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personal freedom

Are you a Brick or a Stone? Personal Freedom is A Decision

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This week I’m going to be releasing a very special interview of myself and Daniel’s. The guest is Dane Maxwell, formerly known as the guy who has helped numerous people build their own SaaS (Software as a Service) based businesses through a program called “The Foundation”.

If you’re not familiar with Dane, check him out on one of Pat’s “early” podcasts via this link. This interview was a game changer (and still is!) for many online entrepreneurs.

The election process is something that a lot of people take for granted. But in the US, we shouldn’t ever forget how many people have fought for what we have today.

Unfortunately, the powers that are in control in society – especially the media and the federal government – have led many of us to believe we’re only capable of what others say we are.

If you look at both sides of presidential ticket, one side says we need more protection from all the bad things in the world, while the other one says that we need protection from all the challenges that we might face in the world.

Either way you look at it, the Federal Government is trying to tell us we need more of it in our lives.

In return they’ll give us liberty to live a peaceful life and just keep doing what we’re doing.

But is it really so simple?

We’re All Stones Treated as Bricks

I recently heard an analogy about how the world is trying to make us copies of each other. Like we’re being made into bricks to be the infrastructure of this society. We all conform into a certain code of conduct.

And we do. Especially those of us who are products of higher forms of formal education.

It’s what our school system trains us to be. Teach to the test, not the individual.

Sure this is fair treatment, but is it the best treatment?

I don’t think so. Not everyone is the same naturally.

Instead of bricks, we’re more like stones. Some of us are big, some are small. Some have weird angles and yet others are made of different materials.

You can still build with stones… but not as easily as you can with bricks.

It’s easy to understand why working with brick might be more preferable by a craftsman (or in the real world, the top 1% of the top 1%). They want the easiest way to build something that has a strong structure.

But value of the end result isn’t going to be as high as if stones were used.

With bricks, you just place each one on top of each other until you have the form you want and put a roof on it. With stones, you have to strategically think about how each stone fits into the building.

Like Glenn, when I see a stone house, I admire the work that went into it.

Can You Be a Stone once You’ve been Trained as a Brick?

When it comes to people, I believe so. We’re never truly bricks. We’re just treated that way.

That’s really what New Inceptions is all about. Helping people who think they’re bricks “refind” their uniqueness. Their own perfect spot in the world.

When it comes to finding your spot, Dane wants us all to know about our individual worth and value. We are valued for who we are and our contributions to helping others.

You might have heard that he’s becoming a musician to get that message out. Further than he could with The Foundation.

His songs are meant to help people feel loved and appreciated for who they are. Here’s a glimpse:

I recommend subscribing to his newsletter to get the rest of his new songs.

But yes, it takes a lot of work to find what makes you unique and realize you’re a stone.

Exercising Your Personal Freedom

Here’s the deal. You, like me, or even Dane, are not defined by your past.

We don’t have to always be the person that everyone sees us as.

Perhaps society and your education would make you believe otherwise, but really your future does not rely on who you’ve been or what you currently think of myself.

Heck, just yesterday Maria let me know of a guy who killed himself over the pressures of what was going on in his life. From what I understand, he turned to alcohol and other means of blocking out the pain. And eventually it got to him. You really have to feel for his family and the grief that he caused them.

But yet, I’m sure he felt stuck.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

As Sandra Bellamy said in session 50 of the podcast, you need to embrace your quirkiness. Or as I would simply put it, you need to exercise your personal freedom.

How do you do that?

Well, besides what Sandra suggests, I’d become familiar familiar with the 5 Obstacles of Personal Freedom. Start with health because you can’t really help people if you don’t have the energy to.

With it being October of 2016, I want to make sure you’re aware of the fifth one.

You need to know what liberties are currently granted to you in your country. Essentially these are the rules that you have to play by.

If you’re like me, you’ll want to fight to keep things as free as they are. The more liberties governments gives their people, it’s usually done through taking away something else that we weren’t aware of.

Remember that the Constitution is all about what powers the government has – not what liberties it gives us. The government should work for us, not the other way around.

And currently it’s looking more and more like we’re bricks working for it.

Wrap Up

As you’re hearing this heavy pounding of political ads this month in the US, I want you to remember the difference between Personal Freedom and Personal Liberty.

