How-to LOVE What You Do and Be Successful

Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a blueprint we could follow to be not only successful, but happy as well?

The good news is that such a blueprint exists, it is called “DNA” and I will show you how I have changed my entire life by using this technique.

Before We Start

Before we get into this, I should mention that most people do the exact opposite of this… you see, people like Frank Kern, Gary Vaynerchuk, Yanik Silver etc… explain how they make money or become successful, and we all make the mistake of trying to copy them.

This may sound like a logical thing to do, especially for fans of “modeling success”, but you if you want to achieve real results, then you first need to look internally before you look to externally copy others.

Your DNA Blueprint

The key here is to really get to know yourself, I don’t mean get naked or go on a spiritual journey or anything like that… I mean discovering your strengths, your passions, your weaknesses, what excites you, what bores you, what unique abilities you have?, whether you like to work alone or in groups, are you and Alpha personality? What is your preferred medium? etc…

Sounds intense, but it is essential to being successful.

The 4ft High Basketball Player Syndrome

If you don’t discover your DNA, then you are likely to become a 4ft high basketball player, in other words, you are going to be doing things you are not naturally good at, and so life is going to be an uphill battle. (or as I like to call it: Pissing into the wind)

Create Your Success Map

Again, this sounds a little new-age and wishy washy, but bear with me.

What you do here is highlight your strengths, abilities, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, etc… and then create a list of guidelines for how you should work. Don’t be afraid of a little wishful thinking here, they may not sound realistic at first, but there is always a way of making them work.

Even though it is a deeply private and intimate thing, I have published my success map below, I consult this map whenever I have a new opportunity, project, task or idea.

Dean’s Success Map (a.k.a my rules of business)

1) If a task cannot go from start to finish in under 24 hours, be very wary of starting it

2) Avoid all tasks that require consistency, instead, look for impulse-based ones.

3) Where possible, works with others (ideally in person)

4) If it isnt fun, find a way of making it fun… if that doesn’t work, stop doing it.

5) Focus on early stage aspects of business, e.g working with startups, creating ideas, opportunities, etc…

6) Push your comfort zone, but, if you push it and dont feel either fulfilled or happy, then dont repeat.

7) Be wary of long term commitments, micro-implement first.

8: Be an opportunity finder. (e.g find ad deals, interviews, sponsors, partnerships, guests, etc)

9) Always look to monetize and benefit from spontaneity and distractions.

10) Surround yourself with bright, positive, smart, passionate people, avoid negative people.

11) You must value your time before anyone else will

12) Happiness —-> Money

13) Find and focus on your medium, by all means dabble with others, but only if you find them fun or rewarding.

14) Don’t announce you are going to do something to your audience or community until you 100% have it ready.

What The $%&£!!!

So hopefully you can see how consulting this success map is a great tool for making decisions, choosing projects, choosing a career, business, hobby etc…

I use it with all my business decisions, if an opportunity comes that goes against my rules, I look to tweak it or change it so that it fits, or, I just avoid it. If I have a task to do, I first consult this success map to decide whether I should do it, outsource it, tweak it… etc…

You may be wondering exactly what these 14 rules mean to me, so to give a little more info, here are the 14 rules again, this time with my explanation:

1) If a task cannot go from start to finish in under 24 hours, be very wary of starting it

I am renown for getting pumped about a task or project, and then a few days later I lose interest. I call this shiny object syndrome, some call it ADD, instead of fighting it, I now look to first consult my success map to ensure it is definitely what I should be working on, and then I ask myself the following: “If you worked on this task for 24 hours straight, would it be completed in that time?”

If the answer is no, I am extremely wary of starting it.

2) Avoid all tasks that require consistency, instead, look for impulse-based ones.

Consistency, discipline and focus are the opposites of my skills, I am creative, new, fresh, spontaneous etc… so I avoid recurring tasks, and longterm tasks. For example, I could have broken this post into 4 sections and posted one per day, but it is likely that by day 3, I would have been focused on something else.

3) Where possible, works with others (ideally in person)

I have been working in a home office for the past 6 years, mostly on my own. Whilst there are benefits of this, such as being able to watch funny YouTube videos, the reality is that I am a people person, I am social, I love people, and my energy levels, motivation, passion and enthusiasm all rocket when I am with the right kind of people… so I now look to work with others where possible (hence the podcast with Ciaran)

4) If it isnt fun, find a way of making it fun… if that doesn’t work, stop doing it.

Ok, this sounds a bit unrealistic, afterall, work is rarely fun… right?

Well, in today’s world, we can follow our passions, and what’s more, if I stick to my skills, my passions and my unique abilities, then I will enjoy it.

You see, it is not just the niche that is a source of passion, it is the task itself. For example, I love video games, but if I had to do the accounts for a video game store, I would jump out the nearest window.

