I’ve just got back from the yard where I have been moving my horses from their day to night pasture. I don’t know what it is with the weather today but there was a lot of high jinks going on. Usually pretty placid the horses were all animated and just wanted to run, buck and play so I let them off in the strip that runs up to the field. Charlie, my race horse, clearly thought he was back on the track and raced up the strip at lightening speed, followed in pursuit by Toby. Charlie’s motivation to run was in part inspired by the fact that Bracken, my young cob filly, was in front of him. There was no way however, that Bracken was going to let Charlie pass her. Perhaps her fear of him made her run faster, but she definitely flies like the wind.
As I watched the herd gallop off my heart was in my mouth as they raced past the entrance to their field. About 200 yards further on the strip ended with a thin wire rope, that acts as a fence dividing the end field from the strip. Surely there would be a massive crash as all the horses piled up in front of it. Then to may complete amazement, Bracken picked up her front feet and neatly jumped over the thin wire rope, which must have been 2’6″ high. She never faltered in her stride pattern and looked majestic. Then she trotted round the end field wondering why no-one else was with her. You see the other horses never even considered jumping the wire rope. They just stopped in their tracks and looked somewhat bemused at a very pleased with herself Bracken on the other side. Once the horses had moved off Bracken popped back over the wire rope and took herself off the her regular field.
So why am I sharing this story? Well firstly, I’m so proud of my pony for her jumping ability but more importantly her actions reminded me of this quotation from George Lucas:
“You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don’t have that kind of feeling for what it is you are doing, you’ll stop at the first giant hurdle.”
There are so many times in our lives when barriers and obstacles are put in our way and can hinder us reaching our goals. Successful people figure out how to negotiate these obstacles. They do not get discouraged but rather keep going as there is simply nothing that is going to stop them getting what they want. Like Bracken they find a way to jump these hurdles and they are able to do that as they have a great reason Why?
What is the great reason Why that is fuelling your actions? I know from experience if you don’t have a great reason Why and are not fully committed to your goals, then more than likely you will not succeed when the inevitable obstacles, barriers and hurdles appear. Negotiate these however, and you will be even more motivated and inspired to reach your dreams and goals.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
Mechanics are great at systems and perfecting the details. They can be found with the smartest system which often becomes the platform for other people’s products.
Here is the Roger Hamilton Top 10 Billionaire Mechanics to follow:
Ingvar Kamprad (Sweden) – Founder of furniture designer, IKEA, Kamprad, like all Mechanics, is frugal and has little desire to flaunt his wealth. He is worth between $50 billion and $90 billion.
Karl Albrecht (Germany) – Co-founder of Aldi, Germany’s discount supermarket chain, he is the wealthiest man in Germany, worth $25 billion.
Larry Page (USA) – Co-founder of Google, the mother of all platforms. The brain behind the mechanics of the search engine. He’s 38 years old and worth $20 billion.
Michael Dell (USA) – Founder of Dell Inc, which began in computers, like all Mechanics he found his niche in cheaper ways to put things together better, and bringing the price down. Net worth: $15 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg (USA) – Founder of Facebook. As with most Mechanics, the idea wasn’t his, but he was the best at perfecting it. He is 27 years old and worth $14 billion.
Robin Li (China) – The China equivalent of Larry Page, Li founded China’s most popular search engine, Baidu. He is 42 years old and worth $9 billion.
Zhang Jindong (China) – Founder of the Suning Group, Zhang is one of the wealthiest men in China by finding smarter ways to sell air conditioning. He is worth $4 billion.
Ma Huateng (China) – Founder of Tencent, which has been called ‘China’s answer to AOL’, he is always tinkering in the background to come up with the next platform. He is 39 and worth $2 billion.
Linsday Fox (Australia) – Founder of trucking and Logistics Company, Linfox, Fox started as a trucker and became one of the richest men in Australia, with a net worth of $1 billion.
Gerald Harvey (Australia) – Founder of retail chain Harvey Norman, Harvey has taken the Mechanic approach of the cheapest, simplest route to market. He is worth $1 billion.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
Creators are always the ones that are first to start high-growth companies, interestingly it isn’t the Creators who are hitting the headlines as much, as our global economy is in the Winter season.
Steve Jobs (USA) – It has been five months since Steve Jobs passed away, yet his company, Apple, and his creations continue to hit the headlines. Creators are always working months and even years in advance. We are now seeing the launch of the HD iPad, which will turn the tablet into a high definition portable TV and gaming screen, as well as an HD camera. Apple TV and the iCar will also be big disrupters this year, as will the shift taking place in education and the PC market. These were all anticipated by Steve in his final year, and his future is becoming our present.
