Have you ever looked in the mirror and said to yourself, “I thought I’d be further along by now.” I have! In life and in business I’ve had that conversation with myself before. But it’s ok. Life doesn’t always go as planned. But that doesn’t mean you have to accept it.
The problem is that if you look in the mirror again in a year from now and you’re no further ahead.
Often times when we are not as far along in life or in business as we had hoped we would be, it’s because we don’t know how to get things to the next level. We don’t know how to overcome the current challenges we are facing.
Or it’s been going on for so long we’ve just settled into things and this is just the way it is.
But there is a way for you to amplify the performance of your life and business while you’re tearing down the barriers that are holding you back from that next level! When you have an opportunity to sit and mastermind with smart, successful, like-minded people who are wanting to take their lives and businesses to the next level as well, you WILL find your answers. You WILL discover the things that will make the difference.
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A Mastermind is a group of like-minded individuals all working together to elevate their game – to make more money, to gain more freedom and achieve the life they’ve always dreamed of.
A Mastermind is the fastest way to get yourself and your business to the next level!
I’m excited about ourElite Performance Mastermind coming up on September 6 in Gilbert AZ! There are still some seats available for this event, so if you are interested you need to hurry and register. This is an event you do not want to miss out on!
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Back in my days as a banker I spent one year working at a branch that was a pretty good daily commute. Those daily commutes were when I discovered my love for self-education. I remember listening to a Tony Robbins CD and he said when he was first getting started he read 700 books. I wasn’t a reader but I remember thinking, “If 700 books can get Tony Robbins to where he is, I’m going to read 700 books.” I’ve been an avid reader ever since.
I often think about how I will maximize my benefits of reading. What are the best habits and practices I need to have to get the most out of what I read?
What Am I Reading and Why Am I Reading It?
When I first began reading it was just a race to 700. I was focused on reading books on leadership, management and a variety of different business topic. But I’d finish one, put it on the shelf and start the next one. My thought was that if I can even retain a little from each book, if I read a lot of books, that’s a lot of new knowledge. Looking back I jumped around from topic to topic. Some of the first books I read were: Secrets of Power Negotiating, Good to Great, Raving Fans, and Man’s search For Meaning. I usually chose the books I read because they were mentioned in another book I was reading or someone suggested it. A lot of the time that is how I still choose books today, but I have more intent and focus on what I’m choosing to read now.
When I added Audible to my tools, that really gave me the ability to get through some books. I spend a lot of time on the road and whenever I’m in my truck I have an audio book playing.
Now, when I choose a book to read, I look for something that is applicable to me at the time. A book that I feel will help me in what I’m dealing with in business or life at that moment. I no longer read just to get on to the next book. I read with an intent to learn and apply what I learn in my life.
Learn Less, Study More…
Darren Hardy is an author I enjoy learning from. I remember him saying that we need to “learn less and study more. Learning is not the problem; lack of real study and implementation is.” I spend a lot of time taking about and reviewing things I’ve read with my brother-in-law, Sheldon. He studies Darren Hardy’s work a lot and he brought this topic up with me shortly after I had read it. He made me realize that this is something that would be beneficial to me. After our conversation I made some changes to my reading habits.
I take more time going through a book now to study the content and learn it better. If I find a book I really like, right after I finish reading it I’ll often turn to page one and start over.
I’ll often finish a book and then get it on Audible so I can listen to it as well. Or, if I first listed to it on Audible I’ll listen to it again and/or also get the hard copy to read.
Rather than flying through books now, I spend more time studying what I’m reading. That way, rather than hoping I’ll retain a little from each book, I feel that I can retain a lot more.
Highlight, Mark, Dog Ear
I take pride in my home library. In fact, when I started to use Audible I would often still buy the hard copy of the book so it would be in my library. As my library grew, those books were by pride and joy. I don’t lend my books out because I don’t want them to disappear like the neighbor’s borrowed tools. I keep them in good condition, organized exactly how I want them. I use to want every book in perfect shape. No markings, no dog eared pages. But I have found so much value in learning and accepting the fact that to get the most out of my books I need to mark them up, write in the margins, bend some corners, etc. When I read I have my ruler, my pen and my highlighter with me. They are just as important as having the book.
