Be A Tourist in Your Own Life
Today, I want to talk to you about being a tourist. Hopefully, you’re like me, and you love to travel. What if you were a tourist in your own life? Let’s look at your life from a one-month perspective. You’re able to tour your life for one month, and one month only. Now, this is a question I often ask people. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you want to go? I’m going to buy you a ticket. A one-way ticket. Anywhere you want to go. Where do you want to go? And what are you going to do when you get there?
11 Attributes of Great Leaders
Over the weekend, I reread the book by Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich. Now, this is an iconic classic, especially in personal and business development. The reason it’s been so prevalent over the years is because the message still rings true today. In fact, most of the seminars and workshops I’ve been to over my lifetime have actually included elements of Think and Grow Rich within them. So I’d like to go back to the source, and plus I really find that is just as applicable today as it was before.
Check In With Your Coach
What do I mean by checking in with your coach? Well, you should be your own coach. Now you may have another coach in many different areas. I do for myself. I have a coach who works on my personal development. I also have a trainer, and I also have other coaches that I work with intermittently, but I am my own coach.
What Are You Doing Next Weekend?
You can probably hear in my voice; I’m a little stuffed up. I’ve been fighting a cold, and from what I’ve been told by other parents, this is just the beginning, with being around a lot of infants and children from all over the place. I love it, but it actually, my immune systems doesn’t as much.
Which Version of You is Running the Show
I was talking to a client of mine; we’ll just call him Tim. Tim was having an issue. He said, “Doug, what happens is it’s like somebody else possesses me and they take over. I know what I should be doing, and I know when I’m making the wrong decisions. When I make a wrong decision, I just beat myself up. It’s like somebody else takes over and possesses my body.” What Tim was talking about in this conversation with me was, in particular, he had a very distinct goal. He has distinct goals in all five categories of his five to thrive, but in this one, he broke it.
Slay a Sacred Cow
When I say ‘slay a sacred cow’, of course, I’m not talking about a sacred cow in Hinduism, what I’m talking about are those things that are policies, procedures, or systems that have worked for you in the past, have helped you get success, but are now holding you back.
Can You Handle the Truth?
Now, can you handle the truth? I mean are you actually telling yourself the truth in areas of your life that are important, in your five to thrive, or are you actually trying just to be positive and tell yourself everything’s OK, when really it’s not, really you’re not on the path to getting where you want to go? Now see, there’s a difference between positivity and lying to yourself or being deceitful to yourself to protect yourself.
Revisiting What Works
So, it’s really important to remember to revisit what’s working for you. Now, what I’m talking about is revisiting thoughts, or courses, or ideas, or books, or things that really strike you as relevant, and things that you’ve found have worked for you in the past.
Revisit: Rapport
Today I’m going to talk about rapport, and rapport really falls under two of the five to thrive. That’s your relationships and your business. Now, it actually will sprinkle all over the place, but let’s talk about why rapport is important. First of all, rapport is really the ability to establish a connection with somebody else, the ability to establish that connection where they feel like you actually get them, you understand them, and you are like that person.
What’s Your Set Point?
We were talking this morning about a family member, a family member going through an extremely hard time. Where the conversation went up was like, “You know what? She’s only meaner, she’s only gotten meaner over time. And even though she’s going through this hardship, instead of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and actually being nice to other people, she’s actually meaner.” So the conversation went into, and my wife eloquently said, “Hey, you know what happens when bad times come around, is mean people get meaner, happy people get happier, joyful people get more joyful, sad people get sadder. You really go back to that set point that you have, and it just amplifies it.”
Revisit: Running Your Life Like a Project
Now, when I talk about running your life like a project, what I’m really talking about is a conversation I had with a friend of mine. Now, he’s a business owner, and he manages several projects on the given day. He’s really efficient at it, but when it comes to his life when he leaves work, his life seems to fall apart. He looked at me and said, “Doug, what do I do? Like, you know, I go home, my relationships are in shambles. I can’t seem to get fit, my health, my energy is just down. I just can’t manage all of this.” And as soon as he said, “I can’t manage all of this,” a light bulb picked off in my head. He’s a project manager, so why isn’t he managing his life like another project?
Take Care of Yourself First
Now, I’m still traveling and experiencing the Author of My Own Story lifestyle. Now, while traveling, I’m still able to coach my clients. These are high-level people. These are people that have been extremely successful in all areas of their life at one time or another, and typically have most of their stuff together. Now I share this with you, only to emphasize the fact that having this conversation I had with somebody, this person was an extremely successful business person, as well as family man.
Revisit: Self-Appreciation
Self-appreciation is also called self-love. Often times, when working with a client, this is something that I see missing. We all think “I love myself, I like myself, that’s all good, Doug.” But I can tell you right now, I have a lot of clients that pay me a lot of money to help them break through barriers to up-level their lives. The reason this works is that I am able to look past them and see the love or missing elements within themselves.
Revisit: Being Right vs Being Happy
I was at the gym this morning working out and there were two guys talking. One guy turned to his friend and started correcting his form. Now, I had just met these guys a few days earlier and the instinct to jump in and tell him that his advice was wrong, was really high in me. I mean, I really had to fight it.
Love Where You Workfrom
I’m in New Hampshire visiting family, and when I’m in New Hampshire, I really need a place to work. A place where I can do my Facebook Lives, my coaching sessions, and just really catch up and unwind. I found this really cool little coffee shop. Now it’s in the middle of a downtown depressed town, and I’m filming this daily growth hack right there from my car because it’s so loud outside with all the trucks outside. But this little place is a gem.
Expecting Results Without Putting In The Work
Now, this is a reader’s question or a listener’s question that was sent to me just the other day. Now, here I’m still in Vermont in this beautiful forest if you’re watching this, and if you’re listening to this, just imagine an idyllic kind of country farm with hundreds of acres. It just amazing. When I got this email, it actually shocked me because it was such a contrast to the experience I was having. Now, what the listener said, they said, “Doug, I’m in my 30s, and I’ve been putting in my time, and I’m wondering because I have a great idea, how you actually get financing to get a business off the ground?”
Remind Yourself
We’ve just got done walking in the woods, and this is absolutely breathtaking. An amazing experience here, especially in the fall when it should be snowing and here we are in a sunny day. And one of the things it reminded me of because I got an email this morning, and the email said to me what my purpose was. Why was I here?
What Lies Beneath the Surface
Just yesterday, I was invited to be on a seminar. It was a virtual seminar called The Virtual Summit. I was the expert in marketing, but the conversation took a turn. See, the host asked me a question. They asked me, “Hey, Doug, there’s all these people that are trying to run online businesses and grow them exponentially.” Which is a big word to use when you talk about business. But they’re trying to grow their businesses and while they’re doing that, they’re worried about social media.
