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Thursday Nov 15, 2018
Thursday Nov 15, 2018
Are you disciplined at focusing on one thing until completion?
Do you remove things around you that cause distraction?
Does saying 'no' come easy to you?
Today’s podcast is all about removing distractions.
Andrew will help you learn how to do this and the power of playing snakes and ladders (hint: this will help you shift the way you set up your environment to remove distractions and allow you to be more effective).
Enjoy this week’s podcast.
Tuesday Oct 30, 2018
Tuesday Oct 30, 2018
How I Dealt with Depression
Please note, this is what worked for me, this may not work for you. You need to find the best path for you and please seek help from a medical professional.
LEARNING 1:
My coach challenged me on the use of the word ‘depression’.
I was challenged to not refer to myself as having depression. He showed me that the word in itself is sad and heavy. So when you refer to yourself as having depression, you feel heavy and down. He shared a great story with me about a war veteran that was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) versus another war veteran diagnosed with PTG (Post Traumatic Growth). The second person was taught by his doctor to look at what he was feeling (the depressed thoughts) as something to grow/learn from. I wish my father was diagnosed with PTG!!!!
My coach helped me do the same. He allowed me to consider that maybe this sadness/loneliness was an opportunity to heal myself from the wounds from my youth.
To let go of the scared child that never feels safe.
So maybe consider the fact that right now, your depression is actually an opportunity for you to grow/learn something about yourself.
Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise?
Maybe there is something amazing about to come your way?
What might happen if you stop seeing yourself as someone who is depressed and start seeing someone who is going through a growth/learning phase?
LEARNING 2:
I learnt to embrace my life for what it was, not what I thought it should be.
WOW – this changed everything for me. I realised that the current life I was living was not the life that I expected.
I thought at 25 I would be madly in love, have a pumping business, be super happy and just kicking butt in life…
How wrong I was!!!
In fact, I was $300k in debt, my girlfriend had just cheated on me and I was single. I felt isolated and alone.
My coach really helped me understand that I was not accepting this current reality. I was rejecting it. This just made everything feel worse for me.
I worked very hard at letting go of the expectation that I had created, and started to embrace my new current reality.
This was hard work but it made a big impact for me. It’s not easy falling in love with the life that I was living at 25, but I did it.
I started laughing at my situation and realised that I was a very lucky person.
It’s like the quote by Helen Keller “I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet”.
I got over my misery and came back to a place of ease.
I had to spend a full day on the beach writing out everything in my life that I love.
I became grateful again.
I also lowered my expectations and let go of the goal that I was going to be retired by 30.
If you haven’t watched it, I highly endorse a documentary called Status Anxiety.
Here is the link to watch it free on YouTube: Status Anxiety
LESSON 3:
I learnt to start giving again.
It’s amazing how caught up in myself I had become over the previous three years (22 to 25).
Everything was about me, me and me!!!
I stopped caring about my friends and family, then I couldn’t understand why they stopped calling me (it felt like they had stopped caring for me).
I began to make an extra big effort to go and focus on others. To see if there was someone else I can add value to and help.
It’s amazing how quickly you can feel great when you actually add value to someone else.
I started concentrating more on others than myself, and this was just bloody brilliant.
LESSON 4:
I slowed down…WAY DOWN.
Please consider this one.
I had been going full throttle for 3 years.
Yes, I had a few holidays, but all I could think about was work.
This just created more stress on myself. My system was run down. I was cooked!!!!
I didn’t want to do it, but my coach advised I take a 10-day retreat and heal my body. Just like a car goes in for a major service, this was a major service for my mind and body and boy, did I need it!
I signed up for a retreat in Bali at an Ayurveda Centre. Here is a link to it if it resonates: The Ayurveda & Yoga Health Centre
And rest I did.
I averaged 16 hours a day of sleep…I was exhausted. Mentally and physically.
When I came back to Australia, I felt like I had a new lease of life!
I was so excited, youthful and even playful.
I couldn’t believe how much I needed this break (again I did not want to do this).
Please note, I took 10 days out away from the world – no telephone, no coffee, no alcohol, no friends, no family. Just me and loads of rest (and multiple massages every day).
Sometimes we confuse depression with just being exhausted!!!!
I’ve been back to the same place 5 times (I like to go every two years if I can – it keeps me in check). I know the feeling now when my body and mind tire and I need the space to reset.
LESSON 5:
Finally, I did a lot of work on my mindset.
(This is what I teach in Flip Your Life).
By changing my thinking from scarcity to abundance, changing my energy from focusing on what I didn’t want to what I did want, and becoming super clear on all of the fears that were trapping me (fear of failure, fear of being a fraud, fear of losing control) allowed me to realise that it was the fears that were making me feel so small and trapped.
I did a lot of work rebuilding my self-esteem (I felt like a loser so I needed to work on my mindset again to feel better).
I listened to a self-esteem booster almost every day for 12 months – you can download it here: Self Esteem Booster
It worked for me…but I needed this as I didn’t really like myself.
I also started scheduling things that give me joy (hanging out with my old mates who make me laugh was a BIG one).
I’m sure there were more, but the five lessons above really helped me. Please note, it took me approximately 3 months to feel like the table had turned. I also exercised and looked after myself - and stopped drinking (not completely but I pulled back from the bottle of rum a night).
I still get the blues, but I am quick now to see it for what it is, and make the necessary changes (implementing some of the above always works for me).
As I mentioned in the introduction, I feel this article is amazing and will really help you if you are going through any form of mental health issues right now.
Aubrey Marcus Depression Article
It’s more common than you think, and I would argue 70% of business owners experience it at some stage.
Kind Regards,
Andrew
Tuesday Oct 16, 2018
Tuesday Oct 16, 2018
Episode 15: The More You Learn, The More You Earn
Hi there, it's Andrew here. This is going to be a short podcast, but I'm going to give you some great tools that you can put around your learning and really align with this topic ‘The More You Learn, The More You Earn’.
Before I dive into it, please continue listening to these podcasts and share them around if you're open and interested to ways to generate more profit on your farm and live a better life. If you'd like to fast-track that, please reach out to us at support@farmownersacademy.com, tell us a bit about your farm and we'll get back to you. We have a couple of mentoring programs where we can help fast-track your success, so just keep that in mind. It's support@farmownersacademy.com.
This podcast is really about learning. The more we invest into learning, the more you earn, and the better you'll do in your business. I mean, think about it. An entrepreneur may have spent 50 years studying what they do and achieving a lot of success and then they write a book that you can buy for $30, and you can really tap into their wisdom for $30. I just find that amazing. The more you understand and the more time you spend getting clarity around what it is that you need to know to become a really highly profitable and successful farmer.
I just love the saying of the three stages to life. ‘Learn’ (and if you notice, the L comes before the earn part) so learn, then we move into our ‘Earn’ phase. Then, eventually, I like this, we move into the ‘Return’ phase. We have a mission at Farm Owners Academy to help farmers earn and become really successful and very wealthy, but also helping you get your time back.
Eventually, you will use everything that you've learnt to then contribute back to your families, contribute back to your society, back to your local environment. That's what we get a really big kick out of. It really does start with ‘learn’. We're going to cover off on three key things today. I'm going to give you a fantastic system that will help you set up a simple system enabling you to focus on what it is that you need to learn and implement from today’s podcast.
The first thing that I wanted to talk about is “you need to be the dumbest person in the room”. In fact, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're actually the dumbest. I think there's such a great saying that "We want to walk around and stop pretending we know everything". I see so many business owners doing this, that they protect their-- It's like an ego, they protect how much they know. They're constantly believing that they've got all the answers when, in fact, they really don't.
If they were just to drop what they think they know and embrace an attitude of ‘I know nothing’ then you can become so much more effective in life, that your goal is to be the dumbest person in the room. Most successful leaders do this. If you were to study the top business owners, the top CEOs, the top leaders, they surround themselves with people smarter than them. In fact, if you're the smartest person within your business, then I think you've got a real problem.
You ultimately want to hire people smarter than you. You want to engage mentors and people around you that know more than you. That's how you will actually grow as a person and have others, if you like, doing the work for you. Clearly, one of those methods is by learning from others through books, and CDs, and courses.
A bit of history for you here. Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison, I'm sure you know the name, Albert Einstein. For those that don't know Thomas Edison, he invented the lightbulb. I studied these guys, again, just through reading books and watching documentaries because I find them really fascinating. Albert Einstein would say that whenever he came across a new topic, the first thing he would do…and Thomas Edison did the same thing… they'd go to a library and they'd spend a whole week in the library studying that topic.