I find by marking things in the book I remember them better. But I also find that it helps me to find things a lot easier. I’ll often be on a call or in a coaching session when something pops into my mind from something I’ve read. My library is behind my desk and it’s usually quite easy for me to jump up, grab the book and quickly find what I’m looking for.
When it comes to using Audible it’s easy to clip a note in the app and then I’ll add my own notes to the clip.
When I read a quote that I like I’ll often add it to my blog as well. At JeffHeggie.com each Tuesday I post my “Book Quote of the Week.” I also add many of them to my Instagram page, www.instagram.com/entrepreneur.next.door/
Teach What You Learn
One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it.
I find that when I read with the intent of teaching I am able to learn the subject matter a lot better. So as you read, whether you are going to have to teach it or not, read it as if you will have to teach it. Learn it well. Learn it good enough to teach it. You’ll find that you’ll know it better, be able to apply what you’ve learned better and you’ll find yourself referring to it more often in conversations.
We had something we called our Education Plan at Kodiak Mountain Stone. We would ask one of our team members to read a specific book and then we would have a team meeting where they would teach what they had learned from the book and how it would be applicable to us in our business and personal lives. The conversations and things that would come out of those meetings were amazing. But it was always the team member that lead the meeting that got the most out of it.
A while ago I read the book Expert Secrets, by Russell Brunson. It was a great book and I loved what I learned from it. I’m preparing for a Mastermind Event coming up soon and knew there were a few things in the book that I wanted to review for it so I could include them in what I would be teaching. As I was going through the chapters that I wanted to review, I was seeing things in a completely different way. The fact that I was going to be teaching some of the concepts and they were a lot more applicable to my current situation, I was understanding things even better. So rather than just review what I was going to need for the Mastermind, I turned to the front of the book and started to read it all again.
Application
Knowledge is useless if you don’t do anything with it. The sooner you can take the things you learn from your reading and apply them to an area of your life, the better you will understand and remember your new knowledge.
Hopefully these are some practices that can help you to get the most out of your reading. Give them a try. I’d love to hear what you think. Send me your comments in the form below!
Today I was inspired as I was reading a post my daughter had put on Facebook. She shared some powerful words and thoughts and I just wanted to share them here.
h a p p y s a b b a t h !
Sundayspiration (a word I made up.. definition: inspiration on a sunday to give you that extra BOOST we all need for the week!)
We wake up every morning with a BRAND NEW DAY! A day that you get to decide what you’re going to do, who you are going to inspire and what you want to accomplish.
Do you let your days control you, or do you control your day? Do you just go with the flow, or do you demand a great day? What is your mindset when you walk out the door? Honestly take time to think about your thoughts! Are they negative or positive?
I am a firm believer that YOU make your happy life. No matter what consists in your day YOU decide how it is going to affect you. What you decide influences how you influence others. Choose your actions wisely. What frame of mind are you leaving your co-workers, friends, spouse, and kids in when you leave the room? Are you helping them make their happy life? Or are you damaging them because you cant get your happy life?
Take time to evaluate your emotions and mental state every day. Are you living your happy life, or are you just living?
I say “C H O O S E H A P P Y! Choose happy everyday.”
One of the most difficult things I deal with in coaching high school basketball is getting the players to buy into the “Next Mentality.” It’s not much different between boys teams, girls teams, the star players or the bench warmers. When they screw up, it’s hard for them to forget about it. It’s not just with screw up’s either, it might just be a missed shot, botched defensive assignment or something else. With some players, if they miss a shot, it’s over. You’re not going to see them take another shot. They’re not going to take the chance of missing again.
