By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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Everyone loves perfection.

We demand perfection when we go out to a restaurant for dinner. We demand perfection when we go the dentist to get a tooth drilled. We demand perfection when a relative goes into the hospital for surgery.

Of course, perfection has a cost - perfection is not cheap!

For our perfect dinner, we need 5-10 people working in the restaurant dedicating their lives to our dining experience plus all of the suppliers of food, contractors who built the restaurant, interior designers who designed the restaurant and everyone else who indirectly created our experience.

When we see the dentist, he usually has a team of 5+ people working in the office plus nearly a decade of post secondary education to earn the right to work on your teeth.

The surgeon is has a similar team and education to the dentist.

Perfection is something we all want, but is it something we need?

Studies show that Top Achievers, the world's most successful entrepreneurs, actors, sales people, sports stars etc. strive for perfection but choose improvisation over perfection.

Top achievers improvise.

Consider the 80/20 rule, 80% of our results come from 20% of our actions. If we want to achieve the last 20% the "law of diminishing returns" comes into effect. After a certain point, the same actions will yield no further results and the last 20% becomes nearly impossible to reach.

Perfection is an ideal, something that we all strive for, but something that we cannot achieve without an irrational amount of effort. Therefore, top achievers will reach their point of satisfaction, improvise and will move onto the next task. 

You are better to grab the first 20 cents of every dollar than to try to grab 100 cents of every dollar because the last 80 cents are so hard to achieve that the return on time yields no measurable result.

Improvisation is a key skill for success. In his book Lynchpin, Seth Godin talks about the concept of "shipping". When creative, influential people are working on a project, they set a deadline and on that day they "ship" the product whether it is ready or not. The deadline benefits the author twofold:

1) It gets the product out the door in it's first revision, the product is imperfect, but it exists and is ready to go.
2) The product no longer has the risk of never becoming completed

Instead of perfection, we have a shipped product that is ready for use and is ready for improvement.

Microsoft (love them or hate them) has a very practical business model. They always "ship" their software - ready or not, bugs and all. The software that they ship is not always ready, but with patches and revisions, it eventually becomes functional and the company is able to earn revenue and serve it's customers. Bill Gates became the richest man in the world by "shipping" his software like this and improvising rather than seeking perfection.

If software companies would hold onto their software until it's perfect, they would all go out of business before the software is ready. The fact of the matter is that perfection should be reached for, but we cannot wait for the "perfect" product to ship because perfect does not exist.

What is much more practical is to produce a good product and slowly adjust it towards perfection.

Even companies like Blizzard Entertainment, the creators of World of Warcraft, the most profitable video game of all time are known for "taking their time" to produce their product. They will develop a title over 10 years and reach the closest they can to perfection without achieving it. After 10 years of development, they will release the imperfect software and continue to patch it to bring it closer to perfection over a 5-10 year period on the back end.

Are you addicted to perfection? Is your addiction holding you back from achieving your dreams?

For myself, I have renamed my company and brand nearly 6 times this year, I have gone through 6 runs of business cards, I have created and re-created 6+ websites to get the exact message I want. My motto is to "ship" whether or not it's perfect and adjust as necessary. The benefits of shipping when it's functional instead of perfect vastly outweigh the drawbacks. For example, I won the Canadian Real Estate Wealth Magazine's Joint Venture Partner of the Year award for 2012 because I had started blogging on an imperfect blog and gained some visibility.

My business was exactly the same with or without the visibility, I still did 12 deals, however, because I had an imperfect blog with imperfect articles distributed in an imperfect way, I was visible and nominated for the award.

Had I not "shipped" my blog until it was perfect, I would not have won the award. The deals still would have been done, but I would have lost out on $30,000 of press and exposure.

Perfection is a fickle mistress, chase her as an ideal, but do not succumb to her allure. Favour the maiden of improvisation and all will be well.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

What would you do if you had all of the money in the world? What is money anyways?

One of my favourite quotes about money/success/business is by Donald Trump:

“I wasn’t satisfied earning a good living. I wanted to make a statement”

What I love about this quote is that the money doesn't matter, the deals don't matter, the success doesn't matter, the lifestyle doesn't matter... What matters is the statement that is made by the work. 

Great Artists make statements, for that is the purpose of Art. An artist produces art to make a statement, Donald Trump builds buildings to make a statement, in many ways Donald Trump is an artist.

Donald Trump certainly does not have to get out of bed in the morning and go to work to pay his mortgage or put food on the table. Necessities like food were never a concern for Trump. Life would be empty if he could not create through his work. A starving Artist is the same, he has no material possessions, money doesn't matter and his life is empty without creating through his work.

