Do Yourself a Favor: Practice Just In Time Learning

September 13/by JC

In this post I want to talk about learning. Learning to learn is fine – especially if you’re getting a degree or a new job or just cruising around on the web. However, there are times when you need to learn Just In Time. Most people, including me at one point, learn whenever. That might not be a great use of time. Especially when you’re trying to build a business.

I’ve been a proponent of Fizzle ever since I started with them in March of 2015.

Why?

The main reason is that the internet is full of content that you might or might not need. More often than not, it’s stuff you DON’T need. I really appreciate Fizzle because their Roadmap is so to the point. It might not be every single detail that you need at every level of building a business. But, it does give you a general method of getting you where you want to be in a to-the-point manner. Plus the Roadmap is constructed in way that you’re learning Just-In-Time.

I mean, don’t get me wrong – I love knowing things just for the heck of it. One of my favorite ways of killing time is on reddit – and many of the subs that I subscribe to are full of facts, strategies, and FYIs. Heck, I love podcasts that discuss important things in life. My mind just loves learning and wondering about things.

But, notice I say “killing time” there.

I take that phrase very literal.

For me, there’s a time when I want to be productive and then there’s a time for just goofing off. And really, I think you need to be aware of when you’re doing each and why you’re doing each.

I wasn’t aware of all the time I was killing until I had my wake up call.

A Wake Up Call

When you lose someone that is as close to you as my mom was with me, you start realizing that we only have so much time in this world.

Her passing was my wake up call to live life.

There are other types of wake up calls.

Many people experience theirs when their first child is born. Others might even have theirs when they’re saying “I do.” on an alter. And yet, others have their wake up call when they’re being shot at during their first engagement during a battle.

But, the truth is, I really think it takes one of these life changing events to truly wake up.

To wake up and realize that you’re an adult. That you’re now responsible for your own life.

What is Being an Adult?

Being an adult, I think, is more than just being “responsible”. It’s all about knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing. It’s knowing that you’re capable of being the best you you can be. And I think it’s also about realizing that you can’t really change the people that are around you unless they want to be changed.

In the Stages of Manhood post, the last stage is being a Sage. If you’re not familiar with the term, a sage is usually known as someone who has the respect of other powerful people. Those people typically seek the sage for his knowledge and wisdom.

A sage has mastered what it means to be an adult. (If you’re a guy and want to learn more about becoming a warrior, lover, king, and eventually a sage, then check out this post.)

Wisdom is Important

The sage is sought for his wisdom.

But what is wisdom?

The dictionary says it as:

“The soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment.”

Which means that the sage knows when to do something, not just how to do something.

You know, I went to college to become an engineer. And part of being an engineer is learning about a particular problem and then coming up with a solution that not only satisfies a problem, but it also does it efficiently.

In a way, engineers have to act wisely. We have to take in as much info as we can about a given situation and then have a solution to implement.

The same can be said about many jobs. The more we know about a certain problem, the better we feel when we start on solving it.

But here’s the thing, you can’t ever build true wisdom until you actively learn about a given situation and then apply what you’ve learned. Listening and watching podcasts or videos, gives us information, true. But it doesn’t give us wisdom.

While college and most jobs are all about taking tests without screwing up, life and business aren’t like this. The more we screw up, the more opportunity we have to learn.

It might take us a few times of repeating the same mistake for us to learn from it. In school and on the job, we’re taught to not fail. That’s why we’re taught so much information up front before we ever take a test or get hired for a job.

But as humans, failing is how we learn. You learn as you go.

Learning for Life and Business

So here’s the gist of this post.

When it comes to learning to build your business and solving other problems in life, there’s really no point to go searching for this information until you’re ready for it. Find the solution when you can actually execute it.

It might be nice to listen to some of these big time podcasts like SPI, Entrepreneur on Fire, or even the Fizzle Show so you know what to look out for. But don’t take any classes or seek advice until you’re ready to implement the advice that is given. If you do this enough, you might suffer from what I did for so many years – Knowledge Constipation. The more knowledge and info you have without starting, the less likely you are to start because you don’t know where to start.

Personally, I don’t even bother listening to “Ask Pat” and other Q&A formatted podcasts on a regular basis unless they’re answering a specific question I have.