Personal Liberty is the “playing field” that the outside world gives us. Personal Freedom is the freedom you give yourself to be the natural you in that space.

Familiarize yourself with which candidates talk about giving you more freedom. Not necessarily those who talk about “being fair”. Brick makers are usually the ones who talk about strong “education” and treating each other as “equals”.

With the internet, you can educate yourself. Educate yourself to be the best version of you and not what formal education teaches you is “important”.

Also, we shouldn’t judge people by what their demographics are. We should judge them based on their character and their actions – if at all. No one person is inherently better than the next.

Not a person who owns 16 profitable businesses or a person who has a spark of a dream.

Now, get out there and meet some other stones!

convertkit

Barrett Brooks: ConvertKit Transition, Empowerment of Others, and Meaningful Conversations (AoL 054)

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We’ve all felt that feeling where, at the end of the day, you wish you felt better about the work that you’re doing. Perhaps you feel like you’re stuck in a rut. Maybe you want to pursue something else with your time? Make more impact on people.

How do you do that?

There’s so much to the answer of that simple questions.

Like the team at New Inceptions, Barrett Brooks, today’s guest, is all about helping people make an impact. He did it with his first business called Living for Monday, then went on to join Fizzle, and now he works with ConvertKit as their Brand Strategist and Community Builder.

In this chat with Barrett, we find out more about that transition to ConvertKit and what he looks forward to doing with them. We also got the opportunity to find out more about his time with Seth Godin, why he likes empowering others, and why he believes meaningful conversations are the basis for great relationships.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • How Barrett got involved with ConvertKit 8:00
  • What’s the people and culture at ConvertKit like? 11:28
  • Who is ConvertKit for? 13:48
  • What was Barrett’s time with Seth Godin like? 15:56
  • Knowing what he knows now about business, how would he have changed his business plan for his old business “Living for Mondays”. 23:13
  • How did Barrett get started with Fizzle.co? 26:17
  • What were things that made Barrett want to become an empowerer of others? 29:05
  • Where does he get his interest in politics and world events? 40:02
  • Why he believes that great relationships are built on deep conversations and connections. 45:16
  • Who does Barrett coach and how does he reach out to them? 47:26
  • His thoughts in how to get more people in deep and meaningful conversations. 52:01
  • Biggest 3 Influencers in Barrett’s Life 59:24
  • What he believed when he was 21 and now sees as bogus. 1:00:11
  • Who’s the most awe-inspiring person he’s met? 1:01:23
  • One thing under $100 that has changed his life. 1:02:37
  • Who comes to mind when he thinks of success? 1:03:10
  • … and MUCH more!

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Barrett’s Choice Books:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Barrett’s TEDx Talk

Teaser for the Fizzle Jess Lively Interview

Jess Lively Interview:

barrett brooks jess lively

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His interview via Talking Davos:

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

 

How to Make a Personal Development Plan for Your Business Which You’ll Be Sure to Stick To!

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In the last post, I talked about Just In Time Learning. This is something that I’ve been learning quite a bit about recently.

Before I was focusing on building New Inceptions, I would always just listen to whatever the influencers had to say. Many times just because it was actionable information.

But, I never took action and therefore it was really just entertainment.

Once I did start focusing, however, I was able to actually apply what I was learning. And then I would naturally have more questions that needed answers. And the process would keep going.

This process has lead to me mastering skills and abilities that I didn’t know I’d even have before starting on the journey of building a business.

Want to know my strategy for mastering parts of my business? Here you go:

Step-by-step process: How to Make a Personal Development Plan for Your Business that You’ll Be Sure to Stick To

I’m going to walk you through all six steps here. Follow along and do what I do.

Step 1: Brainstorm

Using a mind map, I want you to think of 10 to 15 things that you believe that you could that could take your business to the next level.

Before you think of those items, I want you to give yourself 4 different categories that will help you with your thinking.

These 4 different categories are things that would help your business grow. So, for example, here are 4:

  1. Speaking opporutunities
  2. A website
  3. Products
  4. Engaging with potential clients

If you’ve never heard of a mind map, here’s what one might look like (via Pat Flynn in this 2008 post).

pats-mindmap

These are examples of things that Pat could make money from.

