Get out of here!

by ColoradoCoach.

This morning I spent some time meeting new people and talking with other business owners.

I am reading the book The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz and came across a very common theme for success books: spend time with other people.  I rearranged my morning schedule so I could attend my local chamber’s business before hours. I did this to intentionally meet new members that I do not normally see.  And I was successful.

You see in order to grow your business and your opportunities you need to get out and meet new people. You also need to stay connected to your existing network.  Life and business really is about relationships.

So, figure out right now how you are going to get out there this week and get it into your schedule.

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6 Life Coaching Questions That Will Change Your Life

by ColoradoCoach.

My job as a coach is to ask powerful questions. I’ve discovered that asking the right question is probably the most critical skill you can have when coaching clients. We often push ourselves into confusion and despair…and can’t figure a way out of the “mental clutter” we’re in because we’re asking ourselves too many WRONG questions.

The reason you’re not achieving more, you are not getting closer to your goals, don’t feel fulfilled, and aren’t having the time of your life is simply because you have yet to ask yourself the right questions.  Asking yourself the right questions and implementing–that is taking action on– your answers is the key factor in creating the outcomes you want in your life.

Following are 6 powerful questions to start you off…

What do you value most in life?

You can have everything you want in life. The problem is, many people never get clear on what they really care about and value in their life. So even when they get it –whatever “it” may be–they still feel empty, like something’s missing. For example, one of my big values is FAMILY. I’m have been asked to join training companies that train all over the country and to participate in multi-city seminars, etc. And people don’t understand why I choose to turn most of those offers down. But to me, having to fly around the country, sleeping in hotels and not getting to kiss my wife and son goodnight, doesn’t honor my value of FAMILY. In fact that is a big reason why I stepped down from Vice President of Certified Coaches Federation.  You will only be happy and fulfilled when you are absolutely clear on what you value and are certain those values are being honored by the decisions and actions you take in your life.

What motivates you in life right now?

Why do you get up in the morning? What wakes you up right before your alarm, with a smile in your heart? What is worth getting out of bed for? Is it your spouse or your children? Is it because you love your job and can’t wait to get going on your day? What is that makes life worth living for you TODAY?

If you don’t know the answer to that question, it’s pretty hard to get up and going. In fact it might even be hard to fall asleep or stay asleep.  What are you grateful for right now? It’s easy to get down in the dumps about things that are going wrong. What’s going right? What are you grateful for? Life is not all about the haves and have-nots. Research reveals a more nuanced approach: Individuals who want what they have tend to be more motivated toward life than others.

What is currently preventing you from reaching this particular goal?

You set goals. You know where you want to be in 30 days, 90 days, 1 year, and 5 years from now. What is keeping you from reaching those goals? Take time to analyze the true problem.  If you’re like me, you’ve probably set similar goals before…and you didn’t reach them. You might have become frustrated and set the same goal again and again.

What is it that is keeping you from reaching your goal? By taking an objective approach (and you might need the aid of an accountability partner or a coach here) discover the real obstacle preventing you from achieving your goal. Then set a plan on how to overcome this obstacle step by step.

What can you eliminate in your life to help you reach your goal this time? Often it is excess baggage that is standing in our way.

What are you tolerating right now in your life? Are you holding on to something you need to let go of?

By figuring out the things you are currently tolerating in your life, you can often ”release the brake”.  By this I mean that too often we are taking the right steps and engaging the motivation in our lives, but we also have one foot firmly pushed down on the brake. By letting go of the things we are tolerating in our lives, and letting go of the emotional baggage we need to release, we also release the brakes.

Many times we are unable to take positive action because we can’t let go of the past. Forget the past; the only way it can haunt the future is if you let it.

What are you currently tolerating in your life? This includes anything you “put up with,” things that zap your energy, and compromises you’ve talked yourself into. People are only motivated in life through pain and pleasure. We either take action to avoid pain or to move us toward experiencing pleasure. What is causing pain in your life right now?

Make a list. Then develop a simple plan of eliminating each item you’re tolerating from your life that is on that list. DON’T WAIT. MAKE YOUR LIST NOW.

What are you willing to do in the next 30 days?