Over the years I’ve improved at coaching the “Next Mentality,” but I know that I’m far from perfect because I had a player going into their third year of playing for me that had to have a refresher last week. If I’ve done my job right, each player on my team should know their role. They should know their assignments. They know the shots they should take as well as the shots they shouldn’t take. So if they are playing their role and doing the things they are supposed to, but a shot doesn’t drop… WHO CARES?! That does not mean you stop shooting or fulfilling your role. But most important, it does not mean you dwell on it and keep beating yourself up over it. It’s over, you’re not going to change it, NEXT! Then the next time down the floor, when you get that same shot that you just missed, there’s no hesitation, you confidently shoot it again. You’re not even thinking about that last shot that you missed. Maybe you make it, maybe you miss it. Either way… NEXT!
I was recently having a conversation with someone who wanted to grow their brand online but they were beginning to fear putting their thoughts out there because on a few of their posts they had some haters add some really negative comments. The first time it happened they were devastated. They couldn’t get it off of their mind and began wondering if they should just throw in the towel. They didn’t know the person, but the comment stung.
When they asked me my opinion on whether or not they should keep going I asked them to tell me again why they were doing it. When we talked about their purpose and their why, the actions they had been taking were a good fit for what their goals are. So my suggestion to them was, “Next!”
I explained to them that if they were the best shooter on my basketball team and they shot an airball in a game, I wouldn’t want them to stop shooting for the rest of the game just because the opposing fans were chanting ‘airball’.
Look at the biggest influencers out there today. GaryVee puts out insane amounts of content. Does he only get positive, supportive feedback and comments? Of course not. But if he quit creating content after his first hater made a negative comment would he have 6.4M followers on Instagram (@garyvee), 1.9M followers on Twitter (@garyvee), 3.2M followers on Facebook (Facebook.com/gary/), plus the millions more following his other channels? No he wouldn’t. So why did he keep going?
Well, on Twitter he told us exactly why: “I just done give a @%#$ about what anybody thinks about me, because they don’t know who the @%#$ I am inside.”
So why do you spend your time stressed about a negative comment from someone who doesn’t even know you. There’s too much to get done in this life to spend time valuing someone else’s negative opinion. Fulfill your role. Take your shot. If it was a good shot and you miss, don’t worry about what anyone else says or thinks. You’re not going to change it. Don’t dwell on it or waste your time thinking about it. Just be ready to keep shooting! NEXT!
Whether you are just starting out or you’ve been at it for a while. If you are willing to play full out and push yourself to amplify the performance of your business and your life you need to join us for ourELITE PERFORMANCE MASTERMIND! We guarantee incredible results, but only register for this event if you are willing to take what you learn and implement massive action to achieve your goals!
In the talent hotbeds I visited, the chunking takes place in three dimensions. First, the participants look at the task as a whole – as one big chunk, the mega circuit. Second, they divide it into its smallest possible chunks. Third, they play with time, slowing the action down then speeding it up, to learn the inner architecture.
Most people live life as it happens. Reacting to the things around them day by day. But real fulfillment in life comes when we are living a life on purpose.
Once you discover your WHY, you are better able to align your beliefs with every choice and action you take, in order to find greater fulfillment in all that you do.
You’ll be able to make more intentional choices for your business, your career and your life. You’ll be able to inspire others to buy from you, work with you and join your cause.
Never again should you have to play the lottery and act on gut decisions that are made for reasons you don’t really understand. From now on, you will work with purpose, on purpose. From now on, you’ll start with WHY.
Simon Sinek
Simon Sinek’s TEDx Talk, Start With Why – How Great Leaders Inspire Action, was probably the first time I really started to think about our WHY in business. He said, “People don’t buy WHAT you do; they buy WHY you do it.”
Sinek’s 2009 TEDx Talk and his book, Start With Why, got many people thinking about their leadership and the ‘why’ of their businesses.
To live a fulfilled life, we also need to know our own personal ‘why.’
Why is it that you do what you do?
Why is it that you want more success? Why do you want to achieve more? Most people really don’t know these answers, even if they think they do. They know on the surface. They’ve thought about it. But when you can anchor it in your heart with feeling and emotions there will be no stopping you!