The truth is that the world is changing too quickly for us to keep track of all of this information and really, if it’s important enough issue, it will be updated in the future when we are ready for it.

Start practicing Right-On-Time Learning – not only will your Evernote account appreciate it, but you won’t be spending a fortune on education that might become obsolete, AND you’ll keep your sanity in check as well.

Thanks again for reading. If you have any stories about learning just-in-time for your business or in life, please share them in the comments!

Cheers!

4 Tactics Successful People Use to Get More Life Satisfaction

August 30/by JC

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

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

Why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

So here we go…

1. Know what’s Important in Life

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

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

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

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

It’s the Relationships, Not the Things

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Demonstrate Passion and Perseverance for Long-Term Goals

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

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

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

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

Use Familiar Time Frames to Cut Up Large Goals

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

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

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

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

4. Embrace a Growth Mindset

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

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

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

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

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

Case Study:

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

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

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

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

Action Steps:

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

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

Further Study on this Topic:

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

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

Tony Robbins: The Day I Became Wealthy

Sandra Bellamy: How to Embrace Your Quirky to Be Your Own Authentic Self (AoL 050)

August 25/by JC

Society in general teaches us to not only care what other people think, but that we have to conform to those thoughts. For many people, that’s not a problem. But for us creatives it can be really hard. And often times we find ourselves asking two questions:

Am I living the life that I’ve seen for myself? And “Who am I going to live my life for?”

The answer to those two questions often times leads to the formation of one’s own passion based business.

In fact, that’s what happened to today’s guest, Sandra Bellamy.

Not only did Sandra come to this realization back in 2012, but she’s made it her mission to help other people figure out for themselves that they’re connected to a Matrix that has no interest in their personal desires. She calls it “Embracing Your Quirky”.

The truth is that once we unplug, we have to start believing in ourselves and take a big leap of faith – because no one else is going to on our behalf.

In this chat, we talk about how she learned to embrace her quirky, how you can do so in your daily life, and we also dive a bit into her experiences as a writer and why she believes that anyone can be a writer.

It’s a practical and exceptionally helpful episode. Enjoy!

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

How can someone tell if they’re not embracing who they are enough? 22:23
Why she loves “the lifestyle of a teenager” to empower how she see’s herself. 23:14
How someone can “embrace their own quirky” more. 26:30
What are some of the experiences that she’s had working with others. 30:06
Why she has a wide spread of book topics and where each one came from. 34:42
How she’s able to write so much and why she believes that anyone can be a writer. 46:39
What she’s looking forward to in the not too distant future. 51:38
What are three thought leaders she recommends to other people the most. 54:13
One thing that’s under $100 that has changed her life. 55:15
One gift she likes giving others. 55:50
3 truths that she would share with others. 56:06
Something she believed when she was 24 but now thinks is bogus. 58:00
When she thinks of the word success, who comes to mind and why? 1:00:31
… and MUCH more!

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

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Stop Worrying, Start Living:

5 Lessons from Launching a Amazon Kindle Book:

Free Book and Review Opportunity from Red Door Publishing:

Andy Harrington’s story of how Tony Robbins Changed his Life:

Thanks for Listening!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers!

Escaping the Rat Race by Achieving Financial Security

August 23/by JC

Our General Education on Money

Growing up, many of us were never taught about money and really where it comes from or really how to generate more of it. The only thing we were taught about it was that if we had enough we could buy something with it.

Later, when we got older, we’d find out that we could actually get paid to do jobs here and there, say like yard mowing. We learned that if we saved that money we earned, we’d be able to put it all together and get something we really wanted.

The older we got, though, the more expensive the things we wanted became. In high school for me, it was cars, gifts, and, apparel. The list continued to get longer and longer.

As we got older, we learned that if we could manage to get a college degree, we would be qualified to get higher paying jobs.

Oh, and if we wanted or needed something right now that we could use a credit card and then pay back the credit company back all at once or over time. The sooner we paid the companies back (monthly is best), the sooner that our credit went up. The higher our credit the more a company would risk on us to buy larger purchases – including houses. This is where mortgages come from.

Retail Therapy is an Addiction.

