Notes from Nathan: Don't Let Fear Choose You

When fear strikes, how do you respond?  Fear, in my opinion,  is the number one thing that keeps us from reaching our fullest potential.   The funny thing is that we can't see, smell, touch or taste it.  I have been working with a top producing executive for several months.  She asked for coaching around how to rid herself of fear.  I suggested that she record herself saying positive affirmations and playing them every night before bed.  After three weeks, she told me that whenever she feels fear creeping up on her, she hears herself giving her permission to take the risk.  I told her to think positive every second, every minute and every hour.  It's like growing and flexing a new muscle.

Our subconscious mind allows us to dwell on the negative more than the positive.  I have seen it time and time again and I myself have first hand experience of it.  We could get 100 praises but it is that one iota of negative feedback that has us retreat to a place of disappointment.  I'm here to tell you my friends that it takes the same amount of energy to focus on the positive as it does to dwell on the negative.  It is a matter of choice and declaration.

I challenge you today to declare that you are a winner.  Empower yourself to believe and succeed!  Surround yourself with people who will lift you up and see you as your higher self.  Don't let fear rule your mental space.  You were designed to win.  Claim your place in the winners circle.  Don't let fear choose you.

Sevenly yours,

Notes from Nathan - What are you afraid of?

Often times in our adult life, many of us have created "comfort zones". It is within these zones that we feel safe away from any unnecessary discomfort and drama. We know where we live, we know where we work, we go to the same grocery store, we talk to the same people and life is pretty much the same old thing.

So I ask "what are u afraid of?" What if u went to a different grocery store for a new experience? What if u made a new friend on your morning commute to work? Does your comfort zone keep you from living a more fulfilled life? Have you thrown in the towel when it comes to new relationships? Are u scared to talk to strangers? What are you afraid of?

Don't continue to allow these online portals to make you socially handicapped. Get out there and meet new people. The only thing keeping you from a social life is YOU! Wake up!

Ambermag.com Event TONIGHT!!!

Playing The Bigger Game - PART 4

The MEGA World of Lil Mogul

by Lil Mogul

STEP 4: Reduce The Number Of Steps It Takes To Get To Your Goal
Scary food for thought: How hard are you going to have to work to get to where you want to be? Think about it, seriously. With your current business model, how much time and effort is it going to take you to hit your goals? If you want to make 6 figures or 7 figures and you’re starting out with no audience or REAL plan.

Maybe you have a $50 an hour consulting business and want to make $500,000 a year … not going to happen unless you change your business model.

At the first marketing conference I ever went to, I remember talking to a “big shot” who was selling $20,000 a month worth of products. He asked me how much money I wanted to make with my business, and I told him.

He then asked me this question:
“How many steps do you want it to take to get there?”
That’s a game-changing question if I ever heard one. If you truly want to play a bigger game, you need to ask it at EVERY step in your business. If you don’t, you’ll be using small strategies and trapping yourself in the prison of limited thinking.

If you want to make $500,000 a year, being a $50 an hour consultant means it takes 10,000 steps (hours) to get there. Not good, considering there aren’t even that many hours in a year. Sure, you could try and raise your rates to $100 an hour, but 5,000 hours a year is still a 100-hour work week, 50 weeks a year. So what if you didn’t want to take 10,000 steps, or even 5,000? What if you wanted to take … 50? Well… you’d have to change your entire strategy and completely alter your way of doing business.

Yeah, that’s what the bigger game is all about. $500,000 / 50 = $10,000 a step. So how do you get that when you’re used to making $50 an hour?
Maybe you create a product.
Maybe you hold workshops.
Maybe you start a certification program and train people you can outsource.
Maybe you look for affluent clients.
Maybe you … do something crazy … like pick a more profitable industry entirely.

Here’s the insanely powerful effect of reducing the number of steps it takes to get to your goal: It forces you to ask questions that open up opportunities you would have never thought of at the 10,000 step level.

10,000 steps = tiny steps. 50 steps = big steps, requiring a bigger game.
What if you looked at your current business model and cut the number of steps by a factor of 10? In other words, if your average sale is $25, what would you have to do differently to make it $250? If your average client is worth $1,000, what would you have to do differently to start bringing in $10,000 clients?

Chances are you’d have to do a lot of things differently. But if you shorten your journey by a factor of 10, isn’t this question worth asking? Oh, one important thing: This process only works when you reduce the number of steps by a factor of at least 5 or 10. If you just try and reduce the number of steps by a factor of two, you’ll probably just try to work harder at the game you’re already playing. You want to open your mind to a whole new game.

This whole process is kind of scary, kind of fun, and extremely liberating. I’ll walk you through it. Game on.

Until the next time, have a GREAT Week.
Lil Mogul

Playing The Bigger Game - PART 3

The MEGA World of Lil Mogul
by Lil Mogul

STEP 3: Assign Value To Failures (Instead of Fearing Them & Punishing Yourself)

STAY IN THE GAME!

Playing a bigger game means putting yourself out there and taking some chances … many of which will fail.

