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Grow & Scale A Business That Will Set You Free

Rearranging The Deck Chairs

by Walt | Apr 21, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

When my youngest son was 14, I took him on a Disney cruise. One night, he decided that he was going to “rearrange” all of the deck chairs and move them onto the elevators. This apparent misuse of time and resources seemed to amuse him. It amused Philip, the smartly dressed security officer who knocked at my cabin door at 2:00 a.m., much less.

All of us, though, can fall victim to “rearranging the deck chairs.”

This phrase originated in the stories surrounding the sinking of the Titanic. It means “to do something pointless or insignificant that will soon be overtaken by events, or that contributes nothing to the solution of a current problem.”

It appears in various guises. Here’s how we hear it from some of our coaching clients:

I’m going to get to making those sales calls as soon as I alphabetize the list.
I’m going to start the business as soon as I get the logo designed.
I’m going to launch the program as soon as the website is done.
I’ll get out to those networking events right after the business cards come.
I’ll get to work as soon as I finish the (next) degree, program, seminar, certification.

This stuff looks important; it sounds “necessary.”

But, in reality, it’s hiding behind the appearance of busy.

It’s doing stuff that puts off what really needs to be done.

Sure businesses need infrastructure; and I’m a huge believer in continuing personal and professional development.

But what’s most important is getting out into the world and serving; launching that product; using the idea; doing the work; sharing the gifts and talents in the ways that only you can do.

Of course, “things” get in the way like our

generalized overwhelm
fear of failure
fear of success
fear of what “others” will think
lack of clarity
inertia and resistance

Creatives and intellectuals love to fall in love with their ideas; they like to engage in constant thought, reflection, and improvement. Entrepreneurs want excellence. And there is no question that in certain areas of life we need high levels of training, certification and a demand for perfection, like in air traffic control and brain surgery.

But for most of us, we just need to do the work; we need to show up every day and do the work.

The real work. Not the busy work.

For most of us, it’s better done than perfect.

Seth Godin suggests that all the kvetching is pointless unless we get our work out into the world, unless we “ship” what we have to offer.

You can spend your days rearranging the deck chairs. But the boat will go down.

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If you’ve been preoccupied with re-arranging and are ready to get busy now, let’s talk about coaching. Email me at: [email protected]

Why The Destination Really Matters

by Walt | Apr 14, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

We wandered in the fog. For days.

A storm had enveloped the lower part of the mountain right after we had landed at base camp. We had heard that the weather was “nice” up above. So in order to push forward toward Denali’s summit without jeopardizing our supplies of food and fuel, we had decided to traverse the mighty Kahiltna Glacier despite the lack of visibility.

We navigated from wand to wand; and from way point to way point.

At times, I could barely see Ann on the rope 60′ in front of me.

Happily we knew exactly where we were going.

Which was a good thing.

Knowing where you want to go is essential in the mountains.

It’s essential, too, in business… and in life.

Unfortunately, all too often, we lose our direction. We lose sight of the path. We don’t know exactly where we want to end up.

Clarity is key we tell our coaching clients.

You must know your target.

You must be clear on what you want your outcome to be.

You wouldn’t likely wander over to the airport today, saunter up to the ticket counter and say, “Gimme a ticket.”

The ticket agent would look at you a bit strangely and then ask, “Where to?”

If you said, “Barcelona, Orlando or San Francisco,” the agent would likely then query, “Which one?”

Too often we make the mistake in our businesses (and our lives) of not knowing “which one.”

Who is your ideal client or customer?
What is the product or service that yields your highest return?
What do you want your numbers to be this year?
Exactly how many hours do you want to work?
Where do you want to take your career?
What are your specific business goals? And life goals?
What is essential to your success and satisfaction?

A GPS will get you within 30′ of your destination. If you go off track, it tells you so.

“Recalculating.”

Always with the destination locked in place.

But without that destination locked in place, you can wander down blind alleys, into “bad” neighborhoods; and you can get pretty far off course: Distracted by the latest in marketing, the hottest of hardware, the coolest of apps; doing advertising regardless of outcome, chasing clients regardless of worth.

