What is Active Listening and How to Use It!

Active Listening

“‘We have two ears and one mouth, use them proportionately.” – Anonymous Some wisdom holds true over time better than others. Some of the best advice I’ve heard about being in sales is ‘shut up,’ or something similar. The reason for this is, most of the time when we talk, we learn nothing. When we listen, we can learn. We also allow the people we are with the opportunity to be heard, which they love! What if we told you there are simple ways you can get people to share what’s most important to them? In our blog today we explain what active listening is and how you can use it! If you care to listen, we have a free gift for you! We put together a FREE guide identifying the Top 6 reasons businesses fail and give you actionable steps you can take on every one of these to make sure it’s your competition failing and not you! It’s our gift to you and you can access it right here. Access it here! What is Active Listening Active listening is best described as listening with intention. Most of us aren’t in good practice at listening. Although it’s commonly said that the smartest person in the room is the one keeping quiet, much of the attention goes to the loudest or fastest speaking individual in a room. Traditional listening might be hearing the words being spoken to you. Active listening is an exercise in concentration, focus and effort to better understand not just the words being spoken but what is not being spoken. Attention to the tone, undertones, body language and other non-verbal cues creates better understanding of what someone is communicating and builds tremendous empathy between both parties. Active listening is intentional. How to Use Active Listening Use active listening to build better relationships with the people around you. You’ll learn much more about someone, help them feel validated and express much greater empathy by actively listening to what someone is saying. Use it to stand out from other people and cement yourself as a unicorn in the eyes of anyone you’re working with. Active listening takes discipline, but that discipline shows someone you care! Use active listening to build better relationships! Are you a good listener? Let us know at info@jbandthedoctor.com Did you know we work with professionals and leaders with 2 on 1 coaching that marries the expertise of a Doctor of Psychology and mindset coach with the business savvy of a former Fortune 50 sales executive. We specialize in helping entrepreneurs and professionals like you master your time, sales, and confidence, to evolve you to your greatest potential. To learn more about our coaching you can contact us here! Feel like you need coaching but not sure you can afford the investment in yourself? That’s ok! We have a scholarship available to diverse candidates of need. You can apply for our scholarship for our coaching and our courses here. Not enough time in the day, we get it. Check out our AYOP course, 2x Your Time, right here. We walk through everything from time management and calendar basics to how you can supercharge your days weeks and months through practices and techniques that are grounded in experience and proven by science.

How To Become More Vulnerable

How To Become More Vulnerable

Vulnerability is shown to develop stronger relationships. Those of us that can practice vulnerability are able to overcome our bodies natural physiological response to the risk of opening ourselves up. Not only does it help develop our relationships with others, it allows us to strengthen the internal relationship we have with ourselves. In this blog we’ll explore some helpful tips that make us more comfortable with being vulnerable. Before we open up about vulnerability… did you know that 70% of businesses will fail? We put together a FREE guide identifying the Top 6 reasons businesses fail and give you actionable steps you can take on every one of these to make sure it’s your competition failing and not you! It’s our free gift to you. Access it here! Be Brave It might sound silly, but vulnerability requires us to be brave. We’re doing something that leaves us open to attack and judgement and that’s not easy. If you’re struggling to be vulnerable, find some small ways you can be brave. Take it one small step at a time and given some consistency you’ll see great progress towards overcoming the fear and anxiety that often come from being vulnerable. Be Selective If vulnerability is something you struggle with then there are some great people to be vulnerable with and there are…others. By being selective with whom we share our vulnerability with we can help protect ourselves from our primary concerns and anxiety. Finding someone who is already able to express their emotions, is non-judgmental, and simply listens is a great starting point for being vulnerable. Practice Self Awareness Vulnerability requires us to be able to express our emotions, yet for many of us, understanding our emotions isn’t easy. Practicing self-awareness and becoming more aware of your emotions is an essential requirement to successfully developing comfort with vulnerability. Take stock in your emotions when you feel yourself reacting. Remember, feelings are often describe with a single word such as: anxious, attacked, defensive, scared, courageous, happy, sad, etc. How do you get vulnerable? Let us know at info@jbandthedoctor.com Did you know we work with professionals and leaders with 2 on 1 coaching that marries the expertise of a Doctor of Psychology and mindset coach with the business savvy of a former Fortune 50 sales executive. We specialize in helping entrepreneurs and professionals like you master your time, sales, and confidence, to evolve you to your greatest potential. To learn more about our coaching you can contact us here! Feel like you need coaching but not sure you can afford the investment in yourself? That’s ok! We have a scholarship available to diverse candidates of need. You can apply for our scholarship for our coaching and our courses here. Not enough time in the day, we get it. Check out our AYOP course, 2x Your Time, right here. We walk through everything from time management and calendar basics to how you can supercharge your days weeks and months through practices and techniques that are grounded in experience and proven by science.

