ICRAVE Business Progression

What we get will never make us happy.  What makes us happy is Progress. 

• Progress equals happiness.
• If you are not growing, you are dying inside.
• If your relationships are not growing, it’s dying.
• No business stays static.  It’s either growing or it’s dying.

Going forward, the mindset has to be, “I am a learning machine.”

• We are living in a world where technology is changing so quickly. 
• We might tell ourselves, “I’ve got to stay ahead” – and that makes people fulfilled. 
  • Because you become more
    • you’re not just doing it because you have to or because you’re trying keep up.

In business, every one should really ask the question, “Who am I in my core?,” because we all have different gifts that we can give. 

• In business (other than love), your labor is probably the most sacred gift you can give any human being, because it is so much of your time and your essence of all you’ve developed in your life.
• The Gift of a specific art – a skill set, an ability, a talent that you have.
  • Many people are artists, (not just like artist that paint). 
  • They have something that they’re just  so good at, and then they start a business.
  • Most businesses are started by an artist. 
• Don’t fall in love with your product or service, fall in love with your ideal client.  That’s a different game.
  • An artist might say, “I’m going to want to struggle because I am doing my art.” 
  • A great business person says, “It doesn’t matter what I care about, I can’t fall in love with my product or service.  I need to fall in love with my client and got to be constantly changing to meet their needs.”
• Another type of a manager/leader, has a gift that is not a specific skill set, like selling or creating.  It’s managing people and processes.  It’s their nature.
  • When it’s your nature, you tend to get good at it, if you work at it, because it is who you are.  You are reinforced for it.
• An entrepreneur is someone who loves risk.  They are in it for the money. 
  • The artist is not as committed to making money

Who Am I and Who do I need?  You need to know who you are and what you need.

• If you are a great artist, you probably need a good manager/leader as a partner. 
  • They’re going to help you build the organization, and you can still do the art that people love.
    • the art is what people want and not what you want.
• “If I am going to grow and scale, who am I?”
• If you are a manager/leader, you might want to tie in with a great entrepreneur because there’s going to be something much greater you can be a part of and potentially own a piece of.
• If you are an entrepreneur, you are looking for great artists, because they are going to be the core of your business.

Re-source: Regroup

You don’t have to be the originator of an idea. 

• Steve Jobs used to say that the best ideas are stolen. 
  • Starbucks was modeled from Italy and translated well in Seattle.
• You can see a model that works and just execute better than someone else. 
• You can see something that works in one place and bring it to where it is not.

You don’t have to be an original thinker

• Ideas come from looking for them, being obsessed to find them, and being clear for what you are looking for. 
  • Looking for ways to change lives, being passionate, believing there is a profit margin, etc.

It’s all about creating the right questions. 

• If you want to create innovation in your organization, bring new voices to the table.
  • If you get those new voices, you want new conversations, and so need to ask new questions.
• What business are you really in?
  • New questions, new voices, new experiments. 
    • twitter was an experiment
• When you start saying, “I don’t have the idea” and you believe that, then you don’t even look for them anymore. 
  • It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Find someone who is the most successful in the world at what they’re doing. 

• Dig in and find out what is the core essence of what has made them successful. 
• What are the failures they had, and what they learned from them, so you can avoid them.

You also have to know that success is buried on the other side of failure, frustration, and conflict. 

• You have to see this as part of the natural evolution.
• We are all afraid to fail, but it is the only way to learn sometimes.
• When people succeed, they tend to party.  When people fail, they tend to ponder. 
  • In the pondering is where you usually get the growth, the insight, the strategy that’ll change your business, personal life, and/or your finances.
• Be the person that can go through failure and change their approach.
• How long do you give you child to walk before you shut them off and say, “You’re not a walker.”
  • How about singing? 
• Failure is only permanent when you permanently give up. 
• If you learned anything and you apply what you’ve learned, failure is a stepping stone.

craving and resource from Tony Robbins : When No One’s Watching