TES 087 - How to Maximize Your Success

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 and the founder of Thoughtpreneur Academy where we teach you how to brand yourself as an influencer so you can have more impact, more income and more freedom. And welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solution show. In this episode we're going to kind of continue this journey. We talked about productivity in the last episode, taught you the 10 productivity spheres, the rituals that I have in the morning and the evening. But in this one we're going to talk about the areas of focus in my success maximizer. How do we maximize your success in a way that accelerates your going from point A to point B to your destination to your goal? And these are the various areas that I've seen work with entrepreneurs around the globe as well as within myself and my clients, my high level mentoring, one on one mentoring or even my workshops as I take it to take you through this. So we're going to jump into that right now. Oh, you know what, one more thing if you want to get the action guide because each one of these episodes comes with an action guide and worksheet so you can really build it out and you can actually put pen to paper and make it come to life. Just go to melabraham.com session087 and you'll be able to download the action guide, the Success Maximizer action guide. If you're not at your computer, you have new driving, you're on the gym, you're running, you're doing something, but do it safely. Just text me, we'll make sure that we get you the download link. Just text mylegacy one word to 38470. We'll make sure that we get you what you need to really drive this forward. So let's jump in now. All right. As I said, we're going to focus on how do you maximize your success. You know, it's one thing to be successful, but can we maximize it, can we accelerate it, can we kind of rocket it, if you will, into the stratosphere? And what are the eight areas that you need to focus in for success? Now here's the thing. And I've seen this happen with entrepreneurs and folks throughout the years through my decades of working.

With businesses, boards of directors and helping people build their businesses or start their businesses. What I found is that these are the eight areas that we need to kind of take a hold of if we really want to maximize our success. So what happens though? Before we get to what you need to know, what happens if we don't get this right, if we don't understand how to do this? Here's what happens. I think that we end up with no process. And I can't tell you that how many times I've seen where actually I've seen some folks that are successful but they're not as successful as they could be because they have no process. And so it's really hit and miss and spotty. We get good friend Brendon Richard, he talks about people going out of their yard and trying to dig a hole and they don't dig deep enough so they've got these half dug holes and nothing's ever completed. And so same thing. I mean it's, it's. And I've got another good friend James Wedmore talks about half built bridges. Bottom line is you don't complete the process. You don't have a process to go from start to end if we don't get this right. And the other thing is that we don't see, we don't recognize the successes along the way. We are notoriously.

We'Re notoriously good at ridiculing, criticizing and blaming. What we're really bad at is celebrating, celebrating the success, celebrating micro successes, celebrating the progress that we're making and recognizing that. And I think what we need to do is get rid of those blinders so we can recognize our progress. And ultimately what we find is that we're just not successful. And so we need to figure out what's the process. Here's the cool thing though. If we get this right, things start to shift because we become process driven. We in effect and not necessarily like an assembly line. But there is a process to everything. If you look at some of the things that I'm doing creating any of these episodes, there is a process that I go through that allows me to build an episode and to train. When I create my training programs, when I do my live events, when I create my Keynotes. All of it is process driven. When I spend the time consulting with a client, all of it has a process to it and there's a reason for it. We'll talk about in a moment. The other thing that we do is I think that when you get this right, you actually see your progress. You take the time to celebrate your progress, to know that no matter how minute, no matter how small or how large, you get to celebrate progress. You get to celebrate the accomplishments, the successes along the way. And the last thing is, when we get this right, we go and do something what I call learned success. In other words, we're not anticipating or expecting that we will be flawless in everything we do. Trust me, just watch me. I make tons of mistakes, all lot of mistakes. But it's through the mistakes that I get all the great learnings. It's through the mistakes that I get a chance to teach you some of the things that I've learned. In fact, I think some of the greatest mistakes I've made have turned into great successes for myself in the long run, but for my clients in the short run because I've had a chance to bring those learnings and bring them to life in their world in a way that it leads to. To their success in an accelerated way. So we end up in this space called learn success in the process. So if that's truly the case, what are the things you need to know? So if we know what it takes in the sense of what happens if we don't get it right, and what happens if we do get it right. Now, there's some things that you need to know, things that will change the dynamics of your world and your success rate. And the first is this. Lessons are key. If we really think that we're going to be able to be successful without making mistakes.

