Aaron Parry's Blog

If like me you're always pushing forward trying to learn, adapt and improve yourself, then there are hundreds of books out there for you to choose from. I've read many, a lot of which were frankly flops while some have resonated and stuck with me for years.So i've decided to hit you with a list of my top 3 books that have helped me improve my mindset and/or business knowledge. I hope that these will bring you value and improve your life as they have mine.So here goes (not all are business books):1. David and Goliath, Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants - Malcolm GladwellProbably my favourite author, Malcolm Gladwell is clever, funny and thought-provoking. This books is mind nourishment that will question the way you think about things. The stories within this book show how perceived disadvantages can sometimes be advantages, and perceived advantages can often be disadvantages. There are two sides to every story and often the most powerful part is what links advantages and disadvantages.CONTEXT IS KEY.2. Legacy - James KerrIn Legacy, best-selling author James Kerr goes deep into the heart of the world's most successful sporting team, the legendary All Blacks of New Zealand, to reveal 15 powerful and practical lessons for leadership and business.This book is unique in it's ability to work not only for business or sport, but al areas of our lives. This book shows how the All Blacks create and maintain world class standards, through using their culture as the core that binds the team.CULTURE CREATES PURPOSE3. The Art of Thinking Clearly: Better Thinking, Better Decisions - Rolf DobelliIf like me you've ever invested time in something that, with hindsight, just wasn't worth it. Then this book can help you. Cognitive biases, are simple errors we all make in our day-to-day thinking, and often don't even recognise. This book helps you know what they are and how to spot them, we can avoid them and make better choices - whether dealing with a personal problem or a business negotiation; trying to save money or make money; working out what we do or don't want in life, and how best to get it.DON'T BE YOUR OWN WORST ENEMYAs you can see these books focus on mindset. Mindset is the single most important thing to get right if you want to be successful in life. If you're interested in improving your mindset and getting some cool free shit, then check out the FREE challenge below.WHAT'S THE FREE MINDSET CHALLENGE?

Life is short and we only get one shot at it. So instead of slaving away feeling like shit doing something you hate. Make something happen for yourself.It sounds easy right, oh but we all now it ain't. Aside from the emotional challenges and fears that you'll have to overcome, and overcome them daily, you'll need to execute.Executing an idea is the hardest part, how do you do this, that or the other? I've hit what seem to be roadblocks from time to time, but with clever research and building the right relationships, there's no obstacle you can't overcome. That doesn't mean it's going to be easy, hell I'm at the start of my journey and have a long way to go. But the thing is, once you nail on what you want to achieve, and commit to it, nothing can stop you. Road blocks become speed bumps, insurmountable tasks become broken down into bite size chunks. You'll have patience, empathy and will enjoy the process. This is the road to success, this is how we get out of our own way and achieve.I've not achieved my goals, far from it. But what I have done is START. I challenge each and every one of you to go out there and start. Move towards your goals, believe in yourself and find happiness in the process.

Many of us have been there, ROCK BOTTOM, when we feel like our lives are falling apart. We've lost meaning, site of who we are and even lost all hope of ever achieving our dreams.I've been there recently, I was straight up depressed. Struggling to get out of bed in the mornings, didn't want to do anything, not even take a shower. It was a mind numbing vicious cycle that's difficult to get out of.I'm not sure I'm fully our of the woods and safe yet, though I do know one thing, I have found hope and some strength again. Where? I found it in what I already had.You see we all look at what we want, we aspire for other things and what others have. This always makes us feel inadequate, unhappy and makes us long for things out of our reach.The secret is to focus on what you have. Exercise gratitude, appreciation and empathy. By focusing on what you have and truly appreciating it, your outlook on life changes. You go from glass half empty to glass half full mentality.Everyday I have been asking myself for the 3 things I am most grateful for that day, and the impact such a simple thing has had on my happiness is incredible. It's like a fog has lifted, I'm able to enjoy lesser things, but this doesn't prevent me from chasing my dreams.In fact, I'm no longer crippled by feelings of inadequacy, doubt and fear. I know can work towards my goals all the while knowing, if I never get there I'll still be happy and fulfilled, because my life is full of blessings.Try it, you can do it in your head like I do, write it down or post it on social media. Whatever works for you. But just list the 3 things you're most grateful for that day, and do it every single day for a week. The shift in mood is phenomenal.