There are always ways of making things more fun as well. I did an interview recently, and I asked my Twitter followers to think of silly words that I could slip into the interview as a joke. It made the interview even more fun for me. (yes, I am childish)

5) Focus on early stage aspects of business, e.g working with startups, creating ideas, opportunities, etc…

Nothing gets me more pumped than the early stages of business. Whether it be coming up with big ideas, finding opportunities, spotting talent, bringing partnerships together, brainstorming a plan of attack, launching a new site etc…

However, nothing bores me more than the longterm details. So by choosing projects focused more on the early stages, such as helping people launch businesses, turn their passions into cash, working with startups, consulting etc… I do what I do best, and I enjoy it.

6) Push your comfort zone, but, if you push it and dont feel either fulfilled or happy, then dont repeat.

I am a big fan of pushing your comfort zone. I was once told that “nothing worth doing is done from within a comfort zone”.

However, if you push your comfort zone, try something new, and find that you didn’t enjoy it, get a rush, want to do it again etc… then don’t do it again.

I was scared of public speaking, I pushed my comfort zone, and realised that I quite enjoyed it, so I did it again. But I pushed my comfort zone by moving to a country that didn’t speak English, I didn’t like it, so I won’t do it again… again, sounds common sense, but only once you know yourself can you get this level of clarity.

7) Be wary of long term commitments, micro-implement first.

This is a biggie. Afterall, I am impulsive and passionate, so I am prone to diving headfirst into the flavour of the month. The rule tells me to micro-implement it first.

For example, with the podcast, we planned to do 3 episodes, and if it wasn’t working out, we wouldn’t continue.

I also am in talks with a major business partnership, and we have created a 6 month test period first. If that works, then, and only then can we look at creating a joint company etc…

Be an opportunity finder. (e.g find ad deals, interviews, sponsors, partnerships, guests, etc)

I love this stuff, and I have a natural talent at not only spotting opportunity, but convincing others to be a part of it. So I will ensure that part of my working day is focused on such tasks.

9) Always look to monetize and benefit from spontaneity and distractions.

This is a tough one to follow, but for example, if I have a spare of the moment idea, I have this blog as an outlet for that, and I can (if I want) monetise this blog.

My distractions include things like funny videos and video games, so let’s look at the two blog posts prior to this one: The Heavy Metal Dog Video (a video that made me laugh) and a video game review of an Xbox360 game I have been playing recently.

I am also in talks to launch a video game show and portal.

10) Surround yourself with bright, positive, smart, passionate people, avoid negative people.

I am easily influenced, so when I met Gary Vaynerchuk in London I was super pumped for the rest of the weekend. But the reverse is also true, I know people who complain about everything, and I seem to feel ill and negative when I have been around them for a few hours.

11) You must value your time before anyone else will

This was the best piece of advice I EVER got. If you don’t value your time, nobody else will. I could spend hours teaching about how to use this advice, but this post is already too damn long.

12) Happiness —-> Money

I have been flat broke and happy, and I have had more money than I could spend and been miserable. I am not saying that therefore you should become broke if you want to be happy, but beyond basic security, money is pretty empty and shallow.

I now focus on things that provide happiness to me, and funnily enough, the money often follows.

13) Find and focus on your medium, by all means dabble with others, but only if you find them fun or rewarding.

What is your preferred medium? If you don’t know the answer then you are in trouble.

e.g are you a good writer, artist, do you love to be on video, do you prefer face to face, do you like talking but are camera shy? If so, then audio is perhaps your medium.

It is important to know which medium you most excel in.

For me, it is behind a keyboard (writing), sure, I dabble with video and audio, and my northern charm and weird sense of humour means I can often get away with it, but I am by no means a natural on video, so I focus most of my efforts on writing, and I dabble in audio and video, but ONLY because I enjoy it, not because I feel I have to.

14) Don’t announce you are going to do something to your audience or community until you 100% have it ready.

Regular readers will know I am terrible with this sort of thing. I announce a project, or something I am going to release, and then it never happens. PS: 11 Deadly Business Myths is coming soon

So now I don’t promise stuff unless it is ALREADY completed and ready to go.

Summary

As you can see, I have been getting to know myself a lot more over the past few months, it has resulted in some drastic changes in my life, and has put me into what many consider a very scary position.

But I know that for the first time, I am now starting to focus on what I know, what I love and what I am naturally good at, and less on things I dislike and suck at.

If I can help you with your success map, please leave a comment.

Thanks for reading.

Dean

PS: this is perhaps the most important and powerful blog post I have ever done, so please try and take action on it.

PPS: I am open to ideas, opportunities, new consulting clients etc… email me if you wanna chat: contact@deanhunt.com