You may not know that besides being funny, Adams is a very perceptive thinker about a lot of things. Many of them are business related. His book “The Dilbert Principle” is a very funny compilations of some of his early cartoons. Then the last chapter is a very insightful riff on how to run a company the right way. Sure it’s tongue in cheek but you could teach a college course from this chapter if you didn’t tell people who the author is – it’s really good stuff.

Takeaway:

• Read Scott Adams’ blog

[tags] entrepreneur, Scott Adams, Dilbert, management, small business [/tags]

D – Definition. Some good stuff about how to define what you really want out of life and how to look at how much it will cost.

E – Elimination. Great stuff on how to do what is the most important and impactful and get rid of the rest. Entrepreneurs have more freedom to do this than most employees

A – Automation. How to “outsource” your entire income stream. This is the garbage part. Sure it works for him (maybe). It’s about selling something on the web through google ads. But not everyone can (or should) do it. And just because it worked for him doesn’t mean luck didn’t have a lot to do with it.

L – Liberation. How to live wherever you want. Some interesting ideas on travel. But not everyone wants to be a globetrotter.

Takeaway:

• The book is worth reading. Especially the first 2 parts. Just don’t believe the “anyone can make a fortune on the web while living on a sailboat” myth that was popular in 1998.

• Yes there is an element of luck. Just like Ferriss, I’m also a Remote-Control-CEO and I know it can’t work to this extreme with every business – although it does for me. I truly believe every business can benefit tremendously from the things he shares.
• And of course there is a bit of hype, but it’s well written just the same. And the concept of a 4 hour work week is actual reality for him. Not just fluff.
• No it won’t work for everyone, but the main reason for that is most people won’t believe it (so they won’t even try) or won’t be as honest with themselves as you need to be to make it work.

Now the Good News

• There are a lot of great concepts in the book that can be useful to all entrepreneurs.
• It’s well written and enjoyable (if a bit too long)
• It requires a massive attitude change for most people. But Ferriss is grounded enough to know you have to change your actions as well. He gives a lot of detailed, step-by-step actions you can take.
• He’s a bend the rules type of guy which should resonate with most entrepreneurs. He says the concepts will work for employees too and gives some adaptations to use if you’re one of them. Never having been a employee, I can only guess how well they’d work. As a boss, I can tell you I’d love it if an employee wanted to do this.

Best Practical Concept: (so far – I’m only half way done) Mini-retirement
Why work for 40 years at something you hate trying to amass enough money and retain enough health in order to finally have a life you hope to enjoy? Instead, Ferriss aims to distribute “mini-retirements” throughout life instead of hoarding the recovery and enjoyment for the fool’s gold of retirement. By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable, It’s the perfect example of having your cake and eating it too.

He does give a lot of practical advice on how to actually do this.

Best Philosophical Concept: Happiness = Excitement
Obviously if you’re going to make such a drastic change as to only work 4 hours a week, you’ll have a lot of time to fill with other things. You’d better know what you want from the other 36, 56, or is it 96 hours you’ll free up. Ferriss gives a lot of practical tips on how to do it, but if you don’t know why you’re doing it you probably won’t even try.

But asking people what they really want or what their ultimate goals are is often too vague in a context like this. Most people will say their ultimate goal is to be happy. That’s where Ferriss’ insight about happiness is so powerful. I’ll use his words and his italics.

Bear with me. What is the opposite of happiness? Sadness? No. Just as love and hate are two sides of the same coin, so are happiness and sadness. Crying out of happiness is a perfect example of this. The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is – here’s the clincher – boredom.

Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all. When people suggest you follow your ‘passion’ or your ‘bliss’, I propose that they, in fact, referring to the same singular concept: excitement.

This brings us full circle. The question you should be asking is not, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?”

Takeaway – Free Offer

• If you’d like to get your work week down to 4 hours, and need a boost, I’ll give you a free hour of phone coaching to help. Here’s what to do.
• Email me: john [at] sbcoach [dot] com and tell me your situation and how I might help. Tell me you’re writing about this free offer since I do get other requests as well. Please give me enough details to go on – what do you do, what excites you, have you read the book etc.
• If I don’t’ think I can help I’ll let you know by email. If I do think I can help we’ll schedule a call. If I can’t tell, I’ll email you back with more questions.
• When I’m ready to rescind this offer, I’ll post a note here to that effect.

[tags] CEO, small business, Entrepreneur, time management, work week, happiness [/tags]

I have an autographed copy of the book by Dan Pink. I’ll give it away for FREE to a randomly chosen reader who emails or comments how they found out about this blog. Send your email or post your comment by midnight, eastern time on Friday 5/5.

