Optimize Your Immunity with Darren Fink 

 

Coach’s Notes:

In this episode of AchievingOPTIMAL, we discuss practical ways to boost your immune system with our wellness coach, Darren Fink.

Now more than ever, we must accept responsibility for our health and be prepared in mind, body, and spirt for what life throws our way.

Take plenty of notes because you’ll learn:

-General health strategies.

-Specific immune protocols.

-Where to focus and prioritize

You can follow and reach Darren on Instagram @LivingTransformed

 

 

 

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Optimize Through Adversity – Client Spotlight – Michele Velcheck

 

Coach’s Notes:

In todays episode of AchievingOPTIMAL I’ll be chatting with entrepreneur Michele Velcheck, founder and CEO of Solid Source Real Estate.

We discuss:

-How to lead through times of adversity 

-Strategies for replacing fear with faith 

-Becoming comfortable being uncomfortable 

-Solid Source growth principles 

https://www.solidsource.com/

https://www.instagram.com/michelevelcheck/

 

 

 

The post Optimize Through Adversity – Client Spotlight – Michele Velcheck appeared first on America's Success Coach.

Optimize Your Portfolio – Client Spotlight – Chuck Whitman

Coach’s Notes:

In todays episode of AchievingOPTIMAL I’ll be chatting with trader, investor, educator and entrepreneur Chuck Whitman.

We discuss: 

0:33 – How Chuck and I originally connected

5:00 – Unconventional coaching sessions for unconventional results

9:20 – Taking an inventory of every aspect of your life

14:25 – “You can’t manifest the future by pushing, you manifest the future by pulling”

15:15 – “Think about your goals” vs. “Think from your goals”

17:45 – Freedom and Influence

21:20 – Chuck’s unconventional approach to growing money

29:20 – Creating your OPTIMAL portfolio

31:20 – “You need to own your savings and your portfolio”

33:15 – Why most peoples portfolios are riskier than they think

35:00 – Impact of draw downs and why annual returns are fictional

39:40 – “The permanent portfolio”

42:40 –  Where the ultra-wealthy make their money

48:50 – The 3 Bucket System

54:00 – Chuck’s system that returns 40% a year

1:00:20 – How to learn more about Chuck’s system

Bonus Video – 3 Bucket System 

Resources: 

https://www.reedstrader.com/

March 2020 Reed’s Reports Monthly Webinar – Click Here

March 2020 Porfolio Strategy Letter

Reed’s Report – March 2020

Disclaimer: The information and ideas presented on this podcast are being provided to you as a thought stimulator for educational purposes only. Investing, and trading in particular, carry the risk of money loss. Trading at higher frequency carries the further risk of money loss at a quicker pace. Trade and invest at your own risk, knowing that you can lose some or all of your money. Do your own due diligence before investing or trading in any asset class or security.Your choice to engage in a particular investment or investment strategy should be based solely on your own research and evaluation of the risks involved, your financial circumstances and your investment objectives. 

The post Optimize Your Portfolio – Client Spotlight – Chuck Whitman appeared first on America's Success Coach.

3 Simple Ways To Get Hyper-Focused

Coach’s Notes:

Focus On Focus

I’m going to give you a simple process for staying focused better than ever before.

Focus is essential to success.

Focus = Success.

What is failure? Why does failure occur?

I believe failure occurs due to a lack of focus.

Or a diffusion of effort. Meaning you’ve spread your attention across too many things.

One thing I’ve observed in three decades of coaching, is those born with “A talent” or “A+ talent” have a tendency to take on too many different things and spread themselves thin.

This often leads to “A talent” producing “B results.”

It’s important to remember…

You can’t be all things to all people.

You can’t say “yes” too often.

You can’t have too many things on your plate.

You need to decide you’re going to focus on the few things that make a big difference.

3 ways to get Into state of hyper-focus

1. Review your top 5 goals every morning
2. Debrief every evening
3. Ask “what’s important now?” (W.I.N.)

Number 1: Review your top 5 goals every morning.

Before you can review your top 5 goals daily… you’ve got to know your top 5 goals.

You would be surprised at how many people who are very successful are still winging it.

They are scattered and their frustration is that they’re never finished with things.

They kinda have goals and direction but they do not have CLEAR, SPECIFIC goals.

I want you to have 5 Goals. I have worked with 1000’s of individuals over the last 30 years and 5 goals is really the sweet spot for the ideal number of goals.

“Five F’s”

1.Faith

2.Family

3.Friends

4.Fitness

5.Finances.

So once you have your top 5 goals determined (and written down), I want you to get up every morning and review them first thing.