I was recently training with Dean Graziosi and he introduced me to The Seven Levels Deep tool. The best way to explain how it works is to tell you about my experience going through the process as if Dean was taking me through it.
Dean (Level 1): “What is important to you about becoming successful?“
Jeff: I’ve thought a lot about what success is to me, so this was a quick answer. “Becoming successful is important to me because I want to support my family and give them opportunities and experiences in life.”
Dean (Level 2):” Why is it important to you to support your family and give them these opportunities and experiences?”
Jeff:” I have experiences from growing up that really stand out to me. Great memories that are anchored in my mind. Our family trip to Disneyland in 1984. Trips to the lake in Montana. My parents at all my events whether it was hockey, basketball, football, rodeo or something else, they were there. That is what success has meant to me. I want to have the means to cover our regular living expenses (i.e. support them), plus have enough to create opportunities and experiences that are special for our familyl, which other families may not have the opportunity to experience.”
Dean (Level 3): “Great! To you, success means that you will have the means to provide for your family and create great experiences with them. Plus, you will be there for them. WHY?”
Jeff:a’ I want to be able to create those special experiences and opportunities so that my family has great memories of the time we spent together and the things that we did.”
Dean (Level 4): “Ok, Jeff, that’s great. Now you know that you want to provide for your family and give them special opportunities and experiences, and you want to do this so that they have great memories of the time they’ve spent together. But why?”
Jeff: “I want them to see me as a good provider. I want them to see me as a father that has taken care of them. A father that has created great opportunities and memories for them. I want them to remember the unique and special things they were able to do and feel that they are fortunate and special by being a part of our family. I want them to remember that I was always there for them and wanted to be a part of their lives. That I was there because I wanted to be, not because I felt obligated to be.”
At this point I thought I had figured it out. I’ve always looked at success in my life as being able to provide for and create special experiences for my family. But I’ve figured it out. I want them to feel special and proud for being a part of our family. I want them to remember how important family was to me and how I worked hard but was there when they needed me.
Dean (Level 5): a’That’s great that you’re figuring this out Jeff, but we have only gone through Level 4, we have more to go. Lets go deeper. Why do you want them to remember the unique and special things your family is fortunate enough to do. Why is it that you want them to feel special and proud for being a part of your family?”
Jeff: “I want them to love me, appreciate me, and be proud of me. I want them to look at their father as a success. In reflection I don’t want them to remember the times that I couldn’t provide as much as I wanted to or when I wasn’t there for them. I want them to love me and the things I did. I want them to tell their posterity about the things we did, the time we were able to spend together and the experiences we shared as a family or their experiences with just them and their father.”
Dean (Level 6): “Why?”
Jeff: As I thought more about it I replied, “II wanted my children to find success and I wanted to do everything in my power to help them find it. I want them to feel like I helped them find the opportunities they need to find success. I want them to have choices in their lives, to be able to go after their dreams and goals knowing they have the support of their parents behind them.”
Dean (Level 7): “Great! But that is only six. I have one more time to ask you.” He reviewed everything I had said and then asked, “why do you want your kids to have these choices?”
Jeff: As I started to think of this I thought of the different businesses I’ve run in my life. The things that made me want to be an entrepreneur. I thought about how often I noticed growing up that even though I had two other brothers who were just as busy as me with all their activities and sporting events, I always had one of my parents there to support me and I noticed this wasn’t the case with a lot of the kids. I want to be able to do that for my kids. I want to be in control. I want to live the way I want to live. I want to do the things I chose to do. I want to go to my kids assemblies, coach them and be there for them. I don’t want to have to ask for permission.” I want to be in control of my life, that is my why!”
Knowing my why helps me when I’m making decisions. It helps me when I’m having a difficult day. It helps me to keep my focus. Knowing what I want for my family, that I want my children to have choices and for them to know their parents are always there for them, and I’m in control of my life are the things that will make me jump out of bed ready to break through barriers each day.
