Excellerate Associates, the go-to business mentors for entrepreneurial and leadership development
Today we tap into the creative minds of future authors in the Best Seller Profit System Mentoring Program. I remember the time I launched my first book.
I wanted to rewrite parts, add more chapters, and edit it over and over. My editor at the time said that, at some point, I will just need to release it.
Letting go isn’t always easy but it’s often necessary to birth a new idea.
What can you let go of to create a new idea, a new chapter, or a new level?
One of the first steps to creating a successful business, is to bring a concept to a reality. As you do this, you will create momentum and; before you know it, you have a growing team.
You even figure some things out along the way about yourself and get comfortable that you’re at the peak of your leadership. You are planning your work and working your plan. You commit to stretch yourself knowing you can take on more.
While your cash flow stabilizes your expenses have increased. You experience growing pains. Stress levels are high and your visions don’t materialize as quickly has you planned.
It’s easy to let your emotions get the best of you. You start to second guess yourself for taking a risk, kick yourself for adding expenses, or make short-term decisions that solves a temporary problem yet don’t address the long term.
Remember, you can only take your team to the level at which you are personally willing to go.
Take a breath and remind yourself of the leader you are and; most importantly, the leader you are being called to be. It’s in the moments of breakdowns you are called to a stronger level of leadership. The bigger the breakdown, the bigger leap you will make in your leadership.
In that moment where you:
• Think you need to just work harder in the business
• Are tempted to cancel your plans to attend an event that will move your business ahead
• Want to stay working in the business because it’s just too much to think of leaving your team with the volume of work
…breathe.
Consider for a moment how it could all work. Tap into your creative mind:
• Ask yourself how you could keep all of your commitments (without working harder).
• Call on your team to step up or ask them for ideas.
• Make bold requests.
• Ask for help, look for volunteers, and accept assistance.
• Be assertive, proactive, and unstoppable.
You have a choice: to back down and go to what is comfortable or move ahead. You are being called to take on more than you have ever taken on.
Instead of being enveloped in the circumstances of the day, step inside of your contribution. If your website crashes before a big launch, you lose a major book of business, or your funding dries up, guide your team through the process with peace and ease. As a leader, this will be as challenging as it is important.
If you expect your team to perform, lead by example. There is no greater motivation than to see the person in charge modeling strong leadership behavior. This might mean taking time away from the office to attend that conference even when it isn’t convenient. This might look like being the calm when all is chaos.
You know all of those breakdowns you’re experiencing? You’re just being called to be a stronger leader. Work through it with grace because on the other side is where you will find your greatest leadership victory.
REMINDER WAKE UP PROFITABLE BOOT CAMP FOR BUSINESS OWNERS.
If you’re looking to step up your leadership and scale your business, this is the very last chance to join us on October 4-5, 2018 where we’ll apply a powerful framework and you’ll walk out with a plan to scale and systematize your business! This powerful boot camp includes on-the-spot mentoring, design and implementation sessions. A convenient installment program is available, too! Simply register at http://www.wakeupprofitable.com
Give yourself this time to take giant leaps forward in your business. When you register, you will receive a Welcome Call. This call is designed to have you powerfully positioned to walk into the Wake Up Profitable Boot Camp.
When you walk in, you’ll collaborate with other high-achieving small business owners, and we will get right in to learning a powerful framework to:
-Develop and lead a high-functioning team
-Expand your business model and revenue streams
-Be up to 40% more productive
-Systematize a year’s worth of marketing in 1 hour
-Distinguish your company in the marketplace
-And more
What would that open up for you if you could achieve those results like our clients have?
Head on over to http://www.wakeupprofitable.com and join our group of high-achieving business owners. As an added plus, you’ll also be supporting our Charity of Choice, Sweet Dreamzzz. A portion of each registration supports this non-profit organization dedicated to sleep education for children. Thanks also to our Sponsor-Partners: The Betty Brigade, Business Innovation Lab, Legal Shield, and Wellness Universe.
See you soon!
Create a great life,
Lisa Mininni, President, Excellerate Associates – showing thousands of business owners how to scale their business
Founder, The Business Innovation Lab, CoWorking and Conference Space
The new year is often a signal to set new goals and create new outcomes. Goals give your business and life direction and boost your motivation.
Let’s face it, when you create goals that are a stretch, the reality you’re living in doesn’t always match up. There’s a gap.
That gap naturally creates breakdowns. The most recent breakdown happened to be January 17.
What was January 17, you ask? That day is dubbed Ditch Your Resolution Day.
