What was your biggest business and life lesson in 2014?

[Silverhawk851]

Business / Life:
Giving is better than taking. The one who can give the most, wins.
If you want to be a lion, you've got to go train with lions. Find the people who are where you want to be. Something amazing about getting around the right crowd.
Time will pass regardless, so maximize every moment.
Take the damn risk and jump, it will rarely affect you a year from now if you fail, and if you win, it'll change your life forever.
All growth happens outside your comfort zone.

Goals:
Don't focus on goals, focus on the daily systems that you get there. Goals reduce happiness, force you live in stress until you achieve your next milestone. Focusing on the process is easier. You can break down into daily goals and let them add up.
You can only get as far as your vision. Your mental vision. Always keep it clear and expand constantly by experiencing different cultures, environments, people, places.

...a few lessons from the hundreds learnt this year.

 

[Red]

This wasn't learned in 2014 (but a few years prior) but it has changed my world:


Business: When you find yourself pissed off at someone for something they did, you can either spend your time/energy continuing to be pissed or you can put in place a protocol to ensure that you never find yourself in the same situation that allowed someone to do that to you again. You can't control people, you can only control you & how you manage/respond to people. It's accepting your role in the situation & by taking responsibility, you set yourself up for better methods/protocols/policies.

Personal: See "business" above.

 

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[csalvato]

(6) I'm gonna spend less time listening to general advice about success and spend more time learning about my own business field and other business knowledge.

One lesson I learned LAST year was to not take advice from anyone who is NOT just a few steps further along your path.

People too far down the road forgot what it's like to be where you are, and people behind you often don't know how to help. The guy who just passed your mile stone 10 minutes ago will know EXACTLY how to get to the next step for you.

 

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[OscarDeuce]

Integrity matters. I hired a contractor to assist with an important product. Along the way, I heard from an acquaintance that had done some work for the contractor I was going to hire that he had not been paid by them for the work he did. I rationalized away what should have been a big red flag by thinking "that doesn't affect me, after all I'm paying them, not being paid by them" and hired them anyway.

Well, not seeing their obvious (in 20/20 hindsight) lack of integrity as the red flag it was cost me $20,000 in direct costs and possibly 7 figures in lost opportunity costs. The work product they did deliver was totally unfit for purpose, and they did not deliver most of what they were tasked with (perhaps because they didn't pay their suppliers?). So, tuition paid and lesson learned - integrity matters, and if I again find even the slightest hint that it is lacking in a person or company I'm considering doing business with, even if I don't see right away how it affects me directly, I'll run the other way.

Cheers,
O-2

 

[SEBASTlAN]

Marketing > product

 

[Formless]

Business: The customer has as much money as you have value.

Life: Morning routine, visualization 2x a day, elimination of distractions & CLEAR DEFINITION OF GOALS = Sustainable progress.

 

[Esquire]

Okay ... here are six things I "learned" in 2014:


1. There is an important difference between an "unmet need" ... and an "unmet need people are willing to reach in their pockets and pay for."

Just because people are bitching about it ... does not mean they are prepared to pay for it.

The sooner you figure out which need is which ... the better. Satisfying "unmet needs" ... is not enough.


2. There is an important difference between a "unmet need" and a "perceived need."

Just because your target audience has an unmet need ... does not mean they realize it. It's your responsibility to make sure that they do.


3. Do not assume your service or product is intuitive ... even if the people using it are probably saavy enough to figure it out.

It is your responsibility ... to make absolutely certain ... that every user understands what's available to them ... how your features translate into benefits ... and how to make best use of those features.

In other words ... you can't just hand them a paintbrush and a canvas and expect a Picasso. Assume ignorance. Help them paint by the numbers.


4. It is far easier to extract key concessions early in the process (when you can leverage their curiosity) ... than it is to extract concessions after their curiosities have been satisfied.


5. When entering a field with established competitors ... assume that (their) "good enough" ... may (in fact) be good enough ... especially if their version of "good enough" is already in the hands of your target audience ... and paid for.

Assume that (your) being "better" ... or even the "best" ... is not enough -- assume that (your) being the "best" is the metaphorical cover charge just for a chance to compete.

Your ability to market and differentiate the finished product is what matters most.


