On your next flight, if you happen have forgotten to recharge your Kindle and have nothing better to do, take a moment to listen to the pre-flight safety demonstration. you'll eventually hear something like this:
"The cabin pressure is controlled for your comfort. However, should it change radically inflight, oxygen compartments will automatically open in the panel above your seat. Reach up and pull the mask to your face....if you are traveling with children place the mask on yourself first, then offer assistance."
What? I thought to myself that seems terribly selfish doesn’t it? As I thought about it, it began to make sense. If you pass out because you can’t breathe, you can’t help anyone else. You need to be functioning at full capacity - especially in a situation like that. So you have to put yourself first.
It’s not much different running a business. The most successful entrepreneurs put themselves first. They tend to be very structured about their day and take a ME FIRST attitude and by following a set of common traits, they tend to operate at their greatest capacity and level of effectiveness.
I have packaged those traits into a simple acronym for you to remember - ME FIRST.
M - Meditation
One of the greatest benefits of meditation is how it allows the body to relieve stress. We have inherited the fight or flight reaction from our ancestors who faced many life threatening situations. These life threatening situations trigger an adrenal rush - adrenaline and other hormones are released increasing our blood pressure and heart rate, our breathing and the blood flow to the muscle increases. When we are in extreme danger, these reactions in our body were very helpful. Unfortunately, these same reactions occur today but not in situations of extreme danger, they occur while we are driving, or waiting in a long line at the grocery store or someone irritates us or when the internet slows down and we have to wait an additional 15 seconds. The body weren’t built to be in a permanent level of stress. The longer we experience stress the quicker our immunity breaks down, the less energy we have, the less effective we become.
The most effective entrepreneurs meditate daily. Put yourself first, take 5 minutes each day and sit in a quiet place and breath deeply through your nose until you fill your lungs completely and try to focus on one thought - begin taming the ‘monkey mind’. Prayer is an effective form of meditation especially when you are trying to stay focused on one thought.
E - Exercise
The most effective entrepreneurs find time to exercise at least 5 times per week. Many exercise daily. Richard Branson, considered one of the most successful businessmen of all time, has discussed that the busier he gets, the more time he schedules to exercise. He understands that the more you work the more stress is created the greater the need to relieve stress. That’s what exercise does. By creating a good sweat you deliver a boost of oxygen and nutrients to your tissues and you improve the overall efficiency of your cardiovascular system. More oxygen flowing more efficiently throughout your body. When your heart and lungs work more efficiently, you have more energy for everything else. Exercise also makes you feel better as you sweat out toxins, create endorphins and it helps manage your weight.
There is research that suggests that a workout session as little as 5 minutes is enough to reduce stress and improve your health. So be like the most effective people out there, be selfish and find at least 5 minutes in your day each day to begin the habit of exercise. Work towards finding a time in your schedule to exercise daily. If you’re just getting started, find 5 minutes each day. If you’re already exercising work towards 6 days per week for at least 45 minutes. Make sure you mix up your workouts.
F - Family / Friends / Fuel / Faith.
Family / Friends. The most effective entrepreneurs find a way to add balance to their lives. A mentor of mine shared with me the ‘Wheel of Life’ - no not the Disney movie - Circle of Life, the Wheel of Life. Basically it works like this. Everyone plays a lot of different roles in their lives such as friend, spouse, parent, athlete, owner, employee and have different interests such as hobbies, continuous education etc. Consider each important role and interest in your life as a spoke. Now draw a small circle (the axil of the wheel) and place each spoke on the axil in proportion to the amount of time/value you spend on it. If you are working all the time, that spoke is probably very long. If you are ignoring your friends, that spoke is probably very short. Continue to add the spokes in proportion to the amount of time/value you are currently active in that role. Now draw a circle around the end of each spoke. Does it look like a round wheel? Most don’t. The most effective entrepreneurs work towards a round balanced wheel because they know that a balanced wheel will give them more energy less distractions and more time to focus on what’s important in their life and business.