Doing things that look “busy” but don’t really get you to where you really want to go.

And you’re ineffective as a leader because, seriously, who wants to follow someone who looks lost?

Worse, you’ll never know when (or if) you arrive.

I love climbing is South America. The Andes are one of my favorite ranges. Unfortunately my Spanish isn’t very good.

The one word I do know is: ¿Donde

Where.

It’s a pretty important one to know.

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Coaching will help you get clear on your destination and, through coaching, you’ll create a powerful, systematic plan to get you to where you want to go. Are you ready? Email me. Let’s have a conversation. Because, seriously, life is way too short to be wandering endlessly in the fog. [email protected]

Why Envy May Be A Good Thing

by Walt | Apr 7, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

I was miles into the race when she ran up behind me and matched my pace. I didn’t know her. But she clearly knew me.

“I loved your Facebook pictures from Ireland,” she said. “I envy your lifestyle.”

“Yeah, thanks, it’s pretty fine,” I gasped as I crested the hill.

She peeled off to the right.

If I hadn’t been hypoxic in the moment, I would have said more.

I would have said that envy is good.

Envy is a voicemail, a text message from your heart.

Envy tells you that there is something that is lacking, something that you want, something that your Spirit seeks, something that would bring you joy.

I would have said to her that you need to listen to your envy.

What’s it saying?

What’s not working? What needs to change? What needs to be subtracted? What needs to be added in?

What are the goals you are not attaining? What are the dreams you are not fulfilling?

Yeah, my lifestyle might be good. But what are you thirsting for? What is it that you want; that you really, really want?

Know your envy, befriend your envy, understand your envy. Deconstruct your envy. Hear its siren call.

And after you’ve snuggled with your envy for a bit, harness its energy.

Put it to work.

Too often envy can be turned inward; and become bitterness, resentment, victimhood.

Know that envy calls you higher.

Get clear. Take action. Grab hold of the life you want.

Envy is not a deadly sin. It is a gift.

Get busy. Use it.

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… and if you want help getting to that life you really want, then let’s talk. Email me at [email protected]

Why Baking Powder May Be Bad For Biz

by Walt | Mar 31, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

I like to cook. In fact, during my dozen years as a single dad raising three young boys on my own, I got pretty good in the kitchen. By necessity. But… I was never great at winging it. That is, I’m not an improvisational cook. I need a recipe.

In business too.

The Early Years

When I first started my law firm nearly 30 years ago, I was winging it. I had no clue. I had no clue how to advertise or market or have sales conversations. I had no idea how to do business development or land clients… let alone how to actually do the work! I had no clue as to what actually yielded results and what didn’t.

I was good at throwing money at stuff… but pretty randomly. I’d chase the latest Yellow Page promotional schemes (that’s dating myself I know), and then later lead generation gigs, and then Internet pay per click advertisements. SEO and SEM and S & M… just checking to see if you’re still reading… .

I was successful. But by accident; not by design. And not without wasting a lot of time and money. And not without a lot of stress. Because the success wasn’t linear. There were these huge ups and downs. The entrepreneurial roller coaster as Darren Hardy might say. No predictability that I could rely on. Up and down. Feast or famine.

Because I had no system; no recipe.

The Pivot

That’s, of course, how I stumbled into my coaching and consulting biz. Haphazardly. Without a plan. Without a system. Without a recipe. And when you do (or don’t do!) the same thing, you tend to get the same results. Haphazard. Inconsistent. Unreliable.

But, at that juncture, I couldn’t afford haphazard. Too much was at stake. I had a lawyer’s income that I relied on, that my family relied on. There were mortgages and bills and overhead and infrastructure. I didn’t have the luxury of ‘doing what I loved’ hoping that the money would follow. (Hope is not a strategy as I tell my clients.) I didn’t want the risk. I couldn’t have the risk.

So after stumbling around in the darkness… and experiencing way too much uncertainty (you may read this as way too many really lean months with bills that were late, and credit card companies that were calling, and college tuitions that were due), I sought out a system. And found one.