This mind mapping process can give you a much clearer sense of what’s important and you need to be focusing on next.

Step 2: From Your Mindmapping, preferably pick skills and topics that are in the Personal Development Sweet Spot.

Meaning that:

  1. You have a competency in or can perform it.
  2. You have a passion for it (or it’s existence will help your passion).
  3. Other people will want it.

Here’s a visualization of where you should be working:

personal-development-sweet-spot

Step 3: Prioritize – which of these chosen skills or actions will have the most impact on your business?

Now that you’ve brought this list down a bit, let’s see if it makes sense to do them right now.

First, do any of the items that you’re thinking about working on fall into one of the 6 Cornerstones of a Successful Online Business?

For example, if one of your items is learning how to use a certain type of social media (because one of the 4 topics we listed was engaging with potential clients), then you’d learn that social media, when it comes to business, is a form of marketing.

However, another one of our topics was “a website”.

Would it make sense to market your services first or have a place on the web (or in the real world for that matter) where people can find out more about you?

That’s where a website is needed. Marketing and engagement should come after actually having somewhere for people to find out more about what you’re doing.

Again, get the 6 Cornerstones eBook to help with this part.

Step 4: Evidence of Accomplishment

So let’s say that you pick doing a website now because you accept what I said in the last step.

How will you know that your website is done enough that you can start marketing it?

What does “Done” look like here?

That decision is going to be up to you. You might just opt for a long one page solution. Or, you might feel that you want to create different pages that that have different jobs. What’s best for what you’re wanting to do?

You have to start with the end in mind of what you want to achieve before you go looking for how you should do it.

Examples of things that might be considered “done” in my book would include:

  1. My New Product is available.
  2. I have a landing page for that new product.

Or if I wanted to work on traffic and leads:

  1. How many new followers do I need to have in order to get X traffic?

Knowing what you’re looking for will help you do the next step…

Step 5: Find and List 10 Resources or People That You Might Be Able to Learn it From

Ok, so how do you find someone that has the knowledge (free or for a premium) that will help you do what you want to do?

I have 5 suggestions you can to with increasing cost to get what you’re looking for:

  • Search YouTube – You’ll find the free options here. Many times, though, they’re previews of the main course.
  • Subscribe to Fizzle – Only $35 a month and it covers all the bases of what you need to know at any given time while building a young business. (Use this link for 2 weeks for free!)

fizzle

Here’s the main page of Fizzle’s library of courses. Now you see why I recommend them!!

  • Go to a site like Lynda.com or uDemy to find specific skills for your business.
  • Buy a big ol’ course from a lead influencer. These usually have the best results because they’re so rich in details, but you will be paying through the nose for it. (These can typically cost anywhere from $500 – $5000 per course!!) You’ll hear about these courses from big mediapreneurs like Pat Flynn, Jordan Harbinger, and Lewis Howes.
  • Buy a course from a lesser known person through a site like Producthunt.com. Results might definitely vary here, but you might find a bargain!!

Step 6: Implementation through Accountability

Learning about some new topic, strategy, or skill, won’t mean anything unless you put what you’re learning about to use.

Some people like to buy the higher cost courses just because the higher cost will keep them more accountable to implementing what they’ve learned.

However, many of those courses are time sensitive and will expect your full focus right away. Often times you get to meet others through these courses and help each other accomplish more together.

…

Side Note: If you’re wondering how much a product that is currently being hyped will cost – the more hype combined with the more results a free portion of the product will yield, the more you can expect the final program costing.

So a great example of this was the recent Ryan Levesque’s Ask Method. He was on several shows giving great quality in-depth pointers in how to actually do something. He was also mentioned several times in email campaigns by other folks as affiliates. The actual cost of the program is unknown to me, but I would go out on a limb and guess it was easily $2000 to $5000 per participant. And if people wanted to work with him in a small workshop type of function – that could easily start that price at $10k for the entry price.

Personally, I’ve been through two programs like this: The John Maxwell Team Certification Program and The Foundation. My networks have blossomed greatly because of my involvement with both.

…

Other resources that are available all the time won’t require as much focus and chances are their price points won’t be in the thousands.

