Peter is also a partner at www.flyingsolo.com.au, Australia’s online community for solo business owners. Over on Flying Solo you’ll find Australia’s largest small business forums and over 1400 articles from our team of experts. Articles are discussed throughout the week on topics such as starting out, networking, marketing, working smarter and technology.

If you’re one of Australia’s million-plus solo business owners or have dreams of going it alone, you’ll find inspiration, advice and a sense of connection through Flying Solo

Do you struggle to get runs on the board for your business under the relentless barrage of distractions? It happens to the very best.

Captivated by the drama of fading veterans, floundering newcomers and stunning collapses, I’ve been watching far too much cricket this summer.

How is it that such skilled professionals can deliver such haphazard performances? My theory is that with so much happening off the field it’s easy to lose your concentration on it.

The blur of media, endorsements, lavish parties, adoring admirers, self-doubt, temptations and lucrative deals that surround cricketers, for example, are all periphery to delivering results on the field. Without those, the whole juggernaut slams to a halt.

If the results dry up, the golden goose is cooked.

Like besieged sports people, business owners must find a way to consistently get runs on the board despite the powerful battery of distractions that fire in from all sides. Every day brings a fast-paced serve of pinging emails, social media, marketing campaigns, media interviews, phone calls, shiny new opportunities, bills, paperwork and all the rest.

As important as these things can be, they are all secondary. Long-term business success boils down to getting the basics right – delivering quality products and services every day.

But how?

Back to the cricket for a minute. Listening to the coaches and experts, I consistently hear the same advice given to players in a rut: “Clear your mind of distractions, and focus only on playing the next ball.” In other words, first make sure you get the basics right and the rest will follow.

This is a theme we’ve embraced at Flying Solo for 2012. We’ve strongly renewed our commitment to producing quality content, enhancing member benefits and nurturing an even more supportive community. We’ve ruthlessly reviewed our business plan and dropped many actions that don’t align with this focus.

Personally, I’ve translated this into three themes for my year ahead:

• Health: Turn up ready to play with regular exercise and earlier mornings.
• Focus: Work in blocks without email and eliminate non-essential tasks.
• Patience: Trust that if you score enough runs the selectors will call.

One in a million will burst onto the scene Dave Warner style, the rest of us must grind out the runs like Ed Cowan. Both of them open the batting for Australia.

What’s your focus for 2012? Get on the front foot by posting it as a comment.

Read 13 comments or add your own at Flying Solo

Describing a ‘typical’ solo business owner is like trying to describe an ‘average’ person. But as diverse as we are, those in the flourishing soloist movement share many tribal similarities.

We are the third bedroom dwellers, the kitchen table perchers, the café lurkers. We are the CEO, CFO, CIO, COO, cleaner, accountant, IT fixer, debt collector, sales manager and strategist. We are front of house, leading role and backstage hand.

We are the name on the van, the bottom line, where the buck stops.

We are the corporate escapees, the Branson wannabees, the little doers, the big talkers, the quiet achievers, the hired guns. We are top of our game, but under the radar.

We are plan A, B and C. We have no safety net, no expense accounts, no war chests, no slush funds, no parent companies, no casual Fridays and no fall back positions. We are familiar with the smell of oily rags.

We are proposals at midnight, invoices at dawn and mowing on Mondays. We are the soul traders – one email away from elation, one phone call from dejection.

We are the red hot go. The crazy dream. The shot at the title. We are the epic fails, the rising from the ashes, the self-made stories.

We are the outside of the box, the other side of the coin, the path less trodden.

We are something from nothing. Mind over matter. We are masters of our own universe. We are the nimble fish in the shark-infested pond.

We threw in the day job and made the bed that we lie in. We are the boss they bitch about.

With more than 1 million of us across Australia, we are the nation’s largest business sector – and the stampede to soloism gathers pace every year.

Welcome to the soloists century. You may be Flying Solo, but you’re not alone.

I am proud to be part of the soloist movement. Are you? Tell us why you love it!.

Read 58 comments or add your own at Flying Solo

There’s that moment after a funeral, usually sometime after the third wine, where friends ask one another “Am I doing enough with my life?”