From my experience, we're all guilty of it to a certain degree. We have that inner voice constantly doubting us, questioning our self-worth and making us feel, well, shit.I've been on a journey of self discovery for sometime now, it's taken me a long time to make the kind of headway I wanted to with my mindset, and the main reason is because of that little wanker inside my head giving me shit all day long.Over the last decade or so that voice has been increasingly louder, with every set back and upset his power grew, pushing my self-esteem, happiness and fulfilment into the dirt. The worst part of it is, when it's happening and you're in the middle of it, you often don't even see it.It happens gradually over time, the more that doubting voice is right, the more we trust it. The more we trust it the more miserable we become. I've only recently been able to appreciate failure for an opportunity to grow, I've said the words before sure; either we win or we learn and all that nonsense, but I've never been ok with failure until now.You see you don't win or learn. You win or lose. You can learn when you win, you can learn when you lose but the determining factor to learning in either case is your mindset. Your self-worth, self-awareness, self, self, self!! If you don't truly know, understand and LOVE yourself, you will never find true happiness. Everyone pumps it in to us from an early age not to be a dick when you win (and that is right, we should stay humble). And it seems that people love to put people down to improve their own social status. This kind of behaviour has a big impact on us through our lives, as we avoid any form of self-praise, most of us can't even accept a compliment without lessening it's impact.We should be humble, but we also need to learn to accept compliments, praise ourselves for what we do well and being ok with appreciating yourself. Life is too short to be miserable and all this negativity in around us will make us bitter and unhappy. Trust me, I've been living it, on a path to misery for the past 30 years of my life.I have been spending much time searching within, learning about myself, having empathy for my flaws and embracing my strengths. I think I've had a huge breakthrough in my life, because at a time when I have less than ever, I am the happiest I have been for as long as I can remember.Happiness isn't found in material things, it is found within. When you're truly happy, your life will be full of joy. Abandon your resentment, embrace your mistakes and shortcoming. Have empathy for yourself, understand and then let go of your faults, and hold on to your positive actions, behaviours and traits.I hope we can all be more positive, and make the world a better place.

So the start of 2018 was not what I expected, life has a funny way of throwing you off course when like that.So now, almost a month in I have created a new path for myself. Fail 9 times, get up 10 that’s the attitude right?!The beauty of it is that I’m starting having learned some valuable lessons from other escapades. I’ve decided to chase pleasure rather than grind because people say you have to.I think by pursing pleasure you’ll inevitably end up in a better place, for one you’ll be happier, as I have been the last few days. Doing something you enjoy lifts and motivates you, makes it easier to do the associated “shit jobs” and push forward.Life is too short, don’t be miserable in a shit job you don’t like. Pursue your passions, follow your dreams and do stuff you enjoy. You only live once, don’t make it a long and tedious life.For the last 3 years I’ve been miserable and unhappy with my employment/work situations and it infects all of your life. It doesn’t leave you once you clock out, it made me miserable. All I did was complain about stuff for the last three years, mainly because I was unhappy with my own life. Rather than take control of it, I continued to look for people to pot to the finger at, from governments to colleagues. Now I’m pursuing happiness I already feel happier, more content with myself and my life. I no longer look to blame those in Power I aim to lift myself up or at the very least enjoy my journey.Be positive, have a great 2018.

Which keywords are best for your website? Knowing the best keywords is only part of the process, you also must know how to use them. Here are a few different ways you can use keywords to optimize your website and improve your chances of ranking higher in Google results.You can break it down into two simple categories: On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO, simply referring to things you can do on your website and off your website to fully optimise it.On-Page SEOOn-Page SEO is everything you can do on your website to help search engines understand what your site is about and improve your chances to rank higher for your target keywords. The main way of doing this is using keywords strategically in your content, such as blog posts etc. It’s a simple recipe and I would recommend a keyword every 150 words or so to get bang for buck without being ‘spammy’.Off-Page SEOOff-Page SEO refers to all the actions you can take off your website to establish your site’s authority and help boost its ranking. This includes getting backlinks, which are links from other websites. Other methods are writing guest blogs, posting on social media or writing in forums. This article is just a heads up on these areas to get you thinking about it, keep an eye out for more in-depth posts soon.