They would read every single book on the subject before they would even attempt to add anything new or to learn anything new. They call it ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’. They knew that if they could grasp all the teachings that the people prior to them had, it would catapult their chances of success. It really is true that if we can firstly learn from others that have been doing these things for years, then we can learn from their mistakes.
I know when I first started out as a business coach, I was in a position where I really didn't know anything at all. I made the decision right from those early days that I'm going to study the most successful coaches and learn from them. We should all get this, that there's so much to be learned from people doing things smarter than us. I can promise you, there's someone else out there right now doing things significantly smarter than you. If you don't believe that, then that's an ego. There's always someone doing it better or smarter than you. There are people that have cracked better ways to make money. There are people that have cracked better ways to save time and put in better systems.
There's a great story that I share as well. I laugh at it because it is humorous when I look back on it, but I used to get up many years ago three mornings every week to go exercising with a group of friends. I’d drive halfway across Brisbane to get to my exercise. It would take me about half an hour, this particular trip. After about eight months, one of the guys said, "which route do you take here?" I told him the route I took and he said, "Mate, you need to take this road" he showed me a shortcut. I had no idea, but this little shortcut knocked about seven minutes off my trip both ways.
Fourteen minutes a day, three times a week, it might not sound like much, but when you weigh this up over a year, it's a lot of time every week. 14 minutes, three times a week is 42 minutes, let’s say an hour every week, multiplied over a year, that's 52 hours. Just that little shortcut saved me an entire week a year, which in the scheme of things allocated to a higher use of time. Now, it only took this person 10 seconds to tell me the shortcut… You'd agree with me that I'd be totally foolish continuing to take the longer route. From that day forward, I decided to take the shortcut.
We all do this. We are guilty of getting trapped doing stuff that we've been doing for years and years. We actually don't stop and challenge, is the way we're doing it, the right way? That's where I believe learning comes in. The point that I'm making here is experience is important. There's no doubt about it, experience is important. What is more important than experience is the right theory. If we were to take the right theory and apply the experience to the right theory, this is what leads to profound results.
I'll give you an example outside of farming. I want you to imagine there's a cafe in the town somewhere near you and they've been pouring coffee for 20 years. Now, I'm sure you'd agree with me that they have a lot of experience in pouring coffee, 20 years of experience. What if they were only ever taught how to pour bad coffee. I'm sure you've been to a cafe where you bought a coffee, I know I have, and it's just disgusting. What feedback do we give a cafe that makes bad coffee? We don’t, we just don't go back there again.
They've got 20 years’ experience, but the problem is they’ve got 20 years’ experience of pouring a bad coffee. What we want to do in business is learn the right theory first and then gain experience using the right theory. In fact, we're far smarter starting the right theory before we apply the experience.
Many farmers learn from their parents and their experience came from their parents… Third and fourth generation farmers are often applying experience from maybe 50-60 years ago which can still work, but I can guarantee you that somewhere along that 50-60 years, someone else has found a better way to do it. Just like someone else has found a better way to pour coffee, someone else has learned there's better beans, there's a better machine, there's a better method that produces a better coffee, a better product.
This is absolutely true because innovation's happening everywhere. Every single industry is innovating and improving. If you're not learning the new and improved ways you get left behind. You're applying experience to old pieces of theory. Which means that the results won’t be anywhere near as successful as what they could be.
Goal number one is we want to be the dumbest person in the room and we want to understand what's the right piece of theory that I need to learn to apply my experience to? When I apply my experience to the right theory, this is what will produce a profound result. This is why in our Take Control Program we provide the theory of here's how you plan your time from 10 years all the way back to 90-day planning.
I've studied for 15 years on what's the best method to do this (and I'm sure there's a better way, by the way, I would hate to say that the way that we teach is the perfect way. I'm sure there's a better way and I'm very open to learning that.) However, I do know that it's fine-tune, fine-tune, fine-tune and when you apply experience to the way that you plan your time, in this particular system, it will lead to profound results.
That's the first point to understand and for you to constantly question, is this the right theory? Is this the right theory? To constantly look at, is there a smarter way that I could be doing this?
This is what segues into point number two. I think all of us need a simple system to learn. We can really learn through three key ways:
We can learn through reading books;
We can learn through meeting up with people;
We can learn through doing courses.
A very simple formula which I want you to consider is the 3-2-1 Formula.
We want to apply this to a 90-day block. I think it's too broad looking at 12 months, so I like to break everything down into what I'm going to focus on for the next quarter. The system is:
What 3 books can I read?
Which 2 people can I catch up with and learn from?
What is 1 course that I could do?
Just to say that again, three books that I can read, two people that I could learn from, and one course that I could do? Now, I also think it's important to choose your books, people you are going to catch up with, and courses wisely.
For example, if I'm wanting to work on time management, I want to choose my 3 books on time management. I want to meet with 2 people that I think are really effective with their time management, and I want to do 1 course on time management. If I really need to look at maximising profitability (let’s say I've got a weak understanding of financial literacy) then I'll choose 3 books I could read on the subject (I can guarantee there's books on everything out there), who are 2 people I could meet and what's 1 course that I could do?
There are so many places for you to uncover this information but it's just a great formula to focus on. I just know in my early days of being a business coach it was all about learning for me. I've invested over $500,000 in my education. I wouldn't be able to count how many books I've read now, how many courses I've been to, and how many people that I've made the effort to go and meet. It's endless and it's never going to end. It's not something that I will ever sit back and feel that I've done enough because the minute I do that, I shoot myself in the foot because I'm now assuming that I've learnt everything.
There is a time and a focus when you move to ‘Earn’, there is a time and a focus when you move to ‘Return’, but I think we want to be on this Kaizen, which is “constant never-ending improvement”. It's a Japanese word. I'm constantly thinking what else could I be learning this quarter that's going to help me become, in my case, a better mentor, a better coach, a better business owner, a better husband, a better parent? All of these areas.
In the last 12 months I've been putting a huge amount of learning back into health. Therefore, I've been reading a lot more books and courses on health and I've really enjoyed that because it's also rolled through to me being more effective with business and a better family member as well.
This segues into point number three, which is another simple formula called 30:10. That means for every 30 minutes of reading I do, I like to summarise in 10 minutes what I just learnt and how can I apply what I just learnt to my life?
There is this saying that ‘implementation is power’. Knowledge is not power, implementation is power. I could read 40 books and apply nothing. That's really pointless, right? I try to apply 3 things I learn from each book I read.
When I'm reading, I think it's powerful to underline or highlight key parts. Then I'll just sit down and document what I learnt from that.
In my early days, my mentor held me accountable for reading a book a week. It sounds like a lot, but it's what I needed to do because it really speed tracked my knowledge on business. I just read every book you can imagine on business and I really got into the discipline of that 30:10 rule. In fact, 30:10 was a formula that I applied on a daily basis. I just read for 30 minutes a day and then spent 10 minutes implementing. Not every day, but probably four days out of five.
Sometimes I would sit and read for 3-4 hours on a weekend. The key to learning is to schedule it. If you don't schedule it into your day, you most likely won't do it. Scheduling really helps build a habit. I don't read a book every week at the moment, but it would be at least one book a month. I'm in the habit of summarising in my journal what I've learnt from that book and how I can apply it.
I think setting up that little system will really help you. I used to have a piece of paper stuck on my desk in front of my computer that said 30:10 and I stuck another one on the door in my bedroom that said 30:10. It just reminded me to invest some energy on a daily basis in learning something and then applying it.
I will finish by saying this, the most successful people that I've met on my journey of coaching businesses, both in and outside of farming, have an insatiable knowledge to learn more. They are by far the biggest learners. They study the product. In the case of farming, they read every single book on the topic. They'll find out all the mentors in that area and they won't just focus on farming, they'll read every single book on business that they can get their hands on.
There's no question that there's a correlation between the biggest learners and the most profitable, successful people. In the brackets of success, I'm referring to the ones that make the most money and also live the most, I call it wealthy life. It's not just about the money, they also recognise that they have a mission to become the best person that they can be, which means they also want to be a great husband or wife. They want to be great for their kids, they want to be great at time management, they want to create wealth outside their farm, or whatever it is. It's not just about money.
I see the correlation between happiness and learning. That's because they're tapping the wisdom of others that know stuff that they don't. It's that simple. Just remember that none of us know everything. We need to put that ego aside and pretend we know nothing. We want to be the dumbest person in the room. We want to focus on what's the best piece of theory that I can apply my experience to which will bring me my profound results.
I like the simple 3-2-1 Formula. It's not much if you think about it. 3 books, catch up with 2 people, do 1 course. When you do learn, please spend a little bit of time afterwards to document it… what did I learn and how can I apply this into improving my business?
