What’s your #1 priority?
Really. What is it?
Not your, “this is what I wish it were” #1, but the real #1 priority.
About six months ago my wife and I hired a coach. An intimacy coach.
We hired her not because anything was wrong, but because we both have been coaching people for a long time and both would commonly say, “I wish they would have reached out to us sooner! We could have helped in an even bigger way.”
We hired our coach because we realized that more often than not, people seek help after something has gone wrong rather than being proactive. We didn’t want to be those people. So we invested both time and capital in getting the best coach we could find.
During the last conversation, we had with our coach over Zoom, she asked us a simple question: “Can you make sex your absolute #1 priority?”
Simple right?
Well, we’re also incredibly honest with ourselves and each other… the answer was no (at least at the moment). We both felt a sudden panic and were shocked at what came up for us. I wondered how I would be able to provide for our family as that was my current #1. My wife wondered how she would be able to have some alone time as she had a toddler hanging onto during his every waking second.
We were both scared.
Not the fear you would typically see, but we were both scared of letting go of what we had truly valued and prioritized. It’s not that sex was low on the list – it was very high, but it wasn’t truly #1. Shocking – I know.
We immediately looked at each other (this all happened within about 10 seconds) and laughed. We had been putting fear first. We were in a scarcity mindset: scarcity around financial and business abundance (mine) and scarcity around personal time (hers).
I then posed another question (the coach was smiling at this point as often either Erin or I would take over as if she wasn’t there): “What WOULD it look like if it was moved up to #1? No BS, but truly #1.”
We made answering this question very fun on a date day the following morning, and the results were that our fears were very unfounded.
The point of this isn’t to prioritize your sex life, though I do recommend it if that’s an option for you, but to ask yourself what would life look like if you moved something important to you to an actual #1 position.
For me, this meant being able to walk away from meetings, skip the gym if need be, change my schedule, and perhaps give up one of my businesses. It doesn’t mean I have to do that, but if it’s really #1, then I have to be willing to do all that and more.
What about you? What’s your #1 and what would it look like if you changed it to something else?
How would your life be different?
How would you show up to your partner, your team, and to the world?
I’d love to know.
Oops… gotta go… priorities are calling. 😎
This is a game I play with myself and with my clients.
This game had played out for me in my personal and business life many times. In fact, my family has been sick for the past week, so between taking care of them, managing my energy, and working, I’ve only had limited time in various areas of my life.
So, how does this game go?
It’s simple really. You pick an area of your life that’s important to you such as business, though this is an excellent exercise for relationships as well.
Then you ask yourself these two key questions:
If I only had 4 hours each day to work on my business, what would I do with that time?
You only get those 4 hours and no more. What do you do to maintain or grow your business? Write those answers down.
These are the items you get to focus on each day, and I recommend doing them first.
Now, the game I play is more intense. It goes like this: What would you do if you only had 4 hours each week to grow your business?
This is a tougher question to answer, but if you want to be a business owner rather than an operator, then this is a question you get to master.
These 4 hours are the things you want to do first thing in the day at the beginning of the week unless of course, they need to be done in timed intervals, but my guess is even those can be batched.
If you answer these questions and feel with confidence that your answers will help you grow your business, then the final question (I know I said there were only 2) is: Am I using the rest of my time effectively or is it using me?
I hope this brings you clarity. I’d love to hear your answers to these questions if you’re brave enough to share.
Coke and Hookers…
That’s how his weekend started.
He was coming to a retreat for business leaders and had flown half-way around the world to be there. He was not only a successful businessman, but he was also a father, a husband, and a leader in his community.
When he arrived in Boston, he met up with a few other men who had traveled from around the world to attend the event. They went to dinner, then off to karaoke, and that’s when most headed in for the night… but not him.
On the way back to the hotel he turned to the driver and said: “where can we get coke and hookers?”
There was one other man in the cab who told him it was a bad idea, but in the end, he went along anyway.
The night ended with regret and shame.
He had done exactly what he swore he would never do. He had become the man he had been trying so hard to escape from becoming.
He had hit his upper-limit and hit the self-destruct button.