However, you won’t be getting built in accountability with it.

If you have a network already in place of people who are ready to be accountable with you in whatever you want to work on, then you don’t need that extra price

If you’re just getting starting on your business, here’s my suggestion: Hop on Fizzle and make use of their Roadmap or if you’re a reader, read Pat Flynn’s book Will It Fly?

Action Steps:

Here’s my challenge to you.

Pick 5 topics or skills that you’re going to learn about within the next month or so by the end of this week. Then start learning about the first one next week. It might take you longer than a week to learn and do as much as you can for each one. How quickly you learn them is completely up to you.

But you’ll have focus because you’ll know what you’re supposed to be learning about!

And, of course, the bright side of that is that you won’t go crazy trying to convince yourself you need to be doing 20 different things!

Let me know how it works out for you below!

 

starting a SaaS Business

Tips for Starting a SaaS Business and Exploring Current Events with Matej Leban (AoL 053)

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Have you heard of The Foundation? The one educational program with Dane Maxwell teaching people how to build a SaaS based business? Perfect students are those who don’t have their own idea, money, or skills to make it work out on their own?

If you haven’t, go check it out!

If you have heard of it, you might have heard that the hardest problem that many Foundation students have is finding someone to work on the technical aspect of things. They don’t know where to look or how to vet those that they have found on a site like Upwork.

That’s where today’s guest, Matej Leban comes in.

Just like other students, Matej struggled with this part. Eventually, though, he figured out a way around it.

Today with SaaSBloom, he helps others do the same thing.

In this chat, we talk about that story and some tips he’s learned in making a profitable SaaS. We also discuss why a guy like him, who’s from Eastern Europe, would be interested in US Politics.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • Matej’s Experience Being a Mentor in the Foundation 8:52
  • What flipped his entrepreneurial switch. 11:21
  • Some tips that Matej has learned to successfully cold contact potential clients. 20:28
  • Where the idea for SaaSBloom came from 24:20
  • What Matej would use to create in the world. 32:54
  • Why Matej, who’s from Eastern Europe, has an interest in US Politics. 34:06
  • Sources that Matej follows to stay on top of World Events 48:50
  • What are 3 influencers that have influenced Matej to where he is today 55:21
  • One gift he likes giving the most. 57:43
  • One thing Matej believed when he was 28 years old, but doesn’t any longer. 58:19
  • If he was going to place an ad cost free into world, what would it be? 2:32
  • One thing under $100 that has changed his life. 3:54
  • When he thinks of success, who comes to mind? 1:04:58
  • … and MUCH more!

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Dane Maxwell gives a quick intro to The Foundation and SaaS:

Maxie Describes working with Matej:

Men Who Built America Trailer:

Glenn Beck and Penn Jillette talk about Penn’s book “Everyday is an Atheist Holiday! More Magical Tales”

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

 

sara divello interview

Sara DiVello: Finding the Courage to Step Out of a Rut and Get Noticed Nationally (AoL 052)

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If you want to inspire others to take a certain action in their lives or simply get out a message, eventually you’re going to have to start that journey.

Simply wanting to help others isn’t going to get you anywhere.

However, when you do start your journey, you might come to find out that getting your message out there is somewhat harder than you might think.

So you might wonder, “How will I ever get this thing to go big?”

Today’s guest, Sara DiVello, has had the opportunity to not only start her journey, but she has been able to take it nationally in just a few years after launching her book in 2013.

She has appeared in many outlets including, Forbes, ABC, The Boston Globe, USA Today, Boston Magazine, Marie Claire, Redbook, MindBodyGreen, and Dr. Oz’s The Good Life Magazine.

Today, Laila and I get the opportunity to chat with Sara about what it took to get noticed at a national level and also how she found the courage to leave her 6 figure PR position behind.

