Values Based Leadership - Pick One Word

Pick one word. If you want to make better business decisions, if you want to bring on better employees, if you want your customers to spread the word about you, then pick one word that defines the values that your business stands for so it's easy for everybody to understand what it is that you do and spread the message. Otherwise, people will be confused, and it makes decision-making hard, it makes bringing on new employees hard, it makes it hard for your customers to talk about you, which is so important when you're first starting up a business. I got a great question from one of my YouTube viewers, Khaled, and I guess I had mentioned this in one of my videos, and he wrote in, "Great video. My business helps unleash the hidden potential within kids. I have a passion for this. I provide kids with something that's not taught in their schools." How can you put this into one word? Finding your one word is really tough. And really, at the end of the day, only you can do it because it's gotta be something that you passionately believe in. You should read that word and it should start making your heart jump. It should start getting you excited. So maybe it's something around kids, maybe it's about passion, maybe it's about potential, maybe it's about unleashing, maybe it's about something hidden, or maybe it's a totally different word. You've already done a great job in turning it into one sentence. Now try to combine that and condense it even further down. But only you can really come up with that word. And maybe what would help is to share how I come up with mine. So my word is belief, and it took a long time to get to that word of belief. And I've been in business for number of years, and it's always been— I've always believed in entrepreneurs, I've always helped entrepreneurs, and I haven't changed. But the type of company that I've built has changed, and the way people talk about me has changed, and it's much more in line with what I do because I made it easy for them to spread the message. So I believe in entrepreneurs. If I'm bringing on somebody new to my team you better believe in entrepreneurs. I don't care if you're the most gifted programmer, graphic designer, copywriter, whatever it is. If you're coming on board, you have to believe in entrepreneurs. Otherwise, you're out. If I want my customers to talk about me, they are because they believe in what I'm doing. If I'm creating new products or creating new content, then it has to help entrepreneurs believe in themselves more or help their customers believe in them more. It makes decision-making so much easier and helps people spread the message about you so much faster when you have one word that stands for something that can create a movement and get people excited. How I actually went about finding my word was I started, I started thinking about all the different things that I did believe in, the things that made me different, the things that I felt were core to me. And you want to think about things that are totally outside of business. This is what you stand for as a person, because no matter what business you start, you're still going to bring these core values with you. So for me, I wrote down things like helpful and helping. I like, I like helping people. I happen to apply that to entrepreneurs, but I love helping people. In any business I start, would involve helping people because that's what I'm all about. Believe just seemed to resonate with me more, and so I ran with that. And all the content that I provide, I try to make sure it's uplifting, right? It's still, it's still truthful, it can still be raw, it can still hurt, but it's meant to build you up. It's meant to make you believe in yourself and to believe that what you're doing is possible and believe that that you're doing the right thing. And so that word means something to me, and it means something to the people who join my team, and it means something to the people who interact and watch these videos and chime in on the website and tweet me up online. I'm creating a group of people who share the same value system as I do. And so you want the same thing for your business, and I can't tell you what that word is. I can only encourage you to follow the same exercise I did of writing different thoughts and different words down on paper until you find the one that really hits you. And when I first saw "believe," I really liked it. I thought I would go with it, but I said, you know what, I'm gonna take the night, I'm gonna sleep on it. And I looked at the list again the next day, and I still loved it. And then from that day forth, everything had to change in my business. Everything became about "believe," and it's become much more powerful as a result. So when you're creating your one word, remember that it's not related to your business. It's something that is core to you that you will take in any circumstance that you go to, in any business that you start, in any job that you would take. You're bringing that core value and you want to see it in every customer, in every employee that works with your business. When you can do that, it makes it so much easier to make good decisions, to bring on the right people, to bring on the right customers, and for customers to spread the word about your business. Believe. For those of you watching, you like the video, please give it a thumbs up. I'd also love to hear what you have to think if you want to leave a comment under the video. I really appreciate seeing those come in. They really do make my day every day when I check them. So thank you, and I'll see you on the next episode. Good.