Fuel. Now think about your fuel - what you consume as food and drink. You are what you eat, at least you are what you digest. The most effective people follow similar healthy eating habits.
The healthier you eat, the better you feel, the better you feel, the more effective you are and the more energy you have.
What does eating healthy even mean. First it’s not dieting. Diets are not effective. They tend to ‘eat clean’. Clean means foods with very few and more than likely one ingredient in it. They avoid foods in boxes and with ingredients they you can’t pronounce or have no idea what it is.
Egg ingredients - egg. Carrot ingredients - carrot. Beef ingredients - beef. You understand what I’m saying. The fewer the ingredients the ‘cleaner’ the food.
They tend to stick to the same foods for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. It doesn’t mean they have the same thing over and over again, it just means they have a handful of selections for each meal and keep going back to them. By doing this, they have a much better understanding of the caloric intake and how the food will affect them hours later.
They eat a breakfast high in protein and fat! Not only does a hearty breakfast filled with protein and fat like eggs cooked in butter with a side of bacon give you energy, it keep you well satiated for hours, it also helps regulate your weight better too. We have been fooled into believing that fat is bad for us but think about it, our brain is made of fat and needs fat to operate effectively.
They Drink Water. Not soda. Not lemonade or iced tea. Just plain water. Drinking enough water is a vital part of any conditioning program because it keeps your body functioning in homeostasis (Episode 9). Drink water with every meal and snack. Highly successful fit people drink at least six to eight 12-ounce glasses of water a day, plus more as needed during exercise.
They tend to stop eating after dinner and they don’t deny themselves of the food they enjoy. I love Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream - I eat Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream but just a small bowl.
Faith. I have to admit that I have never seen any correlation between a strong faith and having success in business. I have seen both religious and non-religious entrepreneurs succeed and fail. I have also recognized the most successful entrepreneurs and leaders religious and non-religious share very similar characteristics. They tend to be open minded, non-judgemental, honest, full of integrity, caring and invest a considerable amount of time and energy to build a foundation of trust.
What I have noticed about many of the entrepreneurs that are religious is how they go out of their way to acknowledge God for all of the opportunities they have been blessed with. Regardless of how the business is doing, they tend to be less stressed because of their faith in God and their belief that God will give them the strength to handle anything that comes their way. I find that for them, this is very powerful considering that there are so many times as an owner when one feels they are on that island all by themselves - they never feel alone.
Do something selfish today, draw your wheel of life. Which spokes are too short and which are too long? Begin working on making those spokes the same size all the way around your wheel.
Begin eating and drinking clean. Start with baby steps. Try to eat clean on just one of your meals a day - such as breakfast. Then expand that to the other meals.
I - Idea Creation
With the internet, everything moves faster in today’s economy including the lifespan of your products. You constantly need to be thinking of both creating new products and updating existing ones. The most successful entrepreneurs take time to think of new ideas and the most successful of the most successful, do it everyday. They literally take time out of their schedule to think of new ideas and products and work on them. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs, as their business grows, do the opposite. They become shortsighted and trade their valuable time with performing tasks that someone else could very easily do. I see it all the time! The entrepreneur begins to weigh the cost of another person with completing the task themselves - so the the entrepreneur is now playing the role of shipper, or accounts receivable clerk or janitor. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand the value of a dollar but the trade off tends to be the entrepreneur is no longer spending time doing what they did to become successful - like think of new ideas and products. It’s the first thing that goes and it’s what made you successful in the first place. Stop trying to preserve the floor by saving a few more dollars and begin working at raising the roof!
R - Repeating your Mantras, Positive Affirmations and Goals.