If you’re looking for some inspiration to get out of your rut and go big with your message, then Sara’s insight might just be what you’re looking for.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • Why and how Sara got the courage to leave her big PR position, where she was making 6 figures, to find more fulfilling work. 9:45
  • Why including “The Meat” and the culture of her office was an important part in relating her book to other women. 19:58
  • Where Sara decided to follow a path in yoga. 19:18
  • Why having a strong differentiating brand is so important from the beginning. 25:25
  • If someone was wanting to get well known nationally, what’s a strategy she would use to start getting recognized? 51:12
  • What would she tell people who want to get recognized on local TV network affiliates? 58:55
  • What’s her thoughts on utlizing HARO to get noticed? 1:01:03
  • What kinds of things does she have lined up for 2016 and Q4? 1:01:57
  • Who are her favorite influencers in her life? 1:06:08
  • What’s something that she believed as a 30 year old but now things is bogus? 1:06:30
  • What she was to put an ad in any medium, what it be and where would she put it? 1:07:50
  • Three truths she’d share with others 1:08:14
  • When she thinks of the word success, who comes to mind and why? 1:09:34
  • … and MUCH more!

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Where in the OM am I trailer:

Sara on CBS:

Jacob Cass on Building a Foundation for Personal Branding:

Adam Leipzig on Finding your Life Purpose in 5 Minutes:

Sara on Victoria Kirin’s Podcast, Degrees of Separation:

Veronica Kirin

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

 

mental focus

Increasing Mental Focus – 4 Simple Steps that Can Change Your Life

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Last Week I talked about how you can get more life satisfaction. There’s multiple reasons why someone would want more life satisfaction. With that post, I simply jumped into the how to of getting it started.

In today’s topic, we’re going to dive a little deeper into two of the 4 tactics mentioned in the previous post. Specifically, long term goals and having a growth mindset.

Here’s the thing, while you’re pursuing a long term goal, you’re going to grow as a person. There’s no doubt about it.

However, to do that growing AND achieve those goals, you’re going to have to put in a ton of work.

And to get that work done, you’re going to have to focus.

We All Make Choices

If you’re like me and many people I know, you probably have a busy life. For the most part, going to work takes up a ton of our time. If you have kids, that’s another layer of stuff you gotta do. And if you have extended family – there’s even more stuff you got to manage time for. And let’s not forget all the social things we might be a part of. Gaming, sports groups, you name it.


With all these things that we have to do on a daily basis, it’s hard to imagine how anyone has ever successfully done anything meaningful in their life after entering the workforce.

Seriously, who has the time?

Here’s the answer: You do.

“But how?”, you might be wondering.

We all have time. Everyone has 24 hours a day. Everyone has always had and always will have 24 hours a day.

We all make choices in how we’re going to spend our 24 hours.

Here’s a few that I’ve had to make in the past:

  • Go to a workplace that requires us to be there 7, 8, or even more hours per day.
  • Go to school and do the homework for the classes.
  • Be part of a sports team.
  • Go to the gym.
  • Keep working on that character in that video game.
  • Watch or hear that particular show so we have something to talk with people about.
  • Have friends or family that wants to hang out when we’re not doing work.
  • Sleep.

Many of these choices are things that “busy” people are probably already doing most (if not all) of. However, just because we’re busy doesn’t necessarily mean we’re being productive. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean we’re being satisfied by our lives. I could and will argue that many of these above choices can be distractions.

Most of our Satisfaction in Life Comes from Mental Focus in Working Towards Something

Outside of hanging out with friends and family, there are few things that give us all satisfaction.

Sure you might get some temporary satisfaction in playing games, watching shows, or getting that paycheck from your job. But again, I could argue those things are possibly examples of time that could be used more productively. Especially, if a person is interested in building a more satisfied life.

It’s not that we haven’t used mental focus before. You might have previously focused in school, sports, military… and even, believe it or not, playing video games.

Many would say that video game players are lazy – but they are as dedicated to their craft. Just as much as those who are focused on getting their degree, throwing a ball, or knowing what to do during an emergency situation.

Here’s Cam’s take on it:

In all four of these examples, we feel satisfied because we feel that the work that we’re performing is being put towards building something.

If it doesn’t require mental focus or we don’t feel like we’re building something, then there’s a good chance we’re not going to get satisfaction from the time, resources, or work we spend on a given activity.

Increasing Mental Focus:

So, how do we spend more of our time utilizing our mental focus towards building we care about?

1. Prepare for Prolonged Focus

The first part of being able to successfully focus on something we want to do is give ourselves the ability to actually focus.