Look at them.

Ponder them.

Ask, “What could I do today to get closer to them?”

Rewrite them.

When you rewrite your goals first thing in the morning, an amazing thing happens… your vision changes for the rest of the day and you become more aware of the opportunities around you.

Pray about your goals.

Brainstorm about them. “What are 21 things I could do to help me reach this goal?”

Visualize. Imagine how great it would be if your goal was already accomplished. What does it look like the moment your goal is achieved.

Get the feeling. Internalize what that would be like.

Practice advanced gratitude.  Practice being grateful and thankful in advance of actually having reached your goal.

Number 2: Daily Debrief

This is a quick assessment for the purpose of rapid feedback.

If I’m coaching you, I don’t want you to go half a year without correcting a poor strategy.

I want you to evaluate daily whether or not what you are doing is working or not working.

3 Steps:

1. Ask, “What went well?” (What worked?)

2. Ask, “What didn’t go so well?” (What didn’t work?)

3. Determine the top 3 priorities for the next day

The answers to these should be written down.

“Prioritization proceeds focus”

Number 3: Ask, “What’s Important Now?”

This step is so simple I’m almost embarrassed to tell you about it.

I have found most people skip it because it is so simple, but if you use it, it will change how your days look.

Ask, “What’s Important Now?” (W.I.N.)

Ask it all day long. Ask it several times an hour.

The longer version of this is “whats the most valuable use of my time right now?”

Push for the true answer. The answer that is in alignment with your top 5 goals.

If you’re not in the habit of doing this already, you will likely respond with a default answer or a superficial answer. But this is often not the true answer.

The more you ask yourself “Whats important now?”, the better you will get at answering this question with the true answer.

Discipline yourself to stop doing what you are currently doing and start doing what is truly the most valuable use of your time.  (If your not already doing it)

Covey Quadrants

The “Covey Quadrants” are a great thought stimulator to keep in mind when you are asking yourself “What’s important now?”

In the top left quadrant is urgent and important. These are things you have to do, but this is not where you want to operate most of your time.

If a task is urgent and important now, most likely it was important but not urgent but you postponed it.

Try to avoid spending too much time in Quadrant I because it forces your hand and makes you a servant to what is urgent.

Try to spend most of your time in Quadrant II which is in the top right corner. These are the important, non-urgent tasks.

These tasks produce a ”pay-day” down the road. When you spend most of your time in this quadrant, you are in control.

Quadrant III tasks are distractions. These could be other people’s urgent stuff (distractions).

Another type of activity that falls into Quadrant III are things that you pretend are important because they are easy to do or delay having to do what is truly important.

Asking “What’s important now?” will help you avoid Quadrant III tasks.

Quadrant IV (bottom right) activities include things which do nothing to move you in the direction of your goals. Try to avoid this Quadrant at all cost.

Recap

The key to success is focus.

The key to failure is lack of focus. (or diffusion of effort)

Make sure you have you top 5 goals and review them every morning.

Debrief daily.

Constantly and repeatedly, at home and work, ask “What’s important now?”

Remember, Your Success Blesses Others!

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Coach’s Notes:

This is Part 2. Click Here for Part 1.

In this week’s special two-part episode of AchievingOPTIMAL I’m  speaking with clinical psychologist Dr. Mark Crawford.

This show was recorded LIVE at Barnsley Resort during our recent Couples Planning Retreat.

We’re going to be chatting about goals, relationships, and the science of marriage.

Click here to learn more about the Couples Planning Retreat!

Book: “When Two Become Three” – Dr. Mark Crawford

Book: “The Obsessive Compulsive Trap” – Dr Mark Crawford

Your Marriage Blesses Others!

The post Don’t Go Here In Your Marriage! – Dr. Mark Crawford (PART 2) appeared first on America's Success Coach.

Coach’s Notes:

This is Part 1. Click Here for Part 2!

In this week’s special two-part episode of AchievingOPTIMAL I’m  speaking with clinical psychologist Dr. Mark Crawford.

This show was recorded LIVE at Barnsley Resort during our recent Couples Planning Retreat.

We’re going to be chatting about goals, relationships, and the science of marriage.

Click here to learn more about the Couples Planning Retreat!

Book: “When Two Become Three” – Dr. Mark Crawford

Book: “The Obsessive Compulsive Trap” – Dr Mark Crawford

Your Marriage Blesses Others!

The post Don’t Go Here In Your Marriage! – Dr. Mark Crawford (PART 1) appeared first on America's Success Coach.