Then we're mistaken. We're living in a fantasy world, quite frankly. In fact, I want to make. I don't want to make mistakes, but I want to relish the fact that I'm going to learn from the mistakes. I want to embrace the fact that I'm going to learn from mistakes. The lessons are the key because the richness is in the lessons that we get from the mistakes that we might make. So if we try to avoid, and this is really the key behind it, if we spend all our time trying to avoid the mistakes and push the possibility mistakes away, what we tend to do is not take action. So what I don't want to do is try to push away and avoid the mistakes. I want to reduce the number of mistakes for certain. But I want to stay in progress towards my goal, knowing that I'm not infallible, knowing that I'm not going to be without, without some missteps, but to be able to recognize and one, celebrate the successes, learn from the mistakes so we can move forward. Fact of the matter is, is that we didn't walk. The first time we tried to walk, we couldn't tie our shoes. The first time we tried to tie our shoes, we couldn't play ball. The first time we tried to play. Hell, when I first started playing baseball, I tried to catch the ball, it hit me in the face because I didn't, didn't have the glove in the right place. You learn, I didn't. It didn't happen again. So the bottom line is that if we make a mistake and quit, we never make progress. Or even worse, for fear of making a mistake, we don't ever try. So I'm going to ask you, invite you to try to know that mistakes might be made, to learn from the mistakes so we don't make them again. In fact, I have kind of a way that I look at it in business and when I'm working with boards of directors or entrepreneurs, I said, listen, the first time we make it is a learning.

The second time we make it, it's a mistake. So I'm going to learn first. But if I continue to make the same error, then now it's a mistake. The third time though, it's a problem. So what I want to do is learn from it. The first time, I never get to mistake or problem in doing that. And that's kind of the way I look at it with some of my team. It's the first time it's a lesson, it's learning. Second time's a mistake, third time's a problem. So lessons are key. The second thing I need you to realize is that process brings control, brings certainty. Why do we want to be process driven? For a lot of reasons. One, if I have a process in place, then I have predictable outcomes. Typically through that process.

There'S predictable outcomes for me, but there's also predictable outcomes for my customers, my clients, and the people I work with. A lot of the processes that I have in place in business, Break Breakthrough Academy and Thoughtpreneur Academy are truly processes that I know. When you use the processes, you go from A to B and the outcome at the back end of it is the same each and every time. You just got to work the process, the process works. We just Got to work the process. That's the key. So I want to build processes in place so I can control the outcomes, what comes out of it. This is, you'll see this in business a lot in what we call franchises. Franchises. The appeal to franchises is that they create processes. And that means that when you go to a, and I'm not saying that it's great food, but when you go to a Subway sandwich shop in Idaho and a Subway sandwich shop in, say, Connecticut, you're going to get the same sandwich made effectively the same way, because the process is in place. So what ends up happening? Think about this for a moment. The process assures that the customer has a similar experience no matter where they go. The process assures that the outcome for the company, the costs, the revenues and all of that are similar, no matter what store it's in. The process gives guidance to the employees, the team members, to do things a certain way to know that they're going to get those outcomes. So process is huge. It gives us control and certainty in what we're doing. So what processes do we have in place to assure our success? And then the last is this. Blocking moves the ball. And I'm using a football analogy. But the bottom line is that in order to achieve, you're going to need to block timeout. In order to be successful and achieve, you're going to need to block some time out, which means that you can't just haphazardly go through your day. This is why the rituals that we talked about in the, the last session are so, so important, is that you create a process. You block the timeout. You focus on the most important things first. And now you start to move the ball forward versus being at the whim of the winds that are coming at you at the time. So blocking moves the ball. So if that's the case, then what is it? What is it that you need to do? What's the process, if you will? And the process is what I call the success maximizer. We're going to jump into it. I'm going to jump onto the iPad here in a second and we're going to kind of draw this out for you so you start to understand what it takes. And if you haven't got this already, go ahead and download the action guide, because it's all in the action guide. Melabraham.com session087 is a way to get that action guide. Download that and we'll make sure that you have it in front of you. Let's jump into the iPad and let's walk through this a bit.

So here's how I look at it. The Success maximizer talks about the eight areas of focus for maximum success. And I think that this is really important for us to really start to understand moving forward. The first thing is this, and I kind of did this with the rituals, but I want you to start to understand this. The first thing that I want to do is reflect.

That's the first piece is to reflect, if you will, to reflect if you will, define.

