Hi treasures,

A couple of days ago I shared what changes I made in my life that really made a difference in 2014.

Today I wanted to share the lessons + things I reckon worked for my biz in this last year.

Some of them are brand new lessons. Some are continuations of stuff I’ve known for a while, but it still works and still contributes to my success.

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I wrote these up as part of my 2014 round up in the 2015 Create Your Shining Year in Biz workbook.

Me + my team are writing up what worked, what didn’t, working through all the questions, looking at numbers.

I can’t stress how highly this practice of analysis + reflection is.

You simply can’t direct your company forward unless you know what you’ve already done, what worked, what didn’t and what exactly needs to improve and by how much.

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This reflection stuff is really damn important I reckon.

Make sure you book a date with yourself + do this work, hey? It’s like tilling the soil ready for next year’s harvest.

I’m (once again) staying up burning the midnight oil to get this written.

I’m (once again) feeling concise + pithy instead of loquacious and eloquent.

I’m goin’ with it.

Away we go!

1. I continued to mastermind with a bunch of really good chicks

I talk about this shit all the time. It’s still important.

I surround myself with a bunch of positive, kind, achieving chicks. Some of them are further ahead in their business journeys than me, some are at the same place, some are a bit behind.

We get as bloody honest + vulnerable as we can with each other.

We share resources + rants.

And as always: whatever you put into masterminds is what you get out.

If you’re not contributing to the culture, you’re sucking from it.

Lesson: Surround yourself with success and souls that choose to shine.

2. I hired full time.

After years of having part-time independent contractors/VAs, I was ready to make the big legit leap of hiring full time peeps to work only in my business.

The difference it makes is incredible.

It just feels energetically 100% more awesome + powerful.

Lesson: Hiring full time increases your people’s single-minded devotion to creating an incredible company.

3. I fired when it wasn’t working.

You can’t put a square peg in a round hole.

It is never, ever, ever easy to fire.

But at the end of the day, a company owner’s loyalty must lie with the company itself.

Lesson: If you know someone is impacting the company negatively, you need to let them go so they can find their right place in the world.

And you need to find someone who has what the company needs to help it move forward.

 4. We created a kickass Standard Operating Procedures wiki

• We used Google Sites to create a private wiki that is accessible by all members of our team (these sites are free by the way).
• We used to have our Standard Operating Procedures (i.e. our instructions on how to perform every task within the company) as separate Word documents that were wafting about, but it was unwieldy, hard to update and not all in one place. A wiki is a hundred million gazillion times better.
• I’ve asked my team to create full lists of every task they complete, and each task has to be hyperlinked to where the instructions are to complete that task. That way at any point in time if I need to get someone else to step in, it’s easy as pie for someone else to pick up where they left off.
• Lesson: Nothing in businesses should only live in your or your staff member’s heads. SOP IT!

5. We found a tops tech team

• We were using a few people for projects (a coder/infrastructure, an Infusionsoft expert + a custom order form builder) and the whole process was unwieldy.
• We simplified and use one company with a bunch of staff and skills with a built-in tech project manager.
• Most importantly, they’re a bloody wonderful bunch of blokes who’ve gone above and beyond for us to help us with our projects. Even though they aren’t officially a part of our company, they are totally on our team.
• Lesson: Don’t accept mediocrity. Steamline where possible. Send copious thank you cookies when you strike gold.

6. Embracing the scary moments + fuck-ups

There have been plenty of difficult moments in business this year.

Moments when it’s felt scary. Moments when things have NOT gone to plan.

But here’s where I reckon it all works out:

I get excited. Even when I’m panicky and worried.

Because I think:

How cool is this? I’m learning SO much! Next time I experience something like this, it won’t be for the first time!

We also do things like write Lessons Learned documents after every project.

We conduct “post-mortems” over the phone to talk about what went wrong.

All of us on the team – me included – are happy to cop it on the chin if we’ve made a mistake.

We go:

Yep, I’ll wear that. I definitely need to improve that.

And we do.

We have also tried really, really hard to be as transparent, communicative + compassionate with our glorious customers (with the US printed workbook delays).

Further resources: This interview on being cool with making mistakes + getting better at decision making is highly inspiring.

7. Getting the life support stuff was key

You can read about my new found love of:

• babysitters
• cleaners
• private fitness instructors
• TREATING YOSELF

here.

8. I continued (as always) to invest in education.

• Favourite book was Good to Great.
• As I mentioned in my books post, I made books into studies this year.
• I bought hard cover copies, and gone to town on them with notes and highlighters.
• I’ve got a few more intensive programs, but am waiting for the inner bandwidth to surface before I tackle them. I did just pop a baby out of my vag this year, you know.

9. I healed shit when I needed to.

Hiro and Kerry are my go-to-girls.

Doing your inner work is just as important as all the business stuff.

It totally interrelates on so many levels.

Money mindset, how you create, what you fear, how you lead — all of that is inner work — and it all deeply affects our outer world.

10. I got out into the world and talked to people face to face.

People in real life are like SUPER FUN!

When the internet gets you down, or you feel like you’ve finished reading it because it’s getting so freakin’ samesame and borrrrring…

GET OUT INTO THE WORLD.

There are really cool peeps out there. Your friends. Your customers. Your fans. Your colleagues.

Go talk to them. Hang with them. Ask them questions. Listen. Laugh. Eat noodles. Drink chai.

It’s completely clarifying and it shakes the shit off you and gets you centered again on what’s important and what’s right.

You’ll also get bloody wonderful messages about exactly what your people are needing and how you can help.

Lesson: It’s fun being in your pyjamas while you work until you realise you haven’t left the house in 386 days and need deeper conversation than your cat can provide.

Read also: This comic from The Oatmeal

And the culmination of all this?

Some pretty fucking massive achievements:

• 7 figure business
• 55 000+ on mailing list
• Still working part time so I can focus on my lil babies!
• A life + a biz that I am so proud of.

TAKE YOURSELF ON A DATE THIS WEEK

Ask yourself the big insightful questions that are going to make a difference.

Or hook up with some buddies and go through the workbook together.

This week is the prime time for it!

But remember – only do it if you want your life to be happier, more abundant, more on soul-purpose.

If that sounds shitholery to you, runnnnn awaaaaaayyyyyyy fasssssssst nowwwwwwwwwwww.

Love your loving butt-kicker/cheerleader/mermaid,

WHAT YOU REALLY SHOULD BE DOING RIGHT NOW: