Law 1: Do no harm, but take no shit.
Law 2: Act with purpose.
If you don’t know why you’re doing it, you probably shouldn’t be. Also: “Because I saw so-and-so doing it” is not a valid reason. That has nothing to do with why you should be doing it.
Law 3: Own your choices.
It’s true: some choices sound better than others when you say them out loud. The choices are always yours to make, but they’re also yours to own. Get used to owning them.
Law 4: There is no Big Magic Secret.
There is context. When you take away Context, or omit it from the story, the ordinary appears to be a Big Magic Secret.
“Big Magic Secret” is a euphemism for “you’re not being given the full context.” Realizing this will save you thousands of dollars and untold disillusionment.
Law 5: Act and speak with integrity.
If you catch yourself hoping that what you’re writing, doing, or saying won’t get back to someone (including your customers or a client), then you’re out of integrity with that person or you’re out of integrity with what you’re doing in that moment. Get right.
Law 6: Simplify.
Identify what matters, and eliminate what doesn’t.
Business will always present you with challenges. So yeah, it’s gonna be hard sometimes. But whether or not it’s complicated is largely your choice. Choose to make it as simple as possible.
Law 7: Track your numbers.
If you’re not tracking your numbers, it’s not because you don’t know how or don’t have time, it’s because you’ve chosen not to figure it out or chosen not to prioritize it. (See Law 1: Own your choices.)
Law 8: Invest only in what works.
Pay only for items, advisors, and staff that solve an identifiable, actual problem (or fill an identifiable, actual need) in an identifiable, effective way. In all other situations, you are wasting money.
Law 9: Planning is delaying.
This delay is often necessary. You cannot do All The Things all at once, after all. The delay is also often useful, and even wise.
But planning is not the same as being effective, and planning is not the same as taking action. And when planning gets in the way of actually taking action, it’s called procrastinating. Believing otherwise is called delusion.
Law 10: Observe, Adapt, Repeat.
No plan, no matter how thorough, will survive in its original form. As soon as you act, outside forces intervene, and you must begin adapting. The ability to consistently observe where you’re at and take in new information, readily adapt to new situations, and then take the next step with the new information you’ve gained — and repeat all over again — is how you survive.
Law 11: Speak truth, simply and clearly.
Law 12: Pragmatism over platitudes.
Hiring someone who calls themselves an expert is not the same thing as hiring an expert.
Learn the difference quickly. Coaches who negligently counsel their inexperienced students to brand themselves as experts on the notion that “if you know more than the person you’re helping, then you’re an expert!” do their students, their students’ clients, and word “expert” a disservice. Because this is the world you live in, you must exercise a little savvy.
Here’s a tip: if the professed expert speaks mostly in vagaries and platitudes, run. Actual experts deliver informed pragmatism and solutions. You can get platitudes much cheaper from quote boards on Pinterest.
Law 13: Stop creating Frankenstrategies.
You see Person A do this. And you see Person B do that. And then Person C does this other cool thing. So you decide to do some of A’s this and B’s that and C’s cool thing along with some of your own stuff that was kiiiiind of working… and you’ve stitched together a lumbering Frankenstrategy. Frankenstrategies do not work. You cannot grab single pieces of much larger strategies and expect them to work together harmoniously and effectively.
Law 14: Stop watching others.
Stop scrolling for the latest from the gurus, clicking on flashy photo shoots, or comparing mailing list sizes.
Take back the time and headspace you spend keeping up with what others are doing (or, rather, the image of what they’re doing — which is not the same thing) and put it toward taking simple, unsexy, consistent actions in your own business. You will shock yourself at the progress you make.
Law 15: Pay and be paid.
Pay for your goods and services, and require that others pay for your goods and services.
Trades, barters, and other similar arrangements rarely work out evenly and happily on both sides. Know that. Make choices accordingly.
Law 16: Dump nice.
Be compassionate. Practice empathy and kindness. Niceness tends to demand subjugation and silence in a way that compassion, empathy, and kindness do not.
By the way, do not demand or expect “niceness” from those you work with. Lead by example with honesty, compassion, empathy, and kindness, all of which fosters an environment of mutual respect. But “nice”? Nice is a breeding ground for contempt and resentment.
Law 17: “Special Exception” is another way of saying “Person Who Is Not A Good Fit.”
