Creating is good - Money, wealth, cash flow, the business... those are almost always a big part of everyone’s equation. If you’re still driving hard in your career and business, money may be the scorecard you’ve been keeping. It may define your status, lifestyle, freedom, and safety. At least, those are the kinds of things we tell ourselves. In any event, I’ve worked with billionaires and others with big balance sheets. Everyone cares about that nest egg, no matter how many zeros.
So, I begin with the premise that money is a good thing, and that we want to make more of it. The clients I work with almost always end up making more money. And/ or their wealth, money, cash flow begin to find new purposes.

You know your business – When I talk about helping you grow, that does not mean teaching you how to make a better widget. The opportunity is for you to find the better version of you.
What you don’t know is what you don’t know. What you don’t know is what you can’t see. We call those blind spots for a reason. What you do know is everything that has brought you here. That’s not enough. That is your current ceiling. As I am fond of saying “You can’t solve a problem from inside the problem”. You’re very much inside your own business or career. It’s so familiar you may not even be looking for something more, not really, even if it’s staring you in the face.
Knowing yourself – What you do know is the business you run or your career. What you don’t know, not really, is yourself! You’ll want to argue that one with me. You know yourself at a certain level because those are the parts of you that you’ve been seeing every day for so many years. You know you’re tall, short, smart, have a short fuse, are slow to make a decision, or whatever you’ve had out on your own table for all this time. You know your operating system, even though you don’t think of it in that way. The results you’ve gotten are perfect given the personal operating system you’ve created.
But there is so much under there that you can’t see.
I could tell you a story – I could go through a case study where I’ve seen a business owner increase profits 10x, or another where revenues doubled. I could talk about an executive who got a huge promotion. I could tell you a lot of really cool stories where successful people took themselves to the next level.

Here come the bullet points – I want to say a few things as straight out as I can:

●  Our thinking and our words create our world. You can read and comprehend that. Can you really get your arms around the power of that statement? This is not make believe. Everything you have created and are creating is a result of your thinking. Your beliefs, your own thinking, determine your actions and outcomes.
● William James said: “If you can change your mind, you can change your life.” If you study neuroplasticity, you can start putting some scientific understanding to it.
●  You’re a mixed bag. We all are. We have thoughts and habits that serve us, and those that don’t. Some are true and valid, some are not. But make no mistake, those – the good, the bad, and the ugly – are running your show.
● I ask clients and others to complete an “Authentic Happiness Assessment”. These are successful people with companies, careers, wealth, some with huge wealth. The results come back on average about 2/3s happy and 1/3 unhappy. What if, for lack of a better way to measure it, we use that as a proxy for the quality of their thoughts? What if 1/3 of your thoughts stand squarely in your own way?
●  That means you’ve been able to get to “here” with 1/3 of your thoughts working against you. In your business, career, family, life, health, and all the rest. Everything you think, know, and do has created whatever you’ve created so far. That thinking has become your current ceiling. 
●  You can’t effectively create past that ceiling. That’s why so many people don’t have a new future. They have a recycled past.
●  Query: What would happen if you took off the ankle weights? What if you cleaned up about 75% of those thoughts and habits that don’t serve you? You’d fly. That, in a nutshell, is why my clients start making more money. If someone can make X from their old “way of being”, the same person can make multiples of that from their new way of being.
An example – I had a conversation with a business owner just this morning. He works way too hard, juggles way too many balls, is leaving money on the table, and is darn sure leaving a part of his life on the table. He is 100% clear and in agreement on all of that.
He wanted to tell me about why this is happening. How everybody else is having the same challenges. And some ideas about steps he can take. He repeats how “it” is a big problem.
The thing is, he has been this way for the last 30 years. For him to think he is going to simply “do something” new. Well, he can’t. Not really. He is going to bring the same “him” to try to solve this problem in 2023 and 2024. The same version of “him” that didn’t get it solved last year, and the year before that, and the decades before that.
So, he’s looking out there to create change. Nothing out there can change until he shifts “in here.” Once we clean up the old stories, the out there solutions become apparent and doable. Until the inside fundamentals are cleaned up and shored up, nothing much out there can change.
Think on this – Just take all of this in. In my next blog post, I’ll share what I’d do next if I were you. 

An invitation – I’m grateful to be able to share knowledge and perspective that may help someone. Approximately 1,000 people open these emails we’re sending each month. Some of them reach back to me, and I invite you to try that as well.
Let me know what you’d like to create. What you’d like more of, or less of. What would help you? I’ll promise you this. You’ll get a prompt response. I’ll share my thoughts, send you something to read, watch or listen to, or introduce you to someone. I’ll do whatever I can to serve you in whatever way I can.
As I reflect on myself - I guess I am always hustling. I’m relaxed, passionate, and relentless all at the same time. But I’m not hustling business. I only work with about 12 clients at a time and my client calendar stays more or less full. I am passionate about helping clients and others move quickly from wherever they are to where it is they want to go. It’s exciting for me to help you remember how to dream big. And, how it’s really not that hard if you’ll stop making it hard!
Perhaps that’s why my client calendar stays full! I am grateful to you for reading what I send!

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