Category: Business Growth

How A Bigger Purpose Takes Your Decision-Making To A Whole New Level

Listen to the podcast below or subscribe to the Multiplier Mindset Podcast on iTunes.
How A Bigger Purpose Takes Your Decision-Making To A Whole New Level


If you look at almost any entrepreneur — just starting out, successful, or somewhere in between — one thing they’ll all have in common is that they’ve battled or are currently battling complexity.
Complexity is an unyielding barrier to growth, both business and personal. And because complexity can be overwhelming, the smart decision-making needed to move you past any obstacles is compromised. This can even be game-ending.
Is this what being an entrepreneur is supposed to be like? In a word, no.
You need a strategy for dealing with complexity in order to continue growing in a simpler, more enjoyable, more rewarding way that’s also fun for everyone in your company, you included. Dan Sullivan sums it up like this: “To multiply, first you need to simplify.”
A winning strategy from a seasoned entrepreneur.
Lee Brower is one of our outstanding associate coaches, a 22-year participant in The Strategic Coach Program, and a successful entrepreneur in the Salt Lake City area.
Lee knows all about rapid growth and complexity, and the constant decision-making that still needs to happen. He uses a strategy that can instantly change the way you think about your bigger future as well as bring simplicity that you may never have thought possible to your life today.
Like Dan Sullivan, Lee believes in the power of a good question, and he adds a twist: Ask yourself a question you’ve never asked yourself before. It might sound too simplistic to have any possible effect on your future growth, but here’s what happens in your brain when you do that.
Suddenly, your thoughts have to rearrange themselves in response to a new question. It’s this rearranging process that benefits decision-making by producing new answers to old problems and moving you forward with each decision made.
Asking the questions that get results.
When Lee first started with Strategic Coach, he decided on an objective that got him in a questioning frame of mind. As he tells it, “Very early on in Coach, I decided that one of my objectives would be to leave each quarterly workshop asking a question that I’d never asked myself before. I wondered what the result of that would be.”
This practice soon became a crucial strategy in turning around a devastating business setback. Lee explains, “When I took a hit during the 2007 financial crisis, I could have said, ‘I have to do this, I need to do that, I’ve got to do something.’”
But rather than coming from that mindset of scarcity, which is almost always based on fear, Lee called up his practice of asking himself the right questions focused on his bigger purpose in life. This in turn made it clear what was most important to get started on right away. Achieving that kind of focused simplicity — focusing on one thing, solving that, and moving on to the next — is the key, and as a result, your mind is freed up to make the right decisions.
What’s the one question …
When it comes to one question people should ask themselves, Lee believes that there is no one specific question, but all the questions should have this in common: They’re questions you’ve never asked yourself before.
“This gives you answers you’ve never heard before, and believe me, your life will change,” he says.
Lee also gave this piece of advice to set up the conditions for smart decision-making. “First, make sure that you have a vision for a future that’s bigger than your current business — a bigger purpose. The reason is that when we try to make meaningful decisions in the present without knowing what our bigger purpose is, we’re not making a decision based on what is most important to us. Having a clear picture of your bigger purpose focuses you and helps you make those meaningful decisions in the present.
“Often, as entrepreneurs, our decisions come down to money, and that might not be the best decision in a lot of situations. When you have a bigger purpose, all you have to ask yourself is whether your decision is going to support your bigger purpose or not. You don’t have to ask what’s next or worry about it, so you’re always in motion.”
When you get clear on your bigger purpose, you get clear on what you have to do today.Click To Tweet
Keep in motion: Lee walks the talk.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ll face a lot of tough decision-making and obstacles to growth. Lee has a strategy for asking himself the right questions to keep moving forward that might work for you too.
“Every time I hear myself say that I need to do something,” he says, “a statement that comes from a scarcity mindset rather than an abundance mindset, I turn it into a question: What small step can I take today that will provide more freedom in my life? What small step can I take that will give me more time off? Or, what small step can I take today that will open up more doors to opportunity? These small decisions add up.”
Lee’s “small-steps mindset” bears thinking about: “It’s all about keeping in motion. In life we create too many finish lines. When we set goals, we set finish lines. Why not set goals with key milestones? Why not be in progress all the time?”
Why not start right now?