Don’t pretend otherwise.
“I’m making a special exception to my payment policy” means “I set my payment policy for a reason, and this person does not fit that payment policy, and I am now choosing to abandon the boundary I made when I set that policy and the reasons I had for doing so in order to work with this person.”
Don’t let yourself off the hook by just calling things “special exceptions.” Force yourself to state what things really are. (See Law 11 – speak truth simply and clearly – and Law 1 – own your choices.)
If you still want to make the choice, do so. It’s yours to make. But simply by stating what the choice really is, you may find yourself more empowered to choose otherwise.
Law 18: Know your numbers.
Tracking your numbers (Law 7) isn’t enough. You have to know them. If you have a great spreadsheet set up that you never look at, it’s not doing you any good.
Law 19: Understand your numbers.
Being able to recite numbers isn’t enough either. You have to understand what they mean.
Your numbers are your context in your business. It’s not enough to see a couple of numbers and assume things are great, or take a couple of figures and create a whole plan based off of just those. You need to have a breadth and depth of data to fully understand the health of your business, and to make wise and informed decisions.
If you don’t understand your numbers yourself, acquire the assistance of someone who does, and consult with them regularly. Your gut feeling is not a substitute for understanding your numbers.
Law 20: Reserve panic for emergencies.
Save your panic for situations that directly endanger your physical wellbeing, your dwelling, or the physical wellbeing or dwelling of those you love.
If you noticed that delayed email responses, temporary website outages, unreturned voice mails, missed conferences, lower than forecasted sales, and not hitting the elusive “seven figure mark” were not one of the situations mentioned… yes, take due notice of that, and act accordingly.
Law 21: Team size is not an indicator of how successful, effective, or wealthy a person or business is.
Stop believing otherwise.
Hiring too many team members, or hiring too fast and too often, is an expensive means of slowing things down, reducing your bottom line, reducing your overall effectiveness, and complicating your ability to get messy situations un-messed.
Law 22: Work is like matter: it changes shape, it moves from place to place, it takes on different forms — but it never just disappears.
People who work only an hour or two each day do so by having other people do a lot of work.
There is no secret to having short work days (see Law 4: There is no Big Magic Secret). If you don’t want to work, you have someone else do the work for you. That’s it. To become wealthy on this premise, you sell products that tell people they too can work short days while carefully neglecting to mention the incredibly long days your staff works in order to allow you to work short days (again, see Law 4: “when you take away context… the ordinary appears to be a Big Magic Secret.”).
Law 23: Destinations are illusions.
However you think you’re going to feel when you “make it” or “get there,” that feeling will only get pushed farther away the closer you get to “it” or “there.”
If you want happy, find a way to live your happy now. If you want pride, find a way to revel in your own proud now. If you want respect, find a way to respect yourself now. There is no “there.” Finish lines move. And no single event “brings” a feeling. The feeling comes from you, or it doesn’t come at all.
Law 24: Express your gratitude personally, specifically, genuinely, and frequently.
Never get so big, so busy, or so important that you forget how to be grateful.
Also: Saying, “Yay team!” is not the same thing as saying to a person, “Thank you for taking that [project] and [doing specific awesome thing], [name of person].” Bosses who only thank their team as a fungible mass of underlings are bosses who do not deserve anything more than a fungible mass of underlings.
Law 25: Challenge your assumptions.
Keep close to you those who force you to challenge your assumptions. These people are gems, and they’re rare. Keep ’em if you got ’em.
Law 26: Banish your Yes Men.
Those who tell you what you need to hear when you don’t want to hear it are key to your success. They will see what you can’t, and they will see what you won’t.
They will also keep you from losing your head up your own ass. We all require this, from time to time.
Law 27: Great achievers do not automatically make great managers.
In fact, most don’t.
That you have done well does not mean that you will manage well. Leading yourself is an entirely separate skill set from leading others.
Law 28: Identify the problem before you solve it.
Don’t start investing time, money, and headspace “solving” until you actually know what the problem is.
Lots of people try solving the problem of “low sales” by trying to drive more traffic to their website, which would be a great solution if the problem was lack of traffic. But in a lot of those cases, the problem is that they’re selling something people don’t want. The problem is the service or product, not the amount of traffic. So they spend a lot of time and money “solving” the wrong problem.
Don’t do that. Identify first, then solve.