Spring springs - but have I sprung too far? A blog on working too hard... and hard working too.

May ALWAYS creeps up on me. I don't know about you. Spring springs and sometimes I don't even notice it has done - so deep is my winter mental slumber. 

However, a lovely day out yesterday at the local park and farm, with my wife, Leanne and my daughter Mia snapped me out of it. 

Whilst running to get ice cream, pulling branches to create flower showers, and stroking baby lambs I realised a few things. 

These 'things' had been introduced to my mind a few hours previously whilst waiting for the bath to run - when I got a chance to literally flick through Re-work. A classic book by 37 Signals. 

2 pages literally jumped out at me.  One on Workaholism which I fear I might be slipping into again under the guise of 'start up zeal' and the other is something I think the whole team I am working with needs to ask itself - why do we do what we do? 

Both are BIG thoughts for now 9.00am on a Monday morning. I hope they inspire you to act before spring has gone.... :) 

Workaholism

Working more doesn’t mean you care more or get more done. It just means you work more.

Has there ever been a time when you’ve felt wildly overworked? I’m pretty sure everyone will answer in the affirmative to that question. Now let me ask you this:since you are your own boss, why do you choose to work yourself like a slavedriver?

While you could probably give me any number of reasons to validate your workaholism, the simple fact is that overworking is not necessary. There is always a better way — a more efficient way — to get things done. You just need to figure out what that way is and apply it to your business.

I grew up with a father who was obsessed with his work. He dedicated more to his business than he would now say was healthy. I am determined to avoid the same mistake he made — I am passionate about leading a balanced life that involves work and play in equal measures. I am sure you feel the same, and yet so many of us still overwork ourselves.

Our culture celebrates the idea of the workaholic. We hear about people burning the midnight oil. The pull all-nighters and sleep at the office. It’s considered a badge of honour to kill yourself over a project. No amount of work is too much.

How many times have you come across someone who acts as if their ridiculously long working hours are something to be proud of? Can you actually recognize times when you have acted in that way yourself? It’s utterly absurd when you stop to consider it — why should working too hard be something you’re proud of? Wouldn't building a successful business while working reasonable hours be more impressive?

You may say it’s all very well and good to say that one should work less, but how do you actually go about doing it? Well, I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I think Rework offers some quite compelling statements for you to consider carefully:

• Workaholics wind up creating more problems than they solve.
• [Overworking] isn’t sustainable over time. When the burnout crash comes — and it will — it’ll hit that much harder.
• [Workaholics] try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force.
• No one makes sharp decisions when tired.
• Workaholics aren’t heroes…The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done.

I like that last one especially. Give it some thought.

Reasons to Quit

It’s easy to put your head down and just work on what you think needs to be done. It’s a lot harder to pull your head up and ask why.

No one likes giving up. It can be relieving to do so but it’s rarely a good feeling. After all, we live in a culture that directly associates giving up with failure. If you stop trying to do something, you have failed in your endeavor.

That may be the case, but I’d rather fail than carry on regardless. Surely applying yourself to something that will eventually fail is far more of a failure than recognizing the futility of your efforts and calling it a day ahead of time?

If you ever feel like you are going down the wrong path or that the work you are doing is not necessarily in your business’ best interests, take a moment to ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the motivation behind what you are doing?
• Who benefits from what you are doing?
• What problem are you solving?
• Is what you are doing useful?
• Are you adding value?
• Is there an easier way?
• What could you be doing instead?
• Is it worth the time/cost/stress?

These are great questions for anyone working in the start up to ask themselves, or any business for that matter. Is there an easier way? Who really benefits from what you are doing? All BIG questions for our team meeting today. Time to get "springing" into action at Justaxi in Manchester. 

Mistaken Identity, HeartBleed, Happiness, Advertising and a Vow to do something different.

I watched Mistaken Identity last night with my lovely lady. The film is really not that funny and a bit sad really, in ways, I think, the creators probably hadn't thought.

But anyways - it contains a few nuggets of wisdom.

One about identity and passwords and things that we should protect. Which means this morning I updated most (if not all) of my passwords. With fear of what heartbleed is doing. 

The other point I but here for my daughter Mia to read later on in life.

It's that money simply does NOT buy you happiness. 

The lady in the film steals people's identities and then their money.

But for me it's more about the lack of happiness this brings her and the fact that she only buys things to interact with the very shop assistants selling her things.

