The Million Dollar Shift

 

Early in his career, Early to Rise’s founder Mark Ford made a million dollar shift in his mindset. Doing so allowed him to go from broke to millionaire in just a year.

The Shift, as I call it, has the power to do this for you, too. If you’re willing to shift the way you think about your job and career, I guarantee your income will be much greater in a year from now. Just as important, you’ll love going to work each day.

The Shift creates enormous opportunity for you to advance your career, take on new responsibility, create more value, and earn a lot more money.

To make The Shift, you need to stop thinking and acting like a conventional employee and start thinking and acting like an owner.

How does an owner think about the business?

• An owner thinks about his reputation and how he wants the business to operate a decade from now, and acts accordingly.
• Because reputation matters, an owner treats everyone with respect: Customers, vendors, staff, and peers.
• When an owner encounters a problem, he takes responsibility for the problem and works to fix it.
• An owner is brave. He’s not afraid to ask hard questions. He’s not afraid  to take action. He understands that sometimes he’ll make mistakes and he  accepts this inevitability. He sees these mistakes as just part of the  process so he’s quick to forgive himself and others who make honest mistakes.
• An owner wants to get better every day. He sees the potential in people and works to encourage them. He sees the potential  in the business and isn’t satisfied until that potential is realized.
• An owner is never a victim. He accepts responsibility for his circumstances, the good and the bad.
• An owner is a builder. He loves brainstorming new ideas, but knows that taking action is the key to success.
• An owner takes initiative. He gives himself permission to act on good ideas and to do what he thinks needs to be done.

As the business grows, adopting an “Owner’s Approach” becomes critical because a top-down, command-and-control approach simply doesn’t work on scale. A large organization needs individuals who can think and act on their own.

For instance, our business has long needed a collaboration tool for projects. I asked many individuals to explore different tools and see if they’d work for us. Years went by with no progress until “Kevin” from the web team decided to act like an owner.

Kevin learned about Slack, a real-time collaboration tool, at a conference and he had a hunch that it would work for us. He didn’t wait on an official mandate from “management.” He set up the tool and encouraged others to use it. Use of the tool has expanded beyond the web team to other departments. In the last 24 hours alone, our 150+  employees have posted an astounding 2,908 messages in Slack.

Is there something you think your business should do to make things better? Have you wondered why nobody is doing anything about it? Well, your boss and your company are waiting on you. Your colleagues need you to start thinking and acting like an owner. Don’t wait for a “mandate” from management… Instead, take action and test out good ideas.

What you can do today to start acting like an owner? Is there a project you’d like to take on or a problem you want to fix? The only path to becoming a real owner, to growing your income, and to advancing your career is to start acting like one today.