Page to View Diary, ValueAddon, Living your Dream and a Whiteboard with Roy Carter of IM Income Builders Club.
What We Recommended:
Tools & Apps
Page a Day Diary – “I’ve been in corporate life and all the rest of it, in the long, distance past now, but I’ve never really found a better way of organising myself than the good old-fashioned page-a-day diary that I use. What I’ll usually do is I’ll have like three main, what I call PFA tasks, so I call them prime focus activity tasks, that I want to get done as a priority each day. They’re prime focus activities because they bring money in, so they get done first. As long as I get those, usually three main PFA tasks done in a day, I’m happy.
Whiteboard – “I’ve got a whiteboard in front of me as I speak now, I’m looking at that on the wall. I know at any given time what the income is for the month, the number of members this month compared to last month of my main IM Income Builders Club. I have other membership programmes as well. It’s all in front of me at a glance.“
AWeber and GetResponse “I use them to send out emails, and broadcast emails, and sequential emails that go out with lessons for my membership programmes, things like that. I rely heavily on that, and that’s magic. I just think they’re a major part of my business, the autoresponders.”
ValueAddOn – “The membership tool that I’ve just starting using, which I run my main membership programme IM Income Builders Club from. It’s all run from this one tool, which is an online. It’s so simple and easy to use. Intuitive to use right from the get go, which is good for me because I’m a complete technophobe. It does everything I want it do. I have video lessons in there for my members, because most of my training’s done by videos, step-by-step videos. All the videos are hosted in there by them too, so I don’t have worry about hosting. It’s a brilliant tool if you want to run your own membership programme. It’s really way too inexpensive for what it does. I think it’s about $37 a month or something ridiculous like that. It’s quite incredible. I mean, it does everything I need it to do, and it’s making me an awful lot of money in terms of my membership programme.”
Dropbox – “Then I’d have to say probably Dropbox where I can save everything, you know, all my work and files. I access that anywhere I happen to be in the world.”
Books
“Well, obviously everyone obviously has to read a book called, ‘Can A Beer Mat Change Your Life?’ Yeah, that’s a great book, it’s called, ‘Can A Beer Mat Change Your Life?’ It’s a really good book. It’s available on Amazon. It’s by a really clever and a very hugely handsome guy called Roy Carter!!”
“I tend to like books by entrepreneurs who kind of think outside the square a bit. One of the very first books that I remember reading when I was younger, of that type, of somebody who really thinks outside the square, was a book called, ‘The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches’. It’s by a guy called, Joe Karbo. Obviously the title is ‘The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches’ or whatever, but it’s much more than that. He tells how, during the Great Depression in America, he made a lot of money in a lot of quite ingenious ways. Even during that Great Depression time, when everyone was suffering.”
“As for probably the best book I’ve ever read, fairly recently actually, probably only a few months ago, it was recommended to me by my mentor, and the book is called, ‘Straightline Leadership’. and it’s by a guy called Dusan Djukich and it honestly is superb. I read it in one sitting, I couldn’t actually put it down. It was an absolute epiphany to me. I actually now recommend every consulting client that comes on with me, I recommend that they read that book, because it’s such an eye opener. Yeah, without a doubt, it’s the best book I’ve ever read.
It’s not just about leadership. If you think about leadership, it’s also about leading yourself rather than leading others, or as well as leading others. It simplifies things down when you really look at it, because it gets yourself to ask yourself questions about your own business. For example, you know, it’s so simple, like he does a 4 step thing where he says, “Okay looking at your business, so what you’re really looking at is what’s working. What’s not working. What’s missing and what’s next.” You know, that’s just a simple example of how he breaks things down in one respect.
Then he’ll say things like, “Okay a decision about this particular activity – do you do it, do you drop it or do you delegate it?” When you look at the book, I’m going to read it again and again, because it was just a bit of an epiphany for me. I’m big on simplifying things for other people, and trying to make things easy for my consulting clients and members, and everything else like that. I like to keep things simple.
This book, when you read it, Straightline Leadership, it just opened my eyes, to think about things in a different way. I would recommend anyone who runs their own business or feels that they’re an entrepreneur in any way, get that book and read it, because I think you’ll be glad you did.”
Music
“I’ve got a really varied taste in music. I like people like Jason Mraz, pretty much anything by Jason Mraz. He’s great.
“Diana Krall, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Diana Krall? She’s amazing. I just love her stuff. It’s so smoky and jazzy and relaxed. She’s really great.”
Films
“The Shawshank Redemption would probably be one of my favourites. You know, that’s ages old now, but a classic I think.”
“I’m a bit of a romantic so, Clint Eastwood did one called, ‘The Bridges of Madison County’, which is a real great, sort of weepy thing, you know, showing my romantic side.”
Tips
Planning the Day Before – “Before I stop work, or in the afternoon or whenever it is, I’ll actually note down in the diary the things that I want to get done the following day. It’s classic time management stuff really. You don’t wake up in the morning and think, “Okay well what am I going to do today?” and waste the first hour wondering what you’re going to do, it’s already there and laid out for you.”
