Ashley Mahaffey is one of my favorite and fabulous power partners – you should definitely be in her space. Find her at http://AshleyMahaffey.com
- Ann
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In my newsletter this week I mentioned a webinar series called “Slipping Into Your Skinny Jeans” that starts on Tuesday.
This three week series is being hosted by friend, colleague, gal-pal, wife, mom, and athlete Ashley Mahaffey.
Ashley is one of my power-partners – we talk almost every day, encouraging each other, brainstorming, sharing ideas etc.
One of the main things I appreciate about Ashley is that, being a world-class athlete (she finished two Ironmans!), she never lets me give up on myself. Persistence, optimism, and a “can do” spirit are just her daily mojo.
What’s neat about having an athlete as one of your power partners is that they bring that champion mindset to the business table. My own business has grown leaps and bounds because of her presence, motivation, and ideas. And we have more fun working together than should be allowed! Sometimes we literally just have an “open microphone” Skype line going – she’s working on her stuff, I’m working on mine, and we just jump in every now and then with a question or idea. And when we get together in person, I’m stunned at what we accomplish.
Anyway, I really want you to know her too, because there is “life and business with Ashley in it” and “life and business without Ashley in it” and I never want to experience the latter!
This series that Ashley is starting on Tuesday, May 18th will cover a number of topics that can truly change your life. She is interviewing experts in emotional eating, overeating, fat loss, sugar addition, hormone balancing, and food sensitivities. She’s even asked me to do a segment on the health and wealth connection.
The live calls are absolutely free, nothing to buy, just show up.
If you want the recordings (in case you can’t make the live calls or if you’d like to listen to them over and over) she’s making them available for a small fee too. And if you discover that what you’re learning is really hitting home, she’s also offering an opportunity to take it even deeper with her.
No matter what you choose, you will not want to miss this opportunity just to be in her space!
Register now! http://www.SkinnyJeansTelesummit.com
Be bold!
- Ann
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It occurs to me that I have never fit in to any established organization, not completely anyway. Girl Scouts was a disaster since I just didn’t get the whole badge thing and I’m pretty sure my college sorority sisters only tolerated me.
Elementary school felt foreign – desks lined up in perfectly spaced rows, uniforms at one school and a dress code at another, and having to ask for a hall pass just to go to the bathroom. Seriously?! And they insisted on calling it a lavatory.
My first job was working at a McDonalds where my process improvement ideas were met with disdain from my coworkers whose main objective was to do their time and call in “sick” on sunny, summer days.
So it seems odd that I would choose to join NJROTC in High School. The truth is, I wanted to be on the trick drill team. Of course, being a member made me a complete and total outcast from the cool kids, who felt it part of their ordained obligation to throw snowballs when I was in uniform. In the bigger picture, our little group was fraught with rebels who defied the all-consuming teenage need to be liked and aimed at being part of something bigger than ourselves.
This led to a four-year ROTC scholarship to college and then a twenty-year career as a Naval Officer.
I loved being in the Navy. It felt like a family and was filled with excitement, energy, adventure, travel, and the opportunity to handle more responsibility than most people see in a lifetime. Most importantly, I loved working with some of the finest, most ethical, honest, and heart-centered people I have ever know.
But despite my love for the people and my respect for the organization itself, I always felt like I was trying to fit into a coat that was a little too tight. I even remember a boss once telling me…literally…to get back in my box. I followed the rules when they made sense, and railed against them when they didn’t. And I always felt a little like a failure because I did not completely comply.
Before retiring, I took a course that helps senior officers transition from the military into the private sector. I was the only one who intended to strike out on my own and start my own business. It felt absolutely natural to me and seemed so foreign to the other officers attending. I was excited to create and launch something new and just couldn’t trade in one uniform for another.
I’ve had my own business for seven years now and have never looked back. It has been more difficult than I ever imagined. And it has been so much more rewarding and fulfilling than I ever thought possible.
Being an entrepreneur means you are a rebel. You see things in ways that other people do not or will not. Your mind is always spinning with ideas and your need to create is a driving force that cannot be squelched, no matter how hard other people try to stomp on it. Regular people do not understand how or why you do what you do.
