Sunday, February 11, 2007

TO FOCUS OR NOT TO FOCUS



To focus or not to focus
that is the question






Excerpt from
http://www.senn-sational.com/Newsletters/topher_morrison.htm.
Damien Senn:
Are there any other thoughts, insights, or advice that you would like to
offer would be entrepreneurs thinking about setting up their own business?

Dr Topher Morrison:
Treat it like a business. Do it for the right reasons, and know what you are
worth… know what your time is worth too. Most entrepreneurs piss away 90% of
their day not doing things that ultimately make their company money. And if
you aren’t doing something that makes your company money, then you are
actually costing your company money. I’ll share you a great story on what I
mean, an it’s the fundamental element that has made my company the success
it has become most recently. About 20 months ago, I had a conversation with
one of my mentors in life. His name is John… that’s actually his name by the
way, I haven’t changed it to protect his privacy! John has a net worth over
30 million dollars and he’s only 25 years old. When I asked him what he did
that made his company such a success he gave me a great strategy. He said he
made a list of the things that he is uniquely qualified to do in his
company. There were only 7 things. And he vowed to only do those 7 things
during work hours, and all other items of the business he would delegate. He
had me make a list of my uniquely qualified duties for my job. I did, and he
told me to hire staff to do EVERYTHING else. I immediately countered with
common sense. I told him that hiring people to do everything else is easy
for him to say, he has a net worth of 30 million dollars. I don’t have that
kind of money and it’s not as easy for me to just go out and hire enough
people to do all those other business duties. He paused for a moment and
replied… “Yep, and its attitudes like that, that will keep you from ever
being worth 30 million dollars. When I started my company, I couldn’t afford
to hire all the people I did, but I did it anyway, and that’s why I have 30
million and you never will until you change your attitude.” That was the
best spanking I ever received! So know what your time is worth!


I appreciate the point in this article. Last night I was up to change the webtext and paypal buttons on www.thedatingschool.co.uk ( my boyfriend's business) and I wondered myself : why am I doing this? Why don't I let him pay to get it done? Yet I was not picking up the phone though I had the number of my IT and marketing strategist Sol from Cynergise.
It was about something else for me. The desire to help Thomas where I could and show him that he doesn't have to be let down by his friends in business. People around him find too many excuses. I know this too well from when I depended on people who brought up their reasons for not prioritising on my projects...

I also really wanted to know how to do it and once I started, it was fun and then I was on a mission.
I was utterly tired last night when I finished at 2am.

This morning I woke up and went straight to the computer starting to work on my site. I had this nudge that said-if I had spent all that energy into my site, I would be in a very different place! funny though, as I was in the flow from last night, it went really quick, I cracked new things yet again, that I hadn't mastered last night and just got on with it. the whole divaeve.com is updated and fresh.
I have included a recommendation and link to you as well!

So what am I uniquely qualified to to?
One of my strenghts is the way that I am able to develop skills rapidly and my greatest asset I think is my energy.
I feel I am uniquely qualified to inspire people through my work, personality, my voice.

If I was to focus on one thing it would mean not doing my music right now. For I am in a place where my focus is on bringing in the money. For that allows me to move my music, get the house-ok 1 bedroom flat seems to be a challenge enough at the moment, go out to the theatres and beautiful places in this world and that makes me feel successful.

What brings me the most money and opportunities at this point is my work in the licensing world. I enjoy it, I grow in it, I am building a rather delightful reputation as "the most efficient person in the world" and opportunities are opening up to me. Why? Because I have more than one skill and I am able to direct and develop these skills in a direction of making more money and improving the structure and business.

So if it was about "focus on one thing "I would go with that at this point.

Though I am qualified to inspire people, what has brought me the most fruit in my life so far was opening up to the idea that I can do things in contexts I didn't even know existed.
I have always been a strong believer in my core quality, but so much so, I resisted to take it outside the world of art/music/performance for a long time.