Three Monthly Planning – “I don’t look much more than about three months ahead because I think a lot can happen in three months and things can change a lot, you know. I’ll say, “Okay, this is where I want to be in three months’ time. This is where I want to be in a month’s time.” Generally, what I tend to do is I’m working month to month, so I know what I want to achieve this month
Fishing to Relax – “I find that when I’m fishing I can just empty my head of anything really. Everything else just goes and I’m completely sort of in the moment and at peace when I’m fishing.”
Learning and Personal Development – “I spend a lot of money on different programmes just to keep abreast of what people are doing in the marketing online industry. I spend a lot of money on that just keep myself up with most things, but really, I’ll usually be working with a mentor. Very expensive in one sense, I mean, I’ve worked with a couple of mentors, two or three mentors, and they’re extremely good and at the top of their profession at what they do. It’s not cheap, it’s very expensive in one sense to be with them and learn from them, but unbelievably inexpensive really, when you look at what you learn and how you that can contribute vastly to your bottom line and your profits. From my mentors alone, I know that I’ve learnt a lot from my mentors. I’ve very nearly been about to make a major maybe and they’ve said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t do that. Do it this way”. Just that one like thirty-minute conversation has changed the entire bottom line for me over the next God knows how many months.”
When Things Go Wrong – “I think the older you get, you put things in perspective a little bit better. For me, now when things don’t go right, and that happens you know, the fact is, I always think, well tomorrow’s another day. Life is always full of highs and lows really, as we know, as everyone knows. Sometimes, if it isn’t going right, I’ll usually step completely away from it, and I’ll just go for a walk or I’ll take myself off fishing, take the day off. Sometimes I’ll just say to Lin, “Do you know what? Blow this, let’s go get some lunch somewhere and forget the day.” That’s what we’ll do. Then what I’ll then is, I’ll come back to the problem with a completely fresh mind. That’s the way I handle it.”
Dealing with Problems – One piece of advice I have given to my mentoring clients and consulting clients is, when you’ve got a problem, it doesn’t matter whether it’s health or financial worries or someone you love or care for, whatever it is, the one thing I will say is, that you will always, always start to feel better about things the minute that you start to take action, some form of action and doing something about the problem. The moment you start doing something to actually take action and resolve the problem, however little that action might be, you’re doing something.”
Living your Dreams – “A client said to me recently, “Oh I’d love to live on an island.” I said, “Look, it’s not as difficult to live on a tropical island as you think it is. What you have to do is, just decide that that’s what you’re going to do and go ahead and make it happen”. It’s not as difficult as people think.
Helping Clients – “I call it, shining the light on their pathway to success, kind of thing. What you are, is you’re really just a cog in the wheel that shows them the right way really.”
To Contact Roy
“I write a monthly newsletter, which is a subscription newsletter. The newsletter is called, ‘Letters from A Small Island’. It’s a monthly newsletter that gets delivered to your inbox in pdf format. If you go to http://www.lettersfromasmallisland.com. People seem to like it. I enjoy writing it every month. It sort of keeps people in touch with what I’m doing.
Read Full Transcript
Jo Dodds: Today I'm interviewing Roy Carter of IM Income Builders Club. Hi Roy, great to have you with me.
Roy Carter: Hi Jo, nice to speak to you again.
Jo Dodds: You sound English but you're actually speaking from Australia. Tell us more about where you are.
Roy Carter: Yeah, well I am English, yeah. I now live in Australia, actually I live in a place called Magnetic Island in Australia. It's in the Coral Sea in Australia. Yeah, I'm English. Spent 10 years living in Cyprus, well a couple of years ago. We've lived in Australia now for a couple of years. We lived 10 years in Cyprus doing the Mediterranean thing. We now live on Magnetic Island in Australia, so yeah.
Jo Dodds: I'm always so envious when I look at your Facebook posts and see all the lovely views you have just from your house even, never mind just the whole surrounding.
Roy Carter: Yeah, yeah it's nice, yeah.
Jo Dodds: Tell me more about you, what you do and where you do it? Maybe less about Magnetic Island, more about if it's a home office, which we know it is.
Roy Carter: I could talk about Magnetic Island all night. I'm 58 years-old, 58 years-old, my God. I'm married to my lovely wife Linda, as you know. For many years now I kind of make a very nice living online with what call my easy cash projects. These days I kind of still do that. I also have a members only programme, which is my main focus now, which is called IM Income Builders Club where I teach people to sort of do what I do really. I do all that from my home here on Magnetic Island in Australia.
Jo Dodds: That's so living the dream isn't it? The laptop lifestyle and all that.
Roy Carter: Yeah, it kind of is now, yeah. I mean we've been doing that for a while I suppose really, but my kind of back story is, I came from corporate life. I used to be a senior manager with a kind of blue chip company in England until I sort of fell down in a ruck one day with a suspected heart attack, and had to find a different way of earning a living really. That's what I did. That's kind of how I ended up doing what I'm doing now, investigating the online thing and learning to do little things that make you money online. Teaching other people to do that as well, latterly, but yeah, yeah.