Most of us tend to avoid facing the reality of our mortality, but there’s nothing like death to crystalise the mind. The admission that we want something ‘more’ from our lives and careers brings underlying fears and insecurities bubbling to the surface. This is confronting, but can also be the catalyst for change.

For me, such ‘funeral moments’ bring to light a fear of living a bland life, of avoiding risk, wasting potential and losing sight of my priorities. It feels just like regret. But while regret is experienced in hindsight, this is a pre-emptive regret for the future that you’re yet to live.

And that’s the beauty of it.

Unlike deeds gone by that can never be changed, these moments of insight let you assess your imagined life to come, and then resolve to live it differently from here on.

The late Steve Jobs understood death’s incredible power for renewal when he said:

“Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.”

I’ve long related to the wistful song called Goodbye by The Sundays, which concludes with the line “Give me an easy life and a peaceful death.” It is a lovely, cosy and comfortable idea, but it sounds like a recipe for regret to me.

If you dare sneak a peek at your unmade deathbed and don’t like everything you see, now’s the time to turn over the mattress and wash the sheets. Your mum can’t make this one for you.

In the booming words of a friend of mine “Man the hell up, man!” Grab life by the nuts and take responsibility for your own legacy.

I’ve resolved to man up, take more risks and stay focused on what’s truly important.

Right, I’m off to make my bed before I die in it.

Regrets, do you have a view?

Read 23 comments or add your own at Flying Solo

We’ve all been on the receiving end of spiky remarks or emails laced with venom. It’s not pleasant, but can anger in business be effective? Here we look at the issue of anger management.

Everyone talks about the benefits of bringing your true self to work and having a real passion for what you do.

This is all well and good when it comes to expressing positive emotions and behaviours such as excitement, energy, initiative, praise, love, hope and generally being pumped up.

But strong emotions cut both ways. Inevitably there’ll be swings towards frustration, anger, lack of motivation, disappointment, stress and conflict.

Almost all the stories about high-flying business leaders that I have read include legendary tales of their tantrums and battles from people whose toes have been trodden on along the way.

Ruthlessness is often seen as part of the cut and thrust of the business world – particularly in traditionally male dominated sectors where alpha males lock horns and compare measurements before doing whatever it takes to win the war.

“It’s not personal, it’s business!” is the widely accepted excuse for poor behaviour.

I’m not prone to flare ups, but any time I have let frustration or anger come across in my communications at work I’ve regretted it without fail. On the receiving end, I’ve found most outbursts of anger are quickly followed by a retraction and an apology. Seems a pointless cycle.

But can you expect to enjoy the fire of passion without occasionally getting burnt? Maybe there is a place for thumping the table and getting your point across in no uncertain terms. No doubt there are many situations in business where anger is well deserved.

What do you think about anger management? Stiff upper lip or stamp your feet?  Grin and bear it or speak your mind?

If you don’t have something nice to say, say it anyway in the comments.

Read 35 comments or add your own at Flying Solo

It’s easy to look at other people, especially in business, and make the assumption that they’ve achieved their major business success goals. But have they?

Turning 35 (or late early 30) this month got me thinking once more about life, careers and all that palaver.

According to Andrew Fuller in his book Life: A guide, the years from 29-35 are the first point of review in many people’s lives, a pause for evaluation. “If I don’t make it by 35 I won’t make it at all” seems to be the fear.

I have a tendency to look around at others and imagine that they’re sipping their morning latté whilst monitoring their investments with a pristine inbox and deep-down satisfaction. An unlikely scenario, I know, but I’m hopeful there are some people out there like that.

Coming up with a picture of business success isn’t so straightforward. We’ve all heard stories of people who’ve made their millions, yet repeatedly bet the farm to chase another dream. So if ‘making it’ isn’t the same as making a motza, then what is it that drives us to always chase more, often at significant risk and sacrifice?

I swing between the desire to grow a bushy beard and retreat to a hillside drinking tea and tending vegetables, to the fantasy of having immaculately trimmed designer stubble and conference calls in Business Class lounges. Sad but true.

