Latest / The One Small Change Podcast / Sprints, Success, and Clarity for the Last Quarter

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Sprints, Success, and Clarity for the Last Quarter · The One Small Change Podcast

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Welcome to the One Small Change. I am thrilled, as always,
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that you're taking time to embark on this journey of exploration and
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transformation. And I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost 30
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years of entrepreneurial experience and a passion for
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discovering growth through the power of seemingly small change.
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And I'm so glad that you're here with me. And this is my
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special quarterly clarity check in.
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Because it's important that we take a look
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at our business on a regular basis. It doesn't have to be a
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quarterly one, but we are at the beginning of
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the last quarter and there's lots going on that I need to talk to you
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about. So one of the things that I want to share with you
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is my strategic steps. It's a model
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for getting things done, and it's really easy. It
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stands for Stop, Think,
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Evaluate, Proceed, and Succeed.
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And so I'm going to tell you how this applies to
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this last quarter. So the first thing is stop
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what's working well and why? Because so often the
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first thing we do is look at what we think is wrong.
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And it's really important to come from a place of strength and what's working.
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So you want to identify what you've done so far this year that's been
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successful and why, because that is
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where you are going to have more success quickly. And I want to talk to
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you about the rule of three. So if you take the things that
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have been successful, can you use them in three different ways?
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Can you, let's say you have a podcast,
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so you've got your podcast that's successful.
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What is it that you can do with the guests that are on the podcast
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to continue that success? How else can you use the
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podcast? So one of the things that I try to do and haven't been able
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to do much lately is take
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the podcast episode. If I'm listing something in my newsletter
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or somebody's event, put their podcast episode there along
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with what their events so people get to know more about them. So find three
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ways to use everything that you're doing, and it's going to
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accelerate your growth. Clear out the cutter
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clutter, stop all the draining projects that you're doing, things that
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you know are not really serving you.
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You know, that could be taking, you know,
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ending some of the services that you have that
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every time it pops up, you're going, oh, my God, I can't believe I haven't
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done anything with this yet. You know, So a big shift is
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realizing that when you're, when you're stopping, you're only
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pausing. You're not really quitting. You're choosing to invest your energy more
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wisely and assess. And again, I will say
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focus on you. Focus on what's working well, what,
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what you do well. Right. Double down on
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proven strategies. And that's when clarity shows up.
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Clarity comes from getting rid
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of the fuzzy stuff, you know, and not adding more stuff.
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Clarity can be a real accelerator. So the next one
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is think how would you like it ideally to be? A lot of times we
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don't, especially when we're looking short term, we don't
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look at what we need to go through
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to get to the long term result that we want. So one of the first
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things I want you to say is when we're in this last quarter,
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I want you to think beyond December. I want you to think
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about what is it going to look at by the end of January.
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Because I think that puts you in a totally different time
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frame and a process, right? So you're like,
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okay, by the time I get to the end of December, I'm,
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you know, I'm thinking I just want to have the biggest, you know,
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increase my revenue as much as possible. But by the time I get to the
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end of January, I actually want to have a new program that I
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can launch so that you're actually working on it
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as you go through the end of the year and, and putting in down the
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seeds that you need to so that that's actually going to work. So one of
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the things that I like to use when I'm trying to get a lot done
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in a short amount of time is I like to have sprints.
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Now I typically do a 21 day sprint. So a 21
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day sprint, if you do it continuously
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through the last quarter actually gives you like four mini months. And the way that
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I came up with 21 days is typically we are really
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focused the first week and the last week and we kind of lose momentum in
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week two and three. But if you are only doing three
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weeks, you've got a first week, a middle week and a last
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week. So you don't have time to lose focus, but you cannot
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live this way. So if you're going to do some 21 day focus,
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you know, sprints, you're only going to want to do two or three of them
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before now and the end of the year. But sprints can be different
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lengths too. You can have really short sprints, like a four day
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sprint where you're really focused on something that you're going to do, or you could
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have a 10 day sprint. I think the secret to a sprint
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is not having the same time frame that you're used to. So
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typically you don't want to have a seven day or a 14 day
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sprint because those are time frames that we're used to.
