Jeff Leach

Human life is constantly filled with chaos and distraction. Most of that distraction comes from our own minds and the things that pressure us on a daily basis. These items can greatly affect the advancement of our businesses and life. They distract us from the things that are most important.

Throughout life, it is important to look for ways to help ease the noise that exists in our minds so that we can be more successful. One of the best methods that can help us to accomplish this is daily meditation.

What is Meditation?

Meditation is about strengthening the willpower muscle of your brain. This means that you will be able to quiet the noise in your mind and focus more on the things that matter the most.

Meditation has been around for centuries and experts say that it is one of the best ways to reduce stress in a person’s life. When meditating, the mind is in a unique level of peace and stillness – but is still alert. It allows people to dwell on the events of the current moment rather than worry about the future or the things that are left to do for the day.

This ability to remove the stress in a person’s life has a great effect on their overall level of success. With a renewed sense of concentration, they are able to achieve levels at work and in their personal life that they never thought were possible before. You’re more focused and determined.

How Does Meditation help me to Achieve Success?

At times, success can be difficult to master. It takes hard work and dedication to be successful and the simplest mishap can easily steer us off of the road that we have been traveling. However, there are ways that you can help yourself stay on the right path and make sure that your life is a success.

Meditation is one tool that can be very beneficial in achieving success for a number of reasons. To begin with, it helps us to control our emotions. It provides us with a way to control anger and negativity towards others so that we are able to work better as part of a team. It has even been shown to help us overcome depression, which can hold us back from achieving our goals and dreams.

One of the best things about meditation is that it helps our mind relax. This will allow us to focus more on the important issues and may help us to solve difficult problems that we have been facing. With these issues taken care of we will be able to move towards a successful life faster than ever before.

A restful mind also means that we will have a higher level of concentration. This means that you will be able to answer questions more efficiently and finish work assignments on time. No longer will you be forced to shuffle through the day with the baggage that your mind is placing on your shoulders.

Finally, meditation also gives you a moment to reflect inward and study the strengths and weaknesses that are present in your life. Fully understanding these areas can help you to achieve a higher work level than before because you will understand what you are good at and what may require a bit more of your attention than usual.

How to get started?

One of the most effective methods is focusing on your breathing. With this, you should simply find a comfortable place to sit and relax. For about 10 minutes every day, spend time focusing on your breathing. This will help you to learn how to focus on other areas of your life as well.

When a distracting thought enters your mind in an attempt to disrupt your meditation pattern, put them to the side and maintain your focus on your breathing. This is the key to the exercise of strengthening the willpower area of your brain. Keep practicing pushing thoughts not related to the focus on your breath.

If you are able to achieve this, you will be able to see great success in your business and life because of your renewed sense of focus and concentration.

Conclusion

It is suggested that we all spend between 5 and 20 minutes each day meditating. Science can physically see the benefits in the brain on MRI scans after only 90 minutes of accumulative practice. Find a program that works best for you and stick with it. Once you have begun meditating on a regular basis, you will find yourself feeling refreshed, relaxed and happier.

It can help you have a positive energy that you carry around with you from one day to the next. This positive energy will help you to enhance the skills that you have in your personal life and at work; creating more opportunities to be successful.

When you begin to notice the success that this new energy is providing to you, you will begin to feel different and powerful. It will to bring out the positivity that has been proven to help us be successful. You will also finally be able to focus your attention on the things most important to your advancing your success.

Photo: “Meditating on Airport Mesa Vortex – Sedona” by Al_HikesAZ is marked with CC BY-NC 2.0

It’s exciting to hire your first team. It’s the moment that you transition into running an actual business instead of a one-man show.

Do it right, and it’s the moment that you’ll start to make real money. You simply can do more with other talented people on your side than you can do on your own. Do it wrong, and you’ll cause yourself problems and headaches that put your business at risk.

Sadly, hiring mistakes are pretty common.