6. Test in a pond before launching in the Ocean.

I spent an entire year ... in a limited geographic market. 99% of my potential customers had no idea I existed ... and that was all by design.

I spent a very long time refining and perfecting my site. Learned some hard lessons along the way. Even burnt a few bridges.

But the mistakes that I made were made in a small market. And I got tremendous feedback from my users.

Had I rushed into the Ocean on Day One ... it would have been a woeful disaster. But instead I took my time ... and stayed focused on the big picture.

Now ... I'm feeling pretty damn good ... and am getting my marketing plan in place.

By the time my competition takes notice and perceives me as a threat ... it will be too late.


My two cents.

 

[wade1mil]

Business: You can read or theorize all you want, but learning doesn't start until you're doing.
Personal: Every person has a different perception of the world, and nobody's is wrong.

 

[csalvato]

What was your biggest business lesson, and life lesson, of 2014? What did you learn in that year, above all things, that will change the way you approach your life in front of you.

Business: The term "cost of doing business" exists for a reason. It's always about learning how to spend less than you make...how to make $2 out of $1. Not $1 out of $0.

Life: It's important to let the right side of my brain do some thinking through meditation. I knew that when I didn't exercise regularly, I didn't function properly. In 2014 I learned that meditation is a key part of productivity, positivity and clarity in my life. It is something that is necessary for my success.

What have you learned?

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Post marked GOLD because there is some GOLD! Duh!

Marketing > product

I'm gonna disagree. A shitty product can't survive without marketing, but a good product can. But I guess that's another thread.

As the year 2014, it was a challenging year with some hard decisions. It was a good reminder that trust, but verify is a sound principle to live by, especially when it comes people on the internet. It was a good reminder that your gut is often a voice to be trusted, over your mind which prefers things neat and orderly. It was a good reminder that people generally do not change and that most people are generally good, however often times you have to decode relationships to determine if your dealing with someone who is genuine in purpose, or someone who is operating with a mask and an ulterior motive. And finally, in 2014 taught me that once and for all, the media cannot be trusted. Journalism is dead. Now excuse me while I go make $72 million trading oil futures while in high school on my lunch break, and while living with my parents.

 

[IceCreamKid]

Business:
The ability to ask good questions is one of the most underrated skills EVER. Imagine how much faster you can propel your biz by asking for help from someone who has 10 years experience in the trenches versus you trying to learn everything on your own. The lone wolf dies when there is a famine.

Personal:
1. He who angers you, controls you. Forgiving someone is quite possibly one of the best gifts you could ever give to yourself.
2. If I could put a theme on 2014 for me, it was health. I discovered 2 awesome health hacks for more mental clarity and energy throughout the day.

Wheatgrass. @MJ DeMarco you're going to like this one. Your brain needs approximately 70Mhz of energy to operate at optimum levels. To put things in perspective, a Big Mac has about 5Mhz of energy. A shot of wheatgrass has about 70Mhz of energy. On top of that, its molecular structure looks VERY similar to our blood under a microscope which causes our body to absorb its nutrients quickly upon consumption. You'll feel almost instant energy after drinking the stuff. The only downside is the taste is kinda meh.

Chia seeds. It's a complete protein. It's low glycemix index(this means a slow and steady release of energy in your bloodstream versus an initial burst then crash). It's hydrophilic(it expands 10x its own weight when coming into contact with water inside your body, making you feel full). More omega-3's than salmon. Great for stabilizing your mood and focus.

 

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[Marc B.]

I really have to pick just one?!

"If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done. Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal."

- Bruce Lee

 

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[Andy Black]

Marketing > product

Awesomely succinct.

Similarly: mindset > skillset

 

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[robbie cf]

Lost my little brother this year,my life lesson was life and time are short make the most of both, this years life lesson is reading the fastlane book thanks MJ

 

[Journey2Million$]

(1) I learned that i'm not going to get very far unless I stop wasting time and I become much more productive. This absolutely means no hobbies, no videogames, no pets, no side interests, no reading about political issues or watching science documentaries. I need to stop doing almost everything that has nothing to do with increasing my income. I need to stop all the web surfing that about unnecessary topics. I need to ruthlessly eliminate all time-wasting habits and activities so I can massively accelerate my business progress. Becoming highly successful requires an all-out effort and there's no other way to do it. This is the #1 lesson.

