Some people are in control, and some people aren’t.  

Either you run your business and life, or your business and life will run you. 

If it’s not scheduled in your calendar, it just won’t get done – learn to schedule time for important personal goals and things that will drive your business and life forward. 

A Stop Doing List is far more powerful than a To-Do List. Learn to say NO. 

Never end a day until tomorrow is planned. It takes just 10 minutes but will double your effectiveness tomorrow. 

Plan in the BIG days. This is a full day that is completely focused on working on big projects that can move your business or life forward. 

Invest 1 hour to plan out your week and write down what you want to happen. I promise you, this alone will triple your effectiveness.

Work in 90-day blocks. It’s important to press the reset button if you have a bad quarter. 

Don’t get ‘faked out’ being busy. The big question is, ‘what are you busy doing?’

Master the art of Slowing Down to Speed Up. Do you really think a professional Golfer who is rushing to play a faster round will get a better score?

Respect your time enormously – until you respect it, no one else will.

Time is way more valuable than money. You can always get your money back, but once time is gone, it’s gone forever!

Learn to set goals and plan – this is a MUST if you want to be productive.  Sadly this stuff just isn’t taught at school or University – so you have to find the people to teach you these vital skills.

Get clear on what income you want to make next year, then refuse to work on jobs that pay less than the hourly rate of this income.  You won’t achieve this income goal if you don’t do this.  You have to learn to pass the low-value jobs onto others. 

Focus, Focus and More Focus. This is the key to success.

Time Management is by far the number one secret of the rich, successful and happy individuals. It’s a skill that can be mastered by all.

Til next time,

Robbo

I’ve just finished a 9-day course. It was a big one, delivered online from 9am to 10.30pm each day. 

I got so much value from this. 

It was all about living in the moment and having peace of mind. 

The instructor is a master at this. His presence was next level, and he was able to help us learn to live a life without any fear, worry or stress. 

Tracy Secombe from Farm Owners Academy also shares this wisdom. 

It reminded me of the importance of learning from a master of any particular topic. That is, find someone who has studied an area you are interested in and then learn from them. 

The presenter opened the session by sharing how our ego is never satisfied. It has been programmed from a young age to constantly seek and achieve goals, with a feeling of ‘I will rest and enjoy life once I achieve this’. 

When you think about this, it’s so true. 

Many of us think like this, including me:

• My life will start when I finish school;
• If only I were 18;
• I just need to get through college or University;
• I just need to find a partner to settle down and marry;
• I just need to have some kids, and my life will start then;
• I just need the kids to get to 18, and then I can rest;
• If only I were young again;
• I just need to make a million dollars and then rest;
• I just need to make 10 million dollars, and then I can rest. 

It’s the ego that keeps us in a state of always DOING rather than BEING. 

No wonder there is so much suffering in our lives. 

Our programming started all the way back at school.  

School teaches us to become somebody, and we begin this lifelong need to constantly improve and always get better.  
 
But in the pursuit of continually improving and getting better, we often miss out on enjoying the present moment that is going on around us. 
 
Our ego doesn’t want to sit in stillness – it always wants to be on the move and achieve. 
 
If we sit in stillness, the ego sees this as a threat. 

If we look at improving our business, we ultimately want to do it for some form of peace of mind (e.g. financial security). 

The best thing I picked up from this retreat is; don’t fall for the mirage of ‘I will find peace of mind when X or Y occurs’.

Peace of mind and relaxation are open to us right now. But, unfortunately, it won’t happen sometime in the future because we are wired to achieve a goal and then go straight for the next one.  
 
Now is the time to feel it and experience it.  
 
Now is the time to make the most of your life. 

It’s still great to have a successful business, but do it for fun and not to arrive at the destination.  
 
Like running a business, mindfulness and living in the moment is a skill – you can learn this and live a really peaceful life full of happiness and peace.   
 
Have a great day, 
 
Robbo 

I was at our neighbour’s place over the weekend. We have a lot in common as we both grew up on the land, and we both work with farmers. 
 
We were talking about how some farmers get very frustrated if they see or hear of a farmer ‘selling up.’ 
 
They may even refer to them as ‘quitters’ or ‘soft.’ 
 
I’ve got a very different perspective on this – if you don’t like it (or really love it), then why do it?   
 
My father finished school early because his father was sick. He took over the farm as a young 19-year-old. 
 
He had just returned from the Vietnam war, and his mother had tragically died soon after his return. So, at the time, farming seemed like the only option. 
 
I saw first-hand the stress and frustration that being a farmer had on dad. 
   
In saying that, he never complained about it. 
 
But when he was 54, his stress levels were significantly heightened. While some of this stress could be attributed to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the war, a lot of it also came from working long hours on the farm.  
 
He had reached his breaking point. 
 
The doctor said to him, ‘if you don’t slow down, you could die.’ Both of his parents died young from heart attacks. 
 
Dad sold up the farm. They moved to the coast. 
 
Was he a quitter?  
 
Was he soft?  
 
Or did this help save his life?

Here is what I saw after they moved: 

• For the first time ever, dad was not carrying the stress of having an enormous debt. 
• He was finally being able to relax and be himself. 

• He was the happiest I had ever seen him. 
• His relationship with my mum and his three boys was much healthier, and he was much better to be around.  
• He realised that he was never really that passionate about farming, and if he had his time again, he might have considered a different career. 

So, next time, if someone says that they are thinking of ‘selling up’ and leaving, perhaps consider this the best decision possible for them. Maybe their best life is on the other side of being a farmer? 
 
Who knows, but why judge? 
  