How To Build A Flexible Schedule For Maximum Performance

Entrepreneur Mastery Lab - Flexible Schedule

Great news, you control your day!  Or do you?  Chances are if you’re an entrepreneur or service based professional you’ve developed a calendar that works for you.  Mostly.  You may have also picked up some habits that harm you more than they help.   Here are a few tips to help you build a schedule with flexibility so you can maximize your performance all day, every day. Before we discuss our tips, did you know that 70% of businesses will fail?  We put together a FREE guide identifying the Top 6 reasons businesses fail and give you actionable steps you can take on every one of these to make sure it’s your competition failing and not you!  It’s our free gift to you, you can access it right here. Secret 1 – Be more self aware Half of the battle with managing our calendars is recognizing how long it takes us to accomplish something. We’re typically pretty bad at this and deal with performance optimism. It’s the idea that we believe can get more done faster than we actually can. Do yourself a favor. If you want more flexibility in your schedule than add a little extra time for whatever is on your calendar. 60 minute meeting, better make it 70 minutes on the calendar. It’s amazing how much flexibility this will build and additional performance we can get out of the day. Secret 2 – Respect your time and everyone else’s If we try to schedule every minute of every day out we create an environment that will be break under stress. What do we mean by that? Well, life happens and to leave no time for life happening is, in our opinion, a very common and very costly mistake we see professionals make all the time. Plan for things to go wrong and we can find ourselves prepared for this and better able to handle it. Leave no room for life to happen and we all know how that can feel. Like a house of cards teetering and then crashing down. Secret 3 – Set aside time for yourself We aren’t robots, as much as we’d like to be sometimes. We need rest, we need little moments to recuperate. There was a study done on internal salespeople to see who performed the best. The highest performers were the smokers. No, nicotine doesn’t make better salespeople. But wouldn’t you know it, those smokers took a 5-minute break for themselves every 60-90 minutes. That few minutes for ourselves can make an enormous difference in our performance the other 55 or 85 minutes that follows. If we want to have a flexible schedule that allows for maximum performance this is a great way to ensure we can get it done all day long. This blog was inspired by our recent podcast interview with Pearce Cucchissi, a coach that previously served as a special forces Army Ranger! You can listen in to our podcast here, or if you prefer you can also check it out on our Youtube channel right here! Listen to Podcast Watch on Youtube Join our Community We love sharing tips like these in our Entrepreneur Mastery Lab private community. If you’d like to join us and other professionals that are striving to get better every day, you can access the group here! Join now If you’re working on being more effective with how you manage your time, we can help! Our unique 2 on 1 coaching marries the expertise of a Doctor of Psychology and mindset coach with the business savvy of a former Fortune 50 external sales Vice President. We specialize in helping entrepreneurs and professionals like you master your time, sales, and confidence, to evolve you to your greatest potential. To learn more about our coaching you can contact us here! Feel like you need coaching but not sure you can afford the investment in yourself? That’s ok! We have a scholarship available to diverse candidates of need. You can apply for our scholarship for our coaching and our courses here. Not enough time in the day, we get it. Check out our AYOP course, 2x Your Time, right here. We walk through everything from time management and calendar basics to how you can supercharge your days weeks and months through practices and techniques that are grounded in experience and proven by science.

