MBA1483 Must Read: The 1% Solution for Work and Life by Tom Connellan

Okay, does this happen to anybody else? You sit down with a juicy QPC, some McNuggets and those golden fries from McDonald's. Then you take a long sip of your Sprite because you can still hear your mama saying don't fill up on that drink before you eat your food. But you're grown now so you do what you want.

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Ready to save on new tech? It's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits. Perks include Dell Rewards, free shipping, premium Support and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster and with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals. Dear Omar Zenholm, I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar mba, a complete business training and community online and Today's episode is a must read episode on our Must Read Episodes I share with you a book that I've read that has greatly influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you its takeaways, its insights and why you should read it too. Today's must read is the 1% Solution for Work and Life by Tom Connellan. The 1% Solution for Work and Life is a short read, but a powerful one. It explores what is the difference between somebody who's good at something and great at something, whether it's in work or life, and how to achieve that greatness in your daily life. How to actually go after something as big as being a master at your craft. It can be kind of intimidating. How do you become one of those entrepreneurs that you look up to? This book is filled with practical tips on on improving every single day. Can't wait to get in my takeaways. My favorite insights from this book. There's a few amazing gems I want to share with you, so let's get into it. Let's get down to business. You can consider this book the 1% solution for work and a Productivity or Work Smarter Book. It gives you some practical examples of how to improve as a professional, as a person every single day. How to get to that place where you want to get to and become the person you want to become with small business. Many steps. Many of us feel overwhelmed in business and in life. You know we're trying to take care of our health. We're trying to take care of our families. We're actually also trying to run a business as well as keep our sanity. It's not easy. And in the midst of all this, we start to feel disappointed in ourself because we may not feel like we're improving or as good as we should be, or maybe we feel like we're not growing fast enough. We're disappointed at the speed of our growth. Well, in this book, Tom Connelly really looks into what's the difference between somebody who's great at something and somebody who's just okay. And really, it's a mindset, it's a mentality, and it's a percentage. One percent to be exact. The book explores is it possible to get better results, to have a better outcome, Even if you're just 1% better than yourself or somebody else? At the end of the day, better is better, right? The key here is being able to measure that 1%. And the key here is trying to improve on a consistent basis. So every time you do something or are measuring this result, you're getting 1% better. So that way you can look at your successes and say, yes, I am getting better. I am not discouraged. So I want to share with you some of the tips and some of the strategies to get this ball rolling that is shared in the book. The first one is very basic, but it's actually the one that gets it all started. A lot of people don't take action because they don't feel like it. They don't feel motivated, they don't feel it's going to be worth. So trying harder or trying to get better is an uphill battle. But the first lesson that is shared in this book is actually reversing that law. If you want motivation, you need to take action, not the other way around, Meaning there's not something you should do to feel motivated. So therefore you can then take action. The action comes first and then you feel motivated. And the more you get done, the more motivated you feel. So this is why I've recommended on the show so many times. And you know, this comes from a lot of things I've learned from many books and many different courses and lectures I've attended. But it's the idea that when you're approaching a project or a task, a lot of us feel overwhelmed. We don't feel motivated, and we don't know how to get started. So you gotta start with the smallest, easiest task possible to get the ball rolling. For example, on my plate, I have to analyze the last six Months of our customer acquisition. This is an actual task on my to do the project is overwhelming because I can actually look into a lot of data. I gotta look into each individual customer. I gotta export all this information and then cross reference it. So off the bat, it sounds very overwhelming. So what I want to do here is start with a very small task, which is just open up a Google sheet. Now, I got the ball rolling. That's the first little step I could take. I took action. As soon as I take a little action, I'm going to get little motivation. Okay, I got a blank Google sheet. Let me name this Google sheet something. Okay. A customer acquisition for the month of December. Okay, let's see, what else do I need? I need some columns, right? Let me name these columns. All right, where do I get the information for the first column? Let me go and get that. So step by step, step. So as I take action, the more motivated I feel. And have you ever, like, started something and as you're taking action, you start to feel more and more motivated, more into it, and you get in this groove where you can't stop? Well, that's because action gives you motivation, not the other way around. And I love how this book emphasizes this. Next, a lot of us get disappointed because we're not clear about our goals. We don't feel successful because we never defined what success is. So the book really goes deep on how you should make sure you're clear about what you're trying to achieve. So in your business, say, for example, and we'll have a life example as well, you say, I want to have a successful business. That's what most people say. And that's not really a goal because it's very hard to measure it because you have a defined success. What is success? So you might say, well, success means I'm earning enough money to feel comfortable in my lifestyle and be able to pay my company bills and hire a great team. Okay, great. We're still not done yet. We need some numbers here. How much money is that? Let's reverse engineer that. How much is your, you know, your cost, your salaries? How much do you want to get paid? How much money is that? Let's say, for example, we end up on a figure of $300,000 a year. You need to earn $300,000 a year to fulfill that need to fulfill the things you just said. So essentially what you're saying is you need a $300,000 business to feel successful. That's your criteria for success. Now, most people stop here, but I like to ask, are you sure? You know, are you sure this is what you want? Maybe you don't need such a big team. Maybe your lifestyle would be just as good if you made $50,000 less. So reevaluate those numbers. Make sure that a number that you actually questioned and that you have a real answer to. So let's say we did that and we realized, oh, we only need $200,000 a year. Okay, so that's our goal. I will feel successful when I hit that number. So where are we, right? Let's say we're in March. Right now, are we on track? What's $200,000 divided by 12? So that's roughly $16,700 a month. So have I made that much money in January, in February, am I on track? If not, what do I need to get on track? What do I need to do every day, little by little, to increase that number so that I am making $16,700 every single month? And therefore I am running a $200,000 business? You get where I'm going here. You gotta define success. You have to have an actual metric. You have to have a scoreboard. Just a few weeks ago, I was playing basketball over at the league I play at. It's just a bunch of 30 plus year old trying to get a good sweat on. Hey, Fidelity. How can I remember to invest every month?

