Trizle

1. Use an 'Official List of Tasks I Gotta Do' list.
2. Post new tasks to that list.
3. Work from that list.

When it's work-time, you see yourself completing more tasks in less time.

Why? Your bad-self removes the "think time" that destroys your momentum in completing things.

Take Roger.

Roger does this:

1. He comes up with task.
2. He does the task.
3. He comes up with a new task.
4. He does that task.
5. He comes up with a new task.
6. He does that task.
7. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, etc.

When he transitions from 'completing the task', to 'coming up with a new task', he destroys his momentum in completing tasks.

1. He starts repeatedly thinking after every completed task, "Hmmmmmmmmmmm, what else do I do next?"
2. His increasing momentum to complete things stops.
3. He loses freakish time.

Repeatedly transitioning your mindset = exponentially-mother-freakish time wasted.

Therefore, Roger severely limits how many things he can do within a hour/day/week, etc.

One Mindset

Get in one mindset:

1. Come up with tasks in one sitting.
2. Complete tasks in one sitting.

When you complete a task, you'll start noticing completing the next task becomes easier (and the next one even easier, etc.).

Likewise, after you come up with a task, coming up with the additional task becomes ridiculously simpler-and-simpler-and-simpler.

Newton's Law.

List. Then do.

(See permalink to chart)

"In the face of our inevitable mortality we can do one of two things. We can attempt to avoid the thought at all costs, clinging to the illusion that we have all the time in the world. Or we can confront this reality, accept and even embrace it, converting our consciousness of death into something positive and active."

(See 50 Cent's 10 Lessons for Business Success.)

Summed up:

• Fall in love with your purpose, not your idea.

Peep this example:

1. Company X's purpose for being is to make people happy.
2. They don't fall in love with Product XYZ.
3. Product XYZ is nothing to them but a two dollar boar.
4. If Product XYZ fails, they don't quit.
5. Instead, they dump Product XYZ, and come up with other products to add to their array of offerings to make people happy.

By continually pursuing their mission of making people happy, they never fail.

Instead, they amplify their knowledge of making people happy, and increase their chances for success on their next launch.

BAM.

If you were to name three weaknesses that are hurting your company financially, what would those be?

Now if you were to fix your weaknesses, what would you do?

• "Concentrate on them!", they say.
• "Believe in yourself!", they scream.
• "You can do it!", they tell you.

Trying to overcome your weaknesses, though, might take years or decades -- rendering more obstacles that impede your success further.

For instance, while you're fixing your sales dilemma, your operations side begins to suffer and you start to lose your best clients.

Even worse, running your company with glaring weaknesses financially destroys your company's exponential long-term growth (think compounded interest rates from your ROE).

Try This Instead

Instead of trying to do it all, try this:

• Your ^1 priority before you do anything else? Find folks whose greatest strengths are your company's greatest weaknesses.

BAZAM.

You start making your company stronger to the max.

Top sports teams do that consistently, but africkinlot of businesses spend their money elsewhere so they continue to suck.

While a sports team concentrates on getting a top player, a business focuses on leasing expensive rent.

• ...or it starts furnishing their offices with expensive chairs
• ...or it starts looking at catalogs to buy expensive trucks (or plants, or equipment, or the yaddas)

A solid sports team knows you have to obsessively focus and invest in the people business if you want championships.

Take the Lakers in 2006.

1. Kobe's  2006 Lakers lacked an inside presence who could rebound and score low-post points consistently.
2. They traded for a primier center in Pau Gasol.
3. They've been indestructible since.

Virtually any company has weaknesses that financially strain its pocketbooks, which good folks will patch up quickly and efficiently.

Instead of taking years, they shore up your weaknesses in months, solidifying your company's foundation, and increasing your company's long-term value.

The key is to make finding those people your absolute top priority.

Steps

1. List your company's biggest weaknesses (i.e. those weaknesses that corrupt your company from reaching its full potential).
2. Hire those with proven results in demolishing those weaknesses.