1. Failing to understand exactly what this person was hired to do.

Some companies have ditched job titles, even highly regarded and well-known companies like Zappos. You might like the idea of adopting this structure, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t need to know exactly what you’re hiring for when you’re hiring for it.

This is as much for you as it is for the employee. Don’t hire someone to say, take over your accounting if you’re constantly going to try to take back the accounting. It’s counterproductive, and it’s a waste of money.

The Entrepreneur’s Organization Network suggests hiring specialists over generalists.

“Conventional wisdom among entrepreneurs says hire the generalist who can adapt to whatever situation you have. In fact, very few people are truly good at many things. Most people are only good at a few things. Hire for those things. Alec Gores, the billionaire founder of Gores Group, told us, “I look at our team almost like a football team. If I am hiring for a position, I ask myself, what is this person going to be doing? Are they a quarterback? A center? I don’t try to get the quarterback to operate like a center or a linebacker.”

You’re not hiring someone “just to help out.” You’re hiring them to fill a very specific role and need in your organization. When you do this, you’ll get more value out of them and they’ll be happier.

2. Failing to consult your network.

Many entrepreneurs go straight to posting job ads simply because that is the way that they have seen other companies do their hiring. But you should start with your own network before you advertise. Crack open your LinkedIn account and start asking around. You’re more likely to get someone with proven competencies.

Don’t hire family and friends, however. You’re not going to be effective at managing them.

You can also use LinkedIn to simply go searching for the kind of person that you have in mind. If they’re not open to a conversation they may be able to point you in the direction of a similar colleague who is.

After that, use your social media channels and your own website. Look for people who fit the bill. Approaching them is a lot less of a time-waster than going through thousands of resumes and applications. It’s a lot less frustrating and it’s a lot more likely to net you an A-player. By flooding yourself with applications you risk opening yourself up to the temptation to hire someone just to get it over with.

3. Moving too quickly.

You don’t want to spend six months on one position, but you don’t want to hire on impulse, either. It’s not easy to get rid of a bad hire once you’ve made the choice, and a bad hire can be expensive. It’s important to do your due diligence.

That means reaching beyond the interview and the resume. Dig into the potential hire’s online presence. Are they actively contributing to their industry or field? What do their social profiles look like? Is there anything in their online presence that contradicts anything that they’ve said during the hiring process? Is there information that shows a lack of judgment or professionalism?

Call references, and ask good, probing questions. For example, don’t ask, “Was he a good sales representative?” Ask, “What was his approach to finding new accounts? What stood out about the way that he handled customers over the phone?” The questions should be specific to the role that you are hiring for. Some references won’t want to answer, but others will. And you’ll learn a great deal about whether or not the candidate is really as strong as he or she appears to be.

Finally, you can always wrap up this due diligence with a 30 day probation period if everything seems to check out. Make your expectations clear, then see how they do with your culture, with your vision, and with your customers. If it doesn’t work out you haven’t lost anything, and you haven’t opened yourself to legal trouble. If it does, you can have the confidence that comes from having a great team member on your side.

Photo Credit: “Scrabble – Hiring” by flazingo_photos is marked with CC BY-SA 2.0

Shows like The Shark Tank have made the notion of seeking out venture capital hotter than ever. But it’s not always necessary. And it’s not always good for your business.

In fact, there are compelling reasons why seeking VC funding could be the worst possible move that you could make for the business. All that money may look attractive, but signing a VC deal could be the equivalent of signing your own death warrant.

You won’t learn how to run your own business.

Venture capital looks attractive to many founders simply because founders feel as though getting the VC money will help them avoid the hard work and challenges that go along with starting a business. It’s natural to want to mitigate your own risk, and it’s natural to want to “go big,” fast.

But you’re losing out on something important.

There’s a lot to be said for learning what it takes to build a solid business from the ground up, and for feeling the pleasure that comes along with having to make it work. Even the sleepless nights and the worries about how you’ll make the next payroll have value. They turn you into a better entrepreneur and business person. They teach you how to think outside the box. They force you to ask yourself how bad you want this. And they push you to create real value.

