10-Day Turnaround System
Throughout the 10-Day Turnaround, I’ll be customizing all of the content to fit your specific challenges and areas you’d like to make changes in.
To help me understand where you are starting from and what is most important to you, share a challenge you are now facing that you’d like help with, or a specific area you’d like to make changes in during the 10-Day Turnaround.
Before you start sharing, I want to give you two important insights that can have a profound effect on the speed and quality of results you get. The first is called:
The Q:A Quality Ratio
The Q:A Quality Ratio stands for the “Question To Answer Quality Ratio”. It’s really just a fancy name for this simple concept:
“The quality of your answers is in direct proportion to the quality of your questions.”
One of the areas that prevents many of us from achieving the results we are capable of is that we obsess about getting better answers - but spend almost no time on asking better questions.
The quality of our answers is dependent upon the quality of our questions. The more accurate and more specific our questions are, the more profitable and mor beneficial the answers we get will be.
If we ask a generic question like, “How do I make more money?”, then we should expect a generic - and not only totally lame, but completely useless - answer like, “Get more clients”, or “Run more ads”, or “Convert more prospects.”
Compare that with a well-researched and well-though-out question like, “I’ve been testing new headlines on my sales letter. The current headline pulls 3.2% and gives me $3.20 in profit for every $1 I spend in marketing. Here is the headline: [your headline here]. What specific changes can I test next to improve this headline further?”
You can easily imagine how much more specific and valuable the answer to that question will be.
This leads us to your 1st 10-Day Turnaround Insight:
DAY 0: Powerful Questions
Forget about answers and focus on questions.
In other words- if you want to solve your problems and create a new growth path in your life and business, one of the 1st steps is to quit obsessing about the result you want, and instead focus on improving the quality of the questions you are asking yourself and others.
Use the Q:A Quality Ratio and relax, knowing that as your questions become more accurate, your answers will naturally also become more valuable - and easier to implement.
And that brings us to the 2nd important insight to understand prior to starting your 10-Day Turnaround.
This is what I call…
Einstein’s Secret
I’ve been told that Einstein once said,
“If I had 60 minutes to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I’d spend 55 minutes determining the right question to ask. Once I got the right question, I could easily answer it in 5 minutes.”
Isn’t that interesting- to solve a life-threatening problem, Einstein, the man often called one of the greatest geniuses who has ever lived, says he would spend more than 90% of his time on determining the right question to ask.
That means Einstein’s Q:A Ratio was 11:1. In other words, in an average 40 hour work week, he would have invested almost 37 hours determining the right questions - and still would have been peacefully confident he could answer them in the remaining 3 hours.
Now compare that to how you go about trying to solve the problems in your own life or business.
What percent of your time do you spend on looking for answers vs. determining the proper question?
For most of us, our Q:A Ratio is exactly the OPPOSITE of Einstein’s.
He spent 92% of his time determining the proper question and was relaxed and confident that he could then easily answer the question in the remaining 8% of his time.
Almost everyone else spends 92% of their time obsessing about answers (or their lack thereof) - and less than 8% of their time improving their questions.
So here’s your 1st “Lifestyle Creation Experiment” for your 10-Day Turnaround:
For the next 10 minutes, you get to be “Einstein”, too.
Temporarily adopt Einstein’s Q:A Ratio of 9 minutes of thinking to 1 minute of action.
Invest 9 minutes in really thinking through what questions you have been asking yourself about your issues or challenges, and make a quick list of at least 5 new, deeper, more insightful, or more accurate questions related to the areas of your life or business you’d like help improving during your 10-Day Turnaround.
Then take 1 minute to share the insights you’ve gained from your 1st “Lifestyle Creation Experiment” below, as well as the new question you are now asking yourself vs. the old question you used to ask yourself. And finish it up by including WHY you want to focus on this particular area or question during The 10-Day Turnaround.
Actually, it’s fine if you take more than 1 minute to share your insights, the key here is to practice investing a few minutes in really thinking through your questions before running off madly seeking answers to them.
As you become better and better at this skill and continue to improve your own average Q:A Ratio, you will experience a profound shift in how you approach all challenges in your life and your business, and discover new, far more effective ways of dealing with each one.
DAY 1: Start Clean
Shut up your inner little voices and Paint a new picture of your ideal life everyday.
One of the primary reasons we often struggle to get better results in our lives or in our businesses is because we are adding new stuff on top of the mess we already have, rather than lightening our load, starting with a fresh slate, and building from there.
Today’s Insight contains…
The 5-minute strategy to neutralize all the messes in your life and get a fresh start in any area you want new results in.
It starts with a simple realization:
Making messes (physical, mental and emotional)- and having messes in our lives- is NORMAL.
It doesn’t mean you are messed up, off track, a loser, or incapable of change. It merely means you are HUMAN. We all make messes of things at time, me included. We all live with messes, me included. No big deal.
During the 10 days of our Turnaround, give yourself permission to realize that all the messes in your life are a perfectly normal part of being human. (You can always go back to beating yourself up for having them at the end of the 10 Days, if it really jazzes ya to do such things… 
This frees you to put today’s Insight into place.
