Sometimes Making It Easy Takes A Little Work.

One of the great secrets to making things look easy is to practice.  I don't agree that "practice makes perfect".  If you practice doing something wrong, you simply train yourself to do it wrong.  This is why every successful athlete, business leader and political leader has a coach.  Then might call the coach different things but behind the curtain, is a coach.

A coach is someone who can stand back, and evaluate progress without the bias of pride or pain.  If something hurts to much, we might stop because it doesn't feel right.  A coach might tell you to keep doing it because it is right, you just need to build the right muscles.  Alternately, you might think something is great and take pride in it, and the coach will break through the pride to show you where it is wrong.

Ego is the biggest obstacle to success.

If you let your Ego get in the way and block what your coach says, you won't learn or grow.  If you let your Ego tell you that a coach is a waste of time, you'll spend a lot of time doing things the hard way.  

Depending on what you want to do in life, you may need a lot of different coaches.  You can be the worlds greatest running back, and then get a speaking coach so you can get more TV time and endorsements. 

As a public speaker, acting and speaking skills are critical to my growth.  The truth is most people watch me to see the story unfold.  It took along time for me to push me ego out of the way and figure this out.  Looking back some of my early public speaking must have been pretty dull.

I have heard several actors say that Casting Director Workshops are a "waste of time".  Waste of time or not, they are part of the game.  It is up to you to take the information and learn from it or grow with it or not.  If you don't get anything out of it, then you are right, it is a waste of time.  Never waste time, it is the only thing you really have and you have no idea when it will run out.

This weekend, my wife and I spent nearly nine hours at Igloo Studios with ten other students, an engineer and Ned Lott.  This was a little more than a "Casting Director Workshop".  Ned called it an "intensive".  He was right.

In nine hours, ten people were transformed.  Some like me walked in with almost no skill in character speaking or voice.  Honestly I thought I would never need it until recently.  My ego clouded blocked my growth.

A couple of others came in with a skill level closer to the level I left with.  They left even better.  The day was simply eight hours of practice and techniques to get to another level.  As an added bonus, an animated short was being recorded in the next studio.  The director wanted a female to record some "scratch" and instead of waiting for another day or letting one of the men record it, they walked into our class and auditioned the women on the spot.  

A woman who is under 30 and has a life history that makes mine look a bit dull nailed it.  We all knew it and sure enough they picked her. Normally auditions are a very private and personal thing, this was in front of class.  Our teacher, as well as the writer and the director for the new show and your competition all sitting right there.  

Imagine having to audition in a public forum.  Had we not all be doing the same thing for the previous five hours, the audition might have been a lot more nerve wracking.  A cold reading audition, and not one of the women flinched.  My wife had never done anything like it, yet she stepped up and took a shot.  

Just a few hours of intense work and seven women made this on the fly audition look easy, one of them made it fun.  She was the one they picked.

Practice doesn't necessarily make perfect.  And as Rob Dyrdek recently said to me, "perfection is the enemy of greatness".  I don't know where he got that but he is right.  Intentional practice with a purpose and a coach will make it easy, and maybe even a little fun.

Isn't that what you really want anyway?

Kelly Bourquin At Igloo Studios

 

Is There Really An Easy Way?

Is there really an "Easy Way"?  Can you find one for everything?  If there is an Easy Way, there must be a "Hard Way" to everything?  Look around you.  Have you ever wondered how some people do it?   Let me tell you a secret.... They know the "Easy Way".

Lets see if this sounds familiar.  You go to work everyday, you do a good job and you never quite get that promotion.  You've been there for years, and someone else who just started is now the boss.  Everyday you have been getting there early or staying late.  Your boss calls on Saturday and you take the call.  And you still haven't got the promotion.

Or maybe this is more your situation.  You start a job and within days you wonder how the place even works.  The boss is clueless.  You wonder how he became the boss, then you find out he is up for a promotion.  How does this happen when he doesn't know what he is doing?

Is this you?  Do you feel like you are on a hamster wheel, running as hard as you can or walking all day and still getting no where?  That's the "Hard Way".  Your boss on the "Fast Track", he is taking the easy way.

The Hard Way is a road full of nails that stops you right where you are and your only choice it seems is to get on the hamster wheel to nowhere with everyone else.  The bills pile up, and you can't afford to leave the hamster wheel to nowhere you call a job.  Luckily there are some other people there with you wearing the same golden handcuffs so they can't leave the wheel either.

Misery loves company.

How do you get off the hamster wheel and actually make forward progress down the road of success?

The first step is to learn that society (including most or all of your friends) don't want you to learn the easy way.  They want company on that miserable hamster wheel.  The more people that join them the better they feel about themselves.  They can says things like "What can you do" or "It is what it is" and just sit there with you.  A few lazy ones will even slow down and let you pick up their slack.

