My #1 Business-Building Strategy

"Success leaves clues." Jim Rohn

Before I share my #1 business-building tip with you, we need to lay some ground work. Let's look back at YOUR successes from this past year and see what some of your clues are.

What were your key mindset shifts? Where were you when you had that shift? What were the circumstances: who were you with, what was going on that day?

What were your business breakthrough ideas? How did you receive those ideas? Was it something you read; a discussion with a colleague; an image in your mind? Help me SEE this: where were you; who else was there; what time of day was it; what else were you doing that day?

Where and when did you experience elevated productivity, when you had massive focus?

Where and when did you meet great prospects, the people who connect with your message and are your Ideal Client or Ideal Team Member?

Take a minute and actually answer these questions. You'll need that in order for the rest of this article to have any benefit for you.

Got your answers? Good! If not, take another minute and jot down some notes.

When you look back at the situations under which you had mindset shifts, or breakthrough ideas, or massive productivity, or met great prospects, most or even ALL of those wonderful events have two things in common:

• These key moments took place away from your office.
• These key moments involved other people or resources, beyond you and your brain
When I look back at my personal experiences, here's what I see.

• My big AHA that I was ready to create a Mastermind program for my clients happened on a July afternoon in Manhattan, while I was seated around a table with my 19 other Mastermind colleagues, during an exercise our coach and Mastermind facilitator led us through.
• My recent mindset shift that I was straddling a thin line of moderation that kept me out of both big success and big failure - that happened on a December afternoon in Manhattan with my same coach, doing a different exercise, around the same table at another Mastermind event.
• The majority of my prospects this past year were women I met while I was speaking at networking groups in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.
1. Most of my key moments (shifts, AHAs, great people) happened outside my office. The majority of my key moments happened during or close to my Mastermind meetings.

2. Almost ALL my key moments involved other people. Those key moments happened during conversations, during experiential exercises, as a result of talking and connecting powerfully with others.

Let's go back to YOUR success clues. Did your key moments happen inside or outside your office? Were you alone or with other people?
If your clues are like mine, then my #1 business building tip is this: get outside your office with other people consistently!

Sitting alone in your office is not creating key business-building moments. Sitting alone in your office does keep you in your comfort zone, where nothing major will break into your established patterns. Maintaining your established patterns is often a slow path to death for your business - it's like being in a coma.

CALL TO ACTION

If you want to have even more success than you did last year, then I invite you to:
Pay attention to where you are when you get your most inspired ideas. Mine are often while I'm lying in bed, waking up or going to sleep. The shower is another great birthplace for ideas.

Connect with your peers. Your peers can provide emotional support, practical ideas, recommendations for support or other resources you want to connect with, and more. Some business breakthroughs can come from a peer; you hear about how they do something, then tweak it and apply it to your business and it works!

Connect with people in different fields. Sticking with your peers full-time can also keep you in a closed universe of similar people thinking similar thoughts. Connecting with people who come from outside your industry will often give you a totally new perspective. That's when their chocolate meets your peanut butter and an amazing breakthrough happens!

"You cannot take the growth journey alone, not if you want to reach your potential. The most significant factor in any person's environment is the people. If you change nothing else in your life for the better than that, you will have increased your chances of success tenfold. So think long and hard about who you're spending the most time with, for wherever they are headed, so are you. "
-John Maxwell, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth

Unplug daily. Did any of your key moments happen while you were texting or answering email? Probably not. Breakthroughs don't happen when you're distracted by technology. Unplugging allows you to go deeper into your own heart and mind. And that is where breakthroughs start!