Be deliberate or flounder

By Fiona Boyd |

In the video interview with Michel Hogan Brand and the startup – videopost recently featured on Into the Mountain, Michel makes a point for startups with their brand is that while it might be impossible to get your brand right straight out of the gate, because your business hasn’t really established itself – what is possible is to be deliberate. To act according to your values, to follow the path that as founders, you set for your business.

There’s something to that perspective that’s relevant not just for startups and businesses, and for the past few weeks I keep thinking about it in context of other issues in my life.

Firstly we had an opportunity to buy a lovely home that we have been renting for some time. A very tempting pitch was made to us, however the price appeared much above what the market appears to be doing, even though here in Melbourne Australia it’s doing what virtually no other part of the property market the world over is doing, and is booming.

We’re in a hot property market, we live in a house we love but we’re currently renting and all around us people are talking about the suburbs we love becoming unaffordable.

It was in the midst of some self-doubt a few days ago that Michel’s phrase came back to me – Be Deliberate – and I thought back to why we’d sold our last house and did these reasons still hold true. The reason we sold was strategic – we hadn’t purchased terribly wisely and there were a few issues with the house – no real yard for the kids, no pool for the sweltering hot summer and autumn days that have become characteristic of Melbourne, and we were short a dedicated office space for David and myself.

We also had a mortgage that needed to be serviced and we therefore felt overly tied to the property and a sense that we weren’t able to take some business risks when the economic climate changed, that we would have to be conservative and stick with consulting income for the next ten years or so.

For anyone who knows David and I would know that we are happiest and work best when we have a business that we own and run, that is challenging and has an economic model that can mainly support our family. Above and beyond that we still enjoy business consulting, helping great businesses move their client and sales contact to online and holding their hands while the cross-over takes place. With all our capital tied up in the house, we had no ability to launch a new business, and while the mood around us in 2009 was not good for launching new online businesses, we’re starting to feel quite positive about the prospects for 2010.

So yes, it still holds true when thought about deliberately, that we don’t want to get back into the property market again for another couple of years and our goal is to launch a new business and possibly an application or two, as well as grow the client base for our consulting arm and for my specialty – business and executive coaching.

Before I thought this issue through in a deliberate way I was starting to get dragged into an old pattern of mine – that of thinking that if I don’t run with the crowd now and do what everyone else is doing, that somehow I’m going to miss out. When you follow Michel’s maxim – Be Deliberate – it’s just easier to remember why you decided on your plan, that it still is true for you, and therefore you can just stick to it.

Nature does not doubt itself - Be Deliberate in what you do

Part of that deliberate decision to sell the house we owned last year was because after the sale of Arts Hub, we’ve been missing the thrill and excitement that running an online content business can bring. We’ve had a tinker with a few things, but we’re now ready to come up with our next Arts Hub and to bring something that we hope is great, to the world.

On this point, David and I are teaming up with a very talented, arts and technology savvy Gen Y partner to launch a new little venture, hopefully after some beta testing in March, we’ll have a proper launch to public ready for April. There are still miles and miles of work to do – late last year delayed us all somewhat as David was called away to do some intensive technology consulting and Ed Dowling, our partner got a brilliant opportunity to work at Sydney Theatre Company over the Australian summer. But come early February, we’re all back in Melbourne and it will be time to finish the technology and work up the startup plans.

In another quite different area, musing on ‘Be Deliberate’ helped me not cave in and fall off the wagon so to speak, with the diet I’m on. Okay, I’m not someone who normally diets. I think you can do too much damage to your body by yo-yoing around trying different diet claims, however several years ago, before our third child Colette was born, both David and I followed the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet for the 12 weeks it outlines following really impressive results achieved by our intellectual property lawyer, Rick Goldberg from Madgwicks Lawyers who literally slimmed away between meetings with him.

I think this was 2005, and we were pretty successful with this way of eating. David lost over 13kg, mainly around the middle and I lost 7 kg.

Fast forward to 2010 and at the start of this month I vowed to rid myself of the unwanted middle weight I’ve been lugging around since Colette was born, plus those extra kilos I seem to have gained from having children and never really normalizing my food and exercise back to something optimal for my body.

All went well for a couple of weeks and although there was no weight loss, I did feel better and an inch came off my waist. But by the third week with no real results I was feeling a bit discouraged and started off again on a negative thinking pattern. It’s not possible to lose weight when you’re over forty, I’m stuck like this for the rest of my life, I’ll never get my shape back etc. Very tedious. Until I remembered Michel Hogan’s adage, which seems to have become my life mantra ‘Be Deliberate’. What I didn’t do this time round and it’s what I always do when I reduce my food intake a little to try get my weight down, is stop the CSIRO Diet. I just stuck with it, continued with my exercise and in week three, by being deliberate and sticking with the plan rather than letting my discouraging thoughts take me off on a different route, I finally saw some early results with a 2kg weight loss.

Okay, now this is going to be a long haul as my goal weight is still another 11 and a half kilos weight loss away, however I have a new tool. I’m doing the CSIRO Diet because I decided that this is what I needed to do at this stage in my life to get my health and body in an optimal state – and I’m going to stick with it till my goals are reached and then beyond that, work out how to maintain it.

So thanks Michel, in 2010 I’m sure we could all get more success and happiness if we followed your brand mantra – Be Deliberate – I know that I for one will be following it!

Photo: Flickr The Gifted Photographer

Michel Hogan is the founder and lead associate at Brandology – and helps companies get their brands into alignment with what they do and why they do it.

Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites.

Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now