Some entrepreneurs imagine that the VC firm will provide them with a savvy partner who can make up for their lack of knowledge and experience, a fine mentor who will turn them into the moguls they want to be. But this, too, is an illusion and something many VCs sell entrepreneurs on to get a better deal.

First, you’re not going to get nearly enough of the VC’s attention to learn much of anything. Even in the late 90s Venture Capital firms were reducing the amount of time they spent consulting with founders. A Harvard Business Review article called How Venture Capital Works indicated that VCs were spending less than 2 hours each week advising or mentoring companies in their portfolios. This means you’re not really getting the benefit of any additional expertise when you sign on that dotted line.

As it is, the advice that you do get may not be anything to write home about. The same report notes that most VCs have never worked in the industries they fund, which means that they don’t actually know anything at all about your business or what you’re trying to accomplish with it. They know just enough to be dangerous—to demand business decisions that might be detrimental or to block business decisions that might be advantageous.

You’ll be saddled with another boss

The VCs may not expect to spend much time paying attention to you, but they do expect you to spend a great deal of time paying attention to them.

The Seed and Startup Capital Blog actively argues against using venture capital. One of the major points that the blog makes is that your role, as the founder, will ultimately shift from the moment that you reach out to accept VC money.

“As soon as venture capitalists become involved, the founder’s role shifts from critical company building functions to preparing reports, attending endless meetings, writing memos, and hand-holding impatient and/or meddlesome investors.”

There are strings attached to that money. This is America, no one gives away money without expecting something in return, and if you believe otherwise you are just completely naïve. It’s not being given to you as a gift. It’s not a loan. It’s an investment that comes with the understanding that you’ll give up 40% of your company, or more. The VC gets the right to tell you how to run your business, and ultimately may have more control over your business than you do. And in fact, it’s like having a traditional boss in more ways in one. Once you take the deal there’s no guarantee that you will be sticking around, for all that this was your idea, your passion, and your dream. In fact, the VC firm gets the right and the power to show you the door and they often do just that. You haven’t just hired a new boss. You’ve hired a new boss that has invested in your company with expectations and demands. Many VCs will be all smiles and big promises knowing with a little investment they can make big demands and take control of an unstable company eventually outing the founders if needed.

If a venture capital firm does oust you, it may not even be about making sure they get someone who can run the company better than you can. A Stanford Law School paper called VCs and the Expropriation of Entrepreneurs points out that the very structure of most VC agreements makes “firing the founder” a tempting and lucrative prospect.

Why is the expropriation of founders and other early-stage investors possible? Much of it arises from powerful contractual rights routinely granted to VCs, such as control over the company’s board, strong anti-dilution and redemption rights, liquidation preferences, and control over the sources of future financings. Such contractual rights are often necessary to curb well-known incentive problems of early-stage investing, but they create significant expropriation risks. The VC, for example, maybe contractually allowed to fire the founder for the sole purpose of repurchasing the founder’s stock at a symbolic price, to dilute the founder’s ownership stake, or to sell the company on terms disadvantageous to founders. When the VC chooses to exercise his contractual option to expropriate, founders often have no legal recourse, and when they do, the value of such recourse is significantly reduced by the complexity and expense of litigation.

As it stands, VCs are rather clear that they believe that firing the founder is the best way to get a return on their investment. Read the blog of Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson if you’d like to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.

The extra money isn’t really a boon.

Believe it or not, all of that extra money isn’t necessarily going to help you grow your business or make it better. If you don’t have a specific need for every dollar of the VC money you may well find yourself using it on things that make your company worse, not better: on employees, you don’t need, for example, or equipment you don’t want.

Why not just save the money until you actually need it? The VCs simply won’t let you. They’ll pressure you to spend that money on the things that they think will benefit their investment. Since we have already established that most VCs are woefully out of touch with the industries they’re trying to invest in you can bet that few of these purchases will make particular sense.

