If you work in or near the legal field, then check out this article I co-authored with my friend (and, at least two times this month, co-presenter) Shirish Gupta:
DING! THINKING ON YOUR FEET AT A MEDIATION
Please pass along to and share with all your lawyer/mediator friends!
This week is my birthday! On Thursday, May 31st I turn 39. To celebrate (mourn?) that fact, I am offering you $39 off one of my best programs:
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Coupon Code: AVISHBDAY
P.S. Act fast! this sale ends at the end of Thursday, May 31st!
P.P.S. Here’s a quick description of what’s covered in the audio series:
Do you ever feel like you are spinning your wheels, stuck in a rut and frustrated by your inability to get what you really want, deep down? Or maybe your frustration comes from the fact that you’re not even sure what it is you want…
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Starting a business can be hard. Growing your business once you have started it can be even harder. Sometimes it can seem downright impossible.
What makes it even harder is when you are trying to start or grow your business on your own. It’s hard to objectively analyze and assess your own activities and results. It’s hard to stay accountable when it’s just you. And it can be really hard to come up with new ideas and solutions to your challenges when you’re on your own.
Once you are knee-deep in your business, you can get overwhelmed pretty fast. You start to feel like you have neither time nor energy to get the important things done, or get ahead, or actually live the better life you are struggling to build. Soon you feel like you’re drowning in a sea of your own making…
If this sounds familiar, and if you would like some serious assistance overcoming your challenges, identifying your goals, creating a plan that accelerates your success while giving you more time and energy for things that really matter, and staying accountable and on-track no matter what happens, then my newly revamped coaching/mentoring program may be just the thing for you.
For information on the program, check out the Coaching Information Page now.
This one-on-one mentoring program is a great way for you to get the external advice, feedback, creativity, and accountability you need to take your business to the next level.
We’ll work together to identify your big picture goals, make sure your actions are aligned and efficient (and brainstorm up newer, more efficient ways for you to achieve what you want), and then connect regularly to keep you accountable and on-track. This program will accelerate your path to success!
To get started (and to set up a free 15-minute assessment call) check out the Coaching Information Page and contact me now!
Starting a business can be hard. Growing your business once you have started it can be even harder. Sometimes it can seem downright impossible.
Once you are knee-deep in your business, you can get overwhelmed pretty fast. You start to feel like you have neither time nor energy to get the important things done, or get ahead, or actually live the better life you are struggling to build. Soon you feel like you’re drowning in a sea of your own making…
When you’re in that place, it’s easy to doubt yourself and wonder whether you can sustain your work/life schedule. It’s easy to doubt whether you have what it takes to “make it.” And it’s easy to think about giving up.
Before you pack it all in (or resign yourself to a life of stress and overwhelm), you should try one simple thing first:
Reevaluate the choices you are making every day regarding
what actions you do and don’t take.
Every moment of every day you have a choice of what actions you take. Make smart choices, and you can achieve a great deal with less time and stress than you thought possible. Make poor choices, and you can find yourself working longer and harder to achieve less and less.
Below are 7 steps you can take to improve the quality of the choices you make and the actions you take. Use the list as a guideline to evaluate both your current and future activities, and business might not seem so impossible after all:
In my experience, most business owners waste a tremendous amount of time by not clearly thinking through the answers to two questions:
Let’s start with the first one…
What are your goals for your business? Do you want to make a lot of money doing what you love? Do you want to build a business that you can sell off for a million dollars? Do you want to have control of your schedule so you can spend time with loved ones? Do you have a mission to change the world?
It doesn’t matter much to me what your goal is; what matters is that you have actually thought about it in some detail.
Don’t skip this step as “too obvious.” Dig deep and get to the real truth about why you are doing what you are doing. All future decisions and actions will build off of that.
For more information on Knowing What Your Goals Are:
After you identify your overall goal, you can address the second question: “What are the key activities that will help me achieve those goals as efficiently as possible?”
This may sound crazy, but many business owners throw themselves into tasks that they think they should be doing without ever evaluating whether those activities are generating any results. This leads to “working and longer and harder but achieving less and less” syndrome.
For small business owners, key activities generally fall into two categories:
It’s easy to assess whether an activity falls into category 1. Either it’s about your product or service or it’s not.
Things get trickier with category 2. It’s easy to think you’re being productive when you engage in “marketing activities.” However, it’s worth taking a closer look:
This is not to say any of those ideas are bad. However, if you have been engaging in those activities for a while and have achieved no results, then either:
It really could be either of those two. You’ll need to figure out which one it is and what to do about it.
