Most of us are aware that high-achievers typically have their own set of daily Morning Routines.

These are typically a range of activities and steps attended to prior to commencing your workday.

I have always been fascinated by Morning Routines.

Looking back, the first time I set up my Morning Routine, I had a range of themes and tactics offered by many.

Let’s call them Morning Routines 1.0

During Covid lockdowns, the workplace changed. For most employees, the traditional 9-5 Monday to Friday week was turned on its head as employees worked from home.

Post pandemic, the workplace remained changed forever. For most employees, the working week was a hybrid model of a combination of days working between the office and home. Some employees continue to work exclusively 5 days a week working from home (WFH).

Much commentary has been written on the various pros and cons of this ‘once in a century’ game-changer.

Many commentators suggested that this would be a huge win for employees with no reduction in productivity. In fact, it has even been suggested that productivity would increase.

Throughout all of this, I have remained sceptical.

In Part 2 of this 2-Part Blog, I outline the critical quantitative areas to review at the half-year mark.

You will recall In Part 1 we reviewed the ‘Qualitative’ areas.

So now let’s look at the quantitative areas in conducting your mid-year review.

We are half-way through the financial year.

How are you, your team and your business tracking against plan and budget?

It is critical that you check in now and conduct a mid-year review. Are you in front, on par or behind your expectations for the year so far?

In this 2-Part Blog, I outline the critical areas to review at the half-year mark. While monthly and quarterly progress must be monitored, the mid-year review is the key milestone before hitting the end of the financial year.

In Part 1 I will outline the ‘Qualitative’ areas to review, and next time in Part 2, I will pivot to the ‘Quantitative’ factors.

So let’s get started on considering the qualitative areas to consider in conducting a mid-year review.

I recently heard a way of thinking I hadn’t heard of before.

Explore versus Exploit.

In this blog, I will workshop scenarios around whether we ‘explore’ an activity or whether we ‘exploit’ an activity.

Prior to the pandemic, an ever-shrinking world was evolving behind the digital curtain. Phone conversations were replaced by texts, while texts were replaced by likes and emojis.

Post-pandemic we saw this accelerate through Zoom meetings and virtual relationships. Working from home created even greater separation within our traditional workplaces.

So many people from all walks of life have commented to me on the reduction, or even absence of human connection. Social catch ups, work meetings, business development meetings and general interaction in person have dramatically reduced.

It got me thinking on how we stay connected.

Us humans fundamentally are herd animals.

How do we stay connected in an ever-increasing virtual world?

In Part 2 of this blog, I’ll share with you more six more compelling hacks and tactics to make this year in a business more enjoyable, productive, profitable, and sustainable.

In this 2-Part blog, I’ll share with you compelling hacks and tactics to make this year in a business more enjoyable, productive, profitable, and sustainable.

Let’s go.

Recently I have commentated on mental health and burnout in relation to business-owners and their teams.

Overwork is where an employee works beyond their capacity. This may be voluntarily, implicitly (through cultural expectations) or explicitly (requested). Overwork blurs the line between working hours and private hours.

Overwork typically presents as significantly extended working hours over a working week. This can include bleeding into day and night as well as 7-day working weeks. Symptoms of employees suffering overwork can be exhaustion, stress, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, poor diet, extreme behaviour, infidelity, drug and alcohol abuse. Overall, overwork leads to a loss of self, personal relationships, hobbies and interests.

In extreme cases, overwork has led to death as strung-out workers can’t keep pace with the expectations of perceived work deliverables.

In this blog, I explore the issue of overwork which has presented itself in a new form within post-Covid virtual and hybrid workplaces.

One of the challenges private business owners face, is how to tackle their pricing. This heightens in the inflationary environment we now face.

The starting point for a sound pricing strategy is to review your pricing annually.

In this blog, I share some key insights on the ways in which I optimize pricing for my clients.

Some of you may know I am a big fan of taking regular retreats to review my life on both a personal and business level. These are generally solo trips for a night or two to an idyllic seaside or bush environment.

I also adopt slow productivity in my work which focuses on economically expending energy in a mindful and purposeful manner. It’s about seeing life as a series of short sprints rather than one long marathon.

In this blog, I share some valuable insights on the power of retreats and adopting slow productivity into you game plan.

We face significant global and domestic issues in this post-pandemic business landscape.

Please understand me highlighting these issues is not intended to be pessimistic or negative. I simply prefer to be realistic in surveying the horizon to observe what is coming at us, before it’s too late.

In this blog, I identify the big challenges I see facing business owners and their teams in the year ahead.

In Part 2 of this two-part Blog, I continue to explore how the balance of power in business has shifted from employer to employee post-pandemic.

In Part 1, I outlined the changes and factors leading to the balance of power shifting.

Now in Part 2, I workshop some practical areas business owners (employers) should focus on to combat this shift in the balance of power.

In this two-part Blog, I discuss how the balance of power in business has shifted from employer to employee post-pandemic. In Part 1, I outline the changes and factors leading to the balance of power shifting. In Part 2, I workshop what business owners (employers) can do to tackle this shift in the balance of power.

Prior to the pandemic, employers had held the balance of power over employees. There had been no real wages growth for 8-10 years and Australia was close to full employment.

During the pandemic, and post-pandemic, there were emerging factors that have led to there being a shift in the balance of power.

