Only, this time around, I found the wall decorations more insightful than the rest of the meeting. It seems little changed since I was at school, with lots of motivational messages underlining the virtues of hard work and dedication.

This is what the largest display says:

EFFORT = SUCCESS
the more you put in,
the more you get out

And I think, if this is 100% true then why is it that so many of my entrepreneurial customers complain that sometimes it seems that whatever they plan and do, they just keep hitting the wall? Why is it that while other times it may seem as if they have the wind in their backs and without much effort they take big strides forward. And why is it that that they say it seems that some times others just streak ahead, while they are for some unknown reason bogged down in problems?

It is not just “effort” that leads to “success”. It is as if luck is sometimes on their side and other times not!

Indeed, luck plays an important role in achieving results. So should the sign not rather say:

EFFORT + LUCK = SUCCESS
the more you put in,
the luckier you get,
the more you get out

However, luck is not a random occurrence of good fortune.

Hard work or plain luck

You can create more luck by adding more chances for luck to occur through what you do. When you persist with activities conducive to your desired results, you can indeed create your own luck. And with more luck, you are bound to succeed!

So, can we agree that luck plays an important part in business and organisational success? To succeed you need some luck! And to be hugely successful, you need huge amounts of luck! We can create our own luck by persisting. But persist with doing what?

This is where business plans feature in helping you to know what to persist with so that you can create more luck and achieve success?

I grew up believing that hard work will bring success – not plain luck! Like with many other cultures, offering my value through hard work, was an important element of my belief-system. I had to be productive and busy, then good results and personal success would follow. And this seems to remain a fairly strong message in the education of our kids.

But this is only partly true. Hard work and persistence is important, but there is also a success factor present, which does not always follow straight-line thinking. In the success game there is an “X-factor” best described as “luck”.

The art of creating luck

What I am about to tell you may sound simple enough, but I promise you that when you apply this idea to your business or organisation, you will see significant change. So listen up…

The art of creating more luck lies in understanding the sweet spot where the opportunities available to you are in balance with your capacity to deliver.

When I mention opportunities, I refer to all the possible instances through which you can potentially offer value to the people you are meant to serve. These opportunities are unique to you since you are serving a very specific audience within your reach and influence. It is also unique because of the choices you have made or the circumstances you may find yourself in.

Think about your opportunities for a moment. What can you realistically pursue as an opportunity within you reach? Perhaps you could make a list of five to ten such opportunities. Or if you feel stuck, read the newspaper or surf the internet with the aim to identify such opportunities. Then list them.

These are the opportunities you need to bring in balance with your capacity.

While opportunities refer to the options you have for serving the needs of people outside of your business or organisation, capacity refers to your abilities inside, or immediately available to your business or organisation. Opportunity is external, while capacity is internal.

Your capacity to deliver value is largely dependent on the resources you have available. These resources are however not limited to what is under your direct control or ownership, but includes those which you have available from your wider network for delivering on what you are promising to your customers or beneficiaries.

Think about your capacity to deliver. What strengths do you have in creating something exceeding the expectations of your customers or beneficiaries?  Make a list of five to ten characteristics which sets you apart from others in making it possible to deliver exceptional value. List these as your capacity strengths.

If you followed my suggestion, you will now have two lists describing the opportunities available to you and your capacity to deliver. It is a good start in aligning these two elements with the aim of maintaining a growth-oriented, dynamic balance that will propel you forward so that you achieve momentum towards the flow of great results.

In my work with thousands of entrepreneurs this is the picture I draw most often, and is likely to keep drawing in helping my clients to understand how they can also be hugely successful:

To increase your likeliness of success, you should aim to position yourself and your business in the space where the Capacity of your business to deliver repeatable value and quality output, is in balance with the Opportunities within your reach, or perhaps also those Opportunities which will stretch your Capacity with about 10% outside your comfort zone.

In short, your “flow zone” is where your Capacity to deliver is in balance with the Opportunities you pursue.

So, why do entrepreneurs fail? They do not apply this very simple (but profound) truth.

The outgoing “marketers” amongst us, easily see the potential of new avenues and pursue these without much thought about how their promises are going to be implemented. As a result, they keep disappointing customers, and have a huge churn in sales clients.

On the other hand, the perfectionist “engineers” amongst us, focus so much on tweaking their products and services, that they forget that they will in fact also need clients to buy what they offer. They are wrapped up in the technical features of their offering, and as a result fail to connect with the prospects who could become loyal customers.

You can avoid this trap by seeking out that zone where your Capacity and Opportunities are in balance ~ where your business is in its flow!

“Everyone has a plan – until they get punched in the face!”

In many respects Tyson’s observation is also what we experience in business…  You make meticulous plans, are asked by your financiers to produce a thorough finance application, and then spend significant effort and time on compiling comprehensive business planning documents. And when the business plan is done, you feel (or perhaps you think you know) that your business will be a huge success!

However, like with Tyson, the plan is soon forgotten when the “fight” is on!  When the business starts rolling and unforeseen challenges crawl out of the woodwork, the business plan ends forgotten in the bottom drawer because the ever-changing realities of the business environment are so different from what was anticipated in the plan!