Have a great week, 
  
Andrew 

Are you stuck in the trading time for money trap?

Sadly – most people are.

Trading time for money was ingrained into most of us from an early age.
We were taught to choose a career when we were older such as being a doctor, lawyer, electrician, artist, farmer etc.

And our brains would visualise seeing ourselves working in exchange for money.

Tertiary education builds on this belief system, and this also occurs when you work for someone else (i.e. Work harder – get a promotion and I will pay you MORE money for your efforts).

This is all still trading time for money.

It’s  easy to get caught in this trap – and if you’re not careful, it will become your identity.

If you run a business – you may still be thinking this way and it’s difficult to experience freedom while thinking like this.

I was personally caught in this place for many years.  But equally – I’ve always been fascinated with figuring out how to break this.

Once you break this mindset – I believe EVERYTHING changes.

You start looking at what problems you can fix and you start realising that people are comfortable paying bigger dollars for you to remove their problems REGARDLESS of how long it takes you to do this.

With this new mindset – you also start looking at other ways you can generate money that doesn’t involve your time.

An example could be fixing multiple people’s problems at once instead of doing it one by one, or in farming, selling directly to the consumer.

Here is the brutal truth about what your hourly rate needs to be.

Let’s assume you have made or you have a goal to make $1 million per year.

If we take an average work week of 40 hours, and we allow 4-week holidays, then your hourly rate needs to be $520.

But the reality is, that not every hour will be productive, so we need to consider 50% efficiency, so in this case, your hourly rate needs to be $1040.  This means that doing work for less than this, could be inefficient and just not worth it.

You have to change your thinking before you will ever take action.
A great mentor of mine  – Marshal Thurber taught me ‘Andrew – you have to spend more time ‘un-learning’ than ‘learning’’.

This is so true.

My advice is to stop thinking about how much money you can make per hour – and start to think about what problems you can fix and what people would pay for this.  OR – what is your profit goal, and what does your hourly rate need to be to achieve this.

Robbo

Do you love to work hard?  
 
Do you see yourself as a doer?  
 
Do you have the attitude, ‘If there is a job to be done, then get out of my way and let me do it?’ 
  
This attitude has served you because things get done. 
  
A real theme in the Agriculture industry is to be a hard worker. This was most likely passed down from the generations before you. Farmers are incredibly proud people and will often find pride in being hard workers.  

Whilst this has served you, it’s also essential to look at some of the challenges if you have this attitude. For example:  

• Do you feel guilty when you are not working?
• Do you feel there is always more to do? 
• Is it hard for you to stop and slow down, even on holidays? 
• Do you work a little longer and, consequently, see a little less of your family? 
• Do you occasionally have a conflict with your partner because they want you around more to help out around the house and the family? 
• Do you find it hard to employ people because most can’t do the job as well as you?
• Do you get frustrated with lazy people and think they are hopeless? 

To become a true business leader, you must challenge your identity and belief system. There is no other way around it.

Working hard is an ingrained belief system that took years to create, so it can take a little while to undo.   
  
We are not saying that working hard is wrong – but more an opportunity to challenge your beliefs and your identity and to realise that possibly there is a different way to go about things.     
  
Great business leaders lead from the back of the ship, not the front.  
 
In other words, they understand that it’s okay not to be that person that is first in to get things done.  
 
To run a great business, you need to start sacking yourself from most things that need doing.   
  
Hire great people, then get out of their way.  
  
It’s important to let others have a go, and it’s okay to be the lifted, not the lifter.   
  
Sometimes you need to stand back and let others do the work, so you can let go and free up some time. 

Your guilt is fear and is something that can be removed if you do a little bit of internal work.  
  
This is not always about you working less. We know many of you hate this idea.  However, learning these skills will allow you to work on higher priority things OR take a bit more time off and learn to relax and enjoy life more. 
  
Charlie Mort from Mort and Co has never worked a day in his life in a feedlot. Yet he is still a busy and productive entrepreneur. This has helped his business move to annual revenue of over $700 million.  If he was trapped in the feedlot as a worker, then it would be impossible to create something at this scale.   
  
More than 90% of your success is a mindset. This is what we mean by sometimes you are smarter to be educated to change direction rather than motivated to speed up. 
 
Robbo 

• An accountant spends three years studying their craft 
• A lawyer spends five years studying their craft 
• A doctor spends seven years studying their craft

• They haven’t been shown how to lead a business and make strategic decisions.
• They don’t know how to think and plan strategically and work out the highest priorities (the 20% of tasks that bring them their biggest results).
• They have no idea how to recruit staff, write job roles and then retain and lead their employees.
• Marketing is foreign to them, and they neglect it.
• They have no clue about creating systems to maximise efficiency and get team members to follow these systems.
• They were not aware of the rigour you need in financial management and how to budget and make good decisions from interpreting the numbers
• And they certainly weren’t prepared for all of the administration that comes with running a business!

• The better this is for the agriculture industry;
• The more the younger generation of farmers will want to get involved;
• The better your community functions (more money always brings greater opportunities);
• The more jobs are created and people are employed; and
• The more you can have an incredible life making good money and enjoying some much-deserved time off doing what you love.

• A proven system to help run your business;
• More clarity and excitement about the future and lots of energy to implement what you have learned;
• An annual audit of what you need to work on each year to keep your business running at maximum efficiency;
• A solid understanding of business mastery. We call this TRANSFORM, and it’s all about getting the basics in place, which gets you out of ‘winging it’ and into you taking complete control and knowing what you are doing;
• A great understanding of what makes money in farming and what you could look at delegating (and how to do this); and
• How to enjoy more time off without it costing your bottom line!