Let me repeat that:
Many of the chances you take will lead to failure. Not some. Many! However; here’s the secret: Those people who succeed? The ones you’re (secretly) jealous of? They were willing to fail a lot on the way to their success. Even for the “big shots” out there, you’ll find no shortage of people who refuse their calls … reject their ideas … never return emails …

That’s okay, because you’ve got to dig through a lot of rock to uncover those diamonds. Don’t take my word for it – check out what this “loser” has to say:

"I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." – Michael Jordan

Yeah, it’s easy for Michael to say, right, because he was always a big shot, right? Uh … no! He tried out for his high school varsity team and … failed. He didn’t make the cut. So he quit, because he’s a failure and that’s what you should do when you realize that you’re a loser. Oh, wait, no he didn’t. He got put on the junior varsity team instead so he could work on his skills. He went to basketball camp. Worked at it, and got to varsity by junior year. And the rest is history. And that history includes losing over 300 games – 26 of them that were completely his fault. In front of everybody. Oh, the dra-ma.

Here’s the thing: Those failures were part of his strategy of continually getting better at his game and figuring out what strategies worked.

Now, I’m not going to tell you to just think positive and keep trying, for the sake of being motivational. That’s crap and you know it. You don’t care that he lost 300 games because he’s rich and famous and there are shoes named after him. Things are still hard for you. You don’t care that Edison tried 10,000 times (really?) to create a light bulb, because life is tough for you.

That’s because you’re taking your failures personally. You’re worrying about what people will think of you and what it will feel like. You’re looking at failure as a loss. Failures aren’t losses. They’re investments...
Think about this very carefully.

Failures help you aim and focus. Remember the game 20 questions? You didn’t expect to guess the right thing the first time (or even the 10th time). If you’ve played the game enough you know the pattern. Getting a bunch of “No” answers up front is great because it reduces the number of possible things to guess. It’s the same way with business life – you can try something, see if that strategy works, and if it doesn’t you can try a different strategy. Nobody says “You sank my battleship” on the first try, and nobody cares.

Failures help you make progress faster. A paradox, but the truth. Once you actually start taking action, you find out a lot more about what you really want and how you want to go about it. You will often find that your business idea is either flawed or doesn’t scale. This helps you immediately focus on coming up with strategies that will get you there faster. There’s no substitute for putting your ideas out there, watching them flounder and learning from them. If you’re not doing that because you’re afraid of the searing fires of hell that accompany failure you’re looking at it the wrong way.

Those aren’t the fires of hell come for your soul (and reputation!) – they’re a refiner’s fire, burning off the dross and helping get to the gold inside that you’re really after. There’s the old military expression “No battle plan ever survives first contact.” Once you get in the trenches you’ll see where you went wrong – and get valuable clues to what you really need to be doing.

Failures attract the attention of other “failures.” And you want this, big time. Because when you put yourself out there – even if you fall on your face – you’re getting the attention of people higher up the food chain than you are. People who know the value of trying and failing and retrying. You’re showing them you’re willing to pay your dues – just as they did – and you’ll win their respect (and perhaps some cooperation as well). Remember, the people up the food chain have had the stones to fail more than you have. Start catching up if you want their attention.

Failures have essential by-products. Let’s say you try some joint venture with someone else in your field and it bombs. Failure? Not if you have a stronger relationship with the partner, or with affiliates, or even with the people who you were exposed to. Not if you learned something new about technology, or came up with a new product idea, or discovered that your launch bombed because your audience was really looking for ___X___.

Just because you didn’t get what you wanted doesn’t mean it’s not insanely valuable. Dr. Spence Silver came up with a failure of an adhesive in 1968 – it woudn’t stick strongly to anything at all. 6 years later, his colleague came up with the idea of using it for Post-It notes. Missing the original goal can be just fine. Find a use for what you have on hand as a result of the process.

Real winners know that failures are necessary investments for THE FUTURE success. Don’t be afraid to fail. Just make sure you’re failing forward. Don’t accept any other option on the rough side of the mountain. Yeah, it sounds painful but I’ll walk you through some good stuff to make it easier. I’ve got your back. Game on.

Until Next Time… have a great week!

Lil Mogul

Playing The Bigger Game - PART 2

The MEGA World of Lil Mogul

by Lil Mogul

STEP 2: Get Honest with the Truth of Who You Are (And The Value That You Provide)
Maybe you’re not playing a bigger game because of fear about who you are – you’re stuck in the “I’m not good enough” or “People are going to think I’m a fraud.” Let me tell it to you straight:

Unless you are committed to being a quitter, “I’m not good enough” is BULL you’re hiding behind. First of all, you’re better than you give yourself credit for because I know you’re taking yourself for granted. Second, you can’t tell me you can’t get better. Maybe you’re not willing to, but that’s “won’t,” not “can’t.” Practice and training can make anyone with a pulse better.

