August 2010 | Bigg Success

Monthly Archives: August 2010

Work-Life Balance and System Thinking

Written on August 13, 2010 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Balance

balance Systems are all around us. There’s the solar system with the planets moving around the sun. There’s Planet Earth – air and water, plants and animals, mountains and valleys, all part of one giant ecosystem.

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn talk work-life balance on The Bigg Success Show! Click the player to listen [3:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Your house is a system. For example, your furnace will have to work harder if your house isn’t well-insulated. You can plant shade trees on the southwest side of your house to give your air conditioner a break.

The human body is a system. Every component piece serves a purpose but also depends on the other parts to operate.

We could go on and on. We understand some systems. Others we don’t. Sometimes we don’t even recognize them.

Work – life balance ignores the system

Your life is a system. Yet the most popular concept for managing our professional and personal lives is work – life balance.

Work – life balance doesn’t treat your life as a system. We even have a problem with its name – it implies that work isn’t part of life.

Let’s use the human body as an example of work – life balance. If we thought about the human body the way we think about work – life balance, we would say your heart and your brain can never work at the same time.

Your heart would beat part of the time. When your heart wasn’t beating, your brain could work. But the two never work together.

And you know what would happen if that were the case? You would die!

Is this the best concept for managing our professional and personal lives?

No wonder so many people feel so frustrated trying to keep achieve balance!

Synergy from the system

We don’t think it works for most professionals today. Fortunately, there is a better way.

BIGG success is life on your own terms. The BIGG idea behind BIGG success is that you can create synergy in your life. You have to see your life as a system in order to do this.

1. Think holistically
Don’t plan your career, plan your life. Don’t manage your money, manage your life.

When you think this way, it frees up your mind to possibilities you might not think of otherwise. It also does something even more important. It helps eliminate options.

2. Don’t separate, integrate
Don’t think personal and professional; bring them together as parts of a system – your life.

Think about them working together instead of at odds with each other. Find ways to get the personal helping build the professional and vice versa.

For example, a lot of professionals today don’t work traditional hours. We have a lot of friends who maximize the time they spend with their children. Then they crank out some work after the kids go to bed or before the kids get up in the morning.

Seeing your life as a system is the first step to living it the way it was intended. Get in touch with your nature and you’ll be a BIGG success!

Do you view your life as a system?

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00606-071210.mp3

(Image in today's post by andrewatla)

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Turn a Business Challenge into a Competitive Advantage

Written on August 11, 2010 by admin in Business

challenge Today, we’d like to share the story of one small business owner. He served an underserved market.

None of his large competitors wanted any part of this market. Actually, they were happy to serve the customers that made up that market but they really didn’t make it easy for them.

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn share today's success story on The Bigg Success Show! Click the player to listen while you read [4:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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A supply problem for his customers
It was difficult for these customers to purchase the products offered by this business owner’s large competitors. It took a lot of time. It cost them more money than it should have.

But the large competitors didn’t care. They had plenty of other customers.

So the small business owner thrived. He was able to serve more and more customers. He grew rapidly year after year.

A supply problem for him
He had a problem, though. The suppliers that served his industry didn’t make it easy for him to buy from them. They made it much simpler for his large competitors.

The main reason was that the infrastructure of these suppliers wasn’t set up to accommodate companies like his. He could only think of one solution – he would build his own infrastructure.

So he did. And something amazing happened. This infrastructure became the source of his competitive advantage.

From problems to profits
Over time, this small business owner became a billionaire. He was even the world’s richest person at one point. His business became the world’s largest retailer. Yes, this is the true story of Sam Walton and Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart is the source of much ill will from a number of people. However, we believe Sam Walton’s story is one of the great success stories of all time.

Here are two BIGG challenges that he overcame:

Challenge #1 was his customer’s challenge.
They had to spend precious time and money driving to major metropolitan areas to buy basic goods. It was worth it because the stores in the large cities had a bigger selection and better prices. But it was still a pain.

Sam Walton put stores in the small towns where these people lived. He brought them great selection and low prices.

The first challenge for every entrepreneur to solve is your customer’s. Find a way to serve the underserved and you’ll reach BIGG success.

Challenge #2 was a structural challenge.
The distribution network in his industry was equipped to serve the stores in the large cities. Sam Walton’s stores didn’t fit the model.

He overcame that challenge by building his own distribution system. To run it efficiently, he relied on technology more than their competitors.

Just another example of a company, that isn’t a technology company, but still makes a lot of money, thanks to technology!

In this process, power shifted away from manufacturers to retailers who were closer to the customer. Today’s challenge may be tomorrow’s competitive advantage. It may lead you to BIGG success!

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00617-081110.mp3

(Image in today's post by babette1)