Starting The Year With A Positive Mindset

Hey all. Happy New Year. Can you believe that we are already in 2020? Now, I hope you had a fantastic Christmas and a great new year and you've had a really good break and you are refreshed and raring to go for everything that 2020 has to offer. Now, I thought it would be a really good idea to kick off our first podcast of the year by talking about mindset. Accelerate your agency's profitable growth with tools, tips and value added interviews with agency owner and coach Rob Da so let's talk about mindset. If we have the right mindset for 2020, then we are going to have a successful year. Behind every successful business owner is an entrepreneur with a winning, positive mindset. And of course, the opposite is true too. If you don't think you can be successful, if you don't think you can grow you, if you don't think you can outperform your nearest competitor, then I absolutely guarantee that you won't. I can't tell you how important this topic is. It's not some wishy washy, trendy thing that we can just talk about that will come and go, but it's a core discipline that separates the successful owners from those who are stuck or fail or just feel like they're bashing their head against the brick wall because they're going around in circles. Now, you can have the right marketing strategies, the best products and customers that are really interested in what you've got to do, but without the right mindset, none of it really matters because you're just going to be stuck and frustrated. Let's just think for a moment what I mean by mindset. It's that little voice in your head that's telling you that you can't succeed or you can succeed. It's that imposter syndrome that we all suffer from that makes us feel like we're not good enough or we're a fraud or we're going to be found out. Yes, we all feel like that. Me included. And it's really what you do with that voice. If you pay a lot of attention to it, then it's kind of like a fire that you're putting fuel on that gets bigger and bigger and bigger and it becomes more and more real. But the flip of that is true as well. If we don't pay much attention to it, then it kind of diminishes. The fire goes out, it has no oxygen, and then that thought disappears. Now, one really encouraging thing here to know is whether you're male or female, you can only Consciously think of one thing at once. So if you're paying a lot of attention to that negative voice in your head, then that's the one thought that you've got. But if you use distraction or thinking about something else, then you starve that voice of fuel. Now, let's just think about how powerful that is, because there's this cognitive triangle that some of you may be familiar with. It's kind of a triangle with the three points that say thoughts that we have in our head lead to feelings that feel very real. And those feelings create actions or behaviors, and those behaviors perpetuate more thoughts. So if we're having negative thoughts about our abilities or about our agency's growth, then we have feelings that are associated to that. And those feelings feel real. And they, as a consequence, they get us to act or behave in a certain way. And as I said, that perpetuates it. So if you want to change the behaviors, that's the things that you do every day, then you need to start by changing the thoughts, which is why, if you've got that imposter syndrome, or if you've got that negative thought in your head, don't give it attention, because it will diminish and you can replace it with something much more positive. This kind of explains the laws of attraction. Some of you may have read the Secret or certainly heard about the laws of attraction, where you kind of visualize something like an expensive car and you put it on your fridge, and then, lo and behold, you get it. Well, it's not as simple as that, but there is a lot of truth about the laws of attraction, because if you play it back, what to what I've just said, that if you have positive thoughts, if you believe that your agency can grow, if you believe that your agency can win that next big piece of work, if you believe that your agency can do, you know, an amazing project, then of course you're going to get the feelings associated with that, and you're going to start behaving in a way that would enable your agency to win that big piece of work or deliver that big piece of work. So there is quite a lot to be said for the laws of attraction. And don't think of it in a spiritual way. Just think of it simply saying that positive thoughts attract positive outcomes while negative thoughts achieve negative outcomes. I've seen agency owners fail because they just don't believe in their own abilities, or they don't believe that they can evolve their agency or take that next step in their growth, whether that be Hiring a great person or winning that next piece of business. So the mindset topic is so important if you want to have a growing, evolving agency. So let's just look at mindset across a number of areas. So we were just talking about growth, so let's start with that. So mindset and growth. If you stretch yourself outside of your comfort zone, then as a leader and an entrepreneur, you're going to grow. Now, a lot of people are very fearful about stepping outside of their comfort zones. But if they're not willing to do that, there is no way that they're going to grow, and there's no way that they're going to have this positive mindset. So if you've got these big goals, but you're not willing to step outside of your comfort zone to achieve them, then of course they're just going to stay as dreams and wishes and not reality. So now, worth sort of describing here that there's three areas of our comfort zone. There is our comfort zone, which is where we feel safe and in control, but nothing really develops there. And then there's a third circle on the outside, which is our fear zone. And this is a really scary place to be. This is where we feel completely out of our depth. We have complete lack of confidence, and it kind of causes us to retreat back into our