This step may take a bit of time, as you’ll need to analyze what you are doing and figure out what might be better, more efficient ways of achieving the results you want. Stick with it though, because once you figure out this step, the rest gets much easier.
For more information on Identifying Key Activities:
(Don’t take too long on this step, because the next step is…)
Business owners (especially ones who have not yet started, but are preparing to start) waste a tremendous amount of time and energy avoiding making a decision. They spend far too long analyzing, hemming and hawing, and going back and forth (you know – the closer they get to making a decision, the better the other options start to look…)
If you want to free up time and energy, then get better at making decisions. Of course you’ll want to take some time to analyze and think things through, but once you have done that, make the best decision you can and move on. This is what the most productive people do. And the least stressed. And the most successful.
When it comes to growing your business, here are a few choices that get avoided:
If you find yourself spending a lot of time avoiding making a decision, then it’s probably because you are trying to figure out what the 100% right option is. Here’s a tip that should help you immensely:
There is no 100% right option.
Well, there might be, but if there was, your decision would be a no-brainer and you wouldn’t be avoiding making the decision.
You will make far more progress in your business by making a choice and running with it, seeing how it works out, and then changing and adjusting as needed.
For more information on Making Fast Informed Decisions:
If your business makes you feel overwhelmed, than chances are you need to cut out some things that, when you really look at them, don’t matter.
This one sounds obvious, and it is, but it’s also one of the hardest ones for people to implement. This is for a few reasons:
While all of these reasons are understandable, none of them are compelling enough to keep you from achieving your goals (or at least, they shouldn’t be compelling enough).
You don’t have to dump everything all at once. But if you feel like you have no time and energy, I would highly recommend you start trimming ASAP. Get clear on your goals and key activities, and start cutting out the rest. Your time, energy, and results will quickly improve.
For more information on Cutting Out Everything That is not a Key Activity
Procrastination sucks. Believe me, I know.
It’s easy to put off taking important action and focus on lower level, less critical stuff.
Of course, nothing happens until you take action. And ultimately, you’re going to have to take action on the important stuff (or just watch life pass you by).
If you want to grow your business, then you must do two things:
Note: Don’t let “clearing your plate” take up so much time that you are back to wasting time on low-priority work. Your key activities are the things that are going to build your business. Take consistent action on them and youll grow your business with a lot less wasted time and energy.
If you struggle with taking action, here are a few techniques you can use to get yourself moving:
For more information on Taking Immediate and Consistent Action:
Not ready to fully cut things out of your life? Then at least come to terms with doing a less than perfect job on the activities that don’t really matter.
You can waste a tremendous amount of time trying to make everything perfect. Even if you are not a perfectionist, you may find yourself spending a lot of unnecessary time moving things from good to great that would have been perfectly acceptable at just “ok.”
I’m not saying half-assing it is a great business strategy. However, if you’re ever overwhelmed and feel like you just don’t have enough time to get to the really important things, take a look at how focused you get on the really unimportant things. Some people, once they get started on a project, get sucked in and automatically default to giving it 100%.
This is a great character trait IF you have the time and energy to do so. If so, great (and stop complaining). If not, then settle for less on some of the less important stuff.
For more information on Being Outstanding in Your Key Activities and Settling on the Rest:
Pop Quick Hotshot: Did you brush your teeth this morning? Do you brush your teeth every morning, fairly automatically, without thinking about it?
The answer is most likely “yes” (If for you it’s “no,” well, then, let’s not sit next to each other on a long flight…). That’s because brushing your teeth has become a habit. You have automated your behavior to brush your teeth first thing in the morning.
In a similar way, your success will be effortless once you automate the behaviors that lead to business growth. For example:
When I say, “your success will become effortless,” it’s easy to pass it off as standard motivational mumbo-jumbo. “Success is never easy!”
You’re right, it’s not. And to be honest, it takes a tremendous amount of work and effort to make a behavior automatic. That’s why most people never achieve it, or just stumble into it when they find work that matches their already existing habits.
For you, once you have identified what the key activities are that will grow your business, develop a plan to make those activities automatic.
Here are three techniques you can use to “automate” your high value behaviors:
For more information on Making Your Key Activities Automatic:
To paraphrase what I said at the start of this post, starting or growing a business can be hard. And yes, building a successful business will take time, energy, and effort. However, if you use the 7 steps above, you will accelerate your success, reduce your stress, and turn your seemingly impossible dream of building your business into a reality.
