Last week was a big week with a lot of changes. Closed an office I opened 6 months ago, people let go, changes in plan and reality adjustment.
I spent this week in my old-new office again – felt great. With the hard decisions out of the way, the pressure dropped by a ton! I can once again think and have energy to do things. Interestingly, last week I’m up at 6AM and eager to get to work.
I’m trying hard to keep the week to less than 60 hours – as I’m finding anything more that 60 hours in a week results in significant performance loss.
Accounting project is back on again – its been “on” for just a few days – but we are picking up where we left off and moving onwards and forwards. The light at the end of the tunnel for getting an accounting system is getting a bit brighter. In this case, I have to be honest – it has taken me over 5 tries to get this done – was this anything but not critical, there is a likelihood that I would have dropped this project. But its not an optional project – so….
This persistence in above, is a good reminder thought that some of the best things I have managed to accomplished took multiple tries. For example, we are ranking now for pearls #2 in Google in US, and #1 in Google on UK. To get to that place, it took actually 6 tries and over 3 years. The benefits of that have been huge – so there is a lesson there for myself that persistence yields some exceptional long term results.
This week I also had a call with my mentor, Pecce. We talked, as we always do, not so much about business, but more about life, goals, priorities. I discussed with Pecce the decisions I had to make and he came back with some good feedback – I can share parts of it here:
- Health
- Breakfast (and Dinner)
- Take a year to get strong
- When ready to hit it hard – take a personal timeout before going at it.
Health: basically, focus no health, eating healthy, exercising and getting body and mind in a good strong place.
Breakfast (and Dinner): Look after that what is providing you breakfast and make sure that it can not only provide breakfast but dinner also. For those that are not so poetic, it means, look after the current business and make sure that its profitable and stable
Take a year to get strong: Give myself time to optimize my body and mind. Like a marathon runner, before pushing it hard, train. And in business – train by optimizing yourself.
Take a personal time out: we talked about this briefly but it’s a moment where you go a solo retreat for a few weeks, to ground yourself and plan out the ‘next thing’.
Its always great to talk to Pecce – and as always this mentorship session was invaluable. But, you will notice its not really about business.
So, what is next. I’m thinking through how to continue growing (organically) – with Health, Breakfast and Dinner, in mind. I’m feeling excited – and ideas on how to leverage what we have done are flowing, as is a better structure on how to execute things.
I’m starting to become more in tune where things went off track – and what changes I will need to make. Still looking at the moment – but once I get intimate with how things went off track, I will adjust.
On a personal note – one of the things I have been doing during this ‘firefighting’ mode is working through the stress by eating Macrobiotics, having time each day to read and disconnect the mind. I know that my mind gets ramp-up fairly high as it goes into the problem solving mode – and using Mindfulness techniques, I could recognize it and give myself time to slow down for a few hours each day. Doesn’t always work, but I think it helps in keeping clarity in view of a huge number of tasks. I think Pecce’s focus “health first” is one of the key things when I move through things and it works.
Speaking of health – I’m now incredibly down 40lbs since going to Kushi in May. The crazy thing about this is that I’m eating more than ever (macrobiotic) – and feel more energy. In the past, if I was going through a stressful time, I would gain weight – and this time – its not going that way. For this I have to say once again, “Thanks Pecce”.
I finished the book “Willpower” – and I would recommend it as one of my top 10 books I have read. I will do a book review on this a bit later – but for now – lets just say that the knowledge in the book is 
very empowering.
I’ve started to read the “Diamond Cutter – The Buddha on Managing Your business and your life” – few chapters into it now and its another mind expanding book. I now understand the concept of Buddhist concept of “emptiness” which I never quite before got. My good friend Mirko recommended you – and it’s a perfect book.
Few other things for last week. Re-joined the forum in EO, and it felt great to be part of a new forum. Very fresh crew doing some cool things – and I’m liking the energy.
The week highlights, was trying to get my Chinese company to repay me a loan that it received in many years. The banking/cash constraints in China are locked up so tight, that it was a 12 step process, to be able to send money from a company account to a personal account. For those that run business in the west, you would think it would be a simple ‘bill pay’ or ‘transfer’ – here it was a 12 step uber-complicated procedure. We did it, but it was a little piece of hell.
Alright – onto the day – its Saturday today – and I have 1 MIT (Most Important Thing) – and I saved it for Saturday – as I need 4 or 5 focused hours to get through it. So, onto my MIT.