Moving Away From Something Or Moving Right Towards It
Now in every course of an action, we’re either moving towards something or away from something. And most often this is unconscious. We’re either moving away from something that scares us or we’re moving away from fear or we’re moving away from something that hurts us, and hopefully, we’re moving toward something that empowers us and makes us better people.
Revisit: You Haven’t Proven Yourself Yet
So, what do I mean by you haven’t proven yourself yet? Well, I’m talking to a specific segment of us, and I include myself in that segment. If you are constantly bettering yourself, you also are constantly changing. This is especially true if personal development or business development or just growth in general is newer to you. That means not just new that you just are first learning about it, but you’re really actually diving in.
If you’ve been listening to these Daily Growth Hacks, we’ve done over 50 of them now, and if you’ve been actually putting into action the Call to Action at the end of each of them, you have changed your life dramatically, I can guarantee that.
Revisit: Changing the Way You Look at Things
When you change the way you look at things, the way you look at things actually changes. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, if you’re always a grump person, or if you’re always assuming things are gonna go bad, you start to notice all the bad things in life. All the bad things are happening in your mind, your body, your soul, your relationships, your business.
Round Hole, Square Peg
I own two marketing agencies and our average client is paying us anywhere between 1,700 and 15,000 a month in reoccurring cost. Now, they see the value in this and our actual ability to maintain a client over a course of several years is extremely high. However, over the last six months, we decided we want to make an impact for smaller businesses who couldn’t afford our services.
Challenge Your Assumptions
I was speaking to a business owner just this morning, and we were talking about the trials and tribulations of being a business owner, and I wanted to hear his take on it. What he was telling me was like, “Doug, in our market, it’s too difficult to get new customers.” See, he was a local business owner, and what he was telling me was in his town, which happens to be Bend, Oregon, it was different. The trials and tribulations that he was facing are different than everybody else throughout the country.
Are You Tracking The Right Numbers?
Just yesterday I was having coffee with an entrepreneur and very successful business person. This person happened to be a chiropractor who had been in the practice for over 40 years. He developed several new technologies and had best selling books. But he moved his business entirely online. And when talking to him about his solution, he happened to have a solution for headaches and migraines that had been proven over years to get people permanent relief from this problem.
Problems Vs. Opportunities
Here I am in my home office and I was actually just talking to an entrepreneur and we were talking about problems that he’s seeing in his business. He has an MBA and a very analytical mind and is a fantastic business person, in most cases.
He’s seeing these problems that are coming up, problems in his marketplace and problems that I see, frankly, as opportunities. What I had him do is rephrase his problems as opportunities.
Solve The Right Problem
So as the story goes, the musician stormed out of the recording studio yelling at the producer and saying, “I’m not coming back until you fix the problem!” Now the musician was complaining about the acoustics in the studio. He was just tired, there was a reverberation and an echo in there that just wasn’t giving purity to his sound. He came back a week later. Now, this was an important musician, and to the producer, this was a chance for him to make or break his career. The musician came back in, he sat down and he started to play and noticed the acoustics were still horrible. And he said, “I thought I told you to fix the problem?” And in response, the producer said, “I did. I actually changed the lights and painted the walls.”
Enjoy The Silence
Now, a year ago, almost a year ago this month, I enjoyed a 12-day silent meditation retreat. It was advertised as 10 days, but as it turns out, it certainly wasn’t. It was actually 12. When I say silent, I’m not just talking about people sitting down not talking to each other.
There was actually a way of what’s called noble silence. What this was is, we got to the retreat center and after you went through the orientation, you were not only no longer allowed to speak to somebody, but you weren’t actually going to communicate in any way.
Trust Your Gut
Now this is going to be a short tip and what I’m going to talk about is something that took me a long time to learn and that’s trusting my gut or my instincts or those hunches that we have throughout life.
Revisit: Someday
Someday, I’m going to go to Africa. Someday, I’m actually going to travel overseas. Someday, I’m going to run a 10K. Someday, I’m going to start my own business and it’s going to be millions of dollars coming in. Someday, I’m going to meet the perfect man or woman. Someday, I’m going to take time out of my day and meditate and really center myself. Someday, I’m going to be present. Someday, I’m going to meet the President of the United States. When is someday?
Revisit: Permission to Fail
As you are becoming the Author of Your Own Story you really need to give yourself permission to fail and permission not to succeed. Now, of course, you want to succeed and you should be striving for that, but you need to give yourself permission to fail because if you don’t you won’t jump. You won’t jump forward. You won’t take that great leap or even that first step that’s necessary to become the Author of Your Own Story.
Persistence
This morning I was talking to a business owner, and during the conversation, he was telling me a story about a sales call that he had. Now, what he didn’t know if I actually knew the person that he was called upon, yet they were on two different continents in the world. I actually knew both of them, which was really fabulous. So I was listening to his story, and what he told me was the actual conversation just fell flat. Now, he was saying, “Doug, we’re having the conversation, and it absolutely just fell flat and went nowhere.” So what did I do, of course?
Revisit: Go Make Your Bed
Now I was talking to a client early this morning, and by anybody’s outside perspective, he was an amazingly successful man. He had done all kinds of great things. He owns his own law firm. He’s got an amazing family, a loving wife and two beautiful young children. He’s a leader in his community. He sits on civic organizations as well as sits on the board of several nonprofits. If you were looking from the outside in, you would think this guy had it all, but inside he wasn’t feeling good. He was dying inside, and that’s why we were talking.
What else is possible?
I just got back from the gym and I had a conversation actually with a young entrepreneur. What they said to me was, well they asked me a question, they said, “Hey look, I’m either thinking about traveling or thinking about growing my business. What do you think I should do?”
The first thing I thought of is, “Why are you living in the world of or, there’s an and here too.” It reminded me of something my wife says to me often but says it to a lot of people, and she does it very effectively. The question she just turns around and asks and says, “What else is possible?”
Know Your Numbers
Now if you’ve been a listener for a long time, or you’ve done coaching with somebody in our team, you’re really familiar with the Five to Thrive. It’s a holistic representation of your life.
Success Without Freedom
What is success without freedom? Now, this is a common question I ask business owners when I’m coaching them, or just even during an initial conversation. The reason I ask this is oftentimes as business owners we actually go after success so hard that we lose freedom. I’ve certainly been in this case. When you’re looking at this even if you’re an employee or you’re going after another goal. Right? You’re trying to build your first business, or maybe you’re just working a typical 9:00 to 5:00, but you’re really going after the author of your own story lifestyle so you’re putting other things aside.
Fill Your Cup First
I was talking to a business owner just this morning. We were talking about were his business goals, but it became very clear that he wasn’t actually fulfilled. This is a common conversation with business owners. What came evident is that he was actually scheduling time in his calendar for sales, for marketing, for his staff, and for his family, but what he wasn’t doing was prioritizing the time for himself. He wasn’t filling his own cup.