They don't want you to leave.  Because when you leave, they are afraid you might actually do something and achieve success.  If you do that, you make them look bad.

Think about this.  How many truly successful people do you know and admire?  How many do you know that you want to be like or that have a life that you would like to have.  Then think about how many people you know that don't live much differently than you do.

I bet the second group is huge compared to the first group.  The reality is, that if you want to hang out with the top 5% of the successful people in the world, you have to first learn to stop hanging out with and listening to the other 95%.

At first you will be lonely and challenged by your old friends to come back and give up your dreams. True friends support your dreams, most "friends" are dream killers.  Instead of helping you figure out the easy way, they just laugh and wait for you in the hamster wheel.

Even if you have tried to leave the hamster wheel before you might have found that you were in a seminar or learning about some "opportunity" with another group of people that are really just on a different hamster wheel.

It takes time to make the transition, no matter what you decide to do when you turn right down the easy path.

What do you want to do?

The Easy Guide Books

The Bourquin Group

Are You A "Self Help Junkie"?

Self Help Junkies are people who read self help books constantly, which I do read by the way.  Over the years I have met three different groups of people at conferences and seminars related to the self help industry.   If you or someone you know might be a Self Help Junkie, I want to let you in on the secret of the people who achieve real success in life.  The three key obstacles to your real success.

Interestingly there are three very similar groups in the business world that I run into at conferences and training seminars.  As I spend more time in the world of acting, I am seeing a similar pattern here.  Nad Lott pointed it out to me without realizing it at a recent CD workshop he was teaching and I was attending.

Success in any endeavor always starts within the person seeking it.  Your success is within you, not me or anyone else.  If you have read this far, I think it is safe to assume that there is some area of your life you would like to become more successful in, or some skill you can become more successful at.  Let me show you how it is done.

My first venture down the path of becoming a self help junkie started with an infomercial.  I didn't buy the TV deal, instead I went to the local library, found a similar book and devoured it.  When I returned the book I felt empowered, the world had no limits for me and I was ready to take on anything.  Six months later, nothing changed.  Sound like anyone you know?

Next I signed up for a multi level marketing or MLM program.  Another signature move of the Self Help Junkie is signing up for a new MLM every couple of years.  Sometimes the MLM's actually work, but they didn't for me.  Six months later I was in the same place.  Hopelessly addicted to hope, I knew there was better, I knew I could do better, I just wasn't.

Maybe "groups" is the wrong word for the different types of Self Help Junkies.  Really all self help junkies are the same, addicted to hope.  The lucky ones just move through phases.  Replace MLM with "New Product Line" and you see the same pattern in small business.  Actors get here through several paths since it is such a crazy life.  Maybe we should call the groups "phases".

Stuck in the first phase in my late teens early 20's, I started "collecting" self help books.  Some I would toss as "bunk" others were added to my library, and if I attended the authors class I would get a signed copy.

Ironically the key to hitting the next phase was being drilled into me by the military while I was "failing" at self help.  In the military I was on a marksmanship team, and was getting quite good at hitting very small objects at very long distances.  I was being noticed and promoted, yet my focus was on my "self help success".  I didn't even see how quickly I was outpacing my peers du to the training, skills and personal success I was achieving on the team.  I was looking right, and going left at top speed.

The next phase if you will, is justification.  People will take any little progress and attribute it to their self help activities.  I have seen people brag about making tons of money at real estate conferences only to find out later they can't pay their bills.  At business conferences, I have seen dealers buy a new product line they "need" to pay the bills from the one they picked up last year that didn't sell.    This is the make or break phase, and I have gone both directions in different industries.

I convinced myself that all the self help and new product lines were working as my business was going down the tubes.  Since lots of other businesses were having difficulty, I found those people and we commiserated about the "bad timing" of the industry.  All the while my competition was stealing clients right out from underneath us all.

The final phase is the breakout phase. This is where you make it or break it if you haven't given up already.  Getting here is a challenge in itself, and this may be very new territory for you.

During phase one the key missing is accountability.  There is no one but you holding yourself accountable.  If you never make it out of this phase, you can only blame yourself.  In the military, I didn't have a choice.  Other people held me accountable.  This is where our society is breaking down now.  We don't teach responsibility and accountability in school.

So how do you move to phase 2?  How do you become truly accountable to yourself?  Simple goal sheets work for most people, however there is a danger here of trying to do what you love.  There are a lot of self help books saying to do what you love, which is a great hobby.  The important thing is to love what you do.  If you can't love what you are doing or trying to do, get out now.

I have met real estate agents at my classes who say "I just want to make $100,000 then I am out".  They don't love real estate and never will.  Sadly they will just dabble until they quit.  I hear the same thing from actors.  They won't go to classes or get training, they are just waiting to be discovered.  You may as well wait to win the lottery.  Every overnight success I know in business and acting took at least 5 years to get there, and more often 10 years or more.