By nature, entrepreneurs tend to be abundant, optimistic, risk takers who thrive on creativity and are comfortable with ambiguity. They tend to flock with other entrepreneurs because that is where they are understood, embraced, and encouraged.
If you have always felt a little like an outcast, you might just be an entrepreneur in corporate clothing. Maybe it’s time to trade in your company conformity for an entrepreneurial mindset. It means you will have to embrace your inner rebel and swim against the tide.
Then again, why would you want to fit in when you know you were born to stand out?
Be bold!
Ann Vertel
P.S. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this…please leave me a comment below!
P.P.S. Want a daily dose of motivation? Check out The Confidence Club at
http://AnnVertel.com/shop/confidence-club/
Connect with Ann…
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Remember the last time you watched a baby learning to crawl or a toddler learning to walk? Or kids at a playground playing on new equipment? They are not just willing but anxious to explore anything new. They follow the lead of other kids, try new tricks, and genuinely challenge themselves to do more, be more, and learn more. That’s because kids operate outside their comfort zone all the time.
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines the word “comfortable” as: free from stress or tension; free from vexation or doubts.
It defines the word “uncomfortable” as: causing discomfort or annoyance; feeling discomfort; feeling uneasy.
The Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary defines the term “comfort zone” as: the level at which one functions with ease and familiarity.
We can infer, then, that operating in an “un-comfort” zone would be the level at which we function with dis-ease and unfamiliarity. That means our actions and our behaviors will feel awkward, foreign, clumsy, and inept. Each time we “step out” we’re going to feel like a child learning to walk.
My daughter and I talk about this all the time – that the first time you attempt something, no matter what it is, will always feel strange and scary. She has come to know that the first time is always the most difficult and that things get easier after that, so just making it through the first attempt is a triumph to be celebrated. You don’t have to be “good” at something the first time, you just have to get through it.
If you are doing that every single day – doing something new and unfamiliar – your success will likely come very quickly.
Do those feelings ever go away? Yes, and no. If you operate in an un-comfort zone long enough it begins to feel comfortable. You expand the borders of what feels safe. Successful people just keep expanding the limits of what feels uncomfortable. As your actions, behaviors, tasks, and systems begin to feel under your control, step out into a new one. Keep the cycle of risk-taking active and alive.
The only time you or your business will truly grow is when you are taking risks. If your desire is to be enormously successful, get “comfortable” with operating in your un-comfort zone.
Be bold!
Ann Vertel
P.S. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this…please leave me a comment below!
P.P.S. Want a daily dose of motivation? Check out The Confidence Club at
http://AnnVertel.com/shop/confidence-club/
Connect with Ann…
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Choice gives you power. Once you recognize that you get to choose everything about your future, you will gain enormous power over your life. But too many people will never take that step – never acknowledge that they are the architects of their life and their business. It’s much too easy to just blame someone or something else for their apparent inability to become a success.
Successful people aren’t that way by accident. They didn’t just happen to fall into it. They chose it. Strategically.
If you knew, truly knew, that the only thing standing between you and that audacious dream of yours was your willingness to choose, you would stop all the complaining and sobbing and hanging on to your story about why it’s all just so difficult, and you’d get on with the business of being successful.
Successful people are not the ones telling you how hard it is, are they?
The ones telling you it can’t be done are those who aren’t doing it. They are attached to their identity as a person who struggles, who carries on in the face of insurmountable odds, who take on too much and crumple under the pressure because they are addicted to the attention they get for the struggle.
You can choose today, right now, to let all that go.
You can choose to stop seeking credit for all you’ve been through and start seeking the personal satisfaction that only comes with accomplishment.
You can choose to stop wallowing in your need to be validated for your suffering.
You can choose to release your white-knuckled grip on your need for sympathy and validation from others and start doing the things successful people do.
They choose a goal (how much, by when).
They determine what it will take to reach that goal.
Then they go do that.
They do not wait for permission.
They do not look for affirmation from others.
They don’t waste their time allowing drama to infect their life.
And they do not seek credit for trying.
You can be enormously, abundantly successful or you can be a martyr but you can’t do both. Choose wisely.
