Month: July 2017

Know When to Fold’em

“You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, Know when to fold ’em, Know when to walk away, And know when to run.” – Kenny Rogers, The Gambler 

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Early in my SALES career I was looking to start a side business.

I did some research.

Somehow I landed on the idea of trading stock options.

I know…

I attended multiple weekend long seminars.

I even bought special software that was supposed to help me find the right stocks to trade.

But the more time I INVESTED, the less it felt right.

Thousands dollars and dozens of hours were sunk into my new options “business”.

What should I do?

Keep going?

Fight through the doubt?

Winners never quit, right?

Fast forward to 2015…

I hear and feel a LOUD pop in my knee while training Jiu Jitsu.

Always fun…

A few weeks later I’m standing in front of an orthopedic surgeon.

He tells me I need my knee reconstructed.

Was it time to RETIRE my GI?

Maybe time to buy my first pair of salmon colored pants and start golfing?

These 2 scenarios raise a Timeless question:

When should we QUIT?

When should we KEEP GOING?

Seth Godin writes in The Dip, “Winners quit all the time.  They just quit the right stuff at the right time.”

Motivational quotes like “Winners never quit. Quitters never win.” can be hazardous to your wallet.

This is FAKE NEWS.

New projects we take on START the same:

  • Excitement when we begin.
  • Then it gets hard.
  • We have to decide to keep going or quit.

This plays out from our New Year’s Resolutions to starting a new SALES position.

Every project has a BIG fat MIDDLE that is not fun.

We have to figure out if that JOURNEY is worth taking.

3 Questions – Hold’em or Fold’em?:

DO YOU STILL BELIEVE?

What is your gut telling you?

Do you still believe in what you’re doing?

The first person we have to convince is ourselves.

WHAT ARE YOU MISSING?

When we say “Yes” to something, we are saying “No” to something else.

Everytime I train Jiu Jitsu or write this blog, I am saying no to something. (Especially teeing off wearing those salmon pants…)

And I am OK with that tradeoff.

IS IT TIME TO CHANGE DIRECTION?

Knowing when to pivot is a true sign of a professional.

There may be a better use of your TIME and TALENT.  

John Wooden said, “Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be.”

Changing course may not be a failure.  It can be a step towards something better.

After asking myself these 3 questions, I knew:

  • It was time to RETIRE as a stock trader.
  • Jiu Jitsu and I were just GETTING STARTED.

Know when to HOLD’EM.

Know when to FOLD’EM.

#TheGamble

-Joe Ciccarone

http://www.SalesVibe.net

 

 

 

Take It Back

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” – William Penn

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My house cleaning career was short lived.

I thought cleaning the house myself would be a great way to save some cash.

So I cancelled our cleaners.

Instead it was a great way to kill a beautiful Saturday and smell like Windex the rest of the day.

Fast forward a few weeks…

It was past 1am when I hit the “Send” button on Turbo Tax.

After spending hours trying to figure out if the day camp my kids went to 6 months earlier was deductible, I finally finished our tax return.

Painful.

Who in their right mind would ever go into accounting?

Oh, never mind…

But at least I saved money by not hiring a CPA, right?

Wrong.

Our time is so valuable.

Time vanishes faster than Chriss Angel at a pool in Vegas.

It seems like we never have enough to give to our favorite people and hobbies.

Steve Jobs said, “It’s really clear that the most precious resource we have is time. Your time is limited.  Don’t waste it.”

No one is going to give us more time.

We have to TAKE IT.

How?

BUY IT BACK.

Trading our TIME for MONEY is a bad deal.

I have been experimenting by flipping that trade around.

Now I trade MONEY for more TIME.  

I pay a CPA to do our taxes and hired cleaners to clean our house.

This trade off has been a game changer.

HIRE A SPECIALIST

We all have a specialty.

What’s yours?

Mine is SALES.  

I also have a 2 side hobbies:

  • Training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
  • Writing this weekly blog.

These are the places where I invest my time.

Everything else I hire out.

Hire out the grunt work, the complicated repairs, and jobs you have no interest doing:

  • Yard word.
  • House Cleaning.
  • Tax Prep.
  • Home repairs.

This has freed up an incredible amount of time so I can focus on my family, work & personal goals.

I found there’s an added bonus.

The specialists I hire do a way better job than I ever could.

KNOW THY SELF

Everyone is wired differently.

I know people that LOVE taking care of their lawn.

Yard work is where they find their ZEN.

It helps them RESET.  

I’m definitely not in that group, but understand.

If you love it, keep doing it.

