For Your Legacy - Believing Isn't Enough

As a young leader I was taught by some of the best leaders of that time that "leaders are readers." Rudy Giuliani said that during an intimate training that I attended with Zig Ziglar and John Maxwell.

I left this meeting feeling "fired up".

I was a young 23-year-old Chief executive – I am not dropping that title to impress you. The decisions to hire or to apply was not wise on either part I was NOT qualified or experienced. I was hanging on by fingernails.

In my procedural, clear understanding, I took this one idea that “leaders are readers” and believed if I read more and learned more that I would be a great leader.

That is not what happened.

I was seeking the fast track to results and I thought devouring content was the magic pill.

I was able to boast that I had read "x" number of books, but my results hadn't changed.

In my favorite book on the planet it says "lazy people finally die of hunger because they won't get up and go to work."

I used to read this literally – like this, I got up and went to work so I wasn't lazy. I had food so I wasn’t hungry.

However, after many professional and personal failures I discovered that many owners and leaders were experiencing the same thing. They were hungry for more and felt like their God-given purpose was dying a slow death.

After working with 100’s of leaders and owners – I believe that most never get their most desired outcomes, from their work, because they keep compromising the action it takes to get what they want.

I lost my first business because I was doing lazy activities and I was "busy" but I wasn't profitable or impactful.

I was chasing my tail doing this stuff:

1. Casting vision instead of walking in it.

There was a lot of talking about what I wanted, reading about who I wanted to be and listening to others doing what I wanted to do, but never actually taking consistent action of my own.

People often revert to the lowest version of themselves because it is easier to accept than the highest version of themselves that they secretly desire.

Change comes from raising our expectations of ourselves not by creating lofty goals we hope will inspire change.

People binge watch Netflix series and leave their dreams on the backburner for later, but fight for the status quo. This tendency is evident in all of us.

2. Self-Betrayal – When we believe that our obstacles to our success are isolated events and someone else can fix them and we simply sit back and reap the rewards of their work.

Well, we actually aren't sitting back because we are paying them - right?!

Most people try to start a business by focusing on obvious things like their website, sales skills, marketing etc.

When they experience problems in the business they think, “It must be something obvious” and they attempt to solve it by focusing on the same things. This rarely works.

Most people believe that commanding premium prices for their service is not possible. Not until they are popular and have thousands of followers.

That’s because they don’t believe in paying for value from someone unless that person is “known” or popular. They have concluded no one will pay them until they have 10’s of thousands of followers, a book, and a speaking schedule.

So, they go hire someone to get them those followers and outsource their popularity. Only to find themselves with a lot of broke followers who are not excited about what they do.

What grows an audience is trust and trust cannot be bought with clicks.

When I got started in business, I was intolerant, not teachable, suspicious, poor, envious and jealous and had no idea how the world worked.

I believed that if I produced enough and got a lot of results these poor qualities would go away.

By far the biggest challenge I had to face was the truth that the only power I really have is to control myself.

I couldn’t read enough books, listen to enough podcasts, or talk my way through it.

I had to work on solving a specific problem for a very special group of people.

I had to pay attention, measure my outcomes, say, “no” a lot and do it over again.

Ultimately rejecting the idea that there is something easier or faster.

This is when it all changed for me! I have the privilege of helping hundreds ever year get what they want most and I am getting what I want most.

P.S. **I don't want the queen..lol**