Jo Dodds: Lovely. Paint a picture for us of where you work when you're doing your work. Are you out on the veranda looking at the gorgeous view or do you have an office?
Roy Carter: Yeah, well both really Jo. We've got a veranda that overlooks the ocean here, a balcony that overlooks the ocean. Sometimes I'll work out there, it depends on how hot it is, at the moment it's very hot and humid. We have an office here at home as well where my wife Lin and I both have our own desks in the office here. Most of the time really we'll sit in here, at this time of the year with the air conditioning on full blast, and working away in here. We're happily beavering away in our office I suppose really.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, lovely. Tell me a bit about the morning for you. Do you have a particular routine to get into work or is it just sort of how it goes? I guess you've got the challenge of working with your wife as well, so you're not sort of on your own, absolutely you know, following your own routine. I guess there's a bit of give and take required.
Roy Carter: Yeah interesting that you say a challenge because most people think it is a challenge working with a partner all day long. We kind of seem to have that really right. It doesn't bother us. I mean, in fact I suppose we spend like 24 hours a day because we work together and live together and everything else, but it's fine. What actually happens Jo is that, I'm over here doing my thing and Lin's at her desk doing her thing. We can go for like a couple of hours without really saying anything to each other because we're so focused on what we're doing individually. Then we'll break for lunch.
We're not beholden to an alarm clock or anything like that, so we'll pretty much get up when we wake up. Our routine, we don't really have a routine, but we'll get up when we wake up. Then we might go for a walk on one of the beautiful beaches here on the island. Then we'll either come home and have breakfast, something like that, on the balcony or maybe we'll go over to Horseshoe Bay or Picnic Bay for breakfast and coffee and so on. We'll come home, sit down at our desks in our office and do some work till around lunchtime. Then in the afternoon, we'll maybe do a little bit more work or we might go fishing or whatever. Fishing's a big hobby of mine, but I suppose the thing is, I just feel like when you enjoy what you do, when you get a kick out of it, then it doesn't really seem like work really, does it?
Jo Dodds: No, no that's true. I have to get Linda on the show and get her perspective from the other side as well.
Roy Carter: Yeah, she'll probably say, "It's horrible working with him and the same office." Yeah, I think it's all right.
Jo Dodds: Normally I talk about is there an evening routine, but I'm guessing it's all a bit go with the flow as well from what you've said, as far as winding down and stopping work and that sort of thing.
Roy Carter: Yeah, we kind of like around about, yeah I suppose 6:00, it depends, day to day it's very different, sometimes we'll stop at lunchtime and not do anything else, depending on what's going on. Generally stop about 6:00 because we might not start till 10:00 or whatever. Then we'll generally sit about on the balcony about that time with a glass of wine, as I said, watch the sunset. Have a chat about what's been going on in our individual businesses. We'll usually watch the bats flying over to roost for the evening in the rain forest behind us.
Jo Dodds: Lovely.
Roy Carter: Then we'll have dinner, watch a bit of TV, normal stuff, you know, read or whatever. We might have friends over sometimes, so pretty normal stuff really, I suppose.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, yeah. It doesn't sound like the frenetic lifestyle that some of my interviewees describes.
Roy Carter: No it's not frenetic.
Jo Dodds: Tell me a bit more about how you manage your time and your tasks. How you make sure you get things done. It does sound nicely sort of fairly relaxed, but I know that you do really well with what you're doing. How do you make sure you're doing the right stuff and that you get everything done that you need to?
Roy Carter: Really look, I've been in corporate life and all the rest of it, in the long, distance past now, but I've never really found a better way of organising myself than the good old-fashioned page-a-day diary that I use. I use this diary, it's a page-a-day. What I'll usually do is I'll have like three main, what I call PFA tasks, so I call them prime focus activity tasks, that I want to get done as a priority each day. Then these these prime focus activity tasks they will be the money makers. They'll be the things, they're prime focus activities because they bring money in, so they get done first.
They go down as PFA, prime focus activities actually in my diary. As long as I get those, usually three main PFA tasks done in a day, I'm happy. Then I'll have like other tasks that need attention. What I do is, I just go ahead and tick each task in the diary as it's done. I work through those in the morning. I find I'm more productive and creative in the mornings personally . Some people are different, but I find I can be most creative in the morning. That's when I'll do things like creating new lessons for my Income Builder projects members in the morning. Create a video for them, and teach them how to do something or whatever.
Then I'll have things like, following that I'll do the general task, the everyday task of answering emails to members and maybe making a short help video for one of them and so on. What I do is, at the end of each day, you know in terms of organisation, I do that, I have those three main prime focus activity tasks, and in the evening what I'll do, before I stop work, or in the afternoon or whenever it is, I'll actually note down in the diary the things that I want to get done the following day.
It's classic time management stuff really, but I do actually use a physical diary rather than having it online. Then what happens is then, as soon as you sit down to your desk in the morning, you kind of know exactly what you're going to do and in what order. You don't wake up in the morning and think, "Okay well what am I going to do today?" Waste the first hour wondering what you're going to do, it's already there and laid out for you. Otherwise you waste a lot of time deciding what to do. That's how I keep myself organised anyway.
