Love animals? Don’t eat them!

Hi,

If you have been reading this blog for a couple of years you might know that I have become a Vegan, well Vegetarian.  I am trying to be Vegan but just can’t stop when there is cheese to be had!

(Just to mention – this is not a bash at all you meat lovers out there, I used to be one too)

What this is though is a comment on how I now see eating meat.  This blog is about Personal Development and I see my choice of diet part of that.  Personal Development isn’t just about reading books by the great names, it is about applying the information and changing your life.

So here is the thing.  I am an absolute animal lover.  I mean I really love animals.  I always have even as a kid but didn’t really realise it.  We had pets when I grew up and they were great fun but it never really clicked with me that I was an animal lover.

We had a dog called Esta.  She was a rescue English Bull Terrier.  She was great fun.  Clearly she had been abused but once she got into the house and felt comfortable she was a great dog.  She and I had a really good relationship and she always wanted to be with me.

So why did I also eat meat?

This is what I can’t work out.

If I loved animals so much then why did I eat them?  Weird isn’t it?

I mean I wouldn’t eat Esta.  That would be very weird.  So why did I eat Cows, Chickens and Pigs.  Without even thinking about it?

Obviously I do have an answer for this otherwise I wouldn’t have written this post.  Nothing worse than a blogger posting a post that has no reason to it!

It is absolutely craziness to me now that I used to eat meat.  But I know why I did it.  It is because most of us (and yes I do mean you) have no idea where your meat comes from or what they have to go through to get into your dinner.

I didn’t and a lot of people don’t.  You wouldn’t put your pets through what farm animals have to go through.

Yes yes, I know there is the argument about we have power over animals and we have always eaten them.  That all might be true but if you wouldn’t eat your cat or dog then why would you eat a cow?  A chicken?  Did you know a pig is believed to have more intelligence than a dog?

They feel pain, fear, sadness.  Just like when you shout at your dog.

So what am I really saying here?

Just that once I became a Vegetarian I realised what I had been doing all along.  It was congruent with my core values as a person.  Ahh the real reason for this post!

Yes.

My actions were out of line with my core values and that was affecting me.  Now I feel much better about my diet.  Not just the health benefits but also that I am in line with my values.

That is so important.  Busy lives make us miss our core values.  I am so guilty of this.  That is why i have to make myself work at making sure I am inline.

What about you?  Are you in line?

Speak soon.

M

An easy way to get more customers for your small business

It would be great if all you had to do was open a shop, website or business and new customers would just walk in the door (or website). But alas it doesn’t work like that!

Oh how we wish it would!

Ok, so there are a few times when you just put up a website and someone just happens to see it and buy something from it. But how many times have a I have that happen? None. You might have.

This is one of the biggest challenges any small business owner faces. How to get people in the shop to buy.

If you have opened an actual retail store then this can be an expensive way to go. If you have built a website then at least that is pretty much your only expense. Just having a web business gives you the opportunity to try things out and not spend all your money. That said when I was selling software some of the companies I sold to would spend £Millions getting their websites right.

As a small business owner it is easy to spend £10,000 before you even know where it has gone! The truth is you don’t have to if you know what you are doing.

So let’s just look at the online area of this.

Let’s say you have a website, you have paid a development company and designer to create something fantastic. All your friends and family say it looks nice and you are pretty pleased with yourself. Read more

Should I start a business? It’s a way to go

This is a great question!

I can answer that for you.  No.

If you are unsure about starting a business then I would say don’t.  I know that is a direct way to answer but if you are thinking about starting a business and not sure then you probably don’t want to.

Shock!  Someone speaking their mind and speaking the truth.  Well maybe, or perhaps you think I am wrong?  Either way I knew that when I was working for someone else I wanted to be my own boss.

I didn’t really care what business to get involved in, I just knew I had to be involved in a business where I didn’t have a boss.

For the last 5 years I have worked for myself.  I have lost money and made some money but it has been without a boss telling me what to do.

FREEDOM!

Well not quite, I still have clients and do work when I would rather be cycling but you get message.

The thing is if you don’t already know if you should start a business then really do you want to?  I mean do you really have a reason to start one?

If you are asking that question then I would like to say that you need a reason first.

Starting a business isn’t about getting all the detail things right, it’s about getting the why first.

However, often the WHY isn’t that clear and you have to work it out.  I understand that!  Sometimes I sit here and think “why am I doing this”.  But even if I have had a crap day I know that it is not as bad as having a boss.

Don’t get me wrong!  There are many people who have a boss, make more money than me and are very pleased with this.  They would never want to be their boss.  That is wonderful.  But not for me.

So if you want to know if you should start a business, think hard then make a decision.

Matt

The 7 things you need to do when starting a franchise

I am working with a couple of business owners who are looking to take their businesses to the next step.  They asked me to look at Sales and Marketing but as these things normally go I get involved strategically.