Want more help? Here are two great additional resources you should check out now!
If you want (or need) some in-depth, customized, one-on-one advice, guidance, and feedback on how to build YOUR specific business (with less time, energy, and stress) then Avish’s Mentoring program is just the thing for you. Over the course of 3 months, Avish will work with you to help you gain clarity, identify your big picture goals and key activities, and help you create a plan and stay on track to achieve your goals.
Click here for more info and to sign-up now!
The program consists of seven one-hour audio interviews (in MP3 form) with seven different experts and covers every aspect of the process of figuring out what you want, creating a plan to get it, implementing that plan effectively, dealing with obstacles, and staying motivated the whole way! This is an awesome program with a ton of immediately applicable info!
Click here for more info and to get your copy now!
P.S. Hey, if you like this post, why don’t you share the love and click the Facebook “Like” button at the top of this page…?
Last week, I received an email letting me know that Susan passed away.
I met Susan years ago through my Speakers Association chapter. While we never become “best buddies,” we certainly got to know each other over the years and became friends.
Most recently, Susan joined the chapter’s “Pro Track” program, which is a year long course deigned to help speakers craft their speeches and improve there presentation skills. I am overseeing the program, and I was excited to see Susan’s excitement and passion for her message come through. She had survived cancer, and it had given her a message that she wanted to share with the world.
Then the cancer came back, and a short time later she was gone.
The news hit me, as all such announcements do, with sadness and regret. It also made me think about my own life.
Upon receiving the email, I thought to myself, “Wow, life is short. I really need to make sure I value every precious moment I have on this planet, and do whatever I can to live my life to the fullest. This is my wake up call.”
The thought stopped me in tracks as I realized that this was not the first time I had this thought.
About a year and a half ago, another friend and Speakers Association member, John, passed away. At the time, I thought to myself, “Wow, life is short. I really need to make sure I value every precious moment I have on this planet, and do whatever I can to live my life to the fullest. This is my wake up call.”
I may have taken some action, but within two weeks I was more or less back to living the same life I always had.
A few months before that Greg Giraldo, my favorite stand-up comedian, passed away. He was only 44, and that hit me hard too. I remember thinking, “Wow, life is short. I really need to make sure I value every precious moment I have on this planet, and do whatever I can to live my life to the fullest. This is my wake up call.”
A few years before that, my best friend’s wife was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She survived, and is doing fine now, but it was a tough time. I remember thinking, “Wow, life is short. I really need to make sure I value every precious moment I have on this planet, and do whatever I can to live my life to the fullest. This is my wake up call.”
Two years before that, my aunt passed away very unexpectedly. I remember thinking, “Wow, life is short. I really need to make sure I value every precious moment I have on this planet, and do whatever I can to live my life to the fullest. This is my wake up call.”
Two years before that, doctors found a blockage in my dad’s arteries. He ended up needing a quadruple bypass. He too is now doing fine, but that was a very tough time. I remember thinking, “Wow, life is short. I really need to make sure I value every precious moment I have on this planet, and do whatever I can to live my life to the fullest. This is my wake up call.”
See a pattern?
Every time, over and over, a significant event happened in my life that made me take stock and resolve to live differently, and yet every time I fell back into my same old patterns, my same old life.
People can and do change, often as a result of experiencing a serious, “life or death” experience. The question is, why do we need to wait for such a horrible experience to take stock and make some changes? Why do so many “close calls” have no lasting impact? Why is it that when the tragedy happens to someone we know but are not super close to that we are able to disassociate ourselves and just go about our merry little lives?
You probably don’t know any of the people I mentioned above, but I’m sure you can come up with a long list of “wake up calls” from your own life that perhaps you have ignored once some time passed.
The goal of this post is to serve as a “wake up call” for you. Think about your list of wake-up calls, think about all the things you resolved to change, and think about how little you actually did change. Pick one now and start. Don’t wait for your next near death experience. Just get started.
Let me ask:
How many wake-up calls do you need?
Believe me, one is more than enough. Get started now.
***
Do you want help doing something great yourself? Then sign up for some Smart Ass Mentoring now!
Do you ever feel stuck, like you’ve hit a plateau on your path to success? Do you want to take your business or personal life to the next level?
If so, then guess what? You ain’t gonna get there doing the same things that got you to where you are now.
If you feel you’ve reached a plateau, the solution may seem to be to work longer and harder, but that rarely works as a long term strategy because there is only so hard and so many hours you can work.
However, even if you have heard it before, have you really thought about what it means? What exactly do you need to do differently?
