Last updated: January 18, 2023
Here are my notes from a Strategic Coach Workshop that I attended on Thursday, August 17, 2017 in the Toronto office with Michael Reddy.
Instructor: Michael Reddy
Tough crowd…taking a moment to warm up. He seems great…just wondering if he needed an icebreaker.
9:05 a.m.
Asking how was the quarter? Who took free days?
Today we will cover:
- The Gap
- Kolbe
- The Unique Ability
Insights
- Your brain at positive is 31% more productive than at negative or neutral.
- Build up your focus muscle. First 4 hours, then 5 hours, eventually a whole day.
Next…we did the positive focus exercise, or a positive power-up. I celebrated physical fitness, new hires, a large trip to Asia and sales growth.
Things I’m excited about
China, Bangkok, Bali trips
- Kolbe book
- Today at coach
- Writing? Posting more?
- Ultralight packing…but need to shed some weight
- New hires at Museum Hack
- Existing team growing in responsibility
- Reading books
The Amazon Arbitrage guy
Someone in the workshop is an Amazon seller. He does a lot of Nike shoes. Looks to sell a $20 purchase for $45.
Learning to Avoid the Gap
How your brain works
Definitions:
- The Gap: This is the permanent difference between the Actual and the Ideal.
- The Actuals: These represent our actual achievements in life-internal or external
- The Ideal: This is the mental construct. It does not exist outside of our minds, nor is it achievable. The ideal has a number of powerful purposes. It enables us to establish goals, motivate ourselves and withstand difficulties and hardships.
- Goals: Our goals are specific, measurable results inspired by the ideal.
What things can trigger us to go into the Gap?
- Comparing ourselves to others
- Remore/Regret
- Losing a client
- Being around negative people
Everyone goes into the Gap. What matters is how long you stay there.
What things pull you out of the Gap?
- Making a plan
- Gratitude
- Positive Focus
Museum Hack 2013
I took this time to consider “The Gap” within my own business. I thought about Museum Hack in 2013, and then compared it to the Museum Hack of today. In 2013 at this time, we had no full-time employees. (Today we have a dozen, and 40 more employees who regularly work for us.)
I listed out things like that which showed and reminded me of all of our growth. Seeing these things was helpful to know that despite us not reaching our “idealized” growth goals for the past quarter, we’re still doing a really good job over the long-haul.
Video: Flow Simple Wealth
- Peak state + happiness
- Vision for the future
- Richard Branson: Each morning, make lists. Helps you set vision if lists are Big and Bold.
- John D. Rockefeller Poem: “Full of work, full of play, I dropped the worry along the way.”
- My mindset as CEO is what is going to take us to the next level, part of the reason I like coach classes.
- Stories of entrepreneurs letting go top performers: Sales ops, because they were negative.
- It’s one thing to let someone go and the business…
TedXBloomington-Shawn Anchor
- Escaping the cult of the average
- The lens you view the world shares your world view
- 90% of your happiness is based on how you think
- Optimism levels, social support impacts this number
- Constantly changing goal posts for success
- Your brain at positive is 31% more productive than your brain at negative or neutral
How to be more happy?
These things are proven to work:
- 3 gratitudes
- Journaling
- Exercise
- Meditation
- Random acts of kindness: praising or thanking someone in work or social networks
Time System Refresher
I thought about:
- During this break, how should I structure my weeks?
- Should I have Focus/Free/Buffer days?
- Limit social media?
A helpful concept that I heard:
- Build up your focus muscle-first 4 hours, then 5 hours, eventually get to whole day
- Goals-not just revenue, look at days worked
Unique Ability
- It is the essence of what you love to do in all areas of your life-not just business.
- It can be applied to many different situations, activities, and opportunities.
- It’s “factory-installed.” You’ve been doing it since you were a child.
- It may not seem that exciting to you because it is so natural.
- And I got distracted here and did not write the last two down….
The person sitting next to me said that this activity was “eye-opening” and very helpful.
Activity Inventory
List the types of things you do while working in your business. Be as specific and comprehensive as possible.
We all made the list, mine had 22 items, others had even more. Mine included items such as: Read resumes, Telephone interviews for job candidates, Press interviews, Traveling for work, CEO workshops at Strategic Coach, Managers Meetings, Opening the mail and assorted legal paperwork, etc.
Unique Ability Activity Snapshot
Next, we categorized each of these items from our inventory into four groups: Unique Ability Activities, Excellent Activities, Competent Activities, and Incompetent Activities. Then we did some more stuff that was eye-opening again :-) Finally, we created a Unique Ability Action Plan to take action on.
Some things that I put on my Unique Ability Action Plan were:
- Assign bank access codes to a key trusted resource on the team
- Bring more intentionality and planning to my Focus Days
- Document some thoughts on our Hiring Process to share with colleagues in order to remove me as a bottleneck for a certain position that we regularly hire for
The Pocket Coach
Quarter goals and Year goals. I never really get anything from the Pocket Coach.
End of day recap, biggest insight.
What action will you take that will make the biggest difference and most impact this quarter?
Insights
- “I’m an overpaid mail opener” (Got a lot of LOLs!)
- Focusing on my unique ability will force me to delegate more.
- How much work I do that I really hate.
- The Gap
- Kolbe
- 3 things that I accomplished yesterday
- Getting employees to deal with failures quicker, know what the lesson was
- Seeing what activities show up on my unique abilities
Actions
- Hiring someone to help with ISO certification.
- Work on my Focus and Free days