It turns out that 91 percent of Americans fail to keep their resolutions. Just weeks into the new year and the majority of people are already giving up.
Consider that if you didn’t create a goal that took you beyond your current skill level, you wouldn’t experience these break downs. You are presented with a new opportunity to develop, to go beyond what you think you know, to boldly become what it takes to fulfill on that goal.
Break downs are opportunities. You can disempower yourself by trying to fix what is wrong. Focusing on what is wrong or what needs to be fixed may be entertaining, but it is not in the spirit of effective leadership.
Effective leaders create new opportunities, magnificent possibilities, and desired outcomes. They continuously communicate the vision and instill that vision in others. They honor their word. They practice what they teach.
Will you back down from any one of your promises because you’re experiencing a break down? Or, will you restore your promise and be in action consistent with your desired future?
Even in what could be the messiness of all break downs, choose powerfully. Fulfill on your promises. Honor your word. Choose to take action consistent with the desired future instead of the circumstance.
Every step of the way through a breakdown ask yourself, who do I need to be to fulfill on my agreement, the desired future, or the ideal outcome?
Then be it.
Several years ago, I had just finished my Next Level Networking Keynote at a business conference when a woman approached me. She shook my hand and said four words that left me speechless. For a professional speaker, that’s not an easy thing to do.
“You saved my marriage,” She said. After I registered the magnitude of her words, I mustered up a fumbled response. “What did I say?”
During an experiential exercise, she resonated with being wired as an external thinker. She verbalizes to crystallize her ideas and thoughts. However, she noticed that her spouse was an internal thinker. Her spouse gives her a blank processing stare when she speaks to him.
Admittedly, she made his blank stare mean that he wasn’t listening and a list of other assumptions. When I explained the dynamic between these two hardwiring distinctions, she realized that he was just processing internally.
She realized that all she had to do was wait for him to process or ask him if he needed a minute to think about it. Just because he didn’t verbalize that he heard her didn’t mean he wasn’t listening. It also didn’t mean he was ignoring her.
Imagine being in business together. Whether you’re talking to a significant other, business partner, co-worker, or team member, recognizing the way you and others crystallize thought can make a real difference in team performance.
Isn’t it interesting that we know each person has a different style of communicating and doing things, but many people never really realize why that is? Yet, when you create awareness on how you and others are wired, you will be infinitely more effective in communicating, problem solving, and leading.
Prosperity Expert and Best Selling Author, Randy Gage, recently wrote, “Your happiness, harmony and prosperity aren’t determined by the situations you face, but how you judge those situations.” There is a lot of truth in these words.
As a business owner, you want things to go your way and in your time frame. If you’ve been in business any length of time, you know that thinking things will always go your way and in your time frame is laughable. Even though you prepare and plan, you will need address unexpected situations.
For most business owners, the default is to judge a situation by pointing at how unreasonable the person is being, how unfair you’re being treated, or how the timing is not working out in your favor.
Consider an alternative.
Consider how you judge those situations. As I shared in my book, Me, Myself, and Why? The Secrets to Navigating Change, early in my career, I was working for a company and saw an opportunity to be promoted. At the same time, I had just discovered that I had a malignancy and needed to go through treatment. The CEO decided to bring in a Director from another location to oversee operations. I was disappointed and relieved at the same time.
There were many negative stories that I had made up in my head that contributed to my feeling deflated. What I learned later is that the Director was temporarily transferred to our location so that she could be transferred when a different location was opened.
What I hadn’t considered is that the leadership saw my potential. I just needed to learn additional skills and life lessons that would prepare me to step into a more advanced role.
At some point, I decided to be open to learn all I could learn and be seen as someone who was promotable. It only took months for the entire situation to turn around. Shortly after, I was promoted to the role, got healthy, and learned some valuable lessons.
The next time something doesn’t work out in your favor, take 100% responsibility for the situation. Consider that you are experiencing the situation so that you can step up and into your greater self as a leader.
There is a poem that I often share with my clients. If inspired, feel free to share it with those people you’re standing for in the world.
I Am Standing for You
By Lisa Mininni
When I suggest a greater goal,
I’m standing for you because you are capable of more.
When I say no,
I’m standing for you because you have the ability to make it happen.
When I challenge your idea,
I’m standing for you because you’re creative beyond measure.
When I don’t buy into your excuses,
I’m standing for you to be the remarkable soul you already are.
When I hold you to account,
I’m standing for the contribution you say you want to make for others.
When I stand for you,
it’s because the world needs you.