Obviously, the more expensive our tastes, the more money we need to support it. Even more so, the more that we want or feel we need something new – the sooner that we’re going to pay for it.

Doing this over and over just for the hell of buying things is definitely a thing. Why? Because there is a rush in buying something. And just like any other rush, it can get addictive.

There’s tons of people who don’t know when they’re getting out of control in their spending. Part of this can be put on the shoulders of not having a real education about money growing up. However, there’s another part. A part that is a little deeper and a little darker.

That part that is so common with other addictions. We’re using that addiction to fill a void in our life. The thing about voids is that we usually try to fill them with things that are detrimental to other aspects of our lives. “Retail Therapy” is really no different than gambling. Just throwing money out there on things that have no relevance in where we actually exist in life.

Righting the Ship

Hopefully you’re the type of person who can see where things are going wrong in your life. If you feel that you don’t have money to do what you really want to do with your life or you simply have a ton of stuff, but you still feel empty – then I want you to keep reading.

In a nutshell, what I’ve already talked about here is the extent of what I learned about money before I started educating myself on the matter. It came from what was taught to me at school and from what I learned from people in my life.

What I found is that life is actually NOT about going to work and getting paid the market value of what I’m worth. It’s not just about buying things that you need and what hoping that this new thing might make you happy.

What it is about is giving yourself as many options as possible to do things that fulfill you. And, as I’ve mentioned before, Financial Freedom is a big part of opening up those options.

Achieving Financial Security

So, the first step to reaching Financial Freedom is by first obtaining Financial Security. In this video, Tony Robbins discusses what that means.

So let’s say that finding Financial Security sounds like a good place to start? How would you get there?

Sure, you could seek out more of Tony’s info (and I recommend it), but I think the biggest name that’s out there in today’s world is Dave Ramsey. He’s on national radio and his main focus is to help people learn how to get achieve financial security.

Laila swears by Dave and his methods and I have to say that I appreciate the advice that he gives when I get the opportunity to hear him.

So here’s a really good video I found where Dave explains his steps his famous framework called The 7 Baby Steps.

For Maria and myself, this has been a good place to be at. Many people in our lives believe that we’re poor because we don’t spend our money on anything and everything. However, we know that eventually we’ll be able to do rather well on what we’ve invested in during the past 5 years.

Reaching for Financial Independence

After you’ve bought your home and have everything covered by Dave Ramsey’s method, you need to start thinking about the next level. Let’s bring in Tony again here so that we can see the next step.

Maria and I are working to be fully in this zone with our next house. We have a few more debts to knock out before we get there, but we believe we’ll be able to get there within the next year or two.

But really our secret has been to keep re-investing money into other baskets and not spending money from building our financial security phase.

Another step for us to start reaching financial independence was taken by me when I started focusing on New Inceptions. One of the things I heard in LTD back when was that you shouldn’t do something that you believe will never get you to your destination. Whether that’s more financially focused or purpose driven, you have to do something that will yield you the results that you really want. Not doing so will either drive you insane or send you into a constant depression.

Don’t do that to yourself!

Escaping the Rat Race – What Financial Freedom Looks Like

I know a few people who are already at this level. What’s interesting to me is that they’re as busy as the rest of us, but they live their lives in a world where they’re choosing what they want to do.

Mark Nathan is one of those people. And if you listen to his chat in session 22 of the AoL Podcast, you find out that just because you’re free – that you don’t actually want to sit on a beach somewhere. Check out that interview here.

My thinking is that once you’re used to working at peak level, you can’t stop. At this point, you’ve more than likely found meaning in your life and you know how to leverage your skill set. Stopping would probably yield insanity.
Chances are you’ve definitely built a business around this so it can’t ever be taken from you.

Oh, if you’re interested in finding some more of that Tony Robbins course, check out more of it here.

Your Turn:

I’d love to hear how your guys’ plans are going. Do you follow Dave Ramsey? If not, who do you follow for your financial advice? I’d love to hear one or two tips that you’ve learned on your quest in getting out of the rat race and reaching financial freedom.

AoL 049: From Homeless in High School to Expert Enabler and Community Builder with Mellissa Rempfer

August 18/by JC

There’s so many things we have to do as an entrepreneur. Either we do it ourselves or we pay someone else to do it.

