At first, the owner of the boat will hardly notice any difference in speed or performance from these tiny little hitchhikers.  But over time, the creatures grow larger and larger and eventually become a huge drag on the bottom of the boat. More and more fuel has to be expended to keep the boat running at the same speed as it did with a clean bottom.  At some point, as the critters grow larger and larger, there simply isn’t enough power to maintain the speed.  The boat gets slower and slower and the only way to fix the problem is haul it out of the water and expend enormous effort scraping off all the accumulated junk.

The same thing can happen in our lives.  We allow others to add “stuff” to our to do list or we take on more and more tasks on our own.  At first, we can handle the extra tasks and burdens because they often start out very small. Hardly noticeable in fact.

But if we are not careful, we can fall into the trap of taking on more and more or letting what we are already burdened with grow out of control.  Left unchecked, these extras will significantly reduce our speed toward our goals.  We spend more and more energy trying to keep up and at some point, regardless of our effort, progress slows to a crawl.

The prudent boat owner takes steps to eliminate the growth of marine creatures on his hull.  He paints the bottom with a chemical that leaches a little bit of “poison” into the surrounding water that discourages the little critters from taking hold in the first place.  The bottom paint, as it is called, creates an environment that is just not conducive to the happiness of the marine organisms.  Finding the bottom of the boat inhospitable to their goal of trying to find a place to latch onto to live out their lives,  and they go find another place to call home.

In your own life, you need to add a little bottom paint as well.  A barrier that will keep the stuff you don’t want out of your life. This will prevent both yourself and others from allowing you to take on tasks and to-do’s that are not in alignment with your real goals.

How do you formulate your own “bottom paint?”

1-     Be clear about where you are heading.  Yes, I am admonishing you to set goals for yourself.  Shocking huh?  But the sad truth is that if you are not working on your goals you will find yourself working on someone else’s.

2-     Regularly check your hull.  Compare the path you are on to the path you actually want to be on.  If you find some “stuff” has attached itself to you, figure out a way to scrape it off so that it can find a home somewhere else.

3-     Keep moving.  Boats that sit around in marinas need more bottom paint than boats that are constantly on the move.  If you are moving toward your goals in a manner that is perceptible to the those around you, they will instinctively get out of your way.  It’s only when you look like you have nothing going on that they will try to relieve you of your boredom.

Truth be told, I could have saved thousands of dollars because their analysis wasn’t exactly a shock to me.  The $40 scale has been telling me I was overweight for years and a couple of flights of stairs would cause me to breathe hard.  So why did I spend the money?

Because I realized that even with my best intentions, I have not been able to accomplish my fitness goals without a couple of things –

One- I needed to fundamentally understand my metrics.  I wanted to know all my important stats and numbers so that I would have the motivation to move the numbers in the right direction.  I also wanted a baseline so I can measure my progress over time.  I now have these numbers and look forward to seeing how my actions are affecting my outcome at the molecular level.

Two- When it comes to exercise, I need to be told what to do and have someone there to ensure I am doing it correctly.

You see, for me, weight training is the fastest way for me to achieve my objectives (coupled with a bit of interval training too).  But even though I have watched the videos and read the books on weight training over the years, I was never sure I was doing it correctly.  Plus, since I wasn’t seeing results quickly enough, I would have a tendency to lose interest and quit.

But with a personal trainer, I have someone that can show me the proper technique.  He ensures that I am doing each movement correctly by observing me.  And finally, he does something I could never do on my own.  What is that?  Well, it’s the secret to weight training that thousands of folks that try to do it on their own never appreciate.  My trainer pushes me to do one more rep than my body is willing to let me do on my own.  And here is the rub…no matter how long I have been at the gym or how many reps and sets I have done, my muscles will not grow until I do the one rep that my body tells me I cannot do.

In your life, what or who pushes you to do that one more thing that makes all the difference?

But often entrepreneurs lose their way in the early part of creating a company. They spend too much time on a to-do list of tasks that are unimportant to the prime objective.  Tasks that are not as important as reaching the very first milestone every startup should be striving for.