If you’re the type of person runs on caffeine all day and doesn’t do much physical activity – that needs to change. You don’t want your body having to rely on caffeine to perform day in and day out – which can happen.

Also, stay hydrated. Personally, this is one that I struggle with myself. I know I don’t drink enough water. Having grown up on all kinds of sodas, juices, and other sugary drinks, I’ve never been able to make drinking water a part of my routine. So if you’re like me, make sure that you’re figuring out other ways of getting your water in. For me, I’ve become a tea-aholic!

One other way to prepare for prolonged focus is by making sure you get plenty of sleep. Seriously.

7 or 8 hours is what we should be shooting for. That means if you’re planning on getting up at 5 or 6 in the morning, you’ll be wanting to go to bed at 9 or 10pm at the latest.

2. Choose Your Most Important Tasks

Once you are rested up and have something to drink near you, you’ll be ready to get going. But before we do, we need to make sure we’re aware of the tasks that we want to do that particular day.

I’ve talked about how important it is to properly plan the tasks you want to get done that week and month. When it comes to doing something in a particular day, all we want to do is 1 to 3 things.

For example, I keep it simple by focusing on writing on Monday, podcast editing on Tuesday and podcast publishing on Wednesday. The rest of the time is committed to marketing, meetings, and specifically on Thursday and Friday, I try to learn and utilize new skills and systems to help with the other days.

3. Clear Space for Focused Work by Getting Rid of Distractions

Distractions come in all sizes. Having a dead end or uninteresting job, playing videogames or watching TV for 4 or more hours a day, or endlessly scrolling through social media or answering emails are examples of distractions.

The difference between distractions and other activities is that distractions are activities that aren’t helping you reach your goals or enriching your life.

If you’re having problems figuring out what the distractions in your life are, then think about the things you do that others would consider a waste of time or you personally feel is “a grind”.

Your job might literally drain you and stress you out. This might grounds to look for another job.

If you feel like you have to play video games “like a job”, then figure out something else to spend your time on. Maybe you feel like you have to be on all the social media platforms that your friends are on. If this is the case, then just pick one and let them know they can actually call you if they need something.

The goal with this step is to make sure we are not being interrupted when we actually sit down and do activities that are meaningful. If you need more help with distractions, here’s a post for more info.

If you want to start small but have some really drastic changes in this department, here are three things you can do today:

  1. Don’t multitask. No one can multitask and if they say they can, they’re still living in the year 2000.
  2. Turn off notifications on your phone and computer
  3. Do not connect to social media or other things until your main tasks are done.
  4. Don’t leave email going all day. Check it twice – preferably mid-morning and before you’re done for the day. DO NOT check it first thing!

4. Get in the Zone – Your Zone

Being busy is something that many of us have grown up believing is the key to success. And the truth is that, being busy is often times a sign that a person isn’t in control of their lives. The busier someone is or seems to be, the more they’re probably at the call of someone else.

So the goal, believe it or not, is to not for you to appear busy all the time. Instead it’s to actually be doing something when you’re wanting to do it and committing to that action. This will get you “in the Zone” or “in flow”. When you’re in flow, you won’t have to worry about others perceiving you as being busy because you will be and the more times you get there, the longer you’ll be able to stay there.

Being in flow for long periods of time is called Deep Work or Slow Working. Interestingly, this type of work yields better results in the long run.

If you’re not used to doing work for a long period of time, shoot for at least a half an hour sprint. And then work your way up to longer periods of time. The goal is to train your mind like a muscle. Ideally you’ll be able to spend enough time in a deep work mode that you’ll be able to finish the task at hand before you need a break.

However, you need to take breaks from time to time. So make sure you do take that lunch hour and walk around for a few minutes every hour or so.

If your current job prevents you from going into the zone on a regular basis, you might want to consider finding another job. I personally believe that being able to be in flow is a vital part of having job satisfaction.

If you’ve never had a job that will allow you to get there, then that might be a sign that it’s time for you to start your own business. This will give you a way to do something you like to do in a way that you will like doing it.

Ending Thoughts

I hope that this post gives you a clearer sense of what focus and subsequently, your work life, should be like. If you believe that you’re not being able to clearly focus on your job or in your business, then it might definitely be time to change some things up.