With the Fidelity app, you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments.

In stocks and etf'. Huh, that sounds easier than I thought.

You got this?

Yeah, I do. Now, where did I put my keys?

You will find them where you left them.

Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC. Member NYSE SIPC. You've made it on time for the McDonald's breakfast menu. You think to yourself, finally I can start my day. But what if breakfast could be even more perfect with the hot honey sausage egg biscuit? It finally is. Go to McDonald's and get it while you can. But that week, the scoreboard in the gym was not working right. We couldn't know what the score was. So somebody on the sidelines was actually keeping score with a whiteboard. But it was really hard to see when you're playing and when you're going up the court at a certain angle, the light was hitting it in a way that you can't really see the score. So for the most part, other than timeouts and when there are fouls, I really didn't know what the score was right. It was really hard to strategize in the game to know if you should slow down because you don't see a clock either, or should you rush to score or how much of a lead do you have? It's hard to know what to do basically when you don't have a scoreboard, a clock. And the same goes with business. Now I want to relate this learning to life too. So say, for example, you have a personal goal of being healthy, being a healthy person. So you got to define what that means. You got to define what being successful at that means. Does that mean eating certain foods? Does that mean going to the gym or exercising X amount of days a week? Many of us make the mistake and say, I got to lose 10 pounds. Well, what happens after you lose 10 pounds, you know, is that you're healthy forever. No, you're going to gain them back if you don't continue to do the habit. So what do you have to do on a regular basis to be healthy? So define that so you know what success is. The other thing I found very interesting in this book is the idea of effectiveness. If I have a goal, I need to ask the question, what do I need to do? What actions do I need to take to hit that goal? But also I need to look at what I'm doing now and what actions am I doing that doesn't help me achieve that goal or is irrelevant to that goal? Sometimes we're doing things in our business that really doesn't help achieve that goal directly. And if you don't have evidence that it is achieving that goal directly, if you don't have proof, then you can't say it does. A lot of us, we say, oh, I'm on social media two hours a day because it helps my business. Do you have evidence of that? Do you have some sort of tracking? Do you have some sort of conversion numbers? Do you have testimonials that say that, hey, I love what you put out on social and that's why I became a customer. You have to have some sort of proof to your theories. If you don't have proof, then you can't use that as a reason to to spend your time. Cause it's not really going towards your goal. Only things that are proven are things you should do. This is something I learned the hard way over years of trial and error. I would do things thinking, and that's just my opinion that this is helping when I really don't have any data to prove it. Data is king. The numbers don't lie. So you need to get numbers to prove what you think or disprove it or understand that, hey, that's just busy work and that's not really getting me closer to my result or to my goal. I got more on today's Must Read episode, but before that, let me give love to today's sponsor. Today's must read the 1% solution for work and Life may be the short, inspiring read you need to read to jumpstart things for your life and your business. To give you a little bit more clarity, a little bit more focus, I would encourage you to reread this book. I have reread this book because you really want these concepts to sink in. It's actually quite fluff free, this book. That's why it's so short. It goes straight to the meat. There's no preamble in terms of like trying to convince you of why this is a good idea. So you may want to recap the information, you know, maybe two weeks after you've read it the first time. But in conclusion, what I love about this book is that it says, hey, try to be 1% better, not 100%. A lot of us want to make this huge jump. I want to be 100% better than I was last year. Well, how about small increment steps? Let me try to be 1% better today than yesterday. Let me try to be 1% better at being healthy and active. Let me Try to be 1% better at being a husband or a wife or a significant other. How can I just be 1% better? Because that is better. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe right now. By hitting a subscribe, you also get access to over 1400 business lessons. That's access to all our archived lessons and it's the only way you can get access. And it's absolutely free. So just hit subscribe on whatever you use to listen to podcasts, whether Citra Radio, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Himalaya, Spotify, we're on them all. Also, if you're interested in winning a free ride to one of our programs, leave us an iTunes rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw. Listen in on Friday to see if you won. It's that simple. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. This book strikes a good 5050 balance between motivation and practical information that you can use and apply. Most books are one or the other. You will feel motivated after reading this book to get things done, to get better, and to get the ball rolling. So I love the fact that this book is a good balance between the two. So if you need motivation, take action by reading this book and this will give you some fuel. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

Of sa. Dear McDonald's, your breakfast menu. Fire tens across the board. I could be happy with anything even though I order the same thing every time. Thanks for not judging me. I'll try something new next time.

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