How is it that venture capitalists throw money at businesses and essentially pressure them into wasting it? Because a few companies win no matter what, and they only need one or two of the companies in their portfolio to succeed. “Throwing money at it” is a hallmark of the old days when most businesses were based in manufacturing—buying more factories and scaling up more widgets was a fast track to success. Today’s companies are based on ideas.

That’s not to say there aren’t companies who can’t benefit from such an infusion. In Paul Graham’s A Unified Theory of VC Suckage Google was upheld as one such exception. Why? Because Google actually had a place for all that money: they had to use it on servers and bandwidth that helped them dominate the web. “Less fortunate startups just end up hiring armies of people to just sit around having meetings.”

Evaluate your own needs very, very well before you assume that you will be the Google in your chosen VC’s portfolio instead of one of the countless losers.

Even courting a VC offers significant risks

You have to put significant time and energy into courting a VC and each meeting that you have exposes you to one of two risks.

First, many VCs go to meetings with entrepreneurs with no other purpose than to steal the ideas the entrepreneurs are sharing. Those ideas are passed on to other businesses in the VC’s portfolios, or on to the similar company that the VC ultimately chooses to back.

This is obviously a big concern. Again, most of today’s businesses are built on someone’s unique intellectual property, not on the creation of widgets. Your entire business can be sunk if your idea is simply given to someone else.

In fact, VCs have a vested interest in distracting you from your primary purpose as a business: that of making money. As The Seed and Startup Capital Blog points out, it strengthens their bargaining position.

Once negotiations begin, venture capitalists will typically stall in order to push cash short companies to the brink of bankruptcy as a way of extracting additional equity and concessions at the last moment.

Given the concerns I have already raised, it’s worth asking yourself why you would want to expose yourself to this risk in the first place. The rewards are often little more than poisoned fruit.

You probably don’t need a VC

There are plenty of big name companies that didn’t use VC funding. Plenty of Fish didn’t, and it’s worth $1 billion. Gawker didn’t, and it WAS worth $150 million (Dead now thanks to Hulk Hogan). TechCrunch, at $32 million, didn’t take any venture capital either. (Source: Business Insider).

If you have a truly great idea and the passion to make that idea work, then there’s a good chance you don’t need venture capitalists either. You just need the willingness to make sacrifices, and the guts to sit through a few late-night brainstorming sessions, hoping against hope that you’ll be able to hustle enough tomorrow to make your payroll at the end of the month.

I’m not claiming there is no use for a VC, there are a number of different reasons to use a VC, but if you don’t have an established business with 2 years of financials and are considering a VC I would think twice. You’re giving away more then you need to, you have no real negotiating power and it’s much too early to really know what you need VC money for.

If building a successful company was easy everyone would be doing it, building a successful company takes brains, it takes guts and it takes hard work and determination. If you want to build a successful company you’re going to have to do things you don’t like, you’re going to have to work harder then you ever have, you’re going to have to make sacrifices in your life, you’re going to have to get into uncomfortable and ruthless situations, this is the business world. No VC money is going to change this, business is hard. I believe most people fail because of their inner fears; fear is what ultimately leads to failure. When you eliminate your fears you can take calculated risks and make quick and effective decisions that will lead to your success, I wouldn’t think twice about spending my entire bank account on something I believe in because I’m not afraid of failure and understand that failure is not an option, I will make it work no matter what.

Photo: “Small Business Startup Grants” by Grant Source is marked with CC BY 2.0

Waves of recent strikes by fast food workers protesting minimum wages have ignited a fierce debate in this country about the meaning of fair, just compensation.

There’s no doubt that payroll is always going to be one of your biggest expenses and stresses and it’s the key to many things: your company’s bottom line and efficiency, your ability to recruit and retain A-player employees, and your reputation. Pay too much and you might go out of business. Pay too little and you open yourself up to a whole host of problems.

