We all want that outer glow. And I'm not talking about that dewy skin, outer glow like Giselle. I'm talking about magnetism. Or as we call it around here, the “It Factor”.
Today I’m sharing that the secret to embracing your “It Factor” is the inner work you do to grow yourself personally and professionally. You and I both know that personal growth is a huge determining factor for online business success. But when things get so busy and schedules fill up with launches, client calls, project plans, emails (all the things!), it’s to find time for personal and professional development.
You can’t find it, you have to create it. In this episode I’m sharing three specific actions that you can take -- that don’t require much effort or time -- that will help you take small steps (and big leaps) to create that outer glow and achieve those big goals.
EPISODE SHOW NOTES👇
➡️ https://heathersager.com/episode20/
🔗 Grab the latest FREE resources: https://heathersager.com/start
🔗 Browse all episode shownotes: https://heathersager.com/blog
👋 CONNECT WITH HEATHER:
Work with Heather: https://www.heathersager.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theheathersager/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/HeatherSager
If you’re loving this episode, please take a moment to rate & review the show. This helps me get this message to more people so they too can ditch the hustle 24/7 life.
We all want that outer glow. And I'm not talking about that dewy skin, outer glow like Giselle. I'm talking about magnetism. Or as we call it around here, the “It Factor”.
Today I’m sharing that the secret to embracing your “It Factor” is the inner work you do to grow yourself personally and professionally. You and I both know that personal growth is a huge determining factor for online business success. But when things get so busy and schedules fill up with launches, client calls, project plans, emails (all the things!), it’s to find time for personal and professional development.
You can’t find it, you have to create it. In this episode I’m sharing three specific actions that you can take -- that don’t require much effort or time -- that will help you take small steps (and big leaps) to create that outer glow and achieve those big goals.
EPISODE SHOW NOTES👇
➡️ https://heathersager.com/episode20/
🔗 Grab the latest FREE resources: https://heathersager.com/start
🔗 Browse all episode shownotes: https://heathersager.com/blog
👋 CONNECT WITH HEATHER:
Work with Heather: https://www.heathersager.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theheathersager/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/HeatherSager
If you’re loving this episode, please take a moment to rate & review the show. This helps me get this message to more people so they too can ditch the hustle 24/7 life.
You're listening to Finding Your It Factor- Episode 20. We all want that outer glow. And I'm not talking about that like dewy skin, outer glow like Giselle. No I'm talking about that magnetism. That It factor, which is ironic but the whole point of the show, right? That's what we're going for. Well, today we're gonna talk about how the secret to embracing that It factor and becoming a light that others are drawn to is really about doing the inner work. Yup, you know it. You and I both know it, that inner work, that personal growth is something that is so needed in this online entrepreneurial space. But honestly when things get so busy and schedules start flowing around, it's hard to create space for personal and professional development. Today, we're gonna talk about three specific actions that you can take that are not going to take a ton of time. These are little things that you can pepper into your day in just a couple minutes each, and it's going to help you focus on your own individual personal growth so that you can show up as that light for others. So I'm so excited for this episode. These are some of the philosophies that I have learned over my last 15 years working with entrepreneurs and I'm excited to share them with you today. But before we jump into today's episode, I want to share with you, I'm so excited because at the time of this recording I am wrapping up working with my private coaching students in my Speak Up to Level Up program. Now, if you've been with me for a while, you know that for the first time I offered a group coaching program and an additional offering beyond my private one-on-one work. Well, Speak Up to Level Up for week 10 for wrapping up this week and I am so thrilled working with these students. I've had so much fun and so happy and I wanted to throw this out there that as I'm looking at my calendar for 2020 the next round is going to be starting here very, very soon and I don't want you to miss out. This last session pretty much sold out in a matter of days and I don't want you to miss your opportunity. So all at all the details of course as we get closer to the doors opening for the program, but since you're an insider of the it factor, I wanted to give you the first opportunity to get yourself on the wait list to learn more about, Speak Up to Level Up as soon as the doors open. So doors will open sometime in February. I'm not going to give you a date yet, but if you want to be the first to know when they are open, I want you to head on over to heathersager.com/jointhewaitlist. Join the wait list. That's where you're going to go. You're just going to get yourself on the list to be the first to know. Don't worry, you're not enrolling yourself in a program. You're just going to get the details first before anyone else. And that way if you want a snag your seat, you have the first opportunity before they miss out. So I'm thrilled to offer at the second round, the second class of Speak Up to Level Up. And I'm really looking forward to over the next couple of weeks sharing with you some of the success stories of my students as how they've been able to take their ideas and their marketing goals for their business in 2020 and craft a presentation that's converting audiences into subscribers so they can sell their programs. So I can't wait to share with you more of the success stories, but for now, let's go ahead and dive in to today's episode.