(2) I need a really good business strategy. I decided on one strategy which seemed good, but I still need to think about alternative strategies in case there's something better. I don't want to commit myself to a huge new project and find out it was not such a good idea.

(3) I need to work on my art skills really hard core to be as good of an artist as I always wanted to be.

(4) I need to do some new things in business to make a level of income that I've never made before. I need to seriously start implementing more marketing methods that I haven't tried before and greatly develop my marketing knowledge and skills. I'm going to expand my comfort zone and experiment with doing new things.

(5) I need to use more logical, concrete, methodical analysis when I work on figuring out how I can increase sales and why the top businesses are selling more than me.

(6) I'm gonna spend less time listening to general advice about success and spend more time learning about my own business field and other business knowledge.

(7) Lately I've been focusing on finding out what kind of things you need to do to grow a big business. I'm going to keep doing that. I've been writing down notes on how a variety of businesses grew big. For some reason it's been very unclear to me in the past how to grow a big business and make 7 figures per year, but I'm gradually getting a better idea.

(8) I need to use affirmations, visualization, and goal setting more often to keep myself motivated and on-track, so I won't slack off.

(9) I'm going to be more of a daredevil like Richard Branson and just go for things I've been afraid to do. I've already started doing this in the past couple of months.

 

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[The-J]

I've got quite a few of em.

1) If you can't provide honest-to-god 'extra' value, you don't belong in the business. Don't deal in commodities unless you have the edge in pricing or reach. This applies in the service business, too (and is where I learned this lesson). You NEED to be different somehow.

Backstory: I was doing web design for small companies. I even struck a deal with a development house in India in order to separate the business from my time. It went well (and I relaxed HARD), until I ran out of clients. All my clients had come from my own personal network (and slightly outside of it). When it came time to fish for more clients, I found that what I was charging was way more than LOCAL people were charging. Ouch. But I figured, hey, why not offer something? I tested an offer here (FREE website) and only one person out of the 5 that contacted me went through with everything I needed them to do for the offer. F*cking ouch!

I offered nothing extra. I was no faster than anyone else, my designs weren't better, and worse, my prices were HIGHER! I knew there was a way to keep going (fish for bigger clients, create an exclusive 'expert' brand) but my heart was no longer in it. I decided to leave it behind.

2) Pick up the phone. Call em on Skype. Meet up in person. This is how deals are made.

3) (related to 1) Don't F*cking relax when you know your business could stop generating 'passive income' at any moment. You're still in work mode. Biggest mistake of 2014: I could have built something else while getting passive income! I'm never making that mistake again, and honestly I think that's a mistake you have to make to understand. LOL

Dang, it felt good to get all of that off my chest. Onward to 2015!

 

[Esquire]

Don't F*cking relax when you know your business could stop generating 'passive income' at any moment. You're still in work mode. Biggest mistake of 2014: I could have built something else while getting passive income! I'm never making that mistake again, and honestly I think that's a mistake you have to make to understand.

Reminds me (in a way) of something I often heard from an entrepreneur client of mine who acquired ... and then lost ... half a billion dollars:

"The height of satisfaction ... is the height of danger."

Translated loosely:

The moment you think you're king of the world and get too comfortable with your success ... is the moment you let your guard down ... and someone knocks you off the throne.

Winning is all fine and good ... but never lose a healthy sense of paranoia ... never get too comfortable ... and never get complacent.

Act like someone is gunning for you ... because they are.

 

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[GlobalWealth]

From a business perspective, the last year has been incredible. Our domestic corporate services biz is bringing in new clients every month and the process is fairly smooth. The offshore corporate services biz is even better. The trust company is booming. The publishing/event biz is going well, but we are changing the format for '15. Very excited.

Lessons learned:

Hiring a PA was critical to the success. Without her freeing up time I was spending on menial tasks, I would not have been able to pursue bigger picture stuff.

Outsourcing some other critical tasks was also critical for the same reasons. Things like editing and publishing, website management, etc. I am not an expert here and have no business trying to do so.

Trust but verify (this seems to be a common them, right @MJ DeMarco?). Last year was an interesting year. I found out some people I had trusted were not very ethical business people. I also learned that some of the people I had done business with at a small scale, can be much, much better partners and highly ethical business people. Going forward I will do background checks on anyone I do business with. It may be a bit slow and more costly, but much more efficient in the long run.

