Video Blog

Many of us would probably say we have never felt MORE peaceful than when we are in nature…

BUT, what if I told you that the reason you are peaceful when in nature is probably not REALLY what you think it is?

What if the REAL reason you feel so calm and peaceful in nature is that there is nothing for you to do there – FINALLY in a place where there is nothing for you to try to control or be responsible for…

Because the truth is, as peaceful as it seems, NATURE is NOT peaceful or quiet…

There is actually a SH*T TON going on around you (bugs, trees, animals, photosynthesis, growth, death, etc) BUT the difference here is that NONE OF IT requires YOU to exert any creative energy for it to function, and so, you feel at peace…

So what does this have to do with us creating a C-P Business? Well, in short, EVERYTHING!

Competition-Proof Businesses, at their CORE, are an exercise in consistent CREATIVITY…

The CREATIVITY to build something that is centered around your gifts, that serves people in the way YOU are most uniquely qualified that does so in a way that is totally unexpected cannot afford to be distracted by the heavy thoughts that tell us “I’m not good enough/smart enough/WHATEVER enough!”

And yet, when those thoughts pop up in our heads WE BELIEVE it is our RESPONSIBILITY to force them out, chase them away or overcome them…

THEN, instead of our FULL-TIME job being SERVING OTHERS, we take on the full-time job of DEALING WITH our thoughts – all of our creative energy leaked out, handling something that was never our responsibility to being with!

Instead, we can SEE our thoughts for what they are and not try to strong arm them into doing what we want, including leaving…to see them just as we see nature…

To see the myriad of things happening all around us without us doing anything to MAKE IT SO and equally, not needing to do anything to MAKE THEM GO…

When this happens, we recapture all of that precious creative energy and can channel it into BUILDING our business, to SERVE our people and to THRIVE in our lives…without the stress and struggle.

I once had a client who really wanted to connect with the VP of marketing for a huge Fortune 100, but felt SO MUCH ANXIETY about reaching out to him because the guy was SOOOO successful!

He kept telling me that if he could just build up his own confidence, THEN he would feel powerful enough to reach out to the big wig marketing dude!

I smiled and nodded (genuinely, I promise!) and then I asked him if he would be open to play a GAME…

He agreed and so I asked him to find this VP’s FULL BIO – one that listed all of his “PEDESTAL-WORTHY” accomplishments – and to print it out…

Next, I invited him to circle EVERY accomplishment that was listed in the bio…

“I was the youngest VP in the company,” “graduated from Harvard,” “created a new business unit that ended up bringing in $17M per quarter into the company.” WHATEVER the accomplishment, JUST CIRCLE IT…

AND THEN I told him to write next to each one of those accomplishments, what MIGHT have been going on in this VP’s world – in the VP’s mind and in the VP’s words – as he was achieving all of these things…

For example: “I became the youngest VP of marketing in the company…AND what nobody knows is that I was SO ANXIOUS going into my FIRST day that I would be ‘found out’ as a FRAUD and wouldn’t live up to the EXPECTATIONS they had of me”…

Or “I graduated top of my class at Harvard…AND what nobody knows is that I lost several of my personal relationships because I was so obsessive about my schoolwork”…

It DIDN’T MATTER if any of the stuff that was TRUE…

ALL that mattered was that it helped my client HUMANIZE this UBER-SUCCESSFUL dude – no need to “Pump Himself UP” to be GOOD ENOUGH to reach out…

Who is the “VP of Marketing” in your world right now? The person you REALLY want to connect with, but seems so “OUT OF YOUR LEAGUE” that you are terrified to reach out?

Remember that everyone has experienced some kind of STRUGGLE or SUFFERING on their way to becoming the person they are today…

Never forget that underneath it all, they are still humans AND, just like you and me, EVERYBODY POOPS!

Raise your hand if you have a VISION for something you’d love to CREATE!

Now keep your hand UP if you frequently TELL people about it? (thanks for playing along even though I can’t see you…or can I? 🤔)…

For some of you, your hands are WAAAAAY up in the sky!!! DOPE! Keep that 💩 up!

For others though, I’m guessing you just completed the slow, awkward descent of your hand back down to a comfy position…

It’s cool! Believe me, I GET IT! If you are anything like the people I work with (and that always means ME at some point in my journey), you’re probably WAITING until you have it all FIGURED OUT to open your pie-hole about it, aren’t you?