Greater productivity = greater success.

Learn how the top coach to entrepreneurs achieves his most productive workday.
GET YOUR COPY NOW! »



The post How A Bigger Purpose Takes Your Decision-Making To A Whole New Level appeared first on The Multiplier Mindset Blog.
Source: New feed

A Solid Foundation For Major Growth: 5 Resources For Entrepreneurs

When we talk about growth at Strategic Coach, it’s always a big conversation, and it always revolves around 10x growth.
Last year, we set our biggest goal yet — a five-year “Moonshot” growth goal — and the whole team is committed to ramping up our game. New ideas and initiatives, and exciting changes, big and small, are being implemented by every team in the company.
Change is good, but …
When you’re talking about this type of exponential growth, major change is a given. But, for major change to happen successfully in any company, it’s essential to have a strong foundation to withstand it and keep it sustainable.
Building a strong foundation takes time and effort by everyone in the company. And one of the most important cornerstones of a solid foundation is teamwork.
At Coach, we work continually to strengthen our teamwork, creating a working environment where each team member is growing and, in turn, contributing more and more to the “Moonshot” goal we have in our sights.
“For major change to happen successfully in any company, it’s essential to have a strong foundation to withstand it and keep it sustainable.”Click To Tweet
Our 5 go-to resources for powerful teamwork.
We love sharing these outside resources for entrepreneurs — we consider them essential teamwork tools — because we believe in them and we see proof every single day that they work.

Kolbe
The Kolbe A Index gives you the hard-wired “why” you do what you do. Once you know and understand your Kolbe profile, you’ll know the secret to how you create the greatest value for those around you, which is the key to success, especially in an entrepreneurial company that is always based on results!
INTERESTING FACT: Everyone applying for a position at Strategic Coach completes a Kolbe A Index even before being considered for an in-person interview. It makes for fewer hiring mistakes because it pinpoints a good fit for the position. The whole team has access to everyone else’s Kolbe profile so we can tailor how we work with one another.
? Find out more at Kolbe.com

StrengthsFinder
Developed by the Gallup Organization, the StrengthsFinder assessment gives you your top five strengths (out of 34, which you can also access) that you can then build on and use to excel in your work and personal life. From a company standpoint, knowing our team members’ strengths gets the right people doing the right things to produce the best possible results.
INTERESTING FACT: We all started off learning our top five strengths, which was incredibly useful. But then we wanted more. Now everyone on the team knows their top 34 strengths, which is not only helpful, but really interesting and fun to know. It explains a lot!
? Find out more at strengthsfinder.com

PRINT
Most of us might think we know what motivates us, but PRINT takes us further to our Unconscious Motivators. These are nine hidden drivers that operate at a very deep level and are responsible for all our thoughts, feelings, and actions. When we’re able to satisfy our Unconscious Motivators, we are positive, productive, and our highest performing selves — our Best Selves.
INTERESTING FACT: Our Unconscious Motivators are like the underwater part of an iceberg, occupying significant space in our brains and holding a vast amount of concealed, yet crucial information.
? Find out more at PaulHertzGroup.com

The Collaborative Way
The Collaborative Way is a designed way of relating to one another that harnesses the collective intelligence, imagination, and spirit of a company’s team. When its eight fundamentals are practiced consistently, it results in a faster and more agile organization, extraordinary teamwork, and a more satisfying work environment — an enviable strategic advantage in a changing global marketplace.
INTERESTING FACT: Our entire team of over 100 is now working to integrate The Collaborative Way into our everyday lives (work and home) in how we listen, speak, support, commit, appreciate, include, and align.
? Find out more at collaborativeway.com

DISC
Based on four basic personality types or temperaments, DISC provides the clues to why we most often feel, think and act the way we do, which is helpful to know as part of a larger team in an ever-changing entrepreneurial company. Understanding our DISC assessment can mean better results, more fun, more peace, and better understanding and less frustration when working with others.
INTERESTING FACT: The DISC model breaks the four main types of personality styles into its letters. “D” stands for Dominant, Direct, Doer. “I” stands for Inspiring, Interesting, Impulsive. “S” stands for Supportive, Steady, Stable. “C” stands for Cautious, Competent, Careful.
? Find out more at discpersonalitytesting.com






FREE EBOOK!



