1 Simple Thing Podcast | Build A Better Business By Building A Better You!

On episodes 296-299, author Richard Shell has shared insights and wisdom from his book, “Springboard: Launching Your Personal Search for Success.” Today Dave Kirby recaps those conversations and offers his own thoughts about what our personal search for success feels and looks like.

Author Richard Shell asks us an important question: Is what you do a job, a career, or a calling? All are respectable and valid, but a calling, or what Richard calls “meaningful work,” is the ultimate goal. It allows you to work in your area of genius while also gaining the inner satisfaction that comes from both excellence and totally enjoying what you do.

Richard Shell talks about how our journey of success draws upon another journey, and that’s the journey to responsibility. It’s often the case that your dreams may lead you to want to draw pictures next to a pond,  but you’re responsible for family and have make a living to support your family. We must learn how to balance our duty to fulfill ourselves with our duty to be responsible for the welfare of those we love. How well you manage that will be part of your success.

Richard Shell helps us appreciate the different kinds of happiness. He reminds us to recognize that you’re likely to be somewhat mistaken about it sometimes, and just let life flow. Let the experience of your life guide you to what brings you the greatest sense of satisfaction and connection.

Richard Shell shares that success is a journey of self-discovery first and then choosing the tools that will work for you. First get some idea of what the word success means to you. Don’t allow yourself to chase someone else’s dream, but find the thing that will give you true satisfaction. Then find how to advance toward your goal using your unique combination of talents.

In a world that tempts us to be who others think we are or want us to be, how do you find your authentic voice? On this episode, Dave Kirby shares his thoughts and recaps what Todd Henry’s three elements of your personal voice engine from his book, “Louder than Words: Harness the Power of Your Authentic Voice.”

Author Todd Henry talks about the third element of your personal “voice engine:” Mastery. Todd teaches that mastery is really about owning your platform. It’s about developing what you need to do to put your work in front of other people. Mastery is how people first experience us and our work. So what are the set of skills you need to practice on a daily basis so you can become a master of your craft and be able to deliver at a moment’s notice?

Author Todd Henry talks about the second element of your personal “voice engine:” Vision. Identify and care deeply about the people you want to serve, and have a vision for where you can take them. Figure out how you can take what you care about and shape it so it overlaps with what your audience cares about. Then they can see your point of view and move with you.

Author Todd Henry talks about the first element of your personal voice engine: Identity. Todd says It’s important to understand what you stand for. It’s important to understand what you care about, the battle lines you’ve drawn, and the principals that you’ll go to the mat for every time. And you should be known for those things over time.

Todd Henry talks about rooting your work in something that really matters to you. He offers advice on how to find ways to infuse that into your day-to-day activity, so it connects with other people in a deep and resonant way.

Joe Calloway talks about what is often the most powerful step we can take in simplifying our lives: learning to let go and start saying "no." As a matter of fact saying “no” is the most important part of taking constructive action. Many people might think the opposite - if you are going to get a lot done you need to say “yes” to everything. But if you say “yes” to everything and put everything in the category of being of super-important, then you’ll not get anything done. You’ll flail around in a hundred different directions. Learn what to say “no” to. It frees you to do the most important things, which are the most satisfying, the most productive, and how you make the greatest contribution.

Joe Calloway talks about the importance of simplifying your purpose or mission. Define it clearly and use simple language. You don’t need a lofty mission or vision statement like what they teach in business schools. You can do it in any way that works for you. One of the first things to get clarity on is, “My purpose is MY purpose.” It’s not anybody else’s, so it must feel good to you, and it shouldn’t be what you think is “supposed to be.” It should be yours from your heart. Part of the power in your purpose is in the clarity and simplicity of the language you use. Disney Parks have always been driven by three words: Make People Happy. There’s tremendous power in the simplicity of our language.

Joe Calloway says it’s crucial that we get clarity on what matters most. To get clarity on what is most important is not easy. A quote from Steve Jobs says, “Get your thinking clean enough.” What does that mean? It means to get down to what matters most. All of us can use this filter or lens for making choices and decisions: “Will it make the boat go faster?” When you do that, the most important things tend to rise to the top of the list and will clarify the things that will get you to your goal most effectively.

Joe Calloway talks about how we often make things way more complicated than they need to be. One of the biggest reasons we over complicate is because it’s easier to make things complex than it is to make things simple. Anybody can make things complicated, and that’s where our natural tendency lies. It takes time and thought to edit your to-do list and your priorities down. But in the interest of getting the most out of your day, it’s essential to simplify. And this applies to people in their businesses, and it TRIPLE applies to those in leadership positions.

Kim Ades asks, “Are you going to use stress and adversity as an excuse for your misery?” Sometimes bad things happen, and people in our lives do not behave the way we would like, giving us a good reason to feel stress and adversity. However, Kim says every “good reason” is just an excuse to tune in to what’s bad in the world, which depletes our life experience. Stress is very often induced by how we react to the reality around us. Events are events, and the meaning we assign to those events will determine whether or not we feel stressed.

Kim Ades talks about taming your critical inner voice, which never stops talking. The voice has an opinion about everything: who we are, others, weather, politics, etc. It’s a constant internal chatter. What’s important is to acknowledge your critical inner voice and recognize that you don’t have to obey it. The critical inner voice will have an opinion, just like anybody has an opinion, but we don’t have to listen to everyone’s opinion. When you tame your critical inner voice and understand its relationship and impact on you, you slowly start to make better choices and take full responsibility for your frame of mind.

Kim Ades talks about something we all must do: dealing with challenges. Sometimes we experience some adversity or challenge and just spin in the same place. We think about it and lose sleep at night because we are replaying the events in our mind. However, when something negative happens it’s okay to have a bad day, but it’s not okay to live in that bad day for days and years to come because it erodes your time and your sense of wellness. You can feel like a victim, or you can start to pivot and turn yourself toward potential solutions, being clear on what you would rather have and how to get there.

Kim Ades says journaling allows you to put your thoughts on paper, remove yourself and see them from a third party perspective. They are no longer inside your brain, but they are outside of you. And when something is outside of you, you can assess it more critically and do something with it. You’ll begin to pick up patterns of thought, belief, or of behavior, and identify where your thinking is pushing you forward and where it is holding you back.

If you want to lead an ideal life, you must become the best version of yourself. On today’s episode, Alexi Panos and Preston Smiles share exercises, insights, and challenges to help you attain the personal freedom you have always been seeking. Choose your life. It’s now or never. Dave recaps episodes 606-609 where Alexi and Preston share from their book, “Now or Never: Your Epic Life in 5 Steps.”

Alexi Panos and Preston Smiles talk about owning who you are and living in your truth. Unfortunately in this cookie-cutter world, many have forgotten the truth of who they are because they’ve said “yes” to all the boxes and labels others have placed on them. Living in your truth is about breaking and disassociating with those labels and asking, from a very clear space, “Who am I? What do I want to be in this moment? What do I want to be in this lifetime?” Then, "How do I want to go about doing that from a place of radical alignment and authenticity?"