It’s called…
The Principle Of The Blank Page
Your “Experiment” during the Turnaround is to allow yourself to view your life from this moment forward as a Blank Page.
- You are free to create anything you want on that page.
- Nothing that has happened to you in the past has to affect you today, unless you want it to.
- For our 10 Days, you are the painter for the canvas of YOUR OWN Ideal Life. You are free to paint it any way you wish, at any speed you wish, in any style you wish. (Remember, this is an EXPERIMENT - try it for the 10 Days - I’m confident it will really help you, but hey, if it doesn’t you can always go back to the way you’ve been doing things in the past at the end of the 10 days)
Here’s the most powerful part of this Insight:
- You are also free to “start over” with a fresh, blank page ANY TIME things aren’t going the way you’d like them to, any time you feel stuck, or any time you feel like it, for any reason.
And you can start over as often as you like - even multiple times in a single day if you need to. I’ve done it many times myself.
Here’s a couple easy ways to apply this principle to set yourself up for more dramatic results during your 10-Day Turnaround:
Since 1996, I have active traded commodities and futures contracts. Often, I had a specific annual return I wanted to make on my trading, but no one can predict the markets in advance so sometimes even with taking the proper trades, the account would be down at some point during the year. Rather than have this lingering negative return hanging over my head that I knew could affect my ability to pull the trigger on future trades, I would use the Blank Page to “start over” in the middle of the year. Just take whatever equity I had then and use that as my starting point and then base my objectives for growth on that.
You can do the same –
- Let’s say you made a New Year’s resolution to make $100K this year and now it’s getting way into the year and you’re nowhere close- pull out your Blank Page and hit “reset”. Today is Point Zero. Now, your new objective is to make your $100K in the next 12 months, starting today.
What that does when you do something like that is take the vocal chords away from the voices in our heads that keeps screaming, “You screwed up”, or “You are so far behind you’ll never catch up” and instead give us a fresh start so we can begin anew with a different set of actions and not have any of the old stuff holding us back.
- Try it out right now. Choose one area of your life or business to apply a “blank page” to and give yourself permission to start fresh at point zero in that area.
Then click here to cruise on over the Day 1 Action Plan I’ve put together for you, which is here
DAY 2: Focus on Action VS Goals
Take the right actions consistently and the results will take care of themselves.
If you’re a baseball fan, you already know Ty Cobb was one of the greatest hitters who ever lived.
Despite being such a prolific hitter, Ty Cobb occasionally got into slumps just like the rest of us do.
- (Note to self: If you feel like you are in a slump or stuck- that is NORMAL, even the best get into them regularly.)
What Cobb had discovered is the secret to getting out of slumps – in his case, a batting slump – in our case, a slump in life or business – and it also applies to any area we are stuck in, even if we wouldn’t call it a “slump” we are experiencing in that area. He didn’t care whether he got a hit or not- just wanted to hit the ball hard, that’s it.
Now, on the surface, this seems a bit paradoxical – after all, why go up to the plate at all if you’re not even going to try to get a hit?Or why bother with doing stuff for our business if we’re not even trying to make any money?
Cobb realized that he had no control over whether or not he got a hit – even if he did his job perfectly, an opposing player could make a diving catch and rob him of a base hit.
So what he focused on instead was the basics – the true fundamentals of his profession- the things he COULD control. He knew if he did the fundamentals consistently and did them well enough… the hits would come.
In other words- his RESULTS – the hits – were merely a byproduct of his actions – extra time in the batting cage to hone his swing so he could hit the ball hard.
So there was no way he could commit to or even focus on getting hits because he had no control over that. What he could commit to and focus on were two things: 1) practicing his swing and 2) making contact with the ball and putting the ball into play.
Our businesses work the same way –
We obsess about setting goals to reach a certain income level – and beat ourselves up when we don’t reach those goals. The reality, though is…
There’s no way to commit to a goal that involves RESULTS (like income)
- Our results are merely a byproduct of our actions. (Write that down, it’s a huge insight for growth)
Take the right actions consistently and the results will take care of themselves.
So the first part of The Ty Cobb Turnaround is…
Temporarily forget about your results. Instead focus on what actions to take, such that the natural byproduct of taking those actions consistently would be to get the results you want.
- What ideas and new avenues for growth are you having as you ponder today’s Insight? What’s one simple way you could apply them in your life or business today?
Then click here to cruise on over the Day 2 Action Plan I’ve put together for you, which is here
DAY 3: Improve Your Skills
Improve your own ratio of time spent practicing your skills vs. time spent working.
Today’s insight comes directly from a key concept the top-level entrepreneurs in our 2X+1 Mastermind often discuss amongst each other.
It explains precisely why we often don’t get the results we want- no matter how long we work or how hard we try. And gives the exact insight necessary to change this so we can continue to improve our results smoothly and consistently.
