I was recently talking to my mom about how I felt on one of my recent runs post half marathon — I was running at a much slower pace.
It dawned on me…
While I was training for my half marathon — I followed a 12-week plan.
Since then, I’ve just been walking out the door and starting my run without any sort of a plan.
I realized —
- We’re only as good as our plan
- Our results are heavily based on the environment that we’re in.
It’s easy to overlook how intertwined our personal lives and business are and how the lessons in one area of our life also apply to business and vice versa.
In today’s episode, I want to share 3 things we can change in our lives and business to increase our speed and confidence.
If you want more confidence and you’d like to move faster towards your goals…
Let’s dive in.
Transcript / MP3
What’s good, everybody.Greg Hickman here and in this episode I want to break down how to increase your confidence and your speed so that you can really move faster to hitting those goals that you’re trying to achieve. …For three years, my agency built funnels and automation systems for the biggest names in marketing today since then have transformed that agency into a hyper profitable training and consulting business. While everyone is out there talking about scale like it’s some sort of destination, we’ll be asking the real question, how do you transform your business into a more scalable model using the knowledge, skills and expertise that you already have? This podcast is here to give you the answer and join me and follow along as I learn, apply and share the strategies I’m using to build my multimillion dollar business. My name is Greg Hickman and welcome to scale upMy mom was just in town and we woke up early one morning and like I normally do and I was headed out to go for a quick three and a half mile run. Now I come back from this run and I say to my mom, man, it’s crazy how you know, just a few, like a month ago I ran a half marathon and I’m running this three and a half miles now and the pace that I was running was so much slower than if I took that pace per mile and translate it into my race, it would’ve taken me like an extra 60 minutes longer to complete the race. And we started talking about, you know, well what did I do differently on this run versus a, you know, what I did during my training and it really kind of raised this, this idea that like we’re really only as good as the plan and the environment that we’re in, both for both for training and for the actual execution.And I want to talk about how that applies here in your business. I’m going to share three things that you can think about too. Put yourself in a position to have more confidence and really start to move faster in your business. So I’m going to pull up the old iPad here. And so you know the, the parable or the story here is Greg goes to run three and a half miles, runs really, really slow and he’s like, why was it so much slower than when I just ran a half marathon? I did a half marathon in two hours, that’s 13.2 or whatever miles and it just took me, you know, like 45 minutes to run like barely three and a half. So I sit there and like all right, well the, I ran a lot faster in the half marathon and it was only a month ago and I’ve been continually running since and it Kinda got me thinking about how we show up in our business and some things that I was doing a little bit differently while training then than I am doing right now when it comes to running.And also I’m trying out this new view. If you guys are watching on, for those of you who are watching on Youtube, I’m trying out this new view side by side as I draw my iPad. For those of you that are listening in iTunes or what have you. It’s all good. I can talk you through it. I’m just kind of jotting on my iPad trying out a different view. So here’s, here’s kind of the problem that I was running into and maybe maybe you were running into as well, right? The first thing is that we don’t know how much we have in the tank, right? We don’t, no.How much is in the tank? Now, what I mean by this is, um, I don’t know if you’ve ever done a race or anything. I used to race mountain bikes for an amateur protein and I always found that like there’s a certain point in the race where you’re like, alright, I gotta I got to leave it all on, on the trail, right? I have to kind of put it into overdrive. And I remember in a lot of my training that I was always, and even in, in this, in this situation when I was running, even in the half marathon, kind of being unsure of like, well I don’t know what my overdrive is. Like, do I have an overdrive? What is my overdrive even look like? You know, do I have any gas left in the tank that I’ll actually finish if I leave it all out on the table right now? So the problem is a lot of us don’t know how much is actually in the tank, right? Um, which means we’re not sure what we’re truly capable of capable can’t spell today what we’re truly capable of. Right. So we don’t know how much was left in the tank. We’re not sure what we’re capable of. And really then at that point we might not be sure if we’ll finish finish, right. Not sure if we can finish.So had I gone into that half marathon where, you know, I had, I gone into a half marathon where I hadn’t been doing any training. I might’ve been at mile seven and have no clue if I’m even going to get to the 13. Right? I remember a mountain bike races when I wasn’t doing the appropriate training and we were doing like 50 mile cross country races and I had only ever really written, you know, 30 in a race. I was unsure if I a had enough food to really finish enough water, uh, enough mechanical supplies, you know, that sort of thing. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to finish. Right. And when that’s the case, like what ends up happening is we live a mediocre life and or business.I live a mediocre life and have a mediocre business, right? Because we’re always operating far less than our potential. Have you ever felt like, you know, you’re just, there’s so much more inside of you, but you haven’t been able to tap into that? Well, if that’s how you feel, then I get it. Um, cause that’s how I’ve felt before. And so what I want to talk about is kind of the possibility that will come from doing these three things that I’m about to share. Right? So if we’re sitting here and we’re saying, all right, I don’t know how much is in the tank, we’re not sure what we’re capable of. I’m not sure if we can even finish this frigging race. We’re going to end up living a mediocre, mediocre life, right? So here’s the possibility, right?I know I have extra in the tank, right? So you can be at mile eight and say, I know I can finish this and I know I’m going to be able to push it a little bit harder to cross the finish line. Um, so you know, you have extra, you now know that you’re capable of way more. Now you’re confident, right? You’re more confident that you can do it. And lastly, we become the best, best version of ourselves there a version of ourselves, best version of our business, right? So the possibility is, you know, you have extra in the tank when to use it and which means you know, you’re capable of way more and you’re confident that you can actually achieve the goals that you’re trying to achieve. And by doing these things, you actually become the best version of, of yourself and the best version of your business.So the, the point here is that there’s, by not pushing yourself right, by, by not knowing and putting yourself through a process that put your, you know, or test your limits, rather, how are you going to know what you can actually achieve? Right? And going into this half marathon, mind you, I sat there and said, I’m not a runner. I hate running. Um, as a former cyclist, I would rather ride 100 miles before I run five. Right? And because of that, that story, I literally told myself that story for years. And so I’d go out to run and I’d always just stop it like two, maybe three miles. And then I decided to start training for half marathon because I wanted to put that story to rest. And so here are three things that you can think about doing that will give you the confidence so that you can achieve the goals that you’re trying to set out for as well as, um, move towards those goals a whole lot faster. All right. So, um, thing number one, right?Get in a pack that is moving faster. Seems simple, right? Uh, I’m running out here by myself. Three and a half miles takes me way longer than the first three and a half when I’m running in this marathon. So part of it was, I’m in this pack of people that are all running at, they’re like really their fastest, right? Like they’re all, they’re all trying to be the best version of themselves on that day and probably run a fast race. So, you know, I’m in this pack, I’m, I’m seeing who I’m passing, I’m keeping my eye on certain people that are, you know, just off in the distance and I’m able to move naturally faster because I’m trying to keep pace with someone that’s already moving faster. So I simply increased my speed by just joining a pack that was already moving faster. So how does this apply to your business?Well, if you’re trying to grow your business and all you’re trying to do is consume free information, right? How are you ever going to get into the pack? Right? You’re just, it’s like watching the race. Wow, that person’s moving really quickly, right? But if you join a mastermind or you hire a mentor or you work with coaches or you get into some sort of peer group or CEO Group, right? There’s a lot of different versions of this that where you’re putting yourself in a group of people that are ahead of you and operate faster than you, you are naturally going to go faster. It’s this the term normalization, right? If you start hanging out with people that you know, their normal is, for example, you know they’re, they’re unhappy. If they do a million in a year and you’re sitting over here doing like 600 well like when you jump in there, you’re going to start to see, well a million is not that much money to these people and your, what you believe to be normal is just going to naturally rise.Just like I jumped into a group of people and before I started the race, I was chatting with a another guy who actually lives right near me that I found out right there in that moment. And he was training for a full marathon and he was basically saying, you know, this is how fast, you know, normally would take me to complete it, but I haven’t really ran a in awhile coming back from sort of an injury. So I was like, all right, this guy’s going to be so far ahead of me. But when we were running, you know, for the first four or five miles, I was able to see him obviously get further and further away, but he was still in my sites and there were a lot of turnbacks on this, on this course. So I would always be looking for him. I’d be like, all right, like I saw him, he must’ve made that turn.Like it gave me an idea of how far that gap was between me and him. And I know that he’s going to run a time like he was going to run 30 minutes faster than my target time. So if