Episode 198 - Steve Little on Finding YOUR Perfect Business

Transcript

Susan Bratton: Welcome to DishyMix. I'm your host, Susan Bratton, and on today's show you're going to get to meet a friend of mine named Steve Little. Steve is an amazing wonderful human being, a super great guy, and he has a really cool online product, and when I found out about it I wanted immediately to have him on the show for you. Because we talk a lot about business and marketing and advertising and brain science, but we also talk about who we are as far as people and what we want out of our life, our career and our world, what we want in our world. And I know that a lot of you are working in great jobs, but you also potentially have the entrepreneurial spirit, and you may be just simmering yourself on the back burner gaining experience thinking that some day you'd like to do your perfect business. And Steve Little is an entrepreneur of 40 years who's had massive success as a serial entrepreneur who created a product called The Perfect Business Finder. It's at theperfectbizfinder.com. And he's come on to the show today to talk to you about what you can do to find your perfect business. This is going to be fun. So lets welcome him on the show. Hi Steve.

Steve Little: Hey Susan, how are you?

Susan Bratton: I'm great baby. How are you?

Steve Little: I'm fantastic.

Susan Bratton: I'm super excited to have a half an hour to learn all about what you know about how people can find their perfect business. And I also want to let listeners know that Steve put together a special thing for me - thank you Steve...

Steve Little: Absolutely.

Susan Bratton: If you go to theperfectbizfinder.com/dishy you get extra stuff that nobody else gets, and we're going to talk about that. So Steve just, you know, this isn't going to be a sales pitch, this is not a sales pitch for you guys. This is Steve and I working to find out how you can figure out your perfect business and we have some goodies for you. He's my buddy and he came on to make a special thing for you. But lets start with The Perfect Biz Finder and what it is Steve. How does it work?

Steve Little: Well if I could, you know, what's really going on here Susan is, you know, is sort of after all the years that I had been building businesses and so forth frankly I'd retired and didn't know what to do with myself and got a group of people together and, you know, we sort of figured out that the thing that I could really contribute was helping other people figure out how to get into a business that's really going to deliver what they want. And, you know, as I looked around a few years back, you know, even before the economic struggles we see these days, what I saw was a population of, you know, 70 million plus boomers plus a whole generation of people trailing right behind the boomers - the knowledge workers, the people who are really contributing to, you know, to building prosperity in our economy - and they were all arriving at, you know, some really important inflection points in our lives, right. These are the knowledge workers, the people whose back pretty much all of our prosperity is built on, and they're leaving the workforce, either voluntarily or now otherwise, right. And almost none have enough money set aside to really last the rest of their lives, and they really have a lot of productive years left and, you know, they have a lot to offer. But they don't really want to just keep doing what they've been doing; they really want to, they want their next gig, you know, to really allow them to make a significant and meaningful contribution some way and for a whole host of reasons, you know. The best of all possible ways instead for them to accomplish this is to build a business of their own. But there emerge a whole bunch of what I refer to as sort of self-imposed complications associated with the decision to start a business, and, you know, when you throw in the economic turmoil and unemployment and so forth into the mix now you add a lot of pressure to the whole system and the whole problem really gets accelerated and, you know, everything becomes urgent and actually a little more scary, right. But and that's really the fundamental premise of the work I'm doing is what's most important for people to realize in the midst of this decision is that not just any business will do, you know. The single most important factor determining a person's success in business is choosing the right business, like one that really delivers, right, what I would refer to as the personal fulfillment, the lifestyle and the financial returns they expect. But most people focus their attention on the financial returns first thinking that if they have those then they'll be able to realize fulfillment in lifestyle. But the problem is it doesn't work that way, right, and this is sort of what happens is, you know, for a whole laundry list of reasons people, particularly the boomers and the generation just following the boomers, have all kinds of things blocking them and stopping them from really investing themselves and finding and choosing the right business, right. In fact most people don't really have any idea where to begin how to go about, you know, canvassing the universe of possibilities so to speak and find the one that's really going to deliver for them. So most often the very first step they make is the wrong one, and they get sucked into one or more of, you know, thousands of money making schemes and end up wasting time they don't have to waste, losing money they don't have to lose and sadly fail. And even those who make some money ultimately don't experience the success they envision and end up sort of suffering, you know, what I describe as, you know, an unrewarding business that, you know, is actually robbing them of the experience of success they really want. And so witnessing all this, reflecting on my 40 years of building businesses of virtually all kinds, I decided, hey, this is something that I can help people with, right.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Steve Little: So I created the program called The Perfect Biz Finder Program, which is designed to eliminate all the trial, error, guess work, failure from the equation and help people make decisions and take actions that really deliver a business that provides them the fulfillment, the lifestyle and the financial returns they want.