It also shows us how to use one of the secrets of Michael Phelp’s and Usain Bolt’s record-setting performances in the Beijing Olympics to improve the results in our own businesses.
There are two keys to this Insight- The Skills:Performance Ratio and The Practice:Performance Ratio. We’ll cover both today.
First…
The Skills:Performance Ratio.
Sounds a bit complicated but the concept is super simple.
There are two parts to it.
The 1st part is:
The level of results you get in any area of business or life is directly proportional to the level of skills you bring to the playing field in that area.
Let me give you another analogy that should make this crystal clear.
Let’s say your “goal” is to win the Super Bowl.
- You can write down that goal a million times, visualize it 3 million times, and say 4 trillion affirmations about it- but I can guarantee you you STILL have don’t have a snowball’s chance in you know what of walking off the field on the winning Super Bowl team, unless…
You have Super Bowl level skills to go along with your Super Bowl level desire.
If your skills are high school level – or heck, even if they are college level – you can have all the goals, visualizations, and affirmations in the world but you are still gonna get your butt stomped when you walk on the field and compete against the world’s best football players.
Many of us are unconsciously doing the same thing in our businesses.
We are obsessed with the results we want – “Make another $500 per month”, “Earn $100K this year”, “Become an internet millionaire”, etc
But we are competing with skills that are not proportional to the level of result we want.
And wondering why we never get that result.
Remember…
The results you get are merely the natural byproduct of the level of skills you have.
And there is no way to consistently get results that are dramatically better than the level of your skills.
If you aren’t getting the results you want, the thing to do is focus on improving your SKILLS, not setting new goals or implementing new marketing campaigns or whatever.
- If you increase your SKILLS, then the NATURAL byproduct of bringing that higher level of skills to the business arena will be better – and more profitable- results for your business.
And if you don’t improve your skills, it doesn’t matter how hard or how long you work, or how much marketing stuff you do, your results will be stuck at about the same level they are now.
The quick application of this powerful concept is to identify the SKILLS that make the biggest difference in your particular business (and for your personal life- same idea applies there also)
Then focus on PRACTICING those skills daily and relax, knowing that as our skills increase, your results will naturally increase also.
Now you have an understanding of the first part of The Skills:Performance Ratio. Let’s move on to…
The Practice:Performance Ratio
- What this indicates is the amount of time you spend practicing your profession vs. the amount of time you spend performing in your profession.
A great analogy:
An Olympic sprinter may spend 3-5 hours a day for four full years practicing and preparing for the next Olympics.
When Usain Bolt dominated the Beijing Olympics, he spent a TOTAL of less than 40 SECONDS competing to win his THREE gold medals.
His Practice:Performance Ratio was literally off the charts.
He’d probably practiced at least 4000 hours and competed for 40 seconds.
Now compare that to your own Practice:Performance Ratio.
- How many hours do you spend weekly (or have you spent in your life) PRACTICING the basic skills of your profession vs. trying to compete in that profession?
For most of us, our Ratio is literally off the charts, too - in the wrong direction.
It’s very common for entrepreneurs to have spent 4000+ hours competing (ie, “working”) and less than 40 seconds practicing.
It’s very rare when anyone even has a 1:1 Practice:Performance Ratio - in other words, equal hours spent practicing vs. competing.
Now let’s do the math:
- Usain Bolt (and Michael Phelps and pretty much every other world-class performer) invests probably 1000 or more hours of practice time for each hour of time spent actually competing.
- Most entrepreneurs barely invest ANY time in practice - and if they do, it’s very little relative to the amount of time they actually spend competing - ie, working.
- Yet we continually wonder why our results are not yet world-class?
Today’s Insight should have been a huge “wake-up call” that you can immediately use to pinpoint what is REALLY important to focus on to improve your business and increase your wealth.
Remember the two keys:
- Your results are merely a byproduct of the level of skills you bring to your profession. To increase your results, you must FIRST improve your skills.
- World-class performers often practice 1000 hours for each hour they actually compete. Take a cue from them and improve your own ratio of time spent practicing your skills vs. time spent working and watch how your ability to produce income soars when you use this powerful insight to improve your skills.
And when you feel comfortable with today’s Insights and are ready to take action on them, click here to go to today’s Action Plan that I’ve prepared for you.
DAY 4: Daily Improvements of 1%
I’m going to show you some tangible things you can do starting today to position yourself for significant increases in your income, so today should be one of the most profitable days of the entire 10-Day Turnaround for you.
We’re going to start with a simple concept called The Wealth Thermostat™.
Your Wealth Thermostat works very much like the thermostat in your house.
If the temperature in your house rises above the level the thermostat is set at, the thermostat kicks in, turns on your air conditioning and the AC cools your house back down to whatever temperature the thermostat is set at.
Your Wealth Thermostat controls the level of your income in much the same way.
- When your income kicks up - maybe you finally make your 1st sale from a website, or you have a great month or quarter, or a big client finally pays you what they owe you - whatever the reason your income has a little blip in it to the upside… if that new income level exceeds the level your Wealth Thermostat is set at, POOF! - it kicks in and cools your income back down just like your AC works to cool your house back down.
