Take a piece of paper. Draw a line down the middle. On one side, write GROWING IT. On the other, write SLOWING IT. Now write down everyone involved in your business. You. Your family. Your employees. Your suppliers. Your partners. Put every name in a column. Nobody gets to sit in the middle. That’s a bullshit opt-out. And start with yourself. Where do you fall? Before you give yourself a comfortable place in the “growing it” column, answer this: If you were in a court of law, what evidence could you produce to prove it? Not how hard you work. Not how many hours you put in. Not how much everyone relies on you. What, exactly, are you doing that grows the business? Are you winning profitable customers? Improving retention? Building a team that can deliver without waiting for you? Creating systems that let the business handle more work without everything falling apart? What has actually improved because of your contribution, and how can you prove it? Being busy isn’t evidence. Spinning plates isn’t evidence. And rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic won’t change where it’s heading. Apply the same test to every name you’ve put in the “growing it” column. Judge their contribution against their role, not whether you like them, how long they’ve been there, or how much noise they make. Then do something with what you find. Have the conversation. Clarify the expectations. Give people the tools and support to contribute. Address what’s holding them back. And if the person slowing things down is you, own it. Which column are you in, and what’s your evidence? MOST importantly - whats going to change?

STU MITTLEMAN A personal training session with Stu Mittleman in Hawaii inspired me to run my first marathon in 2002. I’ve run several since. I’ve long associated Stu with Forrest Gump. I believe he may have inspired the running story, although I haven’t been able to verify that connection. His own achievements are remarkable enough. In 1986, he ran 1,000 miles in 11 days and 20 hours, setting a world record....and also had records for running 100miles in just over 12hours and 3000 miles in 56days. Stu helped me see possibilities I hadn’t seen before. And much of what I learned applies just as much to business as it does to running: 1. YOU CAN STILL START SOMETHING NEW That session in Hawaii led to my first marathon in 2002 and several more afterwards. It’s easy to decide you’ve left something too late without ever testing that belief. A new skill, a business, a different direction. Give yourself the chance to find out. 2. FIND A PACE YOU CAN SUSTAIN Working flat out for three weeks means little if you spend the fourth exhausted and making poor decisions. Find a rhythm that lets you deliver consistently, with something left for your family and yourself. 3. RUN YOUR OWN RACE Someone else opens another branch or announces record turnover. Good for them. You don’t know their debt, their margins or what it’s costing them personally. Be clear about what success means to you. Learn from others, but measure your progress against your own goals. 4. LEAVE YOUR EGO BEHIND One thing I remember is the encouragement to let your belly expand as you breathe, rather than pulling it in to look good. That stuck with me. How often do we hold ourselves back because we’re worried about appearances? Choose what helps you perform, even if it looks less impressive. 5. BREAK THE DISTANCE DOWN A marathon can feel impossible when you think about the whole distance. A big business ambition can feel much the same. Bring it back to the next useful action. Make the call. Send the proposal. Solve the problem in front of you.

Have a listen. I start calmly, but I lose it a little towards the end. And I mean every single word. Anyone can change. Anyone can achieve success. I don’t care if that statement angers you. I know, that I know, that I know that. And it drives me absolutely effing crazy that most people choose, and it is a choice, to stay in poverty, accept failure or live permanently just above broke. They work themselves to the bone, repeating the same habits, making the same decisions and following everyone else in circles like a processionary caterpillar. Then they wonder why nothing changes. If you keep doing exactly what you’ve always done, how can you possibly expect a different outcome? If you want something to change in your life, you have to change something in your life. Different outcomes require different inputs. You can change. Or you can choose to stay exactly where you are. Don’t be a processionary caterpillar. ...watch the video on the link below https://youtu.be/3inWqxTsbk8

Start Every day with gratitude… some days it’s big things some days it’s small blessings… for me today it’s The Sun rising over my home… it just makes me feel good 🙏

From Birth to death You've got about 4,000 weeks.... How many have you got left and How are you going to use them? I worked out how many I'd already spent. I wish I hadn't. That's the premise of this week's book review: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. It is an anti-productivity book, and it will annoy anyone who has built their life on output. Which is most of us. Three things in it that stopped me: There is no bottom to the inbox. Clear things faster and more arrives. Build capacity and demand fills it. The reward for keeping up is more to keep up with. That "one big push and I'll finally be on top of it" weekend you keep planning? It does not exist in nature. Everyone settles. The only question is whether you settled on purpose or by drift. Decide what you are deliberately going to fail at, and write it down. A priority you have not protected isn't one. Stay on the bus. Every bus out of Helsinki shares the same first few stops. Get off because your work looks derivative, start again on a different route, and you'll spend your life at the station. Mastery lives past the boring stops. Almost nothing compounds inside eighteen months. I retired at 46. Within what felt like a fortnight every one of those freed-up weeks had quietly refilled. In the review I'm honest about why, and about which years of my life were actually the worst ones. They were not the years I was sofa-surfing and delivering pizzas. Full review is in the classroom, all 14 lessons plus my take 👇 Then do the maths on your own weeks, and look at next week's diary and ask whether it deserves them. https://www.skool.com/theboard/classroom/84055912?md=2b53984e82c74472a92fd3a6592cd8f6