Thanks for listening to this. Please share this around if you feel this would value other farmers. As I mentioned earlier, if you want to fast-track your results, we are mentors and coaches. We exist to bring out the best in business owners in the farming space, so reach out. Let's have a chat and see if we can help you. Just send us an e-mail at support@farmownersacademy.com.
Speak to you soon.
Thank you.
Take care.
Wednesday Sep 26, 2018
Wednesday Sep 26, 2018
Episode 14: ‘How freedom farmer David was able to enjoy a 9-week holiday with his family’
In this podcast I interview David Westbrook, a member of our very first Platinum Mastermind Program.
By following our proven system over the past 3 years, David is well on his way to achieving a ‘Freedom Farm’. He was recently able to ‘test the waters’ by enjoying a 9-week holiday with his wife and 3 young children.
David very kindly agreed to speak to the members of our newest program ‘Take Control’ and this podcast is a snippet of that interview.
Andrew: Firstly, mate, thank you for coming on and sharing a bit of your story. Just a bit of background, David and his wife Becky have been clients of ours for three years, they're a part of what we call a ‘Platinum Mastermind Program’. He's very much gone through this ‘Take Control’ journey and is very aware of the mindset required to not just make more money on the farm but also have more time with family.
I really wanted to bring Westy onto this as he's got so much to offer because he's done a lot of work on his mindset. He's been able to set his business up so he can take a lot more time out with his family. He's got a very inspirational story. He's just been on a 9-week holiday with three young children.
Do you want to start by sharing a little bit more about you, what you farm, where you're based? I wanted to dive in a little bit about what life was like for you before you made that commitment to ‘Take Control’.
Westy: We're based on Kangaroo Island, which is an amazing place to farm. I came from a cropping farm on Yorke Peninsula. It wasn't my cup of tea, so I decided I wanted to get into livestock. I had absolutely no clue about any of it, I just jumped in really in 2010, and our first son was born in 2010.
Livestock farming on Kangaroo Island, life on Kangaroo Island and becoming a father all happened at the same time. Definitely, a steep learning curve. We probably went through that first 5-6 years just unconscious, really, just doing the day-to-day stuff.
We had some great people around us in the community that helped me understand livestock farming. There was a lot of things that I just didn't know and wasn't implementing, so I just didn't have the freedom to do anything. People would ask me to go fishing or surfing and I just couldn't do it. And obviously, just wasn't having that family time.
Andrew: Yes. Let's go back to that. I just wanted you to really share a bit more about this. Let's keep it in line with this message of ‘Take Control’. Did you feel like you had control back there?
Westy: Funnily enough, I probably did, Andrew, because that was my mindset. I thought if I made a conscious effort to always be home at 5-5:30pm to have dinner with Becky and the kids. Then, make sure the batteries on the torch were good and go back out to work for 3-4 hours after dinner.
I believed I had control, because that's how I thought I had to operate. I was getting plenty of work done but just didn't have any clarity on the next day or the future going forward. I definitely had that 2-hour bracket with the kids and Becky over dinner, which is what I thought was good. Eventually, I realised that's not how it should operate.
Andrew: Let's talk about that, too, because I'm assuming you got most of your experience or knowledge from your parents, correct? They teach you a certain way of what you need to do to be a successful farmer; which is work hard?
Westy: Absolutely, yes. I've put a lot of thought into this over the last few years, Andrew. Why is it that they had to work hard and we can actually reap the rewards a little bit, and delegate, plan and run a better business? Absolute credit to my parents and everyone that's a bit older than me.
2010 was the start of good land prices. That’s given me the opportunity to make more profit definitely from the way that the commodities have gone and to be able to set up this ‘freedom lifestyle and a freedom business’.
That way of thinking of those older generations was not their fault by any means. That's just how farming was. There wasn't much money in farming. To be able to learn off of it and to be able to now adapt to what farming offers, and create an amazing business and amazing lifestyle is great because there's not too many jobs out there that give you the freedom of a farm.
If you can get your mindset in the right spot and set up your system, set up your business, and your visions to allow yourself the money and the time to be able to actually live that life that you want.
Andrew: I want to drill into that a little bit deeper. Particularly, that word you just said before which is mindset. Particularly, starting with ‘Take Control of You’. I just want, from your perspective, to share how important it's been for you to work on your mindset.
What are some of the shifts that you've had to make in your thinking to start reaping the rewards of, not only just increasing profitability on your farm, but also having extended holidays with family and taking a significant amount of time off.
I want to talk about the ‘how’. Some of the decisions you've made that have helped you set things up. I know you've employed people. Let's just start with the mindset. How important has this been for you?
Westy: Massive, and through the tools that you've given us through programs like this, Andrew, it's allowed me to actually have the mindset to do it. That comes back to mindset and allowing yourself to do it. I used to feel really guilty if I was in the office. Now I feel guilty if I'm out working after dinner.
That mindset of thinking I was proud of working hard in the dark with a head torch on; now I feel guilty doing that. I feel prouder if I'm in the office doing those more important jobs. It's allowing that mindset to say "Right, I can do this. This is my vision, and I'll make that work”.
Andrew: I completely understand, from a business owner perspective, this guilt that comes when we're not working. This feeling that in order to get ahead, I have to work harder. How did you start changing that mindset to "You know what? I'm allowed to have more time out with my family. I'm allowed to work less and work smarter as opposed to harder”?
Westy: It comes back to your belief. If your belief is that you need to be in the sheep yards drenching sheep or on the track ploughing paddocks and you believe that its wasting your time being in the office, it was definitely a massive challenge for us to overcome that.
Through what you've taught us and slowly, gradually, building that belief to be able to say "Okay, actually, I can live the life that I want. I can work out a plan to fill in the gaps that I can't be doing".
Another big struggle for me was getting my workmen to move sheep or to drench sheep or plan shearing whilst I was in the office marketing lambs or writing my 10-year business plan, which initially, I felt really guilty doing. He was out doing the labour and I was inside having a cup of coffee with my feet up on the computer. It's a hard mindset to get your head around.
The best way for me for that that scenario was to get him clear on my business values and our business direction. Then he understood how important it is for me to be in here, and for him to be outside making sure those sheep are in good health and that all those other general day-to-day jobs are getting done.
Andrew: When you use the word ‘belief’ do you find that you needed to believe that you could take time out with your family before you actually did it?
Westy: Yes, absolutely. Initially we had planned four weeks to go away and do the Red Centre and then come back. It then turned out that we needed to be on the Sunshine Coast and a week or two after that, we needed to be on the Gold Coast. I just thought, "why don't we just extend it, we'll take the caravan and the car, and we'll keep going from the Red Centre."
I had absolutely no idea how that was going to happen, but I had belief that I could make it happen. I just had to let go of control of the farm and stop my mind from thinking “I need to be on the farm because we're lambing; we've had a late start and pasture's going to be tight; and everything needs to be implemented perfectly”.
Once I’d controlled my thoughts, I had the belief that it could work. That was step one.
Andrew: I want to talk about that a bit deeper because as a coach working with clients outside of farming, the first stage is ‘if you don't believe something can happen it never will’. You've got to at least entertain the idea that something's possible.
There's that great saying that ‘some people need to see and they'll believe, but successful people get that they first need to believe, and then they'll see’.
So, you had to change your mindset from "I have to be doing everything" to "maybe it's possible that I can actually improve the profitability of my business and work less”, correct?
Westy: Yes, absolutely. When we first learnt that concept through yourself and Greg, it was very hard to get your head around. How can you pay someone to do your fencing? How can you pay someone to do your landmarking etc and still make more money? It didn't make sense, but when you actually free up that time to make better decisions, our business completely changed.
Three years down the track, I'm working a lot less and profiting a lot more.
Andrew: That is a big breakthrough that I believe business owners need to reach. It’s quite extraordinary and very hard to get your head around, but often the lesser you work, the more you can make.
I want to come back to the conversation that you and I have regularly around, I call it ‘vibration’. A certain energy that we're giving off and when you're giving off a good energy, good things seem to happen. When you're giving off a negative energy, bad things seem to happen. I'm sure you can relate.
So, when you're working really hard, and you're not spending any time with your family and you're stressed, what sort of energy can you be giving off?
Westy: Poor energy, and then that's when things start to go wrong, sheep get mixed up, gates get left open. All those sorts of things. A lot of them are based around your energy. I think you talked about morning rituals in the webinar, didn't you, Andrew?
Andrew: Totally, one of the main things that creates the fastest change in you is implementing a morning routine. Let's just talk a bit about yours. What are some of the things that you've changed to start that morning in a positive frame?
Westy: Getting back to your vibration there, my morning routine has a massive impact on the vibration that I give throughout the day and how my day unfolds. For example, we're all human, we all have lapses in the structure in our life.