If you’re just starting out on your path, you might not have the resources to pay for all the help you need.

How do you get things done if you need help on graphics or grammar checking? Maybe you need help getting through a mental block or getting a new perspective on your business? Do you have the resources to pay for all of that?

Probably not. Perhaps bartering is the answer. But where online can you do that?

That’s what today’s guest, Mellissa Rempfer has been able to foster in her group, Brilliance and Business.

In this chat, we talk about where the idea of the group came from and more about what sets it apart. We also get into how she got her start in doing big things early on, and the three instincts of the human condition and how those apply in life and business.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

How Mellissa didn’t even realize she had hit the bottom even though she was homeless in high school. 11:05
How she moved from being homeless to going to college 16:19
Why she decided that she wanted to be a pediatric trauma surgeon. 18:41
Where the idea of a student center came from and how she was able to put all the pieces together to get it built on her campus. 21:17
What she did immediately after graduating. 29:33
When she felt it was time to start a business. 34:24
Her initial experience in coaching and how Brilliance and Business originally came about. 38:30
What Brilliance and Business is all about. 47:09
How she feels has helped her grow the group as well as it has? 53:55
How do the three instincts of the human condition play into what she does? 57:57
More about the implementation of these instincts in the group 1:05:55
What are some of the things that’s she’s looking forward to in the future 1:07:30
What three things she would like people to remember her by? 1:10:21
Three truths she wants to share with others? 1:10:36
Where she would run a non promotional ad and what would it say? 1:11:37
3 Favorite Podcasts 1:14:04
What she would say to her 25 year old self? 1:17:40
When she thinks of success, who does she think of and why? 1:18:37
… and MUCH more!

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

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Tapping into and Embracing Your Brilliance:

Kim Eldredge and Mellissa talk about Mellissa’s book:

How to Communicate on Facebook:

Introduction to the Enneagram:

Thanks for Listening!

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers!

7 Ways to Stop Being a Victim and Take Control of Your Life

August 16/by JC

A video from this past winter of Gary Vee’s got me thinking. The world is full of victims. And really, much of the direction of the country as a whole is going because of how many people in their lives that they are a victim – more to the point – a victim of their circumstance. Here’s that video:

Just this past weekend, I had the opportunity to sit down with a friend of mine from the Muncie area. As we were talking, he made it clear that he felt that his place in life made it hard for him to progress in life. Having a disability from a past job and not feeling like he could be retrained to do something else due to his age, he seemed adrift in his career. Just bobbing up and down in the sea of life and letting whatever currents that be take him with them.

I asked him, “if you had an ideal life, what would it look like?”. He said “You know, I haven’t really thought about that because it seems like it would be too far out of reach.”

I then asked him, “How do you think that the Olympic athletes are there doing their thing? Do you think they thought that being there was out of reach?”

His response was, “No. But they had people that helped them get there. They knew the right people.”

“Interesting.”, I replied. The conversation continued after that for a bit… but I could tell that I got his mind spinning a bit.

Formal Education Can be a Waste of Time

Now, if you’re not familiar with the Muncie, Indiana area – it used to be full of manufacturing jobs. However, since those jobs have all but left the country, there are many people who are still displaced and trying to figure out what to do with their lives. (A bi-product of this loss of jobs has been the rise of drug use in the area – including, but not limited to, meth.)

When I worked at Ivy Tech for a few years, my students were mainly a mixture of kids just out of high school and these displaced individuals. I’m glad that they were there. Whether they were there because they got some money from the state to be there (school loans that might later hurt them) or they actually realized that education IS a way to move forward. I loved these adult learners – but I hated that I wasn’t getting the opportunity to teach them important things that would help them actually move forward in their lives.

Seriously. How is Algebra going to help them? They need a whole reworking of how they see the world. Not the knowledge of how to find the equation of a line drawn on a grid!

Even when I first went to college, I was hoping that it would teach me skills that I would actually be able to apply to having a successful life. Instead all I was taught was code, equations, and facts. While it applied to me getting a job, it never applied to real life.

