I often pick my theme on New Year’s Eve, but this year, the theme emerged early. And I couldn’t be more excited.
7 Books That Will Transform Your Business (and Life)
September 4 by 32 Comments
As a lifelong learner, it is a passion of mine to continually acquire new knowledge about marketing, sales, and mastering the inner game of building a business.
When you finally master the game of marketing, you attract new leads effortlessly. When you master the game of enrollment conversations, you exponentially increase your income in your business. Finally, when you master your inner psychology, nothing stops you from achieving what you set out to accomplish.
I am continually reading and educating myself to improve upon my skills in these three areas because I see it as a lifelong journey to master these domains.
In the information age, there’s so much information out there that it’s challenging to narrow it down to the most relevant and supportive material for you while you move forward in your business. So I’d like to help you out by offering up some of my own personal favorites in my library.
Today, I’m sharing seven books that can transform your business (and life) by reading and applying their principles to your business.
My guide to setting a powerful intention for 2018
December 16 by 21 Comments
I want to share with you one of my deepest and most powerful transformational practices. I look forward to it every year. Without exception, huge transformation occurs for me as a result of it.
It’s creating a THEME for the year.
This is about choosing a one or two-word theme, which becomes a powerful intention that acts like an invisible guide for everything that I do in the year. As I put conscious focus and attention on my theme during the year — amazing things happen with very little effort.
I usually pick my theme on New Year’s Eve, but this year, the theme emerged early. And I couldn’t be more excited.
2018 is the “Year of Yes!”
I want to share with you what lead me to this…
As the business has grown and as demands on my time professionally and personally outstripped availability, I have become very guarded and protective of my time and of my energy. My team devised ways of guarding my schedule and only allowing me to see a fraction of all communication. Not only did it seem like the right thing to do, it felt like the only thing that could be done.
After a few years of operating like this, I felt like my whole being became a NO to everything. I felt disconnected. I felt closed off. I began to feel emotionally walled off.
It took me a while to diagnose what was wrong. And as soon as I knew, my theme immediately sprang into action. Thus the “Year of Yes!” was born.
In 2018, I am going to say Yes to life. I am going to bring all of myself to each person I interact from a place of gracious service. I will also surrender to the fullness of my being to each moment, knowing that my complete presence and connection is a true gift to me and everything around me.
My Yes’s will be full. My Maybe’s and No’s will be unapologetic No’s.
I am truly on fire! And my theme ignited the flame.
Now it’s your turn.
Here’s what I suggest you do to create your own THEME for 2018.
#1 – take a couple of hours away from the hustle and bustle of your life and tune into what you really want for yourself and what’s been holding you back. Journal on that for 15-30 minutes. And then ask yourself what yearly theme would give you the breakthrough you are seeking. Trust your gut knowing that you can’t go wrong.
#2 – once you have a theme, please share it with important people in your life as a public declaration of your desire for a breakthrough (also share it here with me in the comments below this post)
#3 – get a brand new journal for the coming year, put your theme at the top of it and create a practice of journaling around your theme at least 3 times per week
Once you do this practice, you will experience a breakthrough. You will live into your theme and your life will never be the same again.
It happens for me every year, and it will happen for you.
Let me know what is your theme for 2018 in the comments below this post (or please share any ideas you are playing with)
Intentionally yours,
~Bill
P.S. 2018 is going to be an amazing year. Can you feel it?
How To Overcome Business Burnout
May 18 by 8 Comments
When I am working so hard on chasing and building my dreams, it’s really easy to get tunnel vision and leave ME out of the success equation. It’s easy to put the energy into my business, into my clients, into the next video and into the latest and greatest technique of helping people.
It’s not always easy to truly prioritize me. To take a break when I need to take a break. To turn off all electronics in the evenings and weekends so I can listen to me, to what I want and to what will make me happy. To do what lights me up rather than continue doing what I have always done.
The good news is that when I hit a low, I always learn something of profound importance to me. This time…
My biggest realization has been to look at everything in terms of energy.
When I go through my day…every activity…every thought…every action I engage in either depletes me or adds energy into my system.
