I was reminded of a wonderful principle a few weeks back… the ELF Principle.
ELF stands for Effortless, Lucrative and Fun
In using the ELF principle you look at any business opportunity and ask yourself “Is this Effortless, Lucrative and Fun?”
If the answer is no, then don’t pursue that opportunity.
I can’t remember who came up with this principle so i’m not sure who to attribute it to, but I know it was some super keen business dude.
So a couple of weeks back I took a look at my business through my ELF goggles and realized that I needed to make a few changes…
Most notably in where i’ve been focusing my time.
I’m very much a hands-on person, I like to dive in and ‘get stuff done’. And this is something that i’ve been doing for a couple of clients.
However its becoming more and more clear lately that this is not the best use of my time. Although I enjoy doing this kind of work, I find myself being called to play a bigger game… providing strategy/guidance for clients (vs just ‘doing’) and also training up and coming Online Business Managers through the Multiple Streams Team.
So I had to ask myself – is this effortless, lucrative and fun?
Effortless? yes
Lucrative? somewhat, but not compared to other stuff i could be doing
Fun? i still enjoy it, but not as much as i used to
Reality check time… if I was going to follow the ELF principle I needed to make some changes.
And so I decided to let go of a client in order to focus my time/energy on the “bigger game”. Feels a bit risky of course, but have to say that i’m pretty jazzed about the whole thing.
So how about you? Where in your business does the ELF principle fall short? Are you willing to make some changes?