When you start becoming accountable to yourself, you find a new obstacle, your friends.  How many times have you seen someone start a new gym membership and a month later stop going because they "don't have time".  This is simple accountability.  The way to do this is to set priorities.  You must be number one.  If you aren't healthy and happy, how can you spread that to other people?

You will know when you are in phase two when you hear yourself saying things like "I can go to the game tonight and the gym tomorrow" or "I don't need to look at 20 houses today, I'll go to the park with the dog, and look tomorrow".  Procrastination is the enemy, and your friends don't want you to make them look lazy, so they are more than happy to help you avoid your goals.

The final phase is internalization.  This is the point where goal sheets are no longer needed.  You have a direction that is a fire inside you.  You don't even think about going to the game on the night you have an acting class, or playing in the park before combing through 20 distressed homes you might be able to flip, or heading out with the neighbors instead of hitting the gym.

The fastest way to move forward is to find a coach,  someone you are accountable to who truly supports you.  Whey you pay them you are accountable.  When you ask a friend or a spouse there is a danger that your goals might conflict with their goals or worse their fun time, so they will quit holding you accountable or let you slide.

It is very rare that anyone achieve goals without some coaching and outside accountability.  There is a reason that Gyms have personal trainers and there is an industry of business and acting coaches.

The approved easy way secret to success is finding the right coach for you who wants you to succeed more then they want your money.   Good Coaches aren't cheap, but the right one can payback huge dividends.

Is There An Easy Way To Becoming A Millionaire?

A long time ago a friend of my Dad's used to joke, "The easy way to make a million is to start with two."  Obviously my Dad and his friend were never truly "wealthy".  They spent everything they made and a little more.

Growing up we moved about every four years.  My Dad would have spent so much money on non perfuming assets (sometimes called liabilities or just wasted money) that he would need to sell the house and use the cash to pay the bills.  Back then you could keep cashing out and maintain a relatively nice looking lifestyle.  It eventually caught up with him and my parents divorced.

With money management lessons from my Dad, I entered into the same downward spiral of spending.  I did however gain a very healthy respect for the real estate market.  That is why I am an investor and a Realtor today among my other pursuits in life.

When I first entered the work world, it felt like people all around me were living better making the same money or less than I was and I couldn't figure it out.  I just kept spending trying to keep up.  The irony here is that spending was only helping me to fall further behind.  

I was one of those "Rich Idiots" that Robert Shemin talks about in his book.  Or as they say in Texas, I was "All hat, no cattle."

Eventually, I got lucky and was introduced to better method while going to school at San Jose State.  My marketing professor wrote a formula on the board, and said "If anyone wants to be a millionaire, stay after class and I'll explain this formula."

After class Dr. Laurie spent an hour with the 10 of us that bothered to stay.  He explained Warren Buffet's genius in simple terms.  Basically his formula was to invest $200 a month into a high yield dividend stock through a Dividend Reinvestment Program or DRiP.  This way you avoided the brokerage fees that ate your profits.  The dividends would buy more stock.  After 20 years at $200 per month, he said we would be millionaires.

His favorites at the time were Budweiser, Coca-Cola and Johnston and Johston.  I still have stock in all three.

The bad news is, this lesson didn't sink in for another three or four years.  Don't wait, when it comes to investing, time truly is money.

Once I did start investing, I also subscribed to the Stansberry Investment Newsletter.  This past year I cancelled my subscription because I hadn't needed to make any changes to my portfolio in nearly 4 years.  Last week a friend handed me one of Porter Stansberry's "Special Reports".  These are usually pretty spot on.

When I opened it up I laughed out loud.  It was exactly the information that Dr. Laurie had passed on to us 25 years ago.  Stansbury used Coca-Cola (Which I do invest in using their DRiP plan).  Coke has raised the dividend an average of 9% each year for the past 20 years.  And the stock has continued to grow in value along the way.  Just $6700 invested one time 20 years ago in a DRP would be worth over $45,000 and it would be adding $1700 in stock this year all by itself.  

In contrast, if you invested in a high yield CD of 5% at the time, you would have about $23,000.  

The lesson I missed from my friends was simple.  They started buying income producing assets early on, so even though it looked like we made the same money at the same job, they had sacrificed a little bit that I didn't notice and it grew.  They would spend some and re-invest some.  It didn't take long before they were making way more money than I was even though we worked at the same place in the same jobs and at the same pay.

These days, my two favorite investments are real estate and dividend stocks.  I only buy winners, and don't speculate on anything.  Well ok, once when Netflix took it's big nosedive, but that was a freebie.  I only review everything once a quarter.  No watching the market getting ulcers every time some bobble head talks on TV.