After all, chances are that you are not a McDonalds or an Albertsons, large enough to pretty much go right on doing whatever you want regardless of what anyone has to say about it, and large enough to absorb the very real cost burden associated with high turnover and low morale.

Employees will tell you, however, that fairness is incredibly important to them. Compensation and notions about what makes it fair are somewhat subjective exercises. However, there are guiding principles that you can use to steer your company in the right direction.

Fair compensation considers the market rate for each position.

The market rate isn’t really a bad guide for most positions and most employees are well-informed about market rates because they’ve taken the time to look them up.

You don’t necessarily want to pay right at the bottom of the scale. For example, according to Salary.com a retail sales clerk is likely to make anywhere from $7.25 an hour to $13.96 per hour. Sure, you could get away with paying the minimum, but you’re not likely to produce an employee who feels they are being paid fairly. Instead, edge closer to the middle. Costco is often lauded for paying its employees a starting wage of $11.50 per hour. Notice that they didn’t need to swing all the way to the top of the market rate payment scale to reap the benefits of employee loyalty, not to mention a great deal of positive PR.

Fair compensation is livable.

Employees are giving you the best part of their time when they give you forty hours a week. Nobody is asking you to support a caviar habit. However, an employee can’t be faulted for expecting that he or she should at least be able to afford to feed, buy clothes, and shelter a family in return for that time. They may only be able to afford basics on low-level jobs, but if you want to offer fair compensation then make sure those basics are affordable. The living wage calculator can help you make these decisions.

Again I’d have to point to Costco: their wages are considered liveable. However, they’re only paying their employees $4.25 over the bare minimum. You don’t really have to break the bank to make this happen.

Again, you can take a “why should I worry about this, it’s their problem” mentality if you want to but you’re never going to earn loyalty that way. It’s also a short-sighted attitude. You pay far more whenever an employee leaves. For example, the Center for Economic and Policy Research turnover calculator estimates the cost to replace one minimum wage worker at $15,745.00.

Let’s imagine for a moment that you lose 3 unhappy employees in a month. You’ve just cost yourself $47,245 in turnover costs for one month. In contrast, the employee who makes $11.50 an hour only costs you $1,840 per month, plus tax. Paying $47,245 per month to save $680 a month is the epitome of being “penny wise and pound foolish.”

And in many cases, the cost of setting fair employee wages barely impacts profits at all. Albertsons could afford to pay its workers $14.96 per hour without raising prices even one cent. Arguably, they’d make more profit, as many of their workers would turn right back around to do their shopping there and could afford to buy more.

Fair compensation is transparent.

Out in the trenches, the secrecy surrounding wages breeds suspicion and resentment. If you want people to suspect you’re not being fair, just keep it all hush-hush.

It’s better to have a structured pay scale that everyone understands. Make sure the rewards and milestones are clear so that people understand what they’d have to do in order to earn more pay. Clear goals, objectives, and rewards are gamification principles that have been shown to really impact and motivate employees. There are a lot of companies that have put these principles into action.

I spoke with a company about this before and their response was that it’s best to stop negotiating. Do you really want to pay someone more just because they’re good at talking you around? Most of the jobs you are trying to fill don’t really require shrewd negotiation skills, after all. Keep it simple by ensuring that everyone’s getting paid the same wage for the same work.

If you have to raise the pay for one class of employee, it’s usually better to bite the bullet and raise wages all across the board. That way valuable executives aren’t getting paid less than entry-level workers simply because the market shifted a little bit.

You should also be transparent about the external factors that are leading to your pay decisions. If you’re a start-up company with very little revenue then you’ve got some decent reasons for hovering near the lower end of the market rate for each position. If you’re bringing in $425 billion in revenue, however, don’t expect your employees to believe that you’re being fair to them when you choose to pay the bare minimum.

Photo: “The Office: Working on the final layer” by Emily @ go haus go is marked with CC BY 2.0