August 2018 « Confidence Coach

Owner for a Day!

I just wanted to throw something out to you today that we’ve been using as a challenge to our clients, business owners, and leaders that we’re working with. All of them are struggling to get on the same page with their employees. They can’t seem to get everyone in alignment with where they are trying to take the company. And so, I had a crazy idea for one of our clients and I said, “Well, maybe the reason why there’s a disconnect between where you want to go, what they’re doing and them not understanding you, is they don’t know what it’s like to be the owner.”

So I told him, here’s my challenge to you — take some of your people and make them an owner for a day! I challenged him to literally take an employee with him and have them shadow him through an entire day. Show them every process that he worked through, the decisions he had to make, the meetings he attended, and even the fires he had to put out! I challenged him to show the employee all the different hats he had to wear.

Guess what happened after he did this?

He had a huge “aha” moment. He realized that he had not been communicating as well as he thought he had about what he was doing, where the company was going, and what the business was all about. He didn’t realize this until after he had this person by his side all day long! He could tell by the questions that they were asking that there was definitely a disconnect on his part. He had not thoroughly and repeatedly communicated why they were doing what they were doing, how things needed to be done, and the importance of all these things to the employee’s future, as well as the company’s future.

So, my challenge to you is this: if there is (someone or) something you’re struggling with, bring your employee along and allow them to be “an owner for a day” or maybe “CEO for a day”. Give them a chance to be transformed and have a better understanding by giving them the opportunity of seeing things through your eyes — the eyes of the owner. I think this will also help you realize the importance of clear communication on your part. Your people need to know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and how things really work in the company. This will improve your team and help them be more fully engaged.

I hope you take up the challenge of having an employee be an owner for a day. As you do this, please share your results with us and let us know what you learned through this experience. You can always reach out to us and schedule a catalytic conversation if you need more clarification on this activity. You can also find out more about us at confidencecoach.org and we’d love it if you would subscribe to our YouTube channel.

–Scott

P.S. Here are 4 ways I’d like to help you improve your business:

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by Scott Ballard , August 26, 2018

The Solution System

Our Solution System will ask questions to help you get clarity about your roadblock, barrier or obstacle and also help you create your own solution.

I want to talk to you about obstacles, roadblocks and barriers — these are things that are in the way of you taking your company from where it’s currently at to the next level. Oftentimes we look at a roadblock or obstacle and we get frozen. We start procrastinating. We don’t want to deal with things.

But today I want to give you a little insight into something that’s really helping our clients get to the next level. We actually want you to focus on and be specific about the obstacles or roadblocks, the barriers, the things that are in the way of you going to the next level in your company and your business. What I mean by that is we actually have a process called The Solution System where we focus on and help you get clarity through our questioning process to identify the barrier or obstacle.

What does it look like?
What does it feel like?
What’s causing it?
What are your thoughts about it?
What are your limiting beliefs around it?

We have you list out all the answers to those questions. You may ask why is it so important to focus on the obstacle or roadblock? The reason is, by going through our eight step process, we will ask questions that will help you uncover the solution. Your breakthrough solution will come from within all these barriers and obstacles, doubts, fears and limiting beliefs that you have around it.

Believe me – there’s a solution in there!

We take you through a process to uncover and then create your own solution, your own breakthrough. This solution/breakthrough will take your business from where it’s been stuck, where it’s plateaued, to the next level. The thinking behind this is really how your mind works. We help you focus on what the problem is, study it, ask questions about it, dig deep and be honest about what the obstacles are. And then, we dig in with some questions and ask what the solution is that’s hidden in all of that. As we do this, breakthrough after breakthrough happens, mindsets gets changed and “limiting” beliefs become “beliefs now for a bigger future”. The solutions show up right there on the worksheet during the process.

We’ve done this over and over again, and it always surprises people. They’re like, “Wow, I never saw that an hour ago, and now I have these great plans, these steps forward, this breakthrough that I needed to have to take my business to where it needs to go.” So, this is all about you stopping and asking, “Okay, why am I stuck, where am I stuck, and what’s going on there?” And then saying, “Okay, I want to work on that, and I’m not gonna run away from that. I’m not gonna be limited by that. I’ll focus on it.” Out of these tough questions, we’ll find a solution with you.