Learn 8 key strategies for exponential growth and true freedom as an entrepreneur from top entrepreneur coach Dan Sullivan.



DOWNLOAD “THE SELF-MANAGING COMPANY” »


The post A Solid Foundation For Major Growth: 5 Resources For Entrepreneurs appeared first on The Multiplier Mindset Blog.
Source: New feed

Why Every Good Leader Has Learned To Let Go

Listen to the podcast below or subscribe to the Multiplier Mindset Podcast on iTunes.
Why Every Good Leader Has Learned To Let Go


Giving up any type of control in their business whatsoever is one of the most difficult things you could ask many entrepreneurs to do. Yet, to grow their businesses, and to grow themselves and their team members, it’s exactly what they have to do.
This is one of the most challenging issues we solve when entrepreneurs first come to Strategic Coach.
Gary Mottershead, a Strategic Coach client for over 25 years and one of our associate coaches for over 20, had been doing some thinking about entrepreneurs and their businesses. He was looking at his role in his own successful business — and what that role should be now and in the future.
The analogy he drew for himself clearly illustrated what his role had to be — and it was far, far from the obsessive-control end of the spectrum. It’s a very relatable analogy that’s worth sharing.
Taking care of business.
Gary told us, “It occurred to me one day that no one teaches you how to be an entrepreneur. Strategic Coach, in fact, is probably the closest I’ve come to learning about how to be a good leader and entrepreneur. I began to think about my business, which I’ve had now for about 17 years, and suddenly it struck me that having a business is like having children. I’m a father of two grown children, and no one gave my wife and me a blueprint for raising them either!”
In the beginning, like a baby, your business needs constant nurturing. It can’t survive on its own. So, like a parent and their child, it’s up to the entrepreneur who brought this fledgling into world to not only keep it alive, but to make sure it thrives. And this is where it can get tricky.
In charge, not in control.
If a business is to grow, it has to have its own life, just like children, who slowly but steadily have their own lives. With their parents’ modeling and support, they begin to have their own values, their own opinions, and their own words. As a parent, you slowly allow them a bit more freedom as they grow.
In an entrepreneurial business, this same process is happening with your team. You begin to see that as they learn more and more and you’re giving them a bit more freedom to be responsible, they’re not going to do things exactly the way you would because they have a different experience of life than you do. They’ve grown up in a different way.
The danger, and it’s a big danger, is that if we keep imposing our experience on them, we’re going to stifle them and their potential to grow, just as some parents can stifle their children.
Let it go.
“To have the opportunity to be a father, to have two great children, and to have a great business is fantastic,” Gary says. “I think of the business as I think about my children: It’s going to grow up, and it’s going to have its own life, which will also help me at the next stage of my entrepreneurial career. I’m not always going to be there.
“Someone else is going to run the company, and they’re going to run it differently than I would. Is that good or bad? I’d say it’s good because all of us have a time in life when we’re more useful than at others, and maybe we’re even more useful doing other things. Knowing your unique talents that create the most value for others allows you to move on and leave an opportunity for others.”
That’s the secret all good leaders know: Be in charge, but not in control. Let go. Here’s how:

Know what you do well — and what you don’t do well. If you’re having fun, do more of what you’re good at. That means you’ll have to give up those things you’re not good at. Have confidence in the people you’ve hired to support you, and give them freedom. Teach them and allow them to learn.
Don’t always be the savior. Avoid exposing them so much that they constantly go into failure mode, but enough to understand what it feels like to win and to lose, to make decisions that don’t work out. You’ve got to stand back and decide that you’re not going to step in. If they fail, talk about it and assess it afterward. Failure is a great teacher.
“Failure is a great teacher.”Click To Tweet
Trust your gut. When you have that feeling that something isn’t working for you, that it doesn’t feel good, there’s a reason we have that instinct. You need to follow it.