Susan Bratton: Well I think most people would start with "What are my passions and what are my talents," and that's how they would consider finding a business. How does The Perfect Biz Finder work differently than that?

Steve Little: Yeah. There's some stuff underneath that. I think you're absolutely right that, you know, people start there and that's one of the things that actually motivates this population of people - you know, they're in a job, they're probably making good money, they're professionals and, you know, they're relatively satisfied, but they really want more. They want to, sometimes it's "I want to command my own destiny" or sort of that whole story; other times it's, you know, "I want to do something more significant," you know, that kind of thing. But did you realize Susan that the average person completely misses 60% of all the success opportunities available to them each and every day. Now think about that a minute. Any one of those opportunities could make all the difference in a person's life, but most miss them all, right. So what we do and what our system does is we show people how to change the way they interact with the world so to speak so they see and capture more of the opportunities that are available to them all the time, right. Because there's stuff happening all around you all the time, but you know, you're not attuned, you're not tuned into it so to speak. You know, I don't want to get all theorial here, but, you know, you're not really focused in on understanding how all the things that are going on around you can actually serve your vision of a successful business.  That's really what The Perfect Biz Finder's all about. It's a step by step process which through a series of instructions and workbook activities, you know, that walks you through a process and reveals a business that really aligns with your purpose, that excites you and ignites your passions and that delivers the rewards you expect and serves all areas of your life, right. Not just the financial and the business side, but is actually serving things like your relationship with others and your health and fitness and your community contribution and your recreation and so on, right. So that's really what I created. It distills the most important elements of successful business creation from my four decades of experience with learning and presents them in a real easy to follow system. Person can complete the process in 30 days, 45 days tops, just working a little bit each day. And, you know, the kinds of things that sort of get revealed to you are really exciting and, you know, people just are thrilled to recognize the possibilities that are out there and then to realize that they can actually have what's possible for them. So the program itself is comprised of three different components. There's what I refer to as the program [inaudible] workbook that I wrote, which includes this really carefully designed and structured sequence of activities that not only reveals that perfect business but also cultivates what I describe as sort of the thinking techniques necessary to see and achieve what's really possible. The program participants are also provided exclusive access to an online membership community where they're able to connect with me and thousands of other program participants to get their questions answered and interact with others and, you know, get help with development of their business concept. We've seen businesses formed from people connecting inside that community, right, where one guy was really passionate about this part of the business and another person was really passionate about another aspect of a similar business, and in that community they hooked up and they created something really amazing together. So, you know, there, you know, are thousands of dollars worth of other business building tools and training resources in that members area. And then there's an optional upgrade to the entire program which includes a 22 part audio coaching program, which is really sort of the perfect companion product to the workbook. It's basically me working through every single chapter with you in an audio coaching session. So you're really sort of diving into the principles more deeply, I'm giving you illustrations and stories and sort of, you know, having you watch out for some of the traps. It's sort of like having me, you know, a business coach on MP3 playing in your head.

Susan Bratton: Well also Steve you're so articulate and there's something about you that feels very grounded but very motivational, just my experience of you not only on the show today but in general. You just have like a really grounded approach that makes people feel like there's a lot of possibilities, so I can see easily listening to you for 22 segments.

Steve Little: Yeah, well that's true.

Susan Bratton: I think it would be a pleasure.