Speaker 2:Have you ever wondered how some people just seem to have a way with words, they have this spark that lights you up when you're near them? They have the It factor. And while most people think it's something that only a few are born with, I believe that you can find it so it can become your super power to grow your business. It's about you bringing your brand to life by becoming a magnetic communicator in person and on camera, showing up with confidence, authenticity, and inspiration. So, are you ready to become magnetic? I thought so. I'm Heather Sager and I'd like to welcome you to finding your it factor. Well, friend, welcome back to[inaudible]
Speaker 1:another week. I hope you are having a great start to the new year. Have to tell you I'm recording this on Monday. I just got back from my trip to Florida. Oh my goodness. You would think key West would be one hell of a vacation and it was beautiful. I had so much fun with the family. I was there for work. As you know, I had a speaking engagement down in Key West, which I mean talk about worst places to do a talk. Right? It was so fun the talks went so great. There were two of them, but I have to tell you, vacationing with a almost two year old, Oh my goodness. Not relaxing at all. Thank goodness for my incredible husband who was a saint, taking care of those kids while I was focusing on my work in. Man, he didn't complain a moment, so I am so grateful for that. I have to tell you, I am so happy to be back on a normal schedule. As I've heard from many of my friends and the followers, the holidays are so fun. I mean don't get me wrong, I love them one of my favorite times of the year, but schedules just get a little crazy, a little out of whack. Not only are the kids out of school, it's just crazy town all the time. We tend to sleep in a little bit longer. The food choices are a little all over the map and it's just really easy to fall out of rhythm. And I started thinking about over the last couple of weeks you see so many people posting, it's the new year people are posting online. All of these things around goal setting and hitting the ground running in 2020 and I just didn't notice all of these things that we think we should be doing. And I have to tell you, this is the first year that I, I didn't have my, my life together in terms of, I usually do goal setting between Christmas and New years and I, I am one of those people that enter the year super focused around what I want to do. And this year it was not one of those years. Honestly, I've been feeling so overwhelmed lately and not like a negative over bomb, but just there are so many things going on and I have so many ideas of what I want to do in my business that I just feel like I haven't had a chance to catch up. So the idea of planning for 2020 and goal setting and all of those things, honestly, it felt more deflating than inspiring. And I started feeling this about a month ago, which what I did was just give my permission to say screw it and not do any of that work. I didn't do any of it. I wasn't ready and I wasn't a mental space because here's the thing about goal setting and vision casting and just thinking about the future. They should lift you up and inspire you and if they're not so these were wrong, uh, maybe something's wrong with the timing of it, that maybe it's time just to let it be and clear the clutter and come back to it when you're ready. Now it doesn't mean you c an put it on the shelf a nd never come back to it. I'm a big believer of goals, you know, that by n ow I'm a big believer of having a clear vision and really getting excited about your future. I think that's really what fuels you to create amazing things. But if you're in a spot where you're feeling overwhelmed and you're tired and that's just not exciting for you, I feel you and it's totally fine. So coming back to it, I, I've had on my mind these last couple of weeks, I've realizing that I am also feeling a little bit more stressed, a little less focused. I haven't had as much time to work and I definitely have been inconsistent with my daily habits and rituals. Now, let me talk a bit about this because one of my most popular YouTube videos, yeah, I have a YouTube channel. It's not popular by any means, but surprisingly, the number one video that I have is, I think it's the first video that I posted. I'm pretty much wearing my pajamas. My hair is in a messy bun. I barely wearing any makeup and I'm sitting in my office talking about my day planner that I use, so I am a big fan of Michael Hyatt's full focus planner. I've been using it since he launched back in April or may of 2017 I love it. I love it. Love love love. Love it. I've been using it. I don't use it perfectly or in the way that he designed, but I use it in a way that works for me, and I did this video talking about how I use the planner and the a ccompanied journal every single day. Here's what you don't know. I suck at being consistent with these kinds of things. Yeah, I know I'm not supposed to say that because I w as supposed to be the beacon of, I don't know all the things you're supposed to do as I have this podcast and I'm supposed to be the leader showing you all the great ways to do it. But here's the reality. Life is crazy sometimes and things like there's an ideal way to do things and then there's the actual way that they happen. And for me, I, I have not been incredibly consistent at journaling or using my planner or here's the worst one, my health. So working out, eating the right things. And typically what happens is I'm the kind of person that once I get on the train of something and I get super excited, I go all in and I do it really, really, really well. So whether that's running or working out or eating well or using my journal or reading consistently or be limited on social media or whatever the thing is, I get really, really good at it. And then something throws me off my routine. So for me, that could be excessive travel. It could be the holidays, it could be an injury that sidelines