TES 036 - Self Leadership Trumps Self Development

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience Live it is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there. I'm Mel Abraham, the author of the number one best selling book the Entrepreneur's Solution. The founder of Business Breakthrough Academy, where we teach you how to design a business and create a life, a life of financial freedom and peace of mind. And welcome back to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solution show. And in this episode we're going to talk a little bit about something that I don't necessarily talk about a tremendous amount, but you know, this whole personal development shift. And I'm going to tell you that and I am a personal development junkie, believe in growth, I believe in lifelong learning, I believe in all that. But I think what's more important than personal development is self leadership. And so we're going to talk a bit about self leadership and how that relates to entrepreneurship, how that relates to your success and how that relates to the things that you're doing in a different way. Right after this brief introduction. And if you want to make sure that you get the downloadable tool template and guidebook for this episode, make sure that you go to melabraham.com session036 and if you're not at your computer, then just text mylegacy one word, no spaces mylegacy to 38470 and we'll see you right back here after this brief introduction. We'll talk about self leadership. See you soon. Bye.

Welcome to the Entrepreneur's Solution where highly successful entrepreneur Mel Abraham becomes your entrepreneurial mentor. Here, Mel reveals his business building strategies and even gets a chance to answer your questions. Mel Abraham, a CPA by education, but an entrepreneur by exhilaration and a true believer in the entrepreneurial way of life. It's through entrepreneurship that we create community, support society and live our dreams.

It's where possibility meets reality again and you can have the life and lifestyle you want. One of freedom and peace of mind. Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur's Solution where it's time for you to be bold, dream big and live live life. Your Way.

Hey there, I'm Mel Abraham and welcome back to this episode of the Entrepreneur's Solution. And in this episode, like I said, we're going to talk a bit about what I call self leadership, what I call the funnel of self leadership. Now, I've been involved in the personal development space, the growth space, the expert space, the business space, for decades, for three plus decades now. And so I am a product of constant lifelong learning. I am a product of this environment. So I think that, I don't mean to be flippant when I say personal development.

It'S not that important. It is, it's tremendously important. But I think that we need to start with ourself first in the context of how we lead ourselves. And I think that is, this is not to get on a soapbox, but I think we're lacking this in society today. I think that we're lacking it in business today. I think we're lacking it in some of our youth today. I think we're lacking it in society. And I don't think that we're holding people to a standard and that we're not self aware of the things that we're doing. So this is my framework that I use for what I call self leadership, the funnel of self leadership. And it's to allow you to shift your life, to shift the things you're doing, to create a path that moves you from being accidental or coincidental to intentional. You know, many times there's people that are successful in spite of themselves. But what I want you to do, what I'm inviting you to do, what I'd love to, I mean, think about it for your life. Wouldn't it be cool that you sit back and you say, here's my goal, this is where I want to go. And you set that path and you create it. So it is based upon your intent. Not just some coincidence, not just some happenstance, not just some accidental happening that you go, wow, I was successful, but you actually engineer it. And this is the process that I think that.

Will shift things for you when you do this and you're constantly working from this. And I think the first phase of this, the first stage of this is what I call awareness. Everything begins with awareness. If we're not aware, we can't shift things. If we're totally oblivious. We all know people, we all know people that are kind of going through life oblivious to what's going on around them. They'll get into a conversation or you may be in a. Have you ever had this happen? You're in this really intimate, deep conversation.

And you're having this serious discussion, and in comes this person that is totally unaware of their surroundings and what's going on. And they just busted, hey. And they're loud, they're intrusive. I mean, they're vibrant and they're funny and all of that, but their timing is way off. I mean, we've all been there. I'm sure that you've been there.

It's about being self. Aware. Being self aware about what you know, what you don't know, and where you want to go. That's the first stage is really what is your awareness? What is going on? Sometimes we just happen to know that we're good at it, we're in tune with it. We've got what some people call sensory acuity, sensory awareness. Others we need to actually specifically set down or certain aspects of your life. I know for me, I look at my life, I'm pretty self aware about a lot of things that go around me. But there's times that I'm not self aware about other things that maybe I need to do around the house and that type of thing. So I need to consciously work on that self awareness. Because unless I become aware of it, I cannot shift it, I cannot change it, and I can't do anything about it. So when we then do that, we not only become aware of our surroundings and what we do and don't know, we also start to focus on building our ability. The next stage is that when I become aware, I now have the ability to say, let me build the core knowledge, the core skills, the core tactics, the core understanding that that exists to allow me to start to elevate, to start to escalate, to start to accelerate the things that I'm doing. So start with awareness. Then I look at maybe some gaps in my skill set, my strengths, my knowledge, my understanding, and say, all right, so now let me nurture, let me cultivate, let me calculatedly go out and develop those skills and specifically in a disciplined way, start to develop those skills. Once we are aware and we start to develop the skills, we go to this next stage, stage three, which is really about the application. This is about taking action. This is about doing the stuff. This is about getting out there and actually making it happen.