You cannot make meaningful relationships and business deals sitting at your desk day after day. You need to get out and network. Go to local meetup events. Go to seminars and conferences.

Success will never chase you. You must chase success. And it rarely is found at your desk.


From a personal perspective, the last year has been one of the hardest in my life (maybe THE hardest). I was separated from my wife of 18 years in the fall of '13 and initially it was pretty amicable (there were bumps but overall ok). We were living a 5 minute walk away from each other so I could easily see the kids every day.

A few months later she kidnapped our children and moved to the US (yes, kidnapped because when both parents don't agree it is called kidnapping). We bought round trip tickets for her and the kids to visit family in the US and she never got on the return flight. As of this writing, I cannot even get her to sign a reasonable custody agreement and my kids are having to endure her daily barrage of hate talk about their father. It has been an emotional roller coaster.

Just before Thanksgiving my father passed away. He was suffering from cancer for many years and finally cancer won. He was a good man and mentor.

Lessons learned:

No matter how good a long term relationship is, the potential for it to blow up exists. If you would have asked me even 9 months ago 'would she vanish with kids' I would have thought you were crazy for even suggesting it.

Protect yourself - whatever that means in your personal situation.

If you have kids, make sure your relationship with them is a personal one and not dependent on your spouse. Even if your marriage never blows up, it is good for that relationship to be strong with them personally and not reliant on the other person. This is difficult to explain, but it is the difference between "we (your mother and I) love you" and "I love you".

Surround yourself with people you love and those that love you. This past year has shown me who are my real friends and who are the superficial ones. This includes family relationships. Originating from the bible belt south, you quickly learn which family members are not supportive in hard times like divorce.

Not only surround yourself with those closest to you, but focus your time and energy on those relationships. The important relationships rise to the top in times of need. Those are the good ones. Those are the relationships that need cultivating and maintaining.

The superficial ones become clear and should remain that - superficial or even non-existent.

 

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[The Grind]

Business: The amount of work, effort, focus, drive, uncertainty, risks you have to endure to start and build a business while working a full time job with no support is incredibly high, I don't blame anyone for not getting rich and just sticking to the 9-5. That's not to rationalize not doing it, just another lesson towards why you shouldn't judge the homeless guy on the corner with a tin cup.

Life: Life is extremely short, if you don't have a high sense of urgency and take your progress, your DAILY PROGRESS extremely seriously, you will wake up 5 years later being exactly where you are right now.

 

[Andy Black]

Damn you Chris for making me choose only one!

Biggest business lesson
We are our own biggest enemies. Just get out of your own way and have a go.

Biggest life lesson
I don't truly know till I have done it myself. Until then it's academic.

 

[Tony I]

Couple lessons I learned from building a business, almost losing it entirely, and then building it back up again this year;

1. Do NOT cry about changing business conditions- Instead of complaining and resisting change, embrace it. You will be ahead of the majority.

2. If your business can be easily replicated, branding is king. Give your product a unique twist and offer extra value to the customer.

3. KNOW your customer- email a few of them and have a 30 minute discussion with them. What are their needs, hobbies, etc. How can you improve your product to better meet their needs?

4. If you sell on ebay/amazon/3rd party, BUILD AN EMAIL LIST and create your own unique sales funnel.

 

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[GuestUser140]

I learned the opposite this year -- don't be afraid to spend.

Can I have the context of this lesson? What I learned is don't be afraid to spend to find something that works, then learn to cut down the cost it takes to reproduce what works.

Well, there it is: I had/have something that worked.

By thinking packing and shipping through, I managed to save not only time, but also thousands each month. Calculated on a yearly basis, it's about a minimum wage salary that stays in the bank with just a little tweak, at the same amount of sales.

To me, it's mindblowing that once you have a business that moves some volume, cutting costs by a few $ on each order amounts to an amount other people have to work an entire year for.

In detail: I started using 80 micron (strong) poly mailing bags at $0.10 instead of bespoke retail boxes at $4.50. Customers can now tick the "bespoke retail box $2.99" option during checkout, but I found out most people don't care about a box. Also, packing's a breeze now.