Show Notes:

I want to tell you the truth about positive self-talk and show you how to get started with it.

What is self-talk?

Self-talk is the inner dialogue that runs all the time, that inner voice, sometimes positive, sometimes negative.

We all talk to ourselves.

I used to be skeptic of self-talk until I realized how many world class athletes use positive self-talk as part of the overall preparation ritual, in particular, right before events.

I started using it, and I believe so highly in the efficacy that I’ve taught it for more than 30 years.

More importantly, you can tell what someone truly believes in by what they share with those that they love. For example, I have provided my children self talk scripts over and over again. I have made them CD’s and mp3’s. I have practiced positive affirmations with them repeatedly.

When I had only been dating my wife Kristin for maybe 2 months, I made a whole stack of notecards for her with positive affirmations on them.

Does it feel a little hokey to do positive self-talk?

Absolutely.

But the option is to leave your inner dialogue, which is going to happen one way another, to chance. And you don’t want to do that.

Affirmation vs Self-talk

Affirmation is something that is more intentional.

Self-talk is automatic, and can be either positive or negative.

“An affirmation is a perfect expression of faith”

Question: “If you had full faith in God, or your abilities, or that a particular event was going to turn out favorably for you, how would you speak to yourself?”

Your self talk will be either random, or intentional. Positive or negative.

Self-talk either supports your goals, or conflicts and inhibits them.

If you are consciously wanting to reach a goal, but unconsciously, there is this voice that is telling you, you can’t do it…This causes you to be double-minded, and when you are double-minded you are unstable, and certainly not optimal.

I want you to be consistent and congruent.

In fact, I want your prayers, thoughts, words, and behaviors to all be in sync.

Now, we are never going to be perfect with this, but we can work at it and get better and better indefinitely.

In todays session I want to encourage you to revisit the power and benefits of positive self-talk.

Benefits of intentional, positive self-talk:

1.

The most important benefit of positive self-talk is that it has a displacement value.

In other words, when you’re saying something positive and encouraging, you are displacing something negative or mediocre that may have otherwise been occupying space in your mind.

So when I’m saying:

“I fell healthy, I feel happy, I feel terrific.”

Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.

But by saying that I am giving my brain an instruction for what I want it to help me create.

More importantly, I’m displacing any negative thought that may be lingering in my mind.

Back when I was still playing baseball I would talk to myself in a positive way before I got up to bat.

“See the ball, see the ball, see the ball, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it”

This is not some magic pill. But when I am saying these constructive things, the negative thoughts don’t have any place to disrupt my thinking.

2.

Because you are intentionally filling your mind with the right thoughts, you become very sensitive to circumstances, to other thought impulses, to what other people are saying.

You become highly sensitized to as to whether or not your thought life is supportive of the goals you want to reach, whether, for example, what you’re watching in the evening is moving you toward your goal or away from your goal.

The more that you are affirming who you want to become and what you want to achieve, the more sensitive you become to your own self talk and whether or not it is alignment with who you want to become.

This creates another benefit, which is an accountability mechanism.

3.

If you’re constantly affirming what you want and you’re not behaving in a manor consistent with that intention, you will “call yourself out.” This “self-coaching” is very powerful and productive.

4.

Because you have this built-in accountability mechanism, it minimizes drift.

Drift, as I’ve observed over the decades, is the main reason people get off track.

They don’t just fall off track all at once. They drift just a little bit at a time.

A little bit, A little bit. A little bit.

That’s how people get off track in any area in life. It’s very seldom abrupt. Its drift, drift, drift.

With positive self talk, there is a protective stop, a firewall, that prevents you from getting too far off track without realizing it.

5.

When you use positive self-talk, your confidence is boosted.

The more you are using positive self talk intentionally, the less you will be distracted by negative unintentional thoughts that weaken your confidence.

You will no longer be dependent on others building you up, and you will have a defense for those who bring you down.

Positive self-talk takes time to help your performance. It is like planting a seed. Most people who’ve practiced positive self-talk give up too soon, before the seeds begin to grow.

How to screw up your self talk. (Don’t do this!)

1. Be reactive and just let it happen. This takes no effort at all. You let your circumstances determine what thoughts you think…being on mental autopilot.

2. Thinking that positive self talk is a quick fix. It is a fix, but it is not a quick fix. You have to plan’t the seeds and be confidently patient, like you would in planting a garden or sticking with your diet.

It is estimated that we think 50,000 thoughts a day. How many of those thoughts are congruent with the person you intend to become? The purpose of self talk is to increase that number, day by day by day.

