5 Incredible Life Lessons I Learned from Michael Hyatt I want to share with you five lessons that I’ve learned from a mentor, friend, and business partner of mine, Michael Hyatt. For several years, I was business partners with Michael. He’s an amazing man, from whom I learned a tremendous amount. Although I learned far more from Michael than I could ever fit into a blog post, I’d like to share with you the top five lessons that I learned from working with him. Lesson number one: be consistent. One of the things I remember asking Michael in the beginning was how he built his (substantial) following. What he shared with me was that the moment he became really consistent in the way he creates content, things completely took off. Because consistency creates trust and it created trust with his audience when he committed to blogging every day and podcasting every week. That consistency transferred into all areas of his life. It transferred into the actions he would take. It transferred into his character. That was a huge lesson for me. Be consistent. It creates trust for your audience, it creates trust for the people that are around you, it creates trust for your team, it creates trust for your loved ones. Lesson number two: be authentic. Now, we hear that all the time. What does it really mean? For Michael, it meant being authentic with his personality. It meant being authentic with his values, beliefs, and philosophies. It meant being authentic in what he stands for. So authenticity is like consistency. It’s getting clear on who you are and what you stand for, and then staying consistent to that in all of your actions, and not compromising who you are just to suit a situation. I saw Michael doing that over, and over, and over again. And not just in public, but in private. He didn’t put on one face in front of the camera and another behind the scenes. He was totally consistent in his character, regardless of the situation. Lesson number three: be intentional. Michael uses this word a lot. In fact, for many years, it was in his actual company name. What I came to learn about Michael’s version of intentionality, was that it was very similar to what others would call being ‘strategic’. As in, instead of just leaving things to chance, be intentional about them. If you want to develop a better relationship with your spouse, don’t just say you want a better relationship with your spouse, do something about it. Be intentional. Set date nights on the calendar, map out times when you will be together. Be intentional about your business. Your goals won’t accomplish themselves. You have to be intentional about taking active steps toward those goals. You have to be intentional about your decision making. Here’s a perfect example: Going into this new year, there are tons of opportunities for my team and I. It’s amazing. I’m super grateful for it. However, even though there’s a ton of great opportunities coming our way, they don’t all line up with our vision. Frankly, we don’t have time to say yes to EVERYTHING. It’s forcing us to be intentional about the way that we decide whether to say yes or no to these opportunities. You can’t just drift to your final destination. You can’t just drift to your ideal business or life. You’ve got to be intentional about it. Lesson number four: be open. This is where I believe a lot of successful leaders get into trouble. They’re not open to new ideas, and they get stuck in thinking that the way they do things is the only way to do things. But you and I know that times change. One of the traits I loved about Michael was that he was always open. He was always open to new ideas and learning. He would go to conferences so that he could learn new ideas and bring them back into his business and his life. He would intentionally hire people that he wanted to learn from. He was open to ideas from the team, to different approaches and different experiments. It was amazing to watch. I’ve seen a lot of people who achieve a certain level of success and they stop being open to new ideas. And I don’t know whether it’s ego, or fear of change, or fear that they could lose something, but it’s like they put an iron gate around themselves. They stop being open to the fact that the marketplace is changing, and what worked 10 years ago might not work now. By staying open, Michael always stays on the cutting edge of what’s happening in his marketplace. Lesson number five: be approachable. One of the reasons we all love Michael is that he’s very approachable. He is actively engaged with his audience, whether it be in blog comments, on Facebook or different platforms, he’s engaged with his audience. He genuinely wants to interact, he genuinely wants to learn, he genuinely wants to share, and respond, and answer questions. Very few people have that same approach. People – the more successful they become – they almost become standoffish. Michael’s the opposite. He leans in. And sure, as your audience grows, you can’t always respond to everybody. But when you make a serious effort to engage and be approachable, your audience recognizes that. Additionally, as