When morning routines don't happen for me, for whatever reason, I just feel "something's not right here”. But when I get back to my morning routine it all starts to fall back into place for me.
Your morning routine has to have that structure; you have to have it on paper. You can't just set your alarm and say "right, I'm going to get up and do a morning routine" if it's not written down its an excuse to just press the snooze button on your alarm. You have to be clear when you get out of bed, be clear on what your objectives are.
Basically, I get up early. We've got kids and sometimes it changes, but usually 5.30-6am rise. Firstly, I'll make sure I’m hydrated so I get up and have some water. Then I'll journal; I'll go through my to-do list and match that up on my calendar; I plan my day and then I'll go out to the shed and make sure I spend 30-45 minutes in the gym.
There's so much science behind morning exercise to set yourself up for a great day. I think it's Tim Ferriss or Tony Robbins who says "If you win your mornings, you win your day".
Andrew: I think there's a direct correlation between your motivation for exercise and your motivation for life and business. I personally find that if I rate my exercise out of 100, often my motivation for work matches that number. If I'm a 50 out of 100, I also have just 50% motivation for work, because exercise gets the blood moving, gets us pumped, gets everything happening. It's so easy to use the excuse "Well I've got three young kids" or "I don't have enough time, I'm too busy.”
How do you find the time and what have you done to set things up so you can exercise? You're working on an isolated farm; how do you do this? How often do you exercise? I know you've been traveling for the last nine weeks, but in general, how you do it?
Westy: I would exercise pretty much 7-days a week, but that's not all physical exercise. A lot of that is yoga or stretching. At the moment, just to frame it up, I’ll do 3-days cardio, 2-days strength, and the other two days it could just be taking the dogs for a jog; 6:30am just a 10-minute jog down the laneway and I come back feeling pretty amazing. Fitness-wise, it's not much, but it's giving you the mindset and energy to get through the day.
To create that time initially, our kids used to wake early, so I used to take in turns with my wife. Our morning rituals would be one day on, one day off. I would get up with the kids while she went in the gym and did her journaling, etc. Then the next day would be my turn. That was one way of getting through it when our kids were younger, but now our kids can get themselves out of bed. They're happy to go down to the lounge room and play with their toys for half an hour. Basically, 7am is when we start cooking breakfast and getting organised for school. We make sure the kids know that before 7am is their own time and we know that our morning rituals are done and dusted by 7am.
Andrew: If I was to take away your exercise, if I was to take away your morning routine, if I was to take away the time that you've been spending with your family what would your energy levels be like?
Westy: I'd be very drained. You end up being the mouse on the wheel or chasing your tail and not really getting anywhere. You might feel like you are, but you don't have the time to step back and look into your life from a distance and see where you're going wrong and where you're going right.
Andrew: In your experience, work on yourself has to come first, correct? You've learnt this has to become the highest priority?
Westy: Absolutely, yes. You might think it's hard to get up at 6am and go to the gym, but it's a lot easier to get up at 6am than crawl out of bed and go through a day without having the exercise under your belt. That's been my key. Even Becky, she’s always been a healthy person but she's never exercised daily. Now she's doing that, she absolutely loves the benefits of it. Once you start, you can't stop.
Andrew: Would you say compared to the person you were 3-years ago, you're happier now?
Westy: Absolutely, yes.
Andrew: Would you say you're a more confident person?
Westy: Absolutely, yes.
Andrew: Would you say that you've got way more belief in your abilities when it comes to growing a successful career?
Westy: Yes, and that comes back to confidence. Confidence and belief are your two biggest drivers really. When you're happy and healthy, you're unstoppable.
Andrew: The reason I wanted to interview you is because Westy is also one of the coaches that works with us in our Farm Owners Academy program. The reason we've chosen Westy is because he implements. He hears what we teach and rather than ‘ums and ahs’ about it, he just implements it.
That's one of the biggest takeaways for this program is we don't want you just listening to this stuff, we want you to, actually, give it a go and see what happens.
Westy, it's not like you can start training, and then the next day everything changes. There's quite a delay from working on yourself to when you start reaping the rewards. Would that be a fair call?
Westy: Absolutely. There's 60 days or something to be able to create a habit. For example, there's been a few people in our group that had some habits they wanted to change, whether it was stop drinking coffee or start exercise in the mornings. It's making sure you get those 50 to 60 days under your belt so it just becomes normal to you.
Journaling was a big one for me. Journaling was something you opened me up to. I didn't understand the benefits of it, initially. But people like Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, Michael Jordan, all the superstars in the world, they all journal.
That was my biggest eye opener to say "If they're journaling there's obviously a reason to do it", that's why I stuck at it and eventually it cracked for me, it was just a lightbulb moment. It's not just journaling, it's everything.
That initial period is the hardest bit. That's where we fall into the trap of "It’s too hard; Nothing's happening, Not getting results". They shut the door on it, rather than just persisting. Then all of a sudden, it becomes easy.
Andrew: I think it's like the farming analogy of you plant a seed. You need to water the seed and have the patience for it to grow. I think that's the key thing, a lot of people might start planning a week. They do it for two or three weeks. They think "Nothing's happening" and they quit. Then, unfortunately, that seed dies, but if you persist, the breakthrough seems to come three months down the track. That's when you really reap the rewards of working on yourself.
Westy, I really want to talk about this nine-week holiday, which in many people's worlds would be just like "How do you do that? How do you take 9-weeks off and pack up the family and off you go?" Of course, it's not something that three years ago you could have dropped in two weeks later. This did need some work. This did need some planning. This did need your business to get to a certain level to enable you to do that.
Let's just talk a little bit more about that. What was some of the work you had to do to make that happen? You've obviously worked on the mindset. You had to plan that trip in to make it happen. I'm assuming there was a lot of fear around "Can I really take that time out”?
Westy: Absolutely. Fear is the biggest one.
Andrew: Yes, and then a lot of questioning going on "I probably shouldn't. It's bad" or whatever that thought process is that challenges you on it. What are some of the things that you had to put in place that gave you more peace of mind to take that trip?
Westy: We obviously talked about it earlier, the belief. The belief of being able to do it, and we didn't exactly know the how. This trip was actually planned about three years ago, just not down to the finer details. It was a vision for us and then we needed to work out what those steps were to get there. To be able to create the freedom to be able to do it.
When we first started 3-years ago, I was running this farm on my own and working two and a half labour units which was quite embarrassing when those figures come out and we had to put them up on the big screen in front of the rest of the group!
Then I needed to work out the scale of my business to be able to set up the freedom business and all the little one percenters that had to be put in place. I couldn't afford to go out and put a full-time workman on. What I did is I manifested, in a way, a part-time workman and got clear on what I needed him to do, and how it was going to work out, and then that fell into place. I found a local guy that could do three days a week for me which was perfect.
He worked for me for a couple of years, then I needed to take the next step. We up-sized our business labour-wise to be able to get to a full-time workman which, for me, was downsizing my cattle enterprise and increasing my sheep numbers. These is just a few of the little things that had to happen along the way. This was getting the scale right to be able to afford a full-time workman.
Then that was just the perfect balance. He'd been working for me four months before I set him up for us to go away. He wasn’t a highly skilled technical farmer, but a good, passionate farmer with good stock skills is what I needed. Then everything else had to get into place, got your shearing times, you had lamb-marking times, you had ram-joining times, all those business structures throughout your yearly calendar, you could just simplify.
You don't want to have five different enterprises happening, so we simplified. We went to a more of a meat, a prime lamb enterprise...
Andrew: You focused.
Westy: …and ran bigger mobs was one of the things to allow us simplify. Some fencing, new sheep yards, sheep handlers, all these sorts of things that had to come into place for him to be able to manage a farm on his own.
Andrew: Then, of course, the learning of the skills on how to induct and train this farmer on what you needed him to do, so you had the confidence to let that farmer get on with the job. Would that be a fair call?
Westy: Yes, definitely. For me to have a clear 10-year plan, broken down to a 3-year, 1-year, and then 90-day plan on paper, that I could show him to give him a clear vision of where we were going. Then, obviously, the systems that go into place around that.
Andrew: So, you’re traveling around Australia… How did you find the confidence that you've got a guy back on the farm handling things while you're away? You'd agree with me that without that Westy, people won't do it. They have too much fear to step away?
Westy: Yes, absolutely. It was definitely something I had to work through. Having the confidence to let myself go from the farm was a big challenge. It took a good couple of weeks into my holiday. Basically, I had all the systems in place and we’d obviously walked through it before I left. We touched base once a week just to make sure he was on track, but probably three weeks in, I just instantly noticed a big relief. I just let go.