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So I would say to you, make sure that you do at least one
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sprint during between now and the
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end of the year, and at least two between now and
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the end of January. One of the things that you
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can do is when you do sprints, it's really going
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to make you focus on what you do, which means you're going to have even
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more clarity. And so you're going to see that you're going to
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move a whole lot faster. The next thing
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is evaluate. So part of what you want to do while you're
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evaluating is look at what you prioritize and what you
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focus on. So again, we're going back to that question of
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what's working? Where did I see results? Where did
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I waste my energy? Where did I spend more
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money than I wanted? Where did I bring in money? So one of
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the things that you can do is ask yourself some
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of these questions. Where did I see the most results
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this year and can I duplicate them this
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quarter? What's it costing me in
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money but not giving me a return on my investment? So
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again, we talked about subscriptions. If you have subscriptions that you're
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paying for, you're not using, get rid of them,
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right? Where are you wasting your energy?
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How many times have you showed up for things and it wasn't quite
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right? So maybe you don't drop it all together. Maybe you say,
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I really like this networking group, but I'm only going to go
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twice a month instead of every week, right? So you want to
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look at how much you know your return on investment is not
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just money, it is also what you're
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spending in energy,
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creativity. So if you're in a situation
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and it seems like you're giving, giving, giving and not getting
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anything back, that's draining you, right? Not that
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it isn't good to give, but your energy has
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a lot to do with what you can accomplish. So you want
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to check when you're looking at your resources,
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you want to look at money, you want to look at time, you want to
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look at relationships, you want to look at your health, you want to
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look at all these things because you are a single
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person and you have a business and you have a personal life.
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So the question is, where do I want to
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focus my energy in this next four months?
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So That I can have the outcome that I
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want. All right? And so
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the other part that sometimes people don't look at is you
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can't grow if you can't measure it.
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Right? And that tends to. To go
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against our grain sometimes, especially if we are heart centered.
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But the thing is, we all have
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processes. We all have
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places where you can have benchmarks and numbers that you can look at.
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I enter, you know, I did 7:1 on ones,
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right? Of the 7:1 on ones, I only converted one.
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Okay. But earlier I only did 4:1
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on ones and I converted two. So what's the difference?
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Right? If you hadn't looked at the numbers, you wouldn't be
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aware that there was a difference or how big that that difference
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was. So evaluating is really important. And
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you do that along with your intuition, not instead
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of, you know, you need both of them.
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Okay, so the next one is proceed,
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plan your actions. All right? What are the things that
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are going to give you the biggest results?
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So the first thing you want to do again is focus. Pick one or two
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strategies that work and double down. One of the
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strategies that you can use is what
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collaborations and partnerships have you been
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successful with? See if you can do more of that, because you
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can multiply your reach and your revenue in
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collaborations. And don't forget to reconnect with past
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clients or people that you did outreach with, because
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sometimes they've already, you know, thought
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about it, they've been mulling it over. They're much
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more likely to convert faster than somebody that you've met
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new. So you want to build collaborations in your
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plan. You want to partner with others, right? You want to
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reconnect with your clients and your network, but you
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also want to be proactive, right? Very
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rarely have I ever had a plan that worked exactly
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as I wanted it to. So one of the
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things you want to do is what one of my coaches said is you want
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to practice the fryer drill before the fire. And what that
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means is you say, okay, this is my plan. I'm going to do step
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one, and I'm expecting this to happen with step
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one. What if that doesn't happen?
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What's the next thing that I'm going to do? Or you take a look and
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you say, why didn't it happen? Right? And you can
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fix your step one before you even get going. And you
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want to do that all along the way because, you know, you
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need to know, for instance, how much resource, how much time,
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that kind of thing in your plan. So kind of, you know, be
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your own best you know, person to,
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you know, devil's advocate and see if you can work out the bugs
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before you get started. And know, if something doesn't work, what's the
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next thing that you're going to do? All right,
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so the thing that's really important is
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not to confuse activity with progress. You want to
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proceed with intensity. And, you know,
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you want to make sure that you're keeping the question, what is the purpose
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of this? In your mind so that you're always looking
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to see whether or not in fact, you're getting to that purpose.
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Right? The last step is
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succeed, celebrate and repeat your
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success. Right? Now, when I say succeed, it doesn't mean
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that you necessarily got to the end of your goal. It
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means that
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you've made progress, you've moved the
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needle, that you're getting closer. And sometimes we forget that. And
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I am really bad at this, I have to say, because I will do
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something. You know, I did my first
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summit. It was amazing. My speakers were amazing.
