I was listening to a podcast from RadioLab and heard about this fascinating study. They set up a challenging mini golf course. But before each of the subjects played, they were told "this is a test of your physical intelligence." The result - the white subjects on average played four strokes better over the course than the black subjects. Doesn't sound that surprising - golf clubs are often exclusive and expensive, maybe more whites play golf than blacks, maybe mini golf isn't a typical African-American family outing.

Here's where it gets interesting though. They made one small change to the experiment. This time they told the subjects "this is a test of your natural athletic ability." The result was startlingly different.

Our two month Bali adventure is over, so I thought I'd share some of our lessons.

You may recall we were on a 10 day holiday in Bali in May last year, and I was staring out to sea reflecting on my business. I realised that while the business had grown (the team was up to ten people), I was working harder than ever, feeling more stressed, and not really loving my business. As I watched the fishing boats sailing back into shore I thought I need more of this.

I then said to Trish what would we need to do in the business to be able to be a way for two to three months and still have everything run?

A few weeks ago I made the weekly email I send out a bit more personal. I changed the title from "Thought for the week" to "The Word from Pete". I added the salutation at the start of the email so it now says "Hi Jane" at the top of the email. And I changed the signature from "The team at Love Your Business" to my name.

Three pretty simple changes that have led to some startling results, some interesting feedback and one very funny story.

I've been reflecting on failure. The last financial year has just finished and part of me thinks "thank god that's over". We've had our share of failures over the last year.
 
We grew quickly, got up to 10 people, moved into a gorgeous office, realised that not all of the people were the right people for the business, lost some clients because of that, lost some money, cut back the team, learned some great lessons and went through a fair bit of pain.

I've got a very cool BlueAnt wireless Skype headset . It connects via Bluetooth so I can be talking on Skype or listening to iTunes without being attached to my computer. As I said, very cool... until it stopped working. And of course I've had it for over a year so it's outside the warranty - isn't that always the way?

I'm quite handy, so I figured I'd pull it apart and see if I could fix it.

This week I want to dedicate my blog to a couple of members of the Love Your Business Community who have been directly effected by the fires in Victoria.

To Bernie and Karen and everyone at the BACS team, and Hellen and the DCA team, our thoughts and love are with you.

Here are the messages from Debbie at BACS and Jane at DCA, including how you can help directly.

Last week Melbourne had its hottest heat wave on record - three consecutive days above 43 degrees Celsius - and I had my first ever business coaching session in a swimming pool.

It was very cool - pardon the pun.

I had my most unusual business coaching session for the year last night, with Francis and Cecilia from the village of Veifa'a in Papua New Guinea.

My brother Jon and his wife Fiona lived in Veifa'a for a couple of years as part of a volunteers abroad program (there are now numerous babies and toddlers named Jon and Fiona in the village). They become good friends with Francis and Cecilia, and were adopted into their respective clans. And now they have brought them out to Australia for a holiday.

They plan to take back a laptop and an old printer / scanner / copier to start a letter writing and photocopying business in their village. Jon asked me to give them a pro bono business coaching session. And I have to say, doing business in a PNG village has its advantages!

Today is American Independence Day ... and more importantly, its Love Your Business's birthday! Today we turn five!

We've all heard the stat that 95% of businesses fail within five years (you may have seen me write about it in our last newsletter). Mind you, while I've seen this statistic quoted many times, I've never seen a study quoted. Nonetheless, today Love Your Business joins the mythical 5% of businesses in who make it past five years.

Did I say my first private jet? Sorry ... I meant to say my first ride in a private jet. To Hawaii. That's me and Trish on the steps.