Last Thursday, my husband and I attended a business seminar for small business owners on the “Mindsets, Habits, and Actions of Successful Business Owners.” There were a bunch of delicious nuggets I took out of the seminar – I had five pages full of notes! – and I’ll be sharing some of them with you in the weeks ahead. These aren’t in any particular order.
The first thing that comes to mind as I reflect on this seminar is the idea of “quality in, quality out.” If you’re a bit older, you might remember in the early days of computer programming the acronym GIGO – garbage in, garbage out. Both concepts are similar – you will put out what you take in. The seminar leader said he never listens to nor watches the news; he gets daily papers and can pick and choose what he reads. He replaces the constant news flow with listening to podcasts about business.
This is something I have to think about every day with intention. I don’t listen to the news nor do I watch it. There is no news that will be important to my life in six months, so how much less important is it now. There are other temptations on our time, though, aren’t there? Social media is a big one! That time on Facebook catching up with friends and trends is time that’s not going to my business. On top of that, it can easily suck the joy out of a morning before my day has even had a chance to start.
So with what do I replace this time and brain drain? I check email, which helps me begin to put together my agenda for the next day. I cruise through a set of problems at brilliant.org and exercise my math and physics skills. Also, I read business blogs and articles. If I want to be successful in business, then I must make it a point to read what successful people do and emulate those disciplines for myself.
When I put quality input into my brain, then my day gets off to a jazzed up, high quality start. Solving math problems gives me a sense of achievement to begin my day (especially considering math is far from my strongest subject), and reading business blogs inspires me, giving me food for thought as I take care of that day’s tasks. By contrast, scrolling through Facebook first thing often leaves me feeling disgusted or inundated by negative energy – just too much fearmongering, intolerance, and hate. It’s like having the choice between a filling, healthy breakfast or a doughnut. The calorie count might be the same, but only one of those will leave me feeling good about what I took in and nourish my body well.
What’s it going to be for you today? With what will you fill your mind as your day begins, as you get ready to roll up your sleeves and tackle the little-and-growing empire that is all yours? Will you fill it with high quality things so that your output will reflect quality, or are you going for the junk? Choose wisely, for we only get one “today.”
