Recently, I was in Cork with a group of business owners.
Kev and I started our quarterly pilgrimages to the Emerald Isle several years ago to meet with small business expert Jon McCulloch (AKA The Evil Bald Genius) and his group.
It’s one of the most valuable ways we invest in ourselves.
We spend all day every day helping others with their lives and businesses, but we’re too close to our own challenges to get a useful perspective on them.
We’re even too close to each other to be objective about each other’s decisions, so we really value spending time with a bunch of smart people who can give us some input on what we’re doing.
The important thing about speaking to people you trust is this, from one of my favourite songs called Sunscreen:
“Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.”
That’s the sort of advice you can get from people who think they know what’s best for you, but aren’t qualified for whatever reason to advise you.
I’m not saying friends and family don’t have your best interests at heart, but if I listened to friends about how much to charge in my business, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford the air-fare to Cork to speak to the people who really can help me!
By the way, if you have a spare minute today, then listen to Sunscreen - it’s a great song!