Attainable

The goal is more important than the role. If you think you’re the entire picture, then you’ll never see the big picture. And if a team is going to reach its potential, each player must be willing to subordinate their personal goals for the good of the team. But why is this important? “If you don’t have the proper big picture, not everyone understands that they play an integral part of that — not an individual part, not an independent part, but an integral part, which means they work together as a team.” And they support each other and they complement each other. In order for a team to reach its potential, it has to understand that individuals have to align with the interests and the impact the organization is desirous of making. And that picture has to be painted by the owner, the leader of the business. If you’re going to have a big picture, you have to have people who subscribe to the idea that their own personal agenda needs to be subordinated to the overall object

Intuition is the innate ability for an entrepreneur to see, sense, and take advantage of an opportunity. People are intuitive in their area of strength. And whenever a leader faces a problem, they automatically measure it and begin solving it using their intuition. “Intuition is built through doing things over and over and over and seeing the result.” Many of you started your business because you saw an opportunity to do something great. And then you get so busy doing whatever you’re doing that’s great, you don’t amplify and magnify and multiply it. You get yourself into a position where you’re the only one who can do it. When you’re so ingrained in doing it, you lose the ability to be intuitive. Intuition needs to breathe in your organization through your people and through you.

“Trust is the foundation of leadership. To build trust, a leader must exhibit competence, connection, and character. Character makes trust possible and trust makes leadership possible.” You want the kind of trust with your team that says they can engage you when there are problems, or when there are opportunities, or when they have thoughts, or when they just want to smile and say good morning. People are going to connect, they’re going to work with each other, they’re going to trust each other, they’re going to treat each other with a high level respect, understanding that everything that happens in your organization is energy. When people can trust that they understand who you are and what makes you up, how you’re going to engage them, and what they can depend on, then they’ll be more apt to connect with you in a way that allows them to share in your vision of where you want to go, as well as feel they can participate and that they’re an importa

Anyone can steer a ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course. When it comes to leadership, the first leadership you have to master is me leadership. Once you’ve mastered that and you’ve become an example to others, then you have to master we leadership. “Leaders who navigate do even more than control the direction in which they and their people travel; they see the whole trip in their minds before they even set course.” They have a vision for getting there. They know who they’ll need on the way and what kind of team they’ll need to be successful, and they recognize obstacles long before they appear on the horizon. If you know where you want to go and you know how to get there, you’ll do it bigger, better, and faster. And let me tell you, the wider your team and the deeper their experience, the faster and more successful you’ll be.

You are responsible for everything that happens to you — good, bad, or indifferent. If you blame others for where you’re at in life, you voluntarily give up your power to change. This is a huge mistake that most business owners make. See, when I talk to them and they tell me all the reasons they’re encountering struggle, they blame everyone around them. They blame the economy, the government, their competitors, their employees. But this isn’t going to solve the problem. And in the same market where they’re struggling, and all these people and all these things are the reasons they can’t succeed, there’s somebody growing unbelievably well, in the exact same market, doing the exact same thing. How is it that between two businesses doing the same thing, one could be struggling and failing and identify all the reasons that’s happening, and another one could be rolling in it, and expanding, and diversifying? Because they’re attracting to them what they want to a

We are the creators or the cause of our current conditions. We are the ones responsible for either having or not having. And a central growth principle is the more you outflow, the more you inflow. Better said, the more you give, the more you get. We must give the very thing that we want. If I want respect, love, appreciation, dedication, commitment, and loyalty, I have to give that first. I can’t attract it in my life if I’m not giving it. This is a clear example of what so many business owners struggle with. Do you know how many business owners talk to me and say, “What I want is an employee who’s loyal. I want an employee who’s respectful. I want an employee who cares about things other than themselves. I want an employee who will reach the extra mile or go the distance.” I want an employee who this, or I want an employee who that. Or I want a customer who this, or I wish the community would that. Hey, let me tell you something: Until you give it, you’re

To establish fact and belief, you have to write out exactly what it is you want to attain. You have to feel it. You have to see it. You have to visualize the attainment of what it is you want to be intentional about creating. Then you’ll have that emotional response, and it’ll trigger the reference points in your mind to go do the things that you need to do in order to make your picture come to life. But if you don’t write something down because you don’t have a picture, and you don’t visualize it, and you don’t put any energy behind it, it does you no good. So a picture and experience in your mind creates the triggers and the reference points to allow you to get the confidence to see a bigger result. Your self-activity involved in this accomplishment is so important, because if you first need to position yourself by creating a picture, feeling what it feels like to accomplish things to move you to that picture. Say you’re hiring your first employee ever, or

