Stephen Warley has been a serial solopreneur for the past 20 years. He’s the founder of Life Skills That Matter. He’s a solopreneur business coach on a mission to help you create work that works for you in alignment with your values, needs and abilities. He believes work is fundamentally changing as you know it and we’re all going to have to manage ourselves whether you work for yourself or someone else.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
- David Neeleman founder of Jet Blue
- Leo Babauta, Zen Habits
When business started difficulties overcame:
“it took me five years to accept I was entrepreneur, that I was even working for myself and I was pretty good at it… I did a lot of experiments. I experimented working as a freelancer, as a consultant, as a trainer, as a speaker. And then it all started clicking together for me where I realised, I am good at this. I have such control over my time, I am making decent money, I am making more money than in my last job. Why don’t I just finally take this seriously and double down on it”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! Book By Robert T. KiyosakiFavourite Quote:
“pay attention to your attention. Your attention is your most valuable limited resource. Way more valuable than money, time or energy. It is the one that we allow to be easily robbed from us. And if you want to do whatever you want to do in life you don’t want to figure out your money situation or your energy situation or your time situation. You have got to figure out attention first. You have got to focus on that in order to build up all of those other personal resources ”
Recommended Online Resources:
- Spreadsheet
- Trello – Infinitely flexible Incredibly easy to use Great mobile apps. It’s free Trello keeps track of everything, from the big picture to the minute details
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“take this deeply think of this as a thought exercise and really ask yourself this question. I really want you to be you. I really want you to be you. I really want you to be able to build a business in alignment with your values, your needs, your abilities. Why? If you can do that that will sustain your motivation unlike anything else you can do for much longer. Money is only going to get you so far… Really define, constantly ask yourself throughout the day, is this what I would want to do or am I doing it to make somebody else happy, to please somebody else? Be you ”…[Listen for More]
More About Stephen Warley:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“The road to success is always under construction.” Lily Tomlin
Other Quotes From the Chat with Stephen Warley:
- “if you know that you want to give something a shot don’t think about anything else”
- “when you accept an opportunity, you are actually closing the door on tons of other opportunities. And that’s what we need to do”
- “whether you like it or not you have limited attention energy and time every day. Just because you are awake 16 hours on average every single day does not mean that everyone single one of those hours is equivalent in terms of your energy. It isn’t. You have to start becoming more conscious of that Neil”
- “don’t torture yourself thinking what about this, what about that. You have got to give something a shot. And when you give that one thing is shot you will even if it’s an economic failure you will have learnt things and met people that will have created value that will bring you forward”
- “remember you are not making dollars are you not making pounds day one but you are creating value in terms of connections, in terms of skills, in terms of knowledge, in terms of learning about yourself and how you are going to function and build a business going forward. So, don’t underestimate that. You are creating value the moment you start experimenting”
- “self-management is the step one of starting a business because you are the first resource of your business and its biggest obstacle and you can’t fire yourself to you have to learn how to deal with yourself. So, I would say the self-management process is being aware of how you work and how you feel and how you think as you were working as an experiment and you are kind of collecting as you said all these different pieces. Taking an inventory of who have I met already? What are my past experiences? What really energises me? What really drains me?… We don’t look at ourselves as a resource in our business. And we need to because we are the starting point of our business”
- “you already have everything you need to start your business”
- “our mass-market is disintegrating into infinite Niches. It is now becoming more valuable to just be yourself than continue to conform. Conforming is losing value”
- “focus on your unique advantage. And we all have one… We always think the other person has the better option. Not true. We have to focus on what we have. So, the more you can focus on what you have that is actually what creates a unique business model that can stand out in this niche market economy… So, it just pragmatically no longer makes sense to try to copy other people. It makes more pragmatic sense to really start learning about yourself and what your unique advantages are and start there. That is the secret of success”
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