And before ya know it - there you are right back at about the same income level you were at before.
And quite frankly…
THAT SUCKS!
We’ve all experienced that frustration of thinking things are FINALLY going our way, our income is finally going up - and every time - WHAM! - something comes whizzing out of nowhere and knocks it back down.
We get sick and the doctor’s bills are huge, our car needs unexpected repairs, the deal we were counting on falls apart, the website that was profitable suddenly quits pulling leads… whatever it is, there is always something that seems to jump in the way and keep our income from advancing.
That’s our Wealth Thermostat™ at work.
And the intense frustration- maybe even anger? - we feel when that occurs is exactly what we are going to begin eliminating for you today.
Starting right now, we are going to begin the process of permanently raising the setting on your Wealth Thermostat™ - which will in turn allow your income to naturally rise to much higher levels.
One of the simplest ways to begin raising the setting on your Wealth Thermostat is to implement what is called The WealthSwitch™.
I’m going to give you some examples to get you rolling and then you are going to pick one to implement and get tangible results from yourself today.
Let’s get started…
- I’ve discovered that one of the biggest challenges to building more wealth is the feeling we have that we are down at the bottom of the mountain and the peak of wealth we want to achieve is WAYYYYYYY, WAYYYYYYY up there, ya know what I mean?
What then happens is that we think any little action we do is like throwing a pebble into the ocean - it might make a tiny ripple for a few seconds, but overall, it really won’t make any difference to it at all.
That’s where we need to make what I call The WealthSwitch™, which simply is this:
- Even the tiniest of actions done consistently can quickly compound into dramatically higher levels of wealth for you in very short periods of time.
In 2X+1, we have a principle we call The Rule Of 38X. Basically, it states that if you take any skillset you now have and improve it and the results it’s getting you by a tiny little 1% each day, in just one year your results will be 38 times better than they are today.
Let’s translate that to the real world.
- Say you are only making $100 per month from your business now - make consistent improvements in your marketing skills each day and The Rule Of 38X indicates that you could be making $3800 per month from that business within a year.
Do it for a 2nd year and your income skyrockets to over $142,000 per MONTH - that works out to a $1.7 MILLION per year income in just two years.
- The skillsets and mindset you are developing in The 10-Day Turnaround are giving you that kind of millionaire earning potential.
Now, realistically, it’s unlikely any of us will make that 1% improvement every single day for the next two years.
But even if you only make that 1% improvement once a week, your income still nearly triples in two years.
And an income that tripled could make some pretty big changes in your lifestyle for you, ya know?!
- So the question now is, what are the specific ACTIONS that raise the setting on your Wealth Thermostat and allow you to gain the benefits of The WealthShift?
That’s exactly what we’ll be covering in today’s Action Plan I have ready for you.Click here to access it now.
DAY 5: Magic Moments
Close your eyes for a minute and remember your first kiss… your wedding day… the birth of your children……The time you scored the winning touchdown or hit the most important home run of your life… the feeling you had when you earned your first check in a business of your own… the most special gift you’ve ever given someone…
…Getting to the top of a challenging mountain you hiked and seeing for miles over the horizon… working out hard for weeks and then looking in a mirror and actually liking the body you see…
…Pulling up in the driveway in your brand-new car… the best vacation you’ve ever been on… the feeling on sun on your face as you lie totally relaxed on a beach…
Those are “Magic Moments.”
Without consciously realizing it, you’ve probably had many in your life.
However, the key to truly enjoying the journey as much as the feeling of getting there is consciously creating “Magic Moments” in your personal life and your business as frequently as possible.
Consciously creating “Magic Moments” in your personal life allows you to impact those around you in profound ways they’ll remember the rest of their lives.
It gives you a very compelling “reason why” you’re working and helps you eliminate procrastination and stay on track with your highest-level business activities because you now have a compelling reason to get them done on time - so you can afford and enjoy the Magic Moments you want to create in your life.
- And it weaves a fabric of richness into your everyday life that is far beyond what any amount of money will ever buy for you.
In your business, creating “Magic Moments” for your prospective clients, your real clients, your staff, your suppliers, your vendors, and everyone else you do business with will make your business ten times more fun; and will help you attract and keep the best staff, associates, suppliers, and vendors.
In addition, “Magic Moments” will transform your clients into “raving fans” that can’t wait to tell everyone they know about you; and they will help you create a 100% referral business that will run smoothly whether you’re present or not.
When is it most important to create a “Magic Moment”?
- Anytime you’re stuck, bored, frustrated, or depressed.
- Every time you acquire a new client.
- Every time you reach a goal or complete one of your Milestones on the way to achieving your Major Outcomes.
- And, anytime you’re having trouble staying focused on your business or find yourself procrastinating, a “Magic Moment” is a perfect way to give you a compelling, emotionally powerful reason to get focused and complete the activities you know are important, but are so easy to put off.
Many of the world’s most successful businesses depend upon “Magic Moments” for much of their profits and growth.