I was recently going through Dan Sullivan’s excellent How the Best Get Better program which I have written about before (point #5 in this article).
He mentioned this same idea, but rather than leaving it as a generic bit of advice, he lists three specific areas you need to change to push past your current plateau and move to the next level:
Even though I had heard about idea of “doing something different to get different results,” I hadn’t really rocked it out until I heard Sullivan’s program. I implemented his ideas, and immediately started seeing a difference.
Take a look at the three areas below and see what you can start doing differently now to get different results for yourself.
This is where it all starts. If you want to do better work for more money, you need new relationships. Your current relationships have given you your current level of success.
Similarly, if you are unhappy or unfulfilled in your personal life, then you may need to seek out and build relationships that will let you rejuvenate and grow.
I am not saying you need to run out and start kicking people out of your life who you like and who have supported you. Keep those relationships (as long as they are two-directional, mutually beneficial relationships), just open your mind to the possibility of building new ones.
Ask yourself two things:
I don’t want this to some across as manipulative, like I’m saying you target key people who you will use to get what you want. I still believe networking is about finding and connecting with people whom you genuinely like and enjoy spending time with.
However, as you think about your future, consider building relationships with people who you not only enjoy spending time with, but who might be in a position to help you, your business, and your career grow.
Question: What new relationships do you need to form to take your business, career, or life to the next level? What can you do to start forming those relationships now?
“Support Structures” are those things in your life that help you do what you do. They can encompass your staff, skill-set, environment, technology, etc. Put simply, “support structures” encompass how you set up your business and life.
For example, I am a one man show; I have 0 employees. That’s one structure in my business. I am now getting to a point where I realize that if I want to take my business to the next level, I need a new structure. It was a big change for me, but I hired my first Virtual Assistant, and it has been great. She’s doing a lot of the detail work that I am not good at and don’t enjoy doing so I can focus on what I love and am awesome at.
Another structure from my own life is how I work. I now spend at least one day a week focusing only on my two highest value activities (creating content and connecting with people). That may not sound like much, but it’s so easy to get caught up in all the other “stuff” that weeks go by without me writing anything new or with connecting with business contacts. Those are the two things that are going to take my business to the next level, so I need to structure my life to focus on them, even if that means that some of the other more urgent stuff gets put off.
In your personal life, you have support structures in many areas. If you want to have more free time, maybe you need a new structure for your household chores. If you want to be healthier, you may need a new structure around how and where you work out.
Support Structures may be the hardest to grasp of these three items, but once you start digging around you will find things that you can and must change to take you life and business to the next level.
Question: What new support structures do you need to break through your plateau? What are you limited by, right now?
Finally, in order to take your business and life to the next level, you will need some new habits.
To get to where you are now, you have probably adopted a series of habits. You get up at a certain time, have a routine you go through each day and week, you have a specific way and style of working.
These habits have worked for you, in that they got you to where you are. At the same time, they are holding you back. That’s the one thing about routines – by doing the same thing over and over, you tend to get the same results over and over again. To grow, you need to break some of those old habits and adopt some new ones.
There are no set habits you must adopt. For me, I have adopted the relatively new habits of waking up earlier, closing my browser while writing (what a difference!), and working in 90 minute uninterrupted blocks. Nothing earth-shattering there, but different enough to increase my productivity and get more important things done.
Question: What new habits do you need? What old ones do you need to break?
I encourage you to take a look at where you are and where you want to be. If those two places are different, and if you feel stuck, then take a look at your relationships, support structures, and habits. Figure out what you need to change, and start changing it.
For more info on Dan Sullivan’s program, check out the How the Best Get Better offering on Amazon.
***
Learn the 16 simple but powerful principles that will lead to personal and professional success! In this 200 page book, Avish explains how the ideas from improv comedy can make your life easier and more successful. Check it out Improvise to Success! now!
I was interviewed yesterday on “It’s All About You,” a great BlogTalkRadio show run by Darien Marshall and Darius Jones.
We spent 45 minutes talking about “Yes, And” and improv comedy and how they can be used to help people improve their lives, relationships, and careers. It was a fun, energetic interview, and there is a TON of great content on there.
You can listen to the interview, download it to your computer, and check out more of Darien and Darius’s interviews here:
ItXs All About You – “Say ‘YES, And!'”: Avish Parashar on Blog Talk Radio
Craig Price recently interviewed me for his Reality Check Podcast. We talked about “Yes, And!” optimism, brainstorming, and how to apply the ideas from “Say ‘Yes, And!’” to the workplace.