Steve Little: Well that's good. I'm glad for that.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Steve Little: And, you know, we also have an avenue for sort of personal one on one support or coaching, mentoring, consulting if you will, you know. And a lot of people, they get into this, and we're dealing with in some senses in some parts of the program we're dealing with, you know, deep sort of mental, some sense emotional, even you might say spiritual issues in some sense, you know. And it's hard sometimes to do that on your own. So having the community there where you can connect outside and, you know, throw something out there and see what comes back or ask me a private question so I can help you through a rough spot or something is very valuable, but then...

Susan Bratton: I bet you love doing that too.

Steve Little: You know what, you can tell I...

Susan Bratton: I bet you live to get those questions.

Steve Little: You can probably tell. I mean I hate the marketing part of my business. What I want to do is help people build businesses. I mean that's what really stokes me. And, you know, I've got some of these stories I'm going to share with you that, you know... I mean I just get teary-eyed just thinking about them because people are changing their lives. They're getting what they want out of life and it's just really, really exciting for me.

Susan Bratton: Well it's funny too - and I want to get right to those stories, but I just want to say something in transition, and that is that, you know, I feel like I'm in my perfect business. I feel like my business takes advantage of everything that I value and that I'm passionate about and that I'm good at, you know, so...

Steve Little: Yeah.

Susan Bratton: I'm one of those people who just loves what I do. I leap out of bed every morning wishing I could accomplish more and more and more and I'm a very high performing person, you know.

Steve Little: Yeah, you know, and that's the point right there is that what I want people to get is that every single person can have exactly that.

Susan Bratton: Definitely.

Steve Little: You know, it's not as hard as it sounds, but there's some things you have to pay attention to...

Susan Bratton: Yeah, that makes so much sense.

Steve Little: that we're not taught to pay attention to, right. We're actually taught specifically to not pay attention to them, and what I'm saying is no, no, no, these are the things that make the success happen. 'Cause your work doesn't seem like work, does it?

Susan Bratton: No, it doesn't. But it's funny too because after you talked about The Perfect Biz Finder I thought to myself, "Oh wow, I wish I had the time to..." You know, I don't need to do this because I love what I do, but I would really enjoy going through the process.

Steve Little: Sure.

Susan Bratton: And I want to say one thing too. You've described the whole product and what it's like, but I want to make sure that people understand that it's $77. I mean it's like that's what we'd spend on lunch, you know what I mean?

Steve Little: Yeah, that's right.

Susan Bratton: Like, so Steve has created theperfectbizfinder.com/dishy. It's $77 bucks, so if you're even thinking at all that you want to do it, get it, you know.

Steve Little: Yeah, it's pretty much a no-brainer.

Susan Bratton: But you've got a bunch of freebies for him so they can see if they like you or at least discover some things about themselves. So give me two brief stories of people that you've helped find a good business so we get an idea of what that's like 'cause I want to also leave plenty of time for you to talk about overcoming the top four success saboteurs, which is the content part of what we're doing today.

Steve Little: Yeah.

Susan Bratton: So lets get quickly through a couple of examples. I want to hear some stories of who you've helped and what it's been like, so go with that.

Steve Little: Yeah. It's been amazing, as I've mentioned. You know, in the past 22 months since launching this program we've helped start something like 2,000 successful businesses...

Susan Bratton: Nice!

Steve Little: It's a big number, and they range all over the place, right. And I'll spare you the details of this story but I have to say it. We have a guy whose built a business using a portable solar power generation system that provides electricity to remote villages around western Africa. I mean you talk about changing the world, that guy's changing the world, right.

Susan Bratton: Yeah, that's exactly the kind of story we love to hear.

Steve Little: You know, that's just an amazing story. I have another woman, 70 some odd years old, she's created a super successful online membership site that teaches people how to knit, right. Amazing stories, right, all over the place. So here are the two that I really wanted to share with you though. One of them is Tara Cline, right. She had been laid off from a job that she hated anyway. On her way home she called her husband to tell him, you know, what was going on and they decided that, you know, this was their opportunity for her to start her business, but like most people she didn't really know what it should be and, you know, how to go about doing it. I mean she had some ideas. She knew she was passionate about children and charities and toys and that kind of thing, but she didn't really know what to do, right. And she was really full of a lot of self-doubt and trepidation. I mean when you get laid off there's all kinds of mental stuff...