(No money? Get experts at SCORE to help, or start networking, or do something within your creative power to find good folks. Then start saving up or raising $$ to recruit good people to your company.)

Good people = greatest appreciating assets you'll ever have.

Get good people.

"If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

- African proverb

1. Your company earns $1M.
2. You keep the $1M.
3. You pay taxes on the $1M.

BAM!

You just lost a bunch of money that you could've reinvested and grow your company further.

Instead, you're now paying The-Tax-Man a chunk of those profits instead of empowering your organization with reinvested profits.

Why Thriving Companies Reinvest Their Dividends

Google, Berkshire, and thriving startups know that paying dividends hurts their companies' growth:

1. You pay taxes on those dividends.
2. You stunt your company's growth.

Instead, it's financially more effective to reinvest the profits and increase equity for the investors.

The Juice Company Example

For instance, take Jubimbabo's Juice Juicer company:

1. His company earns $2M.
2. He reinvests $1M before the year ends.
3. He now pays taxes on $1M.

Instead of paying, for example, $600K in taxes, he pays $300K in taxes.

BAMBAMBABMABAMBAMBAMB.

The $300K he just saved his company gets reinvested and grows his company even quicker.

Solid free-market government systems do that for a reason:

1. Hoarding too much of your earnings stunts the economy.
2. So, they've incorporated incentives for you to reinvest what you earn.

Reinvested earnings grow not only the economy as a whole -- but your company as well.

It's a win/win/win/win/win.

The Caveat

This comes with one caveat:

• Reinvesting in things that depreciate: Bad.
• Reinvesting in things that appreciate: Good.

For instance, it's much more likely that spending:

• $X on a truck will depreciate your equity
• $X on a salesperson will appreciate your equity

(Equity -- the value of your company's piece of the pie; what it owns.)

So, be on the lookout for good folks, good tools, good plans, good X that you can reinvest your earnings and soar like a coked-up ostrich that just found out he impregnated a turtle while drinking his juice in the hood.

Reinvest.

Ask questions.

You'll drive yourself to seek answers.

For instance, take Betty Bobby Booster.

She's running a restaurant.

She asks herself:

• How can I market our company better?
• How do I get more out of our employees?
• What incentives should I use?
• How do I increase our profit margins?
• How can I make our customers come back?
• What should we charge?
• How many offerings should we offer?
• How can we work faster?

So, she starts:

• Googling for answers on what improves employee morale.
• Reading books on the psychological effects of incentives.
• Talking to the good folks at SCORE about getting customers to return.
• Watching YouTube videos on financial lessons.
• The Yaddas.

Little-by-little, day-by-day, as she asks her questions, she starts learning a bunch of new stuff that will improve her business.

Result: Much Improved Business.

You  + Machine Gun

Imagine a machine gun that spits out questions.

Be that machine gun.

BAZZZZZZZZAM.

You start gaining more insight into improving your business, your company, your life, and your momma's life.

Try This

1. Ask yourself one question today.
2. See how far that goes into improving X.

Then, notice the power of asking questions consistently.

BAM.

Questions, questions, questions.

"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value."

- Albert Einstein

(Translation: Your momma and dadda cares about your success; everyone else cares about what you can provide value them.)

Aaron Patzer, the founder and CEO of Mint.com (who Intuit this week acquired for $170M) wrote a guest column on Techcrunch.

Lessons?

Stick to the fundamentals (no fads, gimmicks, comprehensive strategic plans, the yaddas):

• Solve a problem.
• Help a lot of people.
• Stay absolutely frugal.

Quotes from the article:

• "We didn’t have money for a lawyer, but no fewer than three offered to help us incorporate and accrue $25k in legal fees for a little bit of the company."
• "We shared office space in a type of incubator, renting by the cube to avoid a long-term lease."
• "We didn’t have money for advertising, so we started a blog. We didn’t have money for writers, so most of our original blog content then was guest posts from other personal finance blogs..."

A solid businessperson can drive a business to success in any era; the fundamental rules remain intact:

1. Provide ridiculous value to the world.
2. Conserve your resources - fanatically.
3. Prosper.