3. Neglecting to align your behavior with your self-talk and affirmation. We want your self-talk to be a support mechanism for your goal achievement. You can’t just sit on the couch and practice positive self-talk and reach your goals. Not going to happen like that.

How to get started with self-talk

Focus. Pick a particular goal.

Maybe it’s a relationship goal, fitness goal, or financial goal.

Write it as specifically and clearly as you can with a deadline.

Draft 10 supporting statements.

These 10 statements are your affirmations or positive self-talk statements.

Put them on a notecard so that you can flip through them throughout the day.

Use the PEPP formula.

Postive.

Emotion Provoking.

Personal.

Present tense.

For example, if you had a goal to get lean, you might think and repeat to yourself:

“I am lean and strong”

“I eat the right amount for perfect fitness”

“I drink my bodyweight in ounces”

“I have great self-discipline”

“I exercise daily”

Etc…

Put one affirmation per notecard.

Review it and flip through the notecards as frequently as possible.

Recap.

-Self talk is a tool, not a magic wand.

-Repetition and emotion produce results.

-Work on one area of your life at a time, then spread this practice to another area of your life.

-Make intentional self-talk part of your daily success discipline.

Remember my job is to help you reach the right goals faster, because….

Your Success Blesses Others!

The post How Do You Talk To Yourself? appeared first on America's Success Coach.

 

Show Notes:

In this weeks episode of AchievingOPTIMAL I want to focus on a fundamental practice that drives your entire thought process.

This fundamental is: Positive Mental Nutrition.

In fact, if you’re not aware of Positive Mental Nutrition (and especially negative mental nutrition) it can really drain you of energy and motivation.

Think about this… to achieve a healthy body you’ve got to have the right quantity and variety of nutrient dense foods. You’ve got to drink the right amount of water, workout, sleep, and take the right supplements.

If you wanted to be healthy, you wouldn’t skip sleep, stop working out, eat unhealthy, greasy and sugary foods.

Let’s say you wanted to lose weight… you would decide in advance: here are the foods I’m going to eat, and here are the foods I’m not going to eat, 

That’s your physical diet. Maybe low carb, or low fat? Who knows?

Whatever diet you choose, you are deciding in advance what you’re going to consume and what you’re not going to consume .

Now for your mindset… how do you develop a positive mindset?

You consume Positive Mental Nutrition.

To upgrade your mindset, decide in advance what you’re going to feed yourself mentally.

One of the things I’ve found working with clients over the years is that they’ve got to stock their fridge and pantry with healthy food and drink choices if they want to reach their goal of becoming physically fit.

If they are really committed to being healthy and fit, and they are clear on what they should eat and shouldn’t eat, but their fridge and pantry are stocked with unhealthy options, that creates a much higher likelihood of failure. Keeping unhealthy food at home moves them away from their goal and often triumphs because it forces an extra degree of discipline to stick with their diet when you are in the presence of junk food.

The same exact thing is true with your mental diet.

The key is to prep your environment.

Think of this as your “mental fridge” or “mental pantry.”

Only keep things that make you healthier and more joyful around in your surroundings.

“A healthy mind produces joy like a healthy body produces energy”

If you don’t have joy, that should tell you that something is not right. Joy is your natural state.

A lack of joy can almost always can be traced back to negative mental nutrition. Allowing junk in your mind shifts your focus to what’s missing or deficient or broken.

If you’re low on energy, it’s likely because you’re not eating or drinking the right things.

There’s a very interesting parallel between healthy physical nutrition and Positive Mental Nutrition.

Feeding yourself mentally with highly nutritiousness thoughts, images and ideas is pretty simple.

It’s easy to do that if you are intentional.

If you will just commit to 15 minutes a day of making sure that you consume Positive Mental Nutrition, it can transform your mindset.

If you transform your mindset, you transform your habits.

If you transform your habits, then you start to get better results.

The 15 Minute Miracle

I often call this the 15 minutes miracle.

Let’s do some math.

15 minutes every day for a week ends up being 1 hour and 45 minutes.

So what if you took 15 min each day to fill your mind with something inspiring, motivational, educational, or informative.

You could swap out 15 minutes of watching random TV episode or scrolling through social media.

Or just wake up an extra 15 minutes early to create this opportunity time.

15 minutes a day is….

1 hour 45 minutes a week

7 and a half hours a month

22 and a half hours a quarter

90 hours a year… that’s two 45 hour work weeks.

This could transform your life.

Why 15 minutes?

I wanted to show you how just a little bit every day can make a huge difference.

Imagine if you did an hour a day.

It would come out to 15, 24-hour days. Or 46, 8-hour days.