 

[RazorCut]

Every year around my late Fathers birthday I think about his words of advice he gave me:

“Son, I gave the best years of my life to some bugger else, don’t make the same mistake”.

That gave me a mindset to run my own businesses, not others. I’m starting over this year so this is my phones wallpaper:

No Action = No Results

Little Action = Little Results

Massive Action = Massive Results

 

[Bila]

Business : - Learn very quickly and move on to the next challenge
Personal : - Dont settle ...ever...take the hard road to be with the right people ( friends, partner ) have high standards ( regarding character not shallow things ) and stick to them.

 

[AntEmpire]

Realizing that a typical 9 to 5 career path is not going to get me to where I want to be in life.

 

[ddzc]

Business - Decided to strap on a set and actually take action instead of read document read read read. I had a bad habit of reading so much info and applying jack shit...this went on throughout 2013 and a bit of 2014. I lost a nice chunk of change in the importing last year, but I learnt a shitload more than I lost...something a business degree doesn't offer you, real life a$$ whooping. The amount I learnt by actual taking action far supersedes the dollar figures lost...I'm now in a greater position to start something big and educated to do so from the experience and failures. I also always have a backup plan so I still have a nice income coming in...I don't believe in debt.

Life - This relates and ties to business in so many ways. I've been slowly cutting off idiots who deliver nothing but negative energy in my life....people that want you to fail, people that want in on what I'm doing bc they're lazy asses, people who have back stabbed me many times when I helped them numerous times in life, etc....those people are slowly vanishing. I'm trying to surround myself around more educated, business minded folks who understand and relate to my life and goals...which btw, is extremely hard, everyone I know is a braindead slowlaner or pothead...this forum and the people on here are my sanctuary. I moved out east so I can get away from distractions, people, technology, friends and addictions (I won't get in to details), but my addictions are no where to be found where I live now. I can't stress enough to everyone here how vital moving is sometimes. It changed me in so many different ways and allowed me to really focus on my objectives with business, along with time.

 

[Tobore]

wow!

2014 was a GREAT Year Indeed.

I learned so MUCH, basically mindset stuffs but here are a few "personal" lessons...
BUSINESS:
1. Never go into business for yourself (Go into business for others by helping them save more money, time etc.)
2. Answer the golden question "What's in for me" (in their shoes) before engaging with others
3. Give more value than you receive (The power of scale with multiply your returns for you).
4. You are not measured by what you know but by what you do with the knowledge
5. Doing get things done not reading 100books (This will cut down the learning curve)
6. Entrepreneurship isn't a "get-money-only" path(if you're not growing psychologically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally, you're basically getting it all wrong).
7. Entrepreneurship is the same everywhere

LIFE:
1. Less is MORE
2. Your mind is just a tool. Never listen when it tries to stop you. (Let no one stop you too)
3. A man is NOT measured by what he materially consumes but by the value he creates
4. Stay in the present (this is counter intuitive- You only exist here and now not the future or the past)
5. Going from "consumer" to "producer" is a HUGE Leap!
6. Love is the key to abundance
7. You got one shot at life. Do it BIG mate!
8. The greatest power on earth is the power to choose and to say "No". (You're always choosing!)

#KEY-POINT: Everything worth having in life takes a PROCESS (TIME+FOCUS+CONSTANT EFFORT) to happen!

No a$$ kissing - The forum, the book and the people here has helped changed the course of my life!

God bless y'all.

Hello 2015

 

[Lex DeVille]

Business:

Value creation isn't just about having a better product/service. We're dealing with real live human beings with real problems and feelings. Communicate with others on a personal level, give their problems real attention and consideration, and go above and beyond in your solutions and they will become more loyal than your oldest friend.

Life:

Don't waste energy on insignificant problems. Nothing is as bad as it may appear.

 

[FeaRxUnLeAsHeD]

Too many to list. I'll list one of each

Business: All the shit i learned from this forum. Look for ways to add value, not 'make money' - don't be intrinsically motivated. Also set deadlines on shit and scrap projects that aren't gaining traction after a long period of time.
Life:

 

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[Get Right]

Biggest Business lesson: You have to be in the right business vehicle to get where you want to go.

Biggest Life Lesson: Change your thinking, it will change your life.

BTW - great post @csalvato

 

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