Lack of focus will cause you unneeded stress. Period. With so many options and opportunities in the world today, it’s just not smart to strap yourself to a particular group of coworkers or a paycheck with a particular name on it.

That might have been expected with the Baby Boomers, but even they know that things are changing quickly. (For a great discussion on this topic, check out my discussion with Dr. Joe Albano)

Your goal is to not look at a job as “working for” a particular company. It’s to look at a job as “working with” them. If you can’t find the partnership you seek in your current industry, you owe it to yourself to find that partnership elsewhere – even if it means starting your own business.

Word of advice: Don’t expect for your current company to change for you. Just because you might be starting to find your own goals in life, doesn’t mean your current place of employment agrees with those goals.

You might have to move. But that’s ok, because you don’t want to work at a place you’re not appreciated.

If you find yourself looking for a new job, do your due diligence when you’re interviewing and find out if the position truly works for you along with the goals and culture of the company that you’ll be working with.

life satisfaction

4 Tactics Successful People Use to Get More Life Satisfaction

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“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln

This week, I’m officially going to be launching my second eBook entitled 3 Steps to Leveling Up in Manhood.

Why?

Well, for one it’s supplemental info for the most visited post on the New Inceptions blog.

This post is entitled Stages of Manhood: Are You Unfinished? and I just don’t think it’s as deep as it could be.

Two, I’ll admit that there are plenty of coaches out there that help men level up. That said, I think that my story is almost as simple as you can get in making the journey. The way I found Maria is like how most guys go into a store. Go in, find exactly what you want, and get out.

And three, while I could have focused on a resource that isn’t gender specific, I’m a heterosexual guy and to be quite frank, I think that guys have a better chance of successfully learning and teaching this kind of information with and to other men.

If you want to find out more about the resource – it will be up by next week for sure.

In the meantime, I thought I’d put some extra information here that I thought relates very well – to both sexes.

So here we go…

1. Know what’s Important in Life

Many people today (myself included) were told as we were growing up by marketing companies that we need things. The more we saw the ad, the more we probably wanted whatever they were advertising (or at least knew about it). The higher this want was, the more likely we are to buy something – whether we need it or not.

In last week’s post, I briefly talked about Shopping and “Retail Therapy” as a way for people to get a rush.

But, like any beginnings of an addiction, this high is very short lived. And naturally we’ll want more and more of it. Eventually, if it goes unchecked, this addiction can cause us problems in the rest of our life.

So, to deal with this problem, many people believe that the way to solve it is to outearn the problem. This makes a little sense. But is pretty difficult to actually do.

It’s the Relationships, Not the Things

Interestingly, if a person is used to buying themselves into debt at one level, the chances of them changing at a higher income is highly unlikely. Simple truth is that the higher the income a person has, the more they’re probably going to spend on stuff they don’t need.

Whether you’re buying things for yourself or others, this rush always occurs when we’re buying something.

What we really should focus on is what is going to stick with us long term. And what I’ve come to find out is that solid relationships with those that we choose to be in our lives is really the makeup of who we are – not the things.

So if you’re going to spend money, spend money in a way that is investing in yourself and the relationships with others – but not so much that you make yourself poor in the process. We wouldn’t want to be an enabler. (If you are curious about that topic, here’s a resource.)

2. Be Self-Aware of Who You Are And What You Want from Life

Ok, so we learned that money shouldn’t be the total focus in life. And you’ve heard numerous times on the AoL Podcast that being financially wealthy doesn’t measure one’s success.

So if we’re not living to produce money (which, let’s face it, many people do in today’s world), what are we living for?

To find the answer for this question, we need to dig down deep into ourselves. We need to be more authentic – not just to people around us but to ourselves. This is the only way that we’ll be able to find our strengths. When we know what our strengths are, our passion will find us. As we hone our strengths, we start finding our purpose in the world.

I have come to find out that most of us would be much happier if we spent our time living to better ourselves, our lives, and the lives around us. True, having money might be a part of that, but being wealthy is what I really am talking about – and not just monetarily wealthy. I mean the whole shooting match.

The truth of the matter is this: the more compassion we have for ourselves and others (notice I didn’t say just ourselves), the happier of a life we’re going to have. You gotta learn how to give yourself a break when it’s needed, but also know when you need to persevere forward in your journey.