If you will and celebrate.

Your wins.

That's the first stage of anything is I really want you to reflect on where you are, where you've come from. You know, I've been in the martial arts for 40 plus years and one of the reasons they have a belt system is to remind you.

Reminds you of the process you've been through, how much growth you've had. In fact, we had a little dragons program and Little dragons program is for the little three to five year olds to teach them about.

Balance and coordination. It's not about martial arts, it's really to develop them as athletes and as people. One of the challenges, they went in six week increments. One of the challenges was that they didn't have any belts, they didn't have anything. They wore a T shirt and bottoms. And we would train with them, but every six weeks they would renew. But then we started to see a fall off on the renewals. And the reason there was a fall off on the renewals was because they didn't see the progress. It's like watching your child grow. You don't see how much they sprout unless you're marking it on the door, on the door jamb or if you haven't seen someone for a while, you go, wow, you've grown tall. You don't get a chance to see that when you're in the game with them. So what we did with the little dragons is we started on the, on the, on the seam of their pants. We just started giving patches. So like every six weeks, depending what the focus was, it was either coordination, it was speed, it was movement. We would give them a patch just like the, the merit badges in boy scouts or girl Scouts and everything. And they would put it on the side of their pant and so they would have this ladder of patches. But what it was was an indirect way to remind them of all the things that they're learning, how much they grow. It's to celebrate them. And I want you to do the same thing here to reflect on and celebrate. Define the winds and reflect on it. The second piece is this is to be able to go in and say, all right, then I may reflect on the winds. What are the lessons?

What did I truly learn here? And I would tell you to list. And if you're doing this.

For a 12 month period and you're going to look back for a year, then I'd list the 10.

Top lessons.

That you learned in the past year. If we're just looking at it for years, so list the 10 top lessons because these are the things that won't get duplicated. This is where you start to get that growth. This is where you get the tipping points on why you do things differently than you previously had.

Once we move from that, we turn around and.

Go from the reflection to the lessons. And then.

I want you to look at your attitude and this is an interesting one. Where did you spend most.

Of the time? Your time.

From an attitude perspective.

In other words.

In other words, where did you spend most of your time? Were you pessimistic? Were you optimistic? Were you negative? What was your overall attitude? And what I would do is actually in the action guide, you'll see that we have you rating these and ranking these so you can score yourself because it's really important for you to understand. Listen, if I'm coming to trying to be successful and I've got a pessimistic, negative, defeatist attitude, guess what.

You might be successful despite yourself, but you're not going to be as successful as you possibly could. So the question is, what's your attitude been on that score sheet? I mean, I want to be in the not unrealistically positive. I want to be realistic, but I want to be optimistic. If I'm constantly badgering, complaining, criticizing, man, it's going to suck the energy out of you. It's going to suck the success out of you. So where are you on the attitude scale? As, as you move forward with that? Then we talk from attitude to gratitude.

And if we're going to look at attitude and gratitude now, the thing that I want you to look at is, huh?

What are the 10 things.

You'Re most.

Grateful for?

What are the 10 things you're MOST grateful for? We cannot be critical, pessimistic, defeatist, if we got gratitude in our hearts. So I want you to list them out. All of this. I want you to list them out. Use the action guide because it's going to force you to do this in a formal way to really bring it to life. So those are the first four. Now we start to go into these last four levels of focus to maximize your success. And this one's kind of an interesting one that I think will really kind of take some people by surprise.

And what do I mean simplify? Simplify. I mean, is that what are.

Three things.

You can simplify in your life.

Or eliminate? Because if you don't need it, being really, really, really honest with yourself, brutally honest with yourself. Are there things that you're doing in your life, in your business that are over complex, over complicated, or just completely unneeded, get rid of it. The more we can simplify, the greater our success will be. It's going to relieve us of those chains, the burdens, maybe some of it. Simplification may be outsourcing and getting it off of your back. So you're doing that. So what can you do to simplify? What are three things that you can do to simplify what it is you're, you're doing? Then once we go from simplification, this goes back to what I was just talking about.

What's the process? Create a process. And what I'd like you to do is actually think about a 90 day plan and a 12 month plan. So what do you need to do? What are the key.

Goals.

For the 12 months?

And we're going to talk about goal getting versus goal setting in the next session. But what are the key goals for the 12 months and what are the 90 day.

Projects to make those a reality? And the 30 day.