I told him "Ring me if you've got any troubles". The one time I heard from him was just to reassure me that everything was good; it was raining and dams were filling up and the sheep were good”. It was believing in him and believing in myself that I'd put the systems in place for him to implement it. He had some pretty significant roles. He had to set up all their lambing paddocks and all our ewes were still on grain, still sup-feeding by that time. He had to divide all them up, and put them out into all their lambing paddocks and make decisions on pasture management.
The first couple of weeks, I was going to bed worrying "what if he's got sheep on 500 kilos a hectare and they need to be on 1500 kilos a hectare with twin bearing ewes?" and all that sort of stuff. But in the end, I just completely let it go. I really enjoyed my holiday and started getting clarity on some other ideas and some other thoughts.
The great reward was to come home and drive around the farm and see that everything he had done was pretty much better than what I would have done. All the pastures were amazing. The sheep were in amazing health. We actually broke records this year with our lamb-marking percentages, through what he had implemented while I was away.
Andrew: Wow, I mean it's a great story. Greg, do you have any comments right now around this mindset or questions for Westy?
Greg: Yes, thank you very much. Good day, everybody. Nice to be on the call.
Westy's story is a fantastic story. When I first started working with David a number of years ago, he was flogging himself as most young farmers do. He came from a position where he believed that the way to get ahead was to work yourself into the ground. I come from that background as well. I know exactly what it's like; and to see the transformation in him and Becky and his family.
When David & Becky started with Farm Owners Academy, one of Becky's issues was that he just wasn't spending enough time with the family. Good on him for at least coming home to have dinner with them, but she wanted more than that, obviously. Young family, she needed support. She needed time for herself away from the family, so that she could refresh her mind and so forth.
To watch the transformation from where he was at 3-4 years ago to where he's at now is quite mind-blowing really. It's just come on the back of having a much better understanding of what he's doing, what's driving the productivity and profitability in his business, understanding which levers to pull and really having the confidence and the mindset to move forward and pursue the type of business that he wants.
He wants a business that’s not reliant on him being there all the time. So, if you want to create that type of business you have to make it a priority. You have to do the things that need to be done to allow that outcome to manifest. If you just say it and don't take action towards making it happen, then it never will happen.
Andrew: It's so much about firstly, making the decision and believing that it's possible. Correct, Greg? If you don't make the decision or believe it's possible you'll never do it.
Greg: Absolutely, you have to believe that you can do it. A classic example, 10 years ago, my whole mindset and target around my veterinary business was to gross a million dollars. I kept telling myself "if I can gross a million dollars, then I'll be happy. I can retire and I'll be happy. That's what I want to achieve." I had a radical change in my own thinking and my own vision about what was possible. I'm in the business now, grossing over three times that much.
It all comes from just changing the way that you view the world, and you view your capability and understand what it is that you actually can do. We all tend to put limits on ourselves. We have limiting beliefs in terms of what we think we can achieve, and what we think we are capable of doing, and what we think we deserve. Those things do hold us back in a lot of spaces.
Dave, just thinking back now, how would you feel if you had to go back to the way it was three, four years ago?
Westy: Stress. That's what it was, it was stress but you don't realise it at the time, you just think that's what life is. You don't realise that there's a better and easier way of doing it. It's just letting yourself; allowing and actually believing you are capable of that.
I remember right back in the early days, Greg, some of things that you and Andrew were saying we should be doing. I was thinking "well, imagine how good that would be” but I just couldn't see it happening. That's now what day-to-day life is for us.
Greg: Just to be clear about that, you'd would probably never allow yourself to go back to the way it was, would you?
Westy: No. When things do go wrong or you are busy or something doesn't happen the way it should, then you've got to take responsibility. We create our own reality, so everything that goes wrong - your truck breaks down, or you get a flat tyre or your sheep get out because your fence is not quite right; you have to take responsibility for all of those things and work out the solution. There's got to be a better way of doing it.
For example, if you're busy, you've got to take responsibility for being busy. Maybe your business is too complex. Maybe you need to simplify. Maybe you need to bring in extra help.
There's always an answer. It always comes back to not blaming others. Blame yourself, and then work out why it's not happening like it should.
Greg: What you raised there is great, let's bring it back to the seasons. Obviously, quite a few people that are on the call here might be experiencing drought or less than average seasonal conditions.
Bottom line is there's nothing you can do about that. That's what it is. That's the environment that you're working in. The environment isn’t always perfect. All you can do is the best you possibly can. It's the decisions you make. It's the mindset you have and the decisions you make when times are tough that actually define who you are as a business owner.
Anyone can run a business when it's going well. When everything's fine, it's easy to run a business, but it's when things get tough, when things happen that are out of left field that's what really defines who are very good at running a business and who aren't.
Westy: Absolutely. I discovered that last year. We've never been through a drought, but we had a really late start. We actually started lambing ewes in July on dirt before our opening rain. There's two ways I could have looked at that. This is where I really noticed my mindset had changed. I could have got stressed everyday feeding sheep grain and having skinny ewes and lambs on dirt. The massive positive for me, it gave me an opportunity to speak to other people around Australia. I made an emphasis to call people around Australia that had been through this before and learn what ways to handle it. I learned a lot about myself and a lot about how to handle stock in tough situations which is a massive positive for me out of a negative situation.
Can I just touch on a couple of things that might help as well? Probably one of the fundamental beginnings for me that freed up time was actually writing down what was in my head. I’d go to bed with a job list in my head, but one day I just wrote down everything because I thought I had so much to get done before shearing came. When I got all those jobs out on paper, I just crossed off all the ones that weren't important. I thought I had to get all these jobs done, but in reality, they could be done next week, or even next year. There were things I thought had to happen like putting a fence up to make a big paddock, split it in half. That can happen in 10 years' time. Yes, it's an advantage and beneficial, but it doesn't have to happen tomorrow. I didn't see that until I put all the jobs that were in my head on paper.
The other one was just being super clear on what we want. What do we want to be doing? How much time do we want to spend with our families? What jobs do we want to be doing on the farm? I could walk off the farm tomorrow and never have to do a day's work. I could bring in another employee and completely set it up, so I don't have to work on it but that's not really what I want. It's getting clear on what we want to be doing on our farms. If we want to be doing those labour jobs, we'll make sure we're doing them first.
Understanding what we want to do personal-wise and business-wise and making sure if you picture them on a see-saw that they're working together, making sure they're level and your business isn't outweighing your personal life.
If something is happening in your business that's having implications on how much time you get to spend with your family you need to work out what that is and adjust it, so then you can get that balance right.
Wednesday Sep 12, 2018
Wednesday Sep 12, 2018
Episode 13: ‘HOW TO BUILD CONFIDENCE AND GO FOR WHAT YOU WANT’
“CONFIDENCE drives SUCCESS…”
How much do you like yourself?
Do you have a fear of walking up to people?
Are you afraid of being rejected?
Do you doubt yourself?
Statistics prove that confident business owners succeed more in both commerce and life.
This podcast explores:
What is confidence?
Why do we lose confidence?
What can we do to regain confidence?
In a farming business, possible factors affecting confidence could be:
Market condition.
Succession issues.
Family/Team member conflicts.
As a result…
You forget to focus on the goals you set when you first started out in business.
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal”
- Henry Ford
Confidence is easily lost on a business journey because of all the moving parts of running a business.
Confidence is an inner liking of YOURSELF.
The more you like yourself, the more confident you become.
The more confident you are, the better decisions you make.
“The speed of success that you will have in business is directly related to the speed in which you are able to make decisions”
The truth is, you start acting very defensively when you lack confidence;
You stop taking risks;
You stop taking the steps that need to be taken to help you succeed in business and in life.
“We need to spend more time un-learning before we learn”
Un-learn all the negative drama from parents, teachers and peers.
Re-wire your brains to the positive.
How can you do this?...
Here are 3 ways to effectively un-learn the negative and learn the positive:
Be kind to yourself
Treat yourself extremely well.
Take pressure off yourself.
Accept failure as feedback - an opportunity to do better next time.
“It’s what you say to yourself, when you are by yourself, and about yourself that matters most”
Bring more awareness to your thoughts
You are just a manifestation of your thinking.
Your thoughts of you create YOU.
Train your brain to let a negative thought go.
Re-fuel the belief that you are good enough.
Write down your thoughts and assess if it is serving you, or sabotaging you.
Find gratitude around you whenever negative thoughts strike.
“Gratitude fuels self-esteem and confidence”
Implement a morning routine
Commit to doing this daily.
Train your brain to say positive things to yourself every morning.
Build the habit of positive affirmation - “I am worthy”, “I like myself”.
Visualise yourself being successful - think of yourself like a champion.
See your success even before you have it.
Write a small note about how amazing you are and read it to yourself daily.