a business partner, Michael was very easy to approach with new ideas, new strategies, new concepts, new projects. His team is never afraid to bring ideas to him and it creates a free flow of communication, and that free flow of communication is what creates the magic. It’s amazing to me,I see a lot of people gain some success and put themselves up on a pedestal. And their team doesn’t want to approach them with new ideas because they’re afraid that they’re just going to be shut down. With Michael, you could come to him with an idea and even if he didn’t like it, you still felt safe and like your input was valued. I think about this in how I work with my team, and even with my family. I think about how this relates to my kids, so as they grow older, if they have challenges they will always feel comfortable talking to me about them. These character traits and lessons that I learned from Michael are so valuable to me in my professional and my personal life. They can be applied to everything. I’m extremely grateful for the chance to work with Michael and for our relationship. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without him. To summarize, the five things I learned from Michael Hyatt: Be consistent. Be authentic. Be intentional. Be open. Be approachable.
How to do less and make more in 2017 How was your year? I hope it was FANTASTIC, and if not, I wish you strength, luck, and momentum to charge forwards into 2017 and beyond. I want you to know that, in 2017, you can do less and make more. How the heck can you do less and make more? That’s what I want to outline for you here today, because that actually was my plan in 2016 and it turned out spectacularly well, so I’m going to be repeating it again in 2017. Here’s how this post came about: Just last week we flew in our two executive assistants; Summer, who helps me run my business, and Carrie, who helps my wife, Amy, run our charity. What Summer, Carrie, Amy and I did was we mapped out all of 2017. In fact, we even mapped out some of 2018. I HIGHLY recommend you do the same, if you haven’t already. I’ll give you some tips about how to do this efficiently. Planning an entire year can be overwhelming, so when you are planning your year, I want you to break it down into three areas of focus: Number one, you’ve got to get clear on your PRIORITIES. I know that that sounds obvious, but it’s SO important. This means getting clear on people and projects that are most important to you, as well as getting clear on the LIFESTYLE you want to live. For me, obviously my amazing wife, my incredible kids, my team, my sister, my parents, my friends and business partners – they are all a huge priority to me. What can I say? I’m a people person! I bring this to your attention because, when people are a priority to you, you’ve got to be INTENTIONAL about incorporating them into your planning process. Next, it’s extremely important to decide which projects are your highest priority. For example, last year I had just one project that was the highest priority for me. This allowed me to engineer the entire year around that one project, which allowed me to be uber creative. After people and projects comes lifestyle. Outside of your business, what aspirations do you have? For example, in 2017 I really want to exercise my creativity in some new and different ways. Playing guitar is one. Doodling is another – I know it kind of sounds funny and weird – but doodling and calligraphy is another thing that I really want to do. I’d also like to learn Swahili, because in Kenya where our charity operates, the kids speak Swahili, and I want to be able to interact and engage with them. I want to be fluid so when kids are talking back and forth, I can just jump into the conversation and blow their minds. Number two, get clear on your PRIMARY FOCUS. You’ve got to have a primary focus. Everything else you do falls around this one thing. This relates to prioritizing your projects in step #1. Your primary focus combines the project you chose as a top priority, and the outcome you’d like to see from that project. It’s your guiding light throughout the year. Here’s an example: one of my clients, Mastin Kip, is an incredible speaker and author. His primary focus is releasing his new book in the fall of 2017, so we are engineering the entire year around that focus. Other things are going to come up, of course, but the primary focus is getting that book to top of the New York Times Bestseller list. Let your primary focus be the most important, most ambitious accomplishment you’d like to achieve, and then give it the attention and resources it needs to come true. Number three is to identify your BIG ROCKS And start mapping them out on the calendar. That’s exactly what I did with Summer, Carrie, and Amy when we planned our year. We first started with our big rocks. What are our big rocks? When you’re mapping out your calendar, these are the most important events and deadlines in your year. Some are deadlines that you set for yourself, and others aren’t so flexible, but they are all important. For example, last year my