comfort zone. But there's a middle circle between the two of them, which is called our learning zone. And if we can learn to step outside our comfort zone into our learning zone, this is where we acquire new skills. This is where we deal with challenges head on and we learn from them. And this is where we can make our comfort zone bigger. So think of those three zones. Your comfort zone, your learning zone, and your fear zone. And your goal is to step outside of your comfort zone and into that learning zone. And that might mean putting yourself forward to do a speech on stage. It might be getting online and doing sort of live videos, whatever it might be, that's going to help you develop your agency and develop your mindset and broaden your comfort zone. Definitely worth doing. I think everybody should not, you know, should have three New Year's resolutions that are all about how I'm going to step outside my comfort zone and how I'm going to develop myself as a human being, as an agency leader, and how consequently, I'm going to develop my agency in the process. One thing you need to think about here is that if you play small, you stay small. Yeah, I know that's a bit of a naff cliche, but it is so true. If your mindset is to think small because you're a one man band and you believe that your only option is to do all the work yourself, for example, then you're never going to grow and you're going to keep perpetuating that thinking. And in the end you'll become the bottleneck to your growth. Because of course you can't do everything. And remember that triangle that negative thoughts lead to feelings and those lead to behaviors and actions. So change of thought to change the behavior. And if you're listening to this and saying, yeah, but Rob, I am a one man band, if you're, then you know you're going to become that bottleneck and nothing will change. So you need to think about how much of a how much is an hour of your time worth? And then question the task that you're doing. Is it worth the hourly rate or is it lower? And if the answer is it's lower, then you should consider delegating out that task to somebody else. Now, of course, delegating doesn't necessarily mean you have to have a member of staff. It could mean you're outsourcing to a freelancer, to an accountant or a bookkeeper, or to a virtual assistant like a va. So just think about that fact that if the task that you're doing is worth less than your hourly rate, that notional hourly rate, then you should be outsourcing it. And that's one way that you're going to expand your agency and expand your mindset as well, leaving you to do those things that only you can do. That's what we should all be doing. When I talk about delegating, you have to be thinking about, am I doing the things that only I can do that is going to move my agency forward, or am I doing other tasks because they're nice distractions, because I can do them, I enjoy doing them, or because by doing these smaller tasks, they stop me doing the bigger tasks that are going to move me forward. So let's move on to talk about mindset and your marketplace. Confidence in yourself and the service you offer is key. So you mustn't undervalue or underestimate what you offer your clients. And if you do, it's going to be even more challenging for you to authentically convey the value to a potential client and ultimately sell that service or product that you believe in at the price that you believe it's worth. If you've got that mindset of being a small player in your marketplace or believing that you can only ever target small clients, for example, to provide your service to, then that's what you will always have. I'm going to keep going back to that triangle. Thoughts lead to feelings and feelings lead to behaviors. And if your thoughts are small, your behaviors will be small as well. Now, I see this time and time again with agency leaders where they've got this narrow mindset and they end up targeting companies that keep them in that comfort zone and that translates to small fees, small projects, and bashing your head against the brick wall. However, if you believe you can provide a fantastic service to the top end of your market, and I don't mean large companies necessarily, but just customers that really get you and value the service that you offer, then you're going to have the confidence to target those customers in your sales and marketing efforts and you're going to be taking significant steps towards delivering your vision for 2020. Now, talking about valuing what you do, I want to talk about mindset and pricing. So I appreciate that knowing what to charge and then confidently asking your potential customers for that fee can be challenging, but not when you have the right mindset. Now, I often work with clients who have been undervaluing what they do and therefore underpricing their services because they fear that if they charge a higher fee, they'll lose their client, that prospect or the client will go to competition. And when you've got this mindset, it's easy just to get your head down and completely undervalue the product or service that you're delivering your client. However, the more you are aware of the value you deliver, the easier it will be for you to charge what you're really worth and also attract those clients that are more than happy to pay for it. If you ever doubt yourself, ask yourself this what are the core benefits my clients experience by working with me? Now, this is value based selling, which is a topic for a future podcast, because anyone that knows me knows that I am standing on my soapbox all day long talking about value pricing and value selling. But in this context of mindset, it does offer you a way of having less stress in your agency. Now, if you've got the mindset of well, I'm not worth that much, or the mindset of worrying about oh my God, the client's going to think that's too much and they won't love me and they won't buy from me, then of course you're going to undervalue what you do. Yet with a value based mindset, we'll be able to Charge higher prices, focus on the value