So what is it that you want to do?
Make more money? Learn a new skill? Overcome a fear?
WHY?
Go Seven-Levels deep with this and find your true why. Then use the power in than knowledge to make an impact and achieve the highest goals you have in your life!
How do you perform under pressure? How do you perform under emotional pressure? When something goes wrong, you’ve failed, how do you react?
As a basketball coach I have to admit that I have had experiences when things were not going right and things got emotional, and I didn’t respond in the best way. If a referee makes a bad call in a basketball game that has a negative impact on my team at a key point in the game, will it make things better for us if I lose my mind on the ref? Is there a chance if I scream and yell that maybe he will apologize and change his call? Of course not.
But on the other hand what negative could come from it? To begin with, that negative emotion is absorbed by my team. I’m showing my team, through my actions, what is acceptable. The referee isn’t going to be looking to give me any breaks or do me any favors going forward, maybe even beyond this one game.
I’m not writing this to talk about basketball referees and how you should react if they make a call you don’t agree with. What I want to look at is how we can take all of our experiences, both good and bad, and learn from them so that when we face a similar circumstance in the future we will be prepared to deal with it in the best possible way.
Whether we are in a team environment or as an individual we can look at both our good and bad experiences and learn from them. In both cases there are emotions tied to the experience that we need to be able to work around. In a positive outcome we may be flooded with positive emotions that give us the false belief that everything went right and we don’t have to think anymore about it. In a negative outcome you may feel that nothing went right and you don’t even want to think about it anymore. But the reality is that we have much to learn from both outcomes that can transform our futures.
As an individual, as a family, as a business or as a team this is an exercise that could have a major impact on your future outcomes.
After an event, either positive or negative, take the time to learn from it. Capture what the situation was, what are the facts? What about it wasn’t great and could get better? What worked? Strategize about how to make sure it happens for the better next time.
Dan Sullivan talks about “The Greatest Teacher” in his podcast INSIDE Strategic Coach. He suggests making three small boxes on a piece of paper to work through the situation:
What Worked – This should open the flood gates and allow everyone to appreciate the there were things that worked
What Needs to Improve – Here you can identify the problems, the things that didn’t work, so that you can improve on them for the future
Strategies for the Future – This will make you alert to all situations in the future. You may not have an identical situation, but by going through this exercise you will be aware of how you can apply this experience to others situations in the future
Dan says that by going through this process you can create a positive momentum for the future and not be bogged down by the past.
In my basketball example I have two opportunities to go through this. First I could sit down with my assistant coaches and have a discussion and secondly I could go through the process with my team. This would allow us to look at the situation and the outcome. It would allow us as coaches and as a team to strategies on how we would react to a similar situation in the future which will hopefully bring us a better outcome.
Today in the entrepreneurial world failure is often looked at almost as a badge of honor. We hear the quotes:
“Fail Fast”
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again”
“Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success”
“Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something”
The last quote in this list is key because for anything good to come out of failure, we have to learn from our mistakes. Otherwise, failure is just failure.
As I have mentioned earlier, this is an exercise that should be used after both successful and unsuccessful outcomes so that we can learn from each of them. But this is an exercise that will allow us to look at our failures to learn from them so that we can be successful in the future.
“Your experience when you’re having intense [positive or negative] emotions is the greatest teacher you can possibly have. Channel it and you’ll always come up with amazing breakthroughs.”
– Dan Sullivan
If you’d like to learn more about our mastermind groups where as a collective group we help each other learn from our combined experiences click the button below:
I want you to take a minute and put yourself in the shoes of a contractor, or take this situation and apply it to your own situation.
You need an answer from a customer for a project. When you receive that answer you will be dispatching a crew for the job. It’s an important job that you need to get right. The sooner you can get the information from the customer, the better. The customer has told you that they would have the information to you before the end of the day. So in the mean time you are holding back on scheduling your crews for other jobs and they are on standby waiting for the information from the customer. The end of the day comes, but the answer doesn’t.