me like a couple months ago when I fell up the stairs and tore the ligaments in my ankle. Fun story. Yeah, and I did say up the stairs, by the way, it totally put a halt on my running. It put a halt on my workouts. In addition it put a halt on. I was just a lot of things and when my schedule gets disruptive I tend to not do the things I know I need to do. And let me tell you this, I had a different episode scheduled to release today and this topic was so much on my mind that I had to had to record this and share it with you this week for a couple of reasons. Number one, I know there's going to be people listening that relate to this. This idea that you get started on the train of whatever that train is, health, personal development, whatever that looks like. You get going and just as soon as you find in your momentum and you identify as that person, the kind of person who runs the kind of person who journals the kind of person who shows up consistently on Instagram stories, whatever that looks like for you. Just when you catch your stride and you no longer have to think about it, something happens to your routine. Something happens. Whether again like it's travel, sickness, injury, holidays, and what's funny is you don't often think about how you would show up in the face of adversity is not the right word because I feel like that's a little bit too serious, but in the face of a different routine, let's call it that. That's, that's where I think a lot of us struggle and that's where I wanted to be totally candid and honest with you today that I struggle with that so much. Now. There's certain pieces of my life that I don't struggle with that that are very, very consistent for me. But the two areas that I have really, really struggled are consistently working out. And by the way, working out for me has nothing to do with how I look or just it used to, I have to be honest. It totally used to, but now for me working out has to do with me feeling good, need not be winded, what I walk up the stairs, me not feeling like crap when I put on my favorite jeans and it makes me feel a little squishy. I don't know, it just, it's how I feel when I'm working out. I feel so much better energetically. I feel better about how I show up. It's just all the things. So working out for me is something that I have been inconsistent with that I'll go in spurts where I do it really, really well and then I fall off the bandwagon, it takes an attorney to get back on. The second one has been my morning routine. I go through sprints where I do it really, really well. And then I fall off the bandwagon and then I hide from it. And then I finally decided to jump back on, well, I'm telling you all of this because this past week a couple of things came to head for me and I finally made a decision that I'm done stopping and starting and I'm also done putting the pressures and stresses on myself of happy to get something so perfect and instead I'm just going to commit to the journey of it. So what does that mean? Part of me wanted to do this episode today is for accountability that I wanted to share with you guys. What I am doing moving forward, because I want you to help hold me accountable, but I also want to invite you that if there is something that you've been putting off, ask yourself, why have you been putting off? What's been the, what's been the detour that you've been taking? Whether it's been a false start, whether that's been like me, where you want to detour happens you, you take the wrong path and you don't get back on the road. But what does that look like for you? What's been holding you back and what would it look like for you to commit and not just commit to a short term program, but what would it look like for you to commit to a new habit? So for me, I've committed to doing a couple things. I discovered the book, well a long time ago, but I actually just listened to it this last week called Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. So I heard him for the first time when I guested on a podcast last year. I can't remember one, I think it was James Wedmore's, um, Mind your Business podcast. Fascinating story. But he talks about this idea of the Miracle Morning. And at first when I heard about it, I was like, Oh my gosh, that just seems way too much. And then I binged listened to the book literally in two days over the weekend. I've binged listened. Now here's the funny thing about me binge listening is you guys know I wear hearing aids and my hearing aid stream directly to my phone so I can listen to things on my phone and nobody knows I'm listening, I. E. my husband and kids don't know that I'm not actually paid attention to the stupid thing that's happening. And instead I was listening to my book. So yeah, that was a mom feeling moment. But on a personal development front, I'm feeling, damn good that I was able to binge listen to that book because I, Oh, I am so excited about what happened this morning, which is I followed his system to the miracle morning. I woke up guys, I woke up at 4:30 this morning and not only did I wake up at 4:30 this morning, I like skyrocketed on the bed this morning at 4:30 ready to face the day. And I went through his system for the Miracle Morning. And uh, I feel incredible. So I'm recording this right now at 9:30. So I've been awake. God, that's five hours I've been awake and I've gotten so many things done. And the most amazing thing that I haven't done today is I haven't touched my phone at all, which is very, very odd for me. I am addicted to my phone. I'm always checking Instagram. I'm checking those DMs, I, it's just one of those things I'm always scrolling and that's not helping me achieve my goals. So I committed to doing the miracle morning. I'm doing the 30 day challenge right now that I'm going to commit to that. And then the second thing I committed to was starting the workout program that I have started and stopped and started to stop it, a bajillion times. So let me just clarify. I'm not an affiliate for any of these