7 Keys to Quality of Life

As a business coach I always try to stress that your business should not be your end all.  It should be the vehicle to help you get what you really want out of life.  Your life shouldn’t be your business.  Your business should get you more out of life.

Here are what I believe to be are the 7 keys to improving ourselves and achieving the quality life we want and deserve.

1. Quality of Results – To increase our quality of life, we need to get better results.  That’s easier said than done.  How do we increase the quality of our results?
2. Quality of Actions – By increasing the quality of our actions, we will improve the quality of results.  So how do I do that, you might ask?
3. Quality of Decisions – To increase the quality of our actions, we need to make better decisions.  The next key will help us to increase the quality of our decisions.
4. Quality of Questions – The better the questions, the better the decisions you will make.  One of the key ways that I help my clients as a business coach is by asking the difficult questions and coaching my clients to start asking themselves those difficult questions.
5. Quality of Beliefs & Dreams – You can’t ask better questions if you don’t know what it is you don’t know.  When you have strong beliefs and big dreams, you begin to ask better questions because you need to know why.  You’ll start asking yourself what is keeping me from achieving that success.  But how can someone build better and bigger dreams and a stronger belief system?
6. Quality of Education – By increasing our quality of education and always trying to learn more, our beliefs will get stronger and our dreams will get bigger.
7. Quality of Mentor/Teacher – We have to first admit that we don’t know everything.  Today we have the ability to access many mentors and teachers, not necessarily personally, but through their workshops, books, CD’s, DVD’s, etc.

One person I consider to be my mentor, but have never actually met is Jim Rohn.  Though he has passed away and he is missed by many, he said two things that have always stuck with me.  “You have to work harder on yourself than you do on your job.” AND “Don’t wish that your life was easier, wish that you were better.”

If we strive to have a mentor who can teach us and mentor us to look at the world and ourselves in a new light, THEN....

• We will increase the quality of our education 
• Leading to higher quality beliefs and dreams
• Allowing us to ask better questions to make better decisions
• Allowing us to take better actions
• Leading to achieving better results 
• Resulting in an increase in our quality of life

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below...

Help! I’m stuck in a rut!

A few years back I was standing at our kitchen sink, washing the breakfast dishes, looking out our kitchen window and I noticed this fly.  It was just flying in circles, climbing up and down the window screen desperately looking for a way out.   Feeling the fresh air, it could sense that its freedom was near.  This seemed to motivate the fly even more to try to get out.

I realized that if I didn't give the fly any help, it was destined to be flying in circles all day, and I knew that the buzzing would begin to get on my nerves.  Eventually my son who was 3 years old at the time came over and  pushed the screen open to give the fly an opening to finally break through to freedom.

As I continued to wash the dishes, I was amazed that the fly just kept going up and down in the same meticulous manner.  The path to freedom was just inches away but it seemed stuck looking in the same places to find a small hole to break through.  When I was done washing the dishes and contemplating what had just happened, my son came over and asked me, “Why didn't it just fly away?”  I thought about it for a moment and answered him that the fly never stopped to think that he could.

How many of us are unknowingly doing the same thing?  My son's question made me think about how many businesses can't move forward.

How many of us can’t break through to that next level of success because we are stuck in our own comfort zone?  How many business owners continue to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results?

But just like the fly on my window, we are stuck in our comfort zones, imprisoned by our routines, stuck doing the same thing over and over because it is just familiar to us.  A wise sage once said, “An imprisoned individual cannot set himself free.”

Eventually the fly did break through to freedom, but only when my son came over and repeatedly pushed it toward the opening, so it could finally break through to the freedom it so desired.

Who do you have that can give you more perspective and will continually push you toward the opening so you can break through to your next level of success?

As a business coach, I help my clients see the forest through the trees, give them the knowledge they need when they need it, and hold them accountable week in and week out to reach their goals.  

A business coach helps business owners create a long-term vision and set goals and milestones to achieve that vision.  A business coach can help business owners talk through solutions to overcome problems.  Business coaches can also assist with building your team, helping team members to contribute to your overall success.  Business coaching keeps business owners on track to continue to grow and create their own success.

At ActionCOACH, we coach business owners to success with proven, tested and systematized ways to reach your goals and grow your business no matter what industry you are in.

Remember every champion has a coach, and that coaching is not just sports any more.

Find out more about the ActionCOACH approach to growing a successful business.  Check out my latest workshops and seminars www.actioncoachseminars.com or call our office for a free 1/2 hour phone "breakthrough coaching session" to discover if coaching can help you.

Are you a market expert in your industry?

