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you to schedule yourself. Keep your lunch dates. Make meetings that will help further your career. Find things to do. Take that extra yoga class. Book another play date for the kids. Say yes to everything within reason for a little while. Keep a reasonable but full schedule, while also keeping time for yourself packed in there. You will meet people along the way and you will also find that you have less time to worry about being single or looking forward whole heartedly to that next date or hating your ex. This does not mean to exhaust yourself so that you don’t have time to think, but it does allow you to realize there is life outside the one you have been living and it’s important to start embracing it. The only way to go forward is to look forward.
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Rut Check
I checked in with Peter Shankman, Customer Ser vice and Marketing Futurist and Best Selling Author of Nice Companies Finish First: Why Cutthroat Management is Over and Collaboration is in. He gave me five ways to tell if you are in a rut career wise and how to break out of it. Check out his daily blogs at shankman.com. Nothing is more dangerous to professional life. Ruts are dangerous, because much like illegal drugs or any Aaron Sorkin project, you don’t realize you’re stuck in one until it’s too late, when it’s really hard to quit. (Think about it— Did you even
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CONSIDER, for a SECOND, leaving The West Wing when we were waiting for President Bartlet to announce if he was going to run again? Of course not.) Ruts can be business killers, especially when times are good. It’s too easy to get complacent when the fire isn’t under your butt at 300 degrees. Ruts also come when you’ve had a few down months. Even though you’re busting your butt, you might feel like you’re on a hamster wheel, and there’s no end in sight. That’s also a rut, and it’s also dangerous.
So—First: Five ways to tell if you’re in a rut. and you feel like your company could run on autopilot for a while. There’s a reason pilots don’t leave the cockpit unattended while the plane is on autopilot. Because something could go wrong. Auto piloting your business is dangerous—you don’t get to see the shifting landscape, and you can’t react in time when threats emerge. So if you feel like you could just chill for a month or so, you might be in a rut, and it might be time to shake things up.
THINGS ARE GOING GOOD
Boredom is dangerous when you’re running a business. There’s no excuse to get bored in the real world, and there’s certainly no reason to get bored running a business. If you’re bored, it means you’re not doing anywhere near enough hustling.
YOU’RE BORED
YOU’RE NOT HAVING FUN ANYMORE Let’s face it—we become entrepreneurs because we love working hard, and in the end, it’s fun for us. When we’re not having fun, that’s a
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huge, huge warning sign. Something is wrong, and needs to be addressed ASAP. This is a dangerous one. Without new ideas, we can’t continue to grow. Without growth, there’s no innovation, and without any of that, kiss revenue goodbye. Ideas are key. If you’re out of ideas, you could be in a rut. YOU’RE OUT OF IDEAS
FINALLY, YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE SPINNING YOUR
I’m very familiar with this one—It’s the worst feeling in the world. The rest of the world is doing things, and you’re sitting there, feeling like you’re wasting time. There’s nothing worse than that kind of rut. WHEELS
So . . . What do we do?
How to Break Out of a Rut By physical definition, a rut occurs when the same thing happens over and over, carving a hole or indentation into an object. While this is awesome when water does it to make the Grand Canyon, doing the same thing over and over again in business is a guarantee to fail. Perhaps that’s doing something as simple as getting into the office thirty minutes earlier each day and reaching out to long-lost contacts, or perhaps it’s having “walking meetings,” outside to get the blood pumping, instead of sitting at a boring table in a boring conference room in the same boring voice.
YOU NEED TO SHAKE IT UP!
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RUTS OCCUR WHEN PEOPLE ARE RESISTANT TO
You simply can’t be afraid of change and expect to succeed. Don’t take crazy risks, but take calculated ones. Calculated risks have built our great nation. Be daring. Client says they want it one way, and you believe it should be done another way? Do it both ways, and present them. I used to do this all the time when I was a photographer. Works wonders! The goal is to try new things, to change, and reap the rewards.
CHANGE
MEET PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF YOUR INDUSTRY, IN THE SAME
I can’t recommend Masterminds enough. Essentially, a Mastermind is a collection of eight to ten people, all in different industries, all in a room for a day. You spend a half hour on each person, where that person introduces themselves and explains the challenges and problems they’re facing. Then the rest of the room chimes in with their suggestions and issues. Why is this awesome? Well, let’s say you’re in real estate. You’re so head-down in your real estate world, that you might not be able to notice other good ideas. But the guy who owns the bakery? He’s not in real estate! He might be able to suggest an amazing idea you never would have thought of, because he saw what you’re doing from an entirely new perspective. New perspectives are key. You can get them in a Mastermind. Added bonus: I hold Masterminds all over the country. Click on the “contact” page and let me know if you’d like to join in your city! BOAT YOU ARE
Look, entrepreneurs are passionate, and we work until our heads explode. EXERCISE AND CHANGE WHAT YOU EAT!
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That’s no secret. But—and this is a big but . . . we need to have balance. I’ve found that the best way to get that balance is exercise. Whether it’s early morning runs, walks, or bike rides, or mid-day spin classes, yoga, or Pilates, or even an evening weightlifting session, nothing clears your head and puts you in the right frame of mind better than a workout. It’s chemical. Your body releases endorphins. Endorphins are the happy drug. They let you work better, smarter, and with higher quality results. Why do you think I skydive? I do my best writing after jumping! Nothing kills a rut faster than a shot of endorphins from the brain to the body. Nothing. Drop 80 percent of the carbs you eat, and replace them with vegetables. Drop 80 percent of the alcohol you drink, and replace it with water. In other words, try and focus on eating natural food. Veggies, lean meats, etc. Give up dairy if you can, as well as anything processed. Eat real food. Or, as your grandparents called it back in the day, “food.”
ADDED BONUS
FINALLY, TRY DOING GOOD ONCE A WEEK FOR
Whether it’s volunteering at an animal shelter (by the way, get a pet if you don’t have one, they’re amazing at busting you out of your rut) working at a soup kitchen, or even helping out an elderly neighbor, two things happen when you do this (and that’s not even including the good you’re doing!) First, you see things from a different perspective. You get to understand a segment of society to which you might not be accustomed, and you can learn from them. Secondly, all the most creative/successful people volunteer. They understand that in addition to the
OTHERS
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good they’re doing, it’s a way to let the universe help them—i.e. giving back allows for new ways of thinking, and new ways of thinking are the building blocks for getting out of a rut.
Goal 12: Lose The Soul Suckers Have you ever said to yourself: “everybody sucks.” Well, you were partially right. Not everybody, but a lot of people do suck. They suck the happiness, the spirit, and the life right out of you. Or, for something a little less uncouth, let’s go back to freshman year philosophy and Jean Paul Sartre. “Hell is other people.” There are people in this world that are so unhappy with themselves that they want to bring you down too. I know; I have been one of them, and I have had more than a few of them in my life over the past few years. They are chronically dissatisfied. When you are happy, they want you to be sad. When you are there with an actual problem, they are there to listen, but they are not there to hear. They listen just long enough so they can complain. They are the soul suckers. I had a co-worker who sucked my soul dry as often as he can. He has always been a soul sucker. For a long time, though, I did not realize it. Conversation after conversation with him, day after day, I would find myself mentally exhausted. I could feel him taking my positive energy and destroying it. Any time I would muster more, he would latch onto that as well. It was a daily appointment with an emotional vampire. We spoke each day—in fact I enjoyed the company— especially at a time when I thought I needed to be down. But
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