So, you may ask: “Should I then NOT do a business plan?”

The answer is that you should, but not in the format of a thick template like you will do when applying for business finance – this is a finance plan, which you’ll write specifically in accordance to the requirements of your financier! Your business plan should be a short, practical tool for you to use in achieving results with your team.

Easy to understand business plan

Would it not be great to have an easily understandable, yet comprehensive plan for achieving results with your business? What if you could spend under four hours to do your business plan and end with a plan that:

• Clarifies exactly what your business is about and how it supports your life.
• Gives your team a framework to understand their individual contribution to the business success.
• Reflects the dynamic interplay between the fans your business serve and the culture you create inside your business.
• Explains how your good business ideas translate into a healthy flow of transactions.
• Allows continuous improvement through a focus on the next business cycle.
• Does not use stale business school concepts in guiding you to success.

And here comes the good news! There is a tool just right for doing a business plan that clarifies exactly what is to be done next, while allowing for the situation to change and for you to adjust your plans accordingly.

This is the 1-Page Flow Canvas™ Business Plan.

Business plan on just one page

The Flow Canvas™ is a business planning tool applicable to all businesses, irrespective of size and industry.

Think of business planning like artists would when setting out to create great paintings – they start with a clean canvas and a vision of what it is they would like to express. Then, within the confines of the canvas, they produce something of dazzling attraction that connects with the world out there, it gets people to respond and it adds value to their lives. The same applies to business planning where you create a “picture” of a business proposition that will add value to the lives of the audience you serve.

The Flow Canvas™ provides more structure to the “painting” than an artist would – the “planning canvas” is divided into nine areas, with each devoted to a specific question. In answering these questions, you complete the full picture of your business on a single page. The result is displayed on a 1-page plan (an A4 printout) which everyone in the business can refer to in guiding their daily work activities. They can all see what the business is setting out to achieve and how they fit into the picture.

What you can do:

• You can create your own 1-Page Business Plan with the easy to use tool available at www.flowcanvas.com (watch out for the revised questions-based online version which is soon to be released).
• Or you can contact a planning expert from Flow Finders International at info [at] flowfinders [dot] com to guide you in compiling your plan through an intensive planning workshop.

98% PROFESSIONAL EXPERT
By far the most of the professionals in my immediate network have been involved in their field of expertise for more than a decade and view themselves as “recognised” as an expert in their industry.

95% BOOKS & 75% BLOGS
They read a lot! Almost all say they attend to their own development by reading books, while three-quarters say they also ready blogs and websites for their own development.

79% FRIENDS
They rely on their friends for supporting them in their self-development, with 79% saying that they discuss self-development issues with their friends.

65% MEDITATE OR PRAY
They are a reflective lot too… Two-thirds say they meditate or pray, but they do this individually without sharing with others.

67% SEMINARS & 37% MEMBERSHIP
They are good at attending seminars/talks (67%) and networking events (53%), but only a third (37%) belong to a professional or business association.

54% MAGAZINE & 51% VIDEO
Half of the professionals in my network read magazines or watch videos as a way of improving themselves.

47% MENTOR/COACH & 14% PEER SUPPORT
Surprisingly nearly half use a mentor, coach or advisor to support them in their self-development  (I expected less to use mentors or coaches), but also surprisingly only 14% use their peers through discussions or structured “masterminds” (I expected peer support to be more).

19% E-MEDIA
Electronic media is generally not used a lot as a way to improve themselves. Only 12% use online programmes, 19% use audio-books and 19% listen to pod-casts.

Seemingly their is plenty of scope for independent professionals (at least those in my immediate circle) to have a look at the benefits of peer-support, coaching & online programmes to further their own development!

I recently completed Martin Seligman’s VIA Survey of Character Strengths again and realised that “Gratitude” moved up to my number five strength. Previously it did not feature at all! Read the short blog I posted after doing the test, if this test sounds like something you could benefit from.

Now I’m thinking: “How did this happen?”

And: “Why is Gratitude a notable strength?”

Well, the first question I can answer with ease since it is because I’ve surrounded myself with other people who are grateful for what they have and who they can be in their lives. Inspirational people like Martin my coach and others in the entrepreneurial networks I belong to… even most of my Facebook Friends who share what they love about their lives on a daily basis.

It is the people around me that turned me into a grateful person!

But it is also my own resolve to introduce rituals into my life, such as starting the week with an hour-long call with four other entrepreneurs. We start this call firstly by sharing what each of us is grateful for in our businesses and the rest of our lives.

Now I stand amazed at how much I’ve previously taken for granted and how I created stress in my life by wanting more, instead of being more. It serves me best to love what I have so that I can focus on being more, rather than having more!

OK. So I’m living proof that you can be grateful by surrounding yourself with grateful people and by introducing small rituals where you say “thank you”.

BUT why is gratitude important?

You can probably think of many reasons why it’s good to be grateful. For some it may be part of their spiritual or religious expression, while for others it may be to motivate them to achieve more…

For me, it is perhaps a bit of a selfish reason that stands out as the most important – it is because it makes me a happier person!

Be grateful because it makes you happier! It is as simple as that!