Jon Cooper: Put some bounce into spring - 8 thoughts to waken you from winter!

This is the time of year when everything starts to awaken, when we start viewing houses, booking holidays, spending money and generally cheering up as the weather moves from ridiculously cold and damp to merely, well, damp.

To help you mark the start of the annual transition from dark and gloomy to bright and booming, I thought I’d share with you some of my favourite pearls of wisdom from the mouths of inspirational leaders past and present.

1 - “If you don’t know every aspect of what you are doing, down to the paper clips, you’re setting yourself up for some unwelcome surprises.” - Donald Trump

(Donald should know; he’s been bust, in-between making Billionaire status twice)

2 - “I don’t consider myself to be lucky. I think luck is preparation meeting a moment of opportunity.” - Oprah Winfrey

(Winfrey is one of the world’s richest broadcasters, worth easily $2.5 Billion and named America’s most powerful woman)

3 - “There is one rule for industrialists and that is: make the best quality goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.” – Henry Ford

(Credited with the invention of mass production, Ford laid the foundations for every manufacturing business since)

4 - “Keep your business affairs in your own hands. It's the only way to be happy.” – Martha Washington

(The first First Lady of the US controlled 15,000 acres of farmland by the time she married George)

5 - "I am always doing things I can’t do. That’s how I get to do them." - Pablo Picasso

(The Spanish child prodigy learnt to paint, draw and sculpt with equal aplomb)

6 - “Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have 24-hour days.” - Zig Ziglar

(Legendary business guru Ziglar practically invented the sound-bite, way before it had a name)

7 - "Seventy percent of success in life is showing up." Woody Allen

(Actor, author, director; Allen’s been showing up and succeeding for over half a century)

8 - “To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.” – Samuel Johnson

(This last thought is from the great Midlands author, whose wise words are as fresh as ever 200 years on)

Jon Cooper is the founder of JupiterDawn.com business consulting, and an Accredited Business Adviser with the IBD group. Exclusive to Blog readers - contact jon@jupiterdawn.com for a free one-hour business mentoring session with Jon, worth £175. Follow Jon @jonnycooper.

Jon Cooper: Jungle frolics to teach us about business

Here is a fabulous little story, both in the sense that it’s a kind of fable, and that it’s quite excellent!

A tiger was stalking through the jungle looking for dinner. He spotted a lone coyote in a clearing and set his sights on it.

As the tiger roared and stomped his way towards his unsuspecting prey, the coyote sensed imminent danger from his feline nemesis and froze for a moment.

Recovering his guile and composure quickly, he trotted over to a nearby pile of bones and exclaimed, “Mmm, what a delicious tiger that was!”

The tiger, shaken by this unexpected revelation, skulked away and vowed to avoid coyote-hunting for evermore.

Meanwhile, a monkey had witnessed the remarkable scene from a tree and skipped off to find the tiger, and offer him a deal.

“Mr Tiger,” he pronounced, “I have some very interesting and valuable information, which I’ll give you in return for a little protection.”

The tiger agreed to watch out for the monkey’s welfare, and was told the whole truth about the coyote and the bones.

Shortly afterwards, the tiger appeared in the clearing with the monkey on his back. (Now there’s a metaphor waiting to happen…)

Mr Coyote, snoozing smugly by the life-saving bones, opened one eye and spotted the peculiar couple, intent as they were on spoiling his afternoon nap. He looked away and declared loudly “I’m starving; why does that lazy monkey take so long to get me another tiger…?”

So what’s the moral in this tale of animal cunning (and, probably, monkey-eating tigers)?

Well, there are several. Firstly, that you can overcome pretty much any obstacle with the right effort. Secondly; in the story, the coyote had to overcome the same challenge not once, but twice. So; never give up, even when a problem refuses to be solved first time around.

He also didn’t exactly work hard to escape a grizzly and macabre death. “Working hard” would have meant running away, and dying exhausted a minute later as the big cat inevitably caught him.

Credit to Mr Coyote; he chose working smart over working hard. Works every time!

Jon Cooper is the founder of JupiterDawn.com business consulting, and an Accredited Business Adviser with the IBD group. Exclusive to Jupiter Dawn Blog readers - contact jon@jupiterdawn.com for a free one-hour business mentoring session with Jon, worth £175. Follow @jonnycooper.

Jon Cooper: 10 reasons why Smoking is like Religion

Bit of a fun blog today, stretching my mind around two of the many human activities I find quite baffling.