things, nor do I have any ties to the business of any of these things. They're just things that I use. So number one Miracle morning, it's amazing. Download the book right away. I believe that there you can download the first couple of chapters at miraclemorning.com he gives you some chapters for free. So I would totally recommend that if you are interested in having some kind of morning routine. But if it's struggling, go get it. Number two. So I, I don't know why I feel silly saying this, but I use Beachbody. So beach body, the app, I don't use any of their products in terms of their supplements or anything like that, but I use beach body and I love it. It's an app that I have on my phone. I pay 100 bucks a year and I have this app on my phone, which means I get workouts, uh, anywhere I go, which means I can be consistent with my workouts when I'm at home versus when I am traveling. And I love it. And I, I don't know why I feel embarrassed sometimes admitting that. And I think I'm talking about this on the show before with my guest, Melissa, a few months ago we were talking about that I think a lot of times a direct selling products. I don't know why I said that plenty, but direct sales products, uh, like beach body I think sometimes have a negative connotation attached to them. So it's, it's funny as I'm processing this out loud, but I still feel kind of funny saying that, but you know what, let's not be funny about it. I freaking adore Beachbody specifically. I follow Autumn Calabrese. She's got amazing programs like 21 day fix, 21 day fix extreme, and the 80-Day obsession, I'm sure she has others, but those are the ones that I had been interested in. I just liked her style a lot and I've followed some of her programs before. But to be perfectly honest, I've never completed a single one in its entirety and I'm embarrassed by that because the shortest program is only 21 days. That's so embarrassing to say out loud. So yesterday I committed to actually doing her 21 day fix extreme program in its entirety with no fricking cheats, which that is hard for me because I'm the kind of girl that I will cheat at board games. I will cheat on, I hate to say diets, but I just, I'll find a loophole. I'll find a loophole that I'll find an excuse not to do it. So I need to be super strict with it. So, and I'm doing this because I'm kick-starting my body back into the discipline of having a health routine. I feel so much better when I moved my body every single day and I feel so much better when I have strength in my muscles. Like for me that's really important. Also really important is I'm coming back from a pretty significant injury, so I want to build up my muscle mass again, build up my flexibility and strength so that I can hit the pavement here in about a month and a half and start training because guys, I'm doing a half marathon in 2020 that's a big goal for me. So I tell you all of this because for me, I had to have a plan but that was a big gap for me is I actually had a plan of what I was going to do so I could get out of the swiry wirly. I wasn't quite sure what was happening. I think going back to how I was feeling related to goal studying and planning for my business, but also my personal life in 2020 I was having a hard time with it because I was experiencing this disconnect between the ideas I'd have for myself and the gap in how I was showing up every single day. Meaning I wasn't showing up for myself. I wasn't showing up for my health. I wasn't, I wasn't disciplined and doing the things that I kept saying that I wanted to do and inherently because of that, I wasn't actually following through with the things that I know I needed to do. I didn't really feel inspired to set any new goals. Now, I tell you all of this without also saying that I had a rocking 2019. You guys know that I shared with you my lessons here are a couple episodes back. I had a rocking year. I have amazing clients. My Speak Up to Level Up program was a really great success. I sold out that program the very first time I launched it and I'm this. This is, I think the difficulty that high achievers have, you and me both, that oftentimes we totally ignore all the successes we have and we only focus on these areas where we're not feeling enough. I'm giving us permission today to say screw all of that. How about we embrace where we are and what if we embrace this idea that where we are today is exactly where we need to be for the life that's coming. And the amazing part is we get to set the pace for what that life looks like. It doesn't matter about how I showed up yesterday. It doesn't matter how I showed up a week ago. It doesn't matter how you showed up a week ago. What matters is how you show up right now and how you show up tomorrow. And we can influence that. And that's exactly what I'm doing. So I started the 21 day fix extreme yesterday and I started the Miracle Morning today and I'm committed to both for the next 30 days to kickstart a couple things. One, kickstart my health to kickstart a new habit, but three, to kickstart a foundation for everything that's going to come for me, my business, my clients, my students, everything that's coming in 2020 and I invite you to think about that for yourself of what foundation do you need to create so that you do truly have your best year ever. Because if you're skipping steps on some of those fundamental things, whether it's your health or your habits, you're not building this, this strategy or these goals that you have for your business, you're not building them on a strong foundation where things are going to get shaky and when those detours happen, it's going to crumble. So one accountability, this is what I'm doing, guys, hold me to it all follow or I'll keep you posted on Instagram stories around how things are going and I'll share from time to time. But I want you to know that this idea of personal growth is a journey that even when you experience levels of success, you're going to find these shaky moments where you're going to fall