Before I begin I want to say a HUGE thank you to you for reading this blog and being a subscriber. Without you this blog would be nothing, hope you have a very merry Christmas and somewhat drunken new year!
2013 has been an interesting year for me, my BIG news was that we decided to move back to Australia.
Living in the UK was great fun but we missed the lifestyle of being at the beach and relaxed easy way Australians seem to live their lives.
Natasha (my wife) starts her fine art degree in 2014.
It’s been on her goals for a long time and she’s finally taking the time to do it. This will mean no living in new countries for the next 3 years. Which will be a definite change of lifestyle for us, but I’m looking forward to developing deeper friendships than I previously have been able to.
She’s been accepted to the National Art School so she’s pretty jazzed about that 😀
My eldest daughter Isabella who’s 6 (good grief those 6 years went FAST!) starts a new school too, she’s become very adept at making friends due to our lifestyle so I’m not at all concerned about that, I’ve found that her interpretation of events is, to a large degree, wholly influenced by us.
My youngest daughter Charlotte is 15 months old now and walking and babbling more than a politician at a fund raiser!
I am such a suck with my two girls, I’ve built my businesses around my desire to be there for my two girls, I’ve learnt i’ll happily give up some financial reward for time with my kids.
Not all fathers have that luxury and I’ve made it my mission to help them attain it by teaching them how to build their own businesses so they can do the same.
Lots of new mistakes were made this year!
Mostly to do with not letting people go fast enough when they continually showed me they weren’t in the best place for them.
I’m a natural optimist so I see reasons why it will work and how I can make it work instead of just accepting that sometimes I screwed up when hiring.
A BIG lesson for me this year has been communication. Running a business with lots of people in it from all over the world certainly teaches you lots of communication lessons!
The big one though is that email is generally a shit medium for communicating!
I can think of two instances where off the cuff email remarks were very sent without thinking about how they would be received and I’ve pissed people off because of it.
2 BIG successes I’ve had are being smart enough to realise when I’m on to a good thing.
My business partner Nicola is a prime example of that. Business partnerships are a lot like relationships, some relationships are one night stands, others are holiday flings and others are keepers.
Nicola is a keeper, I’m pleased that she puts up with me and lets my entrepreneurial ADD run it’s course when it needs too.
Helping people launch their businesses into new countries is my other big success, this coming year I’ll make 7 possibly 8 figures doing this and I feel like I’ve found my groove as an entrepreneur.
I’ve realised I’m very good at building marketing systems that sell stuff and virtually useless at everything else!
So it’s a natural progression to help companies build the marketing systems to launch businesses in exchange for a percentage of the business and a cut of the profits.
So I plan to do much more of that in 2014 and indeed one of my goals for 2014 is to Franchise ROARlocal and thus build the marketing systems to launch my own business into new countries.
So there you go, a bit of the entrepreneurs journey for 2013 and some goals for 2014 🙂
My favourite quote of the year has been:
“Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”
The book that has influenced me the most
No Cash No Fear: Entrepreneurial Secrets to Starting Any Business with No Money
by Terry F. Allen
Most business books are so deadly dull that when something like Terry Allen’s NO CASH NO FEAR comes along, I want to shout my joy from the rooftop!
This book, more than any other I’ve read honestly shows what it’s actually like being an entrepreneur. Highly recommended.
The movie I’ve loved the most
Equilibrium
Think the Matrix meets Ann Raynd and you’re getting close to how great this movie is, made in 2002 it’s a brilliant ride through a dystopian world.
2 things that I wish I would have done more of in 2013
Swum in the ocean more, I love to be at the beach swimming 🙂 and,
Not been so hard on myself when things didn’t work out the way I would have liked,
How bout you?
What were your highs and lows of 2013
Let me know in the comments 🙂
Neil