Many of the times I'm going to training programs and seminars and conferences and I'm speaking and I see the same people, conference after conference after conference. They got notebooks in there and they're taking notes and they're taking pictures and they're buying stuff, but they never go out and do anything with it. At some point, at some point, if we want to make a shift, at some point, if we want our life to change, if at some point, if we want to have an impact, at some point we got to go do something, we got to go take action. But what happens is, and I talked about this in the last episode, is we get this perfectionist syndrome. And that perfectionist syndrome is a paradox because on one side is perfection, on the other side is procrastination.

The reality is that, well, I just need to know a little bit more. I was guilty of it at one point in time. Heck, if you look at me, I've got more credentials after my name for valuation and consulting and strategic work than I know what to do with. And I did it because, one, I needed it because of my testimony at trial. But at the same time, part of me, I think part of me was really looking at and going, I just need one more credential. Then they'll take me seriously. I just need one more education, one more class, then they'll take me seriously. I just need one more. And then they'll do it. And then I'll do it. And then I'll do it. And you know what? You never do it. I'm just saying I'm here to tell you, I'm here to give you permission. You're enough. You're enough. Go out and do it. Start to take action. It's not about taking action to get the end result. It's about taking action to get feedback so you got more information to take a better action until you get to the end result. And that's what the process is. And many times we're afraid to make a choice. We're afraid to make a decision because we think it's terminal, because we think that when we make a wrong action or wrong decision, it sets our feet in concrete. And I tell you that very few things that we do are terminal. Very few things are permanent. Very few things. Now, there are some. But by and large, no matter what it is, it's typically something that you can recover from. And it doesn't set a direction until you have a bunch of decisions along a line. It only sets a point. It sets a point where we can stand there and say, hmm, that worked, that didn't work. How could I make it better? What did I learn? What do I want to do next? And then make another decision based on new information. That's why we take action. We take action because it gives us clarity over time. We take action because it gives us movement over time. When we don't, when we sit in inaction because we think it's not perfect yet, we're never going to move because what we're really doing is using perfection as procrastination.

And we're titling it with perfection because it sounds good and I hate to be direct about it, but that's truly the case. And at some level, many of us have had this, including me. And in fact, the book, my book, it's a number one national best selling book, would have never got done if I didn't get kicked in the behind and if I didn't get kicked in the butt by a great mentor, a great friend, a brother to me, you know, in what we did years and years ago, he looked at me and said, why haven't you written the book? And he kicked me in the butt to do it because I was sitting back going, it's not perfect yet. It's not perfect yet. No. That was my way of procrastinating. It was my way of being fearful that what are people going to think if I don't put the book out there? If I put the book out there and they don't like it, how am I going to handle it? Listen, nothing's ever going to be perfect. So why don't we get it out there and let's go for excellence. Let's look at it and say, I can make an adjustment if I need to, but let's take action. Let's not allow procrastination disguised as perfection to stop us from our dreams. And many of us do. So let's get it out there and let's make a difference. Start taking action. That's the next step. So I get my awareness, I start to build the abilities and knowledge and understanding and the skills. And now I take action. The next stage is this is accountability. I need to take responsibility for all the actions and the outcomes that I take. That's the fourth stage, accountability. Listen, some of you have heard the story. I lost. I got involved in an investment in 2005, in 2005, got involved in an investment that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme, wiped out one third of my net worth. Now I can laugh about it today only because I was able to recover. And not only recover, go well past it. I mean, over 300% based on the principles and the things that I've taught within 18 months was able to do that. The challenge is this. There's no way I would have been able to recover. There's no way I would have taken the action. There's no way that I would have built the knowledge and the skills and the tactics and strategies to recover if I was not willing to take responsibility. If I was simply going to point the finger and say, well, it's the economy's fault. It's because. Because he was a thief and he stole from me and it's his fault or any of the things. When I start to point things out outside of me, then I have no ability to shift or change things. Now, granted, he is a thief. He's a deceitful little schmuck that stole money and stole people's lives. Now, he didn't steal mine because we were able to rebuild it. But I know people that have suffered and have continued to suffer since 2005 since he did that. Now he's rotten in jail right now and it's where he belongs. Sorry about the emotional.

Detour, but by the same token, I needed to acknowledge and take responsibility for the fact that, one, I got involved with it, two, I stayed involved with it. And then I had to look at it and say, what did I learn? Why did I make the choices? What caused me to make the choices? How do I make sure it doesn't happen again? It's the only way to grow. So we need to be accountable for our outcomes. We need to be accountable for our actions and take responsibility for that. When we do, we can then move to the fifth stage, which is acceptance. Acceptance is accept that the fact that nothing is going to go as planned. We're going to create this great plan, we're going to have all these strategies, we're going to create these skills, we're going to go out and the first thing we do is going to throw the plan to all the hell. And it's just not going to work. And I get that, but that's the way it is. So acceptance is another place to sit back and say nothing's going to go as planned and allow yourself to be flexible in the process. So I'm going to be responsible and I'm going to be flexible because I've accepted the fact that things aren't going to go as planned. And so I'm going to need to shift and change based on new information and keep taking action that's going to allow us. Because if we sit there and wallow in our sorrow, wallow in our pity, create a pity party, we're not going to get anywhere and it's not Going to serve us in the long run. We can go through our grieving process, we can go through our mourning process for a time, but at some point, we got to pull ourselves up. We got to accept what is, and we got to move on the new information. Look, the economy is going to ebb and flow. I can see. Sit back. If we have another 2008 and we just, you know, given the time frame, we just dropped, I don't know, 1300 points in the stock market in a couple of days. Now, I could wallow in fear and freak out, or I can accept what is and say, what's the night? The new decisions I need to make, take responsibility and move on. So that next stage is acceptance, and then the final stage is this assertiveness.