Richard Branson (UK) – Richard Branson has been in the news for over four decades now, but always for new ventures riding the waves of change. He is again hitting the news for his latest two ventures: At the end of last year, Northern Rock was sold to Virgin Money, turning the company into a progressive bank that is likely to be at the forefront of the current banking revolution. Virgin Galactic is preparing for its first sub-orbital flights within the year. As with all Creators, Branson is always focused at his most recent creation, as his other businesses are run by others.
Jack Ma (CHINA) – What does a Creator do when their creations start sinking due to the Winter market? Button down and buy back! That’s what Branson did in the late 1980s, what Jobs did in the late 1990s, and what Alibaba.com founder, Jack Ma, is now doing. In the last month, Jack Ma has announced plans to buy back shares in Alibaba for $2.5 billion, taking it from a listed company back into private hands. This will also unshackle it from Yahoo, which owns a big chunk of shares in the company. Given Alibaba’s growth ($339m profit in the last year, x7 the profit of a year earlier), Jack will be back in spring energy with the company after the buy-out.
“As the world economy moves through the Winter Season, the smart Creator profile entrepreneurs are biding their time and eyeing high growth markets. It is only a matter of years before the Winter moves back to Spring, and the wealth of the prepared Creators will skyrocket.” – Roger James Hamilton
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
We continue the journey around the profiles with the Top 3 Accumulators in the News, based on Roger James Hamilton’s Talent Dynamics System. This group have seen a surge in their wealth as the global financial crisis has seen a shift from autumn to winter in the market cycle.
Warren Buffett (USA) – Buffett has been in the Top 3 wealthiest in the world for many years, and is worth over $50 billion. He has followed a text-book accumulator strategy his entire life, and collects appreciating assets through Berkshire Hathaway. In the recent downturn, he has seen an upturn in his own wealth, as he has collected (and profited from) undervalued equities that have since risen in value.
Carlos Slim (Mexico) – Slim is the wealthiest person in the world, and, like Buffett, has focused in one area and stuck there. In Slim’s case, it is in undervalued assets in Mexico, where he has built a dominant position in state utilities, and amassed a fortune of $74 billion.
Li Ka-Shing (China) – Li is the richest person in East Asia, with a net worth of $24 billion. Again, his strategy has been the accumulator strategy of staying focused in one area, finding economies, controlling assets and rising with the tide. Li achieved this in Hong Kong, and continues to evolve his strategy based on cheap areas he can dominate and add value to.
Accumulators profit from downturns, and so make their money when times are tough. In the coming blog, Roger Hamilton will cover the Top 3 Traders in the News. The glory days of traders came and went in the last decade, but will return again.
“In the same way that the global economy has seasons, every country economy and industry also has seasons, which means somewhere in the world is the right place, right time for every profile. Success then, doesn’t begin with the choice of what to do. It begins with the choice of where to do it.”
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
Recently I read a great blog by John Williams of Screw Work, Let’s Playin which he advocated that if we still have not implemented the ideas that we have right now it is because there is some barrier or obstacle in our way. Now we may not be consciously aware of what that obstacle is but rest assured it is there because if it wasn’t you would have already executed the idea. What I found fascinating was that John reminded me of the fact that none of us has a truly unique idea. There are 7 billion people on this planet and the chances that your idea has never flitted across the mind of any one of those people are pretty low. What is important is our attitude and willingness to change our original idea to make it work so that we can get round the barrier that is blocking our way.
Don’t believe that it is just you that encounters barriers. Most successful people come across barriers to their success everyday, but it is how they deal with these barriers and set backs that distinguishes them from the rest. For example when Anita Roddick opened the first Body Shop in Brighton in 1976, two neighbouring funeral parlors initially objected to the shop’s name. Rather than give up on her distinctive brand name or go hunting for new premises, Roddick fought back by suggesting to a local newspaper that she was a woman entrepreneur under siege. The publicity ended up generating traffic to the store and helped her on her first step towards the global success she later attained.
The challenge of how we react to barriers and obstacles in our life was beautifully illustrated to me last weekend by my ponies Bracken and Thistle. We were leading them out on a walk through the countryside when suddenly we across a really muddy stretch. The track narrowed and there was a ditch in front of us that was thick with mud and water. The challenge was how to get across. As I gingerly made my own way round the edge of the mud puddle I just knew that Bracken would follow me across. Partly because she trusts me implicitly but also because she has such gusto. She takes on anything head on, almost never thinking about the consequences of her action. This is an admirable trait so I was not surprised when she leapt to the other side of the ditch over the muddy puddle.