When you make a commitment to excellence and stand for something, others will be attracted to your message. In a roundabout way, making a statement is what branding is all about.

Today I was sitting in Starbucks with a couple potential Joint Venture Partners and we were interviewing potential contractors to flip houses with. After one candidate left I made the statement to my partners that the contractor was an old "has-been". After a few minutes of discussing the contractor's flaws, a man sitting at an adjacent who had been listening to us talk said to me "you have to have your own crews!"

I replied "I do have my own crew"

We started talking to the man and he said "you were really arrogant with that last contractor". We continued to talk to him and he said "you remind me of me when I was your age".

It turns out that the man who had been listening in on our interviews owns over 5500 rental units in Winnipeg and is one of the most successful investors in the city. We continued to chat for 30 minutes about the business of real estate and he invited myself and my partners to spend some time with him in the new year.

What is amazing about the experience was that if I had not made such a bold statement, we would not have been approached by the very successful investor at the adjacent table. The connection with one of the biggest investors in the city could be very important in the future and I would have never made the connection if I did not make a statement. If I had cold called this successful investor, he would not take my call. However, since he had observed me and saw what I stood for, he reached out to make the connection with me.

Like attracts like and birds of a feather flock together. Put up a flag, show people who you are and what you stand for and you will attract those who think like you do. People are magnets and we attract other people who are charged like us; this is why branding is so important.

Make a statement, make it strong, make it bold and stand by it.

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

Thanks for reading,
By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

Remember: 
Please share this article if you found it insightful.

"The grass is always greener on the other side, until we get to the other side and realize that the other side requires watering and maintenance too" - Dr. Nido Qubein

Focus brings clarity to the mind.

Focus brings success.

Focus brings happiness.

Happiness in life is determined by what we focus on and choose to think about. If we are focused on our passions, obsess over them and think about them all day long, we live very happy and productive lives.

However, the enemy of focus is options.

Have you ever noticed that some of the least happy people are the ones with the most options?

The media is littered with rich and famous celebrities who have all of the options in the world: They can live where they want, spend their time how they want, eat what they want, drive what they want, have the house that they want, and have the means to completely design a perfect life and yet, many people who "have it all" are miserable and pursue hard drugs to escape reality at all costs.

These people have too many options and when the mind has too many options, focus erodes along with sanity and happiness.

In my own life, I have had periods where I had "too many options" and was on top of the world. Surprisingly, too many options also bred discontent, unhappiness and even mild depression and anxiety.

When we think we have too many options, we always ask "what if I had gone the other direction?", "what if had chosen differently", "what if I had dated that other girl"...

Eventually the mind tears itself apart, focus decays and we are left in a sea of "what if's" with no commitment or focus to any one thing.

On the flip side, there are people in the world who have the "luxury of no options".

We see people in marriages who have "no option" to get divorced and they work on their problems until they find happiness in the relationship.

We see people in businesses who have "no option" to quit  and these people always reach success because failure is not an option.

We see people in life who have "no option" of an alternate path and they become the most wildly successful people in their fields because they have the "luxury of no options".

All of these people have the highest levels of focus and absolutely zero chance of defeat.

When Julius Caesar landed on the shores of Britain to wage war with the British Tribes, he ordered his men to "burn the boats". His troops would either be victorious in battle, or they would all die in battle - no one goes home through failure. Caesar gave his men "the luxury of no options" and he was victorious in his campaign.

The Spartan warriors of ancient Greece had a similar mentality. Death before dishonour was a mantra that accurately describes the Spartan war machine and they are known throughout history as the most battle hardened, persistent, fearsome, victorious, disciplined warriors of all time. The Spartans created a culture based around "the luxury of no options" and this culture created a brand of warrior that is still studied in modern military schools and will continue to be famous for ages to come.

When we look at the most successful business people, a common element for Entrepreneurs is that they find themselves in a "no options" situation early in life. Usually successful Entrepreneurs have parents who are either dead or incompetent and they have to take over the family business at a very young age. This was true for Fred Trump (Donald Trump's father), Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad" and a modern examples would be Curtis Jackson (50 Cent).

Other entrepreneurs who find "the luxury of no options" choose a path in life at a young age and give themselves no way to retreat.

I was reviewing the "30 richest drummers in the world" list and two names that stuck out at me were Tre Cool of Greenday with a net worth of $45 million dollars and Dave Grohl of Nirvana/Foo Fighters with a net worth of $225 million.