I could even keep him in my sights, how, how much faster would I be running? Right. So getting into that pack is really, really important. So for me in, in the case of the half marathon, it was just getting into a race where I was around a bunch of people. I could have trained in a group as well. Um, I did not, but I could have, um, just like when I trained for mountain biking, we wrote as a team, we went to training camp. If you play sports, you train with your team, right? You’re, you’re training with people that are, you know, ahead of you in business.I’ve hired many coaches, mentors have join groups, like entrepreneurs organization. I’ve been in many different masterminds from, you know, 10 week programs all the way to year long programs and beyond. So I’ve, what I was doing was putting myself into a group of people that were way ahead of me in some cases and also just a few steps ahead of me. But they were moving faster, they were thinking bigger. And that helped me elevate my game. All right. So the second thing is to prepare for the speed, right? I think a lot of people, so, uh, prepare for the speed. I think a lot of people, you know, think they’re superman and so, uh, so we have get in the pack that is moving faster and to prepare for the speed. All right, so what do I mean prepare for prepare for the speed? Um, you know, there’s a lot of people that jump into things that they aren’t necessarily ready.If I had done, um, no, no training and tried to jump into the half marathon, yeah, I probably would have finished, but I would’ve walked most of it and it would have taken me like five hours versus the two that it took me to run it. Uh, and I only walked a tiny bit, um, here and there just to kind of drink some water at the water stations. And so how do you prepare for the speed? Right. Well, when I decided I was going to do this, I gave myself 90 days to prepare. So I went online and I found a 12 week, 90 days half marathon training program and I found a beginner one where, you know, the mileage started slow and I downloaded this piece of paper. I had it hanging on my wall over here. And every single day I would cross off the training that I would do.And it, you know, started off week one and week two were, you know, fairly simple run, hey, two miles on Tuesday, run three miles on Thursday, go for five on Sunday, do it again. But you’re this time you’re going to do three on Tuesday, three on Thursday and you’re gonna do five again on Sunday. And then the next Sunday I bumped up to six and then seven and then eight and then 10. And so I was following a plan. It was right there in front of me. I printed it. They have, you know, from couch to [inaudible], from couch to half marathon. These are all game plans that you can download and follow too. Prepare yourself for this goal. So I downloaded this one. It was by this guy named Hal Higdon. I have his book over here. Um, and I trained 12 weeks. All I did was follow the plan I ran on the days that told me to run.I did cross training on a days that told me to cross train and I rest, I would rest on the days that told me to rest. So that plan was my preparation. Right? So if I hadn’t done that when I got out there, I probably would never would’ve been able to keep that one guy in my sites throughout the entire race, let alone probably I wouldn’t recognize anybody because most people will be passing me by now in business. Right. How do you prepare? How do you prepare for the speed? Right. A lot of this comes down to doing the work. I think, you know, when you join a coaching program or you join a mastermind or you buy a course or whatever, you are doing that first step of putting yourself into, into the pack, right? But you might not be prepared. And what I find for both our clients when they come into our world and when I go into, you know, other people’s masterminds of people that are ahead of me, you often learn that the things that are allowing them to get there really are well beyond, are things that you weren’t even considering in the first place, right?Um, you know, when you start getting into masterminds where there’s seven figure and up owners, very rarely are they talking about tactics or funnels or Facebook ads. They’re talking about habits, behaviors, mindset, and things that you could be doing, growing a team, right? Things that you could be doing to better yourself. And so when we have clients come into our programs and we start talking about, you know, what, what are your habits, systems, how are you showing up every day, both at home and in business? Are you taking care of yourself? Are you taking care of your mind, your health, your family, all of those will impact your business, right? And so what is the prep that you’re going to do to really start to prepare yourself to move at those speeds? When I see people join our programs and or I’ve seen other people join masterminds I’ve been in and they don’t have the immediate results because they haven’t adopted any of these, these habits, right?They haven’t done any prep. Well the first handful of months in that program, they’re going to have to spend working on those habits and developing those principles and behaviors, right? And so once they get to those, then they’re going to be more likely to get to the result. So when you don’t see those as things that you need to do, right? So you come in and like, Hey, you’ve got to work on a first, I know that you will be more successful if you work on a, but you didn’t know about a, you only wanted B and you come in and now you realize that you need