Making It All Happen
Do you want to succeed in multiple parts of your life? But does it sometimes feel like you can only get one part to “work” at any given time? Then keep reading, because today’s blog is for you.
This topic is inspired by a conversation that I had with a mentor of mine. He asked me, “Who is someone in your life that you admire, that is up to really big things?”
My answer was pretty easy: Alex Terranova, the original “dream mason” at DreamMason®️. He's also a podcast host, author, friend, wiener dog owner, and just an all-around amazing human being.
Alex has mastered the uncanny ability to have a lot of things happening at the same time – and they all seem to be working at once. Don’t we all wish we could be like that?
I’m talking to you, leader, who is struggling to get to your “next level” of leadership. You may already know how to handle yourself (and perhaps have finessed leading others) around one particular project, product, podcast, course, or another objective. But you’re still struggling to have multiple constituents all working at the same time.
If you’re an entrepreneur, this could look like when your sales pipeline looks great and you're putting out podcasts episodes and you're working on getting drafts of your book edited. And you're also collaborating with other coaches and you're also buying your own house… and life just works.
But how can we make this more achievable? I've come up with four steps for your consideration.
Step 1: Choose What You Want
This one may sound the most obvious, but I think it's where a lot of people get tripped up. Is it a book? Is it a course? Is it a booming social media presence and becoming an Instagram influencer? Is it a YouTube channel? Is it group coaching? Fill in the blank with your passion project(s).
Step 2: Empower Your Choices
Once you've chosen what you want to create, you need to empower that you chose it. But where people really struggle with empowering their own choices is when they start playing the comparison game.
They might say they want to write a book, but then they compare their idea to all the other books that are already out there.
Or they say that they want to start a YouTube channel, but they compare themselves to other people in their industry who are producing podcasts instead, and they wonder if they've made a mistake.
Perhaps there's a leader who is ready to enjoy the life that they have, so they choose to buy a house and make it beautiful or to have a kid and take on parenthood. But then, they compare themselves to what society counts as a “rockstar” or what seems cool enough.
Isn’t it true that most of us, most of the time, falter in not just choosing what we want, but truly in embracing and empowering the choices that we've made?
Step 3: Ask for Unreasonable Amounts of Support
Now, we get to be more facilitative and collaborative. It’s time to ask for support – more support than you've ever asked for in your entire life. At some point, you’ll feel so supported that the information you're receiving is redundant – you're in all the Reddit groups, all the Facebook groups, you've read the books, you have the assistant, you have the colleagues that know what they're talking about – all the above and more.
One great way to practice seeing where you could use some support is with this two-part exercise:
Write down everything that you've chosen. Write down the house, the child, the next leg of your business, the next promotion that you want, etc., and leave spaces as you write them.
Immediately underneath each item you’ve chosen, write down the support you have in place for it.
Spoiler alert: If you’re reading this right now and you resonate with this problem of balance, that means most of those things don't have anything other than YOU written underneath. So, get creative in who you ask for support because it lends itself to the fourth and final step.
Step 4: Put Structures in Place
These structures are both people and processes. For example, you could hire an assistant to outsource tasks to but also create processes with that assistant in case they ever leave. Your processes should be self-sufficient and able to be copy-and-pasted.
The bottom line? To take on your next level of leadership, where you have multiple constituents in your life that are thriving, you need to follow the above listed four steps. Leave me some feedback, below, about what steps you’re going to take.