Don’t focus on busyness, but rather on business

 

I think we’re in a society where we promote and encourage busyness. When I was still working in corporate, every time someone would ask me what I was doing my automatic response was “I’m way too busy.”

Constantly chasing busyness.

I remember sitting at my desk one day and I had nothing to do and I felt so empty. I felt like I wasn’t being productive. So I threw myself into emails because I associated busyness with productivity but the reverse is actually true.

Productivity is the opposite of busyness.

Busyness makes you ineffective when dealing with challenges and problems.

My challenge for you today is when you feel you don’t have time, you need to make time to reflect.

You need to make time to be quiet.

You need to make time to step back and look at your life from a different perspective.

Now I know that’s going to be challenging because you’re already so busy! If you can step back from a stressful situation for 20 minutes and get your mind and body right you can complete the tasks you have for the rest of the day a lot more effectively.

When you are running on low, you’re working at half your efficiency. I know entrepreneurs who work 14 hour days. I work on maximum 6-7 hours a day. I think I get as much work as them done because I have a strong morning routine and time management practices in place that allow me to achieve incredible amounts in less time.

Entrepreneurship is hard. It’s stressful not knowing where your next salary or pay check is coming from. Sometimes you think, how am I going to live on savings? How am I going to borrow this money to pay that person?

Stress has been proven to slow down your efficiency so it’s totally okay and encouraged to take time off. I’m not saying take two weeks off for every week worked. I’m saying take a couple of minutes off everyday. Make time to nurture your well-being because you’ll be in a better head space and be much more effective at work.

Much love,

Laurens

For more information please go to http://www.laurensboel.com

How to break down your goals into manageable steps

 

I did a video a couple of weeks ago around becoming financially free through property and the feedback has been phenomenal. We spoke about how you can take this high level vague idea and break it down to practical daily steps to be able to get to your financial freedom.

I wanted to show that as long as you’ve got a plan and a step-by-step process, you can achieve anything. I want to use another example to further cement that concept.

Let’s imagine you want to write a book. Writing a book is a very intimidating thought. where am I going to get the chapters, content, idea? Maybe you are stuck on the title. It can be a daunting task but whatever your goal, this process will stay the same.

To write a book you need to break that down into manageable steps. Most books are about 60 000 words. That is a normal 250 page book. 60 000 divided by 500 words daily means you need to be writing for 120 days. Now your only goal is to write 500 words on Monday! 500 Tuesday, 750 Wednesday, 1000 Thursday, maybe you skip Friday and write another 500 on Saturday.

Now you have a practical plan on how to get there. That’s how you can do anything. When I wrote my first book I actually started with a blog. As I reviewed that blog I added more detail and boom I had my first chapter. Eventually I had a book and it took about 2-3 months to write.

Honestly I didn’t think it was possible to write a book, but unconsciously I went through the step by step process.

So whatever your goal is, find out how you can turn it into a step by step structure. Find out what you need to do to push yourself toward that goal.

Much love,

Laurens

For more information please go to http://www.laurensboel.com

How to become financially free through property

 

Financial freedom means you are earning passive income and never have to work again.

Let’s say you have monthly living expenses of R20 000. If you are generating R20 000 from property rentals, you technically don’t have to work again. It’s not to say you’ll stop working, but you get to a point where if you don’t work you still generate income.

I talk about property because that’s the asset class that has helped me towards financial freedom. For full disclosure, I’m not financially free yet. I’m currently earning a third of my living expenses through property but hopefully I can share my knowledge with you to start your financial freedom journey.

The first thing is it’s going to take time. I started my journey when I was about 23, which is 5 years ago. I’m hoping that by the 7th year I will be completely financially free.

Second, what is that monthly income goal you need to be earning per month so that you can retire or reduce your working hours? For me it’s R30 000 of my current living expenses in 5 years time.

Then break it down to a simplified form. My goal is R30 000 so I need to have 6 properties earning R5000 cash flow each and buy one each year.

Once you know you need to do so many deals per year, you can go to the next level of detail. Based on my experience in the property market, in order to find one deal that makes financial sense you need to analyze about 50 deals.

So now it’s no longer a dream or hope, I have a set structured plan.

Robert Kiyosaki talks about the four wealth quadrants –

1. Employee – most restricted and vulnerable
2. Self-employed – always a time for money discussion
3. Business owner – employ people under you to leverage their time and skills
4. Investor – you let money work for you

Everyone can jump from employee or self-employed to investor but not everybody can become a business owner. Being an investor is just putting money away to make whatever it is you feel passionate enough about a reality by getting the knowledge, coach and mentor to make your financial ambitions come true.

Much love,

Laurens

For more information please go to http://www.laurensboel.com

Stop blaming and take responsibility to change

 

Today I’m calling from George and this is one of those special places for me. The reason it’s so significant is because I had a spiritual awakening here about 5-6 years ago. I was really unhappy – I was at a corporate job,  working 9to5, living for the weekend, selling my pound of flesh and feeling like my work didn’t mean anything.

I was just filling in spreadsheets, creating PowerPoints, living and making somebody else’s dream come true. While sitting on this deck I came to realise that the only person at fault for my life not being where I want it to be was me.

