Many think that for us to reach success, we should keep on working and working. However, it helps to remember that we also need to replenish ourselves with the drive and energy to continue. We need time to relax, plan, and not be overthinking of work. Picking up from the last episode, host, Ken Courtright, discusses the three things we need to block time for, in order to help us grow and achieve our goals to success.
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Absolute Growth Pt. 2
This is episode 89. It’s called Absolute Growth Part 2. In episode 88, I talked about a couple of different aspects of how you get back from a long break. How do you get back into your routine? How do you not break your routine? I talked about golden nuggets from Stephen Covey, Gary Keller and Brian Tracy. More specifically, I put it into words of exactly what do I do when I leave five times a year to go to CEO Space and join the faculty over there. That is a huge break in my routine. What are some things that I do that allow me to keep working while I’m away even though I’m not working there in the regular routine sense?
Fundamental Killers Of Growth
More importantly, how are my days and weeks structured when I’m not traveling that ensures momentum and guarantees growth? Episode 88 was awesome. I talked about the continual stacking of tiny to-do lists. The 1 through 5 that I adjusted from the book, The ONE Thing by Gary Keller. Episode 88 laid the foundation for what I’m going to call Absolute Growth Part 2. This part is more of the psychological aspects and a couple of tangible physical things that I do that truly anchor continual growth. In episode 88, we got an email from Eric Schurenberg, the President of Inc. Magazine, congratulating us stating verbatim we’re in rare air hitting the Inc. 5000 list for the third time.
They listed a bunch of companies that we’re in the club with. It’s rare to consistently grow and double revenues year in, year out. We’ve had the honor of hitting the fastest companies in America list for the third time. How do we do that? The first thing that we do is we understand some of the fundamental killers of growth. This isn’t just for me, this is also for our C-Suites. Our Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Operating Officer use this. Our CIO and CTO do not use this, but our CFO does. We no longer, for the majority of us, use long to-do lists. Back in the day, in the ‘90s all of us had a long to-do list. We would check things off as we could, but it’s been proven that if you wake up staring at a list of twenty plus things to do, your subconscious is going to shut you down. It’s overwhelming. You’re done.
You wake up and you only stare at a predetermined small list of things to do. Your body allows you to win via the stuff I covered at the beginning of the last episode. The other thing too that kills growth is breaks in your routine. This doesn’t have to be as egregious as me going to CEO Space five times a year for eight days at a time. That’s a complete breakdown of my routine. Breaks in routine means you might have set a goal on Thursday. It’s only the following Wednesday and you’ve already broken your goal. The question is, “Why is that happening? What can we do to ensure it doesn’t?” I’m going to go through a few things. The first thing that Brian Tracy, Stephen Covey, Gary Keller, Tony Robbins, and a lot of the major business growth/self-help gurus talk about is you must block time for relaxing.
One thing that kills growth is breaks in your routine. Click To TweetTony Robbins was the first one to start talking about this thing called ATP. It is the energy used inside your brain. When you’re out of ATP, and you know when you are, you’re done. You don’t refuel ATP with food or energy drinks. There’s a lot of misnomers out there. You refuel ATP by sleeping, meditating, zoning out, daydreaming and quite frankly, just turning your brain off, maybe watching three movies in a row. I know Kerri can tell the world that sometimes, I’ll get out of my dungeon. I have a basement office or I’m sitting in Minooka, Illinois, staring at a beautiful lake. Sometimes, I’m cranking from 5:30 in the morning to whenever, and I’ll run upstairs. I’ll say, “That’s it. I’m done. I’m out of ATP.” Kerri knows instantly.
That means Ken’s going to either go on the deck, put his feet in the water and stare at the fish or he’s going to go upstairs and watch three movies in a row because you might as well not even bother to have a conversation with me. I’m done. I vividly remember, we had a new pastor come into the church and he’s a young guy. His name is Pastor Kurt and on the first sermon, the first thing he says, “How many business owners are out there?” A lot of people raised their hands. “How many people are in management?” A lot of people raised their hands and he qualifies people in a leadership position, which every mom and dad qualifies for. He got everybody to raise their hands. He goes, “Do you want to hear something interesting? Did you know that on the weekends, you do not rest from your work?” Everybody gave what I call the who-farted look. “What do you mean?” He says, “No, it doesn’t work that way. What happens is you end up working from your rest.” He went on to prove scripturally and prove in regular traditional workbooks that insight, ideas and dreams come to you when you’re resting.
The whole book, Think and Grow Rich, is about thinking first in a period of rest so that while you’re thinking and you have a pen tied to your hand as the world, God or whoever you believe in is dropping insight into you, you write them down and you go to work. The first thing that I’m fantastic at is when I’m on airplanes and there is no distraction, there is no Skype, no email, and no text. That is 100% pure blocked out time for relaxing. I got my Bose Wave headphones, which throw the music at you and internally block out all the sound. I put on some sappy Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand or some soothing music. Sometimes, light jazz. I’m not even thinking, I’m just letting God talk to me and I’m writing down. I’ll get off a plane with 25 pages of notes. I block time for relaxing, but then what I do, which is maybe odd to some, I act on what I write down. I move. There’s a reason that I’m writing that stuff down.
