(Book Review)Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business by Jenny Blake

By Lionesses of Africa

For entrepreneur Jenny Blake, author of the new book Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business, she believes that ‘Time is not money. Time is life force.’ Jenny Blake, author of the award-winning book Pivot and co-creator of Google’s acclaimed Career Guru coaching program, is back with her signature blend of heart-based operating principles and practical tools. This book will teach you how to move from friction to flow through smarter systems and the three-stage Free Time Framework.™

In her new book, Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business, Jenny Blake asks, “Are you consistently doing the work that you and only you can do? Or are you burdened by busywork, the bottleneck blocking your company’s profit and potential?” If the answer is yes to those questions, then this is definitely a book for you to read. Jenny believes that as an entrepreneur your time is far more precious than money. It is your presence, your memories, your quality of life. As a business owner, you are already paying a risk and pressure tax. For many, growth fueled by added stress is not worth the trade-off. You have an urge to simplify and streamline. Jenny’s book Free Time is not about working as little as possible. Nor is it about creating a lifestyle business purely for one’s own gain. It is about creating a life-giving business energizing every single person who is a part of it, from the owner to team members, to clients and community. Free Time is about making small investments now to create greater optionality in the future.

A more joyful business is within reach. Imagine the following scenarios that could be yours if you rethink the way you think and approach your business building:

  • Traveling, going off the grid, or handling family emergencies without panicking that everything will fall apart while you are gone.
  • Working 10- to 20-hour weeks, delegating the rest to a part-time remote team.
  • Answering questions with relief, knowing you don’t have to “own” the next steps.
  • Empowering your Delightfully Tiny Team™ to answer their own questions before they even have to ask you.
  • Harnessing your creative energy for the strategic projects that excite you most.

Free Time is a playbook to free your mind, time, and team for your best work. This book will teach you and your team to operate efficiently and intuitively while earning abundantly, so you can make your greatest contribution as a business owner.

Author Quotes

I committed to building a better, more blissful business. One that would be heart based, systems focused, delightfully tiny, and fun. I strove eliminate preventable stress.

When you run your own company, hard work no longer has a direct correlation to the profit you generate. In the entrepreneurial realm, time is decoupled from money. There is no guarantee that pouring more time into your business will yield positive results. 

In a small business there is no place to hide. Hard work itself is meaningless. The work must work, it must be strategic and revenue-generating, or you will quickly go out of business. 

About the author

Jenny Blake, author of the award-winning book Pivot and co-creator of Google’s acclaimed Career Guru coaching program, is back with her signature blend of heart-based operating principles and practical tools. Her new book, Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business, will teach you how to move from friction to flow through smarter systems and the three-stage Free Time Framework. Jenny is an international keynote speaker helping forward-thinking organizations and individuals map what’s next. She hosts two podcasts with over 1 million downloads combined:

Click here to read more https://www.lionessesofafrica.com/blog/2022/3/27/free-time-lose-the-busywork-love-your-business-by-jenny-blake

15 Best Business Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read

By Emma Kerr

Launching a business can feel like an act of rebellion against more traditional professional paths, but that doesn’t mean entrepreneurs and small business owners have to do it alone. Business books are one way to learn from seasoned experts and get help guiding your business to success.

These 15 business books come highly recommended by financial experts and reviewers on popular book site Goodreads to reinvigorate long-time business owners and inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs:

  • “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future” by Peter Thiel
  • “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action” by Simon Sinek
  • “Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business” by Charles Duhigg
  • “An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination” by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang
  • “Entrepreneurial You: Monetize Your Expertise, Create Multiple Income Streams, and Thrive” by Dorie Clark
  • “Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography” by Walter Isaacson
  • “Starting a Business QuickStart Guide” by Ken Colwell
  • “Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business” by Gino Wickman
  • “The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses” by Eric Ries
  • “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie
  • “In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules” by Stacy Perman
  • “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones” by James Clear
  • “Rework” by Jason Fried
  • “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferriss
  • “The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business” by Josh Kaufman

“Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future” by Peter Thiel

Thiel’s “Zero to One” is a book that will ignite your curiosity and inspire those entrepreneurs experiencing stagnation in business.

This book may be best suited for readers with a rebellious spirit, rather than those hoping to improve upon existing business models. One Goodreads reviewer wrote, “A fascinating book, great for investing and entrepreneurs. I like how he really focuses on contrarian thinking, and his mental models for it.”

“Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action” by Simon Sinek

During a 2009 TED Talk that’s been viewed more than 56 million times, Sinek told the crowd, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.”

“Start with Why” explores this idea further, outlining how entrepreneurs and business owners can discover their purpose and, in turn, inspire others.

“Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business” by Charles Duhigg

There’s no doubt owning a business requires any number of challenging decisions in a single day. Readers can harness insights from the latest research in the fields of neuroscience, psychology and behavioral economics in “Smarter Faster Better” to streamline those decision-making and goal-setting processes.

“For small businesses, productivity is the difference between success and failure. But not all productivity is equal,” Duhigg says. “Optimizing something that you should never have done in the first place is productivity death. And so every entrepreneur should remember that, throughout all of history, there has only been one killer productivity app: thinking more deeply about the choices you are making, and finding some way to force yourself to think when it’s hardest to do.”

“An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination” by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang

Named the 2021 Best in Business Book Award winner by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, “An Ugly Truth” explores how Facebook became one of the most successful companies out of Silicon Valley as well as why it has descended into a period of heightened criticism as it evolved into a “data-mining machine” in recent years.

For better or worse, Facebook – now Meta – is a company worth watching and understanding if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur.

Click Here To Read More https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/earning/articles/best-business-books-every-entrepreneur-should-read

10 Things Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know (From Someone Who Has Done It All)

Entrepreneurship Comes With Massive Challenges

To be an entrepreneur, there are certain challenges that you have to face and conquer. There is no way to succeed without facing problems head-on. This means that you have to become a problem-solver in order to grow. 

Although many of the challenges are often rewarding in the end, some are extremely harsh and turn out to be the stumbling block that causes so many would-be entrepreneurs to fail. 

According to industry statistics, the number of successful businesses has been falling steadily over the years. 

From time management and cash flow management to hiring employees, delegating tasks, and creating effective marketing strategies – the path to entrepreneurial success is fraught with obstacles. But, for those that make it through, success, profits, and a wealth of other benefits await them. For best results on marketing your brand, you can use various tools like Twitter management tools, Instagram marketing tools, Facebook marketing tools, etc.

I have learned this firsthand through 6 years as an entrepreneur after bootstrapping 7 websites of my own and growing them into a successful 7-figure business. 

In this article, I share some of the most important lessons I learned on my journey to entrepreneurial success. So read on to discover the 10 things every entrepreneur needs to know (from someone who’s done it).

10 Things Every Entrepreneur Should Know

The challenges I outline below are common to most entrepreneurs in all types of businesses and industries. By following the advice offered, you will be better equipped to deal with the challenges you may be facing currently, and help prepare yourself so you are ready to meet the future challenges that are sure to come.

1. Be Determined to Never Quit

Entrepreneurship inherently comes with tons of hurdles, and anyone taking it up should be prepared to persevere. 

The most important decision you can make as an entrepreneur is that you will NEVER quit – no matter what. 

Some of the most successful entrepreneurs are those who decided long ago that no matter what challenges or problems they faced, they would never give up. With a mindset like this, there is no obstacle that can stand in the way of your success. 

For instance, when I first started my online business journey I spent a lot of time building online courses in hopes that I would be able to sustain myself off of course sales.  But, in the first year, you know how many courses I sold?  Zero.  

No one cares what I had to say at that time, so I adjusted my approach and continued to move forward. 

Even if you don’t have a full contingency plan for every type of failure that could occur, the mental preparedness will be enough to help you through the most difficult times.

2. You Are Going to Fail (A LOT)

In as much as entrepreneurship has vast opportunities for success, it is also filled with plenty of opportunities for failure – and these are likely to arise multiple times. If you ever hope to be successful in this arena, you cannot allow this to demotivate you. 

One of the best ways to protect yourself against being overwhelmed by despair when you inevitably fail is to have a strong support network of friends, family, and mentors who can help you prevent feelings of despair and isolation during those difficult times. 

It also helps to have a belief such as “I never really fail – I either succeed or I learn” so that you can always find the positive in any situation, no matter how bad it may seem in the moment.

3. Hard Work Is a Constant Necessity 

For an entrepreneur, hard work is a constant necessity. Entrepreneurs work harder and longer than people in standard jobs, and the most successful don’t have “optimal” work/life balance. 