When I graduated, I pretty much had the same perspective on life that I did when I entered. I just had a higher vocabulary. (Which, funny enough, ostracized me from everyday folks outside out of academia. Later, when I did start teaching at Ivy Tech, I had to become more relatable and adjust my speaking patterns again.)

I can attribute my new perspective on the world as starting during my active years in LTD. That was the first time in my life that I had positive and successful people around me. I learned from them how to start learning how to live a better life myself. And the biggest thing that I learned was that I needed to adjust my own victim perspective. (Soon, with the passing of my mom, I also realized that the mindset of a victim can actually kill. She had several things wearing on her at the time and anytime I hear people stuck in life with little options, I really feel their pain. It usually brings me back to what she was going through.)

7 Steps to Retaking Control of Your Life

So, how did having these people in LTD specifically help me get out of having a victim mindset? Well, you’re in luck. I’m going to share you a list of steps that I can look back on and see what I did to start getting to point where I am today.

Become aware and realize when you’re playing the victim card.

Like any other “normal” behavior, blaming others for your misfortunes can become a habit and even an addiction. Like any other addiction, we need to be able to admit that we need to make a change in our own life before we can actually do it.

Realize why you actually do it.

You might want attention and validation. You can always get good feelings from other people as they are concerned about you and try to help you out. On the other hand, it may not last for that long as people get tired of it.
You don’t have to take risks. When you feel like a victim you tend to not take action and then you don’t have to risk for example rejection or failure.
You don’t have to take the sometimes heavy responsibility. Taking responsibility for your own life can be hard work, you have to make difficult decisions and it is just heavy sometimes. In the short term it can feel like the easier choice to not take personal responsibility.
It makes you feel right. When you feel like the victim and like everyone else – or just someone else – is wrong and you are right then that can lead to pleasurable feelings.
As with any other bad habit (or addiction), being aware of what you’re actually doing is will give you the ability to start thinking about those actions rationally. It’s when you’re aware of your actual choice that you can start thinking about taking different actions.

It’s Ok to Not Be a Victim

Anytime we think about doing something different in our life, we always wonder what others in our life are going to think. If you’re a gamer, you’re going to wonder what your gaming buddies are going to think. If you’re an alcoholic, you’re going to wonder what your buddies at the bar are going to think. The list goes on.

Also realize that you’re going to struggle with it yourself. You may have spent hours each week with thinking and talking about how wrong things have gone for you in life. Or how people have wronged you and how you could get some revenge or triumph over them. This whole new thinking process is going to be new to you. It’s going to be tough, but in the end it’ll be worth it to be free.

Now you have to fill your life with new thinking that may feel uncomfortable because it is not so intimately familiar as the victim thinking you have been engaging in for years.

Take Responsibility for your Life.

Stop waiting on other people’s approval to live your life. As much as you might think growing up, you’re not your parents, and they’re not you.

Growing up, if we’ve had good parents, they’ve programmed into us that we’re capable of doing anything with our lives. However, over time we might start feeling that we’re not living to their standards. (I know that’s something that I’ve struggled with in the past.)

From this, we start developing self-esteem issues. We start believing that we’re totally capable of living a good life, but for whatever reason, it’s not happening.
We might lash out on other people, we might drown ourselves in other types of addictions to avoid the pain that we’re feeling.

This damages other vital parts of our lives: relationships, ambitions, and other achievements. Obviously, this isn’t a good thing.

Until we take take responsibility for our own lives, this pain of ours continues. If anything goes wrong in life, take responsibility for it – unless your life is literally threatened then you should probably blame the other guy. 😉

(Side note: Also forget what other people say if you’re having issues there. You don’t need to be part of a group that disrepects you as a person.)

Have Gratitude for What you do Have.

I can almost guarantee you that you’re probably upset about where you’re at in life – with something. You might have thought that you were going to be farther in life than you currently are. Maybe you thought you’d be married by now. Maybe you want to have kids and you don’t yet. Maybe you actually have a successful business now, but you don’t own the Jets yet (looking at you, Gary. 😉 )

The truth is that there’s a thing called “The Missing Tile Syndrome”. We all have it and need to deal with it regularly. The best way to deal with it is to appreciate that all the other tiles in our lives are in place. That maybe we have a loving family and that we have a good job to pay the rent or mortgage. Or that we can travel anywhere in the world that we want to at any time.