This is a big one.  Notice I didn’t ask “what CAN you do?” I asked “What are you WILLING to do?

What is the plan? I’ve learned to change from simply giving people a plan to follow– to asking what are you WILLING to do? Then develop a plan from there. Who cares if you buy a step-by-step system of success if you’re not willing to do 50% of the steps? It WON’T work. Could you imagine setting out to bake a cake but only following half of the recipe’s instructions. You’ll have a mess…not a cake.

If you keep doing what you’ve always been doing, THE RESULTS WILL REMAIN THE SAME.  What actions are you willing to take over the next 30 days to reach your goal? This leads into the next powerful question…

What will you do today to move you closer to your desired outcome?

When you know what you want in life and what you value most, and after you have discovered the things that are holding you back, then the next step is to commit your time to activities and areas that will move you CLOSER to what you want. There are just 24 hours in a day. Don’t waste your time on things that don’t matter or even worse-on negative thinking, negative speaking and actions that move you further away from the life you desire.

Make every moment count. Create a measuring stick in your mind that you use to determine how much time, effort and energy you will invest into anything–and base it on whether or not it’s honoring your values and moving you closer to your desired outcomes.

As easy as this sounds, this is the challenge. There are many strong habits that have already been established in your life. TV, Facebook, video games, friends, unexpected visitors, romance novels, texting, etc., etc., the list goes on forever. When you find yourself engaging in an activity that is not moving you closer to your goals and desired outcomes ask yourself this:

“What can I do right now that will take me in a positive direction to the results I want?”

One last note on how to use these questions. Many times clients have shared that they have asked themselves these questions, but they never followed through on the application of the answers. I have been there too.  A secret hidden power is to discuss these questions and answers out loud. Then write out the answers.  Taking thoughts and ideas and putting them into spoken words and spoken commitments, followed by writing them out gives them a powerful energy.

REMEMBER: If you want different outcomes from what you have been getting you must take different, more focused action.  If you normally read something like this and say you will do it later-THAT HAS NOT BEEN WORKING. Take different action and do it right now.

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Paving the Road to Success

by ColoradoCoach.

Failure: Dealing with failure is a key leadership skill. A leader needs to develop a good sense of recognizing failure and turning it into a learning experience. Failure does not have to be a big deal, but most people’s natural tendencies are the opposite of what needs to happen in order to turn a failure into a learning experience and not a confidence breaker. Too often those in leadership make failure too personal and try to cover up those failings. The road to success is paved with stones of failure.  The two truly go hand in hand.

In racquetball I often state that winning is great but it does very little to improving my game.  Losing on the other hand exposes many opportunities for improvement.  The overwhelming feedback that winning provides is that I am better than the other person.  My evaluation usually stops there. Losing causes me to examine so much more.  What did I do well?  What did I do horrible? What can I do next time to improve. what were the weaknesses in their game that I can better exploit next game. Losing creates a new passion inside me to succeed next game.

The fear of failure is ingrained in us at an early age.  We become afraid of the potential negative instead of the reward of the potential gain.  On a walk yesterday with my 4 year old I observed this practice.  He was walking along a ledge that was beside the sidewalk. There was a step up in the ledge, about 4 inches. The ledge was now about 4 feet from the sidewalk (on the other side was rocks and they were about two feet down.  My son froze.  All he could see was the four feet he would fall. When I asked him about this, he said he was afraid of falling.  When I asked him why he wasn’t afraid of falling before the step up, he replied ” I just wasn’t thinking about falling then.”

How often does this play a role in your life?  How often, after a little change or variation in your plan, do you only see the possible negative outcome?  How does this affect your results?

This is why it is critical that you understand that only through failure, will you find success.  The faster you experience failure, the faster you will discover the lessons for success. Leadership expert Robin Sharma shares that “the more you go to your limits, the more your limits will expand…The fears you don’t face become your walls.” In his book the Leader Who Had No Title one of the main characters, a ski instructor, points out that “tough runs build better skiers.”

Why does understanding this principle help to overcome the fear of failure? Basically, there is a shift in perception on the value of failure. Stop associating failure with no value or negative value. Create the paradigm shift that failure is a benefit, that it is the accelerant so that you can succeed faster. By changing this value the fear of failure is reduced.  The power is placed on the correct purpose.