First, if you’re not in the business of social media marketing, then who the hell are you? No matter what you do, if you’re a local plumber or own a multi-million-dollar business why wouldn’t you want to reach out to thousands if not millions of people?!People don’t do social media marketing because they don’t understand it, they’re asking what the ROI is on social media every two minutes. The thing is, figuring out how to calculate ROI is straightforward with all the metrics and attribution data available, but for some reason, people still want to throw their money into print and other forms of advertising that get little to no ROI.It’s 2018, and if you haven’t figured out that print is dead yet, then I don’t know what to tell you. People pay in excess of £200 per month on print advertising their local business, and get pretty much sod all return for it. For that same amount, I grew my Facebook following from 0 to more than 13k followers in 4 days. Why’s that important?It’s simple, now every time I post an organic post I’m reaching a larger audience. I’m reaching them where they spend most of their time too!! Not only that I’m able to interact with my audience, I receive messages daily and cultivate relationships that can bear fruit in the future. I know you’re not getting that from print, neither was I. It’s not your fault or your businesses fault, you’re just using the wrong platform.WHAT’S THE ROI OF ANYTHING?People concern themselves with ROI, they follow what others are doing or have been doing for years, stuff like print, tv and traditional advertising. When what they need to be doing is understanding that the I in ROI doesn’t always mean investing money, it can also mean investing time. And the amount of time you put in to cultivating relationships will be worth every single second. STOP looking for instant gratification, build relationships and play for the future.Plus, the ROI on anything is different for everyone. For example, the ROI on a Rugby Ball is £0 for me, while for Jonny Wilkinson it was about £15 million. What’s the differentiator? QUALITY. So, spend the time to understand and get good at social media, because it’ll pay in the long run.No matter what walk of life you look at, what industry or successful person within it they all have one thing in common. They’ve taken the time to develop their skills and become good at what they do, talent will only get you so far, the rest is hard work and time served.You need the combination of creative, copy, and strategy. You need to be able to understand the insights, iterate and execute against them. Only when you’ve reached that point, can you start to have a real conversation about social media ROI.

As I sit here contemplating my life, there are many things in the balance. Things could go either way over the short term and give me some real difficulty, but the thing is that shit don't matter. Because I no longer play for the short term, I've transitioned out of that destructive mentality and moved to the long game.As a matter of fact I'm at a stage where rather than worrying about failure, I actually welcome it. While that sounds counterproductive it's quite the opposite. You see I've spent the majority of my life doing as many others do, trying to avoid failure. We will go to some extreme lengths to prevent failure and why?It's simple science, I'll save you the technical mumbo-jumbo because all you need to realise is the what and the why. We are social animals who rely on each other to survive, look out for one another and reproduce. At its most primal this society has a hierarchical structure, which determines who gets the best food, shelter and mates.This of course means that the perception our peers get of who we are and what we are capable of has a major impact on our social standing. A huge failure can be detrimental to this and it is much more comfortable in the middle of the pack than at the bottom. This creates and has ingrained in us over the centuries a strong instinct to avoid failure.It's understandable and reinforced throughout the years. In school, with friends and at home we're often ridiculed for our failures, which is others way of establishing the hierarchy and bettering themselves. It's the very reason you see so many people putting each other down as opposed to raising others up, it's a game of oppression.When you realise that these short term failures actually have little impact on the long term, it's liberating. You can cast away others opinions of you, ignore their perceptions and do what you know to be right. You see it's not about winning all the little battles in life, it's about winning the war.Which leads me back to my current situation. I'm on the cusp of some big changes, which could be construed as negative. While things are and may get rough along the way I'm more determined and focussed on my goals than ever before. By learning from mistakes I can develop skills, systems and self-awareness that will be a powerful asset in future endeavours.Long term always wins out over short term.Stay the course, it's a marathon not a sprint.

Whenever you start a small business, it can be difficult to understand your cash cycle and what to prioritise. Customer satisfaction can and should be massive in the early days of any business, as can things like culture, budget, marketing, and hiring be.But irrespective of all these things, there is one thing that rules the roost and that is cash!!Cash is king.I know it may sound cynical to say, but you can’t escape it, cash is what allows you to do all the other stuff. Cash is oxygen for your business. If you don’t understand the importance of cash flow, you’re doomed.You could create the best service around, make the best coffee, or whatever your thing is, but if you don’t know how to sell it, you’ll have no cash revenue and you’ll be out of business. Sales, as dirty as that word is to say nowadays, must be a major part of your business from day one. Without it, the rest will simply fall away.Of course, once you’ve figured out your business cash flow, the priorities become more difficult to identify. What’s next as a small business? Culture, hiring, marketing?There is no second place.While the cash flow is a clear number 1, the second priority becomes more difficult to identify. But I have some ideas on how you can figure out what should be second place for you.Know your strengthsAs most things do, this comes back to self-awareness, first you need to know what you’re strongest at. Marketing? Design? Nail down your biggest strength. Then, go all in on that. Your best skills will be what you build your business around, it’ll be your core, develop and cultivate that as part of your company.Try not to cripple yourself by worrying about all the other things that you could be doing. Focus in on the one or two biggest things your company is successful at, and push that even further.For example, some people are excelling at growing a personal brand, networking or are amazing designers. These are the things you need to focus on, what you’re good at will reap the rewards. Trust the process and follow-through with conviction.The moment in business when you decide what to focus on next is crucial, not only because it helps you grow over the long term, but also because it could be what allows you to bring in more key players. Remember, what got you here won’t get you there. Adapt, change and stay ahead of the curve.Prioritise based on strengths. By betting on your strengths, and bringing in those who complement those strengths (by having different strengths) is an underrated business strategy. The world seems obsessed with improvement in all areas, but focusing on what you’re good at could mean the difference between a success and failure.