family vacations got tacked onto business or charity trips. If I was going to speak at a conference, I would take the family, and we would spend a few days after the conference exploring that location. This year we decided to let family trips be family trips, so those were the first big rocks we added to our calendar. The next big rocks we added were dates that are already set. For example, next year we’ve got a big trip for our charity where we’re taking 50-60 of our top donors over to Kenya to see the schools they helped build. There’s also conferences that I’ve committed to speak at, mastermind groups that I’m a part of, and so on. It’s important that your big rocks get laid out on the calendar. Because too often as entrepreneurs, we end up taking on more than we can handle because we get so excited about opportunities. You and I have to concentrate our efforts, because if we try to do too much in 2017, we’re going to do a whole bunch of things in a half-assed way. But if we focus on a few big rocks, and we pour all of our creative energy into those things, we will experience a lot more success. When I talk about the big rocks, here’s what I would encourage you to do: Think about one big promotion that you’re able to do every quarter. One big promotion every four months. Everything else gets filtered around those four promotions. And if you can do less than four, that’s even better. In summary: For you and I to make 2017 a spectacular year, here’s what I recommend: Number one, get clear on your PRIORITIES. When I say priorities, I’m talking about people, projects, and lifestyle. Second, get clear on your PRIMARY FOCUS and engineer your entire year around that. Number three, map out your big rocks. What I recommend for my clients is four big promos per year, one per quarter. Everything else gets filtered around those big rocks. Your turn: What are you going to do to make 2017 your best year ever?
Entrepreneurs… guard your confidence! As an entrepreneur, it is CRITICAL for you to guard your confidence. You’re doing things that most people don’t do. You’re out blazing new trails and going places that most people aren’t willing to go. When you’re experimenting with new ideas and trying new things, there are always going to be CRITICS and people who will try to bring you down. Because guess what? It’s easier for people to bring you down than to raise their game up to your level. When you are an entrepreneur, you have to guard your confidence. I’m going to give you three tips on how to do this. But, before I do, let me just share how this all came about: Recently, my wife and I were having dinner with some friends. One of our friends, knowing that I was preparing for my own product launch, asked a question: “What do you think about doing your own launch versus all the launches that you’ve done for somebody else? Do you feel any difference?” I was like, “Heck yeah, I do.” Because I’ve been behind the scenes helping strategize and develop launches for many, many people. For example, during the last year of my partnership with Michael Hyatt, we did four seven figure launches throughout the year. It was a huge year, but doing a launch for somebody else is totally different than doing it for yourself, and here’s why: When you do it for yourself, there is a ton of mental baggage. What do I mean by mental baggage? I’m talking about self-doubt and limiting beliefs and all that fun stuff. There’s all kinds of mental baggage that we carry when it’s our own product, our own course, our own membership, our own launch, whatever it is. We have to guard our confidence because, if we don’t, it’s very, very easy to get derailed. When you’re trying new things, you’re going to have people who cast all kinds of doubts. You’re going to have people who throw sticks and stones as a way of projecting their OWN mental baggage. I’ve released several videos sharing my views on business and entrepreneurship, and recently somebody left a comment. He wrote: “I didn’t even watch the video to know that this is nothing more than a travel blogger who comes from a rich wealthy background and that’s why they’re able to do what they’re doing.” I was like what? Dude, obviously you didn’t watch the video because (a) I’m not a travel blogger (b) I definitely did not come from a wealthy background. Everything I’ve created, I earned, and it’s because I had great people around me who supported and believed in me, but I started everything from scratch. His comment annoyed me, and I had to remind myself that comments like this happen all the time. When you are sharing a message, product or service with the world, haters and trolls are absolutely inevitable. It’s not your job to combat the trolls. All you need to worry about is guarding your confidence. Here are three ways to do it: 1) Have a clear strategy. When you have a clear strategy, it is very hard for you to get derailed because you know exactly what your next steps are. I see entrepreneurs who stumble because they don’t know what it is that they’re going to be doing next or they don’t have a clear strategy and what happens is that when somebody casts a little bit of doubt their way, they second guess themselves and then they backtrack and then now they’re completely off the rails. Get clear on your strategy so can focus on simply executing. 