That is not to say that entrepreneurs cannot be happy or satisfied in their work and personal life, but many of the most successful entrepreneurs do spend a disproportionate amount of time working on their companies as opposed to the personal aspect of their lives. 

For successful entrepreneurs, it’s not about balancing the time spent in each area of your life because sometimes it just isn’t possible to spend as much time in your personal life as you do in your business. 

The trick, rather, is to ensure that the time you do spend away from your work or in your personal life is quality time.

4. Outsourcing Is Crucial

Many entrepreneurs suffer from the need to micromanage everything. However, if you want your business to grow bigger than just you, then you have to learn to give up control and outsource some of the work. 

You cannot do everything alone and allocating work to others is crucial for your business to grow. 

Regardless of the industry you are in, there will always be more work than you have time to do it. Outsourcing is not only an effective tool to help you drive more sales and revenue, but it’s also a great way to avoid overworking yourself and setting yourself up for massive stress, anxiety, and various other health problems.

Click Here To Read More https://blog.findthatlead.com/en/things-every-entrepreneur-needs-to-know


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5 Entrepreneur Movies You Just Have To Watch In 2021

 Dale Hart wants you learn from this movies the pristine art of entreprenuarship

People believe that as entrepreneurs, we draw upon inspiration at will. Give us a business problem and we’ll have a ready-made solution within minutes, complete with a step-by-step business plan that even granny could follow.  

But we all know that’s simply not the case. “Writer’s block” is just as common in entrepreneurs as it is with, well, writers.  

This is why I think entrepreneur movies are great not for just getting inspired, but heck, they’re just great fun to watch.

I love noting down the obstacles they have to overcome, the solutions they propose, and of course watching how it all pans out. What are their background stories? How and why did they start their journeys? Are there similarities with my own journey in business? 

After watching entrepreneur movies I’ve often reevaluated concepts I’d been fairly confident in, only to find there were certain angles I’d not previously considered. Sometimes they’re just great for stirring up the pot and developing new and exciting ideas.

So with that said, grab the popcorn and settle into my top 5 entrepreneur movies you must watch before the year’s out:

Best Entrepreneur Movies To Watch This Year

I’ve analyzed 5 entrepreneur movies that will not only help serve as a source of inspiration but also touch upon concepts we actually delve into at ThePowerMBA

The Founder (2016)

Synopsis

This film tells the story of Ray Croc, a frustrated but ambitious milkshake mixer salesman from Illinois. After coming across a successful southern Californian burger joint with a unique production model (McDonald’s), Croc first convinces the founders to franchise the business, before eventually taking complete control and transforming into the most famous fast-food chain in the world.   

Highlight

The Founder reflects the veracity of today’s business world despite being set back in the 1950s. Its protagonist (Ray Croc) embodies the entrepreneurial characteristics I see in many of our students here at ThePowerMBA.

What I learned

The importance of process automation

McDonald’s implemented an efficient production method far superior to its competitors, replicable in any of its franchise restaurants.

Using this system, employees could prepare hamburgers in under 30 seconds. The speed and quality at which they were made were unprecedented until that time.

I think this is applicable to most businesses; finding the best way to scale production while consuming as few resources as possible.

Scale a business by franchising

One of the models we look at in detail at ThePowreMBA is franchising. It’s a great model that allows you to scale your business thanks to partners who open branded facilities in different locations.

In the case of McDonald’s, their cooking process was also easy to replicate meaning customer experience would be almost identical at any franchise restaurant across the country.

The importance of a unique value proposition (UVP)

McDonald’s was clear on what their clients really wanted (even if they didn’t realize it just yet) and that was speed and quality.

That is why their business was successful; they knew how to perfectly adapt their value proposition to the needs of their clients.

Find your Blue Ocean

What do I mean by Blue Ocean? It simply refers to a new or existing market where there is little to no competition.

In Mcdonald’s case, they were the world’s first fast-food chain. They moved away from traditional restaurants (a competitive Red Ocean market) to establish an innovative business that until that time, didn’t exist, opening a completely new market (Blue Ocean).

The power of marketing and branding

Croc knew the importance of creating a unique restaurant experience but to communicate that message globally, he needed to focus on branding.

Read more https://www.thepowermba.com/en/entrepreneurship/entrepreneur-movies