Jo Dodds: Lovely. On sort of a more macro level, rather than day to day, do you have a planning process to know what you're doing weekly and monthly and this quarter and in a year sort of thing? How does that feed into those three?
Roy Carter: Yeah, look I'm very ... I suppose a bit different than everybody. Having reached this age and experience I kind of treat things very relaxed and I do stay organised day to day. I do have goals that I want to achieve. A lot of people will say to you, "Okay, well I run my business and I have yearly tasks, yearly goals which I break down into monthly goals, which I break down into weekly goals, which I break down into daily goals." I'm not as formal as that.
I don't look pretty much more than, rightly or wrongly, it's worked for me, I don't look much more than about three months ahead because I think a lot can happen in three months and things can change a lot, you know. I'll say, "Okay, this is where I want to be in three months time. This is where I want to be in a month's time." Generally what I tend to do is, I'm kind of like working month to month, so I know what I want to achieve this month. I'm thinking, "Okay this is who I want to JV with or promote for me this month," you know, joint venture with me or whatever. "This is what I want to achieve from membership rates." I'll have my goals like that.
I've got a whiteboard in front of me as I speak now, I'm looking at that on the wall. I know at any one time, any given time, what the income is for the month, the number of members this month compared to last month of my main IM Income Builders Club. I have other membership programs as well. It's all in front of my at a glance. Obviously you have to treat it like a business, because that's exactly what it is, you don't treat it like a hobby or you'll get nowhere. I think I'm just much more relaxed about things than a lot of people.
I keep my eye on things. The big thing with my business, it's all about in whatever I'm doing with all my membership programmes, whatever I'm doing, I'm actually helping people. You get a big kick out of that. As long as you're progressing and moving forward, then I'm fairly relaxed about it, I suppose. I've gone beyond the whole ... when I used to be in corporate life I was like, "Oh my God, I've got to get to this meeting." You're dashing down motorways and up and down and things like that. Those days are gone really. It's kind of a lot more relaxed these days, I suppose.
Jo Dodds: Before we came onto the recording we were talking about how ironically as an internet marketer actually you don't use a lot a technology as a route to podcasting and things like that, how we're using that as a sort of 21st century. I think you described yourself as ... was it the 18th or the 19th century?
Roy Carter: Yeah, 18th century. I've been antiquated I think I called myself. It works though, you know.
Jo Dodds: Yes. I'm sure there are some tools or apps that you're using that are particularly good that you'd recommend. What are the sorts of technology tools that you're using?
Roy Carter: I'll tell you something okay. I'll admit here and now on your podcast Jo, which I've never admitted before to anyone else, I actually don't even have an iPhone, okay?
Jo Dodds: Oh, my goodness.
Roy Carter: I don't, no. Every single internet marketer you know, or top level marketer, they've all got iPhones and everything else, I don't have one. I have a phone which I don't generally use. If I use my mobile phone it's basically to call, I don't take pictures on it, I don't connect to the internet on it, I don't do anything else on it. Yet here I am, I'm making a living. I don't need to do all that stuff. I'm not dancing around and answering every email and getting pings and Facebook notifications and anything like that. Apps, I don't use at all, because I don't have a iPhone, I just have a normal, standard phone. In fact, if I still had my Nokia 2610, I'd be quite happy. You know, it was like a half brick wasn't it, a mobile phone like a half brick?
Jo Dodds: Yeah.
Roy Carter: No, I don't. I'll tell you something, what I couldn't live without, I'll give you my kind of top three tools, if you like. They're not apps at all, but my top three tools, what I couldn't live without to run my business really is, first of all, my autoresponders. I use, AWeber and GetResponse to send out emails, and broadcast emails, and sequential emails that go out with lessons for my membership programs, things like that. I rely heavily on that, and that's magic. I just think they're a major part of my business, the autoresponders.
Then actually the membership tool that I've just starting using, which I run my membership programme from, my main membership program IM Income Builders Club, is all run from this one tool, which is an online tool, it's not software, it's online. It's called Value Addon. Honestly, I don't know whether you've ever heard of it? It's so simple and easy to use. intuitive to use right from the get go, which is good for me because I'm a complete technophobe. If I kind of learn a new bit of software and then I don't use it for a month, I have to go back and learn it all again, so I don't like doing that.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, yeah. That sounds good, I have been looking at membership software myself, so I'll definitely check it out, sounds good.
Roy Carter: Do it because you know, I've looked at a lot of different things. I've actually used different things. I mean, from my mentoring programme that I used to sell from on stage at the World Internet Summit and things like that, I've moved away from that, which is quite sophisticated to Value Addon, it does everything I want it do. It's so easy to use, straight out of the box, from the word go. I mean, I have video lessons in there for my members, because most of my training's done by videos, step-by-step videos. I do that. I upload all my videos in there for members. All the videos are hosted in there by them too, so I don't have worry about hosting.