Both Dave Grohl and Tre Cool dropped out of school at age 16 to play punk music. They had "the luxury of no options", burned the boats and had no way of reversing their choice.

The "luxury of no options" brings clarity and focus to the mind which is an extremely powerful tool because the mind will always find a way to achieve any vision that it is focused upon. 

Where most high school drop-outs are perceived as derelict losers who wander through life, three of the greatest entrepreneurs of the information age were all drop outs: Steve Jobs (Co-Founder of Apple), Bill Gates (Founder of Microsoft) and Mark Zuckerburg (Facebook Founder).

These men all made a choice in university to burn the boats and choose the "luxury of no options".

In my own life, the happiest, most exciting, most relevant moments of my life have all been moments where I had put myself into a "no options" situation.

I was forced to leave the corporate world (something that many people struggle with) because if I didn't quit my job, then I would be bankrupt in 3 months. Even while earning a nice comfortable salary at my job, I would still be bankrupt if I stayed. With "the luxury of no options", I quit my job, woke up every day with the intentions of finishing my failing real estate development. I was 110% focused on finishing the development at all costs and did not leave the job site daily until it was too dark to work. 

Life becomes very simple and fulfilling when there are no options. Every morning, the only thing I thought about was finishing the development. Every afternoon, the only thing I thought about was the development and every evening, the only thing i thought about was the development.

I had become immersed in my work, my focus became crystal clear, failure was not an option and I was happier than ever before. What is more interesting is that my chance of failure dramatically dropped to zero. There was literally no chance for the project to fail once I had found "the luxury of no options".

My contractor's truck was broken, so we couldn't haul materials. I loaded up my small 4 door sedan with doors, toilets and vanities (none of which fit in a small car) and drove around town to 6 different suppliers to get the necessary supplies to the job site. My general contractor, who had mentally given up on finishing the project, was amazed that I was hauling large building supplies in a small sedan and not a truck. I drove my small car with doors, lumber and vanities sticking out the passenger windows and the trunk. I had to take back roads so that the police wouldn't pull me over. My general contractor had given up, but I had "the luxury of no options."

We had no labour to paint the building, so I put on my painter clothes and painted every day myself while also hiring  anyone I could find on Kijiji to paint. I also attracted friends and family help with the labour because I had found "the luxury of no options" and everyone could see the high stakes and the importance of my success.

Somehow, the project was completed and successful within 45 days of quitting my job (I had 90 days to complete it). With the experience, I had learned some of the most valuable lessons of my life so far: 

• When a person has their back to the wall and has no options, the failure rate for that person dramatically drops (almost to zero) and the success rate dramatically increases (almost to 100%).
  
• When a person has no options their focus level sky-rockets. They become obsessed with succeeding. All distractions and procrastination are silenced.
• Every obstacle becomes a non-issue because the motivation level of a person with no options is inhumanly strong.
• A person with no options can achieve super-human feats that the average person with "options" will marvel at.

As a real estate investor, I frequently see part time corporate people who want to make a "smooth" transition into full-time real estate investing. For many people, quitting the corporate world and taking full control of one's time is major desire. However, this desire is often not strong enough to actually put together a concrete plan and stick to it.

For myself, my passion and desire was so strong that I put myself in a situation where I found "the luxury of no options" by accident and became successful by default. Failure was not an option for me because I literally had no options - it was live or die.

I feel the pain of the people who badly desire full control of their time and want to leave the corporate world in a "smooth" way. But after studying success, I'm not sure if there really is a possibility of a fast and smooth transition.

I'm fully convinced that there is a slow and smooth way, but I'm not sure if that method will satisfy the soul's hunger for freedom.

To paraphrase the words of Robert Kiyosaki; We can only choose one of two things in life; security or freedom. Those who choose security, end up with maximum security which is maximum security prison. Those of us who choose freedom, end up with maximum freedom, which is zero security.

For the men and women who find themselves with "the luxury of no options", they only have one choice and that is freedom at all costs. Any security they once had has been obliterated and there is only one chance for survival. 

Freedom is the only choice for these people and they pursue it with a life or death vigour that is absolutely unstoppable.

What would you give up to have "the luxury of no options"?

Have you ever found yourself in a "No options" situation? What was the outcome?

Do you value security or freedom? Which are you currently pursuing?

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

P.S. Please share this article if you found it insightful.

By Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful.

A very successful entrepreneur once said: "There are two things you cannot hire a person to do 1) Think and 2) do things in the right order".