Head over to his site and listen/download the interview for yourself!
Reality Check – Episode 31 – Avish Parashar – Say – And
***
Note: Want to learn more about saying, “Yes, And!”? Then buy a copy of Avish’s new book, Say “Yes, And!” today, February 28th, and get over $200 worth of free bonuses!
Today is the day! My new book, “Say ‘Yes, And!'”, is out and available for purchase NOW!
Buy it today (and today ONLY) and you’ll get over $200 worth of bonuses.
Here’s the link to get your copy and bonuses:
Thanks!
Avish
By now you are probably aware that my new book, “Say ‘Yes, And!'” launches tomorrow, Tuesday, February 28th. And, if you buy it tomorrow (and tomorrow only) you’ll get access to over $200 in great bonuses.
Rather than go on about the book, I have included a short excerpt below. The excerpt explains why the concept of saying, “Yes, And!” is so important. It also starts with a short personal story as to why I feel so passionately about the idea.
Tomorrow you’ll get an email reminder letting you know the book and bonuses are ready to go. I hope you’ll consider buying a copy for three reasons:
Here’s the excerpt:
The idea of saying, “Yes, And” instead of “yes, but,” is very near and dear to my heart, because as I look back on my life I can say, without exaggeration, that everything I have right now came from saying, “Yes, And.” And I almost missed out by being attached to saying “yes, but”…
My entire life now revolves around improv comedy. I have performed it for over twenty years. I ran my own group for seven years. I have a speaking and training business that uses improv comedy ideas to enable organizations to be more creative and communicate more effectively.
Would it surprise you to know that I got dragged into improv comedy kicking and screaming?
It’s true. I “yes, butted” the heck out of improv comedy before I finally tried it. (What can I say? I can be a little dense).
Growing up, I had acted in all of my high school’s theater productions. When I went off to college I decided not to get involved in theater because I knew what a time drain it was, and I wanted to “focus on my studies.” (my parents would be so proud. They probably are now saying, “What the heck happened??”) So, at college, I did not audition for or get involved in any performing arts groups.
After hanging out with my new college friends, one of them – his name is Matt, and he will never let me forget this story – suggested I try out for the university’s improv troupe.
“Improv?” I said. “I don’t do improv. I’ve always done scripted work. I don’t think my humor would translate to improv.”
Yes, that was me saying, “yes, but I don’t think I’d be any good at it.” Crazy.
What’s truly ridiculous about my “yes, but” is that I had never even seen the improv group perform! I didn’t really know what improv comedy was, but I knew it wasn’t right for me. Like I said, I can be dense.
Matt, however, was an annoyingly persistent guy (thank goodness for that). He kept suggesting it to me, and every time he did, I would brush him off with a “no,” or a resounding, “yes, but.”
Finally, in a stroke of either sheer absurdity or sheer brilliance, he maneuvered me into going to see a show. It was almost like a romantic comedy; his friend was coming into town for a weekend, but Matt was busy Saturday night. Matt asked if I could hang with his friend so he wouldn’t be bored. Being a good guy, I said, “sure,” after which Matt slyly mentioned that the improv group happened to be having a show that night and we should go see it. Sneaky bastard…
We went to see the improv show, and within just a few minutes, I was hooked! I loved it, and really wanted to give it a try. When they held auditions a month later I tried out, got in, and improv has been a part of my life ever since.
To say that my life would be different if I had not finally said, “Yes, And” to auditioning for that improv group would be a gross understatement. I cannot imagine what my life would be like. In truth, I don’t even want to imagine what my life would be like.
All because I finally stopped saying “yes, but” and said, “Yes, And.”
I am not trying to brag when I say that everything I have came from saying, “Yes, And.” If you think about it, everything you have is a result of saying, “Yes, And” too.
Try this exercise: Take a piece of paper and draw a line vertically down the middle of it. On the left side, write down everything you have accomplished, everything you are good at, and everything you are proud of. On the right side, right down everything you wish you had done, everything you would like to be better at, and everything you consider a “failure.”
Got your lists done? Good.
If you look at the left side of the page, you’ll see that everything there came about because you said, “Yes, And.” The right side of the page, the side of limitations, came about (or didn’t come about) because you said, “yes, but.”
You’ve already learned this lesson. Now it’s time to apply it.
***
Thanks!
Avish
P.S. Remember – the book goes live tomorrow, February 28th! Buy a copy on that day and get over $200 of bonuses! www.SayYesAnd.com