Anything you believe, the subconscious will validate. Absolutely every time, find the conditions to validate your broken belief. If you have a limited belief or broken belief, and you say you want to have a different result, unless you program your mind to think differently and to see things differently and to experience things differently, you’ll find the same result you already believe is going to occur. See, the belief is the master, and we become the slaves to that belief. Our belief dictates our actions. And through the repetitiveness of activity, if we succeed, we gain confidence and break through our false beliefs. But if we continue to stagnate or fail, we validate those broken beliefs. “If you want to change your result, you have to change your actions. But your actions can’t change until you change your belief.” Now, how do you do this? How do professional athletes do it? Through self-talk. The importance of self-talk is to simply surround your mentality and your mind with th

If you want a business that’s surviving and thriving rather than a business that’s struggling, that’s a decision — that’s a choice. You have to make that choice yourself. And the first part of getting what you want is clearly understanding and identifying exactly what that is. See, that’s where law of picture comes in, and law of compass. This is why law of picture is so important. If you have a picture and you use law of compass so you know what direction you’re going, and you surround yourself with people who have clarity and understanding and are attached to that picture — because their picture is inside of your picture — then you can all succeed together. “The first part of getting what you want is first clearly understanding what that is.” And then you have a team of people who understand what that is, and you have a clear picture and you have a compass that says we’re going to sail due north, and people understand how they

I’m so excited to share with you Beyond Positive Thinking. Dr. Robert Anthony is a world leader when it comes to the mind, and this is the book that changed my life forever. Your actions are a direct result of your ideas, right or wrong. Think about this. You are going to follow your thinking. So if you have broken or limited thinking, you’re going to have broken or limited results. Your opportunity to build a big business and achieve exactly what you say you want to achieve is directly relative to your belief structure. Low level of belief, low level of success. High level of belief, high level of success. This is why so many business owners have been able to go out and build businesses that are three, four, five, 10 times bigger than their peer groups’. “If we accept our beliefs as true, then they will be true for us, even if they’re formulated on faulty information.” If our thinking is limited with regards to our opportunity, our belief is low. And many of

As you look around at your fellow human beings, you’ll find it hard to ignore the fact that very few people are happy, fulfilled, and leading purposeful lives. Most of them seem unable to cope with their problems in the circumstances of daily living. The majority, settling for the average, have resigned themselves to just getting by. Resignation to mediocrity has become such a way of life. As a result, feelings of inadequacy cause them to blame society, people, circumstances, and conditions outside of their control. Their failures and their disappointments are all caused by something other than themselves. The idea that other people and things control their lives is so thoroughly ingrained in their thinking that they normally will not respond to logical arguments that prove otherwise. “William James, the eminent philosopher and psychologist, once observed that the greatest discovery of our age has been that we, by changing the inner aspects of our thinking, can change the outer aspects of our live

We’re talking about capturing your “How” Advantage — my good friend and business performance expert Ryan Estis kind of coined this phrase. And when we first started talking about it, I said, “What the hell is a ‘How’ Advantage?” The simplest and easiest way to define a “How” Advantage and to capture it is to focus on being remarkable consistently. “Now, my definition of being remarkable is worthy of being remarked upon.” And so this whole idea of good — your experience, your product, whatever it is, who you are — is it so good that I have to tell someone about the experience? And so I challenge people, and I’m like, “When was the last time you had an experience with a brand or a service provider that was so good that you had to tell someone about it? Better yet, when was the last time you created an experience for someone that was so good they had to tell someone about it?”

X-ers are in a really interesting place in that they are in kind of what I call the X-er Squeeze. They’re a squeeze generation between these two massive groups: 80 million boomers and roughly 80 million millennials. A smaller group, they’ve been waiting in the wings of boomers, forever waiting to step up into these key leadership positions, and now they’ve got this wave of millennials who are like, “It’s my turn. I want a seat at the table.” And X-ers are kind of like, “Dude, slow your roll.” “I’ve been waiting 20 years to take this spot.” And so if you’re interacting with X-ers, if you’re a baby boomer, you’ve got to find places to delegate to this generation, to let go of the reins, especially in family businesses. Step back and let them have an opportunity to step up and put their stamp on things. Don’t hold so tight to the idea that we do things this way because that’s the way it’s always been done a