2) Have supportive voices in your life. Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy. You’re going to have your ups and our downs, and when you have your downs, you need people who can bring you right back up. There are two sides to this coin: One, seek out those supportive voices. Look to family, friends, mentors, mastermind partners – whoever – who can help coach you and support you and encourage you. And be that supportive voice for others! Don’t just vocalize but demonstrate your support by taking ACTION. This doesn’t need to be a huge gesture. Just reaching out to show your support is enough. In fact, when I’m finished here on my way home, there’s somebody that I’m going to send a voice message to because I just listened to their podcast and it was amazing. Supportive voices are incredibly important. Seek them. Be one. 3) Know your “why?” As in, why did you become an entrepreneur in the first place? Why did you start your business? When you are super clear on your why, that’s like the guiding star that keeps you focused. When I first started out, my why was simple: to provide a better life for myself and my family. But as I started experiencing some success and discovering the impact my business could have, I found another why. My wife and I started a charity where we build schools in Kenya. At the time of writing this, we’ve built eight schools, and two are currently in construction. So the more money I make, the more I can contribute to that project, and that motivates me daily. When you get clear on your why, people can say what they want and they can try to derail you, but none of that matters because you have complete confidence in the path you’re on. Summary: Have a clear strategy. Have supportive voices (and be a supportive voice, too). Know your “why?” It’s not easy being an entrepreneur. But you and I, we’re the ones making things happen. Entrepreneurs have the power to change the world and that’s why I love and believe in entrepreneurship so much. Keep your confidence up. The world will thank you for it. Your turn: What do you do to guard your confidence? Let me know in the comments below.
The Top 3 Self-Limiting Beliefs of Entrepreneurs (and how to overcome them) Have you ever felt like you want to accomplish something, but there’s something holding you back? If you’ve ever experienced these limiting beliefs, you’re normal! As entrepreneurs, there are a million and one things going through our minds every day – the good, the bad, and the ugly. But here’s the bottom line: limiting beliefs are always going to hold you and I back, UNLESS we see them for what they are, address them, and blast through them. Let’s talk about the top three limiting beliefs of entrepreneurs (or soon-to-be entrepreneurs) and how to easily overcome them. One common belief goes something like: “I don’t have ________” “I don’t have the money, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the team, I don’t have the connections.” Let me tell you, as an entrepreneur, you will never have everything you need, but you will always have enough. The “I don’t have’s” will always be there, so your job instead is to focus on what you do have and to execute on that. The “I don’t have’s” will always be there, so your job instead is to focus on what you do have and to execute on that. A great example is Gillian Zoe Segal, author of the massively successful book Getting There: A Book of Mentors. Getting There tells the stories of 30 of the world’s top entrepreneurs, with all of their successes and failures and the lessons they learned. How was Segal able to secure interviews with all of these impressive, and extremely busy people? Was she already connected to these people? No. Was she a well-known celebrity? No. She just made it happen. She knew what she didn’t have, which was a mentor. She knew what she didn’t want, which was to continue the path that she was on as a lawyer. And she knew what she did have, which was determination and grit. So she went all in and made the connections happen. She did everything she could to find her way past the gatekeepers that prevented her from getting interviews with these people, simply be being strategic and persistent. Anybody could have done what Segal did if they possessed the same determination. And the result of her determination was that she found not one, but thirty mentors, and she published an amazing book that I highly recommend for everyone. And that leads me to self-limiting belief number two, which is: “I’m just a _____” We often define what we can’t do based on what we’re already doing because we feel limited to that, like that’s the destiny that was chosen for us and we’re stuck with it. One of the subjects interviewed in Getting There is Sara Blakely, the founder of the apparel company Spanx. Blakely had planned on becoming a lawyer but couldn’t pass the admissions test, so she