How is this for you?
Now flip the situation around. Have you ever been that customer? Have you ever told someone that you’d do something and didn’t. You got busy, unexpected things came up, you forgot. Maybe you had a valid reason. Maybe you didn’t.
What did you do?
I recently had a conversation with a couple who were having an issue with someone not performing as they thought they should be. They told me that in one of their discussions one of them had said, “If Jeff was in this situation, I guarantee this person would be performing.”
Why is it that people act different around different people? Why is it that some can get results out of people but others can’t? Why is it that when you tell some people that you’ll do something, there’s no way you wouldn’t do that thing but there are other people that you can say you’ll do something for but if it doesn’t get done it’s not that big of a deal? Who you are being, the words you use and the actions you take have an impact on the people around you. I want to talk about your word, as in what you say you are going to do. Being responsible with your word is more than a commitment, it’s a matter of integrity. When you are integral with your word you are creating a relationship that will make the other side act in a certain way. The experience they will have of you will have an impact on them now and in the future.
Too many people are sloppy when giving their word and it creates problems or distrust. I’ve heard Brandon Craig say, “You are your word. You are either a person who can be counted on, or you are a person who cannot be counted on.” Which one are you? Which one do you want to be? Which one can create more powerful relationships? Without integrity, nothing works. Without integrity, nobody knows what is really going to happen. With integrity you have the possibility of performance. With integrity you can create agreements. With integrity you can create action. With integrity you can create results.
You must be careful and sensitive in giving your word. If you are serious about being a person of integrity, you will think very carefully before giving your word. When people know that you have integrity with your word and you will do exactly what you say, it creates an expectation on their side. It creates a powerful relationship and they will want to show they are integral as well. This is when you will see results and the things that were said would happen, do happen.
However, there will be times that something occurs that is going to prevent you from keeping your word. Does this mean you lose all your integrity? No, you can honor your word and keep your integrity. To honor your word, as soon as you know you won’t be keeping your word, you need to let everyone know who is counting on you that you cannot keep your word and clean up any mess that you’ve caused. When you do this, you can honor your word despite not keeping your word, and you have maintained your integrity.
Lets look at an example. If I give my word to a customer that I’m going to have some information to them by 3:00, I’m going to do everything in my power to have it to them by, or before 3:00. But if there’s a situation outside of my control that is going to prevent this from happening, as soon as I’m aware that I will not be able to keep my commitment I will contact them to let them know and create a new agreement, while also cleaning up any mess that I’ve caused by not keeping my word.
In Michael Jensen’s article, Integrity: Without It Nothing Works, he explains the fear of acknowledging that you will not be keeping your word and why many do not honor their word when they know they won’t be keeping it:
“When maintaining your integrity (i.e., acknowledging that you are not going to keep your word and cleaning up the mess that results) appears to you as a threat to be avoided (like it was when you were a child) rather than simply a challenge to be dealt with, you will find it difficult to maintain your integrity. When not keeping their word, most people choose the apparent short-term gain of hiding that they will not keep their word. Thus out of fear we are blinded to (and therefore mistakenly forfeit) the power and respect that accrues from acknowledging that one will not keep ones word or that one has not kept one’s word.”
Keeping your word is obviously the best case scenario, but as Michael Jensen explains, “by honoring your word you maintain a certain power and respect.” By honoring your word when it cannot be kept, a surprising level of trust emerges. Jensen concluded by saying, “Honoring one’s word is truly an amazing phenomenon… As with the Law of Gravity, the end result is guaranteed.”
Don’t be sloppy with your word. If you do not fully intend on doing something, don’t say you will. Have integrity with your word and if you cannot keep your word, honor it. This isn’t always easy to do and I’m the first to admit that I am far from perfect with this, but as we keep this in mind and focus on it we will get better and better and soon be known as someone who has integrity with their word.
Making a 22 hour drive from Southern Alberta to Arizona gives me plenty of time to think, and listen to audio books. Fortunately, this time I’m not alone on the trip so my wife has shared the driving, which gives me time to work and write.