When my negative energy activities outweigh the net positive ones, I am completely spent at the end of the day. The more depleting days I string together, the more tired I feel. And the longer this goes on, the more true fatigue sets in. And when I am fatigued, even the activities that used to give me positive energy are no longer serving me the same way they once did.
So the secret to avoiding burn out, or recovering when you’re already there, is to…
Be absolutely conscious of engaging in significantly more positive energy activities, thoughts and interactions than negative ones.
To help me with this, I have been doing a time log of all my activities and rating them from -5 to +5 (with -5 being very depleting and +5 being rejuvenating/energizing).
I have also been on a decluttering spree – letting go or minimizing my depleting activities and replacing them with my most rejuvenating ones. This has been a gratifying experience but not an easy one. Letting go and restructuring can be a difficult process.
Another important lesson in all of this for me is to…
Be aware of the INTENSITY in my activities
For example, I used to play a lot of poker. Playing poker was an intense hobby…it actually took away a lot of my energy because of how intensely I competed. Just because I love something does not mean it’s good for me.
I became more aware of the tension I build up during intense activities. Even watching a movie can be intense if it’s a thriller or horror movie.
As an example, I’ve been watching a lot of mindless sitcom comedies. These aren’t the kind of shows I’d ever normally watch, but I feel my body relaxing when I view them and it’s super important I keep my mind and body in a peaceful, low-intensity state.
This is the kind of self-care habit I want you to practice daily.
Another practice that has been incredibly rejuvenating is…
Keeping a gratitude journal.
I write down the things I’m grateful for everyday – everything from the people in my life, to lessons and realizations, to the little things in my life like the sun on my face, the trees in my backyard…
Gratitude is one of the most healing energies and I do everything possible to bask in its glow daily.
I’d love to share more of my daily self-care habits with you in the next few weeks.
In the meantime, please share your own ideas for self-care in the comments below.
This will be a great opportunity to learn from each other how to better take care of ourselves as we continue reaching for greatness!
Is your desire to be liked driving clients AWAY? | Ep. 147
February 23 by 3 Comments
For so many years of my life, all I wanted was to be accepted.
My guide to setting a powerful intention for 2017
December 28 by 115 Comments
I want to share with you one of my deepest and most powerful transformational practices. I look forward to it every year. And without exception, huge transformation occurs for me as a result of it.
It’s creating a THEME for the year.
This is about choosing a one or two-word theme, which becomes a powerful intention that’s like an invisible guide for everything that I do in the year. As I put conscious focus and attention on my theme during the year in a relaxed way — amazing things happen with very little effort.
I’m still marinating on my theme for 2017. But I want to share some of the most powerful themes from past years, as well as instructions for you to create your own.
2014 THEME: LOVING MYSELF
Even as I write this, tears are coming to my eyes remembering the impact of putting gentle focus and attention on fully learning and embracing love for myself. It was a little scary when I took this on… but it changed my life in so many ways.
2011 THEME: SIMPLICITY
I love it when I discover a way to make something that seems really complicated into something really simple. There’s something liberating about that to me.
At the same, this is a difficult theme for me because I have lot of ideas and creativity. I’m going to infuse this theme into 2017 as a secondary theme (time to bring simplicity back into the picture!)
Here’s what I suggest you do to create your own THEME for 2017.
#1 – take a couple of hours away from the hustle and bustle of your life and tune into what you really want for yourself and what’s been holding you back. And then ask yourself what yearly theme would give you a break through.
#2 – once you have a theme, please share it with important people in your life as a public declaration of your desire for a breakthrough (also share it here with me in the comments below this post)
#3 – get a brand new journal for the coming year, put your theme at the top of it and create a practice of journaling around your theme at least 3 times per week
Once you do this practice, you will experience a breakthrough. You will live into your theme and your life will never be the same again.
It’s happens for me every year, and it will happen for you.
Let me know what your theme for 2017 is here (or please share any ideas you are playing with)
Intentionally yours,
~Bill
P.S. 2017 is going to be an amazing year. Can you feel it?