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And yet afterwards, it was like, oh, I should have done this, or I should
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have done this, or we could have done this, or I, you know, don't second
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guess yourself. Enjoy the moment, because
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it's what will help you do it again and move on.
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And again, you want to look at what am I doing that's going to
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carry over into the next year and give me more than one benefit,
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right? The rule of three. So you want to
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celebrate your wins, the big and small, acknowledge what you do so
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you can repeat it. You want to reset,
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you want to carry the momentum forward. Don't stop with
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December. Keep going so that you're ready to launch whatever you know,
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your best year that, you know, 2026 is going to be your
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best year. But, but here's the thing. With this, with this system,
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it doesn't have to be just at a quarter. It's easy enough to, to,
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to go through that. You can use it on a regular basis. You
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could actually start every day off with this. Because one of the things that I
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know is the first two steps in this
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stop and think are probably the two
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steps that will change everything. All right? We
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tend to evaluate, we tend to come up with a plan,
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right? So those steps are pretty much ingrained in us. But
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just stopping to say what's working
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totally shifts everything, because that is not the way we are brought
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up. That is not the way we're trained. I mean, when
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I'm dealing with teams and management, one of the first things I say
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is, do you ever talk to the people on your team and tell them
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something good that they're doing without it being that sandwich. You
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did this good, but you need to fix this and hope you'll do better in
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the future, right? You did a good job on this. You
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know, I appreciate you and that's it, right?
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There's no, you gotta fix this, right? So if
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you can think about what's working well and why
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that will change whatever system and get you better results with
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whatever system you're already using, then think about
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how ideally you want it to be. Sometimes we constrain
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ourselves and we won't let ourselves think big,
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right? But if you say, okay, ideally
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I would like to have this, I would like to have a hundred
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people sign up for my workshop, right?
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Then you start to see what possibilities and you start to
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see how you have to plan accordingly based on that.
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And then again, the last step, which is celebrate your success,
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right? We tend to not do that and that kind of makes us cycle and
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go back. But I have given you a system,
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a strategic system. And so the question is,
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what did you learn that's different? So if I
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were to highlight a couple of things, I would say
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don't plan for just the end of the year, plan
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for the beginning of next year so that you are going to hit the
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ground running, right? I would
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say ask yourself what the purpose
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is as you're thinking about how would it be ideally.
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And, and you know, this is where a coach can be really,
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really, really helpful. And it, this
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is why I value my coach. Because I have a tendency and
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coaches over the year, I have a tendency to come up with a big
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side. And you know, and
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it just is exciting the way that it is. It feels good. And then you
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go, what is the purpose? Oh, okay. So
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yeah, the purpose is I want to sign up more
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people because I want them to be able to work with me.
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But I want this price point, right?
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And you know, my coach said to me,
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so sounds like a great idea. But at the price point that you're talking,
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this is not something you can start next week. You need
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much more of a lead in for this. What is something
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else? If the purpose is to get more people to sign up to work with
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you, what is something else that you can do? And that
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something else is what I said to you. Go back and see the people
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who you contacted before who are already in your network
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and see if there's something that has changed for them or make them
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so that they're closer aware. So thinking about what it
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ideally looks like can really be a
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big thing and help you.
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All right, so let's talk about some of the other challenges that are
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coming up. So I want to talk just a little bit about what I think
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are trends that I'm seeing. One of the
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trends that I'm seeing is people
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are not. People are concerned. There's a lot of
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uncertainty out there. And so as you're looking at things,
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what can you do to make people feel more
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comfortable? So people are not looking for year long commitments
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right now, from what I can tell them. And so
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the question is, do you have several ways that people can start working with
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you? Do you have one piece that is kind of an acceleration
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piece that is short like four weeks
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and maybe a two week course, Something that they can do at a price
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that they feel comfortable with, that they can get going?
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So that's something for you to, to think about. That piece then
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rolls into a longer piece, then rolls into a longer
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piece and that looks like something that is very easy
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to do. The other thing that I see happening
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is people don't people want to
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implement stuff with you, they want to walk away with
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stuff that's done. And one of the things that I've started doing with my
18:14
clients is carving out a few minutes
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in the coaching session to actually work on whatever
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it is they need to do. So if we
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talk about them setting up a workshop,
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I will, we will stop working. You know, we'll
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take five minutes and I go, go on your calendar, find out when that's going
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to be. And so it's done. So when you leave that
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coaching session, you know what the name of, you know, we've worked out
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what the name of that workshop is going to be. We've worked out when
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the first one is going to be. We've worked out,
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you know, maybe who your partners are going to be. So you've got a
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plan that's already in action. And I'm finding
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people are moving so much faster because otherwise our
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tendency is you leave with things to
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do and then you don't think about it again until
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it's a day or so before you're talking to your coach or talking to your
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person again. This way you've got it in action and you can move
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to the next step. So people are moving a lot
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faster. All right, so that's another trend that I'm
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seeing. The other trend is
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people are looking for connection.