Create a journal - write down your goals and why you want them.
“Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day” - Dalia Lama
Finally…
Maintain a strong confidence in yourself or you’ll end up as a victim to the external circumstances that can influence your beliefs.
Invest in your own self-confidence and assure yourself that there will be a return on that investment.
You will see amazing things happen.
What's stopping you from deciding to be a confident person right now?
“With confidence, you have won before you started”
- Marcus Garvey
Monday Aug 27, 2018
Monday Aug 27, 2018
Marketing your way to new markets
In today’s episode, we are joined by Tim Young, a farm marketing expert, author, and founder of the Small Farm Nation Academy; an online resource that teaches farmers the marketing skills required to grow a profitable farming business.
The first question Tim asks his clients is:
Are you running a hobby, or are you running a business?
FARMING IS A BUSINESS.
A business needs customers. If you need customers….
YOU NEED MARKETING.
Farmers need to be clear that they are running a business, not just a farm.
80% of your business success is marketing.
You need to have the skills to be an effective marketer.
Here are the Top 3 Methods:
CREATE A BRAND FOR YOUR FARM
It is critical to maintain consistency in Branding. Repetition makes people associate the Brand with the product.
Build the habit of highlighting the BENEFITS of your products/services rather than the features.
Great brands introduce their values into a simple benefit-oriented tagline that resonates with people.
Keep in mind that if consumers do not remember you, they are not going to choose your product.
As mentioned, farming is a business that requires market exposure like all other businesses.
STEP UP from being a TECHNICAL FARMER and become a FARMING BUSINESS OWNER.
TRANSPARENCY – Tell people What, Why and How!
What do you stand for? Show them what your decisions are and why.
Transparency has a huge influence in brand awareness.
COMMUNICATE WITH CONSUMERS – reach out to the market!
Cultivate a dialogue with your customers to create a two-way discussion.
With the help of consumer reviews, you create products that are high MARGIN for you and high VALUE for them.
Many Thanks to Tim Young, founder of Small Farm Nation Academy.
www.smallfarmnation.com / www.smallfarmnationacademy.com
See you all in the next episode!
Thursday Aug 09, 2018
Thursday Aug 09, 2018
“It’s HOW YOU REACT to the Drought that MATTERS MOST”
In this episode, we aim for all of us to not overlook the benefits of the drought situation and how our span of control plays a huge part in real-life challenges.
What can you do to control your reaction in regards to this present drought condition?
What can you do in all other areas of your business to get through these tough times?
We all know drought has been occurring for a long time now and certainly has a significant impact on large areas of the country.
Australia has had long droughts in the past, we have to accept that as part of the country we live in.
You can’t control the weather, but you can control the way you respond to what’s going on in your farming business.
Spend your time and energy focusing on the things you can control in a drought situation and not the drought itself.
Andrew is reminded of a fantastic story about one of Australia’s greatest Iron Men:
Trevor Hendy was about to take off on a competition day at Port Macquarie when the weather was crazy, the sea was huge and the wind was howling. The organisers thought of cancelling the event but decided to push through.
Trevor was sitting overlooking the ocean and a journalist spotted him and asked, “What is running through your mind?” Trevor, who was listening to some music, pulled out his earplugs and responded to the journalist, “The environment is always perfect”.
Clueless, the journalist asked, what do you mean by that? Trevor said, “I can’t do anything about the size of the ocean today… I can’t change the wind… I know for a fact that I’m not going to get my best time because the condition isn’t great. But the only thing I can promise you today is that, I can do the best that I can regardless of the weather. I’m going out there and will give it my all”.
We can’t change the weather but there certainly are things that farmers can be doing during drought times.
All you can do is your best – and you can control what your best looks like.
Let’s now look at the 4 areas to support farmers dealing with drought:
1. LET GO OF THE VICTIM MENTALITY
Victim mentality is a state where you start thinking that everything that happens to you is someone else’s fault.
You blame the weather or other circumstances.
Being a victim means you do not have power over anything that is going on and you are just on the receiving end.
But you are in control of your business.
You are in control of how you react to the current situation.
And if you move into the victim mentality, it makes it very difficult to make strategic decisions.
When a business is in a period of adversity, as the owner…
YOU MUST LEAD, STEP UP and MAKE GREAT DECISIONS.
The drought should not make you feel like you are a failure or any other negative self-talk.
If you are locked into a mental framework of being a victim, you are totally un-empowered and unable to make the decisions to improve your situation.
2. MINDSET: DROUGHT IS TEMPORARY
Drought is never great, but as a professional farmer, your responsibility is to maximise the good times and minimise the bad times.
Drought is a bad time. The actions that you take right now, the decisions that you make will be just as influential on the long-term prospects for your farming business as the decisions that you make when times are really good.
Mentality directly affects decision-making.
We can never appreciate the good times without the bad.
Look at the fortunate aspects of the current drought.
3. COMPLETE THE RISK PROFILE OF THE BUSINESS
Drought only illustrates all businesses have a risk profile. There are certain risks that we all face as business owners.
Having a good understanding of what the risk profile of your business is.
Attempting to put in place strategies, systems and processes to mitigate risk is just part of very sensible strategic thinking that should go on in all farming businesses.
Your business risk profile should always be part of your annual planning.
How do we mitigate the potential risks of drought?
Here is a highly effective tool for you.. Click here to download
If we do – I’d suggest a hyperlink to the document if possible?
4. THE GREATEST BUSINESSES ARE CREATED AT THEIR MOST CHALLENGING TIMES
A great principle to always remember is:
The best time to be looking at your business critically, analyse efficiency and structure, is in periods of adversity.
It’s almost a requirement for businesses to go through tough times to centre the focus back on ways to streamline and steer it back to profitability.
During tough times, use every single opportunity to analyse what is going on with the business.
Think of how the business will do at the good times when you are successful in going through the bad.
Being a business owner, you need to wear your “adventure hat”. Imagine how boring the journey will be if you always take the easy road…
Learning the skills to become a technical farmer is challenging.
Learning to run a farming business is challenging.
Getting through this drought is challenging.
Our greatest success is often above or below of where we are currently looking.
Farm Owners Academy continues to look for ways on how to address the real issues affecting Australian farmers.
Thank you for joining us in this special edition episode!
Farm Owners Academy
P.S. Whenever you’re ready…here are 4 ways we can help you grow your farming business:
1. Subscribe to our ‘Profitable Farmer’ podcastThis free audio podcast delivers ideas to help you run a great business – leading to more profit, control and freedom – Click here.
2. Join the Farm Owner Academy’s closed Facebook group ‘Profitable Farmer’ Our new Facebook community is where smart farm owners learn how to get more profit, control and freedom, and you can connect with like-minded farm owners – Click here to join.
3. Join our ‘Take Control’ Program – and be a case studyWe have an amazing program called ‘Take Control’ that helps you run a world-class business. Click here to learn more.
4. Work with us privatelyIf you’d like our team to help you scale up your farming business or create a ‘freedom farm’ just email us at support@farmownersacademy.com and put “Private” in the subject line… tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to improve and I’ll send you the information you need to get started!
Wednesday Jul 25, 2018
Wednesday Jul 25, 2018
In this episode, Greg and Andrew will be educating on what to do when you or your business hits a ceiling.
Thanks to the Entrepreneur Organization System (EOS) who helped create this content
Having been involved in businesses for a long time now, we are very familiar with this topic.
To begin with –
HITTING THE CEILING OCCURS WITH ALL BUSINESSES
Eventually, you will reach a point where something in the business is basically stuck.
Your business is either not going forward at the rate that it was -
Or, you feel the business is just overly complex.
There might be individuals in the business that are feeling things are just too difficult for them within their current roles or there are divisions or areas in the business that are not progressing as well as they should.
Hitting the ceiling can occur at an organisational level,
Can occur at an enterprise-specific level,
Or can occur at a personal or people level.
Understanding that the business is just not progressing or not moving ahead as it was, or you get a feeling that things are just going to be complex and difficult to handle – THIS IS HITTING THE CEILING!
We are not an exception, it occurs to us too.
Greg and his wife have gone on a rapid expansion of their business over the last 8 years. Their business expanded in terms of revenue by 400%. In staff terms, it has tripled in size in that period
They were hitting the ceiling, about every six months throughout that period of growth.
The business was growing so fast that it took a lot of effort, on Greg’s behalf mostly, to visit the 5 disciplines that we are going to talk about in this episode.
How did Greg hit the ceiling?
At that particular time, everything had to change within his business
The systems that they had in place, the structure - the team, the way that the team was positioned and the way they managed them. Everything had to change on a constant basis to allow them to continue to grow and achieve that rate of growth.
