Personal Baseline

Personal Baseline:

Now that we’ve gone through and assessed what your financial baselines are, we’re going to delve a little bit into your personal baseline for a while.

So what is a Personal Baseline anyway?

This is what you bring to the table in terms of your personal strengths and weaknesses. Are you healthy? Are you strong? Are you happy? Are you crazy?

Go ahead and seriously think about how healthy or strong you are in each of the following areas of your life and what you bring to a new business venture. Be brutally honest here, as if you aren’t this will come back to haunt you. It *always* does. And then have 2-4 of your best friends do the same critical analysis of you and see what their responses are and how they relate to yours. Again, a score of 1 represents a critical weakness needing immediate corrective action and possible deal-breaker, and a score of 100 represents in the top percentile of the world or better.

Physical Strength
Physical Health
Physical Stamina/Endurance
Mental Health
Personal Energy Levels
Happiness
Risk Affinity
Family Relationships
Personal Relationships
Pet Relationships
Education
Primary Life Experiences
Secondary Life Experiences
Primary Career Experiences
Secondary Career Experiences

Where are your weak points here? Is your marriage or relationship a little shaky? Would it survive you working a lot of overtime hours over the next year to accomplish your dreams?

Do you have young children at home? Will they be a distraction or an asset?

Are you currently happy and full of energy or somewhat depressed and nervous, shy of taking on any kind of risk at all?

Do you have a friend who needs you to help them through a rough patch? Do you have friends who want to help you succeed?

Do you have the will and endurance to go the distance in a time-sensitive environment? Do you need a more quiet and contemplative environment and pace in order to be productive?

Do you have an academic expertise in your chosen subject matter? Do you have extensive practical experience? Is this something so new that no one else has any more expertise on the subject than you do?

Do you have the physical strength to do the job? Some jobs/projects require physical strength and stamina – firemen, acrobats, landscaping, construction, etc.

Did you learn what you know of this business at work or through life experiences? Was it hands on learning, or academic? Do you have all three that apply, giving you an extra advantage by being so well rounded?

Are you currently suffering any health factors that could become a serious problem? How are you treating them or preparing to minimize their impact? Do you have adequate insurance? Is there someone who can step in for you if you became ill at a time critical point?

What are your Personal strengths and weaknesses? Because these also play a huge role in whatever you decide to do to chase your dreams. They impact the how, the when, and the why of each of your decisions both for your business and for your life, so they are critical not just in the decision of what to do, but what tools you need to do them, or do them better.

Having huge areas of strength here will be of unmistakable value to anyone who possesses them, and any weak points here will need to be addressed and covered off before you get too far down the road or any one of them could conceivably lead to serious, even critical problems.

I’ve raised the subject, now you need to delve into your reality and really hammer out some serious answers here. Then take this Baseline and compare it to your other baselines again. What synergies do you see? What elements from one baseline complement elements from the others? And what about your weaknesses? How do they fit into the picture? Do you see any patterns emerging? Any ideas fomenting?

Dig deep, compare and contrast, and at the end of the day realize that these baselines don’t judge you, they offer you insights and are some of the best self-help tools money can buy without having had to spend a dime.

So get cracking, figure things out and check back with me and the Race to 2010.

Play with what your strengths are and smile at all the ‘wicked-cool’ things you can do with them now that you see them in black and white (or multi-colour if you’re filling this out in crayon.)

Y’all come back now, ya hear?