…Leaning back on the safety of seemingly solid statements of ‘FACT’ like – “It just doesn’t feel FLESHED OUT yet so I can’t share it with anyone!”…

But you don’t need to WAIT! In fact SHARING what you are working on can actually CREATE THE CLARITY you have been waiting for!

We are SO quick to DOWNPLAY and DISCOUNT our creations; keeping our brainchildren locked up as PRISONERS in the SOLITARY CONFINEMENT of our minds waiting for them to miraculously develop into perfection…in the effin dark!

BUT talking about something BEFORE it’s ready, shining a big SPOTLIGHT on what LIGHTS YOU UP (especially with the peeps who want to see you WIN) is one of the BEST ways to get CLEAR so you can take ACTION more quickly…

Who gives a 💩 if it’s NOT where you want it to be YET? Newsflash… if you’re like me, it likely NEVER will be…soooo SHARE. IT. NOW!

It doesn’t need to be perfect…it ONLY has to be something YOU care MORE about SHARING with the world than you do about PROTECTING your EGO!

Even if it feels a bit scary, SHARING YOUR VISION (instead of endlessly overthinking and obsessing over it) WILL create CLARITY!

So if it MATTERS to YOU, do yourself and the people who are your supporters a favor – SHARE it with them…

Don’t downplay. Don’t discount. And OF COURSE – STAY LIT UP!

My CHALLENGE to you is to drop into your 💚 and share ONE of your seemingly “NOT-READY-FOR-PUBLIC-CONSUMPTION” visions with us below and SEE how LIT UP you feel!

In her poem entitled “It takes courage to _____” Shelly Francis writes:

“It takes courage 
to ask ‘who shall I be’
 so that I can do [what?] so the world can be better for all.
 Leadership takes courage
 and gives courage, too.”

The theme of COURAGE is showing up quite a bit for me lately…

It is showing up in the people I work with (who are in the PLAY-FULL process of exercising more of it)…

The people I am meeting at events (who are seeking out what it means to embody it)…

AND, most prominently, it is showing up in how I AM SHOWING UP (or being called INTO showing up) in the growth of myself and my business…

So I’ve been REALLY curious about the secret to developing more courage; cultivating it, practicing it, teaching it, hell, even identifying what it looks like and why it’s important…all through the lens of Self-Leadership…

And what I’ve come to realize is that being a Self-Leader means CHOOSING courage, in whatever form will best serve you in THIS moment…

…AND I’ve realized that it is NOT always fun to be courageous on the surface; sometimes it can be pretty damn “squirm-worthy”…

…but it is ALWAYS worth it!

Courage can be a gentle awareness of the INNOCENCE of your ‘unproductive’ or stressful thoughts…

Courage is saying YES AND equally (and often more powerfully) Courage is saying NO…

Courage can be small, purposeful action when it just seems like TOO BIG of a challenge to take on…

Courage can be DANCING with UNCERTAINTY when it feels like only the safety of a guaranteed outcome will do…

Courage can be LOVING yourself and everything you are experiencing in this moment even when your DEFAULT reaction is to wish things were different instead…

It takes courage to LEAD YOURSELF and when you choose to COME FROM courage you are, in turn, rewarded with MORE of it…

Will you join me in bringing even 5% more courage into your own world and being a model of that for the people around you today?

If so, who you become and what you create will be nothing short of miraculous!

John Wooden—one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time—would make sure that all of his players PULLED UP their socks and DOUBLE-TIED their laces BEFORE they ever stepped onto the court…

And this wasn’t just before a GAME, but for EVERY SINGLE PRACTICE…

He would even take the time to TRAIN his players on the BEST way to put on their SOCKS so that the fabric didn’t WRINKLE around their heels and cause BLISTERS…

While most coaches were focusing all of their time and attention on running plays and drills, Wooden was teaching his players how to PUT ON SOCKS…

His reasoning being that MASTERY on the LITTLE THINGS spills over into the BIG THINGS…

This kind of attention to DETAIL is the KEY behind building a COMPETITION-PROOF business and it undoubtedly helped Wooden win ten NCAA national championships in a twelve-year period…

In a world of “let’s get it done FASTER and CHEAPER,” there is a way to SET YOUR BUSINESS APART by SLOWING down and really CARING about the DETAILS…

And I don’t JUST mean while you are DELIVERING your coaching, consulting, teaching or whatever your core service offering it…

I’m talking about being PURPOSEFUL about how you treat ALL of the moments BEFORE and AFTER “the sale” that can really impact a client’s experience…

Whether it’s something simple like setting up an online calendar that makes it EASY for clients or prospective clients to book a call with you…

OR sending your clients recordings of your calls together so that they can focus on being PRESENT during your call instead of being DISTRACTED by taking notes…

OR making it EFFORTLESS for people in your programs to locate important links and information for group calls or support…

Not only will you save YOURSELF the time of having to explain something or answer a question when something is unclear, but you’ll make it so that your clients don’t have to WORK as hard to experience PROFOUND TRANSFORMATION…

What’s one SEEMINGLY SMALL detail you could focus on MASTERING in YOUR interactions with clients and prospective clients that would SURPRISE and DELIGHT them?

