3 Keys to Unlocking your Dream Potential

Your potential is locked up inside. How do I know? 

Because I almost guarantee you have recently thought;

• I should have done this…
• I had planned to do this but...
• There was not enough time to...

I too, have been trapped by those thoughts of guilt and dissatisfaction.

That was until I learned the 3 keys and used them to unlock my Dream Potential.

You can use the 3 keys to unlock your potential.

It’s important to learn how to write out your goals and execute them. More importantly, achieving your goals will create overwhelming feelings of joy and satisfaction.

Don't you want overwhelming joy and satisfaction?

If you answered yes, click here to see how.

The 3 keys to unlocking your Dream Potential are -

1. Match the “What with Why” - Match what your dream is, with why you want to do it. If you’re not personally connected to the Dream, its not really yours and you will fail.
2. Make Room - A common reason people fail to achieve their dreams is for lack of having the “guts to quit” something; throwing out the old and making room for the new.
3. Make Appointments - You are only 50% likely to achieve your goals if you write them down and tell someone. Might as well flip a coin! But...you are 95 % more likely to achieve your goals when you make specific appointments with someone who will hold you accountable.

You can use these three keys to unlock your dream potential. It’s no secret that you want the euphoria of achieving your Dreams, 360 business has the formula to get you there. 

Challenge yourself to grow your business, reach new heights, and maximize your Dream Potential by clicking here to get a hold of my new Dream Reaching, Goal Setting Acceleration Program.

Coach Jeff 

360 Business Inc.

Your incompetence could make you wealthy...here’s how

Face it, you are incompetent. Someone has to tell you the truth. Get angry with me, I can take it! It doesn’t feel good to hear the truth, but this time incompetence is a good thing.    @#%$?

I want to challenge you again to a new perspective. The perspective that incompetence is great and you should love every minute of it. I do.

So… in my outside voice while pointing my finger I shout “YOU ARE INCOMPETENT!” 

Your first reaction may be anger. 

The second may be to defend yourself to its lie. The third reaction is realizing its truth. The fourth reaction is thinking about all the areas of your incompetence and laughing hysterically at yourself. Once you get to level #4 you can begin to see the light. You may come to enjoy being incompetent in many areas. Its fun to allow other people to step in where you fall short (by the way, if you are struggling with this post, you may want to go read the post on pride read it here).

Is it really possible to be competent at everything? As an entrepreneur I want to say yes because sometimes we are forced to do everything at first. You are the sales person, the producer, the bookkeeper, the repairman, etc. At first this plan works because it has to, but that should change over time. The question is “Has it changed?” Lets face the facts, if you were competent at everything you would continue to do it all yourself. I’m tired just thinking about it. Think of all the downsides... you wouldn’t have any friends because you became that annoying know-it-all. Your business becomes a dreaded job. The economy would be further damaged since you’re hoarding all the jobs. Finally, you are limiting your income potential dramatically. Please turn over a new leaf and accept your incompetence with joy.

For so many entrepreneurs like yourself you are still doing way to much to enjoy your business. 

When I learned to love the areas of my own incompetence it made living a fully alive, satisfied life, possible. I began to see opportunities for more competent people to step in and lend a hand. Realizing you are incompetent in most areas of life feels good because it gives permission to be extremely competent in the areas of your giftedness.

You have permission, I grant it to you, to be incompetent. The pressure to be perfect at everything is finally off. I just cut the ball and chain from your ankle, you’re welcome!

What you will find is wealth beyond measure. 

Deeper relationships 

Greater productivity 

Satisfaction

Inner strength

Less frustration with yourself and others

Relying on other people builds relationships, and relationships in business build profits.

The level of your incompetence will determine the size of your company and the number of hours you work.

Action time:

Write down all the things you take responsibility for:

1.

2.

3.

4.

Etc

Next, circle the two items you are best at. Hire someone else to do the rest. If you can’t afford a full time person try using a Virtual Assistant (VA) for some tasks. I have begun this process myself using elance.com. So far so good. For some great advice on working with VA’s check out Tim Ferriss book The 4-hour work week.

Also if you have any advice for outsourcing, let me know!

To your success and joy in business

Coach Jeff

P.S. I have a free gift for you here.

Your biggest Growth Opportunity

Your Biggest Growth Opportunity is in how you handle Criticism.

The best growth in life comes from the toughest times.

The difference between you and the “unsuccessful people” is your ability to capitalize on those tough times. Too many people go through tough times without learning anything. 

It’s sad. Don’t do that!

My mentor John Maxwell says, “When you fall down, pick something up while you’re down there.” What he means is, when you fail and are at the bottom of it all, you should look around for the silver lining. Sometimes you may have to shovel through crap to find it, but it’s there.

Tough times are sometimes thrust upon you in the form of criticism.

Criticism is like kryptonite, it can take a superman down. You may have been flying through the clouds until, unexpectedly, someone throws a fiery ball of criticism and knocks you down to ground zero. Hey, if I had a penny (I am a Pennypacker) for every time this has happened to me ….. well I would be on vacation right now.