It's a brilliant tool if you want to run your own membership program. It's really way too inexpensive for what it does. I think it's about $37 a month or something ridiculous like that. It's quite incredible. I mean, it does everything I need it to do, and it's making me an awful lot of money in terms of my membership programme. That's it, autoresponder, my Value Addon membership program. Then I'd have to say probably Dropbox where I can save everything, you know, all my work and files. I access that anywhere I happen to be in the world.
As I said, I'm really not a big apps user or anything to be honest, but if you give me a iPad, and those three tools, my autoresponder, Value Addon, and Dropbox and I can run my entire business from really anywhere in the world. For me, I'm all about keeping it simple. I do that with my training for members and things. I try and keep everything really simple and step-by-step because I don't like complicated myself, I like easy. I don't like complicated, I like easy. As I say, if you gave me those three tools, I can run my whole business just from those three tools and an iPad really.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, yeah, yeah, great. I'd go on now normally now to ask you about what you did to relax, but I think you've already talked about how you have a fairly relaxed life already. Tell us a little bit more about, apart from the de-stressing, the sort of keeping healthy stuff, so you know, diet, nutrition, exercise, sleep. What you're doing in that regard?
Roy Carter: First of all to relax, what I do is, I go fishing. It's easy. Fishing is something, I'm probably one of the best places in the world to go fishing to relax. You know, living pretty much right on the Great Barrier Reef here, it's a great place to go fishing, but there is something a bit ironic I suppose to part of my love for fishing, because I actually do most of my fishing from land here. It's either the beach or I fish from the beaches or a pier or a jetty, because on the rare occasions that I venture out on a boat, I get really, really seasick. My favourite hobby is fishing and I can get seasick on a duck pond, you know.
I find that when I'm fishing I can just empty my head of anything really. Everything else just goes and I'm completely sort of in the moment and at peace when I'm fishing. That would be the way I relax mostly. In terms of, how do I keep healthy, so like diet, nutrition, exercise, all the other stuff, that's an easy question to answer as well because how do I keep healthy? The easy answer is, I don't. Seriously though, I'm really very naughty I suppose when it comes to keeping in shape really.
As you know, I lived in Cyprus for about 10 years, and it was all sitting watching sunsets, and having a sundowner or two or five or whatever. It's pretty much the same here on the island, that's the trouble. The island, there's 2,500 people, the whole population of the island is just 2,500 people. People walk around barefoot wherever they go. It's kind of like very relaxed, an island tone to life really. We look out directly over the ocean here, so it's just beautiful. It's really conducive to being lazy and just saying, "Are you ready for a drink?" Having a sundowner, I suppose. It's something I'm not good at, I'm really bad.
I have little spurts of doing of exercises for a while. Then usually I lapse at some stage and feel very guilty about it. I mean, we kind of eat very healthily. Lin's a great cook, my wife Lin, she's a great cook. We have all fresh produce. We eat the vegetables and fish. My diet's fine, but I do really need to get a grip and stick to some kind of regular exercise and sort myself out really. Maybe make it part of the daily routine or something. I'm pretty naughty in that area. That's not something I good at I suppose.
Jo Dodds: Another thing about the podcast is acting like a bit of a coach because you're saying, "No I really must do it. I'm going to something about it."
Roy Carter: Yeah, yeah. It brought it home to me!
Jo Dodds: What about learning and improving yourself? I know that you develop what you do quite a lot, and have done since I've known you. How do you keep up with what's going on?
Roy Carter: Look, I spend a lot of money on different programmes just to keep abreast of what people are doing in the marketing online industry. I spend a lot of money on that just keep myself up with most things, but really, I'll usually be working with a mentor. Very expensive in one sense, I mean, I've worked with a couple of mentors, two or three mentors, and they're extremely good and at the top of their profession at what they do. It's not cheap, it's very expensive in one sense to be with them and learn from them, but unbelievably inexpensive really, when you look at what you learn and how you that can contribute vastly to your bottom line and your profits.
I'm a mentor myself and I have a mentor at any one time. Pretty much every successful person I know has a mentor. If you look, even Richard Branson and everybody like that, they've all either have had or have right now a mentor where they learn from, because it's the only sensible thing to do really, is to learn from somebody who's already been successful at that. It's the quickest route to success, is to learn from somebody who's already done it. Whilst on the face of it, a lot of people are put off by, "Oh, that's too expensive and I really can't do that." You know, you spend two to six months with a really good mentor who's been there and made all the mistakes and done everything else, and is successful.
I know from experience that I teach people stuff that will shortcut them. I've made a load of mistakes as well, so I can shortcut them and tell what works and what doesn't work. Sometimes it's as useful, obviously to teach people what doesn't work as it is to teach what does work. From my mentors alone, I know that I've learnt a lot from my mentors. I've very nearly been about to make a major maybe and they've said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't do that. Do it this way." Just that one like 30 minute conversation has changed the entire bottom line for me over the next God knows how many months.
Yeah, the main thing is, I spend a lot of money on products and training. I keep abreast of everything that's going on so I can pass that onto my people. I have a mentor myself and obviously what I learn off my mentor I pass onto my students as well, so kind of that's what I do really to keep improving myself and stay abreast of things really.