Be bold!
Ann Vertel
P.S. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this…please leave me a comment below!
P.P.S. Want a daily dose of motivation? Check out The Confidence Club at
http://AnnVertel.com/shop/confidence-club/
Connect with Ann…
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Wouldn’t it be nice if becoming a success was easy? Unfortunately, it’s not. It takes consistent, daily action, calculated risks and, well…work. Work that involves doing things that don’t come easy.
Working like that just doesn’t sit well with most people, and that’s why most people never reach their ultimate potential and spend their whole life wishing and hoping for things to be different. Wishing and wanting and hoping are not strategies…or actions.
You already know what it would take for you to become an uncanny success..
The question is, are you willing to do what it takes?
Most people aren’t.
They don’t want to give up doing what comes easy or what they’re used to or what comes along to fill up their time. Doing the things they would need to do to change their situation just isn’t convenient – they’d have to give up things they’re used to.
Successful people behave differently. They don’t base their pursuit of excellence on the actions that are easy for them. They base their actions on what will make them a success.
Stop trying to get ahead by doing the things that feel safe, comfortable, and easy – that will just get you more of the same. Determine what actions will make you proud of your accomplishments and then do them, however inconvenient and difficult they may be. Only then will you lead the life you desire.
Be bold!
Ann Vertel
P.S. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this…please leave me a comment below!
P.P.S. Want a daily dose of motivation? Check out The Confidence Club at
http://AnnVertel.com/shop/confidence-club/
Connect with Ann…
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When you have a failure or a set-back in your business – let’s say all your appointments for the week cancel on you – how you choose to explain the cause for that could mean the world of difference in what happens next.
Dr. Martin Seligman, the Psychologist most noted for his work in learned optimism, describes a mental state more potent than self-esteem. It is called “explanatory style” and it means the way we think about causes.
Feeling bad about the situation, blaming either yourself or others, will affect your self-esteem.
Determining how permanent and pervasive the cause is, will affect the actions you take in response.
Feeling bad is not the cause of failure. But if you believe that the situation is permanent, or that this is the beginning of a new trend, then you may stop trying and that leads directly to failure.
For example, instead of saying,
“Everyone cancels on me”
which describes a belief that the cause is permanent, what if you said,
“There will always be cancellations and I accept that as part of my work”
which describes a belief that the cause is temporary.
If you believe that a cause is permanent, you are likely to give up.
If you believe a cause is temporary, you are likely to take action to change the situation – like picking up the phone and making new appointments.
Your belief in the permanence of any set-back will determine your response, and it is your response – your deliberate action – that determines your success or failure.
Choose excellence!
Ann Vertel
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Perhaps you’ve have heard Denis Waitley’s quote, “Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results.” You almost have to read that quote twice to understand his message.
There is a psychological test, originally developed by Julian Rotter, called the “Locus of Control” that essentially determines where an individual places the power to control events in their lives – either internally or externally. Their score indicates whether they take full responsibility for what happens to them, whether they give all the power to their circumstances, or whether, like most people, they fall somewhere in between.
As you can imagine, those with a high external locus of control often feel powerless and victimized. Those with a high internal locus of control usually feel strong, independent, and in charge of their circumstances. You can guess where most entrepreneurs score.
We can choose to be in charge of our circumstances or we can choose to let our circumstances control us. It’s our choice.
To feel more powerful and in control, you must develop a stronger internal locus of control. One of the best ways to do that in your business is by setting action goals instead of results goals.
When you set a results goal you are not 100% in control of the results. You could be dependent upon other people, circumstances, time, or the weather cooperating in order for that goal to be met. If they don’t, you’ll likely be disappointed that you didn’t meet your goal.
It’s not that you didn’t work hard and it’s not that you didn’t plan properly. It’s just that the power to complete some aspect of that goal was not entirely yours.
However, when you set an action goal, one that is based on the action steps you can take entirely on your own (number of phone numbers dialed, miles run, words typed etc.) it is entirely within your power to make that happen. That means you can meet your goals every time if you so choose. And if you set high enough action goals, the payoff is extraordinary results.
Be bold!
Ann Vertel
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