While I was in Canada we were spending time with family and I had a chance to visit with a nephew who had asked me to suggest some good books for him to read. We were talking about the different books and he shared a few with me that he had enjoyed that I hadn’t read yet. One of them was Smarter Faster Betterby Charles Duhigg. So this is one of the books I have been listening to on my trip home.
There are many intriguing thoughts and stories in this book, but something that really caught my attention was in his chapter on Innovation when he talked about Innovation Brokers or Idea Brokers. The reason this was so interesting to me is because I have been spending a lot of time recently preparing for an upcoming Mastermind Group, and the ideas he shared help to explain how and why a mastermind group works so well.
In his book, Duhigg refers to the work of Ronald Burt in a 2004 study he conducted. Burt conducted a study with a large number of managers in a company and found that ideas that were classified as creative came from people who were particularly talented at taking concepts from one division of the company and explaining them to employees in other departments. Burt explained that people connected across groups are more familiar with alternative ways of thinking and behaving. “This is not creativity born of genius, it’s creativity as an import, export business.”
As I listened to this and the rest of the book I decided to do a little more research on Burt’s ideas. On this topic, when people seek out insights from people in different fields, different organizations or of different mindsets, Burt refers to it as “brokerage.” He explains how this can lead to better ideas, improving processes and more. He says, “if you’re charged with innovation, you need to branch out and build brokerage.” “It’s essential. The new ideas we come up with come from the places where we vary. A person who only knows about the variations in what they do will get better at what they’re doing, but will always come to the same place.”
This is exactly where the power of a mastermind group comes from. I recently wrote a post High Performance Mastermind Group, and explained a challenge I had dealt with for some time which I had not found a solution to. But when I had an opportunity to sit with a group of entrepreneurs who were all in very different industries than me, we quickly found a solution to my problem as a group because the others in the group looked at my situation differently and had been through their own challenges in their industries.
Joining a mastermind group allows you to look at each other’s problems and challenges from different perspectives, industries and life experiences. But it also gives you an opportunity to discover things that are holding you back that you were not even aware of. It allows you to be more innovative in your business, your life and your thinking in general.
Join ourElite Performance Mastermind and prepare yourself to take your life and your business to the next level! You will be with an elite group of individuals, from different industries, backgrounds and different areas of the country that will be able to share their brilliance and knowledge with the group while you do the same for them. I’ll also be sharing some powerful tools you can use to give yourself the power to create the future you’ve been dreaming about.
If you don’t own or run your own business, don’t count yourself out. Whatever it is you do, you will do it better after joining this mastermind. You’ll think different. You’ll network. You’ll have the tools to be successful.
Be your best entrepreneur. Be the best manager. Be the best employee. Be the best YOU.
“I learned from Joe Polish that there’s no relationship between being good and getting paid, but there’s a huge relationship between being good at marketing and getting paid.”
This High-Level Mastermind Is For Those People Looking To Amplify The Performance Of Their Lives and Business While Tearing Down The Barriers That Are Constantly Holding Them Back.
Why do break-through performances sometimes ignite talent booms, and sometimes not?
The answer is that talent hotbeds possess more than a single primal cue. They contain complex collections of signals – people, images, and ideas – that keep ignition going for the weeks, months, and years that skill-growing requires.
If you don’t go after what your want, you’ll never have it.
If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.
If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.
They are simple rules, but they’re absolutely correct. Reading this made me reflect back to the early start-up days of one of our companies. It was a time of a very steep learning curve and a time where I learned a lot about business and about myself.
We had started a manufacturing company in an industry in which we were not known and we had no experience. So saying that we had a steep learning curve is an understatement. It seemed like we were running into brick wall after brick wall in every area of the business.
I was the one who knew the product and understood the manufacturing process. So that’s where my focus was. I was setting up the manufacturing and getting it right so that we were producing the quality product we were aiming for. While I was focused on this area of the business I had hired someone else to work as our salesman with the direction of establishing a distribution network to sell our product through.