Posted in Failing, Personal Development, business, success, habits, goal setting, Coaching, mindset | Print | No Comments »

Evaluating - The key to good course correction

by ColoradoCoach.

No matter if your final destination is the moon or the stars or financial freedom, can you imagine being off course 97% of the time? Some days it seems like that, doesn’t it. So what is the trick to staying on course? Evaluation and Correction.

Actually more accurately Constant evaluation and Constant Correction. Can you imagine trying to get better at making free-throws if you only took 1 shot from the line each month. It would be pretty hard to assess what you did wrong (or right) and make the appropriate adjustments. Yet this is exactly what most of us do in our lives and in our businesses. We check the monthly balance sheets to look at how we did. Sometimes we only take time to assess what went wrong long after we have been off course.

This video talks about establishing a daily routine of evaluation and reflection to make the necessary course corrections, so that you can arrive at your determined destination. This was shot at the Grand Canyon Sep. 2009.

Please share your comments and examples.

Posted in Personal Development, business, Failing, success, Coaching, habits, goal setting | Print | No Comments »

YouTube - Small Business tips from the birds

by ColoradoCoach.

Posted in Marketing, business | Print | 1 Comment »

You can Change the World with a Shift of View

by ColoradoCoach.

YouTube - Lost Generation

There are so many things that we must choose to reverse. Not just in our own personal lives, but in society–in our own communities. Reversing things starts with seeing the world around us from many differing perspectives.The next step is committing to the change.Finally, take action. Do something! Start with yourself!

Posted in Kids, power of the mind, mindset, positive thinking | Print | 1 Comment »

YouTube - Lost Generation

by ColoradoCoach.

YouTube - Lost Generation

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

Defining who you are

by ColoradoCoach.

One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

What is the set of your soul? What is the longing passion that burns inside of you?

Over time many people quiet their authentic self, their passionate self, in order to make a living. Often we do not see the clear path that allows us to do both, and we choose making a living as a means of pure survival. Then we fill our lives as a tactic to keep that burning passion quiet.

As we grow older and seek out our destiny that passion continues to grow louder and louder, until it can no longer be buried. It cries out from our soul. It points us in directions we have not looked at for years.

Take time today to identify who you are? How do you define yourself? Not “what do you do?” or “What roles do you play?” but “WHO ARE YOU?”  Define who you are and begin to live your life from that definition.

Posted in Purpose, Personal Development, Coaching, goal setting | Print | No Comments »

Business Mistakes to Avoid

by ColoradoCoach.

As a small business coach I often see small business owners running themselves ragged, working long hours,  not spending time with their families nor doing the things that they enjoy and not experiencing the freedom they hoped owning their own business would bring.

It is easy to get stuck in some of the common pitfalls of business ownership.  These bad habits can be difficult to break out of. The key is really to  start working smarter, not harder.

I thought I would share the  most common mistakes I see small business owners make, and how you can prevent (or stop) yourself from making them:

1. Not setting clear goals. Operating without a clearly defined outcome, where you want your business to go is a sure recipe for disaster.  It is important to take actions with a purpose. Too often I find business owners who are doing many of the right things, but with no direction or purpose and then they get frustrated because the results are not what they expected. Creating a solid vision, and establishing clear, measurable & attainable targets are the first steps.

2. Confusing being busy with being successful. It’s really easy to believe that working 70-hour weeks in your business is just part of being successful.  But what about having the personal freedom and financial freedom to do the things we enjoy and spend time with those we love?  What about creating a balance in your life?  Become aware of how you spend your time.  Assess whether you are spending it in the most efficient way.

3. Weak marketing message.  If your marketing message doesn’t speak directly to your market’s needs and wants your marketing materials will get lost in the storm.  A strong and consistent marketing message that speaks to the question “what’s in it for me?” will trump sexy design every time. Be clear on what problem you or your product solves for your target.

4. Ignoring your true target market.  Too many businesses operate without a good understanding of who their target market is, including how they think, and how they behave.   Trying to market to everybody  is a recipe for disaster, all marketing initiatives are just shots in the dark, and money into the fire.  With this knowledge about your market, all leads are qualified and conversion rates soar.

