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Feb
23
Why Smart People Make Bad Entrepreneurs
February 23, 2013 | 2 Comments
Here is the reason why smart people make bad entrepreneurs and better employees: smart people are too smart for themselves.
Let me explain.
If you’re smart , then you’re really good at two things…
#1. You’re great at coming up with out of the box ideas.
One of the great things about smart people, is that they tend to be great idea generators. They think possibilities not probabilities.
If you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you want to continually stretch what you think is possible and live outside the box of what you think is possible.
Creative people are good at thinking outside of the box. If you get ideas that inspire you and regardless of what others think, you put them into action, then you have a recipe for creating success. You will eventually get where you want to go.
But that’s not the only thing that creative people do.
Sure, they come up with great inventive and innovative ideas. They can easily think outside the box.
The problem is the second thing that creative people do.
#2 Creative people tend not to act outside of the box of possibility.
Creative people are so creative and innovative that while they do think outside of the box, they do not act outside of the box of possibility. Why? Because their creativity also works in reverse.
If you’re creative then you have come up against this before. You’re great at coming up with ideas and dreaming about possibilities, but as soon as you think about taking action outside of the box of possibility, your fears kick in. And what’s worse is that your unconscious mind will come up with thousands of reasons why you should not take action on your idea.
It’s creativity working in reverse… and no action = no results.
So the reason why smart, well meaning and creative people tend to make bad entrepreneurs is because they can easily talk themselves out of the very ideas they have come up with when their fears kick in. Instead of focusing on the possibilities, they envision the worst case scenarios. And those scary images keep them stuck
The key to embracing your creative genius and still gaining momentum towards your bigger vision is this: You want to embrace the part of you that stretches and thinks of possibilities and let go of the part of you that is afraid of moving forward. Once you do that, the possibilities and your belief in those possibilities holds strong so you can get into action to make it happen.
You can learn more here: 7 Symptoms of Limiting Beliefs
Steve, acting outside the box of possibility. Click here to read more…
Nov
1
Google Trends with Freedom Education
November 1, 2010 | 2 Comments
I officially launched Freedom Education.ca in June 2008. In the first month I had 200 unique visitors. Eight months later this blog begin to grow at a pretty rapid rate as I started putting more effort into marketing. It currently gets around 5,000-6,000 unique visitors each month.
In the last 6 months I haven’t put a lot of effort into marketing as I’ve been focused on internal projects and Blogging for Coaches. Some of the internal work has been focused on creating high-value content for this blog, more videos for my Newsletter Subscribers and giving quality attention to my coaching clients.
Now that it’s fall season here in Canada I’ve been doing a lot of clearing and cleaning. I’ve been clearing the house and clearing my mind of distractions and projects that I’ve been putting off. It feels good to complete things that have been on my mind for a while.
As I was going through this clearing I went back to check statistics for this blog and realized that the google and organic traffic to this site has increased over the past 6 months. That was a bit odd – cause like I said – I haven’t put a great amount of effort into marketing. But at the same time it was great to see the steady growth. Here is a graph showing the progress.
Google Trends with FreedomEducation.ca
I had two insights from going through this exercise. The first insight was around this idea of working harder to achieve more. You don’t have to look very far to see that this is an epidemic in North America. We have been programmed to believe that working harder means more and better results.
Bloggers blog about how hard they have to work to be successful, your parents have told you to work hard so you can get ahead and your boss might be telling you the same thing.
My experience tells me something quite different.
Each month the search engine traffic on this blog seems to go up. It’s gone up 50% over the past 6 months and each month it does go up means less work for me.
Maybe the formula should be work less and achieve more. You tell me?
The second insight was confirmation that this blog continues to grow. There are other ways to do that like measuring income month-to-month or how many new subscribers join my Newsletter but what I’ve found is that by measuring my progress in more than one way, I have found more positive signs that I’m moving forward. The more positive signs I see that I’m making progress and moving forward, the more I appreciate where I am and what I’ve done. Click here to read more…
Aug
24
Feeling Stressed Out? Try This
August 24, 2010 | 5 Comments
The last 30 days have been crazy for me. Emotionally, I feel more stressed than I have in a long time – probably more stressed than when I was writing my exams in University. But it’s a weird stress because I also have these moments where I feel super-elated; like life could not get any better than this.
I’ve really put myself out there – stretching what I thought was possible and the results are showing. This month I’ve had my biggest jump in income as a blogger/coach. I’ve already cleared $3,500 US for the month of August from this site alone.
It makes me happy to know that all my hard work and effort has paid off. The funny thing is that this has been the easiest money I’ve ever made. I remember how hard I used to work to earn $3,000 per month at my job as an engineer. There is no comparison.
It took me a little longer to get to this point than I expected, but it has been well worth it. Three years in the making, I’ve felt like giving up, but I persisted. I kept focused on my vision by asking questions like: “How can I help? How can I make a difference? How can I contribute?
The big question that ties all these together is also the one that helped me create the strategy to earn that money – that question is… “How can I get paid for helping, making a difference and contributing to others?”
It makes me feel proud to be a part of something that makes a difference and I know that others appreciate it too. Over the past few weeks I’ve been getting 3-5 emails a week from people telling me how I’ve had an impact on them with my blog posts and videos… and hearing that makes me feel grateful.
At the same time I’ve gone through a lot of changes and at times I feel stressed. Maybe this is what T. Harv Eker talks about when he says,
“You are only growing when you are in tension. Your Intention is when you are in tension.”
I do feel that tension. Everything seems to be happening much faster than I could have ever imagined and I don’t feel grounded like I used to. Things are less predictable based on my older beliefs and that is a bit nerving.
I have 50,000+ views on my Youtube Channel and I barely update my channel anymore. It seems to go up by 5,000 views each month without me really doing anything.