So is there an easy way to becoming a millionaire?  I would have to say the answer is yes.  There are a handful of stocks that you can buy through a DRiP plan and invest just a few hundred dollars each month and have a million dollars or more in 20 years.  

The later you start or the faster you want to get there, the more you need to invest now.  The laws of compounding interest work over time.  If you give your money time to work for you, it will show you the easy way to becoming a millionaire.

Is Being 10% Happier Something You Would Like To Achieve?

There are thousands of books out there proclaiming they are the answer to your happiness in one way or another.  Like me and most of the other people I talk to, after reading these self-help books, you find that there is still something missing.  There is a multibillion dollar industry out there based on almost giving you the answer.

ABC news anchor Dan Harris spent several years of his time as a journalist researching, challenging and debunking theories from many of the biggest self-help gurus and religious leaders.

Dan now says he found a way to simply improve his happiness by 10%.  Has an ABC news anchor, Dan was able to invest a lot of time and research into the world of self-help.  He shares his findings in his new book, 10% Happier. Before you skip to the next article, think about this: When was the last time you felt really happy if even for just a few moments? 

Most of the people that I talk to describe situations of happiness in terms of Control and progress. The times we are most unhappy with ourselves are when we lose control and gain nothing. 

There are even a few times when I have been in total control and still felt like I didn't gain anything at the end of the day. The trade-off for control wasn't worth it. Something tells me you have been there too.

Years ago when I was looking at a waterfront home, The owner made a profound statement. He looked me in the I and he said “As a business owner, you understand the stress we go through. I'm telling you that it doesn't matter how bad your day is, when you come home and take a lap of the lake on a JetSki, it will all go away and your problems will solve themselves.” 

That statement struck a note with me because I had the same experience when I would take my Harley out after work. Right then and there I realized how important my rides were to growing my business. Quite honestly my business stalled after selling my collection of Harley-Davidson’s.

My problem at that time was I didn't understand how a motorcycle ride could possibly help my business. I felt like the time I was taking away from the office was time lost. More importantly I didn't know if I can re-create it simply by buying another Harley. After reading Dan Harris's book, the process became clear.  It wasn't really the Harley, although it did help.

Dan's book will take you through his adventures, chasing down spiritual and self-help gurus as a skeptic and a journalist at ABC. He also shares some of his innermost failings and demons, and discusses how he overcame them personally. 

The journey is a very interesting one, Not much unlike my own. If you have read this far, it is likely that you have experienced at least part of this journey into the world of self-help and the frustration of not making any real progress. 

The premise of becoming 10% happier should make sense to you. Imagine if next year you could be 10% happier. And imagine if you could be 10% happier again year after that. Like compounding interest your life could improve exponentially overtime. 

Dan Harris does a great job as a journalist walking through the stories of several self-help Gurus and religious leaders. He shows us the flaws false teachings and how he found an answer to overcome them all in an unexpected place. Harris admits that due to his own pre-judgment, he might not have come to this understanding without the entire journey. 

If there is something inside you that says happiness is possible, maybe starting out by getting 10% Happier is where you should start.

I finished the book 10% Happier over the weekend, and it has earned my seal of approval for making things easy.

The Guy Who Makes Things Easy

My life looks very fragmented to most people.  When I coach other business owners, they look at me and ask how I am telling them to do one thing, and I do so many things.

The first part of the answer is simple, for work (aka the income side of my life) I do one thing, I make things easy.  Flying, Acting, Marketing, Business Coaching, it doesn't matter.  The one thing I do is make things easy.  Everything else, music, surfing, auto racing, running, etc are just hobbies.

I wish I could say I came to this realization all by myself, but I can't.  I have a whole slew of coaches and mentors that helped me figure out and drive my "one thing".  Don't confuse this with Gary Keller's book "The One Thing".

Gary's book is an excellent tool for getting things done.  Do one thing at a time.  Bridges are built one piece at a time.  Homes are build one piece at a time.  Humans aren't genuinely capable of multi tasking, and Gary figured it out the hard way.  My method is to break things down into small steps.  Gary asks "What is the one thing we need to do today to keep moving forward?"

In the context of life and business, one thing is that underlying theme.  Frank Kern frames it very well when he says it this way.  An emcee is going to introduce you to a room of 1000 people.  What does he say about you? That is your one thing.

I am the guy who makes things easy.  It isn't a skill that just anyone can pick up, but you can learn it.  It will take guidance,  practice and support.  That is what we are here for, and why we are now writing more "Easy Guides".

I should have seen this a lot sooner, but we get so busy doing our "thing" we sometimes can't even see it.  It took a couple of coaches to help me see it clearly.  Now, I want you to enjoy life more by making it easy too and finding your one thing.

So what will the emcee say about you?