Actions?

So what do I mean by that? And I'm giving you a lot, but here's the thing, I want you to look at your year and say, all right, if I want to go from A to B in the year, what do I need to do each quarter to make that happen? What's the project? One or two projects maximum each 90 days. And what are the key action items under each project that I need to take? Because here's what I want you to do. I want you to be able. If I think about this, I'm going to do some math for you. So don't freak out.

If I have two projects every 90 days.

Two projects every 90 days and say four action items for each project, then that is eight action items that I need to do to take and drive it forward. Can I do eight things in 90 days? Yes. But if I try to look at the year and try to embrace that and hug that all at one time, it's too much. But if I'm looking at it and say, hey, all I Got to do is eight things in 90 days. I can do that. Ten things in 90 days, I can do that. It breaks it down. Here's what I need to do. Build the process to get the outcome, to create the certainty and the control that we were talking about in the process. And then from that, the next piece is really this.

Disconnect.

Wait a second. How can I be successful when you disconnect? Now the question is, how can you be successful without disconnecting? The problem is that you are not going to be successful without disconnecting. Here's what I want you to do is I want you to set a minimum.

Of three times per year.

To completely unplug and disconnect. To be with your loved ones, to be with your spouse, to be with your significant other, to be with your husband, your wife, your kids, with your family, whoever it is, to completely disconnect three times in a year, block it out. I sit down with my wife and we look at a year and we actually do it four to five times a year. And we block the time out. We say, we're going to do this here. Now, we might just stay home, sit by the beach. We may take a big trip to Europe or Asia or something. We might just go for a day trip or we might just go to brunch. But we block it out. Not movable. We put it in stone. This is when our disconnect time. It's a disconnect time from this to reconnect time for us. It's the three Rs that I've talked about in my other.

Sessions. We talk about, you know, reflection, rejuvenation, and.

Reconnection. So one of the things I want you to do is plan in the process for your success at least three times a year to completely disconnect, block it out. And that is the last piece of this is the blocking.

Which means that now that I've got this all planned out, I want you to schedule your time.

Schedule your time in blocks.

I want you to literally take it and say, okay, I'm going to block this time out and I'm going to mark it in red or I'm going to mark it in green. If you look at my calendar, it's a bunch of blocks of color. And those colors mean something. Whether it's an event, whether it's time away, whether it's personal time, whether it's talking time, whether it's creative time. It's all blocks of color. And I block it out. What happens is that once I've done the rituals that we talked about in the last session. And I take this, I said, all right, this is what the year looks like now. I've stepped in from the daily rituals to a broader view and I blocked the time out on the calendar. This is how I start to maximize what I get done and my ability to move from one thing to success on an ongoing basis. So this is the success maximize. The eight areas of focus that you got to look at, you got to reflect, you got to understand what the lessons are. You got to have your attitude. Sometimes we need an attitude adjustment. We got to be grateful for the things that we've got, the things that maybe we're still working on. We've got to simplify and get rid of things or simplify things in our life, in our business. We've got to do put a process in place, disconnect time and block it out so we can stay connected and we don't jeopardize the other areas of our, of our life, between our health and our relationships and all of that stuff to do that and then block it out to make it happen. That's the success maximizer. It is what I do on an ongoing basis to really start to drive things. It's what I teach with my high level mastermind clients, my boards, the entrepreneurs that I work with to really make that happen. And so hopefully this helps you. Hopefully this serves you for you to understand what it takes to really drive your success to a whole new level and build it. So if you haven't done so already, make sure that you got the action guide in front of you and that you work through this process, put it in practice. Until you put in practice, you can't get different results. I hope that you found this of value.

And if you found this of value, do me a favor, share this. Make sure you subscribe too though. But share this with people because this is something that can serve and support a lot of different people. And if you've got a question, just ask me the question@askmelnow.com we'll make sure that I get it answered either on one of the upcoming episodes of the Entrepreneur Solution show or just get it answered for you. You're not alone in this journey. I am your back pocket mentor as we move forward. So I hope this serves you. Remember to subscribe and share it. Remember to get that action guide, put it into place. You will be amazed at what will happen to your life and your business over the next coming months. If you do this religiously and ritually like we've talked about in the last two sessions, and I'll see you back here on the next episode. Until then, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant. 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 about 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.

And that's it for this episode of Building youg Money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthday, right? And I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.