On Friday I reacted to a comment my mom made. I seem irritated at times.
I also got into an argument with a long-time friend of mine this past weekend. This was unexpected as we normally get along. It’s been a few days and I’m just getting over it now.
Yesterday I couldn’t see much of anything positive in my life (even though things are going great from an outside perspective). I talked it through with one of my business partners. That really helped. I realized again for the first time that nothing is ever as bad as it seems ;)
3 Ways I’m Dealing with the Stress
Here are the 3 ways I’m dealing with the stress:
1. Keep in Good Shape: The first way I’m dealing with the stress is by going to the gym. I usually work out three times a week. I’ve bumped that up to about 5 times a week including once a week to play hockey. This has really helped me energize, focus and relax. It also helps me get a break from thinking too much.
Click here to read more…
Dec
9
Interview at The Skool of Life
December 9, 2009 | 2 Comments
Here’s an interview I did with a fellow personal development blogger. In this interview we talk about everything from blogging, marketing using keywords, how to get past the plateaus and keep moving forward and how to move towards a stable income model using your blog.
You can download the podcast and listen to the interview here: Interview With Up and Coming Bloggers: Steve Martile at Freedom Education Click here to read more…
Dec
4
Quick Poll for Friday
December 4, 2009 | 1 Comment
Just putting out a quick poll for the end of the week. I’ve been thinking about a few ideas that I could share with you for blog content. If there is anything specific you would like to learn you can use the other option to include your answer there.
Here’s the poll: Click here to read more…
Nov
6
True Wealth
November 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment
This is the most critical element of creating true wealth, but very few people (if any) talk about it.
I don’t like to hold back and I want to be completely honest with you guys, so here goes nothing…
Here’s the video:
Sep
14
6 Reasons Why You Are Not Doing More Productive Work
September 14, 2009 | 5 Comments
When being productive, it’s more about quality than it is quantity. Doing more productive work means trimming the fat and taking the actions that count the most.
It means using the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule says that 20% of your actions create 80% of your results.
When I worked as a Consultant I dropped my work week from a 40 hour work week to a 20 work week. This was more than enough time for me to produce the same results in half the time. The way I did this is by trimming the fat and taking action on what mattered the most – effective actions.
An effective action is where 20% of your actions produce 80% of your results.
It sounds straightforward, right?
Well it is – it’s not rocket science, but the problem is that most people don’t follow this rule. They know that it works, but they’re still not using it!
Why?
Here are 6 reasons why you are not following the 80/20 rule and doing more productive work:
Reason #1: Fear of failure
Aug
25
White Water Rafting & National Life Appreciation Day
August 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment
A bunch of friends and I went white water rafting on the Ottawa river on August 15, 2009. We took a huge tumble, which left a group of scattered lemmings with yellow hats struggling to reach shore (see the video below).
The rapids were so severe that our guide said, “this was the biggest ride on the Ottawa River he’s had in the past 17 years.”
My friend Hani at easyonlinevideotips.com said this was his first near death experience. Here’s a log of his thought processes as we spun out of control:
“First Thought: Don’t panic, you’re wearing a life jacket and you’ll eventually float to the surface. So I started kicking to propel myself to the surface. I looked up and it was dark.
Second Thought: What if I’m under the raft, what do I do then? I stretched my hand up to try and feel for the raft, but all I felt was water.
Third Thought: I really need some help! So I started waving my hands to try to flag someone for help (underwater).
Fourth Thought: Wait a second, I’m underwater and nobody is going to see me. I really hope I am close to the surface by now or else I’m going to run out of air. I stretched again and still nothing but water.
Fifth Thought: I’m starting to inhale some water and if I don’t get any air now I’m seriously NOT going to make it! Just as I was about to give up, I shot to the surface, and took in some air.
Sixth Thought: Oh crap its not over yet. I have to swim across the current to make it to shore or else I will get sucked into another Rapid! I’m sooo exhausted. Luckily, the rescue boats were right there to pick me up and take me to shore.
Nobody was seriously hurt on this trip. August 15th is now officially referred to as “Life Appreciation Day”!
Life is short…follow your dreams!”
Visit Hani @ www.easyonlinevideotips.com
We were all pretty happy to come out in one piece. When you watch the video, just keep in mind that Hani wasn’t in that group of yellow bobbing hats. Here’s the video: Click here to read more…
Aug
7
What’s Your Biggest Challenge Right Now?
August 7, 2009 | 1 Comment
I’ve been giving some thought on how to better serve the long time readers of this blog. And since I haven’t figured out how to read minds just yet (but I’m working on it), I’ve decided to put together a quick poll to get more information about your biggest challenge and how I might help.
Here’s the poll:
Jul
29
What’s Your Most Burning Question?
July 29, 2009 | 9 Comments
What are your most burning questions?
I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while. I love answering questions and providing feedback in ways that help others.
Please submit your questions in the comments below or use my contact form and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Here are 3 criteria to consider:
1. The question must be specific and clear. If you ask a foggy question you’ll get a foggy answer. Try and be as specific as possible.
2. Ask a question that is related to personal growth or at least a topic that I blog about (ie. mind power, law of attraction, goal setting, etc.) If you ask me something about investing, I most likely won’t give you an answer because that’s not my area of specialty.
Ask your financial advisor. That’s what I do :)
3. Focus on your challenges or some of your biggest problems. That’s where the meat and potatoes are. If you have a big problem that hasn’t been solved, maybe I can help. I may not have solved it myself, but I may know someone who has.
Other than that, ask away!
Curious Steve
The article is now posted here: Overcoming Resistance to Change, Eliminating Negative Emotions, Creating Focus and the Law of Attraction