Don’t get me wrong, I have daily moments of contentment and a strong feeling of gratitude, but no sense of having ‘made it’ anywhere in particular … yet. According to Fuller “…from the age of 36 adulthood is the real deal. No longer can we dive under the sheets and claim inexperience or innocence as a defence”. Ouch!

In the song It can wait by Illy they suggest: “Happiness is fine but it’s momentary…I’m addicted to the chase of my happiness.”

Is ‘making it’ a myth, or are any of you already living the dream? If not, what does making it look like for you? I would be blissfully happy to read your views on business success.

Read 31 comments or add your own at Flying Solo

Imagine if we spoke about ourselves the way some businesses speak about themselves. Imagine no more, Crocks is using marketing jargon and talking himself up.

Looking for THE man? You’ve come to the right place!

With two multi-award winning model children, sparkling wit, harder than rock hard abs and a flawlessly gorgeous wife who can knit and lay a paver while turning the steak only once, Crocks^© is truly one of the world’s leading integrated males.

Recently rated unanimously as the #1 Australian bloke*, Crocks’ credentials are unrivalled and peerless, as well as second-to-none.

With loin-quiveringly good looks, forearms like baby seals and boyish charm, he is Ringleader of the rugby league touring team, Media Mogul and King of the Kids all rolled into one innovative package.

Crocks means big business

With a combined experience of 35 years in the world, he is a living, breathing core competency. He readily devises long-term partnerships that are mutually win-win. That’s synergy. He devises stretch targets that empower teams to take ownership of red flags and fast-track best-practices. That’s wicked.

As an entrepreneur, he’s the guy Steve Jobs most admires. The way he moves makes Hugh Jackman weep. The men want to be him. The women want their men to be him, too.

Online, on-demand and always at your fingertips

Crocks^© is both a Mac and a PC. He’s now available as a mobile version, cloud-based subscription and iPad app. He looks exactly the same on every browser, even IE6. Beyond integration, everything he says is instantly published on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and streamed via digital radio – but everyone’s still on the same page.

If you can get up to speed on his outside-the-box mindset, Crocks^© will realign your benchmarks and proactively boost your triple bottom line. All at the touch of a button.

End-to-end bespoke solutions

Want a shoulder to cry on? Call Crocks^© . Want to list your tech biz on the NASDAQ? Crocks^© is the man who’s on the money. Want to lose five kilos in five days with no exercise? Crocks^©  does that once a week.

Put simply Crocks^© delivers personalised one-to-one solutions to satisfy you, your business and your loved ones.

But that’s not all. Crocks^© sports a massive sports watch and a jaw as wide as the mag wheels on his ‘just-cleaned’ black European car. Having sold his dotcom 4 minutes before the crash, he now loves nothing better than giving back.

Crocks^© currently has some bandwidth and looks forward to touching bases soon. Act now.

Want to blow your own trumpet? Just do it by posting a comment below.

*100% of the vote in self-rating survey

Read 35 comments or add your own at Flying Solo

You may not take him for a great philosopher or self-help guru, but I found the rules of life Jerry Seinfeld shared on Denton’s Enough Rope a few years back very inspiring for business and life.

He pondered the question “What are my three rules of life?” In summary, this is what he came up with.

1. Bust your ass

Jerry Seinfeld: “…whatever you do just kill yourself. Work as hard as you can, only good can come of it.”

2. Pay attention

Jerry Seinfeld: “People just don’t notice enough about what’s going on around them. You can absorb and learn from everything around you all the time. Ask people questions all the time.”

3. Fall in love

Jerry Seinfeld: “[this] isn’t really a romantic love … like if I get a really good cup of coffee I like to just go, you know what, just hang on a second, ‘This is a fantastic cup of coffee!!’ And I’ll ask everyone, ‘Isn’t this great coffee?’ … you will enjoy life more if you do that.”

These three really resounded with me and got me thinking up my own rules of life:

1. Get your priorities straight

Before you ‘bust your ass’ doing anything, make sure you know what’s important in your life. For me the top three are family, friends and health. I believe if you look after these, you’ll be ready to tackle your professional and community goals.