But if you don’t, call in the specialist.

Time is disappearing.

Tick, tick, tick…

#TakeItBack

-Joe Ciccarone

http://www.SaleVibe.Net

 

 

 

Start It Up

“Being an entrepreneur is not about starting a business.  It’s a way of looking at the world.  See opportunity where others see obstacles. Take risks when others take refuge.” – Michael Bloomberg

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“Be your own boss!”

That’s the rage today.

Anyone who has seen Gary V roll through his day “crushing it” dreams of launching their own START UP.

You don’t have to live in Silicon Valley or flip houses to be an ENTREPRENEUR.

We are all START UPS.

We are the CEO’s of our CAREER.

The same skills that help an entrepreneur launch a START UP are needed to GROW your career and keep your work RELEVANT.

We have to bring an entrepreneurial mindset to our CAREER.

When I first got out of college I worked in a CPA firm.

That was my first “START UP”.

I was “out of business” in about a year.

But I learned a ton and moved on.

I took those lessons and changed course.

I did what every successful entrepreneur does when they FAIL:

  • Learn.
  • Adjust.
  • Try Again.

Like many entrepreneurs, I had a few lean years.

I tried and failed multiple times.

It wasn’t until my 6th START UP until I went PUBLIC.

CAREERS, like like START UPS, have to grow and evolve or they die.

Here are 5 WAYS TO START UP YOUR CAREER:

CONTROL YOUR TIME

Control your time or someone else will.

Never go into a day with an empty calendar.

An unplanned day leads to working on other people’s agendas.

One of the wealthiest entrepreneurs I know gave me this killer time management tip, “Throw away your “To Do” lists.  If something needs to get done, schedule it. Protect that schedule.”

CONTROL YOUR FINANCES

Create a monthly budget.

Give each dollar a job.

We are not in Congress.  We can’t spend more than we make.

Dave Ramsey sums it up best, “Debt is dumb.”

CREATE YOUR BOARD OF ADVISERS

No one wins alone.

Have a board of advisers.

Learn from who came before you.

Make original mistakes, not basic ones.

INVEST IN YOURSELF

The first START UP we need to invest in is ourselves.

The wealthiest people I know all have 1 thing in common, they never stop learning.

Take the seminar.

Read the book.

Grow or die.

TAKE RISKS

No risk, no nothing.

There comes a time when you have to LEAP.

When opportunity appears, take ACTION.

It doesn’t matter if you are a solo ENTREPRENEUR or part of a BIG organization.

There is enormous opportunity everywhere.

What will you START UP?

Up to you…

#StartItUp

-Joe Ciccarone

www.SalesVibe.Net

 

 

 

 

Free Yourself

“Posterity — you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.” – John Quincy Adams

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FREEDOM and COURAGE.

You can’t have one without the other.

I read David McCullough’s fantastic book  – 1776.

It’s an incredible story of how America won it’s FREEDOM.

Midway through the book, no rational person would think the Americans had any chance of winning.

But thanks to the LEADERSHIP of Washington and the COURAGE of his army, they did.

Our FREEDOM came at a tremendous cost.

It’s an amazing gift.

The crazy part is how easily we give our FREEDOM away.

240+ years later we no longer have a foreign power occupying our country.

But sometimes our own insecurities steal our FREEDOM on a regular basis.

Here are 3 THINGS THAT LIMIT OUR FREEDOM:

FEAR OF REJECTION

We have to come to grips that not everyone is going to be a fan.

There are going to be people who are not interested in us or what we do.

Each day we face a sea of rejection.

That’s a good thing!

That rejection keeps out the amateurs.

People are usually rejecting your idea, not you.

Most people are so caught up in their own lives, that they are not even thinking about us.

Don’t hold back.

Produce your best work.

Send it out into the world.

What others think is irrelevant.

ANXIETY

Don’t let the PAST or FUTURE steal another second from TODAY.  

Give yourself the FREEDOM of the present moment.

Lao Tzu wrote, “If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.  If you are at peace you are living in the present.”

The PAST is gone.

The FUTURE is a mystery.

Live in the moment.

EGO

EGO’s are fragile.

They get bruised when we fail.

Our brain tries to protect us by keeping us “safe”.

Unfortunately our safety zone is our DANGER ZONE.

Check your EGO at the door.

Have the COURAGE to fail.

Make today your Independence day.

The Founding Fathers did their part.

Now it’s time we do ours.

Move past FEAR.

Free your mind.

Free your life.

#FreeYourself

-Joe Ciccarone

http://www.SalesVibe.net