Attainable

Motivation gets you going but discipline gets you growing. Now think about this. This is true for all three lids. Let's take your belief lid. If you have a very clear picture of what you'd like to attain. And you are elevating everyone's thinking around your belief-- so you're talking about it all the time-- to get them focused on what it is that you need to do in order to attain your goals. And yet you're always changing what those goals are. You're always questioning, can we really do it? Is it really possible? Will it really happen? I don't believe it. When struggle and anxiety comes in, and you start changing your picture. And you become inconsistent about what you want to attain, then others stop believing you're serious or committed to the attainment of that goal. So being very consistent in what your picture is is critically important to the success of attaining it. The same is true for leadership. If you're inconsistent in how you engage your team-- one day you're all about inspiring them and the

Most experts believe that the typical use of most people is 10% of their true potential, and the most common reason people don't overcome the odds is that they don't challenge themselves. They don't stretch themselves enough. And if most people today are only using 10% of their true potential, because they're not stretching enough, it's your job to be that example. Stretch their belief about what can be done. Stretch their ability to attain the highest level of impact through operational effectiveness. Stretch yourself and your ability to inspire and motivate yourself to learn to do things that you never thought you could do before, learning new things and generating new results. Then take that to teach others through example to do the exact same thing. And when you elevate your belief lid, and you elevate your operational effectiveness lid, and you elevate your leadership lid, you expand capacity, which adds more capacity. And that's how you create the largest most significant impact-- by growing a

See, if you can't use your natural influence skill-set to show people that you're willing to challenge yourself, that you're willing to test yourself, that you're willing to believe higher, and reach further through operational effectiveness to attain a better result tomorrow, then how can they honestly respect you when you ask them to do the same? You can't just go to somebody and say, I want you to make those number of phone calls. Or I want you to do these things. Or I want you to see these patients. Or I want you to talk this way. You have to show them that by doing these incremental changes, you can get a better result than you were getting before, through being a living example to them in all you do. The more of an example you are, the more people will respect you as a person. They can admire you. They can like you. They can love you. But here's the truth. Only when they respect you as a leader, they'll follow you. People aren't going to follow you just because you have owner behind the name o

In today's Attainable, Brandon Dawson reflects on sacrifice and its role in helping to free you up to do other things while empowering others to reach their full potential.

Let's talk for a second about mindsets, because I talk to hundreds of business owners every day, and they vary from being a practice owner to an entrepreneur with a billion dollar business. If you ever want to understand any human being, at any level-- and this is business, personal, doesn't matter-- when you start a dialogue with them, listen to the kind of questions they ask. Because that will give you full transparency into where their mind is. And what I mean by that is when I run across anybody and I say, hey, how's your business doing? And they go, I'm struggling, because my competitors doing this, or I'm not getting what I want out of that, or this person is over here doing this, or I got a question about what's happening over there. And they never want to talk about themselves, they're projecting. Those people are projecting away from themselves, because they're struggling inside. When you're sitting across from somebody and they're looking you in the eye and you say, how's it going? An

In today's episode we talk about Reach, a new show on the Attainable Podcast Network. For more information on Reach, visit http://attainable.fm/reach.

You have to have humility and gratitude if you want to be an innovator in somebody else's business or if you want to be a remarkable entrepreneur that can create large impact. You have to have humility and gratitude, because if you don't have those two things you can't find people who are going to give you everything they have, because no one wants to work for somebody who's an egomaniac. So my first kind of self reflection was because of my first business I just hired lots of people and I just put my foot on the accelerator and you were either hanging on for the ride or it was OK if you blew away. I'd find somebody else. And I never really thought about who I was doing it with, although I had great relationships with people I worked with. You know quite honestly I was indifferent. I was more pushing to the result. And so when the business sold I realized I didn't have a lot of personal relationships in that business with 400 or 500 employees. And so I made the decision that if I'm going to go spend 3, 4

For a lot of people when they start their business, they don't see themselves as an entrepreneur or as an innovator, and I think this is another important factor. They see themselves, in a lot of cases, as the technician or the practitioner. And that's what eMyth talks about 70% of all businesses have been started by a technician who, if they are successful at being a technician, they become an entrepreneur. And so they don't go into it with an entrepreneurial mindset. Let me talk about the difference between an entrepreneur mindset and a practice owner or an innovator mindset. An innovator mindset says, I'm going to build something that's unique or that's different. And I'm going to go out and create a marketplace for it, and it's going to become greatly successful. That's how an innovator we think about their business. A practice owner says, or a technician-owned practice says, I'm going to go out and I'm going to be good at what I do. And I'm going to be so good at it, everyone's going to want to

If you want to create a mission, if you have a mission and if that is to build a significant audiological practice, a significant dental practice, a computer technology company, create a new invention or a new widget, if that's what your intention is, if that's what your desire is, that's what your mission is, you have to ask yourself, how do I-- what's the fastest and most successful way to get there? And if it is you doing it all by yourself, then you're not going to be very successful. If it's to align yourself with a group of people who are just as emotional, just as passionate, just as thrilled, just as excited about doing that, you get the whole input and the whole effort and energy of all those other people that are pursuing that same mission. Not all people are actually as interested in that particular mission. There is a subset of a lot of people that have their own internal personal mission. And if you can't show them how they can attain mission for themselves by attaching to your greater

People get confused about what their brand is. And a lot of times they think their brand is what their logo looks like or what their colors are. What your brand really is, is the total sum of all experiences that somebody gets when they work with you or they engage you or they encounter you. Your brand is everything you do and everyone doing it, and you're either every day intentionally adding value and building your brand in all you do, with everyone doing it at a high level of intentionality and a full level of alignment with team members doing it. Or you're degrading and undermining your brand. And for somebody to say they're great and they're not intentionally focused on greatness, you cannot make that promise, and the result of that will be a broken business. 