“What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve” – Napoleon Hill
The only thing I would change in that quote is to change man to person - man and woman. In the Napoleon Hill’s classic, Think and Grow Rich, Mr Hill devotes a whole chapter on positive affirmations and mantras. By repeating mantras and positive affirmations daily, your words begin to seep into your subconscious mind and you begin to believe those affirmations. Those beliefs become interwoven in the fabric of your being. You become those affirmations. For instance, affirmations for health, my body heals quickly and easily, affirmations for abundance, the more grateful I am, the more reasons I find to be grateful, affirmations for Weight Loss, I choose to make positive healthy choices for myself, affirmations for Self Esteem, When I believe in myself, so do others, affirmations for Peace and Harmony, I place no judgement on others. Goals are also another form of positive affirmation. When I teach the goal program, one of the first things we do is write down the goal in the past tense. The whole idea is to train your brain (let it seep into the subconscious) that not only is it possible you can complete this goal but that you already have. The most successful entrepreneurs read their goal each day right before bed.
S - Sleep
Raise your hand if you get enough quality sleep every night. Wow, shocker, no hands are up. If there is one area of our lives that gets ignored and underestimated the most, it’s sleep - or the lack of it. Our bodies need ample sleep. The body uses our sleep time to heal itself. The better the sleep the more opportunity to heal and remain healthy. If you’re having problems with sleeping I suggest you read the book Sleep Smarter by Shawn Stevenson. You need to understand the importance of sleep and how it affects your life. I am currently working with a doctor on a goal to become more efficient with his time. As I began to understand his schedule and realized he was burning the candle on both ends and in the middle, I suggested as part of his goal he add the need to get 6 to 7 hours of sleep each day. Months have past since he completed that goal and he still thanks me for convincing him to get more sleep. He discovered that more sleep gave him more energy and just an overall more positive attitude. He called a “game changer”. Make it a game changer for you. Something that I have accomplished with sleep that I suggest you try is this, wake up on your own terms. When you sleep, we go through 4 to 6 REM cycles, it is very important that we reach this deeper stage of sleep. It’s also unhealthy to be woken by an alarm during the middle of REM sleep. There’s nothing worse than beginning your day under stress by having an alarm go off. Begin the habit of waking up on your own terms. I wake up without an alarm and when I finish a full REM cycle. This took time and it also forced me to learn to get to bed at a reasonable time but I used to have an alarm wake me up at about 4:30 a.m. When I changed to having no alarm, I discovered that I most of the time, I would wake up naturally within 20 minutes of that 4:30 a.m. time. There have been times when I get up at 3:50 a.m. and others where I sleep until 6 a.m. (and skip my workout). I realize that my body needed sleep. Try doing that as often as you can and see how it helps you.
T - To Do’s and Tasks
The most effective entrepreneurs schedule their day each morning or the evening prior and create a daily task list. As part of teaching people how to become more efficient with their time, I share a very simple process that involves a small notebook - yes, a bound small notebook. Even with all of those efficiency tool and task list apps out there, I have discovered there are certain things that work best with a notebook. At one point in my life, I used a day planner so I would walk around carrying this leather bound book that probably weighed about 5 pounds. It had my calendar, my notes, my task list along with a place to put my short and long term goals as well as folders for other important papers. There was a lot of information there. As computer based efficiency and calendar apps became more prevalent, I was able to transfer many of my manual daytimer applications over to computer based applications but I discovered that one part of the daytimer was not nearly as effective using the computer and that was the ‘To-Do’ or ‘Task List’. If you are one of those people that forgets things, or has a bunch of post it notes everywhere or some of what you’re supposed to do falls through the cracks, buy a bound notebook, go to the first page where there is a blank sheet of lined paper on the right and left side and list all of your tasks on the right hand side. On the left use as your notes for those tasks. Each day, turn the page and repeat. Any action items that you don’t complete today, add on the following day. Trust me, by the third day of writing the same task, you will get irritated, then you will complete it. You’ll never forget a task again.
Finally the most successful entrepreneurs follow a routine! They do the same thing, they follow the same pattern over and over. That’s how they become extremely efficient with their time. Get in the habit of performing these traits and keep the habit.
You don’t have to follow all the traits that you just learned to be successful but the most effective and successful are those that are the most selfish, the most effective entrepreneurs think ME FIRST!