What I noticed is that they hadn’t realised that their business wasn’t systemised.  It isn’t able to scale and will require them to be working it if they wanted it to go bigger.  The challenge is that they are already working as much as they can on it.

Franchise came to mind….

They hadn’t thought about that in terms of using this as a way to get them more time.  They are not alone, many think that doing this creates more work. But, the whole thought process behind setting up a franchise is that you create a business that can work without you!

I thought I would outline the 7 things you need to know before starting a franchise.  If you have a business that you think could be a franchise then you should look at these first: -

1. Be absolutely clear what your business is about before you even start to do the work.  You should be able to explain this to someone else.
2. Can your business be franchised?  Is it something that would work?  If you don’t know you can use a company that will be able to give you the advice. www.instant-sales-solutions.com This is my consulting business.
3. Create a flat packed version of your business that will be the basis of the template
4. Test these template versions of your franchises.  If these don’t work you need to start again
5. Know that you are now the owner of a franchise and not a business that you need to be working in
6. Give the franchisee great help.  Customer support is now your business!
7. Multiply!  Go for it…if it works don’t be afraid to do it

If you want some help with this and you are in the UK or California you can ask my consulting company to help.  www.instant-sales-solutions.com

Naturnal Instinct – Hypo Birthing St Albans

I am almost a little embarrassed that I have not posted this on my blog before.  Why?

Well my best friend and his partner are brilliant people and they have a business called Naturnal Instinct.  They teach Hypobirthing in St Albans and also “Breathing to a better birth”.  I get a lot of people reading this blog so I should have done this before.  Please note neither of them suggested I do this.

Now I have not been pregnant so I can’t say if this feels better but what I do know is that when Gwendoline had Archie (I am his Guardian) she had a completely natural birth.

Oh and before you think it is weird it is more natural than anything else.  This is what I learnt from both of them.  I am not putting down having a birth in a hospital at all.  All I am saying is that whilst Gwendoline was pregnant I learn so much from her in terms of her attitude to being pregnant and her birth.

They had Archie at home in a birthing pool.  Mike was there playing music and doing all the stuff like getting towels etc.

I think Gwendoline even had some Champagne!

The point is she changed the way I think about birth completely.  She made me see that it is natural and not something to be stressed about.  The more calm the birth the more calm the baby.  And believe me!  Archie is cool!

We went camping with them in France and Archie was cool all the time!

Anyway, I wanted to blog about this as they are helping people have better birth’s by learning to breath and relax.  If you are interested to speak with them go to their site Naturnal Instinct

Matt

Are you putting good seed in your head? Why you are your biggest enemy

There was a moment in my life that I had no idea that I was the one actually stopping my chance of acheving my goals.

Me?  Stopping me achieving?  Why would I do that?

You are reading this and I can almost promise you that you are doing exactly the same thing right now.  How do I know?  Well we all do it.  We all do this thing that stops us.

That is part of how the brain works.  We as humans, have the ability for amazing dreams and nightmares.  I loved the film Contact and this is what Jodie Foster’s characters dad says to her when she meet him (it’s not him but the other race of people).  We have the ability to create whatever we want in the world and make our world as we want it.

The challenge is deciding what to do with that ability.

I was sat in a presentation once and the speakers were a very successful couple.  They were farmers who had started a business and now didn’t need to farm anymore!  Anyway, he said a concept I hadn’t thought about.  Being a boy from middle England I didn’t know much about farming.  What he said was so simple and just so powerful.

“When we were farmers we knew that if we didn’t use good seed and sow it in good areas of the field then we wouldn’t get any crop later”

Now I know that seem so obvious but when this ex farmer said it in his simple yet powerful way it really made me think.

Firstly I thought wow that is like in the Bible  - You reap what you sow.  I had never really stopped to think about that saying.  We all use it all the time and I didn’t really think about what it really is about.

The other thing he was saying is if you don’t put good seed in then you won’t get good crop.

And this is exactly what the point is.

I have spent so many years creating goals, hitting them, missing them, re doing them etc (this is what you should be doing if you want to succeed) but what I didn’t realise is that I was also putting negative and irrelevant stuff in my head.

Let me give you some examples: -

• TV
• Negative friends
• Newspapers

These are some obvious ones.  But the point is if you are filling your head with this crap then you will get out what you put in.

The brain will only work on what you feed it.  Why give it this?

I am not saying for a minute that I don’t read magazines or watch TV.  I do.  But I am very careful about what I read and watch.  Google news is bad for me.  When I go on that page I always read the news!

So I should stop going to that?  YES!

Your personal development plan should include what you are going to stop doing.  Maybe stop watching so much TV?

TV is one of the worst problems we have today.  We all have done it.  Go home, get changed, put the TV on and that’s it.  That is what we are doing until we go to bed.

Our brain is a very complex thing, but it needs simple instructions.  All day long it is learning about what you want and what you don’t want.  If you are watching a lot of TV about negative things then think about what your brain things you want.