Anyhoo this is what someone MUCH wiser than me has to say about it all...as Mr Chopra has pointed about about modern life...

"This is where a very bad idea enters the picture. It holds that money buys happiness, and the more money you have, the happier you will be. In a sense, capitalism runs on this idea, but I'm not writing to outline the flaws in capitalism. Every economic system generates its own myths and is blind to its own defects if you believe in the system. The real problem with "money buys happiness" is twofold.

First, it's not true beyond a very limited point. Having enough money to be comfortable produces more happiness than living with the stress of poverty and want. Beyond this fairly modest state of financial security (not so modest if you were born into a poor country or have an impoverished background in a rich one) money brings more stress than it's worth.

Positive psychologists seem pretty sure about this finding, looking at a broad range of subjects, although of course there are exceptions - rich people who seem exceedingly happy and poor people who seem the same. Even so, if you really care about your happiness more than your bank account, you shouldn't devote your life to the pursuit of wealth, no matter how much our society glorifies being rich and mythologizes the wealthy as if they live in a paradise on earth.

The second reason that "money buys happiness" is such a bad idea is subtler. The pursuit of money prevents you from finding happiness another way. I hold the minority position about happiness, the one that says lasting happiness depends on our state of awareness, and to find the highest state of happiness, you must reach a higher state of consciousness.

The same view has been held for centuries by all the world's wisdom traditions, and ironically, now is the best time to test it out. In the past, the average person was helpless in the face of poverty, war, and disease. That's no longer true for millions of people who have enough control over their destiny to pursue happiness rather than simply try to survive.

It would be a shame to waste this golden opportunity by thoughtlessly adhering to such a bad idea as "money buys happiness." From the seed of this idea grows offspring, such as the idea that poverty means that you are an inferior person, a loser, or the idea that winning is everything, since winning implies monetary rewards.

Then there's the idea that you can use your money to buy so many glittery toys and distractions that these will constitute happiness, and so on. The truth is that happiness is an inner pursuit that is very different from the pursuit of pleasure or the amassment of a fortune. No one should accept this as a given; it needs to be tested out personally.

In the end, the message of the world's wisdom traditions is a call to find out the truth for yourself.

 It just helps to clear away the underbrush of untruths, and "money buys happiness" is just that.


Deepak Chopra, MD, Founder of The Chopra Foundation, Co-Founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, coauthor of Super Brain with Rudolph Tanzi and for more information visit The Universe Within. Come to the Chopra Foundation Sages and Scientists Symposium 2014."

To end I leave you Mia (and others that might read this) with a lovely advertisement from a country far away. 

Which proves for me two things: 

1. Advertising CAN do something positive.

2. Far away places are somehow much better than ours.

The advert is on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZGghmwUcbQ

The other reason is that at 14.04 today I am going to vow (whilst outside) to re start my own business.

Doing something outside of my time with  Justaxi - Manchester's taxi comparison app

Why 14.04pm you wonder? No reasons apart from it being 14.04 and 14.04.14.

I hope 4's are powerful. 1024 seems to be doing well with them :)

As the idea is in mobile gaming - perhaps it is something I can do with Justaxi as well?

What people really want is for you to hear them and to do the right thing.

On the dawn of one of the most important focus group's of my life with my client JusTaxi - Manchester's taxi fare comparison app. 

And my birthday being tomorrow as well, Seth Godin's blog below is a wonderful piece to reflect upon.

"Most of the time, people don't want a refund or a bonus. What they really want is for you to hear them and to do the right thing. What if every manager and every customer contact in your organization bought into that?

Here are some things you can do that don't cost any money (but they certainly require effort):

Treat your employees with care and respect

Be consistent in your actions

Keep your promises

Grant others their dignity

Give credit

Take responsibility

When wrong, offer a heartfelt apology

Don't be a jerk

Take the time to actually listen to people

Volunteer to handle the issue

Care"

We do a lot of these at Justaxi - Manchester taxi fare comparison app - but perhaps at Great Marketing Works - Dan Sodergren - doesn't do enough of them. 

Here’s a simple way to validate your startup idea: Amazingly powerful...

A really nice idea which is worth thinking about and implementing for our next app iteration with Justaxi - Manchester's taxi comparison app - so fair play Justin Jackson who wrote this. 

It's so simple but amazingly  powerful - I think as it is so simple - and....so.... 