Follow their lead and begin incorporating “Magic Moments” into every aspect of your business.
Consider the environment Disney creates when you walk into The Magic Kingdom.
Everything is designed precisely to cause you and your family to have an experience you will never forget.
The result: Huge profits for Disney. Far easier hiring and retention of super workers and managers. Millions of referrals each year. And a brand-name recognized worldwide.
THAT’S the power of “Magic Moments” and that’s what they can help you accomplish as well.
The key is to PURPOSEFULLY design them into your everyday life and everyday business world, using the skills you learn today.
- Imagine for just a minute that you arranged at least one “Magic Moment” for every one of your prospective clients, your current clients, your staff and associates. What kind of impact would that have on your business? Can you see how the enthusiasm and loyalty you would build would eliminate many of your business headaches, cause your referrals to skyrocket, and spike your profits to levels they’ve never reached before?
- Now imagine the intense satisfaction and love you would feel by setting up “Magic Moments” for every one of your family members and friends- maybe even for a stranger you’ve never met.
- Then add in the excitement you will have as you create “Magic Moments” uniquely satisfying to YOU as well.
The result?
Almost instantly, the quality of your personal life will rise dramatically.
Many of those feelings of “emptiness” or “something’s missing” will disappear.
And much of the stress and strain will melt out of your life as you focus on making a truly profound contribution to the lives of those you care about.
Today’s Action Plan for both your business and your personal life involves CONSCIOUSLY creating Magic Moments so click here to benefit from this powerful principle today.
DAY 6: Tigger Trigger - Grow your abilities
Our income is directly proportional to our ability to earn that income and our application of these abilities.
Now for those of you who are the hard-core workaholics, before you hit “close” and go on to reading ANOTHER one of your 12,478 “how to make money fast by doing nothing” sales letters - let me mention one quick thing:
The Tigger Trigger, as I call today’s Insight, can really trigger dramatic profit growth for your business - but in a way that is very unconventional and generally overlooked by even the most successful entrepreneurs.
To make the key point quick, ask yourself this…
“When in my life have I learned and grown the most?”
For almost all of us, if we were answering with total honesty, we’d have to say it was when we were kids. Think back to when you were young- every day was an adventure and you were learning tons of new stuff daily.
“Yeah, I learned a lot as a kid, so what Jeff, what I want to do now is make more money…”
Here’s the connection that almost everyone misses and a huge insight for you:
Incomes do not grow. Income-earners do.
Just like we talked about the Skills:Performance Ratio where we discovered that our results are a byproduct of the level of skills we bring to the game, the same is true of our incomes.
Our income is directly proportional to our ability to earn that income and our application of these abilities.
When we want to grow our income, we can’t directly focus on growing our income, what we have to focus on is growing ourselves and our abilities.
Then the income growth naturally follows, just like spring always follows winter.
When we want to increase our income quickly, we need to grow ourselves quickly so we have the capability of earning the higher income that we want.
And if the time in our lives when we have learned and grown the most is when we were kids, doesn’t it make sense that we should adopt that same mentality to grow now?
That’s the Tigger Trigger.
It revolves around these key ideas:
- Once we think we have an answer, all growth stops. Growth occurs only when we have questions and are open to multiple ways of discovering the answer that is right for us.
- Kids have the most questions - and therefore gain the most answers. So when we want to experience a period of rapid growth, the best way to do it is to put on our kids’ hat again and allow ourselves to be a kid again.
- Putting ourselves into this mentality in our personal life “triggers” the growth in our business and income because it opens our mind to new possibilities and new avenues of learning, and as we discover new things and learn new insights, we increase our capabilities to earn more income with them.
It’s what we call in our 2X+1 Mastermind, “The Paradox Of Pleasure“: Paradoxically, as we give ourselves permission to be kids and to enjoy our personal lives again - even if our income is not currently very high- it puts us into a learning/growth state - and this learning/growth carries over into our business, triggering new gains in business knowledge, and therefore income.
We are going to apply The Tigger Trigger today and have some fun at the same time we trigger the new business growth you have been craving.
Click here for today’s Action Plan I’ve prepared for you.
Your Business Creation Experiment for today is… to not do any business today. Give yourself permission to take one day off and truly LIVE, truly enjoy yourself, do something that is deeply satisfying or inherently fun today - and watch your energy, your focus, and your productivity SOAR tomorrow.
Have some fun… stop the sprinting for a day… recharge your batteries… and trigger new business growth by doing so.
DAY 7: Tigger Trigger: Grow your abilities
Spending money or buying things does not create a better lifestyle - and in fact, that all of us can lead an equal- or even far “richer” - lifestyle on much less money than we currently send out the door each year.