Susan Bratton: Yeah, it gets you.

Steve Little: Yeah, I mean it's bad news, right. But she purchased the home study program, the Perfect Biz Finder program, and it helped her zero in on a business that allowed her to enjoy her passion for children, toys and charity. And within 30 days she'd launched the website called Tara's Toy Box, you can go there right now. It's an online toy wholesaler. Within 60 days she'd sold $500,000 worth of toys, donated $50,000 to charity. Now that's an incredible story, right. Now she's continued to grow that business into a really profitable enterprise, but she's also created a second business around working with children and helping them with something she calls 'dream coaching' to develop a capacity which helps kids really go for what they want in life - whether it's, you know, an athletic competition or whatever it might be. So really exciting stuff. You know, she's doing big things in the world.

Susan Bratton: That's an awesome story.

Steve Little: Right.

Susan Bratton: She made money with the thing she loves.

Steve Little: Exactly. Hey, we got another guy, John Jameson. Retired from a pretty successful primary career, right, so you know, he's not a young guy, right. And he had a real passion for sailing, right. He loved it his whole life. This was what he was all about. But, you know, and he knew he wanted to do something, like you mentioned, like build a business around sailing. But he knew what he didn't want. I mean he didn't want to like give sailing lessons and, you know, sort of the first things that come to mind. He wanted to have a much bigger impact, but he didn't know how to connect the dots and build a business that really delivered what he wanted, right, in terms of lifestyle and fulfillment. Purchased the program, went through it diligently. I spent a lot of time with him on the community as a matter of fact, and within 60 days he'd created a business which includes an online membership community called Saltysailors.com, you can go there right now, which serves all aspects of sailing - everything from teaching people how to sail, providing access to lessons and so forth, providing hard to find navigation charts, you know, sailing vacations, sailing equipment, you know, there's everybody sharing everything. I mean it's an amazing site, and as you go there you'll see its turned into a very, very lucrative enterprise for him and it allows him to do what he loves every single day, which is sail. I mean that's just really exciting stuff.

Susan Bratton: Really good. It sounds awesome, and it was through going through all of the soul searching that helped him find that, huh?

Steve Little: Well there's a lot of soul searching, but there's a system, there's a systematic approach too. I mean there's a sequence, there's a structured sequence of things I'm taking you through. And it's really sort of interesting - I don't want to get into too much detail 'cause I know we have very limited time - but, you know, the way I did it I intentionally designed the exercises, the activities to be, you know, out of normal sequence. In other words, you don't like do one and then build on it the next one and build on the next and build on the next; I don't do it that way. What I have you do is really these discreet activities that are completely different. And what ends up happening is you get the very last one and it's called Requisite Assembly, and what it does is it has you re-sequence everything, and when it's all re-sequenced you're looking at your business plan.

Susan Bratton: Oh wow! That's really cool. I love that.

Steve Little: Because what it does is it means that in every single one of those activities you're completely authentic with that activity.

Susan Bratton: Yeah, yeah, you're not using what you just wrote feeling like you have to justify that.

Steve Little: Right.

Susan Bratton: Uh huh, that makes sense. I like it.

Steve Little: Right.

Susan Bratton: All right, well I love the Salty Sailor story, that's super great. And I really want to get to the conversation about how to overcome the top four success saboteurs. There are four things that keep us from being successful that you've identified. Is that what it is?

Steve Little: Yeah, well there's many more than four, but here are the top four.

Susan Bratton: Okay. And now you have an e-book for us with even more detail on this, but you can only get it if you go to theperfectbizfinder.com/dishy, right? You put it into this for us, right?

Steve Little: That's right. It's totally, it's prepared exclusively for you and your listeners...

Susan Bratton: I love that.

Steve Little: Nobody else will get it.

Susan Bratton: Thank you Steve.

Steve Little: My gift to you.

Susan Bratton: Yay!