What’s next?
Gary’s analogy that likens nurturing children to nurturing a business is a great way to not only think about your business today, but also its potential in the future.
“I don’t have grandchildren yet,” he says, “but following my analogy and looking at my business from that perspective, it looks pretty appealing! What does every grandparent say? That it’s so wonderful to be a grandparent because you can show up and look after the grandchildren, you can have fun with them, and then you can hand them back to the parents! Why not be the grandparent in your own business? If you’ve been the parent and ‘raised’ your team well, they can run it.
“Show up when you need to show up, do the things you’re really good at doing, and then leave and let the ‘parents’ you’ve brought in and groomed to take care of the business take over again. And have fun, because it will be fun, but be there when you can provide counsel and support, and be the helping hand when it’s necessary.”
He goes on to say, “I look at the people who work with me as my children in the broad sense of the word. I want them to succeed, and empowering them to succeed is the best way to do that. And guess what that’s meant for me? It makes my life an awful lot easier. I have a lot more freedom, a lot more flexibility, a lot more fun. And there’s also been a lot of opportunity — both financial opportunity and the opportunity to do things I wouldn’t have even thought to do if I were spending all my time and energy trying to control it all myself. It’s a good life.”



Greater productivity = greater success.

Learn how the top coach to entrepreneurs achieves his most productive workday.
GET YOUR COPY NOW! »



The post Why Every Good Leader Has Learned To Let Go appeared first on The Multiplier Mindset.
Source: New feed

The Power Of Unique Ability®

From time to time, we tap into a deep well of wisdom by inviting Strategic Coach clients to share their secrets to success. This post is from Joe Polish, legendary marketer, founder of Genius Network, co-founder of ILoveMarketing.com, and creator of 10xTalk.com. Joe is a valued advocate of Strategic Coach and the power of Unique Ability.
If there’s one skill to master that allows you to make more money doing what you love, it’s Unique Ability. Unique Ability is a concept developed by one of my best friends, Dan Sullivan, the founder of Strategic Coach. Dan has done more to help guide my thinking, actions, and confidence in the areas of value creation than anyone else on the planet.
The secret to being successful doing what you love.
Put simply, your Unique Ability is the set of natural talents you’re already amazing at, that give you energy, and that you love doing. When you spend more and more time working in your Unique Ability, you’ll start to see that’s where growth and money lie.
Then, the idea is to hire other people with Unique Abilities that support your own. You want to hire people with the behaviors and skills you’re weak at. If you spend your time doing things that aren’t within your skill set and Unique Ability, it’s like ripping up money and throwing it away.
People say, “Well, I can’t hire anyone because ______.” Yet, it’s hiring people to support your Unique Ability that allows you to do what you do best.
Your Unique Ability is where growth and money lie.Click To Tweet
Investment, not cost.
All of this is an investment, not a cost. Those who don’t get anything out of collaborating with team members look at everything as a cost. If you’re thinking about how much something costs, you’re trying to measure what you’re getting out of it. Instead, when you look at things as an investment, you’ll be thinking about how to enhance and improve everything you do.
The development of your Unique Ability will never cost you anything; it saves you money, it makes you money, and it saves you time.
Everything aligned with who you truly are.
When you aren’t living in your Unique Ability, life is hard.
When you’re mentally doing something that’s incongruent with what you like and out of alignment with what you do and who you are, it drains the life out of you. It takes enormous amounts of energy to live incongruently with who you are. The same is true when you try to adopt someone else’s methodology or system. If it’s not something that aligns with you, it can put you into a negative place.
On the other hand, when you’re living in your Unique Ability, you become more generous and more confident, and you’re much, much happier. You create value for others and for yourself. You create win-win situations.
Figure out where your energy comes from and how it’s sustained. Within that is your Unique Ability. When you live from that place, you’ll not only make a lot more money doing what you love, you’ll have a sense of satisfaction about every part of your work and life.