Unless you actually trying to defraud people, you have no reason to see yourself a fraud. You have certain skills you can offer the world, and whether or not you don’t appreciate them, other people can. You may not see yourself as a 10 on the old sliding scale, maybe you’re a 5, but let me tell you this: To people who are a 0, 1 or 2, your 5 might as well be a 10. You have value they need.

So let’s talk about value: It all comes down to what you can do for other people, and it has absolutely nothing to do with all that emotional baggage and drama you’ve wrapped yourself in. I don’t care who is a better __X___ than you are. I don’t care if ___X____ has a bigger following than you, more credentials than you or whatever.

If you can provide value (which you can), you need to get honest about that. Honest with yourself. Because that’s the only way you’re going to get other people to see it, and pay you for it. The MEGA Motto: People Believe What They See and Buy What They Believe!!! You may not be good enough for you (oh, the drama!), but if you’re good enough for them, freakin’ give yourself credit already.

Imagine: You know CPR well enough. Someone stops breathing, and what do you do? Do you start asking yourself if there are better CPR practitioners than you? Do you wonder if your certification came from a prestigious enough teacher? Or maybe you have no certification at all, someone just showed you how to do it (correctly)? Are you going to dredge up every loser feeling you’ve had about yourself and dwell on that while that person slips off into the great unknown?

No!!! You’re going to get on your knees, do that CPR thing, and save that person’s life. Without a second thought, because the situation calls for value, and you have value to offer. Even if other people are better at CPR than you are, you could possibly save a life TODAY. Now quit imagining, and get real. You can do things other people find valuable, but since they come naturally to you or you’re just used to having the skills and hanging around people with the same (or better?) skills than you have you’re feeling sorry for yourself. Dra-ma. PLAY A BIGGER GAME!!! It’s not about what everyone everybody else is doing, it’s about what you can do for people who need what you can do. Don’t make it more difficult than that.

You can build a six-figure business catering to people who need 5s. Why are you worrying about being a 10. It’s not worth it. Be the best 5 you can be, serve the people who need 5s, and if you want to go upwards, do what it takes to become a 6, 7, 8, and so on. But quit with the drama already. Your skills are not worthless and you can absolutely add value. When I started out as a model talent agent with my small entertainment management company, could I compete with Ford Models, William Morris or Bad Boy Productions? NOPE and sticking with that drama killed my bottom line for years. But once I realized “Hey!!! , I don’t have to compete with them. I still know how to scout, develop and manage talented people and get them to be more productive,” I was able to go out there and fill my talent roster (faster than I thought). Was it because I was a 10? Absolutely not. I was a 5, and believe me, the people who were 2s and 3s got a lot of value out of what I provided. Now they are 5s. Win.

Seriously, if you want to play a bigger game than get a bigger view of who you are and what you offer. Start defusing the lies you’ve been telling yourself about why you’re not good enough and everyone is better than you are. Draa-maa.

I’ll walk you through this process in so you can get into gear so you can appreciate what value you truly have to offer and ultimately get people to pay you what you’re worth. Game on.

Until Next Week… Have a most valuable week.

Lil Mogul

Playing the BIGGER Game!!!

The MEGA World of Lil Mogul

by Lil Mogul

This weekend, I received an e-mail from a business associate that had me really thinking. So, I wanted to share it with all my weekly readers. The article was very long, I decided to create a 7 part series called Playing A Bigger Game. It was written by Dave Navarro; however, I applied and added a number of principles as well as comments/statements from my new business practices.

There’s an old saying that “Nothing works until you do” – and it couldn’t be more true. No matter how much you might wish for heaven and earth to move just because you want it to, you have to cowboy up and take action. The problem is that most of us don’t take actions that match up with our goals - we’re not “congruent” with them and we play small. Hey, that doesn’t get us anywhere.

If you want to shave years off of the time it takes to get to your “stretch” goals you need to do some stretching yourself – you’re going to need to play a much bigger game. No doubt you know this already (you hear it everywhere, don’t you?), but have you really been doing something about it?

You may have been caught up in the urgencies of life so far, but it ends now. We make this work together. I’ve got your back and will tell you what’s worked really well for me. Let’s talk about the reasons you aren’t playing as big a game as you could be right now: Fear and Distraction.

Fear. Playing a bigger game = doing what it takes to get the things you say you really want = doing more and being more than you’ve ever been in the past. That’s scary, but I’m about to help you move past that fear.

Distraction. Yeah, you’ve got a lot going on in your life. Maybe too much. But what do you do? Answer: You make the time (starting with just 30 minutes) and you create a plan. The making the time part is easier than you think – take a lunch hour, but take it by yourself. Put “American Idol or Project Runway” on DVR this week instead of watching it live. Whatever… You can do this! You just have to decide to start with a few minutes soon. Once you’ve decided where you’re going to spend your first 30 minutes of thinking time, with your notebook and bam, you’ve got your plan. You don’t have to start from scratch, the scratch is done for you.

For the next seven weeks, we’re going to dig into seven strategies you can start using playing a bigger game and getting more out of your life and your business.

We can do the exercises together.

Until then… Have a GREAT week.