Steve Little: And I can tell you right now though looking at the clock, there's no way I'm going to get through the detail in this session today. So you're going to want this free book. It gives you a lot more detail than I'm going to be able to cover today.

Susan Bratton: Awesome!

Steve Little: But, you know, so basically it comes down to this: everyone struggles, right. I mean that's just what life is all about, right. I mean when you're talking about business, whether you're in business or working for someone else, right, these are four success saboteurs that definitely affect you right now. I will say that entrepreneurs, by virtue of their unique traits, are particularly susceptible to this insidious assortment of challenges and productivity to accomplishment. So, you know, if you're out there, you know, getting ready to start on your own just realize that you're going to be more susceptible to these than the average person, okay. But what's important for you and your listeners to understand is that the key difference between  highly successful people and everyone else is that they don't become subject or victim to these things. Instead they innovate personal behaviors and practices and strategies that equip them to overcome these kinds of challenges, right. And so that's what I want to try and give you today is a couple of tips that will equip you to overcome these things so you don't become a victim of them, okay. The first success saboteur - I know you're going to agree with me on this one Susan - is multitasking, right. Now the urge to multitask can become completely overwhelming, right. Now here's a couple of symptoms that you can check for, right. I was guilty of all of these. Still am. But do you find yourself clicking from window to window on your computer, writing articles, responding to emails, browsing the web in frenetic time slices, right?

Susan Bratton: Oh yeah.

Steve Little: You might?

Susan Bratton: Oh god Steve, of course.

Steve Little: Is your office cluttered with three, six, twelve or even more projects in progress?

Susan Bratton: Yes.

Steve Little: Okay. Are you proud to report to others that you're a good multitasker?

Susan Bratton: No.

Steve Little: Okay, good for you. That's good, you pass that one. Have you ever gotten to the end of the day feeling exhausted and spent, look back and felt like even though you did a lot you didn't accomplish very much? Yeah, of course.

Susan Bratton: I don't want to admit it.

Steve Little: Everybody does, right. So if any of those are true - it doesn't even have to be all of them - any one of them, then you've been a victim of the multitasking saboteur. The fact is that multitasking is not a badge of honor; it is instead, you know, a silent saboteur of your productivity and success. While it may feel like you're busy and doing a lot of work, at the end of the day you'll find that while there might be a lot of checkmarks on a task list, the accomplishments of the things that you're most committed to accomplishing is not there, okay. So that's the first one. We don't want that. The second saboteur, distraction and interruption. Now whether you're busy working in a corporate office space or at home on the dining room table, you're subject to a wide variety of distractions and interruptions. The office, you know, coworkers stop by and ask a question or impose their coffee break on your schedule, right. Or when you're working from home you can be subject to children coming and going, pets needing attention, delivery packages or, you know, the one that gets me is the coffee pot in the next room, right. But the most pervasive distraction of all is email, right. Now before I recognized it, I'd been known to hit the send/receive button more than a hundred times in single day, right. It's almost like I was hoping for the next interrupt for go work on, right. But here's the thing: what I learned is that in a study that I read a few years ago now is that you lose between 20 and 40 minutes of real productivity for every interruption. Imagine that. So three or four interruptions and you've toasted a whole day of productivity, right. So you can't be successful if you're constantly dealing with distraction and interruption. That's the second saboteur. The third saboteur is friction. Now friction is any inefficiency created by anything that's not supporting you. It can show up a bunch of different ways. For instance, a poor performing computer or, you know, slow internet connection or poor ineffective interpersonal communications with your team, your organization or others can create multiple kinds of friction that can steal enormous amounts of mental energy, right. Here's a good one: uncomfortable or noisy or cluttered work environment creates another really often subconscious kind of friction. Maintaining awareness of all this clutter and the things that you're not getting done robs you of vital thought capacity and constantly slows your progress. It's like swimming in peanut butter, right. I said that because you like peanut butter.

Susan Bratton: I do. Crunchy please.

