. The more you know, the more powerful you are. The trick being if you know more than anyone else you are valuable, you are needed. Know more than anyone else, and be incredibly good at using that information and the sky's the limit in terms of your ability to negotiate your terms.

Lesson #1 – A bonus

I've held that value in the forefront of my mind since that day, but it has evolved into an even more powerful version. In my opinion information shared is much more powerful than information kept to yourself. Of course there is some information you must keep confidential, but living your life sharing information, enabling others and exploring possibilities through conversation is infinitely more exciting and rewarding. The real beauty of sharing information and ideas is that, unlike most other resources, you still have it after you have given it away.

Lesson #2 – Understand your pay plan

John's second great lesson was to teach me to 'know my pay plan', by that I mean understand the numbers, know how you are paid. If you are on commission know exactly how it is calculated and what gets you that bonus. I swear John and I earned more per dollar of equipment sold than most other reps, because we always knew exactly what we had to do to maximise our commission rate. Most people just sold what they could, but we focused on what we needed. One month I even brought a $2000 fax machine on the last day of the month, because it earned me a $10,000 bonus! If I hadn't been concentrating that would have been a costly disappointment. The important thing to remember is you can dramatically and easily increase the profit of your business if you focus on what is important, but to do that you must know your numbers and know how and where your money comes from.