ended up working at Walt Disney World and eventually as a door to door fax machine salesperson. Blakely sold fax machines for years, and her outfit for that job involved wearing pantyhose. And she liked how they looked overall, but disliked the way the foot of the pantyhose looked with her open-toed shoes. So one day she had the wild idea to cut off the feet of her pantyhose to achieve the look she wanted. This turned out how she hoped, and Blakely realized she might be onto something. She spent a couple years and $5000 of her own savings developing her idea, but still had a lot to overcome before she could take it to market. When she didn’t want to pay the huge fees to have a patent created, Blakely purchased a legal textbook and wrote her own patent. When she was rejected by almost every representative she pitched her idea to, she kept going, until finally she found a manufacturer willing to support her. Fast forward to today and Spanx is a huge success and Blakely has been named by Time magazine as one of the top 100 most influential people in the world. Blakely was technically ‘just a fax machine salesperson’, but she had an idea and she believed in it and now she’s recognized as one of the most influential female entrepreneurs on the planet. Finally, the third self-limiting belief is: “I’m not a _____” or “I’m not good at _____” So many people say “I’m not good with money” or “I’m not a salesperson” or “I’m no good on camera” and it goes on and on. The excuses are endless. You know what you do when you’re not good at something? Option one is not to do it. If it absolutely needs to be done, find someone else who can do it and focus on what you’re good at. If you can’t afford help or you need to do whatever it is yourself, then your only option is to learn how. And there’s no better example of this than Warren Buffett, also a subject in Getting There. Buffett is the most successful and beloved investor of our time. He will be forever remembered as an icon in the business world, but very few people know that Buffett once had a severe disadvantage that almost prevented him from finding success. He used to be terribly afraid of public speaking. He would get so nervous he could hardly say his own name. Buffett dreamed of being accepted to Harvard to make his father proud. When it came time for his admissions interview, he rode a train for more than ten hours, only to be rejected and sent home almost immediately upon arrival. With his goal crushed, he knew he needed to make a change, so he enrolled for a Dale Carnegie public speaking course and paid with cash so he’d have to attend. He faced his fear head on and eventually became a masterful public speaker, who is well-known for his thoughtful interviews and public addresses to shareholders. He credits that public speaking course for giving him to the courage to propose to his wife, which he holds as the single most important decision of his life. Imagine if he had have just said, “I’m no good at public speaking” and resigned to never improve. Sure, he might have used his business skills to make a great living, but would he be a worldwide icon whose legacy will live on for decades, maybe even centuries? Of course not. These are just three examples of people who faced their self-limiting beliefs head on and turned them instead into self-enabling beliefs. If you’re not good at something, find someone who is, or become good at it yourself. If you’re in a position that you no longer want to be in, find a new position for yourself. If you don’t have connections, make connections. If you don’t have money, secure an investment or be smart and frugal and make sacrifices in the early stages of your business. There are always going to be a million reasons why you can’t do something, but they will never be more important than the reasons why you can. Focus on those reasons. Life is too short to be held down by self-limiting beliefs.
Product Launch Formula Explained (The #1 Way to Make a LOT More Sales in a Lot Less Time) Note: For those of you who are savvy to Product Launches, I’ll save you some time and let you know that we are currently helping Jeff promote his new free video workshop where he goes in depth about PLF, with an optional paid course afterwards. If you’re interested, click here to check it out! If you’ve never heard of Product Launch Formula before, you can read the post below and if it interests you, you are more than welcome to check out Jeff’s workshop. How do you sell a whole lot more of your products or your service in a fraction of the time, regardless of whatever market you’re in? Listen, if you’re an entrepreneur, chances are you have a product or a service that you’re selling, or perhaps you are an author or a speaker where you’ve got a message that you want to share and you want to get that in front of a lot more people. How do you do that with a lot less effort? How do you make a lot more sales in a fraction of the time? Well, I’m going to share with you the secret to that in just one second. Before I do, I want to share a quick story: Back in 2004, I witnessed a revolutionary