As we go on this journey, we’ll have more and more to add to our life stories. And I’d imagine that you’d probably want your life story to be a best-seller (otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this)… so don’t live the same life as everyone else.

3. Demonstrate Passion and Perseverance for Long-Term Goals

One of the reasons why many of us fail to live our passions, besides working for a paycheck, is that we’re not entirely sure of ourselves when it comes to making long-term goals and decisions. Outside of formal education, most of us have never have really made a long-term goal and stuck with it. So that’s why you could look at your scholastic history as a model of how to do long term goal setting and planning.

Now, here’s a problem. The thing is that formal education never asks us what we want to be when we grow up. They just program us to be a cog in the big plan of society. I’m sure like me, you’ve probably at one point asked yourself “Why do I care what x and y are when 3x + 4y = 35”?

You don’t care, that’s the thing. Formal education teaches most of us what to learn and think so you’ll be a good soldier.

That being the case, we can learn to set goals for ourselves by modeling their process – just not the topics that are taught.

Use Familiar Time Frames to Cut Up Large Goals

So what does that mean? Well, for one, you might want to cut your stretches of time into weeks, 6 weeks, semesters, years, etc. And to be truly honest, don’t expect anything great to take less than a year to get off the ground. Those of us who went to college know that there is a big difference between being a high school senior and a college freshman. (Same could be said about moving from junior high to high school, but many of us can’t remember that far back! Haha.)

So you’re going to have to let yourself have some time in getting acclimated to your surroundings anytime you start something new.

Also, don’t forget about getting things done in a day. Don’t try to get a ton of stuff done, but instead, focus on one to three things that you know you can get done. If you have time afterwards, work on some of that other stuff then.

If you have a bad day, don’t worry about it. Everyone does, and in the grand scheme of things, one bad day isn’t going to ruin your life’s plan. In fact, it might give it a good mini-story.

4. Embrace a Growth Mindset

You know, I’ve always learned and read things just for the heck of it. I used to love finding out about new science related stuff, and filling my head with random facts. In fact, that’s still one of the ways that I spend free time here and there. I’m a reddit addict during my idle time.

In the grand scheme of things, there’s nothing wrong with this. In fact, you being able to be curious is what is going to help you be of service to other people. The more you can learn about various topics related to your strengths and skill set, the more valuable you become to others.

On top of developing your strengths and skills, you also want to be able to develop your social skills. In college, we always talked about how a graduate’s first job is going to be obtained from the skills they have and their GPA.

After they’ve been in the marketplace for a while, their people skills become increasingly more important. There’s two reasons for this. One is because the skill set they developed at college, tend to become outdated within a few years (especially those in STEM related fields) and two, as they get older they’ll be expected to lead more teams.

So that’s why soft skills are so important. Funny enough, this is why the department I got my Masters from at Purdue existed in the first place. The Organizational Leadership and Supervision was in the School of Technology!

Case Study:

Just a note as we’re looking to check out here, here’s a post from Dane Maxwell (known for starting The Foundation) that I believe embodies everything that I’ve discussed here today.

After reading the post, we should be able to see that he hits all 4 of these ways of having a more satisfying life.

  1. He Knows What’s Important in Life
  2. He Knows Who he is and What he Wants from Life
  3. He’s been able to Plan and Achieve Long Term Goals
  4. And, he’s been able to Embrace a Growth Mindset

If your goal in life is to be happy and satisfied with who you are and what you do, then I believe that you could learn a lot from studying Dane and his continuing journey.

Action Steps:

This week, if you haven’t already, I want you to start doing some soul searching. Think about not only what’s important in life, but what you want from it. Also, based on what you know about yourself, think about how you might just get there. You might find out that happiness is actually closer than you think.

Also, if you’re nowhere close to your ideal life, start trying to find and get to know people that might be connected to individuals who are. Start investing in those relationships and helping each other get to where you both want to be in life. Start becoming a Linchpin.

Further Study on this Topic:

Wanting to know more about this topic? Here’s a two more resources:

6 Questions to Ask Yourself to Get the Most Out of Life

 

Tony Robbins: The Day I Became Wealthy