What do these three things have in common…

Healthy eating, meditation and working out?

They are the three things “I haven’t had the time or energy to do” this past week…

It’s so easy, convenient and EVEN FACTUAL to say such a thing!

Come on man, I’m traveling and working longer days – YOU CAN’T POSSIBLY expect me to take care of myself when I’m doing so much to take care of others (side note, who is this “YOU” that I seem to be trying to convince? Have I officially lost it? 🤔)…

There is only a small difference between how I process this inner dialog now vs. 5 short years ago…

I now know that the excuses are an innocent story…

No different than a child saying they can’t go back to their room because there is a monster under the bed…

We wouldn’t give any significance to that story AND we also wouldn’t try to conceptualize and explain to the child that monsters don’t exist – at least not with much success…

No, we would instead go directly to the source!

We would walk side by side with the child, lending them our BRAVERY and COURAGE while we explored the TRUTH…

Kneeling down together, looking under the bed and seeing that only MISMATCHED SOCKS and DUST BUNNIES lived there…

Then we would both laugh, tuck them in, kiss their forehead and let them go back to sleep…

So that’s what I did this morning…

No beating myself up, no making additional excuses…

I got up at 5:30am, got dressed, grabbed my water and my speech for some last minute rehearsal…

I borrowed bravery and courage from my best self and headed down the long hotel corridor to the nearly empty gym…

I felt like such a VIP!

Then I meditated and will make healthier food choices…

NOT for ALL days…just for TODAY!

I hope this serves as a reminder for you that there are no REAL monsters, nothing that can ACTUALLY hurt us…just mismatched socks and dust bunnies…

JUST FOR TODAY, What stories will you challenge? What truths will you explore that might take you from STUCK to PURPOSEFUL Action?

Traditional sales tactics are focused on creating an environment of FEAR, SCARCITY, URGENCY, and PRESSURE to sell…

Most salespeople are taught that the FASTEST way to get someone to buy from you is to FOCUS on and AMPLIFY their pain…

Creating a false SAVIOR complex a.k.a. “If I don’t buy what this person is selling, I am totally EFFED!”

And you know what, the people teaching these methodologies are…RIGHT!

That IS often the “FASTEST” way to get someone to buy from you because P*A*I*N will compel people to take action…

BUT there are 2 problems with BANKING on that…

1. It has your prospective client approach the PROCESS of transformation with the SAME SENSE of urgency and scarcity that they BOUGHT INTO it with…

And as Albert Einstein taught us, “You can’t SOLVE a problem with the SAME THINKING that created it”… – so the likelihood of transformation is GREATLY diminished!

2. “PAIN-BASED” selling only keeps people ENGAGED while they are in the MIDST of the CRISIS…

Once the PERCEIVED THREAT wears off, they may no longer see the VALUE in what you sold them…

And if the time comes where they need to cut costs somewhere, YOUR coaching is likely to be one of the FIRST things cut…

Don’t believe me? When was the last time you RAVED about your home’s alarm system to a friend?

Probably NEVER, because in the absence of an IMMINENT threat, we don’t even think about those things!

So what’s the ALTERNATIVE then???

It’s SIMPLE…Don’t SELL on PAIN; instead, SELL by SERVING!

Don’t create (or MAGNIFY) any FEAR or SCARCITY your prospective client may be feeling in the hopes they’ll be COMPELLED to “BUY NOW”…

Instead, create (and MAGNIFY) a VISCERAL VISION of POSSIBILITIES with them…

Something they are LIT UP by and EXCITED about!

THEN when they experience true TRANSFORMATION from that work, they’ll be MORE likely to buy from you again AND be MUCH more likely to RAVE about you to OTHERS…

Get clear on how you want YOUR “sales process” to look: Do you to want to SELL to people with PRESSURE or SERVE people with POSSIBILITIES?