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And by that I mean, you know, community.
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They're looking for a place where they can share things with other people.
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And so one of the things that, that I think is so important is
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if you're, even if you're doing individual coaching, you may
19:51
want to have a group call once a month so that other
19:54
people that are in your coaching program have a chance to share. Now,
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again, that depends on, you know, who you're coaching and that kind of thing.
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But if not that, you probably should recommend that your
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clients be involved in a community where they can
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have other people, they can talk to, places where they
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can be the expert and the student
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and, and leave with a lot of good information. So those are
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three trends that I'm seeing. So with that in mind,
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I want to share what I've done that's a little
20:29
bit different. So I probably put, we'll put some notes
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where a community that you can join at the end
20:38
and you can always book a call and
20:42
we can talk about your situation more. So I want to talk about what I've
20:45
done since probably the last clarity thing that
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I, that I talked to you about. So my thing is
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I am taking Pilates now and
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I am finding it really amazing. It is the one
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place that I can go and shut my brain down. And so when I do
21:04
it, I come out and I'm totally refreshed and, and I feel
21:08
amazing because of it. So I just want to say
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to everybody, it doesn't matter how old you are, how big you
21:16
are, there are lots of things that you can do that will
21:19
make you feel better, that will help you with
21:23
the way that you feel and, you know, that are kind of
21:27
exciting. And it, you know, I have to say, it isn't always pretty when
21:31
I do it, but I definitely feel
21:34
better for, for it. So I want to
21:40
make sure I do the commercial right. So make
21:43
sure that you subscribe, you share, you engage
21:47
with on social media about the podcast.
21:51
And the reason that I do it again is partially for community,
21:55
that I want to be able to introduce you to people that you may not
21:59
have met and to ideas that are helpful, fuel your, you know,
22:02
your, your quest for growth and impact. And I hope
22:06
that you will join me again for the one small change and
22:10
see what things we can do
22:13
that will make our world have a bolder
22:17
vision and more innovative possibilities.
22:21
And so if I were to say
22:25
something. Last words, One of my favorite
22:29
mantras, I have a couple, but one of my favorite mantras is
22:33
it doesn't matter how many times you fall down, it only matters how many times
22:37
you get up and how fast. And this came about
22:40
from when I was losing weight and you know, it's
22:44
kind of like if you say, I'll start again next month or next year,
22:48
you know, it's going to take you forever. But if you can start right away,
22:52
if you realize what's going on and. And
22:55
see that you can
22:59
keep going in the direction that you want to, you don't have to. You don't
23:03
have to be sidetracked. I think it makes all the difference in the world.
23:07
And so this is a really important time to take that lesson
23:10
seriously, because as you look at what you're doing,
23:14
right, and you pick the things that are working, it's going to
23:18
get you there faster, right? They may be
23:22
small things, but two or three things that work will give you
23:26
exponential results that you're not expecting. And
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my last couple of things I want to say to you is if
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you're not a numbers person, it's a good time to start thinking
23:37
about it so that you can really see where in the process
23:41
things are not working. So you have comparisons. It's not a
23:44
judgment, right? It's not a judgment
23:48
that it's. I only had so many people at my workshop,
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right? It's like this time I had nine people, but I made two
23:56
sales. This time I had 20 people, and I made no sales.
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So that it's about taking a look at the puzzle pieces and
24:03
seeing what makes which pieces work.
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All right? So on that note, I'm going to say
24:11
goodbye and say to you, remember, change
24:15
isn't always simple. You know, it
24:19
may seem like that, but it may. It's not always easy. It
24:22
requires resilience and courage and a willingness to step out of
24:26
your comfort zone. If you never step out of your comfort zone, then you're
24:30
always doing the same thing. So I hope you will join me again
24:34
next week when we embark on this journey again. And until then,
24:38
please stay curious. Bye.