Steve Little: So you can imagine, there's literally hundreds of causes of friction, right, that can just rob you and curtail your success and continue to sort of drag you down and keep you from getting where you want to go. So we want to eliminate those. The fourth one is mind chatter. Now do you ever sit quietly or try and sit quietly and find, you know, it difficult to concentrate on any one thing for more than ten or fifteen seconds?

Susan Bratton: Not me personally but I've worked on that considerably.

Steve Little: Okay.

Susan Bratton: I really work on deep focus and attention.

Steve Little: Okay, so you have some practices already in place.

Susan Bratton: Uh huh.

Steve Little: That's great because now you...

Susan Bratton: It is a practice, yeah.

Steve Little: Yeah, 'cause if you don't do it, you know, you're like everybody else, and you know, people describe it like standing in a completely dark room full of people, all of whom are speaking, you know, but you can't hear any conversation, right. It's like, you know, being at a dark cocktail party or something, right. The bottom line is mind chatter keeps you from focusing your thought energy, right, so you can't really get focused on the things and the accomplishments and the outcomes that you're looking for. So it'll rob you of all of that, right. So, you know, I have some examples of that but I think, you know, everybody probably gets what that's all about, right. So those are the top four success saboteurs, and I think to some degree everyone would agree that they have been subject to at least one of them at some time, but probably if they're honest with themselves probably pretty regularly, wouldn't you say?

Susan Bratton: Yeah, definitely. I mean I think what you're really talking about is that all of these specific things are internal and external disruptions that keep you off task.

Steve Little: Yeah the idea, what's really happening is they're keeping you from focusing on what actually needs to be done. So you're not making the right decisions and you're not taking the right actions simply because you can't get the mental horsepower applied to the issue to really figure out what it is that needs to be done, right.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Steve Little: And that robs you of your success. You'll be busy and you'll be checking stuff off your list and you'll be exhausted at the end of the day, but you won't actually be advancing the things that you're really trying to advance, the things you're really committed to, okay. Now I'm sure you've heard the old saying, "It takes 21 days of consistent repetition to create or imprint a new habit," right?

Susan Bratton: I actually hadn't heard that. Or maybe I've heard that but I've heard other, you know, timeframes too.

Steve Little: 21 days is the magic number according to, you know, all the brain people.

Susan Bratton: If you do something for 21 days it creates new neural network that allows you to have success with a particular new task.

Steve Little: Right, but the key is consistency of application. What you may not have heard - whether it's 21 days or otherwise - is that you can't interrupt the process. In other words, you can't go 12 days and then resume it. If you stop at 12, guess what, you have to go back to day 1 and start over.

Susan Bratton: Got it. All right.

Steve Little: So the 21 days is really important, right. So what I'm going to encourage people to do is try what I'm about to give you for 21 days, right, and you'll see that, you know, you'll prevail over obstacles that have previously kept you from accomplishing things. You'll look back and realize that, "Holy cow, I'm getting more done than I ever thought possible," okay. The first one - I'm going fast 'cause I'm watching the clock, okay. The first one is clear focus, right. Now this is going to use a calendar but in a way that most people don't use one today. So your objective is to manage your activities, all of your activities - that means everything you're doing, not just your work. I mean, you know, your exercise and your time with your family and everything - everything in blocks of time, and the minimum block of time is two hours. Two hours of dedicated uninterrupted focused time for any project that's important, any important activity, right. More than two hours is better, but two hours is an absolute minimum. Now within each block of time you're going to work in a quiet comfortable frictionless workspace, right - thinking back to the other saboteurs - on one thing and one thing only. No multitasking, no emailing, no other distractions, right. It's one thing and one thing only. You have a clear workspace, you should have no distractions, you're just going to focus on that one two hour block of time. Okay, now in a separate lesson I think I mentioned the other day called Target Your Triumphs I reveal specific and pretty empowering methods for recording these activities. You know, I won't go into that 'cause we don't have time, but, you know, suffice it to say that when you record that activity, that two hour block of time, record it in your calendar as if what you would intend to accomplish is already accomplished, like "I completed the second draft or my book," or whatever it is, right. So it's in completion, not, you know, "Writing my book." See what I'm getting at?