that we deliver the clients, and ultimately look the prospect in the eye and say, this is how much I charge, because I know I'm worth it. So let's move on to talk about mindset and team. So if you've got a team, then when you're recruiting, you know, someone with a winning mindset is always going to recruit the best staff they can possibly afford. The leader with a positive mindset isn't threatened by top notch fantastic staff, but absolutely the opposite. They're delighted to be able to delegate as much as possible and have these team members chomping at the bit and nipping at their heels to take on more work. Yeah, I've seen people hiring second best candidates just because they feel like they'll be easier to manage. They feel less threatened by them. And of course that means that they don't have superstars in their business and it's back in the comfort zone. So you need to hire the best people you possibly can who know how to get the work done, who can be responsible and accountable, who you can let tasks go to because you know that they're going to meet deadlines and they're going to deliver fantastic work. So whether that be hiring people internally or outsourcing, positive mindset means hire the best people you possibly can get. So let's talk about mindset and learning. Someone with a positive mindset is going to be agile enough to incorporate all the changing market needs as they happen, both sort of internally in your market and externally in the economy. And they're going to be open to listen to and act upon suggestions from team members or trusted partners. So you must be able to react quickly to changes and in turn create a workforce who is willing to do the same. Have that culture of, you know, rapid change and positivity. I also want to talk about when you get a curveball thrown at you, how you cope for it. Because positive mindset means that you're mentally tough and that you can cope with all those curveballs. Because, listen, let's face it, we're going to get lots of curveballs thrown at us in our journey of running our own agency. I always tell myself and my clients that we need to really cherish those times when the waters are calm and because, you know, a curveball is going to come our way and then we're going to be looking back and going, oh, they were the good old days. So, you know, we need to be ready to cope with curveballs, with demanding clients, with situations. A positive mindset means we're mentally tough and we're more than able to rise to the challenge when those things happen to us. Okay? So those are some of the areas where having a positive mindset can have a big impact on ourselves and our agency. And I just want to remind you of this, importance of this, because thoughts lead to feelings and feelings lead to actions and behaviors. So change the thought, get a positive mindset, and you're going to create a positive set of actions for you. So let's just talk now about some strategies to help you grow your agency and yourself by having a positive mindset. And the first thing I want to talk about is the importance of keep keep learning. It doesn't matter where you are in your career, we all need to keep learning. I learn every single day. Learning for me keeps things fresh. It keeps me inquisitive, it gets me to learn new things. And yes, at times it can be frustrating, but it's also really rewarding as well. Now, I know personally, if I don't keep evolving, I get bored. So learning is super important for me. And let's face it, we all exist in a rapidly changing market. There's new channels of communications, new technologies, new software we can use, and these are happening every day. So it's vital that we keep learning. Agencies everywhere are experiencing lots of changes, lots of changes in technology and the new channels to reach their customers, new ways of developing things, and of course, new demands that customers are placing on us. So we need to keep learning, we need to stay on top of that, we need to stay at the forefront of that so that we can make ourselves look different. We can offer sort of game changing, market leading solutions to our customers. This isn't about trying to reinvent the world, it's just about keep learning, keep maintaining that learning mindset and just dedicating a little bit of time every week to doing some continuous learning, both for yourself and your team. So I would say make sure that you make time for your team members and for you to keep learning. If it's an hour a week where you say, this is a time where I'm just going to do some learning and then I'm going to think about how I can integrate what I've learned into my agency, you're going to be on a good step forward. Now the other kind of learning that we need to do is to be learning from our mistakes. Because a growth mindset has a different relationship with how we receive and process those mistakes or criticisms and the ability to learn from them. However, someone who's got kind of a negative feeling, fixed mindset will always look at those mistakes and see themselves as a failure, convince themselves of that negative thinking, I'm no good at this, so I should avoid it. And then retreat into their comfort zone. Remember, we can only think of one conscious thing at once. So if we're letting this imposter syndrome kind of dominate and then we make a mistake or something happens or a client gives us bad feedback, then we just give fire to that negative voice to says, yep, there we go, I told you so. And we retreat back into our comfort zone. Which is why you need to not be paying too much attention to that negative voice and finding your strategies for turning it down and also acknowledging that we all suffer from that imposter syndrome at times. It's what we do with it that's the key thing. I tell everybody, we've all got that voice. It's what do you do with it? Do you let that voice be a critic or do you let it be a coach? If it's a critic, it's going to keep you in your safe comfort zone and it's going to, you're never going to learn and you're never going to develop and you're not going to have