backwards and you're going to need to go back and fill the gaps that maybe you skipped. So whether it's habits that you never implemented, whether it's areas that have been blind spots for you in the past, or areas that you've chosen not to work on, these things will catch up with you, and the more that you put time and energy into your personal development, the easier it will become for you to show up as magnetic personality for your audience to be more authentic, to be more captivating, to be more inspiring, to be more excited about what you're doing every single day. Can you hear that in my voice? Like I even with all this weird, uncomfortable stuff I'm talking about, which I had to think hard about whether or not I wanted to share those things. But what I always want to demonstrate to you first and foremost is authenticity. You don't have to have all of your crap together for people to be inspired by you. And in fact, if you wait for everything to be in order, the shifts going to move on without you. So don't wait on that. You can be a work in progress and a smashing success at the same time. The secret though is you have to constantly be that work in progress. That's the thing. If you look at the greats in the personal development industry, Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Rachel Hollis, Mel Robbins, Lewis House, all these people, they publicly talk about how personal growth is a journey and they're constantly learning. They're constantly doing the inner work so that they can show up for their audience. I want that for you too. So let me share with you a couple philosophies that I have embraced in my career that I think will really be valuable for you and some of these things they're going to be repeats. Some of these things you already know, and let me remind you of my favorite quote by Will Rogers. Just because it's common sense doesn't mean it's common practice. So instead of focusing on the, Oh, I already know that, ask yourself, yes, but have you embraced it and are you living it? It's two different things. There's a lot of information out there. We all know a lot of things, but it doesn't mean that we're actually taking action on it. So I'm going to share with you these three philosophies and I want you to take notes, whether it's a mental note or I always am a big fan of the journaling notes. Identify which of these things rings most true for you. And more importantly, what you gonna do about it. That's where we're at today. So numbr one, clear your mind. I have to tell you, I did a little bit of a Google search before talking about this one and what I was Google searching was En Vogue's Free for Your Mind. I thought about singing it for you and then I was like, Oh my God, do I want that on record? But yeah, you're welcome for that. So for your mind, they were totally onto something with that song. But this is what I want you to think about. If you find yourself ever in a sense of chaos, frustration, confusion, overwhelm, you feel stressed, you feel like there's so much to do that you just can't figure out what the next step is. You feel paralyzed. You feel unclear. Any of those elements, and this could be in life with your relationships or with home, with your house, with your food. It could be with work. It could be with your projects. It could be with your marketing, it could be with your finances. It can be any facet of your life. I want you to recognize that a lot of that confusion and overwhelm is because you have all of this crap rattling around in your head that you don't have the ability to think clearly. To be confused is to be cluttered. Anytime that you don't know what the next step is or you're feeling overwhelmed and want you to recognize that you have too much happening in your head. So let's get tactical. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to think about making a list and I call it a brain dump. Now you guys know I talk about word vomiting and brain dumping and yes, I have a lot of sexy references for a lot of these things, but uh, this is what I want you to do. I want you to get a piece of paper out and I want you to write everything that is rattling around in your head and get it out on paper. Get it out on paper so you can just be free of it from your mind. It's like clearing out your garage or your closet or your pantry, which I did last night. When you have clutter and all these things in there and you, you just quite don't know what to do, it's because it's just too full. You need to clear your mind, write it all out and do it as often as you need to. For me, I do this in a couple of different tiers, three tiers specifically. So one, I do this every single week. On Sunday afternoons, I sit down and I do a brain dump of everything rolling around in my head and it helps me set up my week so I won't go through the tactics of how I actually set up my week and what I do from there, but it always starts with a brain dump. Secondly, I do it every single day. Every morning I start my day by doing a brain dump to clear my mind so I can focus on the most important thing in front of me. Right now the most important thing is recording this podcast, so I do it every week and I do it every day. The third tier of how I use the brain dump is I do this if I'm ever having the sense of overwhelm in any given moment and let me give you, let me give you an example of this. Are you familiar with the term hangry? Yeah, so I totally get hangry, you know the store Ikea. So my husband and I, when they open up an Ikea in Portland, we would go to Ikea together and we would roam around. And you know how it works is you get lost in the maze of that store. You don't really know where the exits are and you're just in there forever and ever. And we would do it on Sundays with a cup of coffee, but we hadn't had breakfast yet and we'd been in there I with just get snappy. Oh my goodness. I would get short tempered and just hangry. My husband learned that anytime we would go shopping on Sundays, not this was pre-kids, he would