I challenge you to a new perspective today. 

Life experience attempted to convince me there is only one definition of criticism:

“Criticism = Threat.”  So back away and fight it at all cost. 

That definition is a lie!

Those who truly become successful as an individual use the new definition:

“Criticism = Opportunity”  

Take a moment and let that sink in. 

When being criticized if you were to ask “Whats the opportunity here?” how would the outcome change? 

My first business mentor Chuck Fiske (aka, The Old Man) opened up our relationship by criticizing my lack of business acumen. Initially, I told him “Take a hike old man and stay out of my business.” When he persisted, I ended up giving in. Eventually I began to ask “Whats the opportunity here?” The answer was a friendship going on 11 years and counting. Without his lessons, I would never have made it in business.

Keep reading, the “How To” part is coming up.

I don’t expect you to love being criticized but you can learn to love the results reflecting on criticism brings forth.

Those who love the results, no matter how tough it was to hear, will prosper. Those who can’t handle it perish by their own ignorance. 

Who will you be?

Will you be the person who learns new skills, techniques, and gains knowledge but does not grow personally into a more mature person. Yes, it’s possible and happens often. 

“Learning new skills does not equal personal growth” 

Or will you accept criticism, reflect on its truth, and grow personally?

No one really likes to stand and listen to criticism. If you do, you might be crazy but we all need to fall in love with reflecting on it, filtering out the lie, and accepting the truth.

Criticism always has two parts:

1. Someones perception of you and 
2. The truth about you. 

It is up to you to separate them out.

What I have gleaned from criticism is that we NEED IT to conquer our weaknesses while stretching our strengths.

What keeps you from the benefits of criticism?

The difficult part is allowing criticism to pierce through our arsenal of deflection. Somewhere in life we are trained to put our guard up, build a wall, or throw punches at those who criticize us. When that happens, the odds allowing criticisms golden nugget to stretch and challenge you decrease.

How you get over this is to know what your defense tactics are and change them, or at the very least, acknowledge them. Both will allow you to be stretched. 

I think we both know that criticism is more prevalent in your life than pure encouragement, sad but most likely true.

Here are tactics in the arsenal of deflection. (I have used many of them)

Go on the defensive.

Give Excuses.

Agree with everything but listen to nothing.

Crying.

Avoidance.

Anger.

Get loud.

Walk away.

I don’t want to talk about it.

What is your arsenal of deflection?

How can you react better to criticism?

Since you can’t change what people say to you, change how you receive them.

I was thinking about this a bunch (as you can tell). I asked myself “whats the proper reaction?” So I started to day dream of how I would want someone to react if I was to sit them down and have a critique session. How would I want the other person to react?

In my dream I was talking to Mr. Potato Head about his shortcomings and assaulted him with well intended Criticism, I wondered how I would want him to react.

In dreamland I would want him to smile and say THANK YOU for caring enough to say something to me. Then I would want him to leave happily. I would want him to think about it, analyze it, and throw out the parts that were not true, accept the parts of the criticism that were, then make the necessary changes immediately.

Honestly, if you are the one doing the criticizing, isn’t that how you want them to react? You may even dream they would ask you for tips, tricks, advice, and strategy to make the change. Yeah, wouldn’t that be awesome! Yes in your dream world that would be awesome, however in the real world it’s not like that.

Whats the solution? Since you can’t control the other person, all you can do is BE the person you just Dreamed of. When someone comes to you and wants to criticize... listen, then smile and say thank you for caring enough about me to say something and help me grow. Then go make the necessary changes and earn their respect. Even more than that, you become a respectable person.

If you can begin to love the results of criticism you will prosper and live a happy life.

Remember “Criticism = Opportunity”

What do you think? 
Leave a comment.

To your success,

Coach Jeff

If you are interested in a free coaching consultation, please shoot me an email. I would love to engage your business. I have one coaching spot left.

Leadership Light Switch

Leadership is not a light switch you can turn on and off at will.

Did you know, to grow your business, you must grow personally?

There is a correlation between personal growth and business success.

Small business owners like us start out believing business success is a result of a great product. That is true to some degree. 

Real success is deeper than that because a great product is a result of authentic leadership, character, and integrity.

Leadership, Character, and Integrity cover a large surface area. That being said you can easily see there is much more room to grow in your leadership than in your product.

To make large gains in your business try intentionally growing in one of these three areas first and see what happens. I believe when you grow personally, the rest will follow. 

If you don’t know where to start, begin with increasing your leadership. 

So lets talk about leadership for a minute. I need to break the myth you've been believing. The myth that there is this magical leadership light-switch you can turn on and off.

Truth: There is no light-switch.

You cannot turn on great leadership at work, and stink at it at home. Detail is the same way. It’s not possible to have a messy car and house, then walk into work, flip the switch to automatically become detailed oriented. 