First of all, pretty much everyone I know has various expenses in a month which are not necessary and which could be eliminated without any decrease in quality of life - overages on cell phone bills that rack up huge costs, alcohol, cigarettes, eating out for lunch (15 bucks a day for lunch is $450/mo right there)… and the biggest ones of all:
…Money we spend to cover up emptiness or make ourselves feel excited or happy… or to overcome feelings of guilt
One example:
A parent buying their kids toy after toy after toy that the kids lose interest in in about 30 minutes - but the parents keeps buying them because if they don’t, they feel like they are not being a great parent since every other parent they know seems to do the same thing…
Another example:
Someone is in a bad mood, despressed, upset, or whatever- so they buy something - clothes for women, electronic gadgets for men, etc - easy to justify that we “need” these things, but reality is, we do not.
In virtually every month’s spending I have ever seen, there are literally 100s - and usually 1000s- of dollars that would have zero negative impact on qualify of life if they were not spent that month…
So, paradoxically, it is often true that…
Spending LESS give us MORE quality of life- more time with our loved ones; more hugs, kisses and “I love you’s”; more time reading, napping, or just chilling; more cool conversations with our friends; and more satisfaction in a life well-lived.
If we are creative in HOW we spend our money and what we spend it on - there are tons of opportunities to “be” vs. “do”, even without increasing our income - and often even if we had very little income in the first place.
Let’s say you now make $50K per year - which is about $200 per workday.
For the next month, you bring your lunch from home instead of spending $10-20 per day on eating out. That is an extra $400 in your pocket (Plus you have probably eaten MUCH healthier for that month anyway) - so the $400 means you just “earned” two full days of “paid” vacation (since you avg. $200/day when you work) - so you can take those two full days without guilt and just “be” rather than “do”… or take an extra hour every day for next 3 weeks instead, or whatever the case may be. However you arrange it, you have earned it. Or you now have an extra $400 every month to invest in marketing to grow your business- or an extra $400 to pay your mortgage.
Bottom line:
The quality of your life - and the breadth of opportunities - has increased significantly by making one small shift like this- and you have substantial extra money now available to you without actually increasing your income a single penny.
In today’s Action Plan, we’ll experiment with how to put this into practice and enjoy its benefits right away.
Click here to access it now.
DAY 8: Growth Requires Space
One of the biggest challenges I hear many of you facing is a sense of overwhelm- that feeling we get when we have too much on our plate.
Today we are going to take a big step toward eliminating your feelings of overwhelm and dramatically simplifying your life and business for you.
The key Insight for today is: Growth Requires Space
If we plant a seed for an oak tree in a small metal pot, the tree can grow - but not much. As soon as its roots start to bump up against the metal of the pot, its growth gets stunted and it never reaches its full potential.
Take that same seed and plant it out in Nature where there is plenty of open space for those same roots to grow into and it can grow and grow into a tall, majestic, huge oak tree.
Same seed.
The only difference was the amount of space it had to grow. Our incomes and our lives work in much the same way. They need space to grow - and the level of their growth is limited by how much space we give them
Which brings us to The Paradox Of Growth
Often, the most important constraint on our growth is not what we say Yes to but rather how many things (and thoughts or ideas) we can start saying No to. In fact…
After studying more than 1,300 CEO and entrepreneurs whom I have coached in the past nine years, I’ve come to the conclusion that…
The most successful focus on what to ELIMINATE. They are constantly increasing simplicity. They consciously build in excess capacity in every area of their life and their business long before it is ever needed.
Everyone else focuses on what they can ADD. They are constantly adding complexity. They continually fill up whatever capacity they have so the only way to add something new is by first eliminating something else.
The most successful people are asking themselves,
“What can I ELIMINATE in order to free up the space for something better?” and
“How can I build excess capacity so I have plenty of space to grow into?”
Here are the deep insights that really allow this principle to work for you:
Our consumer society has programmed us to equate fullness with success and complexity with rightness - the “More Is Better Syndrome”.
Even the whole notion of things like “multi-tasking” or “living up to our potential”, which sound good on the surface, are actually just masked forms of “more is better” - which it is not.
The 1st Distinction for this concept is to realize…
Fullness = DISTRACTION from success; distraction from life; distraction from our True Self
Emptiness = success = FREEDOM = ability to allow our True Self to shine through without masks and without distraction
The 2nd Distinction for this concept is to remember…
Growth requires space - so if we want to grow, we must consciously build in that space IN ADVANCE.
This one is huge for most people. I call it…
The Principle Of Excess Capacity.
Basically, we consciously build in excess capacity in advance, such that when cool opportunities come along we have extra empty space (on our schedule, in our head, etc) so we can immediately say Yes to them without having to say No to anything else first.
Most of us unconsciously do the exact opposite.
We say YES to so many things out of the fear of missing out on something, or the fear of not doing what we “should” that our plates are crammed full - and so if a fun or profitable opportunity comes along, the only way we can say Yes to it is to first clear something else off our plate - and by the time we get that done, often the opportunity is gone.
So our fear of missing out actually does cause us to miss out - but not at all in the way we expected.
Actually, the lack of understanding of this Principle Of Excess Capacity is one of the most important constraints holding back virtually every business.
Think about this for a second - If your business doubled tonight, what would it be like tomorrow?
If your business grew by 1000% overnight, what would it be like tomorrow?