Jo Dodds: Yes, yeah, absolutely. What about perhaps outside of business, although that may still include business, things like books, films, music, do you have any particular recommendations, things that have really inspired you or things that you particularly enjoy?
Roy Carter: Books, wow books, there are so many I suppose I could recommend. I mean, I think everyone with a sort of entrepreneurial mindset is always reading books, so, so many I could recommend. Well, obviously everyone obviously has to read a book called, Can A Beer Mat Change Your Life? Yeah, that's a great book, it's called, Can A Beer Mat Change Your Life? It's a really good book. It's available on Amazon. It's by a really clever and a very hugely handsome guy called Roy Carter.
Jo Dodds: I thought we were heading somewhere like that.
Roy Carter: Sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, no apart from Can A Beer Mat Change Your Life? I tend to like books by entrepreneurs who kind of think outside the square a bit. One of the very first books that I remember reading when I was younger, of that type, of somebody who really thinks outside the square, was a book called, The Lazy Man's Way To Riches. It's by a guy called, Joe Karbo. American guy called, Joe Karbo. Obviously the title is The Lazy Man's Way to Riches or whatever, but it's much more than that. It's like he kind of tells how during the Great Depression in America, he made a lot of money in a lot of quite ingenious ways. Even during that Great Depression time, when everyone was suffering.
It's a book that kind of really shows you what you can achieve just by thinking a little differently and outside the square than most people do. Honestly, it was a book that really inspired me at an early age to kick off the entrepreneurial spirit. I suppose you have that entrepreneurial spirit anyway, maybe. I was just intrigued by how he was thinking about and approaching problems differently than everyone else would. How he was making money by looking at things that way. You know, that would be a big influence in my life that book from a long time ago. I think it's still available on Amazon, I'm not sure, The Lazy Man's Way to Riches by Joe Karbo. As for probably the best book I've ever read, fairly recently actually, probably only a few months ago, it was recommended to me by my mentor actually, and the book is called, Straightline Leadership. I don't know whether you've heard of it Jo?
Jo Dodds: No, I haven't. Sounds really interesting.
Roy Carter: Right, honestly, it's called Straightline Leadership, and it's by a guy called, with a weird name, he's called, Dusan Djukich, if I pronounced it right. It's spelled, Dusan, D-U-S-A-N, Djukich, D-J-U-K-I-C-H. Anyway, the book is called Straightline Leadership, and it honestly is superb. I read it in one sitting, I couldn't actually put it down. It was an absolute epiphany to me. I actually now recommend every consulting client that comes on with me, I recommend that they read that book, because it's such an eye opener. Yeah, without a doubt, it's the best book I've ever read.
Jo Dodds: What's the sort of basic principle? What's the Straightline Leadership?
Roy Carter: I think you really have to go and read it because what it does, if kind of open my diary here, right, this is how much of an influence it had on me, I've actually written in my diary here for 2016, I've headed it, How to Succeed at Absolutely Anything. Then I've noted down, even like step-by-step things, the way to think about things. I'm not going to read it out because that would be stealing the thunder I suppose, I would recommend that anyone who wants to get on, that has any entrepreneurial brain in business goes out and reads that.
It's not just about leadership. If you think about leadership, it's also about leading yourself rather than leading others, or as well as leading others. It simplifies things down when you really look at it, because it gets yourself to ask yourself questions about your own business. For example, you know, it's so simple, like he does a 4 step thing where he says, "Okay looking at your business, so what you're really looking at is what's working. What's not working. What's missing and what's next." You know, that's just a simple example of how he breaks things down in one respect.
Then he'll do things, he'll say things like, "Okay a decision about this particular activity, do you do it? Do you drop it or do you delegate it?" When you look at the book, I'm going to read it again and again, because it was just a bit of an epiphany for me. I'm big on simplifying things for other people, and trying to make things easy for my consulting clients and members, and everything else like that. I like to keep things simple. This book, when you read it, Straightline Leadership, it just opened my eyes, to think about things in a different way. I would recommend anyone who runs their own business or feels that they're an entrepreneur in any way, get that book and read it, because I think you'll be glad you did.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, definitely.
Roy Carter: You know, books. As for films, I'm really not a big movie watcher, to be honest. I know the Shawshank Redemption would probably be one of my favourites. You know, that's ages old now, but a classic I think. I'm a bit of a romantic so, Clint Eastwood did one called, The Bridges of Madison County, which is a real great, sort of weepy thing, you know, showing my romantic side. Yeah films, I'm not kind of big on films. Music, I've got a really varied taste in music. I like people like Jason Mraz, pretty much anything by Jason Mraz. He's great. Diana Krall, I don't know if you're familiar with Diana Krall?
Jo Dodds: I am. Yes I know her. She's married to Elvis Costello isn't she?
Roy Carter: Yes, exactly, yes. She's amazing. I just love her stuff. It's so smoky and jazzy and relaxed, you know. She's really great. I love the Blues, I've always loved the Blues. I love country music, some classical stuff, so really very varied I supposed in music really.