The Recipe

Book Yourself Solid®. The fastest, easiest, most reliable system to get more clients than I can you can handle even if you hate marketing and selling… so the pitch went. I looked at it closely… and it made a lot of sense. I bought the book. And then I invested a shitload of money in mentorship.

From time to time, I got tempted to go rogue… to try out my own entrepreneurial ideas. And then I stopped myself short. Somebody… this dude Michael Port… took the time to engineer this system… to write out the recipe. I better follow the recipe, I thought. And I did.

And it worked. Together with my beautiful business partner (and life partner) Ann Sheybani, I created a way to do the work I cared about deeply… serving talented entrepreneurs and business professionals all around the world… coaching, collaborating, creating…writing, speaking, sharing… with the freedom to travel and adventure all around the globe… with the ability to spend much of our year on a beautiful hillside overlooking the North Atlantic in County Cork, Ireland, with a prosperity and joy we could once only dimly hope for.

Because I followed a recipe.

Book Yourself Solid® is not the only business building recipe. I happen to think it’s a damn good one. And I am now privileged to be an Elite Level Certified Book Yourself Solid® Coach. But my teaching point here is that, while some of you may be good at winging it, most of us (like me) are better served by following a recipe.

Sometimes when I’m coaching a client just starting out in business, I’ll see them trying to deviate from the recipe… wanting to go off piste like I once did… wanting to do it their own way. Of course it usually doesn’t yield the results they imagine.

Early in my cooking excursions, I learned (the hard way) that substituting baking powder for baking soda didn’t work out very well… I didn’t get the rise the recipe called for.

If you’re building a biz, find a find a system, a reliable system. A recipe. Then follow it.

No substitutions. Avoid the baking powder.

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93% of those who follow the Book Yourself Solid® recipe see a 40% increase in revenue in the first year. I have coached folks right from the start, beginning from zero, to a healthy 6-figure business in a year’s time. If you’d like a recipe like this, then we need to talk. Email me at: [email protected]

Oh… and by the way… we’re teaching this program LIVE in IRELAND in September… you just MIGHT want to check it out. Go HERE now!

When Wrong Is Right

by Walt | Mar 24, 2016 | Success | 0 Comments

Mistakes, wrong turns, blind alleys: they are part of the adventure.

I thought about this as I paddled on into the driving rain…and darkening sky.

Hours earlier we had ventured out onto the Killarney Lakes in kayaks. Even with a map in hand, the exit from one lake to another – the route to our pick-up destination – was ‘discreet’ and difficult to find. Two or three times we missed it… paddling windward into blind cul-de-sacs, only to turn around and try again…and again.

What started out as lighthearted fun turned into a bit of an epic… as adventures sometimes do. But it was difficult to feel too sorry for ourselves wandering around as we were in the magnificence of the National Park, surrounded by mossy forests and dramatic hillsides. We were beat for sure by the time we were done. But the wrong turns had allowed us to see more and experience more and enjoy more of this incomparable beauty.

Would that we could take this perspective into other areas of our lives! We (you can read this as ‘I’ or ‘you’ or ‘someone else not me’) often get pissed off when we make mistakes that take us off our intended course, that require extra time, that take us down paths that don’t appear to lead us to our destinations straightaway. They seem to ‘cost’ us; they appear unnecessary; we consider them ‘wasteful.’

But maybe they’re just part of the adventure. Maybe they allow us a fuller experience of this wondrous journey of our lives. Maybe we might discover something new along the way… if only we might see it differently.

‘Mistakes,’ ‘and wrong turns’ led to the discovery of penicillin, the invention of the pacemaker, and the ubiquitous post-it note… to name just a few life-altering ‘ah-has’ down what might have appeared to be blind alleys.

Maybe the delay at the airport will lead to a chance meeting with your next business partner or boss. Maybe the wrong turn will lead you to the site of your new home. Maybe getting stuck in traffic will give you that rare chance to connect with your daughter, listen to a beautiful piece of music, or just be still.

Maybe these things that look like errors or wastes are really opportunities.

Yes, let’s go with that frame this week.