I say the magic of google, because lets face it, it seems like completer sorcery from the outside. The reality is that search engines are nothing more than a computer program which is designed to help us navigate the ever-growing amount of information on the internet. There are other search engines out there of course, but google is the go to guy, at least in my experience. Bing, Yahoo! and Baidu (china's #1 search engine) enjoy a share of the market, but google is the top dog.We all use search engines so much, and the term 'google it' is used as part of everyday language these days, which gives search engines (especially google) a load of power. They're our gateway to the world, without them we wouldn't be able to index and find half of the information we search for.Using a search engine is like hitting the library and getting the librarian to help you find stuff. We've come to trust search engine results so much that very few of us actually question the source from which the data is actually pulled. We rely on google doing the research for us and expect that they've provided us with what we were after.We've come to expect that they'll match our search, our keywords with the right page or pages for us, but how do they do it?Art ot Science?Search engines are not people who go and look at each site weighing up each one and considering it's design, carefully reading it's content and engaging with it. They are a series of elaborate programs which while they mimic human behaviour to an extent, they acre actually studying the websites codeTo most of us this code looks like a load of nonsense, but search engines can quickly and effectively interpret this data and use it to understand exactly what the website is about. The code tells these programs what to everything they need to know, like the difference between bold and italic text or what's a heading and what's the body of text.They know which buttons you can click and what pages are linked to one and other. The one thing they can't do (not yet anyway) is understand and read images like we can. This is why "alt text" is so important, as it's what the programs read and decipher to understand what the image is about.Searching to ResultsGoogle are constantly updating and improving their complex algorithms, meaning that the goalposts keep moving effectively. But these algorithms perform three major tasks - they crawl, index and retrieve the data,CrawlingGoogle and the others send out computer programs known as "spiders" or "bots" which scan billions and billions of web pages and note their information. The links in these sites lead the bots to more pages and more information. This process will never truly end because websites are always being added to the fray, and they also revisit previous sites to check for updates, amendments, new content and links.IndexingOnce these bots have crawled the internet and gathered the information they need to index it. To do this they store it in databases that hold billions of web pages that they are monitoring online. The index is stored in huge data centres where their robots can easily and quickly access the information to update it or search it for answers when there's a search conducted.RetrievingThis final step is the one that we all are familiar with, this is the part where the search engine mines it's database for the information we're after and delivers it to us on a SERP. These are ranked in order of relevance, and they do it in less than 1 second, which is mind blowing when you think about it. So when your do a search on google, they're not actually searching the entire internet, they're instead searching their own indexed library of sites. By having great SEO, you can help Google’s bots know when your website is a relevant result for a search. One google query uses 1,000 computers in 0.2 seconds to retrieve an answer. But no one knows exactly how search engines choose which websites to pick from their database to show on a SERP. The mystical algorithm is intentionally kept a secret to stop people hijacking it and making the market unfair.If google released then it would quickly become the wild west, and search result would start showing the best at playing the algorithm rather than the most relevant result. Despite not knowing the exact details of the search algorithm, we do have a reasonable understanding of what influences our web rankings — that’s what giving your site good SEO is all about. Understanding RankingsGoogle’s magic algorithm relies on more than 200 parameters to figure out which websites will be most relevant for a particular search. They search their database, looking at how each website matches a search phrase (your keywords) and they also consider the site’s popularity and reputation. Websites rank higher on searches when they're popular, so getting a decent flow of steady traffic is important. SEO experts agree that these following elements play a role in how well your website ranks in searches. These elements form the basis of SEO.DomainThey search to see if the phrase (keywords) are in the website’s domain name.Titles and DescriptionsThey search to see if the phrase is found in the website’s page titles or descriptions.Keyword FrequencyHow frequently the phrase (keywords) are found in the website image and alt text.Fresh ContentHow regular and recently the website was updated.BacklinksHow many other websites have links to the site.Link QualityOut of them backlinks, how reputable are the sites? Are they spammy and misleading or professional and helpful?EngagementThe quantity of visitors from SERPs and how long they spend on your site.Bounce RateHow many people immediately leave after clicking on your site? A high bounce rate has a negative affect on your website's rank.Brand ReputationHow often the brand, business or domain is mentioned in news and media.Social MediaHow often people mention your site in Tweets, Google+ and Facebook posts.By using a combination of these factors (and more) google aims will provide the searcher with a list of results that are best suited to the keywords.Links MatterSearch engines don't find every single site on the internet, there are simply too many. The bots do their best to find them all but they mainly find sites by following links, if you have no links then the bots will have a harder time finding it. To make sure your website doesn't get overlooked, the best thing you can do is submit your sitemap to google directly. Then you can work on getting links from other reputable websites. These backlinks will help make sure you avoid creating a website that google never finds.