That is like a month and a half of work.

We know that it is very important to guard your heart, which means to guard your mind, because whatever goes in, comes out.

If it comes out, it was at some point put in.

That is why it is important to not let things into your system that move you way from the person that you’re capable of becoming.

It’s really important to be strategic about what you allow into your mind.

Often the reason that you’re not feeling 1000%, that you’re not as ambitious or motivated as you would like to be, or excited about the future, is because you’re feeding yourself the wrong mental diet.

You are a sponge.

We are constantly soaking up everything around us.

Everything counts.

You don’t have to be obsessive… but maybe that wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Pay attention to the things that you read, watch, and listen to. And this includes surfing the Internet, conversing with other people, etc…All of this shapes and molds your mindset which means it shapes and molds your outlook on life, the habits and activities you engage in, and ultimately the results that you generate.

My challenge to you…

Chose a time during the day to take 15 minutes to make sure you are consuming Positive Mental Nutrition.

Two good options:

The first 15 minutes in the morning or the last 15 minutes before bed.

During this 15 minute stretch, inspire yourself.

Read the Bible.

Read an inspirational book.

Read something that will elevate your relationships.

Read something that will allow you to serve others better.

Other opportunities…

In the car or train while you are commuting.

While you are exercising.

While doing chores or cleaning up around the house.

While you are showering.

Anytime you are doing a mindless task, try listening to an audiobook or podcast.

Instead of letting your mind roam free, try loading it with Positive Mental Nutrition.

Know where you are.

It’s really easy to think you’re doing well in this area, when maybe you’re not.

Be excellent in this area.

Be sure that you are strong and consistent with you mental diet.

Know what you’re consuming.

In light of your goals, are you consuming the right quality and quantity of Positive Mental Nutrition?

If you’re not, let’s make some adjustments.

What do you listen to first thing in the morning? What do you see? What do you read? What are you absorbing mentally first thing in after awakening?

Same thing for the evening.

Right before bed, what do you tend to be thinking about? Or consuming?

It is so easy today to fill ourselves with good and bad. Choose good.

Ask yourself:

In light of my goals… what should I read more, what should I listen to more, what should I watch more?

In light of my goals… what should I stop reading, stop listening to, or stop watching?

Recap:

Positive Mental Nutrition: Deliberate productive inputs, what you read, watch and listen to on a consistent basis.

Everything counts. What you consume either directly or indirectly influences every decision you make.

It is important that your reach your full potential because…

Your Success Blesses Others!

The post Are You On The Right Mental Diet? appeared first on America's Success Coach.

Show Notes:

Dominate Your 20s

If you’re in your 20s or if you have loved ones such as your children who are in theirs 20s, this show is for you.

Over the years, I have worked with many teenagers and young adults on what it takes to succeed ensuring they have the right foundation for success.

Your 20s is an amazing decade of life, especially when it comes to establishing the foundation of a high-character, high-performance way of living.

What you do, or what you neglect to do, between graduation from college and your 30th birthday is huge. It sets the tone for the rest of your life.

Avoid the mindset of the “extended college mentality” or “extended college lifestyle.”

If you haven’t already, now that you’re out in the real world, you want to start thinking like a totally responsible individual.h

When you wake up on your 30th birthday, be where you want to be in life.  Accomplish what you intend to accomplish.

Think about your 20s as your freshman decade.

You’re in your freshman decade right now. What does that mean to you?

A lot is going to happen in this age range that will influence the rest of your life.

Your 20s is the ideal time to set the foundation for an exceptional life, to create the habits that will build the momentum going forward.

You don’t want to make it to age 32, then look back and say, “I wasted a lot of time.” That will be a painful moment and painful realization.

Here are some recommendations to help you achieve your best. Compare yourself against these standards and see how you measure up.

Train to win.

Train to win. Train to crush it. I want you to be one of the most successful people you know on your 30th birthday. Zoom in on that picture.

Seize the decade.

How do you do that? You seize the decade by seizing each and every day. And that begins with thinking back from the future.

Define optimal. 

I want you to define what optimal is.

I want you to think about what would make your life perfect at age 35.

If you had everything you wanted at age 35, what would you have? What would be true, that’s not 100% true today?

What would be in your life? Who would be in your life? What and who would NOT be in your life?

Define that now.

Invest a couple of hours reflecting about what you really really want. Then plan back from that.

Ask yourself the same questions for age 30, then 28 and 26 and so on. This is the piece that is often not done.

It is real easy to move on in life without having a long time perspective.

“You should be very very interested in your future because your going to be spending the rest of your life there”

Set meaningful goals.

