I call it “Grass Is Greener Syndrome.” I have heard others call it “chasing multiple rabbits.” Regardless of the vernacular, the point of the saying remains the same and many of us entrepreneurs (including myself) suffer from it. Going after multiple different opportunities either at the same time or starting one and before it is to fruition you begin on another.

Let me paint you a picture. I am partners in a data management company. We help maximize business continuity and initiate multiple levels of redundancy for your data. In other words, we keep your business going and your data backed up automatically. During the course of getting that business up and running, I helped to develop a fantastic process (currently patent pending) that secures your data. It is data protection on steroids. So now we do data management and I also have to start seeking avenues to promote data protection. Not a far cry from each other as they both deal with data.

About this time, one of my other companies, a web hosting and development company, began to take off. We took on two other partners and our volume, as well as services, began to grow. Because I am the partner that is sought for innovation and marketing, now I am faced with actively promoting and working with my partners to develop processes to handle the growth. So, now I have data management, data protection and web site hosting and development.

Not long after this, I had an associate from the northeast region of the US contact me about another opportunity. As I said, I am sought for innovation and marketing. They knew of this technology in Europe that will eliminate the need for landfills. It can process medical waste and the resulting processed material is non-toxic. When you combine this with a gasifier you can literally turn trash into electricity or remove landfills and make the area arable land again. So, I jumped on board and brought in a few other people. We acquired the exclusive distribution rights for the US and US Territories. We made appropriate partnerships here in the US with other companies that can enhance our solution and augment our offering. I got the ball rolling with strategic partnerships and started my marketing mojo.

Soon after this got started I was asked to (I am just going to list things now rather than full stories or we will be here forever) help with the sale of home medical equipment, limousines, promo gifts, glyconutrient supplements, video intelligence software, 3d technology, Bill Mack art work and some original plans for parts of the Panama Canal. I am sure there were more. But that is all I can remember at the time.

Slowly but steadily things began to spiral out of control. I went from doing a few things excellent to many things mediocre. I am not a mediocre person and this situation did not sit well with me. I suffered from Grass Is Greener Syndrome. Every single one of these opportunities were 5 figure and higher deals. They were all legitimate and not pie in the sky dreams. That is what sucked me in so quickly. As I got one started, I looked at the next and the grass looked greener over there where the new opportunity was. So, I would head on over there to the greener grass until my eye spotted another opportunity in an even greener pasture. A good friend of mine said that I was going to chase many rabbits and catch none.

After he told me this and I figured out why I was unhappy (I was unhappy because I was not performing excellent in any one category), I sat back and evaluated my life. I cleared the table and began to evaluate every opportunity that I had before me. I decided to put a majority of my effort into one main goal and effort into two other projects if and only if I had any down time. I picked the one project I had the most time invested in and the most experience. Then I picked two other projects in the same manner. I cleared my plate of all other opportunities. I didn’t thrown them away, simply put them on pause. And I began to pour all of my effort into that one main project and only working on my other two during times of inactivity with my primary focus.

Things began to turn around for me internally. I was excelling again and no longer performed mediocre. The project with my main focus began to flourish and will soon be on autopilot, not requiring my constant attention. When that happens, one of my other two projects will come to the forefront and another one will move into one of my two secondary positions for projects. I was told by people who had already achieved multiple millions of dollars to focus my concentration. I thought I knew better. They were right. I corrected. Now I am repeating what they told me and my experience.

All of you rabbit chasers and people who suffer from Grass Is Greener Syndrome, heed my warning. Focus on one business or main project at a time. Build it up until it runs by itself (off of processes) or you sell it, then move on. For those of you who choose not to listen because you know better. Please visit this post when you change your mind and leave your comments for others to learn from.

I read an article recently that discussed The Creative Mind. I found some of the information in the article to be quite useful as it gave me one of those “ah ha” moments of understanding.