That’s what you’ve got to do sometimes. You’ve got to take personal responsibility that if you’re not happy, it’s your fault. If you are happy it’s also your fault.

When you take personal responsibility you become captain of your ship, author of your story and director of your show. Sometimes we South Africans love to blame. We’ve got this sense of entitlement. We blame our parents, the environment and the government.

Maybe there are valid reasons for you to blame other people and I get that but blaming other people and telling your mind that there’s nothing wrong with you, what happens then is you don’t change and so nothing changes.

If you want to change a life, change you first. once you change yourself everything around you will also change. Take back that locus of control. It’s a concept in psychology, people with an external locus of control are those who blame and expect their environment to change. An internal locus of control is someone who says, my life is a result of what I do.

Somebody with that belief has a lot more confidence and ability to take charge of their life as opposed to somebody waiting for someone else to change them.

Don’t surrender in silence. Take control and take charge.

Much love,

Laurens

For more information please go to http://www.laurensboel.com

Get success to follow you

 

Today I want to talk about getting real with an idea or dream and turning it into a business. I think everyone wants to enjoy their work while making money. Everyone wants to do the things they love and get paid for it.

The problem is we don’t do what we love and that’s what we get paid for and then we do what we love and call it a hobby or side passion.

I want to challenge you today to align those two. Start with what you love. For example my friends at Motion Factory Media (the ones who edit these videos), their passion is to travel. That’s what they’re consumed with – the memories, adventures and special moments that only the two of them get to share together. What they’ve done now is create a business around their passion. So they travel to exotic locations, take pictures and videos and use that as marketing material.

They’ve figured out a way to take their passion and turn it into a business. What’s going to happen is once that business starts to take off, then they’ll be doing what they love while being paid for it. That’s going to allow them to keep doing that. It’s like a charity – it works when it’s funded not when it loses its support. So you need to be funded in order to live that passion.

In my case my passion is writing. I’ve written a couple of books and you can go check those out on my website. I’ve now built a business but I would probably be another 5 to 10 years away from where I really want to be. But I’ve gotten to the point where at least 30% of my time I can invest in writing.

I write in the mornings, evenings and I can write fictional or nonfictional or whatever I want to write because I’ve gotten that income stream sorted out.

Finding a passion or work you enjoy doing is going to keep you motivated much longer.

Much love,

Laurens

For more information please go to http://www.laurensboel.com

Gaining assets and killing liabilities

 

If I had to propose something to you and said I’m going to give you a liability. I want you to take over my credit card debt but I’m not going to pay you for it. Would you say yes or tell me to go take a hike? Of course you’d tell me to go take a hike.

The thing is we know what a liability is. We know when something is making us worse off in our lives and yet we still keep them.

If I look at a property analogy, a property is an asset when it puts money in your pocket. So if your rent is R10 000 and all your expenses, including your loan, is R8000 you’re getting R2000 per month. That’s an asset because it’s putting money into your pocket.

Alternatively, if you buy a property where the rent is R8000 and the bond is R10 000 then you’re losing R2000 per month. Essentially you’re becoming R2000 poorer every month.

That’s a liability – when something takes away from you. When it gives to you it’s an asset.

The reason why I say people often hang on to liabilities is because of fear. We’re in relationships sometimes with people who are not encouraging us or loving us the right way. We keep friends around who are bad influences.

We’re constantly surrounding ourselves with liabilities but don’t see them as liabilities.

Today, I’m hopefully going to change your mindset to see everything as either an asset or a liability.

Do a review on your life to say, “are these people I’m spending a lot of time with an asset? are they helping me and encouraging me to be where I want to be or are they holding me back?

If they’re holding you back you’ve got to cut the liability – just like I asked you in the beginning if you’d take my credit card debt.

Treat everything in your life as either an asset or liability. Know which is which and treat them accordingly. Make sure the assets in your life are getting the time, attention and love they deserve and the liabilities are getting the treatment they deserve.

Much love,

Laurens

For more information please go to http://www.laurensboel.com

The best work life balance

 

During this holiday I’ve been doing a lot of goal setting. Every morning I’ve been waking up at about 5-6am doing some writing, coming to this location and just reflecting on what I hope the year 2019 will bring.

My parents have been asking me why am I getting up every morning at 5-6 in the morning. I mean I have worked the whole year and now on holiday, I’m still waking up early. I’m working, writing and trying to push my business forward.

“Don’t you need a bit of work-life balance?” they said.

My dad specifically said, ”you’ve worked so hard, shouldn’t you now take some time off?”

Although I understand what he’s trying to say, work-life balance is a very subjective thing. For some people it’s never working and only partying. I know a girl whose travelling at the moment  and she travels for like 6-7 months of the year. That’s good balance for her.

For me work-life balance is working always. I love work, entrepreneurship, writing, goal setting and creating a vision. That for me is a work-balance. If I’m working everyday that’s a balance.

