Issue #29 You Are NOT a Snowflake
You are not a Snowflake
They say that every snowflake is different and unique.
(Ever wonder how “they” know that? Now that I have planted that particular seed let’s assume it’s true. Every snowflake is different.)
I have worked with hundreds of businesses in industries ranging from rough diamonds to SAAS in over three dozen countries.
The one constant is this: every MSP owner, manager, and leader always thinks that their business is different and unique.
Everyone believes that they are a snowflake.
“That,” they tell me, “doesn’t work in my industry. We are, industry or country or customer, or product, or weather, or time, or whatever, agnostic. What we do is different. “
And the ones who stay small continue to struggle, grind, hustle and work, never move beyond that belief.
Even those who eventually escape the uniqueness trap generally only do so after exerting significant energy to preserve it.
So, I’d like to help: your business is not a snowflake.
No matter what you do, from mining to childcare to space exploration, a business is a group of people coming together to solve a problem in a repeatable way.
Yes, the MSP ownership immune system desperately wants to reject this. But here’s the thing: being like everyone else is excellent news because it means that you can use templates and proven models to take charge of your business and stop the hustle.
It isn’t hard.
It is often the belief that they are different that holds MSP owners back. They spend their mental energy explaining why their business is so different that any solution can’t possibly work.
Yeah, I have heard it all before.
My recommendation: let go of the snowflake myth. Create a repeatable process, and create the machine. Instead of focusing on why things won’t work, focus on your Wealth, Freedom, and Impact goals.
Where next? It is the end of the quarter to plan the next 90 days; make them count. Here’s a template to get started and a course to show you how to use it.
Stop grinding, start living.
(Next week: you may not be a snowflake, but you are different…)
Enjoy,
Jeff
What does hustle mean anyway?
The other day I was walking through the dry lakebed of late summer Prosser Lake when Joe read to me the definition of hustle. I couldn’t believe it.
I knew hustling was a bad thing for MSP owners, and I am as surrounded by hustle porn as anyone but check out this definition of hustle from Oxford Languages:
- Force (someone) to move hurriedly or unceremoniously in a specified direction, push roughly; jostle, hurry; bustle.
- Obtain by forceful action or persuasion, coerce or pressure someone into doing or choosing something, sell aggressively, obtain by illicit action; swindle; cheat.
So, seriously. we need to stop hustling.
Thrivers360 may be the best place to start. So if you are ready to stop hustling, apply and let’s see if this is a fit.
Working hard is not the issue – the hidden cost of productivity
Along these lines of productivity and hustle, I came across this video from the “Monk Life Project” (okay, I am a philosophy nerd, now you know). In it, monk Nick Keomahavong talks about how you may achieve your overt goals through hustle… but he questions whether you achieve your goals for yourself.
He encourages us to slow down, define the destination, understand our values and create from that perspective. “Get the coordinates clear first…”
I found it interesting, I hope you do too.
Related: Mindset and Your Prosperity Plan, How to create your North Star Vision.
From Around the Web
- 🎆 Fireworks are so yesterday. Check out these videos of aerial artistry achieved through the synchronization of thousands of drones. Useful? No. Necessary? Nope. Fun, impressive, cool? Uh, yeah… Click here.
- 💊 On this day, in 1928, Flemming discovered that mold growing in his Petri dish was killing all of his staphylococcus bacteria. His immediate thought? Hmm, that’s interesting. And so antibiotics were born. Read more here. (well, remember, he still had to turn it into a repeatable process, just sayin’).
- 🔗 A question you never knew you had: why are hyperlinks blue? Somehow this article roped me in, and I will tell you now that the answer is “who knows.” But it is a fun little stroll down memory lane… Read more.