When I realised how powerful this was I made a decision not to read newspapers all the time, not to watch certain TV and to not watch many films.  This also included watching my self talk.

And you know what?

Things changed.

Then I started to fill my brain with positive things.  While I was in the car I listened to CD’s, I read more books, started to met more people who were doing the things I wanted to.  I started to fill my brian with good!

Here are some great CD’s you can get if you want to do the same.

If you are working really hard at your goals but you find that you just can’t quite seem to achieve what you want then I would suggest having a look at all the things you are putting into your brain and work out what is negative and what is positive.  Are you giving your brain the right stuff?

Matt

What? me a grumpy old man?

Ok, I am 33 years of age.  Am I a grumpy old man?  I can’t be can I?

(Internal chat “I think you are you know.  Actually I sort of know you are.  Here you are sat on a Friday evening, with a glass of wine, getting worried about the teenager who has been left home alone by his mother)

Err, when did this happen?  It hasn’t right?

Let me put you in the picture.  It is Friday night.  My wife is on the phone to a friend and I am sat here on the computer watching the tennis on the TV.  Well listening to it and then looking around from time to time.

My neighbour has gone away and has left her 16 old son to be on his own in the house.  Problem?  Well no I guess you could say.

But there is some background to this.

He has had some parties that I have had to go and sort out.  Don’t get me wrong, nothing that bad happened.  Maybe lots of noise, kids being crazy, throwing eggs at the neighbours, using swear words like they were the only things in the english language but nothing that needed the Police.  But if I am completely honest it annoyed me all the same.

I have read personal development books till the cows come home.  I have listened to hours of personal development, spiritual, NLP, self help, mediation and personal growth MP3′s that I bet Anthony Robbins would be proud!

But and here is the but……it still annoys me that this kid might have some friends around and make my Friday evening not so nice.

Let me be clear.  He is a really good kid!  Sure like any teenager he is a little rough around the edges but he is a good kid and we get on really well.  I am also friends with his mum.

Ok, so what I can’t work out is why does it annoy me so much?  I mean I was much worse at his age.  Actually this is more about me.

My wife doesn’t even think about it.  But I was worried all day yesterday that I would have to go and sort out the problem that was going to happen.  That is just silly.  I mean why worry about something like that?  It hasn’t even taken place.

And I think that is the key here.  Even though I have read all this personal development stuff, practised it, applied it I still have moments when my brain forgets all that and the conditioning takes control.

What conditioning?  The social conditioning that underlines all of us.  It’s the thing we go back to when under pressure, stressed or unhappy.  It is the true self.  And this annoys me more than anything.

Now I am annoyed that I am annoyed.

I don’t want my true self to me like that.  I want it to be calm, cool.  I want to be able to rely on a cool me that can manage any of this.

But clearly I am not there yet.

But I shouldn’t be annoyed.  That won’t help.  What I need to do is work on the things that I know help me become more like I want to be.

meditation, fitness, reading, learning, gratitude

These are the things that bring closer to the man I want to be.  I don’t want to be a grumpy old man at 33!

If you are finding some stress in your life (perhaps you are becoming a grumpy old man or woman?) then you might need to do what I need to do.  That is, do more of the things that you know will bring you to the centre of you.

The more you do this the more you will feel relaxed with yourself and easy going.  Those of have nothing to prove…..have nothing to prove!  And that is how I want to be.

It doesn’t mean being so laid back you get nothing done in life.  Actually I am far from that!  But it means that you can sit outside and watch birds and be fascinated by them.  Or you are completely at ease when you meet new people in business.  Even if the person is the “big guy” in the industry and earns a lot of money.  He or she is just human.  So why treat them any other way?

So this is my promise to you and myself that I will try not to be such a grumpy old man.  I will ask my wife to write a comment on this and see what she says!

Go for your goals and dreams.

M

Use tubetool box to create a successful youtube channel

I wanted my Youtube channel to be successful but each month I got a couple of new friends and maybe a few subscribers.

Do you know what I mean?  You spend all this effort creating a video that you know has some good information on it but no one watches it!

Luckily I watched a presentation by Paul Colligan.  I like Paul.  He is an online marketing guy and business person.  He is honest, direct and a little odd.  Good elements.

Anyway he talked about how he builds his youtube channel automatically.  Even while he is out and about his youtube channel is building.  Now when I saw what he was doing I knew I had to do it also.

What was Paul doing? He was using a cool tool called Tube tool box.  Basically this builds your Subscribers, friends, video rank on auto while you do other things.  (Like not doing that manually!)

It is a download that sits on your desktop (not Mac) and you tell it to do all the friend requests etc for you.

You can get a free download here Tube tool box.  I did a video on this which is below.

What results have I got?  Well I know have a youtube channel worth looking at!  I have new subscribers, over 3000 friends….all in about 2 months.

See for yourself. http://www.youtube.com/lifeturnaroundnow

Matt

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