For most every business owner, their initial reaction to that question is a bunch of extra dollar signs flashing in their eyes- followed closely by fear.
In other words - They know that if their business grew that much, it would be utter chaos. They don’t have systems or personnel in place to deal with it, they don’t know how to get those things put in place that fast, and they can’t even imagine how hard or how long they would have to work to handle that much extra business. Think about that for a minute…
If that’s the case in your business, basically what you have is a subconscious reason for your business NOT to grow that fast. In fact, you are actually getting a reward for NOT growing - the reward of not having to deal with all the stress and confusion that would come with rapid growth.
Pretty interesting when you put it in those terms, eh? So…
Bottom line:
Having no space to grow into is one of the biggest constraints on increasing both our incomes and our quality of life.
Saying YES to too many things and filling our plates too full so we have no excess capacity often PREVENTS us from succeeding and prevents us from living the life we really want.
It also forces us to walk through life carrying the weight of all our “YESes” on our shoulders - a huge weight that just continues to get heavier and heavier every day unless we begin to consciously lighten our load.
In today’s Action Plan, I’m going to give you the quick, easy ways to begin opening up the space you need for growth, to build in excess capacity, and to dramatically lighten your load so you will have the space to say Yes to the things that will truly make a difference in your wealth and your life.
Click here to access it now.
DAY 9: The 5 Stages Of Growth
To keep the momentum going in that direction, today’s Insight focuses on…
I’m sharing this with you today because one of the most common challenges I’ve found amongst entrepreneurs around the world is…
You may actually be on track and ready for a new spurt of growth - but you don’t feel on track or don’t realize just how close you are to what you really want…
…so you don’t take that final step that gets you there and are instead frustrated by not seeing the kind of results you are very capable of experiencing.
I want to prevent that from happening to you and help you be sure you are indeed on the right track and The 5 Stages Of Growth will immediately make that clear to you.
Here’s how The 5 Stages Of Growth work:
- Stage 1: “Blast-Off” - You start something new, are totally excited about it, and often have a short burst of initial progress or success
- Stage 2: “Reality” - You quickly reach a plateau - the initial excitement dims a bit and results drop off a bit; “Reality” hits you in the realization that “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” and “magic pills” and “get rich quick” ideas don’t work the way they try to promise you they will.
- Stage 3: “The Wall” - You’ve just about had it! Your sense of overwhelm is growing daily and you aren’t sure what to do next, juggling dozens of plates at the same time and totally burning yourself out trying to keep them all going. No matter what you do, nothing seems to work the way you want it to. Your results stall, maybe even creep back toward zero in this Stage. Not surprisingly, this is where most people make a huge mistake by quitting instead of applying all the concepts like the Skills:Performance Ratio adn other strategies you’ve learned in The 10-Day Turnaround.
- Stage 4: “Starting To See The Light” - You decide you aren’t going to be like “most people” and this is your time to really make something out of your life, so you stick with it. The learning and testing finally start to pay off and you begin to see some “light at the end of the tunnel”.
- Stage 5: “The Breakthrough” - Wow! All systems are go. All your dedication and hard work pay off and you are off to the races, results skyrocketing and your life is amazing, exactly the way you always wanted it to be- or even better.
As you read through The 5 Stages, which one do you think you are now in yourself?
Are you willing to make a commitment to yourself to stick with it to get through all 5 Stages so you can experience the exhilaration of “The Breakthrough” in Stage 5?
Here are two critical points to remember to really apply this to your current situation:
- All peaks must be surrounded by two valleys- otherwise they wouldn’t be a peak, eh? ;-) What this means is… Valleys are NORMAL. Feeling stuck is NORMAL. Most of us beat ourselves up because we seem to have some belief that “successful” people never get stuck or go backwards. That, my friend, is just plain false.
- Even feeling like you are moving down instead of up is NORMAL- after all, to go from one peak to the next, we have to walk down the side of the mountain FIRST before we can walk back up the side of the other mountain to get to the new peak.
To move from Stage 1, 2, 3, or 4 into Stage 5, there are two critical keys to understand:
- You must stick with it long enough to develop the skills and execute with those new, better skills. As Billie Jean King, the famous tennis player, once said, “Winners keep playing until they get it right.”
- You must identify the CORRECT actions and skills and focus on your 1% daily improvement that we talked about earlier in this course. Without continuous improvement in your skill set, it’s sheer folly to expect improvement in your results. With continuous improvement, almost anything is possible.
Over the past nine years of coaching more than 1,300 CEOs and top entrepreneurs, I’ve discovered these key reasons why so few people ever experience Stage 5 and I want to give them to you now so you have the maximum possible opportunity for moving into the absolute joy of Stage 5 and beyond.
- The first reason so few people ever experience Stage 5 is they are so busy doing DIFFERENT things every day that they never have a chance to repeat the same key action enough to dramatically improve their skills in that area. Years ago I heard Chet Holmes say, “Black belts don’t practice 1000 moves 12 times each, they practice 12 moves 1000 times each.” I’ve come to the conclusion that for business it’s more like, “Wealthy people don’t practice 1000 moves 3 times each, they practice 3 moves 1000 times each.“ In other words- success has a lot to do with CORRECTLY identifying your “3 moves” and becoming world-class at executing them.
