I thought you might find this interesting, it's a 10 min clip of Michael Carroll sharing elements of his own personal development and attitude as an entrepreneur to a group of NLP Master Practitioners.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egOY2WFV088]YouTube - The Outlook of an Entrepreneur[/ame]

I have also attached his monthly article, which is written on the Evolution of New Code NLP

http://www.nlpacademy.co.uk/articles...20Jan%2008.pdf

David Hamilton
NLP Academy
davidh@realnlp.co.uk
NLP Academy

You thought (past tense) we might be interested?

Thankyou David...it interested me.

Michael - what do you mean by 'ride the tough times'...the reason I ask is because I'm a big believer in "ride your winners and cut your losses." - so there's a disconnect there for me with regards to staying with something where there is a clear downward trend.

I may just be hearing you through my filters and interpreting it incorrectly...can you elaborate mate...perhaps with a real-world example?

James.

P.S. You should get that clip back into the edit suite fast...the link displayed has an extra 'dot' after the word nlp.

P.P.S You know you can include a link to the site in the "About..." section - so long as you include the 'http://' bit first...so you could go -

"Michael Carroll of http://www.nlpacademy.co. shares elements...."

P.P.P.S There's also a way of virtually guaranteeing that the video appears on page 1 of a Google search for NLP...not such a big deal for a company that already score very high in the natural rankings...but everso useful for others looking to get a high ranking without the usual hassles of SEO...but to learn about that you have to join my teleseminars..

...oh come on you think I'm gonna just give EVERYTHING away???

James

Firstly, your right about the NLP Academy's ranking in google consistently in top ten when you search for NLP. This has been so for the last three years and usually in top five. It saves a fortune a google adverts. We have work to on other search terms.

Michael - what do you mean by 'ride the tough times'...the reason I ask is because I'm a big believer in "ride your winners and cut your losses."

The losers often become real winners. It's judgment and intuition. McDonald's lost money in the UK in its first ten years of trading. They didn't quit, they did however change the British high street, attitudes to food and now............ well they are hugely profitable and offering A levels. What would have happened if they cut their losses?

Here are some of my examples of riding things out.
If I had cut my losses in the recession of the 1990s, I would be at least one million pounds poorer today. I downsized, became more profitable and sold my business when things were peaking in 2000. I adapted. I also had a buy to let property portfolio in the 1990s when interest rates were 15% and property prices in free fall. Many people got out of the market at a loss. Again I rode it out. That portfolio is doing very nicely today, although not as nicely as year ago. Will I sell because of a down turn, I don't think so.

Last Tuesday, naive people were selling their shares, clever people were buying and made a lot of money.

Also riding bad luck, may also mean dealing with the effects of a bad decision - which DOES mean exiting a market, dealing with the effects of a bad client who doesn't pay and so on. The attitude is you deal with it and move on.

I guess its about intuition whether to stay or cut your losses, what ever happens you have to ride the consequences and make it work.

Thanks for the feedback on the typo, it will be fixed.

Michael

That's really interesting mate. Really.

I guess I was way vague in the beginning with a simple concept like riding winners and cutting losses...In Direct Mail for example it's very rarely useful to keep running a losing Mailshot...I guess a contextual frame is useful here. I'd be fascinated to know a bit more about how you first know whether something is worth riding out or not... that would be really valuable to me.

Cheers Michael

James.

P.S. I really liked your simple distinction around not doing something just because you can but because you WANT to....I agree - an attribute of an entrepreneur - which of course comes from 'to undertake' (usually with an assumption of risk)

James

I guess I was way vague in the beginning with a simple concept like riding winners and cutting losses...In Direct Mail for example it's very rarely useful to keep running a losing Mailshot...

Agreed, AND you would not necessarily drop a product on the results of losing direct mail campaign.

There are two key variables at play here.

a. the mailshot (with all it inherent variables)
b. the product (with all it's inherent variables)

If I had a market intuition on the product, I would change the mailshot or marketing approach. There would be time to drop the product if new ways were not working.

I'd be fascinated to know a bit more about how you first know whether something is worth riding out or not... that would be really valuable to me.

My guts. Sorry for not being specific.

As a result of the thought process I have given this interaction, I have decided to cut my losses on a venture that has not got of the ground. It will take my eye of my core business, I have invested some money so far, not prepared to invest more..... and I lack confidence in potential partners. It's time to pull out rather than throw money at it.

Of course, I will never know the effects of pulling out, it could have become huge. Another attitude of being an entrepreneur is loosing attachment to deals that could have been. There is always something else around the corner.

Michael

hmmm yeah - veeery interesting Michael. I agree the SCOPE of the 'loss' is a major consideration...I guess that's why, in my example the key is Test / Measure / Project...

Suddenly cutting losses takes on a whole different, more fully formed meaning - that is Cut You Losses in consideration of the variables (of course which variables to consider, requires a criteria-based decision too!!)

Something of what you said there kinda reminds me of something Warren Buffet asked a conference full of investors once upon a time...

I'm paraphrasing but essentially this was how the discourse went:

Warren: "What do you think the single biggest consideration is when entering into a new investment"

The room spent many moments shouting out their response to Warrens question (now remember these are EXPERIENCED investors - we're talking many thousands of combined years experience)

Not one person in that room got it.

...the answer?


Opportunity Cost.

James

Opportunity cost

Now there is something with a loadsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss of variables.

M