Greg strongly points out, all businesses that grow, hit the ceiling at some stage and,
There are only 3 things you can do when you hit the ceiling:
First, PUT IN PLACE THE PRINCIPLES THAT WE ARE GOING TO TALK ABOUT TODAY, restructure the business and move it through that ceiling and get on to the next phase of growth.
Second, stay at that level and just bounce around and not go anywhere. Eventually leads the business to reducing profitability and ultimately at the end, would cause demise of the business.
Third, you can actually recognize that the business has stagnated and you can elect to reduce the size of the business and move it back down to a smaller business.
Some of the ways a farm owner might know that have hit the ceiling:
When a farmer works so hard but not really getting the traction
Business is progressing okay but it’s just getting complex
When you sit back and reflect on your business and you know that when you get sick, the business has a high chance of falling over
HITTING THE CEILING IS OFTEN AN OPPORTUNITY DRESSED AS A DISGUISE...
SLOW DOWN IN ORDER TO SPEED UP.
SOMETIMES WE NEED THE EDUCATION TO CHANGE DIRECTION INSTEAD OF MOTIVATION TO SPEED UP.
After all, hitting the ceiling means the business is growing – there are significant opportunities awaiting. Ask yourself, “What is it that’s holding the business back?”
Keep in mind, businesses that don’t grow never hit the ceiling.
And now,
THE 5 PRINCIPLES:
Simplify
As the business grows, it becomes more complex. As human beings, we seem to like to make things more complex. Quoting Steve Jobs, “Complexity is easy, simple you have to work at’.
A common scenario in growing businesses is when you reach a point where it’s become far too complex - too many balls in the air and too many things going on that make it hard to streamline and well-manage operating machines.
The task of a business owner is to look at what’s going on in the business and simplify as much as possible. Run the simplest systems.
Delegate
As the business grows organically, the owners get to a point where they are working beyond their physical capacity and the business is being constrained. The labour being supplied by the principal owners becomes a constraint for the business to grow.
The obvious solution is to DELEGATE.
Look at the workforce and the tasks that need to be done. Leverage your time so that you can bring somebody in to more effectively work on tasks and allow you space and time to work on the things that are going to help you grow the business beyond the ceiling.
Predict
Prediction allows us to see where the business is going and what needs to happen. We have the short-term prediction and the long-term prediction.
Short-term prediction is knowing that you are on top of your business – that nothing is going to happen in the next 1, 2 or 3 weeks that will cause you putting out the fire and chasing your time all the time.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen mostly the farm is running the business owner rather than the business owner running the farm. This happens because the owners do not have strategies and processes in place.
One very effective way of prediction is having short meetings with your team, say, weekly, half an hour. Discuss all the current issues that are on the table, solve for the longer term good. Once current issues are solved, these are not going to come up anymore in the next few weeks.
Long-term is all about looking at the business over 12 months down to 3 months window. Understanding where the business is going and what the possibilities are.
Like a cash-flow budget. Make it a realistic cash-flow budget, you are confident the budget can be achieved and then start tracking them.
If you set a cash-flow budget and it is realistic, and you track it and you achieve the outcome for that budget, then you know exactly where the business is going to be in the next 12 months.
Systemise
When you’re working on your own, then you have the repository of all the information, you do things the way you do them because that is the way you develop the processes and procedures for getting particular jobs done, that’s all fine…
BUT…
You get into a situation where you want all of the tasks done within the business.
The only way to do this if you are not doing it yourself is to have written systems in place, documented systems, that somebody else can follow and achieve exactly the same outcome.
Remember that 80% of your income comes from 20% of the activities that you undertake on the farm.
Identify all the important activities that occur and systemize, have written procedures, you can then have somebody else come in and you start delegating those tasks. All they have to do is follow the systems you have written and know that the outcome will be achieved to the level that you want them achieved.
According to studies, 9 out 10 problems in business are system-related not human related.
The natural tendency when there is a problem in the business is to blame the person, but the FIRST step that you should look into is, what system do you have to get this job done?
Build the habit of having a checklist for all the systems and tasks associated with the systems.
Structure
This is such an important one.
Look at all the people that are in the business –
Look at all the roles performed in the business –
The tasks –
Create a visual of your current organization.
And then,
Look at the growing business to the next level.
You will realise your current structure is not satisfactory.
Your current structure got you where you’re at today BUT it is not going to get you to where you want to go in the future.
Again ask yourself, “What is the simplest organisational chart that I need, to grow the business to the next level?”
This means you start identifying who in the current team has a lot of tasks to do. Then you create new opportunities within the business and split out tasks for people who are over capacity.
Delegate tasks that suit their natural abilities and/or going out and seeking further members of the team with specific skill sets to take on tasks you identified to be delegated.
Having the right people in the first place –
Having them in the right seats, and
Doing the right thing matching their natural talents and abilities.
Next time you reach the ceiling, just apply any or all of the 5 ways and you will be able to break through.
It’s all about taking control of your business.
You can allow the business to take control of you or you can take the range and take control of it.
You can’t control the weather but you CAN certainly control a whole lot of variables in running a fantastic business.
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THINGS THAT YOU CAN CONTROL.
Please share this podcast with other farmers.
We hope it helps,
Farm Owners Academy
Tuesday Jul 10, 2018
Tuesday Jul 10, 2018
The 1st Component: CLEAR JOB DESCRIPTIONS
It has to be written up. Making a clear job description for each team member has to be in writing – enumerate the tasks for clarity and better understanding. I endorse a great book called ‘The E-Myth’ by Michael Gerber. It’s a fantastic book to read if you are a business owner. The author talks about the importance of having an organisational chart, applying to every single business.
Overview of Departments:
CEO
Responsible for setting the vision and direction of the business
An excellent leader
Thinks strategically about the future of the business
Marketing Department
Takes care of effective branding and presence of the business
Website maintenance as you need a method to reach new clients
Open up new markets
The brain of marketing
This position needs energy to take charge of the marketing tasks
Innovative
I’d like to call it the Production Line of the business
Sales Department
They find the clients
Highly essential in growing the business
Operations
Ensures every single task on your farms gets DONE
Ensures all systems are functional and effective|
Human Resource
This is not applicable for small farms but certainly becomes an area as you get bigger
The department that looks after the team
Makes sure everyone is happy
They facilitate performance reviews
Takes care of the recruitment and motivation systems
Manages training systems
IT Department
Sets up email addresses for each team member
Makes sure everyone can communicate and connect
Maintains all technical systems
Administration Department
Administration behind the book work
Filing
They work hand-in-hand with the Operations team
Takes care of all the back-office tasks
They are the behind-the-scene machine of a business
Finance Department
Responsible for budgeting
All other business financial matters
It is imperative that you split out these roles and get a lot of clarity as to what are all the tasks that need to be done to run your farming business.
What typically occurs is, you being the business owner are also the busiest person doing everything that nothing really gets done well.
And I find it humorous because you get to a stage where you feel you cannot do everything
OR,
You hire someone but not sure what you want them to do, resulting to them making a lot of mistakes
And then,
You start fixing all the mistakes and end up making a decision that no one can do the tasks as well as you. You take back all the jobs you have delegated which causes chaos because you failed to sit down and actually write out a list.
THE REAL FIX:
Have a concrete list. Write it out clearly.
What tasks do you want team/family members to do for you?
How do you want the tasks done?
When do you expect results?
Break the business up.
Bring accountability and responsibility to certain components in running your business.
START YOUR LIST NOW!
Once you have your tasks list, think of a team/family member best suited for the work and write the name next to it.
This is the easiest method to create a job description.
The 2nd Component: GWC
G – they Get it
W – they Want it
C – they have the Capacity to do it
In running a world-class team, it is critical to make sure that the person you choose for each job ‘gets and understands’ the details of each task.
I have had a number of examples on this in my career in running businesses and working with team members. Once I delegated a detailed job to a person that has an outgoing personality. This person doesn’t get detail. I was giving the wrong task but also this person may be way more suited in Marketing, as an example.
Lesson here is, align the job description to the right personality.
Kolbe.com is a fantastic tool I highly recommend. Get the team member do a personality profile. The results will tell you if a person is outgoing or an introvert, detail-oriented or people-oriented, and it effectively helps you to determine if the person gets it and wants it.
It is pointless giving someone a job they do not want and then later on find out that there is a passionate person out there to do the job for you.
In my case, I do not like doing the books for my business. This is why I outsource to someone who will do it. Someone who loves doing the books, wants it, is really good at it and can do the job quickly.
Now on capacity, I make sure I do not overload their back. Never assign a task to someone who does not really have room to do it. Obviously because when they do not have the capacity, the results are substandard.
So…
Now that you have identified the person who gets the job, wants the job, has the capacity to do the job –
It is critical that they are aligned with the values within your business.