Jo Dodds: Lovely. I'm just trying to remember, a mutual friend of ours, Jason Buckner was on the show earlier on and he recommended somebody, somebody Caro, I think her name was. I think he's show 3. She's a European jazz singer, I think, if I remember rightly. It might be worth checking her out, if you like Diana Krall.
Roy Carter: Yeah, I'll check them out. I'll check out your podcast ...
Jo Dodds: Yes, a little pitch for show number 3.
Roy Carter: ... with Jason yeah, yeah.
Jo Dodds: Lovely. Some great recommendations then. I'm definitely off to buy that Straightline Leadership book, it sounds amazing.
Roy Carter: Yeah, you'll enjoy it. It's good.
Jo Dodds: What about if things don't go right then, you've painted this idyllic picture of Magnetic Island and your business? What about if you don't have a good day? What about if it rains, is that just traumatic in itself?
Roy Carter: Sadly, that doesn't happen very often. I say, people over here, they pray for rain because they really need it sometimes. When things go wrong, when things don't go right, then I kind of look at it ... You know, I think Jo, the older you get, you put things in perspective a little bit better. Whereas, in my younger days, when I was in the corporate world, I would be like full on. I mean, I remember being national sales manager for a major UK company. I'd have my own sales force. I was responsible for like in them days $10 million worth of turnover, which was across three divisions, which was like in them days worth probably, I don't know, about $50-60 million now.
The fact is, that I was working all the hours God sent. It's kind of like, you know, you've got big fire in your belly. You're trying to get ahead in your career and all the rest of things. I would go to work in the morning before my children were awake, I'd come home at night, having travelled two hours down the motorway, or up the motorway from Birmingham to Chester where I lived, that was after work, so I'd arrive home at anything like 7:30, 8:00 at night. I'd have my dinner on my lap with my mobile phone in my hand talking to reps about what they were doing tomorrow. It would be like, you know, 9:30, 10:00 before I stopped doing that.
Then I would be going to work, leaving at 5:30 in the morning to drive two hours etc, to get to work again, so the whole corporate thing. I used to then be like full on and worrying about this, and worrying about that. If things didn't go right it would be a major thing and all the rest of it. I think as you get older what happens is, you kind of learn to put things in perspective a little bit. For me, now when things don't go right, and that happens you know, the fact is, I always think, well tomorrow's another day. Life is always full of highs and lows really, as we know, as everyone knows.
Sometimes, if it isn't going right, I'll usually step completely away from it, and I'll just go for a walk or I'll take myself off fishing, take the day off. Sometimes I'll just say to Lin, "Do you know what? Blow this, let's go get some lunch somewhere and forget the day." That's what we'll do. Then what I'll then is, I'll come back to the problem with a completely fresh mind. That's the way I handle it.
One piece of advice I have given to my mentoring clients and consulting clients, and things like that about the way to treat these kinds of things when you've got a major issue or problem, one piece of advice I'd definitely give to anyone who's got a big problem they're worrying about is, when you've a problem, it doesn't matter whether it's health or financial worries or someone you love or care for, whatever it is, you know you'll always, you will, always, always, you know if the people lie awake worrying about money and bills and debts and everything else, and the one thing I will say is, that you will always, always start to feel better about things the minute that you start to take action, some form of action and doing something about the problem. The moment you start doing something to actually take action and resolve the problem, however little that action might be, you're doing something.
The very fact that instead of sitting there worrying and having sleepless nights about something, you've started actually to take action about the problem and solving the problem. Actually doing something. Then because you're actually doing something, the brain works that way, it's like, "Okay, I'm dealing with it, I'm dealing with it." That will make you start to feel better, and more energised from that point on. What happens with me, if something goes wrong, I'll walk away from it, I'll get some space time in my head. I'll walk away from that completely, come back to it with a fresh mind, more energised. Then start to say, "Well okay, what do I need to do? What's the first thing that I can do? The easiest thing I can do to make some kind of inroads into this problem" I'll do that. Then I'll do something else, and because your brain is seeing that you're working on the problem, you start to worry less because you know you're doing something about it really. That's what I do if things don't go right. That's what I advise other people to do.
Jo Dodds: Yeah a good piece of advise. As you say, just the walking away and going back thing that sometimes you get so embroiled in things ...
Roy Carter: You do.
Jo Dodds: ... that they are so overwhelming but you can't think straight. Then you come back and realise actually it was quite a simple solution. That timeout has really helped you to think that through.
Roy Carter: That's right. Yeah, exactly.
Jo Dodds: Towards the end of the interview now, so when you end the day knowing you had the chance to live more, and by that, I mean do the stuff that you want to do, rather than the stuff that you feel you should do or that you have to do, what have you done? What's a perfect day look like? We go, to the island again.
Roy Carter: Yeah, yeah. I think that if I have had a day where I've had the change to live more, what I've done is, I've spent real quality time with my wife, the woman I love more than anyone or anything else in the world. Luckily, I get the chance to do that a lot. I feel blessed, you know, I do feel blessed. I'm with the woman I love. I'm in the place that I love. I do what I love. I'm really lucky you know. I think you generate your own luck because you decide to ... Somebody said to me recently, a client said to me, "Oh I'd love to live on an island." I said, "Look, it's not as difficult to live on a tropical island as you think it is. What you have to do is, just decide that that's what you're going to do and go ahead and make it happen," It's not as difficult as people think.