The post The Power Of Unique Ability<sup>®</sup> appeared first on The Multiplier Mindset.
Source: New feed

For Entrepreneurs, Money CAN Buy Happiness

Listen to the podcast below or subscribe to the Inside Strategic Coach podcast on iTunes.
For Entrepreneurs, Money CAN Buy Happiness


No matter what you do or how much money you make, the question arises: Can money buy happiness?
The answer is that yes, it can—if you use your money to buy back your time.
Everything is abundant.
Almost everything has gotten cheaper. What you’d get paid for an hour of your time today can pay for a lot more than what an hour of your time could pay for 25 years ago.
This applies to everything from electronics to cars to vacations. The efficiencies being built into massive cooperation in the marketplace are making it easier, faster, and cheaper to provide products and services.
As a result, things don’t have the same impact on our happiness that they did when there was more scarcity. Material goods and luxuries that used to be a source of happiness don’t have the same effect on us.
Buying time.
But there is one way of using your money that can make you happier than any other way, and that is to buy back your time. You do this by taking an activity you don’t like doing or that’s keeping you from doing a more stimulating and rewarding activity, and pay someone else to do that activity. When you use your money to free yourself up to do something you like better, that’s how you buy happiness.
This is what I’ve observed in coaching more than 6,000 entrepreneurs. When you spend money so you can do something you’re much more interested in, or that’s much more enjoyable, you’ll be happy with the use of that money. In a very simple way, you’re using that money to buy happiness.
“The freedom of time is becoming the most desirable reason to use your money.” – Dan SullivanClick To Tweet
Increasing happiness for everyone.
There are things that entrepreneurs might not like doing but that are crucial to their businesses. Yet this doesn’t mean they have to do those activities themselves. It means the time spent doing those activities has to be bought by delegating them to someone else. Remember, though, that no matter how much you don’t like the activity, there’s someone out there who would love doing it as much as you love doing the activities you find the most fascinating.
My response to my daily life as an entrepreneur is an emotional one before it’s an intellectual one. I give myself 100 percent freedom to say exactly what I like and don’t like, and this has led me to deciding to spend as much time as possible in the activities I want to be in, using my money to pay people who love doing the activities I don’t like doing.
When you do this, that’s buying a lot of happiness, not only for yourself, but for every person in your company who’s getting paid to do something they love.


Greater productivity = greater success.

Learn how the top coach to entrepreneurs achieves his most productive workday.
GET YOUR COPY NOW! »



The post For Entrepreneurs, Money CAN Buy Happiness appeared first on The Multiplier Mindset.
Source: New feed

Fueled By Inspiration

In the spirit of Global Entrepreneurship Week, we invited Strategic Coach clients to share their secrets to success. The second in the series is written by Adrienne Duffy, founder of Big Futures Inc., which serves clients across North America, and one of our long-time coaches of The Strategic Coach Program. Adrienne is the author of a recently published book called Soul Sense.
There’s a point for most entrepreneurs where success is no longer driven just by money. There’s a point where the external goals are not enough; they have to come from a deeper part of who you are and why you do what you do.
The energy that comes from within is a key driver of success for an entrepreneur. And it’s certainly been true for me. It’s this energy and inspiration that keep my vision alive and help me create the strategy and accountability that are necessary to execute on and achieve that vision.
This is the model I work with: vision, strategy, and accountability—powered by inspiration.
If you lose sight of what really inspires you to do what you’re doing and reach a point where obstacles get in the way of achieving your goals, then, as an entrepreneur, you risk losing the energy that’s crucial to moving forward to the next level. You need to go back to why you’re doing what you’re doing and what really inspires you so you can rekindle the fire and the passion that motivated you in the first place.
You need to go back to your purpose.
In my case, a lot of why I do what I do is to unleash potential and inspire other people to grow and transform their circumstances to realize their bigger futures. That’s core to my purpose. I’m also fortunate to have significant alignment between what I do professionally and what’s most important to me and inspires me most.
This is another entrepreneurial secret—alignment. Your values have to be in alignment, and your purpose has to be in alignment. Then you can look at the outside world and try to find that market where what you bring to the table creates real value.
That’s the magic link—the connection between your purpose and how you can create value out in the world with it. That’s where you can connect with the inspiration that provides the sustainable energy to keep fueling you.
Driven by inspiration.
As a pioneer in moonshot strategy for over 20 years, we use the metaphor of shooting for the moon to help companies achieve great things—things that could not have happened if they weren’t driven by inspiration.
I learned through working with a great number of organizations, helping them to align their teams and their leadership with the vision and goals, that the one essential ingredient was the inner fuel of inspiration.
Without true inspiration as the driving force, it’s very difficult to sustain the energy through what it’s going to take to realize “your shot at the moon.”
I get to do what I love to do by helping other people become inspired to do what they do. Vision, strategy, and the accountability to execute are essential. But always at the center is inspiration!