What is the first milestone every founder and her team should be going for? Getting someone to write you a check.

I can hear you now.  We’re working on that, you say.  Or, I have a meeting with a VC next week and my partners second cousin has expressed interest in investing too.  Wrong answer.  The check I am looking for is not from investors and if possible, not from your personal account or savings either. The check I want someone to write to you is a check for what you are offering.  Go get that check first!

So as you bootstrap your startup, set your first milestone to be the one that will do the most to ensure both your short term and long term success.  Go find someone to write you a check for your product or service.  You will learn so much about the potential for your vision that you ever will sitting at your desk ‘thinking’ about your venture or worse…’planning’.

Go get the check!

Studies have shown that you need to do something every day for a period of at least 3 weeks, preferably 4 in order to make it a habit that you will stick with.

So what is the simplest and easiest way to start and keep a new habit?

Try this…

1- Decide what habit you want to make a part of your life.  It could be as simple as exercise everyday or perhaps write in your journal everyday.

2- Go online and print out a calendar for a single month.  Google “free calendar to print”.

3- Print out the current month and the next month.

4- Write your new habit at the top of the calendar.  (i.e. “Daily Exercise”)

5- Obtain a thick red marker.  A sharpie works great.

6- Do the habit right now.  When done, cross out the day with a big red “X”

7- Repeat tomorrow making sure you do not miss a day for at least 21 days.  If you miss a day, start over.

8- Put the calendar in area where you will see it every day.

Once you do something every day for 21 days it will be a habit.  You no longer will need to X out the days unless you want to.

Be sure to only use the calendar and “X” system to track one habit.  And only change one habit at a time.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Problems are just part of the landscape of running a business and trying to help clients fulfill their needs.  As long as your company is dynamic and doing its work in a constantly changing business climate, you are going to have problems.  And as the manager or entrepreneur, guess what?  The whole reason the company and your clients need you is that you can solve these problems.  If there weren’t any problems, then you are somewhat redundant, aren’t you?

So next time you have your elbows on your desk and your face in your hands wondering how you are going to solve the crisis that has just been dumped in your lap, try to smile and enjoy the moment.  Problems and your ability to solve them are the reason you are who you are.  Your goal should never be to get rid of problems.  In fact, if you want to grow as a human being, you should be looking for more interesting, complex and difficult problems to solve.

Simply save your clients time when they interact with your organization, your product, or your service.

Remember, your client doesn’t really need or want what you think you are providing.  Don’t be offended but what you think you are selling is nothing more than a means to an end for the client.  There is a need that wants to be fulfilled and the company that can do it the quickest will earn more in the long term than the one that will do it the cheapest.

Ensure that every aspect of your service or product has been ruthlessly tested and retested to ensure that your clients get their needs met in as short a period of time as possible.  And just when you think you have eliminated every delay possible, check it again (rinse, repeat).

Time is a competitive weapon that is noticed by clients.  Make it a priority to save your clients time in every interaction you have with them and your client will reward you with their loyalty and their wallet.

But this boat had a unique tunnel hull design that would keep it from ‘chine-walking’ as it got up on its pad.  Anyone who has been in a modern bass boat knows that it get’s a little scary as the speed get’s close to 60 to 70 mph.  This is because the boat is getting up on its ‘pad’.  This is a flat part of the hull toward the stern, about 8 inches wide and maybe 30″ long.

Just before the bass boat get’s on the pad it rocks back and forth.  If you don’t know its coming or how to steer through it, it will scare the living crap out of you and potentially kill you.

The Vector, as this boat was called, wouldn’t chine walk because the outside tips of the tunnel hull kept the hull stable until it was all the way up on the pad.

Our motto was ‘fish faster’ and our target market were folks that fished bass tournaments with ‘shotgun’ starts.  First to the best fishing holes generally won the tournaments which are as much about boat racing and looking cool as they are about fishing.

Alas, the project never went anywhere and I ended up selling the design and the tooling to a company in Kansas.  I didn’t even know they had bass in Kansas…

Enjoy…