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Steve Little: Okay. Right, we don't have to go any further than that. But again, you're going to invest two hours minimum dedicated clear focused effort, right. Then, very important, number two is between these blocks of clear focus you'll take 15 to 30 minutes to completely and totally relax. Again, no texting, no returning phone calls, no filing papers or any other kind of busy work, right. Nothing! Instead get up, get out of your office, go for a walk, close your eyes, meditate, take a nap, listen to some calming music, do whatever it is you do, go eat some peanut butter, to completely relax, okay, right. This has a profound impact on your psyche and generates a really powerful experience of accomplishment and success. You're actually carry8ing the accomplishment because you're getting the relaxation along the way, right. That's going to give you an enormous amount of energy, right. So it'll be like, you know, miraculously fresh inspiration when you sit back down at your desk for the next two hour block, okay. Well it's counterintuitive to think that, you know, not pressing on to the next important task or project immediately will result in, you know, in an increase of higher quality output. Trust me, it will, right. If you take the time to break off and really allow your mind to rest, that next two hour block of time you'll be incredibly productive and you'll get a lot more done, a lot more of the important stuff done, right. And it'll be effortless. It'll be, you know, more pleasurable as opposed to this sort of frenetic race, you know, to some nonexistent destination that you're chasing right now, okay?

Susan Bratton: Yes.

Steve Little: So that's the second thing. The third thing is create routines. For everything that is important to do create a routine. You know, the extent to which you can establish consistent routines, it will free up enormous amounts of, guess what, positive mental energy and think time for the generation of your really high leverage inspired activities, right. Steven [Inaudible] says it this way, "The time management is a misnomer," right. We don't manage time; we manage ourselves, right. So by creating routines you eliminate or at least reduce the deleterious effects of mismanagement of yourself, okay. When I hear people complain about not having enough time, I'm immediately reminded that their challenge is not really about the availability of time. We all have the same amount of time, right. It's really about the responsible and productive management of yourself and the usage of the time that you have, right. Now there's another layer to this technique, you know, but we're not going to go into that today, but it is available to you in the report and then obviously in the program itself. But the important thing to realize is that you're going to tend to reduce this one. People will tend to deny that you can create routines, or they'll carry with them the idea that routines are too limiting and restrictive and they want to be free to, you know, do what they want. But what I want you to do is try it for 21 days, and what you're going to find is that you're going to have more freedom, have more energy and be, you know, be more productive with routines than you would be doing it the way you're doing it.

Susan Bratton: I really get the routine piece. As an example, you and I are recording this episode at 11 AM on a Thursday because I always record my DishyMix at 11 AM on a Thursday so that I never have to worry when I start my week, like "What day is that I'm doing the show and recording it for whatever following week it comes out," and, you know, I know that I have four days to prepare, I'm going to have a call with you Tuesday or Wednesday, I'm going to get the stuff I need to do a good job.

Steve Little: It's really empowering, isn't it?

Susan Bratton: It just makes life easier. I mean it just reduces the friction and the worry about knowing when it's going to happen.

Steve Little: Or what to do next. I mean I...

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Steve Little: I wake up, I mean now that I've got this so deeply entrenched in my life I wake up every morning, I never have to worry about anything, I just have to do what's on my calendar, that's all.

Susan Bratton: Yes.

Steve Little: I just have to do what's there.

Susan Bratton: Yeah...

Steve Little: My workout's there, my eating's there, everything's there.

Susan Bratton: Yeah, there's a freedom...

Steve Little: Yeah.

Susan Bratton: in routine.

Steve Little: I mean I can change it, right, so I'm free to change it, but I have to change it in a structured way and that's how I get everything done, right.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Steve Little: See what most people do is they put things on lists and they never really allocate that, well that little item on that list is really a six hour project, right.

Susan Bratton: Oh yeah.