a winning mindset. So make sure that you turn it into a coaching voice, a supportive voice, and, or you just turn it down and don't give it any fuel so that it starves itself of oxygen and then eventually goes out. And you know, one of the ways that we can keep developing is by getting some support. So get a coach or a mentor or, or you know, a non exec or just someone that you trust who's been there and done it. And if you surround yourself by supportive, you know, people that have been there before, then it will really help you maintain that positive mindset. I know this is going to sound naff because I am a coach, but if there's one piece of advice I wish I could give myself, if I could go back in time 20 years, which is when I was running my agency, it would be, hey, Rob, go find yourself a coach, a mentor, an ally who's been there and done it and who can honestly share with you the mistakes that they've made so that you don't make them, and give you some advice, guidance and confidence so that I could then maintain a positive mindset and ultimately move forward with lots of clarity, confidence and passion. The third tip I want to talk about in terms of developing a positive mindset is to make sure that you see failure as an opportunity to learn. As children in our early life, we often experience a lot of failure and not winning tends to have a stigma attached to it and it invites us to consider that we failed. Now often these external views tend to define our self worth and that kind of teaches us not to be a risk taker. But it's worth remembering that failure is not a personality characteristic, it's an external event that happens to us. Successful entrepreneurs know how to build on failure and use it as a strategic tool to accomplish their goals and ultimately become great leaders. However, fear of failure will limit your possibilities and keep you in your comfort zone. So instead see it as an opportunity to learn and gain the experience you need to thrive in your ever changing agency. Think of it this way, that every time you make a mistake and you learn from it, it's a stepping stone towards delivering your vision. I remember being told this story once about a call centre that had 100 people calling, doing some kind of telesales. And there were two people out that hundred that were superstars. And so they brought these two people out to try and what is the difference between them and the other 98 people? And when they looked at these people and examined their mindset, they discovered that it took 10 phone calls on average to get to a successful yes from a customer. So unlike the other 98 people who every time they got a no, they felt demoralized. These two people, every time they got a no, they felt excited because it took them one step closer to that 10th call where they would get a yes. So this was all about mindset training and having that positive mindset and realizing that no's or mistakes that happened were actually just stepping stones in terms of moving in the right direction. And as Henry Ford said, the only real mistake that we ever make is the one that we learn nothing from. The next point I want to make in terms of developing a positive mindset is getting a really good work life balance. And let's face it, we all really struggle with that. For a lot of us, work is our passion. So it's kind of hard to differentiate between when we're working and when we're not working. We might work from a home office, you know, so we've got a lot to do because we're trying to do many things. So it can be really difficult to get a good work life balance. However, it's so important that we get time away from work, doing other meaningful things outside of work, like spending time with our friends, family, getting to the gym, walking the dogs doing the things that make you happy, keep you grounded, and keep you present. Being a workaholic is neither big nor clever, so we just need to find a way of making sure that we schedule these. So if you find it really difficult, schedule it in your diary. That's what I do. If I'm working from home. I've got two dogs and I live by the sea. So I will schedule my hour to take the dogs out. And trust me, when I'm walking by the sea, you know, seeing the sea, smelling the smells, watching my dogs sniffing whatever they're sniffing, it is a really good way of being present. And when you're present, you can clear your mind because you're not thinking about work. However, if I'm honest, there are other times where I'm walking the dogs and my mind is completely elsewhere, and that isn't very healthy. So you need to be present if you struggle with this. Like I say, schedule time in your diary. Put time to go to the gym to make sure you're ending work at the same time to spend time with your friends or your family or your partner. Really important. And on that note, the other thing that I think really helps with the positive mindset and certainly helps with me, is starting and ending your day in a consistent manner. The most successful people I know have daily routines, have morning and evening rituals that they do every day religiously. And the idea is really simple here. When you get to your desk, you know exactly what you're going to do. And when you end your day, you end it in the same way so that you put that full stop on your day. I love morning and evening rituals. You can read more about it on my website, but I've got them up right in front of me now. And so my morning ritual starts with making a coffee, checking my emails and trying to get my emails down and identifying actions that come out of that. Then I review my goals for the week, then I schedule my day based on the emails, my goals for the week, and then once I've done that, I can focus on doing my first task and I can let go of everything else. And similarly, the end of the day, I check my emails again, I plan tomorrow's top three priorities. I do any filing, I clear my desk, then I shut my computer. And I know there's just comfort in knowing how that you're going to start and end your day in the same way. And you have that sort