- The “3 moves” that most people think are the correct ones often are not so no matter how much they do them, it won’t get them the results they want. This is so critical that one of the first things I do with all the members of The 2X+1 Mastermind is take them through “The MOA Identification Process” which pinpoints their “3 moves” for them so they can relax and focus on improving those areas, knowing they are right on track toward Stage 5 results.
- People mistake “interested” with “committed.” There is no such thing as partial commitment. That’s like trying to get across a canyon in two jumps. As Yoda told Luke, “There is no ‘try’. There is only do.” Or the same idea expressed in my favorite way: “You can’t steal second with your foot on first.“
- If I asked everyone what they would do to succeed, I’d get an almost unanimous “Anything it takes.” But would you really do anything it takes?
- Would you sell your car and walk and instead take the money you would have spent on the car and invest it in your marketing?
- Would you get up at 5am and spend 2 hours studying and learning in pure quiet before anyone else gets up? Or get up at 5 am and trudge through minus 30 wind chill temperatures to get to the gym and workout so hard you felt like you were ready to puke for the rest of the morning?
- Would you cut back your work hours (and hence, your income) for 6 months so you could free up enough time to really focus on building new income sources?
- Would you take a sales letter you just spent 20 hours writing- and rewrite it 27 times - before it even got sent out once?
I did every single one of those things myself. And they worked. None of them were “sacrifices” to me- they were just steps on the journey I had consciously chosen for myself.
Do you have to do them all to succeed? Absolutely not.
But if you are TRULY serious about experiencing Stage 5, you must remember…
- “TANSTAAFL” - “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”. That’s from Robert Heinlein’s novel, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, one of my favorites. And it is 100% true in the entrepreneurial and wealth-building world. If someone promises you “money for nothing” or any other sort of “make money with no work” or “others will do the work for you while you sit back and cash checks” kind of scheme- RUN the other way, they are just feeding you a line to get you to buy something from them.
- Are you willing to pay the price? The true key to success is to determine the accurate, FULL price of whatever it is you want - that includes the emotional, psychological, and physical price along with the monetary. And then ask yourself, “Am I willing to pay the price?“
If the answer is YES - awesome - you have what it takes to experience the exhilaration of Stage 5.
And now it’s time to put you on that path toward Stage 5 breakthrough results. In today’s Action Plan, we’re going to put The 5 Stages Of Growth to work to help you do just that.
Click here to access it now.
DAY 10: Be Grateful
Today I want to share with you a special Insight that I think puts everything we’ve done so far in perspective and really captures what The 10-Day Turnaround - and life- is all about.
A few years ago, my business partners and I were all having dinner at a restaurant down in Florida where we were doing a big meeting of our 2X+1 Mastermind.
- Now, I was feeling pretty good ‘cuz we all had this commitment to each other where every time we did a conference call, if someone showed up even ONE MINUTE late, they had to put $100 in the pot, which we would use to pay for dinner the next time we all got together.
It was our way of showing respect for each other’s time and our commitment to each other to do what we said we were going to do when we said we were going to do it.
So here we are all sitting around laughing and joking, enjoying an evening out before we hit it hard sharing our latest strategies and insights with our clients in The 2X+1 Mastermind the next day, but it was actually the group of us that LEARNED the biggest lesson that night…
…from the waiter.
He was a young guy, late teens or early 20s. We went through the usual pleasantries when he showed up at the table and as expected, one of my partners asked him, “So, how are you tonight?” full expecting to get the usual “Pretty good” or “OK” or “Doing fine” or whatever.
But what he said instead floored us all.
My partner asked him, “So, how are you tonight?”
And he replied…
“Grateful”
The laughter stopped and our private room went silent as the wisdom of his answer soaked in.
We asked him what he was grateful for and he said, “My family, my friends, my job, my education, my health” and on down the line.
Our reply:
A collective, “Wow”
Isn’t it amazing how a simple one word answer, “Grateful”, can change our entire perspective on the world?
I got to thinking about it later…
“Grateful” = Great + Full = full of great
And that’s truly how I feel today… ask me how I am today, and like our waiter in Florida, I will answer, “Grateful”…
Grateful for all those things that he mentioned… and…
- Grateful that technology has advanced to the point where it connected us and we got to spend some time together, all of us creating our “Experiments” throughout The 10-Day Turnaround… (Did you know you actually had people from 29 different countries from all over the world going through The Turnaround with you?)
- Grateful for the supportive environment we’ve created together where you can also share the fears and frustrations that you feel- and know others are encouraged when they read those things and know that they are not alone in feeling them, too.
- Grateful for the sense of community that has started to build as each of you share your insights and actions and successes with each other…
What kind of difference would it make in the world if we all answered “How are you?” with…
“Grateful”…And truly felt that way each day? |