Don’t stress about it. You can always change them later.

Establish meaningful goals.

“Think with your fingers.” Either with old fashioned pen and paper – write out the things you want to be true. Or create a document.

Clarify what you want…

Relationally

Financially 

Career

Fitness

Faith

Fun

etc…

Define what you want, why you want it, and how you’re going to go about getting it.

Get serious about success. Unfortunately, not that many people are very serious about success.

You will be the exception.

Build success character.

If you are in your early 20s or that general phase of life.

You probably grew up with many different influences shaping what you believe about the world.

Today, I’m not covering the soft character qualities like compassion, empathy, patience, etc…

These are important. But what I want to talk about is success character.

This will be the difference that will accelerate your progress and help you get from where you are now to where you really want to be down the road.

-Winning mindset.

-Work ethic.

-Focus

-Intentional relationships.

-Service and value creation.

Winning Mindset.

It begins with your outlook or worldview.

Be a good steward of your potential. This is an obligation that you have. Become everything that God created you to become.

Success is about stewardship.

You have been given talents, time, opportunities, and it’s very important that whatever you multiply what you have been given. This is stewardship. 

Believe in abundance.

If you apply the principles of success, plant the right seeds, and refuse to give up, you can succeed and everyone else around you can succeed as well. All truly successful individuals understand this.

We can all succeed and maximize our full potential.

Success in real life is not a zero sum game.

The flip side of this is the “poverty mindset.” Or scarcity mindset.

“If you win, then I loose”

“If you earn more, I earn less”

“When you become more successful, it makes me less successful. ” “There’s not enough to go around.” This is all nonsense.

Stay away from people who think or talk like this. Avoid exposure that promote this toxic mentality.

Success is a blessing.

Your success blesses others.

When you succeed you create a ripple effect.

For example, when someone starts a business and the business does well it creates jobs.

When you succeed, it’s almost impossible to not bring other people with you.

Self image. (How you think about yourself right now)

A lot of your mindset has to do with how you see yourself.

This is generally developed by what you say to yourself and what you believe.

It is also developed based on what the people you love and care about say about you.

Self ideal. (Future image of yourself, who you might one day become.)

Everybody has a self-ideal. Be more intentional and deliberate with the development of this mental construct. Otherwise you will be on autopilot and let others shape your destiny.

In your 20s you can make your life whatever you want to want to make of it if…

…If you are willing to get clear on what you’re trying to accomplish and are willing to work really hard.

4:8 Mindset (Optimistic Mindset)

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

In any situation you have the choice to either focus on the good or the bad.

Extreme ownership (see Jocko Willink)

Ownership of your thoughts.

Ownership of your words.

Ownership of your actions.

Create an excuse free zone.

Say “I am responsible” all the time.

It may be painful at first, but it is actually very freeing.

Pretending to be a victim slows your growth.

Work Ethic

In your 20s, outwork everyone.

Leverage your discretionary time.

Evenings. Weekends. Vacations.

In your 20s, be more focused on preparing for your 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s than simply entertaining yourself.

Make sure you are using extra time every day to get ahead, to do more than the average person.

If you just do what everyone else is doing, you can only go at that pace, which produces mediocrity at best.

Sleep and Work

There is a phase of life when for at least 5 nights a week, you go to sleep early and you get up early and you go to work.

Stress and recovery!

Don’t maintain a lifestyle form college where you stay up late and sleep in until the last possible moment.

Focus

Focus and concentration produce success. It’s really that simple. Distraction is enemy #1.

Lack of concentration and diffusion of focus produces failure. (Being scattered)

Thinking about too many things at the same time is a prescription for underperformance.

Two Types of Focus:

Task Focus and Long-term focus.

Task focus is working on a specific task. This is single minded focus.

This is stating on task until the task is complete. This is not checking your phone or multitasking.

Research shows multitasking or toggling between tasks drastically reduces productivity.

Long-term (sustained) focus.

This is having a 1 year, or 3 year, goal and being able to stick with it until it is achieved.

If you have finished college, that is amazing. That is an example of sustained focus.

Your 35th birthday will come much quicker than you think.

When you wake on your 35th birthday, you are going to wake up to a certain set of circumstances and conditions and success or lack thereof.

Now is the time to change what age 35 looks like.

Set 3-5 short term goals that motivate you.

Choose goals that have powerful and positive rewards when you reach them so that it motivates you.

Set goals that make you want to get up early and stay up late to push towards your goal. If you don’t have motivation like this, change your goals. 

Develop a goal map.