When I met him, I had already heard the story; not from him, but from a few of the other attendees who were concerned. They weren’t concerned about the event or themselves; they were worried about him.
All the check marks were there:
He loved his wife wholeheartedly. He loved his children more than anything. He was successful in business and made good money. He was looked up to as a leader and icon in his community. He was the life of the party.
Why would he then go against what he stands for? Why would he then self-sabotage? Why would he then self-destruct?
It’s called upper-limiting. We all do it. Perhaps not with coke and hookers (or “dancers” as he referred to them when we talked), but we do it in our own ways.
In business, when things are going well and we’re growing, we tend to drop the ball on little things. We don’t show up as frequently to the office or perhaps we just don’t make that call we know needs to be made to take it to the next level.
In our relationships, when things are going better than usual, we start a fight with our loved ones. We start pushing their buttons.
In our body, when we’re looking good, feeling great, we start to eat those holiday cookies like it’s our last meal. One becomes two, which becomes six. We keep doing this until we feel sick… and then have another.
We do this because on some level we don’t feel we deserve what we’ve gotten. We’ve hit our “upper limit” to what we believe we deserve and are capable of having. This is all mindset. This is all a story. A story that we’ve created with the help of others along our journey and a story that doesn’t serve us.
This cycle leads to feeling guilt, shame, and anxiety as we put our backs up against the wall, hit rock bottom, and then once again strive to climb back to the top… only to find ourselves in the same pattern sometime later.
That is unless we successfully raise our limits.
One of the key things that separate successful people from the rest is that their upper limit is set higher. They believe that they deserve more. They believe, and know, that they deserve what they have and more. And, they work on raising the bar often.
You’ve heard the stories of the self-made millionaire that lost it all only to lose it again…make it up…lose it again. Or the lotto winners who are worse off years later when they see how they’re doing.
All these are upper limiting issues.
I work on my upper limits daily. It’s like working out. You don’t go to the gym once and expect to be in great shape the rest of your life. No, you go regularly and make improvements. You’ll have setbacks most likely, but you keep going, work with your trainer, fine-tune what you’re doing, and keep moving forward.
Personally, I’ve worked with shamans in the Amazon, worked with some of the best coaches in the world, read 100’s of books, and have traveled all over attending and teaching seminars and retreats.
So out of all that, what’s the best way to keep raising your limit?
All of them.
But if I were to pick one, one thing that I still do today, it’s getting the absolute best coaching you can’t afford. Yup, that’s not a typo. “Can’t” afford. The reason you want to do this is that it will push you outside your comfort zone. You’ll have skin in the game, and you’ll pay attention.
With attention comes action and with the right action comes results.
A great coach, or coaching program, will help you fine-tune your direction and pull you out of your cycle much faster than you can do it alone. They will also help you raise your limit so you can expand in ways you didn’t know where possible and help eliminate that feeling of guilt, shame, and anxiety.
If you’re looking for a coach or a program, let me know, and I’m happy to serve as your guide and point you in the right direction.
Re-write your story and change your life!
Oh, by the way, that man I talked about in the first part of this story… it happened to him at the perfect time. The coaches worked with him he figured out why he was doing what he was doing. Changed not only his life, but the way he interacts with his wife, his kids, and his staff. He’s a different man. Truly amazing.
When you coach yourself, you get a different perspective.
I’m going through a bit of a business dilemma right now.
This has been compounded with the fact that my whole family has been sick for the past few days, which means no sleep for Daddy (or Mommy for that matter). Of course, things look a lot worse when you haven’t slept and start thinking about them at 3 AM lying on the couch listening for signs of a crying toddler.
I decided to do something different this morning though.
I decided to ask better questions.
With better questions comes better clarity.
Here are the questions I asked:
Can this work the way it is now?
How can this work?
Am I getting out of this what I want, or am I just being nice to make others happy?
Will this work if ___________? (fill in the option)
If I were to step out of the situation and were to serve as a coach, to someone else, what advice would I give?
In the end, the answers to these questions provided me with the insight I wouldn’t have had otherwise. The best part about it… it was easy.
You can apply this flow to your business, your relationships, or just about any other situation you’re in.