Work-life balance is whatever is going to make you happy. If that means for the next three months all you’re going to do is work, not see friends, family or get to the gym. If it’s going to make you happy then do that. Work life balance is not something you do to please other people. Work life balance is if you are not happy, then change it. Otherwise you’ve got work-life balance. Sometimes you go through stages where you’re working incredibly hard and you need to take a break.

Work-life balance is a subjective thing. As long as you’re happy you’ve got the balance.

Much love,

Laurens

For more information please go to http://www.laurensboel.com

The best 2 ways to build rapport using NLP

 

Rapport is building a connection to spark with someone.  You know that feeling you get when you connect with someone on a deeper level? The fact is that you can manufacture that spark with almost anyone you meet through a principle called NLP.

NLP stands for neuro-linguistic programming. It’s about the language we use to program the mind. You can program both your own mind and the mind of others to relate to you in a better way.

NLP is a very detailed concept but for now I just wanted to give you a high-level indication using two ideas.

First is mirroring and matching. Basically what that’s saying is when somebody walks, talks and has a body language in a certain way you should mirror or match them. So if somebody has a closed off body language with their arms crossed and they’re not very engaging, then they’re a little closed off to you.

You wouldn’t want to be in their face because that’s going to scare them off. You want to match their body language. Stand shoulder to shoulder with them and close off your body language a little bit. As you slowly build commonality with them you can start to lead with a different body language and influence them because someone with an open body language is more susceptible to being spoken to and accepting your ideas.

The second idea is to change your language slightly. People respond in one of three ways – they’re either auditory, visual or kinetic.

Auditory people relate with sound. They’ll say “does this sound right to you?”

Visually focused people use words like “do you see where I’m coming from?”

Kinetic people are about feeling and use words like “I feel you.”

The way to determine which one a person is can be through their words or their eye movements. If their eyes go up, it indicates they are visual. If they go sideways they are auditory and eyes going down means they’re kinetically based.

As you gain practice you’ll subconsciously be able to pick up their eye movements, words, build rapport with them and get your point across.

Much love,

Laurens

For more information please go to http://www.laurensboel.com

3 ways to become MORE respected

 

Being respected is important because with respect comes authority and with authority comes influence. It is then that you can change people’s lives. If you want to be a game changer, you need to be respected because it is much better than being liked.

1. Set very clear boundaries.

Just setting boundaries is not good enough. You’ve got to maintain them. I’ve got a client who is the manager of a small company and she wanted to set some boundaries with her staff. On the outside of her door she put a sign saying ‘do not disturb’ because she was being interrupted on a daily basis with routine, mundane tasks from her employees and this had to stop. It worked for a while but eventually, one or two would go in regardless of the sign. She didn’t chase them away and other people saw this so they thought that boundary hasn’t been stabilized or maintained. They broke the boundary as well and thus she lost her respect. So not only is it about setting boundaries it’s about maintaining it too.

2. Respected people stand up for what’s right not what’s popular.

A friend of mine stood up to his manager because he was mistreating one of the employees. His manager was shouting at this Indian guy who had relocated from India so his English was not that great. He was basically shouting at him in an open plan office. My friend, who obviously respected his manager, knew he had to stand up and say it’s inappropriate to talk to someone like that.

At first his manager was shocked but a few days later he went up to him and thanked him for calling him out on it. All the colleagues around my friend thanked him for that because they all wanted to say it but were scared.

3. Never give a task without you being able to do the task.

Lead by example. So many people who struggle to get leadership authority expect people to do things that they themselves would never do. Start the work and then pass it off to somebody else.

Much love,

Laurens

For more information please go to http://www.laurensboel.com

The 1 Thing You Must Understand About SUCCESS

 

Something that doesn’t get spoken about enough is that success takes patience. It’s not something we want to hear because we want to see the flashy exciting part of it. In my experience, from what I’ve seen and the people I’ve been around, success takes time to build.

Our society and conditioning has been that success comes quick and easy. We hear about these overnight successes and get rich quick schemes, especially in the property seminar space that I work in. They use this idea that anyone can do it and can get rich quick. I do believe anyone can do it but it’s NOT get rich quick. The only reason these tactics are used in seminars is because people will buy if they believe it’s quick and easy.

If they told you that it’s going to take 10 years, you’re going to have to invest over R2million, lose some friends and sacrifice with sleepless nights to work then people wouldn’t be easily convinced to invest at a seminar. That’s when they’d give up.

I get to travel for 3-4months of the year, which is really phenomenal. What you might not know is that my best friends and I set this goal for ourselves over 5 years ago. It’s taken 5 years to get to the point where I was fully employed to being self-employed. It’s not where I want to be yet, that will probably take another 3-5 years. Essentially it’ll take me 10 years in total but that doesn’t matter, as long as I get there.

If you focus on the vision, purpose and end goal then how you get there is just about fighting through the days.

Tony Robbins speaks about lag time, which means life’s delays are not life’s denials. JK Rowling faced 17 denials, or lags, before she got the opportunity to publish Harry Potter.

Find your idea of success and have the patience to know it’s not going to happen immediately. Every day you work towards it and get a bit closer, you’re moving in the right direction.

Much love,

Laurens

For more information please go to http://www.laurensboel.com