Stay committed and true to your mission. Stay true to your purpose. No matter the obstacles, no matter the frustrations, no matter the resistance. Stay, stay true. Churchill said, never, never, never, ever, ever give up. And those words have never been truer than in an entrepreneur's world, in a business person's world. So it's really about understanding that and saying, let me stay attached to my why. Let me stay attached to the reason that I'm here. Let me stay attached to what impact I'm having. Let me stay attached to that and stay true to the mission and find the ability to navigate, find the ways to move around. Many people have fallen in the struggle. Many people have transcended it and moved beyond it. People have you talk. Heard me speak about Robin Chase, who was the founder of Zipcar. I mean, she got. Here's a mother with children and a husband, and she's created this company, and she's going, they're down to $68 in their bank account. They're ready to file for bankruptcy, and that's when they get funded and ultimately sell the company for a billion dollars. And her life and everything has shifted because she stayed true to a mission. She stayed true to a purpose, but she listened. She took responsibility, she took acceptance, and she took action. She listened to what was going on, made some changes, and was flexible in the process. So stay true to your mission, stay attached to it, and keep moving at all levels. And so when you think about this in the context of business, I think we've talked about it here, but just being aware of what you know and what you don't know becomes important in business, because now I know what talent I need to bring in, what talent I need to hire out or outsource in doing that. But they also figure out in that process of being aware what the core functions are of the business, that the core value drivers of the business, that the way I create value for my customers and my team, and now I create a process to develop that in me as the entrepreneur and my team as the support to the entrepreneur. And then we take some concerted action. We execute, execute, execute. Remember, there's two things that drive your business. The decisions you make and the execution you do. So one of the biggest failures for business is the failure to execute or execution failure. And so what we need to look at is let's make sure that we execute in business, that we take responsibility, we keep our fingers on the pulse. We talked about business systems in the last episode, that we're tracking things and that we're measuring things and that we're managing things. So we're being responsible for the actions and the outcomes in the process and be accepting of the fact that if we created a business plan, which I talked about in another episode, that that business plan is probably going to get shot to hell in a quick, quick second. And so now the process of doing that business plan becomes important because we've thought through the alternatives and we can then be flexible in the process and we stay true to serving our customers at the highest level, that we create a transcendent customer experience, that we're working to shift their lives and change their lives through our products, our services in the process. That's the funnel of self leadership. That's what I think is really important. And you dedicate yourself to this constant process of self leadership, to self growth. Some people will call it personal development, but I think it begins with self first and then goes outward into the world in an entrepreneurial endeavor. So focus on that and ask yourself the questions as you move through it. Am I being aware? Am I developing the ability? Am I applying it? Am I taking action? Am I being accountable and responsible? Am I accepting the things as they are so I can shift and move from that? And am I staying true to the purpose? And when you do, and you do that over time, persistently and consistently over time, you will be surprised at what happens. So that's my funnel of self leadership. I hope you found that a value. I hope you found that this useful. If you're looking for tools, tactics and templates, stay with me here. That's what this is about. It's about your success, it's about your wealth, it's about your freedom, it's about your peace of mind. It's about your entrepreneurial drive and your entrepreneurial endeavors. So make sure you subscribe to Stay with me and do that. If you want the tools and templates from this episode, just go to melabraham.com session036. If you're not at your computer and you happen to be just listening to the podcast or you're out running around and doing that, just text mylegacy one word, no spaces to 38470. If you happen to have a question about wealth, about success, about entrepreneurship, about business, anything like that, go to askmelnow.com leave me your question. We'll make sure that we get it on an upcoming episode so we get your question answered and we support you on your journey. So we make it an epic journey. And until we get a chance to see each other again, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant. See you soon. Talk to you soon. Oh, by the way, share this with a friend. We want to make sure that we have a whole big community of entrepreneurs, an army of entrepreneurs out there making a difference. So share this with a friend. I'll see you next time. Thanks a lot. See you soon. Cheers. Bye.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure you subscribe so you get access to all of Mel's business and success tips. And if you like this episode, share it with a friend. If you have a specific business or success question, you can ask it at www.askmelnow.com. remember, it's all being bold, dreaming big, and living life your way because the world needs you. Until the next episode, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant.

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