A Whole New Mind is about how economic changes make “right brain” qualities more important than they have ever been for success. This is in contrast to recent history when “left brain” stuff has been sufficient.

This is why a $3 toilet brush must be not only sourced and marketed cheaply (left brain accounting skills) but also well designed (right brain creativity) if it’s going to sell. It’s also why spirituality and happiness (right brain qualities) are as important in career decisions as retirement packages and salary (left brain).

And it explains that, in Pink’s words “seeing the big picture is fast becoming the killer app in business.” In other words, entreprenuers who understand the inter-relatedness of the systems in their companies (right brain) do better than ones who don’t get the relationships that make the whole bigger than the sum of the parts.

More than just explanation, the book has exercises and examples. Dan is a prescient writer who frequently sees trends before they’re well known.
Takeaways:

• The world is changing and new skills are needed to succeed.
• Use this book as a way to expand your own skills, reach new markets and build a better team of employees

Dan will also be a keynote speaker at the 11th annual International Coach Federation conference Nov. 1-4, 2006 in St. Louis. If you have any interest in coaching, or just want to see Dan in person, I’ll see you at the Arch.

A Whole New Mind is about how economic changes make “right brain” qualities more important than they have ever been for success. This is in contrast to recent history when “left brain” stuff has been sufficient.

This is why a $3 toilet brush must be not only sourced and marketed cheaply (left brain accounting skills) but also well designed (right brain creativity) if it’s going to sell. It’s also why spirituality and happiness (right brain qualities) are as important in career decisions as retirement packages and salary (left brain).

And it explains that, in Pink’s words “seeing the big picture is fast becoming the killer app in business.” In other words, entreprenuers who understand the interrelatedness of the systems in their companies (right brain) do better than ones who don’t get the relationships that make the whole bigger than the sum of the parts.

More than just explanation, the book has exercises and examples. Dan is a prescient writer who frequently sees trends before they’re well known.

Takeaways:

• The world is changing and new skills are needed to succeed.
• Use this book as a way to expand your own skills, reach new markets and build a better team of employees

Dan will also be a keynote speaker at the 11th annual International Coach Federation conference Nov. 1-4, 2006 in St. Louis. If you have any interest in coaching, or just want to see Dan in person, meet me at the arch.

The main habits are:
Priorities:
Have a long term 15-20 year vision and direction. Then have 90 day goals of what you need to accomplish now. And forget the middle time period. Make sure that your 90 day goals consist of 5 (no more no less) top priorities that everyone is working on and that they all know which of the 5 is the top 1 of 5.

Data:
Track the right data daily and weekly so that each person has at least one metric driving their performance.

Rhythm of the Meetings:
Have the right rhythm of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual meetings for alignment and accountability. Make sure they are well run and useful. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
The X Factor:
Determine the chokepoint in your business model and industry, then gain control of that chokepoint. Rockefeller’s was transportation costs – why he got so in bed with the railroads. But this was so pervasive to him when he started making his own oak barrels, instead of shipping green wood, he had it split and dried in the forest so his shipping costs were halved.

The book is above all – practical. Gives you a lot to do and ways to do it. Reading it feels like boot camp.

Check out this interview posted by Guy Kawasaki. And be sure to take the test

The Essential Drucker : The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on Management (Paperback) by Peter F. Drucker

Almost everything that needs to be said about business management was said by Peter Drucker before anyone else. He coined the term “knowledge worker” before the Internet or even the PC was developed. Decades ago he talked about the need for personal development of business people. His writing is unusual in that it can be as useful to a business of 5 people as it is to one of 50,000.

If you have a desire to grow your company you must read this book. And I don’t often say must. Be prepared that as your company grows it will be different in structure not just in size. Your role and contribution must change as well. This book is not a “how to” for this process but the insight you will gain is quite powerful.

Drucker was nothing if not verbose. He has written 35 books and numerous articles. The Essential Drucker solves the problem of what to read when. It is a compendium of his works from 1942 to 1999, selected and arranged by him. “Is it dated?” would be the logical question to ask. The answer is, only in the most minor ways. His concept of entrepreneurship is not current, but quite useful. He uses it to refer to a business that is innovating rather than one that is just small. And talks a lot about how it takes different management and support to deal with an entrepreneurial company as opposed to an established one.

He writes mostly of a time when the changes to technology (and to business models that exploit it) were slower. That doesn’t make his insights any less powerful, but in some cases they need to be tweaked a bit. The tweaking would be easier if each chapter had the date of its original publication plainly visible. That is my only very minor complaint with this excellent book.