As a serial entrepreneur, this wisdom resonated with me deeply and I have made this an absolute rule in my business.

I hire people, mostly contractors of different types to do work for me every week. Every week I am either digitally hiring contractors on eLance or physical contractors to do physical work on my Real Estate portfolio. I employ people from web developers, programmers, marketers, logo designers, carpenters, painters, general labourers, sales people, book keepers, accountants, and lawyers.

Over the years in my entrepreneurial career, I have learned the very hard way that the words of wisdom above are absolute truth.

In fact, I would venture to say that the words above are a law of business.

Disobey the words of wisdom and you will be punished in unbelievable ways.

Early in my career, I let contractors run amok because I had trusted them to:

1. Think and
2. Do things in the right order.

As a young, naive entrepreneur, I assumed that because I had put lots of thought and emotional energy into my venture, that they would think and do things in the right order as I had envisioned. I trusted their expertise and wanted to let them do what they "thought" was best.

In reality, I did not manage my contractors close enough and very soon had created $25,000-$75,000 worth of mistakes.

To a young entrepreneur, this is an enormous price to pay for a little bit of ignorance.

Assuming that someone you hire will Think and Do things in the right order is easily the most expensive mistakes an entrepreneur or real estate investor can make.

Virtually all distress sales in Real Estate happen because some naive or negligent entrepreneur let their contractors run amok. All distressed businesses are a result of this as well.

The highest paid job anywhere in the world is the position of "thinking".

There is a famous book called "THINK and grow rich". The book is not called "OUTSOURCE and grow rich", "NEGLECT and grow rich", "MISMANAGE and grow rich" or "FIRE-AND-FORGET and grow rich".

The key to effective "thinking" is to set aside time each day just for thinking. 

My current schedule (if I obey it) has 1 hour of strategic thinking set aside per day, 2 hours of mindfeeding and 1 hour of creation per day.

That's 4 hours of either feeding my ability to think, straight thinking or creating as a result of thinking. 

These 4 hours are where all of my money is made. This is the highest paid work I do, no other task compares with these 4 hours.

CEO's of fortune 500 companies are paid disproportionally high salaries to other employees because they are the only people in the organization who are entrusted to think. Everyone else in the organization is hired to execute, or manage people who execute.

Entrepreneurs are the highest paid people in the world because they are the people world who do the majority of the thinking.

The people who think are the people who make all of the money. Unfortunately, to become a "thinking" entrepreneur is much harder than it sounds. 

To become a thinking entrepreneur is much different than hanging out at the library pondering thoughts over a cup of coffee or coming up with a great idea in the shower.

In Michael Gerber's best selling book "The E-Myth", he defines the 3 roles that an entrepreneur must play in their business. These roles are:

1. Technician
2. Manager
3. Entrepreneur

The technician is the lowest paid job in the organization. This person does not have to think and they are hired to do only what they are instructed to do. Most entrepreneurs get stuck in technician roles and this is why most entrepreneurs make no money and fail. A business cannot be run from the bottom.

The Manager is a middle role in the organization. The manager is entrusted to execute tasks in the right order (as dictated by the thinking entrepreneur) and manage the technicians. Many entrepreneurs get stuck in managerial roles and unfortunately, managers do not get rich. Managers are supposed to manage execution of strategies and maintain current business. They do not create new business.

Napoleon Hill's book is NOT called "MANAGE and grow rich", it's called "THINK and grow rich".

The Entrepreneur is the highest position in an organization in both rewards and responsibility and if the entrepreneur is good, he will be able to remove himself from the organization and let the managers handle the operations. 

The entrepreneur's job is to spot strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, market trends, and manage the managers. The entrepreneur is also entrusted with the two things that you can never hire a person to do:

1. Think
2. Do things in the right order

These two sacred roles are the entrepreneur's most important responsibilities. 

Henry Ford used to say "Thinking is the hardest work of all, that is why so few people do it".

For the entrepreneur to be effective, he must set aside time to Think and create general processes for getting work done "in the right order".

Of course, so many entrepreneurs fail because they entrust these responsibilities to their teams who cannot perform these tasks OR they fail to build a team and just operate as unthinking technicians and managers.

The most successful entrepreneurs in the world all set aside time each day for thinking, start with at least a 30 minute period each day and use it to build your:

1. Vision plan
2. Marketing plan
3. Strategic plan

A ship without a rudder will always smash up on the rocks and a business without a plan will eventually crash as well.

Set aside time for thinking and take Napoleon Hill's advice to THINK and grow rich.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

P.S. Please share this article if you found it helpful!