This is a collage of pictures that are symbolic of what you are trying to accomplish or who you are trying to become.

You can either do it on a poster board with pictures cut out of a magazine.

Some people prefer making a keynote or powerpoint that they can flip through every morning.

Weekly Evaluation.

I encourage you to take 10-15 minutes sometime on Sunday to review how you have performed in the last week.

Ask yourself:

What has gone well?

What hasn’t gone well?

What do I need to do differently?

This will speed up the learning curve and prevent you from making the same mistakes over and over again.

Relationship building.

You want to make connections with other individuals that will be a part of your community of success.

Make connections, join groups, get around other success-oriented individuals.

Establish friendships with your goals in mind.

Keep track of the people that you’re meeting and getting to know.

Make notes so you can keep track of the goals and dreams of the people around you.

Ultimately, you want to focus on adding value to the people that you are meeting.

Seek to help the people you meet. This is huge!

The way to reach your goals is to help as many other people reach their goals.

Develop a list of the most important 10-20 people in your life and look at it frequently.

Build relationships before you need them.

Service

Our rewards in life will be in direct proportion to the value we add to the marketplace.

I’m referring to service in the sense of adding value and contributing to people in the marketplace.

Find out how people want to be served and then serve them better than anyone else.

Find out how you can be more valuable to your boss, your customers and your co-workers.

Get obsessed with making yourself more valuable.

To earn more, you have to learn more and serve more.

Go the extra mile.

Pay the price now.

Your 20s is your launching pad decade.

Plant the right seeds.

Delay gratification.

Train to win.

Your Success Blesses Others!

The post Dominate Your 20s appeared first on America's Success Coach.

Show Notes:

Questions shape your thinking….and your thinking shapes your life – Coach

The power of questions.

Questions are very powerful because they steer your thinking in either an upward or downward direction.

We constantly ask ourselves questions…and answer those questions…for better or worse.

As your coach, I ask questions to help you get to the next level.

If you get into habit of asking yourself productive questions, you will create a positive mental atmosphere.

Questions redirect your thinking from something okay to something excellent.

They steer your focus toward productive aims.

They have a displacement value. Strong questions push out weak questions.

If you train yourself to ask quality questions, you can defeat negativity.

Many people drive themselves into discouragement by asking self-defeating questions.

Productive questions spawn additional productive questions…and productive thinking is the result.

I use the following five questions to upgrade the thinking of my clientele.

I encourage you to use these as well.

Question 1: What’s Your Goal?

“We have all been in situations where we’ve almost enjoyed wallowing in negative emotions. We nurse a grudge against someone who said something hurtful, or we sulk in response to being disappointed. But what is the end result? Will acting on the negative emotion move us in the direction of our highest good? Will that negative emotion bless those closest to us? Will it help us reach our goals? In a marriage spat, for example, is the goal to be right or to be happy?

What’s your goal?

I bombard my clients with this question for the purpose of activating their God-given reason and conscience, thereby enhancing their spontaneous decision making. Your goal should act as a filter, eliminating words, behaviors, and other emotional responses that oppose it.”

From p.213 of 40 Days to a Joy Filled Life.

By asking the question, you’re going to make better MICRO-CHOICES all day long.

We make so many small choices every day and we don’t notice them, but they accumulate.

Over time, those small choices add up.

“As a parent, for example, your emotional responses can be tempered by a clearly stated parenting goal-such as communicating love, not impatience, to your children- that weeds out irresponsible parental reactions regardless of their apparent justification.

Certainly, you will have negative triggers in your life from time to time. Fortunately, Got has provided a little gap of opportunity for his most valuable creation. This tiny space between stimuli and your response to it gives you a chance to think before you react. This will shape not only your potential for joy but also your destiny as a human being.

What’s your goal?”

What’s your goal?

Ask yourself: “What’s my goal?”

Don’t let the radio, or music, or social media drive you’re thinking.

YOU drive your own thinking by thinking about your goals.

I have found that decision making is very difficult if we are not clear on our goals.

Ask “WHAT’S MY GOAL” daily!

Question 2: What’s the most valuable use of your time right now?

Ask yourself: Whats the most valuable use of my time right now?

Constantly check yourself. Ask this question over and over again thought the day.

When you constantly ask yourself this question it prevents you from drifting off track.

Often, in the work environment, we drift towards the activities that are third in importance or second in importance.

The purpose of this question is to steer us back to number one.

Closely related is the next question…

Question 3: Whats important now?  (W.I.N.)

I remember when my oldest son Ty was in the first or second grade and I wanted to help him stay focused in class.