I only discovered how amazing my mind can work in solving problems when I started organizing people's lives and business. When others need help, something in me springs to action and I have resources available to me I didn't even know of before!
My guiding motto being that successful people do what others don't want to be doing.
So I just figure it out....

Focussing alone won't make you rich, it's about what you focous on, and how exactly you do it.

I hear about people trying to focus on this and that and blaming themselves for not focussing on this that and the other, I can't take this too seriously anymore.
Especially music focussed people tend to not be very focussed on their monetary success for example ( money isn't everything, money can't buy you happiness, yeah it would be nice, it will come)

When I was in my focus phase, I would endevour to do one thing only. Concentrate on my own music only...next thing I knew- a paid gig was offered in the cabaret scene. Do I say no now beacuse I am to be focussed?

Well, principally it's not my own music, but it will get money and that is very much needed as well and I can even put my own songs in the set, it's just a different style.

The problem lies within having multiple goals at the same time. On one hand in this case focussing on the music and on the other hand, wanting to make money.

If the money and your focus aren't on the same line, it will be useful to come up with some solutions! Otherwise we encounter the common case of feeling bad working for money because it takes away from what you want to focus on and feeling bad doing whatever it is because of being too tired or because feeling you should do it more.
Or we see people who then decide to leave working for money behind in order to focus on their focus and then feel a bit bad because they are running out of money. Though they often become incredibly skilled at denying that and blending that simple little basic fact out until it hits them a little bit harder than they would have expected.

So if you want to make yourself miserable by doing what you want, this is the way forward. Just make sure to include a good portion of blame whatever option you choose and you will never fail to feel bad! It's simple, it's free and it works.

I believe in focus in a more specific way- focus means zooming in, so first I need to know what it is that I want to zoom into and then I need to allow myself space and time to do so making sure that other areas of my life will benefit from that as well.

I realized that in the day, I like to focus on my work- rather than getting 100 things done for my music as well.
My day job at the moment brings me the cash and platform to develop more business skills and mindset plus understanding of people in the "real world". This is what I then use to communicate my ideas, coaching skills, inspirational works etc. It is also my playground for my success strategies and NLP exercises. Later in the day, I will be confident to coach businesses which will be a further development of my coaching career. I like having sustainable options. I have personally benefitted a lot from this already. I would think that my boss and 4kids Entertainment have, too.

Then I allow myself to defocus and soften so that creativity can flow and ideas can come and inspiration may uplift me. I like to nurture this feeling and that means doing things that are outside what I am good at right now. Learning new things is such a great thing to do!!

I think that updating a website is a skill which saves a lot of money!
Now that I have done it, I don't have to do it again and again, it's not my main passion in life, it's a skill and a new security- I will teach Thomas how to do it.
I would also recommend Sol of course. He showed my what I had done wrong when I got stuck. That's sooo useful and I am really grateful for that. I don't want to have to pay for every question in life. But I am more than happy to pay pack with recommendations and leads.

Focussing on key skills and outsourcing the rest is a good strategy to make money- and is especially good when you have a budget, not the 30million but a budget. I would say that learning the geneal skills for a while more than useful and a great foundation to build a solid business and your own independence.
It's about self-sufficiency and confidence through competence. It's about being rounded as a person and not just a one field expert.

To focus or not to focus, that is not a question, it's a case study.

Alternatively, you may just get on with what you wanted to do all along.

Check out the updated website: www.divaeve.com

PS:If you are a musician and would like marketing training and coaching tailored to your needs, check out Innerrythm. They run seminars and have great produdcts you will benefit from.
Say hi from me.















Subscribe to my mailing list and get a free guide on growing your confidence!
Name:
Email:
Country:

Saturday, February 03, 2007

My first music video

Hello everybody!
I had enough of waiting for Mr.EMI!I filmed myself and edited a little video..
as living in london comes with the added bliss of sharing flats, I even got in trouble for it.so I built it in and made a story out of it...
enjoy- and let me know what you think. have a wonderful day,
eve