Thistle however had other ideas. She is much more cautious and likes to examine everything before proceeding. In fact Thistle’s solution to the problem was to just plant her feet and refuse to move. She was not prepared to make the leap. For her the ditch was an insurmountable barrier that could not be crossed and as such she was stuck in her tracks. I waited for about ten minutes and despite offering Thistle some gentle persuasion nothing was going to make her move, she was stuck. Paralysed by the fear of moving forward. For me her action so beautifully reflected that I often experience in my own life. A fear of moving forward means that I can get stuck when I come across problems obstacles and barriers in my business.
So what was the solution? Well, Thistle and I went and found another route to get across the ditch, one that was not so muddy and that she could cope with. Would she has found that route by herself, probably not, which is why we need mentors and business coaches to help us find the way round obstacles when they come up in our own lives. There is always a solution to everything it is just that often we can’t see the wood for the trees.
So next time you come across a barrier or obstacle in your life you can either leap across it like Bracken, stay stuck like Thistle did initially or seek out support to help you find another way just Thistle finally did. What will you do to get through the inevitable barriers that will show up in your life or business?. Post your comments below to let me know.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
It never ceases to amaze me the lessons my horses teach me about life, and today, Christmas Day, is no exception. My friend Maria and I decided to take my two horses Toby and Charlie for a walk in the woods along with her dog Zac. We were just leading the horses on foot due to the icy ground conditions. Maybe it was the exuberant energy of Zac or the bell on the end of my Xmas hat that kept ringing but the horse’s energy was really high which for my two boys is pretty unusual.
Often when we lead them out on foot (as we do quite often) it is a case of trying to encourage the horses to move forward. Today, they were no a mission, and there was no stopping them. As we entered one of the large fields Charlie’ s energy rose even more as he connected to his racing instincts and thought momentarily about racing off. When you have half a ton of horse on the end of a rope your instincts are to keep the rope short so that you can control the horse. What are we deluding ourselves to?. There is no way – me weighing some 63kg has any chance of controlling that half ton of weight. If he wants to run that is exactly what he will do and nothing will stop him. And yet, when I had faith and actually loosened my grip on the rope and made it slack, thereby letting go of the control, Charlie’s energy dropped and he slowed down.
This made me think about how often in my own life, especially when life seems like it is spiralling out of control, that holding on tightly is just about the worst thing that you can do. Surrender to what is happening around you and let go and often the most unexpected outcomes arise. Did I think that by loosening my grip on Charlie’s rope that he would slow down?. No not really, but I had faith and just by letting go of the outcome and yielding control to something greater an amazing result happened.
I am reminded too of all the times in my corporate life when often I micro-managed my team. My need to be in control to ensure the correct outcome was so strong that I never allowed my team members to “race off”. How different the outcome might had been had I given them that power and loosened my control over them. Interesting food for thought on this Christmas Day.
So as we enjoy the Holidays take time to think about your own life and what might be achieved if you have the courage to let go.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
Traders have driven the entire wealth of our markets – both up and down – over the last ten years. As the global cycle has shifted, and wealth in the Western World has moved towards the Accumulators who are accumulating their assets, the Traders are increasingly moving towards the emerging economies in the East.
Jim Rogers (Singapore) – Rogers is a Trader who is constantly in the news as he has continued to move as markets have changed. After making his fortune in the US, with George Soros in the Soros fund, Rogers first moved into commodities, and then moved to Asia. He has set up indexes in these areas that have allowed him to earn from the investment in his indexes. He recently said to a group of Oxford university students “The power is shifting again from the financial centers to the producers of real goods. The place to be is in commodities, raw materials, natural resources.”
George Soros (USA) – Soros, who made his name making a billion dollars betting against Sterling, has recently closed down his hedge fund altogether, taking his $14.5 billion and managing it in his personal trust. He remains an outspoken critic of current government policy and is focusing on the global challenges of democracy with his philanthropy work.
Mikhail Fridman (Russia) – Fridman began trading commodities in Russia, and moved to energy trading and then entire processing businesses through his Alfa Capital. Like Soros, he has grown his interest in balance and democracy into politics. Today he is worth $15.1 billion, and has exited many of his holdings.
The shift in the global cycle can be seen by the actions of the leading profiles and how they are operating at any time. As Roger Hamilton says, the shift to the winter phase of business can be seen by not only the wealth of Accumulators but the defensive strategies of the top Traders.
“Waves have ups and downs, but all seas still have a level. Every peak has a trough. Seeing every market as a rolling wave allows us to see where we should be, and when, based on our profile.”
– Roger Hamilton
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