Dr. John Maxwell, fourteen international bestsellers, for a period of time in the 2000s, he occupied more shelf space in Barnes & Noble than any author in history in any genre. I’ve met Dr. John Maxwell a couple of times and he shares from the stage and in-person that almost every book he’s written came because he was jolted out of bed at 1:00, 4:00 and 6:00 in the morning. He keeps a notepad next to his bed and he jots down what he believes he is supposed to write down and put into a book. He was a pastor for 25 years, so that might tell you something. To think of 10,000 books a week are launched, this man occupies more shelf space of the last standing bookstore in the world more than anybody in history. He’s telling the world that his work, which is his writing, comes from his rest.
Three Things To Block Time For
Number one, you’ve got to block time for relaxing. It doesn’t mean you go on permanent vacation and ignore your business, but you specifically block time for relaxing. Number two, I recommend strongly that you do what I do and you block time for what I call one thing whale hunting. Whale hunting is, let’s say that you’re a sales rep and your typical routine says Monday through Friday you knock on doors of small businesses. I’m going to say you change that to Monday through Thursday, and on Friday, you knock on doors of big businesses. It is easier to sell a big business than a small business. It’s easier to sell a $100,000 item than a $1,000 item.
The smaller the item, the bigger the overall decision to the person. When you’re selling a $1,000 item, a lot of times they hem and haw and they can’t afford it. They don’t even have $1,000 and they’re barely paying their rent. It’s a huge decision compared to their overall net worth. When you’re selling $100,000 item, the people that can afford $100,000 item are typically fiscally responsible and they don’t buy $100,000 items if they only have $100,000 in their bank account. They usually have more money in their personal or corporate bank account, and it’s a smaller overall decision. What we implemented in 1994 is one day a week, our salespeople are whale hunting.
We do not rest from our work, we work from our rest. Click To TweetWhat does this mean for one thing whale hunting? If you set a goal and you read episode 88, maybe you said to yourself, “My one thing is I’m going to add a sales rep a month. If I stick it and I had a sales rep a month, commission only within twelve months, and I’ve got twelve commission-only sales reps, that would put our company on the map.” That one thing, if done consistently and superbly well would get me everything I’ve always wanted and take away all of my pain. You came up with that one thing, per episode 88, in a moment of sanity, not during work hours, so you know it’ll work. Maybe you said, “One time a week or one time a month, I’m going to try a new advertising medium.” It’s the same thing. It’s research and development. You’re going to keep trying big stuff.
Maybe you said, “How about this one?” Maybe you know your company needs a CFO. Maybe your company needs a COO or a Chief Marketing Officer, but you don’t have $100,000 to $300,000 to hire that person. Why not find one on contract? Why not get one to work for you four hours a week only and start shaping your company? You don’t have to pay him all that money. Start them on contract and then you can bridge them in slowly. As they help you grow your company, they will create growth enough to afford to pay them full time. That would be whale hunting. Everybody on this podcast knows there is one thing. If they did it consistently and superbly well, it’ll get them everything they’ve always wanted and take away all their pain. If you think about it, block out time, you relax and ask yourself, “What one thing, if I did it consistently and superbly well, would get me everything I’ve always wanted and take away my pain.” Everybody reading this knows they have one thing.
Let me drop a bomb on you that few people do. Number three, block time to plan post success. What does that mean? Our company TGC and Income Store launch a product and hold a conference twice a year, you guys know that, DigitalFootprint.net. Every time we come out with something new, add a new employee and a new division, which is all the time, we assume and presuppose it’s going to succeed. We begin immediately planning, “If this succeeds, then what?” We don’t wait for it to succeed and then go, “It’s working. Now, what do we do?” No way. We launched our largest product of all time, $200,000 to start it in 72 hours. We moved ten of these items with nine different people. One gentleman took two because it had a guaranteed rate of return. It was incredibly fast growth, immediate traffic, revenue, and leads. It was amazing and it delivered incredible financial returns.
We’re not even 90 days in and we have already developed a smaller version of that product called a Facebook hybrid. What’s the point here? We’re going to implement the Facebook hybrid and I’m already presupposing it’s going to work. I’m now thinking, “What’s next? What another section of the world, our audience, our site partners, and our clients do? Neither the big Facebook thing, which has a high upstart upfront cost or the lower Facebook hybrid, which has almost no starting point that could be done at almost any level.” It still has a guaranteed return, but there’s still a gap that is super clear to our team that involves certain things we’re not offering, certain lead gen and revenue-generating types of things called ad stacks. We missed that.