For baby boomers, I would say a trend that I’m noticing is there is a group of boomers who have kind of fallen into this category of what i’ll call “They’ve retired without telling you.” They are not incredibly inspired right now, they’ve been doing a particular job for a period of time, they are kind of going through the motions, biding their time to be able to retire. “2008 slammed their retirement savings, so they are working longer than they thought were going to.” They’re going through the motions. What I say to people is that if you are managing or leading, a younger person managing a baby boomer, don’t write them off. I think we’ve got to think about the idea of reigniting the flame with many of these boomers. They just need to be reinspired! They need to have someone poke them and push them and say, “What do you want to create in the next however long your stretch is that you want to work? You want to work another three 

The bottom line in leadership isn’t how far we can advance ourselves but how far we can advance our teams. Think of the total number of team members working with you and ask yourself this question: How have you intentionally advanced those team members in helping them identify and pursue their personal, professional, and financial goals through performing at the highest level possible in your business? To help collectively create the highest magnitude of impact in your business for what you choose to do? Is it an intentional act? Are you intentionally aligning your people with the goals and obectives of the business? Do they feel that alignment? Or is the business about you and what you accomplish, and they are just there to support you? “How are you making things better for the people who follow you? How are you making their jobs easier?” How are you inspiring them to do things bigger, better, and more significantly, so that they’re more impactfully working for you? How

Those who can’t do can’t really teach. But those who can do can lead and show others how they change in order to create a more impactful result. First, learn to influence yourself. Be that living example. Don’t do it because you have the title of business owner. Don’t do it because you have the title of manager or director or vice president. Titles alone give you no power. They only represent your ability to either influence through your experiences and your actual intentionality with your team or through title, dictatorship. “Do it because I told you to, not because I am going to help you do it to attain a higher level of success like I’ve been able to accomplish myself.” That’s influence. You can’t grow and develop your business to the highest magnitude of impact if you can’t use your influence by example through others, challenging them to challenge themselves the same way you did as the highest example in the organization. And that

Everything rises and falls on leadership, that’s what John Maxwell says, and it is true in all we do. The true measure of leadership is influence. Your leadership effectiveness is directly relative to your ability to influence others, and it’s earned by example, not title. “If you can’t influence people, they will not follow you. And if people won’t follow you, you’re not a leader.” You have to first have the internal fortitude to influence and inspire yourself to believe higher. The higher you believe, the higher you will reach. Then once you believe at the highest levels possible, you then put the energy and effort into learning to do what you need to do in order to magnify and amplify at the highest levels possible your magnitude of impact through operational effectiveness. Change is not easy. In fact, the more you try to grow to become better at what you do, the increments become that much harder. If you can’t influence yourself to grow through trial, tribul

Today we’re talking about the law of curiosity. Growth is stimulated by asking why. The single greatest difference between curious, growing people and those who aren’t is the belief that they can learn, grow, and change. That’s it in a nutshell. Those who believe they can learn, grow, and change, and who believe it with all their heart, go out and look for solutions and look for answers for growth. “Anytime a person is answering more than asking, you can be sure that they have limited their overall growth potential.” Think about this: Have you ever dealt with someone who already had all the answers? I think we all have, haven’t we? But what happens when I already know the answer to the question? And what happens when I stop asking the question? It sounds like this: “How do I grow my business double or triple?” versus “I’m only going to grow 10%.” “How do I create million-dollar producers or providers?” versus &ld

What kind of people would you attract into your organization if you had the credibility, and reputation, for taking people who are inspired to do great things with their life, hiring them, and developing them so that they can attain a greater level of success by working with you because you took a personal interest in their development? And because you took a personal interest in their development, they took a personal interest in your business. By taking a personal interest in your business, they take a personal interest in the people you serve. They treat them like they treat their own family. Is that the type of environment you’d like to have in your business? “Do you have the belief that it is hard to hire good people? That it’s hard to find people who care? Is that your belief?” That it’s hard to get people who are inspired to do extra things that you don’t have to tell them to do? Or is it your belief that you’re going to attract high-thinking people, highly app

Gallup polls says that out of 100 million Americans, 70% of them who were surveyed in 2013 were either actively disengaged or disengaged at work. That means the core energy out of the 100 million who work, only 30% care about what they do. The question is how do you harness the power of your people to help you create an amazing organization? “It’s through doing things differently with your people. Who you surround yourself with contributes significantly to your life.” Let me tell you, if you don’t make it an absolute priority to surround yourself with the best people, with the best intentions, then it is a struggle building your business — a struggle for you and a struggle for them. And when you take two groups of people, you and your team, and you bring them together with a core purpose, a core objective, and a core agenda — which is to significantly improve the quality of each other’s lives through what you each choose to do together — that’s where