Steve Little: So everything gets blown up, right. Okay, all right now the next one is rest, renew and recover, okay. Now this one is really big especially for entrepreneurial types, okay, you know, the go-go gadget people, right. It's really challenging for busy people but you got to do it, right. You know, in one dimension it may refer to, you know, freedom to pursue inspirations and so forth, but the bottom line is if left unabated the energy and enthusiasm drawn out of you in the pursuit of all this passion, especially if you're doing a business that you're really passionate about, it can actually consume your life and you can literally lose touch with, you know, why you were doing it to begin with, right. You can find yourself down the road, believe me, I've done this more than once in my life, way down the road looking back going, "How the heck did I get here. This is nothing like what I wanted," okay, right. So you have to allow yourself, you have to build in, the opportunity to rest, renew and recover. Now here's the thing: the way the human brain functions, the only way to do this, you can't short circuit this one, is to completely unplug and remove yourself from your business pursuit all together for an extended period of time. That means, you know, no cheating the system, right. You are out of your business, you're out of the workspace, you're not talking to people in business relationships, you're not sending a quick text or a quick email or whatever it is, right. You want to invest this time completely and totally to rest, relax and recover, right. You're going to renew your connection with loved ones and yourself quite frankly and who you are, take a trip, play with your kids, go to the movies, whatever, right. This one's hard for people, especially when they work at home, right, 'cause their office is like right there. They walk by it on the way to the bedroom or something, right, and they can get dragged in there - "Oh look, there's a voicemail, I'd better go check it." No. I recognize that, you know, there's an urgent rush to get your business up and running and profitable and you're driven to work late in the evening, you're passionate about what you're doing, over the weekend, throughout the holidays, even on vacation. And, you know, I know that working like this is part of the sort of the romantic image of the damn the torpedo's risk taking entrepreneur. But the fact is, take it from a 40 year veteran, this approach is totally and utterly completely wrong, okay. Many are going to tell you that successful business ownership requires you to defer the things you really want until later, you know, after you've made enough money or whatever. They're wrong. The single most important principle I'd like you to get out of this report and out of this time today is that there is no later in your success pursuit. There is only now. There's no destination called success, there's now. You're going to start having your success, you're going to start experiencing your success right now by putting in place some of these different activities that I've just given you, right. Don't fall victim to the notion that you have to sacrifice or defer the things that you're really committed to, right. If you design it properly your perfect business will deliver them to you right now and frankly forever, you'll experience success just like you described it Susan where you were stoked to get out and go on everyday. I know...

Susan Bratton: I really am, I really am.

Steve Little: You know, and I know what that feels like. You can tell that I'm like rocking on this thing all the time...

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Steve Little: I love this part of what I do. There's parts I don't love but, you know, that's the way it goes.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Steve Little: But I know it works because it worked for me. I know it'll work for you because its worked for the thousands of others that I've given it to.

Susan Bratton: Nice! Steve, you've fired me up man.

Steve Little: All right.

Susan Bratton: Thank you so much. And I really, really like the process of The Perfect Biz Finder. I like that idea of the requisite assembly, the reassembly and the activities that are all mixed up so that you get to what's really underneath...

Steve Little: Yeah.

Susan Bratton: and what you really desire and what's really going to make you happy. I want everybody to be as happy as the two of us are in doing what they love.

Steve Little: That's fantastic, really fantastic.

Susan Bratton: So thank you for that. Now when people come to theperfectbizfinder.com/dishy, they get your video series. You've got a whole series of videos, The Ten Surprising Business Killing Mistakes That Consistently Take 90% Of Entrepreneurs To Their Knees. And then you also put in the Overcome The Top Four Success Saboteurs with more detail about like creating routines, you know, you tell us exactly how to do that...

Steve Little: Right.

Susan Bratton: and some of these things in that. And everybody can have both those things if they come to the slash Dishy piece. Otherwise you'll only get the videos, you won't get the free report.

Steve Little: Right.

Susan Bratton: Perfect! And Steve, thank you so much for coming on DishyMix today and getting us fired up about our possibility, our potential and our passion.

Steve Little: Fantastic! Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it, and look, you know, everybody out there, just go for it. You can have it all, you just got to go.

Susan Bratton: Go get it all. I'm your host, Susan Bratton. Thank you so much for listening to DishyMix today. I hope you have an awesome day, and I hope you'll connect with us next week too. Take care.