Michael Ashcroft

More fantastic stuff from Seth Godin.

Infinity–they keep making more of it

This revelation has been a while coming, but I’m beginning to see it pretty clearly now.

If you want to build your perfect ‘career’, for want of a better word, in just 3 steps, this is how:

1. Find your passion. This part is critical.  Obviously you’ll never be successful at any venture or work that you’re not wholeheartedly interested in.  If you have no idea what your passions are or where they might lie, then you need to get a little more adventurous and start trying your hand at things.  In fact, you’ll probably find the whole process of getting outside your comfort zone and pursuing new things really invigorating and exciting (if nothing else…)  For more help on this, check out a post on Leo Babauta’s website: How To Find Your Amazing Work.
2. Focus on being excellent. This is easy when you’re passionate about your work.  Nothing can stop you.  Soak up information like a sponge.  Get educated.  Talk to people in your field.  Find mentors and learn from them.  Practice your craft and ask for feedback on how you can provide a better service or product.  Anyone can be average at something.  The successful minority are passionate about excellence.  Have a think about this…no doubt you know someone in your life who is passionate about something - some might use the word ‘obsessed’ - and it drives them.  If you don’t care to be excellent in your field, then its likely that many people won’t care to be your client.  People naturally gravitate to those who are excellent over those who are mediocre.
3. Deliver value. This is the last piece of the equation.  Deliver your service to people in the most effective and efficient way you can.  Not only this, focus on delivering as much value as you can to your clients.  Obviously, don’t forget point 2 above - don’t deliver huge amounts of mediocrity.  Deliver massive amounts of excellence!  If you can’t deliver masses of it, at least deliver something (but make sure its excellent).  Concentrate on the ways you can provide value to clients immediately.  Value delivery is something often neglected by people.  It may seem obvious, but if you are excellent in your field and no one knows about you, then its hard for you to deliver value to anyone.  The good news is its easier than ever to deliver value to anyone and everyone - home and abroad.  The internet has changed the playing field - you can share stuff with people today…even right now.  So broaden your horizons and start delivering value in any way you can think of.  You might surprise yourself with just how many ways there are to do this.  For more on this, I recommend you check out Steve Pavlina’s poignant yet humorous article: How to Make Lots of Money During a Recession.

There you go.  Its that simple!  Find your passion, pursue excellence in your passion and then deliver your excellence to as many people as you can.

I’m all about people sharing information for free.  This free pdf written by Chris Guillebeau is a bounty of fantastic information.

It chronicles his ‘279 Days to Overnight Success’.  Awesome.

Get it for free from here.

Let me know what you think of it in the comments section.  Enjoy

Let’s face it, we can’t all get to the gym as often as we’d like.  Life just gets in the way sometimes.  But you don’t have to let your fitness pursuits suffer.  You can still get a perfectly good workout done in your backyard or living room.  While its not ideal, it allows you to keep making progress during those times when you just can’t seem to make it to the gym to train.

These workouts are designed to take between 5-15 minutes, deliver a good dose of intensity and requires nothing but your able body and a little room to move.

Download the workouts here.

The combination of body weight and gymnastic exercises is virtually limitless.  If you think your body weight isn’t enough to challenge you, I suggest you check out this website: Beast Skills

If you can do even half the stuff on that website you’re a better athlete than me…

Stop with the excuses why you can’t get to the gym.  In just 5 minutes you can be all done.  So hurry up and get on with it already!

These 3 articles have to be some of the best material I’ve read on learning to be productive instead of just busy.  There’s a difference - so make sure you understand it. To paraphrase Tim Ferriss (see a link to his site below), just because something takes a long time to accomplish, that doesn’t make it important.

I have definitely suffered from being busy, but not necessarily productive.  These articles have helped me a lot.  I strongly suggest checking them out.

1. 33 Rules to Boost Your Productivity - by Steve Pavlina
2. Ultra-Simple 3 Step Productivity System for Getting Amazing Things Done - by Leo Babauta
3. The Not-To-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now - by Tim Ferriss

What articles or resources have you found on the Net that have helped you become more productive?  Post them here in the comments section so we can all share the love!