2. Appreciate the now

If you’re always chasing ‘more’ it’s easy to lose touch with what you have. A blend of Jerry’s ‘pay attention’ and ‘fall in love’ rules above, this rule’s about living in the now. People who do this are so infectiously energetic. The past is history, the future is unknown – now is where it counts.

3. Follow your passion

If you’re going to invest 40 hours a week for several decades doing ‘work stuff’, make sure you’re doing something you truly believe in. Follow your passion and it’ll add up to your life’s greatest work. Fail to do so and you may look back with regret.

Do you think it’s important to have rules of life to live by or does this sort of talk scream mumbo-jumbo to you? We’d love you to share your rules, thoughts and other words of wisdom.

And if you want to watch Jerry’s interview with Andrew Denton, head here and skip to the 7:40sec mark for his rules of life section.

Read 25 comments or add your own at Flying Solo

Fear of failure paralyses more would-be entrepreneurs than just about anything else. But success and failure go hand in hand. In fact, perhaps you’re not failing enough.

I recently heard a prominent business person asked about the most important thing they learnt at university. Their answer: “Profit = reward for risk.”

Achieving anything significant always requires hard work and taking chances. And because risks are, well, risky, it is inevitable that you will fall on your face along the way.

If you go skiing and never fall over, then you’re simply not trying hard enough. It’s easy to cruise safely down the slopes, but if you want to push the limits you need to put down the hot chocolate.

While we understand that risk and failure are essential for success, we still fear them. This idea is nothing new. The Harvard Business Review recently published an entireFailure Issue exploring this very topic. To paraphrase from one article:

“Failure. We’re hypocrites about it. Go online, and you’ll find dozens of pleasant clichés celebrating the inevitability of failure and the importance of learning from it. But in real life – and in real companies – failure is loathed. We’re afraid of it. We avoid it. We penalise it.”

To continue the corny sporting theme, I’ll hand over to superstar basketballer Michael Jordan:

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

If you’re not achieving the success you want, chances are you’re not failing enough. Mathematically, as long as you’re taking calculated risks, the more shots you take the more points you’ll score.

While it can be hard to see at the time, lessons learned the hard way are the most valuable.

What are your thoughts on risk and the fear of failure? Any epic fails you’d like to share? Here’s to failure, risk AND return!

Read 38 comments or add your own at Flying Solo

I’ve previously written about a copywriter who’d take extended working holidays where he’d write each day from 5am to 12pm before joining his family for lunch and sightseeing. But can it really be done?

Rather than busting your gut for two weeks of pure holiday, could you stretch your trip length and budget by spending a section of the day working and the rest in holiday mode?

I’m lucky enough to be able to take my work with me, and having long toyed with this idea I finally got to test the theory on a short working holiday to a friend’s home in Lyttelton, New Zealand.

Day one was a bus and train to the airport. I managed 1½ hours of inbox clearing on the smartphone. The bus seats were a little cramped for my laptop, which had no web connection because I’m lacking in the dongle department, sadly.

I’d hoped to do more at the airport but by the time I went through check-in and customs, got a coffee and found the gate, I only had an hour of clear work time. And in spite of sitting under a poster advertising ‘free wireless’, I couldn’t connect.

In the end I had to call my colleague to talk through the website edits that I had planned to email. Then it was time to board. A cracking episode of ‘Modern Family’ and a power nap delayed my productivity, but I did get some solid work done on the flight, gloriously uninterrupted by web and email. By the end of workday one, I calculated three to four hours of sporadic work time.

The next day we settled into my friend’s home office and were, surprisingly, very productive all day. We managed a walk at lunch time and I had the privilege of paying about $5 to pick up two voicemails. My friend has an outrageously cheap Skype service for all calls so that would be the go for future trips.

As I write this we’re clocking off for a weekend trek, and Monday will be another travel day.

The verdict so far: I’ve actually got a lot more work done than I’d expected, and it is great to be able to spend quality time with friends in their natural environment over several days.

Overall, I think the dream of an extended working holiday is still alive and well. A farmhouse in Italy would do very nicely!

I’d love to hear your views on the merit (or otherwise) of working holidays, and more generally on tips for combining work and travel. Wherever you are, leave a comment.

Read 34 comments or add your own at Flying Solo