If we didn’t presuppose, “What’s next?” We wouldn’t have had a meeting and had somebody said, “How come there are no ad stacks in here?” I’m sitting there thinking, “Because I didn’t have this meeting with you so I didn’t presuppose success.” Number one, block time for relaxing. We do not rest from our work. We work from our rest. Number two, block time for the one thing whale hunting. If you’re knocking on doors of small business owners and that’s your one thing, one day a week you’re going to go whale hunting and knock on big doors. Number two, block time to plan post success. When you make your plan, for one thing, gets me where I want to go, you made the plan.
What happens when it works and when you get one thing done and you have exactly the success you planned? What does your company need next? Do you need another salesperson? Do you need somebody to take over management? Do you need somebody to take over production? Presuppose the success, shape that new successful business on paper and what are the gaping holes. If you’re not sure, you might want to read a book called E-Myth. It’ll probably show the gaping holes you have now. As you grow, it’ll show you the map of your bigger business and it’ll shape it out. Another great nugget is to jump into iTunes and give me a review.
Stop focusing on the little mountain right in front of you. Focus on the bigger mountain pass that. Click To TweetIt’s got to be done on a regular computer, then email me and say, “Ken, you told me on a podcast that if I give you a review, you would give me a $1 entry ticket to DigitalFootprint.net.” I will do that to anybody reading this. I made that offer at CEO Space. Here’s why that’s important. We are going to be having a panel of experts, worldwide business leaders, and huge mega-companies. There’s a billionaire coming. There’s a gentleman, 31 years old and owns 27 large companies coming. These people are going to be on our panel and there’s going to be two different versions of a game called, What Would You Do. We’re going to allow anybody from the audience to walk up to the microphones and say, “Here’s my name and here’s my business. Here’s my current business challenge. If this was your challenge, what would you do?”
The panel gets to raise their hand if they think they’ve got this one. It could be a Jeff Hoffman, co-founder, billionaire, and founder of Priceline, answering your question. It could be a Dan Fleischman, the guy that invented the hoverboard, Victory Poker and the Who’s Your Daddy t-shirts from back in the day. It could be Greg Reid, author of 45 business growth books. It could be David Corbin, a famous author from the book Illuminate and How to Shine a Light on What’s Not Working For Hypergrowth. He’s a man that’s helped many companies go from $0 to $10 million as a mentor and as a coach. There’s going to be many incredible people. Ed Bogle wrote a one-page business plan for $1 billion company and he’s now steering a company making $24 million a year with five employees and nineteen JV partnership. You may want to attend that event for $1 and all I need is an iTunes review. Shoot me an email and say, “Ken, I give you an honest review? Your podcast sucks.” I’ll still send you a coupon code to change the price to $1 so you can attend that event. I’ll pay for all your food. You just got to get there and get a hotel.
In the late ‘80s, Walter Payton was a running back for the Chicago Bears and I want to end with this because it perfectly nails number three, block time to study post success. Walter Payton was asked right after he broke the all-time record for rushing the football for the Chicago Bears. Someone asked, “If you had to nail down, what one thing you think is most responsible for your success?” He goes, “I can’t say one because there are two. I’ve worked harder and pushed my body farther than any other running back. I was only injured one time and I still played in that game, but psychologically, when I’m running the football, I’m looking past the linebacker and I’m already looking at the defensive back.” What he’s saying if you’ve never played football, as you’re running the ball and there’s a linebacker right about to tackle him, you physically could see him. Walter presupposes that he’s going to juke that guy or run through that guy, and he’s presupposing the success of beating that person in front of him. He’s already mentally moving on to the defensive back.
He’s thinking two steps ahead. He is doing the concept of blocking time to plan post success. That’s my rule number three. He’s got a football in his hand. There’s a 250-pound animal staring at him, ready to tackle him and knock his head off. He presupposes that he’s going to work his way around that guy. He’s already looking at and focusing on the defensive back. He doesn’t even look at the linebacker. How apropos is that in business? Most people are staring at their current obstacle, not realizing that hard work, the man upstairs, the power of the spoken word, and everything you know about business and life. The world does come to your aid and help you if you are diligent, laser-focused, have written and stated goals. I want you to start looking past your current obstacle.
If you can’t meet your bills in the next three weeks, look past that. What’s next? You’re going to get through that. Stop focusing on the little mountain right in front of you. Focus on the bigger mountain pass that. Presuppose you’re going to juke past your bills and jump right over that pile. When you take the stress out of yourself, you’re going to find magically you’re closing deals and adding employees left and right. These people you’re calling via free ads on the radio for a trial, do it. The world can sense when you’re focused on these immediate challenges and the world can sense when they know that you know that attitude is not circumstantial. Go through life, be Walter Payton, look past that big linebacker about to knock your block off, assume success, and move on to the next target. You’re going to find and you’re going to have more success. I hope this helps. Take care.
Important Links:
- Episode 88 – previous episode
- CEO Space
- The ONE Thing
- Think and Grow Rich
- DigitalFootprint.net
- E-Myth
- Illuminate
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