5 Essential Tips To Build A Successful Community

Building a successful community isn’t always easy.  Here are 5 essential tips to build a successful community you won’t want to skip over! Before we discuss our tips, did you know that 70% of businesses will fail?  We put together a FREE guide identifying the Top 6 reasons businesses fail and give you actionable steps you can take on every one of these to make sure it’s your competition failing and not you!  It’s our free gift to you you can access it right here. 1. Know who you want   Believe it or not, building a community means being as intentional about who we DON’T let in as who we do let in. Just grabbing anyone to build a community hurts more than it helps. Sure numbers and volume look good but if that person doesn’t share the values, doesn’t intend to be a part of the community and isn’t active, they end up taking more than they give.  2. Give  If we want to build a community, it’s important to understand that we all need to lead by example. Whatever the binding elements of your community are, we must be deliberate and we must be front in center showing everyone in the community that we embrace the shared values of the group. 3. Know your community  People join a community because they have a shared belief or value system. We all want to identify with other people, and we want to be accepted. To make sure we have a successful community make sure to know what is important for the community to share. Those common threads are what will form unbreakable bonds in a group!   4. Let people go Life isn’t static and we all change. What’s important to us today may not be as important to us tomorrow. As important as it is to bring people into a community it’s just as important to let people go. If someone isn’t a good for the community you’re developing, wish them the best and help them move on to someplace that they want to be. 5. Evolve Communities will change over time. Whenever we get a large group of people together, it’s natural for the groupthink to lead a community to a different place from where it started. By keeping a close eye on our communities, we can identify when we see shifts and evolutions happening. Instead of fighting a change, consider if it’s to the communities benefit first. If it is then we have an opportunity to help pave the road for a successful shift in our communities! This blog was inspired by our recent podcast interview with Mark Bowness, a master community builder! You can listen in to our podcast here, or if you prefer you can also check it out on our Youtube channel right here! Our Community We love sharing tips like these in our Entrepreneur Mastery Lab private community. If you’d like to join us and other professionals that are striving to get better every day, you can access the group here! Join now If you’re working on being more effective with how you work with people and develop relationships, we can help! Our unique 2 on 1 coaching marries the expertise of a Doctor of Psychology and mindset coach with the business savvy of a former Fortune 50 external sales Vice President. We specialize in helping entrepreneurs and professionals like you master your time, sales, and confidence, to evolve you to your greatest potential. To learn more about our coaching you can contact us here! Feel like you need coaching but not sure you can afford the investment in yourself? That’s ok! We have a scholarship available to diverse candidates of need. You can apply for our scholarship for our coaching and our courses here. Not enough time in the day, we get it. Check out our AYOP course, 2x Your Time, right here. We walk through everything from time management and calendar basics to how you can supercharge your days weeks and months through practices and techniques that are grounded in experience and proven by science.

