Counting Your Chickens Before they Hatch

This podcast episode is a follow up of "We All Need a Coach". I shared in a recent Freedom report how Josh revealed two blind spots to me. One was that I took my hand off building my pipeline and it dried up. I was living off past work. The other blind spot was that my prices were too high. But they weren't too high as a solo optimizer. They were too high as a team building initializer. These two blind spot recognitions by Josh literally saved me 3 to 6 months of pain. Both of these blind spots were killing my sales funnel. I'm so thankful for great coaches in my life.  Wait, did I say I'm thankful? On a mastermind call in Total Life Freedom in October, the guys found two more blind spots. I'm collecting blind spots like my kids collect Easter eggs. The only difference is that I'm carrying a basket and my coaches are putting more eggs in it. I don't mind. I have realized that I need to know these things about myself that I don't see and others do. It is painful, but it makes me stronger. How about you? Would your pride or ego be hurt by knowing your blind spots? Don't say yes unless you mean it. 

​New Blind Spot #1
The first was simple. Am I putting my whole heart into growing my cleaning business? Am I all in? I have built-in excuses because my health has been a major challenge. I was in a position to step up at my Royal Rangers Outpost and take leadership which has been a lot of work. If I didn't step up my boys would have lost out and I wasn't willing for that to happen. This takes a lot of time to lead Royal Rangers. Just listen to "Play the Background" to hear a recent ceremony that took 3 hard months to plan!  I'm also still dealing with my grandparents estate and the complications and dynamics of the family going on. I also have a wife and five children that want time with me. Oh, and I still clean all day Saturday and Thursday and Friday every other week. I have built-in reasons why it's hard for me to get to growing the business. The blind spot was this. Am I allowing those reasons to be my excuse? A winner would fight through those reasons and take action and get everything done. I admitted that I was. I wasn't pouring my whole heart and going the extra mile to get everything done  . This blind spot hurt because I was holding back from my potential and allowing real reasons to be excuses. I wasn't acting like my Pop-Pop taught me in "Quitters Never Win".

New Blind Spot #2
The second blind spot or the 4th if you're counting is connected to my marketing. They told me that I'm such an optimist that I count my chickens before they hatch. I do the work which leads to opportunities for a proposal. Then I count the proposal as a new client before I ever get the yes and the first check in the bank. When I count the yes early, emotionally I stop feeling that I need to do the work and back off the work. Then the new client doesn't say yes and my pipeline dry again. I have done this my entire entrepreneurial career. I've known this blind spot, but never really admitted it to others. I held it close in the name of positive mental attitude and speaking what I want. That stuff works if you're doing the work! I wasn't! I did this when I was in the Amway business. I would connect with prospects and share the business plan with them. I would have three or four that wanted to join my business and I counted them before they ever joined. I prepared for the work of helping the new people that never actually joined. Thus when they didn't join I had no new marketing going on to find new prospects. It sounds dumb now as I say this out loud. But when it's a blind spot, you do it without seeing it. That's why it's called a blind spot!

These 2 new blind spots explain why I take my foot off the gas pedal. It's why my pipeline of marketing prospects has run out time and time again over my 20-year entrepreneurial journey. I'm not consistent and it's not because I'm afraid of doing the work. I am a hard worker. I simply get in my own way and stunt my own growth. My mastermind called me out on these blind spots and my response was immediate discomfort, but latter gratitude.

Going forward, I need to do the work. Then I need to be persistent and consistent on that work until the job is done. I cannot stop to count the results at any point. If I didn't have coaching, this would never have come up until I had enough pain from a lot of perceived effort and minimal results. Having a coach is most effective when you meet together on a regular basis. They can watch what you're doing and steer you in the right direction. A weekly coaching is ideal. If it's too often it's hard to get the work done. If it's not often enough it's hard to get the coaching done because they can't see the micro level of your day-to-day work.

We all need a coach. Do you have one? Make sure to check out the many free & paid resources available at the Smart Cleaning School website. Also, do you have questions for me? Book a free coaching call on my website!