All About You (Episode 1) – Work Boots.

I talk a lot about marketing, sales, systems, and hiring and firing, but you run your business and you’re responsible for growing it profitably. And no one’s going to do that for you, are they?

Let’s talk specifically about looking after you. That’s what I mean by it’s all about you.

I’ll talk about managing you and managing your time, your priorities, yourself and your diary in other videos.

You’re important.

You’re important to your business. Looking after yourself is important so you can make more money and make better decisions. But you’re also important because you’re important to you, you’re important to your mom, and you’re important to your family as well as to the business and your work responsibilities.

Looking after you is important for its own sake as well. You don’t want to feel sh*t or be unhealthy. There’s more to life than work and being successful so we need to look after ourselves.

Your boots

Let’s start from the bottom with our boots – How long do yours last?

When I was about 25, in my first job, I wasn’t wearing boots. I was wearing shoes because it was a suit and I was working in sales in the IT industry. And someone told me something about shoes and this guy said:

“You know the reason shoes wear out quickly? The reason that they die is because they stay damp. Your feet are sweating all day, and then you put them on again the next day and they are still a bit damp. In a damp environment, bacteria and bugs live in the leather or cotton linings and they eat it so your boots rot from the inside. The linings and the leather start to get eaten away, and they lose their shape, and they lose their stiffness and eventually you throw them away.”

The answer to this was – buy two pairs and wear them on alternate days. This gives them time to dry out which means the bugs don’t get to breed and grow. Your boots will last considerably longer because you have two pairs and they will dry out.

It was a good tip and at that time, I remember thinking “Who knew?” Now I do and now I’m telling you to buy two pairs, wear them every other day and they’ll last you much longer.

What we don’t know

I remember being told this and realising that there’s a lot I didn’t know. I’m sure your world is full of stuff you don’t know. You don’t know what you don’t know until someone comes along and tells you, ‘Here’s the thing you didn’t know’

I don’t think we should feel bad about what we don’t know.

Recommended Reading: The Trades Business Growth Juggle – What Is It And How Can You Manage It?

What I want to say is your role in your business has changed somewhere. Most of my business coaching clients are well-educated in the technical side of your business – in your trade. They have the technical skills – you keep yourselves up-to-date on the regulations, new tools, new technologies, and on new ways of doing things.

But now your role is changing and you’re moving into being a business owner than a tradesperson. You need to remember to keep yourself up-to-date on the business stuff as well.

Don’t be surprised I’m talking about business because I’m a business coach.

It’s important for you to keep yourself up to date on:

• Marketing – digital marketing and social media marketing and how to market your business;
• Sales and how to do that properly 
• How to have systems;
• How to use technologies in the office as well as on site;
• How to manage people, and lead people properly, and set a culture, and hire and fire well

This is what you need to do and learn.

And guess what? That’s what I teach. That’s what I help you with in my program.

I’ve made that my job to put this together in a way that you can use it quickly and easily, and put it into practice in your business.

A business coaching program like mine isn’t the only place you can learn stuff. I went and learned it somewhere. I didn’t just make it all up.

I’ve learned it in books, courses, online, and all sorts of other places. You can do that or you can come to my course and program to learn more quickly. And more importantly, put it into practice in your business.

The point of learning this stuff is to put it into practice and implement it in your business to make it perform better.