If I think I've had a day where I've had the chance to live more, like I say, spend time with my wife. I also get a real a kick out of helping someone to succeed. I might have had a consulting client conversation or helping them towards real success in their business or something like that. I call it, shining the light on their pathway to success, kind of thing. What you are, is you're really just a cog in the wheel that shows them the right way really. You know, that could be one of my consulting clients who have their own offline business or maybe an online business or it could be a member of IM Income Builder Club, or whatever.
As I said earlier, when you enjoy what you do, it doesn't feel like work. Every day feels like you're getting the chance to live more and get more out of life. I think everyone makes their own destiny, but I think like, if you want something to happen, because we're only here for a really, really, really short space of time. You shouldn't be wasting time in a job that you don't like or you hate, or whatever. I know people think, oh that's easy to say, but do you know what? If you're in a job that you absolutely hate, unless you decide to do something about that, and find a way out of it, that's where you're going to end up stuck for the next 20, 30 years, or whatever, so don't do that. Life's too short for that nonsense. You need to find a way out. I like to think, that's kind of what I feel like my purpose is, and I help people to do that. That fulfills me. That's the way that I find that I've lived, I suppose every day Jo.
Jo Dodds: I think it's great hearing you saying that sort of stuff as well because partly from that sort of experience piece, but also you are a really sort of down to earth, normal person.
Roy Carter: Yeah.
Jo Dodds: You're not some sort of superstar that nobody could ever imagine meeting, you know?
Roy Carter: No, no. Common as muck.
Jo Dodds: You are a superstar as well, but what I mean is ...
Roy Carter: No, common as muck Jo, common as muck.
Jo Dodds: What I mean is, you are easy to identify with, and you have done the stuff that a lot of people only dream of, and never get anywhere towards doing, because of exactly what you've said. You just set your mind to it, and set off and made it happen. I guess, moving to the other side of the world, and going to a beautiful island is amazing. There will also have been challenges with that, which will have been leaving, you know, other loved ones and people that you know, and not seeing people so often and things like that. There's always sort compromises, if you like, but it's about being very clear about what you want, then making that happen. Appreciating everything you have got, even if there are challenges on the way as well, isn't it?
Roy Carter: Yeah. Do you know what, I mean like I said, I'm a technophobe or whatever. Technology really does really help in that respect because when we moved to Cyprus, Lin and I, and we kind of lived there for 10 years, and of course that's only four and a half hours England, so we could fly back kind of thing. I flew my parents over and they could come and stay with us and things. There's a lot more difficulty here, but of course, what you've got, you've got Skype. She can see me, my mum can see me. My dad can see me. We can talk to each other and they can see me every week. We actually talk to each other more now. We talk every week.
Whereas, when we were in Cyprus we didn't do that. Because of technology, thanks to technology, she can see me and talk to me, and I can see her, and talk to her and my dad the same. It's costs nothing. How amazing is that? It costs nothing to do that. It's taking pleasure in the small things. I mean, it's like, I can't fly them out here because they're getting on a bit in life now, and I don't think the flight, they'd enjoy the flight too much or whatever. We try to get back there once a year. That's fine. As long as she can talk to me once a week, my mum, my dad can do the same, we're kind of happy. Technology helps in that respect I think, you know.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, exactly. It's been really good interviewing you Roy. We don't speak very often for the same reason ...
Roy Carter: We don't.
Jo Dodds: ... that you're so far away, but we do email a bit.
Roy Carter: Yes.
Jo Dodds: It's been lovely to go through the interview with you and sort inspiring information, advice and some great recommendations today. Thank you so much.
Roy Carter: No problem.
Jo Dodds: How can people find out more about you and connect with you?
Roy Carter: I suppose the best way is probably, I write a monthly newsletter, which is a subscription newsletter. The newsletter is called, Letters from A Small Island, appropriately I suppose. It's a monthly newsletter that gets delivered to your inbox in pdf format. If you go to www.lettersfromasmallisland.com. In fact, actually Jo, if everyone listening, if you want a free copy of the newsletter to give you an idea of what it's about, what it's like, you can go to lettersfromasmallisland.com/sq.html, so lettersfromasmallisland.com/ s for sugar, q for Quebec, the number 1, html. You get a free copy then of the newsletter. People seem to like it. I enjoy writing it every month. It sort of keeps people in touch with what I'm doing. Ways, little projects that we're doing to make money and things like that, you know.
Jo Dodds: Lovely. Yeah, excellent. Thank you, really appreciate it.
Roy Carter: No problem Jo. It's really nice to talk to you again. It's ages since we've spoken actually, so lovely to talk to you again.
The post Roy Carter on Show #19: Page to View Diary, ValueAddon, Living your Dream and a Whiteboard! appeared first on Use your POWER to Live More.
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