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

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

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

One of the most common questions that we all hear on a daily basis is: "What do you do?"

For some, this is an easy question; "I'm a doctor" some may reply; or "I'm a teacher" everyone understands that doctors treat sick people and teachers teach. For others, the questions "what do you do?" is much more abstract and hard to answer.

In the past, I had introduced myself as an "entrepreneur". Some people say that "entrepreneur" is a nice word for "unemployed" or "unemployable". The problem with being an entrepreneur is that is that entrepreneurship is so vast and abstract that most people cannot understand what an entrepreneur does.

When you say "I'm an entrepreneur", the common reaction is a blank stare, and then the following question "so, what do you ACTUALLY do?"

In truth, entrepreneurs are responsible for the entire business, or multiple businesses. They hire, fire, delegate, select projects, start projects, finish projects, manage and even sometimes work in the business. However, the entrepreneur has 1 job that only he or she can perform.

A great businessman once said; "there are only two jobs that you cannot ever pay a person to do"; These are the job of the entrepreneur - everything else can be done by someone else.

The two jobs that cannot be done by anyone other than the entrepreneur are:

1) Think
2) Do things in the right order

In Michael Gerber's bestselling book "The E-Myth", Gerber explains that there are three roles that the entrepreneur must play when he or she starts a business:

1) They must be the Entrepreneur, the visionary who paints the broad strokes and has the energy and drive to start the business.
2) They must be the Manager, the person who oversees the operation and ensures that it functions efficiently and sustainably.
3) They must be the Technician and handle the daily transactional work in the business.

All tasks in an organization can be delegated or hired out to either a manager or employee and many organizations can run very efficiently on mostly Technicians and Managers. However, the Entrepreneur is responsible for all of the strategic thinking in the business and he or she must determine the right order of operations and proceedures.

No matter how good your technicians are or how good your managers and employees are, they can never replace you as an entrepreneur. They rely on you to think and create plans for them to execute.

So many businesses fail because the entrepreneur is negligent to think and appropriately delegate: A ship without a rudder always smashes up on the rocks.

I have broken the above rules many times in the past and have learned my lessons first hand. Today, I make sure that I am the only person in charge of the sacred tasks of the entrepreneur. To break this rule is to expose your venture to disaster.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio

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

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

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

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
http://www.facebook.com/stefanaarnio

"Pressure makes diamonds" - General George S. Patton.

What do you do when you are under pressure?

Do you crack? Do you fold? Do you avoid and hide from the world?

Or do you stand up, get stronger, and push harder to persist?

Pressure makes diamonds... but it can also crush people.

Years ago, when I attended my first Real Estate seminar, the speaker asked "And what about stress...? After you have made your money, do you think the stress goes away?"

Almost every hand in the room went up and the room was silent.

After a long pause, the speaker continued "Stress never goes away, and you must learn to manage it. Just because you have more money, does not mean that your stress levels change."

Throughout my life, I have constantly placed myself in high pressure situations. I played music at a professional level, I was a national leader in direct sales and I'm currently playing the highest risk/reward game in the world: entrepreneurship.

Somehow, I have always been attracted to high pressure situations because I am naturally a competitive person and have always wanted to compete and work with the best.

For me, the pressure has always been necessary for me to push to the next level: pressure makes diamonds.

Of course, being under pressure is extremely uncomfortable and it can take it's toll on your sleep, your comfort and over all quality of life. But looking back on my life so far, the greatest, most exciting, relevant moments have been the ones of greatest pressure and greatest importance.

In contrast, my most unhappy, joyless, depressing moments have been the moments of absolutely no pressure.

We all remember the days of high school where we would have an exam in 3 weeks...

3 weeks would go by and we would neglect to study.

30 hours before exam, we would still neglect studying...

8 hours before the test starts we are up all night trying to learn Calculus while trying not to over dose on caffeine.

Somehow pressure can bring out the best in people.

Pressure brings clarity, decision and action to people who normally have confusion, indecision and passivity.

Pressure shows us who we really are and can bring out the hero OR the wimp inside of us.

Pressure lets us know what we are made of and lets us know how far we can be pushed so that we can see where our limits truly are.

One of my favourite things about pressure is that it brings out our natural instincts.

Instinct is not a common topic of conversation in our modern world because we think of feral cats, wild dogs or rabid beasts as having instincts - not civilized people!

Civilized people do not have instincts...

Or do they?

Kathy Kolbe is a theorist and educator who developed a test called the Kolbe index.

The Kolbe index is a series of short questions that measure your instincts show you what your strengths are when under pressure.

For myself, this information has been unbelievably helpful. It also explains why I am happiest under pressure.

The reason why I am happiest under pressure is because I am forced to become my natural self. 

Pressure brings out my natural instincts and allows me to pursue the "best version of myself".

My Kolbe index tells me that under pressure I "improvise". People with instincts similar to mine make great salespeople, public speakers, on camera people, radio hosts, interviewers, storm chasers, video game designers and non-conventional educators.

All of the above "careers" are high pressure, performance based career paths that require little or no formal training to achieve success.

This would explain why I am least happy in low-pressure situations and most happy in high-pressure situations. 

Pressure forces me to become who I naturally need to become.

Pressure is what turns coal into diamonds and it also turns a raw undeveloped average person into a refined success.

I would encourage you to take your Kolbe index and find out what your instincts are and find out how you work under pressure.

Find out what your natural skill sets are, where you are happiest and then focus your whole life and business around that skill set.

For myself, I need to "improvise" all day long to feel full-filled and happy. I have re-organized my entire business around myself being able to "improvise" while key team members around me handle all of the other tasks.

By pursuing this strategy, I have seen greater success, experienced more fun, and felt more excitement. All of this can be had from selecting the tasks and roles that excite my instincts.

Please take a moment to invest in yourself, learn about your instincts and harness your talents. You're worth it.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
http://www.facebook.com/stefanaarnio

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

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!