Before parent’s night, I had a bunch of business cards created with “W.I.N. What’s Important Now” printed on them.

I went in on parent’s night and stuck a whole bunch of them in his desk (and later his book bag) so that he would eventually see them…and see them over and over again.

My goal was to prompt him repeatedly to remember our conversations about goals and focus.

Ask yourself early and often, “What’s important now?.”

What was important yesterday, an hour ago, or even fifteen minutes ago, may not be what is important NOW.

So ask throughout the day!

Question 4: Is it optimal?

This questions means a lot to me. It is very simple.

Is it optimal?

Or

Is this optimal?

The reason this is so profound is because we often settle for okay or fine.

Have you seen those AT&T commercials?

“Just OK is not OK”

I often open my talks with these videos.

Sometimes we get used to things being okay.

As long as its not “bad” we accept it.

You want to start asking yourself “Is it optimal?”

There are some things that are sub-optimal and there are things that are optimal.

Always pursue optimal.

…With how you run your life.

…With what you’re eating.

…With what you’re thinking.

Is this optimal?

Question 5: What’s the number one thing you could be doing, that if you did it constantly, would have the most positive impact on your life?

What is it?

This is a question that you can not escape or avoid.

We could tailor this question specifically for different areas of your life.

What’s the number one thing you could be doing, that if you did it constantly, would have the most positive impact on your marriage?

What’s the number one thing you could be doing, that if you did it constantly, would have the most positive impact on your financial life?

These questions harness both your creativity and your ability to focus tightly on what really makes a difference.

These questions move you toward optimal, toward the best that is possible.

These questions help you be more successful.

These questions help you maximize your God-given potential.

Why is this important?

Because….

Your Success Blesses Others!

The post 5 Questions High Achievers Ask appeared first on America's Success Coach.

Show Notes:

New Year’s resolutions are for Losers!

Winners set goals!

It’s that time of year…

I want to talk about something that really works.

New Year’s resolutions don’t work.

Research indicates about half are broken before the end of January and 90% by Valentine’s day.

You are above New Year’s resolutions! You are a goal directed high achiever!

New Year’s resolutions are often vague…

“eat healthier”

“get fit”

“handle money better”

Virtually no value at all.

Unless an intention is specific enough to drive action steps and allows someone to hold you accountable then there is no value.

Research shows they don’t work.

If there is no plan or process in place to follow through then you will tend to keep on doing the same thing you have always done. And you will get the same results you always have.

So what works?

Goals Work

Here is why:

Goals tell your brain what to notice and what to pay attention to.

Once you have a properly formulated goal, you start seeing opportunities and noticing things that you otherwise would not have noticed.

Because you notice these things, you take action.

And because you take action, you reach your goal.

The more specific your goal the more activated that awareness becomes.

We all have goals…

Our brain interprets whatever we think about the most as a goal.

It’s kind of scary, but it’s true.

Whatever we dwell upon gets interpreted as a goal.

It could be something negative or wanting to get away from.

It could be a flaw or something you are worried about.

You have to be careful about what you are thinking about.

With your goals, I want you to…

1. Clarify what you want.
2. Why you want it.
3. What are the action steps?

I tell my clients to “THINK HUGE”

I challenge them to set goals that they do not know how to achieve.

You want your goals to be big and meaningful.

little goals = little motivation

Big goals = Big motivation

Set Big goals if you want Big motivation.

Because little goals don’t produce a big reward, you can become demotivated.

Set goals for all key areas of life.

• Faith/ Spiritual Life
• Marriage/ Relationship
• Parenting
• Business
• Health/Fitness
• Adventure/Fun
• Savings

After you set your goal…

You develop a plan of action.

Identify why you want it.

Identify potential obstacles. What are the things in your way that might slow you down?

Layout checkpoints and milestones. Figure out where you should be at each checkpoint.

Use the feedback at each checkpoint to course correct and stay on track. 

Rewrite your goals daily.

Rewrite your top 3-5 goals, by hand, every day.

Write them in sentence form and include the date.

Ex. “By December 31, 2020, I …… “

Lay out very specifically what you want to accomplish.

Re-write the goal as if you writing it for the first time.

Look at and review your goals throughout the day.

Invite accountability.

Invite accountability from a like-minded individual.

Identify people you trust and respect and share those 3-5 goals with them.

Check-in on each other to make sure you are staying on track.

In 2020… Don’t be a cliche New Year’s resolution setter… Be a goal directed, high performance individual.

Your Success Blesses Others.

The post New Year’s Resolutions are for Losers! appeared first on America's Success Coach.