Every single day we release a new tip, trick, or insight that will challenge you to look at your life in a new way and give you guidance on taking the steps needed to creating a life you love. You were meant to live an epic life. You were created to be the author of your own story. You are destined to experience a life full of freedom and joy.
Many personal growth podcasts or webinars are once a week, once a month, or cost money to enjoy. We’ve created our daily growth hacks because we believe in daily growth. We believe that committing to your growth every day makes the largest difference. These daily growth hacks are anywhere from 3-10 minutes every morning (the perfect amount of time to sit down, enjoy your morning coffee, and listen to (or watch) an episode). In these episodes, we talk about ways to grow and expand in what we call the five to thrive: mind, body, soul, relationships, and business.
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Seneca said, and I’m going to read it because it’s a quote, “It’s ruinous for the soul to be anxious about the future and miserable in advance of misery engulfed by anxiety that the things it desires might retain its own until the very end, for such a soul will never be at rest. By longing for things to come it will lose the ability to enjoy the present things.”
Today, I’m specifically going to talk about business. Now, if you’re not a business owner, just stay tuned, because this could apply to you, or at least you’ll learn a little bit more about the things that you should understand.
Often times, I’m very lucky that I get to see the insides of a lot of businesses. Now, I see them through two different lenses. I see them, one, with my clients. So my coaching clients, what I do is kind of more a business lifestyle coaching, so it’s a one year program where I do a deep dive with the business owner and we go over all their Five to Thrive on a weekly basis, and also long-term visioning. And part of that is I actually get to see inside their financials, and helping them strategize their business to help it grow.
Now, when you think about it, every day we make things mean something. Listening to this Daily Growth Hack, or watching this on video, you’re associating a meaning. A meaning not only to what I’m saying, but a meaning to you, and to how you’re interacting with this audio, video, or what’s coming out. What does it mean to you?
Rocket booster friends, as Lisa Nichols calls them, who I love by the way, and if you get a chance look up Lisa Nichols if you’re not familiar with her. Also, accountability partners. That’s a word I use in my coaching and just in my daily life. What’s the importance of having these people in your life? Well, accountability partners are those people that are going to keep you on the path. They’re the people that are going to give you encouragement on your journey to becoming the author of your own story.
This is a reader’s question or a listener’s question, I should say. One of the questions that came in was, “Doug, what’s the deal with daily affirmations? Are they a joke? Are they real? Should I be doing them, or should I just throw them out the window? There’s so much conflicting information out there.”
So I was at an event many, many years ago, and a gentleman came up on stage, and he was talking about how lonely he was. In fact, he was so lonely that he had contemplated committing suicide. Obviously, nothing to joke about, and I’m certainly joking about it here. But what actually turned out as result of his feelings was funny. What happened was they were talking to him, and they said, “Hey look, why do you feel so lonely? Why do you want to kill yourself?”
I was recently talking to a tech entrepreneur, and they were doing great. But the problem that they were having is, they didn’t have a consistent cash flow coming in. They’re marketing was working, their processes were working, but sales just didn’t seem to be happening. It seemed to be happenstance. And when we were having a conversation I asked him, “Do you have a rainmaker on your team?” And he said, “What is that?” Well, a rainmaker in business or in sales is commonly someone who is able to make it rain. They’re able to consistently bring in new business, new leads, and new sales consistently to your business line.
Not too long ago, my wife was pregnant, and I saw her carry our child for over 10 months. Now, this was a long journey, and my wife is so incredibly strong. For all you women out there that have had children, I have nothing but respect for you.
I mean, it was a painful process. Here she is, and she’s got extra weight. She happens to be incredibly fit, but she’s got extra weight carrying around. Her hormones are changing, and now she’s going to give birth to this baby that’s inside of her. It’s just an amazing process. It still blows my mind today. Then after this birth, the love, the absolute love and admiration for our little boy, which is so huge. Right? It’s so worth it. The sleepless nights, the last month almost, where both of us aren’t sleeping much, and right now not sleeping very much as it is because we have a 14-week-old. But still, it’s just absolutely amazing. Wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
Hey, how are you doing today? What most people will respond is, “I’m doing okay,” or “I’m doing good.” I’m here to tell you, as the Author of Your Own Story, good is the enemy of great. Why? Well, you already know that your physiology affects the way you do things, right? If you’re slumped over, you’re down, it makes you depressed. They’ve done studies that just by putting your shoulders back and smiling for over 30 days can clear depression. Now, how crazy is that? Of course, yeah, you can take drugs, and there are all kinds of things to cure clinical depression, but they did a study, just your body’s physiology.
The art of dabbling. Well, I’m here to tell you it’s not an art at all. When you dabble, you actually don’t go anywhere. You can’t focus.
You’ve heard that saying, jack of all trades, but master of none. Well, that happens in our lives too, our careers. We seem to always dabble at that shiny new object. And if you’re an entrepreneur like me, it’s easy to get caught up in that. But how often are we dabbling in our own lives? I realized this in school, and you see this often, while you’re taking a history class has no relation to the English class you’re taking the next hour, which has no relationship to the math class you’re taking the hour after that. There’s no linear progress, you’re just dabbling in these subjects, year after year, as you’re building them on.