Instant access to information is a double edged sword.  There is so much information available that it can be difficult for your customers to weed through it all and find you. 

One way to help your customers cut through the noise is to become an industry expert. Is your business viewed as a commodity? 

If so, becoming an industry expert will increase your value in the marketplace and add to your unique selling proposition.  Be the first call your customers make.
Here are 3 tips to help turn you into the market expert

1. Create a Personal Brand Identity - We all have a story to tell. What’s your story? Why did your choose the industry you are in? What challenges did you face while creating your business? How does your story (your past experience) help you to be a problem solver for your clients? Let people know what you stand for?  Are you an advocate for your industry? Using stories to relate your business vision and mission will inspire trust in your prospects, reassure clients and improve you image in your market
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2. Study your market - Get to know your direct and indirect competitors. Know what they do, where they are and how to contact them. Let’s say you own Tennis Town. You have the widest selection of tennis rackets in 3 states and your service is the best in the business. Fantastic. Now, one of your good customer calls asking for a badminton racket and they need it today. You do not have it and cannot get it that quickly. What if the conversation did not end there? What if you could give them the name of the closest badminton store, maybe even their number? Not only have you solved a problem for your customer, they will tell their friends how much you helped. Demonstrate that you want to get your clients what they need even if it means sending them elsewhere for something you do not offer.
   
3. Brand your process - Your USP (unique selling proposition) is what sets you apart from your competition. Creating your USP is only the first step. You must be able to communicate it in a way that your prospects and clients understand. Identify the steps in how you serve your clients, then explain each step and develop a “brand name” for the process. This will ensure that your customer base understands what you have to offer and how it can help them. Developing your own proprietary phraseology to explain your process adds to your branding power. 

Becoming the market expert does not happen overnight. Take the time to fully develop your personal brand identity, study your market and brand your process. Create a plan to introduce your USP into the marketplace. 

You will know you are on the right track when customers begin conversations with,” I don’t know if you can help me but, I thought of you first.” 

Remember, nothing happens until you take action!

As an ActionCOACH, I advise business owners on how to increase profits and cash flow, work less hours, and develop their team.  In other words,  to get their business working so they don’t have to. We coach you to create a commercial profitable enterprise that works without you. For some business owners that might be hard to believe. To help them understand the process we have developed ActionCOACH’s “6 Steps to a More Profitable Business”. Breaking our coaching process down into six-steps makes it easier to understand and implement.
Schedule an appointment now.

Wishing you much success!
Coach Steve

Business Advice: How To Get Out of Your Rut & Stop Moving in Circles

The celebrated French naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre conducted an experiment with Processionary caterpillars. These caterpillars attach themselves to each other, head to tail, using small silk threads.  The leader strikes out in search of food and shelter, his army following behind.

Fabre separated a small group and led them to a flower pot. Soon, they began to march around it. Fabre added a pine branch just outside the circle, a tasty treat for a caterpillar.  They would not break formation for the food.  The nights were cold but, the caterpillars would not vary their routine and seek shelter.  In the morning, Fabre found them huddled together in 2 clusters and as soon as the sun came up they returned to their circular march. For seven days they kept going until the confusion brought on by fatigue and starvation caused a few to stumble away and find a new path.  

Are we humans so different?  We get stuck in our routines and live on autopilot. Everyday we get up, go to work, come home, eat, sleep and do it all again. We rush through life with no real purpose. Hours turn into days, days into years and we never stop to ask ourselves, Where am I? Where am I going? Why?  We are always rushing to that next 'shiny' thing that gets our attention.  Moving quickly is not moving with purpose.

It usually takes a disaster in our personal life or in our business to make us stop and reflect on where we are.

So how do we create Movement with Purpose?

A goal is just a good idea until it is written down.  We all know good ideas come and go, writing them down gives them weight and helps to formulate action plans.  

What is your life vision? What do you want to achieve in your lifetime? Once you get clarity there, take the time to step back and determine where you need to be in 5 years, 3 years, at the end of this year? Break this year down to quarters. Determine where you need to be at the end of each quarter to stay on pace and reach your goals at the end of the year. Go through this process for your personal life first. Your business should just be the vehicle to help you achieve your life’s dream, not just an end to itself.

Each week take a step back and look at where you are and where you need to go. Not necessarily where you need to be next year or at the end of 5 years. But what are the important tasks that need to be performed each day to move you toward your success. At each moment of the day you should be thinking, Am I doing the most productive thing possible at this given moment that will move me closer to my goals and dreams. 

 In the end, we need to remember success is not a destination but the milestones that happen along the path. Take the time to enjoy the journey!

 Wishing you much success,

 Coach Steve  

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below...