The Benefits of Maximizing Connections and Why We Don’t

Entrepreneur Mastery Lab Podcast - Maximizing Connections

Maximizing connections is about building a deeper, more meaningful relationship with those around us and creates a level of trust and a rooted desire to give back and care for one another. If you google maximizing connections there’s about a dozen articles around HOW TO build a connection.  Most of us already know how to do this, we learn it at a very young age.  We simply choose NOT to do it.  In this blog we’ll explore the primary benefits of maximizing connections and the most common reason we see people avoid it.  The how to, we’ll let the other articles rehash. The benefits of maximizing our connections with other people are significant.  A deeper connection establishes intimacy and trust and invites someone into our inner circle or sanctum.  In other words, they become like family.  They know and we know that we have each other’s backs.  It’s like that old saying, “a good friend will bail you out of jail, a great friend will be sitting right beside you.” With increased levels of intimacy and trust comes a bond we rarely see in most of our connections with people today.  It’s a level of familiarity and community that allows us to open ourselves up to give and receive.   Business, it turns out, is not very different than the rest of life.  We spend time, care for and take care of the people we like better than the people we don’t like.  The more someone knows you, the more they will feel deeply for you, because they can trust you and that leads to better results in the relationship and the benefits of the relationship.  That means more resources, business, referrals, time, energy, grace, understanding and defense!  All pretty awesome things to have! Likewise the more you know someone the more you’ll be willing to ‘go to bat’ for them. Maximizing our connections to people means we GET MORE! If we recognize this, then how come we don’t establish deeper connections with other people? We believe the primary reason is vulnerability.  Maximizing our connections with people requires making ourselves vulnerable and we have thousands of years of evolution protecting ourselves from becoming vulnerable.  It takes time, effort, energy and some risk to make ourselves vulnerable and it’s incredibly difficult to do.  Yet, like many things in life, the difficult thing to do are relatively simple.  By making yourself vulnerable in front of someone, you open the doors to a part of you that is more intimate.  You establish trust and you offer an olive branch to the person across from you.  This in turn creates a comfort and familiarity that allows them to be more open and vulnerable with you!  It becomes a growing pattern, a Fibonacci sequence, of greater and greater trust, down to the most intimate parts of ourselves.  Beyond vulnerability, maximizing connections requires, time, energy and a sacrifice.  It means putting someone ahead of ourselves.  Selflessness is hard, sacrifice is hard.  Easier to never make real connections, right?  Of course, It is!  Great results never come easy, neither do great connections! For help with maximizing your connections with the people around you, check out our coaching services.  We can offer you a number of ways to better prioritize this aspect of your life.  You can take a look at our services, here! To listen in on our most recent podcast where we discussed the power of connection with our guest, Monique Russell, you can hear all about her thoughts here! Want coaching but not sure you can afford it?  That’s why we offer scholarships to deserving entrepreneurs and professionals.  Share something about yourself (yes, get vulnerable) and you might be eligible for a partial or full scholarship for our services!  Check our the submission form here!

How To Build Relationships Quickly And Effectively

Relationships are important and we are born with the need for them. The ability to form relationships, however, is not innate, it’s learned. Our ability to form relationships is not just important for us individually, it’s also incredibly important for us as a business. The reality is simple…people do business with people they like. In a world with billions of people, chances are the services and products you offer are in competition with someone else and their business, for all intents and purposes is the same as yours. How then do you make sure you win the business? The answer here is also simple, by making sure you’re damn good at building relationships. Ultimately, this factor will determine winning the business or standing on the sidelines more often than any other metric. If winning business is all about forming relationships, we need to get really sharp at this. We have some tips below. Forming relationships doesn’t start with you, it starts with them People are self-interested. That’s natural. Putting someone else first goes against that. But, if you want to form relationships and get really good at it, you need to put someone else first. Do that and you’re lightyears ahead of most other people. The relationship is 100% on you You’ll hear people say that relationships require both people to put in equally. We’d argue that you need to forget expectations and put in 100%. If a relationship grows and blossoms or shrivels and dies, that’s on you. Put in 100% and get 1000% back. Put in anything less and good luck. Relationships form based on shared interests You could spend hours, days, months and years trying to develop relationships with anyone you meet. That’s a recipe for disaster. Be realistic. People are perceptive and they’ll be able to read your energy. When you’re forming a relationship with someone, or a business, that you really mesh with, you’ll know it and so will they. Instead of trying to force relationships, you’re better off putting your time into finding relationships that have a solid foundation to grow off of. Plant the seeds where the soil is fertile! Interested in joining the community and other like minded professionals? Come join the movement where we reinvent how business is done and help you #beRICH! You can check it out here. Join our Private Facebook Group