a, well, a is going to take a little bit of time to get some work so that you can get B. So it kind of turns the whole game into a little bit longer of a trajectory than you might have known.Well, I knew what I was getting myself into because I could look at the game plan and say, Oh wow, by week six I’m running, you know, x miles and I’ll only be, you know, a couple of weeks out from the race. And so it really got me in tune with kind of a following, a plan, building the habit of, you know, doing the necessary work to achieve that end goal. Right. So that was my prep for that was my prep for the work, uh, the race. And so the last one is to identify the finish line, identify the finish line. Can’t spell today.All right, so identify the finish line. What do I mean by identifying the finish line? Well, in regards to the half marathon, I had seen the course map. I knew where we started, we started in over to my right was the finish line. So I kind of knew when I was getting closer to the finish, obviously one because of the signage that said, you know, hey, this is the last mile, last two miles. You know, you kind of had an idea of how close you were. And because I was training in and around the race area, I’m familiar with the neighborhood. I had an idea as to what the terrain would look like and you know, if it said two miles, like I had kind of an idea of where I was going to be going. So when I was like, man, I got two miles left, I can pick up the pace.Um, because if I pick up the pace, I’m going to be more likely to hit my time and I’m going to be able to rest sooner and stop sooner. But if I had no idea if there, if there weren’t those mile markers, if there weren’t, if there wasn’t the, you know, the fact that I knew that the finish line was at 13 point, whatever, miles two or something that I would have been way more hesitant to kind of dig into the, you know, overdrive, right. Put it in overdrive and kind of leave it all on a table because I don’t know when this thing is ending. Right. And so you start to play safe. And the same thing happens in business, right? If, um, you’re just playing the game and you’re not chasing towards a specific goal, right? How are you going to know that there’s a little bit extra in the tank to push you over that finish line to, to get there a little bit faster?It creates a little bit of urgency, right? And so this is where I see, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs struggle is they, they’re focused on the habits, you know, so they’ve put, sometimes they’d put themselves in the pack. They’ve, they’re preparing, they’re building that baseline, right? But they haven’t, they haven’t identified where they’re going. And so they’re just going, which at the end game, if you think about from a running perspective, if I didn’t know how much, how many miles were left, or you know, where that finish line was, I would have had to play it safe. Right? Or risk burning out, going too fast, not having enough energy to finish. So having that, that end goal, that, that finish line in sight really allows you to chase that goal with confidence. Right when I was in that last two miles, I was like, I’m in pain.I cannot stop. I’m going to go and my strides got bigger and I started running faster and uh, I started talking to the, to the woman next to me who was also picking up the pace and we were kind of let’s keep going. Let’s finish strong, let’s finish strong, let’s keep going. Right? Like we could do that because we knew we, we only had a mile left at that point, right? That we could leave it all on the table and anything that we had in us was going to be empty by the time we cross that finish line. So if you’re in business and you literally have no end destination, you have no end goal in mind, let alone the mile markers to see that you’re on the right track, you’re always going to play it safe because that’s the only thing, you know, you might even have extra energy but you don’t know if you should use it, right?Cause you’re not sure if it’s the right use of it or the right time to use it. Making sense. So to quickly recap, the three things that can help you increase confidence are going to be one, get in the pack that is moving faster to prepare for the speed by training, putting yourself in some sort of routine, building the habits and the foundation and the baseline, and then identify a finish line that you’re going to chase after so that you know that you have when too, that you can use the overdrive. You can use the little energy that’s left in your tank to get there because you can see the finish line in sight or you can see the next mile marker and break point in sight. So that’s all I got for you today. Take it easy.Have you been looking to grow and scale your agency, but you’re tired of trading time for money, custom projects, and relying on referrals alone? It can be hard. That’s probably why if I gave you five, 10 or 20 new clients right now, you or your business would break. I struggle with the same thing for a while until I figured out a better way. So I created a special experience called foundations to help you package up your knowledge and experience into a profitable online program, launch your automated sales system and systemize your fulfillment. You’ll work directly with me, my team, and a group of entrepreneurs just like you to implement the systems and get the help you need to learn more and see if it’s a fit. Just hop on over to myscalablebusiness.com and schedule a call with us today.
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