Stop and reflect on that for a moment... How often do you try to be one thing at home and something else at work? It feels like you are about to be ripped apart, like your life is playing tug-o-war and your body is the rope. 

Why is this important to you? 

It’s important because you want to be successful. You want to reach your potential and have meaning to your life. 

The Solution: Do what great leaders do, follow the lead of other great leaders. 

Great leaders grow personally. When you become a new you, you will naturally use it in your business. 

Real success starts with you.

Its time to be a little selfish by investing in your personal success. Everyone around you will benefit from it.

How can you easily do this?

1. Read a book.  I recommend anything by John C. Maxwell, Seth Godin, Dan Miller
2. Listen to podcasts. My favorites are The Dave Ramsey Show, and TWIT, and Andy Stanley
3. Find a mentor. I have many of them. They are like my own personal specialists. They are all great men. I usually go to each one based on who they are. One man is for business advice, one for spiritual, one for marketing, and one for marriage. 
4. Volunteer for Non-Profit Board. This type of leadership experience will challenge you to new levels in basic leadership, teamwork, and collaboration

Take the lead in your life. 

What is leadership? It just means that you go first, you take the initiative to make an impact on your own life first, then it will turn into growth in your business as well.

To your success,

Coach Jeff

FYI - I now have two, one-to-one coaching slots open if you are interested in taking your business to the next level. For more information and a free consultation please contact me here with your interest. 

P.S. Have you been to my website recently? I created a fantastic goal setting resource that is yours for free. 360businessinc.com

For those not blessed with tech skills.

Do you remember when geeks were the group you walked past without speaking to... or when you did speak it involved something only you found funny? 

I remember. 

There was a time when I was part of the geek squad and no one wanted to hang around me. In time, I was kicked out because I couldn’t hang at Super Mario Brothers and had never seen Star Wars. 

I then went to the group where they talked all about “MJ.” 

“MJ” this and “MJ” that, how awesome is this MJ thing.”

Come to find out, that thing was Michael Jordan. You probably know what happened next, Yep, I wasn’t allowed in the sports club either. 

That created a time where I was in the middle of nowhere which led to a shady time of my life I am sure will come out in future posts.  

Ah, what the heck, I will tell you a little about it now.

I found “home” with the group of young chaps that liked to sneak out of the house and vandalize the neighborhood.  

If you lived in the Fox Run area of SA, TX anytime between ‘87 and ‘94, I’m sorry. I am sorry if you experienced a late night knock at the door only to answer it with 96 gallons of water rushing at you with hurricane force flooding your living room. Just before you finished turning the front door knob there was a perfectly placed trash can tilted against the door full of water from your own garden hose. That must have really sucked.

Again, really sorry bout that.

Or that Triumph car who left the keys sticking out of the trunk lock. It’s really hard starting a car without those darn keys. And for that poor person who left their windows down only to find wet grass clippings as your new front seat passengers.  What were we supposed to do...I mean the window was open and 5 or 6 bags of grass clippings were only a few feet away. I really am sorry. 

I have to give props to the kid that pepper-sprayed us when we tried to steal his halloween candy. It’s now something I look back and laugh at.

Turtle, (Aka Jeremy) I really am sorry for being an ass to you. You were a cool geek and a good friend.

This confession time has felt pretty good. At least for me. AHHHHHHH.

Times sure have changed ...or have they? Well I won’t say definitively. 

So why the trip down memory lane...?

Getting kicked out of the geek squad made me a little bitter. Nowadays bitterness towards geeks will seriously hold your future back.

No matter who you are and what business you run, the geeks have become the popular kids. Since most of this crazy world is going with the way of technology, you can’t avoid needing a few geeks in your life to get things done. That’s why I have turned my bitterness into appreciation. 

I need a great tech team but right now it’s not in the budget to pay $50-$90 per hour for tech help. If you are in the same boat as me you may want to check out Wix for creating a website. Click here to get connected. 

I highly respect tech guys and gals. Ya’ll do make our lives so much better, at least when we can learn how to make it all work.

All that to say is for hope. For those of us plagued with tech issues (probably because we are reaping what we sowed years ago) I have a solution. The easiest platform that takes the least amount of geek skills to create a website is through WIX.com. If you have ever made a powerpoint or used publisher, word, keynote, pages etc, then you can make a Wix site. They are super simple to operate and easy to change an update daily if you need to. They used to be a totally flash based website program but now they have HTML 5. It’s not always the most stable program but it’s getting better so hit SAVE often and make sure the box that says “site saved successfully” pops up each and every time, or you will have to make your website twice like I did.

Anyways - here is an easy way to put down the frustration between your vision and the tech barrier. Use Wix to build your website, if you are visual and can make a powerpoint or keynote, you can make a WIX site. I built mine twice in one day. When I want to add a page or change something, it can be done in a heart beat. Check out my site to see how it came out.

To your success!

Coach Jeff

P.S. - If you go to my website and sign up for our newsletter. I will send you my newest E-Book, "The 7 Step Formula for Goal Setting Success" absolutely free.