Having a journal can help immensely with this step.

Forgive Those who Trespass Against You.

At this point, you’re starting to realize that you’re not perfect. That’s great! But you also have to give others the benefit of the doubt too. The truth of the matter is that no one has time to worry about your life more than they worry about their own. So they’re going to piss you off from time to time because they’re just trying to do their thing.

Forgive those that cut you off in traffic. They might be having a really bad day. Forgive those that cut in line at the fair or Disney World – they might actually have a VIP pass. (Is that an actual thing?)

The point being is that you bring on this negative energy onto yourself when you have these feelings. You want positive energy and forgiving does that. Start thinking about other people’s perspective when they seemingly are picking on you. (Unless again if your life is ACTUALLY threatened… then you might want to go into self preservation mode.)

Turn your focus outward and help someone out.

There’s a saying, “People don’t care about what you know until they know that you care”. But the problem is that people really don’t know who you are (because why would you have ever shown them the real you?) or they don’t know you’re trying to make a change to be a better person.

Action speak more than words. So if you’re true intent is to ultimately feel that you’re not a victim, there’s nothing more that will show this than actually being of service to other people.

Really, when you’re known as being a server and later a servant leader, that’s when you really know you’re no longer a victim – you’re a victor.

Sometimes You’ll Need to Give Yourself a Break.

Sometimes you’re going to have relapses in your feelings about yourself and your new decisions. It’s part of what makes us human. In entrepreneurship, it’s called the entrepreneur emotion rollercoaster.

Sometimes you’re going to love what you do. Sometimes you’re going to wonder if it’s worth your trouble.

When I’m on the bottom of this rollercoaster, I’ll remind myself that I’ve done the work to come to this point and realize that this is who I am and no one can take that from me.

In your instance, you might simply need to realize that it’s not about being perfect. It’s about being happy. Sometimes other people are going to crap on you on rainy days. Just remember that they’ll get theirs and there’s nothing you should do to speed that process up because you’ll look bad in the process (again, unless it’s about actually surviving… then take them out or escape. We don’t want anyone suffering from Stockholm Syndrome).

Action Steps:

Below, I’d love to hear from you! Let me know how these work out for you if you get a chance to use them in your life too. Or maybe you’ve gone through a similar process? Let me know if I left anything out!

AoL 048: Building a Long Term Business through Relationships, Metrics, and Family with Brandon Northwick

August 11/by JC

It’s no secret that the way we run our business is based on how we approach the world. Is our business about us helping others with what we think they need help with, without hesitation, or do we see it more as a way of helping others in any way they actually need help? Meaning, we find those problems that they’re actually having and help them there.

To me, this latter method is, I think, how you build true relationships. Not necessarily trying to force what you do on people, but just making yourself available if they need help implementing a particular strategy or tool into their business.

In this rare episode, I dig down into the nuts and bolts of how Brandon Northwick runs his business. I find out how his wife Sara functions in the business, how he uses attraction marketing to get his clients, and how he builds trust with people through that process before getting the sale.

If you’re having problems with closing your service based sales, then you should definitely check out this straight-talk chat.

Enjoy!

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

Why you should careful when you using applications like Crowdfire 30:45
How do you standardize what people pay you for your services? 34:30
Why should people interested in their metrics and when? 36:51
How was Brandon’s wife Sara brought into the business world? 38:43
What does Sara do in the family business? 40:19
How does Brandon’s video strategy enter into his traffic strategy? 41:24
What you should do if you feel that your work life isn’t interesting enough to make videos for your business. 43:20
How does he generate leads from traffic? 47:09
What’s an example of a good opt-in? (The answer is not what you expect!) 49:26
What Brandon thinks about having to build trust with a customer before they buy. 52:32
How he uses attraction marketing to get his clients. 56:14
What kind of people have influenced Brandon’s ability to help people. 57:16
What he’s excited for in the future. 58:18
Three truths that he would share with others. 1:00:07
Three favorite podcasts 1:00:36
Something he believed when he was 20 years old, but thinks is bogus now. 1:00:57
When he thinks of success, who comes to mind? 1:02:42
… and MUCH more!