of clear desk policy in your mind as well as literally on your desk. So the next point I want to talk about is learning to listen to your instincts and don't block them out. I think it's really interesting that when we're born, that's all we have is our instincts. We cry when we're hungry, we cry when we need our nappy, changing, whatever. And then as we go through schooling, we kind of get this instinctual thinking beaten out of us because we get taught by rote to think, think, think, and we stop listening to our instincts. And yet they are there to support us and we need to use them to our, to our help. Intuition is perhaps the best business tool at our disposal. So if you listen to your instincts, sometimes even over all of the data, that might tell you something else. Our instincts are our body's way of giving us a warning about something. So we really need to recognize the value of this feedback from our bodies and don't let data always get in the way because the consequence of blocking out our instincts can be too great. If you're recruiting someone, they look good on paper. You've seen loads of people, you think they'll probably do a good job, but there's just something you're uneasy about with them. Then I guarantee you that that issue will come to light further down the road when you've committed loads of time and money to onboard that person. So use your instincts as part of your decision making process and give yourself time and space to think clearly about those instincts and therefore make informed decisions. So the next point I want to talk about, which is point number seven, is keep reinventing and evolving yourself to avoid boredom and stagnation. As I said, that's something that I need to do and I seem to have this cycle of every three years. I need to have a new project, a new initiative, a new channel like this podcast. And that really helps me step out my comfort zone and it helps me eliminate boredom and keep, you know, keep myself reinvigorated. Lack of learning often brings with it boredom and stagnation. So to avoid that stagnation, you need to reinvent yourself constantly and maintain a healthy curiosity about technologies, about your marketplace. And as I said earlier, take time out to constantly experiment and learn about new things. Now, my last point, point number eight is that you need to keep frequently revisiting your vision so that you stay connected to it and motivated by it. Now, vision is something that we haven't spoken about yet, but hopefully you all have some kind of documented vision for your agency and for yourself. And the issue I often see with this is that people go off site for two days, do a load of work on their vision, come back, present it to the team and then put it away, let it gather dust on the shelf, and then a year later kind of go, oh, we didn't do that, or we did do that. So if we, if we keep revisiting the vision, then we're going to keep ourselves, motivate, motivated, because obviously we, one would hope that that vision is something that's really exciting and inspiring to get to, but we now need to stay connected with it and we now need to be willing to keep updating and changing it depending on things that we know at a later date after we've written that vision. So it's really important to stay motivated and focused. And you're definitely going to achieve that by having a clear vision that outlines what you want your business to achieve and what you want for yourself as well. And as I said, you know, visions often fail for two reasons, because they're written once a year and because the business leaders don't review them frequently enough and keep them up to date and keep them a dynamic live document. So if you want to stay connected to your vision, have that positive mindset that's future looking, then you need to make sure that you've invested enough time to not only write it, but communicate it and stay connected with it too. Okay, so they're my eight key points that hopefully are practical takeaways for you to go and start thinking about and implementing in the show Notes. I'm going to include a bunch of useful resources. There's a few books that I really like. So Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt is a fantastic book to really help you plan your day, keep focused on what's important, create those morning and evening rituals. Everything is Figureoutable is Marie Forleo's new book which is also about really training your brain to have a super positive mindset and to find ways of overcoming any kind of barriers that get put in your way. And there's a few other books as well, like Mindset by Carol Dweck. And I'm also going to list a couple of TED talks that I think think would be useful to listen to that I found inspirational that have helped me. So I guess just in conclusion for this podcast, just remember that behind every successful entrepreneur, business owner and agency owner is someone who has a positive mindset, who is focused on the journey, not just the destination, and whose positive mindset enables them to eliminate obstacles, will get over them, expand their comfort zone and stay excited and connected about their agency and that's what I want you to do. And that's why having a positive mindset is just so important. In the next podcast I'm super excited to have my first guest who is Sally Alexander, the MD from education marketing agency Amble Glo and she's got some really interesting insights to share with us about how they have made a transition from being a just a pure advertising agency into a more full service marketing agency. She's going to explain why they decided to make that transition and also some of the lessons that they've learned along the way that you can apply in your agency. So please make sure you come back and join me. And of course please hit the subscribe button to make sure you don't miss out an episode. And also please share this with your colleagues. And I know we're in early days, but if you wanted to leave a review I would really appreciate it. It okay, over and out for now and I will see you next time.