always ask me before we left the house, Hey, why don't you throw a couple snacks in your purse? Well, my husband learned about me is I've totally had hangry, uh, and I just needed, could you have hangry? Is that a thing? I don't think I used that word right. But you know what I mean? Right. So he learned that about me and he planned for it. He would be like, honey, do you need a snack? Which I think is hilarious. Let me apply this to this cluttered thing. So if your, he actually does this, if I'm ever feeling stressed or overwhelmed, we're getting ready for a trip we're getting, I've project coming up or I just, I'm acting in a mildly frenzy, stressed or overwhelmed way. My husband will say, honey, do you need to make a list? And what's funny is the first we discovered that together around one day I like, I'm like, Oh, I didn't fricking make a list in it. But I had to redo with us packing. But once I made a list, I have this sense of calm around. I no longer had confusion or uncertainty of what needed to happen. I had everything in front of me and that I could organize it into an actual tactical plan. I know that sounds super crazy when it is related to packing. And for those of you who are not list makers, you're probably gonna think I'm crazy. But I know some of you listening totally get this. So I came up with this idea of like, hangry is hungry, angry. I feel like you have conflutter and you need to, Oh my gosh, this is going to be a, this is going to be a little snapshot that I share on Instagram conflutter with a definition. You just, you wait for it, but it's the, it's that overwhelmed feeling where you get where you're so confused. You don't know what action to take it. It's because your mind is cluttered. So clear it out. Do a brain dump. Write things on paper. Anytime you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed, I want you to pause. Notice that sense of stress and overwhelm and I want you to clear your mind. This is super effective and this you might be thinking like, huh? How is this related to personal development? This is related because if you are operating from a stance of stress or frenzy or confusion, you cannot lead your people. Now whether or not you have a team is irrelevant. Your people or your audience in your followers and people get a sense of of you and how you show up by how you show up. Meaning that if you're showing up stressed and confused and a little uncertain, they're not going to feel confident in your programs or your offerings, so it's your responsibility to cut the clutter so you can show up focused and engaged and passionate and excited and all those words that we've talked about before on the show. You have to create the capacity for the right energy and you do that by clearing your mind. Okay? Strategy number two, to get a jumpstart on your personal development in 2020 I want you to bring attention to your thoughts. Your thinking creates your reality. If you want to lead a more joyful, happy life, you focus on gratitude and focus on looking things that create happiness. If you want to leave a mediocre life, you focus on what's wrong in the world and complaining for why the server didn't serve your soup hot enough or why Starbucks screwed up your order for the 17th time. You're going to find what you're looking for. One of my mentors in my former corporate life, Brandon Dawson, he is an incredible visionary, is about this great thing that he says that's what you think is what you say. What you say is what you do and what you do becomes your legacy. So if you want to start with the end in mind around how you want people to view you, your reputation, your life's legacy, go back to your thinking. What do you spend your time thinking about possibilities or problems, solutions or or nagging about your neighbor and if you are, are you a pessimist or an optimist? I think a lot of us hide behind this identity of, but we're just being realistic. You can be realistic and be optimistic at the same time. They're not mutually exclusive in my opinion. I have to be clear here. This is something that I'd have to work on very, very hard. It's why I'm so focused on committing to the Miracle Morning because I want to make sure my mind is in the right spot because I do have some really big scary ideas for where I want to take my business and my community in the future. And I know that in order to do that, I have to show up as the type of leader that my audience needs. So it all starts with your thinking. So I want to encourage you, let's get tactical here for a second. With this one, I want you to check in with yourself and you can do this each day in the morning and at night. You can do this randomly throughout the day and set a timer. But I want you to check in with yourself and set an intention. So two ways. If you do this in the morning, set your intention for the day around. How do you want to feel during that day? How do you want others to feel? Check in with yourself before an important meeting or a call. How do you want it to go? What questions could you ask? How do you want others to perceive you? How could you show up as a solutions focused person? How can you show up as an advocate? How can you show up Inspirationally? Thinking about how you want to show up before you do we'll help you bring the It factor to engagements with your audience or the prospects and clients. So being intentional with that and then reflect. That's the end of the day or after a meeting, reflect on how you did and don't reflect on on if you didn't show up quite as you want to, don't berate yourself and get frustrated and angry around, Hey, how's fucking I did it again. Just acknowledge what happened and then commit to what you're going to do and moving forward. Acknowledge, commit, acknowledge, commit. Getting more comfortable, letting go the missteps we have and embracing the actions, commitments we're taking right now in this moment. That's what's gonna move you forward. So that's the thing about personal development. It's not about pointing