As I was watching things come together in the business, we were making huge strides on the production side but very little was happening on the sales side. By this point I was hoping to have our distribution channels established but we didn’t. We had a few people who were interested in becoming dealers for us, but we had no firm commitments.
At this point, establishing our dealer network (i.e. sales) jumped to the top of my priority list and I decided to take it on myself. I put all of my samples and marketing materials together and hit the road.
We were producing a product with an unknown brand in an industry with some very well known competitor companies. There were many unknowns as I headed out on my sales trips.
Will they be interested in our product?
Do they sell our competitors products already?
If they sell a competitors product do we even talk to them about our product?
I also had my own internal struggles. I had to cold-call people I didn’t know and had never talked to before. I had never been in a position to sell like this. What if they are busy and are upset that I’m interrupting? What if they already sell a competitors product? What if they don’t like my product? What if they don’t like me?
What it really came down to was that I had a Fear of Rejection.
I clearly remember sitting in the parking lot of a company that I thought could be a potential distributor for us. It was my first attempt at finding a new distributor. I was frozen with fear. I had my samples with me. I had my marketing materials. But I did not want to get out of my truck, walk into the business and ask to speak to someone about our product. The anxiety caused by my fear of rejection was enormous.
As I was sitting behind my steering wheel of my truck I remember thinking about a book that I had recently read. The book was The Aladdin Factor by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. The book is all about teaching you the power of how to ask for what you want.
I remembered a specific section that talked about the fear of rejection, which read:
“…when you find yourself afraid to ask or afraid to take action, stop and take a deep breath. Then rationally ask yourself, “What is the worst thing that could happen? Is it really that bad? Can I survive it?” If you think you can, and what you want is important, then go for it.”
If you are rejected… “Realize you haven’t really lost anything. Remember that the rejection is really an illusion. Consider this: If I ask Janet to go to dinner with me and she says no, I didn’t have anyone to eat dinner with before I asked her, and I don’t have anyone to eat dinner with after I asked her. I did’t really lose anything. I didn’t have it before and I don’t have it now. There was no real loss. It didn’t get worse. It stayed the same.
If I apply to Harvard and I don’t get in, I wasn’t in Harvard before I applied, and I am not in after I applied. It didn’t get worse. It stayed the same. Since I am already handling that – not having dinner with Janet or not being a student at Harvard – what’s the big deal? I know I can cope with that reality because that already is my current reality and I am just fine.”
“What I point out to people is that it’s silly to be afraid that you’re not going to get what you want if you ask. Because you are already not getting what you want. They always laugh about that because they realize it’s so true. Without asking you already have failed, you already have nothing. What are you afraid of? You’re afraid of getting what you already have! It’s ridiculous! Who cares if you don’t get it when you ask for it, because, before you ask for it, you don’t have it anyway. So there’s really nothing to be afraid of.”
– Marcia Martin
If they kick me out because I showed up unexpected. If they don’t like my product. If, for any number of reasons, they do not want to be one of our distributors I told myself that I’d be ok. Because they are not one of our distributors now, they’ve never met me before. So if they reject me, what’s changed? They’re still not a distributor, they still don’t know me. Nothing has changed. Can I survive if that happens? I shut the truck off and went in.
Fortunately I don’t have to tell you about how I was rejected and kicked out of the building. Rather, this particular operation turned into a distributor for us and still sells our product today, 14 years later. But what this single experience did for me, was that it put me in the right mindset as I approached more and more potential distributors in the coming days and years.
I did have a number of “no’s” after this first attempt and I survived. But I also had a number of “yes’s” which helped us establish a great dealer network to sell our product. This was a great learning and growing experience for me that helped me as I established our sales network, but it was more than just that. It has helped me in a number of other situations, businesses and relationships since then. The fact that 14 years after this happened I still recall the story quite often shows the impact it has had on me.
In the words of W. Clement Stone, “If there is something to gain and nothing to lose by asking, by all means ask!”