Now employees have their hand on the tiller and are controlling the agenda.

Mental health has become one of the greatest challenges we face in society.

In this blog, I share many of the insights I’ve observed in working with literally hundreds of business owners.

A caveat here is key. I am not a clinical professional in this area so I will not be presenting clinical advice as a ‘bush doctor’.

My aim is to share observational feedback in working for decades with business owners in their inner sanctum. Here I share some practical tactics and strategies I’ve seen business owners benefit from, when faced with mental health issues.

There is an indelible connection between mental health and business health.

Business owners constantly say they want change.

But how does change occur?

The answer is friction.

Friction precedes change.

In conjunction with this month’s blog, my video explored the need to conduct at least 3 hours of deep work each day.

To help you target a minimum of 3 hours of deep work daily, here are some great productivity hacks I’ve discovered and adopted.

Without data to support decisions, you may be simply guessing what is happening. Worse, you may even be falling for confirmation bias where you analyze or interpret results in a way that validates your strategy.

Making key strategic decisions in business without data is akin to driving blindfolded. Dangerous and even deadly.

So how can you use data to support better decision-making?

If you don’t value your time, either will anyone else.

In this Blog, I challenge you to consider the opportunity cost of time in the tasks you choose to work on. However, I don’t want you just to think of yourself. Think of the individuals and teams within your business.

A key lesson I learned in my early marketing training was to offer people an opportunity to try your products and services.

By giving them a free sample of your service or product, they get to sample a little bit of you’ without the pressure of buying from you.

In this blog, I outline some tips on how to give people a taste of your business before they buy. It is amazing how people surrender to curiosity about what you do when the pay wall is initially removed.

Most of us are familiar with IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Quotient) in relation to general intelligence and emotional intelligence. However, I was recently fascinated in hearing Diana Chapman (see link below) talk on BQ (Body Quotient).

In this blog, I outline what BQ is and how we can add it to our armoury to complement our IQ & EQ.

Post-pandemic business will throw up new challenges and obstacles to Business Owners.

One of the emerging trends in America has been coined The Great Resignation. The Great Resignation sees workers leaving their current employment in significant numbers.

In this blog, I explore The Great Resignation and how business owners can combat it and retain team members.

Do you do ‘dry runs’ before delivering an important new product or service?

I call it doing the prep.

The famous rock band Queen stole the show for Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in 1985. The story of how Queen achieved this has become one of legend.

In this blog, I explore how Queen prepared for this outcome well before they went on stage.

I always get amazed at how many business owners are unwilling to pay the price for success.

In this blog, I outline a key strategy of successful people. They figure out the price of success and pay for it.

Everyone thinks they have a great idea.

But ideas are worthless without refinement. Ideas are easy to generate and almost always over-valued by their creator.

In this blog, I outline the six things you can do to take your idea from worthless to valuable.

As individuals surrender more control to employers, digital corporations, governments and external parties through technology and coercion - I increase gratitude daily for my independence as a business owner.

As a business owner I get to decide who I work with and how much I get paid for my product or service.

I decide on what I do today, this week, this month and this year.

I decide how many hours I will work, what I work on and where I work.

Within the virtual world - the 24-hour news media cycles, streaming services, email, social media and endless notifications constantly bombard us with toxic noise.

Within the physical world - family, friends, business partners, employees, customers, suppliers and community members can also bombard us with toxic noise.

One of the positives of last year’s lockdown was the opportunity to quiet ourselves and reflect on who and what we value.

By hopping off life’s merry- go-round for a while there was an opportunity to block out much of the toxic noise that invades us. This noise often prevents us from being the version of ourselves we wish to be.

Let’s do a stocktake of toxic noise and what we can do to tune in to our ideal frequency.

Author Steve Pressfield’s excellent book The Artist’s Journey presents one of life’s most incredible choices to us.

Pressfield outlines the typical path of our first journey, The Hero’s Journey. This journey is our initial career which is typically a planned and unspectacular progression down a ‘proven’ path.

Pressfield then presents us with the paradox of a second journey, The Artist’s Journey. Here the individual feels a pull or yearning towards another path – one quite different and challenging – requiring the individual to step away from the comfort or familiarity of life’s current position.

Let’s challenge ourselves to understand Pressfield’s proposition.

Many years ago, I was introduced to affirmations as a tool to enhance performance.

Affirmations accelerate your goal achievement based on the cognitive process of ‘Think. Say. Do.’

Think of a behaviour or attribute that you want to demonstrate or possess.

Say it (literally speak it out aloud) in the presence tense as if you demonstrated or possessed it now.

Do it. The combination of thinking and saying that you possess this attribute now, causes cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissidence is a state when your mind can’t hold two competing beliefs at the same time. It causes a feeling of mental discomfort or imbalance. The mind then gets drawn to one of the two competing pictures to restore balance.

It is foolish to think you will miraculously produce great work from a small sample of your offerings.

Soon your work will be supported by a congo line of raving fans.

Right?

Wrong!

To produce the ‘Hits’ you have to produce many ‘Misses’.

To get noticed in your niche, you have to be prepared to produce work prodigiously. There are no shortcuts in mining the fields because you don’t know where the diamonds are.

To demonstrate, let’s look at some of the greatest performers.