out all the blind spots, all the gaps and all the things that you've done wrong. If personal development about presence in this moment now and how you show up right now and the next action you take in front of you today and tomorrow and the next day. But it all shows up at that present moment. So if you were the kind of person, I am this kind of person, who focuses on, ah, I could have done better, acknowledge it. Don't try to hide or cover that up because if that's how your brain works, your brain is still gonna work that way. But acknowledge it and then say, what could I do next time? What could I do right now? The more that you can be intentional with your thinking and then reflective with your thinking, the closer you can get to spending your time and energy thinking about the things that you want to be thinking about. So if you want to be a more joyful, optimistic person, you have to train your brain to focus on gratitude and happiness and look for things that are going to prove that to be true. But if that's not where you're at right now, let's say t hat you do have a tendency to complain a bit or you do have a tendency to judge other people. I don't like to admit it, but I struggle with this sometimes guys. I think we all do. And if you want to eradicate that from your thought pattern, you have to replace it with something different. So what if we were to look at others with a sense of gratitude and compassion? We don't know what other people have been through. It's so easy for us to jump to conclusions based u pon what we know, but we have no idea where other people are coming from. So moving judgment out of our thought process is a really powerful way for us to move forward. I wish I had the book in front of me, but there was a quote in Miracle Morning that was really profound to me and it talked about this idea, Oh, it's actually in the affirmations that came with the program and it talks about this idea that people who are focused on, I don't remember exactly how it went, but people who, when you're focused on other people's missteps or judgment of others, you cannot be successful. It said in a much better way than how I just said it, but that's something that I'm really trying to embrace and I'm embracing with this idea of competition. I've embraced it with this idea of judgment. I'm embracing this idea of how do I show up from a compassionate, empathetic, and inspirational point of view so that I can be in service to others. It all starts with your thinking and the quiet thoughts you have that other people don't know about. Those are the most important thoughts that you need to be more intentional with. The third area I want you to focus on when it comes to your personal development and stepping into the kind of person that you want to be to chase your goals in 2020. Ask better questions. Tony Robbins says in his book, awaken the giant within, which by the way, I've never read that book but I really, really want to. I'm adding that to my book list again because it's come up multiple times back to the quote. The quality of your life is a direct reflection of the quality of the questions you are asking yourself. The quality of your life is a direct reflection of the quality of the questions you're asking yourself. This to me is extremely profound in so many ways. You see a lot of people master asking good questions. I actually teach people how to ask better questions in my programs because a poor question is going to get poor engagement from your audience or from your prospect. But a good question can really be a widening the, blasting open the door so that people can, uh, can have, uh, a really authentic and encouraging conversation with you. So questions are really important, but the reason why I want you to focus on this is asking questions of yourself. Each of us have really strong wisdom. We have a really strong sense of intuition and guidance that can help us solve a lot of things and if we spent more time in quiet, more time reflecting and asking ourselves questions, I think we would make far more traction. But I have noticed that oftentimes, especially in this online space with all of these Facebook groups, we go to others to ask questions partially because we want faster results, we want the solutions, but also I think a lot of it is too, we want validation. We want to show people we're engaged, we're we're looking externally for the answers, but the reality is the answers most likely are already something that we know. We just haven't looked at it in terms of the context of the challenge in front of us. I'm in a program right now that has a lot of coaching in it. I'm a participant in this program and one of the students I'm in the program with made the comment to me, she was joking that she was frustrated because the coaches in the program, why can't they just give her the freaking answers? You want the answer, and she was joking about it, but what she was referencing is the coaches, instead of answering the questions, answered the questions with questions so they put it back on the person asking the question to do more inner reflective work so that they can, one have greater context around what the question is. Because a lot of times people ask or ask questions and it's so out of context is I couldn't even give you an answer because the answer I could give you could have nothing to do with what you're actually asking. So they ask more questions and it's more of putting it back on the question, ask her. And so she was a little frustrated because she didn't want to take the time to answer all these in depth questions. She just wanted the answer and we laughed about it. But I think that's just so, it's so shortsighted guys. I know sometimes it's much easier to ask for the answers or go Google search it or whatever else, but have you ever take it from time to sit down with a blank page journal and ask yourself some thoughtful questions. Questions when you're facing a challenge, uh, maybe you're facing something that you're not quite sure