"Here’s a simple way to validate your startup idea: take a piece of paper, and write out the names of 5 people that need your product.

Just 5 people.

This is an effective test, because it makes it real. If you built this thing, who would buy it?

Can’t think of 5 people? That’s a red flag. Are you targeting a product at a group of people you don’t yet have a connection with?

“Having a connection with people is really important. A lot of people build tools without thinking about the people that are using them.” – Alex Hillman

Eventually, when you’re bigger and more successful, you might have anonymous customers – people that find you on the web and click the buy button without any social interaction.

But at the beginning, when you’re deciding what to build, knowing a few potential customers by name proves something. It shows that you’re involved in their community; that you’ve been listening to their problems. When you can name your first customers, the people you know need a solution, you can build your product with confidence.

(When I say “know people by name”, this includes the online personas of folks you’ve met through forums, Twitter and other online communities.)

Recently, Nathan Barry gave me some good writing advice that also applies to products:

“To write good content that people care about, write to one person. A specific person. My book Designing Web Applicationswas written to my brother-in-law, Philip. I wrote what I knew would help him. If your writing is truly valuable to that one person, your ideas will be valuable to many.”

Make sure your idea connects with a genuine human need. Before you get too excited about building something, think about who you’re building it for."

As in the excitement of building something, many developers forget human beings will have to WANT it. 

Someone else written about mobile apps - like Justaxi - are that great apps grant a wish. 

I wonder, if we are honest, does Justaxi at the moment fulfil a wish for a chosen demographic? 

Here are 7 P's I can believe in from James Caan from Start up Loans

In my marketing training courses, I laugh about how bad the 7 P's of marketing are.

They maybe a teaching aid - but not a great learning aid - and add very little to real marketing on the ground.

But.... Here are 7 P's I can believe in from James Caan who's start up loans company got Great Marketing Works to do a social media training workshop for their clients the other week.

Small world... the great 7 P's for starting your own business.... I wonder which ones we have at Justaxi - Manchester's taxi comparison app?

The full article is here... 

Perseverance

No one is going to become a millionaire overnight and there are plenty of entrepreneurs, including myself, who have suffered failures. If you fail the first time around then don’t just give up. Pick yourself up, dust yourself down and then start all over again. I believe you never stop learning and growing and even the low points have been important to my development.


Patience

Every journey has to start somewhere and businesses have to be nurtured and developed. It takes time and effort to build up a successful company and you should not expect to make huge profits immediately. The main thing you should be focusing on is getting a stable foothold in the market and making people aware of your brand. All the best companies take time to develop and you need to understand that Rome was not built in a day.


Positivity

There is a very thin line between confidence and arrogance but everyone who is successful in life has to have their fair share of self-belief. Business is about making people have confidence and belief in you and the service or product you are offering. If you do not believe in yourself then how are you going to get other people to believe in what you are doing?


Prudence

I have always been a big believer in keeping overheads to a minimum. Of course, being successful in business comes with its rewards but in the early days you should put as much back into the business as you can. When those payments first start coming in don’t fall into the trap of splashing out on expensive items that are not necessary; concentrate on the basics. The first rule of business is always to keep a close on eye on profit margins so you can build a company that is going to survive if and when the hard times come along.


Panache

Obviously, you don’t want to be the kind of person who stands out in the crowd for all the wrong reasons but there is no harm in having a bit of style and panache. Business is all about selling yourself as much as anything and I believe even in the business world, people like someone who has a bit of character and a certain sense of style.


Perceptiveness

If you understand what makes other people tick then it can be a great help when it comes to sealing that all important deal or landing a new piece of business. Making a successful pitch or presentation is all about being able to understand exactly what your client wants and then being able to deliver on your promises.


Passion

The most important quality of all. You should wake up every day raring to get out there and do business. It’s tough but it should never feel like a chore and you should have absolute belief in your ability and your business. If you want to be the best at anything then you have to really care and even make some personal sacrifices along the way. If you're not prepared to dedicate yourself to the business it then there is no point in setting up on your own.

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Ok we have 5 of them.... I would like us to be a bit more perceptive and passionate. As I truly believe that with the right customer feedback, the right branding and marketing and the right app experience we can create some new and amazing for taxi rides not just in Manchester but in the world. So it's not just about getting the best taxi prices in Manchester but something else.

An app that could really help people too i.e be safer and be happier. Both more important that money saving, don't you think?  What do you think?