development for entrepreneurs like you and I as it relates to selling products and services online. At that time, I was online and I was eagerly anticipating the release of a product. I had been waiting for this product for literally weeks. I was champing at the bit, and could not wait for the opportunity to finally click the buy button and purchase it. …It was a thousand dollar product. Now, during this time, there was so much hype. There was so much excitement around this particular product – which was completely brand new to the marketplace – that when it finally became available for sale, it generated over a MILLION dollars in sales in less than a 24 hour period. That product set a whole new precedent. What we’re talking about is creating an orchestrated Product Launch. Now, many people might ask, “Why do I need a creative product launch? Is that really necessary?” The reality is if you don’t create anticipation, you’re hoping that people are going to come and buy your product. You’re hoping that people are going to find you to buy your product and service. There are three big reasons why a product launch is a HUGE tool for you and I as entrepreneurs to sell a whole lot more of what we have in a fraction of the time, regardless of the market. 1. More Reach What do I mean by that? Well, it means that you are going to get what it is that you have in front of a lot more people in a much shorter period of time. I was listening to an interview the other day with Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx. She’s been voted by Time Magazine as one of the most influential people of our time. She’s one of the wealthiest female entrepreneurs. One of the things that helped her really launch her product was that she got an endorsement in the first month from Oprah Winfrey. Can you imagine? Oprah Winfrey putting her stamp of approval on your product and then boom, now you’ve got sales coming out the wazoo. That’s the same type of momentum that you can create with a product launch. Whereas if you try to do it the old way of just putting it out there and hoping people are going to come and find it, it’s a much slower approach. 2. More Authority A product launch creates tremendous positioning in the marketplace. When there’s a lot of buzz around you and your product or service that you’re offering, it gets people talking. The more people that are talking, the more it establishes you as the go-to resource, or the go-to company, or the go-to product for whatever solution that they are seeking. 3. More Sales When you’re reaching more people and you got more authority, you’re going to make a lot more sales. Why wouldn’t you want to launch your product? Why wouldn’t you want to get your products, your service, your message in front of more people in a shorter period of time? All the PLF does is it just speeds up the timeline in terms of your ability to be able to grow your company, to grow your business, to increase your impact. That first product launch I told you about was for a product called Traffic Secrets, helping entrepreneurs generate more traffic to their websites. One of the people behind the strategy of that particular product launch was a gentleman by the name of Jeff Walker. Now, Jeff Walker is like the godfather of launching online. He’s helped thousands and thousands of people launch products online. I’m one of those benefactors. In fact, this last August, we went from nobody really knowing who I was, to gaining over 50,000 Facebook likes, 50,000 emails, and multiple seven figures in sales, in just a few WEEKS! Because of PLF, we were able to serve thousands of people with the product we were offering. It was an incredible jump start to building an entirely new business, all orchestrated by a product launch. We couldn’t have done it without the amazing strategies created by Jeff Walker. Now, there are many things that go into a successful product launch, and – despite having years of experience running multiple seven figure launches – I could never attempt to explain the strategy behind a launch as well Jeff can. The good news is that Jeff is currently offering a free workshop where he goes in depth about the core strategies and blueprint behind every successful product launch. After the workshop has ended, Jeff will be offering a more detailed paid course, but even if you have no interest in that, I want you to go sign up just to see the launch process that Jeff takes you through. I highly recommend you go check it out because you’re going to learn a tonne about how to apply the Launch Formula to your business to help you generate more sales in a fraction of the time. It doesn’t matter what market you’re in. You’re going to see examples from a bunch of different markets and types of products. If you know another entrepreneur that could benefit from the magic of launching a product or service online, or you know somebody who’s got a message that they really want to share, tell them about this video. Click here to access Jeff’s free PLF workshop. Your turn: Have you used PLF before? What was your experience? Let me know below.