would work. What if you said like, well, what if it could work? How could this work for me? What's one small action I can take to make progress right now? When you're evaluating a request coming through your inbox or your project plan, asking yourself, do I really want to do this? Am I just saying yes out of obligation? Is this just going to take me away from other things that I actually need to and want to be doing? Who do I need to be for that to become a reality? Asking this to yourself in reflection of thinking about a big scary goal or asking, how do I need to show up today reflecting on things that didn't go as well. What did I learn? What could I have done differently? What can I commit to moving forward? These don't have to be overly complicated questions, but the point is asking yourself questions and questions that focus on progress. Focus on positive reflection and moving forward. Not all the things around what's not working. Those are the poor quality questions you want high quality questions that are going to stimulate your thinking, your problem solving, your solutions focus as you move forward. These are the kinds of questions and I highly encourage you. Let's get tactical. I highly encourage you for like one session every week. What have you spent just 20 minutes asking yourself some of these reflective questions related to what's happening in your business or your life right now. I think I'll be extremely surprised on just how much insight can come from one of those sessions. These three things we've talked about today related to your personal development. Number one, clearing your mind. Number two, bringing intention to your thinking, and number three, asking better questions of yourself. These are things that they're not, might not be something that you focused on before when you thought, huh, what's my personal development plan? Sometimes it's like, Oh, when we think about personal growth and personal development, we think about me to know, enroll in a course or sign up for a program or do a challenge, and all those things are well and great. But for me, I like to think about the micro moments throughout my day and throughout my week. The little tiny things that I can do to realign myself to the vision that I have for my life. And I know that sounds super fluffy. I totally know. I just laugh at myself sometimes when I say stuff like that, but I do. I bet just like me and maybe it's not super clear, but I bet you have a picture. When you close your eyes and you think about the kind of person you want to be from a year from now, the person that you want to be 10 years from now. I've bet for a moment if you picture that you, you have some ideas that pop up. Maybe there's a vacation you want to take. Maybe there's something that you'd want to do in your business. Maybe there's a stage you want to speak on. Maybe there is, maybe there's a certain way that you want to feel, whatever that looks like for you. Yes. Taking programs, participating in courses. I'm a huge advocate of that. I invest heavily in my personal professional development, but don't underrate the need for these micro moments where you just reassess, readjust on connecting with yourself and that vision you have, taking moments to address when you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, what could that mean? Clear your thoughts, adjust your thinking, asking better questions. You'll notice that these three things compound on each other, and when you put them together, you'll develop a more disciplined focus for becoming the kind of person that you need to be to show up for your audience. I hope this was super valuable for you today. A little bit of a different direction with today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, will you do me a favor and will you take a screenshot right now, pause. Screenshot this episode, post it to Instagram, and tag me@theheathersager and tell me which one of these things resonated with you most. More importantly, what's she gonna do about it? What you gonna do. I want to know and remember, if becoming a more intentional communicator for your audience is something that you're excited about specifically with getting your face out there, speaking on stages, even virtually in 2020 if that's a goal for you, it's a goal from you to drive more leads in your business, get more subscribers to your email list and increase how many people are signing up for your programs and getting more confident with selling. Remember you got to snag your spot on the wait list because it's gonna sell out my speak up to level up private coaching group intensive program doors are opening in February and I know they're going to go quickly, so head on over heathersager.com/jointhewaitlist. I can't wait to talk to you more about this program, so that's it for today. Friends, remember that It factor that you you've been searching for, it's already in you and to make it shine more brightly and to spark light in others. You got to keep working on yourself. That's the secret. I'll see you next week. Same time, same place. Until then have a good one.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] Guys, thanks so much for listening to Finding Your it Factor and Hey, if you have a talk coming up, you have to check out my free resource. It's called Nail Your Next Talk. 10 must ask questions before taking the stage so you can show up as an authority and turn that talk into future business. These are the questions that I use myself to prepare for my life talks, and they're going to help you ask the right questions of the person who booked you for the event. So the meeting planner or the client, and it's going to help you serve your audience to the best way possible. It's going to help you anticipate potential tack or 80 snags. Turn the Q&A time into a strategic place for content and make this speaking opportunity, a lead generator for your business. So go get it now. What are you waiting for? It's over at heathersager. com/10questions.[inaudible][inaudible].