5. Forgetting the value of current customers. I often see small businesses work so hard on bringing in new business and forget to serve the current business they have.  An example of this is answering the phone during a customer transaction. Or offering discounts to new clients, but not honoring the same discount for current clients.

Customer retention and satisfaction drive profits. It’s far less expensive to cultivate your existing customer base and sell more services to them than it is to seek new, single-transaction customers. Most surveys across industries show that keeping one existing customer is five to seven times more profitable than attracting one new one (Graham Roberts-Phelps.)

Customer retention is about relationship and keeping them active.  Customer loyalty programs are a great way to reward frequent customers, plus it is a helpful way to learn these customers names and get contact information. Use the customers name.  Remember details about them (birthdays, vacations, spouse, children, etc).

If you identify with any of these concerns now is the time to address them.  As a business owner you are not expected to be perfect in all areas of the business, but you should expect that you know which resources to allocate to each concern. Not addressing a problem will definitely not solve it. Throwing more money at it only makes it a more expensive problem. Take time now to clearly identify, create a vision, implement a plan and evaluate the outcomes.

Posted in Vision, business, Failing, success, Coaching, goal setting | Print | 2 Comments »

3 most Important Factors in Personal Development

by ColoradoCoach.

The three most important factors in purchasing real estate: location, location, location.  I know it seems cliche’, but it an essential part of understanding how to buy real estate as an investment.  Similarly, the three most important factors in personal development are a vital piece to understanding how to make positive conscious changes in your life.

The first important factor for personal development and self-improvement is awareness.  You must become aware of how you think, your feelings, your actions & behaviors, and your habits.  You also must take time to recognize the things that you are not doing that can be detouring you from your success.  Finally you must become clear on what it is you want and why it is that you want it.  This level of awareness does not come easily.  Much of the beginning of my coaching relationships focus on this area.  I have discovered that many people believe they are aware of who they are and their problem areas, but are only aware of the symptoms of their issues.

Too often we are aware of the symptoms in our lives, like not enough money, overweight or stressed, but unaware of the true underlying problems that create these outward signs of distress.  We are conditioned and programmed to treat symptoms in this country. If you have a headache there is a pill for that.  Heartburn?  Yep there is a pill for that.  We are never taught to identify the true problems and treat that.  Absolute awareness is critical in making changes in your life.  You must know what you are up against.

The second critical factor is vision.  You must have a clear vision of what you are pursuing.  Can you imagine hitting a target you can’t see?  How about putting together a 3000 piece jigsaw puzzle without seeing the picture on the box?  Can it be done?  Sure it can.  I takes a lot longer, is way more frustrating, and completely draining of energy.

By creating a detailed vision of what it is you are after you are more capable of seeing where the pieces belong.  It will still require putting them together in the correct way, some trial and error, but you will not be aiming blind-folded.

Clarity of a plan is just as important as a clear vision.  Once you have the picture you begin to create a structure for completion.  In completing a jigsaw puzzle, you first find all the edges and construct the border of the puzzle.  Then you begin to group the pieces by color or forms from the picture.  So it is with your vision. First create a structure and then identify the steps that will lead to putting all the pieces together.

The third and final critical factor is application, application, application.  Most people I speak to about personal and professional development have amazing libraries.  They have books from all the gurus Napoleon Hill, Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Steven Covey, Brian Tracy and Jim Rohm. The problem is not lack of information or content, their problem is lack of application and action.  We all have access to the resources we need to create the life and achieve the goals we desire.  The struggle arises out of applying those resources effectively.  It’s like owning a Mercedes-Benz S-Class and never driving it. Instead you choose to take the bus everywhere and complain when the bus doesn’t go where you want to go.  You have the resources, apply them.

Knowledge becomes wisdom when you experience it. Applying what you learn creates that experience.  Don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself.  Go and begin applying the lessons from this post.  Become aware of yourself, create a clear vision and take action.

I hope that after reading this you realize that the three critical factors in personal development are application, application, application.

Posted in Personal Development, Vision, success, SMART goals, Coaching, habits, goal setting | Print | No Comments »