In today's episode, Dr. Paul Homoly makes the case that just being an expert doesn't make you interesting. You need to connect with people in a meaningful, deliberate way to convey your expertise.

We need to remind ourselves that belief is the master, and we have become the slaves to our belief. And our belief dictates the actions we take in all we do. But the good news is we can change our beliefs. And the exciting thing about believe is this-- if we change our belief, which is the cause, we also can change our experience, which is the effect or the result. We always have a choice about what we want to believe in and how we want our life to look. We are never permanently stuck with old, unworkable, broken beliefs.

Great vision precedes great achievement. Every team needs a compelling vision to give it direction. A team without vision is, at worst, purposeless. At best, it's subject to the personal, and sometimes selfish, agendas of various team members. As the agendas work against each other within your environment, the team's energy and drive drain away. On the other hand, a team that embraces vision becomes focused, energized, confident, intentful, and it knows where it's headed and why it's going there. Remember, vision gives team members direction and confidence. What is your vision? What are you doing to build the confidence of your team?

Great leaders always find a way for the team to win. Victorious leaders possess an unwillingness to accept defeat. The alternative to winning is totally unacceptable to them. Leaders who practice the law of victory have no plan B. Trust me. They'll just continue to fight until they win. What and who are you competing against? Anybody? For any purpose? What do you want to be victorious about? If you don't have that in you, then find it. If you want to do things bigger and better and greater, find the way that you can impact people. Make their success your point of focus.

Remember: The highest goal of leadership is not to gain followers or do work but to develop other future leaders. It takes all your energy, from what you do to who you do it with, showing they’re the most important factor in attaining your goals. Because they’re going to either amplify and magnify all your success — your total sum of your purpose — or they’re going to undermine it. So you have no choice but to develop your people to the highest, most impactful contribution possible. And that has to be your commitment, not your job. Your joy and passion has to turn from the “what you do” to “who you do it with.”

You cannot lead people without really liking them. Intrinsic connection is a key to great relationships. So think about this: If you don’t like being around somebody, if you don’t like spending time with them, if you don’t like connecting with them, if you’re not really fond of being in the general presence of that person and you can’t connect that way, how do you create permission leadership? “Permission leadership occurs through empowerment.” It’s through developing people to their highest impact so that you can trust them to go and do it on their own. It says, “I am empowering you to make good decisions and to do the right things, because I trust that you understand you can represent the organization at the highest level possible. Therefore, I’m not going to constrain your ability to do that; I’m going to amplify it by assisting you and helping you so that we can impact the organization at the highest possible potential.” How do y

Only secure leaders give power to others. Leading well is not about enriching yourself. It’s about enriching and empowering others. The number-one enemy of empowerment is the fear of losing what we have. It’s the rate-limiting factor to your overall success. Many business owners will say to me, “But I have empowered my team.” “There’s a big difference between empowering your team and abdicating to your team.” See, people get confused all the time about the difference between empowerment and abdication. Empowerment is not just saying to somebody, “Go figure it out. I trust you.” Empowerment says, “This is the impact I need and want you to make on the business. And I’m intelligent enough and focused enough and intentional enough that if you create this impact on the business, I will ensure that we create this impact on your personal, professional, and financial aspirations.” That’s where our intentionality grows together. That’s

Look in the mirror and ask yourself this simple question: When I look inside my own organization, what would the people who work there — the people who help me — say was my legacy relative to them, not to the community we serve? The people I’ve brought into our culture to assist in creating that impact. “What would they say is your legacy with them?” Because if you can’t say your legacy is that you made a huge impact on their lives — that you’ve taught them something, that you’ve pushed on them, that you’ve developed them, that you’ve trained them, that you’ve aligned them, that they’re accomplishing their goals and objectives and dreams by working with you — if they can’t say that, then you have a business that’s a “me” business. If you want to amplify and magnify that — you want to attain true greatness — first start with what legacy you’re going to have with the

Winning teams have players who make things happen. Catalysts are not consultants. They don’t recommend a course of action; they take responsibility for making it happen. So think about this: Who’s the catalyst in your business? Who’s the person who just gets it done? And then has time and energy and effort to do more? Because that’s the type of people you want to surround yourself with. “Bring in the right people in alignment with your organization and they will get things done.” They inspire and move the rest of the people around them because they realize, “Gee! If I actually do that and I get a better result, I do it the right way. Look at the good things that can happen from it.” What you need in your life are as many catalysts as possible. The only way you can attract a catalyst is to be one yourself.

Teammates must be able to count on each other all the time, and especially when it matters the most. There’s an old saying when it comes to teammates: Either we’re pulling together or we’re pulling apart. Write and publish what you want, but the only missions, values, and ethics that count in your company are those that manifest themselves in all the behaviors of all the people contributing to the organization all the time. “All people in the organization need to be able to depend on each other.” You can’t have different people doing different things based on their own bias or opinions. Either we’re all straining and reaching and driving to attain excellence or remarkability in all we do, with accountability, with discipline, and with intentionality — or we’re not.