Andrew Baird Blog

Last year we made a calendar for some of our Amazing Business clients to say thank you for working with us and playing full out.

One of them had the query “Where did you get all those photo’s and are they all yours?”  So I thought I’d do a series of posts with the photo’s and the story behind them.

Pukeko

This cheeky fellow hangs out in Tahuna Torea which is a nature reserve near where we live, they are such beautiful birds and we love spotting them with Rylan and going Pukeko, Pukeko!

Coconino National Forest

On one of our visits to the States we got to visit Coconino National Forest in Red Rock County.  We had great fun going for walks in this wilderness reserve – virtually no man made elements allowed by law which makes for an amazing real wilderness feel.  Fortunately we had our walkie talkies with us because we got a little bit lost on one of the trails because they were so subtle due to this very restriction.

The Cascades - Vanuatu

These are The Cascades a series of wonderful waterfalls in the tropical paradise of Vanuatu.  They had such an wonderful aqua blue colour to them and exciting spiders I kept spotting on the sides of the paths – no we didn’t include a photo of these guys.

So it’s been a while since I did a post, I even have four posts written that I haven’t put up yet so the question is why?

Well today is July 1st, which means we are now officially half way through the year – wow it’s gone quick! Kim and I have spent the last month focused on two things, the plan for the rest of the year and the Entrepreneurs Boot Camp I attended at Palazzo Versace. As part of the plan for the rest of the year we have been deleting things from our businesses that don’t make sense.

All too often as Business Owners it’s easy to get into the trap of being a “Yes” person and going with the flow. What I mean by this is saying Yes to opportunities that pop up in front of you – without questioning whether it is part of your Big Vision or plan for your Business.

One of my mentors calls these “Blow Fly” opportunities, meaning they’re in your face BUT you should shoo them away and not get caught up in them. And I can see that we have definitely done that at times in the first half of this year and we’re putting in place some practices to make sure it doesn’t happen in the next six months.

I highly recommend you take the time to review your business results in the first half of the year, both in terms of how much profit you’ve made – but also in terms these two questions:

• Is your Business becoming the money making vehicle you want it to be?
• Are you enjoying it and using it to create the life you want?

If you’re like me then you have dreams and goals, things that you want to achieve in your business and personal life. Today I’m going to let you in on a hot tip on how to turn them into reality, here it is:

Fall in love with the process, not the dream.

Now when I heard this I was stopped in my tracks, I went wow, that is profound. All too often we fall in love with want we want to have, whether it’s that dream job, that dream business deal or the old classic more money. The problem is if we’re focused just on what we want, and not what we need to do to get it then we may never reach it.

We absolutely want to keep our goals in mind as a reference point, but we need to be taking the actions to get us there. Plus here’s where this saying goes into overdrive, if you’re in love with the process of making the dream a reality is it easier or harder to do? Of course it’s easier, you’re going to be more in the flow and more aligned with what you’re doing.

Of course there will be obstacles on the way to our goal, but the more we can be in love with the process of achieving it the more easily we will reach it.

I wish you all the best in making your dreams come true.

So last weekend I got the boys around for a round of Rock Band – if you haven’t played it I highly recommend it. In essence it’s a console game with electric guitars/drums and microphone and you can play classic Rock Songs together.

We had the full kit so one person on drums, one on guitar, one on bass and one fantastic singer . The difference of four players over 1, 2 or 3 is actually quite extreme because when one person is in overdrive (playing like a Rock God) it gives you a big boost to your stats and you can play at a much harder level than you normally would.

I won’t reveal the identities of the other players (you know who you are but the standout performances for me were GB on drums playing Rock Away Beach on Expert – I haven’t managed to do it on Medium yet! RP playing bass with mucho groove time and JT singing Are You Gonna Be My Girl.

Thanks guys that was a whole lotta fun.

So I arrived back on Monday from a week in Australia, I had a good break and an exciting time both with the people I caught up with and the events I attended.  But this post is actually about what happened at home while I was away.

We often think that people stay the same and don’t change, of course this isn’t true – and if you’re hanging out with the right people it’s definitely not true.  In the case of kids though we all take for granted that they change over time, and boy was this true of my son Rylan (almost 3) while I was away.

I would call my wife Kim and Rylan while I was away so I kept up with what they were up to, on the Sunday before I came home I called them to see if they were ready for me to come home.  I spoke to Kim first and then she put Rylan on, I asked him “Are you going to come and pick Daddy up from the Airport?”  The reply came back crystal clear “Yes, but not Today, because today we’re going to see Vanessa and Jeremy and the Horsey and the Doggy!”

Wow, to think it was only a year ago he started putting sentences together, and my being away had given him a real concept of today, and tomorrow.  Which is great for managing our lives, but can cause us to be forever reaching for something that’s out there, instead of being happy with where we’re at today, right now.

When I was met at the airport it was Rylan who spotted me, “There’s Daddy!” and he ran up to give me a big hug.  Not only was he taller he was also more excited to see me than the presents I had brought – these changes just keep getting better and better!

Of course I let him know how proud I was of him, and how well he had looked after Mummy while I was away.  This is something we often forget with the people around us who are growing and changing, do you compliment them and let them know that they are changing for the better and helping make the world a better place.

I hope you do, and remember if you haven’t been you can change it right now by giving someone around you some positive feedback.  And if it’s you who’s been improving, then I salute you too!