Here are my Top Ten Reasons why smoking is like following a religion:

1 – If they didn’t exist, no-one would invent them. Watch Bob Newhart’s legendary Raleigh sketch here, and you’ll get the idea. Then imagine him calling home to try and explain religion to a nation evolved purely on science and facts.

2 – If our kids didn’t learn about them from us, they wouldn’t try them. This is a great argument both for religious education and smoking in homes or close to children to be banned.

3 – Both are harmful to health. Smoking inarguably so; religion stifling to open enquiry and rational thought. The late great Christopher Hitchens referred to religion as a mental illness, and who am I to argue?

4 – There would be fewer premature deaths without either. Sure, we’ve all got to die sometime, but that’s no reason to wantonly leave the party early. Whether you choose to literally expire through self-inflicted respiratory destruction, or get caught up in an act of slaughter in the name-of-all-that’s-holy, either is a tragic waste of precious life.

5 – Both originated from our ignorance. Religions were invented to provide explanations where current knowledge failed. The sun rose – must be a big man upstairs. Washed away in a flood – that’s him again, punishing us for being bad. Smoking was promoted long before medicine caught on to its perils. Hell, we even thought it was good for us!

6 – Now we know better. The corollary to number 5. 21^st Century Medics unanimously agree that smoking is among the easiest and surest of slow suicides yet discovered. Scientists are equally aligned that most things previously given a mystical status are now fully explained by science.

7 – Both are financially ruinous. I know people who spend more on fags than they do on a mortgage payment, for God’s sake. And no-one could make an argument of fiscal responsibility for the Vatican, hoarding looted treasures worth enough in cash terms to rid the world of all known diseases. Probably. If all the churches in the UK were converted into social housing, we’d solve the new homes shortage at a stroke. Maybe.

8 – They waste good people. Smoking, as we’ve agreed, truncates lives and thereby loses any future intellectual and social benefits those people may have yet had to bring. Organised religion is a huge sap of talent. I know several intelligent, intellectual and compassionate priests who could have contributed positively to our society in many other more useful ways.

9. Both are widely practised, yet wrong. The argument that if enough people say or do something, it must be right, has never been disproved more effectively than through smoking and following religion. No-one needs to re-read the list of tobacco-related diseases to know that for sure, and here is a great rationale of why the same applies to religion.

10 – We’d be better off without them. You won’t find many people outside of the tobacco industry and HMRC arguing any positives for smoking. Even the smokers I know agree it’s plain silly. As for religion, John Lennon summed it up as perfectly as a man ever has.

So there you have it. Now you all know that I’m anti-smoking, and an unrelenting apologist for scientific reason!

Jon Cooper: Reading and meeting are the keys to a “Tremendous” life

Like many in business, and with an interest in the success habits of others, I’m an avid reader.

I was reminded again of the power of a well written phrase when I picked up an article celebrating the life of Charles “Tremendous” Jones, an inspirational American speaker, author and life coach who died in 2008. For six decades he toured the world imparting his wisdom and touching the lives of millions of people, but the one thing he’ll be remembered for above all else is a simple 26-word mantra:

“You are the same today as you will be next year except for two things: the people you meet and the books you read.”

It’s a beautifully simplistic view of course, but how true! If you read nothing and meet no-one for 12 months, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be particularly successful.

It’s also a given in that statement that it matters what you read and who you meet. If you read Hello magazine and meet only the postman every day, you’ll get what you get.

In a life devoted to advancing the understanding of business fundamentals, Jones published nine books, all of which have become reference works of their kind. I’m about to re-read my copy of his 2 million selling “Life is Tremendous”, still available online and in bookshops.

Peppered with memorable quotes such as “To know what to do is wisdom. To know how to do it is skill”, his output consistently redefined how we should think about generating lasting wealth and happiness.

Like many business icons, he was a passionate philanthropist, and firmly believed not only that to receive anything you first have to give something, but also that giving is simply returning what you owe anyway. “Everything I have was a gift from someone”, he said, towards the end of his life.

Charlie also said that the secret to success is two words – “I will”, as against “I’ll think about it” or “I might”, or (God forbid) “I can’t”.

This year I’m going to follow Charlie’s “Tremendous” guidance. I WILL meet some more exceptional people, and I WILL read some more amazing books. I hope you do too.

Jon Cooper is the founder of JupiterDawn.com business consulting, and an Accredited Business Adviser with the IBD group. Exclusive to YES members - email jon@jupiterdawn.com for a free one-hour business mentoring session with Jon, worth £175.