The post Fueled By Inspiration appeared first on The Multiplier Mindset.
Source: New feed

How To Harness The Power Of Being Present

Listen to the podcast below or subscribe to the Multiplier Mindset Podcast on iTunes.
How To Harness The Power Of Being Present


From the very beginning of my coaching career, I’ve been aware that getting trapped in their past is one of the biggest things holding entrepreneurs back in their lives. Yet it is the present that holds all the possibility, growth, excitement, and satisfaction of being an entrepreneur. Being present in the moment is an undeniable catalyst for success.
Traps from the past.
A trap could be a perceived personal limitation of some kind that may have been picked up on early in life. It could be a memory that hasn’t been figured out or resolved in some way. Or it could be the memory of a past failure, an uncomfortable emotional situation, or a big mistake that was made.
So, whenever a new and exciting opportunity comes up, first there’s the initial excitement, and then the memory of a negative situation from the past stops any forward movement. We all know people who are held back by a particular situation, relationship, or experience from their past, with no hope of truly being present in the moment.
And then, the future traps.
On the other end of the spectrum lies the future, with its own set of mind traps. With the explosion of technological progress all around us and all the possibilities of what could be — the much bigger and better results from using new kinds of technology — I notice just as many people getting trapped in the future.
Just like people trapped in the past, those trapped in the future are having a hard time operating in the present, actually being present in the moment. You can tell when you’re having a conversation with them; they give you only half of their attention.
Their mind wanders. They’re distracted, most often by a cell phone. They can’t stay with a line of thought for more than a minute, and then they’re on to something else. We’ve all experienced this (or are guilty of it).
The greatest life skill today.
In our personal life and in every area of business, one of the most desirable and useful skills today is to be fully where you are, and to give your full attention to whomever you’re with or to whatever you’re working on.
We live in a highly distracting world, so I realize that this requires real intellectual, psychological, and emotional muscle not to be pulled back into the past or forward into the future. Both are just an idea in our minds. The only reality is the present.
I would say that not only has my success increased as I’ve learned to live my life day by day in the present, my satisfaction in life has also increased along with it.
There’s no possible satisfaction from being trapped in the past or in the future because these are just thoughts in your mind. So you’re actually not trapped in the past or the future — only by your thoughts about your past and your future.
My muscle-building “being present” exercise.
I’m a big fan of thinking exercises that involve paper and pen or pencil. Our brains have been scientifically proven to engage more with an idea when pen is put to paper. So let’s get started.
Set the timer on your phone for two minutes and write down all your winning achievements over the past 90 days, usually around five to ten things. Next, set the timer again and write down all the things that are creating progress right now in the present. Finally, set the timer and write down everything you’re thinking about in terms of your future.
When I take our clients through this exercise in The Strategic Coach Program, you can almost feel them settling in, getting grounded and centered in their thinking. They’re 100% present — and that’s where the learning happens.
“Be 100% present in the moment. That’s where the learning happens.”Click To Tweet
Enjoy all the benefits of being present.
When you’re actually focused on being present, amazing things happen. Great creative ideas happen, great decisions and plans happen, and energy and momentum are created for what has to happen to keep things moving.
Simply writing down your list of what you’re proud of from the past quarter, what’s giving you energy right now, and what you’re excited about in the future gets you started. Now you can do some deeper thinking, communicate your ideas to those around you more clearly, and make considered decisions you can be confident about.
You’ve given yourself permission to be present, and your results will reflect that every time.
“Give yourself permission to be present, and your results will reflect that every time.”Click To Tweet

WHEREVER YOU ARE, MAKE SURE YOU’RE THERE!

Discover 12 simple ways to make sure you’re truly present in every aspect of your life.
DOWNLOAD NOW »

The post How To Harness The Power Of Being Present appeared first on The Multiplier Mindset.
Source: New feed