In essence it described why some people seem to be naturally creative while others are not. And it elaborates on a point, which I am going to discuss here, that illustrates how to keep your creativity going. You entrepreneurs that are reading this will be able to identify with the following example. You get an idea for a new company and you are super charged about it. You do all of your research, due diligence, and can’t wait to jump in and get started. In the beginning while things are fresh and new, everything seems exciting and the creativity of new ideas, products, and services just seems to naturally flow. After things begin to flow on their own and the business settles into more of a routine, you slowly begin to become bored or worse, burned out. So, you take a vacation, get away from work, and recharge the batteries. When you return, you are ready to run full steam and you probably had some great revelations of new ideas while on vacation. Does any of this sound familiar? The article I read explains this behavior and why these actions transpire in our brains. You can actually keep the creative juices flowing without going on vacation and keep your energy about you as well.

Your brain is a creature of habit. When you initially undertake a task or learn a new skill, an entire network of neurons will process this stimulus. After about the sixth time, a subset of neurons handles most of the heavy lifting and the processing of the stimulus becomes rather automatic. How often do you have to concentrate on tying your shoes? For most of you, the action is automatic and the brain wastes no energy processing the task. Tying your shoes becomes automatic, easy, and mundane.

Similarly, this happens with your business and your life in general. You brain is only forced to think when it is presented with a new stimulus. Perception and imagination are linked because the brain uses the same neural circuits for both functions. Your perception is based on past experience and classifying or categorizing various stimuli. Creativity and imagination begin with perception. And since your perception is based on past experience, it is difficult to derive truly novel ideas when you are performing the same actions daily in the same surroundings.

Now you can begin to see where the vacation and sparks of creativity come into place. Your surroundings change, your actions change, and the brain wakes up and has to process all types of new stimuli. Haven’t you heard of someone having a breakthrough idea while in the shower, taking a drive, or taking a walk? Their surroundings and typical actions changed, so subsequently their brain kicks into gear and the creative juices start to flow. Ever heard of a writer having writer’s block and going up to a cabin in the woods to write? It’s not the quite of the solitude, but rather the change of stimuli.

You want to spark creativity and invoke the imagination contained within your mind? Seek out environments for which you have no previous experiences with. Visit a new place, do new things, meet new people. New places, people, and experiences unlock your creativity because it causes your perception out of its normal classification and categorization mode. This opens up new possibilities of perception which, in turn, allows the imagination to run wild like when you were a kid. The brain can not rely on past experiences to classify this new, novel experience.

So, if you suffer from creative block, boredom, or burnout, shake things up a little bit. Only after you force your brain to break the shortcuts that your perception has built between categories and past experiences can you begin to think outside the normal boundaries of your mind. To truly think “Outside The Box.”

Register For The Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar – This is guaranteed to shake up your perception! (If you are asked for a reference number, it is 661164).

There are still some major breakthroughs in the technology sector that are just waiting to get out. However, it has been my experience (both personally as well as observationally) that the major innovators are hamstrung in some way, shape, form, or fashion. Let me explain.

Many of the major innovators out there are wandering aimlessly without guidance or focus. After all, it takes a great imagination and abstract thought tied together with a logical problem solving mindset to truly innovate with a radically new product or process. Not to mention a certain level of stubbornness when all those around you are saying, “That can’t be done!” Typically persons with great imagination and the ability to think abstractly do not encompass the type of characteristics to manage the perceptionally mundane day to day tasks required to run a company.

If the radical innovator has the guidance and focus (either intrapersonally or through a team), they usually lack the contacts or finances to launch their innovation. I have met with many different entrepreneurs that have fabulously, exciting, out-of-this-world ideas and no outlet to fund their projects or the contacts required to obtain the facilities to R&D their concept.

Lastly, when a group is fortunate enough to have a radically new innovation, guidance and focus to organize and persevere, and they have secured the right contacts for resources (facilities, financing, etc), then they fall into one of two camps – the truly innovative market shakers and the acquired.

In today’s market where many of the company’s have an end game of being acquired by behemoth companies like Google or Microsoft, very few budding entrepreneurs make it to market shaker status. Their company is acquired and the innovative product and/or process is absorbed and assimilated into the bigger company. Once the innovation is absorbed into the giant corp, it is tweaked to assist that company in their current business model rather than leaving the innovation ‘as-is’ and promoting it as market shaking.

The truly innovative are still out there, they just need the proper support, guidance, and resources to turn markets upside down and revolutionize the world again.