So, if this sounds interesting to you because perhaps you have a big obstacle or barrier, maybe you’re stuck, or, you’re not stuck but you can’t seem to be able to get to where you want to go — reach out to us at Confidence Coach and set up a free catalytic conversation. We’ll give you the worksheet and the process. We’ll take you through it and teach you how to create your own solutions and have breakthroughs in all areas of your business. We look forward to doing that with you and we’ll talk to you soon.

by Scott Ballard , August 19, 2018

The 5 Minute Miracle

We have been using what we call “The 5 Minute Miracle” as we’ve been working with clients to help them make progress on their goals.

The idea is that you need deadlines. You also need a short amount of time to stretch yourself to see how much you can get done in a short period of time.

What we do is we gather the team together and have them clarify what the goal is that they’re working towards — their biggest goal. We ask them to write down what they think they can potentially get done in 5 minutes to make progress or create momentum towards their goal (maybe write down 3 things). These are things they could get done in a 5 minute span towards the goal. They write the goal out and then write the items below it of what they think they can do in that 5 minutes.

Then, we set a timer, and they get to work to see what they can do in 5 minutes to complete their list!

We’ve just been doing this for a couple of weeks. We had a team the other day that between all of the people on the team they were able to accomplish 13 things in 5 minutes. That’s 13 baby steps towards their major goal in 5 minutes. They literally got more done in five minutes than they had gotten done in the last week towards this big goal for their company..

It’s interesting how much you can get done towards the progress of reaching your goal simply by:

compressing time;
being focused;
forcing yourself to think in small enough increments; and
breaking things down.

So that’s why we call this “The 5 Minute Miracle.” It’s amazing what it will do for you.

If you’re interested in getting the worksheet or talking to us and having us take you or your company through this, just let us know. We’d be glad to do that. You can set up a time for us to work with you either virtually or in person. Glad we could pass on this little thought today of how you move forward in achieving your goals in just 5 minutes.

Make it a great day!

by Scott Ballard , August 12, 2018

Deadline — friend or foe?

When I was on a virtual call the other day with a bunch of business owners, everybody in the group had a revelation about setting a deadline. What came out of that session was that we’d all had major projects and things that we were trying to get done. As people were sharing about those things and how they were going about doing them, we all agreed that in order to accomplish great things and get work done, we all were using a “deadline.” A deadline is a “has to be done by” this date or time — without a shadow of a doubt; there’s no overtime for the project. What we all discussed and discovered is that deadlines are actually our friends!

Deadlines helped each one of us to achieve things that we previously hadn’t been able to achieve. By enforcing a deadline, then using that as a way to produce work to get projects done or to move the ball forward, we had all had great success because of the deadline.

So as a tip for you as a business owner or CEO — are you using deadlines in a positive way?

A lot of times we look at deadlines and dread them. We look at them as a negative; but actually a deadline is a great assist!. It’s like a big push for you to get up the mountain to reach the top.

You should also realize that as a business owner, an entrepreneur or CEO, a deadline actually stimulates creativity. Deadlines stimulate your ability to work and be more focused. You can really use this as a great tool in your business.

Right now if you don’t have any hard deadlines for projects or things that you want to achieve, (maybe goals or dreams that you have), I encourage you today to sit down and give yourself two or three really strong deadlines on things that you want to achieve within your business. Then report to us the results. We are starting an accountability group of people that use deadlines and who want to make a huge leap or see huge progress in their business. We’re all finding as the deadline draws closer, even though we may have a lot of things that have to happen, having the deadline helps us to achieve things and ramp up to get things done.

So, you see, deadlines are our friend! I would encourage you to use deadlines in your business, your personal life and with your employees too. Let us know how the deadlines are working for you. I challenge you to put some really hard ones in your life. You might be surprised at what you can accomplish with a really good deadline.

by Scott Ballard , August 5, 2018