Take some time to listen to my podcast on getting more organized. I talked about having a strategic plan and getting clarity on your values.
A lot of issues in business are actually related to you hiring team members that are not aligned to your business values.
Do your part – document your values.
Have clarity and documentation of your values. For example, reporting to work on time is one of your business values. This is already very clear but you have to make sure the team member also clearly understands and most importantly, shares the same value. For the documentation part, make sure it is written somewhere in the job description.
The 3rd Component: SET VERY CLEAR EXPECTATIONS
Honestly, how do you feel when your expectations are not met?
In a performance review, how would you rate a team member who does not meet work expectations?
A world-class business team sets very clear expectations and take note that this has to be a two-way relationship. Being the business owner, you have to clarify what you expect from the team and vice-versa.
Again, write it down. With your expectations written down, it makes it easier to deal with conflicts for existing members, and it clarifies expectations for the new hires.
As an example, in a case where I am employing a new team member, I would be clear right at the onset about the following:
I want you to arrive 10 minutes before work starts
I want you to not touch social media during work hours
Personal calls have to be made during breaks only
Every Friday, summarise what you have done for the week
Every Monday, plan your week out
Update your task list regularly and prioritise
Notice the clarity of expectations in the given example. As a business owner, you would like your team members to maximize the week and this happens when you clearly tell them what you want, as they are not mind-readers.
CLEAR COMMUNICATION GETS EVERYONE ON THE SAME PAGE.
The 4th Component: HAVE A WEEKLY, QUARTERLY and YEARLY PLANNING
When was the last time you went out on a team-building activity?
Or strategy-planning?
Get away with your team for:
1-2 days a year
Half a day to a day every quarter
At least 30 minutes every week
Brainstorm time
Ask the questions:
What are our goals for the year?
What do we want to achieve on a yearly basis?
What strategies could we keep or replace to achieve our goals?
Try the “rapid fire” activity. This is when you get to ask each of your team members in random order about your goals and they have to have an immediate answer.
You would easily find out who among the team members do not know what your 9-year goals are, your next 12 months, etc. Everyone in the team has to know your business goals by heart.
Imagine driving without any direction, you may still be able to continuously drive
But,
Where will you end up?
It is very crucial for a team/family member to know your business goals, otherwise, those who do not will just wing it.
Track your success. How did we go last week? Last quarter?
Then plan strategically. What can we do better? What are we going to focus on next week?
Are there any issues we need to resolve? This is the very time that team members should practice open communication and honesty.
The more you communicate, the smoother your team works.
There is more energy, more clarity, more professionalism in the team.
As a business owner, you cannot go wrong doing this because, if you want to be a profitable farmer –
YOUR TEAM IS YOUR BIGGEST ASSET
And ultimately, often your biggest expense, so –
If you can help your team become more productive, you will generate more profitability.
Get more out of your team – having ONE great team member will beat THREE average.
The 5th Component: PUT SYSTEMS IN PLACE AND TRAIN YOUR TEAM
Food for thought: You are better off training a team member and they leave, then not training them and they stay.
The very first thing you should do, even before training, is to put some basic systems in place. The top producing farmers that we currently work with have systems for everything:
Systems for operational duties
Systems for books and finance
Systems for administration
Systems for maintenance
A system is simply a checklist of what needs to get done into the standard that you want as the business owner.
The reality is, if you don’t put up systems in place, then the team members wing it.
And if they wing it –
Mistakes are made in tasks, it costs you time fixing errors - which ultimately leads to reduced profitability.
THE REAL FIX:
Get systems in place
Train the team on the systems
Maintain the systems
Keep systems up-to-date
THE RESULT:
Highly efficient team
Tasks are accurately completed in a timely manner
Team members become more energetic
You embrace new learnings and continue to look at what you need to continuously train the team on
You become a master in delegating tasks
You become overly comfortable in handing out the control and letting others do the work for you
You can never run a freedom farm if you are doing everything yourself.
You have to slowly let go…
As a matter of fact, the most successful farming business owners slowly hand over every task that they are doing on their farm to team/family members.
With the systems and proper training in place, they are able to maximise the team.
The 6th Component: REWARD and RECOGNISE YOUR TEAM. PROVIDE FEEDBACK. LOOK FOR PRAISE
Notice that in this current generation, service surveys are just everywhere. From text messaging to online surveys, hard-copy feedback sheet and of course, the infamous social media.
It just proves the power of giving feedback.
You do need to go out of your way and give that feedback to each team member for a job well done. A lot of farmers are a little bit guilty about this. Unfortunately, farmers that I meet are pretty hard on themselves.
Not to blame them completely because they were brought up in a very tough environment and because they are hard on themselves, they become hard on their family or team members (this is just a bit of generalisation from me).
As a business owner, you would want to be the very first person to praise your team. Just imagine how doing so extensively motivates and renews the energy of your team.
As a business owner, you would want your team members to see where they can improve. Then use the systems to train them. Make them feel that you’ve got their back!
I grew up in a farming community and looking back, there was not a lot of reward and recognition going on.
In my career as a business coach for 19 years now, I have seen the huge impact on business owners when they focus on rewards and recognition to teams and team members.
So, take the time to provide feedback –
Both positive and negative.
The 7th Component: YOU NEED TO TRUST
Where there is no trust, there is no team.
I remember when I was younger and played Rugby Union, was always in the forwards then moved to the backs when I got older. I was a breakaway – meaning I was like a defender and covered mistakes being made at the backs. My goal was to defend and also be there in attack.
But later in my career, I moved out into the backline and became an inside centre. I was so busy focusing on helping out others do their jobs having this breakaway mentality. Until I realised I was the one creating the holes in the backline. I was the one who allowed people to break through the backline and score thrice. This is all because I wasn’t trusting the people around me.
The loss of trust is very true in the business world. There are those who hand team members tasks but really do not trust that they will do the task well or might do it the exact same way they do.
As a result…
They become controlling as a business owner.
You can never grow as a world-class company if you are like that.
You have to be comfortable handing over tasks to others and TRUST them to do the work.
TRUST that they can perform the same way you do, if not better.
Besides, how can you run a freedom farm if you are doing all the tasks yourself?
This is why you have to:
LET GO
SLOWLY DELEGATE WITH TRUST
GRADUALLY HAND OVER RESPONSIBILITY
Because of trust, some of our top performing farmers in our coaching groups now go on holidays during the busiest times of the year. 3-4 weeks of vacation and come back to see for themselves that their team actually has done a better job than what they could.
THE ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE OF BEING A WORLD-CLASS FARMING BUSINESS OWNER IS NOT ABOUT BEING THE BUSIEST PERSON
But,
BEING THE MOST LAID-BACK AND HIGH YIELDING BUSINESS OWNER
Let go of your fear of control –
A lot of people fear that when they hire someone else, they make less money –
Hang on…
TIME IS YOUR MOST VALUABLE ASSET
…IT IS OKAY TO LET GO.
_________________________________________________________________________
For your quick reference – the 7 Components are:
Clear Job Descriptions
GWC
Set Clear Expectations
Have a system for yearly, quarterly, weekly Planning and Communication.
Put Systems in place and Train your team
Reward and recognize your team. Provide feedback, look for praise
Trust and let go
Again, if at any stage you’re interested in having a conversation about our coaching and mentoring programs, please feel free to reach out.
We run the most incredible Program that helps farmers profit more, work more efficiently and run a world-class business.
Hear the extraordinary results straight from our members and we are also very happy to send information about how the program works.
Email us at support@farmownersacademy.com and a team member or even myself will be in touch.
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Wednesday Jun 13, 2018
Wednesday Jun 13, 2018
3 Ideas to Double your Productivity and Significantly Reduce your Stress Levels
When you think about, it’s not actually time management that you need to focus on. It’s priority management.
Your time is the one resource that once spent, you will never get back.
You can spend some money and then go and make more money, but not your time.
In this Podcast, you will learn -
1.The power of a two-page strategic planner that aligns your entire business to the goals and objectives over the next 10 years.
Andrew shares a link inside the pod cast where you can download this free template
Your business will become so much more efficient once you fill this out
Learn how to bring clarity to your company and how to increase the desire to want to operate at the next level
Become significantly more focused
2. The power of removing bricks, and why you need to do this every week.
Set up a system to prioritise everything you do on your farm
Learn to get everything out of your head and onto paper
Understand why you stay awake at night and how to remove this for good
3. The simple formula to maximise your week and your day.
Learn how to plan your weeks and days
Learn - if it's not scheduled, there is a good chance it won’t get done
Remove stress by sticking to a simple system
Please share this podcast with other farmers.
We hope it helps,
Farm Owners Academy